Lorentz Jr

You're confusing the two sides of the theory. To quote John Archibald Wheeler, Mass is the cause of curvature in space-time, and curvature is the cause of gravity. Yes, that's right. Although it's important to not confuse "physical substance" with ordinary matter, which is something that exists in the vacuum, whatever it is. Anyway, Einstein fully accepted the existence of the vacuum as an "ether" that gets curved. The only aspect of the ether that he rejected is the idea that it has a state of motion, because no such thing has ever been detected experimentally.

What do you mean by "Earth's medium". Electrons can travel through the vacuum, but they usually start out trapped inside a conductor, and it's hard for them to get out of it. We're not talking about a lack of forces, we're talking about the presence of forces. Because they have to overcome the resistance of air molecules. Massive objects can do that. Electrons can't. You could say gravity is an infinite number of "forces", because objects are attracted to an infinite number of other objects. But Albert Einstein calculated that gravity is about zero forces because it's really the curvature of space-time.

Theological creation means creation of the universe from nothing, or from a state where it didn't exist. "Creation" of AI is only a matter of organizing and rearranging things that already exist in the universe. Or, to look at it another way, are you saying you think human beings can do what the Creator does?

Grounding of electric charges (usually electrons) means they travel through a conductor. It's a lot harder for them to travel through air. Massive objects can travel through air or the vacuum by virtue of gravity or their momentum, so they don't need to be grounded by anything. The presence of positive and negative charges isn't really relevant.

I guess I was pasting the code as rich text. The fixed-width font is from the "Show Math As" window, and the curvy font is from copying the equation directly. 🙄

Right. And this is roughly how fast the cars have to move and accelerate when they first begin, at minimally relativistic speeds (to first order in v): [math]v = \frac{a_0 t}{1 + (a_0 L n / c^2)}[/math] [math]a = \frac{a_0}{1 + (a_0 L n / c^2)}[/math] [math]L[/math] is the length of each car; n is the number of the car, starting from the last one; and [math]a_0[/math] is the acceleration of the last car (n=0). The complete solution is much more complicated, so it might have to be computed numerically on a computer, but this approximation shows that the initial speed and acceleration taper off toward the front of the train, and they have to taper off more sharply when the train accelerates more rapidly (because of the [math]a_0 L n / c^2[/math] term in the denominator).

text [math] - \frac{w'}{w^2} = z' = k_1 [/math] [math] z = k_1 t + k_2 [/math] [math] z(0) = 0 [/math], so [math] k_2 = 0 [/math]. [math] -dw/dn = k_1 w^2 [/math] [math] - \frac{dw}{w^2} = k_1 dn [/math] [math] 1/w = k_1(n + k_3) [/math] [math] v = wz = [k_1 (n+k_3)]^{-1} k_1 t = \frac{t}{n+k_3} [/math] [math] v_0 \equiv a_0 t = \frac{t}{0+k_3} [/math], so [math] k_3 = 1/a_0 [/math] [math] v = \frac{a_0 t}{1 + a_0 n} [/math] [math] v = \frac{a_0 t}{1 + (a_0 L n / c^2)} [/math] [math] a = \frac{a_0}{1 + (a_0 L n / c^2)} [/math] text

This system is a nightmare. Equations get mangled; they change when I click edit, do NOTHING, and redisplay; now they don't seem to be working at all. 😱

What does that mean? It's over my head. Spilling beverage on hardcopy? By the way, I seem to be the forum pariah now. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble chatting with me. text L=1/γ=1−v2−−−−−√ OMG, the system is working PERFECTLY now, and I have ZERO idea why. 😖 Oops! Spoke too soon. It's F-ed up again. Oops! It's working again. Still don't know why. [math] L = 1/\gamma = \sqrt{1-v^2} [/math] [math] \gamma = 1 + O(v^2) [/math] [math] v(n,t) \equiv w(n)z(t) [/math] [math] \frac{\partial v}{\partial n} = -v \frac{\partial v}{\partial t} [/math] [math] w'z = -(wz)(z'w) = -w^2 z'z [/math]

That's a little too hard-core for me. 😶 I don't mind writing straight (La)TeX, but the equation stays displayed when I edit the post, so I can't edit the equation. And that square root keeps getting mangled for some reason.

Thanks. This system is really finicky.

