Janus

Just out of curiosity, exactly what about the light clock do find as being impossible?

TIL I learned a new measurement: "Poronkusema" which is roughly 7.5 km. It literally translates to "reindeer piss", and is the distance a reindeer can run before having to stop to take a bathroom break.

Generally, West to East. However, there are occasions when the shadow is in upper latitudes, where the shadow has enough of a curved path over the surface, to start in one direction, and end going the other.

How does that address the issue? Sure, it would be impracticable to do a similar scenario just using planet-sized objects, but it is not strictly impossible. As far as the basic scenario being "contrived" goes, what does that matter? This isn't about every or even most scenarios causing causality issues, it is about being able to produce them at all. One way to violate causality is one too many.

This assumes that the universe has some purpose or plan. And even if we assume that this is the case, what makes you so sure that we are a major part of it? We could just as well be an undesirable but unavoidable side effect.

I don't think the universe cares one way or the other.

Did you miss the part where Mueller himself wrote to Barr to complain that Barr was understating the seriousness of the report. How can you say that Barr was correct, when the person who wrote the full report didn't think he was? And just to touch on something else: While he may have violated Federal campaign laws and could be charged on the Federal level for them, New York has its own campaign laws that he could be charged with violating. And this isn't an either/or situation. He could be tried in Federal and State court for the same thing at the same time, if it violates both Federal and State laws. So, New York can pursue a case, even without a Federal one, unless the Feds come in and assert privilege. Now, is the New York case the weakest of the major cases against him? Yes. But, from what I've heard, from people who understand the law better than I do, is that it isn't as weak as they thought it was prior to the charges being revealed.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-politics-russia-reggie-walton-fe8eee387b53888c478a24021fc101aa

My browser keeps a list of saved signups with user name and password. Even if it doesn't bring it up when you log in, you can go to settings/passwords, bring up the list and look it up. It is also advisable to back up the file with this info onto external storage from time to time, so you can import it to a new computer if your present one suddenly fails.

Back when this investigation started, the feds did step in and and told the New York to back off and they'd handle it. Of course that was back during the time that Bill Barr headed the DOJ. The same Bill Barr that heavily redacted the Mueller report to shield Trump. In other words: "We'll handle it meant, we'll make sure nothing is done about it.". The present DOJ has it hands full with the documents and Jan. 5th investigations, so I'm sure they fine with letting New York handle this one.

Though it does seem that the courts themselves are beginning to lose patience with this tactic. He just recently had an appeal rejected a mere 14 hrs after filing it.

It seems highly unlikely that a Grand Jury would make the unprecedented move to indict a former President on over 30 counts if all they had to go on was the testimony of one witness. Of course, we won't know exactly what the charges are until he is arraigned. One commentator has suggested that this may go beyond the hush money case, as he can't see how that, by itself, could be stretched into more than 8 separated charges.

If his intent was that protests by his supporters would intimate the grand jury into not indicting him, it went over like a lead balloon. He must be seething over the lack of response. It kind of shoots a huge hole in his recent claims that the American people would not stand for his being criminally prosecuted when the response to his potential indictment is "Meh".

Using the one non-English language I'm a little familiar with, Let's take word order for example: "Koira etsii kissaa" and "Kissaa etsii koira", both mean "The dog is looking for a cat." "Koiraa etsii kissa" and "Kissa etsii koiraa", both mean " The cat is looking for a dog" What changes with word order is the emphasis. Koira etsii kissaa = The DOG is looking for a cat. Kissaa etsii koira = The dog is looking for a CAT. In a somewhat similar fashion, Karhut ovat tuolla = The bears are over there. Tuolla ovat karhut = There are bears over there. Or take the simple "I am" in English one would say: "I am John" "I am cold" "I am crying" in Finnish they are: "Olen John"* "Minulla kylmä" "Itken"* * Can be preceded by "minä", but often isn't.

Another factor is that a good number of the people that participated in the Jan 6th riot did so under the impression that they were acting on orders from the seated President, and even used that in their defense. This is not something they could claim now(with the exception of that small subset that believe that he is somehow "secretly" still the President) An indication of what we could expect is what happened after the document search and seizure, There were calls then to protest and support Trump, and while some people heeded the call, it was a pretty small turnout in numbers.

By digging it deeper?

The key issue here is, what do they mean by "probable"? It does not necessarily mean the same as "probably". There is a difference between saying "It is probable that I will be hit by a car crossing the street tomorrow, and saying "I will probably be hit by a car crossing the street tomorrow" The first just means that there is a non-zero probability that it will occur, and the second implies a good probability that it will occur. In addition, for quite a while now, intelligence reports and reviews have been split into categories: High confidence, Moderate confidence, and Low confidence, depending on the reliability of the information and sources. From my understanding, these particular reviews are in the Low confidence category. So "probable" used in a Low confidence report is not something I'd be willing to hang my hat on.

An answer to your questions might lie in how Finland dealt with the homeless issue. They found that if you provide housing without stipulation, then those people tend to be able to get jobs and require less and less assistance. In addition, it turns out to be cheaper in the long run than dealing with the issues caused by a large homeless population. As a result, Finland has almost no homeless problem. In contrast, in the US, you basically need to meet certain conditions before you become eligible for housing. If you don't meet them, then tough luck.

