Eise

On 5/5/2024 at 9:43 PM, MigL said:

I'm sure he'd be a lot more agreeable as to the value and purpose of Philosophy if he had the opportunity to chat with our own Eise.

Don't exaggerate, MigL. Pigliucci is perfect for the job.

I think the problem is simply that many scientists, like Tyson and Krauss, have no idea that (nearly) no philosopher today sees philosophy as a way to empirical truths. 

Also see the feud between Krauss and David Albert.

On 5/5/2024 at 3:21 PM, Moontanman said:

Did he admit his mistake and correct it or sit and insist he was correct despite the evidence? AFAIK making a mistake in science is not a sin. 

Sure, everybody makes mistakes. But Avi Loeb's 'It must be aliens!' is just looking for confirming evidence, not for sources of errors and looking at alternative, less spectacular possible explanations.

On 5/1/2024 at 3:16 PM, Moontanman said:

I do not buy into aliens, I think there is sufficient evidence to justify an ongoing program to investigate this phenomena.

You really don't? There is a little bit too much of speculating about von Neumann probes, among other 'alien' speculations. I know your opinion on what UFOs really are is still open. But you put far too much effort in hypotheses that it could be aliens. 

On 5/1/2024 at 3:16 PM, Moontanman said:

Government secrecy is a given, the only question is why. 

The 'why'  is of course also speculative. But I would like to apply one of the 'derivatives' of Ockham's Razor. I gave already an example of that: there are experiments with new flying technologies. Getting people not to take too much interest in 'flying anomalies' them could help the interest in them low. This is also speculative of course, but it needs no additional, improbable hypotheses, like 'aliens', alien technology, or what else.

On 5/1/2024 at 3:16 PM, Moontanman said:

Does unexplained mean mean investigate no further? 

Nope. Didn't you read my posting till the end before reacting? Of course, if it is possible. If, taking all data of a UFO sighting together do not lead to a conclusion what it was, then it is unexplained. Full stop. But for goodness, yes, we should investigate UFO sightings that cannot be explained easily (Jupiter, weather balloon, etc). 

On 5/1/2024 at 3:16 PM, Moontanman said:

So because there are people who want aliens to be real the whole phenomena should be ignored? 

I did not say anything like that. I hope it is not a willfully wrong interpretation of what I wrote.

On 5/1/2024 at 3:16 PM, Moontanman said:

I think you owe Avi Loeb an apology

He won't get it from me. Trying to exclude all kinds of noise from your measurements is normal scientific practice. Taking the vibrations of a passing truck as some significant event, is a scientific sin.

On 5/1/2024 at 3:16 PM, Moontanman said:

You come across as someone who has made up their mind that there is nothing to this phenomena other than crazies and crackpots.

Nope. People that do not have the experience with all kind of 'aerial phenomena' might just not know what they are seeing. That is no sign of being a crackpot.

But taking the observation of a solar balloon from a plane as some proof of an (alien) UFO, or secret AF or NASA technology, as the majority of the comments under that video, shows a terrible naivety from the side of UFO fanatics. 

Hay, I once saw a UFO! Meaning, that all possible explanations I could think of did not quite fit. Yes, it was just a red light, nearly standing still close to the horizon, no smoke visible, so not very impressive. But fact is that I did not know what it was (no, it was not Mars).

And if I see how many auxiliary hypotheses are needed about technologies that we even do not know can exist, to make it at least probable that aliens are visiting us, then, no thanks. I'll wait for real empirical evidence, and so my default is 'unexplained means unexplained'. Yes, once again, investigate UFO sightings! But if the data do not positively point to aliens visiting us, then, yes, unexplained means unexplained.

What else can I do, than giving you +1

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Again, what is your point? Are you trying to say that because crazies exist UAP must be created by crazies?

Sorry, here is a language confusion. I did not mean 'crazies'. I have looked up the word from the Dutch- English dictionary ('craze'). What I mean is something like the short popularity of a phenomenon: something similar to the short popularity of 'fudget spinners'. In this case: there is some news footage about UFOs, a short time afterwards they are being seen everywhere, and then it ebbs away. I am not a native English speaker, so apology for the confusion.

