Bignose

Starting with a Cartesian coordinate system, a particle moves from the point (0,0,0) to the point (1,1,1). It does so in 1 second. The distance is given by [math]\sqrt{(1-0)^2+(1-0)^2+(1-0)^2}=\sqrt{3}[/math]. This is distance, time, and speed in 3 dimensions. Show me where the flaw is. While you are at it, you may want to expound a little as to why this 'flawed' (your descriptor) method has been so supremely successful at erecting buildings & bridges, setting up a system of GPS satellites that work pretty darn well, and successfully launching probes around the solar system and beyond.

Ok. A few more formulas with no derivations and no specific predictions made. And some more words used vaguely. I give up, I am no longer interested. Without specific predictions, this isn't science; it is story telling. I tried to direct you toward a path that maybe some of the science would come out, but all I see is a reluctance to post it, or an implicit confirmation that you don't have any actual science.

I think I clarified several times. I used the word 'specific' many, many times. Look. You can write "interact" as in your sentence "Neutrinos and photons interact with each other". But that doesn't mean bupkus. I also "interact" with my father-in-law. Without any other context or information there, is my relationship with the FIL good or bad? Without detailed information, the word interact is very vague. That's why I tried to lead with questions like "Interact in what way? With what energy? What is the result of the interaction? How strong of an interaction is it?" Can you answer these questions? I noticed you (deliberately?) didn't include them in the quote in the reply... Lastly, I still don't see a single prediction. Let me give you can example. "When a neutrino and a photon interact (when you clearly define what is meant by that word), 745.3 J of energy is given off." Note the specific prediction there. Then you cite an experimental result and see how well it agrees with this prediction. E.g. "the measured interaction was 750 +- 25 J." Now, in this example, I just plucked that number out of the air. But, part of your responsibility is to show every step from the beginning of your model as to how you calculate that prediction. Can you provide something like this?

No, it is arbitrary. The nice thing is that you can define mathematically how closely it fits normality based exactly on number of trials. But, this is just one of many 'rules of thumb' that tend to be easy guidelines to remember. Pretty much all science and mathematics have them. They are meant to be easy to remember so that when trying to estimate or 'back of the envelope' calculate something, you don't have to go to the exact formula. If the answer you need is okay with a large margin of error -- a rule of thumb can make the calculation a lot easier, or maybe even unnecessary. Let's give an example. Say you had an unfair coin, that you knew it was weighted 75% to come up on one side. But you didn't know which side was the weighted side (that is, which side it would come up with 75% of the time). About how may flips would it take to be pretty sure of which side is the weighted one? In this case, 30 is a pretty good answer. It would be pretty unlikely, with a 75% weighted coin to come up with a 15 H and 15 T distribution. Not impossible (you can do the calculation if you want) but pretty unlikely. Now, doing 31 flips would improve the confidence in your final answer a little more, and 29 flips a little less. But 30 is a nice, 'round', easy-to-remember number. Now, let's change the question a little bit: Say you knew a coin was weighted unfairly so that heads was more likely. How many flips would it take to estimate with 95% confidence, what the probability of heads is? This is a much more difficult question. And the answer actually depends on how unfair the coin really is. It will take a lot more flips to be 95% confident that the coin will come up with heads 99% of the time rather than 60% of the time. Simply because again if you take 30 flips, if the coin is 60% unfair then 30 flips will yield something like 15 to 18 H and 15 to 12 T. But 99% unfair coin will most likely be 30 H and 0 T. But, so will a 98% coin. So, you actually have to do a lot more flips to distinguish exactly how unfair a coin is when it is very unfair. In this case, just using the rule of thumb may not get you a good answer. In short, you have to learn when a rule of thumb will work and when it won't. None of them are hard and fast laws -- they are just trying to make easy-to-remember situations to eliminate some calculations. If there is every any doubt, you shouldn't use a rule of thumb. And, I would never consider a rule-of-thumb a conclusive answer. If I needed to use a rule of thumb because someone needed a 'good guess' type answer quickly, I would always go back and do the full math later. Too often people have used rules of thumb as a final answer when the shortcuts behind the rule of thumb were never really valid in the first place.

I don't see how the units are compatible here. What is the distance of 7 years plus 14 knots?

This is the danger in re-defining terms that are already in common use. The above is NOT related to the way physics calls "fundamental" particles. When you do stuff like this, it does nothing but confuse people. I have yet to see a prediction based upon your idea as presented here. That qualifies as none at all in my book. Another poor word choice, using the word 'explanations'. To me, that implies at least confirmation of agreement between measurement and experiment. To me, that agreement is a necessary condition to declare explanation, though it is not sufficient. E.g., mankind was able to accurately predict eclipses without really having the explanation why. Without specific predictions, how can we judge how good of a model you have here? You can write a story and call it an 'explanation', but how does anyone know if it is right or wrong? The way we do this in the modern era is that the model has to make specific, unambiguous, objective, clear predictions. And then measurements are taken which demonstrate the accuracy of that prediction. Look back at my post #8 in this thread. You talk about interactions between photons and neutrinos. Then I asked you very specific questions about that interaction. These require very specific predictions that should be based on your model. Please post these predictions AND how you arrived at those predictions. That will go a very long way to gaining support for your model.

