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I always found that that to be bit of a a convenient excuse. See, folks do not have abhorrent believes, but it is because someone made them so. There are a few issues with that statement. The first is the use of political correctness of a pejorative of the right to criticize the left. In reality, there has always been an Overton window that determined what is palatable. The phrase PC has been weaponized by the right to shut down every criticism (justified or not) that stem from progressive ideas. In all honesty neither side is doing well with fostering dialogue, however it seems to me that the right has created a whole ecosystem to systematically shut them off from discourse, which is now exemplified by the presence of an alternative right-wing reality in which things like, say global warming or COVID-19 simply does not exist and antifa has taken over the government. If you want to follow this route and where the origins are, you won't find those in the opposite camp. There is a large body of research now which discusses this in more detail, but in short, it is not a reactionary or even new phenomenon. It follows a long tradition of right-wing patterns which elements of authoritarianism and xenophobia which are rolled into a zero-sum worldview. The only new thing is really the amplification of signals from all sides via the internet which allowed folks in fringe to create and maintain their own alternative universe. It should also be noted that one of the hallmark of these fringes is the duality of a) being heroes of their narratives but b) at the same time being downtrodden and forced to action by the enemy. The narrative that the left forces them to believe in crazy stuff because they have taken over mainstream media and science, is just another element to it.

Magnetic fields have polarity. You have a North and South pole. Like poles repel each other and unlike poles attract. The poles always occur in pairs (a magnet will always have both North and South poles) Because of this, it is possible to arrange the poles in such a way that all the poles cancel each other out and you get no net attraction or repulsion. Gravitational fields have no polarity. They are purely attractive; mass attracts mass. The more mass, the greater the attraction. There is no way to arrange things to get a repulsion or cancellation. But, compared to magnetic fields, gravity is very weak, and it take a considerable amount of mass for this attraction to be easily measured. But, as swansont has already noted, we have measured gravitational attraction between relatively small masses. The earliest such measurement was done by Henry Cavendish in 1797. He took two brass* spheres which were placed on the ends of a long rod which, in turn, was hung from a piano wire at its midpoint. Two more larger Brass spheres were placed near the suspended spheres so that any attraction between them would rotate the rod and twist the piano wire. Then, by measuring how much rod rotated, and knowing how much torque it would take to twist the wire by that amount, he could work out just how much force was attracting the spheres to each other. And since he also knew the mass of the spheres, he was able to derive the constant of proportionality for gravity. This, in turn allowed him to work out the mass of the Earth. Up until then, while we could measure how much gravitational force there was between the Earth and an object of a known mass, and we knew how far the object was from the center of the Earth, we were still left with two unknowns: the mass of the Earth, and the gravitational constant of proportionality. Knowing either one would allow us to work out the other. Cavendish's experiment gave us the value of the gravitational constant, which meant he could now calculate the Earth's mass. Because of this, Cavendish has been referred to as "The man who weighed the Earth". *he used brass as it had no magnetic properties that could have skewed the results.

