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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/18/21 in all areas

  1. When are you going to contribute something of value?
    3 points
  2. Here's proof of the wisdom of the 5 post initial limit agains spammers. Suggest using this to explain the limit to genuine new members.
    2 points
  3. No. 'Flat' means that e.g. parallel lines stay parallel, no matter how far you compare their distance between them. Best example is two light beams. When these do not converge or diverge, the universe is flat. It is difficult to imagine how a positive curved universe can be infinite because it is closed in itself, like the surface of a sphere. But with negative curvature and flat space that problem does not arise. Just take care that the universe seems to be flat on average. Locally, due to mass and energy, the flat universe can be curved.
    2 points
  4. Again and again members ask the question "what is space ?" Indeed we have at least currently active threads which include discussion of this question. So what do members consider the difference between the two uses to be ?
    1 point
  5. Because ancient Romans didn't quite know where the hell they were? LOL
    1 point
  6. I understood the first four words, and struggle mightily to find how the rest applies to the discussion.
    1 point
  7. It looks to me as if the answers to your many questions can easily be found, just by a bit of reading, if you really want to know the answers. However, my rather jaundiced experience of those who describe scientifically literate people as "evolutionists" is that they actually don't want to know the answers, as the answers don't fit their (naive) religious beliefs. I hope you are not one of those. Assuming pro tem that you are not, brief answers to some of your questions would be as follows:- Bees: pollination by insects is just one of many ways that it takes place. So insects were not always necessary. The flowering plants evolved to take advantage of insect pollination, after the insects appeared. Mouth: One of the most important steps in the evolution of animals was the evolution of the mouth. This occurred some time in the pre-Cambrian and was followed fairly quickly by the evolution of shells, as a means of protecting some creatures from being eaten by others. If you know a bit about food chains you should know there is no clean division into predators and prey. Many animals that are predators are themselves prey for others. Fruit: Fruits are one means of seed dispersal, making use of animals. There are plenty of other methods, though. Fruits are formed by flowering plants, which only evolved long after animals had colonised the land so, as with pollination, they were able to take advantage of an existing situation. Minerals: There is no reason to suppose the abundance of minerals on the Earth is radically different from what it would be on similar rocky planets. So your comment about "only" the Earth having these properties is misconceived. Fossils: You need to stop and think a bit. Consider how rare it is for a dead organism to be fossilised. Then consider how rare it is for a fossil to be exposed once more at the surface of the Earth, after it is formed. Then consider how rare it is for such a fossil to be found. It is not at all surprising that the fossil record consists of sets of dots, that we have to join in order to see the pattern. Evolution: It is surprising you find this unconvincing, unless you have deliberately set out to find it so. Plant and animal breeders have known since the dawn of civilisation that populations of creatures contain variations and that by selecting variants with certain traits and breeding from them, big changes can be made, over a matter of many generations. Just look at breeds of dogs, for example. All Darwin did was suggest that the natural environment can do the same, because some traits will make it more likely that the creature breeds successfully in that environment. It's hardly rocket science. Moreover, we see it daily in the news. Where do you think these variants of Covid, that everyone worries about, come from? Variation eventually produces a version that reproduces (by infection) more rapidly - and so that one becomes dominant. It's evolution at work in real time.
    1 point
  8. I don't think I did miss the point. This is an inherent problem of trying to address problems/questions with colloquial expressions and analogies, with the inevitable failure of rigor at some point along the way. It's a cousin to the expression "All models are wrong. Some are useful." where one party is trying to convey the useful part and another party is focused on the "wrong" part. So when someone offers up an example of parallel lines (or, more specifically, what one might assume are parallel lines, because they meet a criterion for parallel lines) and then you find out that they are not, the conclusion is you are not in a flat geometry. Someone who is not clear on the concept might find that example helpful. Someone who does understand the concept pointing out that the lines are not actually parallel is probably not nearly as helpful. This is reminiscent of when folks show up to ask a question about basic physics, and people jump in with some advanced physics that has no direct bearing on the discussion (e.g. pointing out how GR treats a problem when Newtonian gravity is sufficient to answer the question). Being right and being helpful are not necessarily the same thing.
    1 point
  9. Ritchie Havens/Groove Armada, 'Hands of Time' Best seduction music ... ever.
    1 point
  10. Oh, please. This isn’t about the Israeli people or even about the country itself. This is all about Benjamin Netanyahu being at his weakest ever point since first getting elected, being unable to even form a coalition government, and facing numerous corruption charges. This response is his way to deflect and redirect attention so he can retain power like all good autocratic leaders do. It’s part of the playbook, and we’ve seen this exact movie plot multiple times before.
