MigL

The one I've always heard from some Republicans... "Do you want your health care controlled by some faceless bureaucrat in Washington DC ?" as the reasoning for state control. The system in Canada is controlled and governed at the Provincial level, but the Federal government provides a percentage of the budget for Health care. With its contribution, the Federal government ensures that a minimum level of Health care is maintained throughout the country; Individual provinces can increase coverage as they see fit, but must maintain that minimum level to receive the federal portion of funding. The US could do worse than adopt such a system. ( and it looks like they will )

One could argue that it is Gravitational potential which provides the unrelenting compression for the H and He nuclei. This compression gives temps and pressures at the Sun's center to fuse H ( and even He nuclei Studiot ) into heavier and heavier elements. When sufficient radiation pressure is produced by the various fusion reactions, the Sun 9 or any star ) is in equilibrium ( somewhat ) and will stay that way for millions or billions of years ( depending on its size and composition ). When heavier elements ( approaching atomic number 26 ) are produced by the fusion process, it is less and less efficient, and eventually n iron core results in a brown/white dwarf star. In the case where the star is really massive, the nova/supernova process injects energy back into the core ( also gravitational ) and produces heavier elements above iron ( atomic number greater than 26 ). The shock waves from the nova blasts also compress interstellar gases ( mostly H, various amounts of He, and heavier elements ) to create new stars. So you could say that, far from being the weakest force, Gravity is the one that makes everything happen.

There seems to be confusion between the 'observable universe' and 'universal domains'. A domain is a volume of the universe, originally in causal contact, for which quantum fluctuations of the vacuum energy triggered inflation, and subsequent symmetry breaks, at different 'times' and in different ways. These domains would be separate from each other and may have different physical laws. IIRC they would be characterized by magnetic monopole production at the domain boundaries . And they are purely speculative as they would lie outside our observable universe. The observable universe, as Mordred has pointed out, is a causality sphere, and is different for each observer. It is a mathematical construct, defined by the distance light/information could have travelled to reach the observer since the Big Bang. In effect, the person standing a meter to your left, has a different observable universe than you; His extends a meter farther to the left, and is a meter shorter to the right. So when Strange says there could be an infinite number of observable universes in a finite universe, if space isn't quantized, that means the universe can be infinitely subdivided into different observable portions, as each will always be different.

A '"deeper, special" kind of belief'... The first step is convincing yourself 'you' are special. Then the next step on the road to religious bigotry, is that other's beliefs are not. And then it becomes very easy to abuse them and their beliefs. Welcome back to the dark/middle ages.

Oooops, my bad. I guess I got the wrong impression from reading the posts at the bottom of page 2. ( again, what happened to post numbers ? )

Uhmm... I thought my post went into detail of how, and why, I stopped believing ( or rather caring about religion ). And gave some examples of others who had gone the 'other way', and what their motivation might be. If that isn't on topic, then I must have totally misunderstood the OP.

I'm gonna have to agree with Itoero on this one guys... Mass/energy is information, as is charge and angular momentum. This information is conserved by GR, because the theory treats these quantities classically. and for this same reason Quantum Mechanical quantities/information are not conserved by a classical theory. Quantum mechanical information is encoded in the wave function, and as such determines its state at any other time, which is at odds with multiple states being reduced to a single state by the BH. Still waiting on a quantum theory of gravity to clarify things... Presently AdS/CFT duality, Holographic Principle and String theory say that quantum information must be preserved along with the unitary time evolution of the wave function,and so, Hawking radiation and BH evaporation must be modified to preserve it. But since the wave function as an encoding mechanism for all states is an ( Copenhagen ) interpretation, some people ( R Penrose to be exact ) have argued that it is not necessary to preserve quantum information as quantum information/measurements are already non-unitary ( see Conformal Cyclic Cosmology ) and may even have found evidence for this in data from WMAP. Still waiting on Quantum Gravity... Still waiting...

I think both Phi and John have provided a solution to both cut taxes, and get better value for services. The Canadian Health Care model provides much more complete coverage as it is universal, and costs half the price. As with everything else, saying we need more or less taxation is useless. What we need is better value for our money. And the ACA doesn't seem to provide it. Should it be scrapped ? Of course. But only if replaced with a more inclusive, and better managed system.

Tolerance... It's a beautiful thing.

Hey Tuco, I'm 'Blondie'! (and Lee Van Cleef is 'Angel eyes' )

Hey, I have two cat sisters also, named BB and DD. Mine are strictly indoor cats, but BB is very adventurous and has sneaked outside the odd time. The one time she did bring me back a present. She walked back in with something furry in its mouth, and dropped a little, dead mouse at my feet. I haven't let it lick my face since.

According to Mikeco, there are Christians, and those who are simply deluding themselves. I was born in Italy, where everyone is a Roman Catholic ( at least they were in the 60s ). I have practiced it in the past ( and have the sacraments of baptism, communion and confirmation ), but did not have to study science, or think about it much, to realize that I had no need for it. It simply became a redundant part of life for me, so, much like the aether in Relativity, I discarded it as useless. However I have known some very critical thinkers who have gone the other way, and found religion later in life. Usually after realizing their life was in a downward spiral, or suffering some great trauma in their family life. One gorgeous, black girl that I had such a crush on, back in high school, recently moved back into town after her husband died of cancer, but I avoid her like the plague because she's constantly preaching. Another acquaintance lost a daughter in an automobile accident, and now he attends mass regularly. These people are seeking answers, and hope, that science simply cannot provide. My thinking is that they are simply grasping at straws, much like a cancer sufferer who undergoes unproven/unorthodox treatment because they are afraid. Do I begrudge their need for a 'crutch' ? Of course not. It is not a case of being scientific OR being religious. The two are based on two totally different concepts, belief in one case, and evidence on the other. ( I'll leave it to you to decide which is which )

OK, I've gotta know. What sort of colloquialism is "antfucker mode" ?? Is it a concern with trivial stuff, like nit picking ? '

The 27th Solvay Physics Conference will be held Oct 19-24 of this year. They follow a 3 yr rotation, and, it is by invitation only. ( and dammit, although I work for Solvay, I'm not invited )

Do you think that behind the curtain that is the event horizon, all the matter that was ingested by the BH is just waiting to 'pop' back out ? The cannot be any particles inside the EH, so once the curtain drops, these particles don't simply re-appear. The remaining mass/energy of the former BH is converted to radiation as it must escape immediately at the speed of light, and this radiation , being 'hot' enough, will convert to some energetic particles. And I really don't understand your reasoning for explosions and 'implosions' ( ? like repeated super-novae ? ) as there is not enough mass, nor the right make-up, for the novae mechanism.

So B Sanders proposes a universal health care system for the US based on the Canadian model. Unfortunately this will go nowhere because it has no Republican support, and only a handful of Democratic supporters. ( maybe because B Sanders isn't a 'real' Democrat like H Clinton ??? ) What is wrong with you Americans ?

While matter ingested by a BH might 'disappear', its mass/energy, charge and angular momentum certainly don't. We know this because a BH acts gravitationally, as if it contains all of its constituent mass/energy. Ans as Strange pointed out, Gr predicts that its cumulative charge and rotation will have an effect on its magnetic field and surrounding space/time ( frame dragging ). Hawking radiation arises because, as it turns out, the entropy of a BH is 'encoded' in its event horizon ( more specifically, the area ). See J Berkenstein and S Hawking. The calculation involved the statistical interpretation of a large number of micro-states on the surface of the EH, with entropy. The previous 'no hair' theorem assumes only a single microstate. as a matter of fact, it turns out that in LQG, the quantum geometries of the EH are associated with these micro-states. Using this method ( the spinfoam covariant formulation ) we can derive the 1st law of BHs ( relating change in energy to the sum of changes in area, electric charge and angular momentum ), the Unruh temperature and the Hawking entropy. AS for gamma ray bursts... When BH loses enough mass through Hawking radiation such that it doesn't satisfy the mass/volume conditions to remain a BH. It must then shed its event horizon. Do you think a fully formed neutron star ( or white dwarf ) will reappear ? Or do you think the 'de-collapse' will involve mostly high energy radiation ( ie a GRB ) and some high energy particles ?

Absolutely right BeeCee. The lifetime of a stellar sized BH would be many, many times that of the universe. However, smaller BHs would be much 'hotter', and radiate mass away much quicker. Just before their final moment, they would be radiating away mass/energy at extreme rates, ie gamma ray bursts of a specifically increasing kind. It is only in their final moment, when they have radiated away enough mass, that they shed their event horizon, since they no longer have the required mass and density to remain a BH. At this point all the mechanisms we know about ( that resist stellar collapse, such as radiation pressure and the particular degeneracy pressures ) become dominant and instantaneously ( ? ) 'de-collapse' the mass/energy in a huge GRB. edit Itoero, in GR mass, charge and angular momentum is 'conserved' by a BH. IE this information is not lost. It is other information, of quantum nature, that are 'lost', only because we don't have an encompassing theory of quantum gravity. Hawking radiation is a first step in that direction since it takes QM considerations into account to assign another conserved quantity to BHs, that of entropy, resultant temperature, and therefore black body radiation.

