Bignose

LPB, I appreciate that you're trying. I really do. A lot of people who post in speculations don't hang around this long. But, that said, the above is just jibberish. How the heck is 7 = 13? What is that?!? There is no rhyme or reason to anything above except that somehow, in your mind, it gives you the answer you already knew. It is obvious it isn't extendable to future digits. All you're doing is making sure it gives the answer you want. This isn't science. There is no prediction, no rational procedure, no double checking. You need to provide a rational reason your steps are actually meaningful.

Ok, but if you're going to allow the above, then I can do the same thing for sqrt(2), sqrt(3), e, e^pi, pi^e, and so on for any irrational number. And there are a lot of irrational numbers. Pi is just one of them. If you're just going to 'find' rules to find whatever number you want, we're back to numerology. The point you keep missing is that if you just hunt around until you find the answer you want, you aren't showing anything. Because, as I pointed out a while back, you can literally find any sequence of numbers in pi you want. Heck, I'd argue, you're going about it a really silly way. You want the Fibonacci series? 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144... why not just follow this "algorithm"? step 1) take 1st digit after decimal point 2) skip 1 digit 3) use this digit 4) skip 0 digits 5) use this digit 6) skip 6 digits 7) use this digit 8) skip 99 digits 9) use next 2 digits 10) skip 62 digits 11) use next 2 digits 12) skip 42 digits 13) use next 2 digits 14) skip 98 digits 15) use next 2 digits 16) skip 36 digits 17) use next 2 digits 18) skip 2371 digits 19) use next 3 digits and so on. This 'algorithm' is a heck of a lot simpler than yours, can 'come up with' more numbers in the Fibonacci sequence that yours so far, and has no significance whatsoever.

I don't see how it fixes anything Popcorn. Why wouldn't someone just submit a sample that is designed to get the maximal score, no matter what they believe? Anytime a single metric is used to determine something like this, you're going to have people who game the system. Considering how much lying happens in politics today, I would strongly suspect that many people would have little problem writing exactly what would maximize the score.

I agree with this. It is going to be interesting if (when?) he officially becomes a candidate how much more issues like this come to light. Remember, this is the guy who thought it was ok to use the state helicopter to fly to his kid's little league game: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/gov_christie_arrives_at_sons_h.html There is a fine line between "Brash guy who gets things done" and "Person who abuses his power and bullies others".

michael, Here are some equivalent questions to what you're asking: #1 Should we be able to force the New York Times to print an article calling for an end to women's suffrage? #2 Should we be able to force Hollywood to film and produce and movie praising a neo Nazi? #3 Should we force McGraw Hill (or any other book publisher) to publish a book of Satanic verses? #4 Should we be able to force NYYankees.com to print an article praising the Red Sox? I would hope that your answer is no. The owners of each of these media get to publish whatever they choose, and they typically choose to publish things that their fans want and will share the message they want to share. What is your right is to start your own newspaper, your own film company, your own book publisher, or your own website and publish whatever agenda you want. No one will forced to buy what you publish, or read what you publish. But you have every right to publish it. In the same way, you don't have the right to force scienceforums.net to publish what you want. The owner of scienceforums.net is the only one with that right. The rest of us are here as their guests. The owner can do anything he wants to what we publish. He can turn all our posts in the baby speak. He can permanently ban anyone who uses the letter 'e'. Etc. On the other hand, the owner has graciously opened up the site to let us post things -- things that will remain posted so long as we follow the rules. This is exactly the same as the NY Time publishing opinion letters that follow their rules. Their opinion pages do not have to publish everything -- they get to choose. Just like this site gets to choose. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else gets to force someone to publish something for us. This is all covered in the freedom of speech. You have the freedom to produce whatever you want without your own resources, and the rest of us have the freedom to ignore it. Your freedom does not force anyone else to use their resources to help your production.

LBP, how can you say that you are following the steps when you can't even post an explicit step-by-step of your procedure? How can you claim to have followed the step of checking if the procedure is working, if -- despite my repeated requests for one -- you can't even post a complete procedure? All the procedure you've posted to date seems to me to be "search for what I want to find, and then find it". This is just dumb luck, and not how science works. Lay out your procedure explicitly step by step. Demonstrate that it works for more than just the first few Fibonacci numbers -- again I'd aim for 500 to 1000. Demonstrate that it works for more than just the decimal representation of pi -- hexadecimal, binary, something else. Quit jumping right to the end of that flowchart and claiming meaningful results.

