Attributes of attributes
1. What is the subject?
Objects, people and concepts have properties. We're going to look at properties of properties.
2. Subjectivity en objectivity
Some properties are subjective, some objective. Whether a painting is beautiful or not depends on the
taste and education of the observer. The property "nice" is obviously subjective.
Some properties seem objective, independent of the observer but still seem to be subjective.
Annette sees a car from the left for example.
Charles on the other side of the street see the same car from the right.
Also "left" and "right" are observer-dependent and therefore subjective.
'This car is made of tin' describes an objective property.
3. Relative and absolute
Nobody will deny that an elephant is a large animal, but relative to the earth, the elephant is very small.
The attribute "large" or "small" is "fairly" or "relative".
Normally speed is seen as a relatively property.
You might wonder whether in this regard maybe you can call it subjective.
When you think about it, you will notice that sometimes relativity and subjectivity
are difficult to be separated.
Now you see only a few things in life are absolute; most is relative!
And that is absolutely true.
4. Measurability
Also properties can be subdivided into measurable properties and non-measurable attributes. Toxicity,
beauty, color, (in-)visibility, taste and smell are typical properties you can not measure.
You simply cannot (yet?) You cannot say that the smell of peppermint is so many units.
5. Quantities
Measurable properties are called quantities. A quantity is a number times a unit.
A quantity and its unit belong to the same physical dimension.
The physics and chemistry are full of quantities.
6. Intensive and extensive
Some variables are dependent on the amount of material
such as volume, mass, number of moles and heat capacity. These are extensive quantities.
The intensive variables are not determined by the quantity of matter.
Examples include temperature, pressure, density, melting point, boiling point, specific heat and velocity.
7. Vectors and scalars
A number of quantities has size and direction. These quantities are called vectors.
The most famous vectors are displacement, speed, momentum, acceleration, force, all kinds of gradients,
electric and magnetic field strength; any current.
Most other variables have no direction. These are the scalars as volume, mass, time and energy.
8. Continuous and discrete
If a specific elastic band can be 5 cm and 8 cm depending on the stretch,
then it can have each length between 5 and 8 cm.
It is said that the length can change 'continuously', so without jumps.
Time changes continuously but the clock in the railway station jumps every minute.
It is said tho change 'discrete'.
In this energy spectrum you see discrete steps.
