petrushka.googol

Why do impurities lower the melting point of solids in molecular terms ?

Can a solid be doped with a material which will reverse this process ?

Are gels solids, liquids or semi-solids ?

Please explain.

limit (a -> infinity) / (b-> infinity) = some finite number (possibly unity)

limit ((a + 1) / (b + 1)) = some finite number

if limit (some number -> infinity i.e. ~infinity) is finite....then why infinity / infinity is undefined.

Rationale is : infinity - delta / infinity - delta is still finite.

Then why this anomaly ?

We all know that water has maximum density at 4 degree C.

What molecular property of water can explain this ?

Venus is retrograde. Why ?

Are there any equations that explain the same or any model that describes the anomalous behavior ?

Please opine.

Enlightenment is just another way to describe understanding, of being human, which in turn describes wisdom.

 

Learning is a means to this end but in no way inevitably leads to the magical terminus of the enlightened.

 

Therefore enlightenment has no relation to mysticism, eastern or otherwise and what, exactly, has a black box to do with wisdom/enlightenment/understanding?

The idea of the "black box" represents a person with total ignorance but who is universally receptive. He is not partly enlightened....remember a little knowledge is a dangerous thing...ignorance is bliss !!!

I envisage that the most enlightened souls of our time (Bodhisattvas in Eastern mysticism) were what I choose to define as black box personalities.

They took learning as an unbiased venture and absorbed all stimuli as an attribute of additional wisdom.

This is much like children who are very receptive and good learners.

This is unlike adults who have preconceived notions and biases which affect sound judgement.

A black box can absorb as well as radiate maximum radiation.

Same is true of the above mentioned personality type.

Please opine.

Is there "enough empirical" evidence? There is nothing contemporary, only two nonchristian references of which one is widely considered a fake, and the Gospels which were write later have unknown authorship and do not distinguish between Jesus & god.

 

The best evidence presented thus far IMO has been presented by poster Eise. However I feel the argument relies too heavily on theology. That true history can be discerned with a reasonable level of accuracy from comparative analysis of the Gospels. If you are real interested in this discussion please read back through the thread some. Josephus and Tacitus' references, origin of various gospels, and the manner in which history is commonly proved have already been discussed at length.

Jesus could theoretically exist based on the following assumptions :

a) We are not certain that he didn't exist

b) He was male

c) His father and mother were real

d) He was born around 3 BC (as per research)

e) He was Semitic and lived in the Middle East

f) He was stated to have existed in Islamic texts as well.

g) His personality profile was well documented. (Slender body with long arms and legs, Possibly pectus excavatum.)

h) His travelogue was documented in the Bible. (transition from place of birth to later domains.)

T>0

anything less than that does not exist.

T= 0 is that point when time in space-time is perceived for the first time. (not at a singularity.) Mathematically T cannot be greater than zero without ever traversing zero.

OK, for a start, it's a misuse of the word diaspora.

Also, have you seen children playing games?

They too, "pout, squirm, wretch at a moment's notice."

So it's hard to believe it's all that difficult.

 

However, the existence of stage schools suggests that at least some of their ability is learned.

My own personal viewpoint is that actors move seamlessly from one emotion to the next, at least, to my own honest assessment better than I do. I experience a "refractory period" after an intense emotional episode (much like after an orgasm). Actors however seem to be less constrained. Perhaps more research needs to be done in this area....

What would you rate as the most likely candidate for T=0 on the time axis of the Universe ?

- the Planck Time

- the time protostars formed

- the time hydrogen transmuted to heavier elements (useful to humans).

Please opine.

The uncommon use of the word "diaspora" refers to the rather uncanny social intelligence of cinema actors. They pout, squirm, wretch at a moment's notice. Not too easy for the common folk.

Why is this ? Is it innate or acquired.

Please opine.

Are we moving from political differentiation to ever increasing political integration ? Is there a movement from a Type 0 to a Type 1 civilization ? I subscribe to this view.

Do you agree ?

PS. Subtract variables like terrorism, genocide, pestilence and the like and we'll get there....

What was the time-scale of the Big Bang ? attosecond / femtosecond / picosecond or impossible to quantify ? I mean, how much time did it take for the dissolution of symmetries ?

Please opine.