But this is exactly what I am arguing against. Why have you picked '8462643383279'? Why isn't it '84626433832795'? or '846264338327950'? Or '3846264338327'? You've just arbitrarily picked 13 digits there, in an arbitrary place. What's wrong with '6634287544406'? or '2330048764765'? Why can't those be replication of DNA? Or why can't those be encoding my grandmother's famous chocolate chip cookie recipe? Do you see what I am getting at here? It is all just arbitrary unless you have a formalized algorithm. If you post above was trying to convince me that it wasn't just arbitrary, you've failed miserably. Because it looks like you just demonstrated more arbitrariness. If you don't get this, then please don't post "I Completely agree, with everything you say" because you clearly don't agree. If you agreed, you'd see that what you're doing is unsupported by science. and, again, to this I say, 'so what?'. Show me that this isn't just randomness. Show me that this pattern continues for the next 500 fibonacci numbers, and you might have something. Just seeing it one time is dumb luck. Dumb luck that I showed you in your last thread that can be found over and over and over in the digits of pi. In fact, that pattern '3383' is found at least 8 times in the first 100,000 digits of pi. Demonstrate that it isn't just dumb luck that it happens to be at the 25th digit. On top of that request, if this is really something meaningful, demonstrate it in some other base than just base 10. Do it in hexadecimal (base 16) or sexagesimal (base 60). If this pattern is truly meaningful, it shouldn't just be hidden in a single base that we happened to stumble upon as convention. All the other meaningful mathematics are base independent -- if yours is truly meaningful, then it too should be base independent. Demonstrate this.

My objection to this is the same as before: you still don't have an algorithm. You even say it above, that you are just doing 'trial and error'. My objection is that that is fairly meaningless. Unless you can encode your method into an algorithm and not have to be so 'hands-on' to the the answers -- your results are completely tainted by the fact that you are just moving numbers so that they fit the answer you are looking for. As I asked in your other threads, please post an algorithm that can be programmed into a computer, so that we can recreate your steps without being biased by looking for the 'right' answer. When we have this, if we can indeed replicate many, many digits of the golden ratio or Fibonacci's sequence from pi (I mentioned 500 to 1000 digits are probably enough to actually get people interested), and you'll have have something. I would think that you'd have spent a good amount of time on developing this algorithm. If you truly believed that your method here has merit, why wouldn't you want to formalize the algorithm so that computers can do the work and discover a great deal more than what you think you have so far? Computers can do algorithms much, much faster than humans. Frankly, the fact that you haven't tried to formalize your algorithm tells me that you know that it doesn't work past what you've posted. Feel free to prove me wrong, here, though. Otherwise, it is just numerology and reading what you want to read into the numbers. You certainly haven't shown that your particular reading of them is better than anyone else's. Which is a major reason numerology and numerology-type work is soundly rejected by science. It fails at making predictions and hence it usefulness is extremely limited. Lastly, I don't think that there is necessarily anything so special about 23 pairs of chromosomes. The Sable Antelope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable_Antelope also has 23 pairs of chromosomes. There are animals with many more pairs of chromosomes, and animals with many less.

No it isn't. Superficially, we have SAT/ACT/GRE and other standardized testing scores. We have the marks given in schools. We have trivia contests. All of these measure at least some aspect of intelligence. Not as superficially, there are plenty of 'IQ-like' measures for other aspects of intelligence. There is an EI (a.k.a. EQ) metric for Emotional Intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence There is also a metric called PASS, an acronym for Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive processing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PASS_theory_of_intelligence And so on. This is a somewhat deeply studied question. Just saying it is 'the only one we have' means you just haven't looked.

