Cap'n Refsmmat

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If you take two lasers which independently are not powerful enough to be visible in air and let their beams cross, the spot at which they cross may be sufficiently bright as to be visible, since you're combining two beams. The beams will not stop at that point, however, but will continue traveling onward.

No, you've been arguing that length contraction doesn't exist and that there are certain preferred reference frames. Incidentally, the spacetime that gets curved is a part of general relativity, not special relativity, and explains gravity, not time dilation or length contraction. No curvature is required for length contraction and time dilation. No "thing" must be curved.

One can use spacetime intervals without assuming spacetime "exists." Simply use [math]s^2 = \Delta x^2 - c^2 \Delta t^2[/math] and pretend s means something else. Regardless, you have been arguing against relativity without understanding it. I have been explaining its predictions. These predictions explain the results of experiments very well. If you want to come up with your own hypotheses: ...you had better come up with evidence to support them. How do you account for observed time dilation and length contraction?

swansont and I did not contradict each other. The physical length of the rod is not immutable; however, in four-dimensional Minkowski space, the rod itself is immutable. Its physical length as measured in different frames will change, but only because different reference frames see a different three-dimensional hypersurface out of the same four-dimensional object. Minkowski space is somewhat more mathematically complicated than I am qualified to describe, but I think a reasonable abbreviated version would be "three spatial dimensions plus one time dimension", yes. The key is that time is a dimension.

It doesn't have to, since that's not a fact. The rod's spacetime interval stays constant between reference frames, though.

Then you will want to read SFN rule 1, particularly part c. I'm not asking for political correctness in your beliefs; you may believe what you want, but expressing it through vulgarity and insults is not acceptable. If you want to discuss this, please send me a private message.

I'd be more concerned about social changes, like the women convincing you to watch romantic comedies or stay up all night painting your toenails. As far as I know there's no pheromone linked to testosterone changes.

If you continue to insist on personal attacks on believers to make your points, your access to the Religion forum will be revoked. Please read the religion forum rules, particularly rule 1.a.

It's worth noting, then, that if an object is "immutable," it is the spacetime intervals which measure it which are invariant from one reference frame to the next. A spacetime interval s is defined by: [math]s^2 = \Delta x^2 - c^2 \Delta t^2[/math] If you measure the distance and time between two events in any reference frame, then calculate the spacetime interval, you will get the same answer from any reference frame. If you were to only measure distance and neglect that time is another dimension, you would see discrepancies.

If we take the meter rod to exist in Minkowski space (a formulation of special relativity), with three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension, then it may be immutable in the scenario you describe. If you look at the diagram on that page, different observers merely have a different "hypersurface of the present," which describes the slice of four-dimensional spacetime they observe from their reference frame. Someone better versed in SR will have to explain further.

There is no "Legal Authority" section. There is, however, a "Legal Basis" section, which says: This stems from Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce, as explained by various judicial decisions outlined in the Distinguishing Between Intra- and Interstate Commerce section: This clearly does not extend to the use of, say, a farm tractor to spread fertilizer on a field, since the tractor is neither engaging in commerce (it is not transporting goods to market) or traveling between states. The Federal Register article does not suggest that such a thing should happen, so I don't know why we'd be talking about farm safety when this is about farm equipment traveling on roads.

The CDL exception is handled by states, not the federal government; the government would merely require the states to enforce rules differently. The federal government would not gain regulatory control over 800,000 farm workers, since it is merely forcing consistent state regulation, not performing direct regulation itself. The current CDL exception applies to farmers using farm equipment to transport their goods within 150 miles of the farm, not to merely operate their farm equipment on their own property. Hence the quote stating that the DOT "wants new standards that would require all farmers and everyone on the farm to obtain a CDL (Commercial Drivers License) in order to operate any farming equipment" is false. The DOT wants new standards that would require all operators of farm equipment traveling on public roads to transport their goods to markets or other farms to obtain a CDL. That is significantly less onerous. (Note: this is all taken from reading the Federal Register link you posted.)

