Home | Community | Message Board

MagicBag Grow Bags
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   PhytoExtractum Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
Offlineporcupine
Stranger
Male
Registered: 01/09/05
Posts: 1,289
Loc: MI
Last seen: 12 years, 2 months
what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball?
    #8627222 - 07/12/08 09:51 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

i guess this is more of a physics question than philosophy but im just asking it here.

anyway, in baseball most people will say "tie goes to the runner" when talking about throwing a runner out at first base. however, the official rule book makes no mention of ties. it simply says the runner must be beat the ball to the base.

but that's beside the point. my question is, what are the odds of a real tie actually occurring? i mean you could argue that 99% of ties are just the ball touching the first baseman's glove .0000x miliseconds apart, or whatever amount humans no longer perceive the difference from.

so can a tie actually happen, where the ball touches the first basement's glove at the EXACT same moment the runner touches the base? what is a moment? can't any number be broken down into an even smaller number?

Edited by porcupine (07/12/08 09:52 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinezouden
Neuroscientist
Male User Gallery


Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 7 months
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: porcupine]
    #8627333 - 07/12/08 10:20 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

It depends on how accurate the measurement is. It's a tie if both events happen at the same time with respect to the error margin - ie, if you cannot identify which event happened first, it's a tie. Presumably this is why they introduce high speed cameras to aid the judgements, like in horseracing. The improved precision reduces the likelihood of a tie being called.


--------------------
I know... that just the smallest
                                                part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDiploidM
Cuban


Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: porcupine]
    #8627343 - 07/12/08 10:23 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

so can a tie actually happen, where the ball touches the first basement's glove at the EXACT same moment the runner touches the base?

You need to more-precisely state your question in order to get a meaningful answer. Here's why.

None of the objects in your question actually ever 'touch' each other. What actually happens is that the electrons in the atoms of one of the objects get close to the electrons in the atoms of the other object.

At very close distances, the two electric fields repel each other. This is similar to how two magnets arranged south pole to south pole (or north to north) push each other away.

So, to answer your question, you have to define what exactly you mean by 'touch' since no touching actually ever occurs. You need to state what the distance is between the two closest atoms, or the characteristics of the electric field between the two most-energetically interacting electrons, or some other specification at which time you consider contact to have been made.

BTW, this thread belongs in the Science and Technology forum.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDiploidM
Cuban

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? (moved) [Re: porcupine]
    #8627348 - 07/12/08 10:24 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

This thread was moved from Philosophy & Spirituality.

Reason:
This is a science question.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblejohnm214
Male User Gallery

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: porcupine]
    #8627356 - 07/12/08 10:26 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

porcupine said:


so can a tie actually happen, where the ball touches the first basement's glove at the EXACT same moment the runner touches the base? what is a moment? can't any number be broken down into an even smaller number?





Depends what your asking.  If your asking whether a tie can happen such that both contacts occur at the same measured time, ie. both at 1 second, then sure it could.  Given the margin of actual times the measurement denotes, you could have both events happen at the same measured time but not at the same actual time.


If you're talking abou the same actual time, I don't really know.  This seems like kind of a philosophical question, and I guess I'd have to say its possible, if only cuz 'I believe' time progresses theoretically in quantums, doesn't it?  Physicists?


But you'll never encounter this situation in actuality- you'll always be limited by your measurement capabilities.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblejohnm214
Male User Gallery

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: Diploid]
    #8627366 - 07/12/08 10:29 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
so can a tie actually happen, where the ball touches the first basement's glove at the EXACT same moment the runner touches the base?

You need to more-precisely state your question in order to get a meaningful answer. Here's why.

None of the objects in your question actually ever 'touch' each other. What actually happens is that the electrons in the atoms of one of the objects get close to the electrons in the atoms of the other object.

At very close distances, the two electrical fields begin to repel each other. This is similar to how two magnets arranged south pole to south pole (or north to north) push each other away.

So, to answer your question, you have to define what exactly you mean by 'touch' since no touching actually ever occurs.

BTW, this thread belongs in the Science and Technology forum.





Does it matter?