Correct. I don't feel I owe you that possibility until you demonstrate it to be owed that with some actual evidence. Sorry, but my skepticism is warranted until it is demonstrated otherwise. I'm not just going to accept your idea simply because you have a story. (A story, BTW, that was never presented despite my asking you for a synopsis.) I think you'll find most scientists share this skepticism. This is probably the 'disdain' you mentioned in the first post. The difference is that I think you are taking it personally, when that is not at all what it is meant. I would say the exact same thing to Newton, Einstein, or Hawking -- namely, that I am skeptical of the idea until evidence can be provided. Science is skeptical of all ideas presented without evidence. And really, I think it should be noted, despite all the puffery in the reply there -- no real attempt to actually provide evidence. Providing evidence would actually clear all this up. And really put me in my place. I would welcome that. Prove me wrong. But, until evidence is provided, I'm going to stick to my skepticism of your idea and my skepticism that you are really pursuing it. I think you'll find this is entirely consistent with literally, the 3rd sentence I wrote to you. "What we support more than anything else is the scientific method." Perhaps you should review it. And review that part where hypotheses aren't accepted until you present supporting evidence.

So, then, which is it? That they will be materially identical, or not. It seems to me that this latest post directly conflicts with your previous one. I'd agree that you need to time to properly formulate the idea, since apparently it doesn't even stay consistent over 24 hours & one forum reply... While you're doing that, ponder on this. It doesn't typically mean a lot just to come up with ideas, at least in a scientific setting. You need to come up with ideas AND then provide evidence that supports those ideas. Citing Einstein in the way you did above is a deliberate red herring, because there was plenty of stuff that was proven while he was alive. Citing one example (ironically without a true citation, so I can't even verify it myself) in this way does not let you off this hook. At the very least, in my humble opinion, it smacks of laziness... "I'm just going to toss out an idea and let future generations figure out if it is right or not." If you were truly interested, why wouldn't you be reading papers and NASA reports and so on? There is undoubtedly a great deal of information out there. I'll agree it will take some effort to find it; but learning how to use library and information resources well is a valuable skill to have if you are serious in this pursuit. There are other ways of comparing compositions of objects. What about spectra? What about even just pictures? If they are really the same thing, they ought to look somewhat similar, shouldn't they? I think if you really put some research in, you should be able to find a great deal of info. Yes, that will mean not just using Google, but actually going to a university library and probably asking a librarian for some help. But, if this is really a serious pursuit, this ought to be something you really want to do... I guess what I am most disappointed in is that apparently you didn't even try to find the bodies' masses and volumes to calculate their densities. I mean, what if they were similar within a margin of error? Then you might actually have a nugget of info to back your idea up. But, it's almost like you know that they already won't match, so you come up with some other convenient hand-waving away of that idea. Again, if this is a serious pursuit, and you plan on being academically honest in this pursuit, why wouldn't you actually perform and post the calculations as well as cite where you got the original data from?

Fred, If this is really how you interact with other people, no wonder you're reception elsewhere has been 'disdainful'; and really where is the disdain here? You come in and pretty quickly accuse me and others of not having an open mind. I asked for you a synopsis of your theory because one was not posted. I'm not following strange links -- that's how one gets malware on their computer -- and furthermore the link had been removed due to it breaking the rules. All that said, it is good to see at least one prediction posted So. What efforts have you made to validate this idea? Have you looked up their estimated masses and volumes? If they are the same stuff, they should have the same density, right? Please post these calculations and any references you use to do the calculations.

