beecee

Perhaps that stance supports the following quote..... "Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself." Henry Louis Mencken: or.... Philosophy, n. "A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing". Ambrose Bierce: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Please don't take this as a criticism of philosophy! In my lay person's opnion, philosophy cannot be underestimated for the groundwork and foudation it has laid out for science. And yes, it still covers regions not undertaken or outside of the realms of science. But again, imo, while science [knowledge] is virtually never ending, philosophy [beyond the foundations and ground work] within science, is limited to some extent. I found this which I see some logic in..."Science is about empirical knowledge; philosophy is also about a priori knowledge (if it exists). Science is about contingent facts; philosophy is also about necessary truths (if they exist). ... Science is about physical objects; philosophy is also about abstract objects (if they exist)" Wouldn't that be better said that science gave us the means to split the atom and knowledge of nuclear physics; how we use that power is in our hands.

I do. But that slavish adherence to the party line does exist, is all I am saying. Certainly on some issues you are not realistic, but they have already been discussed, and some do not exist to the extent that your idealistic world demands. But that is off topic here. I didn't dismiss your argument, I simply corrected you on one point and said, "Fear does have a bearing on results"...then gave a true to life example. And what questions would you like answered that I havn't already answered? No, the facts are I generally defend science as opposed to scientists...As I have said many times, there are good and bad in every discioline. If I defend that with religious zeal, perhaps you can show me aspects where that defence should not apply. Plus that defence is generally applicable when some with unscientific religious or supernatural faith attempt to unjustly deride science. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/science "Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them". Question; why should I not defend with zeal the above definition?

https://globalsportmatters.com/science/2019/11/01/what-makes-east-africans-so-good-at-distance-running/

I'm not sure what you are reading or how you are applying your interpretation, but I suggest you read it again. Tell me of your ideal world? I've hear similar before and while possibly ideal, certainly not realistic. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to comment on your cryptic style, but again, no I do not adhere slavishly [your word] to any particular doctrine or party line. I base it all on their merits in benefiting mankind the best. What about yourself?

That does nothing to invalidate the possibility that many simply hold a slavish adherence to the party line. As usual you in an effort to appear philosophical, have read me wrong. "I don't have a slavish adherence to any party line" was what I was answering.

But true opposition, or sometimes opposition for opposition's sake, is more often then not, simply a slavish adherence to the party line. Something I never have been. Yes, as do bad people.

Of course it would be incredible.....certainly not impossible, but never the less incredible. Trump's election was incredible, at least in the eyes of most of the rest of the world. Contentious to say the least. Doesn't say much for the rest of the world's democratic systems then. What I find "uniquely American" is their seemingly adoration and acceptance of their NRA and non existent gun laws and their seemingly abhorance against universal health schemes. Not sure if that's dangerous, but certainly hard to understand when we read things in the paper with regards to people having to sell their houses etc, to afford proper health, medical and hospital care. While we have certain right wing politicians in our country, that would dismantle and scrap our own excellent universal system, they just as certainly would never attempt it, as the populace both leftish and rightish would throw them out on their ears at the following elections, and maybe even sooner. I cannot see Americans electing Trump again, but then I'm not an American and am not really privvy to the ground roots thinking, over there. Can only hope thatthey never make that mistake again.

Michael Pascoe is an Aussie financial journalist and commentator, keynote speaker and facilitator...... https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2021/10/01/michael-pascoe-us-democracy-threat/ COVID-19 is not our biggest problem. Neither is China. Or even climate change. (As a species we know what we have to do and we can do it, if we want to.) No, the biggest threat is one that would make those three challenges worse: The death of American democracy – the US sliding into an autocracy, becoming a crony capitalist, para-fascist state. It may seem an incredible claim, but there’s a solid and frightening argument that the outlook for American democracy has deteriorated since Joe Biden was sworn in as President on January 20 and is going to get worse. While we’ve been consumed by what we thought were the Big Three issues – does anyone remember what we filled news bulletins with before COVID? – half of American politics has gone to hell and promises to take the country with it. The Trump mob has taken control of the Republican Party. Trump capos are busily removing honest officials and corrupting legislatures to win control of the voting process in 2024. The Trump propaganda machine is back in full swing – cue the Murdochs’ Tucker Carlson. Trump is back winning the opinion polls. more interesting scenarios at link........................

