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DrP

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Everything posted by DrP

  1. Try writing out the chemical formula for the reactants involved. Do you have any thoughts on what the products will be? I guess you know it is going to rust... can you write the chemical formula for some of the products like the rust?
  2. What about a very shallow minimum.... that could look like a flat line if you are very close to the curve. I am not talking about such situations though. If you are measuring one variable against another and you have 20 points and they seem to be a straight line with gradient m then it probably is... it probably isn't a 21st order rollercoaster which you have coincidently measures at every point along the track which has the same height. You 'assume' it is straight (putting fine structure aside from real life wobbles and wibbles). (Admittedly it would also depend on the context of the experiment and what it was that was being measured for sure). I'll admit there are case where fine structure of a seemingly straight line could be a total roller coaster.... like the fine structure of an Infa Red spectrum... it might look like a parabolic peak for a particular molecular stretch... but the fine structure will show that 'smooth curve' with many wibbles on it from quantised rotational energy levels... zoom in on any of those wibbles of fine structure and you have the same wibbles within the wibbles from the electronic fine structure.. Some things are way more complex still - but it can usually be detected or confirmed - we know about these things. I don't like the thinking that we know absolutely nothing and cannot possibly ever know what we are talking about - which is the view I am seeing from some people - including the OP.
  3. I seem to remember many of the worlds great leaders who were very busy existed on 4 hours sleep per night. I used to run on 4 hours for many years when I was younger... now I 'need' 5 minimum and prefer 6 at least. Any more is a bonus and I feel like it is a luxury rest. Our chemistry teacher told us that she'd seen studies that suggested that 4 hours was the realistic minimum for humans to continue to live healthily with enough rest to repair the body/mind. She said that people like Thatcher, Churchill and some famous scientists ran on 4 hours a night. (I just looked this up and it seems some took less than 4 even - but I am not sure how healthy that is). Why would we want to sleep less? More time in the day for work, more time for fun etc.. Sometimes I am enjoying myself at 2 or 3am and want to continue watching something or working on something or cataloguing something and it would be handy and enjoyable not to HAVE to go to bed because you know you have to otherwise you won't be having a good time in the morning when you have to get up for work. As Mistermack has just pointed out - it would be useful if your soldier or spy did not NEED to sleep or could postpone it till later.
  4. Isn't it usual to pick the simplest curve that fits the data? Of course if new data turns up then the curve can be refitted, but surely it makes sense to 'assume' the curve with the least inflections and least complexity when fitting? With the suggestion/knowledge that there could be an infinite number of possible orders to the equation of the curve I would have thought the most simple is taken unless proven to be otherwise in the light of further data points. In other words - if your 10 points make a straight line then it probably is a straight line if you have taken data points at a decent spread. You don't assume a 20 order equation snaking between the 10 points - you draw a line through the lot. if there seems to be reason to suspect possible deviation at certain points or under certain conditions then this can be tested for and the data added to the curve. You don't 'assume' or conclude the most complex situation if there is no evidence for it.
  5. ah, I see - childish dummy spitting then. I nearly thought better of you.
  6. Surely they would be even more concerned if what they were being taught was KNOWN to be wrong, outdated, demonstrably false nonsense imagined up by superstitious people thousands of years back. The most up to date best tested modals are preferred. There is something wrong with your format here - all the T's and some of the R's are replaced with a '*'. It makes it harder to read fluently.
  7. I thought his concern was going too far when he stated this - [Zosimus wrote: "You are ignoring the problem of unconceived alternatives. Simply because you cannot come up with an infinite number of alternatives does not mean that there are not an infinite number that simply have not been thought up yet. "] You have to draw the line somewhere with these 'unconceived alternatives'.... you can continue to split your data points and run tests on every space between every data point over and over across ever increasing degrees of accuracy - eventually you can't do that anymore but long before this point comes you can confidently conclude you are dealing with a straight line or close to or with a set of points that can be treated as such for practical purposes.
