Charles 3781

Can't you easily bait Liberals by saying "I support President Trump".

11 minutes ago, swansont said:

Whichever one you want it to. You can choose your own coordinate system. You want that to be the z direction, it can be z. If you want it to be y, it can be y. You can call it the first, second or third dimension. It won’t affect the physics.

(coordinate system choice will affect how hard it is to solve a physics problem, though)

I hope that when you get on a plane, your pilot doesn't follow the same objective scientific approach to co-ordinate system choice, when landing

1 hour ago, Hans de Vries said:

IF you look at Greek and Latin scripts, you should see that it looks similar to it's predecessor the Phoenician script.

 

How and why did Arabic script go into opposite direction evolution-wise? All other scripts derived from the Phoenician script also look kinda blocky.

Do you think that the Arabic script could have been influenced by the Ancient Egyptian "Demotic" script, which was a kind of ultra-simplified version of the original Egyptian heiroglyphs. 

Have a look at examples of ancient "Demotic" and modern  "Arabic" writing.   They show a remarkable similarity.  The same flowing, curly, looping style of writing.  Quite unlike the more disconnected, angular letters of Phoenician, Greek and Latin.

I

11 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

FTFY.

Galileo, Newton, Darwin,  and I - we were all called trolls in our time!

8 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

It's irrelevant to my point. Science relies on theory, not proof, and not truth. Theory changes as our knowledge changes, and always presents us with our current best explanations. When people think they've found truth, they stop looking, and that's not science.

Phlogiston wasn't truth, was it? Aren't you glad it was just a theory that was overturned? Can't you understand this?

Actually, you know, "Phlogiston" was perhaps an idea before its time.  It was supposed to be an element with "negative weight".  When a combusting substance such as wood  burned,  it exhumed  its negative Phlogiston content, and thereby acquired positive weight.  

Which accounted for why burned ashes weighed more than the original wood.  Sounds neat?  Quite as plausible as our modern idea that Universe is expanding by intergalalactic  negative "Phlogistonic "force, don't you think.

Don't scientific academics gain descending degrees of renown by following these courses:

1. Making a major scientific discovery

2. Writing a popular book on science

3. Making brief guest appearances on a science-related TV show

4. Moderating a science forum where they slag off the the posters

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

The fields have a constant energy, so they do not “produce” energy. It does not take a source of energy to sustain the field of a permanent magnet, because the energy in the field doesn’t “go” anywhere.

 

What if the magnet is attached to the door of a refrigerator.  The door has a smooth glossy coat of paint, which offers very little frictional resistance to the downward pull of gravity. 

Why doesn't this constant downward pull make the magnet gradually slide down the door, until it falls off at the bottom onto the floor?

3 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Physics was NEVER interested in objective truth. Physics is interested in describing the way the universe behaves, using our best current explanations. 

I find it frustrating that you show both a contempt for scientists AND abundant misunderstandings regarding science. One seems to fuel the other, and if you'd let them cancel each other out, the remainder might be interesting and informative.

 When you say Physics was NEVER interested in objective truth, I think you do a disservice to scientists.

If you'd said:  "Ancient Physics - such as Ancient Astronomy,  couldn't be interested  in objective truth",  you'd have a valid point.

Ancient Astronomers  could only be concerned  with observing the movements of stars and planets.  And by drawing up mathematical tables of these movements,  the astronomers were able to successfully predict future phenomena, such as conjunctions and eclipses.   The astronomers called this " Saving the Phenomena".

Later on, when telescopes had been invented, astronomers were able to see more.

Can't you understand this?

28 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I'd like to say goodbye now in case I'm not here when you are shown the door.

We door-spiders pop up to catch our prey again.

28 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I disagree. I think it's all about degrees of belief. You can believe something because you have faith in it (gut feeling based on no evidence), or you can hope it's true (wishful thinking), or you can dig down and do some deep research until you finally have an explanation you can trust. An authority should possess the kind of deep knowledge required to build that trust.

