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Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/18/20 in all areas

  1. Always I see the same pattern. Brush aside explanations and equations as if you didn't even read them, but always latch on to any idea that justifies a failure to understand relativity as if that's just another equally valid viewpoint. I think Asimov's "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" quote applies. You say your view is "simpler" but it's just a misunderstanding. It makes me think that people who put effort into trying to explain things to you over and over are just wasting their time. You ask questions as if you want to understand, and then reply to answers as if your questions were only meant to demonstrate what you see as "problems with Relativity" and you had no interest in understanding how they're resolved. If you were interested in understanding it, you'd spend more time talking about what relativity says that doesn't make sense to you, and less about how much sense an alternative makes.
    3 points
  2. Actually, it is based on the principle that the spacetime interval between two events is invariant (as others here have already pointed out). The invariance of SOL is a consequence of that. Because the spacetime interval is an invariant. Because the spacetime interval is invariant. All observers agree on the same reality - being the invariant spacetime interval. I don’t know what number five was meant to be, but it’s almost certainly addressed by the fact that - you guessed it - the spacetime interval is invariant. One twin is inertial, the other one isn’t, so obviously there is no symmetry, because the frames aren’t related by a Lorentz transformation, but by something a little more complicated. The one who physically measures a non-zero value on his accelerometer at some point on his journey. So you would accept a model that precludes elementary particles from having the property of spin, and where the strong, weak, and EM interactions do not exist? Because all of these things are intrinsically relativistic phenomena. I presume you hold this view because you are not aware of the crucial role relativity plays for the dynamics - and even mere existence - of the particles we observe, never even mind how those particles move under the influence of gravity. There is no ‘space being created’, not sure where you got that from. Apart from that, intelligent people use relativity because they are intelligent enough to realise that it works very well within its domain of applicability. But intelligence isn’t the problem, because you are evidently very intelligent as well, in your own way. The problem is that you equate it (the model) not making sense to you with it having to be wrong. But that’s just a common logical fallacy. Relativity is very much “true”, in the sense that it is a model that works extremely well; whether it makes “sense” (what does that even mean?) to you as an individual person or not is entirely irrelevant to this. Quantum field theory (e.g.) makes little sense to me, it feels like an odd jumble of ad-hoc made-up bits, which are made to fit using even more ad-hoc made-up bits. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that it works really well within its domain, and right now it is the best description of the microscopic world that we have, so I choose to accept it for what it is and study it to the best of my ability. But let’s just say you won’t see me loosing any sleep should it one day be augmented/replaced by something different. This is why we have the scientific method - to minimise subjective measures such as “making sense”. “It doesn’t make sense to me” is simply not a scientific argument. The other problem I see on this thread is that you are rejecting something that you evidently don’t understand very well, judging by some of the statements you have made here. That would be like me fighting tooth and nail against some particular design for a building, even though I know absolutely nothing about design principles, very little about structural mechanics, and even less about how it all fits into the surrounding cityscape. My arguments would thus just be personal opinions without any objective basis, and thus pretty much meaningless to any architect worth their salt. Long story short - if your opinion about relativity is not based on thorough and intensive study of the model itself (which it isn’t - no offence intended at all), and how it fits into the overall framework of physics, then it is scientifically unreliable and you need to question it. This is the core issue that you haven’t grasped in all this - relativistic effects are relationships between frames/observers in spacetime, not things that happen “to” or “in” a single frame. So there is no force contracting anything, and nothing slowing down any clocks. It is only when you take two clocks or two rulers from different frames, and compare them in some suitable manner, that you find that the relationship between them is such that one is dilated/contracted with respect to the other. So for example, when we collide heavy gold ions in the RHIC, then the resulting shower of particles after the collision as seen in the lab frame is consistent only with the gold ions having the shape of flattened disks (due to length contraction in the direction of motion only), not with them being spherical - we can easily tell, because the transition amplitudes of the various scattering and decay processes seen in the lab frame explicitly depend on the spatial distribution of the original ensemble (the ion). The necessary calculations are complicated, but the result is not only consistent with, but mandated by relativity. The same is true in the ion frame (in the sense that the exact same outcome is predicted) - now the ion itself is seen as spherical, but distances in the accelerator are length-contracted, and the oncoming ion is more heavily time-dilated and contracted. But the eventual outcome is the same, so there is perfect symmetry (at the time of collision, i.e. after the acceleration phase). This is a real-world experiment, so we know experimentally that it all checks out.
    2 points
  3. One advantage to social distancing; I don't worry about eating garlic + fenugreek. The human nose is extremely sensitive. Also, i suspect that the metal ions act as a catalyst and what destroys the odorous materials is actually oxygen from the air.
    1 point
  4. Speaking as a lab head, it doesn't matter what I think of your offense. For e.g. My lab has stocks of chemicals on the DEA restricted list. If someone has a felony drug conviction, I can't hire them. It wouldn't matter if they were the best molecular biologist in the country and their offense was smoking a joint at a Grateful Dead show in 1968, I legally can't hire them. If your conviction restricts you in a manner that prevents you doing the job (i.e. working with clinical patients) then no one can hire you to do it. Sex offenders are allowed to work on campus where I am, but have to register with campus police and face certain restrictions. My work personally doesn't face any of these restrictions and it would be illegal for me to not employ someone because of their conviction history.