From this post, I think that you don't quite grasp the difference between a scientific mathematical idea and just a linguistic idea. Let me post an example I've posted many times on this forum before: I walk into your room carrying a box. I set the box down and say "Whew! That box is really heavy." Now, what does that mean. What does it really mean? You have to interpret 'heavy' based upon your own experiences and perspectives. If was muscled like an Olympic weightlifter, you'd interpret my words differently than if I was a spindly wisp of a man. You'd interpret my statement different if I was a woman than a man. Or if were a child rather than an adult. And so on. That word, 'heavy', doesn't have a specific meaning. On the other hand, if I had said "That box takes 50 N of force to lift." There is no perspective or experience to change how that is interpreted. 50 N is 50 N. Not 5 N, not 49 N, not 51 N, not 500 N. This is what the math does. It gives us a clear cut, objective measure. And it furthermore uses that objectivity to evaluate ideas. If idea A predicted that the box would weigh 852.6 N, and idea B predicted that the box would weigh 47.2 N, then idea B is obviously closer. We don't have to try to evaluate the ideas on the author's word choice, or how eloquently they phrased their arguments, or anything like that. We have an objective measure. Idea B is clearly making prediction that are closer to measured reality. Hence, idea B is favored until an idea comes along that makes even better predictions, i.e. idea C predicting 50.3 N. This is what math gives us. Look, words are extremely powerful. We know this because to this day, we still read many of the great works of literature. But, we keep re-reading Shakespeare in no small part because we constantly reevaluate his work and reinterpret his meaning to the modern world. Each of his feels slightly different reading or hearing his words based on our own lives, experiences, and perspectives. And that great! If just isn't the best tool for scientific study. You use the right tool for the right job. If you have to change the tire on your car, and are putting the lug nuts back on, sure, you could use a pair of pliers, but a torque wrench is a much better tool. And sure, you could use that same torque wrench to drive a nail into a stud, but a hammer is a much better tool. In the same way, sure, one can explain a lot of ideas just using words. But there is a better tool. Mathematics leaves no room for interpretation. Again, 50 N is 50 N. No matter if I struggle to lift 50 N or I can lift it with ease. You don't have to rely on a particular perspective of 'heavy', it is just 50 N. So, finally, to conclude here, I want to say that no one is saying "that a purely linguistic theory is useless". Because they aren't. But, words aren't the best tool to perform science. Math gives us a much better tool for objective and clear cut evaluation of ideas. And really, why would someone intentionally hamper themselves by using the wrong tool for the job? Mathematics is the best tool for science. So, yeah, we tend to ask speculators for some math when they post their new idea. Because we are a bunch of professional carpenters being handed a chainsaw and a torque wrench and being asked to frame a house. All we're asking for is a hammer. Give us a hammer so we can do a good job. And when you post a new idea, give use some math so that we can give your idea a fair evaluation.

If you really believe that this is in any way commonplace, then why is Snowden still around? I am 100% positive they didn't want what he leaked to be out. And if the Guardian is to be believed, they have only released like 10% of what Snowden's given them. I'm sorry, but there is a long history of government whistleblowers. Even worse for the OP, it assumes that all the countries in the world involved, all remained chummy enough not to be the one to spill the beans. I think history will show that U.S. - U.S.S.R. relations were certainly strained enough that if Moscow had any kind of proof of some secret mission, it would have came out if only just to sway public opinion much more their way. But really, this is all secondary to my main point. That as presented, it is a pretty fantastic extraordinary story. And to be believed, there needs to be some extraordinary evidence brought forward. Not just innuendo and conjecture. But some actual evidence.

So, you're honestly telling me that your critical thinking abilities are really accepting that a conspiracy -- per your statement above -- would require at least 10s of thousands, and probably 100s of thousands of people to all keep the conspiracy -- not a single one of them have blown it in the 30-50 years since a supposed Apollo 20 mission? I find that hard to believe. Even the things the government wants to keep under wraps, they have a hard time keeping secret. See, for example, Edward Snowden. I find it rather unlikely there wasn't a single person with similar morals to Snowden who would have blown the whistle. In other words, post some hard evidence instead of appealing to a grand conspiracy, and there may be some interest. As you noted, there has been at least one recent thread on this topic. Semjase was offered a chance to provide evidence. None came forward except his personal disbelief that so-called photographs and images and patches from the mission couldn't be faked in any way. Again, personal beliefs aren't evidence. So, I hope time will be better -- provide some objective, clear cut, conclusive evidence, please.

I wonder what percent of our typical speculators even know what a Christoffel symbol is...

LPB, this is incomprehensible. Please write it out in explicit step by step step 1. put the 1st digit <here> step 2. put the 2nd digit <there> step 3. put the 3rd digit <over yonder> and explain in excruciating detail why <here>, <there>, and <over yonder> are what they are. If you a serious about this, you should be working on improving your communication of it. What you wrote above makes no sense. Help us by making it make more sense.

If you repeat the EXACT same steps, and not hunt around for the number you need, if you replicated the first 500 or so, it might start to get interesting. Look, this ought to be easy. You can download just about how ever many millions of digits of pi you want. Your 'pattern finding', if it is anything but just random, should be able to be codified into some rules. Rules that can then be programmed into a computer. And the output of that program should keep spitting out your Fibonacci numbers. Post that program and its output for the first 500 numbers. If it really works, anyone else here can also write that program and duplicate your efforts. But, from watching your video, I don't see how you're going to do this. Because your rules looks haphazard at best. "9 doesn't fit the pattern here, so I just arbitrarily decide that it goes here. (obviously, a little bit of paraphrasing here)" This doesn't work. If this is real, the rules should be clear cut, objective, and not subject to any interpretation. So, post the rules to process the digits of pi, and let's see what it actually does.

