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Today I learned that you are not allowed to remove litter from this grass covered beach. The reason is related to science. The beach is used as a reference for marine litter. The information collected from the reference beaches about the litter that floats ashore can be used in scientific modeling or studies. (Obviously you are also not allowed to add any litter but that rule applies nation wide in public places.)

Glancer has been banned, because we thought it would be funny. (seriously, though: aliens? No hint of good faith discussion? Yeah, gone)

! Moderator Note Knock, knock Who’s there? You’re banned. Get it? I think it’s really funny.

First of all, spacetime isn’t some kind of physical substance that “expands” in the literal sense, like bread in the oven. Rather, it is a network of causality relations - the set of all points in space at all moments in time, and how they are related to one another. When we speak of “expansion”, then what we mean is that measurements of distance depend on time, ie they change in a certain well defined way according to when they are performed. This is an extremely useful and accurate model, but shouldn’t be reified into something like a physical “substance”. LQG deals with something called “Wilson loops”. These are mathematical objects that are solutions, simply speaking, to an equation that treats spacetime as a quantum state. These loops are not themselves “chunks” of space and time - rather, they form networks called spin foams, which, in the semi classical limit, may become curved spacetimes with a positive cosmological constant. So yes, they do actually describe an expanding spacetime. The point here is that there would be a lower limit to how small intervals of space and time can be - you can’t infinitely subdivide it. Again, this is a mathematical model - like a map of the world. But it’s something that one could, at least in principle, test experimentally, given enough energy. No. They are 1-dimensional objects that live in a background spacetime with 3 macroscopic spatial dimensions, 1 dimension of time, and 7 compactified dimensions. Of course not. It’s the spacetime they live in that expands, not the strings themselves. Physics has nothing to say on any of these issues.

I believe my son intends to buy me this T-shirt for my birthday:

The world is complex and complexity is stressful. Simple monolithic all-encompassing explanations and an ability to blame “others” like “the left” and “liberals” is VERY psychologically soothing. In many respects, it’s similar to the old maxim about religion being the opiate of the masses. Simple packaged narratives that (however false and however fictional and however untrue) make people feel better and less scared.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Pssst ... I think he's an incel ...

T.Hanks for that!

Yawn. Add another to the hundreds of forgettable threads from forgettable trollish people.

It's something about Klein–Gordon equation. I thought it was used. Energy and flux is a scalar quantity. That's why I thought that.

Speak for yourself and the handful of other like minded people. The rest of the seven and three-quarter billion people on the planet have more pressing concerns.

Upgraded to permanent ban, since the trolling and thread hijacking have continued

Yes of course they do - though people argue about how to interpret QM. By the way, "common sense" is a lousy guide to either QM or GR. Both were developed by rigorously following the observations, without preconceptions.

Mechanical energy can be converted into non-mechanical forms of energy, e.g. chemical or electrical energy. So it is obvious that mechanical energy is not conserved.

Yes, it's curious. It rather looks to me as if he wants to get banned, perhaps (I speculate) in order to reinforce a worldview of victimisation by woke atheists, or some such Trumpy paranoia. At least, that's what comes across. Either that or he's just a random loony with "issues". Anyway, I expect he'll get his wish eventually.

Spacetime isn’t a mechanical medium, so this is irrelevant. Also, it might surprise you to hear that the law of conservation of energy exists only in flat spacetime - in the presence of gravity, things become rather more complicated.

Evolution only deals with the selective pressures and not how how life began(probably crystal basis though IMO). A self replicating element is the minimum requirement for evolution to act upon. For me, the main thing is that DNA is all spaghetti code. This either suggests an incompetent designer or a lack of a designer. Other big one is our own mitochondria. They have their own seperate DNA and we share these with wildly different species. There's also all kinds of what would be considered stupid design decisions if we were designed. The Giraffe's nerve running all the way down and back it's neck is a good example. Ditto the wasteful making and unmaking that the cells do or the good/bad mutation in our DNA replication that causes telomere shortening. Either deity is not very good at it and therefore not especially worthy of worship, nonexistent, or is purely limited to setting up the laws of physics. I think people should come to their own decisions in regards however.

