mooeypoo

.... what is your point in posting here? Judging from your lack of interest to actually DEBATE and your quite obvious cockiness and condescending posts, you might be better off posting in other forums rather than this one. Unless your intention to change science is true, in which case you need to drop the attitude and start a scientific debate, with all that such a debate entails - proof, logic and substantiation. Ready for it?

You know, instead of writing a script that demeans "skeptics" (I assume you mean anyone who disagrees with the given opinion of 'me'), you might do whatever theory you have a lot more justice if you describe it with a bit less cockiness and a bit more science. You *did* come to *us* (the "skeptics"). Do you really think you'll get anywhere by demeaning our scientific attitude before you even started with your theory? ~moo

Thanks John, it was an AMAZING experiment to do we actually had to do it very quickly, because Richard was running from interview to interview and we didn't want to miss Phil Plait's lecture (it was GREEEEAAAT! btw), which was right after we finished the experiment. BTW -- I found out who it was who thought of this experiment from the forums: Edtharan, you rule. Thanks a lot for a great idea that turned out to be a fun experiment! You also got a bit of thank you note on the blog post ~moo

Wow! I won twwwwoooooooo Somehow, that makes losing one to YDOAPs bearable... jk jk congrats everyone!

If you’ve been following my skeptical adventures, you know I have attended the Amazing Meeting 6 (organized by the James Randi Educational Foundation) about a month ago in Las Vegas. Not only have I had a blast and met lots of wonderful people, but I also had the privilege of doing a LIVE experiment with none other than Australian Skeptic’s Richard Saunders. (Read more and watch the video...) Do you have anything to say? Wish to discuss the experiment? Ask questions or criticize the method? Post and debate here! Please don't forget you need to register to be able to post. (Note:) This idea came from THIS forum. I want to give the person who originally suggested it some credit, but I (sorry!!!!!) don't remember who it was. I couldn't find the post where this point was made and so I can't remember who it was. If whoever that was (the brilliant suggester) can step forward either here, or in private message, he will recieve due credit in the website for his awesome idea. Help me out, I can't find it.. Thank you!

*cough*nomination counts as a vote*coughs* You deserve it, iNow

/me is too. I demand an independent committee to check this result.

There is another point about radical thinkers and pseudoscience -- the mere DEBATE about it and the practice of spotting logical fallacies and arguments for and against it is good for *us* too, since it's a very good 'training' at logical thinking and at debating. So we shouldn't just erase/throw out things quickly -- but we should find a way where the balance between good debates and troll preaches is kept. I think overall we are in a good place. There's always room for improvement. ~moo

That's a good point, I didn't think about that.. But to change the percentage you need relatively large changes in the speed between the air and the chocolate -- the wave, after all, traveled about an inch in chocolate, probably even less --- does that really make that much difference in terms of the speed?

Haha Good point

Oh, I thought of something that might be a problem -- an eggwhite (probably better than using the entire egg) isn't that "stable" -- can I be sure it's not moving around in the plate inside the microwave OR when I take it out, as gently as I can? If it starts moving, even a bit, then the chocolate becomes more accurate. Plus, I didn't use a single chocolate bar partly for this reason of the chocolate turning 'fluid' when hot -- with separate parts of chocolate, I can see a bit clearer which were melted and which weren't. Far from accurate, but it worked quite well. Don't forget, I got about 6% error... that's pretty damn good. Would an egg supply better results?

ooh! sounds like an excellent idea for an attempt for a remake I'll write it down for the corrections/remake episode thanks guys!

I think the main problem is less related to the contents and more related to the attitude of the poster. If someone posts utter nonsense, but is willing to truly discuss and try to understand, then even if it does take a long time, it's worth doing. However, if someone posts a postulation (even if it MIGHT have some merit at some point with modifications) but acts as if he's allknowing, condescending and does not wnt to participate in a debate but rather looks to convince us that physics is wrong, then no matter what he says it should probably be warned. I don't think we should censor, we should just pay attention and set a "limit" to how long we care to entertain those who don't care to listen.

hehe good point (but there aren't unicorns in the "old" testament, as far as I know, it's just a myth) Still...