    1 point
  5. I don't think that's true. I don't see a single reply here from michel123456 that relates to trying to understand any of the answers and explanations given. No asking for further details. No working through a solution. Every reply is a justification of not making an effort to learn, an argument of why the explanations can be ignored. Literally 10 years ago he was asking about the same "problems" he had with relativity. 10 years from now, he'll have a similar list of "problems", after thousands of attempts by people to explain it to him, after 0 attempts to work through it. What he's good at, is asking questions that makes one think he's interested in learning about relativity. But look at the replies. The only interest is in what doesn't make sense to him. Anything making sense of it is ignored. That's the only answer he's interested in: that it doesn't make sense. All his questions are phrased as if the answer he expects is that it can't make sense, never a question about how the resolution to the problems work out correctly. So I think he's soapboxing, getting much better responses by stating "relativity is nonsense" as a question. Edit: To be fair, page 1 of this thread is full of counter examples to what I said, including asking about specific examples and numbers and their explanations. I don't know how we got from that on page 1 to page 2 with:
    1 point
  6. Even that you know that special relativity is tested to the bone, and forms the basics of nearly all of physics? Quantum Field Theory would be wrong if relativity is wrong! The relationship between electrical and magnetic fields could not be understood if SR was wrong, etc etc. Instead of protesting against the arguments given in this (and other...) threads, you should point to the places where you do not follow the argument; but your only reaction is taking your wrong mental pictures and say that the argument's conclusion does not fit them.
    1 point
  7. So that I can better understand your question, answer me this. In the example of the boxes [math]B_n[/math] where [math]n[/math] is a positive integer between 1 and 15, inclusive, what are the qualities of [math]n[/math]? What do you mean by that? In the example of the houses on a street, where the odd-numbered side of the street consists of a sequence of houses [math]H_n[/math] where [math]n[/math] is an odd positive integer from, say, 101 to 501; what do you mean by asking what are the qualities of [math]n[/math]? If I get into an elevator, where we have a collection of floors [math]F_n[/math] where [math]n[/math] is a sequence of positive integers starting at 1 and anding in 15, what does it mean to ask, "What are the qualities of n?" It's just a way of counting the floors so we know where we're supposed to get off the elevator to get where we're going. It's just a number. A label. It has no inherent meaning, we just use it to distinguish one floor from another, one house from another, one box from another, one [math]V_\alpha[/math] from another. It's the same question. What do you mean "what are all the qualities of" [math]\alpha[/math]? Alpha is an ordinal number. It has all and only those qualities that pertain to ordinals. And in fact ... this is a point you seem to be having trouble with ... [math]\alpha[/math] is not a particular ordinal number. It's a variable that iterates, if you will, or "marches through," ALL of the ordinal numbers. Why are we having trouble with this? [math]\alpha[/math] is not a particular ordinal number. It's a variable that ranges over all of them. Like in high school when they taught you about the parabola with the equation [math]f(x) = x^2[/math]. It doesn't make sense to ask "What is x?", or "What are the qualities of x?" or, "What is the definition of x?" x is a variable that ranges over all the real numbers. Yes? You agree with this? I hope you'll reply specifically to this last example. You understand that when we write [math]f(x) = x^2[/math], the variable 'x' ranges over the real numbers. It's not any particular real number and it has no qualities and no definition, other than being what we might call a dummy variable in a function definition. Do you agree with this?
    1 point
  8. Why are you letting your grandma play in the middle of the road ?
    1 point
  9. It's only important if you want to be consistent with what we actually measure of reality. It's a combination of the definition of speed being relative, and that measured speeds are consistent with that. If you have A moving at 0.8c relative to B, does it make sense that B is moving at a different speed relative to A? If you wanted that, you could define speed differently (eg. define speed to be absolute, and please call it something else), but you would end up with a system of measurements that is either inconsistent with measurement, or more cumbersome than what we have. I think it's a 3rd option: I think you're determined not to accept relativity and so you're determined not to understand it. I think we could find out with a quiz! Do you think that a) you will accept relativity and understand it together, or b) you will eventually understand it, and then accept it after, or c) if you accept that it's correct first, that will make it easier to understand, or d) you will never accept it and it's more likely that you'll find a flaw in it before anyone convinces you that it's true. Or e) other: ______ ?
    1 point
  10. I have always had a high resistance to viruses. Anyways, when I write Corona is not necessarily deadly, it means just that. People should stop blowing it up out of what it is: a weak puny RNA virus. Aphasia is not a symptom of Corona. Or, if it is, it has nothing to do with persons like me who have always had Aphasia. I think the biggest thing that caused my Aphasia in various forms or aspects is from a car accident when I was 9 in a second foster home.
    -1 points
  11. If you believe that everyday people should be allowed to operate motor vehicles then you are enabling immoral behavior. There were 36,560 motor vehicle deaths in the United States in 2018. There are far safer methods of transportation; including subways, buses, trains, planes, and bicycles. Those methods do not involve allowing common peasants to operate a machine weighing thousands of pounds that can reach speeds of over 100 mph. Older drivers, particularly those aged 75+, have higher crash death rates than middle-aged drivers (aged 35-54). If you are in favor of allowing common folk to operate motor vehicles then I have to ask, are you OK with letting your grandma die in a motor vehicle accident?
    -1 points
  12. Even one death is too many. Would you still be OK with it if your grandma died because a motor vehicle was being operated by an everyday schmuck? Only trained professionals should be allowed to operate these dangerous machines. Keep in mind that drivers licenses can be gotten by people who have questionable skill. I failed my driving test 4 times in a row before I got it, and I also lied by saying I had the required 10 hours of experience driving on the highway when I did not.
    -2 points
  13. You do not have the right to determine when someone else's life should end. Your freedoms end where other people's safety begins. Grandma may not want to die yet, and you do not have the right to put her in danger for your own personal convinience.
    -2 points
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