Freedom of Science

The ignorance or willing negligence of data types allows physicists to write absurd statements such as

Physicists are very proud of the logo of the House of Newton but what does it mean to multiply two masses?

It is

1. absurd
2. physical

Type Newton

In the multiplication

both M and m are type Newton. Yesterday we saw that little m, the inertial mass, and the inertial force F, the twin sister of the gravitational force F, were type Newton. We now extend our collection of type Newton with the inclusion of big M, the mass in charge of gravitation.¹

A new multiplication operator

To solve the problem of dubious instances of multiplication invented by physicists to save Newton’s authority such as multiplying two case-sensitive masses we can define a new multiplication operator x-N for Newtonian multiplication:

An application of the Newtonian multiplication

This new multiplication operator can be used to multiply masses by an application of Newton’s authority:

Now the Newtonian multiplication

makes perfect sense in physics: it has Newton’s stamp of authority.

Conclusion

Since both M and m are physical quantities, they either cancel or fuse with other constants and disappear. Therefore, this has been an academic exercise making clear why physicists don’t care about data types: they introduce too much unwanted and unneeded precision.

1. The only category of data type strictly enforced in physics is typographical: all constants are case sensitive. So, don’t confuse G and g. [↩]

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