StringJunky

Getting a grip on a reality is like chasing a rainbow; it will always be out of reach but we can get closer. That will keep everybody busy.

Yes Why "friends" and not friends; are they worth less or any less 'real' than ones you physically interact with? As time passes the virtual world is becoming increasingly part of the real world such that they will become indistinguishable. My own experience of online interactions is that they are every bit as real and visceral as my geographically close friends even though I may have not have met them physically. Having said that, I am not one to treat my online acquaintances as virtual, transient, disposable objects to be used for whatever purpose that suits my immediate whim, like some people do; I know it's a real person on the other end and will afford them the same respect - or, likewise, contempt - as if they were sitting next to me. A common language may eventually still develop; don't forget, the internet is still only really a teenager in terms of it being widespread and technologically advanced enough to disseminate multimedia information suitable for the mass market.

We tend to clump together in relatively sealed houses, facilitating transmission, because it's cold; the aerosol from sneezing will linger longer in the still, unventilated environment. The lower humidity in winter may also dry mucal membranes of the respiratory system making access easier for the virus.

Interesting; illustrates well how much use that saving is going to be versus the losses economically, in the billions I would think, from lost trade, besides all the other myriad non-fiscal negative impacts. We've dropped a million to save a penny, in a sense, financially.

Listen to what I say, not what I do; FOS. Like JC said earlier, the UK still has a lot Little Englanders. I didn't realise we had that many 'til now.

Therefore, curvature of spacetime exists; light bends. The underlying reality of what causes that is, as you say, something else.

Asking if curvature 'exists' is the same as asking if distance exists or voltage. More generally, one could ask "Do properties exist".

Why are you doing this?

A world composed of many virtual islands occupied by groups with shared ideologies. That's the way it's heading I think. New of tribes are being formed; as you say, not geographically located. That's cool to me because I am grouping with people more like myself that are not generally around in my geographic vicinity. It's good for the world in the long run I think and progress in general.

I don't know why that number is seen as a carrot; it's a piddle in the ocean The 2015/16 NHS budget was £116.4 billion. £350m will run the NHS for slightly more than 24 hours.

Ha!

Of course.

OK Ta. Nothing ever is, is it?

Thank you. Yes, we are not immune to democratic expressions of mass stupidity.

No, it's an analogy. Here's a PDF link . You've referred to it before, it's illuminating.

For myself, I liken modelling reality to trying to describe an object in a black bag with holes in for your hands as the only means of extracting information about it. From that you build a model which is necessarily incomplete.

Newton didn't invent calculus but developed it? I read he invented it.

Oh no!... please... the despair deepens. Right now, all the upbeat feelings I've experienced this week has gone down the toilet. A 4 pack of Special brew is looking very inviting... I knew I shouldn't have trodden on that mirror the other day...

I disagree. He is the strongest, most consistent and most intimate with the mechanics of this situation to steer it to the least damaging scenario.

If the debt is to foreign agencies then and sterling goes down then, I presume, our debt goes up.

Cameron's resigning.

Indeed. I hope, beyond hope, that this just a longer path to a better Europe and we'll still be part of it.

This is it, as you you know, the parameter numbers or measurements are as close to 'touching' reality as we are going to get.

Me too. I'm as upset as when we joined the Common Market in '71 and I was only 9. I know, work that one out. The trouble is, we are too integrated now and mutually reliant globally as well in Europe. We are not just a bit player.

I know what you you mean but Markus's example illustrates what's happening between transferring the numbers into a pictorial representation, which is happening the same when you represent the spacetime plot values as a picture.in terms of curvature distribution. It's just that we can actually see the physical terrain of land to understand his comparison with spacetime curvature.. Ordnance Survey maps are not photographs of the terrain but abstract representations of it; just like spacetime maps. Edit: removed misplaced word.