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Imagine an ant. It lives in a (relative to the ant) extremely large colony with lots of other ants. This is the whole universe according to the ant. The ant has no thinking brain or consciousness, and so is oblivious to the rest of the world. It can only see so far and is limited by its sight. It cannot see up into the sky and doesn't even know that whatever is 50 miles away exists. Not only can it get there and will it never get there - but it does not and cannot know that that part of the world exists. It doesn't even know the world exists as the world - a sphere in space - as it does not have the consciousness to know this or work this out, as previously mentioned. If the ant could indeed think, it may (would?) think that it knew everything there was to possibly know. It's life in the confines of the colony and in the nest are the whole universe - including the 200 metres or so they travel from the nest. There would never be any awareness of anything else. The ant may think it knows everything and this is the world. But humans are aware of the whole planet on which they live - we know it is indeed a planet which orbits the Sun at roughly 108,000 km/h, and that we have a moon which orbits around us at approximately 3,683 km/h. We are able to see all parts of the Earth and travel across the whole planet, we know about the ants who do not and cannot know anything about the universe more than about 200 metres from their nest. We can study the ants and know about their behaviour and their anatomy. We have traveled to our moon and we study the universe, using mathematics to make sense of it all. Now what if we are the ant? What do I mean by this? Well, we are conscious and aware of our limitations - this is true. Whereas the ant is not. So you may think we have advantage here and I suppose that's right. And yes we know the universe is vast - that it involves distances which the human mind struggles to comprehend - even our most skilled mathematicians say the distances involved in space are just so unfathomable. Indeed, they tell us that the universe may very well be infinite. And WMAP has confirmed that the universe is flat - with a margin of error of about 0.4% - which means physicists can confidentially say, pretty much, that the universe is infinite (it has no boundary and it just goes on, forever and ever and ever - it never ends). Since we know this, and we are aware that what we can see is only the observable universe and not the entire universe, it could be concluded that we have an advantage over the ant we were previously discussing. Because we know our knowledge is limited. That we cannot know beyond the observable universe. And unlike the ant, we can study our world. We can use physical laws and mathematical calculations and equations to understand and know our universe. But here is where we could indeed be ignorant, like the ant. Indeed, here is where we could know nothing at all about our universe, like the ant!? What if, the laws of physics and the mathematics we use to learn about and make sense of this universe in which we live - this physics and mathematics - only make sense to us and are valid to us as humans? And to take this even further - what if the results from which are derived from the physics and mathematics are, in fact totally wrong? Is it possible, that because the mathematical methods employed and applied to physics make sense to us and work for us in that they deliver results and conclusions - evidence, in fact - that also makes perfect sense to us in relation to the mathematics - could actually be wrong? It could be tricky to really explain properly the question I am asking and the point I'd like to make. So let us consider an intelligent life form trillions of light years away from us in some other part of the universe we could never reach. They use different tools - which we cannot imagine - instead of physical laws and mathematics - which make 100% sense to them and deliver results which fit well with those methods and which, to alien life form, answers questions about the universe in ways which make absolute perfect sense. They are not using our physics or mathematics. They arrive at different conclusions but they are absolutely true conclusions to the aliens as much as our conclusions through physics/mathematics are to us. Whose interpretation of the universe is correct? In this sense not only could we think we know the universe is infinite in extent, when it could be something even beyond infinite, and there could be something totally beyond our universe other than the universe itself as we know it - but we could be totally wrong in everything we know, could we not? We only make sense of things with what we have (mathematics) to understand the universe and this is all we can do and we should just accept that, whatever results our experiments and theories yield, are what we have to go with as being true? When, in fact, they may not be objectively true. They may only be true to us?

Someone should tell Trump: https://twitter.com/i/status/1246556219311079425

Almost. It's not correct to characterise this as have gone from a range to a single value. It's still a range, just a smaller range. Go read the wikipedia page on age of the universe. It's in the first couple of paragraphs.

In another thread I saw a comment about Hawking radiation, which I found confusing, and it's repeated in other online sources: that Hawking radiation is electromagnetic. I'm not a cosmologist, so I'm missing something here. The common explanation for Hawking radiation (e.g. https://www.universetoday.com/40856/hawking-radiation/) is "this process is also called black hole evaporation. In brief, this theoretical process works like this: particle-antiparticle pairs are constantly being produced and rapidly disappear (through annihilation); these pairs are virtual pairs, and their existence (if something virtual can be said to exist!) is a certain consequence of the Uncertainty Principle. Normally, we don’t ever see either the particle or antiparticle of these pairs, and only know of their existence through effects like the Casimir effect. However, if one such virtual pair pops into existence near the event horizon of a black hole, one may cross it while the other escapes; and the black hole thus loses mass. A long way away from the event horizon, this looks just like black body radiation." So the process creates particles, but the radiation is deemed electromagnetic. That does not jibe. What is being glossed over here, in the transition from particles, to electromagnetic radiation? Is it as simple as the particles interacting and creating EM radiation, and that radiation has a blackbody spectrum? (not unlike the CMBR having a blackbody spectrum)? And that this is just a terminology shortcut, when really it's the signature being electromagnetic, even though the radiation itself is comprised of massive particles?