Today one of my old school mates passed away, and another is going downhill fast. Ten years ago we all [eleven of us] stuck in a $100 each with the last man standing to collect. At present there are seven of us left. Out of that seven, two have had quadruple bypasses, one has ALS, another is diabetic, another has cancer of the liver, leaving two of us in reasonable health, me being one of those. So I learnt I'm a 50/50 chance of collecting $1100!!😉

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-sky-year-old-brazilian-girl-dubbed.html Head in the sky: 8-year-old Brazilian girl dubbed world's youngest astronomer When Nicole Oliveira was just learning to walk, she would throw up her arms to reach for the stars in the sky. Today, at just eight years of age, the Brazilian girl is known as the world's youngest astronomer, looking for asteroids as part of a NASA-affiliated program, attending international seminars and meeting with her country's top space and science figures. extract: "Beaming with pride, Nicolinha told AFP she has already found 18 asteroids. "I will give them the names of Brazilian scientists, or members of my family, like my mom or my dad," said the lively girl with dark brown hair and a high-pitched voice. If her findings are certified, which may take several years, Oliveira will become the youngest person in the world to officially discover an asteroid, breaking the record of 18-year-old Italian Luigi Sannino".

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-earth-dimming-due-climate.html Earthshine annual mean albedo 1998–2017 expressed as watts per square meter (W/m2). The CERES annual albedo 2001–2019, also expressed in W/m2, are shown in blue. A best fit line to the CERES data (2001–2019) is shown with a blue dashed line. Average error bars for CERES measurements are of the order of 0.2 W/m2. Credit: Goode et al. (2021), Geophysical Research Letters Warming ocean waters have caused a drop in the brightness of the Earth, according to a new study. Researchers used decades of measurements of earthshine—the light reflected from Earth that illuminates the surface of the Moon—as well as satellite measurements to find that there has been a significant drop in Earth's reflectance, or albedo, over the past two decades. The Earth is now reflecting about half a watt less light per square meter than it was 20 years ago, with most of the drop occurring in the last three years of earthshine data, according to the new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences. That's the equivalent of 0.5% decrease in the Earth's reflectance. Earth reflects about 30% of the sunlight that shines on it. more at link............ the paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL094888 Earth's Albedo 1998–2017 as Measured From Earthshine: Abstract: The reflectance of the Earth is a fundamental climate parameter that we measured from Big Bear Solar Observatory between 1998 and 2017 by observing the earthshine using modern photometric techniques to precisely determine daily, monthly, seasonal, yearly and decadal changes in terrestrial albedo from earthshine. We find the inter-annual fluctuations in albedo to be global, while the large variations in albedo within individual nights and seasonal wanderings tend to average out over each year. We measure a gradual, but climatologically significant 0.5 decline in the global albedo over the two decades of data. We found no correlation between the changes in the terrestrial albedo and measures of solar activity. The inter-annual pattern of earthshine fluctuations are in good agreement with those measured by CERES (data began in 2001) even though the satellite observations are sensitive to retroflected light while earthshine is sensitive to wide-angle reflectivity. The CERES decline is about twice that of earthshine. Plain Language Summary The net sunlight reaching the Earth's climate system depends on the solar irradiance and the Earth's reflectance (albedo). We have observed earthshine from Big Bear Solar Observatory to measure the terrestrial albedo. For earthshine we measure the sunlight reflected from Earth to the dark part of the lunar face and back to the nighttime observer, yielding an instantaneous large-scale reflectance of the Earth. In these relative measurements, we also observe the sunlit, bright part of the lunar face. We report here reflectance data (monthly, seasonal and annual) covering two decades, 1998–2017. The albedo shows a decline corresponding to a net climate forcing of about 0.5 . We find no correlation between measures of solar cycle variations and the albedo variations. The first precise satellite measures of terrestrial albedo came with CERES. CERES global albedo data (2001-) show a decrease in forcing that is about twice that of earthshine measurements. The evolutionary changes in albedo motivate continuing earthshine observations as a complement to absolute satellite measurements, especially since earthshine and CERES measurements are sensitive to distinctly different parts of the angular reflectivity. The recent drop in albedo is attributed to a warming of the eastern pacific, which is measured to reduce low-lying cloud cover and, thereby, the albedo. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm actually amazed how they are able to ascertain the aspect of light reflected from Earth to the Moon, from the light reflected from the Sun to the Moon. Have I missed something?

