Janus
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Posts posted by Janus
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On 4/15/2023 at 5:35 AM, Moontanman said:
That situation seems more than a bit contrived, how about a FTL transmission isn't possible from a small moving object? Maybe only a planet sized object can be used to house or mount an FTL transmitter? No less contrived at least?
How does that address the issue? Sure, it would be impracticable to do a similar scenario just using planet-sized objects, but it is not strictly impossible.
As far as the basic scenario being "contrived" goes, what does that matter? This isn't about every or even most scenarios causing causality issues, it is about being able to produce them at all. One way to violate causality is one too many.
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Edited by Janus
22 hours ago, MJ kihara said:Why then bother bringing us into the existence... finding ourselves asking this question.
This assumes that the universe has some purpose or plan.
And even if we assume that this is the case, what makes you so sure that we are a major part of it? We could just as well be an undesirable but unavoidable side effect.
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21 hours ago, NTuft said:
What I'm arguing is that the research too was paid for using lawyers as a screen to pay a private company for campaign adjacent activities. It was improperly described precisely because they wanted what was oppo research to appear independent. The hush money was not disclosed because that's the point there, being extorted by two parties to silence their disclosures. Neither one was disclosed and both involved lawyers's fees as fronts to hide payments.
So a smidgen more transparency with HC, it having been tied in and reported as part of the campaign's finances, whereas the two pay-outs for DT were mocked up as business deals--it being a campaign finance violation apparently is not sticking, as the charges are for fraudulent business practices. Some similarity if not entirely analogous. More to develop, thought, and from the AP article there is money going back and forth between Cohen and the Trump organization, which may muddy the waters.
Apparently Judge Walton made those statements because he was in the dark--he didn't think Barr could say what he did without having read the whole thing himself, which seems fair. The reporting here says that the portions that remained redacted, after having reviewed the whole report, were sections on people being investigated for false statements who hadn't done such, i.e. they were slandered at some point in.. whatever it was the Mueller probe was based on. Walton may've claimed that before he hadn't read the report, but that claim seems to have fizzled over time and by my read Barr was correct. That last bolded paragraph statement by Walton doesn't make a lot of sense--it's from the same 23-page order where he requested the unredacted report, and yet he's already claiming the redacted material is contrary to Barr's statements? Walton's claim fizzled out.
Did you miss the part where Mueller himself wrote to Barr to complain that Barr was understating the seriousness of the report. How can you say that Barr was correct, when the person who wrote the full report didn't think he was?
And just to touch on something else: While he may have violated Federal campaign laws and could be charged on the Federal level for them, New York has its own campaign laws that he could be charged with violating. And this isn't an either/or situation. He could be tried in Federal and State court for the same thing at the same time, if it violates both Federal and State laws. So, New York can pursue a case, even without a Federal one, unless the Feds come in and assert privilege.
Now, is the New York case the weakest of the major cases against him? Yes. But, from what I've heard, from people who understand the law better than I do, is that it isn't as weak as they thought it was prior to the charges being revealed.
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22 hours ago, NTuft said:
I don't recall Barr going out of his way to help Trump, but I don't have all those details
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57 minutes ago, Photon Guy said:
Sometimes your browser might not remember your username if you've been signed out for a long time.
I think you should at least have the option of signing in with your e-mail address instead of your username.
My browser keeps a list of saved signups with user name and password. Even if it doesn't bring it up when you log in, you can go to settings/passwords, bring up the list and look it up. It is also advisable to back up the file with this info onto external storage from time to time, so you can import it to a new computer if your present one suddenly fails.
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20 hours ago, NTuft said:
Should be interesting. As far as I know, the Stormy Daniel's payoff may've involved moving campaign contribution money, hence should've been picked up and run by Federal attorneys. Wtih capabilities to indict a ham sandwich, a narcissistic Orangutan should've been duck soup. What this case is doing filed in New York looks like wait and see material. Hopefully soon.
If they don't have it nailed down, it's a 'Uge nothing-burger', and he walks without time, I think it's a huge mistake.
