MigL

Nice example, Genady. And not to imply otherwise, but you only consider a linear scale factor as a function of time. And I'm sure you know of many functions f(x), that tend to infinity as x approaches a specific finite value. IOW, what if the scale factor is extremely non-linear ?with time

That's the difference between ''logical proof' ( as in made-up ) and experimental proof ( as in observed ). One of those can be purely delusional. We only 'know' reality by measuring, and measurements support relativity, not your incredulity. And every good physicist knows the distinction.

Not quite the same. Scientific theories have to fit observations, otherwise they are simply WAGs. If we have no observations, but simply varying definitions of an abstract concept, then ALL are WAGs. I don't often agree with S Hossenfelder, but in this case she makes some very valid points.

I'm 65 in about 3 weeks. Don't imagine my sperm count is very high.

One might say that the flow pulses of 'congestion' is an emergent property of the individual drivers/vehicles. And that reminds me ( of another video I watched to get my science fix during last week's 'sabbatical' ). Did we ever establish in the preceding 20 pages, the definition of 'free will' and whether it actually exists as such ? ( sorry to drag you back into this, Eise )

I remember when laptops used to 'burn' your lap. QCs will give you ( severe ) frostbite, and produce even more wasted power than bitcoin mining. Maybe after we finally get cheap fusion power ... I'm not worried about anyone breaking into my encrypted data for a long time to come.

Do we really need to worry about how the advent of quantum computing will affect any type of encryption just yet ??? Reality check ...

You must have gotten a lump of coal from Santa because you're still cynical and a little abrasive 😄 . Why not consider this a learning opportunity for all ? This property, energy, we define as the ability to do work, is essentially a property of the configuration of the system. Whether the system is moving gives us kinetic E and/or temperature, and its positional arrangement in any external or produced fields, gives potential E. I would add that 'intrinsic' energy, or mass, is only a property of fundamental particles, such as electrons, quarks and neutrinos. Most of what we normally consider 'mass' is tied up in various levels of binding energy ( molecular, atomic, nuclear and baryonic ) and is correctly identified as potential E, due to the positional configuration of the system. One could make the stretch that even elementary particles' intrinsic mass/energy is due to the configuration of the system as it results from the coupling to the Higgs field.

You're right INow. As a favor to you, Iand in the spirit of the season, I will drop this, and show some good will towards other members. I just want my opinions to be treated the same as others, without the 'except'. We were discussing how my opinions were seen as justification for killing, yet others' were not, I guess because CharonY thinks there were no innocent children killed on Oct 7th. Merry Christmas. Will be back next week.

You're absolutely right. Of course that justifies breaking through a border, brutally killing 1400 people, and kidnapping several hundred more. See CharonY, I can extrapolate too.

I'm the one with the bad eyesight. Surely you must have seen the quote I included below my 'accusation'.

HaHa ! I guess if you have already convinced yourself of my guilt, it is easy to assume the worst about me. ( oops ! last time I said similar I got neg repped ) I have said many times there are plenty of guilty parties on both sides. But people, Israeli or Palestinian, are only responsible for the choices they, themselves make, not what others choose to do. And you have agreed with that. Yet some of us are clearly putting blame on one side only ... Yet I don't see you pushing back on String Junky assigning no blame whatsoever on some Palestinians who happen to be members of Hamas. He seems a little confused, as he thinks B Netanyahu is a member of Hamas. Maybe you should set him straight, or are you too busy chastising me for trying to provide a balanced view, and that the situation has gotten out of hand precisely because both sides refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

On the contrary, it means that in war , mistakes and accidents do happen. The 'fog' and all that ... But, if you don't have an open mind, and have already convinced yourself of someone's guilt, it is easy to assume the worst about them.

Here is a derivation ( some simple maths ) of the HUP as applied to a particle described by a deBroglie wave. Includes historical perspective and is well illustrated.

