Bignose

Ant, I can understand your feelings here. I guess all I can say is my comments above, in that I wouldn't expend any unnecessary thought on fake internet points that don't really mean anything at all. All you really have to do is follow the rules. If you have unpopular opinions, then so be it.

Ant, do you not see that you're in 'danger' of going backward in this thread too? You're deliberately ignoring everyone who is replying to you, and only replying to yourself. To stop this bleeding, you need pay attention and at least try to understand others' point of view. Just replying to yourself is the equivalent of clasping your hands over your ears and yelling. This is acting like a child. This is why you are getting -1s.

... this doesn't explain at all why someone cares. Apart from a wry smart ass comment here or there, I don't think I've cared about how many + or - points anything I have posted or anyone else has posted gets. If people didn't want to read what I've written, then they can ignore me or kick me off the forum. Other than that, I just don't care, because the points literally mean nothing.

cixe, all swansont is saying is that it doesn't mean anything to just tell us that a new method is more energy efficient. You have to demonstrate the increased energy efficiency. That is what is meant by "back it up": support the statement. Words alone don't mean much. "We should cure cancer." Yes, that would be nice. Everyone agrees it would be nice. But did making this statement actually do anything? No. What is important is how to cure cancer. Your comments about energy efficiency are the same. "We should do more with less." Again, yes, everyone agrees. But how? How does this increase energy efficiency? Does it actually work? This is what you've being asked to provide. Your statement alone isn't worth anything. You need to back your statement up with evidence. Lastly, probably want to drop the insults. No one have been insulting to you.

It never ceases to amaze me how much discussion can be had over fake internet points which have zero worth and meaning.

I didn't participate in this thread, but did read it. Tylers100, it is never a mistake to offer a new idea. The mistake is in not learning from feedback. Click on almost any other thread in this section, and so very often the author clings to their idea in the face of usually overwhelming evidence. You didn't. You looked at what was presented and understood that your idea doesn't fit with what is known. No mistake here. If anything, a shining example of how most people who actually take science seriously should behave. This is actually exactly how real science goes. Someone has an idea, and then checks to see if that idea agrees with what is known. When you become skilled and have a good amount of knowledge, a lot of time a scientist can do this themselves. But bouncing ideas off of colleagues happens all the time, too. And at every scientific conference, people are lined up to ask questions of the presenters. This back and forth happens all the time. Again, the correct way to deal with it is to listen to the feedback and understand how it jives with your idea and go from there.

They are in general not dimensionless. a + b doesn't have to equal c + d. Those all depend on the order of the reaction. And they are used to predict the results of chemical reactions. There is kind of a whole industry built around knowing these constants very accurately. It's called chemical engineering.

Well, there isn't a life-altering need to make in my install of Chrome in this forum's LaTeX. I'm not bothering to reinstall. I'll do without, lol. It wa less than a minor annoyance, and if no one else has the problem, then I really could not care less about it. edit, lol, it isn't just in the LaTeX apparently, since Chrome did it above to. But, I still don't care.....

It is something in Chrome for me. Lowered myself to use Internet Explorer (I have version 11 installed apparently) and was able to edit the post I made in the LaTeX testing thread.

No, I've done this multiple times. Edited, made the above post. I haven't missed capital B that many consecutive times. And besides, I made one in the title. Something is going on. If it helps: Win 7, Chrome 41.

[math][A][/math] stays capital, but when I enter [.math][./math] (without periods obviously) it always turns into lowercase: [math][/math]

[math][/math]

equilibrium constants for the reaction A + B <--> C + D look like [math]k = \frac{[A]^a^b}{[C]^c[D]^d}[/math] The value of the exponents depend on the order of the reaction itself. There is a lot of masses (in the concentrations) multiplied and divided there.

They are somewhat common in chemistry, in things like reaction equilibrium calculations, dependent on the reaction stoichiometry. There are drag correlations for solids moving through fluids that have multiplicative relationships between the densities of the two materials. I agree that isn't isn't super common to see units of mass^2, but I think that the pattern of the product of the two target items is common. See Coulomb's Law, for example, with charge instead of mass.

... and it is the 'progressed from there' part that is lacking. Regardless of whether you have the skills to do it yourself or not, the point is that to be scientifically useful, there needs to be more than just the story. The story of Newton's apple, Einstein's elevator, and Bohr's orbits are good visualizations of what is happening. It has some qualitative descriptions. However, there are sorely lacking in quantitative descriptions. As in, sure it is useful to know that "the apple falls down". But, what is really scientifically useful to know is "how long until it hits the ground? what speed is it moving at? what if I get something twice the size?" etc. These are the steps that Newton did. He built a model (yes, a math equation) that could then be turned into predictions. "If I drop this apple from a height of 10 m, it will hit the ground in 2.6 seconds." Then you compare this prediction to an experiment where you measure the value you predicted, and compare. Math is useful here, too, because if you have two competing ideas, the one that makes closer predictions is considered more useful because its accuracy is greater than the other. If the prediction is good, huzzah! If the prediction is bad, then you need to go back and revise. This is science as it is actually practiced and demonstrably successful today. I am not saying that the initial "insight" isn't valuable. Because it is. The problem is in thinking that the insight alone is powerful in a scientific sense, and it really isn't. What is scientifically powerful is using that insight to create predictions that can be quantitatively compared to measurements. "Insight" alone is basically story telling. Again, story telling has its place, but scientifically it is pretty limited.

