Message-Id: <199509220705.DAA28901@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Thu, 21 Sep 1995 22:04:33 EDT
Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: direction, dimension
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

And:
> > As for {nerfa'a}, I'm not sure what it is. What kind of object
> > fills the x1 of {farna}?
> I think it should be a destination - the location x2 would reach
> if x2 were moving.

Ok, that does make sense.

Now, what is the direction in which a pen lead is rigid?

> > Well, {cimde} gives me similar difficulties. I don't really know
> > what to put in the x1. How do you say "this is two-dimensional"?
> {ti relmemselcimde}, {ti se cimde be re da}?

Yes, well, what are the two dimensions of a circle, for example?
I could understand a gismu that meant "x1 is x2-dimensional", but
I don't think that it makes any sense to say that there are exactly
two (or three) things that are the dimensions of some object.
Could you list those two or three things for a given object?

> You're the physicist. You do everything in 13 dimensions. So you
> should be able to sort it out. Or maybe that's why you can't.

Maybe... :)

Actually, I wasn't thinking of higher dimensions as the problem.
Even in one, two or three dimensions, I'm not sure what to put
in the x1 of cimde. Etymologically, "dimension" must mean something
like "measurement", but I don't think that helps much. If we take
it literally, then any object can have an infinite number of them.

It makes sense to say that an object is two-dimensional.
It makes almost no sense to say that there are exactly two things
that are the dimensions of an object.

Jorge