But hey, there are people talking about 'secretes', and one moment I thought that would be great: if we find a secrete and it turns out that it can't be from earth, then we have some evidence in our hands. But of course I recognised that Moon meant 'secrets'. My wording was of course more prone to wrong interpretation. 

Only one other thing, that I wonder about again and again: it is 'one phenomenon', 'more phenomena'. That's not just you, Moon, I see it everywhere.

Longer reaction on the contents of your reaction hopefully tomorrow, but I wanted to have this point out of the way,

@Moontanman

I wonder why you buy so much into 'aliens' and 'government secrecy'.

First, on physical grounds, it is extremely, nearly impossible, that aliens visit us. Special Relativity sets a clear limit to travel speed. G-forces, and collisions with dust particles set high limits. Of course, slowly travelling, with generation spaceships cannot be excluded, as von Neumann probes (but then its not aliens visiting us, but their probes, that should be able to navigate autonomously, find out by themselves what is interesting, etc). Simply said, it needs a lot of additional hypothesis that we even do not know are possible.

Second, most of the UFO sighting have earthly explanations. Reaching from simple explanations (Venus, Jupiter and Mars), weather phenomena, satellites, (experimental) planes, weather (and solar!) balloons, etc), to sightings that cannot be explained, but even the latter does not mean 'aliens!' 'Unexplained' means unexplained, nothing more. Not very satisfying of course, but it is as it is.

Third, UFO sightings tend to come in crazes: one fascinating UFO sighting, and often it is followed suddenly by many more UFO sightings. For me a clear indication, that people are more inclined to 'look up', and then immediately take the most improbable explanation: aliens, or even worse, an alien invasion is imminent.

Fourth, for government secrets, there is a pretty simple explanation: when they are doing experiments with 'flying objects' they might be interested in people that do not pay too much attention to anomalous flying objects. This is at least my explanation for Edward Condon's very unscientific approach. Just deny that they exist, declare that all UFO sightings are fully explainable, and all observers will only think 'hey, funny what I see there, but it cannot be UFOs, because they do not exist'. That backfired of course completely, and only contributed to conspiracy theories.

Fifth, a whole lot of people just want 'aliens!' to be true. They do not want to falsify (in the Popperian sense of the word) the alien hypothesis, they take every unusual sighting as confirmation of their belief, even if there are simple explanations. The solar balloon sighting, and the reactions on Youtube are great examples. The huge majority says 'aliens!, then come many with secret flying things from the Air Force, (or NASA), and then only very few come with trying to find earthly explanations, and veeeery few with the correct explanation. And nobody reacts on these correct explanations. There is no rational discourse at all.

Considering all this, the question is if UFOs are a legitimate research object for science. You maybe surprised, but my answer is 'yes'. But first all these explainable sightings must be filtered out, and there must be tangible proof. And it should be serious researchers, not Loebs, who are the pseudo-scientific variants of alien believers.

James Olivier had his 'Last Week Tonight' about UFOs. There is amongst others the footage of Edward Condon in it, saying exactly what @Moontanman cited.

And I completely agree with Swansont about Avi Loeb. His (Loeb, of course... ) first hypothesis always seems to be 'aliens!'. And then do everything, however ridiculous, to support this hypothesis. No, this is not the way doing science and the article Swansont links to is a perfect description of Loeb's problematic stance and way of investigating, unworthy of science. I think it is very bad, it undermines the reputation of science.

I just read some comments on the video. Seldom had more fun. Here a selection:

• This woman is a legend, first clear UFO footage in history
• Finally a clear picture of a ufo instead of the usual dark and blurry images (Eise: yup, therefore it was so easy to recognise)
• This is the best clearest footage of UFO I have ever seen.
• US Government: "Relax it's just a weather balloon." (Eise: no, it was't...)
• Literally the best footage of a “ufo” to date …bravo!! U guys deserve something as a news station SERIOUSLY!
• probably the best video/picture caught of a UFO ever lol
• 1. It wasn't fast, the aircraft was, that's why you see it zipping through the video. 2. It's a blade propelled object judging from its inclination, probably a drone. 3. The drone was operated by the government or related agency because even considering how dangerous this was for the airliner, no news about investigation had been announced.
• Why is everyone so scared to say what it really is?? (Eise: because it would shock your world view)
• That’s our own government. Stop
• Do you really think you caught it on your home camera and the government doesn’t know? They have been here for thousands of years.
• Cylinder Aka cigar shaped crafts are one of the most common UFOs. Legit sighting in my opinion. Great catch.. (Eise: obviously a real expert!)
• This is one of the best UFO footage in recent decades (Eise: his emoticons, sorry that they became so big...)
• Etc etc.

