gib65

It's a stim?

why does Cyanide smell so nice and yet is so totaly toxic to us?

 

Why are the seeds in Avocados so disproportionaly large?

So are we talking about non-volitional actions?

and would require so much more in the way of explanation as to why all the different systems produce the same result in a way we can't detect (so according to Occam's razor) that an external source can be eliminated, leaving only an Internal Source or Nothing (and an internal source would need to get it's energy from somewhere, so where could that be if external sources are eliminated? - ie: from nothing).

I will agree that we want to avoid messy explanations, but about Occam's razor - that the simplest explanation is usually the best one - I wouldn't call getting something from nothing an explanation at all, let alone a simple one. It's a more a concession that there is no explanation. One just has to resign to the fact that we can't explain how we got something from nothing. So I don't think the Occam's razor card can be played here.

And about internal sources - I've often wondered if our models of fundamental particles are too simple. I mean, we shouldn't make them complicated if we don't have to. That's why the early models depicted them as points or even tiny billiard balls, and now we think of them as smeared out objects (so to speak) in order to be consistent with QM. But what if all this virtual chaos that the quantum world seems to be serving up is due to the fact that fundamental particles are actually extremely complex systems that have got a lot of internal structure and internal sources of energy (like a fuel tank to a car). Maybe I'm not understanding your concept of "internal sources" but I've often wondered if QM is an indication that we aught to be sceptical about our simple billiard ball models (or whatever the model is today).

I noticed that some freely use the fword in their posts

Yup

I left a message there asking if there was a way for me to turn them off but if there isn't, I'm outta there.

 

Bettina

Oh, come on. Don't let a little fword scare you off? Tell you what. If you catch people using naughty words, let me know and I'll give them an ear full

Well Edtharan,

I was pretty sure Bell's Non-Locality Theorem stated that you could have instant effects across vast distances, but I'm not a physicist and you probably are, so I won't argue with you on this front. But I still stand behind my more general point which is that it just takes a bit more creativity in thinking of possible scenarios to refute the idea of something coming from nothing. I think the experiment you're siting closes off any possibility of something physical giving these electrons the extra boost they need to make it through the hole, so if I was to maintain that the energy still came from something, I'd have to go into metaphysics. I personally wouldn't hesitate to do this, but I have a feeling others on this forum would roll their eyes at me, and this is quite appreciable being a science forum and all. So I won't go there.

Nevertheless, my point is a purely logical one, not a scientific one. That is, I'm saying that one cannot prove logically that something comes from nothing and visa-versa. Keeping that in mind, I don't think it matters whether we use scientific examples or metaphysical ones or whatever.

BTW, can you answer another question for me? Could we say that the electron gained extra energy from a local electron in the room? Say, from the walls, or the air, or the equipment, etc.? Quantum entanglement doesn't have to be set by an experimenter, does it?

Thank you Gib.... I liked what I saw and joined...

 

Bee

Look forward to seeing you there. Are you under the same name?

Hey, those are cool!!! Thanks ecoli; now I'm going to be hooked for the next few days

Edtharan,

The experiment you sited definitely limits the range of possible explanation, but it does not extinguish it completely. This is the point I'm trying to make. I don't think you can extinguish it complete. The closer you come to doing so, the more creative one has to be in order to think of alternate explanations. For example, what if the extra energy those electrons were getting came from elsewhere in the universe - let's suppose an electron 10 billion light years away spontaneously lost exactly the amount of energy that the electron in the experiment gained. In other words, perhaps (and I don't have any proof of this, but there is no reason why this could not be possible) energy was taken from the electron 10 billion years away and instantly was given to the electron in the experiment (and then given back). Wouldn't this mean the energy didn't come from nothing? I know nothing can travel faster than light, but doesn't particle entanglement prove Bell's Theorem which states that objects can interact over huge distances at FTL speeds?

And you made a trailor too. How industrious.

So what happened to the little guy? Did he just die?

Not we.... you.

 

Bettina

BURN!!!

Herme,

In the log you posted, it shows that the hacker attempted to reset your password at least 13 times in 1 minute. That's an attempt every 4.6 seconds. That's got to be a program, not a person. There are people who make programs like this and deploy them into the internet. They can be programmed to seek out any accounts they can find, and it can be done for any number of reasons. Some try to hack into email accounts and take them hostage in order to send out spam. Others might want to hack into your machine and plant viruses. Whatever their reason, they don't need to know who you are or even pick you out of a number of other targets. For the most part, these programs are built to attack people at random and at such high rates that they can target thousands of accounts in a matter of seconds. For all you know, this might just be a random attack from a random source.

What is causing this energy, it is not from something. If it is not from something, then it is form nothing.

I don't see how this is proof. You're just stating that it doesn't come from something. I don't see why there couldn't be a something that caused and sustained it (Doesn't this energy originate from the Big Bang?)

