Phi for All

I disagree that your pension system needs to be destroyed, but I'm almost certain it could be improved. Systems like this benefit the majority, who aren't like you (knowledgeable enough to be capable of making their own investments). Without these systems, you'd pay more in taxes to help these people when they retire with nothing saved. It is socialist, one of the best parts of socialism, imo. When the system is working well.

I think you're trying to make this internet interaction into what you feel is a better face-to-face interaction. You should accept that this is different. I like it because I can remove more layers of bias, and not judge people for what they look like. I discussed lots of subjects, for years, with a guy who was really smart but was a real loose cannon when it came to self-editing. He improved rapidly in his style and became a high-quality member (although some of the earliest Mods talked about booting him several times). One day in a PM, he confessed that he was only 13 years old when he joined. I'd like to think it wouldn't have mattered early on if this guy had used a photo of himself, and I'd known at the time that he was in middle school. But I know it would have influenced the way I treated him somehow, and I can't see that that kind of influence being of any ultimate value. I work for that guy now. Any judgments I would have placed on him due to his photo avatar would have been wrong wrong wrong.

I think it's groovy, baby! He's been trying to change it for years, but then we get someone who can't argue rationally, so they make a comment about Bond threatening them with a gun, so of course swansont can't change it then. Now they'll probably complain that Powers is threatening them with his teeth.... Either avatar, swansont has the physics mojo, baby. Shall we interact now, or interact later? Spoken like a supervillain with his priorities straight. Lost his hair in a tragic frikkin' laser shark accident.

! Moderator Note In the future, if you have no intention of giving enough detail to support a modest discussion, please don't post in the science sections. A building's use is foundational to it's structure, so withholding details like this kills the discussion.

! Moderator Note This is why we ask you not to respond to Moderator notes,. You take the whole thread off-topic because you can't be bothered to read the rules you agreed to when you joined. You have no rights here. You have no freedom of speech. The site owner will tell you that himself. Members are guests, and civility is one of our foremost rules. You joined, and are now proceeding to ignore everything you've been told, everything you were supposed to have read, and you're flaunting your ignorance of science by trying to lecture some very accomplished professional and amateur scientists about the uneducated ideas you've dreamed up to explain what you failed to study. Please get off your high horse, unplug your ears and start listening to what people are actually talking to you about.

! Moderator Note You're getting help, but half of it is aimed at the things you're asserting (look this up, please) to be True. Please stop phrasing everything like you're trying to teach a class, because you make too many mistakes to be a teacher (the matter in the universe at the time of the BB wasn't a tiny speck in the universe, it was the whole universe in an extremely hot, dense state - no explosion into existing space, but rather an expansion of space-time that's still happening). Members are commenting on the "parts" of your idea (NOT theory) that they either know to be wrong (not the whole thing, just those parts), or that they'd like you to support with some evidence. You're making the mistake of thinking that criticism of your idea is criticism of you. Nobody is "speculating that [you're] wrong", they're saying parts of your idea are demonstrably wrong. There is a difference in science, and it's important.

Free will is a bit of a misnomer, when you think about it. Even the above prisoner has some decisions to make, some ways in which his will can influence a choice. He's free to choose whether to nap or talk or play cards, or any one of a limited but not non-existent list of things he/she can do. There really is no completely free will, you can't do *anything* you feel like doing at any time, so what kind of freedom are we talking about? I have a much broader range of things I can do since I'm not imprisoned, but I don't have the freedom to do *anything* my will can envision. It seems like free will is determined by degree no matter how you look at it. I'm free to walk downtown, but I'm not free to walk into the Federal Center without clearance. If I did anyway, and got thrown in prison, I'd be free to walk around the exercise yard and talk to anybody I wanted. If I did, I'd get into a fight with one group or another and end up in solitary confinement. Even there, I have choices I can make, but do I have still have free will? Where exactly did I lose it? Was it ever there to begin with? Is free will completely free will, or some limited version thereof, determined by... who? I would say that a device that controlled your choices would completely negate any free will you might have, if our will is ever completely free.

! Moderator Note We allow scientific speculation following moderate guidelines for rigor and evidence. Religious speculation is just you claiming whatever you want, with nothing to support it. It's not as interesting as you seem to think. You're asking us to believe rather than trust. That's not science. This is a science discussion site, with some sections for religious topics discussed in a rational, methodical way. It's not a place for preaching YOUR way that you made up. If you think your beliefs have some rational ramifications, please discuss those and the science behind them. You're trying to blend your misunderstanding of black/white holes with some personal religious epiphany you can't explain using science, and you're failing because it isn't science. It's unsupported guesswork. Please, this isn't personal. This is about the difference between what you believe, and what you can persuade us to trust because you've given us reasons to accept your explanations. This is NOT the place to preach your gut feelings about how the universe works. We want evidence for bold assertions, the bolder your claims the more evidence should support them. Thanks for listening, no need to respond in this thread to this modnote. If you have a problem with it, PM another moderator and they'll help you.

