John Cuthber

MD65536, I have a suggestion. Rather than an endless back and to argument over this bit of data and that bit of data, can I ask you to provide your own personal "top 5" pieces of evidence for why you believe that the towers fell as anything other than a consequence of the impact from the planes and the subsequent fires? Just a list of 5 items - preferable with a link to put them in context but I can probably live without one in most cases. Also, can I ask for the rest of the contributors to the forum to hold fire for a few days or so in order to give him a chance to chose his "champions" and for me to offer a rebuttal.

Is there anyone here, apart from Vinko Rajic, who thinks that he shouldn't check into the local hospital and tell them what he believes has been happening so that they can provide him with the help he so clearly needs?

"Would you accept similar reasoning if there was a claim that cold fusion was real, but the experiment was kept secret and then destroyed before it could be analyzed by others (even if there was a video of it working)?" What the **** has that got to do with the issue? Are you claiming that the planes didn't hit the buildings? That's what happened. There's no question that we know what happened. Some people flew aircraft into the buildings. "Do you know of any scientific evidence that contradicts the controlled demolition theory?" As far as I'm aware no significant explosives residues were ever found. (And, I know 'cos it's part of my job, that you can find explosives residues years or decades later if you look, so the fact that they cleared up first and studied later doesn't affect that fact) The scientific conclusion from that is that no explosives were present. The scientific conclusion from that is that explosives were not used to destroy the building.

This "If gravity had an infinite range there would be no order in the universe" is a complete non-sequitur. It has and there is.

"Your first statement, that an object feeling no force will have constant velocity, and that an object feeling a force will change its velocity, now this is absolutely wrong. Because no object anywhere in the universe can have a constant velocity without a force acting upon it" Also wrong. Consider the monitor in front of me. In my frame of reference, it's not moving. It has a constant velocity of zero. Do you realise that you are saying "Newton's laws of motion are wrong, and so is the whole of physics. Simply making the assertion that something is "absolutely wrong" is absurd. It's certainly nothing to do with science. And you have not replied to my previous observation. You should do so.

Sorry, but that answer doesn't cut it. Who gets to decide what's ridiculous? If you can make that decision then you already have enough information about the set-up to know whether it is likely or not and, if you can already make that decision, the "rule" about absence... isn't telling you anything. The guy simply didn't get it right. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but whether it's evidence of absence or not depends on other factors.

"The orbital speed of the Moon being bound to the orbital force of the Earth is because Eaerth's gravitational field encompasses all around Moon's gravitational files, which extends to 52,000 km. while Earth's gravitational field extends to 685,400 km" Just plain wrong. Gravity has an infinite range.

" "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." - Sir Martin Rees " Is it just me who wonders how Sir Martin slept well with that rabid sabre-toothed tiger in his bedroom? I mean, I realise there's no evidence that it was there but, since absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence... Or, possibly, he was talking nonsense that he hadn't thought through. (and, in the words of the great philosopher Britney Spears "Oops! I did it again". I used ridicule to make a point). "we must not try to draw the line [between science and pseudo-science] too sharply. This becomes clear if we remember that most of our scientific theories originate in myths" That's an unevinced assertion and to rely on it is, at best, an example of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_Authority Unless someone can actually cite where Copernicus expressed this opinion "The Copernican system, for example, was inspired by a Neo-Platonic worship of the light of the Sun who had to occupy the ‘centre’ because of his nobility. " Copernicus looked at the numbers and found a system that fitted them. It's possible that he started by looking at the sun because it was big and flashy so it was obvious. It's also possible that he started by seeing how the maths would work for a system centred on the moon, of Venus. But neither of those would work so well. As far as I'm aware, there's no record of how Copernicus came to consider how the data would fit a heliocentric system. "This indicates how myths may develop testable components. " To be precise it indicates that one, and only one, might. "They may, in the course of discussion, become fruitful and important for science" They might, and so might dreams (Kekule's for example), but that doesn't mean we should seek to gain knowledge by eating lots of cheese before bedtime. There is a lot of difference between speculating wildly- which is sometimes a perfectly valid part of science- and pretending that those speculations are science. " In my Logic of Scientific Discovery I gave several examples of myths which have become most important for science, among them atomism and the corpuscular theory of light." Those were not myths in the usual sense of the word. They were speculations and, at the time, they were not amenable to verification or falsification. However, science has moved on. We now know that atoms exist (and the jury is still out on the corpuscular theory of light). "It would hardly contribute to clarity if we were to say that these theories are nonsensical gibberish in one stage of their development, and then suddenly become good sense in another." Which is why science didn't do that. That's a straw-man argument against science or a red herring.

