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Everything posted by MigL
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Very interesting, thanks Itoero. I always assumed the ganglion cells that make the 'bend' in the optic nerve cup, and which get damaged by the excessive pressure of Glaucoma, to be different from regular nerve cells or axons. Maybe there is hope.
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OK... I need a robot to go in and rebuild the damaged optic nerve of my left eye where the cells make the bend from the retina to the optic nerve. Stem cells injected directly into the area, to replace the dead cells damaged by PDS glaucoma should do it. When can I book an appointment ? ( just kidding, but I am hoping... then maybe, I can stop squinting so much )
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Ahh, but what if a state develops a mostly Muslim population through immigration. ( I know it still wouldn't happen because the immigrants are mostly trying to get away from that way of life ) And then somebody runs for election in that state to bring in some forms of Sharia law. I know its a lot of 'what ifs', but that is our system and is equivalent to an 'invitation to control our way of life'. Even Sean Connery had to agree to 'Never Say Never Again'. Swansont.
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I usually bow out when Tar 'takes over' a discussion, but... That is exactly how Christianity developed, and I might add, the figure who sets the example of HOW we should lead our lives, is Jesus, in the New testament. You know, the 'turn the other cheek' guy, the guy who asked his Father to forgive his executioners. In all of the writings about him, whether real or fictional ( who cares, he is simply a symbol of what we should strive for ) he gets upset one time only, and upends the money-lender's tables in the temple. Now compare with the example set for Islam, by Mohammed. ( and remember that these are now actual historical records ) Mohammad starts preaching in Mecca ( a trading center for nomadic traders ), where he quickly runs foul of the law, leaves for Medina, and organizes raids on caravans travelling through Mecca to steal their goods. When he has amassed enough wealth and power he returns to re-take Mecca. And subsequently, also by the sword, all of the Arabian peninsula. in his name, and by the sword, eventually, to the west all of North Africa and the Iberian peninsula is conquered as far as the Pyrenees, and to the east, as far as the Punjab. Which 'example' should we be following ????? As for sharia law, in the Trump/Hitler thread I mentioned how a dictatorship could "never happen here" and was quickly corrected by Phi, Delta and iKnow, that I was making foolish assumptions, because it couldn't happen in Germany either, until it did ! So I'm going to suggest that Sharia law can't currently happen here. Until it just might !
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Yes, one can ! The fact that it doesn't happen in the US does not mean it doesn't happen in parts of the World where it is ( even partially ) practiced. And I can post contemporary stories of whipping from those parts of the World also, while you had to reference History books for North American/European examples. No law should be based on religious beliefs, whether here or there. I think THAT we can agree on.
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Sure. Max Planck did the same.
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Where Does Space End? It Must End Somewhere!
MigL replied to Edisonian's topic in Astronomy and Cosmology
The CMB and BBT are not related as you think. Hydrogen and Helium will be ionized at temperatures over 3000 deg ( the sun is an example and it can be done with an arc in a lab ) ) Their electrons cannot stick to their nuclei and so you have an opaque plasma ( i.e. it glows ). If we measure the current background temperature and find it to be just under 3 deg , then by simple gas laws ( V proportional to T ) we know that the universe must have expanded over 1000 times. I.E. The CMB and its cause, is an established and verified scientific fact which does not depend on the BBT, just expansion/volume increase. Which in turn,supports the BBT. It does NOT support constant density. So it is not circular reasoning. -
And one could make the argument that no stonings or whippings have happened in the US exactly because we don't have Sharia law. Can you make the same statement about countries where Muslim Clerics are the law givers/judges/enforcers ?
