lemur

I can't tell if you're into humility or if you have an inferiority complex. Either way, I'd say lighten up. People feel dumb because they are intelligent enough to see and feel that there is a lot more to things than is assumed in a state of ignorance. This is why gaining knowledge has the paradoxical effect of making people feel more ignorant. In practice, all intellectualism is is the rigorous pursuit of knowledge and ultimately wisdom. You challenge each other by sharing what little knowledge and understanding you have gained and hope to stimulate others in their pursuit of enlightenment and draw on them for stimulation of your own. I mentioned Bataille's study of the meaning of sacrifice and its relationship to pagan sacrificism because it is interesting to study the cultural bridge that is made between the logic of sacrifice and that of redemption. Pre-Christian paganism believes in making sacrifices to appease god(s) whose mercy comes in exchange for the sacrifice. The story of Christ complexifies the sacrificial logic by allowing fallible humans to sacrifice the incarnation of God (the perfect lamb) thereby bringing them to the realization of their own sin against God in the act of sacrifice itself. In this way, they learn that they must follow Christ's example to redeem themselves and others instead of sacrificing themselves and others to God. In other words, they have to become God by becoming part of the "body of Christ." It is very interesting logic. Thanks, but I just think that it's important to recognize that making some things special and exceptional can have the effect of making other things seem less appreciable than they otherwise might be. This isn't to say that it's automatically terrible to celebrate special days; just to be mindful when ignoring all the other "everyday miracles" of life. To me the resurrection has a symbolic meaning that connects with the idea of spiritual rebirth, but that's more a topic for Easter, no? I think you're making a good point about the importance of incarnation, but I think the point is that it is supposed to have begun before conception in the womb, i.e. via inception by God/Holy Spirit. There's a reason the whole creationist theology begins with "God the creator." It is a philosophy that makes materiality an expression of spirituality instead of the reverse. Well, I think you could say it began before the incarnation of Jesus, maybe during Adam and Eve's fall from grace and banishment from paradise. The incarnation and persecution/crucifixion is significant, imo, in that it transforms the relationship of sinners to God and sin. They are no longer banished but forgiven - a big difference in practice. I agree with you that people who swear up and down that Muslims and anyone else who regards Jesus as a prophet but not the messiah or the son of God are lost to Christianity don't fully understand their own theology. The thing is that even if you don't BELIEVE that Jesus was God-incarnated, you still should understand the logic of what that means and what its philosophical significance is. Basically, you have to meditate on what it means for imperfect human sinners to kill God. What's more, you have to understand why on Earth God would forgive humans for killing Him. This helps you to understand God's attitude toward His creation in general and its imperfections/sin. The story of Noah and the flood has a similar meaning, imo.

Is this your personal view or are you relating something fundamental about Christian philosophy?

Often people can't distinguish between received knowledge and knowledge derived from direct experience/observation. It is possible to develop an empirical awareness of the sources of one's knowledge, including memories, but I don't know if a child can do this, since many adults don't seem to be able to. Once the child is old enough to understand, they can be asked what the source of a particular memory is. They might remember that information was told to them by someone else and not directly experienced by them. Sometimes, however, the reverse is attempted and children/people are told that their actual experiences/memories are false for various reasons.

So it is basically just a way of explaining variations in the magnetic field of atoms and molecules? Or by "orbitals" are you talking about the pattern/shape of the electron cloud buffering the nucleus?

Yes, I get that there's angular momentum. I just don't understand how the angular momentum manifests itself in interactions with other electrons/things. Why, because I used the word "physical" three times in the same sentence? How could I attempt to assess validity if I can't "get it?" I told you, because "mass" is a passive property to me whereas inertia refers to an active function. Mass refers to how much force an object will impart at a given rate of acceleration. Inertia refers to the object's ability to resist push-force when acted upon by an external impulse. I know that an object's inertia is directly related to its mass, but the meanings just don't converge as I understand them. Maybe I'm just dense, or should I say that my concept of inertia has too much inertia?

So if you had two objects, one black and the other white, would the difference in their temperatures reflect only the amount of energy in visible light, or would the black object also be absorbing more IR and UV? Also, if you had an IR camera, is there any way to distinguish between IR light reflecting off something and the IR radiation being emitted because of the object's latent heat?

Why don't our legs and feet suffer more from hypertension than our arms and heads?

