md65536

But in this case it literally does add up. It is reasonable, and resolved, mathematically. You have not even demonstrated that your "lingual solution" can convey the meaning (or an understanding) of the problem, let alone resolve it. Those aren't the words that are the problem. You probably can describe the paradox without math, and resolve it in words. Every time the warrior catches up to the tortoise, the latter has moved on. Or to make it more purely linguistic: Every time the warrior's position is made to mean the same as the tortoise's position, the tortoise's position has been made to mean something different. Or something like that. The paradox is that the warrior's position will never mean the same thing as the tortoise's, even though we know they must mean the same thing in the end. The solution is that "never" in this context means not after any (finite) number of iterations. It does not mean "not after any (finite) amount of time". A linguistic confusion of the implied meaning of the word "never" causes the paradox, and sorting out the meaning can resolve it. But is that just a description of the math, in words? Is there a linguistic understanding of numbers of iterations and the meaning of "finite" etc without the math? Does the solution make sense without considering the math? The meaning of "An infinite number of iterations as described can be completed in a finite time" is proven and understood in the math; are the words alone satisfactory? I feel that the more words you've used, the more you've wandered away from the meaning and understanding of the problem. That's not a math vs words thing... I think it's analogous to writing pages of numbers and connecting them with relations, saying "The mathematical answer is in here somewhere, I've just got to write the numbers until the solution presents itself." You can question the concept of meaning, etc, but I don't see you getting any closer to describing anything related to Zeno's paradox. So I think that your attempt at reasoning through the paradox, with a goal of shunning the math, has not been successful.

I think virtual particles are not constrained by the speed of light (or they can be interpreted as being able to exceed c) but they don't define the speed of light. No a photon doesn't experience time. It doesn't have a valid frame of reference and you can't ride on a photon. You can't describe sensible observations at that speed, it is an analogy at best. By analogy, distance in the direction of travel is contracted to 0 and can be traversed in an instant. A neutrino experiences time at the usual rate (1 second per second). Ie. it ages normally, or "its clock" ticks normally. Generally other clocks would be slowed to a near stop.

Neutrinos are somewhere around there (very wide ballpark figure), and they're objects. So I think this situation happens all the time.

The horizon is a light-like surface, and it doesn't have a rest frame, so it doesn't make sense to compare an object's speed relative to it. Similarly, it doesn't make sense to say that we're all traveling at c relative to a beam of light. It makes no sense conceptually or mathematically, and trying to imagine it will confuse. Just as a pulse of light passes an object at c, the horizon passes an in-falling object at c, but in neither case is the object traveling at c relative to anything. If it doesn't make sense, consider that how things look near the horizon is very different depending on if you're inertial or trying to escape. At the horizon, escaping is equivalent to trying to outrun light (conceptually and mathematically impossible), and approaching that approaches infinite length contraction, severely distorting space relative to the inertial in-falling observer.

There's no transfer of energy. Acceleration toward a mass would be converting gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy, and is conserved. The mass of a BH is "mass-energy", and it is conserved. Gravitational energy can be transferred in the form of gravitational waves but that's not applicable to acceleration of masses directly toward each other. If I understand it correctly, you can think of the two masses in terms of two independent static gravitational fields, and (I think) they don't change if the masses are accelerating at a constant rate. However if you change their direction (like if the BH is orbiting the other mass or some other mass) then you have changes to the field that need to be propagated in the form of gravitational waves (emitted energy in all directions which is mostly lost, rather than transferred to the other mass). BUT I think I'm missing something because the acceleration toward a BH depends on the distance to it, so how is that change in acceleration handled?

I just meant it as advice. Ideas generally aren't right or wrong. Even impossible ideas can lead to useful creative solutions. The advice is to estimate the magnitude of the problem before figuring out the details of a possible solution. For example, using values from google searches I estimate the cost of putting 1 mm depth of ocean surface into low Earth orbit with current methods (rockets) would cost about 300 times the value of all resources on Earth. So, organizing who would do it is not the problem that needs to be solved. Another example: You mention Earth's fleet increasing in time. Using the 6 micron current estimate, how many microns of depth would you estimate would be significant relative to other contributions to sea level rise, and how many times or orders of magnitude bigger would the fleet have to be to contribute that depth?

