Re: Can this be true?

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> While working on the books I came across the following quote.  It seems
> to me to be quite an interesting statement.  Does anyone know if this
> can actually be a true statement?  The statement is:
>
> If a piece of string were exactly the same all along, however thin it
> was, however great the weight hung on it, and however much you jerked
> it, it could not break--it wouldn't know where to break.

No. The person who made the statement is scientifically naive or else
a commited neoaristotelean. This is an example of a question that is
hypothetically flawed. Apparently this guy isn't even an atomist;
Strings always break between atoms. To paraphrase a popular vulgarity,
"Fluctuations happen".

I think this statement was made for effect. Notice that it affects
scientists and nonscientists differently.

Leigh