Fear does have a bearing on results. The two main political parties in Australia are the left of centre Labor party, and the right of centre Liberal/National coalition party. We had the Liberal party coalition in power for 23 years, mainly due to the fear that a Labor party was pro-communist, and the general "red under every bed" politics of fear that the Liberals were pushing, and which society swallowed. It was fear that prevented change...much needed change that came in 1972...change that is now universaly accepted by the general populace, but which the Liberals still do there best to dismantle.eg: our universal health care system.

I typed in "what is the best political direction" and got this.........."Generally, the left-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism". It's rather funny, that I, personally, probably have some of all those 14 charecterisations...what does that make me? I reasoned that this would put me as moderate or centralist. So I decided to check further as to what defines a centralist and came up with this..."Centrism is a political outlook or position that involves acceptance and/or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy, while opposing political changes which would result in a significant shift of society strongly to either the left or the right." Yet I campaigned strongly for Australia's first Labor Prime Minister in 23 years in 1972....so I obviously did not oppose a shift of society to the left as defined in the above. 😛So what am I? Reminds me of a time in the late sixities when I was a union delegate and worked for a chemical company. We were after better wages and conditions, and to support that, meant a prolonged five week strike. Finally we achieved much of our goal, and a recommendation was made for a return to work with the new found conditions. On that day I was confronted by one of my members and called a rotten little commie bastard for having cost him 5 weeks wages. On the same day that afternoon, after the return to work, I was confronted by another member and called a lousy f&^%$#* bosses stooge for supporting a recommendation to return to work. I went home that day, content that I had done a reasonable job. 😊

It seems like the fear of these rioters creating a super spreading event is approaching reality. Besides the two referenced above, the offices of the CFMEU are being sanitised as we speak, with a serious outbreak at those premises and the Secretary of the Union testing positive, as well as three other officials. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/29/cfmeu-blames-protests-for-covid-outbreak-at-victorian-headquarters If there is anything good to come out of all this, it is the fact that the further it goes on, the more the science and science modelling is being proven correct. The state of Victoria's health workers are now bracing for an expected challenge, with numbers of recorded infections, jumping from 950 to 1438 over a 24 hour period.

