[SteveMcKing]

I came up with this odd idea--

When mathematicians wanted to solve an impossible problem, they invented "i", such that: "an imaginary number is a real number times the positive square root of -1." The subsequent results yeilded amazing observations in many aspects of mathematics.

Why not do the same with physics? Just define a black-box figure (declare some "impossible" equivalence, perhaps?) and don't worry about how it works- just accept the result as true.

(The details of such a thing are well beyond my skills, which are presently stuck at undergraduate standards...)

[jennyp]

Why not do the same with physics? Just define a black-box figure (declare some "impossible" equivalence, perhaps?) and don't worry about how it works- just accept the result as true.

I was taught that the Universal Fudge Factor was the square root of 2. :-)

[Grut]

Why not do the same with physics? Just define a black-box figure (declare some "impossible" equivalence, perhaps?) and don't worry about how it works- just accept the result as true.

That's essentially what Einstein did: he declared that the velocity of light was the same regardless of conditions and then jiggered the universe so it would be.

My problem is that I can't make the 'elevator experiment' work the way it seems to work for everybody else: I always come up with the notion that the scientists inside the elevator car would have no trouble at all distinguishing between acceleration due to changes in velocity and acceleration due to gravity.