Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 05:02:30 -0500
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: DUMBOLOGY? or SPEEDOLOGY?


>Is Sokal on the Net?  Here's a l'st for him to consider joining.
>
>Does anyone have any critical comments on the following? Is it dumbology
>or speedology?
>
>Jerry

What better place than the horse's mouth to start? Here's one of the many
absurd footnotes to Sokal's paper, where he quotes Virilio:

15. It goes without saying that special relativity proposes new concepts
not only of space and time but of mechanics. In special relativity, as
Virilio (1991, 136) has noted, "the dromospheric space, space-speed, is
physically described by what is called the 'logistic equation,' the result
of the product of the mass displaced by the speed of its displacement,
MxV." This radical alteration ofthe Newtonian formula has profound
consequences, particularly in the quantum theory; see Lorenz et al. 1952
and Weinberg 1992 for further discussion.

The reference is *The lost dimension*, translation of *L'espace critique*,
original by Paul Virilio.

I assume that even with no knowledge of physics one can tell merely from
the form of the sentence that this is complete nonsense. But, just in case:

1. The logistic equation is a difference equation of the form

x(n+1) = rx(n)(1-x(n)), where r is a real constant, n is a natural number
(i.e., 1, 2, 3 , ...), and x(n) is a function from the natural numbers to
the real numbers. It is used in a variety of contexts, including
mathematical ecology -- modelling some kinds of population growth, and as a
handy example of a very simple system that leads to chaos. I have never
seen it used for anything in special relativity, and am not likely to if I
live to be as old as Methuselah. Also, it clearly has no connection with
the formula he has written in the quote.

2. I've never heard of "the dromospheric space" or "space-speed" and even
if they were defined they wouldn't be the same thing, since one seems to
refer to position and one to velocity. As far as I can make out,
"dromosphere" means something like the sphere or region or realm of the
racetrack, but that doesn't get me very far at all.

3. MV (M times V) is the classical formula for the momentum, where M is
mass and V is velocity. The SR formula is different, although it reduces to
MV for low velocities, of course. Clearly, the result of multiplying M and
V is not an equation at all, let alone the logistic equation.

This is ignorant nonsense of the worst kind, that I suspect even Leo Casey
will not defend. The spo*ons collective has already provided so many havens
for idiocy (even if one discounts the considerable amount that is
comfortable staying on the mar*xism li*ts), it's hard to see why they felt
the need for one more.

Rahul




     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---