Yes, I meant how would you propose that it might be done. A useful skill, probably too rare at any age let alone 15, is the ability to estimate things. Figure out how much sea level rise you're talking about here, and google "ocean area", and multiply to figure out the volume of water. How many kilograms is that? Google/research how much it costs to to lift a kg to orbit (let alone lunar orbit). Then you'll see how much this idea costs with current technology. Or computing it in terms of energy needed is also a good measure. Thinking about ideas like this and calculating them is a good thing, because if current technology is not up to it, it can inspire new ideas for doing it better. But in this case you'd have to find a solution that is many many many magnitudes better than what exists for getting stuff out of Earth's gravitational well. It costs a LOT to send a person into space, never mind the entire fleet of boats on Earth (or 6 microns worth of sea level), never mind glaciers and icecaps. But other problems, like "What part of Earth would I flood?" might lead to possible solutions, and it might be a good idea too. There might be somewhere where a dam and diverted river could flood a desert enough to save some cities??? Or at least, if we can't think of any way to stop icecap melt and global flooding, we might as well at least think of ways to mitigate the effects. Better to figure out the magnitude of the problem before forming a committee to regulate a solution.

That could work. Where would you put the water? We could build a few large dams, maybe flood a continent or two. Wait a minute, what is the problem you would have solved? The problem of sea level rise? Sea level rise is only a problem because if you raise the sea, then the sea goes onto what is currently land, and then it's under water. So you want to solve that problem by manually putting the water onto land? One way to store a significant amount of sea on land is in a frozen state, in very thick glaciers and ice sheets. Do you have a viable replacement? How much energy and cost would you estimate it would take to take some number of centimeters of global ocean surface out of the sea? How would you do it?

Perhaps a different perspective might help. All of the properties of a black hole (which by the no-hair theorem are only mass, charge, angular momentum, linear momentum, and location) are properties of (or available at?) the surface of the black hole. So while information about anything inside the surface is unavailable, these properties do not disappear. I'm not sure how this relates to the other answers (are the properties available only because they're "frozen" at the horizon?). But if you think of a black hole in terms of its surface, it is a thing with measurable mass etc... only the inside is unknowable to us.

Why do you say "instead"? Do you not accept that melting icecaps contribute to sea level rise? There are other factors too. Increase in water temperature expands it and I think is a major factor in sea level rise. Land masses shifting contributes, either up or down. Precipitation too... a couple years ago there was a measurable decrease in sea level while Australia was being flooded, and a lot of the water was temporarily on land [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/23/australian-floods-global-sea-level]. All of these different factors can be measured or estimated, and they all contribute a certain amount. It's not that there is just one reason for sea level rise. As far as I know, melting of ice on land is the biggest contributor and its effect on sea level is well understood.

Yes. This estimate http://what-if.xkcd.com/33/ figures that all the ships in the sea contribute about 0.006 mm of sea level.

Light follows a null geodesic (but not all geodesics are null, eg. a planet's orbit). Is what you wrote equivalent to saying that if you transported a short enough ("local") straight ruler along a null geodesic, the ruler never bends? The ends are always tangential to the null geodesic. Is that a reasonably good way to say it? That would mean there is no local acceleration of light anywhere along the geodesic. Light of course remains at a fixed local speed, but also does not change direction locally. However, a null geodesic can be curved when measured remotely (eg. gravitational lensing). Is it then correct to say that the only acceleration of light is coordinate acceleration (which is just called "acceleration" anyway?), but not proper acceleration? Edit: After thinking about it, I don't think the idea of a locally contained ruler makes sense. There must be a different way to say it... Light always travels in a straight line in flat spacetime, and spacetime is locally flat, and light follows that local flatness. A non-null geodesic is generally not locally flat?

Wrong how? The symbol => could mean "divide the result by 7 and express in base-7".