Back when this investigation started, the feds did step in and and told the New York to back off and they'd handle it. Of course that was back during the time that Bill Barr headed the DOJ. The same Bill Barr that heavily redacted the Mueller report to shield Trump. In other words: "We'll handle it meant, we'll make sure nothing is done about it.".
The present DOJ has it hands full with the documents and Jan. 5th investigations, so I'm sure they fine with letting New York handle this one.
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11 minutes ago, npts2020 said:
I can see the issue ending up appealed to the Supreme Court with Mr. Trump claiming he couldn't get a fair trial of his peers because he has no peers. Of course, a frivolous appeal but it would take more time to resolve (along with all of the other appeals) and push final resolution even farther into the future, possibly even beyond "The Donald's" lifetime. His people are experts at delaying and tying things up until something happens like the prosecutor leaves office or plaintiffs lose interest/run out of money.
Though it does seem that the courts themselves are beginning to lose patience with this tactic. He just recently had an appeal rejected a mere 14 hrs after filing it.
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On 3/30/2023 at 8:37 PM, geordief said:
I mean there needs to be evidence besides Cohen's testimony and common sense.
Cohen's credibility is a weak link and I have no idea how common sense will play out.
Cohen was "crowing"** how his testimony has be corroborated by documents and has not been rebutted by any if the other witnesses so maybe that will tell.
**not crowing but very passionate nonetheless
How do you know that?
It seems highly unlikely that a Grand Jury would make the unprecedented move to indict a former President on over 30 counts if all they had to go on was the testimony of one witness. Of course, we won't know exactly what the charges are until he is arraigned. One commentator has suggested that this may go beyond the hush money case, as he can't see how that, by itself, could be stretched into more than 8 separated charges.
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20 hours ago, exchemist said:
Seems at the protest rally Trump called, the journalists outnumbered the protesters 5:1
If his intent was that protests by his supporters would intimate the grand jury into not indicting him, it went over like a lead balloon. He must be seething over the lack of response. It kind of shoots a huge hole in his recent claims that the American people would not stand for his being criminally prosecuted when the response to his potential indictment is "Meh".
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1 hour ago, TheVat said:
I'm not sure if Chomsky has it quite right, but his theory of innate language is a good starting point to the whole question of language acquisition. Here's a little intro:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-language/
With advances in syntax and semantics came the realization that knowing a language was not merely a matter of associating words with concepts. It also crucially involves knowledge of how to put words together, for it's typically sentences that we use to express our thoughts, not words in isolation.
If that's the case, though, language mastery can be no simple matter. Modern linguistic theories have shown that human languages are vastly complex objects. The syntactic rules governing sentence formation and the semantic rules governing the assignment of meanings to sentences and phrases are immensely complicated, yet language users apparently apply them hundreds or thousands of times a day, quite effortlessly and unconsciously. But if knowing a language is a matter of knowing all these obscure rules, then acquiring a language emerges as the monumental task of learning them all. Thus arose the question that has driven much of modern linguistic theory: How could mere children learn the myriad intricate rules that govern linguistic expression and comprehension in their language — and learn them solely from exposure to the language spoken around them?
Clearly, there is something very special about the brains of human beings that enables them to master a natural language — a feat usually more or less completed by age 8 or so. §2.1 of this article introduces the idea, most closely associated with the work of the MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, that what is special about human brains is that they contain a specialized ‘language organ,’ an innate mental ‘module’ or ‘faculty,’ that is dedicated to the task of mastering a language...
Using the one non-English language I'm a little familiar with, Let's take word order for example:
"Koira etsii kissaa" and "Kissaa etsii koira", both mean "The dog is looking for a cat."
"Koiraa etsii kissa" and "Kissa etsii koiraa", both mean " The cat is looking for a dog"
What changes with word order is the emphasis.
Koira etsii kissaa = The DOG is looking for a cat.
Kissaa etsii koira = The dog is looking for a CAT.
In a somewhat similar fashion,
Karhut ovat tuolla = The bears are over there.
Tuolla ovat karhut = There are bears over there.
