MigL

Is any political candidate a viable president after the internet gets through with him/her ? I still consider Hilary Clinton the best bet, although she would never get elected in Canada for being too right wing.

Sorry ydoaPs, I guess 'disproving religion' was a bad choice of wording. But the Ptolemaic system as opposed to the Copernican system comes to mind as an accepted scientific fact which was later shown to be false. ( although one could say proof had been available since the Greeks/Egyptians of Alexandria ) All I'm suggesting is that the allegorical book which we call the Bible is not meant to be a historical or factual text, but rather a guideline as to how we should lead our lives. And as such, it is perfectly valid. Once we start ascribing other meaning to it, it quickly fails.

Haven't discussed crossbars and parallel computing since the late 80s, when the Transputer platform was going to be a co-processor for the Atari ST system. Wonder what ever happened to that ?

If this technology is available, and relatively cheap, iNow, why aren't more police forces making use of it ? It seems that every time you read of an dust-up between police and a drunk or stoned civilian, an attempt is always made on the gun. Wouldn't smart weapons reduce the danger of this ? Apologies for straying off-topic.

You guys seem surprised that politicians will say whatever it takes trying to get elected . How young and naïve are you ?

I don't follow the logic of using quotes from the Bible to disprove religion, Moontanman and ydoaPs. I can list a multitude of scientific writings from >1000 yrs ago that are also demonstrably wrong. They certainly don't invalidate science and the scientific method.

Thanks, Moontanman.

Look into a Silicon Valley start-up called Soft Machines, Enthalpy. They have produced a test chip that seems to validate their claims, which are that it can divide a single thread into virtual threads running in parallel without a re-writing of the code. Soft Machines claims their processor rapidly translates the binary code into its own native VISC ( variable instruction set computing ) code. It does this, not simply like a superscalar processor have been doing since the 80s, but across multiple cores. Whether it can do this without re-writing single thread code will be a big deal if it does happen

Can this 'wobble' or oscillation, converge and disappear altogether, or diverge and destroy a planet/moon ?

Does the US still have a large gold depository in Fort Knox to back their currency ? I didn't think that was the case anymore, John.

Whether the universe ( not just observable ) is finite or infinite is inconsequential. The only constraint that I can see is that it cannot be bounded, so a finite universe which folds back in on itself is allowed, as is a universe which goes on forever. The fact remains that only our observable universe can affect us, anything beyond that cannot. There are several ways for a mathematical model to go from finite to infinite, and I gave one such example in my previous post #5. There are others. Whether the actual universe can act this way is still to be decided. But consider that a universe ( circa big bang ) the size of an orange ( or even an atom ) is a relative term, compared to the size of the universe today, since a literal term would mean you, the observer, are standing 'outside' the universe to make that measurement; An impossibility, for the same reason the universe cannot be bounded.

Mike, just like you can throw a ball in the air until gravity overcomes the acceleration you gave it, and it falls back down, so do the water waves rise and fall in response to the energy imparted by all the factors that Ophiolite mentions in post #18. Without all those factors there would be no waves and water would be smooth ( sea level exactly the same all over the world ( considering deviation from spherical due to rotation ). Much more interesting is the Welland Canal clip. Locks 1, 2 and 3 are just a stone's throw away from where I live, and 4, 5, 6 and 7 are close to the University I attended.

5- oh yes, Trump is still a clown. But your first 4 were bang on.

The equations ( and even the verbal description ) are just that, mathematical models. Usually there are clear indicators when the model ceases to apply ( or as you put it the 'equations have run out' ), infinities are one such indicator. So while the mathematical model may allow for wormholes and such, what we usually find is that some other 'speculative' property or effect is required to make them work ( see exotic matter/negative energy and Kip Thorne ).

Furthermore, light is not the only way to measure distances ( even so that all observers agree ). I can easily use, say sonar, to calculate a distance, and any observer ( knowing some physics, would be able to make the appropriate transformations to get exactly the same results.

Seems to me Waitforufo just loves his guns. But I get the impression that he agrees the death toll due to shootings is unacceptable. But he considers gun ownership a natural right and is not willing to give it up. Overtone is all for gun control, but is afraid of an authoritarian Republican government turning the USA into a dictatorship with concentration camps. He may then have to use his handgun to overthrow the government's armed forces. I'm not making fun or trivializing their positions. But these are two people that we've been trying to convince to our point of view for 44 pages and almost two years. Its not going to work, and trying to find ways around the Constitution's Second Amendment is even more futile. Accidental gun shootings are due to two causes. The large number of guns in circulation in the US is a contributing factor, but one that we seem to be stuck on. So lets forget about getting rid of all the guns. The other cause for the shootings, is the accidents themselves, whether due to lack of training in the operation of the weapon, improper storage and accessibility to young kids, or possession by an unstable individual. And I'm sure there are others. None of these require the re-opening of the Constitution to tackle. So can we leave the Second Amendment to the Constitution in the other thread, and concentrate on measures to avoid gun fatalities ?

the Dick Act of 1902 ? That's almost as funny as the Diet of Worms !

