I am interested in human's incapability to imagine some things. A round square is a classic example. Please suggest your replies as well as point me to some website/links/books if you believe they might be helpful. Ofcourse I am trying yahoo answers option after looking for this information elsewhere.
If your answers are based on previous work or your own research, please include most important references. However, I am also keen on everyone's point of view, especially people who believe and are also trying to prove that a round square exists.
2006-07-11 00:52:58 · 19 answers · asked by anie_cha 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Yah wanna laugh or think (choose an answer)
Carpentry: When you're building a house and you're on the roof putting some joists together and you drop your level and you're too damn lazy to fetch it and you just eyeball it, the joist is 'round square.
Philosophy: Then I think time and space and how Einstein figures they are curved. A square of near infinite proportions then, say a border or frame around our univers, would be a round square. Of course that is putting something mathmatical into words, if that could always be done, we wouldn't need math. Gets one to thinking about language and how it is tied to the evolution of human thought.....
2006-07-11 01:21:00 · answer #1 · answered by Alobar 5 · 4⤊ 3⤋
You are confusing imagination and visualisation.
Imagination is the re-combination of concepts. It can combine any two (or more) concepts - even contradictory or incompatible ones. A round square is easily imaginable - you demonstrate that by asking this question and we by answering it. However, a round square, because it is an incompatible combination of concepts, cannot be a concept of a real object, and so it cannot be visualised.
An incompatible combination of concepts is to be distinguished from a fictional combination of concepts. For example, a 'golden mountain' - a mountain composed of gold - is a fictional concept, but it is a concept of a possible object, and so it it can be visualised.
There is no need for references to authorities here. All that is needed is a little thought and common sense.
2006-07-11 18:47:58 · answer #2 · answered by brucebirdfield 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A town plaza with curvilinear boundaries.
Take one square, put a black hole in the middle, then voila! Curved space-time.
A square drawn on the surface of a sphere -- where a "line" is simply the shortest path between two points.
The number "9"
Circa de la square.
Bermuda High School for Girls.
Properly packed bullets for dyslexics.
A kilobyte -- 1,000 or so.
White trash finger food -- tartare on saltines. Keep up with me here.
An overweight prude? Droopy cocktail napkin?
Okay, all of these are round squares. And they all exist. Citations cost extra.
2006-07-11 08:28:57 · answer #3 · answered by Monso Orda 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
One way to develop a perspective on something similar is to extend the search into three dimensions. Look at a globe. The longitude and latitude rings intersect in a crossing pattern. On local maps (for instance, those used for driving) these intersections surround a small enough space to form squares. These grid squares, then, mark territory on a curved space (the earth’s surface).
2006-07-11 13:26:18 · answer #4 · answered by neil s 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
By normal definition, a round square cannot exist because you have started out by differentiating them.
Draw a venn diagram, and there's no overlap. However, if you tinker with definitions, then you can have a protean figure that is first one, then the other, then back again. Or something with bounderies so weak that it might as well be one as the other. I think your further work may lie in theology, where three is one, and one is three very conventionally.
2006-07-11 08:26:39 · answer #5 · answered by chilixa 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
first of all there is no shape exists. Every shape is the result of its relation to its existence. If you are saying earth is oval, its because of its rotation in high speed. If you stop it will become another shape. As for as your question is concerned every perfect circle fits exactly in a square of its diameter. In other way a circle can only be cut from a square of same diameter. After all shapes are man made....not absolute.
2006-07-11 08:19:38 · answer #6 · answered by gnani 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A square has 4 equal connecting sides.
The shape of the lines do no matter.
A circle can be defined as a irregular square. hence a round square
2006-07-11 08:12:06 · answer #7 · answered by tgr_fsh 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm going to say a square with rounded off corners.
2006-07-11 11:54:45 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A camera has a round lens, it produces a square picture.
2006-07-11 09:06:20 · answer #9 · answered by coonrapper 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
a round square does not exists.
2006-07-11 08:03:08 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