Mathematicians are good authorities because they can prove their theorems.  As they have been able to from Classical Euclidean times, to the present.

But that's not the same with modern physics.  It seems to be losing touch with objective truth, and relying on "Authority figures" such as the hallowed Stephen Hawking.  I don't trust him,  I want to know whether his theorems can be proved. 

1 minute ago, iNow said:

You act like this is a bad thing. The mind just boggles that you’d rather someone be consistently wrong instead of willing to change their mind as new information becomes available 

I realize also this is just another off topic point

Look,  iNow, and sorry if this is off topic, because in following this thread, I've lost track of what it was,  but would you accept this point:

In Science - Scientists frequently radically change their opinions.  Whereas in Mathematics,  there has been no fundamental change of opinion since the invention of arithmetic and algebra?

12 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I think you enjoy being in the dark more than spiders.

Crikey, I'm not sure what that means, Phi - will you semaphore it by waving your spinnarettes at me on the Dark web, if you get my drift. Nudge, nudge.

Just now, CuriosOne said:

So the 3rd dimension is an illusion?

No,  it's real, but we can only visually perceive its reality because we  have two eyes.  If we were one-eyed creatures like a Cyclops, we'd see everything as optically flat and 2-dimensional.

We'd have to use our hands and possibly other appendages, to feel the three-dimensional physicality of bodies.

I would say, that for humans, the 3rd dimension is "depth" . Like when we look at the colourful images which you kindly posted, in your OP. 

These are attractive, but exist only on our screens, in the form of flat 2-dimensional images.

If we could perceive them in 3 dimensions as solid objects, we would be able to truly visual their 3rd dimensional nature.

Daniel, you make a very important point.  Governments, as you say , can be malevolent.  Therefore, politicians are most definitely the last people to trust.

Scientists adhere more closely to facts.  But even scientists change their theories , as the known facts change as time progresses.  

The only people you should really trust are mathematicians. 

5 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

No it isn't.
I'm OK with them. Some people keep them as pets.
 

I don't believe you keep a spider as a pet.  Or actually know, or ever met  anyone who does.  I bet you just read about the idea in a book, didn't you?

If all humans were absolutely equal,  we'd all say the exactly the same things, so we couldn't have discussions on this forum, or any other forum, as they'd all be the same.

On 3/24/2020 at 10:24 PM, Michael McMahon said:

https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-are-we-afraid-of-spiders-26405

I’ve been wondering a small bit about the irrational fear evoked by spiders and snakes. Some people say there may be an evolutionary component to it as a few of these creatures can potentially be deadly. But our visceral response to them seems to be far more excessive than the actual threat they would have posed throughout human evolution.

 

Humans obviously have a limited capacity to empathise with animals. We can anthropomorphise our pets and we might admire animals in the zoo. But as the philosopher Thomas Nagal pointed out, “What is it Like to be a Bat?”. In other words what is the sentience of these creatures like?

 

They can’t just be inanimate robots as they display complex behaviour. Perhaps they live in a barely self-aware oneiric sort of existence that will be forever unknown to us. Some exotic creatures may possess a mind so “alien” to ours that it becomes repulsive when we try to project a degree of consciousness onto it. So might the creepiness of spiders and snakes be more of our instinctive reaction to their unfathomable psychology rather than the actual biology of them?

Snakes have never bothered me.  But I absolutely can't stand spiders.  They're so frightening, with their multiple, thin, stalky legs and unnaturally fast rushing mechanical movements.

This fear and loathing of spiders seems universal in humans.  I once read in a book, that it is caused by spiders being of extra-terrestrial origin.  Could that be true?

On 10/13/2020 at 3:49 PM, Markus Hanke said:

Just two things to note here:

1. Black holes don’t have a surface, they only have horizons of various kinds
2. The inverse square law doesn’t really apply in the immediate vicinity of a black hole; this is very much a relativistic scenario, so you’d have to use the full machinery of GR to correctly describe it

Thanks Markus. 

