joigus

Pascal must have been under a lot of pressure when he said that. I see no way in which this could be false.

Good point. That's called the curse of knowledge. It doesn't happen only to scientists, though. There's also the curse of expertise.

Inferring correlations when you see guys in the subway is no robust way to make serious statistics. It is well known that humans tend to apply filters and bias the results when they read too much into their everyday observations. For example, when people notice some guy who's dressing in a way they already disapprove, they tend to pay more attention when he's also acting in a way they disapprove. So you must be careful with such observations.

Mmmm. Maybe that's because when someone is mature enough to watch or read news reports, it's already too late. Same reason why it's inconceivable that a person who studies science should not know who Shakespeare or Van Gogh were or what they did, it is inconceivable to me that a person well learned in the humanities should not know in simple terms why we know the Earth is billions of years old, or animals and plants evolve, or everything falls with the same acceleration in a vacuum. Those ideas can be explained without mathematics, or very technical vocabulary or complicated reasoning. I think it is incumbent upon everybody involved in science education to devise ways of teaching science that are suitable to the non-scientific mind, that can be easily assimilated by everybody, and make a permanent part of a person's education, irrespective of what they do. Some politicians, ie., don't seem to understand that long-term (climate) change is far more predictable than tomorrow's weather for very good reasons (one is concerned with averages over centuries and continents; the other with right then and there). Anybody can understand that if properly explained. These people suffered a deep alienation from science very early in their lives, and I would like to know why and what can be done to put an end to this tragic scientific illiteracy. I've been arguing for years about the necessity that journalism becomes a speciality of every technical branch of knowledge. Such specialists should be trained in making the messages from science percolate from specialists to general public. Techniques of general journalism are simply not good enough. The Donald Trumps and Michael Caputos of this world don't come from a parallel dimension. They've been raised here. I understand there's always going to be die-hards. Denial is a part of human nature. But politicians should be better than that. Better education can limit the damage.

Here's the cartoon, by the way: Before anybody says anything, I've got several issues with the cartoon. I'm concerned with the "kernel of truth" part of it, that's all. I tend to see it more about heterogeneous demographics, rather than ups and downs or one-night stands. But I wouldn't know. I'm not an American. You must have a reason to say that.

Nice topic. Before kissing, go lick some steel.

And try gracing the dinner table with a conversation about feldspar. You'd be shown the way out before the dessert.

I must say this comment is making me think a lot. Political movements don't just pop up by spontaneous generation. They capitalize on some previous climate of opinion, discontent, etc. For some reason a fundamental disconnect between science and some sectors of the general public has grown, and I would like to understand the roots of that. Maybe such a connection didn't exist in the first place, and people who are trying to turn to science in search of answers are easily disappointed, maybe because of the very simple fact that opinion is not enough, and they don't expect that. I saw a cartoon the other day suggesting that it's to do with science and scientists sounding arrogant in the ears of big swathes of the public. I'm not so sure about that, but there seems to be a communication gap. Creepy!

Which GOD?: Good Old Days? Great Ominous Darkness? I'm not familiar with the acronym. -------------------------------- And do you mean the kind of discipline and compassion that you've displayed in abundance here?

The Trump Administration seems to be getting quite explicit lately about something that's been in the air for quite a while. The man himself and some of his officials seem to be taking the anti-scientific discourse up a notch. Very worrying news coming from the US these days. I thought I'd never see the day: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/14/opinions/another-day-another-trump-outrage-on-climate-and-science-oreskes/index.html?fbclid=IwAR38oXn2xJLdp5rjnPZHeAsQtNSkkptKuZy_C3Sd3LJ5c2Usyv08TAzySQ8 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/trump-biden-climate-change-fires.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage&fbclid=IwAR38oXn2xJLdp5rjnPZHeAsQtNSkkptKuZy_C3Sd3LJ5c2Usyv08TAzySQ8 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/caputo-virus.html What are your thoughts?

I generally agree. This is a very hype-sensitive topic.

