Whenever we need to draw a long perfectly streight line, we use a yard stick or something like that. And to make the yeardstick they had to use something streight to reference. So where did the first streight line come from and how can we be sure that it was streight? Moroever, how can we acertain anything is?
2006-10-04 12:54:32 · 5 answers · asked by Casey 3 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Um Um. You do ask a delicious question.
a) How would one define "first" - which cave drawing etc. We can't even get closer than 40,000 years in their dating.
b) Given gravity and the curvature of the earth, nothing is straight in the sense of a yardstick.
c) Quantum mechanics indicates the observation of an item or action alters said item or action. Thus, looking at a straight line changes that straight line.
d) We are thus unable to ascertain anything if you speak of absoluteness. We live on rafts of indefiniteness adrift oceans of unknowingness.
2006-10-04 13:36:07 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Take a thin cord, soak it in chalk powder, hold it tightly drawn at both ends, just close and above a floor, board or any thing, give a light tug upwards, and it will spring back towards the floor, leaving a straight line with the powder or any marker we had soaked on the thread or cord !
Something like this would have been done in ancient times. Some people like carpenters still use it instead of reaching out for a misplaced tool like ruler etc..
2006-10-04 16:55:39 · answer #2 · answered by Spiritualseeker 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A streight line? Sheeesh!
The definition of a STRAIGHT line is the shortest distance between two points. If you stretch a piece of string, or a rope, or a thread, or a hair, between two points, you have a straight line. If you want to ascertain whether anything is straight, you can check it easily by holding a straight edge against it. Tool supply shops sell straight edges -- metallic forms that have a straight edge and can be used to check lines.
2006-10-04 13:05:22 · answer #3 · answered by old lady 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
no line is perfectly straight.
however, if you have to have an answer... a person can easily create a (realitively) perfect line by using a pendulum and tracing its shadow.
as for how certain a thing is ---
there are no facts... merely statements that have yet to be proven false
2006-10-04 13:01:08 · answer #4 · answered by shatzy 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Stretch a thread and you´ve got a straight line.
2006-10-04 13:00:47 · answer #5 · answered by Betiel 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