MigL

I don't see it that way Zap. That young man could have been carrying an armed nuclear weapon when the police shot him. And with current sensibilities, one person could have said "police brutality", and rioting would still have ensued. Americans seem to have lost their trust of classic authority figures, and now place blind trust in whoever repeatedly scrams loudest or makes the most outlandish claims ( and it does explain why D Trump is your President ). It doesn't make sense that the answer to one person being hurt, is to hurt another dozen or so, and wreck their property.

I don't know about Sringy, but in Michel's case it could be all the bells he keeps hearing

Still, all these experimental falsifications of GEM would not have taken place until the middle of the last century, Markus. That would have made GEM the ruling gravitational theory for about 40 years before people noticed enough of a problem to search for different formulations. Whereas SR was just waiting to be pulled together and published ( probably by H Poincare ) when A Einstein beat him to it in 1905, GR might have taken up to a century without A Einstein. We might just be at the stage now, where A S Eddington was in 1920; one of three people in the world who understood GR.

Let's see if we can get back to relevant discussion. Chicago saw massive rioting the other night. https://www.foxnews.com/us/widespread-looting-reported-in-chicago-after-police-involved-shooting and in case you don't like Fox... https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/08/09/police-involved-shooting-reported-in-englewood/ Apparently an armed felon shot at police, who then returned fire and wounded him. A local individual then incited the riots, saying police didn't do enough to de-escalate, and used extreme/deadly force on a young man. Have we now replaced police authority with mob authority ? Why are people 'following' those who incite riots, burn or destroy property, and injure innocents ? That is the MO lynch mobs used, one ignorant person without all the facts, incites violence against a group he hates. Seems to me America has a more serious disease than Covid-19.

Looking at it from a Physics point-of-view, if x and y are describing a physical system, it is only for very limited values of x that y is at a local max and min. For any values less than 0, it diverges to neg infinity, and for all values greater than approx. 0.7 it diverges to infinity. If this was a physical system, we would probably say that the local min/max were trivial, unless we were specifically considering those particular x values.

I'm sure we'll get yet another when Markus logs in tonight.

That's too bad. I had an idea that the system could be adapted to a sensor which attaches to water pipes, and connects through wi-fi to an app running on your computer or phone. The app would warn you of excessive water flow, indicating a leak or bad valve, on that particular pipe, or even the main. Had a bad flapper valve on the toilet in the basement, by the laundry room. The only time I'm down there is to do laundry, so the water is always running, and I didn't hear the toilet running on for months. Only noticed something was wrong when the $725 bill came.

IIRC we didn't get around to solving the Hydrogen atom until 3rd year University Physics. ( after square well, box and harmonic oscillator potentials ) We also did the Helium atom numerically, in 3rd year; using Hollerith punch cards and a Burrows B6700 mainframe computer. With a printout on fan-fold paper. Good times.

OK, I guess I'm the first to fall for the different definitions of 'local'. Local or non-local can refer to subluminal or superluminal separations. Or local and global can refer to small scale approximations ( such as a 'local', flat, Minkowsky approximation of a globally curved space-time ) I assume the two can be related, but it would still help to know which we are discussing. ( keep in mind I'm not a mathematician )

I would think that while a global effect is easy to define, a local effect, not so much. I have always considered a local effect to be where global effects become trivial. Intrinsic, properties within the manifold while extrinsic, properties arising outside the manifold. But its a good thing that we are now clarifying definitions so we are all on the same page, Studiot.

I think drumbo is using that other definition of 'change'. The geometry of space-time is the field, even in the absence of any mass. The 'curving' of space-time, necessarily introduces energy of the field ( such that gravity gravitates ) in an otherwise empty universe. The introduction of a test mass in that otherwise empty universe will see it move according to that geometric field. By the same token, the victorious truther is proposing that muons decay, not according to their subjective time, but according to 'external' time/change. Does that mean a muon in an otherwise empty universe will not decay as there are no 'external' changes ??? ( his proposal is easily falsified by the fact that time dilation extends a muon' decay time, but, is purely dependent on the muon's subjective speed )

The point that you seem to have missed in my previous post ( and thought it concerned the existence of BHs ) is that the galaxy's central BH is 30 000 light years away ! Information travels at the speed of light. Any information 'coming' from the central BH is 30 000 years out of date. Even the Bible is only a couple of thousand years out of date.

I've often thought the same thing myself. A hot dense universe, at Planck energy, with one unified force undergoes a symmetry break, which separates gravity from the remaining Strongelectroweak force. This symmetry break has the result of giving time different properties from the other spatial dimensions. Whereas before time could be 'traversed' forward, backward, and there was no difference between past, present and future ( J A Wheeler's quantum foam at Planck scales ? ), it now had a direction, and past and future became inaccessible. I certainly don't have the required math skills to formulate such a theory, and it can't really be backed by observational evidence, so; but it is an interesting concept I've never introduced it in Speculations

The central BH of our galaxy is 30 000 light years away. It could have ceased to exist while we were building our first cities in Mesopotamia, and we still would not know about it for another 25 000 years. That's some delayed effect !

That is a very good observation Markus, and aligns with my own thinking. The fact that time plays such a large part of the way we think, constrains us to define our words, and possibly even mathematical concepts, with an inherent time dependency ( maybe dependency is too strong a word, but our 'temporal' nature certainly affects our paradigms ). It is a struggle to verbalize and formulate in terms excluding time. edit: Yes positive or negative local curvature will change the circumference/radius ratio of a circle.

Black Holes have no more gravitational effect than the equivalent mass at the same distance. The fact that it's a BH does NOT make it more attractive. Your new religion is bound to fail because it cannot provide what current Religions provide. How do facts and information provide hope, or 'meaning', and purpose for life, when life has lost meaning ? Current Religions provide this for those so inclined ( you might say delusional, but you haven't walked in their shoes ). How does a BH do this ???

It might seem to go against common sense, but more police could actually lower tensions in a community. When there were enough cops to 'walk the beat', they actually got to know people in their neighborhoods ( no, I'm not old enough to remember that ). Knowing a person, and their circumstances, gives police the 'human touch', leeway in how they address a situation, and can have a more personal conversation/de-escalation in mental health, suicide, and domestic disturbance cases. They don't simply show up in several squad cars with their guns drawn, and then all hell breaks loose. ( is that enough clarification, Drumbo ? )

Yes, you have made your position clear, and sorry if I wasn't more clear myself; that isn't what I wish to discuss. But it can't be just me that finds this poll counter-intuitive. I would not have expected those results. That the very group that is most affected by bad policing, in fact, want MORE police presence. The article doesn't quite go there, but it 'hints' at the white progressive attitude towards black people , that "we know what's best for you". meanwhile, what black Americans really want is more police presence in their under-policed neighborhoods.

Also from the link "These findings are just the latest survey evidence to run contrary to the intuitions underlying the progressive push to defund police departments. They also confirm the view that some black communities are likely under-policed, suggesting the need for more, rather than fewer, police... ...Almost as many consistently oppose the move to "defund" the police, perhaps explaining why many national Democrats, including presidential nominee Joe Biden, have been loath to publicly support the movement. Even in Minneapolis, many black residents oppose efforts to defund—a stark departure from the views of the majority-white city council." But why bother talking about the points that don't conform to your personal narrative, when you can just "sigh" and dismiss them. Silly me, for thinking this was a discussion forum.

Then maybe the signs should say "Police Need to be More Respectful" instead of "Defund the Police"

Came across an interesting poll... "Four in Five Black Americans Want Same or More Cop Presence in Neighborhood" https://freebeacon.com/national-security/four-in-five-black-americans-want-same-or-more-cop-presence-in-neighborhood/ So who exactly is demanding the defunding of Police ?

Atomic radiation is the result of either naturally occurring ( but refined/separated ) unstable elements, or the irradiation of stable elements in a nuclear reactor, which results in them capturing radiation ( usually neutrons ), and becoming unstable. Stable elements usually follow a 'stability' curve which is related to the proton to neutron ratio in their nuclei, and the deviation will indicate the type of radiation to expect. The activity, A, is given by A = dN/dt = lambda*N where N is the number of particles in the radioactive sample. The half-life ( when half of the nuclei have undergone decay ) is then given by t(1/2) = ln(2)/lambda = N*ln(2)/A. And since N is extremely large, the half-life can be up to thousands of years.

I was being facetious, Studiot. I do admit that when I first brought up the subject ( Jul 28 ), I was possibly over emphasizing the 'observer', while I should have placed more emphasis on the fact that the ( spatial-temporal ) observer is the source of the word, and definition, of 'change'. The fact that time has such a large and profound effect on our consciousness, and very existence, is the reason the concept of time is ingrained in our language. It makes discussing the absence of time a little difficult.

So, we're all in agreement then ? The problem is with our common definition of 'change' ? I was right all along, again. ( I don't know, is that the right emoticon for a 'smug, smart-ass' ? )

I'm not sure if that's a valid interpretation either. There may be no time-like paths out of the event horizon, but, as the light cones flip on their side, space-like paths are now available. For space-like intervals dS^2 = -c^2*dT^2 + dX^2 + dY^2 + dZ^2 is greater than 0 ; IOW, R^2 > c^2*dT^2. ( normal time-like is dS^2 < 0 and R^2 < c^2*dT^2 ) So even though there is no 'escaping the future', space-like intervals break causality, and render past/future meaningless.