Purephysics

I wasn't aware it was from Gilgamesh, though it is hardly surprising given that a number of religion stories are simply borrowed from other traditions and religions.

Though the flood wasn't one of the key topics in the Blog.

Recently I started an evaluation of the first book in the Bible.

My aim was to test, in its own terms, what the Genesis says about the creation of the world in real terms - not, as is so often the case, as an exhaustive comparison to science. I wanted to try and understand the Bible (or at least this part of it) in a historical context not a religious one.

It is my opinion that no one can make a really objective evaluation of the Bible if they approach it as a religious text, it must be approached as a factual one - at least factual at the time it was written. Genesis can be traced back to the 10th century BCE and as such constitutes a primitive view and attempted explanation of the world.

Instead of creating ridiculously long posts here and in other places I decided to disseminate my idea via a blog, which can [not] be found at url removed In which I post under the pseudonym "Alexander Black" or as it may turn into "Alexander The Atheist".

Currently I have Blogs for Genesis 1:1-2 (TAANIG pt.1 & 2), but my next outing will likely see Gen 1:3-7 treated under the same critical analysis.

I would be very interested in feedback and other ideas.

Recently I started an evaluation of the first book in the Bible.

My aim was to test, in its own terms, what the Genesis says about the creation of the world in real terms - not, as is so often the case, as an exhaustive comparison to science. I wanted to try and understand the Bible (or at least this part of it) in a historical context not a religious one.

It is my opinion that no one can make a really objective evaluation of the Bible if they approach it as a religious text, it must be approached as a factual one - at least factual at the time it was written. Genesis can be traced back to the 10th century BCE and as such constitutes a primitive view and attempted explanation of the world.

Instead of creating ridiculously long posts here and in other places I decided to disseminate my idea via a blog, which can be found at a website the Mods blocked because it violates our "no advertising rules In which I post under the pseudonym "Alexander Black" or as it may turn into "Alexander The Atheist".

Currently I have Blogs for Genesis 1:1-2 (TAANIG pt.1 & 2), but my next outing will likely see Gen 1:3-7 treated under the same critical analysis.

I would be very interested in feedback and other ideas.

I think it is rather sweet that people with almost no understanding of the subject think that they are going to change the world. Ah, bless.

That's just what I was thinking, and alluded too as well.

You make some interesting (if not slightly odd) assumptions in this; primarily you appear to have attempted to mix relativistic physics (speed of light, Einstein's Relativity) with quantum mechanics (sub-atomic particles). This quandary has been the subject of much research for some considerable time - the search for the theory of everything, currently, I believe, being lead by Superstring theory.

You have managed to simplify it so (as you believe) because you have not given the subject a rigorous enough treatment. In this you have also not provided any mathematical models of proofs for your assumptions. Currently, this is conjecture at best.

...I believe this velocity oddness is due to what I can call the illusion of reference of frame. Allow me to get myself clear:

 

When we are in cars we see trees and people moving when they are not. Or, simple, we see the sun rising and setting every day when it is not moving. Now we had fallen in the same illusion: Light doesn’t move; matter shrinks on itself and makes us think that light is moving...

^^ This doesn't make an logical sense.

People of our time grew up with an idea that matter is composed of small indivisible entities, but can you imagine indivisible entities? This is a false idea;...

You've poked a hole in something but unfortunately haven't really provided any form of justification, a "because..." to answer your problem.

I'd suggest a little more study into either of the fields would be greatly beneficial.

My point is that no one could have predicted our extensive technological advances from the mineral magnetite. We put men on the moon with nothing more than the epiphany of "that odd stone picks up iron, I wonder why". Sometimes even tiny things can turn out to be vastly important, you indicated this avenue of inquiry was worthless, you cannot know that...

I would have to agree here. No one can see into the future, technology is advancing, we a discovering new things all the time. Look at Graphene, what an amazing substance, no one could have predicted that 100 years ago. I think "warp speed" or "hyper drives" or whatever you want to call them are a distinct possibility, we have the theory we just don't have the means to do it right now.

The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s. (300,000 km/s)

According to SR; c is the maximum speed at which all matter, energy, and information can travel.

The rate at which light can propergate through a transparent material is less than c.

The ratio between c and the speed v at which light travels in a material is the 'refractive index' n. Of the material:

n=c/v

For visible light through glass the value of n is about 1.5. therfore, light through glass travels as c/1.5 = 200,000 km/s.

Wave/particle issues are related to quantum mechanics, not relativity.

You're absolutely right, I meant in the way that light acts as both particle and wave. I beleive I'm right in saying that with respect to red shift and the doppler effect, we are viewing light as a wave not a particle.

Hey all,

Some of you may have read my previous posts about attaining an education in physics.

I had to put things on hold for a bit; moving, new baby, new job, you know the deal.

I'm back and looking for some good introductory reading in physics to get the brain box buzzing again.