! Moderator Note Mike, you need to start a blog. I think you would be fantastic at it. You have several threads that are all turning into "Mike Smith Cosmos shares what he found today". No offense, please, but we're a science discussion site, and we like a fair bit of get-to-the-point when we talk about science. Discussions really should be aimed at defining a foundation for our ideas, supporting them every step of the way, ensuring their trustworthiness. Most of the threads you have open are doing what you like best, skating on new ice, jumping from floe to floe. You like throwing ideas out and seeing if there's merit in them, sometimes the wilder, the better. THAT is why you should blog about that kind of thing, the ideas you can't really support with the level of evidence everyone here is always asking you for. We have the mechanism for blogging right here, if you're interested. And for the types of science discussions you can support with evidence, we welcome them wholeheartedly. But we need to clean up some of these open, ambiguous ramblers that are more wishful guesswork than science discussion. I hope you understand.

! Moderator Note NO Speculating in the mainstream sections, please! You started out asking about legitimate science. If you want to go out onto the ice, please start a new thread in Speculations. There's no need to respond to this in this thread, but you can report it if you object.

We're a science discussion forum, not a "Let me make some wild guesses with no evidence" forum. You gave an hypothesis (not a theory, theories have been studied by multitudes of scientists, have mountains of evidence and withstood every experiment trying to refute it, and is the absolute best you can get in science) and you should try to support it with something tangible, some evidence that turns this from a guess into a possible line of speculation with a bit of rational foundation. That's what the scientific method is for, so we're not guessing, we're mapping out the differences between what we're almost certain of, what we trust as the most current best explanation, and what we suspect is correct but are still developing our ideas about. It's not about proof, it's about trusting our most-supported explanations for various phenomena.

Some science needs to be discussed soon, or someone's going to close this thread.

! Moderator Note Not Science News, moved to Lounge.

! Moderator Note Relativity does NOT confuse scientists, but it seems to confuse you. This is NOT Science News, it's personal Speculation, so I've moved it to that section. Please take the time to read the special rules for that section. Sorry if I sound testy, but it's been a bad week for science denial. Relativity, and even Quantum Mechanics just HAVE to be wrong if someone doesn't get it intuitively, it seems. Big gusty sigh. Have a good weekend, good luck with evidence to outweigh what Relativity has to support it.

I think we're done with you. I really worry you're going to start hurting things when you find out you can't destroy it all. You're an evil little troll.

Slightly off-topic, but could a virus infect an individual's ego to the point where that person completely lost touch with reality, and deluded themselves into thinking that destroying all life was the answer to their personal problems?

! Moderator Note Duplicate threads in other sections have been hidden. One thread per topic, please, otherwise it becomes too confusing, negating any benefit from snagging more members.

Well, nobody here is interested in hearing all these tired, long-debunked pseudo-arguments based on ignorance and misinformation. Go to TalkOrigins if you have any questions regarding any of these arguments you've been fed. They've all been shown to be full of little falsehoods and half-truths, perpetuated by religious extremists who refuse to first learn what they claim is wrong. If you really take the time to study what you deride, you may rid yourself of some heavyweight ignorance. And that would be fantastic for everyone, and a much more interesting discussion.

! Moderator Note Please, this section is for science speculation. Religion is completely off-topic. We are one of the few science discussion sites with a Religion section, please keep religious discussions in that section. They aren't appropriate here. Thanks for understanding.

! Moderator Note You've been shown the equation is flawed, it has units that can't be mixed like this in the same equation. Also, you need to find a way to communicate this idea to anyone listening. If it only makes sense to you, it is NOT science. Please try to overcome these two obstacles before going further, otherwise this discussion is pointless. Please listen to what these people are telling you, you don't know math and physics, by your own admission. On a related note, The Journal of Advances in Physics is on several predatory-publishing watchlists. They are not considered a rigorous journal.

! Moderator Note We need to keep speculative science out of the mainstream sections, so students don't think they can use your idea to pass their test. I'm moving this to Speculations, please make sure to read the special rules governing that section. If you have objections to the move, Report this post, but please don't talk about them here.

I think this is where you went wrong. Higher quality, more expensive wines don't necessarily have the most alcohol content. Fortified wines like Thunderbird, MD 20/20, and Night Train Express are classic hobo wines, very cheap and around 18% AC.

I remember reading once that even the conductivity of electricity through copper wire is a QM effect, but we didn't need QM at the time to take advantage of it, and it evolved more or less by trial and error. But when QM was actually applied, we could suddenly make things with very specific optical and electrical properties. QM revolutionized chemistry as well. Solar panel technology comes to mind, and I'm sure there are many others. I'm scheduled for a PET scan in the next month, so it's a good thing I don't think QM is waste of time. I'd hate to think of the alternative to modern medical imaging.

I think this landslide will be a good thing for the right. For too long, the Republicans have been avoiding ANYTHING the Democrats support, even smart things. This seems to suggest that the two parties have nothing in common, and we all know that can't be true. It's just not possible that the majority of Republicans share no stances with the majority of Democrats. Yet we've seen how this Republican party of the last couple of decades seems determined to draw a line that excludes anything the Democrats want done, even if it's in the best interest of the vast majority. If you really talk to people, you find they have MUCH more in common, but holding the party line has become a bizarre thing for those on the right, and the farther right the more bizarre it's gotten. I'm hoping this current circus with Trump will help underscore how hideously inaccurate Republican representation has become.

Interesting. My mother called that lighter area at the nail base the "half moon". But the only plates she shifted were the eating kind. Although she did have some plates on the walls, which could fall off during an earthquake. She also used Tide laundry detergent, and the moon affects the tides, so I suppose my mom could have been responsible for at least some of the movement of the ocean floor. Or she was a werewolf. The evidence is inconclusive.