Re: What are units-of-measure? e.g., what's a "kilometer"?
Alaric B Snell scripsit: > A kilometer is just a thing, like a
potato, or a person. It's not a > solid object, but it's an
amount of *space*, and space certainly exists, > even if you
only perceive it as a "nothingness" in which to put stuff. The
trouble with that view is that if a kilometer is a quasi-
physical object, then there are literally uncountably many of
them. You have to represent each kilometer is a 6-tuple of real
numbers: the coordinates of the start (relative to some
arbitrary physical origin) and the coordinates of the end
(ditto). And to say that the Yangzi is 6300 km long, you have to
construct a sequence of 6300 of these 6-tuples and claim that
this sequence is the object of the "length" property as applied
to the Yangzi. (This neglects the whole question of the length
of a river being in fact fractal, so saying its length is 6300
km requires an indication of the scale, explicit or implicit.)
And as you imply, the 6-tuple view handle