That's not how a scientific dialog works. If you think that an objection is irrelevant, the onus is on you to demonstrate how it isn't. This happens in science every day. Every single conference I have even been to, after a presenter has spoken, there are numerous questions. Did the presenter consider X? What are the limits on Y? Does you model cover phenomena Z? and so on. These people aren't trying to be mean about it. Science is very confrontational in that, as above, everything ends up being questioned. If you know your topic, you should be able to answer these objections. Either by refuting them or conceding them. What doesn't work is to continue building a 2nd story onto your house built on sand, also known as, waving away objections. You have to remember that you're going to get a lot of what you might consider "stupid" questions. People are going to question even some very basic things, sometimes. People are all different. Different levels of knowledge, understanding, etc. Especially on an internet forum like this. The best way to deal with them is to explain why you think the objection is incorrect, cite a few sources that support your point of view, and do your best to explain yourself. Again, if you know the subject well, this should not be very difficult. You keep citing the lack of support and funding, but not the lack of strong science behind it. Again, if you can build a good model, and show how that model makes predictions that agree well with what is observed, the funding and support will come. This is how funding works today. You show people that your work is worth funding by demonstrating how successful your model is, where success in science is largely about making predictions that agree closely with measurement.

This is pretty much how all of science works. #1 We don't have a universal equation of everything at this moment. That means, we have a lot of different equations for different situations. Each one of those equations have assumptions implicit in their derivation and domains of validity where they are known accurate and considered applicable. So, any time anyone uses an equation in science, the very first question is: is this equation valid for this situation? Or is it appropriate to use this model here? #2 The above question is important because if you start misusing equations or models when they aren't applicable, it is like building a house on sand. Without a solid foundation, the house will collapse. In the same way, if you use an equation incorrectly early in a development, all conclusions based on that are suspect and probably not sound, either. It doesn't matter how logical or aesthetically pleasing a result is, if it is based on a poor assumption, it is rejected. So, in the end, yes. In science every step is indeed disputed. It is the framework that has led to all the successes we enjoy from science today.

Sports, eh? Well here's your big chance. The men's NCAA basketball tournament is coming up. Predict the winner of every game. You should also enter those contests that give you millions of dollars if you get them all right. Then you can make your own webpages and have the means to really spread the word of your message here. Seems like a win-win. Let us know how it goes.

Ok, so you have a qualitative data point. That's a step. But what's being asked is for a quantitative data point.

So, why don't you quantify this some? This is where actual scientists would do a "back of the envelope" calculation. That is, they aren't looking for an exact answer, but using best available estimates and seeing if the orders of magnitude play out. That is, we know about convection flows (see fluid mechanics). We know about thermally induced flows (see both fluid mechanics and heat transfer). And we know about dynamos (see electromagnetic dynamics). Use some numbers and quantify it. This is essentially what swansont is also asking.

So, you're saying you don't want to participate in a scientific process? I don't know exactly what you expected from a science forum, then. The basic tenant of prediction & comparison of that prediction to measurement is what has allowed us to move past the dark ages of believing the moon was made of cheese and accepting whatever the pope, king, baron, richest, or more powerful person said without question. What you've outlined here is stepping back to that. You're going to tell us something, but then not provide any comparison with what is actually observed with what the idea predicts, that is, no evidence at all. So, yeah. No evidence? No predictions? No thank you. I don't want to take many very large steps backward. I'd rather continue moving forward with the highly successful way science is practiced today.

No. If you think about it, floor(x) is a constant between the integers. It's derivative would be 0 there and undefined at its discontinuities.

The only way I can see that the above is ok is if this means that we shouldn't go back to the papers in 1917 and change them. Then I agree. And I don't think anyone is being all Orwell's 1984 on scientific papers. What does happen, however, is that new papers are published all the time, and they contain references back to the original papers. That is, if someone wanted to publish a new formula based on the old ones, they tell everyone reading that paper where to read a copy of the original paper. Then, they present the new formula which hopefully makes even better predictions than the old one did. That's kind of pretty much how science goes. We continuously improve the models over time. We don't just stop when someone 'famous' makes a formula and end it all right there.

I'm with Strange here. Overall, I think that the post is finally moving in the right direction. But is there any evidence that you can cite that improved knowledge of metaphysics leads to reduction in errors? Or is this just your opinion? Just being your opinion is fine, it just shouldn't be presented as fact.

ummm, yeah. he made these things, they are called predictions. And like, they were very close to what was actually, you know, measured. Where exactly is this from you? I asked for them several times. Invoking Einstein's good name here is dishonest and disingenuous at best.