I wrote with this does not answer my question (again, all the way back to post #4) about how your idea can lead to results such as those reported by Briedenbach 1969. Nor any of the work that has come after it. I figured we'd start from day 1, which is that you need to demonstrate using your idea that when you bombard a proton with electrons, you get scattering that acts like there are 3 point-like bodies inside the proton. From there, you can demonstrate how your idea replicates all the successful results of quantum chromodynamics, which has made many successful predictions with very good accuracy with measurements. You don't get to just declare that quarks don't exist without explaining how every single experiment where there is ample evidence that they do exist has been done/interpreted/conducted wrong. The data those experiments created doesn't just disappear. The data are fact, and are measurements that you need to demonstrate your model can make predictions that agree with the measurements. Because we have such a model now. QCD. Why would we reject QCD -- with its many successful predictions -- in favor of a model that hasn't demonstrated any predictions at all? ----------------- Also, the thinly veiled insults about my being a bot are unnecessary. I haven't insulted you in this thread, there is no need to insult me. Please drop them.

I didn't realize this was my speculations post that I started. ... Oh that's right, it isn't. I'm not making any claims here, you are. All I am doing is asking you to compare your idea to the current mainstream idea and show me how your idea makes better predictions than what we have at the moment. If you can't even handle a few questions from an anonymous person over the Internet, how will you ever handle a real scrutiny of your idea? I am asking questions to try to get you to think about the answers to them -- and if you can provide solid answers to them, it can only strengthen your idea. Please quit taking my asking questions as a personal attack. And ultimately, if there aren't predictions based on your idea compared to measurements, then all this is rather uninteresting to me. ... Lastly, please don't lecture me about not backing up claims. You really haven't answered a single one of my questions all the way to the 4th post in this thread. Again, you are the one making the claim here, the onus is on you to back it up.

Wow, did you completely miss my point. My point is that you are using words that have meaning. E.g. "more probable". This implies a lot of things such as: a Bayesian analysis that shows your model makes predictions that are more accurate or covers a wider range of results than what we have today. So far, I haven't seen a single prediction posted, and I see assertions about particles that are contradictory to known verified results. Unless this can be provided, really how can you use a phrase like "more probable"? What kind of hubris is it that you just get to decide what story is the best? This isn't the dark ages anymore. In science as it is practiced today, agreement with prediction is the only metric that matters. It matters not a whit how much one likes or dislikes a particular idea. If one idea makes more accurate predictions than another, than the first idea is preferred. So, unless you can show how your idea makes better predictions that agree with known results, I just don't understand how you can make any claim of "more probable". Anyone can claim this. I can claim that the best explanation is invisible fairies that hold it all together. But unless you demonstrate that it is "the best" via prediction and comparing the accuracy of that prediction to measurement, it might as well be fairies.

So your theory has the gravity force based upon the distance from a star? Seems like our current theory is much simpler.

Sooooooooo, without any kind of quantification of "more probable", you have decided that it is more probable simply because you like your idea better? Dark matter isn't just "to cover anomalies from the Big Bang Theory". It is also is evidenced by the fact that without additional matter, our current understanding of gravity isn't sufficient to keep galaxies together. This effect is pronounced enough, that we can actually create maps of the density of dark matter. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=biggest-map-yet-of-universes The quote from the article says it best "We know very little about the dark universe." Lastly, your argument is strengthened by avoiding the use of logical fallacies. Ergo, your citation of Einstein here doesn't really have anything to do with providing evidence that particles interact in the way you are proposing. Despite your assertion, a great deal of the properties of the particles you are naming are well known. You need to explain the known properties and how they jive with your idea.

Considering that the sun is a huge source of neutrinos in our solar system, that is a large number of neutrinos travel directly away from the sun, and yet the Earth is gravitationally attracted to the sun, 1/ fails fairly miserably.

So, you've done some sort of Bayesian analysis to show how the evidence statistically fits your model better than any of the other proposed models? Would you share it? Otherwise, how can you claim, "more probable"? Seriously, these words you are using imply a lot of work done behind the scenes; you either need to fess up, admit you haven't done, and choose less definitive words, or you need to show the work that backs up your definitive word choice. "More probable" is a quantifiable claim -- let's see the quantification that backs it up, please.

