Velocity_Boy

Here's a cool, accessible, light hearted even slightly humorous article telling you everything you need to know our magnetic poles and the real ramifications when they flip.

Turns out to be not such a big deal after all.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/earth-magnetic-field-flip-north-south-poles-science/

5 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Where did you get the size of the object? I think maybe you are off by a factor of 1000... 

Yeah.....he was.

Actual approximate size of EW95 is about 180 miles in diameter. That's around the long ways. It's sorta potato shaped. And is about 120 miles diameter wide.

So a bit less than half a Pluto.

Which begs the question if it can be rightly called massive?

So...now I can finally say I've seen a documentary that had changed my life. Or...at least my Outlook on life....my opinion on both our Government...and maybe even our future.

I'm speaking of the Superb, chilling, compelling, and totally Game Changing, paradigm busting documentary by Dr Steven Greer.

Unacknowledged.

Filled with unimpeachable souces all testifying about how we've been visited by extraterrestrial intelligence for decades now. And how the government had spent billions trying to hide that fact.

Yes. I did say unimpeachable witnesses. Like ex CIA directors.... military high ranking officers....the former Chief of Operation Blue Book.

Do yourself one of the biggest favors you ever will. Watch it. 

Now.

It's on Netflix and YouTube.

I'd like to get your take on it.

And after you see it will look very very forward to discussing.

But I won't answer or defend any questions or comments from those who do do without watching it first. Since such people are simply too ill informed to argue with.

Not their fault! As I said.....billions were spent insuring that.

Thanks.

Life changer, guys. And I've never said that before. About ANY book, movie, or TV show. Or any sort of media presentation.

I envy you who have not yet seen it but will do so soon. It's the sort of super enlightening kick in the teeth we rarely get.

Thanks!

20 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

Try the 'The Metamorphosis'. Weird yet thought provoking.

You beat me to the punch!

12 hours ago, MigL said:

A book has to 'connect' with the reader. The novel needs to immerse the reader in its world for it to be enjoyable.
IOW it needs to be read in the right circumstances ( such as age ).

I was fortunate to read 'classics' like Animal Farm and The Catcher In The Rye when I was in high school, and they were very hard to put down.
At that point in my life Orwell's 1984 would not have had the same effect on me as Animal Farm did.

I read Moby Dick as a teenager and found it boring, but II re-read it about 15 yrs ago, when Star Trek-First Contact came out ( Jean Luc Picard quotes Moby Dick's Capt. Ahab while discussing the Borg ) and found it excellent and certainly deserving to be called 'classic'.

Tried reading the Harry Potter stuff, even bought the Blu-ray movies, but to no avail.
Still haven't read, or watched, them.

Mostly read science fiction, but I've gone from the simplistic stuff of the 30s-50s 'pulp' , to more complex, thought provoking stuff.
The only ones I've kept ( nostalgia I suppose ) are Andre Norton's works; which are by no means 'classics'.
He was actually a she, when women didn't write science fiction.
And  she had cats ( and included them in her stories ), so she couldn't be bad.

Catcher is my all time favorite novel. I first read it as a teenager of course but since then I try to re-read it once ever couple years or so.

Thus....prolly read it about fifteen times so far.

Which reminds me......I'm about due........

21 hours ago, nevim said:

Hi Velocity Boy

I was hoping for a suggestion on something by Franz Kafka as the short story I read I didn’t think much of. 

Have to agree with Harry Potter comments. Long ago I attempted the first but abandoned it after a couple of chapters.

 

Hey Nevster.....

Well...of course Kafka is most known for The Metamorphosis, which some say is the granddaddy of absurdism. I myself read it in junior high in English and thought it was Uber cool then....but read it again in college and it struck me as sort of silly and somehow sterile. Unfinished in it's attempted message, perhaps. Hard to explain. At any rate I was nonplussed.

You might try his novel The Trial...which contains my favorite short story of his......A Little Fable.

For stand alone short stories....try The Penal Colony or maybe The Hunger Artist.