Probably, but I don't know or plan to figure out the math to show that. Still, it *is* a real effect even if relatively insignificant. What is a realistic twin paradox setup anyway? Everything depends on the details. Since I have no idea how big the effect is I wouldn't say one way or the other without working through an example. I'd rather avoid the issue by letting the ship length be negligible. Contrary to post 144, an observer and its clock are usually considered to have the same position, so that none of this matters. Not because the effect is small, but because the set up is described without the effect mattering. If someone else is interested in the effect, they could set it up differently, and calculate it.

This is generally true I think but it is avoidable. See: http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath422/kmath422.htm This is mostly about Born rigid motion, where distance distortions are avoided, which partly supports your argument: "In other words, if we contrive to hold the spatial relations fixed during an acceleration, a phase shift is introduced between different parts of the object, just as, if the phase is held constant, there is spatial stretching." The second part implies there are cases where it it possible to have no phase shift. This all is only a problem if the accelerating twin has a non-negligible length, and in this case I think you need to specify the details of how it accelerates, or just how the different parts of the ship are coordinated. You can specify it some way so that there is a phase shift, or another way so that there is not. (Unless you specifically set it up to avoid either spatial or temporal distortions, you'll get both, so I think you're generally right.)

I'm curious about how you feel it affects your mental state, esteem, behavior etc. Possibly relevant recent work: "Data Mining Reveals How The “Down-Vote” Leads To A Vicious Circle Of Negative Feedback" https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/aad9d49da238

Were you in grad school at the time or had a degree that was used as credentials? It seems what is important includes: - You must write clearly with correct scientific language (which includes math). - You must have a professional attitude (stuff like, as you wrote, "emails from researchers ask questions, while emails from crackpots insist they have the answer"). - You need credentials (a grad degree, or someone who can vouch for you, or build up a body of work that shows that you understand the field). Is that last point important? Vixra now allows using a pseudonym, just like these forums do, so it's probably safe to do that without ruining your career. Vixra used to not allow that. I guess they recognize the reality of the stigma. It seems like shaming open submission and making it difficult to post to arxiv is a lot to do with keeping amateurs out. I don't think that amateurs should be discouraged from trying to do science (I think the real problem is people thinking that their quack science should have an equal voice as real science, whether it's their "Einstein was wrong!" paper, or creationism in the classroom). In fact, I'd say that vixra is exactly the appropriate place for amateur science. So I think to combine advice from this thread, OP and the many of us in a similar place should do the following: 1. If you're serious about this, consider a proper education. 2. Write up your ideas as best as you can for now. Don't spend ages trying to perfect it before seeking advice on it. Post it to a blog or any document repository if you want a record of your work. 3. Seek advice on the work. Ask people to read it, post to forums, whatever. Don't pester or be arrogant or forceful. The less easy it is for others to get what you're saying, the less success you'll have. 4. Learn from what people say. Learn where the exposition of your ideas needs improvement, where there are problems with the ideas themselves, and also learn the relevant existing science that will affect the ideas. Also learn to recognize bad advice... No matter who you are or what you do you'll get plenty of discouragement. "To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." -- Elbert Hubbard 5. If the idea is still good, go back to step 1 and repeat as many times as necessary (until you give up, or get published, or end up working on a degree).

Do you know of any case where someone's credibility was harmed by a past posting to vixra, even though the posted paper was of good enough quality to be otherwise worthy of credibility? How does one find someone to endorse on arXiv? Assuming the work actually *is* credible, which I'm guessing is the first and the biggest hurdle. I imagine one route is: post in forums; someone recognizes it as potentially useful; endorses or puts the writer in touch with someone qualified to review the paper and who can endorse. Do you have a guess what the chances of success are? Another route is write the paper and directly ask an endorser to read it. I assume this won't work unless you are in a situation where you have an opportunity to talk to someone. (I once chatted with Leonard Susskind for a minute at a conference, and he said something along the lines of "Maybe one day I'll read a paper you wrote," well I didn't take that as a promise and I didn't mention that I'm a crackpot, but I'm sure it was a better opportunity to get someone interested, than say emailing everyone in the physics department with "I have a new theory of the universe! You might become famous if read it.") Because there are so many bad crackpots pushing their theories, real physicists tend not to have the time to be cold-called by amateurs with pet theories, so I think this route is out. Another way is to go the academic route and find an advisor who can increase your exposure as you increase your writing quality while you learn.

guess:

Vixra's just like arxiv but without the reputability requirements. It's closer to the opposite... you want people to be able to use your work (otherwise the paper's useless). But it does serve as a timestamped record of the work if you ever had to try to prove that someone copied it without credit. It also makes it easier to cite the work, compared to forum postings.

