StringJunky

Scientists are trying very hard to find discrete units in the structure of space as this would help them to unify gravity with the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces which, so far, stubbornly refuses to be described in any way other than as a smooth continuum,.. as per General Relativity. The other three forces can be described in discrete units ie quantised.This is one such experiment NASA did: "Physicists would like to replace Einstein's vision of gravity -- as expressed in his relativity theories -- with something that handles all fundamental forces," said Peter Michelson, principal investigator of Fermi's Large Area Telescope, or LAT, at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. "There are many ideas, but few ways to test them." Many approaches to new theories of gravity picture space-time as having a shifting, frothy structure at physical scales trillions of times smaller than an electron. Some models predict that the foamy aspect of space-time will cause higher-energy gamma rays to move slightly more slowly than photons at lower energy. Such a model would violate Einstein's edict that all electromagnetic radiation -- radio waves, infrared, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays -- travels through a vacuum at the same speed. On May 10, 2009, Fermi and other satellites detected a so-called short gamma ray burst, designated GRB 090510. Astronomers think this type of explosion happens when neutron stars collide. Ground-based studies show the event took place in a galaxy 7.3 billion light-years away. Of the many gamma ray photons Fermi's LAT detected from the 2.1-second burst, two possessed energies differing by a million times. Yet after traveling some seven billion years, the pair arrived just nine-tenths of a second apart. "This measurement eliminates any approach to a new theory of gravity that predicts a strong energy dependent change in the speed of light," Michelson said. "To one part in 100 million billion, these two photons traveled at the same speed. Einstein still rules." http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/first_year.html

Where and when was the first?

You know your countrymen well! All that really matters is that it has started. Your sentiment was no doubt echoed the same here in the UK originally but it is not surprising really because it is, at first, a step into the unknown. This says much for the people of Maine though: Maine, Maryland and Washington state became the first three US states to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples by popular vote with passage of ballot initiatives on November 6. But Maine was the only one where voters did so entirely on their own, without state legislators precipitating a referendum by acting first. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/3rd-US-state-witnesses-its-first-same-sex-marriages/articleshow/17814449.cms

America's got it's first black president and now the people of Maine have allowed the first gay marriages. The gun problem will take a while longer but it's getting there in other areas. (Reuters) - The first gay and lesbian couples to wed under Maine's new same-sex marriage law exchanged vows early on Saturday in a series of spare but joyous civil ceremonies held shortly after midnight. "We finally feel equal and happy to be living in Maine," an exuberant Steven Bridges, 42, said shortly after he and his newly wedded husband, Michael Snell, 53, became the first couple at City Hall in Maine's largest town to tie the knot. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/29/us-usa-gaymarriage-maine-idUSBRE8BS02N20121229 After the recent tragedies, this is a ray of light that keeps my faith that, in the end, America does the right.thing. 31 states are still stuck in the dark though demanding only heterosexuals may marry but the snowball will eventually become an avalanche.

Aside from ydoaps's and Moon's good answers...yes. Your country is well-beyond that happening. I have faith in your country even if you don't.

From your link... pathetic propaganda. What I find sad is your lack of faith in your own system yet you are supposed to be a "true American".. I am presuming you are empathising with the sentiment of the posters

This is what I was saying earlier in the thread: The Amendment already sets the stage for some sensible regulations but as yet nobody's taken this part into proper practice that meets the needs of modern-day America...so it seems to me anyway.

Nice to see you attempt to objectivise the status of guns Moon. I know, given that guns are deeply ingrained in the American psyche, that's not an easy thing for you to do...I hope your thoughts are being replicated amongst many other intelligent and thoughtful Americans like you. I hope a more respectful and discriminating protocol and general attitude can be borne out of all the recent tragedies.

Yes, he's a funny guy...not many people can pill off that really loony persona like he can.

Up to the size of Superclusters, like the Virgo Supercluster we are in, gravity overwhelms the Metric Expansion of Space so all the objects you see in the following image aren't influenced by it within its confines ....we are in the that bit in the centre, the Local Group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_Supercluster

Yes I agree that a light-source does have an objective colour but reflective surfaces don't because that's dependent on the frequency of the light-source...the sky is more purple objectively. In fact, the Rayleigh scattering indicates that even the sky should be violet light . Moreover the law of blackbody radiation states that the Sun radiation is more important in the field of purple (and more to the ultraviolet but the ultraviolet filter is ozone) than for blue . But the photopic vision of the human eyes presents a peak sensitivity around the green (wavelength 555 nm) while the violet sensitivity is 100 times lower. The "green shift" thus leads to a light sky seen blue by the human eyes. Light sensitivity for photopic vision. http://www.raman-scattering.eu/raman/texts/022_text_12.php As you can see our eyes are not very objective at all. What this boils down to is that what we perceive is subjective due to the way I visual system works...our perception of something is a construct which doesn't necessarily mirror reality. As an aside, I think this example illustrates quite well why scientists rely on data from their instruments, rather than commonsense, to draw conclusions from.

The human eye is a fairly poor judge of the hue of an object as it has it's own 'white-balance' called chromatic adaptation. What this means is that the eye/brain interface will alter it's colour-balance controls, on a white object for instance, to keep it white until it goes beyond it's range of adjustment. I think it evolved to do this to maximise the amount of detail it can extract and preserve the ability to identify familiar objects in diverse light conditions, which would be important when looking for food...a very long time ago of course. The thrust of what I'm saying is that our eyes are not reliable tools for assessing the objective colour properties of an object.

