geordief

Cheney?

Lest we forget https://twitter.com/i/status/1324078979775684608

Agreed but the point (not so salient perhaps) I was trying to make is that ,for him the blow is softened if he can move to another platform with less followers as his future status (as a leader of a political -to be kind- grouping) will probably still be able to thrive equally well with that reduced amount of publicity The problem with Trump is those who use him for their ends. Hopefully those who oppose him and his loose "political" grouping will be able ,if required to use his presence in a way to further their ends (eg he can be used as an example) Well .it might matter if his term was not about to end as he could put pressure on Twitter to reinstate his account -or make political capital of of his matyrdom and the supposed "assault" on freedom of speech (which of course ,in the large is a real issue .) Everyone is trying to get through and past the next 10 days and so "stopgaps" are not to be sneezed at at the stage.

Is this banning of Trump just a stopgap measure ?(and a response to his incitement to anti democratic insurrection,as well perhaps as a wish to disassociate themselves from further incitements) Won't he find another outlet soon enough? Since he will no longer be President he won't need the amount of followers he has now . The whole question of regulating social media is a huge question in itself. I have always thought that heavy accountable moderation should be compulsory. Other than that the only opinions I have are (obviously) that this is a huge world defining question and that developments are moving ahead at lightning speed.

Well,yes. As to whether that can be achieved I am doubtful ,but I don't claim any expertise to make that judgement. I am hearing that very few Republicans are pressuring him to resign..... And I have heard arguments that impeachment should be used to set a precedent even if chances of success may not be great.

We need to know as much as possible of what went on . If there were conversations between Trump and those who organized this action we need to know this. I am not saying this is necessary to show culpability if enough is already known to show this. But we still need to know as much as possible about this and ,if some kind of a chain of responsibility can be shown then this is to everyone's benefit . We have been told that Trump is like a Mafia boss and never spells things out explicitly but he may have had an off day and shown his hand. And ,if others are revealed in the line of command they may talk for a reduced sentence.

Are they likely to roll up a conspiracy that would actually and directly link Trump or his close advisers to the main actors in this action?

If you record the sequence of radioactive emissions from an atom don't you get a random sequence? Is it impossible or impractical to do that because the time intervals are too small to measure? (hope this makes sense)

It appears from my limited acquaintance that ,as far as we can tell events in the universe follow random paths (can we call them "paths" or are they "appearances?) I am thinking of spontaneous radioactive emissions where there (again to my limited knowledge) thee is no "interior" pattern to the ordering of events save for the half life laws that seem to be obeyed. What interpretation can one give to this order of things? I understand the Einstein was famously (and seemingly wrongly) outraged by the notion of pure randomness (not sure if it was in this context) but is it possible to welcome this state of things beyond the requirement to accept it as an apparently "set in stone " feature of things ? Can we (should we) elevate in our estimation randomness to a level whereby ,as it were if it did not exist we would need to invent it? Do other fundamental understandings flow from an acceptance of some kind of a randomness principle or is it a standalone pillar of the functioning of the mechanisms of the universe?

Do we receive more optical data from the distorted galaxy than we would otherwise get....or is the image just distorted? Are we getting photons that would normally not reach us bent in our direction so that we can see them so that we get a higher definition image as a result?

A little bit off topic but a wonderful detour "Grandin has lectured widely about her first-hand experiences of the anxiety of feeling threatened by everything in her surroundings, and of being dismissed and feared, which motivates her work in humane livestock handling processes. She studied the behavior of cattle, how they react to ranchers, movements, objects, and light .................... her claim of compassion for the animals is that because of her autism she can see the animals' reality from their viewpoint, that when she holds an animal's head in her hands as it is being slaughtered, she feels a deep connection to them" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

So this on going expansion (whether steady or whatever) is like a blank canvas on which the relative motion of bodies is written? Like a page in a book where the letters get smaller and smaller over time. ( the letters corresponding to regions bound by gravity)

Yes,thanks. @Halc it was intuitive .(seems there is a thick line between counterintuitivity and lack of imagination Still,I find it hard to accept this concept of "expansion of space" if (as my mind tells me) space is not a "thing" that can expand. Does this "expansion of space" just mean an increase in distances between objects? Also ,might the "Big Bang" have occurred over a small region and a very short time with there actually being a concatenation of BBs which blended into one event when viewed in retrospect?

