BanterinBoson
-
Posts
38 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by BanterinBoson
-
-
12 hours ago, Phi for All said:!
Moderator Note
We make a distinction here between people and the ideas they express. We don't attack the former, but rigor demands we attack the latter with gusto. Please re-read and apply this metric, and you'll see there is nothing personal about it.
And if you ever feel there is, please use the Report Post feature. Civility is rule #1, but it's not uncivil to offer helpful criticism when it's needed.
Are you saying directing the focus to me was not directing the focus to me? I'm not clear on what you mean by "Please re-read and apply this metric, and you'll see there is nothing personal about it." I don't want to get anyone in trouble, so it's not a big deal; I'll just move along rather than entertaining the prospect of arguing my side since there is nothing good that can come from that: either I win and get Studiot in trouble or I lose... either way, I lose.
I feel there is too much emotional involvement in this thread and it's much easier to pose the question on a different site with different people who cannot possibly be emotionally involved (yet). It's like expecting a pay raise without needing to change employers; unfortunately, we have to bounce around to find better deals.
17 hours ago, swansont said:Oh, baloney. I've used lasers cooled below room temperature a number of times. Diode laser response is temperature dependent (the cavity length change as the material changes size) so you cool or heat laser diodes if you want to tune the wavelength.
I have no idea about the internals of lasers... all I know is they cut steel by melting which seems hot to me.
17 hours ago, swansont said:You already quoted the definition. More than once, I think.
"Heat is the non-mechanical transfer of energy from the environment to the system or from the system to the environment because of a temperature difference between the two. "
So it's non-mechanical? Are lasers mechanical? They would have to be in order to do work, as you said before.
What about the definition regarding entropy?
What about the definition saying the only distinction between heat and work is direction?
Simply saying they are all correct does not help me.
10 hours ago, John Cuthber said:Actually, lasers are just about the only thing you can get with a negative thermodynamic temperature.
Very cool indeed.
Cool as in cool or cool as in cool?
Negative temperatures are hotter than any positive temperatures.
0 -
15 hours ago, swansont said:
Nobody said it was instant. It's not gradual.
You'll have to elaborate on the distinction because it's not immediately obvious and my mindreading machine is in the shop.
15 hours ago, swansont said:No, I was pointing out that there is an explanation of the Casimir force that doesn't involve a particular calculation.
So you accept that 1+2+3+... = -1/12?
15 hours ago, swansont said:CM was invented well before QM. That CM fails at small scales is often mentioned in such discussions.
Yes, but then he goes on to say "That means there should be an attractive force between the metallic plates, which also seems ludicrous, since classical physics suggests there should be no force." There should be a force, which is ludicrous because an erroneous method of physics says there should be no force. Therefore, why is it ludicrous that there should be a force?
15 hours ago, swansont said:It's an example of telling nature what to do. Can you do this?
Can I make a peach tree produce apples? Yes, it's called grafting and almost all fruit trees you buy will be grafted onto a different kind of tree. Some folks have one tree producing several different kinds of fruit.
Could I make the apple portion of the tree produce another kind of fruit? Not me personally, but I'm sure humanity can monkey with the dna and make it happen eventually.
Then you'll say it's the dna that represents nature and a tree will always produce what the dna says it will and now we're on a slippery slope where you'll always have a part of nature that you will call the law until that is broken and then you'll cling to the next more-fundamental law while never conceding how humanity pushes nature around.
You may say it's a law that information cannot be transmitted faster than light, but what would you say after we read one day that they've done it through quantum entanglement or who-knows-what? Well, then it's a more-fundamental law governing the process. And then we break that one and here comes yet another proclamation that it's an even-more-fundamental law. On and on the slippery slope goes.
Now if we turn the slope the other way, then we can see all the "laws" we currently break today. Or, should I say, all the regularities they once called laws. The only law is what is possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxi-IUnCN_8
15 hours ago, swansont said:That comes across as dismissing the efforts of scientists who have worked on it, and yet you have done nothing to solve the problem. It's more than a little condescending in that view.
I watched, er, listened to this video about einstein last night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goDFoYeyQ4Y
In it, they said he published a paper and almost no one cared. If not for planck recognizing einstein, who knows where we'd be today. In the video they said if einstein had gone to college, he would not have been very good at kissing-up to a senior professor and therefore we can thank our lucky stars that he was never subjected to university politics. The way people operate and as tribalistic as they are, I feel entitled to be condescending. No one wants to honestly learn or teach, but they want to strut around showing off their big egos. If folks didn't act like such jerks, perhaps we'd be a little further along by now.
Boltzmann killed himself. Galileo had to work around the church. Newton gave lectures to empty classrooms. Edison robbed Tesla. The smartest man in the US piddles his time on a farm instead of being seized upon and utilized in productive capacities by universities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." - Howard H. Aiken. That's gotta be the all-time best aphorism.
15 hours ago, swansont said:That's not your decision to make.
Of course... more people throwing their weight around to hinder the free-exchange of ideas. Make sense. See above.
15 hours ago, swansont said:There's nothing that precludes making a coin in that fashion. People have made Möbius bagels.
Anything to prevent being wrong LOL!
15 hours ago, swansont said:How do you know it's an error? We have reason to be confident that they don't, especially in light of conservation of energy, which only works under time translation symmetry. Any evidence that the laws change?
I don't need evidence that laws change; you need evidence that they don't in order to call them laws.
7 hours ago, MigL said:Interesting discussion...
The abstract concept of reality has always been based on our measuring capabilities, whether our senses of sight and touch, or large colliders and electron microscopes. And it evolves over time according to our 'measurements'. Can we say what reality really is, or will we ever be able to ? Probably not, the best we can do is build incomplete models which mimic some of the properties/circumstances of reality, and make some predictions from them.
I say some because of course the models have limited applicability as they are incomplete.
A good example is Newtonian gravity, which being incomplete, didn't apply to high energy/high mass situations. So A Einstein introduced GR, which is still incomplete, as it cannot deal with small separations and self-coupling. I have no doubt a quantum Gravity model will eventually be introduced, but I'm sure it will not be complete, as the only accurate model of reality would be reality itself.The Reimann Zeta function is a perfectly consistent mathematical expression, and by luck it happens to model the Casimir effect. And sure, it's not intuitive. What was intuitive, and obviously wrong, was the infinite energy in the ultraviolet range in the emitted spectrum of a black body; but it just so happened that Max Planck took a 'shot in the dark" by non-intuitively introducing the quanta, and that model worked, and led to the paradigm shift that is quantum mechanics.
Notice the similarities ?Similarly, it was over a hundred years ago that E Ruthefrord fired He nuclei at gold foil and found that atoms are divisible. Previous to that we had thought for 2000 yrs that they are not. We currently think elementary particles are indivisible, and according to current models and our measurements, they are. Could that change ? Of course they could as our measurement capabilities increase. But current models work exceedingly well, and if future measurements indicate that they are not fundamental, a lot of currently accepted physics ( which works really well ) will have to be modified.
And that is what science has always done.That seems a well-articulated argument to preclude the belief in laws. Yes, the atom was named such from the Greek atomos which means undivided which is from tomos that means divided. Some philosophers consider the whole universe to be the atomos and any "things" or "events" inside are just arbitrary divisions of a continuous process.
0 -
16 hours ago, Strange said:
The scientific method is evidence based. Therefore to be "scientifically" impossible, you would need evidence. Obviously.
Define evidence.
16 hours ago, Strange said:Interesting as it is, I am going to ignore the rest of the discussion of the scientific method as it is off-topic.If you want to continue that discussion, sort a thread in the philosophy section.
Why does it matter if it is off topic? Why fight nature?
16 hours ago, Strange said:This does not sound like any explanation I have heard before. Do you have a mathematical model based on this that produces results that match the evidence? If not, it sounds like just a guess. A guess cannot be proved wrong. Only a model that makes specific predictions can be proved wrong (or shown to be consistent with observation).
Nevermind. I'll figure it out or ask the question on quora or something. Let's focus on other things.
16 hours ago, Strange said:But whatever the explanation, you appear to agree that photons are quantised and can't be partly absorbed. That is pretty much all the word "particle" conveys in this context.
Yes
16 hours ago, Strange said:I still don't see how that is an analogy for anything.
It's not important.
16 hours ago, Strange said:So you are happy to say it is a wave that cannot be divided, and don't like the word particle. That's fine. There may even be plenty of physicists who agree (certainly with disliking the "particle" word).
Yup
16 hours ago, Strange said:I have no idea what you mean by "to necessitate that therefore the particle magically pops into existence as a discontinuity of reality". All quantum theory says is that the waves of electromagnetic radiation are quantised. You seem to agree with that. Where does magic or "discontinuity of reality" come into it.
Either a photon pops into existence all at once or it evolves into existence over time. Claiming a photon is a particle that cannot be divided necessitates that it pops into existence all at once because it cannot be divided (there can't be half a photon at one instance). Therefore, there is a discontinuity in reality meaning the particle appears, fully formed, in one instant. And since we can't have discontinuities in reality, then the photon cannot be a particle.
16 hours ago, Strange said:It is important to realise that classical waves can be divided or split to form two waves with half the energy. You can see this with waves in water when they meet a barrier; with sound waves and (on the macro scale) with light waves.
How? If E=hf, then how would energy be divided? I've asked before for help in understanding how co2 can radiate IR in all directions, and if E=hf, then why does it matter that some of the IR goes to space and some to earth if E is purely a function of F. It seems intuitive to divide a 360 radiation pattern into 90 degree sections and then say one section has 1/4 of the energy, but E is purely a function of F and can't be divided like that. I've been confused for 2 weeks on this problem and have all but begged for someone to help.
16 hours ago, Strange said:But in the case of electromagnetic waves, there is a smallest size they can be split into: the quantum of electromagnetic radiation or photon.
Not saying you're wrong, but what is the evidence for that? I'm curious. I wonder why it would be that there is a smallest size. It's not that I don't believe it because it argues against infinitely smaller sizes and I find that sensible. Could it have something to do with the smallest wavelength? Since waves don't have a size, then maybe it's better to suggest it has something to do with a highest frequency.
If we take the highest-energy gamma ray known and then add more energy, what happens? I'm guessing it gains mass which interacts with the Higgs field and, consequently, slows down to become what we call a "particle". Perhaps a neutrino? What do you think of that idea?
Anyway, if we work under the assumption that there is a highest frequency, then there is a smallest wavelength and that could be the reason there is a smallest size. Thoughts?
16 hours ago, Strange said:I emphasise that because I am not really sure if you understand or accept that yet.
No, I don't fully understand it.
16 hours ago, Strange said:(I have no idea how to find the experiments measuring the time taken for a photon to be emitted. I did a quick google and didn't see anything relevant.)
Thanks for looking.
16 hours ago, Strange said:Of course it isn't. It is completely natural - it uses nature to raise animals and grow crops. Humans have done it for millennia.
I think you may have to actually engage in farming or gardening to know what I'm talking about because "Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced and even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it." - John Keats. It's like trying to describe what "red" means to a blind person and it's one of those instances where if you don't understand, then I can't explain it. We'll have to drop this topic otherwise we'll keep going round and round and it's not that important.
0 -
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:
For it to be "scientifically impossible" you would need some evidence, not just an opinion.
Do you have evidence to support that assertion? All I can imagine that you could say is that the philosophy of science has demanded that all meaningful statements be supported by empirical evidence, which is itself just a philosophical construct without supporting empirical evidence. Everyone has a metaphysical assumption that they can't prove.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:Definitely not. For one thing, a loose definition of conservation of energy just doesn't apply in GR.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/energy_gr.html
I like this: (amusingly, the energy of a closed universe always works out to zero according to this definition)
What's the problem? + + - = 0 and that's the way it ought to be otherwise there is something unaccounted for. If there were infinite energy, then one infinite positive would not cancel the other because infinity - infinity is not zero.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:It doesn't necessitate a particle. There is no particle!
Good. Glad we agree!
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:If, as you say, it was just due to the discrete energy levels in the atom, then that could absorb half the energy of a photon, leaving a photon with half the energy.