OK, lets clarify something here. The validity of religion and the validity of "intelligent design" are not the same thing One is debatable (but not in this part of the forum). The other is just plain deceitful. Further, religion does not claim to be science, but ID does. I was talking about ridiculing pseudo-science in all it's forms. I note that I'm being accused of bringing religion into the thread. Actually as far as I can tell, no major religion thinks much of ID, but a lot of politicians do. Feel free to complain that I brought politics into the house of physics, but I didn't bring God into it. I still think that ridiculing pseudo-science is a valid way of teaching people that it is nonsense. So rather than telling me that "But there is nothing that proves a creator doesn't exist. Tainting a possible explanation with a biased opinion is illogical." which may be true, but is irrelevant since nobody had said there was (or was not) a Creator you might like to join me back at the topic and answer this. Perhaps someone would like to tell me what they could have made a practical steam engine from 2000 years ago? Without much better metallurgy that was available at the time, the idea was ridiculous.

What evidence? I looked and there's lots of adverts and a few things like some bloke saying "I had a full four-year scholarship to Cooper Union College in Manhattan, a small school with an acceptance rate of about 8% of those who take the application test," Which suggests that maybe he was clever once, but isn't evidence of his current ability. "Dusterwald remembered feeling that something was really odd about the way the WTC skyscrapers fell on September 11, 2001. “It did not fit what I know from my 37 years experience as a licensed structural engineer,” he said." Oh, so a bloke who "feels it's odd" is now evidence is it? No, just kidding. Of course it isn't. And as for "“It did not fit what I know from my 37 years experience as a licensed structural engineer,”" Of course it didn't. In those 37 years nobody deliberately flew two fully laden jets into a couple of skyscrapers. It was not, and could not be part of his experience. As for ". In his past experience, every event involving an aircraft crash or a building failure was investigated carefully with systems put into place developed to protect forensic evidence. “First they would cordon off the whole area, take pictures and carefully mark all material removed from the site, so that the forensic experts could determine how the failure happened,” he recalled. “After 9/11, they were just carting stuff away as fast as they could.”" Yeah well, that could be some weird conspiracy, but did anyone consider that 1 they wanted to get the city moving again and (perhaps more importantly) 2They knew what the failure was. Some bastards had flown aircraft into the buildings. You don't need a forensic investigation of the rubble to tell you that- it was on film. Seriously. If that's the sort of "evidence" that you can supply for the conspiracy then it's time you realised that nobody is ever going to believe you. In this context it is reasonable to examine the OP's contention and the fact is that the science doesn't support the idea of a demolishion (except in the bloody obvious sense that the terrorists wanted to bring the building down; which is demolishing it).

You can go quite a long way towards proving that the earth rotates with a tree, a rock and some string. What would you have made a practical stream engine from 2000 years ago? Unless there's a valid answer to that then you can't say we "lost" it. It is vital for the advancement of science that we ensure that people understand how to tell valid ideas from nonsense. Ridiculing the nonsense is a way to bring attention to the difference in a way that will attract people's attention and therefore encourage them to learn the difference. As an example I cite "intelligent design" as something that pretends to be science, but isn't and the Flying Spaghetti monster (BBHNA) as a way to ridicule it while exposing it's fraudulent nature.

"First of all, gravitation as a whole is composed of two forces; 1. Orbital force (Fo) 2. Centripetal force (Fc)" News to me. Unless there's some evidence I have missed, this should be in "speculations".

There are lots, room temperature, mains voltage...

Unless one wasn't. One might spot the joke and play along with it.

Actually, "If you don't round it off then there might be a significant energy loss there." is the right answer.

If you round off the "corner" at the bottom where the rams meet then F is 3 metres and C is 3/tan (42) I think i.e. about 3.33 m. If you don't round it off then there might be a significant energy loss there. Why do you want to know?

We are still waiting for the "science" from the last thread like this. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/17133-is-this-thermite/page__st__40

Perhaps it's helpful to make the comparison with a unary function. Sin(x) only needs one operand: so do x^2 or 1/x. They are unary. On the other hand, addition (for example) needs two numbers. Another rather convoluted difference is that you don't (generally) need to push the "=" button on your calculator to calculate a unary function, but you do with binary functions.

I think the tooth fairy is made of the same stuff.

Can I just glue a steel washer to the back of it please? Seriously, do you have a magnet that would provide any significant force at that distance- say a couple of inches or more if the door is double glazed? I just love the idea of the sales pitch. "Hi, for a slightly higher price you can have the version that goes rusty." "Sounds good to me, but wait a minute: won't that leave it vulnerable to a man with a huge magnet?" "Damn!"

You must have really sophisticated thieves. Ours would just break the door.

Assuming that's right it rules out steel and a few other materials (really few, about 4 elements of which 2 are seriously impractical). So why isn't it glass or plastic or wood or ceramic or...? Incidentally, I strongly suspect the spring in it is steel.

"Okay, another clue: the makers of these handles also make them of bronze." Actually, I rather doubt that. I suspect they are bronze coloured. Bronze is rather expensive. However, I note that they all seem to be made from non magnetic, but electrically conductive metals. If it were not for the apparent "hinge pin", I'd wonder if they sensed touch electrically rather than mechanically.

Because it's cheap.

"According to the True principles of Nature, the entire universe is created by two forces" The Jatravartid people, however, believe that the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief" . The theory of the Great Green Arkleseizure is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI.