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Everything posted by swansont
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Some early radio telescopes were built by amateurs, though they were very dedicated amateurs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_Reber (an astronomer friend at work made me aware of Grote Reber, and several of us agreed that the reber should be the unit of effort put into any hobby. Most of us would register millirebers)
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The physical cause of sound when bonds and materials fracture
swansont replied to Kapnal Loga's topic in Classical Physics
I wonder how much of that is from the limits of human hearing. They might be very different above ~20 kHz, but we’d never know just by listening. -
Only if it leads one to a more refined model, which can then be tested, and given the time constant for civil wars that seems like it’s not going bear much fruit.
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Making a prediction doesn’t make it science. There’s the joke about economists predicting nine of the last four recessions. Science requires more. Does she say when the next US civil war will start?
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He’s a know-it-all, and some would extend that to insufferable know-it-all. Some fraction of the population gets annoyed at nit-picking, and some fraction enjoys diving into minutiae. There will always be conflicts of this sort with public figures. (I mean, some people didn’t like Mister Rogers)
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! Moderator Note Speculation about accident or assassination is premature. Let’s stick to facts as they are revealed.
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How about posting stuff that has context and explanation, that’s on-topic? That might help. I mean, what does “It's the people who pay for protection, that inspires a war...” mean? Who are the people to which you refer? How are they paying for protection? How does this “inspire war”? How is any of this relevant?
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It’s irrelevant, really - that some people would observe battles for entertainment is not one of the causes of the war. I’m not sure if one can make an argument that it’s a sign of living in or not living in a democracy, but nobody has made that argument, one way or another. Since that’s the topic of the OP, why bring it up?
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The simplest cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe
swansont replied to Max70's topic in Speculations
! Moderator Note This thread has been a good example of why we insist on quantifying things in physics. Hand-waving doesn’t remove the danger that you’re fooling yourself, but numbers don’t lie. If you don’t have a testable model, it’s just a WAG. We’re done here. Don’t re-introduce the topic. -
Why do certain social situations seem embarrassing?
swansont replied to Scientific_potato's topic in General Philosophy
Somebody has to dance on stage at Chippendales. Some folks just don’t feel embarrassed, or don’t care, in certain situations. When I was young, I wasn’t convinced that embarrassment wasn’t fatal. As I got older I got more comfortable with myself, and cared a lot less - I could laugh at myself if I did something stupid or klutzy, or had a joke played on me, instead of shrinking away if others got a chuckle out of it. I recall an interview Robin Williams gave in which he described the gland that caused inhibitions/embarrassment being burned out in him, and others who could act outrageously on stage. -
Strange? In that it didn’t fit your preconceptions? It’s why we try and deal in facts, and want sources of information, rather than assertions about what one “feels” is the case.
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That was your lead sentence. You had not posted prior to that post. What followed was “as for the rest of your question” So no, there was no context that’s missing. So…today? Condolences. Why should celebrities have more rights and power than the average person. Surely that’s more like an oligarchy than a democracy. Evidence that this is the case? the US is currently pumping more oil than ever, and we have a dem president. “United States produces more crude oil than any country, ever” https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 Production rose dramatically between 2009-2016, when a dem was president, after having dropped under the previous repub president https://www.macrotrends.net/2562/us-crude-oil-production-historical-chart But that opens us up to the tyranny of the majority. Why should people far away have a say in something that might pollute your back yard?
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“For a start, the battles were considered a fine days entertainment, that seems to answer most of this” (emphasis added)
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The US Civil War happened for entertainment? WTAF?
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Is that actually workable? How many decisions are made in government every day? I used to work for the government - would my decision to buy some widget have to go through a referendum? What good is a system that’s unattainable? So democracy wasn’t possible until the last couple of decades? Does everyone have internet, and if they do, do they all have the ability to do this?
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! Moderator Note iNow makes a valid point; this is a discussion board
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It would be your government. You could set it up any way you want. There are governments that own businesses. Sometimes they’ve always owned it, sometimes they seize privately-owned industries; the latter is called nationalization
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If memory serves there was someone who had an artificial island (WWII radar station, or something like that) in international waters who declared themselves to be a sovereign nation. <pause> found it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand One of the issues this points out is that other countries can just ignore your sovereignty claims.
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The simplest cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe
swansont replied to Max70's topic in Speculations
Feynman. But the context, and the whole message, matters a great deal. He immediately discusses comparing the guess with experiment to test it. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. If all you have is a guess, it’s not science. https://fs.blog/mental-model-scientific-method/ -
That would be funny - thinking you’re hearing a rare bird only it’s a recording played back by someone else.
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The simplest cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe
swansont replied to Max70's topic in Speculations
But “most likely” isn’t the issue - your idea requires that we don’t observe most of those supernovae. Expansion happens in all directions. The idea has to apply to all of the observations. Cherry picking a scenario isn’t science. -
The simplest cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe
swansont replied to Max70's topic in Speculations
An assertion is not an explanation. Or evidence. edit: something one could do is look at a lost of supernovae and sort out the 1a events, and see if they are distributed through all angles. And you know what? They are! http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/lists/Supernovae.html So the assertion that we wouldn't see ones at certain locations is bogus. ! Moderator Note If you want to argue against the big bang - or any mainstream science - you need to present evidence, in its own thread. In any speculations thread, you can either cite evidence, or mainstream science. Not other pet theories.