Thanks for the clarifications Mordred. It is very hard not to put yourself ( as the observer ), 'outside' the universe as it shrinks back towards T=0. Should have realized that gauge quantities ( where we measure differences as opposed to absolutes ) are a problem just like total energy conservation in GR. You cannot say anything about it because measuring energy in and out of the system involves being 'outside' the system.

Sure, but it makes perfect sense to speak of energy as a property of the universe in the very early times. Just as it makes sense to speak of the temperature of the universe ( related to its energy ), before there were any particles to give the statistical interpretation of temperature. Since you cannot have symmetry in temporal or spatial translation as time approaches T=0 ( at which point, there is only one direction ), I don't see how conservation laws can still be valid.

So Airbrush, you can accept a universe infinite in 'size', but not one infinite in 'rate of growth'. Infinite is infinite; either you accept 'infinite' as a possibility or you don't. But don't pick and choose. And another point I've previously made, as you wind the clock back towards T=0, you eventually get to the point where geometry is undefined ( in the space and time dimensions ). and since conservation laws of mass/energy and momentum arise because the Lagrangian is symmetric under translations in time and space ( see Noether's Theorem ), neither can be assumed to retain validity as you approach T=0. IE, maybe you can have infinite mass/energy arise from nothing.

All depends on what you mean by 'quantum' Black Holes. A quantum sized BH, could have a huge amount of energy/mass. Assuming GR works to exceedingly small separations, then there should be no limits to the minimum size of a BH, other than extreme amounts of Hawking Radiation due to extreme temperature, and as a result, extremely short life of the BH. But we know that isn't the case. IIRC, intrinsic angular momentum ( spin ) conservation laws require that curved space-time has 'torsion' ( see Einstein- Cartan theory ), and this 'torsion' gives a minimum size to particles ( see Dirac's equation in a gravitational field ). IE, quantum effects modify GR to give a limiting size to BHs. A workable Quantum Gravity Theory will go a long way to clear up matters. The 'no limit' scenario would have made tiny BHs in the LHC ( as was feared by some ), but the 'minimum size' scenario means we need orders of magnitude greater energies than the LHC can provide in order to create tiny BHs.

This is essentially what happens for cataract surgery. A tiny incision is made beside your cornea, your 'ripe', opaque lens is vacuumed out, and a new, folded lens is inserted, which then unfolds and allows for either near or far focusing, depending on your preference. Most people, myself included, choose far focusing, and wear reading glasses for close focusing. Some replacement lenses have concentric, variable focal lengths, such that they allow for both near and far focusing, but may result in 'halos' around lights at night-time. The article does not explain how this new 'bionic' lens achieves variable focal lengths. Your own, natural lens achieves this by being filled with fluid, and residing in a 'pouch', which is stretched and flattened by muscles inside your eye to achieve far vision, and relaxed and rounded to achieve near vision. It loses this ability with a plastic, replacement lens.

Essentially, the approach is to change a person's 'preference' or mindset. And an established method of mind control/brainwashing IS exposure to extreme stress ( even torture ). So yes, the method could work. Whether it is ethical to consider, offer it as treatment, or even to deny it to those who want it, is a different topic. ( and probably a minefield )

"It takes big money to run these kinds of experiments, and access to the process is always limited" General Relativity was based solely on thought experiments ( there were no elevators in free fall in 1916 ), and it cleared up some inconsistencies with Newtonian gravity at the time, such as irregularities in Mercury's orbit, the problem of 'action at a distance', and finally put to rest absolute time and space ( and the aether ). GR in effect, filled in gaps which were becoming apparent with Newtonian gravity, and is consistent with Newtonian gravity in those areas where both are applicable. Electrostatic attraction between dissimilar charged particles as a gravitational model fails immediately as non charged particles ( and even massless particles like photons ) interact gravitationally. your subsequent mention of Intelligent Design is even more absurd, and the mental equivalent of 'grasping at straws' because you have no other explanation. If the universe is so complex that it requires an intelligence to design it, then the designer must be vastly MORE complex. Doesn't the designer, then, require a designer ( by your logic ). And so on, and so on... ( turtles all the way down ) It was you who stated "you have no place in the intellectual discipline that is science", not any of us. Presumably because we are 'close minded' and not 'open to new ideas', but actually, we are simply resisting ideas that do not pass scientific scrutiny.