uncool

I agree with you; I was simply responding to the apparent underlying assumptions of what Ringer posted (which are that rigney's point was as banal as it appeared). I agree that Romney is unlikely to do better for the economy than Obama will; however, if you do make that assumption, then if you squint the right way, rigney might have a point. =Uncool-

Not to defend someone that I think is a troll, but rigney is presenting a (very, very, very dumbed down) valid argument, which says that if women believe that Romney will have a sufficiently positive effect on the economy compared to Obama, then that may override other concerns about women's rights. In other words, some women may think it's better to live in a rich America where there is discrimination than a poor American where there isn't. =Uncool-

Good. Then the question is still relevant: Please, quote where Obama lied about this. =Uncool-

Post 95. =Uncool-

Again, that is false. The Bill of Rights only made it into the Constitution by being ratified by 3/4 of the states on December 15, 1791, while all 14 states (including Vermont, which hadn't originally been a state) ratified the Constitution by January 10, 1791 (or by March 4, 1791, since Vermont wasn't a state until March 14, 1791). If by "made", you mean "proposed". Not only that, but they ratified the Constitution long before they ever ratified the Bill of Rights. The fact that you don't think this is true of the other amendments shows that you don't understand how the Constitution works in the first place. These are amendments - they are changes to the constitution; once they go into effect, they are part of the constitution and automatically carry the same weight as any other part of the Constitution. By a 3/4 majority of the states, which was sufficient for the Constitution to go into effect. Yes, there was a United States of America before the second amendment. False. George Washington was elected under the Constitution in January 1789, 8 months before the Bill of Rights was proposed and 2 years before the Bill of Rights went into effect. Who said that? Who? Only once that right has been "incorporated"; not all of the Bill of Rights have been incorporated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights =Uncool-

There's a reason they're called "amendments": they were added in after the Constitution had already gone into effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#Ratification_process 6 month gap. It's true that they were unable to obtain unanimous ratification - that took until May of the next year, which is still 7 months before there were enough states that had ratified the Bill of Rights. =Uncool-

And yet you came to conclusions that were wrong even within LET, which you constantly proclaim to be right. I'd have pointed out that I asked you to calculate things with respect to SR and that you therefore would have been answering an irrelevant question. And as I have asked you before, is there anything which would falsify your belief? Because you seem to have a religious attachment to your belief that SR is incomprehensible. You claim to understand LET. If you did, then you'd understand SR. As you have made clear, you don't understand either, and don't plan on understanding either. =Uncool-

The Schwarzschild coordinates cover an example of a possible spacetime. That doesn't mean it's possible to do it on any spacetime. And yet you apparently thought it serious enough as a response to the point that most manifolds do need multiple charts to be covered that you didn't address it otherwise. Any manifold that isn't homeomorphic to Euclidean space needs multiple charts. I'm not "crucifying" you at all. I'm pointing out that it's an error that someone comfortable with the material would not have made. There's no problem with not being comfortable with the material. The point is that given your lack of comfort with the material, it's more likely that your disagreements come from misunderstandings than that your disagreements are actual problems with the theory. I apologize; I misread what you said. Here, again, is where you are showing mathematical ignorance. What do you mean by "an inside out sphere"? As a side note: a sphere can be turned inside out smoothly. =Uncool-

It's certainly a strong indicator that you don't. It's not only that you're "not as used to this as [i am]"; the fact that you mixed these up shows that you're not used to dealing with manifolds at all. This isn't by itself a problem; what makes it a problem is that you're trying to make claims that are based in your lack of experience. You've misunderstood the antecedent again. The antecedent to "this" is clearly is "space-time is not shaped like a donut". This is false. Special relativity can take place on "a donut". =Uncool-

First, you're misusing terminology. A manifold is the entire object; a chart or coordinate system is what you should be referring to. This is one reason why people insist that you learn the math - so that you can understand the terminology used in the first place. Second, this is an assertion with no support. Not just that, but it's an assertion that is not verifiable and makes no specific predictions. Special relativity can take place on a 4-torus. Not on a 4-sphere, but yes on a torus. This is because a torus can be considered a quotient of 4-Euclidean space, which is the traditional place where relativity takes place. =Uncool-

Informally, yes. It can also be considered as the product of two circles. And as I said, the torus experiences the same problem. Consider a circle. It cannot be covered in a 1-1 way by the real line. However, if you consider a set of 2 charts, they do cover the entire circle and fully characterize it as a manifold. Neither chart applies to the whole of space-time, but both are valid and necessary. =Uncool-

Inherently wrong, no. No chart can cover a torus in a 1-1 way. A torus is not simply connected, let alone contractible; only contractible (and hence simply connected) manifolds can be covered by a chart in a 1-1 way. Incomplete, yes - the entire point of a manifold is that it is covered by several charts. That's how a manifold is defined. A circle, for example, needs to be covered by two charts. "Doesn't have anything to offer", no - the coordinates have plenty to offer. In fact, they offer everything about what happens within them. I think you may have mixed up the antecedents here. I was saying that the claim that general relativity is an extension of special relativity is true, not that general relativity is true. =Uncool-