Well, yes; anything not compatible with the existing regulatory mechanism would never work, and hence would be selected against. Just like anything not compatible with, say, the existing circulatory and respiratory systems would never work. Do you refer to natural selection, the theory of universal common descent, or the theory of evolution as a whole (encompassing multiple kinds of selection pressure)? Falsifying natural selection is easy: demonstrate that organisms do not change characteristics because of their environmental fitness. But I presume you meant falsifying the notion that existing common traits previously evolved due to natural selection -- i.e. "you can't falsify the hypothesis that wings evolved through natural selection." But that can be done: you could find evidence showing that another mechanism caused the wings to evolve, such as alien intervention; you could show that the change happened more quickly than selection pressures can account for; you could show that the proportion of the population with the trait over time grew faster than could be explained by ordinary inheritance; you could find precambrian rabbits; you could find that the trait appeared spontaneously from one generation to the next; you could find that the trait did not change for millions of years despite extreme selection pressures; and so on.

But optical distortions are a completely different effect from length contraction, and can be easily accounted for. Length contraction only becomes visible once you've removed all the strange optical effects that occur when you travel near the speed of light. Lorentz contraction does not come from relying on light to relay an image while traveling near the speed of light; only relativistic aberration and similar phenomena do.

Everything you believe in is devoid of myth, but you want to know what Jesus did after he was resurrected after his physical death by crucifixion?

There are currently no extant records of Jesus' crucifixion, or that of his disciples. The historical record comes from Josephus and Tacitus, Roman historians who recorded (briefly) the existence of a Christian movement. There's not much detail otherwise. Yes, that's true; I'm not sure what the historical evidence is, but it's certainly been believed for a long time.

He ascended to Heaven after meeting with the apostles. Luke covers this: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2024:50-53&version=NIV Paul's letters mention a brief trip to Arabia in the early stages of his ministry, but as far as I know they do not discuss trips to southern Asia or India. Mostly they account for his travels and imprisonment around the Mediterranean.

Paul began writing his letters only twenty years after Jesus' death, and they include some of the important parts of early Christian missionary activity, like his dispute with James over the inclusion of non-Jews in his preaching. And of course Acts is purportedly written by Luke some years after the events, covering the missionary activity beginning just after Jesus' death.

The extant historical evidence is primarily the book of Acts and Paul's epistles in the New Testament. Paul describes his own activities in some detail, if you can piece together the evidence -- the epistles are not in chronological order, and some are likely not written by Paul after all. Otherwise there is very little external record of their activities. Jesus got brief mention by some ancient historians like Josephus, but that's about it.

Ah. So you have a mountain of evidence that suggests that Earth appears nearly spherical from this reference frame, and from similar ones. Do you have a similar mountain of observations from other reference frames? If not, how can you justify your conclusion? Relativity agrees that anyone sitting on Earth will agree it is very nearly spherical, so your evidence does not contradict it in the slightest. Hm. But the Earth is zipping around the center of the galaxy at high speed. Surely they should use their Lorentz equations to translate what they see into the real rest frame, since Earth is moving. Right?

Is continuing population growth part of the goal, or merely continuing economic growth? The latter can happen without the former.

Do you have any experimental evidence validating the theory of common sense? It sounds largely conjectural to me.

In this case, the epigenetic regulatory mechanisms were not "pre-programmed" to account for future development: they were programmed to account for current features (fins), and when new features developed (limbs) they didn't bother changing, since they didn't have to. How does this support they hypothesis that features such as limbs were pre-programmed? The development of limbs required the mutation of many other genes. Suppose I put a natural gas line into my house to feed my water heater, and it has a cutoff valve on the outside of the house. Years later, I put in a gas-powered stove, a hot tub, a natural-gas-powered car, and a toy flamethrower on the back patio, all connected through the external cutoff valve. Was the cutoff valve developed in anticipation of the future devices, or was it merely reused by them because it was convenient?

That's just shifting the question of "where did the mass come from?" from the Big Bang to some as-yet-unnamed preceding event, without actually answering the question. What that event was called is significantly less important than how it happened and how matter came into existence.