h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, if other people don't agree with me, then that's fine, I've got it wrong. But I really feel that this entry is confused, not presenting any version coherently. It's rarely that I read an entry where I disagree with everything in it, even though many of the points made in it are supposedly the opposites of each other.

I have to agree with Gnomon. It's not enough to "take on board" the views of critics if you continue to misrepresent them. I think Gnomon's and my criticisms are fatal to the supposed puzzle. There is no puzzle (paradox, dilemma, or anything). To repeat ad nauseam, IF you count a circling photographer as non-circling, THEN you must count a stationary photographer as circling a spinning squirrel.

Why? Because those are the appearances from the SPOV, and only from the SPOV.

You can draw a circle on a page without a compass if you put a pin through the page and rotate it under a stationary pencil.

I'm going to get back to working on this once I've got other stuff sorted.

Ok, I've made some changes, but I suspect what I really need to do is cut it back again like I did before post 125

If you wished, you could lose the references to the pair being the same distance from the tree - it doesn't match the original scenario.

Note 1 In other words, the photographer would have to pass pass around the squirrel (two passes).

Keep smiling!

Done

You were kind to include my radar example, but I think the pin and pencil example would be more enlightening to the reader. You might put, instead of the last paragraph:

If you stick a pin in a board, through the middle of a sheet of paper, you can draw a circle by rotating the page under the point of a stationary pencil. Now, has the pencil circled the pin? Neither has moved with respect to the other, but there is a pencilled circle all around the pin. Does this mean that circling can happen irrespective of the relative and absolute motion of the participants?

"We lay there without moving. But under us all moved" (Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape)

Ok, sorted

Spotted a typo Alex - see through.


PS - No the photographer never circles the squirrel.

PPS - I lurve Tufty.

Sorted

PS

PPS

Have to say Alex, I enjoyed this thread almost as much as the entry itself - even when I wasn't participating I've been .

I think it's a crime that you can't link to a PR discussion from an Edited Entry...

Oh, but once it is edited, you can post the link at the bottom of your entry

>>>once it is edited<<<

Bloody optimists...

Yes, the pencil has circled the pin. The act of circling (with the exception of metaphorical usage) requires motion.

There seems to me to be no real difference between the photographer's own movement around the tree, and the movement caused by 'rotating the page'.

If you were standing still on a conveyor belt that moved in a circle around a Christmas tree, I'd say you were circling that tree.

Not a similar case though. The pencil is not conveyed around by the paper. It's more dangling from the ceiling, dragging its feet on the moving conveyor belt.

To me these sentences appear to contradict one another: "Yes, the pencil has circled the pin. The act of circling [ . . . ] requires motion."

If the pencil has circled the pin, it has done so without moving.

Movement is provided by rotating the page.

But lets not forget the squirrel. If you place an 's' close to the pin, and repeat the experiment, you'll note that the squirrel turns within the pencil's/photographer's circle.

But is that a stationary 's' or one written on the paper?