alt Hacker NewsThe current state is such that we can, with great authority, give an exact measure of each "years" length, with every one bieng unique. You touch on but dont quite state that math is a usefull game, but miss that reality does not use math consistantly, and we force arbitrary units and measures onto what we are trying to understand, but are still clueless as to what the nature of reality is, and how it works. Testable theorys are thin on the ground now,Newton and his peers, past,present,here, and there, would be and are, unsatisfied with the meager conclusions we have, sure we can sincronise, and our tools and toys are wonderfull, but the universe remains,theoretical.
unless you bump your toe on part of it.
It's the other way around.
It takes my breath away how consistent the mean length of a day is and how accurately we can measure it. So accurately that if it deviates by mere tens of milliseconds, and it does, we can notice it.
It boggles my mind that a hunk of rock made up of differing densities, with so much of salty water sloshing around, Moon exerting her brakes, bombardments by extraterrestrial matter, Earth still remains so consistent. Of course, this is not surprising if one does the math.
Yes math and physics are different. It's the the fact that math can model the physics so accurately at all that it's breathtaking.