17 hours ago, Prometheus said:

I agreed with this one: still an OK book, just overrated.

 

The one and half books i read of Hemingway's. Can't remember the titles or stories; one occurred somewhere in the Florida Keys. The only thing i really remember is that every other sentence read like 'look at me, how good am I at writing, am I the best or what...'

 

Still haven't read it but it's on my list. Hope it doesn't disappoint.

 

It's a good book: the story of Jesus in particular is fantastic. But yeah, fans of the book are a little over zealous and rate it a bit too much.

 

 

A recent one that surprised me, though not a classic, was It by Stephen King: was so bored by it couldn't bring myself to finish. Normally like his stories. (Do any of his novels pass as classics? The Shining?)

Mmm...if one were allowed to narrow it down a bit from the vast pantheon of Classic Literature and discuss the arguable classics Horror and Fantasy....I am of the opinion that SK's...IT.....The Shining....Tommyknockers....The Stand...and Thinner (my personal fave of his) could all be called Classics.

14 hours ago, zapatos said:

Like most things, quality seems to be in the eye of the beholder. I loved Moby Dick and all things Hemingway.

I twice tried to battle my way through Crime and Punishment. Mostly felt like punishment to me.

I would sooner chew tin foil while shaving my head with a cheese grater than read Oliver Twist again.

For the life of me I cannot understand the fervor around Harry Potter.

Thank God for your final comment above! I was afeared I might be the only poor bastard in the world who could not get into HP. It was like some huge glaring and even worrisome cognitive disconnect with me. I was totally flummoxed and without a clue as to what could be found compelling or just plain enjoyable about the whole Hogwarts thing. Somebody would, for example, be wearing a Hogwarts or Dumbledore shirt and I'd vadk them what the hell that was... and they'd blook at me adcif I'd just grown a second head.

The only comparable experience that comes to mind...where I just could. Not. Understand. The hoopla, was with that movie Lost In Translation. That movie, indeed, still Garner's the #1 slot on my all time WTF movie list.

8 hours ago, nevim said:

I lived in Prague for 7 years and visited Kafka’s house but never actually read any of his work. Very recently, I downloaded A Hunger Artist and have to say I was a bit disappointed by it.

If anyone can recommend another title for me to try, please do.

A title in what genre? What sort of fiction do you enjoy? Maybe you could name a few favorites? Let me know and I'll offer up a couple titles.

14 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I think this is a case of littery spoilers and why they are so-called, it creates an expectation (a good read) which in turn sets up a bias "I'll be the judge of that", so instead of reading, and enjoying, the book for its yarn, one reads it solely to critique, almost determined not to enjoy it.

But in the end, it comes down to this, we all enjoy differently 

Hmm..perhaps a kernel of truth there, insofar as going into a highly lauded novel with a covert attempt to discern reasons for said lavish praise. But I for one truly rarely do this. Rather...I am looking forward to enjoying a good story and I often use past reviews to help me decide where to begin reading. If I were a professional literary critic I might be more apt to jump into a highly acclaimed novel with my red pen in hand. But believe me, I'd much rather enjoy a book I just spent twenty bucks on and thus jump on the bandwagon praising bit than to be disappointed and have another offering for my Overrated list.

Oops....that would be one Richard Doty. Sorry. My goof.

More on him here......

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alejandro-rojas/exair-force-law-enforceme_b_5312650.html

Intelligent beings visiting Earth not only CAN be looked at as science....it is science.

And of the highest order. Imagine how much more addvanced they are than we. Since they have to be travelling at least 4.3 light years to get here to the third rock. Thus...their science is to ours what is your high school frog dissection to modern neurosurgery.

This dude maybe did more than anyone on Earth to discredit UFO apologists. Even went do far as to destroy lives doing it.

All in the emoloy of Uncle.

He is quite candid about it.

And had never been discredited.