I'm sure he means the contacting and contacted object are touching when they are close enough such that at least one part of the contacted/contacting part cannot be identified as being a particular distance from the other object.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDiploidM
Cuban


Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: johnm214]
    #8627377 - 07/12/08 10:33 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

'I believe' time progresses theoretically in quantums, doesn't it?  Physicists?

It progresses in intervals no briefer than one Plank Time.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDiploidM
Cuban


Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: johnm214]
    #8627397 - 07/12/08 10:38 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

It matters if you want a precise answer. "Contact" can have several meanings in atomic physics. If you state the parameters of the question inprecicely, you'll get an inprecise answer.

From his wording, I think he's looking for a precise answer.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleblewmeanie
I'm a teapot User Gallery


Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 28,984
Loc: Flag
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: Diploid]
    #8627449 - 07/12/08 10:55 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Why did my post get deleated?

Anyway, I came back to edit it, it was Zeno of Elea I was thinking of not xenophon. Lewis Carrol addressed his paradox of motion in "What the Tortoise said to Achilles"

Here it is



What the Tortoise Said to Achilles
by Lewis Carroll


    Achilles had overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its back.
    “So you’ve got to the end of our race-course?” said the Tortoise. “Even though it DOES consist of an infinite series of distances? I thought some wiseacre or other had proved that the thing couldn’t be done?”
    “It CAN be done,” said Achilles. “It HAS been done! Solvitur ambulando. You see the distances were constantly DIMINISHING; and so –”
    “But if they had been constantly INCREASING?” the Tortoise interrupted. “How then?”
    “Then I shouldn’t be here,” Achilles modestly replied; “and YOU would have got several times round the world, by this time!”
    “You flatter me – FLATTEN, I mean,” said the Tortoise; “for you ARE a heavy weight, and NO mistake! Well now, would you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the end of in two or three steps, while it REALLY consists of an infinite number of distances, each one longer than the previous one?”
    “Very much indeed!” said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian warriors possessed POCKETS in those days) an enormous note-book and pencil. “Proceed! And speak SLOWLY, please! SHORTHAND isn’t invented yet!”
    “That beautiful First Proposition by Euclid!” the Tortoise murmured dreamily. “You admire Euclid?”
    “Passionately! So far, at least, as one CAN admire a treatise that won’t be published for some centuries to come!”
    “Well, now, let’s take a little bit of the argument in that First Proposition – just TWO steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly enter them in your note-book. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let’s call them A, B, and Z: –

        (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.
        (B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.
        (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other.


    Readers of Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that any one who accepts A and B as true, MUST accept Z as true?”
    “Undoubtedly! The youngest child in a High School – as soon as High Schools are invented, which will not be till some two thousand years later – will grant THAT.”
    “And if some reader had NOT yet accepted A and B as true, he might still accept the SEQUENCE as a VALID one, I suppose?”
    “No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say, ‘I accept as true the Hypothetical Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but I DON’T accept A and B as true.’ Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid, and taking to football.”
    “And might there not ALSO be some reader who would say ‘I accept A and B as true, but I DON’T accept the Hypothetical’?”
    “Certainly there might. HE, also, had better take to football.”
    “And NEITHER of these readers,” the Tortoise continued, “is AS YET under any logical necessity to accept Z as true?”
    “Quite so,” Achilles assented.
    “Well, now, I want you to consider ME as a reader of the SECOND kind, and to force me, logically, to accept Z as true.”
    “A tortoise playing football would be –” Achilles was beginning.
    “– an anomaly, of course,” the Tortoise hastily interrupted. “Don’t wander from the point. Let’s have Z first, and football afterwards!”
    “I’m to force you to accept Z, am I?” Achilles said musingly. “And your present position is that you accept A and B, but you DON’T accept the Hypothetical –”
    “Let’s call it C,” said the Tortoise.
    “– but you DON’T accept

        (C) If A and B are true, Z must be true.”


    “That is my present position,” said the Tortoise.
    “Then I must ask you to accept C.”
    “I’ll do so,” said the Tortoise, “as soon as you’ve entered it in that notebook of yours. What else have you got in it?”
    “Only a few memoranda,” said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: “a few memoranda of – of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!”
    “Plenty of blank leaves, I see!” the Tortoise cheerily remarked. “We shall need them ALL!” (Achilles shuddered.) “Now write as I dictate: –

        (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.
        (B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.
        (C) If A and B are true, Z must be true.
        (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other.