You should learn some first ...

I don't think anyone has, as there is no such thing. Quit wasting forum bandwith with idiocy.

Um no, actually this site is pretty good at pointing out when people are wrong as well as confirming when they are correct. You can learn quite a bit by being wrong but you have to own it.

Be advised that we will slip in little mis-directs in our jokes. Watch that the joke might flatter you when you were expecting an insult. Are you still angry about last night? I mean, about the baloney? Does anyone think that my version of the truth is a little pointy? I mean, I try to make jokes. But they don't seem to get them.

Show me the experiment that supports your incredibly dubious claim. And don't tell me any superstring theory bologna, because all that baloney is made up.

The answer to what spacetime is made of is right in front of you, but (and I don't want to hurt your feelings), there is a bunch of junk that has been dumped on top of Modern Physics (which is correct). All the stuff about superstrings, LQG and MWI is total garbage told to you by a priesthood of mathematicians who just want to control you. Modern physics, GR, SR, QM, particle physics, Standard model, are all correct. Superstrings and loops are garbage. There is a problem built into those theories that completely falsifies them. There is only one way to interpret QM and GR. You interpret them in a way that leads to a Quantum Gravity theory that, in turn, leads to warp field generators. Anything else is just shoving garbage into your brain. If you had the intelligence, you would challenge my ideas; not deduct points from me like some feckless theorist with no imagination. There is one necessary characteristic that a quantum gravity theory needs. But you physics theorists can't seem to figure it out. Even though established physics gives you lots and lots of clues. We argue. I punch holes in Loop Quantum Gravity, because I know what the "loops" should be replaced with. But you guys can't have that conversation because your Common Sense was written over with LQG mathematical bulls*** that divides by zero more times than... Look, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm just trying to help you figure out what's wrong with your quantum gravity theory. I'm starting to get the impression that this is supposed to be a science forum, but nobody here really understands Loop Quantum Gravity enough to understand what is wrong with it and how it doesn't fit with actual empirical observations. Maybe you should be emailing whoever created it and tell THEM that something doesn't add up.

All very true INow. Those methods are regularly used by the 'right' in your country. However, the ''left' are not beyond reproach, and do need to shoulder some responsibility when they screw up. No matter how much you want to bend over backwards to excuse their behaviour, because it is nowhere near as bad as the 'right'. Maybe I should quote your line back to you when you next blame the 'right' for all the problems in your country that are actually caused by extreme political polarization.

OMG! Everything you claim to know about big bang expansion is completely corrupted with nonsense. I would be happy to explain my Expanding Graviton theory after your LQG theory is revealed to be a Frankenstein monster. Show me the experiment that proves that "wilson loops" are not some fantasy, some made up baloney. So you have this ackward model of 1D objects that are not even related to actual spacetime in some natural coherent way. And you need 7 compactified dimensions that we should just take on faith, just so that your theory doesn't die of awkwardness. The proposition that Intelligent Design is true means that the best and most efficient engineering capability will be employed to create the universe. It will work like beautiful engineering design, not like some Frankenstein theory with 13 compactified dimensions. Do you even realize where the word "compactified" comes from? The word 'compactify" is used to describe fecal material that is too dense to be able to pass easily.

The whole idea of evolution as the cause of how life began to exist is just a funny joke! I mean, seriously, if you don't clean your room, do you think your underwear and dirty socks will evolve into some creature???!!! LMAO!! I can think of 50 things off the top of my head that improved with intelligent design (engineers and talented entrepreneurs). I'm not even sure what the actual line of bologna is that convinces otherwise intelligent people to believe that life happened by accident. If you know that bologna, please tell me! How do atheists think that life came to exist?

It could be an accounting trick. In the same way that KE_i + PE_i = KE_f + PE_f. The kinetic energy of the big bang is KE = EBB (energy of the big bang). Potential energy of curvature of spacetime equals zero. I assume you know where I"m going with this. If I have to explain, it means you've never studied Conservation of Mechanical energy.