Hmm.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alejandro-rojas/exair-force-law-enforceme_b_5312650.html

On 5/7/2018 at 11:24 AM, Airbrush said:

Recently the favorability of Trump has risen.  Trump's success can partly be attributed to a large number of Americans that can be enamored, and therefore conned willingly, by a good, SLICK, sales pitch.  Many Americans don't see his mannerisms as obnoxious.  They are attracted to that brash, combative style, a "street fighter" who fights back.  SALES is a major part of the American economy.  There are many people in sales.  Their commissions depend on how good they are at pushing their product on someone.  A good salesman can sell ice cubes to the Eskimos.  Many salespersons must admire an expert salesman.  People really like to hear an upbeat, brash, carnival barker who is clever enough to keep repeating his pitch, just in case someone wasn't listening carefully.  Therefore he successfully leads people into his delusions like some kind of Jim Jones.

All too true.

But anybody who cannot see through Trump's duplicity and crass, used car salesman demeanor and sincerity level is either hopelessly biased towards him already, or is so politically obtuse that they could serve as a poster child for a Grass Roots lobby to require competency and IQ tests for voters.

They say a country gets the leaders it deserves.

If that maxim is indeed true, than we need to take one good long look in the mirror.

Intelligent life has been visiting this planet for many years.

The former Operation Blue Book head honcho once admitted to having an embarrassment of riches for UFO proof.

A guy named Steven Doty is very candid about how his job as an Air Force spook was to orchestrate cover-ups and discredit UFO witnesses and apologists.

The cover-ups are actually out of the US government hands at this point. And beyond congressional oversight.

It's really a quadi military shadow government.

I know that sounds to the uninformed like Tin Foil Hat woo. But one need only read some of Dr. Steven Greer's work on this topic.

Or maybe begin by watching Unacknowledged..on Netflix.

That doc will knock your Sox off, amigos.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6400614/

7 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I think we're talking about literature we don't like, for whatever reason.

Hmm..what I had in mind was a bit more toward hearing from you guys about particular novels you've read that were alleged literary classics, or just had a glowing and impressive critical and popular reputation....but alas, after you read it you couldn't for the life of you understand what all the hoopla was about. In other words....you were left to wonder, wtf?

Thus far we were doing novels...which are of course fiction. We could now morph this thread into discussing nonfiction books. Cone to think of it...this might be more befitting a science forum?

So let's go!

Nonfiction books that enjoyed splendid reps but left you muttering, WTF?

Thanks.

12 hours ago, zapatos said:

Like most things, quality seems to be in the eye of the beholder. I loved Moby Dick and all things Hemingway.

I twice tried to battle my way through Crime and Punishment. Mostly felt like punishment to me.

I would sooner chew tin foil while shaving my head with a cheese grater than read Oliver Twist again.

For the life of me I cannot understand the fervor around Harry Potter.

Yeah....tell me about it! To me, Dickens had always been way too wordy and just too much of a chore to read. What's the point of recreational reading if you're not enjoying it and feel like throwing the book across the room once ever twenty pages or so? Dickens and his two page long sentences. I'll leave him to his fans and the anglophiles. I actually initially typed "anything by Dickens" in my OP for this thread! But erased it when I figured it was too harsh, and besides, who am I to denigrate van author's entire opus?

One needn't bloom any further than our good buddies in Russia for an example of how climate change can be a grand thing!

Seems that, if this current warning trend continues, the permafrost on that fast frozen tundra to their East and into Siberia via gonna thaw faster than a snow cone on a Phoenix sidewalk. Thus freeing up a literal mega fortune in minerals and fuels and ores that were once much too difficult to extract.

Oh..I believe that one time stigma had nowadays in our modern world been lessened drastically. Sure, back in the day dining alone was often seen as bring tantamount to being a parish. But now? Hell...it might even be seen as cool or hip by the tech-stetilized millennials crowd.

You know.....too cool for school. Too busy and independent and on the go to be anchored by a dining partner. Or worse! Ye gods! A clinging S/O!