It is not for lack of understanding. The theory specifies that these are uncaused and come from nothing. It is not through failing to find a source and then declaring that no source exists' date=' it is that the theory states that no source exists so therefore no experiment will be able to find one (and not for lack of trying). You have it backwards, the theory came first that required there to be no source for that energy, and then the experiments were constructed to disprove it. They are still looking, and they still haven't found it or any evidence that there are sources.[/quote']

 

Ah, this is the old falsifiability principle: you can't prove a scientific theory, you can only falsify it. But if you can't prove it, this is more or less what Spyman was saying all along (and what I'm inclined to agree with).

But the theory of QM does include where this comes from -> Nothing. It states that this energy comes from nothing and returns to nothing, but can have real effects (as in the Casimir effect).

This is what the theory says, and I have no reason to doubt it. But I don't have a reason to accept it either. I've always wondered how one could be absolutely sure that there is "nothing" there. It's one thing to say you've detected nothing with your measuring instruments, and it's another to say there is nothing.

But if a theory (QM) fails to explain a measured fenomena thats only proving that the theory fails to explain it.

 

It is not prof of energy entering from nothing.

 

Any experiment will either find a physical existing source or fail to find a source. Failing to find a source is not prof of a nonexistent source. Neither is lack of knowledge or lack of explaining.

I actually started a thread on this very topic not too long ago:

http://www.scienceforums.net/showthread.php?t=23424

I assume you know virtual particles in the context of Feynman diagrams.

I'm embarassed to say, but no I don't . Nor am I familiar with Tayler expansions. I'm so out of the loop.

Are you saying that virtual particles are real in the same sense that mathematical formulas are real?

The problem I (and my friends) have are the middle age adults who stare at us without saying anything. The mall lurkers who follow you from aisle to aisle pretending to shop near you just to gawk up close. If we make eye contact with them they will keep it going never breaking first and its worse when were in an ice cream shop where they sit close to you and stare. These guys freak us out. Its not just me, and thats why my friends and I always car pool and go out in groups.

How often do you get this? Are these guys "running rampant" in our society - like every second middle aged man is one of these creeps? Geez

Are "virtual particles" a fact? I mean, from what I understand, virtual particles exist for such a short period of time, their existence cannot be tested. So as scientists, what's our reason for believing in them? Is it because they are theoretically necessary in order to explain certain phenomena, and if so, are they really necessary or just the best explanation we've come up with?

Rule number 2:

Time is an illusion. For the same reason that you can't have nothing without something there could never have been a beginning and there will never be an ending. The reason for this is because if you assume there is a beginning you are assuming that before the beginning there was nothing and if you assume there is an end you are assuming that after the end there would also be nothing. This would contradict the 1st rule since there cannot be nothing without something and therefore I belive the universe is constant and there was never a beginning and there wont ever be an end.

I'm not so sure I follow. Wouldn't the existence of the universe from the time of the Big Bang to the time of the "big mass of everything", as you call it, account for the "something" that needs to coexist with the eternal span of nothingness?

Without a beginning and end we have to assume that an event would cause a loop back to what we call the big bang at some point in the future.

Not necessarily. I can imagine a universe whose existence stretches all the way back in time eternally. At some point, the Big Bang must have occurred creating all matter and energy, and if you'd like, space as well. What existed before the big bang? I don't know. Non-spatial/non-material stuff?

At that point all matter in the universe would be packed together and the huge amount of gravity produced by this giant mass of everything will attempt to condense itself even further until a supernova like event takes place and matter is exploded back out into space to start the cycle once again.

An explosion under those conditions would require some kind of force that's more powerful than the black hole's gravity. This actually brings up a question (anybody can answer it). Aren't the other 3 forces of nature (or 2 if you count the electro-weak force as one force) stronger than gravity? Is it possible that something occurs under gravitational pressures of that magnitude such that some of the other forces get relinquished - giving us Choix's Second Big Bang?

You know, Choix, I don't know about your theory. I think it needs to be fleshed out somewhat, but you just brought a whole slew of questions to my mind, and I think I'm going to have to start a few threads now. Thanks for getting me interested .

I think the author must have a lot of free time.

...and issues.

[*]Mechanisms to prevent challenging. For instance, it being a sin to question a superior member.

Ah yes - there it is.

I agree with this one, as well as your last one ("Any faith in the words of a given individual, without critical reasoning as to their authority").

I don't think I can agree or disagree with the other three as they seem to depend on too much IMO.

How 'bout this: any religion that equates disbelief with moral wrongness is dangerous.

I'm going to assume that as my post hasn't been torn apart whatsoever, that makes me right?

Wow, if that's true, I must be right about a whole slew of crackpot ideas I've expressed.

Ever heard of it? Here's a link to the theory by Stuart Hameroff:

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/overview.html

I want to understand this better because it seems like a few paradoxes might fall out of this. For example, Hameroff says "As qubits in the brain Penrose suggested superpositions of neurons both firing and not firing." If neurons can be in states of superposition, firing and not firing at the same time, then where does that leave the classical notion of neurons firing in response to stimulation by other neurons? Everything we know about neuroscience would have to be turned on its head!

Is anyone an "expert" or QC - or even just know a few things about it?