Why could it absorb half? I never allowed for that with what I said. I said it would absorb 100% of the photon because of resonance. Resonance is the point of 180 degree wave cancellation and therefore 100% absorption. That point of absorption, defined by the point of resonance, is what causes the energy levels of the electron to be what they are. That is the assertion I would like for someone to explain to me why it is wrong.
3 people now have told me I am wrong, but none have showed me why I am wrong. Why is it not that resonance determines the energy levels of the electron?
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:That is true of all particles. (A proton is a bit more complex because it is a composite particle.)
Composed of localized waves which is what a golf ball is composed of.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:Not sure I understand that analogy....
Cutting a cake in half will not cut the temperature in half.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:You can't pull two quarks apart because of confinement.
The guy I linked to said you could, but it would only result in the creation of 2 new quarks.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:All that "particleness" means is that the properties of a photon are quantised and indivisible.
Cool.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:Getting off topic here (even if it is interesting) but I disagree.
Copying statement here for reference: It is better to believe there is a god and to be wrong than to believe there isn't because our paradigm prevents transcendental thinking.
Why would you disagree? By disagreeing, you are saying it is better to have a confining paradigm than to erroneously believe in god.
By having a confining paradigm, you cannot discover what's outside the paradigm. But erroneously believing in god merely needs correction, yet the paradigm is still wide open.
QuoteI don't think one should assume either position without evidence. You don't have to choose.
Choosing to believe in god or not wasn't a part of it. The problem was about what mindset to have and whether it is better to outright reject what doesn't have evidence or to believe what doesn't have evidence. Both are logically wrong, but which is least wrong? That was the point einstein was making which I feel was summed nicely by Blake in "A fool who persists in his folly will eventually become wise."
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:Good point. (Although the latter problem originates from the first: if you don't know what you don't know, then why would you admit you are wrong!)
Well, obviously, you admit you're wrong because you discover you're wrong. If you don't discover it, then you can't admit it. Discovering isn't the problem, it's not being able to admit error and it's particularly worrisome in folks who have devoted their whole lives to an idea because swallowing that pill is nigh impossible.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:Because they are indivisible! Actually, I think there have been attempts to measure the time it takes for a photon to be emitted, from what I remember, the lower bound on the time was less than the experimental error (in other words, effectively zero).
I'd be interested in seeing those experiments. Claiming they are indivisible in this context is effectively claiming they are particles that cannot be divided instead of claiming they are waves that make no sense to divide. The reason a photon is indivisible is that it's a wave rather than a particle that cannot be divided and here you are using that "indivisible particleness" to necessitate that therefore the particle magically pops into existence as a discontinuity of reality because you think you may have seen experiments that say so (within some margin of error). I'd like to see the experiments so I can sort out what is really happening.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:You are not telling nature what to do, you are working within the bounds of what nature will allow. If you could tell nature what to do, you would grow your crops without seed or fertiliser and have them ready for market in 3 days. And perfect, because you would just tell the bugs to leave them alone. As it is, you fight a constant battle to get the best you can from nature, but she holds all the cards and defines the rules of the game.
Telling nature what to do doesn't equate to verbal commands, but instead of telling bugs to leave crops alone, we spray insecticides which tells them to leave it alone. People have grown crops without seed... ever hear of cloning? lol! They say "Plant pears for your heirs" because it takes decades before a pear tree will yield fruit when grown from seed, yet cloning a pear tree will yield pears the same year.
Farming is completely unnatural. They cut down the trees and plants that have competed successfully to establish dominance and have replaced them with plants that have no chance for survival outside of the constant nursing we provide because they have evolved in an entirely different ecosystem. They monkey with the dna, accomplishing who knows what, then turning the frankensteins loose on the planet.
Suffice it to say, telling nature what to do is what it means to be human. That seems to be the purpose of intellect... to tell dumb nature how to be better.
On 9/25/2017 at 5:36 AM, Strange said:Physics is dependent on reality (although there are some philosophers who would disagree - at least with the way that is worded). But it doesn't necessarily tell us anything about reality. It doesn't even tell us that "reality" exists (hence the previous parenthetical comment). We have no way of knowing what reality is or if it exists. All we know about is what our senses tell us. Physics (science in general) isn't about "truth" or what is "really" there. It just formalises the models we get from our senses and uses it to build models of the world we perceive. It doesn't mean that world is anything like our models, nor even that it exists.
Agreed.
0 -
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:
Because we've done experiments that preclude this possibility.
Not gradual ≠ instantaneous
It just means short amount of time
You contradicted yourself. Either it is instant or it is not.
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:When did I claim the answer was intuitive? That wasn't what I was attempting to show.
You were attempting to show that 1+2+3+... should be the intuitive answer of infinity or, anyway, much larger than -1/12. "intuitive" was just a label to save time.
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:I've already explained what was meant in that context. Classical physics incorrectly predicts effects at small scales. That's what was meant. Not that is is impossible to make a prediction, but that the predictions are unreliable and often flat-out wrong. Saying you can't do something doesn't necessarily imply it's impossible.
Almost. CM says no force, but CM is wrong, as is often the case when applied at these scales.
The distinction that CM doesn't make reliable predictions at small scales is irrelevant because small scales was the topic and therefore CM should have never been mentioned in the entire article.
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:You sound like Shifu in Kung Fu Panda
"I can control when the fruit will fall. And I can control... [Tosses the peach in the air and chops it in half] ...Where to plant the seed."
And I respond
"But no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach."
IOW, you will always work within the laws of nature. You don't control them, and you don't get to decide what they are.
I never implied a peach tree would produce apples, but planting a peach tree in the desert is fighting nature which is evidenced by the fact that you'd have to nurse it constantly just to keep it alive. In harmony with nature is planting peaches in areas where peaches have evolved to live. Laws of nature are observed regularities and some regularities are more regular than others and what we call a law of nature and what we call a preference of nature is just an arbitrary and artificial distinction. We can break some laws for a while just like swimming against the current, but eventually the current will reassert itself.
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:Depends on what you mean. One interpretation of the statement is that there should already be one. Which is an unreasonable expectation.
Well there should be one. You think it's unreasonable because I expect too much, but that doesn't change the fact that there should be one.
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:Because physics does not include discussions of what is real, or the nature of reality. If you want to talk about evolution, I'd ask you to leave the physics section, too.
Look how this topic has evolved. Do you really think anyone, besides the AI bots, will ever read this thread? All this organization is wasted energy... we're lucky to have one person read it once. It's more fruitful to have it evolve how it wants rather than try to control nature
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:Sure. Have you ever heard of a Möbius strip?
I thought of that when I typed it and already knew a mobius strip is not a coin.
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:Seems like a tautology, but yes. A simpler way of saying this is that you are unable to do the impossible. To claim otherwise is silly, no? So to put it in your terms, you don't get to tell nature what is possible or impossible.
I shouldn't have to. But in the day when they thought the atomos were indivisible particles, if I had said there is no such thing, then some guy would have said "You can't tell nature what to do." You see, it's not nature who I am telling
On 9/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, swansont said:We're not telling nature anything. We're telling people what we observe and infer from how nature behaves. I don't see how that makes it such that laws are not laws, or they could change at any minute.
Well, we know of no law saying that laws cannot spontaneously change. All the laws are is observed regularities. To assume that they are eternal and unbending laws is an error.
0 -
14 hours ago, studiot said:
I really don't know why I am bothering but I will spell it out in simple sentences.
- You have asked a Chemistry question in the Chemistry section of this forum.
- You insist in the above quoted definition of Resonance.
- I have not told you this is incorrect.
- I have told you that your definition is appropriate to the Physics of Mechanical vibrating systems.
- I have also told you that there is a separate, very different definition in Chemistry.
- I have also told you that this usage has nothing to do with vibrating systems. In fact it applies to the carbon dioxide molecule whether it is vibrating or not.
- You have steadfastly refused to discuss this.
In these circustances I can only suggest adding Chemistry to John Cuthber's list for you to study.
I have also told you that the vibrations in question are not due to the promotion of electrons to higher energy levels.
Again in your responses you steadfastly continue to promote this fiction, as with the quoted response to swansont.It is because you focus on ME and not the TOPIC. I would enjoy talking to you more if I were not the subject of the conversation. Perhaps YOU should start a topic in the psychology section
Quote7. You have steadfastly refused to discuss this.
I do not remember steadfastly refusing to discuss anything.
Since the topic has now changed to psychology, here is the problem:
On 9/13/2017 at 4:18 PM, studiot said:Despite your unappreciative/unhelpful remarks in your last reply to me I will try one more time to help.
On 9/14/2017 at 8:53 AM, studiot said:I am saying it like this because you chose to simply quibble by ignoring various helpful comments I made to enliven and enrich the discussion.
On 9/15/2017 at 6:27 PM, studiot said:Finally your response to my observation that waves are larger than the obstruction leaves much to be desired.
On 9/22/2017 at 4:01 PM, studiot said:when I recommend forgetting resonance I also offered a reason so I was suprised you did not ask for this rather than your actual response.
On 9/25/2017 at 8:43 AM, studiot said:But sadly I can only conclude the following from this address as the only response to an explanation, already twice given:-
I take this last bit to mean
"My mind is made up so don't confuse me with the facts"
I actually do like you, but interacting with you makes me feel like crap and the situation is out of my control because I cannot spontaneously make myself as smart as you'd like me to be. It seems no matter what I say, you're going to find some fault in how I replied... and it's not that I'm steadfastly against improving myself, but the frequency of occurrence is approaching 100% which leads me to believe there is no way to live up to your standards and any effort is futile.
I'll concede to you that I am not the most observant person and I'm always the one who walks all over a snake without ever seeing it or makes a chess move without seeing the bishop lurking in the corner, so it's very possible I read right over a point you made and didn't see it, but for you to say my mind is made up is an offense against my character and integrity and is tantamount to calling me a liar. It's true I tend to stick to my guns, but I will not be an example of cognitive dissonance. If you show me evidence that I should change my mind, then I will change it and any evidence you think you have to the contrary is likely a misinterpretation on your part or perhaps a lack of perception on mine, but I assure you it is not because I am unable to be wrong. In this thread I was wrong about gamma rays and I was wrong about thinking EMWs affected matter regardless of charge and I'm sure I'll be wrong about more things, but I can't say I'm wrong until someone shows me how I am.
14 hours ago, studiot said:I am sorry you do not want to explore this fascinating subject, but rather chose to fight tooth and nail to bend observed phenomena to your own limited viewpoint.
I agree it is fascinating, but quite honestly, I'm considering taking the topic to another board because it has gotten too personal here and the answer you supplied, I can't make any sense of it. Perhaps there is a language barrier. Anyway, it's a cryptic answer and therefore the upvote indicates a tribalistic uniting against a common enemy (ie me), so that's my cue to seek greener pastures.
15 hours ago, swansont said:studiot has covered this. In the systems we are discussing, resonance is when two different things match in frequency (energy of the photon, and energy level difference in the atom). But the energy structure of an atom or molecule does not rely on this, and is not because of vibration. i.e. it's not a ball on a spring.
And this answer is simply a statement; not an explanation.
15 hours ago, swansont said:Lasers do not rely on a temperature difference. Therefore, they cannot be heat.
Another statement; not explanation. Lasers are much hotter than ambient.
15 hours ago, swansont said:Which are consistent with each other.
I asked how you would define it and that is the best you can do?
Thanks, everyone, for your help, but I'm taking further questions to a different arena.
0 -
12 hours ago, mikeco said:
I suspect that the opposite of humility is arrogance, because they are both attitudes, and thus you have one attitude as the opposite of another attitude, rather than an attitude (humility) as the opposite of a desire (pride). For God's definition of pride (pride is the desire to command respect) states that pride is a desire, not an attitude. And that desire is the thing from which all negative attitudes develop, including hate. You can have pride without hate but you generally cannot have hate without first having pride. Hence, it would appear that hate, indifference, arrogance etc are PRIDEFUL ATTITUDES that are opposite the LOVING ATTITUDES...of kindness, concern, humility, helpfulness, patience, compassion, and so on. But what is the opposite of love itself? I suspect it is pride.
