swansont

On par with what? The normal extinction rates? Or the other major extinctions? If it's the latter, what's the problem? If it's the former, how do you know what the prehistoric extinction rates are, if not from extrapolation? The links I provided gave numbers of measured events. Evidence. You'd need to start with observing an increase in the number of meteorite strikes. If you saw that, then you might be able to do an extrapolation. Without that, the comparison is garbage — extinctions have been documented, contrary to your claim, and species (used to) exist in areas that have been cleared. If you were to make an apt comparison, you would essentially be claiming that we can't measure the number of meteorite strikes on land and estimate the number that strike the ocean. It would be hard to take that claim seriously.

But one isn't lumping ghost hunters in as a subset of religious, one is categorizing them as all believing in some supernatural power. And as far as supernatural goes, I think you have to distinguish between "science can't currently explain it" and "science can never explain it." I think supernatural is the latter, and not many are really positing that a deity or ghosts are examples of the former. I don't think that scientists, or skeptics, generally claim that science has all the answers. I think the claim is that given sufficient data, science could eventually figure out answers that fall within the scientific sphere. It's ideology in its various forms that claims to have all the answers.

Sione has been suspended for a week for continued rules violations; circumventing a closed thread by posting a response in a new thread (trolling and hijacking)

The term used in the dilation formula is speed, which is a scalar. It's non-negative. (it gets squared anyway). The 4-vector is squared to find its length. The sign of the velocity components doesn't matter.

Oh come on, scientists extrapolate all the time. I think gravity exists in some place, and yet there is no probe of any kind there to measure it — is that a guess or speculation? If I do a test on a random population sample, is it just a guess or speculation that the results will hold, within statistical uncertainty, for a larger population? We have documented extinction rates in regions where we have some ideas of species count and diversity. Why is extrapolating that to regions that have not been extensively documented being treated with such scorn? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html The typical rate of extinction differs for different groups of organisms. Mammals, for instance, have an average species "lifespan" from origination to extinction of about 1 million years, although some species persist for as long as 10 million years. There are about 5,000 known mammalian species alive at present. Given the average species lifespan for mammals, the background extinction rate for this group would be approximately one species lost every 200 years. Of course, this is an average rate -- the actual pattern of mammalian extinctions is likely to be somewhat uneven. Some centuries might see more than one mammalian extinction, and conversely, sometimes several centuries might pass without the loss of any mammal species. Yet the past 400 years have seen 89 mammalian extinctions, almost 45 times the predicted rate, and another 169 mammal species are listed as critically endangered. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020109074801.htm Some 2,000 species of Pacific Island birds (about 15 percent of the world total) have gone extinct since human colonization. Roughly 20 of the 297 known mussel and clam species and 40 of about 950 fishes have perished in North America in the last century. Then consider the regions of the world that have not been extensively studied. The implication that these regions do not have the extensive biodiversity seen elsewhere is the extraordinary claim here.

Oh, for Chrissake. Your quote says WIRES! CURRENT-FRIKKIN' CARRYING CONDUCTORS! They are ELECTRICALLY NEUTRAL, as are the plasmas in a Z-pinch. They are NOT CHARGED BEAMS. Nobody has denied that neutral conductors attract magnetically when the current is parallel. Which is well within the laws of physics to explain. But you keep offering this up as proof for a DIFFERENT PROBLEM. There's nothing more to discuss here. Thread closed, as per staff discussion.

Yes. The length of your velocity 4-vector is c; when you are at rest with respect to an observer that's when the observer will see your time pass at its fastest.

That doesn't answer the question. You have made claims. It is up to you to defend them. Not shifting the burden of proof, as you have done. Defend your claims and answer questions, or the thread will be closed. 24-hour suicide watch is in effect Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedWhen Peron returns and if s/he behaves, the thread can be reopened if there's a promise of substantive discussion

Momentum, not energy. The deBroglie wavelength is h/p

It's not an illusion, as such — it's what you would measure if that's how you were to define mass.

Given that you can arrange just about any combination of constants, especially with multiplying by 2 and 2*pi, to make numbers work out to be anything you wish, I'd say no.

No, actually, my post is not an opinion. I work in the field of precise time. "I haven't noticed anything" is a reflection of that: time is not speeding up globally. As to your perception of time, I don't see how that's scientifically relevant. As to the rest, they are all anecdotes, and what you need to present are data. The 'net is full of people who "observe" things that are mistaken. What is required is objective measurement. Do you have any?

The conclusion of relativity is that time is not an absolute. "Now" is not an absolute — it's the time displayed on your clock. You keep treating them as different things, and they aren't. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged What time is it? Now. Yes, now. I want to know what time it is now. Yes. The time. Now. Yes, now. Yes.

I haven't noticed anything. And what do the ramblings of a pastor have to do with this?

The electrons are in the same frame of reference. They see no magnetic fields, only electric fields. Any observer in another frame will see magnetic fields, because that's what happens in Maxwell's equations when you change frames under those conditions. However, the net repulsion does not change.

No, you offer a link that discusses electrons in a wire, and refuse to acknowledge that those are not the same conditions.

Ummm, Steorn's device didn't work, and they haven't really been heard from since the fiasco.

What is the difference between the two? From my interpretation of the undefined phrase "advancement of nows" I'd say that's exactly what clocks measure. Thus the speed of time, as measured by the clocks, is precisely what determines their aging.

They do share the same "now." They just disagree on what time "now" is. I don't see what the problem is. Well, I do, actually — "now" isn't a well-defined term in physics, which is why these discussions occasionally sound like an Abbott & Costello bit.

That's how much energy would be released if you added 0.5 kg of matter with 0.5 kg of its antimatter counterpart. But there's nothing magical about 1 kg — that number is arbitrary. c^2 is a conversion factor.

Your roomy is wrong. Gravity exists — we accept that as fact. We have observed it, and have a reasonable expectation that we will continue to observe it. The theory of gravity is the reason why gravity behaves the way it does, as explained in the theory of general relativity (which reduces to Newton's law of gravity)

Your post hints at several problems with and reasons not to use relativistic mass. The full equation is [math]E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2[/math] The m in that equation is the rest mass, aka invariant mass, since it is invariant under a Lorentz transformation. From this, one only arrives at [math]E = mc^2[/math] when p=0, i.e. the item is at rest. This equation, though, has been confirmed. An isomer of Fe-56 was measured to have a greater mass than the ground state in a Penning trap. http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/278

Moved to P&S, out of suggestions

It means the longer you need to tunnel, the lower the barrier can be.

Depends. In alpha decay there often isn't a photon. The energy appears as kinetic energy of the alpha and the daughter.