It seems you are asking for perfection. Not sure if that is actually possible. One of my dreams is seeing Australia more active as far as space endeavours is concerned. Yet with all our great Labor leaders, that is always put on the back burner, in favour of money going towards other worthwhile endeavours, including education, sexual equality, equal pay, university education, home ownership etc. And I have no argument with any of that...in a nation of 25 million, there are prioities. The recent deal with the US, UK and Australia, that will see us getting nuclear submarines, may not have been so easy or cut and dried as it seems to be if we had a Labor government in power. Although there is bipartisan support in our country with regards to the threat of China within our region. The Labor party also gave bipartisan support to the Liberal government at that time, for the great reform in our gun laws, after what became known as the Port Authur massacre. In essence, Labor governments in Australia, were never reluctant in giving bipartisan support when needed or desired, unlike the many incidents of stubborness shown by the Liberal/National party coalition parties, in opposing everything and anything that Labor ever proposed, including our universal health scheme, apology to our indigenous population for wrongs done, equal pay, zero net emmisions and the environment, and sexual misconduct within the parlimentary halls. Bob Hawke once made a statement in 1987 that no child will be living in poverty by 1990. Obviously it was an unattainable declaration, but just as obviously his heart was in the right place, and he did reduce that figure by 30%. Bob Hawke did much to abolish sexism and sex discrimination in our country among his many other achievments, and being somewhat of a lovable larrikan, did not detract from those achievments, but as much as I have been singing his praises, he was not imo our greatest PM. That title goes to Gough Whitlam, who was elected in 1972 after 23 years on Liberal government. If criticism of Whitlam is warranted, it would be that he moved too fast with reform for our country, that drew the ire of the conservatives and saw them plan for his dismissal. I am only speaking of Prime Ministers of my time, and going back further, we have another great Labor man in John Curtin, who in WW2 when the Japanese were on our doorstep, defied the British PM Winston Churchill, and brought Australian troops back from northern Africa to defend our country, and sought the help of the US in our defence. Is this an unreasonable standard for a leader? Perhaps that can be best answered with you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

Yep, understood, what I was trying to say is that any Kerr Newman BH, would rather quickly become just a Kerr BH, as charge would be quickly negated...is that correct? and therefor the Kerr metric would be in reality the most common? Thanks for tidying up my understanding btw.

I recall the argument/bet between Hawking and Thorne on naked singularities, so what is it in simple language that stops the angular momentum of a BH reaching a stage where the singularity can be revealed? And which EH are we talking about? that EH enshrining the ergosphere? which theoretically at least, we would be able to extract energy from. Obviously they are incredibly complicated beasts when compared to the Schwarzchild metric, yet obviously are also the only real stable form of a BH...I think! charge is always negated and angular momentum obviously is the relic from the star from which it formed, which also can be negated but also added on to...are those recollections correct? Other aspects adding to their complication are the cauchy horizon [of which I know little about] and the two photon spheres operating in reverse situations to each other...complicated indeed!!

Look, I can understand where Phi for All was coming from, based on the face value of the description of Bob Hawke, and the videos I linked to. But with all due respect, he was wrong about Hawke...yes Hawke was a larrikin, yes Hawke was also a man's man, yes Hawke treated irreverently the politics he was a part of and parts of privaliged society in general, and yes Hawke also indulged in adultery, and at that stage when it was revealed, he subsequently lost a lot of respect, and much sympathy was directed towards his wife at the time. But he also did all I have mentioned, for females in general, sex equality and racism in our country also. He may have been a larrikin, but a larrikin best described as a lovable larrikin. He also had much to do with regards to his role in ending apartheid in South Africa, and his successful international campaign to protect Antarctica from mining as well as the environment in general.

If you ask the good Senator Hanson for examples, she would probably rattle off names like Tony Abbott, Craig Kelly, and Scott Morrison [present PM] all Liberal party members...or the party of non reform, the party that would destroy our universal health scheme, reverse native land rights etc. Not Labor party members and specifically not Bob Hawke, and the party that gave us our first woman PM Julia Gillard. Certainly not "the good hearted larrikin" of which Hawke was one. By the way from your link, the sign behind the former Liberal party leader Tony Abbott, was in reference to Julia Gillard, the first Australian woman PM and Labor leader. The woman in this photo, again from your link, was a Liberal party member and those blokes you see leaving, are all liberal party members.... Don't get me wrong, Phi for All, I'm not saying politics in Australia is fault free, nor even that the Labor Party is perfect, what I'm saying is that for the Aussie society in general, Labor is the party of reform, and has conducted much of that reform in a near 50/50 seats split in the house of representitives, and has found it difficult sometimes in election results that are near always split down the middle. The depths that some Liberal party politicians will go to to thwart major reform has been evidenced many times, particularly with the first Labor PM for 23 years in 1972, Gough Whitlam, and who was summarily dismissed in 1975. That period was the closest that this nation has ever been to outright civil war. More can be done, yes, and more will be done, when the next Labor leader becomes our PM.