  8. That's not my point - The curve could be of the form y=mx^7+nx^4+fx^2+D... it doesn't matter - it could be anything... if all the points fit a straight line then it is trivial to check to see if it really is a straight line or not. That's the beauty of science - we can check the curve by testing it against the reality observed from experimentation. The OP still seems concerned with us not knowing if the points that lie between the data points on our line will fit our line or not. My point is that it is simple to check this. That is clear. ;-)
  9. You might need to purchase through a distributor. What sort of quantities will you require? I would advise getting samples of the pigments you want to use and test then in your formulations... get quotes from different distributors/suppliers. You might be able to talk direct o some of these companies to request samples, but they will probably want you to purchase through a distribution chain - they will direct you to their distributors for quotations most likely. If you know what you are after (or have some idea) - ring up or e-mail and get someone from their sales or technical team to talk to you about your requirements - they will help you the best they can as they will want to sell you their product. Get samples from different distributors from different suppliers - test them. Get quotes for the things that work the best and compare prices. Then sit down and discuss prices and quality with the owner and the company chemists/formulators and decide on what you want to buy. If you are buying a lot then you will want to give the distributor an estimate of your usage so they can keep stocked so they always have stock for delivery so you are not kept waiting (if that is an issue). I hope this helps. You could write a book about sourcing products and industrial purchasing... If you have any specific questions please ask.
  10. ....and of course - you can simply TEST the results against experimental reality. If, for some reason, you suspect that your straight line of 10 measured [points could be 10 points where a sine curve is returning to its base... then you can test this by selecting points midway between those you have already measures to see if they fit on your curve, giving you y=mx+c, or if they do actually miss the line totally... I mean - sometimes coincidences happen, sometimes there are mistakes... but this is why we check and recheck results, rerun experiments, update curves with data taken from new experiments etc.. The kind of error you are describing with this underdetermination is one a schoolboy might make - but it shouldn't happen in professional science... good thing is that if it DOES, then it can be checked and challenged if conflicting data is measured by someone else. As we said - you can test to see if this is the case or not by picking points on your graph between your current data points and checking them against experiment to see if you have fitted your curve accurately or not. He explained it in the OP.
  11. I can look it up in the Oxford or Cambridge dics if you like - it will say a similar thing. There are different types of laughter. That happens a lot with language.... one word can mean a whole class of things. There are sniggers, giggles, guffaws, chuckles, chortles etc.... the list of ways to describe the different types of laughter is quite long and they describe subtle differences. I can't watch your vid here at work - will do if I get the chance at home later.
  12. You bought it up here. You are claiming that because we haven't cured cancer we have a string of theories about nothing. That was what it was in response to. I then said that we have cured many many illness using science. How is that dishonest? You can't counter it so you attack? You know the herring thing was an attempt at humour - I can only assume that you are finding my statement about science having a very good track record of curing illnesses to be in error - which, as I suggested above, is laughable. We have eradicated many diseases. How is this dishonest or pathetic? .
  13. There are at least 3 kinds of red herring if you count male and female herrings as being different. There are probably many types... my KNOWLEDGE of the subject isn't great - I am just a roll mop layman. Well you brought it up when you started talking about cancer research progress as some sort of support for your claim that science was a succession of theories about nothing. As if the current progress in any one research project reflect the entire history of scientific advancement. We have cured many illnesses - so I would say that it isn't a succession of theories about nothing - I'd say it was practically successful. So no - again.
  14. What do you see as a fix here? That we can't differentiate when we mean the word knowledge to be information and current understanding compared to truths. It's just semantics. Science has produced many medical cures and preventions from disease over the years - to suggest otherwise is laughable. I'm back to work - bye for now. Thanks for the chat. Not sure we got anywhere though.
  15. No - he is arguing about the definition of the word knowledge from what I can tell. NO. Not that I am aware. OK - Back to basics - WHICH fallaciy and contradiction. Don't start with the definition of the word knowledge again though - we have been round in circles about that. If you can't understand that words have subtle different meanings in language then I guess you will run into problems with communication all the time. The word knowledge can cover a wide range of things and you could write a book about it. What contradictions are you talking about?