The entire society is set up as a 501©3, yes, and yes, that does mean that they can't participate within any political campaign for any person to run for office. That's not quite the same as not being allowed to participate in politics - they aren't allowed to have a substantial portion of their funds go to lobbying/etc. for certain legislation. St. Vincent de Paul does advocate for legislation that affects the poor - they have a program called "Voice of the Poor" which includes that. But they still are not allowed to participate in any campaign for any individual person. =Uncool-

For that specific spacetime. Read what I said carefully - I said that there was no guarantee that a single coordinate frame can cover the entire manifold. For example, consider a 4-torus with the obvious quotient metric. No curvature, no mass, but still there is no single coordinate frame that covers the entire manifold in a 1-1 manner. You may get angry, but it's true. =Uncool-

Err. There is no guarantee that the manifold is simply connected, which is what is required for there to be a coordinate system which covers the entire manifold. As such, to give it the epithet of "valid" seems inappropriate, as there are several relevant manifolds where (according to your naming) there is no "valid" coordinate system. Which is a special case of general relativity. =Uncool-

On a side note, swansont: Closing speed means the derivative of the distance between the two objects as measured in a chosen frame, not necessarily as measured in the frame of either object. This means that by definition, the closing speed between the two objects still is the speed of light (since the chosen frame is the one where they are both moving at c/2). This doesn't change any of what physically happens; just a note on the definition of "closing speed". =Uncool-

Yup. But the magnitude of the 4-momentum of the emitted material (which is the same as the extractable energy) would be the same. Which is what relativity predicts. Congratulations; you're going in circles. What you have managed to demonstrate is that you still have no idea what relativity says, or how it works. Nor do you even know what LET says, because everything that was true about the protons going at 1/2 c remains true in LET. When you want to criticize a theory, or claim that another theory is correct, at least try to have some basic understanding of what the theories say. Once again: In effect, LET directly implies SR. Honestly, SR doesn't care about the ether, if you can't tell - what SR has done is made the ether unnecessary. =Uncool-

And that is why I feel free to call you a liar: because you repeatedly have been shown that it's not just "because they have been taught to"; you have been shown the evidence and the reasoning time and again. More accurately, because I understand that LET has the same involves the Lorentz transformations, which are sufficient for relativity. In other words, LET satisfies the postulates of special relativity, and therefore everything that can be shown in SR is necessarily true in LET. In effect, LET directly implies SR. Honestly, SR doesn't care about the ether, if you can't tell - what SR has done is made the ether unnecessary. While it is true that I understand the math, that isn't the specific reason. It's because I understand the derivations. Specifically, emitting something (probably a bunch of particles) that has a total of 0.309 times the mass of a proton in energy and 0 momentum relative to this frame. Where are you getting this equation? p = mv? Remember, m depends on v. You can't simply use the original masses. You've also forgotten the momentum that the other particles are carrying with them. Energy in one frame means momentum in other frames. Given how much you've forgotten or misunderstood, not surprising. Using the convention you've chosen, we'll let proton masses and the speed of light be 1 (there is some system of units for which this is true, so we can just work within that system). Then in the original frame, .309 was emitted from the reaction at speed 0. For the sake of ease of writing, I'll assume it's one particle; then this particle has rest mass of .309. In our new frame, then, this particle has velocity 1/2, and therefore momentum .179 and energy .359. Our original protons do, of course, end up with velocity 1/2, which does (as you said) end up with .359 energy missing. Note, however, that their total momentum is 1.157, rather than the original momentum of 4/3 - and the missing momentum there is .179. So in both cases, the energy that has been extracted is in the form of this particle (or system of particles), which has rest mass .309. The rest mass is all of the energy that can be extracted from the system without having something else massive there to "bleed the momentum" of the particle (or system of particles), i.e. to act as a momentum sink; I apologize if the phrasing I used earlier confused you. This isn't a nitpick. Your claim was pretty clear in stating that you had evidence that what relativity predicts was false. And again, this is why I feel free to call you a liar. =Uncool-

The velocity composition formula is relatively simply derivable from the transformations, which should be the first thing one knows about SR after the postulates. So yes, I put in a bit of hyperbole, but no, "quite a bit" would not be the appropriate phrase there. =Uncool-