Or take the simple "I am"
in English one would say:
"I am John"
"I am cold"
"I am crying"
in Finnish they are:
"Olen John"*
"Minulla kylmä"
"Itken"*
* Can be preceded by "minä", but often isn't.
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On 3/18/2023 at 10:00 AM, mistermack said:
I admit there's a lot different this time. It's not in the heat of an election battle, and he would find it hard to sell it as a plot to steal the presidency. But having said that, crazies are not the most logical of people, so you can't rely on common sense to prevail.
Another factor is that a good number of the people that participated in the Jan 6th riot did so under the impression that they were acting on orders from the seated President, and even used that in their defense. This is not something they could claim now(with the exception of that small subset that believe that he is somehow "secretly" still the President)
An indication of what we could expect is what happened after the document search and seizure, There were calls then to protest and support Trump, and while some people heeded the call, it was a pretty small turnout in numbers.
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3 hours ago, PhilGeis said:
Both FBI and DoE reviews offered as probable the "lab leak" source based on their review.
The key issue here is, what do they mean by "probable"? It does not necessarily mean the same as "probably". There is a difference between saying "It is probable that I will be hit by a car crossing the street tomorrow, and saying "I will probably be hit by a car crossing the street tomorrow" The first just means that there is a non-zero probability that it will occur, and the second implies a good probability that it will occur.
In addition, for quite a while now, intelligence reports and reviews have been split into categories: High confidence, Moderate confidence, and Low confidence, depending on the reliability of the information and sources.
From my understanding, these particular reviews are in the Low confidence category.
So "probable" used in a Low confidence report is not something I'd be willing to hang my hat on.
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1 hour ago, Sensei said:
Are they homeless because they were addicted to drugs?
or
Are they addicted to drugs because they are homeless?
or
Are they addicted to drugs because in North America opioids are prescribed for "everything" ?
https://www.google.com/search?q=opioids+epidemic+in+america
What is the sense of existence of private owned pharmaceutics companies? Unlike the public goodness, their existence, their income relies on how many people are ill (the longer they are ill, chronic deseases, the better for them)..
What is the sense of existence of private owned arm industry? Unlike the public goodness, their existence, their income depends on how many people fight and die in wars.. The more causalities, the more wars, the better for them..
or
Are they homeless because some white collar decided to push credit on them to get a bonus for it, knowing that they won't be able to pay back.. ?
An answer to your questions might lie in how Finland dealt with the homeless issue. They found that if you provide housing without stipulation, then those people tend to be able to get jobs and require less and less assistance. In addition, it turns out to be cheaper in the long run than dealing with the issues caused by a large homeless population. As a result, Finland has almost no homeless problem.
In contrast, in the US, you basically need to meet certain conditions before you become eligible for housing. If you don't meet them, then tough luck.
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6 hours ago, Tutoroot said:
Special relativity states that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. If something were to exceed this limit, it would move backward in time, according to the theory.
No, not really. I think this idea comes from a misunderstanding of time dilation. While it is true that a clock moving relative to you would,as measured by you, tick slower and slower as it it approached the speed of light, the equation that predicts this is "undefined" for speeds greater than c (It gives a result that is the square root of a negative number. )
Now there are some setups that could be used to create causality issues in Relativity if FTL is allowed. Basically, this involves extended systems moving relative to each other, and rely on how these systems measures simultaneity differently. An example of such a system would be two long trains passing each other in opposite directions. One train sends an FTL signal from one car to another. That car transfers the signal a car of the other train as they pass each other. The second train sends an FTL answer back along it length, to be transferred back to the car that originated the message. Under the right conditions, allowing FTL transmission can result in the answer arriving at the origin before the initial signal was sent.
This goes back to what swansont was referring to a few posts ago.
The truth is that the Theory make no predictions as to what would happen if you exceeded c, as that is beyond it range of applicability.
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Your "de-energized" photons sound like a rehash of the Aether, a concept abandoned long ago. And if light transmission is due to energy be transferred through this medium, and this medium is also dark matter, then how does light travel between galaxies, when dark matter tends to collect in clouds around galaxies.