If you want to discuss the ideas, you can always post them in the Speculations forum on this site. If the idea is complete and you want to write a paper and make it available, there is an alternative repository called "vixra.org". It is modelled after arXiv but is open to anyone. Because of that, there are some terrible papers (and cargo cult facsimiles) there and submitting there won't gain you any credibility. Likely no one will read your submission, but you could then try to discuss it on forums etc while having the complete idea written up in one spot in a paper. If you know how to express your ideas clearly using correct scientific language, you *might* find some success in either of the two above ways, but that's unlikely because typically those who can get their point across have studied science and had access to advisors who would steer them into the mainstream channels with peer review and away from options like the above. Which way you should go depends on how serious you are and how much work you're willing to put in. But you can always start small, and improve as you learn. Just don't get stuck for years trying to convince people of your ideas without ever learning to express them properly, as a lot of us tend to do with Speculations or vixra.

It's been over a decade but way back when, there was a specially crafted double major in mathematics and computing science where I went. It attracted some of the smartest people I knew. While looking for jobs, some of the most interesting options, including an aerospace company and a movie special effects software company, were specifically looking for only the few who had top grades in math. I would suggest that if you want to do something like that, and can handle the math and be among the top, then combining math and comp sci would be good. I suspect that the comp sci side would be the easier part. From there you can head in any direction that you want, write your own future etc. It's fairly easy/common I think to put off choosing the practical training and just add it on to a solid foundation, sometimes even learning that part on the job. If you're an average achiever or just want a normal job, and the interest in math is only an interest but not an obsession you're dedicated to greatness in, then comp engineering is probably the best for low-level stuff.

Seems to be Rene Auberjonois. "He even had a motivational poster of Albert Einstein (which actually "came to life" and "talked" to him in one episode!)." http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/DoogieHowserMD?from=Main.DoogieHowserMD "Rene Auberjonois ... Einstein" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0564400/

It's still curved pieces projected onto a flat image. It is a projection. You can see distortion closer to the edges of the pieces. There is less distortion of size compared to the usual Mercator maps. It can be improved. If you look at the Dymaxion map that Acme posted, you'll see that the surface gets "split" along water. Yours handles Australia really well but cuts up many land masses, making it a poor map along those cuts. You could move where the cuts are, and you can also join the cut pieces differently. For example, instead of joining the main South America piece on a corner over water, if you join it to the rest of the continent then it reduces the extreme distortion of distances between the two pieces. That's an easy fix. Perhaps harder is something that Fuller solved, is getting optimal cuts or whatever. A lot of your pieces are part land, part water. Is it possible to get more pieces that are all water, and others that more closely fit the land, as Fuller's does? This might require more effort than you're willing to spend though. Also it assumes that a land map is what's important, and that distortion and breaks over the ocean are acceptable. A tool would make this easier. Perhaps a wire polyhedron that could be rotated over a physical globe. There are also downloadable polyhedrons that can be added to Google Earth. I'm sure it would be possible to create one for a rhombic dodecahedron, and to have it fixed in space so that you could rotate the globe underneath and try out different mappings. While trying to find something like that, I came across this related info: http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/projPoly.html

If you're counting negative parts of a wave, you might count temporary effects of particles increasing their separation due to gravitational waves (not "gravity waves", which means something else) as "anti-gravity". I wouldn't do that, unless you expressed the effect mathematically and if the maths still fit the intended meaning of "anti-gravity". See the first few animations at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave Particles oscillate as gravitational waves pass, alternatively brought closer together and farther apart. The particles follow the distortion of spacetime, so there should be no force or pseudo-force pushing them apart at any moment, so that probably shouldn't be counted as anti-gravity.