You are the one who is in error; swansont is correct. Making sure the energy is equal is not what makes the situation equivalent. What makes the situation equivalent (assuming two particles in both cases, and equivalent particles) is making sure that the extractable energy is equivalent. Not all energy can be extracted from the two particles, because momentum must be preserved.There are several ways to do this; I'll demonstrate the one that swansont probably used. In our first chosen frame, we have one particle moving to the right at 0.5c, and one particle moving to the left at 0.5c (both relative to this frame). We wish to change to a frame where the right-moving particle is at rest, and find the velocity of the left-moving particle. The relative velocity of the two frames is therefore 0.5c. By the velocity addition formula (which can be derived from the basics of relativity) then says that the velocity of the left-moving particle is (0.5c + 0.5c)/(1 + (0.5c*0.5c)/(c^2)) = c/(1 + .25) = 4c/5 = .8c. I could have derived this from the basics of relativity; however, the velocity addition formula is already there. And yes, this is exactly what Lorentz aether theory also predicts. Now, the fact that you don't even know the correct answer to this basic question should make you stop a second. Should make you think that maybe you don't know enough about special relativity to be making pronouncements on it. You claimed "The experimental evidence clearly shows that motion is absolute not relative. If you were to fire 2 protons in opposite directions round the LHC both at ½ lightspeed; then repeat the experiment with one going at nearly lightspeed and the other barely moving, the particles produced in the 2 collisions would be very different." The implication of that statement is that the experiment had been done and the outcome had been different particles. In other words, deceptive phrasing at best. If you are saying that the first sentence of that paragraph is separate from the rest, then what is your "experimental evidence [that] clearly shows that motion is absolute and not relative"? You continue to misrepresent what has happened in other threads; plenty of evidence has been posted to support quarks. You have ignored it. Neither. Heretic implies religion. Sparring partner implies some kind of equivalence. Neither are true. At best, I'd feel bad that you had rejected yet another chance to understand anything of what science is about. =Uncool-

I wasn't discussing quarks and gluons. I was discussing your incorrect statement. You were wrong about the thread being about "Gell-Mann's pet theory" before you showed up. =Uncool-

Well, that depends. The Lebesgue integral covers a wider class on any set of finite measure. However, on sets of infinite measure, the Riemann integral can cover some functions that the Lebesgue integral can't. For example, Riemann integral covers [math]\int_{1}^\infty \frac{1}{\lfloor x \rfloor} sin(\pi x) dx[/math] while Lebesgue does not. EquixDeXD, are you referring to taking the antiderivative? That is the only method I can think of that gives exact answers. =Uncool-

Because the assumption is that since you decided to seek this place out that you want to talk science. And science is just that - hard work. If you manage to get a positive result in an experiment, journals are exactly what you should do - publish it so that it's seen. Conferences so it gets spread around. What do you expect to do with this idea? These are questions that are asked of every hypothesis in science. This is how science gets done. The rigid skepticism is necessary. And every theory has an answer to just those questions. Except that you've chosen to present a hypothesis. This is what happens to all hypotheses. This is Science Forums - hypotheses are tested to their breaking point. Further, you did ask for "meaningful debate". This is how meaningful debate gets done in science - ideas get turned into hypotheses; hypotheses get turned into predictions; predictions get tested. Science is a trial by fire. Always. This isn't people trying to be mean - this is people trying to stress-test your idea. Isn't that what you want? Yes, it's something that may or may not be true. Are you interested in simply presenting something that may or may not be true - in which case, I would like to present the idea that we're all moved around by invisible blue centaurs when we're not looking - or in determining whether it is true? We're interested in the possibility of the latter. Because you give back twice what you think you get when no one is making any cheap digs. You may want to reconsider. We experience exactly this environment - this attention focused on us - day in, day out. And we thrive on it. That "crap" is skepticism. No idea is accepted until it is tested - and that's what's happening to your idea. People are testing your idea. It is abusive when it is, in effect, the entire response. What Bignose has done is he has considered your idea and moved it along the path - he has taken it from hypothesis to prediction. And your response is basically to dismiss what he has done entirely. That is how "chill the smeg out" is abusive - it dismisses the efforts of others to help you towards what we assume is your goal - to find out whether you are right or wrong. =Uncool-

You have been corrected on this time and again, newts. Once again, it may seem incomprehensible to you, but just because you are unable to comprehend does not make it incomprehensible to others. Congratulations for misrepresenting literally everything about relativity. First, relativity does explain the Michelson Morley experiment mechanically. Second, there is no "god of Relativity". Third, many people question relativity; the problem is with people who (like you) do so baselessly and without any understanding of 1) what it is, 2) what it says, 3) how it got accepted, and 4) the scientific method. Until you learn how theories become accepted, you simply will continue to joust with windmills - and the windmill will keep on turning, oblivious to the fact that you've attempted to poke it. A test for you. Assume that the "other" is barely moving. What percentage of lightspeed would be required for the two to be considered equivalent under SR? If you know anything about SR, you should be able to answer this question. Please name the specific experiment which showed this. I'm curious; is your belief that SR is a religious belief falsifiable? Do you want me to list the specific, quantifiable predictions of special relativity, let alone general relativity? "Seldom"? You have 159 posts. Of those, 5 are in the "what is matter" thread, 4 in the "Spotting pseudoscience" thread, 8 in the "what do you think the final theory will look like" thread, 5 in this thread, 1 in "Time travel is impossible", 1 in "Is our science wrong?", and 4 in "Simple but logical expanations have legs" for a total of 28 posts outside of "your" thread where you complain about or were about to complain about quarks and relativity. Excluding the posts where you actually manage to do some physics (23), that's more than 1 in 5 on your favorite topic outside of "your" thread. =Uncool-