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MigL

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Everything posted by MigL

  1. But liability for consequences still has to establish a causal relation. And while it may be simple to establish cause in the case of a tiger mauling, or a flooded yard and basement from your neighbor's reservoir, it is much harder to link a specific cancer to your neighbor's pesticide use. So, does that neighbor have the right to prevent your use of a known carcinogen ?
  2. Too binary, and nebulous at the same time. Let's try something a little more nuanced. You buy RoundUp at your local Walmart to spray the weeds on your interlocking brick driveway. Your neighbor tells you to stop as it is a known carcinogen. Who is infringing on who's rights? ( although your vaccine example works for me )
  3. I was thinking hydraulic force multiplication, where applying a small force to a small area causes the pressure to exert a large force on a large area. I believe this is Pascal's Principle applied to master/slave cylinders.
  4. MigL replied to DrmDoc's topic in The Lounge
    As we are the only 'thinking' animal, it serves the convenient purpose of giving us a body part to 'cup' with our hand as we sit and think. I believe there is a statue illustrating this ...
  5. This sounds like homework. Can you show some of your thoughts on deriving this ? I will provide some guidance. The mid-point between two numbers, even when those numbers represent distances on an axis, is given by the average of the two.
  6. This sounds like homework. Can you show some of your thoughts on deriving this ? I will give you some guidance. Given that x and y axis are at right angles, you might want to apply Pythagoras' Theorem to the problem.
  7. @xenog123 Donald ?!? ... Is that you?
  8. C9 is heavenly ? Not according to L Cohen "Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor falls, the major lifts The baffled king composing Hallelujah"
  9. MigL replied to DrmDoc's topic in The Lounge
    Interesting. I always thought the baba' was an Italian dessert ( popular in the Naples region ) and one of my favorite.
  10. A pretty good explanation of the origins and predictions of IQ testing, including the 'corruption' and mis-use by Americans and NAZIs, Notice that all the 'predictors' that IQ tests provide are all correlations, not causes. I wonder how a stable and advantaged childhood and teen-age years, with good schooling, would correlate with the metrics of success ( education, income, wealth, etc. ) identified in the video. Maybe the most important correlation is how responsive caregiving and nutrition, nurturing interactions, and a stimulating educational environment affect IQ scores.
  11. While I cannot discount a genetic racial or inherited component to intelligence, keep in mind that a newborn's brain doubles in size during the first year, and is 90% of adult size by age 5. "This rapid development is driven by the creation of billions of neural connections that are strengthened by positive experiences like responsive caregiving, nurturing interactions, and a stimulating environment. A healthy environment, good nutrition, and consistent routines are crucial for building a strong foundation for future learning, problem-solving, and emotional well-being" I would think this is the main cause of, or lack of, intelligence. This OP is not about race; stop trying to make it so.
  12. MigL replied to J.T.'s topic in Trash Can
    Post your conversations on FB. This is a Science discussion forum.
  13. MigL replied to J.T.'s topic in Trash Can
    This one also ...
  14. MigL replied to J.T.'s topic in Trash Can
    That ship gas already sailed ...
  15. Ooops! I didn't actually read the article, and provided it as general reference. I notice now that it starts getting very speculative about halfway through. My bad.
  16. Zero point energy is directly related to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and as such, it is a global property of our universe. It is also directly related to the expansion of the universe, and the reason it cannot be infinite ( some original ideas ) or even the current calculated 120 orders of magnitude greater than the values derived from observations of 'flatness' and expansion rates of our universe. See here for history and details regarding vacuum energy Zero-point energy - Wikipedia As it is a global property of the vacuum, and gives the vacuum a 'mass/energy' allowing it to 'gravitate', any decrease in vacuum energy allows expansion to increase. This is the mechanism for the inflationary period of the universe, while it was still in a global causal contact. See here for inflation history and modelling Cosmic inflation - Wikipedia As the universe is no longer in causal contact, 'tapping into' vacuum energy has the effect of decreasing local vacuum energy, possibly causing localized inflation. Think of the prospect of using zero point energy to power your car, and creating a new universe in your driveway. It would be a long walk to get to your front door 😄 .