RefutationNeurologist Barry Gordon describes the myth as laughably false, adding, "we use virtually every part of the brain, and that [most of] the brain is active almost all the time".[1] NeuroscientistBarry Beyerstein sets out seven kinds of evidence refuting the ten percent myth:[10] Studies of brain damage: If 90% of the brain is normally unused, then damage to these areas should not impair performance. Instead, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities. Even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects. Evolution: The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. It can require up to 20% of the body's energy—more than any other organ—despite making up only 2% of the human body by weight.[11][12] If 90% of it were unnecessary, there would be a large survival advantage to humans with smaller, more efficient brains. If this were true, the process of natural selection would have eliminated the inefficient brains. It is also highly unlikely that a brain with so much redundant matter would have evolved in the first place. Brain imaging: Technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow the activity of the living brain to be monitored. They reveal that even during sleep, all parts of the brain show some level of activity. Only in the case of serious damage does a brain have "silent" areas. Localization of function: Rather than acting as a single mass, the brain has distinct regions for different kinds of information processing. Decades of research have gone into mapping functions onto areas of the brain, and no function-less areas have been found. Microstructural analysis: In the single-unit recording technique, researchers insert a tiny electrode into the brain to monitor the activity of a single cell. If 90% of cells were unused, then this technique would have revealed that. Neural disease: Brain cells that are not used have a tendency to degenerate. Hence if 90% of the brain were inactive, autopsy of adult brains would reveal large-scale degeneration. Another evolutionary argument is that, given the historical risk of death in childbirth associated with the large brain size (and therefore skull size) of humans,[13] there would be a strong selection pressure against such a large brain size if only 10% was actually in use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_brain_myth

Have you tried a tin with a loose base like this. It has a spring lever on the side to loosen the base. This is a Spring Form Quick Release Cake Tin: http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=1&gs_ri=hp&cp=13&gs_id=1e&xhr=t&q=cake+tin+removable+base&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.d2k&bpcl=40096503&biw=1498&bih=690&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=14831187317697044166&sa=X&ei=dfPZUPebOoqS0QXL34GIBw&sqi=2&ved=0CFsQ8wIwAw The cause of the problem is: as the cake and tin cool down, the cold air on the outside causes condensation in the interface between the tin and hot cake...this makes the cake-face slightly mushy, creating a glue which sets once cooled down, adhering the cake to the tin. I think the above tin, or similar design, with pre-greasing and removal while still warm should increase your success rate.

Is the unifying force the one that preceded the four at BB time and they evolved from it?

OK, Thanks for the clarification Juanrga, I see where you are coming from now.

To clarify on CR's post, scroll down to Ubuntu: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/27350/beginner-geek-how-to-edit-your-hosts-file/ 0.0.0.0 www.websiteurl in Hosts will work as well to block it....you will get a ' ...not available' notice when you try to get it.

The first point above, I can see what you mean...I took it as an attack on GR. The second point I interpreted what you said that: GR is only an approximation therefore it's incorrect...i can accept my error on this. The third point about your approach, is to do with the way you come across as though some new, as-yet-unverified advanced physics has completely superseded current established physics. Point 4 you quoted I actually found strange because you seemed to be contradicting what you said in post #65, which I agreed with and actually positively repped you for it. i somehow felt compelled to reiterate, in my own way, what you said there because you seemed to me to have forgotten that. Rightly or wrongly, you were coming across to me that GR is "old hat" and that's not actually how it is in the public sphere. As far as I have seen on this forum so far, GR is the accepted description of gravity and this is the one that is disseminated by SFN's scientists.

Is this site not a portal for the general public? 'Approximation' does not equal incorrect. Your whole approach is wrong. Within it's domain of vailidity Newtonian gravity is correct. Within its domain of validity GR is correct and so it shall be for a quantum description of the macro universe when it's verified. There are no sharp lines delineating from one successive theory to the next and the previous ones are not discarded, that's not how science works; it stands on the shoulders of each of its giants with each theory blending into the next with connecting zones of agreement. The certainty with which you speak does no service to the dissemination of science in the public sphere and can give it a bad name Think of a hypothetical scenario, say 100 years into the future, and Quantum Gravity is as old, mature and.'conventional' like GR is now, what are you going to say when it hits the inevitable brick wall like GR is with sub-Planck -scale stuff now? It's wrong? Scientists will always be 'incorrect' because they will eventually find things that their prevailing theory can't describe...history proves this. Science will never be right but it can be less wrong. It's all relative old chap.

The links I provided is from the Stanford University website run by Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics Francis Everett who is also the Principal Investigator of the Gravity Probe B Project which was successful in its mission and supported the predictions of GR it was tasked to find . If GR was obsolete they wouldn't also be testing it now with LIGO. Quantum Gravity is just an idea that still lives only on paper.

Looks might matter. Maybe partly legislate to discourage the sale of weapons that look like army weapons. Just a thought. I'm thinking of perception and how it may bestow a certain 'macho' image in the eyes of some people on others and perhaps this might not be a good thing for societal health.

No, the true colour temperature is going down because as it uses it up it's fuel it's getting redder. I'm talking about outside the Earth's atmosphere here. Also on human scales no change will be noticeable anyway...definitely not 2000 years and, relatively, it would have been bluer not redder then. The colour temperature on Earth peaks at noon (5500K) and round about 2000K at dawn and dusk depending on atmospheric conditions

Here's a couple of animations that might make it clearer. It's worth reading the page they are from too: Newton's Universe: http://einstein.stanford.edu/Media/Newtons_Universe_Anima-Flash.html Einstein's Universe: http://einstein.stanford.edu/Media/Einsteins_Universe_Anima-Flash.html From: http://einstein.stanford.edu/SPACETIME/spacetime2.html

Did some Googling. With respect to the reported conversation about the Japanese thinking of the sun symbolically as orange probably relates to fact that they historically believed their land was "The land of the rising sun" which apparently is what 'Nippon' (State of Japan) means. They believed they were the first place to see the sun every day. New Zealand was unknown at the time.