And, as joigus alluded to, if this sea of de-energized photons has neither mass nor energy of its own, then how does it generate the gravitational field needed to account for the observations that led to the need for dark matter in the first place?
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14 hours ago, geordief said:
I saw Bolton on CNN about an hour ago attacking the administration for allowing it to pass over US territory on the basis that it may have had a nuclear bomb in its payload.
Seems a bit of a fanciful argument.Was he scraping the dregs of his powers of argumentation?
Riiight. What would be the point of China putting a nuclear bomb on it? What good would have dropping a single nuclear bomb have done? It would be of no significant strategic value, and would only risk starting a full nuclear exchange, and if such an exchange was their goal, they would have just done a full scale nuclear strike.
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Just an addition to the previous post. In the Classical Doppler shift equation, vo and vs refer to the velocity of the observer and source with respect to the medium through which the waves are propagating.
As result, you get a different answer if you have the source moving with respect to the medium than if it is the observer moving with respect to the medium.
Whereas with the relativistic equation, there is no medium and the answer only depends on the relative velocity between source and observer.
Also, There is a typo in the equation given for Relativistic Doppler shift. It should be v-c for upper part of the fraction.
You will often see this equation written with 1-ß and 1+ß instead, where ß = v/c
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22 hours ago, Lorentz Jr said:
Earth is revolving about its own axis in the same sense as its orbit around the Sun (except for the tilt, of course), so objects on the Sun side are orbiting more slowly than ones on the dark side.
For the Sake of this example, we ignore the Earth's own rotation, as it not a factor as far as tidal forces go and unnecessarily complicates the scenario.
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If the Earth were stationary (held suspended above the Sun by some magical string), then yes, an object on the Sun side would weigh less.
But it is not, it is in orbit, which is a free fall trajectory. That means everything on Earth is also following that trajectory.
In other words, if you suddenly removed the Earth, and left behind only the objects resting on its surface, those objects would continue to orbit the Sun on their own.
Now let's simplify things. Assume you have only three objects., The Earth, and objects on its Sun side and the opposite side. We will then magically remove the Earth's gravity's hold on the two objects.
What would happen? The Earth will continue along its orbit as usual. The Sun side object will follow it own independent orbit. It is closer to the Sun than the Earth's center, but starts with the same velocity as the Earth's center. It would need a higher speed to maintain this orbital distance, so it will begin to "drift" in nearer to the Sun.
On the other hand, the object on the opposite side, being further from the Sun, and also starting off with the same speed, is moving too fast for its distance from the Sun, and will start to drift away from the Sun.
Add the Earth's gravity back in, and you get the result that both objects are a bit lighter than objects sitting on the day/night line. This is known as "tidal effect".
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1 hour ago, Otto Nomicus said:
You did get it work out, and without complicated equations involving squares, well done. The only reservation I have is that the velocity of the clock along its horizontal path had to be distorted for it to work. I understand the logic behind it, that the light beam was perceived as completing a longer path than 1 m during the cycle and that was used as the basis for gauging the clock's velocity, assuming that the beam had traveled that path at normal light speed so it took a longer time, thus the clock must have traveled a shorter distance relative to the cycle time.
What if the clock were traveling along a track set up in a lab of sufficient size and we could gauge its velocity along that track? We would find that it moved 0.866 m in the time the light took to complete its cycle, because the light beam really only moved the vertical height of the clock, not a slanted path. A laser beam doesn't propagate on a slant when directed vertically, because somebody would have noticed if it did. Why, then, would it be assumed that the beam had traveled a longer path simply because the clock moved horizontally at the same time? I don't think that's logically plausible. By that logic, if you dropped an object from a certain height and simultaneously threw another matching object horizontally then the one one dropped straight down would hit the ground before the horizontally thrown one, which is not actually the case. Do you consider the thrown object to have traveled a curved path to ground at a greater velocity than the dropped object traveled straight down, or do you just consider it to have traveled horizontally at a certain velocity at the same time as traveling vertically at the speed of gravity? It was two different velocity vectors, not one.
