Cap'n Refsmmat

What do you mean by "an escape of entropy"? Entropy isn't some kind of material which can leak.

Right, I've had enough of this. In the future, please make an effort to explain your ideas clearly, and please don't assume that anything that has numbers in it is Mathematics.

https://www.xkcd.com/687/

The folks behind reddit have an excellent description of the provisions of both laws under consideration (SOPA and PROTECT IP) here: http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html I plan to send along another letter to my senators about PROTECT IP, although that's contingent on my spare time.

We have a button which instantly bans a spammer and removes all their posts, but unfortunately computer manufacturers have neglected to put 50,000 Volt power supplies in laptops so I can zap spammers directly.

This rests upon the assumption that to "know" its shape means to have knowledge of the One True Shape. If one denies that there is a One True Shape, than this assumption is silly. I'd prefer to say I know the shape of the Earth, because I have made measurements and I can accurately predict what any observer will see when they look at the Earth. That is, functionally, it's silly to say I can't know its shape, because I can do everything you'd expect to be able to do if there were One True Shape: I can predict the results of experiments, make observations which accurately correspond to those of other observers, and so on.

That is not an excuse for insults. I can see this discussion is going nowhere, so I'm closing it before we drop all semblance of civility whatsoever. I hope you'll familiarize yourself with SFN rule 1.

Yes, you received the email because you were subscribed to Science News, and spammers seem to target that forum to post their spam. The posts are usually deleted very quickly, but the subscription email is sent out as soon as they're posted.

You haven't gotten into VX? It's an engaging hobby, although the smell of dehydrogenated smoke doesn't leave your clothes for a while.

Generally the easiest route it to find their password via other means, e.g. steal it from another website they have an account on, since many people use the same password for every website.

Hm. I ended up just redistricting the Helmholtz field to work around the issue, but I'm worried the Albertson flange won't be able to take the obverse flux tension and might recapitulate. Is that a danger?

If a nondisjunction in spermatogenesis is to cause Klinefelter's, the male must pass down an X and a Y chromosome in the same sperm. These combine with the X chromosome in the egg to create XXY in the fertilized egg. In a male, nondisjunction in anaphase II couldn't cause Klinefelter's, because the X and the Y chromosomes were already separated during anaphase I. Nondisjunction in anaphase II could produce sperm with two Xs or two Ys, but that won't create Klinefelter's.

Porcelain does not have a single resonant frequency; different objects made of porcelain will have different resonances, and may actually have multiple resonances. A simple test is to place a microphone next to the object and tap it with a small mallet. You'll see the resonant frequencies in the recording of the "thonk" noise as the object vibrates after it's been hit.

Could you give me a link about that? I hadn't heard of this before. Could you give me a link about that? I've never heard any geologists say this, certainly. Hm. Is UV radiation really responsible for people dying at age 78 instead of living to 950? That seems unlikely. Perhaps you've read some research on the subject. You may want to cite evidence for your claims; e.g. give a link to a geologist explaining how a flood would explain the complex geological formations observed on Earth.

You forgot a v in your first equation. It should be 1/2 m v^2. But yes, that'll tell you the velocity of an object that has fallen a distance h after being released from rest.

I'm planning to set this up over the holidays.

That depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Right, but the principles underlying the prevailing paradigm may not be explicit. Many times we can't determine what they are without deliberately introducing an incompatible theory and asking, "What do we have to change to make this theory sensible?" The idea that "all motion is absolute motion" is really a metaphysical principle, and a new hypothesis can't support an alternative by evidence, since it's metaphysics.

