Re: worm problem, PARADOX?

[Lew Haddad <lhaddad@dawsoncollege.qc.ca>]

My statement had absolutely nothing to do with John's attempt to show the
inconsistency of Ludwik's approach to the worm problem. I was referring to
your statement concerning one being approximately equal to zero relative to
the tractor velocity of 10^5. My point is that it is always perilous to
ignore small differences when those differences are precisely what you are
interested in. Here, setting 100001 = 100000 is, to repeat myself,
tantamount to setting the worm's velocity = 0 which obviously leads to the
conclusion that an infinite time is required for the worm to reach the other
end of its tether although the discussion of the problem has probably come
very close to achieving this.

Lew


At 11:57 AM 3/13/97 -0700, you wrote:
> > It is not even remotely close to the truth if you are interested in the
> > motion of the worm, since it is tantamount to setting the worm's velocity
> > (the 1) to zero which is clearly tantamount to ASSUMING n is infinity, not
> > proving it.
> It? What is not close to the truth? I can't believe that you can accept
> that what John did was to show that 1 = 0!
>
> Ken Fox
> Smoky Hill High School
> 16100 Smoky Hill Rd
> Aurora,CO.80015
> 303-693-1700
> kfox@shhs1.smoky.org
> http://stega.smoky.org/~kfox/Physics.html
Lew Haddad 
Physics Department
Dawson College
3040 Sherbrooke W.
Montreal QC
H3Z 1A4

(lhaddad@dawsoncollege.qc.ca)