MigL

Maybe the Chinese Government and Medical Ministry should resign. For not releasing information sooner, which could have stopped the spread of the virus. The WHO only had whatever information the Chinese chose to release.

My problem is I don't waste any. I eat way too much. I should do like Phi; my knees say I should drop about 20 lbs. ( and like Phi, if it wasn't for the cat litter, I could easily go 3-4 weeks between garbage pick-up )

In modern Physics, the 'vacuum' has potential energy. This energy is responsible for virtual particles, and their many interactions. Think of this vacuum potential as a cliff, with one or more ledges down its face. The Big Bang event would have been the summit, or top, of the cliff. Dropping down the cliff drops you to a lower ledge, or energy state, of the vacuum. The last time this happened, as Mordred has explained, was 10^-32 secs after the Big Bang event. The universe dropped to a lower ledge ( and inflated exponentially ); this resulted in a symmetry break and the separation of the Electromagnetic force from the Weak force. Simultaneously, he Higgs interaction gave rise to invariant ( rest ) mass for certain fermions and bosons that interact with the Higgs field. Now, at the present time, we are not aware of any ledges further down the cliff. We may already be at the lowest possible ( ground ) level. But this level still has an energy value, and we know this because Quantum Mechanics works. If there are further lower ledges and another symmetry break causes a drop, you don't need to worry. You won't feel a thing.

Where the he*l did I put my magnifying glass...

I have to wonder if the Biden 'brand' has taken a hit because of all the accusations made by D Trump and Republicans. A lot of people may be thinking "where there's smoke, there is fire". I guess my 'virtual' vote, now, has to be for E Warren. But she'd better kick it into higher gear.

Euclid is still rock-solid for 'flat' geometries. It is kind of useless for 'curved' geometries, though. One didn't replace the other; they have different applications.

As Strange's link mentions, a distance of 50-100 light years would be the danger zone. Betelguese is well outside that range. Sit back and enjoy the show.

Other than the fact that the CMB hasn't always been at 2.7 deg., but has come down from about 3500 deg. , that seems a pretty good approximation. Something slightly less massive, to account for decreased radiation prior to the present era, could not have resulted from stellar collapse. Since only 'primordial' Black Holes of about 0.7 % Earth's mass would be completely evaporating by now ( in a final shedding of the Event Horizon, and a massive Gamma Ray burst ), the fact that none are observed might mean that the energy density of the early universe was homogenous and isotropic enough to prevent the formation of 'primordial' BHs.

"Presentism' is a local foliation of the block universe. IOW an interpretation of a model for GR.

I think you mean 'anthropic' in your discussion of J A Wheeler's Participatory Universe idea. 'Anisotropic' is related to observations in differing directions, Koti. But I fully agree. I don't mix Philosophy and Physics either. Although, to be fair to Eise, Philosophy can be a valuable 'guide' to doing Physics.

I think we are missing the gist of JC's original comment. No matter who wins the election this fall, deficits will increase. ( there is no B Clinton on the Democrat ticket )

One could make the argument that G W Bush did a much better job of reducing the deficit, between the year 2004 to 2008-9, when the Financial Meltdown happened. Even burdened by ongoing wars ( of his own doing, of course ). B Obama came in when the economy had already tanked, and bail-outs were being handed to any financial institution that asked. The economy had nowhere to go, but up, and the big deficits were much reduced by the ending of bail-outs and the previously mentioned improving economy.

Oh, wait... Did you say 'run' ? JC thought you said 'ruin'.

I don't have a problem with people's own personal beliefs, but don't like it much when they try to 'convert' me. I have found that, if you answer the door in your underwear, when JWs come calling, they don't come back again.

AI programmer...

The temperature probes are in the gas phase, not the liquid. And increased pressure will increase the temperature of the gas. Edit: cross posted with Strange. Sloppy experiments give people 'excuses' to deny validity.

Thanks for the breakdown JC. But unless someone breaks out and really resonates with the voters, I think the Democrats are trying to choose the candidate who will come in second to D Trump in the November election. If you're just 'preaching to the choir' ( your base ), you can't do any better than H Clinton did 3 yrs ago. Even after al the crap he's pulled, and an impeachment, D Trump is still polling high enough to win it. Unless one of the Democratic candidates can steal away some of that support, I don't see them ousting D Trump.

Don't the Alka Seltzer tablets generate pressure in the test bottle ( as opposed to the reference bottle ), John ? Certainly not enough to account for the temp difference; but it seems pretty sloppy.

Wiki actually has some very interesting reading regarding the "hockey stick' graph... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#Controversy_over_Bradley_and_Jones_1993

Voltage is a form of potential energy, as such, it is not due to any kinetics or motion, but rather the configuration of the system. Nothing actually moves through the open ended conductor of your example. Once any part of it is at the higher potential, all of it is then at that potential. ( of course any changes to the potential are still subject to the maximum speed of information propagation c ) It is similar to bringing that open ended conductor to the top of a building. It is now at a higher gravitational potential. But nothing 'moves' along the conductor; the whole system is at the higher potential. And, of course, if you drop it off the building, the conductor will trade gravitational potential for kinetic energy of motion. Similarly if you subject a test charge to a voltage, or potential, that test charge will trade electrical potential for kinetic energy, and move. You probably have also noted ( during your career ) that if you touch a conductor that is at a high voltage, but you don't complete the circuit, you effectively become part of the 'system' at the higher voltage, and you get no shock. This is due to the fact that Electromagnetism is a 'gauge' force and has no absolute scale. It is the reason birds can sit on a 15 000 V wire without getting fried.

You're being a bit harsh, Strange. The Daily Mail is the only credible news source for anything Harry/Meghan or Kim/Kanye related.

Control ( of greed ). Flooding the market with crappy movies, just to capitalize and make money. And ruining the legacy of the originals. Since the first three, I've only liked Rogue One. ( then again I was always a Star Trek guy )

If you were to replace the 'square' potential in the 'particle in a box' solution with a Coulomb potential, you would get the Hydrogen atom solution. The proton is not involved at all; only its potential well.

The US is a big country, INow, with differing demographics. The preferences of delegates in one state may not coincide with those of another. You make it sound like the race is over after just getting out of the starting blocks. If there's one thing I've learned over the last three years, it's that American politics has become full of surprises. How else to explain the popularity of arguably the worst POTUS ever. D Trump is polling at almost 50 % approval; higher than B Obama at the same point in his Presidency. All while in the midst of an impeachment trial. Whomever Democrats pick as their Presidential candidate, they had better make sure he/she can defeat D Trump. Otherwise, no matter how 'lofty' ( or lefty ) their platform, they will only be the runner up.

I would assume it is the superposition of the quarks that is collapsed by the interactions. The proton itself can still remain in a superposition of its own states. After all, an atom can be in a superposition of states, yet its constituent electrons are continuously interacting with its nucleus. EDIT: cross posted with your response to Swansont. The wave function describing all possible observables of an atom ( say Hydrogen to keep it simple ) does not consider the proton in the nucleus at all, just the potential arising from its presence, and how the electron is affected by it. It is after all, solely the electron 'configuration' that determines how the atom interacts with other atoms.