No, not really. I think this idea comes from a misunderstanding of time dilation. While it is true that a clock moving relative to you would,as measured by you, tick slower and slower as it it approached the speed of light, the equation that predicts this is "undefined" for speeds greater than c (It gives a result that is the square root of a negative number. ) Now there are some setups that could be used to create causality issues in Relativity if FTL is allowed. Basically, this involves extended systems moving relative to each other, and rely on how these systems measures simultaneity differently. An example of such a system would be two long trains passing each other in opposite directions. One train sends an FTL signal from one car to another. That car transfers the signal a car of the other train as they pass each other. The second train sends an FTL answer back along it length, to be transferred back to the car that originated the message. Under the right conditions, allowing FTL transmission can result in the answer arriving at the origin before the initial signal was sent. This goes back to what swansont was referring to a few posts ago. The truth is that the Theory make no predictions as to what would happen if you exceeded c, as that is beyond it range of applicability.

Your "de-energized" photons sound like a rehash of the Aether, a concept abandoned long ago. And if light transmission is due to energy be transferred through this medium, and this medium is also dark matter, then how does light travel between galaxies, when dark matter tends to collect in clouds around galaxies. And, as joigus alluded to, if this sea of de-energized photons has neither mass nor energy of its own, then how does it generate the gravitational field needed to account for the observations that led to the need for dark matter in the first place?

Riiight. What would be the point of China putting a nuclear bomb on it? What good would have dropping a single nuclear bomb have done? It would be of no significant strategic value, and would only risk starting a full nuclear exchange, and if such an exchange was their goal, they would have just done a full scale nuclear strike.

Just an addition to the previous post. In the Classical Doppler shift equation, vo and vs refer to the velocity of the observer and source with respect to the medium through which the waves are propagating. As result, you get a different answer if you have the source moving with respect to the medium than if it is the observer moving with respect to the medium. Whereas with the relativistic equation, there is no medium and the answer only depends on the relative velocity between source and observer. Also, There is a typo in the equation given for Relativistic Doppler shift. It should be v-c for upper part of the fraction. You will often see this equation written with 1-ß and 1+ß instead, where ß = v/c

For the Sake of this example, we ignore the Earth's own rotation, as it not a factor as far as tidal forces go and unnecessarily complicates the scenario.

If the Earth were stationary (held suspended above the Sun by some magical string), then yes, an object on the Sun side would weigh less. But it is not, it is in orbit, which is a free fall trajectory. That means everything on Earth is also following that trajectory. In other words, if you suddenly removed the Earth, and left behind only the objects resting on its surface, those objects would continue to orbit the Sun on their own. Now let's simplify things. Assume you have only three objects., The Earth, and objects on its Sun side and the opposite side. We will then magically remove the Earth's gravity's hold on the two objects. What would happen? The Earth will continue along its orbit as usual. The Sun side object will follow it own independent orbit. It is closer to the Sun than the Earth's center, but starts with the same velocity as the Earth's center. It would need a higher speed to maintain this orbital distance, so it will begin to "drift" in nearer to the Sun. On the other hand, the object on the opposite side, being further from the Sun, and also starting off with the same speed, is moving too fast for its distance from the Sun, and will start to drift away from the Sun. Add the Earth's gravity back in, and you get the result that both objects are a bit lighter than objects sitting on the day/night line. This is known as "tidal effect".

To your point of a laser beam propagating at an angle, It does. This is a well understood concept called the aberration of light. If I put a laser on a moving cart, aimed straight up, and the cart is moving relative to me, I would measure the laser as propagating at an angle other than straight up. Of course since the speed of light is as fast as it is. the cart would have to be moving at a pretty good clip for me to notice it without very accurate measuring equipment. A lot of the rest of your post revolves around motion, and appears to treat it as an absolute. It is not. This is something Galileo understood. The "Moving clock" can considered to be at rest, and the "observer" as moving. It doesn't matter which of the two you consider as moving, the observer will observe the same thing. Relative to himself, the light travels at angle. The total distance traveled as measured by them, is longer than that measured by the clock. A postulate of SR is that light travels at c relative to frame of reference from which it is being measured. Here's an animation comparing 2 light clocks, one moving relative to the frame, the other not. The white dots are the light pulses bouncing between two mirrors. The circles expand at c to represent the speed of light. Now as far as the moving clock is concerned, the it's pulse just goes up and down between the mirrors at c, so it measures 1 "tick" to last the same length of time as the non-moving clock does in this animation. So for example, both clocks would measure going from 0 to 1 as taking 1 us. For a horizontal pulse, you need to take length contraction into account, as the stationary clock would measure the moving clock as being length contracted: You will also note that as far as the stationary clock goes, the horizontal pulse going in one direction take longer for the moving clock. This is an example of the Relativity of Simultaneity. Also, if we were to switch our viewing frame, so that we saw the clock moving to the right as "stationary" and the other other clock moving to the left. Then it would be the clock moving to the right that would be seen as ticking slower (keeping in mind that we change nothing but which clock we are "following") As far as muons go, their "mass" does not increase. Their kinetic energy is high, and thus their momentum. But what is really happening is that the increase in both rise at a different rate than that predicted by Newtonian physics. So, if you were to apply Newtonian formulas to them, it would seem as if their mass increased, but the Newtonian formulas don't apply properly here. Besides that, the muon example, while one of the earlier tests of Relativity, was not the only and definitely not the last. Countless of observations have been made, all giving results affirming Relativity. You would have to come up with multiple explanations for them all. Explanations which conspired to produce the results of Relativity.