It seems very counter intuitive that galaxies should be separating from each other at velocities that are proportionate to distance. But this is what we observe ,it seems. Does this imply that ,at an early stage all the matter that formed those galaxies "talked to each other"? What did they "say"?😉

So does an EM wave propagating through the vacuum interact with this CMB field in theory even if the effects were too small to measure?

When does E=0? Not,surely because to detecting apparatus is too insensitive? Are there points in the region of an electric charge when E is equal to precisely zero? Is ,perhaps the field not continuous? You can't have a perfect shield against the electric field can you?

So,I am getting the feeling now that the CMB is not ,as I imagined an example of an electromagnetic field per se. Is it ,though or can it be described as a field of some kind (a set of measurements over space)? Also ,if the CMB is not an electromagnetic field what would be the first (earliest) known example of an electromagnetic field and would that field have perpetuated itself (in a continuously changing form) in perpetuity down to the present day?

(Hope this is the right subforum) Really a question about waves,particles and fields wrt electromagnetism. I understand that light propagates as a wave in the Electromagnetic Field and think I am also coming to realise that the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) may well be such a field and a primordial one at that. So,this is what I am wondering (and my question) When light propagates through the vacuum as a wave in the EM field can we say that it is propagating through this CMB(field) ? Is the vacuum (in this instance) the CMB field? As a second related question,how does one detect the CMB field if it is the same in all directions ? What apparatus might one employ to measure its value and how would its needle move if it didn't know what direction to move in?(if that makes sense)

Is there any connection between the Cosmic Background Radiation and Dark Matter. Dark Matter apparently accounts for a lot of the overall matter in the Universe.. Should its presence be evident in the analysis of the CBR ? Or would its temperature profile around the time of the BB be indistinguishable from that of ordinary matter? Are there any other ways analyses of the CBR could shed light on the DM mystery?

Ophiolite earned my gratitude when he,in his previous incarnation of John Galt rebutted my detractor with a "there is no such thing as a stupid question" I have been meaning to ask him how he rates his judgement (circa 2017) that it would not be possible within a short space of time (pretty sure he said or indicated a timeframe of months) to find anyone to admit to have voted for Trump. My estimation of his judgement was so high that I have waited with bated breath over the past 4 years for his prediction to come to fruition. Also very disappointed at his support for Scottish (or any) Nationalism . That apart(as I have told him) his posts are generally well worth the entrance fee. On another of the Science forums babe (for those who know her) sent a small amount of funds to another poster when he was down on his luck to help him get sorted....

I was only half thinking of that (the curved background) I had more in mind whether the fields themselves might create their own curvature. But are they massless by definition or does the fact that massive objects have their fields mean that those fields contribute to spacetime curvature? Were you saying that spacetime curvature is a classic model and so fundamentally inconsistent with any Quantum model to this point?

Hope the question makes sense as I am only just (well, hopefully) beginning to get the beginnings of a feel for the subject. Some objects in QFT have mass (protons,I am thinking ) so do they cause curvature and does this affect any calculations? Would /could EM fields be intrinsically (or extrinsically?) curved?

Blooming heck.I never saw that. Seriously ,we have just had the Iranians claim that an AI equipped machine gun killed their nuclear scientist. Not so funny.Where does the dark side of this development lead? Is it all 1 step forward and 1 step back or is it more chaotic?

My "point " in the OP was actually couched as a question. Thank you for your answer. It was not trivially obvious to me -which is why I asked. I am glad to have received some corroboration for the inclination of my thought even if I may have come across as the dullard I am (not sure if that was your subtext or whether I should just put on the cap that fits) btw on reflection ,perhaps there are quite likely those who would disagree with us both and attribute absolute subjective values to phenomena. As I have little philosophical education ,that is a bit of a guess,.

My idea is that our idea of "subjective" time is founded in objective time, That our idea of time is occasioned by the mechanical (or physical) workings of the body and brain. hold on still typing (sometimes the post goes through when you press the return key before you are finished the post...) I don't see a disconnect between the "time is what clocks measure" definition and my hypothetical description "subjective time is what the body measures" The two are linked so far as I can see,