The Intelligent People's Thread

That's certainly a tricky question. The answer depends on what you mean when you say that the light bulb doesn't want to change. There are two possible interpretations:

1. It is not so that the light bulb wants to be changed.

This also has two interpretations:

    1.1. The light bulb doesn't want to be changed, nor does it want not to be changed.
    1.2. The light bulb wants not to be changed. (This is the same as (2)).

2. It is so that the light bulb wants not to be changed.

The situation 1.1. is the easiest to solve. Since the light bulb doesn't have anything against it being changed, you can change it pretty much effortlessly. Just screw out the bulb using your hand and replace it with another one.

The situation 1.2., which is the same as 2., is a bit more troublesome. In theory you could try to change the bulb against its will and would probably succeed, because light bulbs in general have no active means to oppose external forces. But, even if it's possible to change an unwilling light bulb, it is not a moral thing to do. One could argue that if you change one light bulb against its will, you will soon develop a bad habit to change a light bulb whenever you see one. So, if you know that the light bulb doesn't want to change, it's best to leave it alone. However, I must point out that a light bulb that refuses to be changed is always a light bulb that's still working and thus doesn't need to be changed. When a light bulb burns out, it loses its ability to have opinions. So, it's always safe to change a burnt out bulb, which is, in fact, the only bulb that needs to be changed.

EDIT:
It just occurred to me that changing the light bulb could also mean modifying it somehow, not replacing it with another one. The same rules that apply to replacing a light bulb also apply to modifying it, except that there's usually no sense in modifying a burnt out light bulb, unless you're going to use it as a decoration element.


Edited by Vompatti - August 27 2008 at 14:54

Maybe the bulb in question would settle for a part-time retirement? Move it to another room where the light's out during most of the day. That way you will save energy, and the bulb can still feel himself useful.

You cannot divide by zero. Is this because it's impossible to present the correct result for X / 0 (because there isn't any), or is it because it's logically impossible to imagine the operation you should perform to come to the correct result?

Vompatti wrote: You cannot divide by zero. Is this because it's impossible to present the correct result for X / 0 (because there isn't any), or is it because it's logically impossible to imagine the operation you should perform to come to the correct result?

I wanna join. What do I have to do?

two diffcoot

Vompatti wrote: Dean wrote: Vompatti wrote: You cannot divide by zero. Is this because it's impossible to present the correct result for X / 0 (because there isn't any), or is it because it's logically impossible to imagine the operation you should perform to come to the correct result? Zero, by definition, does not exist as a quantity, so division by it is not an issue. In any practical application where division by zero is potentially involved (for example if you divided a sine wave by a cosine wave) the results do not fail because true zero can never be achieved.   If you divide a real number by increasingly smaller real numbers such that they tend towards zero then the results will become increasingly larger and tend towards infinity, however if you divide that same number by increasingly smaller negative numbers then the results will tend towards negative infinity, so as we approach the point where these two increasingly smaller divisors meet (ie zero) the results are moving further apart by a factor of two. Since the result cannot instantaneously change sign and infinity and negative infinity are not the same value then the result of a number divided by zero is not infinity nor is it negative infinity it is simply "undefined".   The concept of division by zero is actually easy to imagine and depict:   If zero does not exist as a quantity, it must have been defined so to avoid the confusion in dividing by zero. In any other situation zero acts just like any other number. (I could say "There are zero apples on the table" and be understood, but if I said to someone "Share these apples equally among zero people", he wouldn't understand what he's supposed to do with the apples.) So we must ask: "Why can't we divide by zero? What makes zero different from other numbers?" (This question, I think, is somewhat similar to "Why can't there be a transparent white?") If we could divide by zero, there would have to be one and only one result, just like with any other division. So it would have to be either infinity or negative infinity, but not both. Perhaps neither would suffice. But why do we understand the logic behind every division except division by zero? The agreement that division by zero is undefined does not solve the problem, it merely escapes it. Why can't we divide by zero?

I've got three nothings and five empty spaces in my room. I don't see any zeros yet.

Only if they are apple-shaped.

Syzygy wrote: Off at a tangent from empty spaces, it's been silent in my flat for a while now. What I'm wondering is this; is it one long silence, or a series of silences of indeterminate length punctuated with very short silences lasting 1 - 2 seconds?

It's one infinite silence, otherwise you'd hear clipping every once in a while.