I'm currently reading "The Elegant Universe" and "A Brief History of Time", supplementing with "Explaining Physics" by Stephen Pople.

I've been recommended the "Feynman Lectures" as a start and good grounding and feelings on that would be much appreciated, as would any other suggestions.

(nothing too academic or advanced as I am still learning and found such works as "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose to be very math heavy and poorly explained)

the speed of light © is indeed a physical constant (given the correct parametres). the doppler effect is to do with the frequency of light, not its speed (wave-partucle duality) in relation to the observer.

SR is not sonething i feel can be conpressed into a post. probably wiki that one. ;-)

you know that all makes perfect sense.

But I am now considering a different and more accurate train of thought;

an ability cannot be tested if that person does not have the necessary tools.

Therefore I must learnt the skills before I can test if I have natural ability in them, or not. (if good memory is a prerequisite then I should be ok with that).

there are some very interesting points here in this discussion though. and certainly some pause for thought.

Your conclusion is correct, but your logic is flawed. Newton's inverse square law is a statement about rest mass, not relativistic mass. The reason that an object with large kinetic energy would have a greater gravitational influence is because the components of the stress-energy tensor are larger.

Aha, thank you for clearing that up. I thought I'd over looked something a bit

According to E=Mc^2 and general relativity theory; yes -

As an objects velocity increases so does its mass, and thanks to newtons use of the inverse square law in his gravitational equation, we can conclude that a greater mass means greater gravitational force. Thus a greater warping of spacetime.

There is little evidence to suggest that there these are innate abilities. In contrast, many young geniuses spend an extraordinary time into their talent. You will note that talented artists have spent an enormous amount of time to become talented. There are basic capacities that have a biological basis that will strongly affect or the outcome (such as a good memory, good senses, etc.). However, complex traits (artistic abilities, reasoning abilities) cannot easily be reduced to a simple basis are therefore much more dependent on training (and hence, interest). Again, if you simply do not like playing the piano, you can slog through hours without improving skills. If you are a Mozart, you will go through the same thousand of hours, with much more focus and learn from it.

 

 

 

There are a few problems with this assertion. Remember, the students you get already had exposure to maths in high school. A good teacher could make all the difference. Second, the student in question may be interested in certain aspects of physics, but not in maths. If the person is not willing or able to focus on the latter (and again, I would put lack of interest before lack of talent), he/she would not be able to catch up on the foundation that should have already been built up before you arrive at college.

 

Again, I would consider something like a good memory as a biological basis that can affect academic outcome. However, I would have a hard time clearly d

efining an innate affinity to logic. Biologically we all are actually very bad at logic. Our brain is a much better at finding positive correlations, for instance.

That's what I though. (not in so many words). People are born with a natural interest but not natural "abilities".

if you have a natural interest and passion in an area then you can succeed in that area because you wil spend more time learning about that area. I've always liked math and science, but unfortunately in the former I had terribly boring teacher after terribly boring teacher, thus I never succeeded, they killed my enjoyment in the subject.

And no matter how much you like sonething, if someone makes its boring, your study will suffer for it.

If you're not a straight A student in math in school then physics is likely not the best thing to study at university. It's quite generally acknowledged that most students struggling in a physics course have problems with the math, not with the physics.

 

I also tend to disagree with the notion that a lack of skill can be compensated by a sufficient amount of hard work. I believe that a certain minimum affinity to math/logic is required. In fact, I have advised a 1st semester student to reconsider his course choice in that past, based on his lack of math skills he showed in the class I tutored. And despite this being a very uncommon thing to do (for some strange reason it's considered more polite to just watch people run into their certain doom than to tell them that they are over their head), I still believe it was the correct thing to do.

how would you define what you call a "minimum affinity" in math/logic? because math is a man made concept, therefore it is not something anyone is born with the ability to do. (I happen to know a mathematics teacher and a geophysicist that would agree)

also I know someone who was an engineer for 40 something years, he confessed to me recently that when he started he was terrible at math, and it took him two years at nightschool to get up to standard. But he. did get there with practise and hard work.

I'm not trying to say you are wrong, but maybe a more in-depth exposure of your thinking?

So essentially, physics is as difficult as you perceive it to be dependent on your level of interest in the subject.

i guess the main worry id say i have is the math, it really isnt my strong point :-/

a friend if mine recently asked me this as he knew my plan to read physics at uni, having not started yet i couldnt really answer.

So for some clarity, how hard/tough is physics to study for someone with no special natural abilities in math or science?

 As a person you should never need anything external to validate what basic logic can conclude.

The idea of "validation" IS external scrutiny. Logic is proven, it is not fact just because you believe it to be. That would be religion, not science.  (The two do not mix, no matter what anyone says.)

The data I provided is more than enough to scientificlly prove the 4th spatial dimension, I am smart enough to know that.

