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To: Pete
Catching a ball is reactive. I place my hand where I see the ball is going to be. The bees are not reacting. Their "decision" to set the displacement at 35% must be made before they start - not after they see the ball in the air. It is a wholly different matter.

No it is not, and if you can't see that there's no point in continuing. You keep on believing that bees do calculus.

87 posted on 05/18/2005 3:26:36 PM PDT by whd23
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To: whd23
No it is not, and if you can't see that there's no point in continuing. You keep on believing that bees do calculus.

I will try this one more time. First of all, I do NOT believe bees can do calculus. That is kind of my whole point. Second, your comparison would work if you presented it like this:

You tell me that you are going to throw a ball to me. You tell me the starting height, the angle, the force, wind speed, etc. Then you ask me to place my hand where I think the ball will be so I can catch it but you add the requirement that once I position my hand, I can't move it. If I knew calculus, I could calculate the position fairly accurately and place my hand in the right spot to catch the ball.

That is, essentially, what we are asking the bees to do. We know, a priori, what the displacement has to be in order to minimize surface area (i.e. bee's wax) when constructing the pointy end of the honeycomb. (That's like the placement of the hand in the throwing example.) Then the bees start building and, low and behold, the displacement they build in to the pointy end matches the value we came up with that minimizes the wax used. And, no, bees can't do calculus. That's the WHOLE POINT.

105 posted on 05/19/2005 6:31:50 AM PDT by Pete
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