Does love always build? I meant that generally it does.
Love builds, but it may build destructive things. It depends on perspective. If you love your garden and seek to build it, then you're going to hate the pests and seek to destroy them because they threaten what you love. If you love your pet and seek to build a healthy animal, you will have to hate the parasites because they threaten the health of your pet. Do you have to be proud of your pet in order to hate the parasites? I'll leave it for you to decide.
How do you define humility?
We should carefully define terms before determining opposites since words only mean what you want them to mean. So before beginning any discussion we have to sort out what means what in order to communicate because what we are actually comparing are concepts where the words are merely labels for convenient conveyance of the concepts we have in mind. Often, disputes arise because folks are unable to agree on definitions to words, so determining agreeable definitions should be the first step to all conversation.
Arrogance defined by dictionary.com is an offensive display of superiority or self-importance. By that definition (which is not the ultimate authority), arrogance is one of many possible results of pride (defined as the desire to command respect).
There are 7 definitions for pride as a noun and 1 as a verb, and none capture the meaning I have in mind, but only aspects of it because pride is much deeper than a high or inordinate opinion of one's own importance, merit, or superiority. In fact, one can be proud of their humility and that concept is central to the idea of trading chains of iron for chains of gold where once we were proud of our sins which we boasted before the guys and now we're proud of our virtues and boast before the lord. It's the same trap made from different chains and therefore the potential for boasting is integral to pride.
Paul said, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." That one verse does away with the practice of religion entirely because if there exists ANY work that can be done to improve our condition, then that accomplishment will be a reason to brag and pride comes back in. The whole point is to realize that there is nothing we can do and therefore no reason to boast about anything and that faith releases us from the grip of pride and that is what saves us while the ego is the aspect of us that dies.
I like this short story:
Gurdjieff said that in order to be born, we must first die and in order to die, we must first be awake.
I think you're on the right track and even if you are wrong here or there, you will eventually become right as long as you continue sniffing in the direction you are heading. I've gone as far as wondering if the whole and singular purpose of life (if life were to have a purpose) is to learn to overcome pride since no proud entity could ever be trusted in a situation of power and if there is a graduation to a higher existence, one cannot move up while lugging an ego; hence, why the meek inherit the earth and only the pure in heart can see god.
0 -
14 hours ago, swansont said:
It gets complicated. You'd have to integrate the earth's emission over the absorption band of the CO2, the look at the CO2 emission profile (probably a dipole radiation pattern, so it's not isotropic, but that might not matter). And that's just one absorption. You would have to look at whether re-radiated is then absorbed, and then a third absorption, etc. for the entire thickness of the atmosphere.
Fortunately, people have done this already. Probably no need to re-invent the wheel. Just find what they've done.
I'd be content just knowing how to figure it for one abstract molecule without the complications of the entire atmosphere. Reinventing wheels teaches me how to make wheels
14 hours ago, swansont said:edit: such as http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=4265
models calculating this (i.e. search terms to use) will include Beer's law and Kirchoff's law
That's a helpful link and I will have to study that more. The last comment on the page tipped me off to Stefan-Boltzmann which allows me to describe power in terms of area of a blackbody, which is what co2 is at a certain frequency. At least I can say "this many watts goes to space and that many heads to earth", but first I have to decide how much area a co2 molecule has and what T will be.
The Beer's law requires an optical depth, so I'm not sure that applies here.
I'm still struggling to learn the nomenclature:
Roughly, the temperature of a body at rest is a measure of the mean of the energy of the translational, vibrational and rotational motions of matter's particle constituents, such as molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. The full variety of these kinetic motions, along with potential energies of particles, and also occasionally certain other types of particle energy in equilibrium with these, make up the total internal energy of a substance. Internal energy is loosely called the heat energy or thermal energy in conditions when no work is done upon the substance by its surroundings, or by the substance upon the surroundings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_temperature
That looseness is what makes this difficult and the last thing I want to start doing is associating heat with stored energy. Maybe the best way to attack this is to make a spreadsheet of every term (heat, internal energy, thermal energy, radiance, spectral radiance, radiant flux, temperature, thermodynamic temperature, yada yada) so I can have it all in front of me to make sense of.
The math and the concepts are straightforward, so the language is the only barrier.
14 hours ago, swansont said:Light is heat when it comes from thermal radiation. Light from non-thermal sources e.g. a laser, or fluorescent light, is not heat. (it would be included in "work" in the energy equation)
Huh? Why do you want to confuse me like that? lol! How is light from a laser not heat? How is a fluorescent light doing work?
I'm getting a variety of answers:
1) In thermodynamics, heat is often contrasted with work: heat applies to individual particles (such as atoms or molecules), work applies to objects (or a system as a whole). Heat involves stochastic (or random) motion equally distributed among all degrees of freedom, while work is directional, confined to one or more specific degrees of freedom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat
2) Work is any energy transfer that does not carry entropy. Heat, on the other hand, is any energy transfer that carries entropy.
3) Work is the mechanical transfer of energy to a system or from a system by an external force on it. Heat is the non-mechanical transfer of energy from the environment to the system or from the system to the environment because of a temperature difference between the two. The conversion of mechanical energy (work) to heat is very efficient, nearly 100%. But the conversion of thermal energy (heat) to work is not so because heat is a low grade energy. https://www.quora.com/In-thermodynamics-what-is-the-difference-between-work-and-heat-I-was-thinking-about-this-when-studying-Carnot-Cycles-and-adiabatic-processes-How-can-a-system-do-work-in-isolation-What-is-it-doing-work-on-Where-is-that-energy-going
I like this one:
4) You are right. Microscopically, work and heat are just about the same. Both involve molecular collisions transfer energy from one object to the other.
Work involves a kind of "coherent" transfer in a manner of speaking, in which the collisions are predominantly, and to an extreme degree, in one direction. Also, typically the force is applied to one location on the object. And importantly, the boundary of the system is displaced. (E.g. translation or deformation)
On the other hand, transfer of energy by heat is "incoherent", many directions, and typically in all directions. And importantly, the boundary of the system is not displaced.
Finally, everyday phenomena fall into one or the other category, and they differ in their macroscopic behavior. Loosely speaking, when heat is transfered the temperature rises. When work is done, the boundary of the system changes. Of course adding heat generally also results in the boundary moving [say, expanding], and work generally results in a temperature change [Joule's experiment]. I'm trying to motivate the macroscopic separation between work and heat without a lengthy discussion.
To the engineers who first worked all of this out, the very existence of atoms was unknown. To them, the separation between heat and work was very clear. They had little reason to view them as manifestations of the same microscopic process. They thought that heat was a physical fluid. In any event, their remarkable achievements have stood the test of time. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/135539/why-work-w-and-heat-q-are-different-concepts
What do you think? What's the best way to write distinct definitions for work and heat?
12 hours ago, swansont said:You can excite an atom in other ways (e.g. collisions with other atoms). The energy levels exist independent of photons. Therefore it would be wrong to say that the energy level depends on the photon.
Regardless how we excite the atom (photon or collision) it is still resonance that determines the energy level of the electron, right? So it's the mass and bond strengths that determine the energy levels. I don't understand why that would not be correct.
Here is what I said before:
It seems like it would be the resonance of the atom that determines the point where a photon would be absorbed and that would define the difference in energy levels. Not the other way around, which is the difference in energy levels determines if a photon is absorbed and that defines the resonance because it doesn't make sense that way. It's putting the cart before the horse.
12 hours ago, swansont said:Again, atomic structure can be calculated and/or investigated, and it exists, independent of the proximity of any photons.
Right, as a function of mass and bond strengths which determine both resonance and energy levels.
14 hours ago, studiot said:Yes I noticed so hopefully you understand the significance of the separation of charge
But sadly I can only conclude the following from this address as the only response to an explanation, already twice given:-
Well, I wasn't done replying to your post as I wasn't done studying it in hopes of replying with something that would be to your satisfaction.
14 hours ago, studiot said:I take this last bit to mean
"My mind is made up so don't confuse me with the facts"
Not at all and I have no idea how you came to that conclusion as I took special care to prevent anyone from coming to that conclusion. Anyway, I've discovered the limits to my patience for walking on eggshells only to still be incapable of making you happy, so whatever. I'll figure it out with or without your help and if having your help means the continual negotiation of derogatory implication then I'd prefer to go-it alone. Thanks for trying.
10 hours ago, John Cuthber said:First, you stop trying to run before you can walk.
Then you take classes in physics, maths and quantum mechanics.
Then, with luck you can apply time dependent perturbation theory to the question.
Alternatively, you can read it off the graph posted in the OP
Thanks
0 -
The opposite of love is hate because love has no meaning without the contrasting backdrop of hate and in order to love, we must hate what threatens what we love. One cannot exist without the other.
Neither love nor hate requires the existence of indifference to give meaning and if indifference is the opposite of love, it must also be the opposite of hate and that's nonsense since something can't have 2 opposites.
Graphically:
Love..... Indifference.... Hate. It's clear that the poles are love/hate and the midpoint is indifference.
Positive..... No charge.... Negative. The midpoint = the summation of and consequent cancellation of the poles.
The opposite of indifference is difference, obviously, since "in" = negation. So, it's care/not-care. If you hate, you care. If you love, you care. If you neither, then you don't care.
Therefore, I would describe indifference as the absence of the love/hate duality or the summation or unification of the duality which is a cancellation.
4 hours ago, mikeco said:Sorry about the long post....hard to explain in a few words. But this is why I see pride as the opposite of love. Pride destroys. Love builds.
You are definitely on the trail of something right with your observations on pride, but the opposite of pride is humility, and humility is the beginning of wisdom while pride precedes a fall.
Love doesn't always build because what about he who loves destruction? Does not the devil love the devilish?
But I wholeheartedly resonate with your assessment on the profoundness of pride and I feel that the pre-adulterated purpose of christianity, buddhism and hinduism shared the common goal of attaining humility; now they're mostly yet another form of one-upmanship; subtly or not.
0 -
16 hours ago, John Cuthber said:
You are muddling several things together there.
The amount of light reflected by gases is usually so small you can ignore it.
As was calculate earlier the reflection by the Earth's atmosphere is only something like 20 parts in a billion.
E=hf is true for a single photon.
But it's not the point.
A photon will only be absorbed if it's the "right" energy to promote the molecule to an excited state with a higher energy- for IR that's usually a case of setting the molecule vibrating.
So for carbon dioxide at wavelengths where it's absorbed light won't be reflected, it gets absorbed and the energy gets redistributed among the gas molecules and the gas gets warmer. For wavelengths where the gas doesn't absorb, the IR will just pass straight through.
Very little of it would be reflected.(some of it will be scattered- again that's a small effect)
Generally, reflection takes place at interfaces between things- like the surface of a piece of glass. The atmosphere doesn't have a "surface"- it fades gradually as you get higher, so there's very little reflection.
Ok, I understand all that. So how do I figure the amount of energy, heat, whatever-it's-called absorbed by the co2 molecule at the right IR frequency? And after I've done that, then how do I figure the amount radiated back to earth in a 90 degree cone?
Also, I need help with nomenclature. Light = heat because heat is energy in travel. Is that right? What is the energy inside a vibrating atom called? Kinetic, I know, but does it have a more specific name?
Thanks!
14 hours ago, swansont said:Not proud, but that's the way it is. Speciation/evolution, as applied to etymology.
(see what I did there? "/" means division in math, but has a different interpretation in language.)
Yeah, but that's hijacking for convenience and not formal definition. The numerator and denominator are opposites and so in language the convention carries over for true/false, on/off, etc. It is also the numerator in terms of the denominator, as you wrote it, so speciation in terms of evolution instead of speciation in terms of creation. Computers have changed our way of thinking and now "/" often means a subset, so it would be Evolution/Speciation/next subset which is a lot like the reciprocal of the "in terms of" definition, so none of it really deviates far from the mathematical meaning of the symbol.
