MigL

A house sized asteroid, which usually spends most of its orbit out past Mars ( in the asteroid belt ), crossed Earth's orbit today, at closer separation than the moon. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/technology/newfound-house-sized-asteroid-2020-gh2-flies-past-earth-today/ar-BB12Gvdz?ocid=msedgntp And... Bmpbmp1975, DID NOT claim it was the end of the world. ( sorry Bmpbmp1975, I just couldn't resist )

Defence is a national edeavor, Dimreepr. The WHO is a worldwide, multinational organization. Vast difference. China should be the last to complain about the situation the world finds itself in.

I see that this has already been mentioned in the Political Humor thread. President D Trump has announced the temporary cut to US funding of the WHO, in response to alleged withholding of information regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, and parroting of Chinese official 'talking points ( spin ? ). No doubt he will be criticized by many for this action, and it does seem rather shortsighted, to say the least. He is even being criticized by China on the matter. Given that the US is by far, the largest contributor to the WHO, contributing 22 %, almost twice as much as China and three times the amount of the next highest contributor, isn't China being hypocritical ? Maybe they should do as the US has done for so many years, and put their money where their mouth is.

Hypothetical question... Lets assume D Trump really ( I mean really ) messes up the Covid-19 response and mitigation efforts ( by delaying response to the crisis, standing down too soon, pushing for dangerously wrong medications, etc. ), and a very large number of people die, as a result, say several hundred thousand. Could he be charged, by Americans, at the World Court, for crimes against humanity ? Maybe after he's out of office ? Or is that a dangerous precedent to set ?

I have a feeling it'll be Warren. He has to throw a bone to the 'progressive' part of the Democratic party, and base. Probably not a bad compromise, at all, ( Gabbard might be too tempting for 'touchy-feely' Joe ) Keep in mind, whoever he chooses has a good shot at becoming the 'replacement' President. J Biden is 77, and will be 81 at the end of his first term, and 85 at the end of his possible second. ( If he makes it that long, o doesn't go senile )

Don't be sorry. I was asking in case you wanted to make it a threesome...

You two wanna get a room ?

Oh, great. The neutrino paper thread is closed. Now Bmpbmp1975 is going to come back to this one. Is it time to put him in the Mod que ?

You think its from being isolated ? And they just need a hug ?

So, it is not the Constitution ( as JC suggested ), nor the checks and balances ( as CharonY and Swansont suggest ), that are to blame. Rather, as many of us have suggested for some time, the campaign financing, and lobbying, that are out of control. Will any American politician ever have the ba*ls ( or popularity ) to suggest reform ?

T Gabbard is a veeery long shot. Klobuchar seems kind of 'dull' ( to put it as nicely as possible ) J Biden might need some 'excitement' in his platform, going up against the hyperbole of D Trump.

Back in the good old days ( our time ), people had to get wasted on some pretty powerful drugs to experience these sorts of delusions, John. It seems, these days, some people are like that normally.

So I guess now we start discussing/obsessing about his VP pick. I believe he has already stated he'd prefer a woman. Warren, Klobuchar, Abrams, Harris ( bad blood from debates ? ), Whitmer ( petition to remove her from office ), or long shots like Gabbard or even Michelle Obama. Who have I missed, INow ? So would I ( prefer women, but politically Warren, although she may be too 'left' to fit), but 'uncle Joe' had better watch what he says about women. This election could turn out to be about who is less abusive towards women. ( yes, Republicans are obviously hypocrites )

I think we all doubt that. The neutrino paper presents a series of models, based on varying neutrino mass, and their possible effect on cosmological models. It's like saying if I have a dollar I could buy a candy bar, if , instead I have $5, I could buy a burger, and If I have $20, I could buy a 1/4 chicken dinner and a beer at Swiss Chalet. Different possibilities give rise to different outcomes. If you read more on false vacuum decay, you will find that a symmetry break at the time of Electroweak dissociation ( Electromagnetic force separation from Weak Nuclear force ) accompanied a drop from a false vacuum state. A Salam, S Glashow and S Weinberg shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for this theory in 1979 ( I remember being in 3rd year Uni, at the time ). And we are still here, are we not ???

Huuge ( say it like Trump ) problem with American politics; it's all about the money and the influence. Certainly not about the people, or their well being. It is big business, with their paid for influence, that are pushing D Trump to re-open the country, and get the economy moving again. If it kills a hundred thousand people, no big deal, at least big business will have gotten a return on their investment. I really can't believe D Trump is that stupid to push for early return to 'normality'. If the death toll gets too high he can kiss his chances for re-election goodbye

Looks like B Sanders has endorsed J Biden for President. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/politics/bernie-sanders-endorses-joe-biden/index.html Let's see what happens with his Bernie Bros. supporters.

When do you think contraction or collapse has happened ? Ever ? You really have to work on your reading comprehension...

The Cosmological Constant was 'added' by A Einstein to the gravitational field equations to counteract gravity and keep the universe stable ( not expanding/not collapsing ); and it was to be determined experimentally. As a positive constant results in ( accelerating ? ) expansion, then a negative constant would add to gravity and result in contraction or collapse ( depending on the value ). When do you think that's happened ???

Since you've taken a liking to reading scientific papers... https://cds.cern.ch/record/485959/files/0102033.pdf It talks about the Cosmo Constant "In this paper it is shown that the recently suggested cosmological model [14] predicts the value = 2:036 10−35s−2 for the cosmological constant. This value of is in excellent agreement with the measurements recently ob- tained by the High-Z Supernova Team and the Supernova Cosmological Project"

Wow, it's like walking on eggshells around here. You really have to be careful what you say. ( no matter how many ifs, coulds, mays, etc. you put in there )

That is not what I said. NOT anytime soon. One OR the other, just like always ( IF we are still in the slow roll phase )

A positive Cosmological Constant ( above a threshold value ) simply means that expansion is accelerating, and we will reach maximal entropy sooner than if the CC was a lesser value. And no, it won't happen anytime soon. The fact that expansion is accelerating, COULD mean that we are still in a 'slow roll' from a false vacuum state, to a lower false vacuum state, or the true vacuum state. Or it could not; that's why we call it 'dark' energy.

What exactly does this paper have to do with Entropy ???? And no, it doesn't say that false vacuum 'started'. The paper is an 'investigation' of time varying neutrino mass on the current cosmological model. It can be summarized as: IF ( large neutrino masses ), THEN ( cosmological observables ). edit: x-posted with Strange

The temperature of the 'cold spot' or any part of the CMB, is only distantly related ( temporally ) to the density of matter in that area. Recall that the CMB is a 'snapshot' of the temperature of the universe at the time of recombination, when the universe was 300 000 yrs new; when electrons were finally able to stick to nuclei, at about 3000 deg K. If this temperature can be assumed to be nearly isotropic and homogenous, then as the universe expanded some 1040 times over the last 13.8 billion years, any variations in temperature would have become evident over the years. The fact that the CMB has a present variation of 2 parts in 10 000 of the average 2.7 deg K, shows exactly how small the original variations, and the fluctuations that led to them, were. Voids, having less gravitating masses to 'bind' them, had less of a mitigating effect on expansion, and present day voids may be even larger than one would expect from the CMB temperature variation.

Only in America... Every other country in the world has their various political parties working together with, and for, the people, during this pandemic. The US is more divided than ever. I thought this was supposed to be about saving lives, not political posturing, the blame game, and further polarization. You guys need a better quality of politicians. I bet George W Bush is looking at the mess President D Trump is making of the pandemic response, and saying "Wow; and they said I was stupid ?"