Sometimes it is best to consider what happens when approaching infinite extremes, not what happens at the infinite extremes. Edit Momentum cannot go to infinity. For massive particles the momentum is constrained by the speed ( must be less than c ). This then imposes a lower limit to the wave number, extent of the packet, or the 'box' you can put around a particle ( accuracy of position ).

That is not correct as written, but you may have meant something different ( wave number ? ) The wavelength is not involved at all, as it is simply the length of one oscillation. What is involved is the number of oscillations in the wave packet; the more compact (less oscillations ), the more defined its position. Since a compacted wave packet is composed of multiple differing frequency waves, by compacting it, and gaining positional information, we lose momentum ( proportional to frequency ) information. If, on the other hand, the oscillations comprising the wave packet are large we gain more accurate momentum information, such that, as the number of oscillations approaches infinite ( like a sine wave ) the momentum is almost exact, but the wave ( and particle's position ) is spread to almost infinite extent.

History, it seems, is not devoid of irony ... ... "The Israeli military suffered five wounded and one killed; Yonatan Netanyahu was Israel's sole fatality of Operation Entebbe, and had led Sayeret Matkal during the rescue effort – he was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who would later become Israel's prime minister.[21]" From the 1976 raid on Entebbe, Uganda Entebbe raid - Wikipedia

I can sympathize. We currently have one side that has little, if any, options left, and the other side which has options, but all available lead to equally bad, if not worse, outcomes. If the UN had any balls, or wasn't hampered by bad members, the situation should have been rectified in the 50s, before it got more and more out of hand with each passing year.

What other 'universes' are you talking about ? ( please present your ideas here, not in a pdf )

If I may clarify, I don't think anyone needs to be bombed for their actions, but the first several pages of this thread were decidedly one sided, and, while being shortly after Oct.7, still all the blame was put on Israel. Do I need to mention the names of the participants in the first several pages, or can people go back and read it for themselves ? I first engaged in this thread simply because it was so one sided, and I felt the need to provide a balancing viewpoint. A few others have since joined in, and that is still what we are attempting to do; provide a balance with an opposing viewpoint. This is NOT a one sided conflict and, other than the kids , there are no innocents in this conflict. Whether active participants, enablers, or people who let the bad actors have their way, there's plenty of blame to go around, in Gaza and in Israel. All I'm saying is Israel, and Jews, lost 6 Million people because the world didn't defend them almost 90 years ago. They will defend themselves this time. Because that's when Israel pulled out of Gaza, and established a 'security zone around it. Do I need to post a wiki link to it ??? No. That was in response to your claim that only 'longshot scenarios' were being presented. Clearly there are others. But you, TheVat, String Junky, and ( possibly ) INow, seem to think the only way forward is for Israel to 'bow down', and absorb terrorist attacks from organizations/governments based in the Palestinian state of Gaza, and controlled by a third player. I guarantee that is not going to happen. . So, by not considering other options, we are left with CharonY's other 'longshot' possibility; , because even you guys must realize that if Israel accepts a ceasefire this time, Hamas will do it again ( even worse ), and then it will be the end of Gaza and genocide.