I would guess that the ground offers less resistance than a better insulator. So, for example, lightning only goes through the air because the voltage builds up to a level that exceeds its ability to insulate and contain the charge. Once the charge reaches a voltage that exceeds what is insulating it, it continues along the path of least resistance until it reaches a better conductor. Apparently the ground conducts (and therefore dissipates) electric charge better than the air. I assume this is also the reason lightning emits visible light. I.e. so much energy builds up within a small area of air because it is insulated by surrounding air. Thus the molecules the energy does animate are propelled to a very high temperature, which causes them to glow and conduct energy to the next set of receptive molecules, which also heat up very fast and so on until the ground is reached. I guess the only other ultimate destination for the energy besides the ground would be outer space, but a vacuum is an even better insulator than air, so what option does the energy have except to go toward the ground? Sometimes, I think lightning can go between clouds as well, though, presumably since the water in the cloud is more conductive than the less humid air between the clouds. I'm not completely sure about this but it seems logical.

Meaning that when it collides with another electron, they don't repel each other at some product of their trajectory vectors? Physical things interact with other physical things physically. You may not be aware that you're assuming discourse creates imperative knowledge, but that's what you're doing when you say "ideas are accepted" in the passive tense without a subject. Truth may be independent of subjective whim, but there is a difference between accepting an idea because you "get it" or accepting it because someone in position of authority told you so. I don't want to learn by memorizing things that people in positions of authority tell me "because they say so." I want the lightbulb in my mind to go on when I "get" something. This wasn't a clear enough explanation?: "I'm aware that photons exert force, which is why lasers can push (I think they can anyway). Still, they don't have inertia in the sense that they can move at different speeds and accept partial momentum transfer the way a balloon can when struck by a bowling ball." How about this?: "inertia is the ability to resist accelerating to the speed of light when force is applied."

In what sense does their behavior resemble the effects of spinning? I've heard of virtual photons but I can't understand what can be virtual about a physical thing. It either exists or it doesn't, no? Well, what I call critical rigor some people might call stubborness. Until a concept makes sense to me, I don't just accept it because others with strong reputations accept it as well. I could, but I would not really be learning in the way that I want to learn. My concept of momentum may be "classical" but I'm not going to base my preference for how to think about something on the popularity of one school of thought over another. That's academic politics and it's the worst part of academia, imo. I'm aware that photons exert force, which is why lasers can push (I think they can anyway). Still, they don't have inertia in the sense that they can move at different speeds and accept partial momentum transfer the way a balloon can when struck by a bowling ball. Could inertia be caused by angular momentum then? So you're saying that these could be particles that are expanding with the universe that have been basically moving with the energy of the big bang since their inception? They can "fall" along geodesic paths according to their inertia/mass but nothing can ever impart any energy into them by pushing? What happens once they fall irretrievably into a gravity well? Do they pass through other fields seamlessly, falling back and forth within the gravity well frictionlessly for eternity?

So could you say that there's more energy in sunlight from visible light than from IR, only that energy is not vibrating molecules in a way that causes the temperature of the object to rise? That doesn't make sense, because all energy must get converted to heat if it is absorbed, no? Do black objects absorb IR as well as visible light more? Do light-colored object reflect both spectra the same as well? Or so some light object absorb more IR and others less? Do some black objects absorb visible light but reflect other wavelengths? edit: maybe this chart from wikipedia will be beneficial: (why won't it insert the image using the url?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png

If I am picturing an electron as a tiny ball of negative charge field-force, what does "intrinsic angular momentum" mean if the field itself is not spinning? Does it refer to the vectors of force within the field curving in some non-linear radial direction? So the only reason electrons repel each other is because they are emitting photons that push against each other? I didn't think light could push against light. I believe that all these attributes work when plugging them into equations/formulas. I'm just trying to get a logic to the modeling. To me, momentum refers to the speed of an object combined with its mass/inertia. A bowling ball has more mass/inertia than a balloon, so it carries more momentum at a slower speed and when it collides with the balloon, the balloon will translate the momentum it receives into a faster speed. A stationary object can have mass and force due to gravity without having momentum. Still, its inertia prevents it from leaping into motion in the direction of imparted force. Plus, I see mass as an attribute/quality whereas inertia is a functional tendency to resist force. Theoretically, it would be possible for an object to have a different amount of inertia as it does mass; e.g. a gyroscope resists motion is certain directions although its mass is the same as when it is not moving. Right, but how would it gain speed/momentum except by gravitational attraction, if it can't interact with EM or nuclear force? Something would have to push it away from the direction of gravity, no?