  16. Sorry - Missed the last 3/4 of the post... Sorry - missed point 3. I am not sure I agree - I wouldn't say we have a succession of theories about nothing. What is philosophy doing to correct our errors? Science can look objectively at the results of testing and draw logical conclusions - rather than spending a few years discussing if we really know anything at all and coming up with nothing practical. Where are the useful designs and inventions and machines that come out of modern philosphy - where are the cures for diseases - they all come from science and they work better than they ever have and are improving with time as we update our knowledge/understanding/learning or however you want to word it. I'm not knocking philosophy... but as you are hitting at science and seem to be just playing with words rather being CLEAR AND TO THE POINT. When you are clear and to the point everyone disagrees with you - you can't tie the conversation down by rigidly defining a word that actually can be used to mean different things in different ways - words mean different things depending upon the CONTEXT they are used in.... like the word 'know' - which we discussed with Studiot ages back and most people seemed to get. That's because we went through that pages ago.... more than once. The word 'know' can have different subtlties in meaning depending on the CONTEXT and it's use in a sentence, paragraph and conversation. It's like a carousel. They had knowledge from the experiments they undertook - they thought they did. Maybe they were wrong. The generally accepted knowledge about it right now is that it doesn't exist and we were mistaken. That might change if better understanding of the experiments comes to light or something superceeds M&M as a test for it. I'm not being trapped into answering a definite yes or no so you can jump on me with a 'AH- well... drone drone drone...' you know how it is. I don't know enough about the old aether theories to say for definite - but I assume they were wrong as modern experiments shown it isn't there. What relevance is it? I am certain many have said here that it does not claim 'absolute knowledge' or rather cannot claim that as no-one knows what that actually IS. It has a general knowledge of the things it studies though of course... are you proposing scientists are mindless automotoms that know nothing? I'm repeating myself. With your understanding of language maybe.
  17. Again - A misunderstanding of the context and meaning of the words as usual. You 'know' or I suspect you know that my use of the word KNOW back there was an absolute knowing - we've had this conversation pages back with Studiot. Is this dishonesty or misunderstanding? Are you just arguing for the sake of keeping the discussion open or do you really not get that words have slightly different meanings depending upon their use in a sentence and upon CONTEXT. We've been through this. We/they built the aether theories out based on the knowledge they had at the time. These theories were superseded by new information and tested experiments... There is 'knowledge' about the subject which came from scientific study - of course there is. We have knowledge about experiments which lead us to now conclude the aether doesn't exist. depends how you define knowledge. I would say so. It tries to knowing that it can be wrong sometimes and is willing and able to change it's thinking in line with new strong evidences. Others might say different. What it DOES do is avoid the idiocy of the philosophy of taking things round and round in discussions of the meaning of words and continued misunderstanding and actually builds useful things that work based on the theories that come out of the learning acquired from the study.
  18. verb: snigger; 1. laugh in a half-suppressed, typically scornful way. "the boys at school were sure to snigger at him behind his back" synonyms: give a suppressed laugh, snicker, sneer, smirk, simper; More titter, giggle, chortle "the boys at school were sure to snigger at him behind his back" noun noun: snigger; plural noun: sniggers 1. a half-suppressed, typically scornful laugh. "we heard the sniggers caused by their little jokes"
  19. Backing for the claim that science produces knowledge? Every time a model is updated it shows things have been learnt (Knowledge has been gained). What 'backing' do you want to see? Your argument is too poor to even address. I point you to the history of the atom. Look at how many times the model for the structure of the atom has improved over the last 150 years. Each model was 'correct' to an extent.... but each model has been updated as new better information (knowledge) has come to light (out of scientific method). Every debate of his I have seen he has totally owned his opponent. Some would say he was rude - others would say to the point. Why beat about the bush treading on eggshells of deluded people when you can be direct and to the point. If you show the context of where he says things like 'shame on you ' etc you'd probably find that the opponent was arguing dishonestly or something that has no weight. Whatever - you can't take a quote where he is defending a point and say he was wrong for saying it. WHY was he saying 'shame on you sir' to his opponent - what had his opponent claimed falsely or suggested? What words had he put in his mouth - without context you are just smearing his name without any substance... - Shame on YOU sir! ;-)
  20. It clearly DOES in terms of our language and how we define things. What it DOESN'T do is actually ALTER reality in any way what so ever. You can imagine what you want, define it how you like.... it won't change the 'real' thing.... unless that real thing is a cartoon character of your own imagination or something.... but that is clearly not what you are talking about.
  21. I'd add 'The ignorance and indifference of the masses' to the list. This is the cause or at least a major contributor of some of the issues you listed imo. Good to see you educating people.
  22. They dope Silicon Nitride semiconductors with other metals like Aluminium... so I would think you could probably dope it with Mo too. It is a transition metal rather than a group III metal so I don't know if that would cause any problems with the doping... idk. It wouldn't make 'a molecule of SiMoN' though... it would be Molybdenum doped Silicon Nitride. Also - how you would do this I do not know. Sorry - not sure I've got much else for you. Have fun.