The clock moving horizontally is a similar situation, the light waves moved straight down at 1 c while also moving horizontally at 0.866 c, or at least appearing to move horizontally, but it's velocity was not actually a combination of the two, which would mean it exceeded normal light speed and was therefore seen as requiring correction to bring it back down to normal, using velocity contraction and time dilation. There was never a need for correction because the photons had never traveled any farther than 0.5 m up and down vertically, totally a round trip of 1 m, at a velocity of 299,792,458 m/s.
Now there's the question of whether the light waves/photons were actually inheriting the horizontal motion of the emitter after being emitted vertically. That would make it like a ball tossed vertically by a person on a moving train. What causes the ball to keep moving with the train after being tossed? The obvious answer is inertia. Does light possess inertia? How could it when inertia is a property of mass and light has no mass? So were the vertically propagating light waves really ever moving horizontally with the clock or was it an illusion? One thing is certain, the light was never propagating on a slanted path.
It appears that the moving clock should have been considered as if it weren't moving at all, in which case, photons would not be required to possess inertia to explain the situation. The obvious conclusion is that, when observing a moving frame with a vertical light beam in it, you should consider the situation to be that you see the light clock exactly as you would if neither of you were moving, no time dilation involved whatsoever. If you see the situation that way then how could you see the situation differently if there were two beams in the moving frame, one vertical and one horizontal? You couldn't use time dilation for the horizontal beam and not have it also effect the vertical beam, which never required time correction at all. So how is time dilation a real thing? Maybe muons just decay more slowly when accelerated, how would you know that wasn't the real explanation for muons making it to the earth's surface? Their mass would supposedly be increased, that theory may be valid, and maybe their rate of decay is slowed in direct proportion to that mass increase. That would remove the most popular proof cited for time dilation and length contraction being valid.
To your point of a laser beam propagating at an angle, It does. This is a well understood concept called the aberration of light. If I put a laser on a moving cart, aimed straight up, and the cart is moving relative to me, I would measure the laser as propagating at an angle other than straight up. Of course since the speed of light is as fast as it is. the cart would have to be moving at a pretty good clip for me to notice it without very accurate measuring equipment.
A lot of the rest of your post revolves around motion, and appears to treat it as an absolute. It is not. This is something Galileo understood.
The "Moving clock" can considered to be at rest, and the "observer" as moving. It doesn't matter which of the two you consider as moving, the observer will observe the same thing. Relative to himself, the light travels at angle. The total distance traveled as measured by them, is longer than that measured by the clock. A postulate of SR is that light travels at c relative to frame of reference from which it is being measured.
Here's an animation comparing 2 light clocks, one moving relative to the frame, the other not. The white dots are the light pulses bouncing between two mirrors. The circles expand at c to represent the speed of light.
Now as far as the moving clock is concerned, the it's pulse just goes up and down between the mirrors at c, so it measures 1 "tick" to last the same length of time as the non-moving clock does in this animation. So for example, both clocks would measure going from 0 to 1 as taking 1 us.
For a horizontal pulse, you need to take length contraction into account, as the
stationary clock would measure the moving clock as being length contracted:
You will also note that as far as the stationary clock goes, the horizontal pulse going in one direction take longer for the moving clock. This is an example of the Relativity of Simultaneity.
Also, if we were to switch our viewing frame, so that we saw the clock moving to the right as "stationary" and the other other clock moving to the left. Then it would be the clock moving to the right that would be seen as ticking slower (keeping in mind that we change nothing but which clock we are "following")
As far as muons go, their "mass" does not increase. Their kinetic energy is high, and thus their momentum. But what is really happening is that the increase in both rise at a different rate than that predicted by Newtonian physics. So, if you were to apply Newtonian formulas to them, it would seem as if their mass increased, but the Newtonian formulas don't apply properly here.
Besides that, the muon example, while one of the earlier tests of Relativity, was not the only and definitely not the last. Countless of observations have been made, all giving results affirming Relativity. You would have to come up with multiple explanations for them all. Explanations which conspired to produce the results of Relativity.
hijack from Einstein Light Clock Conundrum
in Speculations
Just out of curiosity, exactly what about the light clock do find as being impossible?