The only case that I know of anything in the way of a civilization appearing as a direct consequence of the Younger Dryas is the Natufian culture. The Natufians were hunter-gatherers, but kept dogs and made sickles with which to harvest wild grain. They seasonally settled places were they kept some of their heavier proto-agricultural hardware --huge pestles and mortars-- and made repairs on their seasonal homes. When the glaciation hit hard, they seem to have settled permanently near the water and brought stores of grain with them. It is known that when people settles society becomes hierarchical. Some chieftains may even develop a funny orange toupee-like hairstyle. Everything that we associate to the word "civilization" (monumental architecture, overlordship) I think came a bit later. Although an interesting precursor of civilization that seems to overlap with the Younger Dryas is Gobekli Tepe. Interesting: monumental architecture from a hunter-gatherer society. I wasn't aware of the impact theory, although I tend to think that there is always a temptation to find one cause for changes that probably are more complex. I have never considered the possibility that Elvis was a Natufian or that the Natufians assassinated JFK. 🤣 This is a very interesting topic.

Thanks @Area54 and @MigL. Do you know of any geological/atmospheric process that could replenish PH3? Apparently the authors have tried some of that and ruled it out. Also, does anybody know the answer to, ?

Dark matter gravitates; dark energy anti-gravitates. Scales are hugely different too. Dark matter's attraction is very noticeable at the range of galactic haloes. Dark energy's repulsion is noticeable only at scales much bigger. So I can't see how they could "be one." The rest doesn't really amount to a scientific proposal. Mass is known to have to do with chirality and helicity, for example, and you haven't adressed that.

Question for the chemistry experts: Suppose that were phosphine they're measuring in Venus' atmosphere, and never mind where it comes from. Would it be possible for this chemical to last in those conditions for, say, billions of years after it was produced, whether biologically or otherwise? OK. I'm no expert in chemistry, but I'm kind of an expert in explanations. And that is not one.

You don't need matrices. Look at my numerical example and try to understand what I did there. In your OP case, it's v times the first equation plus the second equation, and vt -vt cancels and you're left with x in terms of t' and x'. For the other one, it's c²/v times the 1st eq. minus the second. Now you've got cancellation x-x.Then there is some algebra left. Gauss elimination with matrices is useful when you've got like 4x4 or even 3x3. But in a 2x2 system it's best to do it "by hand".

You seem to have lost your train of thought and initiated a recitation of electrical phenomena. Is everything ok? You sound like you're talking from a hijacked plane trying to pass a secret code.

It assumes that you have both liquid water and air with water vapor. And it means that equilibrium has been reached and as much water is evaporating from the liquid phase as water from the air is condensating. So the air has as much water as it can have at that pressure and temperature. Thereby the "saturated" word. So the key is: above that pressure, water from the air would condense. I hope that helps and I didn't make any mistake --it's been a while and I'm a bit busy with other matters so I'm making mistakes lately.

Yes, you're right. I should have noticed. ~10²¹ is the mass of the whole inner belt, that between Mars and Jupiter. The other 2/3 must be the Kuiper. I practically copied and pasted the data. Apologies. Thanks for the correction. +1 Itokawa, a quite small one, is 3.5x10^10 kg The argument persists, I think. Edit: Well, Itokawa is a relatively big one taking into account the enormous number of objects. I think it's more significant to take a relatively big one, in the spirit of what @drumbo was trying to argue.

Also, you are confusing genotype with phenotype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenotype

It seems one of the things he's overlooked.

Typical speed of an asteroid when it reaches the inner Solar System ~ 100,000 miles/hour Typical mass of an asteroid ~ 1021 Kg Now take the solar wind momentum flux at Earth's distance by using the inverse-square law for flux and multiply by the cross section of a typical asteroid and tell me what we're talking about. Solar wind is nothing in terms of momentum transfer against an asteroid or comet. It's in terms of ionization that does all its damage. I'm too lazy to do the calculation, sorry. And again:

You took the words right out of my mouth, sir. 🖖 And as Markus has pointed out, idiocy is observer-dependent.

Yes, you're right. Thank you. I was just drawing attention to (very likely) misread data. I was joking. I should have used instead of . Or maybe or 🤣. The point, if any, I was trying to make is that, if Lilly's car can go one hundred million + kilometers with 88 lt., and the same efficiency could be applied to every engineering process that produces CO2, we wouldn't be in as much of a problem as we are with carbon emissions. But never mind.

Really? Lily's car is THE solution to global warming.