OK...this is Don Lincoln here. My name was invoked and a little bird came and suggested I pop in. I have not read all of the chat above. Regarding gravity and belief. First, belief is a non-scientific word....or at least it has lots of really ridiculous connotations. When a scientist says that they believe in a theory, they're just being sloppy. (And I include me in that. But language is language and we do the best we can.) "Belief" to a scientist simply means in this context, that the theory is consistent with all relevant known data and we can take it as an approximation of the truth. Now, on gravity. It's very clear that Einstein's formulation is more accurate than Newton's or, for that matter, any other suggested theory of gravity. It's also eminently clear that general relativity fails at small sizes and very high gravitational fields. For that, we will need a theory of quantum gravity. Some ideas have been put forward, but none have been validated in any way, meaning to all intents and purposes, we have no believable theory of quantum gravity. However, given the established validity of general relativity, it follows that that when quantum gravity is evaluated for gravitational fields not strong enough to manifest their quantum behavior, that the predictions will be effectively identical to general relativity. From that, we can infer that the bending of spacetime will be valid in quantum formulations as well, although there may be additional explanatory insights. Accordingly, I feel quite comfortable in saying that I believe in general relativity in the realm in which it is applicable. Similarly, I believe in Newtonian gravity in the realm in which it is applicable. After all, we shot the New Horizon probe to Pluto - traveling billions of miles, passing by several planets, and NASA hit a target 10 km in size. Newton works. Einstein works. Well, until they don't. That's all of science. Theories work as long as they work. One other piddly point. Our current understanding of gravity is qualitatively different from the other known forces. Sure. Some of you have been discussing the meaning of the word force. Classically, it means something that has the potential to cause an object's velocity to change according to some reference frame. At the quantum level, it has a somewhat different meaning. There it means that the phenomenon can effect some sort of change, be it changing velocity or causing particle decay. The fact that the word has a nuanced meaning depending on the size scale at which it is being evaluated implies that the word is fuzzy and anybody trying to nail it down, will fail. This brings up a more important point is that the mapping of words onto scientific concepts is a dangerous endeavor. It is highly unlikely that any word can be mapped into a concept so well that it is impossible to find an exception. There will aways likely be a qualification of some sort. Accordingly, don't hold onto words very hard. They will fail you. Instead, understand the more nuanced scientific principle for which the word is nothing more than an imperfect and ultimately inaccurate placeholder. For the person who complained about the videos being at a commercial site. Well, I've worked for over three decades learning this stuff. I spent half a year writing the lectures, which comprise 12 hours of clearly-explained advanced science. I spent a week filming the project and many hours ensuring that the quality of the video and audio product was high. And someone has the temerity to suggest that I and the production company shouldn't be compensated for that effort? It's like whining that someone won't come and paint your house. Go ahead - enroll in the streaming service - you will have access to an astonishing amount of knowledge and expertise, translated in such a way that non-experts can understand a portion of the more complex ideas. BTW I was a solid presence at SPCF for a long time, but I will not be a regular here. I have just contracted my 5th or 6th book and that will take enough time that active involvement here is simply not in the cards. Cheers....

No, that's way off base. I never said we shouldn't believe what physicists say. I never came close to it. I'm saying that there is no basis to say that these discoveries show the underlying reality of the world. (Are you familiar with Plato's allegory of the cave?). Physics tells us how nature behaves, not how it is. Many of the parts of physics are calculational tools that let us more easily describe this behavior. quarks, bosons, etc. aren't "unobservable reality" We observe them, just not with the naked eye. And we are describing behavior. How they interact, and the rules of interaction . The interactions in QCD, for example - do you really think the physicists are claiming quarks and gluons are actually blue, green and red? That's reality? Can you explain how color has a meaning at that scale? Or perhaps, as I'm claiming, it's a convenience, used because of the details of the interaction, i.e. the behavior. We make models that make some kind of sense to us, and use them if they work.

This is utter nonsense. If that was the case why did developed countries fund several studies to look into efficacy of ivermectin? The big issue is that the performance was ultimately disappointing. The dewormer comment is also because people are actually buying formulation for deworming cattle for self-medication. In other words, it is not a knee jerk response but a very accurate description of what folks are doing. In your own link you can read why the study is problematic, and it is not because of censorship. It is because we need ideally controlled setups in order to look at efficacy. Yes people are taking it out of desperation but what is the evidence that it actually works? As I mentioned, controlled trials found no effects, some studies were retracted because the data sets were faulty. Employing a new drug should generally be a high bar to pass, at best you are wasting everyone's time, at worst you could make the situation worse. Even taken the small cohort data into account right now the evidence for a beneficial effect of ivermectin is at best moderate and if the ongoing trials see no increase in effectiveness, it is unlikely to see more traction. In other words, the hype around it is not supported by data. Just because many folks are taking it tells us nothing about its effectiveness. Has anyone for example seen that active case numbers in Peru are inversely correlated with use of the drug? If not that is not evidence. Even if it is not dangerous a drug has to perform. Otherwise you can peddle vitamin C, hydroxychloroquine and so on. Especially in the US folks are not taking it because they cannot get the vaccine. They take it because folks peddle it as something instead of vaccine. And that is where the danger is. I can understand desperate folks trying everything, even if it does not work. But in a community where the drug is actually plenty, this is just plain stupid. Moreover, if folks take an ineffective drug and believe that they are protected and therefore engage in risky behaviour, well that is going to drive cases upward. The whole thing is just a stupid endeavour in conspiracies. The ever present desire to be pertaining to some exotic knowledge where only few enlightened folks have access to (but not invest any work in even trying to understand how clinical trials are set up and how to evaluate the evidence). Any lack of evidence is then explained by the evil mainstream (also called science) who is just somehow suppress research groups... somehow (but apparently not before giving them money to research it in the first place). We all know by now that this is just a convenient way to brush away evidence and jus supplant evidence with narratives. It would be funny if it wasn't driving needless deaths and making the life of health care workers a living hell.