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Welcome back Acme. This is only an opinion so if any of you think it applies to you, chances are, it does. Much has been made of the attacks B Obama had to endure during his two terms ( much of it from D Trump himself ) regarding his place of birth, his religion, etc. .All while doing a more than respectable job of being President. And a lot of the people who label themselves 'progressives' decried that as unfair and unjust attacks on his person, not his policies. Well, here's your chance to prove you're better than those who label themselves as 'conservative', and you won't stoop to 'gutter' fighting. Protest is a healthy thing in a democracy, so by all means, protest any of D Trump's policies you don't agree with. But if you attack the President Elect personally ( no I don't like him either, but he's not my President ), you're no better than the Republicans were during the last 8 yrs. And you've lost your moral high ground.
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Where Does Space End? It Must End Somewhere!
MigL replied to Edisonian's topic in Astronomy and Cosmology
How is it stable if, only 13.4 Bil yrs ago the universe was hot and dense enough that electrons could not stick to protons so as to form atoms ? That IS the source of the CMB. If it has changed so much in 13.4 Bil yrs, how can you say that it will look the same in 10000 Bil yrs because it is 'stable' ? And expect us to take you seriously ??? -
If I recall, it was Heisenberg who developed his Matrix Mechanics using experimental data. Shroedinger's Quantum Mechanics was developed from first principles. And I believe it was M. Born who showed that the two formulations are equivalent. Thank you for being so gracious to the people who helped you. And my apologies for my knobbish, non-explanatory, earlier response.
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Can a particle exist without its intrinsic wave?
MigL replied to pittsburghjoe's topic in Quantum Theory
The fact remains that a 'wave' is a mathematical model of a Quantum Particle's behavior in certain circumstances, while a 'particle' is the mathematical model in other circumstances ( the experiment being performed ). What an electron actually is, is anybody's guess. But these models, when applied to their respective and appropriate circumstances, make extremely accurate real-world predictions. -
The problem is not what reasonable people like yourself and CharonY understand Sharia law to be, but what some religious fundamentalist, who blames his daughter for 'getting' raped, understands it to be. Its all just 'threatening and fears' until some young woman gets stoned ( and I don't mean high ).
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This is not a relativity problem, and it can be easily described and visualized by reducing the dimensionality. Consider intrinsically flat, Euclidian space. if a 'Flatlander' living on this surface draws a circle he will have no problem establishing that the circumference increases linearly with the radius ( and as elementary geometry teaches us ). Now consider a 'Flatlander' living on a positive, intrinsically curved surface ( a sphere ). As he draws his circles to determine the relationship between radius and circumference, he finds that the circumference does NOT increase linearly with the radius, but starts falling behind. Similarly a 'Flatlander' living on negative, intrinsic curvature ( saddle shape, or a stretched piece of clothing that does not lie flat anymore because there is too much material near the edges ), will, upon performing the same exercise, measure the circumference increasing faster than linearly WRT radius. It is a simple task to extend this mathematically to 3 or 4 dimensions, but you can no longer visualize the effect. And note that we only considered measurements made on the 2D surface, Studiot, so this is in intrinsic effect and has no need for embedding
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Don't hold your breath waiting for the 'revolution'.
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Can a particle exist without its intrinsic wave?
MigL replied to pittsburghjoe's topic in Quantum Theory
What kind of wave are you talking about ? You do realise the 'wave' of a quantum particle is a mathematical description of its probability distribution ? -
Jobs haven't been leaving for overseas just during the last 8 yrs, tar. It has been going on a lot longer than that, and is part of a globalization process that has upsides and downsides. Losing jobs in sectors where we're not competitive is only a downside because ALL previous governments have ignored that demographic which lost those ( unskilled but hi pay ) jobs to foreign labor. We'll see what D Trump does . I don't have a problem with protest. It is guaranteed by the system which allowed D Trump to win this election, and is called democracy. I have a problem with violent protests. Democracy doesn't say you can protest the President by throwing a brick through my window.