14 hours ago, swansont said:We can observe nature, but we never can be sure we are observing reality.
Now that's deep! Good one
0 -
On 9/23/2017 at 7:38 AM, swansont said:
They either misrepresented or under-represented the solution. You can subtract the two series (energy density of free space - energy density between the plates). If you only look at the excluded states, you get a convergent series and a finite value.
I don't understand what you're trying to say there. If the zeta function describes what happens between the plates and the answer is unintuitive, but experiments confirm the unintuitive answer, then how does that prove the answer should be intuitive?
QuoteThat's not a contradiction. CM doesn't deal correctly with small scales. It obviously tries to, but it fails.
It is a contradiction. He said:
"classical physics doesn't reckon with the weird effects you see when you look at the world at very small scales"
"That means there should be an attractive force between the metallic plates, which also seems ludicrous, since classical physics suggests there should be no force."
If he has already determined that CM cannot make predictions, then why is he using it to make predictions?
Essentially he has said, "There shouldn't be an attractive force because CM says so even though CM has no capability to say anything."
QuoteYou don't get to tell nature how to behave.
As much as you say that, I beginning to wonder if it's some sort of wishful chant lol
I tell nature how to behave all the time. That's the essence of farming... we bring in plants that nature would prefer to be elsewhere and force them to grow with fertilizers and then fight nature's desire to have to bugs eat the crops with insecticides, etc, etc. Human existence is essentially telling nature what to do. It's exceedingly rare to find someone who lives in harmony with nature.
QuoteBut by all means, go and develop one. If you are unwilling or unable, I don't think anyone will give much weight to your opinion about what "should" be the case.
I think your thinking is erroneous. If I say there should be a unified theory and you say most people will disagree with my sentiment, then I'm betting you are wrong in that prediction. Because, if you are right, then there would be no motivation to find one. You are essentially saying that it's better to have 2 theories than 1.
There should be a lot of things and just because I can't solve the world's problems does not make what should be any less true.
QuoteThat's kinda the point here.
So you agree with me then that a particle, like a golf ball, cannot go through two slits at the same time?
QuoteIs a buckyball a particle?
I'm not sure. Once upon a time I thought it was, but now I don't know. Since it can go through 2 slits at once, I suppose it is not.
QuoteDid I say that? No, I did not. So I am not saying that.
You said, "Energy is a property. If you want to talk about fundamental reality, we have a philosophy section."
I said, "Are you saying physics is independent from reality?"
Your reply is "no".
So if I want to talk about reality, why must I leave the physics section to do so?
QuoteNo, we most certainly do not. Nature doesn't dictate logical inconsistencies — that's something of our own construction. But you can't tell nature to have things spontaneously fall up, or create energy. The impossibilities are nature's doing, and not from any decision people have made.
Falling up is not logically impossible, but having an 'up' without a 'down' is impossible. Can nature create a one-sided coin? Nature does what it wants inside the bounds of what is possible and laws of nature are merely observed regularities because no law exists in nature except that of what is possible.
So it would seem that physics itself has imposed upon nature by declaring regularities to be laws that nature cannot break and if we work under the assumption of not being able to tell nature how to operate, then we've conceded that the laws are not laws and could change at any moment and therefore we have no construct under which to function. Can you imagine the ramifications if c were a little faster tomorrow and a little slower by the weekend?
0 -
19 hours ago, Strange said:
Not of infinite duration. A single frequency must last for an infinite time to be a single frequency. A "real" signal will not be of infinite duration and therefore cannot be a single frequency.
A sine wave generator is not outputting a single frequency? Why all the effort to distinguish single frequencies and claim they are infinite? I can't see the goal where this is leading and I can't see how the distinction is possible. If a single frequency must last for infinite time, then there will never come a day where infinite time has past and therefore single frequencies can never exist.
19 hours ago, Strange said:I don't think the uncertainty principle is particularly related to this topic, it is just another example where the Fourier transform means that if you define one thing more precisely (e.g. a shorter signal or the position of a particle) then the complementary property (e.g. bandwidth or momentum) is less precise.
Oh I see. That's an interesting observation.
19 hours ago, Strange said:You are, of course, free to believe that. But there is no scientific basis for it being impossible.
If there were infinite energy and matter were created from it, then infinite energy would still remain. Why is that not scientifically impossible?
19 hours ago, Strange said:Energy, and specifically energy conservation, is not well defined on cosmological scales anyway.
I'd consider the loosest of definitions of energy conservation to be plenty sufficient to prevent the idea of infinite energy. You wouldn't?
19 hours ago, Strange said:Sorry: autocorrect error. Should have been "point-like". So a photon has no well-defined position in space (or size). So, for example, it is able to go through both slits of a double slit experiment. But, when it interacts, it always happens at a single pint (an atom in the detector, for example).
I don't see why that necessitates a particle. Interaction determines point-like behavior because interaction of a wave with an atom determines discrete energy level differences at resonance which absorbs an entire photon.
19 hours ago, Strange said:A classical wave is divisible; it can split at the surface of a piece of glass with half passing through and half being reflected. An individual photon cannot split like that. It is either entirely reflected or entirely passes through.
I just learned that a wave is not reflected, but re-emitted. The original wave passes straight through and combines with the re-emitted wave to experience a shift in phase.
19 hours ago, Strange said:An atom can absorb a whole photon or nothing. This is why the photoelectric effect was so important to establishing the quantised nature of light.
So because a wine glass will resonate at one frequency, then can we infer sound is a particle? An atom will absorb when it resonates because the charges emit 180 degree waves that cancel the photon while all the energy of the photon will transfer to kicking the electrons up to the next level. That doesn't mean the photon is a particle and it seems the fact that it is absorbed at all is evidence for it not being a particle. Discreteness doesn't mean particle, does it?
19 hours ago, Strange said:As far as we can tell, there are a number of fundamental particles (electrons, photons, quarks, etc) that are indivisible.
Have a look at the answer designated by 179 upvotes by David Z https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/81190/whats-inside-a-proton?rq=1
A proton is really made of excitations in quantum fields (kind of like localized waves).
If quarks are localized waves, then being indivisible is splitting a wave only to have the same thing you began with. It's like trying to cut the temperature in half by cutting the cake in half.
And if we pull two quarks apart, a new pair pops into existence from the energy used to pull the quarks apart.
FWD to 3:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztc6QPNUqls The whole video is good actually.
19 hours ago, Strange said:That is an odd question when I have just said they are not particles.
Not really, look at the previous quote of what you said
19 hours ago, Strange said:You may be describing the Stern-Gerlach experiment which showed that spin is quantised and is not directly related to the particle-like nature. (Unless you consider that the fact that all quantum properties are quantised to be an indication of the particle-ness of quanta.)
Yes, that's the one. So it was a silver atom.
Well, again, the quantumness doesn't necessitate particleness; it only necessitates a discrete part of a continuum.
19 hours ago, Strange said:There is a clear distinction: science deals in testable models, philosophy doesn't.
I suppose we need to define "testable", but your philosophy appears to be that "testable" is independent from reason as if we can't obviously test the hypothesis of a true lie and determine it does not exist without resorting to empirical evidence. That's like saying "All statements must be backed by empirical evidence; except this one." Science grew out of philosophy like an apple grew from an apple tree.
The top answer here saved me some typing https://www.quora.com/Is-philosophy-a-subset-or-superset-of-scientific-practice
19 hours ago, Strange said:He means, he doesn't think it is reasonable to think that what we can see and measure is all there is. That there is something "beyond" that. Something spiritual or numinous.
I think what you said is close to what I said, except that I wouldn't have said "that there IS something beyond" because we can't assume there is something beyond, but it is better to assume there is something beyond than to be sure that there is not. Do you see what I am trying to say?
It is better to believe there is a god and to be wrong than to believe there isn't because our paradigm prevents transcendental thinking.
19 hours ago, Strange said:(I hope you are not trying to defend the "I don't know anything about it but I am thinking outside the box" argument of crackpots. Who don't even know where the box is or what is in it.)
I see what you're saying, but the problem isn't thinking outside the box or not knowing where the box is, but in not being able to admit error. "Oh well, it was an interesting idea, but back to the drawing board." That's the crackpot and they're really no different than anyone else because the ego is common to all and, coincidentally, it also has particle and wave-like properties in that it is indivisible and infinite in range
19 hours ago, Strange said:If your lamp emits single photons, then it either emits a photon or doesn't. It can't emit a partial photon or emit a photon gradually. The photon is either there or it isn't.
How do you know a photon is not emitted gradually? Wouldn't instantaneous emission violate the "faster than light transmission of information" thing? The speed of causality? Unless, of course, by photon you mean the very start of a waveform, but even the beginning had a cause. How can there be discontinuities in the transfer of information? If there were, then the info would be lost.
Good conversation, Strange. If guys named Strange are normal, then I'll have to watch out for guys named Norm
0 -
14 hours ago, John Cuthber said:
It usually can.
What are you struggling with?
Complaining that the definitions are not absolutely concrete is like complaining that you can't use English because it's full of words like "stone" that have more than 1 meaning.
Well, if you know what you are talking about the meaning is usually clear from the context, and if it's not, you can ask for clarification.
Probably why they say English is one of the hardest languages to learn and I'm not such a big fan of it because I find most arguments have semantics for fuel.
QuoteWhat are you struggling with?
Thanks for asking!
I'm struggling with how to describe the amount of... I don't know what to call it... energy, heat, internal energy... in a co2 molecule due to the absorption of IR radiation and then compare that to the amount reflected in the visible band. I don't know how to do that because E=hf and therefore the amount reflected > the amount absorbed because E is purely a function of frequency.
Another problem I have is how to differentiate the amount of IR re-radiation traveling towards earth vs the amount travelling to space. If we assume the re-radiation forms a cone of 90 degrees over the earth (which is the total possible paths a ray could take to strike a sphere), then it "seems" like energy should be divided by 4 (360/90 = 4), but it's not because E=hf.
I am confused by the fact that heat is energy in transmission and not energy in storage, so the energy contained in a vibrating molecule is not heat, but the energy emitted is. So is the energy of the vibrating molecule called internal energy? Do I quarter the internal energy to find what I need? Or am I looking for heat? And in the case of the visible light reflection, am I looking for heat? I'm totally lost and I'm not even sure how to ask a question properly.
I also need a diffusion index for co2 because I need to know how much light is reflected at each frequency.
On 9/22/2017 at 4:01 PM, studiot said:That would be because you misread my text.
I didn't say phase charge separation, I said the phrase charge separation.
I can only assume you understand the meaning of charge separation.
Oh goodness... I'm such a goofball! I thought you misspelled "phase" as "phrase" and upon being corrected, I then googled "phrase charge separation" like an idiot lol. I was thinking, "What the heck is 'phrase charge separation? Google has nothing about it." Then it occurred to me that you meant the phrase "charge separation." Next time use quotes when dealing with dummies
I knew the meaning of "charge separation", but I did not know it was called that.
Wiki says - Photoinduced charge separation is the process of an electron in an atom or molecule, being excited to a higher energy level by the absorption of a photon and then leaving the atom or molecule to a nearby electron acceptor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoinduced_charge_separation
I have a question about the last statement on that page:
If a photon of light hits the atom it will be absorbed if, and only if, energy of that photon is equal to the difference between the ground state and another energy level in that atom. This raises the electron to a higher energy level.
Why is it not better to say that the difference between the ground state and another energy level is the point where a photon is absorbed? Why does the photon depend on the energy level and not the energy level depend on the photon? Do you see what I am asking?
It seems like it would be the resonance of the atom that determines the point where a photon would be absorbed and that would define the difference in energy levels. Not the other way around, which is the difference in energy levels determines if a photon is absorbed and that defines the resonance because it doesn't make sense that way. It's putting the cart before the horse.
Resonance is a function of mass and bond strength and resonance determines if a photon is absorbed and therefore is it resonance that determines the difference in energy levels. Why is that not correct?
______________________________________________________________
Damn merging!
I hope Studiot notices that I addressed him.
