Bill Angel

I agree with what you said and thought that this cartoon makes a related point in a humorous fashion.

The statement "aren't we all transcendental of dimensions, or dimensionless because we exist in all dimensions?" is problematical. One reason it is is because of the properties of gravity. Gravity manifests itself in three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. If a mass produced a gravitational force in more than three spatial dimensions (or put another way warped a region of spacetime with a dimensionality greater than 4) then the force would be weaker in the three spatial dimensions that we live in, that is to say the force of gravity would no longer obey the inverse square law over distance in the three spatial dimensions that we inhabit, the force would decrease faster than 1/r^2. If this were the case then galaxies would never form and stars producing energy by nuclear fusion would not exist. Hence we would not be here to discuss these issues. This is one of the criticisms that physicists make of string theory, that having the flexibility via the mathematics to posit any number of spatial dimensions for a universe can result in a universe barren of features like galaxies, stars, planets, and of course life.

In astronomy, Kepler's laws of planetary motion are three scientific laws describing the motion of planets around the Sun. 1) The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. 2) A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time. 3) The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_planetary_motion These laws of planetary motion can be drived from Newton's theory of Gravitation. Since the motion of the planets can be predicted from a mathematical derivation based on Newton's theory of Gravitation, arn't the planets "doing the math" as they orbit around the Sun?

An excellent book came out in 2011 : Quantum Man, Richard Feynman's life in Science, by Lawrence M Krauss.The author goes to great lengths to explain the value of Feynman's contributions to the scientific community. While his contributions are not necessarily easy to grasp, making the effort to read the book is still I think worthwhile.

I believe that most physicists would disagree with you on this point. There are particles called fermions, which are particles with half integer spin. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FermionAll fermions obey Fermi Dirac statistics, irrespective of their locations in space time. Fermions also obey the Pauli exclusion principle, irrespective of their individual locations in space time

What science considers to be the "abstract truth within an objective universe" are the conservation laws, such as the conservation of energy and the conservation of momentum. Two observers in different reference frames won't necessarily see the same thing, especially if one reference frame is moving at close to the speed of light relative to the other reference frame. But they should both see adherence to the same conservation laws of physics in the situation or events that they are both observing.

XENON1T could make history or spell the end for 'supersymmetric' dark matter. http://www.nature.com/news/largest-ever-dark-matter-experiment-poised-to-test-popular-theory-1.18772

Riding a bicycle involves coordination between one's sense of balance and the movements of one's body to keep the bike from toppling over. One has to be conscious to ride a bicycle (one cannot do it in one's sleep) but listening to and understanding an explanation of how to ride a bicycle is not sufficient in itself for mastering the technique.

Here is the title and introduction to a book that covers topics related to the issues that you raised in terms of a different type of computational approach: Neural Cell Behavior and Fuzzy Logic: The Being of Neural Cells and Mathematics of Feeling "This book covers at an advanced level the most fundamental ideas, concepts and methods in the field of applications of fuzzy logic to the study of neural cell behavior. Motivation and awareness are examined from a physiological and biochemical perspective illustrating fuzzy mechanisms of complex systems."

In the equations of the fields that you mentioned, on occasion infinities appear. Are these infinities indicators that the mathematical descriptions have broken down, or can some physical quantity really have the value of infinity?

On the subject of nostalgia and photography, it was common years ago to have family gatherings where old home movies would be shown, or perhaps slide shows. Old home movies of older children when they were toddlers, when shown at a family gathering, would inevitably induce feelings of nostalgia and even euphoria in the older generations present (the parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents). But the younger generation, viewing these images taken years earlier of themselves as awkward toddlers, might just feel a sense of irritation or of boredom.

Lawrence Krauss wrote an article in the New Yorker titled "Ben Carson's Scientific Ignorance" that is worth a read. Because it's his speciality, Dr Krauss is particularly critical of Carson's assertions in the field of cosmology and the Big Bang. See http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ben-carsons-scientific-ignorance Carson should have stuck to brain surgery, a field in which he apparently was respected.

See http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/politics/ben-carson-2016-childhood-violence/index.htmlIts offensive to suggest that this God people believe in would allow innocent people to die in auto accidents but intervene specifically in this traffic situation just to spare his life. And why would a deity miraculously impart to him the knowledge needed to get an A on a chemistry exam, but still keep his mind clouded so he can't recognize the validity of evolutionary biology?