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Only have one issue with bike riders Imatfaal, and its probably misdirected as it should be towards city planners or law enforcement. If I'm travelling down a busy street, with a lot of streetlights, I have to be very careful when overtaking a bike rider as it involves moving into the next-over, busy lane, in the absence of bike lanes. When I come to a light and stop, that bike rider will not stop behind the vehicle ahead of him, but proceed to pass on the right hand side, and go to the front of the line,. This necessitates the dangerous passing maneuver, over and over again after every stop-light. All vehicles, car or bike, on the road need to follow the same rules. No passing on the right hand side, and no travelling down the wrong side of the road ( like you Brits, or are we on the wrong side ) Sorry for the off topic jaunt, but you opened the door...
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Getting back to the difference between the time dimension and the spatial dimensions, and correct me if I'm wrong, but... In GR we have dS^2 = dx^2+ dy^2+ dz^2- c^2dt^2 ( sorry for the lack of LaTex) making the actual multiplier for the time variable, ic , not simply c . That means, although orthogonal to the space dimensions, time is treated mathematically as imaginary.
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My opinion, for what its worth... These refugees are trying to escape oppressive governments and situations. They see Western nations as safe havens because of the attitudes and culture that have formed our societies. Is it any wonder the majority of them think like we tend to ? If they didn't they wouldn't be coming here ( or to Germany ) Unfortunately it only takes one nutbar in their midst, for us to paint all refugees with the same brush !
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Originally there were two competing models for light. By models I mean mathematical descriptions of reality. One described light as a classical particle, while the other model described light as a classical wave. Both models worked, i.e. they made testable predictions and described reality, but only in specific circumstances; and sometimes the areas of applicability of the models even overlapped. But neither model was applicable 100% of the time ( circumstances ). In the first half of the last century, QM introduced the concept of the quantum particle. Neither a classical particle or a wave. But a model of reality which has both a wave nature and a particle nature, and even describes quantum effects ( like the double slit ), but not to everyone's satisfaction as it involves a paradigm shift in the way we view reality ( probabilistic not deterministic ). And although this is different than the wave particle duality you wish to discuss, the Pilot Wave hypothesis was first introduced by L. DeBroglie ( that was my recollection Strange, not D Bohm ) as a way to reconcile QM's wave particle duality. You'll have to look it up for specifics, but it created more problems that it solved and was ultimately abandoned. So to recap, we make models which attempt to model reality. They will always be a model, and NOT the actual , real thing. As such they can never be 100% descriptive, but have certain areas of applicability. A good physicist is aware of those boundaries, and stays within those areas, otherwise his predictions are non-sensical. Incidentally, we are all here to learn, even those with PhDs at the leading edge of their field. We can do that best by asking questions and carefully considering answers we are given. If someone asks you a question they are trying to understand your idea, not ridiculing it. I'm sure we can all agree that squabbling doesn't lend itself to learning and understanding.
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In politics, impressions are everything John. It shouldn't be that way because she's clearly the more capable candidate. She just gives people the wrong impression and comes across as unlikable and untrustworthy. ( so much so that a sizable portion of the population consider her LESS trustworthy than someone like D Trump ) Even her smiles/laughs look forced. Maybe the Democrats are regretting the way they treated B Sanders now, but they cheated the populace by handing H Clinton the nomination win, and now are hypocritically accusing the Republicans of cheating to win the Presidency ? But back to appearance/ impressions, I know we shouldn't elect leaders bases on 'looks', but we are, to a great extent, shallow. We have elected, in Canada, a Prime Minister who has continued all of the previous Conservative policies ( including the greenhouse gas emission targets for which Harper was vilified ) and increased the deficit. But he takes lots of 'selfies" because he' s a good looking young man with 'cute' hair. And everyone says he's the best thing since sliced bread !
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Very interesting ( and informative ) maps Delta. Thank you.
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Come to think of it... R Giuliani is a lot like J Goebbels. ( just kidding )
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Of course. But do I need to include a disclaimer with all my posts stating that 'this is an opinion based on information available to me'. And how do you know that I'm not familiar with, and a close friend of theirs ? You mean your post is also an opinion based on available information ? Who'd have thunk that ?