Besides......the hip lone diner could be texting the entire time he dined alone. Which would beg the Aristotelian question....is he really alone? LOL

For more on how it is increasingly acceptable and often even preferred to do things alone...things once meant for socializing...you might wanna read the book Bowling Alone.

Cheers.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

The Bible 

Just so, iNow.

And one could doubly piss off the godists when listing their holy book here on my list by restating that it is certainly eligible for inclusion,xsince we are talking about Overrated works of Fiction! Ouch.

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

+1 for the funny.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Ok, so that is not how it works. Metabolites that we call vitamins are synthesized by the plant, not taken up by the soil. If the soil is too depleted for necessary metabolic function, the plant will not grow sufficiently in the first place. On top of it, a fruit only diet may be too high in sugar content, compared to other nutrients. 

If we take for example vitamin C, we will find that broccoli has roughly 1.5 times the amount compared to oranges, for example (and no, the values have not changed). And even if that was the case, why the heck would vegetables be specifically depleted but not produce such as fruit? 

Good point.

Both are somewhat depleted...but veggies suffer more due to their less-nutrients-to-begin-with status. Vegetables crops are also more usually of the annual sort, where a new crop is planted every season. Norco much with fruit. In layman's terms....the veggie soils are simply more depleted and spent, thus causing them to lose a higher percentage, generally speaking, than fruits.

Fructose is of course far far better for nutrition Bryan defined sugar. Indeed, tis the best source for the human body.

On 12/10/2017 at 2:18 PM, gib65 said:

...I feed them only fruit.

I found over the years that while it can be difficult to get my kids to eat their vegetables, it's easy to get them to eat fruit. So I figured: why not just feed them fruit? Fruits are, after all, just vegetables with a higher concentration of sugar.

^ Is this right though? Am I causing my children an imbalance in their diet by feeding them only fruits and no vegetables?

I believe children are better served....pardon the pun...with an all fruit and no veggie diet rather than the other way around.

My nephew is a fruitarian and he does triathlons and set swimming and track records in school.

Any vitamin deficiency your kids incur from eating a diet bereft of veggies can easily be rectified by taking some of those specialized kids gummi vitamins that are specifically cocktailed for veggie hating children.

Besides...so poor is the nutrition state of most store bought veggies these days! Mostly from the depletionbof nutrition the played about soils they're grown in. Veggies are mainly now only good for fiber. Anything else they have..or used to have...you can glean from fruits.

2 minutes ago, Strange said:

Animal Farm - George Orwell. I thought it was trite and predictable.  Cheap caricature rather then cleaver satire.

This book is the closest anything has come to that cliche of "changed my life". But it certainly changed my attitude and approach to a lot of things.

Wow....really?

How so?

Care to elaborate on what thoughts or ideas in it you found profound or compelling?

Thanks!

Hey guys.....

In some recent conversations here, I made an offhand remark about how I thought a classic well-known novel mentioned in a post was hugely Overrated. Just my two cents, of course. But it started a bit of an exchange on the topic of Overrated books. I've always found this subject to be hugely entertaining and providing for some spirited discussions in the past.

So how about it? What allegedly classic Novels do you feel got way too much kudos or acclaim? What Novels come to mind for you when you hear the term Overrated?

Allow me to throw in first......

The Great Gatsby.....F Scott Fitzgerald

100 Years of Solitude.... Gabriel Marquez Garcia

The Scarlet Letter

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance...... Robert Pirsig. (I'm not sure this was a novel...in fact I don't think it was. But so profound was my utter dismay upon reading it...being a lifelong motorcycle devotee...and given the absurd amount of accolades it received over decades...I just have to list it.

Confederacy of Dunces.... John Kennedy O'Toole

Angela's Ashes

Moby Dick.... Herman Melville

Your turn.

Thanks.

10 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Actually, its alcohol withdrawal that kills them. 

it's because they're alcoholics. without alcohol

Exactly. Thanks for saving me the time to post that very same fact.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

And I must say...that thus far its a big "meh"

I'm having s little trouble figuring out what all the hoopla about this book is about.