Because YOU believe (there's that word again) that you have provided enough data for YOU to understand it. Doesn't catagorically mean you have provided enough data atall. It just means you can understand your concept, considering you wrote it, that's pretty much a given. 

 ...this is ground breaking and rigorous innovation. 

"rigorous" means mathematical (SiC) and it's relation to physics. Which is a very mathematical science. This is not up for 'interpretation' either, it has been proven over hundreds of years of mathematics and physics. 

"Mathematical rigour can refer both to rigorous methods of mathematical proof and to rigorous methods of mathematical practice" (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigour#section_2)

So when persons say "i dont see anything special" and "it would be more understandable if..." and "i dont think you should spend anymore time on this" is almost laughable to an above average IQ such as myself. 

Nobody is questioning your intellect, we are only questioning your theory. Which is what happens in science. Science is the questioning of everything in search of fact and how to define it. 

Also be careful about stating your "above average IQ" this doesn't make you look as smart as you claim. 

I was in gifted classes since kindergarten so science fairs and regional blue ribbons I am accustomed to. College was too slow for me so I taught myself by reading my friends and family college course books, I took a special liking to philosophy and I reached a plateau of thought which lead to scientific enlightenment.

A 'record of achievement' means exactly dick in this context. This ins'nt a job interview. It also doesn't make a good argument for the proof of your theory, it means nothing in relation to your theory. 

You can quote all the practice, degrees, PhD's, and Blue Ribbons you like, if your theory is tested to be wrong, it's wrong. Likewise if it's right, it's right.

~~

If you wish to form a credible argument, get your theory tested, experiments prove theories. That is the nature of science, ans particularly the nature of physics. Everythif has to be tested, and thus proved right or wrong.

Even if you are wrong, at least you tried, at least you had the balls to throw it up for testing, and more than anything else; at least you can learn something from it.

So has the notion of attaining extraordinary speeds been left behind then?

That video seems to take almost every quote out of context. And thus, can create whatever context the creator (of the video) wishes to fit the quotes into.

Religious ideology seems to be more and more encroaching on scientific territory these days, like it wants a peice of the action or something.

A magazine called "Awake" dropped on my doormat just the other day, out of curiosity I decided to read it, (it was a Christian publication) but it had a large section on cosmology, which it dealt with in quite a scientific manner. Unfortunately it decided to quantify the entire scientific article in the end, by relating it to a passage in the bible; the reason for all the cosmological phenomena observed was down to God.

The problem here exists in the interpretation of science by religeon and vice versa. This is due I feel to the fundamental differences in science and religeon.

Science is about fact, and this about questioning everything.

To seek the truth you just question all that you can observe.

Religion is about belief, an unquestioning belief.

To be a true believer you must never question what you are told.

Next!

You must understand that if you have a new theory, or you think you have a new theory, you are going to receive opposition.

This is not a personal attack, (most of the time) so don't take it as such.

No theory is apodictically true. Each is a model that must be checked by experiment. And there after either proved wrong or right. (look up: Michelson-Morley experiment)

To check something experimentally in physics you need the correct application of math, that is how we quantify in physics.

If this all seems too much I suggest you read this; http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html

... If there was some actual equation you had to accurately describe it, it might make more sense.

Totally agree.

Any physical theory must be backed up in mathematics. Einstein could just draw some pictures and say "yeah, so,.. Newton was a bit off, but this should clear things up. I call it General Relativity but the way....".

Have to published a paper for the scrutiny of the scientific community?

Because in all honesty, anything that purports to be this "ground breaking" must be tested to breaking point.

I would gladly read your paper for one.

Also, why is that vector "meaningless to a highschool graduate such as yourself"?

1) I can slow my watch/clock or whatever, but it has no effect on time. Likewise, speeding my clock up does not accelerate me into the future- so I feel there is some disconnection between how we measure time, and time itself as a fabric of our universe.

 

2) (Also, specifically noting reason 1) If time was to noticeably slow down at a particular location would this actually slow my clock? I would have thought that mathematically speaking my clock should actually move ahead of time (i.e. it is now ticking more than once for every real second).

Slowing your watch indeed doesn't not affect time. It only affects your measuring device (your clock/watch). Clocks are simply measuring devices; like a ruler measures length clocks (ideal or otherwise) measure change in the physical world. Instead of meauring the distance between two points, they measure the distance between two events.

The distance between the two events does not alter even if your measuring device does. So when we talk about the slowing of time we mean the slowing of the distance between two events. Thus, any clock within that time frame (ideal or otherwise), will also be running slower (to an outside observer). If you are within the same time frame then you will notice no difference (time is relative to your position). 

If time was slower in one location relative to you, then your watch/clock would not be affected unless you were within that time frame, in which case you would not notice the change in the passage of time anyway. 

That is why I suggested comparing the particular university syllabus' with your specific areas of interest.

Thats what I'm trying to do now, compile a list of areas that interest me and compare with university syllabus.