    1 point
  11. No the change is not quite arbitrary. Here is a potted history of pusating charge spheres and other non radiating distributions, originally introduced by Ehrenfest. https://skullsinthestars.com/2008/04/19/invisibility-physics-acceleration-without-radiation-part-i/ Note these are not pulsars With these, the effects observed are due to rotation. Yes there has been discussion on other forums in the last couple of years. Google has various images of the physics of the explanation, going back to 'all' will find the PhysicsForums and Stack discussions https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=EM+radiation+from+pulsating+charged+sphere&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi01Kv_udHwAhUhtHEKHV5uAx0Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw
    1 point
  12. But it wouldn’t be a perfect sphere, and the asymmetry is likely the issue here. That’s the issue, I think. The motion is radial and so is the field, and you would need a transverse component of the field to emit radiation. Which may become possible if the spherical symmetry is broken. (I have a vague recollection of an example in Griffiths of a problem where the energy of a system and the work required to assemble it are unequal, implying energy had to be lost from the system, i.e. from radiation. Can’t recall if it was this example, though)
    1 point
  13. I'm fairly sure I could make a balloon out of conductive rubber and put a motorised pump inside it to move air in and out of a cylinder (also within the balloon). It's absurd, but not unphysical. As long as it stayed spherical, I can't see what polarisation any resulting radiation would have. That's going to make it hard to emit photons.
    1 point
  14. No wonder? As in not surprising to you? Or that Paul deserved it? "Federal prosecutors said Boucher "had enough" after he witnessed Paul stack brush into a pile on his own lawn, but near Boucher's property."
    1 point
  15. Here's a Bill Maher video, totally unrigourous, humourous, on the problem. I don't think it's a particularly impressive analysis of the problem, but it highlights some of the central questions. The main points being: A) CCs are based on nothing of "real" value B) CCs exert a huge demand on energy resources I think the second point is more or less right, but the 1st one, IMO, is not. I think Warren Buffett --and Maher with him-- misses the point of what the real problem with crypto-currencies probably is. It's not that crypto-currencies have no "real" value behind them (whatever that means). I don't know what "real value" is supposed to mean: Whether the actual cost of making it, which is next to nothing; its face value, which depends on socio-economical convention; or perhaps its purchasing power, which depends on how much money is circulating, as well as on the whole amount of goods and services available. I'll try to explain what I mean: Seigniorage (difference between face value and production cost of a monetary unit) of 1-dollar bill is 95 cents, if we're talking about paper money, which is practically the whole dollar. If "real" value is seigniorage, then it's arbitrary; if it's cost, it's just 5 cents; if it's purchasing value, it's highly volatile. It is ridiculous to think that money holds an objective value based on something real, in the same sense that machines, raw materials, qualified professionals, or energy sources are real. For digital money the cost is even less, I suspect, as it implies practically no extra cost writing 1'000'000'000 (a billion) instead of writing 1. In fact, crypto-currencies have a far safer system of controlling how much money is in circulation (a priori, at least) than the present monetary system has, resulting in a practically watertight framework to avoid inflation by dishonestly flooding the market with currency at any point in the network. And they also have an intrinsic value at least comparable to digital debt money (money just issued by writing numbers on a computer whenever banks "lend" money). I think the real problem with CCs is: 1) It creates yet another "bag" for inflation, encouraging people to massively invest in assets that may or may not fulfil their expectations of future returns. 2) It does so at the expense of a huge demand of power due to computational needs. 3) It does not comply with the criteria for sound money: Reasonable degree of; 3a) Scarcity; 3b) Standardization (accepted by many) If you create arbitrarily many types of money, you lose point 3b); and point 3a) becomes moot. What was intended to be safe money becomes investment in stamps. IMO, it's not worth the carbon footprint that it costs at the scale and with the rules of the game under which it's running, and it is at least in that sense that we all pay the price. I'm sorry that half my arguments are economic --thereby off-topic strictly speaking--, but that aspect is very much linked to the roots of the problem, and needs attention.
    1 point
  16. My guess is that the earliest clocks were sun dials and laid flat. You can walk around a sun dial.
    1 point
  17. Why is the number '6' on a clock face oriented right-side up when using Arabic numerals... ...but upside down when using Roman numerals?
    1 point
  18. My apologies if I came across as hostile. I was simply trying to stress the risks you pose to those you come in contact with, or care about, if you don't get vaccinated. In your commendable quest for more information, trying to find out how your decisions affect only you, and not everyone else around you, might give people a valid reason for thinking you are selfish. Thanks for the info, CharonY. I remember reading about it much more often about a year ago, where people who contracted Covid had their blood turn to a jelly consistency. I haven't heard much about this symptom/effect lately..
    1 point
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