I'm not a religious person by any stretch although I've had almost all Catholic sacraments ( except marriage and last rites of course ). It just seemed like the thing to do, being born in Italy and all. Here's my take on the three major monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They each have a book which presents ( through parables and stories not to be taken as literal or even real ) guidelines for how we should live our lives. All three books stress that we should care about our fellow human beings and avoid wronging others, but there are some subtle differences. In the Old Testament ( the Jewish guidelines ), the lead is none other than God himself. He is depicted as a vengeful God. An 'eye for an eye'. Stray out of line and He banishes you from Eden, turns people into pillars of salt, floods the Earth or even demands the sacrifice of your first born. Similarly, Israeli Jews are very unforgiving. If you cross them in any way, they will retaliate. The New Testament ( Christian guidelines ), is very different. It is the story ( real or fictional, doesn't matter ) of the Christ, who was all about forgiveness and turning the other cheek. The only time Jesus gets upset is when he up-ends the money lenders' tables in the temple. Once we get to the Quran ( Muslim guidelines ) there is no question of fiction or reality. Mohammed was a real historic figure. And so while we have the writings in the Quran, we also have the historical records stating that when he was banished from Mecca for preaching, he went to Medina, raised a small army, and ambushed/robbed wagon trains on the way to Mecca, to finance his operations. After his religion was established, Muslim armies conquered ( along North Africa ) as far as the Pyrenees separating Spain from Franc, in the West, and as far as the Punjab in the East. Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't a generalization about the followers of the religions, There are good Jews, Christians and Muslims, and bad Jews, Christians and Muslims. This is more a generalization about their respective books or guides, and how they are tempered by historical records. And although the comparison is extremely simplistic, If I had to be religious, its clear to me which I'd favour.

Lets compare the universe at the time just after the big bang to a number line. Lets say at this time, t>0, where we can begin to make measurements of space-time, the size is 1 unit on the number line. We can still subdivide that one unit into an infinite number of points. If we subsequently consider the whole number line, extending to an infinite number of units, we can subdivide that into an infinite number of points. Furthermore we can put each of the infinite points on the one unit length on a one-to-one correspondence with the infinite number of points on the whole number line. Infinities are a funny business and not very intuitive.

One way to look at it is that the hook/guitar system has potential. Over time all the factors Swansont has mentioned degrade the stickiness of the hook. When it finally lets go, the potential is turned into motion as the guitar and hook fall to the ground under the influence of gravity. We can, then, harvest this kinetic energy, and use it to do work.

And we're saying there will be NO 'unforeseen complications' from the trivial increase in oxygen.

No-one is arguing against the block universe model, on the contrary it is an extremely valuable model. That being said ALL of GR is a model, and the very fact that it doesn't apply at certain limits, means it is an incomplete model. Who knows ( I certainly don't, neither do you, nor any of the eminent physicist you mentioned ), maybe the whole geometric model may have to be scrapped to reconcile it with QM ? The only criteria we have to go by is whether the model is a good fit for what we measure. If that seems 'old fashioned' to you and relies too much on proof, then I guess I'm an internet troll who claims to have a degree while offering no proof. ( oh, so now proof is valuable ??? ) P.S.- or maybe its just your arrogant, condescending, dismissive attitude that bothers me.

I beg to differ. I have a physics degree and am familiar with the block universe model. But you, being better than the rest of us, should know that science is all about what can be proven and repeated. So tell us how you can prove that your future already exists !

" Uneducated internet trolls who disagree " ??? That's a little harsh. What Michel123456 presented with his dimensional reduction ( Flatland ) analogy and what Sensei presented with his digital states analogy, are no different than the block universe. All are models which can be used to make predictions. Some models may make more accurate predictions. Some models may apply to a broader range of boundary conditions ( circumstances ). But are they reality ? No, they are models describing some aspect of 'reality', whatever that may be. And we may never know; we certainly accept this limitation in QM. Is a quantum particle described best by the wave model or the particle model ? They are both useful models in the right circumstances, but neither is reality.

If the Earth was to somehow become less 'bumpy' and more 'smooth', all the water accumulating at the deep areas would be evenly spread over the world. I'm not sure about the volume of the oceans and seas of the world combined, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but knowing that it would then be trivial to calculate the height of the water covering the 'smooth' Earth ( may even be more than 1000 ft ). The disaster which causes the 'smoothing' would have to heat the mantle to make it more liquid and, at the same time, stop plate movements which lead to rising/descending plates. As to the 'flood myth', could the flooding of the Mediterranean basin account for it ?