MigL

I realize it is not your assertion ( see Phi's Quora link ), but I have a problem with this statement The CMB radiation is homogenous to 1 part in 100,000 for RMS variations of 18 uK ( after subtracting out dipole anisotropy ). See here ... Cosmic microwave background - Wikipedia So I have to ask ... What concentration ? What plane, or line ? If anything, they are evidence of quantum fluctuations in the pre-inflation era, and in no way indicative of any universal extent in a particular direction.

So did russia, with their limited access to the Black Sea ( and the Mediterranean ). Did that give them the right to annex the port of Sevastopol, or the whole Crimean peninsula ?

Somewhat like you on science topics. ( no, I didn't give you a neg rep ) China isn't just threatening Taiwan, but other nations in the South China Sea. They are actively building 'islands' in the ocean, and claiming they are part of the Chinese land mass in order to extend their territorial limits. Their military spending, and build up, is the largest in South East Asia, and is destabilizing the whole area, by forcing countries like Japan, South Korea, and even India and Australia, to increase their militaries. These are not 'war games' we are considering, but a powder keg whose fuse is already lit.

No idea, INow. Our Prime Minister likes to talk the game, but doesn't have the means, or the stomach, to back it up. Canada is, as a result, not taken seriously in international matters.

The history of Taiwan is an interesting one. Chiang Kai Shek was a Nationalist, who fought along the Allies in WW2, but was defeated in the civil war of 1948 by Mao Zedong's forces. He, and his followers retreated to the island of Taiwan, to set up their own Government. While fairly brutal at first, he grew Taiwan's economy and democracy, to be elected president 5 times to 6 year terms. The Republic of Taiwan has always been a thorn and an embarassement for the Chinese Communists, but until current times, re-taking the island would have totally destroyed it and rendered it worthless. I still don't think they can afford to try to take it forcibly, but with their economic might, they may be able to pressure other countries into not giving assistance, or recognition, to the island state, so as to re-take them without using force. Either way is a shame, as Taiwan will either be destroyed, or suffer the fate of Hong Kong.

Up to 90% of semiconductors used by tech companies like AMD, Apple, NVidia, Qualcomm, etc. rely on Taiwanese manufacturing.

This sounds familiar. Is a previously banned poster trying for another bite at the apple ?

Gravity is a conservative force, which means the path between two differing heights expends the equivalent work, independent of the path taken. If we consider a light signal, or light clock if you will, that should mean that it expends the same amount of energy climbing out of a gravitational well irrespective of path taken, but depending only on the relative heights in the gravity well. IOW, the red shift, or time dilation depends solely on the relative heights, not on path taken. Or have I totally misunderstood your idea/analogy ...

I find it strange that you are trying to explain the fixed speed of light, c , by claiming that it is variable in different mediums. It is NOT ! Light always travels at c, but when passing through a medium, its passage is affected by absorption/emission events of variable timing for differing mediums. light is massless, so it cannot accelerate due to F=ma, although it will follow least action rules in GR, and is affected by gravity. As Swansont poined out, thespeed of light is inherent in J C Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, and has been verified countless times experimentally. You, on the other hand, are trying to make up relationships by throwing shit at the wall and seeing if anything sticks. That is NOT what we do in a science forum.

Aww, come on ! The 'strong' force is otherwise known as the color force because it acts on a property of quarks called 'color', and mediated by gluons. It is an asymptotic force which will not let quarks separate, but results in pair creation and color confinement. In hadrons, like protons and neutrons,color confinement results in almost no residual interaction, but just like neutral atoms and the Van der Waals forces holding molecules together, some residual color force provides for interactions outside the hadrons themselves. This 'residual' interaction has been modelled as a Yukawa potential and is mediated by pi meson exchange. That is commonly known as the 'nuclear' force, and it has nothing to do with charge. The Higgs field is a product of the Higgs mechanism and spontaneous symmetry breaking ( as Joigus poined out ), and is a scalar field. That means each point in space has a directionless vacuum energy value associated with it. There are also fields with value and direction, such as vector fields of electromagnetism. Or the tensor fields of gravity. You are simply pulling stuff out of your ass, and trying to relate things you don't understand, to each other. Stop it. That is not science; it is nonsense. Edit The vacuum energy inherent in the Higgs field ( false zero point energy ) is one of the candidates for Einstein's Cosmological Constant, and Dark Energy, which may account for ( accelerating ) universal expansion.