A popular TV series.....and if you Google Best Fantasy Novels of the 21st Century, I can promise it will be on virtually every single list.

Why? Maybe it gets better? I'm about two thirds through.

Cheers.

On 12/24/2015 at 6:38 PM, Bill Angel said:

excerpted from chapter 53 of the book "Innocence" by Dean Koontz

 

Dean Koontz's understanding of cosmology is a bit off. All the matter of the Universe is embedded in space which is currently expanding in all directions at a speed greater than the speed of light. But the matter in the universe is not expanding toward a void in the way that Koontz is visualizing it. It is the energy of space which drives the expansion and which carries the matter of the universe along with it, rather than the matter of the universe exploding into a void like the fragments of an exploded hand grenade.

Actually...Koontz could be correct. Nobody knows for certain what the final outcome of universal expansion will be.it may end in a void where distances have become so great and the stars become extinguished from old age to where gravitational machinations are no longer a factor. In other words...a cold and lifeless void. 

The discovery of Dark Energy probably rules out the old notion of a possible Big Crunch ending. As Hawking thought might happen. It also..to me..increases the possibility of the expansion-to-cold death scenario.

Hope this helps!

On 3/30/2018 at 3:15 PM, tmx3 said:

The Vegetarian by Han Kang. It’s a must-read. 

A must read for whom?

On 5/16/2014 at 10:57 AM, fresh said:

After i read some comments on The Poisoner's Handbook, i decided not to buy this book. (see comments from

 

Valentin Rodionov)

..............

Most, if not all of the chemistry (and physics) in this book is entirely disconnected from the reality of science. Blum's treatment of poisons, analytical procedures and basic science ranges from simple misstatements, inaccuracies and misunderstandings to statements that are outright wrong. Some of these are listed below:

 

* The action of mustard chemical warfare agents has nothing to do with "becoming a ferocious form of sulfuric acid". Mustards act through alkylative damage of DNA (and other biomolecules).

* Sodium carbonate is not an acidic chemical.

* HCN is not a "potent acid".

* No additional source of hydrogen is needed to perform a Marsh test for arsenic.

* It is not likely that arsenic compounds will crystallize in the tissues of a poisoning victim.

* The Reinsch test is not a simple color test, as is implied by Blum's description. This is according to Gettler himself: [...]

* Electrical current is not measured in volts.

* Blum's description of radioactive decay, to borrow a phrase from Wolfgang Pauli, "is not even wrong".

 

This list is by no means comprehensive - these are just some of the many cringe-inducing parts in the book.

..........

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Poisoners-Handbook-Forensic-Medicine/product-reviews/014311882X/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt_sr_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

electrical current is measured in amps.

volts is a measurement of potential.

hope this helps!

On 4/8/2010 at 7:24 AM, Sisyphus said:

Short answer: no.

 

Longer answer: What happens to you in your dreams can't physically hurt you. I know this because there's no mechanism for it, no record of it ever happening, and a lifetime of my own personal experience. I've had all sorts of things happen to me in dreams, including dying.* In fact, I've even dreamed about being a ghost. Yet I'm still here!

 

At most, your emotional state in dreams might translate to increased heartrate, etc. So I suppose someone with a very weak heart might literally be "scared to death" by a dream, but even that would not be because they die in the dream.

 

*Not realistic dying, of course, since that would be impossible. You can't experience death, because death is the end of experience.

Actually...what happens in dreams...or more accurately.. Night terrors..can hurt you and even kill you.

All it takes is for the dream or nightmare to be vivid and lucid enough to cause cardiac arrest.

Given the fact that thousands of people who were illness or disease free die in their sleep ever single day on this planet, dream-spurred cardiac arrest is most likely not even all that uncommon.

One out of five alcoholics experiencing Delirium Tremens also die.

Due to cardiac arrest.

