StringJunky

I found this blog run by an English professor of theoretical astrophysics discussing the difference that might give you a clue.

I can understand the bolded part but "sections" and "fibre bundles" are over my head because I don't have the necessary math's understanding. If I want to understand SR and GR properly I'm going to have to knuckle down to it. Unlike a lot of people though I shut my mouth if I feel something conflicts with my commonsense and keep reading...it sinks in eventually! I don't worry about ontology...abstraction is fine with me. Thanks for the links though, I'll sit down with them and see what I can get out of them.

It's more or less what I thought it was...a range of values throughout space. Thanks.

Am I correct, generally, in thinking of a field as the 'sphere of influence'?

swansont, if a Quantum description of Gravity ever comes to fruition will it become a "field" rather than "curved spacetime"? What defines a field, in this instance, regarding gravity because up to now I've thought of curved spacetime and gravitational field as the same, more or less, but there is obviously a difference that I'm not aware of?

Only when I'm drunk and this is not posted in the right forum.

This is the Crucial System Scanner. http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/?click=true Download and install it. It will scan your system then make a webpage with compatible memory modules for that pc you used. Look at the specs of the modules and you can shop around for modules with the same specs. This is a report for mine. http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/viewscanbyid.aspx?id=96A3A6CB31D926C3 If you click on the specs (which are links themselves) in one of the modules listed it will tell you how many pins it has as well as the other specs...like this: Part Number: CT1901117 (ignore this) Module Size: 8GB Kit (4GBx2) (ignore this) Package: 200-pin SODIMM Feature: DDR2 PC2-6400 Specs: DDR2 PC2-6400 • CL=6 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR2-800 • 1.8V • 512Meg x 64 • Knowing this information I could now shop around.

Absolutely...and a fine example at that.

Provided you can get on the internet with the pc you want memory for most of the memory manufacturers like Crucial, Kingston et al offer a download that analyses your system then tells you what you can put in it from their stock To find out without going on the the internet with the machine that needs it which memory you need for a particular m/board use this one from Crucial for example. Select the appropriate motherboard details in the lists. http://www.dabs.com/products/selection-tools?Name=Crucial

Tony Rather than say it stopped at v=0, wouldn't it be better to say it reached equilibrium at v=0? It's a semantic problem that requires a semantic solution maybe?

Uneven surface topology , unevenly distributed and variable masses of water, massive forests like the Amazon, localised humidity, transient and localised heat pockets, transient and localised cold pockets, changing icecaps, ozone holes, volcanic activity and most likely many more contribute to a highly variable system.

The OP never asked why the weather was so capricious only why the wind never stopped and what Ophiolite and I have said more than suffices.

On a global scale, you are forgetting the Earth is orbiting and rotating around the Sun...as one area heats up facing the Sun, another area in darkness is cooling down...this effect maintains the disequilibrium and keeps the wind going.

It is an insane weather pattern in England sometimes having even all four seasons weather occuring in a such a relatively small area (50 000 sq miles approx) at the same time. I think we are situated in the goldilocks zone for nutty weather. I think it's our climate here that makes us such a tolerant and diverse nation...being English is not a genetic attribute...it's a shared state of mind, forced upon us by our weather.

Thanks. Yes, children are merciless when they find anything they can take the mickey out of in their fellow peers...I was not immune from it. C'est la vie.

Yes, I'm deaf. With my hearing aid in I use probably a fifty-fifty hearing and lip-reading and all lip reading when I don't have it in. I choose to only use one aid but am severely deaf in both ears. It's all I've ever known so it's no big deal after 50 years. My hearing seems to be equally knackered across the spectrum so amplification is good enough for me to enjoy music sometimes...has to be loud though! Gave up on TV 5 years ago because I eventually had to have it unsociably loud! I access information almost exclusively through the written and visual world now like this forum and the internet in general. On-topic, I'm an avid Pink Floyd fan and I recently have come to appreciate a tribute band called Brit Floyd who I think to do a great job. Played this to death so far: "Time"

Nothing...I haven't got my hearing-aid in.

I think the internet is still way too young a phenomenon for this to happen yet and so are the people that may do this...they are still children. Also, the internet has not yet reached consumer saturation globally. As an aside, I found this site, whilst looking for something else, which might be a reference to some open-access reviewed research articles which might appeal to some here. The mission-statement of this site is to facilitate the free dissemination of scientific research articles to the general public. http://www.plosone.org/home.action

OK understood. It's just that using words like "empty" and "void", to me at least, implies space and a container to hold that space in, not that you explicitly said it. I agree, it is a tough pill to swallow but if one starts with a premise that appears logical and we accept it then we have no choice but to accept the resulting consequences of that premise, just like, if we accept a fixed velocity for light then time and space can not be invariant. Logical consistency in a sequence, stemming from a premise, is one of the things that allows scientists to make predictions and sometimes actually push the boundaries of knowledge.

A 'void' is a state within a container. 'Emptiness' is a state within a container...these two are not necessarily synonymous with "lack of things". Nothing, as I previously defined it, includes the absence of the container...the "container" is a fabrication of your mind which you need to shed it in order to comprehend the true nature of nothing in its purest sense but it's nigh on impossible because you are left with nothing to visualise...that's what nothing is. It has zero dimension and consequently no existence of any sort.

Given the ever-increasing ubiquity of the internet globally and the information that it holds do you not think that the chances of very intelligent amateur autodidacts making significant scientific/ mathematical discoveries/conclusions will become an increasing possibility? It's a meta-researcher's paradise isn't it?

That's ok. I find this kind of discussion interesting because one has to endeavour to be so disciplined and precise in how things are defined or else we are like members in a band all playing different tunes at the same time. It's strange subject matter talking about nothing!

From my perspective, to be internally consistent with the premise that I've expressed, the history of the Universe has no beginning and therefore could not come from nothing. Rather ironically, in the face of your known avid atheism, your position only makes sense to me if we invoke an "externally" existing god-like or supernatural entity initiating something from nothing...but it still wouldn't come from nothing because the supernatural being would be the potentiality. Perhaps you could provide an argument or scenario that circumvents my premise?

OK, is my argument axiomatic with regard to my definition of nothing?

I'm the first tio admit that I'm not well-read in formal logic, but wouldn't you consider the premise to be axiomatic ie it's the starting point from which we start a train of logic? From WIKI: In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true. Therefore, its truth is taken for granted, and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other (theory dependent) truths.