Carrock

Guess I'll denitpick by appealing to authority... I was told about the experiment; I don't recall doing it. And I didn't do the calculations so it still seems improbable. Sometimes ignorance is worth preserving. I'll keep my vestigial sense of awe unless (improbably) I have to learn the details.

One of my favourites is what used to be called the Millikan oil drop experiment. (It seems Fletcher's contribution was not acknowledged.) Measure the mass of a negatively charged oil drop by letting it fall at terminal velocity. Then calculate the charge from the electric field required to provide exactly the upward force required to balance the gravitational force. The calculated charge is always an integer multiple of the (now known) electron charge. Never having investigated the experiment, I still have some of my original awe that such a conceptually simple (in hindsight) experiment could measure something as tiny as the electron charge.

Interesting questions. Before reading the abstracts, I'd have assumed that e.g. two coalescing neutron stars each of 1.1 solar masses (apparently the minimum neutron star mass) would produce a neutron star of at most 2.2 solar masses and definitely not a BH. However, your first source hints that if the neutron-star equation of state is not sufficiently stiff transient high pressure may produce a region sufficiently large and dense in the coalescing neutron stars to form a black hole smaller than the usual minimum. AFAIK all the collisions observed so far have been binaries coalescing where much of the angular momentum ends up in the final neutron star/black hole e.g. one high spin magnetar. It's possible that collisions between non binary neutron stars etc are common enough for some to be observed eventually. Those seem to me, especially if the collision is nearly head on, to be the best option for producing unusually small black holes. Any other thoughts?

A few other points worth mentioning. From that reference The U.K. government is now considering a U.S. extradition request re computer hacking or similar. Maximum jail time would be five years, unless U.K. agrees to other charges after extradition, which is not unlikely. Chelsea Manning, having had her sentence commuted by Obama, is now back in jail for an indefinite time. It seems to have been almost forgotten that many instances of torture, murder of civilians and various other war crimes would likely have remained hidden without Manning and Assange. Possibly such crimes are now rarer because of Wikileaks. OTOH the U.S. has stated some people were put in danger by the leaks. There's a lot I don't like about Assange, but there is so much disinformation around that much of what I believe about him is likely wrong. (Even the BBC got the reason for extradition wrong.)

3 is definitely the most interesting, especially if they have the same problem when we try to explain e.g. how a bicycle works. BTW, I couldn't select the numbers in your post. Was that magic, or could I work how you did that if I really tried?

Even earlier computers...

As Wittgenstein might have said: Whereof one cannot speak without snark; one must thereof put a sock in it. I shall heed his advice. Uh ... which is it? Are there twice as many or the same as? Perhaps it's beyond YOUR comprehension. Damn, the snark leaked out anyway. Only happened because I read your post a second time and realized you yourself are fuzzy on the example. Did you read this earlier post, referenced in the post you quoted?[pedantic snark] Nothing in the rules against using onsite references.[/pedantic snark] Anything fuzzy here? The later post was inspired by a third party story of [appeal to authority] R. Feynman [/appeal to authority] showing a child 'there are more numbers than there are numbers.' I think children are as good as adults at learning something new, especially when, as I was careful to exemplify, they already have all the basic maths they need to understand a new concept. It takes a certain perverse sort of ignorance/laziness to teach children infinity is 'difficult,' compared to e.g. division.

Can you tell me which part of "infinity for five year olds," showing that there's twice as many integers as there are integers, or as many even numbers as integers or whatever, is beyond your comprehension? Or, as you likely meant, beyond the comprehension of a five year old?

I'll bite... assuming she's learned her two times tables and how to divide/multiply by two.. Ask her what is the 2nd even number. Then 4th, 5th etc and ask her if she sees a pattern.... If she does, ask what is the 43rd even number, reassuring her that doing it the easy way without counting each number isn't cheating, but higher maths. Do a few more calculations until she's comfortable with the idea. Then ask her for the biggest 'real' whole number she can think of. And of course the [biggest 'real' whole number she can think of]th even number. Shouldn't take her very long to realise* that the set of positive integers can be placed in one to one correspondence with the set of positive even integers. And so on.... *informally

L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction wasn't worth reading. From what little I know of them, the secrets of the religion he created aren't worth paying for either. I suppose his religion is as true as any, but sillier than most.

Tangentially again, Einstein came up with his own Steady State cosmology, probably just before he abandoned the idea of a cosmological constant. He didn't think the concept worthy of publication. From A new perspective on steady-state cosmology: from Einstein to Hoyle This is consistent with Einstein's 1952 statement

I was rather intending a fun/annoying quick answer. I wouldn't be very keen on any seat belt that went rigid just when I wanted it to spread out stresses... It does have lots of potential uses such as you've suggested. It's 'only' a matter of engineering. My favourite (Daedalus in New Scientist) was as the paving for (very) short stay parking.

Silly putty.

From ACARS So another problem is that it's easier and cheaper to do nothing.

I suspect it would be unnecessary. Apollo astronauts quickly developed gaits for fast movement on the moon, which likely included peak muscle and joint stresses similar to movement on earth. Indoors, I suspect it wouldn't be long before an astronaut achieved a sextuple backflip. Perhaps living in 1/6g would be physiologically quite similar to 1g, unlike living in microgravity. Astronauts could spend a few weeks on the moon first to find out if they really need to sleep in a centrifuge. This is the sort of potential problem that can be ignored as long as it doesn't become a real problem.

Confusing Wikipedia article at best. I read it as From Wikipedia The clear implication (in context) is that momentum is unchanged if you take a longer time. Contradicted by the equation a few lines later. Just working out what the author means is an effort and I'm not sure which of us got the meaning right.

I notice you maintain that most people think that and don't provide a single reference. I couldn't find anyone other than you claiming the above. Nice vague statement, to which the only answer is yes or no, depending on what you mean. No comment. I'm done with wasting my time. As you've called me a liar and a troll, why not report the relevant posts?

Experiments don't mean or create functions. You think was serious? Extraordinary claims need references.

I presume we agree an uncountably infinite set of actual monkeys is impossible? Why? Use an uncountable set of points rather than the nonexistent uncountable monkeys. Give each point a finite time, say 1 second, to do its thing. Total time required is one second times the number of uncountable points. That time would have a length equal to the number of points on that length. BTW I hope it's obvious I'm not taking this thread too seriously.... x-posted with taeto

There are other opinions. Does an e.g. random number generator not require space and time? From the Shakespearian monkey/random number generator defence league website: Each monkey would require a finite amount of time to do its thing. In all, an uncountably infinite length of time would be required. In a shared location, uncountably infinite volume would be required. Either way, uncountably infinite spacetime would be required. Spacetime may be infinite, but it's not uncountably infinite.

As each monkey has finite volume, where would you put an uncountably infinite volume of monkeys? If each monkey can be numbered and assigned a unique integer, can you create an uncountable list of these monkeys? Or are most of the monkeys so bored and irrational they can be assigned zero volume and an irrational number? (I'll eventually get round to responding to your post on another thread.) x-posted with studiot

An extract from a story I read years ago that stuck in my mind. Readable ( but not easily ) at https://archive.org/stream/Fantastic_v20n02_1970-12/Fantastic_v20n02_1970-12_djvu.txt

Please define the particular Copenhagen interpretation you're referring to.

It would only necessarily be flat in three spatial dimensions. If e.g. the density were greater than critical, the universe would eventually stop expanding and contract i.e. it would be a closed 3-sphere. Parallel light beams would converge.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe This is a quite old idea, and an oversimplified description - see beecee's response - but does indicate how the universe can be flat on a sufficiently large scale.