DT s are basically bad dreams brought on by the CNS s over heating due to the abrupt deprivation of a depressant chemical....alcohol in the form of ETOH5..that it has been flooded with for a prolonged and continual period of time.

Hope this helps.

On 5/3/2018 at 3:41 PM, Gian said:

The atmospheric density as well as pressure at the surface of Titan is like being in about 15-20 feet of water here on Earth and surface gravity about 0.1G. If so, does anyone know if it would be possible with flippers and the right equipment to 'swim' through the atmosphere at the surface of Titan? ta

 

Your post conjures up a cool imaginative scenario. And I love your title...it sounds like a Phillip K Dick or Kurt Vonnegut novel. LOL or a neat rock band name.

As for the actual logistics of doing such a swim on this Saturnian moon...ya gotta remember it'd be a chilly one, with an ambient temp of a brisk -300 degrees F.

Brrr!

On 5/3/2018 at 3:41 PM, Gian said:

The atmospheric density as well as pressure at the surface of Titan is like being in about 15-20 feet of water here on Earth and surface gravity about 0.1G. If so, does anyone know if it would be possible with flippers and the right equipment to 'swim' through the atmosphere at the surface of Titan? ta

 

Your lost conjures up a cool imaginative scenario. And I love your title...it sounds like a Phillip K Dick or Kurt Vonnegut novel. LOL or a neat rock band name.

As for the actual logistics of doing such a swim on this Jovian moon...ya gotta remember it'd be a chilly one, with an ambient temp of a brisk -300 degrees F.

Brrr!

Oh...a quick addendum...fwiw I predict that we will one day discover Titans seas to be the only place in our solar system that harbors..pardon the pun...life more complex than the single celled microbial level..which is all but assuredly indigenous to Mars ice sheets. VB

4 hours ago, Bender said:

I would say you both lost the bet.

The illumination of the box is irrelevant. The poison interacts with the air molecules, which interact with the atoms comprising the box, which interact with everything around. Decoherence* of the cat's state happens long before the cat is even dead.

The act of opening the box is of no importance. The only way opening the box could hypothetically matter,  is when the box is entirely isolated, which means not a single particle, photon or other, interacts with the rest of the universe for the complete duration of the experiment. Even in that unlikely scenario, it is unknown whether the cat is simultaneously dead and alive, because we don't know whether there is a limit to the size/complexity of a system to still possibly have superimposed states.

*Decoherence could be wave function "collapse", or the observer and the rest of the universe "joining" the superimposed states (in which case you simultaneously see a living cat and a dead cat ). The distinction is not really relevant for this discussion. 

And I'd say you're wrong.

The act of opening the box is the act of observation. Observation tells us the state of the particle in question.

So I think I'm sticking with Swanny's answer about how incoming photons from opening the box don't effect superposition. I think I'm also gonna do some more research. But so far I'm feeling as if I was more on target with the interpretation of S's kitty than was young Alex.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Where did Schrödinger propose all of this?

I believe it was in Austria in 1935. This Wikipedia blurb is pretty good. At least for us on the laymen level for QM.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat

9 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Right, which is why I believe studios will need to change their marketing approach in the future. Everything about the most recent Star Wars was treated as a spoiler and from what I have heard from people the film failed to deliver. A more open production where some details were made public may have enabled feedback and led to changes which might have helped make the movie better. It is very common for characters to be added, removed, scenes to be re-shot, and etc to improve a film. 

Now that you've been let down will you purchase a ticket to the next Star Wars film without knowing a little bit about it first? 

All stories do not have or require a twist. A well crafted novel or film is worth repeat viewing. I have seen Kubrick's The Shining multiple times and notice something new each time I see it. I have also seen Hitchcock's Rear Window several times and am always impressed by the limited camera angles and confined location. My favorite Novel is The Great Gatsby and I have read it multiple times. Each time I read The Great Gatsby I am strong empathize with a different character. My own life experiences at different points impacting my perspective. 