L=1/γ=1−v2−−−−−√ dL/dt=−γva=vn+1−vn ∂v/∂n=(vn+1−vn)/1=−γva H_z=H_o\sqrt{\Omega_m(1+z)^3+\Omega_{rad}(1+z)^4+\Omega_{\Lambda}} [math] H_z=H_o\sqrt{\Omega_m(1+z)^3+\Omega_{rad}(1+z)^4+\Omega_{\Lambda}} [/math] av

There's nothing fragile about my ego, Mr. Moderator. I took three pages of abuse and logical fallacies without complaint. It's the other guy who eventually notified you. It has nothing to do with "more detail", Mr. Moderator. It's less detail. It's redirection. It's an attack on the person's reputation by ignoring an intelligent comment and treating the person like a slow-witted beginner. It's not a double standard, Mr. Moderator. It's a consistent policy of behavior. If you believe someone is a Time Waster, you'll ban them. If they follow the forum rules, you won't ban them. That's not a double standard. It's a consistent policy of behavior. If someone trolls or abuses me, my reaction to them will not be friendly. If I believe they're communicating with me in good faith, my reaction will be polite and courteous. Consistency doesn't mean guaranteeing equal outcomes. It means guaranteeing equal opportunity. Anyway, I understand that nothing I say will have any effect here, so thanks for clearing up what your real policies are, Mr. Moderator. YOU are the boss. YOU are in charge.

Okay, boys. Sorry for being such a little pussy. Thanks for your input. 🙄

I'm focusing on the part about insulting other people's intelligence by answering nontrivial scientific questions with dictionary definitions. That's not being wrong, it's dumping on the other person's ego. Either you know you're BSing or you don't know you're BSing. Those are the choices.

I anticipate I'll be banned because I called out a popular poster for trolling.

Yes. Pathetic. Such a tragedy. 😧

Oh, is doing what people suggested arrogant now? "allow" was zapatos's word, not mine. Oh well, I guess I challenged too popular of a troll. This is what I get for being so naïve.

Do I? Or are those just vocabulary terms that you happen to know?

How long is long enough? I allowed a discussion to continue for three pages, and all I got was changing the subject, ignoring comments, quoting dictionary definitions, and outright misinformation.

Okay, let's talk about that. What things do you think I repeatedly got wrong while presenting myself as an expert? Or is quoting nostrums and aphorisms your idea of scientific proof? I think that's called an existential fallacy, but you can look it up yourself.

I haven't called anyone a moron, and I don't think anyone on this forum is a moron. My point was that it's the only reasonable alternative to the person being a troll. 😉 That's true. I don't play well with trolls. Most trolls are polite. That's how they get people to accept them.

Insulting a person's intelligence is an implicit attack on their ego and their reputation. No, of course not. I reserve politeness and courtesy for people who I believe are posting in good faith. This is an example of admitting that it's hard to prove when someone is consciously and shamelessly lying. 🙂

Because you're not a troll. A troll would continue the conversation, because trolls hate to admit that they've been trolling. As I mentioned to swansont in another thread, you can see from Page 1 of the train thread that my style of discourse is normally polite and courteous. I'll try reporting the abusive comments and see what happens. What about being wrong repeatedly, to the point of disrupting a thread? Isn't that what this Time Wasters thread is about? That's true. A person who presents himself as an expert and yet is repeatedly wrong about beginner-level facts could simply be a deluded moron. 🙂 What's the best way to report several posts that ignore a nontrivial question or comment and instead provide dictionary definitions, falsely implying that the person is ignorant of basic terminology? I don't want to seem thin-skinned, but that's an insult to the person's intelligence.

@swansont, I want to do whatever I can to help in dealing with problem posts and posters as civilly and as effectively as possible, without breaking any forum rules or offending other posters. My recent experience has been that another poster has persistently and unrepentantly used logical fallacies, changed the subject when proven wrong, made obvious and insulting misinterpretations of comments, posted random bits of "material written by professionals" that were immaterial to the discussion at hand, and persistently maintained the air of a "Resident Expert" to spread misinformation about physics and personally insult me. My response has included (but obviously has not been limited to) collecting multiple posts, filtering out irrelevant content, and explaining clearly and concisely what the mistakes and fallacies were, but it appears that this poster's attitude hasn't changed. I'm very worried about this, because I'm a new poster and the other person has been here a long time. I spent several months earlier this year arguing with trolls on another forum, and I'm not going to waste my time doing that here. So it seems to me that the situation from your perspective is this: Either I or the other poster is a shameless, ignorant liar who has been unfairly insulting the other person and has been repeatedly spreading misinformation. And the situation from my perspective is this: I know for a fact, and I think I've argued as clearly as possible, that I'm not the liar. So my question for you and any other moderator(s) on this board is this: Is scienceforums.net a real science discussion forum, or is it just another troll site that pretends to discuss science while allowing trolls to lie about physics and insult posters who call them out for lying? Please let me know if I can provide you with more supporting evidence or arguments. As I said, I already compiled extensive breakdowns of the fallacies and mistakes in the other poster's comments, so I think anyone with a moderate understanding of physics should easily be able to tell what was really going on by reading the thread. Thanks for reading.