Naivety, conspiracy theories... There are however a few who notice that it looks to fly fast, but that it could be the speed of the plane. Some examples:

• The plane flying at 2 to 300 miles per hour, if you look closely, that object could have very well been stationary given the travel direction of the plane if you look at the land while it's flying and how the object seems to fly by at a high speed but could very well be almost sitting still.
• Black balloon with helium? It’s not moving, you are. (Eise: close, very close...)

And the price goes to:

Sorry to disappoint, but I recognised it immediately:

The speed is the speed of the plane. It was 'a close encounter of the daily kind'.

Blow it up in a cool place on a hot day (inside your home or in the shadow), bring it into the sunlight, until it lifts and let it go, and you will never see it again.

From this Swiss site. Costs 12 Swiss bucks. What a fuzz about a funny, but physically interesting toy. I once 'launched' one.

Ah, there is even a wikipedia article bout it:

Quote

A solar balloon is a balloon that gains buoyancy when the air inside is heated by solar radiation, usually with the help of black or dark balloon material. The heated air inside the solar balloon expands and has lower density than the surrounding air. As such, a solar balloon is similar to a hot air balloon. Usage of solar balloons is predominantly in the toy market, although it has been proposed that they be used in the investigation of planet Mars, and some solar balloons are large enough for human flight.

That was a fast +1, Moontanman.

Small correction: blow it up on a cool but sunny day.

Obviously there also much bigger ones...

31 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Expect you can buy neodymium alloy magnets on the internet these days. Make sure you don't trap your fingers. They can be a safety hazard.  

... yep. And make sure you don't let them clash together. Either they will break, because they are very brittle, or you have to remove them sideways with pincers. And I imagine assembling them into a bigger contraption might be very difficult, due to their magnetic strength.

I only know this address in Switzerland, ordered a few of them:

https://www.supermagnete.ch/

9 hours ago, externo said:

This is also how Einstein saw it, he thought that there was an ether which was stationary for everyone.

Really? From his article that introduced the theory that later would be named 'Special Relativity':

Quote

The introduction of a “luminiferous ether” will prove to be superfluous inasmuch as the view here to be developed will not require an “absolutely stationary space” provided with special properties, nor assign a velocity-vector to a point of the empty space in which electromagnetic processes take place.

On the electrodynamics of moving bodies

I think it is time to close the thread?

Thanks for your proposal, but working all day with computers, and not too far from my retirement (1.5 year), I discover that learning complete new frameworks is a little bit too much. I am working with databases, and am not too bad at it, and in that cognitive frame I am still capable of learning. But for the one or the other formula in Latex, maybe once per 2 months, I would already have forgotten how I did it. But thanks anyway, very kind of you. 

Best,

Eise

3 hours ago, externo said:

The relativistic Doppler effect is calculated assuming that the receiver or transmitter is stationary relative to the medium.

(Bold by me)

What does 'stationary' mean? Against what? The Lorentzian aether?

How can that be, if the LTs do not contain any reference to the velocity of light measured in this 'aether'?

I think I found an even better challenge for you, @externo because it seems you have problems with even simple math. 

This is the formula for the Doppler effect in a medium:

v_r = is the speed of the receiver relative to the medium, added to 
± (above the division) = if the receiver is moving towards the source, subtracted if the receiver is moving away from the source
v_s = is the speed of the source relative to the medium, added to 
± (below the division)  if the source is moving away from the receiver, subtracted if the source is moving towards the receiver

And last, but not least:

c = is the propagation speed of waves in the medium

Now this is the Doppler formula for light, assuming the source and the receiver are moving in a straight line from/to each other:

where ß is the usual v/c.