Really, you should find a nearby university with a respectable mathematics department and have one of their professors turn it into 'proper' math and then publish the paper co-authored.

the above is from the 9th page. I can see the author's passion for the subject, but the above is not really a fix. I'm sorry, but the kids ain't exactly clamoring over each other and stampeding into history class. I am still convinced that the solution is to couch mathematics in the framework of problem solving: that mathematics provides well defined tools and problems and wholly right or wrong solutions to their problems. And in practicing problem solving under these ideal conditions, the problem solving skills will be reasonably sharpened when life throws real problems at you -- where tools are imperfect, where problems aren't perfectly stated, and where many solutions may be right, or no solutions exist. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I also wanted to add: mathematics isn't like art or music in some very basic ways. There is plenty of imagination, but if a student can't do the addition tables or multiplication tables, there isn't very far a student can get. And a lot of the 'symbol pushing' is just to get nomeclature down. A lot of people can weave a good tale, but if someone wants to write it down, they need to learn proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. That is what a lot of mathematics 'symbol pushing' is -- learning the grammar of the language. Maybe the author's same point can be made about English grammar as well, but I think he'd have a much harder time convincing schools to drop their grammar and spelling programs than dropping a lot of the current mathematics teaching.

You say this. But, this isn't science. This is story telling. Interact in what way? With what energy? What is the result of the interaction? How strong of an interaction is it? And then, the sun is both a source of neutrinos and photons -- your proposed interaction should be happening quite a lot. Show us how your interaction can be measured and results in the known measurements of the sun. Also, you really didn't even answer my question about evidence. You just wrote some words. If by 'hard work' you mean, gathering evidence to support you hypothesis, I 100% agree. When can we expect you to post that?

This forum has rules in the Speculations subforum. Such as, it is not enough to just speculate, but the onus is on the poster to provide evidence of their claims. To be "equally viable", you need evidence. The current mainstream has an awful lot of supporting evidence. Look, the current mainstream is most likely wrong -- it is at the very least incomplete. But, it is what we have today. And we have a wealth of experiments with verified results. You are free to deny quarks in your idea -- but you cannot just deny the experiment that shows three point-like bodies inside a proton. Therefore, your idea has to demonstrate exactly why the result of that experiment gave the result it did. And then you need to do that for every other experimental result that also backs up the existence of quarks. Because those experiments are done, confirmed, and accepted. If you don't have this, then don't claim anything near "equally viable". Because you just don't have that. To be anywhere near equal, you need to provide a lot of evidence.

sqrt(A)*sqrt(B)*(1-C)*(1-D) may be more to your liking.

Pymander, maybe it is fairer to say that ACG52's replies are based on the current mainstream. All of which have a wealth of evidence & successful predictions behind them -- precisely why they have become mainstream. If you wish to argue against the mainstream, that is fine. But, you need to provide a few things: 1) a viable alternative that you show is well supported by evidence, and 2) how your alternative encompasses the known results. To wit, you can declare that there are no such things as quarks -- but, starting with the results published by Briedenbach all the way back in 1969, "three point-like bodies" were discovered via electron scattering bombardment of protons. These bodies became known as quarks, and the equations based on quarks have proven extremely successful at prediction agreeing with experimental results. If you want to declare the proton to be 'fundamental' then: how does your idea explain the vast quantities of experimental evidence for quarks? (literally thousands of papers published to date) And so on with most every claim above. The only one I have a comment on is that the electromagnetic and the weak force have a known unification: a.k.a. electroweak interation. Most everything else, however, you need to address per my post above, if you wish to claim them.

