geordief

He has just been wasting our time over at scienceforum.com. Do you want custody?

I thought your downvoted post was fair comment, Not because USA is/was great or not great but because it is far too nuanced (and important) to come down on one side or the other. Clearly it is used as a political slogan but it is also important to explore the truth or lies connected with it. As a primus inter pares it is vital for the world that the US should be and act as good as it is able (not easy but it is only the difficulty that makes it worth achieving) It was one of the (few)disagreements I had with Obama ,his ease of accepting and claiming American exceptionalism.. Only America's situation is really exceptional . It's responses to circumstances are its own only and cannot easily be judged against what other nations might have done in its place. It feels to me that Trump's election was a turning point for the US and I have little idea what will happen now.

There are just 3 main sources of nutrition ,fat , protein and carbohydrates (am I right?) So it is not rocket science to suggest that it is important to find a suitable balance between them. As I understand it ,some diets seek to practically eliminate one or other of these components. I am no expert but whenever I hear standard medical /dietary advice the term "balanced" seems to be used without fail. Personally I have all but eliminated straight unrefined sugar from my diet as it has apparently zero nutritional content and so must logically be taking up space in the system from food that does have a positive contribution. I have indeed noticed an improvement in well being as a result ,although that is not why I did it and would have carried on regardless if I had not noticed any change.

Not sure what to make of that. Is sterile food unhealthy or just uninteresting? We don't need it for gut bacteria do we?

You have heard McDonald's food is so unpalatable that even flies avoid it? No that surely cannot be true (and flies can be connoisseurs of fine food )

A bit OT now but you can view language as a simple tool or as an enjoyment. For enjoyment it is useful to keep as many nuances as are available in the pack. There is a distinction , in this context between "grammar" and "grammatical" that can be either observed or not. It may be that US English does not and UK English does moreso(I am not quite sure)

Onwards and upwards

If you are properly hungry(or hungry enough) ,almost anything will taste nice.(the social situation counts too) Regarding McDonalds, I make hambugers myself. At first I thought of ways to make it interesting (parsley, sage ,garlic ,beaten egg etc) but now I just (using good mince) just shape it and fry it (seasoned of course) That mightn't seem any different to McDonald's "junk food" but it seems OK to me.

No ,there is no such thing but there is perhaps a beneficial or harmful approach to eating (provided we do not have a medical condition that may mean we are swimming against the tide). I think it is very multi-faceted but my first assumption is that ,counter-intuitively it is important to have a healthy appetite and to actually enjoy the food that we eat. To my mind "junk food" may be a place name for food that we eat without putting any input into as much as what it actually is made of. I know that many people have no time to cook for themselves but I feel in place of that there could be some kind of an involvement in addition to the simple actions of buying ,unwrapping and stuffing. Maybe go to a nice cafe or restaurant where the staff is interested in the food and the act of eating has some social (even ritual) content. There have been programs on the BBC recently where it has been shown that certain types of food are bad for the appetite in that lab animals do not experience satiety but carry on eating longer than otherwise. That was the mixture of sugar and fat as typified but what is apparently everyone's favourite , the donut. And of course cakes and biscuits fall into the same category. Amazingly fat does not make you fat it seems (although the jury seems to be out as to how healthy or otherwise some kinds are) because it does produce satiety (when not consumed along with sugar).

You could be in line for a research grant if the symptoms persist.

Post-Balatonic Stress Syndrome (get help)

It's fake news

Thanks , I won't post any more(in this thread) for fear of posting more refined BS

Is it possible that at some stage ,before mass reaches a mathematical degree of infinite greatness (ie a cutoff point) Quantum Mechanics simply takes over and gravity no longer has an arena to perform in? is it inevitable that QM and GR are merged as models. To coin a phrase could there be something of a step change involved ? Of course if successful predictions are made that shows a kind of mathematical merger works then I am completely wrong,I suppose. EDIT:sorry i didn't look at your link before I posted . Yes perhaps that might be more along the lines of what I was imagining.

(as I am "arguing" from ignorance feel free to relocate this thread:) ) I have heard it said repeatedly that Einstein's equations fail at situations described as singularities and that there is in consequence an aim to fashion equations that might describe such situations in terms of both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics(a hypothesized Quantum Gravity). Might it rather be that General Relativity is completely irrelevant in these situations ? Why is it that the equations describing the very small are unable to deal with these situations without the help of GR which only becomes applicable later on as the situation develops? (again apologies for the level of ignorance ;perhaps the answer is obvious or the question badly formed or inconsequential)

My request for clarification was not addressed to you.It was to Cuthber. I don't see what response you expect from me to this post of yours. Your question as to why I am posting is purely rhetorical as you have supplied the answer.

You didn't answer my question "I didn't bother reading your article and am not sure what "actual terrorists" the Tories are supposed to be teaming up with . You mean the DUP ?" Sure ,that is a balanced article and yes the DUP does have to be spotlessly clean (like Caesar's wife) I cannot see the Conservatives running away from coalition on this but this is a hostage to fortune. The Peace process is the main prize but may get overlooked in the Brexit bathwater (mixing metaphores).

Of course attacks on Corbyn's dealings with IRA ex leaders and his apparent closeness to Hamas (calling them "friends" ) are reasonable. The fact that the Tory press has chosen to ,apparently (I don't read them) use them for propaganda purposes does not take my eye off the ball. I didn't bother reading your article and am not sure what "actual terrorists" the Tories are supposed to be teaming up with . You mean the DUP ?

Just because the news magnates behave in that way does not mean it was not deserved. Just ask the Parliamentary Labour Party when they are not in general election mode(perhaps even when they are in election mode). And just because it served the interests of uniting the Tories (not an ignoble aim on its own terms) does not mean that they were not also (and decisively?) pushed into this by UKIP and popular feeling (with which I disagreed btw) .

It must have been difficult "campaigning" against an apparent no hoper who has ignored all the painful lessons drummed into Labour since the time of Jenkins,Wllliams et al. Those who the gods would destroy they first make mad. Sic passit the UK Labour Party

Are you sure Cameron had a (good) choice as to whether to call a referendum?

Yes ,I had the same feeling. As they say ,interesting times. Brexit vote#2 and what next? Brexit means f%%kit

So the 2 arms of the Ligo interferometer lie at the surface of an expanding sphere centred at the black hole merger when detection is made? If one of the arms happens to be pointing directly into the centre of the sphere is its length unchanged -or is it the other(tangential) arm which would be unchanged in length? They are not both changed in length in complementary ways are they?

Perhaps I am equally (or more so) ignorant as you in this question and so perhaps I can put a (hazy) suggestion, The gravitational waves that are predicted (and found) propagate through space at the speed c. They encounter the interferometer which also contracts (I am not sure of the direction) in spacetime. This contraction though ,in my opinion also needs time to take effect and also (I imagine ) itself propagates at the speed of c in its own direction (a different direction from that of the gravitational wave) These two propagations do not cancel out and so the gravitational wave is detectable. That may well have been nonsense but perhaps it makes a sense to you and others in the thread

I can see why the OP may still think his question has not been answered. I too cannot understand why the outcome is as it is (and that all deviations in Spacetime should not be somehow "mirror-imaged out" ) However the GW clearly is detectable and has been detected exactly as predicted. I imagine that my lack of understanding is very simply down to a lack of understanding and familiarity with the theory behind and the intricacies of this experimental test. In fact the word "imagine" does too little justice to my own failure to appreciate what is clearly ,to this point an extremely successful prediction and (doubtless) interpretation.