 Sixth Sense and A Beautiful Mind are not worth repeat viewing. They intentionally keep the audience in the dark for the sake of their twist. I am not a fan of that, surprise for the sake of surprise. 

Pity you don't dig ABM. I consider it Russell Crowds greatest performance. The critics and the Academy knew he got jobbed for not getting the Best Actor nod, which is why they made it up to him the very next year by giving it to him for his mediocre Gladiators role. A role many many actors coulda done.

I also usually list Gatsby on any Most Overrated Novels Ever lists whenever I do one for one of the many reader's forums I frequent. Fight up there with One Hundred Years of Solitude. But for very different reasons. I just find Gatsby hopelessly dated. It resonated with the post war lost generation Zeitgeist but I never was moved in the least from Jay's plight.

Oh well...to each their own I reckon...which is why discussing books and movies is so damn enjoyable,  eh?

. Cheers.

Hey all. I need some of physicists who are well-versed (as anyone CAN be in that weird-ass sub-field of Physics) to settle a wage I have with my young nephew. A recent EE grad who fancies himself as an expert in QM. Though I think he drastically over-estimates his prowess in that arena. So here goes...........

 We're talking about Erwin Schroedinger's well-known eponymous "Dead Cat/Live Cat" metaphor. Or thought problem....or hypothetical scenario, or whatever it is. I'm nobody's physicist but I always am forever intrigued with QM and read all I can on it, and thought I was fairly well-acquainted with the paradigm that drives the S's Cat. As you know....the good likens QM's idea of superposition and the notion of a particle being in two states simultaneously to a scenario  of a live cat placed in a steel box along with a steel hammer, some nasty acid, and a trace amount of radioactive substance. And so we have a chance that is this substance decays even a minuscule amount, it could cause a relay to trip the hammer which will break the glass vial and enable the hydrochloric acid to kill the kitty.

 Well....I always thought that ES was just sort of mocking the super-position idea, and basically saying that if we listen to Copenhagen's model, we cannot know for sure WHAT state the particle is in until we look at it. Just like we can't tell about the state of the Cat till that steel box is opened. That BOTH options are valid until observed. But nephew claims it is more than that. Not just the act of observing that stops the guessing and "makes" the particle "settle down" to just one fixed state. No...he says that the electromagnetic energy that is allowed into the heretofore dark box when we open it (photons?) actually causes the cessation of the super-position. And therefore it's not just the idea that we observe it and see what's happening. He claims this whole deal is a metaphor for how observation affects quantum states from breaking open of the closed system (the steel box) that it enjoyed before we disrupted everything.

 Wow...that was a lot harder than I thought it would be--and took longer. Sorry.

So...please tell me I haven't been totally misunderstanding this basic thought problem since I first read it about 20 years ago.

Thanks, as always...for your time and expertise.

VB

Odd man out is A from Q25 and C from Q26.

20 hours ago, MikeAL said:

I have a small question that has been teasing me of late.

If the universe is expanding, and total energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and every inch of the universe is a field (eg magnetic field), then why doesn't field strength weaken as the universe expands?

Mmm..but do Cosmologists really know for sure that the universe is expanding? And not just all the galaxies we can observe and detect?

What I mean by this....could not the universe be either infinite...thus, no need for expansion....or could it, conversely, by static with fixed and finite boundaries? And just be comprised of galaxies that are expanding and accelerating away from each other? Maybe such as expanding clumps of particulate matter swirling from the center of a vortex in a cup of liquid that had been stirred? This last scenario could explain why no discernible loss in field strength.

And remember that the law of entropy increase from Thermodynamics doesn't apply either, since the universe is likely not a closed system.

Third...yeah I know I'm asking more questions and not doing a great job of answering yours...but are we sure every inch of our universe is a magnetic field? What about vacuum? And black holes? 

I think until we figure out what the hell Dark Energy is we cannot answer your question. Indeed, DE could be an energy infusing entity itself that is stopping the electric field from lessening.

Whew...I think I feel a headache coming on.