The foil to this is: you also have the freedom to visit most any website on the Internet you want, and the freedom to set up most any website you want. Do you also think that CNN.com should post articles from you as headliners? Do you also think microsoft.com should post articles ridiculing their software? How about forcing NYYankees.com to praise the merits of the Boston Red Sox players? If you said 'no' to the above (and I think most reasonable people would say 'no'), why should scienceforums.net be any different? The owner of the site can do with it what he wants. Period. End of story. If he wanted to delete every single post, he can! It is his site. If he wanted the mods to ban anyone who makes a post using the letter 'e', he can! It is his site. If he wants to take each an every one of your posts and turn them into baby talk, he can! It is his site. If you fear these possibilities, and your quote above is just one line of many that indicate you do, then you best start your own website and run it how you want to. If the government comes in, and starts deleting posts & turning off sites, then you have a point. But the government doesn't do this at scienceforums.net. The owner has his freedom of speech protected -- he can use his domain, his server, his software to publish whatever he wants. At this time, the owner lets complete strangers post things on his website. He asks the mods to enforce rules -- again rules EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US agreed to follow in order to ask permission to post things on this website. The mods are human, and certainly imperfect, but they enforce the rules as best they can. This could change at any time the owner wants to, however. I hate to keep harping on this, but if you don't care for how the rules are enforced, start your own site and enforce whatever rules you want however you want to. It really is that simple. Otherwise, the price to pay to use this forum and its resources completely 100% free to you, is to accept the rules and the way they are enforced. In other words, this forum does not fall under the auspices of freedom of speech, and it never has. The speech allowed on this forum is 100% determined by the site owner and those he gives the power to do that determining. You are asking for something that has never ever existed. Again, freedom of speech is the right to say and print a great deal of whatever you want. But, it does not allow you to force any other entity to publish or reproduce your sayings and writings for you. It never, ever has. Now, if the government does start coming into scienceforums.net and remove or change posts against the wishes of the site owner -- then you've got something to talk about here. My understanding is that the Chinese government does this: http://www.npr.org/2012/08/08/158448847/chinas-internet-police-targets-collective-action But I don't know of any of this going on in the U.S. (I cannot speak for the U.K. or other countries.) But otherwise, I really think that you're confusing the issue of censorship at a government level with ownership and moderation of private resources that are available for public viewing. Freedom of speech says that the owner(s) of scienceforums.net can publish darn near whatever they want -- it DOES NOT mean that ANYONE has to be able to publishing anything THEY want on that site. The owner of the site gets to wholly and completely determine what he wants to publish on that site. Edited for spelling

It really is surprising how many people confuse "freedom of speech" with "I demand that you publish what I want." Look. Freedom of speech means that you do indeed have the right to write or say what you want. But you do not have the right to force Bignose's publishing press to print it for you. Nor do you have the right to force a privately owned forum -- a form of publishing -- to publish your words. Go get your own forum/server/website and run it how you want and publish however you want. You agreed to follow rules when you petitioned to become a member here. And you agreed to follow the enforcement of those rules as chosen by the mods. I really believe that they must be doing something right, because the forum has a pretty good active user list. Quite simply, if they were doing things so wrong, people would not bother visiting and posting here.

Science has been supremely successful with the dimension of time and the dimensions of distance being independent and orthogonal. For example, the equation that describes how concentration profiles change over time and space: [math]\frac{\partial c}{\partial t}= D \frac{\partial ^2 c}{\partial x^2}[/math] has been proved incredibly accurate time and time again. How exactly do you plan on replacing time with distance in this? Or, maybe start simpler: How many angstroms is it going to take me to wash the cat when it normally takes over an hour (he really doesn't like bath time)?

Look, It's okay to say "I don't know" to questions being asked. But again, the coyness & showmanship I was reading into the replies was becoming irritating. Probably just as irritating as my apparent crises of the century. Lesson learned for both of us, tone is very difficult to convey in this medium. Now, that said, you really made it seem like 10^-25 seconds had a substantive reason why you chose it. Again, phrases like "minimum amount of time that it takes an interaction to happen" sure seem like they should be backed up by evidence. And you never explained why the calculation of base 2 log of 10^41 is important. These are statements you made, and I want to know what led you to think they were right. There must have been something you read or derived or thought of or considered to find those numbers. Again, "I don't know" is a fine answer, or "I need time" is a fine answer. But, as a courtesy, you should tell us when you expect to be able to post an answer. I have several questions I asked above that I would like to know answers to, so please post when you think you'll be able to get to them.

don't really know what you mean by 'notation limitations'. If you mean posting math symbols that look like math, use this forum's LaTeX capabilities: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/3751-quick-latex-tutorial/ Also, I am not 'acting like it is the crisis of the Century' -- I am asking questions and providing feedback. This is the scientific process. You present your idea, and then others look it over and critique it. If you can't handle being asked some questions in an informal Internet forum, you certainly aren't ready to try to publish in a journal or present at a conference. Also in the scientific process, we cite things so that the reviewers can look at the cited sources, and read them for ourselves. So, you make the claim that the basic unit of time is 10^-25 seconds, making claims about how that is the shortest duration of an interactions. Some of us disagree, and want to know how you drew that conclusion. Is this really too much to ask? Again, people critique others' ideas. At this moment, I disagree with that assertion. But, if you provide evidence for it, I can be swayed. I am certainly not just going to take your word for it, any more than you'd take my word that I have a pet unicorn I keep in my garage. You'd demand evidence of that, rightly so, as I am asking for evidence of your claims. It really isn't personal; it's just reviewing others' work based on the principles of modern science.

quite a bold claim considering the lack of prediction & corresponding agreement. Perhaps you meant 'tradition' as in back when the church declared things like what the moon was made off. Because science has moved past that. We've moved into a time when you cannot just make claims and have any expectation of correctness or even interest unless you also provide a corresponding preponderance of evidence. It really, really is that simple, newts. Provide meaningful evidence and get interest. I assume you can actually provide evidence of this happening? Otherwise one might consider it slanderous and libelous.