Do you mean that the "Inverse Square" law is only applicable to mild flat Euclidean space, which is essentially 2-dimensional, as squares are.  Whereas in the immediate vicinity of a Black Hole", the BH's intense gravity pulls space from 2-D  into the full 3 dimensions,  where cubic effects take over in mathematical calculations. 

Is that why the maths of GR are so notoriously complicated, that they are very difficult to solve?

On 10/12/2020 at 2:14 PM, swansont said:

Don’t see why that matters. Inert in this context means it doesn’t interact, but interaction requires something to interact with, so saying if left to itself/themselves is kinda pointless. That was the main issue.

Magnets exert forces and torques. They will induce currents. They interact, so they are not inert. That’s the other issue.

IOW, Charles was doubly wrong. I don’t see the benefit of splitting hairs at this point, seeing as this is not the question before us.

 

 

 Swansont rightly draws our attention back to the original question posed by Victheromanian.

 This question was:  Why aren't the fields generated by inert permanent magnets considered as energy.  Isn't the answer this :  that  our modern science cannot admit the possibility of energy  coming from nothing.  Always, we think, energy has be the result of some physical change in the state of matter.  

The matter may change its state by travelling,  thus gaining kinetic energy.  Or by undergoing physical changes to its internal  atomic structure - by nuclear fission or fusion. Thus releasing "atomic" energy.  In the form of nuclear reactors or bombs. 

In both cases,  the matter must underdo some change of state, in order to produce energy.  So, the concept of a permanent magnet producing energy without moving, or undergoing fission or fusion, is deeply hostile to modern science.  And is therefore resisted.

Such resistance is not new in the history of Science.  You'll recall that in the 17th Century,  Newton's theory of Gravitational attraction was strongly attacked, especially by French philosophers, as it didn't seem reasonable.  It didn't seem reasonable to Einstein either,  which is why he devised Relativity Theory to replace it.

Thanks MSC. Very much appreciated. But I shy away from any direct contact such as you suggest. I like to communicate by typing on my keyboard.    By that means, I can talk to intelligent, science-minded people such as yourself.  It's a real, genuine pleasure. But I can't carry this any further..

Therefore, I'm going to shut down.  Best wishes.

1 hour ago, MSC said:

Could dark matter be accounted for in colossal black holes hidden in the voids between galaxy clusters along the cosmic web?

What exactly is in those void areas? What are the theories? 

The picture is thought-provoking.  Doesn't it remind you of the network of billions of neurones in a human brain.  With synapses lighting up as thoughts flash through them.

Could the Universe, with its billions of stars, be a Cosmic Brain?

2 hours ago, swansont said:

And?

Having some similarities or overlap doesn’t make them the same thing. They’re still different disciplines.

Do you think that "philosophers" are just  highly intelligent people who can't do maths?

26 minutes ago, iNow said:

By definition, magnets aren’t inert

iNow,  Magnets seem inert if left to themselves.   Do you mean, they contain potential energy?   Couldn't the same be said for other substances, such as petrol. Or "gas" , as you Americans  ambiguously, but beguilingly,  call it. 

The difference is this:  If you put the "gas" into your "automobile",  it supplies energy for a while.  But then the energy gets used up, by your driving around. Whereas magnets keep their  energy forever.  Because the electrons inside the magnet never lose their charge.  Why don't they?

29 minutes ago, zapatos said:

From any given distance to a black hole the 'gravitational pull' does not change at all as a BH gets smaller. If our sun were to suddenly become a BH there would be no change to its gravitational pull on us.

The gravity gets stronger when you move closer to a center of mass. Imagine the strength of gravity on the surface of the sun. That is the strongest you can feel the sun's gravity.  But if the sun turned into a BH, you could get close to its center of mass since its 'surface' is now closer to its center of mass. THAT is where you would feel a stronger gravitational pull.

Thanks zapatos.  After reading your post, I couldn't get it at first.  But now mulling over what you said,  I think I've got it - a Black Hole is so intensely concentrated towards its centre,  that the pull of the  outer layers (if there are any) don't matter.