mistermack

I just meant does a model still work, if the results don't match reality?

Isn't it debateable if that constitutes GR working, in that case ?

It's not the wheel that's the problem, it's the axle.

While it's inspired to combine time as a dimension in GR, that doesn't mean that time IS a dimension. It's very different to what we are used to calling a dimension, the three spatial dimensions. if one of the spatial dimensions was similar to time, in that nothing could freely travel forwards or back, and the only change in that dimension was a constant inching forward at an exact fixed rate, then it would be debateable if that could be called a dimension at all. Yes, the model no longer works without time as a dimension. But, it is a model, a scientific device to represent the world and it's physical changes. There are three elements to time. Future, present and past. But do the future and the past actually exist, or do they just exist in our mental model ? It's the present that holds all of the details of the past, and the conditions for the future. The past and future would not exist at all, without what's contained in the present.

I'm not sure I'm with you on that. I know an ice skater speeds up by pulling their arms in, but they pull them in in the plane of spin, not vertically at 90 deg to the rotation. If a sphere collapses down to a disk, I don't see why that should speed up the spin. The reduction in the diameter of a cloud would accentuate any spin that was there, but not the change of shape from sphere to disk. I think spin might have originated when two galaxies 'collide' by passing through each other, like the Milky Way and Andromea are forecast to do in the future. Something like that is sure to set off a few swirls.

Does dark matter orbit the centre of the galaxy like we do?

I just noticed that I got hectolitres wrong. I had to look it up, and did clock it as 100 litres, but when I worked out my dose estimate, I somehow remembered it as 1,000 litres. So I guess my estimated figure should have been 8 x 1 litre bottles, not 80. ( bottles of 50% abv ) 8 would kill you just as dead as 80 though. The reason I'm interested is that I've drunk Irish Poteen on many occasions, only sipping it, and it ranged from absolutely foul to really nice. I don't think I'd drink it now though, unless I made it myself. My brother keeps threatening to start distilling. I told him he would need a licence and he absolutely won't have it. He seem to think that if it's legal for the shops to sell you the distilling equipment, it's legal to use it, and he won't have it any other way. He does brew a lot of beer and wine.

I don't know, but I suspect in reality it's fairly hard to hit that limit with sensible precautions making moonshine. There are deaths around the world, but the suspicion has to be that most of them occur due to adding the methanol, rather than directly from brewing. I read that permanent visual damage may occur with minimum ingestion of 30 mL of methanol. But if it's taken with ethanol, the figure's likely to be higher because ethanol works against the methanol toxicity. Then it depends on your body weight etc. If you take the highest number on the chart, 1500 g per hectolitre, you would have to drink about 80 litres of spirit to damage your eyesight. You'd be dead long before your eyes started to suffer.

I'm not sure I see the logic of that. Good practice is surely enforced on health grounds? Why else? I'm not sure if those limits are legal limits, the website calls them 'maximum limits', which isn't 100 percent clear. I can't see why the legal limit for gin would be set at half that of vodka, or forty times less than brandy, just to encourage good practice. Gin is pretty much vodka with aromatics added anyway, so why have a different methanol limit? The good practice explantion might be right, but it's not immediately obvious at first sight. Edit : Wikipedia seems to clear that one up. The critical wording is "London" Gin. To be classed as London gin it must have no more than 5g methanol and be produced by re-distilling using the flavouring ingredients. So it's a catagory limit, as opposed to a health limit.

Looking at the overall picture, I don't think there would be much danger involved in distilling spirits, so long as you took the obvious precautions. Like not using lead for soldering, not using old car radiators for a cooling tower, choosing the right yeast, and discarding a calculated portion of what comes off first. On that subject, I don't get why people would pour the first portion away. Methanol surely can be put to use in some way? Like as a fuel for the stove or added to petrol for the car or generator. Pouring it away seems a waste, and would probably leave a tell-tale smell.

I think the site I've linked below is really good and clear on the subject of methanol/ethanol separation, and also many of the other things that people have posted on this thread. There are some surprises too, espcially when you look at the allowed limits of methanol content in various products. I would have liked more detail on some things, like how exactly the ethanol that comes off first, with a high proportion of methanol, can be reclaimed, as they say it is. https://www.barisonindustry.com/en/news/methanol-what-it-is-and-how-it-is-handled-in-distillation-processes It does confirm what I posted earlier, that certain yeasts lead to higher concentrations of methanol in the mash. I don't get why there is such a disparity in the allowed proportions of methanol in the various drinks though. You would think that from a health point of view, the same levels would apply to any drinks. I must be missing something.

From something I read recently, the highest number of bone grafts happening these days is in dental work. When you lose a tooth, the bone that used to surround the root of the tooth tends to lose mass over time. If you later want to insert a dental implant in that empty socket, it can be necessary or better to rebuild that lost bone to provide a strong foundation for the implanted titanium screw. They either use your own bone, animal product, or something synthetic to produce new bone. I'm not fully up to date on the details, but here is a link, I'm sure you can find more about the subject once you've read it up : https://www.bupa.co.uk/dental/dental-care/treatments/dental-implants/supporting-treatments/bone-grafts

The mammals that we evolved from were small in the age of the dinosaurs. Most of the mammal species at the time probably DID go extinct along with the dinosaurs, it only needs a few to survive to start off a new era. There would be many vacant niches caused by the mass extinctions, so the mammals had the oportunity to evolve to fill those empty niches. Nobody knows how some mammals survived, but it's likely that they lived underground. Snakes and crocodilians also survived, which might be directly related to their habit of burying their eggs. Some bird-like dinosoars might have buried their eggs too, just enough to give rise to the birds. (There are birds that bury their eggs today) Ants and dragonflies survived, maybe in tiny numbers, but would soon re-populate the Earth. Generally, it was big animals that died out, both on land and at sea. Maybe being small and numerous multiplied your chances of being tucked away somewhere safe when the disaster happened. Or maybe it wasn't the immdiate effect of the asteroid impact that caused all of the extinctions, but the massive climate change that followed and lingered for years, long enough to finish off big animals with high food demands.