    “You should call it D, not Z,” said Achilles. “It comes NEXT to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you MUST accept Z.”
    “And why must I?”
    “Because it follows LOGICALLY from them. If A and B and C are true, Z MUST be true. You can’t dispute THAT, I imagine?”
    “If A and B and C are true, Z MUST be true,” the Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. “That’s ANOTHER Hypothetical, isn’t it? And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C, and STILL not accept Z, mightn’t I?”
    “You might,” the candid hero admitted; “though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is POSSIBLE. So I must ask you to grant ONE more Hypothetical.”
    “Very good, I’m quite willing to grant it, as soon as you’ve written it down. We will call it

        (D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true.


    Have you entered that in your note-book?”
    “I HAVE!” Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as he ran the pencil into its sheath. “And at last we’ve got to the end of this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, OF COURSE you accept Z.”
    “Do I?” said the Tortoise innocently. “Let’s make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I STILL refused to accept Z?“
    “Then Logic would take you by the throat, and FORCE you to do it!” Achilles triumphantly replied. “Logic would tell you, ‘You can’t help yourself. Now that you’ve accepted A and B and C and D, you MUST accept Z.’ So you’ve no choice, you see.”
    “Whatever LOGIC is good enough to tell me is worth WRITING DOWN,” said the Tortoise. “So enter it in your book, please. We will call it

        (E) If A and B and C and D are true, Z must be true.

    Until I’ve granted THAT, of course I needn’t grant Z. So it’s quite a NECESSARY step, you see?”
    “I see,” said Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone.
    Here the narrator, having pressing business at the Bank, was obliged to leave the happy pair, and did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so, Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was writing in his notebook, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was saying, “Have you got that last step written down? Unless I've lost count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come. And WOULD you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth Century – WOULD you mind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then make, and allowing yourself to be renamed TAUGHT-US?”
    “As you please,” replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he buried his face in his hands. “Provided that YOU, for YOUR part, will adopt a pun the Mock-Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A KILL-EASE!”


--------------------
The Prophecy!

Learn To Code

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflinePhanTomCat
Teh Cat....
Male User Gallery


Registered: 09/07/04
Posts: 5,908
Loc: My Youniverse....
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: Diploid]
    #8628026 - 07/13/08 02:36 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
None of the objects in your question actually ever 'touch' each other. What actually happens is that the electrons in the atoms of one of the objects get close to the electrons in the atoms of the other object.




But in saying that, can't you also say that there is no "each other", because even the atoms in an individual object are not "touching"....?

Following that up with a discussion on kinetic friction sound weird to me at the moment....    :lol:


>^;;^<


--------------------
I'll be your midnight French Fry....  :naughty:

"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."

>^;;^<

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDieCommie


Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
Re: what are the odds of a tie actually happening in baseball? [Re: PhanTomCat]
    #8628048 - 07/13/08 02:57 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)

.

Edited by DieCommie (11/14/16 11:59 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   PhytoExtractum Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* whats happening Mykro_Guy 357 1 10/21/04 11:42 PM
by Ythan
* Is polling acceptable here? delta9 423 1 11/04/04 08:51 AM
by Vvellum
* Debian: is changing permissions to use firefox acceptable? sherm 686 3 01/22/05 12:10 PM
by delta9
* Could this happen The_Greater_God 976 2 09/12/02 09:00 PM
by Bruiser
* What happened to the MEG? Viaggio 644 2 02/18/04 03:34 PM
by Viaggio
* Post deleted by users_request MicronMagick 1,034 1 03/14/02 02:38 AM
by JackMehoff
* WHY has life evolved?
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 all )
RebelSteve33 15,454 112 11/11/06 10:43 PM
by Ravus
* New Theory of Time Rattles Halls of Science Cubie 1,047 4 02/14/08 05:39 PM
by DieCommie

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: trendal, automan, Northerner
861 topic views. 0 members, 0 guests and 1 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.03 seconds spending 0.007 seconds on 14 queries.