I'm currently reading Against Method, a book by Paul Feyerabend, which makes an interesting argument against a theme we commonly cite on SFN. The so-called scientific method, Feyerabend writes, is both a poor description of how science has actually been conducted over centuries and a poor framework to adopt if one were to enforce its rules. Strictly following the scientific method would only prevent discoveries, says Feyerabend. I haven't finished the book, but so far, Feyerabend has made interesting points. For example, we on SFN often argue that new hypotheses must be able to explain phenomena that older theories already can, and must make testable predictions which can demonstrate their superiority to current theories. But many times new theories not only provide new explanations but change the nature of the evidence, meaning they cannot be evaluated on the basis of their agreement with current theories. For example, when Galileo argued that the Earth was in motion around the Sun, contemporary accepted theories held that it was impossible for the Earth to be in motion: if it was, then a stone dropped from a tall tower would travel in a wide arc as the Earth sailed past underneath it. Galileo convinced his audience not by making predictions which agreed with current "experimental data" -- data points showing that the Earth must be stationary -- but by arguing that our perceptions were misleading, and by introducing the ad hoc idea of inertia which made relative motion work. His hypothesis did not explain the same phenomena the old theory did -- it denied the phenomena existed. It's a fascinating and well-written book, and I recommend it to members interested in the scientific method and the historical progression of science. I'm curious to see what other arguments Feyerabend has against the scientific method as I finish the book.

I'd be happy for people to use a variation of the text I provided. You could talk about Righthaven and copyright abuse rather than your own small website, but many of the points still apply. I don't mind if people use our letter as a basis. You can also use points from the open letter from Internet engineers: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/internet-inventors-warn-against-sopa-and-pipa The EFF also provides an easy online form, although their provided text isn't very good: https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173 The EFF's website has plenty of other material on SOPA and PROTECT-IP that you can use as inspiration.

Suppose for a moment relativity is correct and there is a reference frame where I can take an equally large body of close-up measurements showing Earth to have a different shape. These measurements can be used to make equally accurate predictions of Earth's behavior, since I can use Lorentz transforms to recover the shape of the Earth as seen by an observer in its rest frame. Why should I call one set of measurements any less "accurate"? If relativity were false, of course, the measurements would conflict and predictions made in one frame would disagree with predictions made in the other. Okay. I do care about accurate measurements, but I don't mind which reference frame I use when taking them.

There is no three-dimensional shape of Earth independent of observation. It's not "all" subjective; one particular attribute is subjective, just like motion is relative, perceptions of colors vary with lighting, and the rotational direction of an object depends on which side it's viewed from. Other attributes, such as rest mass, the spacetime interval between events, and electric charge, are not subjective in the slightest, and measurements in separate reference frames can agree reliably. If this constitutes idealism, it is a limited kind. Now, the original question of this discussion was "Is philosophy relevant to science?" One might make this specific by asking, "Is the nature of relativity's idealism relevant to science?" The answer is "no", since the theory and observations do not care about the philosophical details. Science does not need to make this distinction; mental models for math which produce accurate predictions are as close as we'll get to "accurate descriptions of 'the world'". What criteria do you use to judge an "accurate description"?

Relativistic kinematics provides methods to compute the time the rockets will need to fire, and so on. Classical mechanics will give you an entirely incorrect answer if you travel at high speed, because it incorrectly assumes that momentum increases linearly with velocity -- and so it will assume your rockets will be able to accelerate you to a much higher speed than actually possible. (This phenomenon has been seen and confirmed in numerous particle accelerator experiments, with subatomic particles and heavy atoms.) Relativity predicts a consistent view of the world in different reference frames -- that is, there are not contradictions that arise because different reference frames see events differently. There won't be one reference frame where Fred can make it to Jupiter and another where he can't. The mathematics works out to ensure consistency. So why should we call one measurement "inaccurate" if I can make incredibly precise predictions based off it, just like I can with the "accurate" measurement? Naturally. You don't use measurements from a completely different reference frame to do your calculations. I do not think the Earth has an intrinsic three-dimensional shape independent of frame of reference, no.

Would this have any consequences for making scientific predictions about the results of experiments and observations? Would there be experimental predictions made inaccurate because Earth was measured from the "wrong" frame? That's not an "unknown" variable; it's a precisely known variable, with known consequences.

I think DrRocket knows quite a bit about quantum mechanics, which is why he found your post absurd. It sounds like you're mixing up something they said about quantum teleportation, but it doesn't work that way.