Re: Pinhole Camera/ Sticky definitions

[twayburn@juno.com (Thomas L Wayburn)]

I, too, noticed potholes down that road.  Regards / Tom  P.S.  I don't
think we should "lie" (explanations that conveniently don't spawn too
many questions are the lies I have in mind)  to students.  (Just tell them that the cross product is a skew symmetric tensor.)  The social science departments give them all the lies their gorge can take.
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On Mon, 30 Jun 1997 14:50:07 EDT David Bowman
<dbowman@tiger.gtc.georgetown.ky.us> writes:
> > Leigh,
> >
> >        I appreciated you coming out early and having someone make an
> > attempt at pinning down ideas that we all use while assuming an 
> intrinsic 
> > definition.
>
> Ditto.
>
> >             (The difficulty with definitions is clearly illustrated 
> by 
> > biologist attempt to define a species as a group of lifeforms the can 
>
> > (and do) interbreed.  One hole in this definiton is that if there are 
>
> > a thousand males and no females left, the species does not  exist.)  
> I 
> > look forward to your article.
>
> Another hole in this definition is that it prevents asexually 
> reproducing
> organisms from belonging to a species.  This leaves out a lot of 
> lifeforms.
>
> It seems that coming up with a suitable definition of image may be as 
> frought
> with difficulties as coming up with a suitable definition of species.
>
> David Bowman
> dbowman@gtc.georgetown.ky.us