  17. Yes it is. The only other person I know of, who tosses around IQ comparisons as if they mean something, is Donald Trump. Draw whatever conclusions you wish from that ...
  18. A lot of scientists do some things that are detestable. @exchemist has already mentioned some, but R Feynman liked dating female undergrads, F Haber and W Heisenberg were staunch NAZI supporters, and @swansont has been accused of being an authoritarian moderator ( 😄😄 ). Accomplishments and character have little to do with each other. I can even admire B Mussolini for making the trains run on time, and A Hitler for rebuilding the German economy, while detesting the methods used to accomplish such things.
  19. That's putting it nicely 🙂 . Sometimes it can be termed 'delusion' 😄 . ( Delusion - a false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, as a symptom of serious mental illness. )
  20. The energy of empty space is actually very small; there just happens to be a HUGE amount of empty space. Unfortunately, that energy is unavailable, either for use, or in calculations ( 120 orders of magnitude discrepancy ). The 'empty' space of a Black Hole, however, is not the same 'empty' space. That space is defined by its Schwarzschild radius, and the resultant Event Horizon. Classically, the Event horizon conserves mass/energy, charge and angular momentum; there are various ways to extract energy from a massive, charged, spinning system. Semi-classically ( with some Thermodynamics and QM ) that space has a temperature, and depending on size, can radiate considerable amounts of radiative energy ( Romulan ships in the Star Trek universe employ a miniature BH as a power source as opposed to the matter/anti-matter process used by the Federation )
  21. I don't see how we 'shape' our part of the universe, or 'create' the future. We interact with the only part of the universe that the speed of light/information allows us to. If that is what you are saying, then ... yeah; but it's no big revelation, it is a fundamental principle.
  22. I am arguing that the levelling and unification of interactions make it unlikely that an electron can be modelled as a BH. Not that it makes it possible. Which is still a classical solution. You are the one who brought up the observation that the classical picture is insufficient, and Quantum gravity may modify the situation. Why can't I do the same ?
  23. Exactly ... Quantum Gravity. The exact same new Physics KJW proposes that might allow for electrons to be quantum ( not classical ) Black Holes. It's expected ) though not certain ) that as Planck scale is approached, gravity becomes comparable in strength to the other forces and can no longer be ignored. There is a further expectation that all the fundamental forces are unified at that scale. Most theories, including Sting Theory and LQG, favor the unification of all fundamental interactions.
  24. I have used the two-part lids. They usually come with Mason jars, used for 'canning' home-made preserves such as jams, peach slices in syrup, cherries in alcohol, even pickeled vegetables or tomato/pasta sauce ( I used to help my mom when I was young ). They are similar in operation to the other 'tabbed' lids, and both have a rubber friction ring where the lid contacts the glass. The usual procedure is to fill with hot preserves and cap tightly with the threaded ring, on the now soft rubber sealing surface of the lid. As the contents ( and the rubber seal ) cool, the head space will now be at a lower pressure than atmospheric and the seal will re-harden to provide a not-easily slipping seal. The seal is almost always good enough that the threaded ring part of the two-part lid can be removed without loss of seal for years, and the ring re-used for next year's canning ( for the frugal among us ); however the lid part cannot be re-used, but they are available separately without the threaded ring. I keep my jam/marmalade in the refrigerator once opened, and putting them back in the fridge to cool again after use, makes them very hard to open the next time. A little bit of differential pressure makes for a good seal. FYI Airplane doors are not 'locked'; it is their design ( 'plug' ), and a couple of pounds of DP, that keeps them from opening, although there have been one or two occasions where a 'crazed' passenger has managed to open a door and depressurize the plane ( probably at lower altitudes ).

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