I won't argue with that!

While he did admit to adultery as I mentioned, he certainly was not in any way behaving in any toxic manner agaisnt females. He also served three terms, enhanced our health system for all, had a hand in indigenous land rights, and also pushed for equal pay for men and women. Like I said, he was otherwise a bit of a larrikin. One can certainly be a larrikin as well as condusive to women's rights and equality. In case being a larrikin has other meanings elswhere... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrikin Larrikin is an Australian English term meaning "a mischievous young person, an uncultivated, rowdy but good hearted person", or "a person who acts with apparent disregard for social or political conventions". Phi for All Perhaps yourself and most of our American friends are not as familiar with our Prime Ministers, as we are with your Presidents, but Bob Hawke was a momentous social reformer, as was the previous Labor PM, Gough Whitlam and all Labor PM's since and all did much for women's rights. Our first women Prime Minister was Labor, Julia Gillard. The Labor party is our party of reform. https://digital-classroom.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/sex-discrimination-act https://medium.com/the-machinery-of-government/remembering-the-hawke-government-1983-1991-achievements-in-womens-policy-d40f9633ae9d Regarded as a notorious adulterer, a larrikin and a man’s man, Bob Hawke might not come to mind as an advocate for feminism, either practically or intellectually. However, he recognised the need for political equality and economic justice and supported equal pay for women. He appointed Susan Ryan to the portfolio of Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women in 1983. Ann Summers was selected to run the Office of the Status of Women in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in December 1983. In 1984, the Sex Discrimination Act outlawed sex discrimination and protected women from sexual harassment in the workplace. The Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 has its legacy from the Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986. Employers had to report on the numbers of women they employed, their seniority and pay. The government increased spending on childcare, access to it expanded quickly. These achievements challenged the notion that a woman’s place was in the home. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm also known sometimes as a bit of a larrikin, although certainly not PM material! 😉

Aussies are not that particular with regards to a leader's antics, as long as they are doing a good job. One of our best Prime Minister's was Bob Hawke, a real larrikin, who openly admitted to "commiting adultery" yet was still elected to a third term after the revelation. He also fancied a beer. He could also tell a great yarn with the magic "F" word..... He was also a Rhodes scholar.

Interesting..while I did pride myself on thinking I knew what the Casimir effect was, the above makes heaps of sense. Thanks for the excellent rundown.

There goes my dreams! 😉 How big a BH would we need? The typical SMBH at the core of galaxies?

That remark was in reference to "Forget about time travel. I wish ordinary travel were restored"...remembering that some of us are still in lockdown. Are you referring to this paragraph? "The quantum laws of physics do permit exotic matter to exist, and it has been created in the laboratory in very tiny amounts: in the so-called Casimir vacuum between two electrically conducting plates, and in the so-called squeezed vacuum that is generated by optical physicists using nonlinear crystals." I admit my understanding of exactly what he is saying, is probably somewhat flawed. Swansont, can you elaborate on what exactly your objection to Thorne's rundown is, as dumbed down as is humanly possible to prevent my eyes from completely glazing over? Reading on further, he does go on and say "My personal guess is that these constraints on exotic matter do not prevent wormholes from being held open and thus do not protect chronology, but I could well turn out to be wrong. To learn the truth, we physicists must develop a deeper understanding of quantum theory in warped spacetime than we now have — i.e. a deeper understanding of the combined laws of quantum theory and general relativity, the laws of quantum gravity." If we scroll down to the comments section, I see some weird take on the essence of time itself and comments that it isn't real. I fail to understand how anyone can arrive at that conclusion.