Can someone please give me a reason why anyone would desire to have their replies all merged together? I can't see how that is a handy feature and it's exceedingly frustrating to have what I wrote to Studiot to be merged with what I wrote to John.
0 -
14 hours ago, swansont said:
You're wrong, so why would anyone reply with the former?
Because I am not wrong and have supplied evidence illustrating that I am not. If you need more evidence, then I'd enthusiastically accept the invitation to vent frustration while simultaneously proving just how right I am if I could post here every time I find ambiguity while researching. Here is another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavenumber#Definition
14 hours ago, swansont said:Physics ≠ Astronomy
That's a weak defense as astronomy depends on physics.
14 hours ago, swansont said:I'll bet you can find lots of terms whose definition differs from one field to the next.
You're probably right and that isn't something to be proud of.
14 hours ago, swansont said:Reality is something you might discuss in philosophy. Physics uses models to describe how nature behaves. You use the model best suited to the job.
It's not the job of physics to describe reality. It describes how nature behaves.
What's the difference between nature and reality?
0 -
I can add "phase" to the "list".
The term phase can refer to several different things:
It can refer to a specified reference, such as {\displaystyle \scriptstyle \cos(2\pi ft)\,}, in which case we would say the phase of {\displaystyle \scriptstyle x(t)\,} is {\displaystyle \scriptstyle \varphi \,}, and the phase of {\displaystyle \scriptstyle y(t)\,} is {\displaystyle \scriptstyle \varphi \,-\,{\frac {\pi }{2}}\,}.
It can refer to {\displaystyle \scriptstyle \varphi \,}, in which case we would say {\displaystyle \scriptstyle x(t)\,} and {\displaystyle \scriptstyle y(t)\,} have the same phase but are relative to their own specific references.
In the context of communication waveforms, the time-variant angle {\displaystyle \scriptstyle 2\pi ft\,+\,\varphi }, or its principal value, is referred to as instantaneous phase, often just phase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_(waves)
I know what phase means, but I don't know what science says it means because the definition is loose and ambiguous.
I just sat down to study some science and the first thing I encounter is "the term you would like defined is ambiguous". I couldn't believe it, so I immediately came here to elucidate the frustration I'm experiencing.
And the defense was that it takes years of study to learn physics whereas I'm jumping in the middle. I'm not sure about that... it takes years of study because of stuff like that ^. It's rampant! I'm on the learning-end here and I'm telling ya it's as if the muddling-up were deliberate to hinder learning as much as possible.
Why can't "science" state clearly its definitions? Without clear definitions, it's impossible to communicate. If I say the phase is x, then you immediately have to ask what I mean. If I throw "gamma rays" in, then you'll really be uninformed. Do I mean sub-xray-energy from a nucleus or high-energy waves from something else? Previously, I thought gamma rays meant high-energy waves, but now I have to stipulate super-xray-energy gamma rays of nucleic or non-nucleic origin to convey what was so much easier before I bothered to read the real definition (or lack of one).
Off soapbox, back to studying...
0 -
18 hours ago, studiot said:
If you have further questions then start some additional threads to ask them That is the purpose of ScienceForums.
I will once we exhaust these topics. I have too many lines in the water right now.
QuoteThe only pain in the butt is having to delete the garish video at the end of the quote.
LOL! I like to see you making jokes while admonishing me; somehow that makes it better.
QuoteReality is not a scientific term. Scientists deal in observed 'facts' and deduce connections between them.
We have actually has many threads discussing the terminology of 'reality and existance' at ScienceForums.
Personally I am of the opinion that Philosophy is better equiped to discuss these than Science and the ordinary apparatus of the English Language better suited to the discussion.You're doing it again... more distinctions (science vs philosophy). I know you're really logical and want to systemize and categorize, and that is a fantastic way to arrive at insightful revelations, but I'm fighting that tendency in myself because I believe everything is connected; the universe is the atomos (the indivisible whole). I know, I know... there exists a philosophy section for this sort of talk. But if there is no distinction between philosophy and science, then where is the objection?
Science is a subset of philosophy because in order to practice it, you have to first develop a philosophy of how you intend to practice it. So when you say "Scientists deal in observed 'facts' and deduce connections between them.", then that is your philosophy about science. I'm just saying these distinction are arbitrary and subjective.
I often think of the quote from Einstein:
Although he did not believe in a personal God, he indicated that he would never seek to combat such belief because "such a belief seems to me preferable to the lack of any transcendental outlook." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein#Agnosticism.2C_atheism.2C_and_deism
What did he mean by "lack of transcendental outlook?"
I think it means he doesn't want people's own fences to confine them and it may be preferable to believe erroneously than to be incapable of thinking outside the box.
(Normally I don't quote Einstein, but today must be Einstein day.)
How about this quote: "A fool who persists in his folly will eventually become wise." - Blake.
It seems that being wrong may not be such a big deal, but being incapable of being right is a big deal.
QuoteModels are never perfectly accurate. The only perfectly accurate model of anything is the thing itself.
Now that is insightful! Good point!
QuoteI have already said in the originating post that mathematical solutions to the classical wave equation extend to infinity in both directions.
Infinity is a perfectly respectable mathematical abstract construct with well defined (mathematical) properties.
There is nothing to say that observable phenomena have to conform to this construct.Yup, that's how I see it too.
QuoteThe lamp is a poor model that demonstrates the mathematical truth that discontinuous functions do not obey the classical wave equation.
Poor model? I thought it was illuminating
In reality, there is no such thing as a discontinuity, but rather a continuous transition to a discrete state. If we turn a lamp from on to off by breaking the connection, then as the switch begins to separate, the current will arc across the gap and already affect the state of the lamp. As the switch is moved further, the resistance will grow until it converges to a discrete state of "disconnected". Still, it takes time for the effects to travel to the bulb and all of it happens as a smooth continuity well-under the speed of causality. So in fact, or in reality, there are more states than just two. For instance, there is the state where the filament in the bulb is 90% illuminated. So there are infinite states just like a ruler has infinite divisions, but it's not infinite states and is instead a continuous "happening".
In reality, when the speed of the flicking of the switch = the speed of the fastest bit of the system, there will be no such thing as a change in state and any increase in speed from there will be meaningless. What happens when the switch is opened and closed faster than light can travel? Clearly, that's impossible, but doesn't the problem necessitate that? The amount of time between states is infinitesimally small, which is a violation of the speed of causality. But in the realm of mathematics, there are no such speed limits and there is the problem and where math fails to represent reality.
QuoteHow many more times?
The classical wave equation extends to infinity in both directions.
This gives rise to various difficulties in various branches of Science and Mathematics.
We can list and discuss these if you like.
But I warn you the discussion will get very mathematical very quickly and I will see a mathematical replies, not wooly wishful thinking.Fire away! I have a background in math, but haven't practised in some time, so I'm rusty, but can catch up. Anyway, I'm not daunted and I look forward to it.
0 -
16 hours ago, Strange said:
In this case, it was just a mathematical abstraction. If you want to consider a single frequency then the waveform has to extend for infinity. If you consider a shorter signal, then it will consist of a mixture of frequencies. (This, incidentally, is the basis of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.)
I don't understand what "shorter signal" means. Can you elaborate more on the basis of the uncertainty principle as it relates to this topic? Thanks!
QuoteInfinity may exist in reality if the universe is infinite.
Of course, but I see an infinite universe as an impossibility. Obviously, there would be no conservation of energy if energy were infinite. Is that right?
I could attack this in infinite ways
The joke is to never argue infinity with a mathematician because it never ends lol
QuoteI agree, calling quanta of light "particles" can lead to confusion. But in the case of electrons and all the other fermions, it seems natural to call the particles. So it seems we are stuck with the terminology.
That reminds me of something someone once said....
QuoteBut photons are neither waves not particles. They have some wave-like properties (e.g. we can measure their wavelength) and they have some particle-like properties (their interactions are post-like and indivisible).
What do you mean by "post-like"?
"Indivisible" in what sense? Waves are indivisible in the sense that splitting a wave results in the same thing we began with. E=hf so no matter how many times we split the wave, E is the same.
Particles will always be divisible because there will always be the question of what composes the particle. How can there be a smallest particle? And now we have the infinite divisibility problem.
I'm far from being an expert in this, but all in all, it seems to me that it's better stated that waves exhibit particle-like behavior rather than particles with wave-like behavior. People are already too conditioned to think in terms of tangibles and should be reconditioned from the start to think in terms of waves. That's my opinion; whatever it's worth; not much I'm guessing lol.
QuoteBut they are neither waves nor particles.
What is the evidence for photons being particles? If we refute all of it, then will it mean photons are waves?
The best evidence I've seen so far is that of spin in the experiment where a magnetic wave was used to veer the photon (or electron; I can't remember) off course and a spiral trajectory was observed indicating the particle was spinning. Is that accurate? I'm not sure how to refute that one. I'll have to think on it.
0 -
14 hours ago, swansont said:
No, the sum is not -1/12
I'm going to zero-in on this first since it's freshest in my mind after reading that link.
Quoting from the link:
QuoteBut how did this curious, wrong result make it into a physics textbook, as shown in the video? Here is where things really get interesting. Suppose you take two conducting metallic plates and arrange them in a vacuum so that they are parallel to each other. According to classical physics, there shouldn't be any net force acting between the two plates.
But classical physics doesn't reckon with the weird effects you see when you look at the world at very small scales. To do that, you need quantum physics, which tells us many very strange things. One of them is that the vacuum isn't empty, but seething with activity. So-called virtual particles pop in and out of existence all the time. This activity gives a so called zero point energy: the lowest energy something can have is never zero (see herefor more detail).
When you try to calculate the total energy density between the two plates using the mathematics of quantum physics, you get the infinite sum 1+8+27+64...
Are the equations of QM that result in the divergent series correct? If so, then let's proceed:
QuoteThis infinite sum is also what you get when you plug the value x=-3 into the Euler zeta function:
S(-3) = 1 + 1/2^{-3} + 1/3^{-3} + 1/4^{-3} + ... = 1+ 8 + 27 + 64 +... .
That’s unfortunate, because the sum diverges (it does so even quicker than than S(-1)), which would imply an infinite energy density. That’s obviously nonsense.
Doesn't that also question the validity of QM?
QuoteBut what if you cheekily assume that the infinite sum equals the Riemann zeta function, rather than the Euler zeta function, evaluated at x=-3? Well, then you get a finite energy density. That means there should be an attractive force between the metallic plates, which also seems ludicrous, since classical physics suggests there should be no force.
But he stated above that "classical physics doesn't reckon with the weird effects you see when you look at the world at very small scales". He contradicted himself by saying CM doesn't deal with small scales and then said CM made a prediction about small scales (ie that there should be no force).
QuoteBut here’s the surprise. When physicists made the experiment they found that the force did exist — and it corresponded to an energy density exactly equal to zeta (-3)!
Ah, so QM is redeemed by experimental confirmation and mathematically divergent series then realistically converge by evidence of experimentation. What that is telling me is that math does not always accurately reflect reality.
QuoteThis surprising physical result is known as the Casimir effect, after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.
Take a moment to take this in. Quantum physics says the energy density should be [ S(-3) = 1+8+27+64+... . ]
That’s nonsense, but experiments show that if you (wrongly) regard this sum as the zeta function zeta (x) evaluated at x=-3, you get the correct answer.Umm... I thought he was trying to disprove 1+2+3+4+... = -1/12... not prove it.
It seems in the construct of mathematics, the sum should be infinite.
But in the real world, the sum is -1/12
QuoteSo it seems that nature has followed the ideas we explained above. It extended the Euler zeta function to include values for x that are less than 1, by cleverly subtracting infinity, and so came up with a finite value. That’s remarkable!
Yup!
So where is the disproof?
The closest I saw was the objection to 1-1+1-1+1-1... not being equal to 1/2, which lots of youtube commenters also resonated with. But I'm not sure it matters much because if S1 = 1, then S2 = 1/2 and S = -1/6. If S1 = 0, then S2 = 0 and S = 0. Neither answer is infinite.