I've developed a compulsive interest in doing crossword puzzles on my computer. Since I'm 67 years old and retired it doesn't bother anyone else if I spend my time this way. I get a positive reinforcement each time that I finish one. When I was younger and working I occasionally sat next to people on buses who were doing the crossword puzzles in newspapers, and was critical of them for doing that, considering it to be a waste of time. I kept my opinion to myself, however.

I agree that "thought atom" has a vague meaning. Perhaps it has a conceptual connection to Leibniz's idea of a Monad. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz#The_monads

Here is a quote from another article about this same work titled "Big Bang, Deflated? Universe May Have Had No Beginning" See http://www.livescience.com/49958-theory-no-big-bang.html So the claim here is that these theoreticians have reconciled general relativity and quantum mechanics, but have done so by introducing hidden variables that allow the seemingly probabilistic bahavior of subatomic particles to now be considered deterministic.

I was getting the idea of the geometry of the universe being flat mixed up with the expansion of space. Which is also another thing I am wondering about. Will the universe expand forever or will it reach a critical point where it starts collapsing on itself? Here is another analysis of the rate of expansion of space: See http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_fate.htmlOne scenario is that in the distant future the expansion of space (driven by this dark energy) will accelerate to reach the point where all the atoms of the universe are ripped apart.

She still seems to be the only researcher who has come to the conclustion that the Plank data supports her multiverse hypothesis. In the article The Kavli Foundation Q&A: What Has Planck Taught Us About the Early Universe? (published in February of 2015) there is no mention of the Plank data supporting her hypothesis. This article is an interview with Dr. George Efstathiou, director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge and one of the leaders of the Planck mission. In the article Beyond the Outer Limits: Maps of radiation left over from the Big Bang may show traces of universes besides our own. (published in October 2014) Dr. Efstathiou asserts that he and his team were examining the Plank data to see if there were in fact anomalies in the cosmic microwave background radiation that would present a compelling case in support of the mutiverse hypothesis. He did not choose to discuss the multiverse hypothesis in his subsequent interview (February 2015) which would seem to indicate that the Planck data analysis did not present a compelling case in support of Laura Mersini-Houghton's hypothesis.

Those a certainly good questions. Here are some conjectures that relate to some of them.

I grasp your point. There is however a tie in between what I was suggesting and the so called Ekpyrotic Universe, which is based on the idea that our hot big bang universe was created from the collision of two three-dimensional worlds moving along a hidden, extra dimension. The tie in is that the Ekpyrotic model posits as I do the gravitational interaction between two branes that are situated close to each other. See http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr/ Here is an animation by Neil Turok showing the interaction between two branes which illustrate his Ekpyrotic Universe model. His animation could also serve to illustrate the gravitational interaction between two branes corresponding to two separate worlds. From the perspective of our world, the matter in the other world would be dark matter whose presence is felt only via gravitational attraction i. e. the exchange of gravitons.

Here is a speculative idea on the dark matter problem that relates to the issues mentioned in the above two posts.: Dark matter would only interact with visible matter gravitationally, i.e. only through the exchange of gravitons, if it existed IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE. The idea that matter in our universe could be interacting with matter in another universe is an idea taken seriously by string theorists. For example, the idea is discussed in the book "The Hidden Reality, Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene

I served in the military during the Vietnam era, and the GI Bill benefits Vietnam era veterans got were nowhere near as generous as those that were offered to the veterans of World War II.

One technology that has not been mentioned yet is steam power. The use of steam power was initially devoted to peacetime persuits: pumping the water out of coal mines, spinning wool and weaving cloth. The use of steam engines to power battleships or to manufacture armaments came later. A good book on this subject is “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention” by William Rosen.

The existence of dark matter has been confirmed by the phenomena of "gravitational lensing". Astronomers can estimate the amount of dark matter contained in a galactic cluster by how much the light of more distant galaxies is distorted by passing near the cluster. See Galaxy clusters and gravitational lensing This estimate of the amount of dark matter present would still remain valid even if magnetic effects played a role in galactic dynamics and spiral arm formation.

I would agree with you on that point. As you state it is the perspective and judgment of us oldsters that is our greatest asset. I recognize that people like Steve Jobs make important contributions as very young men, but most young men don't have the abilities that he had. One ability that Steve Jobs had as young man that I did not have was prescience, the ability to envision how microprocessor based personal computers could revolutionize society. I did some projects with microprocessors back in the 1970s, and the projects were successful as far as they went, but I did not get as fired up about their potential to transform society as he did. As a consequence his net worth when he died was 11 billion dollars, while I'm just getting by on my Social Security.