MigL

Again, strong gravity and QCD are nowhere near the same scale, so its not really a matter of one replacing the other or making better predictions. Strong gravity is not noticeable at nuclear scales, and the energies of Planck scale make QCD unworkable,

In three spatial dimensions gravity falls off with the square ( ie n-1 where n is the number of spatial dimensions ) of the distance. If we were to add another dimension, compacted of course at near Planck scale so as to be undetectable, the gravity, at this scale, would fall off with the cube of the distance. In other words, at this scale halving the distance would disproportionately increase gravity eight times. It can be easily demonstrated, in reduced dimensions of course, by using water pressure leaking through a hole and then considering that same pressure when we move very far away, and the hole is leaking into a very long hose which, at distance, appears as a line. This is the effect trapped light is talking about, and is a common speculation and field of research in string theory. The problem is that since extra dimensions are expected to be compacted at Planck scales, means that any such effects will start to make themselves apparent at close to Planck scales. That means any observational evidence of gravity not following an inverse square law are a long way off.

Can we please stop pandering to this guy who can't even do a simple dimensional analysis on his conversions yet is preaching new ( senseless ) postulates for physics ?

Come on AJB, John ( and Enthalpy ), I give you guys way more credit than that. Neither of you seems the type to be uselessly banging his head against a brick wall You are just encouraging his delusions and conspiracy theories. Sometimes you just have to be blunt and stop trying to reason with the unreasonable.

Special relativity is directly responsible for degeneracy or the inability of two particles to occupy the same state. When you put an electron in a box and start making the box smaller and smaller, you are making its position more and more definite. According to the HUP, then, its momentum must get more and more indeterminate. If you make the box small enough, the momentum has the possibility to be so high that its speed would be faster than light. This is obviously not possible, so there is a lower limit to the size of the box you can put an electron in. If you force the electron into the nucleus ( making neutrons ), the mass component of the momentum is larger so you can still stay below light speed and keep decreasing the size of the box. This is the progression from white dwarf star to neutron star and the limits that were first worked out by S. Chandrasekhar on the ship from India to England to do his graduate work.

From everything I've read ( ie. I could be wrong ), Baryon number conservation is not 'written in stone'. There may be cause for violation of this rule. After all we do know that the universe consists primarily of matter. Where is the anti-matter ? At some point in its history the universe had to preferentially create matter or destroy anti-matter. How does this preserve baryon number ?

Why assume baryon number is conserved at the ( possible ) singularity ? After all we can consider time and space to be interchanged, with resultant causality violations. Things which would make little sense to outside, distant observers are common inside black holes. Further we know that matter/antimatter creation/destruction was not in equilibrium in the early universe at similar energy density.

Because bike racing will more than likely kill you !

You're right Imatfaal, I'm not a goose. And you and JC are most likely right ( I have to concede ). But it was an interesting ( and pleasant ) discussion.

It is only 'contact' forces which propagate through an object at the speed of sound ( although sometimes supersonically ), such as when you hit a baseball with a bat. Forces due to a field, such as gravity, EM, etc., are 'instantly on both sides of the object, because the field is 'already there'. Changes in the field propagate at c, as AJB has stated.

I do agree with the first part of the wiki definition that the 'average energy expenditure of the paceline is reduced' JC. however I have trouble with the second part that 'can also slightly reduce energy expenditure of the lead vehicle. This would only be possible with laminar flow over the paceline, once turbulence is introduced between vehicles, I do not see how it is possible. Ever see migrating geese JC ? They use a modified slipstream effect ( v formation ) to make the journey easier for the following geese. The lead goose is rotated out every so often because his workload is increased. If it was reduced compared to individual flight there would be no reason for this. I'm open to a convincing argument with examples,JC, but don't expect me to agree with you because 'wiki says so'.

So if a jet airliner becomes uneconomical, don't re-engine it or switch to a larger one , just add another one in front of it and you'll reduce drag, increase speed and/or increase economy. An airplane which has a max speed will be able to go faster or farther if fallowed by another plane. As a matter of fact, the race to go supersonic in the late 40s/early 50s could have been avoided by flying a long string of piston engine airplanes instead of going to jets ,4% chord thickness airfoils, higher finesse ratios ,Whitcombe area ruling and variable shock inlets. In other words, I don't believe you.

The sun has a net positive charge ??? References ??

Sorry imatfaal, but as Dilbert said, turbulence over the top of a wing destroys lift, ie. the pressure increases and the wing stalls ( drops ). Same with the back of your vehicle or motorbike. As for slipstreaming, if we assume that the only drag is caused by the air resistance ( disregard for the moment mechanical, rolling resistance etc. ), it takes a given amount of energy to do the work of moving the air out of the way. Unless you have completely laminar flow around rider A and rider B, there will always be some extra drag added by rider B to yhe lead rider A.. And since rider B will always see decreased drag ( some of the work has already been done by rider A ) then energy conservation dictates that drag for the lead rider A must increase.

I like a Carlsberg now and again, paesano.

I've lost all respect for your arguments iota. PERONI ??!! Not that I drink it, but at least go for a Moretti.

According to Didymus "an object in orbit will never stop falling because gravity will never run out". I don;t think he understands gravity too well because the object will stop falling once it hits the ground and the gravitational potential energy which transformed into kinetic energy will finally become heat. He forgets that work had to be done originally to raise the object to the height from which it fell. Energy IS conserved. According to our best theory of gravity an orbiting object has no work done or force applied to it, it simply goes about its business in uniform motion along a 'straight' line defined by the curved space-time of the gravitator.

I beg to differ. This big 'perpetually' moving rock is falling or orbiting about the sun because energy is conserved. Certainly not because gravity is 'creating' energy.

Ahh, but photons have zero REST mass, and since they can never be at rest, we could say that massless particles at rest have no energy since they would no longer exist.

Just came in on the end of this and cannot be bothered to read the rest of the verbage ( replace ve with ga, please ). It is very easy to prove, however, that ' one Sun in the Universe, but every planet, once after birth, have their own nuclear generator at their ''Center'' ' is absurd and obviously false. We have detected and measured natural radioactive processes at the earth's core but certainly not fusion like the sun. And some planets don't even have enough radioactivity to keep the core molten; Mars being one. Any other uneducated statements you'd care to make, Roger Dyno Mo ?

Electrons aren't pushed or pulled Windy. They 'fall', from a high potential to a lower one. As for the rest of you guys, don't you realise when someone is playing you ?

Then again quantum mechanics doesn't allow for dimensionless points as they would have infinite fluctuations in their energy/momentum.

Thanks for pinch-hitting swansont. I would have used the example of Faraday's lines of force concept or an analogy to intensity of light.

You're probably a sneak eater.

Forces propagate or act through space not through time, although a force acting through time would be extremely interesting ( and causality violating ). The 1/r^(n-1) in n spatial dimensions can be easily seen in three dimensions, geometrically, by the area subtended by radial lines on two concentric spheres. Doubling the radius spreads the 'lines of force' over four times the area, effectively reducing the force by 1/r^2.