What is really funny is how many pictures showed up when I Googled "ramen birthday cake". 😆

Why? Seems like a terrible waste of time and effort. I told my kids I wanted nothing for my birthday and they met my wishes without me having to tell them I didn't want a shirt, pants, ramen noodles, lithium, red rubber ducks, shoe laces (neither brown nor black), murky water, etc.

First, great post, +1. Second, quick clarification for anyone uncertain about an overtone window -- I think our ferryman was subject to some mischief from their auto-correct and meant Overton window, the term named for political analyst Joseph Overton.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Heather Cox Richardson, eminent historian, on how, politically, the dog has finally caught the car: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ Offers a fascinating (and disturbing) history of how politicians have used the abortion issue and magnified the degree to which conservatives opposed the procedure. And created the mythology of "pro-abortion." Try to think of anyone you know who actually favors abortion as a desirable method of birth control. Anyone who's looked at the record knows that it is Republicans, opposing sex education, access to contraception, reproductive counseling, and women's rights more generally, who are responsible for most of the abortions in my country.

One other thing - magnetic dipole fields drop off as 1/r^3, while gravity drops off as 1/r^2, so even if you could get a solar system to work (you can't have everything attract, as Janus pointed out), it doesn't follow the pattern we see — the planets and moons etc. follow a 1/r^2 attraction.

Fair warning - if our sunken locker owner is swimming towards philosophy (which may be where this thread was always headed) then truth is, in the correspondence theory, a statement which correctly corresponds to an external state of affairs, i. e. to a fact about reality. The correspondence theory, at least as Bertie Russell advanced it, is associated with metaphysical realism. So, if a realist utters the phrase "gravity is curved space-time, " and holds that to be true, she is NOT merely suggesting that gravity is a mathematical model with some curved geometry in it, or that objects move as if space were curved, or that we're just passing around some handy tools to predict where Mercury will be next Tuesday. She is saying that space-time is curved, just like the rail on that rocking chair except much more strangely. IOW, a statement is being made that purports to objective truth. Just saying, not all definitions of "true" would presume a subjective stance.

Your emotions are an excuse, not a reason. All I've suggested is, criminal's are often victim's too... How does it help the victim in your case, if we ignore that fact?

AFAIK the spontaneous transition is probabilistic. More population in the excited state leads to more transitions because the rate is proportional to the number of electrons. Plus you have stimulated emission, which is how semiconductor (and all) lasers work. Your incoming photons will induce some excited state electrons to transition to the lower state, which will vary with both the population and the light intensity. No, since it will not be a blackbody spectrum.

As my opinions and thoughts on the nature of Gravity have been split-off from a thread appropriately entitled "Is Gravity a Force ?", I have to wonder ... What does the ideology of scientists, and the purpose of Science, which is being discussed at some length, have to do with the nature of Gravity ???

That’s effing disgusting, and not even within the same galaxy of what I was thinking when the word “ramen” crossed my brain 😂

All it needs are a few ball bearings.