LBP, it's just numerology if the pattern can't keep going -- as demonstrated by John above. It's just blind luck as a result of using decimal representation. You wouldn't be so lucky if we used octal, or binary. I mean, my 3rd grade little league baseball record is 'in' pi, too. 14-15. We didn't have a good year. But I don't ascribe any special significance to that other than randomness.

So, any particular reason you just copied this right out of the programming language python? Or just a coincidence?

You can't do this, though. How the heck are you supposed to know what goes into px, py, and pz? what if [math]p(x,y,z) = \sin(x + y + z)[/math]? Or what if [math]p(x,y,z) = \Gamma(2xy) + J_2(\arctan{(x^3y^4z^5)})[/math]? There is no rational way to just split pressure into components, and no physical meaning behind it. There is no such thing as an x component of pressure, any more than there is an x-component of temperature or an x-component of a dollar. You're just making stuff up and hoping it sticks. This is absurd. I thought you agreed to stop this. All you did was conveniently define terms so that your flawed equation would work in one situation. How about just accepting your equation is wrong. And actually learning about fluid mechanics instead of just making crap up.

But your decomposition isn't unique, or even necessary. Why break the sum into 3 parts? Those 3 parts don't mean anything. And most importantly, it still doesn't fix the problem of your formula with the integrals being wrong. Just because something is a function of 3 variables, doesn't mean it has to be broken into 3 variables. Temperature is also a function of x, y, and z in a 3-D problem. But it is like pressure, there isn't any temperature in the x direction that is different than in the y direction, and so on. And there isn't any reason to break its sum into x, y, z parts necessarily.

No... Let's go through the steps in the check I requested. [math]p(x,y,z) = x + y^2 + \exp(z) + xyz[/math] Then [math]\nabla p = (1 + yz)\boldsymbol{\delta_x} + (2y + xz)\boldsymbol{\delta_y} + (\exp(z) + xy)\boldsymbol{\delta_z}[/math] Now, let's do the integrations you listed. [math] p = \int (1 + yz) dx + \int (2y + xz) dy + \int (\exp(z) + xy) dz[/math] this would be [math] p = (x + xyz) + (y^2 + xyz) + (\exp(z) + xyz) = x + y^2 + \exp(z) + 3xyz [/math] (ignoring the constants of integration) not the same as the original function we started with! Your formula can't be right... you should recover the original function if your steps were valid. We didn't, therefore your steps are wrong. Again, you should have done this before you posted it. Checking your own work is a necessary step. It would prevent us from having the opinion that you're just throwing formulas off-the-cuff in the hope that something will stick. Because you'll find your own formulas that don't stick, you won't post them, and have us point out your errors. Look, everyone makes mistakes. All of us do. All of us will continue to make mistakes. But, if you develop the skill of catching your own mistakes, you'll be much, much better. And you won't be reliant on others to catch your mistakes. I consider this part of the mathematics skills that you need to develop. This needs to be addressed, too. Because, as I explained before, pressure is a scalar. It doesn't have components in the x, y, z direction. You can of course break any sum up if you want to, but there is not a pressure in the x direction, in the y direction, in the direction, because the pressure at each point applies pressure equally in all directions at that point. This is more unclear communication that is at odds with what we know how pressure behaves today, that needs to be cleaned up.

I have doubts about this. post the results of the check I listed above, and see for yourself.

Ender, you should be able to test this yourself. Let p = p(x,y,z), some arbitrary function. I.e. let [math]p(x,y,z) = x + y^2 + \exp(z) + xyz[/math] or any other nontrivial function. Now, calculate [math]\nabla p[/math] Then from that calculation, compute the integrals you posted above. If you don't recover your original p(x,y,z), you'll know something is wrong. THIS is the kind of stuff someone who was actually serious about the work would do... check themselves. Not just toss something off-the-cuff and hope that it works. It shouldn't be up to -->us<-- to catch your mistakes. You should be checking yourself before posting it. Also, you need to quit using 'd' when the partial derivative is called for. They are two different symbols, and have two different meanings. This is part of the clear communication that I've also been requesting of you. It would also be nice to denote the vector quantities in some way, such as bolding the symbol or an overarrow. The clearer the communication, the better.