Re: Many things, catching up

[Jim Carter <jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU>]

Goran Topic writes:

> 1) About directions:
> There is only one possible relatively culturally neutral way of
> specifying left/right. I leave it to physicists to explain.

Neutrinos circulate clockwise.  Apparently they can only go in one
direction.  Antineutrinos, however, go counterclockwise, so you still
have to know whether your conversational partner is made of antimatter
:-)

With magnetic fields the polarity of the field is determined through the
cross product or the curl operator, both of which depend in an essential
way on the parity of the coordinate system, which is a cultural choice.

> 2) About dimensions:
> Mathematically speaking, there are several things that get the name, and
> sorry if my terminology sounds a bit nonstandard, it's probably because
> it is:

It's quite standard, and hits the nail on the head.

James F. Carter        Voice 310 825 2897       FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA  90095-1555
Internet: jimc@math.ucla.edu (finger for PGP key)
UUCP:...!{ucsd,ames,ncar,gatech,purdue,rutgers,decvax,uunet}!math.ucla.edu!jimc