Imagine you have two balloons. One is very new and uniformly elastic and the other has gotten old and lost its elasticity. Now you pump air into each balloon with the same amount of pressure. The newer balloon will be able to expand more uniformly, which causes the air-pressure to distribute more evenly and get dissipated as the overall volume of the balloon increases. The stiffer balloon resists expanding, which causes the pressure to be greater within the more constrained volume and, as you probably know, high pressure seeks weak-points to expand, which could cause the balloon to rupture or put extra pressure on the parts of it that are still elastic enough to stretch. I don't know if this is a perfect analogy to what happens with your circulatory system, but I hope you can basically see how a more constrained (i.e. more inelastic) container dissipates pressure-fluctuations less uniformly than one that is more rigid.

I know this. I phrased my question wrong. What I was really trying to ask is why the infrared of sunlight is strong enough to feel warm to the skin but the visible light doesn't (or does it and I'm just assuming the warmth is due to infrared?). Also, an incadescent 60w bulb is too hot to touch but a cfl is not too hot, even though it's making as much visible light. Since visible light is higher-frequency than infrared, I would expect it to be delivering substantially greater amounts of energy/heat than the infrared. Is it that the sunlight and incadescent bulb are emitting infrared waves in greater amounts than visible light for some reason? Does sunlight and tungsten or whatever metal is in the bulb have a frequency curve whose mean is in the infrared range or something like that?

So it is the alignment of the directions the electrons themselves spin in that cause the magnetism and it has nothing to do with their revolutions around the nuclei? I don't understand the concept of electrons spinning. Does this cause their fields to have angular momentum which results in a form of charge-motion, which in turn results in a magnetic field similar to that caused by electric charge moving through a conductor? Only in the case of the spinning electrons, the charge is moving in a circle instead of linearly between electrodes? Well, I guess I am just comparing the models in terms of intuitive plausibility. It doesn't make sense to me that a gravity field would consist of lots of smaller particles transmitting the gravitational force. If that was the case, then wouldn't there have to be little electromagnetic force carrier particles emanating from electrons too? It is more logical, imo, to view point-particles as force-field "anchors" and the fields themselves as cohesive units. An electron, imo, is a EM field surrounding a volume-less point. I think gravitation may be the same, as well as nuclear particle force-fields. I don't think these fields need any container called "space" to exist within. I think gravitational field-force itself is the container of other force-fields, unless there is some other force that extends beyond gravitational fields that allows them to have mobility as well. I see. So they're like atoms whose charge is internally neutralized? Do the quarks have spin like electrons that makes it possible to magnetize neutrons? Could you make super-magnets out of neutron-lumps? Yes, I've been struggling with that. What better than inertia describes the ability of a particle or object to slow down as a result of force imparted in the direction opposite its line of motion? To me, you can't slow a photon down by applying force against its line of motion. At best, you can reflect it in another direction but then it doesn't slow down. Matter seem special to me in that it can accelerate and decelerate through a range of speeds. Is this a fantasy of everyday perception or something? Right, but how would it ever do anything besides fall into the nearest gravity well if it didn't have any means of receiving force and thereby accelerating away from the center of the gravity well?

I think you have to decide whether you're trying to contemplate space and dimensionality in terms of empirical physicality or mathematical abstraction. Imo, far too much thought goes into trying to "naturalize" mathematical abstraction. Dimensionality is a way of describing physical things through comparison with abstract ideals. It is pointless, imo, to try to naturalize the ideals as being a pure reflection of physical realities or not. One-dimensionality is an interesting concept, regardless of whether the dimensional matrix is overlaid onto curved space(time) or not. One-dimensionality is interesting because of the fact that inertia allows objects to remain in motion in the absence of additional force/work being added to the object. If an orbiting object is moving along a circle, ellipse, hyperbole, or whatever, it has the peculiar quality of doing so without additional force/work being added to it except whatever gravity is causing its path to take the shape it does. Likewise, when an object is caused to deviate from its straight-line path, each addition of force it receives takes the form of a directional impulse (i.e. a vector) so it's like all motion is the result of interacting straight-line impulses. Also, linearity has the particular quality, imo, that it can be distinguished from closed-loops. So instead of motion going from point A back to point A via some path, it goes from point A to point B and subsequent points without returning to point A. That is the nature of transcendence as contrasted with immanence. I tend to view this distinction as characterizing the fundamental distinction between radiant energy and closed-loop or "bound" energy systems, insofar as there is practical relevance in distinguishing these two types of energy-systems for analytical purposes. If nothing else, I think the distinction correlates with the distinction between kinetic and potential energy, in that cycles may be viewed as containing the potential to generate radiant energy (i.e. the relationship between a curve and its tangent lines).