There is a small percentage of people born without a brain, Anencephaly. The argument being currently presented is that if you are born that way,it is not a 'defect'. Obviously then, there are humans without brains. Lobsters don't have brains either. So 'lobster' is a type of human, just a variation on the brain volume spectrum. Maybe J Peterson was right to compare humans to lobsters. PS I have many friends here. I'll be back when we start respecting each other's opinions, and actually listening to each other without the accusations. So long.

We seem to have established that thereare states between male and female, such as 'mostly male' or 'mostly female'. And you guys want to give each of those many variations a new gender name ? Let's hear some of them; I need a good laugh. And we're not talking about what technology will bring in the future, or has enabled us to do. Who cares if you can surgically attach a human uterus to a pig ? And what gender will it be ? Europe was once a month away, by boat, from North America. It is now 8 hours away ( used to be 4 by Concorde ). That doesn'y change geography; it is still a different continent. No one has ever claimed that gender changes on reaching menopause, or on becoming infertile. Just like no one would ever claim humans are not bipedal if they need a cane to walk in old age. Both male and female lose certain abilities as they age; things that they once could do. Is having an opposing viewpoint to yours, what you consider 'trollish' ?

A photon is neither, but can display either behaviour when you 'look' for it. A clownfish is not probabilistic; there is no Heisenberg Fishing Principle. It is either male, female, or varying degrees of in-between.

Finally a good question ... +1 An observer sees a 'foliation' of the 4 dimensional block. The observer's FoR determines the orientation of the foliation with respect to the spatial/temporal dimensions. This orientation will have varying lengths, and durations, for differing observers. And all foliations are equally valid.

Nope. I stopped taking wood shop in grade 9.

Indeed. I was lucky to have some excellent Math and Physics teachers in high school, who developed and supported my interest in those sciences. Which still interest me to this day. Maybe if I had studied some Sociology with a good teacher, I wouldn't be so argumentative and confrontational in online forums.

That is the mechanism by which this fish changes gender state, Stringy. And researchers can tell when it changes from a male state, to a female state. Presumably, they must have at least, one criterion for differentiating the male state from the female state. And you are using this as an argument that there are no criteria to differentiate between male state and female state ??? I can agree with your above post CharonY. There are two genders with varyng degrees of commmon characteristics. Or didn't you mean to say that ?

Single crystals grow best along a gradient. Temperature, pressure, what have you.

Oh, you're gonna be in so much trouble, if you wife reads what you post about Religion, Beecee 😄 😄 .

I think he means worldlines when he says 'strings', Beecee. And apparently he still hasn't done any research into the block universe model, Studiot.

Fine. Let's discuss clownfish ( or even lobsters if you like ). How do researchers know at what stage they are male ? And when they become female ? IOW, what is the criteria they use for classifying them as different genders in those differing stages. Shurely they must use a criterion that allows them to differentiate between the female state and the male state. If so, then there must be at least one, or some criteria that allows for differentiation of gender in all species. You insist that there is no difference, so you shouldn't be able to tell them apart, yet you can easily tell when a clownfish goes from male to female ? Are you saying "There is no difference between these two rubber balls; the red one is exactly the same as the blue one." ??? You're gonna have to put a little more effort into that explanation. BTW grade 11 level Biology, for me 😁 .

Exactly. Anywhere between xero and near infinite, depending of course, on the criterion, or criteria, being used. If gender/sex is just a personal subjective opinion, there are over 7 billion of them. Opinions, that is.

Darn it, Stringy, always my kryptonite ... Very well, I'll change that to When your wife is told by her doctor to get screened for testicular cancer.

You know that there is no such thing as 'frictionless', don't you ? The laws of Thermodynamics can be likened to a card game ... 1 - You can't win ( can'tcreate energy in a closed system ). 2 - You can't break even ( no such thing as frictionless ). 3 - You can't get out of the game ( entropy )

I would remind them that I resemble a typical male, although I've been called a 'she' when I dressed as a woman for Halloween ( one guy even bought me a drink ). If they chose to be rude, and not heed my suggestion, there's no law against that ( yet , apparently ); and rude people seem to be proliferating ( at least in the US ). I cannot change , or force, their perception of reality. And when your doctor tells you to go for a mammogram, because you are a spectrum of genders, I'll believe that SOME differences, or criterea, are not binary. And if you should require an explanation, I will take the time to explain your biases to you, so you're more aware of them 🙂 .