  23. .... you see - we will go round in circles discussing semantics again. What shocker? That I admit to knowing that some people in the world (I think it was started by Solphists, I don't really know) suggest that we cannot really know that anything we believe or not is actually true? As a philosopher you could probably tell me and put me straight as to where that line of thought originated. Personally I don't really care as it seems so blindingly obvious. How can you really know anything? I do not believe I am a brain in a jar.... but I don't think I can prove it. Maybe you can tell us how to prove it if you have studied philosophy. To me - when people start asking 'How can you know you are not just a brain in a jar receiving external stimuli which makes you believe you live in the real world?' I think it is a waste of time talking to them... There are things in life that we 'know' to be fact.... but they are still just based on what we have learned throughout our lives.... we could still be wrong about things we think are absolute facts and truths. Are you saying you have never been wrong about anything?... Thought you 'knew something to be true' and it turned out it wasn't? When this happens you update your understanding of reality in your own mind and build a new (better?) model of reality. Of course I have - that's language. I am saying that there is a line of thought that says you can never really know if you are right or not. No-one knows what happened 5000 years before what we term the big bang for instance. No one has any way of knowing. I know what I had for breakfast though - I was there and I remember eating it. I would say that it is 'true' that I know what I had for breakfast... It is not, though, beyond the realms of possibility that I was tricked into believing that I ate this morning. I don't see how but it isn't impossible. You can use the word (as you can with many words) in different contexts. You will have a totally different conversation about what is truth with every different member here and everywhere else I'd expect. Do you ever reach a conclusion in these discussions? What is your point? What is the use of this? If you discuss what is true with a child - they might tell you different things to what a politician will tell you or then again a philosopher or a scientist. It depends on the definition and the context of the word.... Which we discussed several pages back with Studiot. It could be that I am still missing your point... or just failing to see it's worth.
  24. As no-one can really know if what they have discovered is 'the truth' then I see this as waffle. How can one really know if the knowledge they have is actually true.... we can only be as confident as we can to the best of our KNOWLEDGE and understanding. This all depends upon your subtle definitions of words such as knowledge and truth and we'll go round in circles discussing it and getting nowhere. Sorry if I have misunderstood your claims/points. I don't like the statement " anyone who denies that science discovers truth cannot consistently maintain that science has provided us with any knowledge" - it's like a semantic trap... who knows what 'the truth' is. It seems solphistic (that probably isn't the right word but I think you will know what I mean). I know there are different lines of thinking about whether science just builds models or of it searches for the truth... personally I think it does both.. I might be wrong but it will take more than some stranger ranting about the subtle definitions of the words truth, knowledge, science etc to change my mind on that. I 'think' personally that it tries to build the best models of reality it can with the evidence available to it. If new evidences come to light then the models change accordingly to incorporate said information and evidences. If these models are 'true' to 'reality' or not is by the by - I am pretty certain JJ Thiompson 'knew' the atom wasn't a plumb pudding when he proposed his model for the atom. He was 'right' about the separation of positive and negative particles and came up with a model that was a pretty good representation of what an atom is until better testing equipment became available to humans and we could further improve our model. There was no way for him to discover atomic orbitals and the separation of a nucleus and electrons with the info and kit he had available to him until Bohr came along with a fresh approach. The model for the atom has changed many times over the last 150 year. I would be very surprised if it didn't change further as we unlock further information about it. Is what JJ Thompson proposed 'true'? imo it was true... but he didn't have all the evidence he needed to build the most accurate model. - so it was updated as more light (or alpha particles in this case) was shed on the matter.
  25. This is all just semantics. The lemur is a lemur wherever it is... in front of you or on the telly it is still a lemur. It's location might vary, your eyes can be tricked by illusions... but trickery and BS semantics aside.... it is a lemur. In front of you - it's a lemur. On TV - It is a lemur, but not directly in front of you, it is somewhere else in space and maybe time, but the image of the lemur is there, representing the actual lemur. In a painting of a lemur - it is an artistic representation of a lemur and not a real lemur... but this is just semantics and does nothing to clear up the claims in the OP imo. I might have missed the point - but where is this basic semantics discussion going with respect to science and knowledge and the opening claims?: Do you still stand by this statement of yours that science has provided us with zero knowledge of the above topics? How you can claim that science has given us no knowledge of atoms is baffling. (unless by your wording 'the denier of truth on pain of inconsistence must answer zero' you mean that we actually HAVE learnt a lot from science - the wording is confusing - put it plainly - have we learnt knowledge of things from science? - I would say clearly we have.)
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