You are aware that pharmaceutical companies can set the price on drugs, yeah? You know they could hike that price when demand surges, right? They haven't (in fact, they've cut the price), but you asked for a mechanism of profit and that's a pretty easy answer to share. I'm not saying this is happening. I'm not saying I have evidence. I'm not even saying I dislike Trump. Yet here you are acting like I just called your wife ugly or your child stupid. Stop being a snowflake. It was a passing comment... It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Trump had a financial motivation for mentioning this drug over and over then over again some more from his megaphone bully pulpit all while the medical experts surrounding him keep saying it's not helpful. If you disagree, super. It was a random comment.

Folks, can I ask everyone to stay on topic and/or open a new thread elsewhere to discuss this?

Realistic assessment or not it's just a guess with a lack of evidence. Why build a case against Trump with a house of cards, when there's plenty of bricks and mortar around?

I'm sure you've had error bars explained to you before, but that seems to be what you're missing. Simplified: Say someone guesses your age as 15 plus or minus 2 years. That means they think your age is from 13 to 17 years old. (15 -2 to 15 + 2). That does NOT mean they think you are either 13 or 17 years old. The error gives a RANGE not two options. Later they might be more accurate for some reason and figure you are 15 plus or minus 1 year. So they are more accurate, with 14 to 16 years old. It's still a range. Your article says "could be as young as 9.7 billion years or as old as 19.5 billion years". That's a RANGE not two options. The current known age is within that range.

Partially, a lot is also because of the imbalance between public dissemination and the strength of the data. Scientists are usually very critical to overhyping results (and specific endorsement from POTUS could amplify it). There a couple of letters you might find interesting: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2764199/use-hydroxychloroquine-chloroquine-during-covid-19-pandemic-what-every-clinician https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2764065/rush-judgment-rapid-reporting-dissemination-results-its-consequences-regarding-use

The 'economy' was actually the first means to re-distribute wealth. ( whatever 'wealth' meant at the time ) In pre-historic times, you exchanged 'work' for food, provided by the tribe. In medieval times, you exchanged work for a parcel of land that you worked for yourself. Today we exchange 'work' for something that takes the place of food, land, or other forms of wealth; we call it money. In all of these cases, the 'economy' is the means for survival. ( although a case could be made that you don't really need an iPhone 11 pro )

There seems to me to be a difference between "irrational" and "visceral" fear of spiders (or whatever), although it may just be a spectrum of behavior. But what I think of as "irrational" is the type of fear that would cause you to do something possibly equally dangerous, like you see a spider/snake and go into such a blind panic that you forget to duck as you dash out the door, or you start throwing your spouse's antique porcelain figurine collection at them just to keep them away. That seems different than a healthy fear of something that could hurt you, deep visceral feelings for sure, but not the type that sends you into a panic. A visceral fear is the kind where you want to know where that spider/snake is so you can keep your distance. An irrational fear is the kind where you don't stop running just because the critter is a mile back.

! Moderator Note Saying it like that declares you have nothing of value to discuss

I forgot to mention here, people don't get locked up, they are not prisoners and should not be treated like dirt under peoples feet. We're all in this together, and if the boat sinks, we all sink together. My boss at the end of March told us that we were not to attend work from the week after Monday, he did not say whether we would receive any money the week after or not. To date we've had no acknowledgement from the company about money and I've recently learned that the government are looking at paying us up to 80% of our wages from the end of April. If we have no funds to live on, how to we live to then? People who live day to day or week to week don't really need to worry about COVID-19 as hunger will kill them before the end of April.

The entire Neil Young archives free for streaming. https://neilyoungarchives.com/info-card?track=t1975_1129_01

Suggesting that Pres Trump profits from these the pharmaceutical is facebookian hateful bias. Perhaps you should invest a tiny amount of time to consider the facts. Chlroquine has been off patent for decades and its two primary large company suppliers - Teva and Bayer -_ are both publically-held companies. Both have donated millions of doses. Typical hateful bias. Suggest you folks stick to the ill-informed technical and policy discussions.

Suggest you spare us your hateful bias.

No, you have to assume that random functions exist, and then you can study their properties. No modern treatise on probability makes an effort to actually define randomness itself. Saying it like this is better : CMPML, Department of System Failure! Bell's Theorem is just a strange and backwards way of saying : Pure chance cannot be defined. Remember that Lilith does not have a cui bono motivation. Remember the Holy Oath of the CMPML : I swear to eternally Work to banish the Evil Snake so help me God. Amen and Amen and ... End of Document.