A few good points to get from the story: Noah was not a saint. At all. Genesis 6:6-9 And the LORD said: 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.' But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. {P} These are the generations of Noah. Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted; Noah walked with God. And Genesis 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah: 'Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation. Notice: God (and the biblical author) states Noah was a righteous "In his generation" -- there's a point to why that "in his generation" is connected, always, to the mentioning of Noah as a righteous man. He was far from being a good man. He also didn't speak to God, only listened, which is a relatively unique thing for a 'messenger' of God (usually they have quite lengthy conversations). He found grace in God's eyes - he was not a saint. That, usually, is a good point to mention. Unrelated, but interesting fact: God commands Noah to take SEVEN pairs of the holy beasts and the birds, and only pairs (two of each) of the unholy beasts into the ark. (Gen 7:2-3). Asking a simple "why don't we have more birds than arcanoids and shellfish" (both 'unholy') might settle this entire mathematicall-idiocy right on its face. But anyways. This, too is amusingly interesting: Genesis 7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. I am not sure, but I *think* the mountains are a BIT higher than fifteen cubits would cover. Just a thought. Of course, I am sure you guys know this one: Genesis 8:11 And the dove came in to him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. So, what they're saying, really, is that God erased all life on earth -- EVERYTHING -- but it took 10 months to have the mountaintops appear (Gen 8:5) and 47 days later (Gen 8:6-10) there was already a fully grown (or at least "leafy") olive tree. Mmhm. Just as another point here, the dove "came out of the ark" twice - once it didn't find a place to put its "foot" on (hence, still water was all over.. uhh? after the mountaintops showed? weird dove) but a week later came back with an olive branch. Interesting how trees grew so fast, eh? It took one month after that (approximately, by the account) to have the entire of earth dried off. (Gen 8:13-14) Right after exiting the ark, Noah sacrificed a few animals to God. Whoops. Genesis 8:20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. Considering the fact God doesn't accept the unholy animals (seven of each were supposed to be taken) and that there were supposed to be only two of each holy animal, I would say that was quite ruining the point of saving them in the first place (extinction by godly-sacrifice, anyone?). Wouldn't you? Some creationists claim that natural disasters are God's punishments, just like the flood (like the tsunami a few years ago). But that would stand in DIRECT violation to God's own words in Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled the sweet savour; and the LORD said in His heart: 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. And Genesis 9:11 And I will establish My covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.' Chapter 10 of Genesis is an account of Noah's children and the nations they supposedly created. Chapter 11 starts with the Tower of Babel, which is - supposedly - what caused God to start the whole flood business in the first place. It then jumps to the continuation of Noah's children's children. One of Noah's children had children who had children, etc (about 8 generations I believe, but you can recount if you wish). The last of which was Lot. It is the same Lot that later will run out of Soddom and Gamorah, that not only is another city (three generations ONLY after the 'new beginning' of the world), but they also managed to develop SUCH a bad case of amnesia, that they were evil, crooked, and horrible. So much so, that God ruined them. Short memory and a tad of bad math, right there. Abraham was the same generation as Lot (about 8 generations after the flood). The account of his life states many feuds and wars with neighboring nations, including the Egyptians. So you don't have to go as far as our current days to do your "is it plausible" math. According to the bible, it took only 8 generations to have many many different nations - all with different languages and different customs. Most of them completely forgetting the fact they're family and hating one another. There, that's from what I can remember from my bible studies. There's probably more, but I'll have to do a bit more research for the "heavier" points. Unlike creationists, btw, Jewish Rabbis are debating the Ark story quite a lot. The interpretations vary and appear to have been debated for centuries (some of them exist in some of the 'other' books in Judaism other than the bible). Here is a nice discussion about them: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=218&letter=F . That should, though, give you some points to your discussion about the Ark story, more than the usual (very good and valid) scientific points about the implausibility of having all species of all animals on such small boat (the measurements are stated literally, no hassle there), and all the other commonly used ones. Enjoy ~moo

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean this as a negation of Einstein's work, on the contrary, I wanted to show that hypotheses and thought experiments can lead to great discoveries. HOWEVER -- they must be treated as thought experiments (and not facts) and they must be at least BASED on logic and science to lead to a valid conclusion, or at least raise ideas as to what to test/check in order to FIND something. Obviously, the claim to BE einstein (or equate oneself with Einstein. Or equate one's situation with Einstein) usually is meant to claim more validity that should be given. But I was refering to the point about thought experiments, not about claiming to be Einstein. I see your point, definitely. ~moo

That's ridiculous. If you were to travel at the speed of light, you would violate Maxwell's equations. Well, didn't Einstein do that thought experiment when he figured-out/explained relativity?

roflmao Freudian slip? I can't stand the company.. would you have ever guessed?

That's because the "sum" of forces applied *is* zero. Otherwise, they'd be moving. Well, there's the tangential speed (so force towards the center of the 'circle') but .. meh.. how DO we defined "weight"? The forces, (like "Sum of all F") or the "subjective feeling" ? ~moo

Yeah the hosting company had their servers malfunctioning. No worries, though -- all is bad to normal again!

... Thankyou.

The world that we are in, in which the laws of physics apply.

That's a good point, I didn't think abou tit. But here's a question: Orbit can be achieved at relatively high distance above the earth. Since the earth is round and not flat, won't this make the "horizontal" speed non-horizontal (but rather centripetal)?

Wait, an imaginary world isn't "virtual"? Since the OP suggested correlation between physics and psychology, that was the first thing that I thought of - a "psychological" virtual world. That's not possible?