I've given it some thought and have decided, based on the Thomson Lamp where the state cannot be between on and off in the finite world, that in the infinite-world the only way to correctly express the right state is by averaging the two states. The reason for that is if we ever stop the sequence to find a finite answer, then it is not the result of the infinite sequence. So, in other words, we need the result of a sequence that is never stopped to see what the result is... and the only answer is 1/2 because both 0 and 1 are answers to finite sequences and conditional on discrete states.
This shouldn't be surprising to people who believe a particle can exist in a superposition and travel through 2 slits at once in order to interfere with itself. If you don't object to that, then how can you object to a lamp being in 2 states simultaneously due to the expression of an infinite progression on a finite medium? It seems to me that if you reject one, you must reject the other.
Anyway, I've yet to see a good reason to dismiss the assertions of the video.
Here is a second proof:
And here is another perspective:
He has a good point around 6:30 by asking "does (-1)^.5 exist?" Obviously it's nonsense, yet we derive useful correlations to reality by employing it mathematically.
I know folks hate watching videos others post, but that 2nd one is quite good and he is very objective. Anyway, the site has the capability to host videos and I assume that is for some purpose.
15 hours ago, swansont said:There is no single theory or model that applies to all cases.
There should be.
QuoteQuantized bits are what we call particles, which is a term that people are already used to. Do you call a golf ball a quantized bit of a wave? No, you call it a ball, because the particle nature is what we are going to observe. We are used to waves, and to particles.
A golf ball is something I could call a particle. A golf ball does not go through two holes at one time to interfere with itself (although buckyballs do, which causes me to rethink the atom itself.)
QuoteEnergy is a property. If you want to talk about fundamental reality, we have a philosophy section.
Are you saying physics is independent from reality? I'll be joining the philosophy section when I have time to come up for air in this department.
QuoteWe don't get to tell nature how to behave.
Yes we do! I'm telling nature that it cannot have bright darkness. Nature does what is possible and impossibilities are not possible.
0 -
6 hours ago, John Cuthber said:
Just because you don't understand them, doesn't mean the definitions are loose or ambiguous.
Be nice. The correct answer is "Yeah, lol, I can see what you mean." Not, "Well, you're just stupid." Your not resonating with what I'm talking about makes me wonder just how much you've been studying, because:
Gamma rays typically have frequencies above 10 exahertz (or >1019 Hz), and therefore have energies above 100 keV and wavelengths less than 10 picometers (10−11 m), which is less than the diameter of an atom. However, this is not a strict definition, but rather only a rule-of-thumb description for natural processes. Electromagnetic radiation from radioactive decay of atomic nuclei is referred to as "gamma rays" no matter its energy, so that there is no lower limit to gamma energy derived from radioactive decay. This radiation commonly has energy of a few hundred keV, and almost always less than 10 MeV. In astronomy, gamma rays are defined by their energy, and no production process needs to be specified. The energies of gamma rays from astronomical sources range to over 10 TeV, an energy far too large to result from radioactive decay.
So are gamma rays defined by their source or by their energy? Loose and ambiguous.
On the subject of reflection and refraction, there are two ways to describe the same process: One is the classical wave propagation where an EMW causes an electron to move which induces another EMW which causes a phase shift in the resultant wave. The other is the QM method where photons travel every possible path between atoms and the superposition of all those paths cause the shift in phase. Which is reality?
I can't see how anyone can come away from that video thinking any physicist has a good handle on reality.
One of those professors on that sixtysymbols channel likes to challenge himself to explain something in 10 min. 10 min???
Do atoms touch? Well, that's another 12 min video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0TNJrTlbBQ
Then we have absolute zero which seems very much like it should be an absolute limit, but yet we also have negative temperatures, which are unintuitively hotter than any positive temperature. It takes 13 min to explain that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTeBUpR17Rw
Light can't travel faster because the speed of light is the speed of causality, yet somehow the universe is expanding faster than the speed of causality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo
The definition of heat is often subjective or is used interchangeably for internal energy and temperature.
F=ma only works when velocities are low and doesn't account for the change in mass. For some reason, no one wants to tell the students that until it circulates around the back of the classroom under the topic of "Hey, did ya know F=ma is wrong?"
All that off the top of my head. Let me know if I need to google some more; no doubt someone has a list somewhere.
QuoteReality , and consequently science, are under no obligation to match your intuition.
You're correct about reality, but science does have an obligation to be clear in its definitions and using intuitive nomenclature would help as well. Most arguments I see on forums are simply bickering about the definition of words and the opponents would actually agree if they had their semantics standardized.
QuoteIt's quite complicated; you actually need to study it.
So is music.
15 hours ago, swansont said:Not all EMWs are caused by accelerating charge. Quantum transitions in an atom or nucleus cannot be traced back to an accelerating charge.
Thanks. I am going to look into that.
QuoteI gave you the equation for reflection at normal incidence (i.e. perpendicular): ((n1-n2)/(n1+n2))^2
So that equation is just the reflected bit and not the composite refracted wave? Oh ok.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_equations
The fraction of the incident power that is reflected from the interface is given by the reflectance or reflectivity, R, and the fraction that is refracted is given by the transmittance or transmissivity, T, (unrelated to the transmission through a medium).
So n1 = 1 and n2 = 1.00045 at some unknown frequency, then R = 5 x 10^-8
And T = 1 - R = .99999995. Ah, so it's a percent. Got it. Thanks!
QuoteIndex and opacity are not necessarily correlated. The dispersion is likely small over the wavelength range we're discussing.
How can that be? I know in the IR band that T goes to zero and therefore R goes to 1.
n1 = 1 and n2 = x as x -> infinity, then ((n-x)/(n+x))^2 converges to 1.
R and T seem variable across the bands. Are there not equations to describe R and T in terms of frequency? Or at least n in terms of frequency?
n = c / phase velocity. How does co2 fit into determining the phase velocity at specific frequencies?
QuoteA pane of glass block the IR — glass is a really good absorber at those wavelengths.
Then use an led light that doesn't emit IR. The thermometer will still read cooler.
QuoteThis isn't a classroom or a textbook. You've jumped into the middle of this without a proper background. People took years of classes to get that background.
That's true.
QuoteGradual in a spatial sense. Gradient.
I still don't see a difference in gradual or abrupt if we go from .5 atm to 1 atm.
QuoteMeaningless for reflection, which is not the mechanism involved in the greenhouse effect.
The mechanism is that co2 is a highpass filter which allows high-energy light to enter but does not allow low-energy light to leave (easily). When I first heard that, I immediately thought "Hey, wait a minute!" Now, here I am.
6 hours ago, studiot said:I am going to be away for a few days so before I go I will respond to some of your comments as promised.
I really suggest you take the time to read them more fully as they contain information you are clearly missing.
Thanks for the heads-up. I'll study your post before I reply. Thanks for helping me.. I really appreciate it.
0 -
16 hours ago, studiot said:
Discussion of quantum theory is getting in the way of discussion about chemical spectroscopy in this thread and we all agreed that it would be better conducted in a separate place.
As this forum has an allocated palce for quantum theory I am starting this thread to promote that discussion.There is much in that thread that should have tangential threads.
QuoteI agree that quantum mechanics is quite different from classical mechanics.
I really don't want you to think of me as a pain in the butt for being such a nonconformist (or any other reason), but I don't resonate with these "styles" in how to view the world (classical vs QM). Why can't there just be the Tao... the way? You asked me before to forget the photon, so what's wrong with treating the particles as quantised bits of waves rather than the misleading idea of "particle" nomenclature? I'm not sure I said that right, but you know what I mean. The idea of particles bothers me because the infinite divisibility problem. Fundamental reality has to be energy.
QuoteLike classical mechanics, QM can be approached at different levels from different viewpoints.
One such is using 'wave packets' to describe dualityOh you mean "duality" in finite/infinite. So "wave packets" is a singularity composed of two opposites like a "true lie" or "bright night" or +- which sums to nothing. This is becoming very interesting philosophically.
QuoteA classical wave extends to infinity in both directions.
Mathematicall the classical wave equation has no beginning or end.
We simply ignore that part of the mathematical equation outside our region of interest.Now you're really going to hate me... I don't believe infinity exists in reality. We will definitely need a separate thread for that discussion.
QuoteA wave packet has a beginning and an end and can be used as a model as to how you can have wave/particle duality.
Something is wrong...how can models that don't reflect reality be accurate? How can a wave extend to infinity and also be accurately represented as a discrete particle? Which is reality? That reminds me of the Thomson Lamp: http://theorangeduck.com/page/infinity-doesnt-exist
The setup is this - let us imagine a lamp with a switch that flicked once, turns the lamp on, and flicked again turns it off. Now suppose we can perform the following task: after one minute we turn the lamp on, then half a minute after that we turn it off, then a quarter of a minute after that we turn it on again, then an eighth of a minute after that we turn it off, and so on...
The sum of this infinite series of intervals is two minutes. The question is, given that the lamp can only be on or off, what state is it in after two minutes?
We can make S equal to 1, 0, or 1/2.
However we look at the situation, it seems that somehow the lamp is both on and off at the same time. But this is a contradiction to our previous statements that the lamp must be either on or off.
In mathematics, when we come to a contradiction often the first thing to do is check our prepositions are correct. Are all the things we assumed to be true in the first place really true? In the case of Thomson's Lamp one of them must be wrong. Modern mathematics says that the proposition that says the lamp must be either on or off is wrong. In infinite mathematics lamps must be able to be both on and off at the same time.
But you could say instead that infinity doesn't exist - that it isn't possible to perform an infinite series of actions. That even a mathematical lamp can't be on and off at the same time. We could try this experiment in real life and get a similar answer. Eventually we would only be able to switch the lamp at the smallest observable quanta of time - we wouldn't be able to switch it any faster. And so the lamp would have a definite ending state after two minutes - and even one we could calculate beforehand if we knew the numbers involved.
Likewise, the waves should have an end without needing to become particles. Surely the gravity of a molecule at the other end of the universe can't be stretching all the way to this side. At some point it would become fundamentally impossible to detect and meaningless to ask if it exists. Like trying to discern the curvature of a circle with radius of graham's number of light years; circles of that magnitude are indistinguishable from straight lines.
The universe is a strange place. Consider the sum of all natural numbers being = -1/12
0 -
14 hours ago, swansont said:
Bingo!
Yay!
QuoteNo, that's the Bohr model interpretation. That model has been replaced. The QM solution does not lend itself to that interpretation.
What is the interpretation of the new model?
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital#Electron_properties
With the development of quantum mechanics and experimental findings (such as the two slits diffraction of electrons), it was found that the orbiting electrons around a nucleus could not be fully described as particles, but needed to be explained by the wave-particle duality. In this sense, the electrons have the following properties:
Wave-like properties:
- The electrons do not orbit the nucleus in the manner of a planet orbiting the sun, but instead exist as standing waves. Thus the lowest possible energy an electron can take is similar to the fundamental frequency of a wave on a string. Higher energy states are similar to harmonics of that fundamental frequency.
- The electrons are never in a single point location, although the probability of interacting with the electron at a single point can be found from the wave function of the electron.
Particle-like properties:- There is always an integer number of electrons orbiting the nucleus.
- Electrons jump between orbitals in a particle-like fashion. For example, if a single photon strikes the electrons, only a single electron changes states in response to the photon.
- The electrons retain particle-like properties such as: each wave state has the same electrical charge as the electron particle. Each wave state has a single discrete spin (spin up or spin down). This can depend upon its superposition.I don't believe an integer number of electrons necessarily implies particles just like a wine glass resonance doesn't imply sound is a particle.
Electrons jumping between orbitals doesn't imply particles either and for the same reason. Piano keys may be discrete, but that doesn't mean sound is.
Spin might imply a particle, but I don't know much about spin.
QuoteForce doesn't have to "go" anywhere. If You had a charge on a larger mass, the mass would undergo a proportionally smaller acceleration. A proton is not accelerated as much as an electron by a given electric field, and a heavy ion is accelerated even less.
I suppose force goes to acceleration as F=ma and if there is no acceleration, then there is no force or else the mass is infinite and cannot be accelerated. So it seems safe to say that if an EMW causes a force, then there will be an acceleration.
QuoteAccelerating charge is a classical interpretation, and is not consistent with discussion of quantum mechanics. QM is quite different behavior, not seen in the macroscopic world. You have to let go of classical models of behavior.
Accelerating charges do not cause EMWs? What do I let go of?
QuoteTrue, but if it's there already that's not the level everyone else is using in these discussions.
Idk what others are doing; I'm just interested in the change. They say co2 makes earth hotter. Hotter than what? Hotter than before the co2 was there.
QuoteFurther, the reflection is minimal.
Air at STP has an index of refraction of 1.000277 (higher as you get colder and the air becomes more dense).
CO2 is 1.00045 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index
So that means v= 299,792,458/1.00045 But that doesn't tell me the reflection because that number is a composite of the original wave and the re-emitted wave. How do I figure only the re-emitted wave? That is the reflected wave I need to know.
My next problem is at what frequency is that refraction number? I need a dispersion index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_(optics)
This page says spinach chloroplasts have a refractive index of 1.02 - 1.06, which seems quite low compared to glass (1.50) which is more clear than plant leaves. https://watermark.silverchair.com/api/watermark?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAekwggHlBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggHWMIIB0gIBADCCAcsGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQM9k0k4vpbFmtAwcB5AgEQgIIBnCGSV_FzHr0ZM7YrjqnI7sxln05MN9JX0B-CnFOHOvtUuK-GG_mkxZCRRbJhKeX6I-5ckJ3ojxbz9WPPqBYutP2aEV4Mu3L_4cCoAfZoU-Ywncf3RMLV1jWbm2yKtPXD7ZqO5148Xy3dOKNQQOT3Fv682OmGWnB_kwqpj3cN2iaMzjFktP3tIseZre7Vg0VnksDnIEn4oi9hxzEDq5qXYHTdVPoDNA8DnpbL4x3QbaUGZB8_TuLac61hr4tRHsafDqlbwSxxbTz565_3-SU8N2GIElLrJqJSm4sL38b75m3d1nAkrkErTHX6Ia3joM4ZnytHoYAggpyuLP2q8MAqAWzdhzNtElhmw6dy_gJdbEFhi5alDYLVBWx7uuZ0aMiaZu9k1PesthCUYGvfNHNA0u64vY4SZAE6ghK5oJJh4VIpVRf8es5plsTjcrMqQ1RtkY9S8zZAdvh68jf_fwvgJ_B-jpBULQFagsqK0GnUXRE8WWVQcpjXAhKOVymNO9FHK6Skcdr3zGDCExdUCGy4bts2FLJs5xUTZDLKryk
But still, without a dispersion index, I'm not sure what I am comparing.
Quotereflection for normal incidence is (n1-n2/n1+n2)^2 Meaning if you went directly from a vacuum to air near the ground, you would reflect about 2 x 10^-8 of the light at that interface.
2 x 10^-8 what units? Idk what "of the light" means and this is another area where I need insight. Temperature is degree of hotness while heat is quantity of hotness, but the definition of heat is rigorously defended by those who assert heat is a measure of transferred energy.
Heat is the amount of energy flowing from one body of matter to another spontaneously due to their temperature difference, or by any means other than through work or the transfer of matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat
So WTH? How can something contain heat when heat is not anything that can be contained? Major confusion here. What is the measure of energy contained inside a bucket of hot water?
And if we put a pane of glass between a light bulb and a thermometer, the meter will read lower, yet the energy (E=hf) of any specific f is the same regardless if it's reflected or transmitted. So what is it that makes the meter read cooler?
Are you quite sure physics is not an art? lol Because so many loose definitions and rampant ambiguity makes for an unintuitive science.
QuoteBut we aren't doing that. The density of the atmosphere increases as you get closer, so the transition is more gradual, and the reflection is even smaller. Reflection from the atmosphere is small.
Are you sure reflection decreases with increasing density? That doesn't seem right. If we go from .5 atm to 1 atm, why does it matter how gradual it is? I didn't see time in the equation.
QuoteAnd now you're talking about the effect of adding in a few ppm, or tens of ppm, of additional CO2. A small change in a small effect.
It seems like you're saying co2 is meaningless, and if you are, then I agree. I just want to know the science involved. If I can't understand it, then I have to believe someone on faith.
0 -
On 8/2/2017 at 11:44 AM, StringJunky said:
Moderation and variety is the key I think. Everything has an LD50 (will kill 50%) rating. water has an LD50 of 6L.
Does air have an LD50? lol
I wonder what the time interval is for the water. If water is delivered quickly enough, a gram should be plenty for LD100
But seriously, what does LD50 on water actually mean? Is it dilution of salts in the body or the sheer volume of liquid that kills? Or something else? Water isn't deadly, but it's like an aphorism with a deeper meaning.
But yeah, moderation in all things, including moderation.
_____________________________________________________________________
Regarding meat, I think folks must rely on modern technologies to be vegan, such as: vitamins, farming for the quantities of food necessary to compensate for lack of meat, vast array of kitchen equipment, and knowledge of nutrition in general to know what one needs to eat in order to compensate for what would otherwise be a balanced diet; therefore, veganism isn't what we would describe as "natural" by the definition standards of most people. Although, with sufficient skill, determination, and resources, one could be a healthy vegan.
Everyone knows about B12, but what about vitamin A? Have they standardized the standard yet or are they still upping the number of carrots one has to eat per day in order to supply the necessary retinol?
As some carotenoids can be converted into vitamin A, attempts have been made to determine how much of them in the diet is equivalent to a particular amount of retinol, so that comparisons can be made of the benefit of different foods. The situation can be confusing because the accepted equivalences have changed. For many years, a system of equivalencies in which an international unit (IU) was equal to 0.3 μg of retinol, 0.6 μg of β-carotene, or 1.2 μg of other provitamin-A carotenoids was used.[50] Later, a unit called retinol equivalent (RE) was introduced. Prior to 2001, one RE corresponded to 1 μg retinol, 2 μg β-carotene dissolved in oil (it is only partly dissolved in most supplement pills, due to very poor solubility in any medium), 6 μg β-carotene in normal food (because it is not absorbed as well as when in oils), and 12 μg of either α-carotene, γ-carotene, or β-cryptoxanthin in food.
Newer research has shown that the absorption of provitamin-A carotenoids is only half as much as previously thought. As a result, in 2001 the US Institute of Medicine recommended a new unit, the retinol activity equivalent (RAE). Each μg RAE corresponds to 1 μg retinol, 2 μg of β-carotene in oil, 12 μg of "dietary" beta-carotene, or 24 μg of the three other dietary provitamin-A carotenoids.[51] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_A#Equivalencies_of_retinoids_and_carotenoids_.28IU.29
So how many carrots is that? More than I want to eat per day. If the RDA is 900 micrograms retinol, then x12 = 10,800 micrograms beta carotene. If the average carrot has 3500 micrograms beta carotene, then that's 3 carrots per day. And that's assuming they know what they're talking about.
"Be careful reading health books; you may die of a misprint" Mark Twain
Wiki goes on to say:
Because the conversion of retinol from provitamin carotenoids by the human body is actively regulated by the amount of retinol available to the body, the conversions apply strictly only for vitamin A-deficient humans. The absorption of provitamins depends greatly on the amount of lipids ingested with the provitamin; lipids increase the uptake of the provitamin.[52]
The conclusion that can be drawn from the newer research is that fruits and vegetables are not as useful for obtaining vitamin A as was thought; in other words, the IUs that these foods were reported to contain were worth much less than the same number of IUs of fat-dissolved oils and (to some extent) supplements. This is important for vegetarians, as night blindness is prevalent in countries where little meat or vitamin A-fortified foods are available.
Supplements are better than fruits a vegetables?!? Holy cow!
Next is vitamin D from sunshine, but if one doesn't get enough, maybe because of higher latitudes or avoidance of the sun altogether, then what dietary source could a vegan possibly have? (Other than mushrooms artificially exposed to UV light, since mushrooms generally prefer the shade). Vitamin D is found mostly in fatty fish, but also in the fat of animals exposed to the sun. Lard used to be a source of vitamin D. https://www.vitamindwiki.com/"Free+range"+lard+has+500+IU+vitamin+D+per+teaspoon But who eats lard anymore?
Next is K2; another meat vitamin. A vegan could find K2 in fermented foods, but who does their own fermenting and does it properly? There is no K2 source in the grocery store other than meat, cheese, eggs. Of course, humans convert K1 to K2, but the medical community doesn't seem to guess at the conversion factor like with carotene to retinol.
From: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2016/12/09/the-ultimate-vitamin-k2-resource/
First, we don’t actually know that much about how the conversion takes place, but it seems to be inefficient and highly variable according to genetics and health status, making it unreliable.
Second, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and certain osteoporosis drugs inhibit the conversion, making it even less reliable in people who are taking these drugs.
Third, research shows vitamin K2 is better than vitamin K1 at supporting many different aspects of our health. If we easily converted as much K1 to K2 as we needed, we wouldn’t observe these superior benefits of K2.
Being a vegan seems a lot of work, a lot of attention to detail, a lot of reliance on technology, and perhaps a lot of reliance of genetic proclivity to make necessary conversions.
Animals do the conversion work for us, just like they used to pull plows. Herbivores do a particularly good job of converting vegetation into necessary nutrients and I believe humans evolved to be reliant on animals after millennia of eating them. And the dense source of nutrition that hunting provided led to time being available for activities other than eating which led to language, science and art. Vegans spend too much time in the kitchen and like cows spend all day eating; there isn't enough time left to develop cognitively.
On 8/2/2017 at 5:44 AM, jfoldbar said:lets say for example if you eat a t-bone 2-3 times a week, and some study shows this is unhealthy, have they taken the whole (meat and fat) steak into account? have they taken the cooking method (fry) into account.?
People who eat steak also tend to make similar decisions, that's why I hate these correlation studies. For instance, steak eaters may also choose to eat more processed foods. Perhaps they are less inclined to exercise. Those types of studies are very misleading.
Seventh Day Adventists are vegan and live longer than the general population. Well, almost any group that pays particular attention to being healthy is going to live longer than the general population. The study says nothing except people who try to be healthy, on average, live longer than people who do not necessarily try. 7th day adventists also do not smoke or drink, they're not as stressed in life, and they garden, work outside, and watch what they eat.
Studies show coffee drinkers live longer. Maybe it's because they took the time to make coffee rather than rush to start the day? Maybe it's not the coffee at all. Or maybe it is; who knows.
0 -
Apologies for the delay, but I have accomplished some studying.
On 9/16/2017 at 7:41 AM, swansont said:Light is both.
How can it be both? The only way is if light is a wave that is thought of as a particle in some situations.
QuoteElectrons have both wave and particle behavior. It's not directionality that governs this.
I read that protons often pass through each other in particle accelerators. Particles cannot do that because particles cannot occupy the same space.
@user104: (1) you cannot. (2) yes indeed, the LHC collides protons with protons and most times the protons just go through each other without scattering. – John Rennie Feb 22 '16 at 12:42
@ConstantineBlack: particles aren't points. They are excitations in a quantum field and don't have a position or a size in the sense that macroscopic objects do. They are pointlike in the sense that any experiment to measure a minimum size will fail. Any two particles, electrons, quarks and photons, can have overlapping probability distributions, and there is a finite probability they can both be detected in any volume element no matter how small that volume element is. However it is meaningless to ask if any two particles of any kind can be at the same point in space. – John Rennie Feb 22 '16 at 17:12
@ConstantineBlack: the probability of finding a particle in volume dVdV is P=ψ∗ψdVP=ψ∗ψdV and this goes to zero as dVdV goes to zero. So the probability of finding any particle in a point of zero volume is zero. – John Rennie Feb 22 '16 at 17:26
QuoteWave guide cutoff is due to cross-section. The resonance you describe here is based on length. You can get that behavior with light, as well: standing waves in cavities.
Aren't electrons considered to be standing waves in their orbitals?
QuoteYou are clinging to this notion that frequency below resonance is not transmitted and just isn't true.
Above resonance is what I thought, but you're right. What I failed to see is that EM waves only interact with charges, not matter itself. Charged particles do not have that much mass, so they are accelerated by the EMR.
But hypothetically, if a charge could be massive enough or attached strongly to enough mass, what would happen to the EM wave as it passed by that charge? If a force is applied in effort to move a charge, but the charge cannot move, then where does the force go?
That is a little analogous to a speaker and signal where the speaker cannot keep up with the signal due to its mass. In that case, the energy goes to heat in burning the voicecoil, but what happens when an EM wave attempts to accelerate a charge in the opposite direction of its momentum? Is heat generated? If so, how? The heat would have to be radiated in IR resonances, so how would those resonances develop?
QuoteResonant light absorption by atoms is not classical. Your model doesn't apply.
As I stated earlier. (point particles)
And you have to learn about quantum mechanics to do so.
Probably a discussion for another thread, but if a physical medium exists, you have to have a velocity with respect to it, and that just doesn't work.
Let's save that for other discussions
QuoteBulk material behaves differently. If you turned chlorophyll into a gas, its optical behavior would change. Light would reflect off of solid CO2
Agree.
QuoteLight that never reaches the earth doesn't get counted; it doesn't contribute to warming. Saying that this is cooling would be double-counting this effect.
What I mean is if something is introduced into the atmosphere that reflects light away, then the effect of that introduction is cooling relative to the non-introduction of the element. I'll state more about this after I reply to Studiot.
On 9/16/2017 at 9:09 AM, studiot said:Your are too suspicious.
I am trying to work through the physics of something with you so that that you can see for yourself what the facts are.It is fundamental to wave theory that a point source produces a spherical wave that spreads out in all directions.
So a point source on the surface of the Sun (Point P in my fig1) creates an expanding spherical wavefront as I have shown dashed in Fig1.
This has an average radius of 150 million kilometres by the time that front reaches Earth.
The source at P does not have a choice in this, nor does it have collimators or focusing devices.
But yes there are many such sources on the surface of the Sun and they are not coherently phased, like a laser. (Thank the Lord Huygens) or we would not be here if they were.I said that as a result of that distance that wavefront is effectively a plane wave so the (very simple) maths of this is shown in fig2.
The deviation of a circular curve from a straight line is given by the formula (distance along the straight line squared) divided by (twice the circle radius)With the figures shown this works out at about one tenth of a millimetre over the linear distance of the radius of the Earth.
So think how much straighter the wavefront must be over the size of a carbon dioxide molecule, whose bond lenght is 1.16 x 10-7 millimetres long.
Good point!
I know waves should propagate in all directions, but I know from experience that high-frequency sound does not. I don't know why that is.
QuoteThis is why we can say that in another model - that of geometrical optics which treats light as a series of 'rays', that the rays from the Sun are parallel.
That makes sense.
QuoteI mentioned bond length of carbon dioxide which is important because this determines the frequencies for the four fundamental modes of vibration of the molecule.
Not just bond length and strength, but mass as well. Right? What I failed to see before was that EMWs only interact with charges, not matter itself. So the charges will be the "handles" that the EMW "grabs" to then shake the molecule and how the molecule behaves is determined by the bonds and the mass of the atoms.
QuoteThe plan is to fully understand how a straight radio aerial works and see if we can use this to understand how the stretching modes of the carbon dioxide bonds comes to be in the IR and microwave bands and not other bands of the EM spectrum.
I'm a little confused how the co2 molecule would interact with the microwave band because:
Often molecules contain dipolar groups, but have no overall dipole moment. This occurs if there is symmetry within the molecule that causes the dipoles to cancel each other out. This occurs in molecules such as tetrachloromethane and carbon dioxide. The dipole-dipole interaction between two individual atoms is usually zero, since atoms rarely carry a permanent dipole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermolecular_force
The way I understand microwave heating with water is that the MW rotates the water molecule which then interacts kinetically with other molecules that cause resonances in the water molecule in the IR band. Water is a dipole, but co2 is shaped more like - + - so I'm curious if MW could rotate the molecule in the same way.
QuoteForget resonance - the word will get you into trouble when we consider charge separation in the carbon dioxide molecule.
It has a specific and quite different meaning for chemists and bonding.I can't forget resonances. For instance when an EMW causes co2 to resonate, it absorbs energy which is expressed by the exaggerated movement and an electron being kicked up to the next energy level. Resonance makes too much sense to me.
QuoteThe radio waves induce current in any conductor of any length. Resonance is not required.
Yes, any bits of metal lying around within radio wave transmission will have currents induced in them. Resonance is not required, I agree.
QuoteThe issue is what happens to those currents when they have been induced.
We shall see that conductor length then becomes vitally important.Hmm.. well the induced currents radiate EMWs as well, right?
QuoteI prefer the phrase charge separation, rather than current because that is what happens in both the radio aerial and the carbon dioxide molecule.
The effects are potential driven, not current driven.I don't understand "phase charge separation".
QuoteFinally we spoke about reflection, absorbtion and transmission.
What about refraction and diffraction of waves?
This is a good opportunity to tell you what I have learned since we last spoke.
In the case of an EM wave and glass, the wave excites the charges causing an acceleration which cause a re-emission of an EM wave at a later point in time which causes a phase shift from the original wave. The summation of the two waves causes refraction through the glass and the reflection is simply the re-radiated wave traveling in the opposite direction that isn't completely cancelled by the incident wave.
In the case of opaque objects, the EM wave causes resonances which absorb the wave and hinder further propagation. The re-emission of EM waves from the excited charged particles are shifted 180 degrees out of phase and cancel the incoming wave completely. If the object is not a black body and it has a color, then the color is from light that was not cancelled by the phase shift and is re-radiated at the frequency of the color (that is why grass is green).
I'm not sure diffraction is a property of re-emission. Maybe you could tell me more about that.
Here's where I really need some help:
Any molecule that does not absorb will reflect and refract due to the acceleration of charges produced by the force from the electric fields interacting. Since we know for sure that co2 does not absorb in the visible light band, then we know for sure that it reflects (re-emits) in that band. What we don't know is the amount of the reflection. So the problem has now been reduced to determining the amount of reflected 10^14 light in comparison to the amount of 10^13 light that is absorbed and re-radiated. 10^14 light has 10x more energy than 10^13 so the breakeven point would be at 1/10 reflection; therefore, if 1/10 of visible light is reflected, then it's a wash. But if we consider that the cone of IR re-emission towards earth is roughly 90 degrees, then only 1/4 of the IR re-radiation from co2 will strike earth (360/90=4). So, does that mean 1/40 of visible light needs to be reflected for it to be even?
What is confusing me is energy being solely a function of frequency and dividing light in half does not halve the energy just like cutting a cake in half does not reduce its temperature, but it must have an effect on something. Someone will have to show me what that means. That's the last piece to the puzzle.
QuoteI think we are doing well and making real progress
I'm trying my best to understand this. Thanks for your help!
________________________________________________________
Ah crap... I forgot to wait an hour for the "reply merging" behavior to expire. I can't imagine why someone would like that. If I had wanted it to all be one post, I would have constructed it so.
0 -
1 hour ago, studiot said:
So far you seem to think that there are three possibilities (though not mutually exclusive as with your chlorophyll example) when light approaches something.
Transmission, reflection or absorbtion.
That is not the case.
Yes, I think there are 3 possibilities. Why is that not the case?
Even if a wave is wide enough to flow around an object, the part that contacts the object still must flow through or bounce off of the face of the object. See 7:08 here:
QuoteDo you think that the radio wave is transmitted through the solid copper bar of the aerial?
We have just agreed that the wave appears on the downstream side of the bar (it is not blocked by it)Having agreed that an aerial is frequency selective, do you understand how one works?
I can't answer yes or no, I have to explain:
Radio waves are produced by current that flows up and down an aerial at a specific frequency. The radio waves propagate through space inducing current flows on anything that will resonate with the wave. When the wave meets a receiving antenna, the wave induces current in the antenna = to the frequency of the wave. So to answer your question, I don't think the wave is transmitted down the copper bar, but the wave is transmitted through the copper bar in the direction of the wave travel. The current that is induced is not the same as the wave because it is current and not a EM wave. We could say a "signal" is = to both the wave and the current, but I think the wave and the current are separate things. Also, the induced current should steal energy from the wave.
Radio waves sufficiently low can propagate through 100s of feet of earth, therefore they must be using the earth as a medium for propagation (ie not flowing around the earth). If they can do that, then a copper bar is no obstacle. As we climb higher and higher in frequency up the EM scale, the less able the waves will be to pass through the copper bar until we reach a point where the waves reflect. As we go further, we should reach frequencies that can penetrate the copper, but I don't think visible light is high enough.
QuoteI suggest you forget photons here. I have already suggested that for the purposes of this thread and your on topic question classical wave theory is adequate.
I agree that there are many additional observable effects that require alternative theories, but they are not on topic here.Do you mean I should forget photons as particles? I can do that. I don't even think of electrons as particles, but super-directional waves where the wave-front has a high density of energy.
QuoteDirectionality is a not function of the wave alone, it is also dependent upon the source.
I agree. The frequency of the wave is determined by the source and therefore the directionality is determined by the source.
At 12:00 here, they say it can take 150,000 years for light to find its way out of the sun.
I believe that if the light were radio waves, that would not be true. It's the directionality of the wave that prevents it from finding its way out sooner. Directionality is dependent upon frequency and the higher the frequency, the more like a particle a wave will act. What do you think?
QuoteThe issue of a propagation medium is off topic here, but I would just observe that Faraday's notion that the wave generates its own medium as is goes along is adequate here.
That's fine. If light generates its own medium as it goes, that is fine.
QuoteFinally your response to my observation that waves are larger than the obstruction leaves much to be desired.
If the waves are propagating in the z direction then they are enormous in the x and y directions since they are so far from the source they are effectively plane waves.
The 'waves' of light from the Sun are vastly bigger than the Earth itself. Hopefully you understand this much.I don't understand. I don't see the light from the sun as one big wave a million times bigger than earth, but a collection of small waves emitted from tiny particles inside the sun and those waves don't spread just like a laser beam wouldn't.
I think of the sun analogous to trillions and trillions of tweeters emitting high-frequency sound that is directional and aimed at earth... not one giant bass woofer emitting sound in all directions.
I suspect that you're trying to get me to accept that high-frequency light has the same properties as low-frequency radio waves and I can't do that with my current understanding. I need a reason to believe that gamma rays, for instance, would be omnidirectional.
Astrophysicists say that if a quasar is not aimed directly at earth, then we have nothing to fear because the gamma rays do not spread very much, even over astronomical distances.
So I have trouble equating gamma rays with radio waves and therefore when a highly-directional (particle-ish-like) wave meets a co2 molecule, I don't see it simply flowing around it like a radio wave would to an antenna. But even if it did, I think it would still reflect part of the wave back. The difference could be a moot point.... whether a co2 molecule reflects an entire small wave back or if it reflects part of a large wave back, the result is probably the same. Therefore the co2 is taking a co2-size bite out of the visible light that would otherwise be reaching earth while only re-emitting a small part of IR back to earth. That action should be cooling.
I hope this post doesn't make you mad. I'm trying hard not to offend you, but I can't say I understand when I don't.
0
Wave particle Duality inspired by a thread in Chemistry
in Quantum Theory
Posted
If that be the case, then I'd love to stay and banter with you guys, but politics.
Swanson, the video should be cued at 3:58:
I'm no einstein, but I can relate to the not kissing up bit.... especially merely to cater to an anally-retentive obsession with topic relevancy of a discussion that will never be viewed by another carbon-based entity once buried among the pages of long-dead topics. Or perhaps the condition is a Napoleonesque desire to subjugate; either way, I'm not hanging around to find out while in the face of 1000s of dying dime-a-dozen forums who really should be doing what they can to keep folks around rather than barking orders to run people off. https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/forum-software
I just need to spend more time studying and less time posting.
Y'all have fun with your organizational compulsions.