Related question: if visible light carries many times more energy than infrared, and UV even more, why doesn't visible light burn us up or fry our optic nerves? I suppose with the optic nerve, the cornea only receives an amount of light determined by the size of the pupil, but what about all the visible light on our skin, etc.? Does it simply reflect most of the energy and thereby avoid getting affected by it? Is there just not that much energy in sunlight despite the broadness of its spectrum?

Well, as much as I like the message of Christ, I've had trouble understanding what the significance of his carnal birth within the logic of Christian beliefs, which are so focussed on the transcendence of the flesh by the spirit, etc. I think the more significant "birth" that Christ produced, according to the mythology, is the rebirth of humanity in the grace of God's forgiveness. Of course, this is more what is celebrated at Easter, I think. But I thought maybe the birth of baby Jesus could just be meaningful in terms of miracles that surrounded it, like the fact he was born in a manger sort of implies that human life and animal life (flesh) are part of the same general gift of embodiment in flesh. Plus, Jesus is the fleshy part of the holy trinity. I like the analogy of a laboratory, but I think you underestimate the significance of the fact that the universe can and does generate contradiction and conflicts. Amazingly, it can also utilize these conflicts by re-converting them into functional contributions to other processes. Read George Bataille's "Accursed Share." In the beginning, he explains the basis for his theory of a general energy-economy where the basic driving force in all natural systems is to expand as much as possible. Thus, he says, trees evolve from smaller plants as a means of expanding the surface area for absorbing solar energy. He then says that animal life, and especially predators, evolve to have the function of clearing away (sacrificing) other life to make room for even more life. So the flexibility and active-mobility of animals might have evolved as a more efficient means of clearing away plants and other animals. If what you're wondering about is how life evolved from the earliest microbes, I believe there is plenty written on the natural evolution of various types of tissues and structures. If you're into paganism, btw, you should like Bataille and the philosophy/economics of sacrifice. Bataille was also interested in the significance of sacrifice in the story of Christ. Generally, it is interesting to analyze how the sacrificial logic of Christ's death creates a metaphysical transition between pagan sacrificialism and Christian redemptionism; but that is a whole other topic.

So the electrons basically pair-up and neutralize the direction of each other's charge, and when they don't spin symmetrically, the charge becomes denser in one direction leaving the positive charge of the protons dominant in the other direction? I don't really know what is meant by the word, "lattice," although I read it fairly often. Does it just refer to the layout of the electrons within the atomic/molecular configuration of a particular material? Does this mean that the configuration of the atoms in the metal influence its magnetism? I know, for example, that heat or jarring affects magnetism, and I assumed that it was because the individual particles got knocked-out of alignment or something like that. So it is the force-density changes that propagate at C, not the force itself? I had the impression that people were saying that the only reason the moon stays in orbit around the Earth, for example, is because the Earth is radiating some kind of undetectable particles called "gravitons" that cause the moon to be attracted toward the Earth when they reach it. That sounds implausible to me. I'm more inclined to believe that a gravitational field is a static envelope of force surrounding matter and that such envelopes interact with each other directly instead of needing to reach the EM/nuclear part of the matter. Thanks, I didn't know that. How can EM force exist without polarity/charge? So it would be pure gravitational force? Would it have inertia? What would cause it to move except gravitational attraction to other gravity fields? If nothing, how would it ever move away from any gravity field it was near?

If that's the case, what would you make the instrument out of that you use to detect them with? Something besides matter and electromagnetism?

A friend of mine believes that there is some significance to the lunar eclipse occurring at the same time as the winter solstice. At first I thought not since the solstice has to do with the Earth's tilt and the eclipse has to do with alignment between sun, Earth, and moon. However, I am beginning to wonder if the tilt puts the northern hemisphere closer to the moon's orbit. If this was the case, I think it would please her because she thinks that gravitational alignments have some astrological effect on terrestrial life. Thanks in advance for your support of astrological musings on the basis of legitimate astronomical facts.

If EM wave-energy is generated by electrons and gravitational wave-energy by objects with mass, could some other type of energy-waves be generated by protons and/or neutrons? If so, I don't know why such energy wouldn't be readily observable on Earth, since there are plenty of protons and neutrons, but maybe they would only generate waves under very different conditions than on Earth, for example during nuclear reactions within gravitation stronger than that of the sun. After all, electrons and matter only seem to produce photons and gravity-waves because of their relative mobility in the conditions of their motion. If they were "frozen" the way protons and neutrons seem to be by nuclear force most of the time, they probably wouldn't emit or absorb wave-energy, right? Maybe the sun's protons do generate some such waves but only slightly because of the sun's relatively low temp and gravitation. Is this possible?

If there is anything to ponder on Christmas eve that emerges at the intersection of physics and religion/spirituality, imo, it is why don't people appreciate all matter, living and non-living, as well as all the subjective and objective forms that are manifest in and through matter and energy? Instead of recognizing every atom and photon as a gift, along with every configuration, formation, and transformation of/through energy; they narrow their view to the tiny fraction that appeals to their cultured tastes. Why does there have to be special food instead of just appreciation of the blessing of nourishment generally? Why do there have to be special gifts instead of appreciation of the blessing of material prosperity generally? Why focus on the birth of baby Jesus instead of the rebirth of humanity that he is believed to have brought (by at least some people anyway)? Animals and plants ("flesh and fiber" or "fauna and flora") are living materials that somehow emerged from the creative energy of the universe for whatever reason. They are intricate and complex machinery that re-produce themselves using their own factory equipment. You don't have to believe that they are given by God to recognize that their life is a gift to humans and to each other and themselves, just as humans themselves are, along with all that gets created, (re)produced, and transformed by them. Rather than be humbled and overwhelmed by the complexity of living tissues and systems, why not embrace their immanence and the direct access you have to them as a fellow configuration of living matter? If you believe in God, why not accept the universe along with Jesus (and whichever other prophets speak to you in your search for meaning) together with everything else as a constant eternal gift in every imaginable sense, including the challenges and contradictions that come with it?

My impression is that magnetism is the result of some asymmetry in the distribution of electron force around atoms, and I thought that this was related to how a moving electric field results in magnetism, i.e. because the waves of charge result in relative dense and less-dense regions of negative charge, which in turn allow the positive charge of the protons to express itself as the positive pole of the magnetic field. Is this misconstrued? I'm not sure what you mean by "force carrier for gravity." I assume you are talking about the possibility of gravitons as tiny particles that transmit gravitational force within a larger gravitational field. I don't really understand the logic of why it is necessary for a tiny particle to transmit gravity away from whatever its source may be. Is such a particle necessary for electrons to be surrounded by electrostatic force, or is an electrostatic field static? Since I tend to think of a gravity field as static (although I have heard the Einstein said that gravity radiates at the speed of light from its source), I think of particles with mass (and probably photons as well) as having gravitational field-force surrounding them. Thus, while an electron and a proton seem to be special in that they display both electrostatic and gravitational force, the neutron doesn't have any electrostatic force, correct? It has only nuclear force and, I assume, gravitation. Could such a particle exist that exhibits only gravitation and no nuclear force? That would make no sense to me since all sub-atomic particles seem to be attracted to each other to form atoms, which requires nuclear and/or electrostatic force, correct? What would an exclusively gravitational particle do as it neared nuclear particles with gravity and nuclear force? Would it somehow interact with them gravitationally while being immune from nuclear attraction?

The Earth's gravity field, like its magnetic field, seems to be a conglomerate field consisting of numerous point-centered sources of force. In the case of magnetism, the polarization of individual atoms seem to unify into a single (macro) magnetic field and I assume the same is the case for gravity, i.e. the macro gravitational field is a unified field constituted from the many tiny gravitational fields of individual particles of matter. Obviously two magnetic fields from two magnets can "pass through" each other and even intersect completely (at least relatively so to the extent that two magnets can be placed together with repellant poles facing each other. It also seems that the gravitational fields of the Earth, moon, and sun all more or less intersect to some extent. So this makes me wonder if there is any such thing as a fixed-boundary particle that does not intersect with other particles in any way - Or are all particles/fields capable of intersecting with each other to varying degrees? This question becomes really interesting to me when I think of electrons, protons, or neutrons (sorry, I don't have much of a feel for leptons, quarks, muons, etc.) It seems that electrons avoid intersecting completely because of their repellant charge, and I assume protons do the same, but why wouldn't neutrons simply intersect to the point of merging with each other or other kinds of particles? A related but someone parallel question is what neutrons actually are except for a unit of gravitational field-force? Am I exaggerating this idea that particles/fields don't have fixed boundaries because it is new to me? Is this a well-known and widely studied fact that fields and particles intersect to varying degrees in their interactions? Does it ultimately make any difference in the physics and if not, why not?