There is enough empirical evidence to suggest that a person called Jesus Christ did exist in the flesh and blood. (Christ is derived from greek Christos -> anointed and is just a title.) Most likely he was known by some other name. If the question implies "did Jesus exist ?", I would be tempted to say Yes. If the question is more soul-searching like was Jesus "real" (as in authentic), I would leave that open to debate.....

petrushka.googol,

 

Spacetime is written as one word. Einstein was the first to introduce time as the 4th dimension and inseparably connected it to space. Therefore, he wrote the term as "spacetime". It's symbolically important!

Forgive my semantics...

Could we apply the uncertainty principle to any quasi-stable system like the Universe ?

This is a moot question.

We can't "freeze" energy transfer and we can't "freeze" time.

When we observe a system undergoing entropic changes we actually increase the entropy of the system by the energy involved in perceiving the change, the same applies to time. i.e. moving clocks slow down time (resistance to the flow of time increases) and "time entropy" increases.

Could then the Uncertainty principle that fits the micro and nano world have larger implications?

I wonder.

How effect is NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) a tool in psychotherapy ?

Please advise.

In what way?

 

You need some way of describing what you mean by a singularity. The method using the Kretschmann scalar works for some classes of space-times, for example the Schwarzschild solution. Using this scalar tells you you have a singularity at r=0 and not at the event horizon.

 

You cannot really use this scalar as a definition of a singularity. The universally accepted definition is lack of geodesic completeness (being non-technical here), basically your geodesics 'fall off' the space-time in some finite 'time' and this signifies a singularity.

Correct me if I am wrong, Could we visualize this as a vortex in the gravitational field analogous to the vortices in the magnetic field ?

 

 

That depends upon what you understand a singularity to be and also what you intend to do with it.

Could you please elaborate....

The usual thing is to consider the components of various curvature tensors associated with the Levi-Civita connection (or some other connection on the tangent bundle); Riemann curvature tensor and the Ricci curvature.

There are other tensors you can consider, all of which classify to different extents what you mean by curvature; i.e. how much the metric is not locally the same as the Euclidean one.

 

The Riemann tensor tells you something about the lack of commutativity of the covariant derivative.

 

The Ricci tensor measures the volume of a geodesic ball in a curved Riemannian manifold deviates from that of the standard ball in Euclidean space.

 

Now, both of these depend on the coordinates used, they are tensors and so have nice transformation properties but still. When one talks about the curvature being infinite, one is usually thinking in terms of a scalar invariant of the curvature. In GR this is often the Kretschmann scalar which is a full contraction of the Riemann tensor. This gives you a true coordinate invariant measure of the curvature. By 'infinite curvature' it is this scalar that people are usually talking about.

 

I don't know what petrushka.googol had in mind by 'curvature' but I was thinking of the Kretschmann scalar.

 

EDIT: I should say that the Kretschmann scalar does not fully encode the presence of singularites, but it does for a large class of space-times. Very loosely, as long as we don't have gravitational radiation to worry about it is okay. Without some further details of the kinds of space-times we are considering here, it maybe difficult to fully understand 'infinite curvature = singularity'. But roughly this is okay

Does this not go against the basic tenet that a singularity is indeterminate ?

As strange says, (mod maths and exactly what we mean here) that the classical limit of curvature of a space-time is infinite.

 

However, it is generally believed that quantum effects of gravity would regulate this. But without a full theory we cannot say what the maximum curvature could be. Also we would need to define curvature carefully.

The space-time curvature becomes infinite at the singularity of a black hole. Although whether this can happen in reality or not is an open question.

In the light of the above :

Would a singularity be

- dimensionless

- infinite number of dimensions curled up into the infinitesimal (much like the 7 extra dimensions in string theory)

Please advise.

If the Universe space time is curved, then what is the theoretical maximum ? If we consider an open loop system undergoing progressive curvature then this results at some point in a closed loop system.

Curvature beyond this point is actually not feasible. The topology of space time is then limited in it's manifestations. (I visualize a parabola transmuting to a circle.). However a closed loop system is like a system with zero entropy (thermodynamics) or zero displacement (mechanics). Is this realistic and if so, what does this entail ?

Please advise.

P.S. I trust you could call this an open-ended question in more ways than one.....

cogito ergo sum : I think therefore I am

If the sayings ascribed to Jesus indeed did emanate from him, then it is incontrovertible evidence that he did indeed exist.

String theory has literally opened up a can of worms with it's postulate that space-time is 11 dimensional ( 10 space + 1 time ).

Why couldn't we have more than 1 dimension of time ? I don't see why that is not possible.

Would that turn conventional physics on it's head?