The law in the UK regarding alcohol is very different for wine and beer compared to distillation. You can brew as much beer as you like. And wine too. What you can't do is sell it or trade it. With a still, you need a licence. You can distil as much as you like, of products on which you have paid the duty. But to produce distilled products from the raw materials, you enter an expensive minefield that effectively stops it happening. There is some talk of loosening the regulations to allow smaller craft distilleries to operate, but at the moment it's beyond them. The inspection regime is extremely rigorous, beyone small operators. And when you have made your whisky etc. it can only be stored in highly regulated bonded warehouse facilities, which are subject to very rigorous regulations, inspections and regular auditing. On the subject of methanol, a lot depends on what you are fermenting. Generally, fruit based stuff is highest in methanol production. There have been many deaths due to methanol around the world, but usually in countries that are less regulated generally. Banana can produce high levels, and many other fruits. The type of yeast you use can have quite a big bearing on methanol production as well. Moonshiners generally know exactly how much to discard, at the start of the distillation. It's not particularly critical, you can apply a simple equation and most will have it in their heads. Apart from methanol, the first part of the run also produces a lot of nasty ingredients, that make it taste foul, so there's no incentive to cut corners. You can use a highly accurate thermometer to tell you what's happening. Warming up the mash slowly, the methanol comes off at a considerably lower temperatue than ethanol. So the temperature will rise to the boiling point of methanol, and then stay at that point, until it's gone. Then the temperature starts to rise again, to the boiling point of ethanol, when you start collecting and saving your desired product. The problem with ice distilling is that you don't drive off the methanol and other nasties, so you're likely to get severe hangovers from it, even if it doesn't make you sick. I guess you could use heat to drive off the nasties first, and then finish off with freezing.

Some mussels are extremely tough. The Zebra Mussel is becoming invasive all round the world.

The price of funerals has gone up a lot lately, adding to the general rise in the cost of living.

And yet earlier you claimed that religion led to civilisation. You made no distinction there. Historically, beliefs and actions went hand in hand.

Apply that logic to other stuff, and I only bitch about murder when they try to murder me. Religions usually do their imposing subtly, in the modern era. Murder one cartoonist, and you shut all the others up. Ban abortion for women, by claiming to be 'pro life' , when you're actually 'pro bible'. Religious beliefs are imposed massively on billions of defenceless children, under the guise of 'saving' them.

Smoking helps the economy in other ways. It kills old people earlier, so they are a burden on the working population for about 15 years less. And it kills a higher proportion of criminals than non-criminals. As do alcohol and drugs.

Ok, you can call your dog a lion if you like. It doesn't alter the fact. If you read my posts, you would have seen that I supplied you with two official definitions which are nothing like your use, and which you chose to ignore. But that's your prerogative, have a nice day yourself, whatever day means.

I see you've offered no evidence. Primitive tribal societies had power structures, imposed by the politicians of the day. And they would use religion to keep control whenever the chance presented itself. But primitive tribes usually had shamanist disorganised beliefs, and structure in religion didn't appear till society got bigger. And society got bigger because of farming, not religion. Religion just fed off what was there, there's no evidence that it led the way.

That's a weird question to even contemplate. The briefiest look at history will tell you that the early religions that were around when civilisation was in it's infancy were hugely vicious and destructive in nature. Just like the rest of society was back then. Even if you could isolate one or two that were less agressive and destructive, that doesn't convey credit on religion as a whole. Of course we would have civilisation without religion. Probably much sooner.

Yes. Hitler wasn't all bad. He made the trains run on time, built motorways and handy little air cooled cars, and kitted his troops out in some pretty snazzy uniforms. Unfortunately, he did have his little faults as well. So if someone had thrown him out with the bathwater when he was a baby, the world would be a bit nicer now. Religion is an obnoxious baby that grows bigger, takes over peoples minds, and becomes self-supporting by indoctrination, quite like Hitler. We can get the good bits of religion without the indoctrination of the next generation.

It is, at this instant, and has been for all of history. So if you restrict 'objective' to what you know, that's fine. The past is an objective fact, as is the present. But projecting the patterns of the past on the future is speculation. All you can do is make a pretty confident guess. JIm Jones got loads of people to believe that it was better to die. Heaven's gate is another example. One of many. I know it's only small beer, but it proves that what people believe and want is malleable, even on life itself. A mass suicide of most humans is still hugely unlikely, but it's actually far more likely now than it's ever been, due to mass communication. I don't get why you are so wedded to the idea of objectivity in the subject of right/wrong. Yes, given what most people aspire to, we generally agree on loads of stuff. But in the end, if you dig deep enough, it only reflects the feelings of a majority. The reason that I'm so wedded to making the distinction, is that I've debated religious people in the past, who start with the concept of objective right and wrong as a given, and from that try to weave a convoluted argument for the existence of a god.

Say all three clocks are synchronised to an agreed event in the oldest galaxy visible. And all three are set to count down 1000 years and then explode. If C passes A at the instant A explodes, will C already be in bits, or still be in one piece, or explode at the same instant as A? (ignoring complications like orbits etc.)