"Now", "never", "before" and "always" assume/require that time exists or existed. If you consider time to be something, the answer is already in the question. If not, the question is true in it's own little bubble, but infinitively pointless. Cicular reasoning? Hmm.. I think I got that 30% right at least. Apologies in advance for my ignorance and mostly shooting from the hip. To define nothing, wouldn't you have to enumerate all possible "things", with an infinite cardinality? And that cant't be done. If there's no such thing as "(absolute) nothing", using the opposite "something" kind of loses it's meaning, unless you're religious of course.

Sydney and Melbourne are in current lockdown. The following video is doing the rounds, primarilly because of the pretentious idiots conducting protest marches etc, claiming it a violation of their rights. If you are offended by colourful language [just one sample] do not watch.

This is what most of the conspiracy bullshitters are stating. The reality is that it is only an issue because for some reasons certain folks run off to dose themselves with horse dewormer rather than using a vaccine that has gone through trials and has been shown to be safe and effective with currently a sample size going in the billion of dosages. Hardly any other medication has that much data available. With regard to treatment, to date even approved medication like remdesivir have only shown moderate effectiveness in actual controlled trials. Likewise, there were some promising results in early (pre-trial) experiments for ivermectin, but the biggest controlled trial (part of the together trial) did not found a positive effect as outlined in an symposium by the PI of the trial (fluvoxamine seemed more promising, though). Trials for treatment options are still ongoing, though so far no magic bullet has been found. The mentioned remdesivir, as well as monoclonal antibodies, high titer convalescent plasma, dexmethasone are currently being used and have generally shown some improvement, though certainly not in all patients. However especially steroids like dexmethasone were likely effective in preventing death in critically ill patients. But obviously that is only useful (as it suppresses inflammation) after things go bad already. Fundamentally, there is nothing even approaching the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing harmful effects, so it is just madness that folks with access to it prefer to use something that does not show benefits in controlled trials. I wonder what could motivate to use these drugs vs another, well researched one. Well, not really wonder, more like despair. In cases where vaccines are not available the solution should not be peddling ineffective measure. Rather we really need to get our act together and get vaccines to everyone on the planet.

It can't be at 0K Ideal is one thing but violating physical law is another.

If the entire cell was at absolute zero then every electron would be in its lowest or ground state, by the definition of absolute zero. So any change to even the state of a single electron would involve raising the temperature above absolute zero, something you have forbidden.

It reaches around the globe. The USA is not unique; no nation is immune. What coin? What sides? What blame? No, it's very hard, and very painful and usually soaked in blood. Yes. Barns are difficult. Not sure it's ever been done with constitutions. A complicated and impossible one. I'm willing to take the time, but this is not the appropriate venue for a long time-wasting exposition. In brief, meatless, meritless, meaningless summary: separate the judiciary from politics and politics from money.

Trolls should stay on thread, or play with your selves. I'm gone.

Infinity was already unravelled in the development of series, limits, integrals, etc. in Calculus and you have also Proyective Geometry treating it. What else do you want to know about infinity? May be you gave up on this. Others didn't. Seems you are taking Philosophy it in a rather not rigourous way. Logic is as rigorous as Math.

In the reality of prison systems, there are further considerations beyond punishment. Being locked in a cage does not 'fit' any crime, except kidnapping. The only lesson incarceration teaches is: "We are afraid of you." That's not something I particularly want to teach to an angry boy, growing into a bitter man behind bars. All crimes may have appropriate fitting punishments, but very few of those are ever tried. For instance, parole is not an alternative to prison: it's just finishing the prison sentence outside in order to liberate prison space to punish somebody else. The aftermath of incarceration is often worse for the ex-convict that the prison sentence, because now he's expected to be independent, even though he isn't really free, doesn't have the rights of a citizen, can't fit into a community, isn't accepted, isn't hired for a decent job; can't be respected or useful or happy. Which explains the recidivism rate: we are taking individual law-breakers and turning them into career criminals. (No, not the depraved 0.1% of criminals that belong in a maximum security hospital, but the 99.9% who commit rational or impulsive ordinary crimes.)