pinball1970

I did like this one,( from wiki, )"The Killing Star is a hard science fiction novel by American writers Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski, published in April 1995." Again pretty stark, but what caught my friends interest was the discussion at the end of the book, which discussed the seemingly science fiction concepts in terms of the actual science fact advancements. Thirty years on it would be interesting to read it again. I do not want to derail the thread but just a quick note. I have trouble with the literature, the genre but I like a lot of the films, the visual element. With fantasy it is the other way round, reading LOTR say I am in middle earth with Glorfindel taking on the wraiths and the visual representation will never match up. (They swap Glorfindel for Arwen! Legolas in the cartoon I think) Joe Abercrombie "the first Law," is a good one. Fantasy rather than science fiction and not a first crack at the genre for a newbie. I read David Eddings "Pawn of prophecy," 30 years ago, I liked it but I am an amateur when it comes to this. Not well read for a 58 year old. Edit Eddings was also fantasy and was quite funny from memory. I could not get into Terry Pratchett by comparison, just not funny, stilly rather.

Allegedly. I do not believe that myself but it is written in some holy books. On topic then, in case the thread gets locked soon. Christopher Hitchens made a good point and Tim Rice about 40 years prior. If the gods were so concerned about being unloved and forgotten, why choose a such a few select times to show up? In such an undeveloped part of the ME? Where literacy was about 2 or 3%? To so few people? Assuming everyone rejects the Adam and Eve story that is. I would say I am a hard atheist (I reject God and played Rugby, b bum) However, if god appeared, announced their existence, to everyone on the planet simultaneously and made it so we could see each race, each tribe, city, nation watching each other in wonder finally realising we are one whole beautiful species living as one, I would agree they existed. I would have questions but agree and be a theist again. Easy for a god to that, as easy as me arranging a teams with people across Eurasia and I'm just a human.

My good friend practically forced me to read some short stories of his. One of them was Johnny Mnemonic, actually "Burning Chrome." Hated it, I hated the writing style. Admittedly though I do not like the genre overall, I prefer fantasy. So Wizards, goblins, elves, spells, warriors and wars as opposed to robots, lasers, space ships and Ai.

We know it can be bent by a massive object but let's assume you are correct. Just an abstraction to do calculations. My point was they should be considered together as changing the conditions in a particular reference frame alters space and time. As an example particle decay in a particle accelerator, at near light speed particles, last longer and travel further according to special Relativity. At those velocities space and time are altered.

You have to be careful talking about rigid bodies when it comes to relativity. If a rigid pole is long enough then one end will not instantly move because you apply a force at the other. It will move according to the molecular forces along the mass which is not instant. Speed of sound in the medium the force is applied to, so about 17,000 mph in metal (I think don't hang me on that) so that is nowhere near speed of light and even less instantaneous.

I thought that was stark as hell but fantastic too.

Or "someone who knows physics to a decent level who knows what they are talking about." I know there a few mods and experts but Clint Eastwood is a bit easier to remember.

Ok that's the opposite of what you said. Yhwh needing angels when he didn't need angels, that's what probably threw me.

Which signs did you have in mind? If they can be explained by science then they are natural not supernatural and part of the material world nothing to do with a god. The Rainbow was claimed to be sign from Yhwh following the flood in the OT. Since rainbows can be explained and demonstrated easily by HS physics students today, I could claim that the flood story is made up. I could also claim that other miraculous stories in the Bible are therefore also made up, rendering supernatural claims invalid. He didn't, he was one of them.

Time is actually part of space time though yes? Malleable? There is the Anti-de Sitter space but that needs an actual physicist to explain. @MigL

Those are not only options. Don't want to show us- Why? This causes huge problems and creates lots of wars and atheists. They can't show us- They are not gods then are they? They don't exist. Do you entertain this last option?

Ha ha!

Each to his own, I have no need of that hypothesis.

I'll refer you to my first post then. Gods if they exist, can do anything they want, they are gods.

Yes hard work for a non physicist, I have come across some of the equations before but the derivations are pretty quick. Thanks for the reference!

I think I need to watch that again with a note book this time.

She was instructed not to look back at the destruction of Sodom which she failed to do. One of the angels was Yhwh himself so he could have: Told her, "When I say don't look back I mean don't look back!" Maimed her in some way without killing her, say cut her little finger off. Something else less lethal than turning her into a pillar of salt.

I would not have thought anything was too tricky for gods, they are gods.

The scientific method works, it is probably the main thing that has positively advanced humans as a species. Art, music and literature are great but did not help us eradicate smallpox. Of course they could, they are gods.

The scientific community overwhelmingly agree, is there any published literature you can cite that had any traction to the contrary?

What does that have to do with the efficacy of vaccines and vaccine technology? If Trump surrounds himself with anti science idiots and shoehorns them into important administrative roles, that is hardly a slur on the science or scientists. Vaccines work and the COVID vaccination program demonstrated that.

We don't. If there is a small explosion on the moon from a meteor strike and we see it via a decent ground based telescope, then the event occurred just over a second before. If it is on the sun then it's 8 minutes before, outer planets hours and stars in our galaxy, years. In terms of galaxies they can look at Doppler shift and those events can be billions of years in the past. Scientists can get a lot of information from this as they effectively have a three dimensional history of the past, right back to the earliest galaxies detected by the James Webb space telescope, the record holder at the moment is a galaxy that formed 280 million years after the BB. (CMBR too plus some unconfirmed early objects at z=25)

This is the predicted number that is out by many orders of magnitude? I have read this in popsci, not the best source granted.

Thanks to @joigus and @MigL appreciated

Mmm What is "WAG?"