Are we still talking about Gaza ? Because that is not how some of us see the situation. In 2005 Israel pulled out their occupying forces from Gaza, and pretty well left them on their own as a separate state. They did control border crossings into Israel, as any sovereign state does, to prevent armaments/suicide bombs from crossing. They also controlled sea access for the same security reasons, and their 'control' might be a little more strict because of past occurrences, but I also have to present a passport when entering the US ( did not need one 25 years ago ), and the Coast Guard controls sea access to the US mainland. The border between Gaza and the Sinai is controlled by Egypt, and I expect it is rather porous, and the entry point for those thousands of rockets Hamas fires at Israel. Yet even though the Egypt/Gaza border is also fenced, and 'controlled', no one, not even the UN, accuses Egypt of being an apartheid state, like they do Israel ( maybe if Israel starts letting arms/bombs through, the UN will stop calling them an apartheid state also ). But lets return to 2005. What did Gaza do with their newfound freedom ( except, of course, restrictions on importing arms, and exporting terror into Israel ) ? Did the build resorts along their beautiful beaches, to bring in foreign ( maybe even Israeli ) currency ? Did they drill for gas, within their limits of the South-East Mediterranean, an area rich in natural gas ( just ask the Israelis ) ? No to all the above. They allowed Hamas (who are controlled/supported by the Iranians ) to take over and pursue their strategy of 'revenge at any cost', which culminated on the Oct.7 intrusion into Israel by an effectively foreign state ( an act of war; just ask the Ukrainians ), the subsequent massacre of 1400 people, and the kidnapping of hundreds more. So, YES, they did have options other than 'the longshots'. Options which could have resulted in better lives for the Palestinians. Yet instead of holding them responsible for their choices and actions, the world ( other than the US ) is telling Israel they should accept a ceasefire ( wasn't there one in 2005 ? And who broke it on Oct. 7 ? ). That Israel should respond proportionally ( that isn't deterrence ). That Israel's response is criminal ( making no mention of the criminality of the incident that prompted the response ). That Israel is responsible for the bad choices Gaza made/makes/will continue to make. Manwhile Hamas and the iranians are laughing and saying "No matter what atrocities we perpetrate on Israeli civilians, the world continues to blame then. All is good; we can really step up the brutality of our next attack."

Sorry, but the first thing that came to mind is an oscillating lawn sprinkler. Powered only by water pressure, and manually selectable angle of coverage.

I would suggest that the 'blame game' is being played by all, including you and the writers of the NYT link. Why is the onus always on Israel to do this or that, as a means of resolving the issue ? Is it because they are expected to be reasonable , while Hamas/Palestinians are not ? Why is Israel expected to provide Palestinians with reasonable leaders when they themselves choose unreasonable ones like Hamas ? Why, in other words, are we absolving Palestinians from any responsibility in the matter ? You say Israel should worry about the fact that Hamas recruits from the families whose members were killed by the IDF, thereby ensuring a never-ending supply of fighters and continued Hamas presence; I say Palestinians should be worried that if the hardliners get their way, there are only 2.3 Million possible new recruits that they have to get rid of. Who do you think should worry more about these two worst case outcomes ? It seems only logical that those who have the most to lose should take more actions to prevent the worst case scenario, in the same way that I look both ways before crossing a road, not simply expecting car drivers to look out for me, as I would be much worse off in a car vs. me collision.

Yet repressive military force seems to counter terrorism quite well in places like Iraq under S Hussein, Russia/USSR, China, and a lot of South American countries under oppressive regimes. It is a non-viable solution for OTHER evident reasons. Palestinians need to present themselves with a viable alternative. They did not accept the PA, and will certainly not accept anything presented by Israel. So that is not a solution to the Hamas problem for Israel. What else have you got ? That is why I said as soon as Israelis are no longer afraid ( of the threat from Gaza, and other neighbors ), Netanyahu will be gone. If, on the other hand, Hamas is allowed to retain power( along with Hezbollah, and Iranian backing/interference ) then it is guaranteed that sooner, rather than later, someone even worse than Netanyahu will come to power and push for a 'final solution' to the Gaza problem. PS The English were subjected to the imminent threat of air raid sirens for a couple of nerve racking years, during the battle of Britain. Rockets fired into Israel from neighbors have been activating air raid sirens for about 50 years. I think that would scare and stress out most people who are just trying to live their lives.

And Bibi is just an election away from the dustbin of history. If Israelis are no longer afraid of incoming rockets and suicide bombs, that is. What 'election' will get rid of Hamas if Palestinians are no longer afraid of IDF retaliation ??? How many 'war crimes' would Gaza, and its effective government , Hamas, have perpetrated, through their indiscriminate rockets fired into civilian population, if it wasn't for Israeli tech, and keeping munitions out of Gaza ( that's what Hamas uses their tunnels for ), but some call those attempts a 'concentration camp'. I will agree that both sides have a long way to go to establish a lasting peace, but the solution for Israel is evident; for Gaza, not so much.