BELIEVE   ME   NOT!    - -     A   SKEPTICs   GUIDE  

... guesses.^3.1

This seems to be holding up progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research, where people trying to teach computers to understand ``natural language'' (human speech) are stymied by the impossibility of reaching a unique logical interpretation of a typical sentence. Methinks they are trying too hard.

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... times.^3.2

This is only the latest in a long sequence of redefinitions of the meter. Today's version reflects our recognition of the speed of light as a universal constant. (Here is a trick question for you: if the speed of light were different in one time and place from another, how could we tell?)

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... IV.^3.3

This is a recurring problem in science fiction novels: will our descendents on other planets use a ``local'' definition of years, [months,] days, hours and minutes or try to stick with an Earth calendar despite the fact that it would mean the local sun would come up at a different time every day? Worse yet, how will a far-flung Galactic Empire reckon dates, especially considering the conditions imposed by Relativity? [The Star Trek solution is, of course, to ignore the laws of physics entirely.]

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... light.^3.4

Inasmuch as a ns is a roughly ``person-sized'' distance unit, it could actually be used rather effectively in place of feet and meters, which would get rid of at least one arbitrary unit. Oh well.

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... characters^3.5

The wider availability of nice typesetting languages like L^ATEX, in which this manuscript is being prepared, offers us the opportunity to add new symbols like $\aleph$, $\varpi$ and $\heartsuit$, but this won't change the qualitative situation.

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... lot.^3.6

(You will want to refer to these occasionally when trying to guess what I am trying to say with formulae. Don't worry if some are incomprehensible initially; for completeness, the list includes lots of ``advanced'' stuff.)

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