exchemist

Interesting. Sounds a little bit like (a very muffled version of) Teilhard de Chardin.

Haha. Well, if you read Jim Baggott’s “Farewell to Reality”, or Peter Woit’s blog, you will see that some people think at least some (drunk?) theoretical physicists have ceased to do science. 😁

One has to be careful with restorations. The Sistine Chapel seems to have been ruined by careless restoration. But I don't know if these paintings you show were originally as dark as they appear today. I suspect they were, as the intent seems to be to "illuminate" the figures portrayed.

OK I suppose there is the issue of whether radiation counts as "matter". I generally think of matter as distinct from radiation, but I suppose as a real physicist you will tell me both are in the end excitations of fields, so there is no substantive difference. As for conservation of energy, it's true that can only be spoken of relation to a physical system of some kind, whether it consists of fields, radiation or matter (in my narrower usage of these terms).

OK I see what you mean. But if the contention is that living matter could have arisen from something other than inanimate matter, I think we are into such realms of fantasy that consideration of Ockham's Razor for even a second would dismiss that.

Well that's rather a nice point. Is E=hν a principle of nature? Or is the conservation of energy a principle of nature in the absence of any matter to apply it to?

One could argue the "laws of physics", perhaps better described as the fundamental order we see in nature which we express through our "laws" , are physical principles that apply whether matter is present or not. And, as we are in the Religion subforum, this order is, I understand, what thinkers like Spinoza and Einstein seem to have identified with "God". Of course this conception of god is far removed from the personal God of the Abrahamic religions. It is just an orderly principle of nature itself.

Agreed on the second part of course. Regarding the first, even if abstract physics were to come up with some new principle that could be shown to play a role, that would still be a natural principle, not a supernatural one. As such it would be a part of a model of abiogenesis, rather than anything beyond it.

It seems to me that since abiogenesis is merely a term for the emergence of life by natural means from prebiotic chemistry, however that may have occurred, the only alternative to abiogenesis would be emergence by non-natural means. In other words by some kind of intervention by a supernatural agency - which would be excluded from science on principle. That is why I asked @Luc Turpin to agree abiogenesis is a fact, something he refused to do.

Ah, but don’t forget, this is not creationism, no indeedy. 🤔

Incidentally, a nice paper was published in Nature Astronomy today, showing the presence of a large array of building blocks for life in samples brought back from the Asteroid Bennu. I've started a separate thread on it: So the progress in abiogenesis research takes another step forward. 😊

I saw a BBC report on this and looked up the paper in Nature Astronomy. It was published today: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02472-9 It seems samples contain not only 14 out of the 21 amino acids (though racemic rather than showing a chiral preference), but also all 5 of the nucleobases found in RNA and DNA. So a lot of nitrogen-rich molecules. The authors suggest this points to reactions occurring in a low temperature regime, possibly one in which ammonia ice was stable, e.g. in the protoplanetary disc from which the planets and asteroids condensed. This supports the hypothesis that many components for life could have arrived from meteorites, rather than necessarily having been formed ab initio on the Earth.

Yup he's getting his placemen into the military, the security agencies and the Dept of "Justice" - and exacting vengeance on people who have crossed him, to make the rest fear retribution if they step out of line. He has also used fear to bring the large media organisations largely to heel, or at least get them to adopt a position of studied - and safe - neutrality. These are the classic steps taken by a dictator who takes power by means of an election - a soft coup. I think he'll now stay in power until he dies or becomes incapacitated. Then we'll see if, as in the USSR, the system will have become well enough entrenched to be self-perpetuating. A lot may depend on how well the Repubicans can gerrymander the electoral arrangements.

This adds nothing indicating any level of understanding on your part, so I have no further comment to make to you, either.

Yes this is one of the Chinese papers.

You are right, I am still adjusting to authoritarian rule. He doesn’t need to worry about votes any more.

But the farmers will be up in arms. And Trump needs the rural vote. I can't see how this can work for him, except in the very short term. It's bound to bite him in the arse eventually, surely? And research will go on in other countries which will become available to the US public, so attempting to control the narrative on things like epidemics is pretty well doomed, I would think. Things have moved on since Stalin.

I've just seen this clip, of a press conference given by Senator Chris Murphy this afternoon, which strikes me as spot-on. Trump is acting like a Stuart era monarch :

Yes, I was referring to your comment about not knowing were in the world this poster is.

I think she's in the land of children's television (click on bottom left where it says watch on YouTube):

The lower explosion limit for hydrogen in air is 4% by volume.

Good point. Whatever happened to Bill Kristol and the rest of the Project for a New American Century crowd? I expect they now find themselves, to their amazement, on what Trumpies regard as the Libtard Left! For instance I see that old walrus John Bolton has just had his security protection (against being assassinated by Iran) removed, purely because he has criticised Trump.

No. I see various references and even a Wiki article, but everything seems to be by researchers with Chinese names. In view of the huge number of bogus and/or bad Chinese papers flooding the science literature these days I would be more convinced if I could see some European or N American researchers were working on it. But maybe someone else here knows about this.

You know, I really, really hate this patronising style, talking down to people as if they are tiny children and full of unnecessary exclamation marks. I do not think even children will find it appealing. I think they will see it as "Trendy Vicar Syndrome" , trying unconvincingly to "get dahn wiv ve kids". https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trendy Vicar I would advise you, or the owner of the crapbot responsible, to change to a more "straight" style of presentation, one that shows at least a bit of respect to the reader. And just to reiterate what I told you before, this is a science forum, so talking to the readership here as if we are kids that don't know any science is not appropriate.

Heh heh. I have a nitroglycerine spray on my bedside table.😁For medical purposes.