Now tell me, where do you see the speed of light in a medium? How do you explain that it does not appear in the formula? 

The above formula, AFAIK, can be derived from the Lorentz transformations, in which, you probably noticed, the speed of light in a medium does not occur either. 

Another problem I seem to see, is that you are thinking that relativity has something to do with signal delay. It hasn't. 

So the blueshift that the observer on earth sees after the traveler has turned around, of course takes time to reach earth. That is just signal time delay, nothing special.

Nope, did not work

10 hours ago, TheVat said:

With possibly also elements of the German series, Dark.  

Except one (or two?) episodes of 'Tales from the Loop' playing with time, it is not the essence of the series, as it is in 'Dark'. The episodes of 'Tales' are relatively independent, but there are a few running threads through the episodes. But maybe this is not the place to discuss that.

Maybe the admins could open a new forum for discussing movies and series?

Ups, I did not say that! 

Again, no answer.

Plugin the LTs in the Minkowski metric, and see what you get.

I had no derivation to check, so I could answer very quickly.

The answer is in your question: animals being eaten are producers and consumers. Pretty useless question.

15 hours ago, TheVat said:

That it is still possible to find slow televisio

Did you try 'Tales from the Loop'? Beautiful SF series.

Just now, externo said:

Yes, you need an ether for Minkowski space to work in the real world. If an object accelerates and changes simultaneity the signals it receives from space always come from the same source which does not change time, there is no change in physical simultaneity of space-time, therefore there is no time vector, it's just a scalar.

Again no answer. Bye.

Just a tiny remark. As Swansont already said, it is like a chain. Now just 'zoom in into' these chain: it is all EM fields. But you do not ask how all these do work. But the macroscopic magnetic field is not different in this respect. It is just the intermediate of the force, but does no work itself.

26 minutes ago, externo said:

1 hour ago, Eise said:

Assuming that you agree that the Lorentz transformations are correct, how could they have different results when interpreting them with a Lorentzian aether on one side, and no aether at the other side?

Minkowski derived his spacetime metric from the Lorentz transformations, not from Einstein's interpretation. You can try it. Take the Minkowskian metric for spacetime distances:

(ct')² - x'² = (ct)² - x²

And then plugin the Lorentz transformations. Do it! It is not too difficult.

And?

Did you need an aether for that?

 

Lorentz transformations were derived with the idea that there was an aether and that the speed of light was constant relative to this aether. In order to remove the idea of the ether or at least remove its state of motion, we must add the condition that the speed of light is constant in both directions of motion, unlike classical kinematics. This condition allows us to get rid of the idea of a fixed frame of reference for the universe. Einstein's interpretation is therefore eroneous if there is a preferred rest reference frame for the universe.

You did not answer the questions. Looking at all your other postings here, I can only conclude you are discussing here in bad faith. Either answer my questions (and all others that were posed to you...), or I am 100% sure of that.

I am following the discussion a bit, but not precisely. In the end, I am not the expert. Still, I have a question for @externo:

Assuming that you agree that the Lorentz transformations are correct, how could they have different results when interpreting them with a Lorentzian aether on one side, and no aether at the other side?

Minkowski derived his spacetime metric from the Lorentz transformations, not from Einstein's interpretation. You can try it. Take the Minkowskian metric for spacetime distances:

(ct')² - x'² = (ct)² - x²

And then plugin the Lorentz transformations. Do it! It is not too difficult.

And?

Did you need an aether for that?

6 hours ago, MigL said:

I probably wouldn't understand his Philosophical leanings

Most of Dennett's books, can be read by laypeople, but they are still quite an intellectual challenge. Better to do 'spiraling-in reading': first reading about Dennett, and then read his own books on the topics that interest you. Just to avoid a disappointment.

And I completely forgot to give TheVat 5 ups for his OP. As I can only give one point, and I got 4, those 4 van give them to TheVat too. His summary is also great. And without his OP, I might still not have known about Dennett's death.

PS Now downloading his book I've been thinking.