Dekan

Iranian language I know that US citizens, worthy as they are, have a worldwide reputation for being, how shall one say, self-contained within the USA. That explains why they might think that there's an Iranian language. Or a Brazilian and Argentinian language. But just think - these guys are controlling fleets of nuclear weapons. Should we be scared?

What about nebulae, such as M.42 in Orion. This is a huge cloud of gas with very hot stars embedded in it. The stars make the cloud glow like a cosmic aurora. You can see it in the night sky now that we're in winter. In the middle of the sword of Orion, a fine sight in 7 X 50 binoculars! Yet within bright M.42 is something startlingly different, the famous "Horsehead Nebula". This looks like a black knight in chess. It doesn't glow - it's dark. The darkness is attributed by conventional theory to a mere contrast effect. But is that plausible? Couldn't the Horsehead be a local agglomeration of dark matter? Also, sunspots are supposed to be dark only by contrast with the bright solar photosphere. But they might be nodules of real dark matter. The point is this - suppose DM exists, and constitutes the majority of matter in the cosmos Then it must be everywhere, including on Earth. So shouldn't we see it all around us?

I think mathematics is a human invention, because it comes from our invention of writing numbers, or numerals, like 1,2,3... If we didn't have written numbers, mathematics wouldn't be possible. For example, suppose you draw a line in a ring, to make a circle. Then draw a straight line, from one side of the circle, across the centre, to the other side. How would you express the difference in the length of the two lines? If you weren't using numbers, you could only say - the round line is quite a lot longer than the straight line. Which is probably how pre-numerate humans, and non-human animals perceive the difference, if they consider it at all. Only by using written numbers can you express the difference mathematically as 355/113.

arknd, I think C S Lewis does his best, to make a kind of rational case for Christianity, in his books. But, as you rightly imply, do the books match the real world? Consider for example, his brilliant SF trilogy "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength", These books create a very believable Christian version of the Universe. In which there are inhabitable planets within the Solar System. Such as Mars, inhabited by the "Hrossa", "Seroni", and "Pfiffllriggs" - all nice rational species, living in perfect harmony. And the niceness and agreeableness of these creatures, makes a powerful and compelling case for the existence of God. When you read the book. But unfortunately the book-creatures don't exist. Because as is well known, Mars is actually lifeless, There are no hrossa, or Sorns to carry Ransom to Meldilorn. Would that there were! Then at least we would have a better-funded space program.

Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein were all crackpots in their time. They wouldn't accept the advice of trained experts in such fields as Aristotelian Physics, the Heliocentric Universe, Phlogistonic Caloric Fluid, Spontaneous Generation, and the Universal Aether. They refused their duty to receive education. And they won!

Shouldn't a "Theory Of Everything" have to account for everything that happens, or will happen, in the Universe. Like whether a tossed coin comes down heads or tails. Or whether a particular U-235 atom decays in the next minute, or in a million years from now. Or who will be elected as US President in 2016. These are all impossible tasks, given the apparently random and unpredictable nature of the Universe. Can any theory predict with certainty who will be the next US President? Obviously not, so there can be no real TOE. QED!

.

Perhaps Lamarckism appealed to Lenin and Stalin for this reason - it was "fast" and "revolutionary". As opposed to Darwinism, which is by nature "slow" and "evolutionary" Such Darwinian slowness did not appeal to Lenin. In 1917 he went for a controversial fast Revolution. Thus throwing out the slow process envisioned by Marx, who'd seen Socialism evolving gradually along Darwinian lines. Marx thought there'd be a steady growth of a new class, the "Industrial Proletariat". This class would, over the course of the years, grow in numbers. Until they became the majority, which would then assume political power. So leading to the introduction of a socialist society. And ultimately, to pure and perfect communism, and Utopian bliss. Such bliss had an obvious drawback: it would at least 2 or 3 generations to come about. So it was no good to Lenin. He was impatient and went for the fast burn to the Atlantic, in Apollo 13 terms. Lenin threw out orthodox Marxist theory, made a blatantly premature revolution, retreated shamefacedly into NEP, died soon enough to avoid the blame, got a worst successor in Stalin, who created a personality cult, and the whole thing went Animal Farm. So, Marx and Darwin were both thinking along broadly similar scientific lines, ie slow gradual evolution. Whereas revolutionaries like Lenin and Stalin, preferred the "quick fix" of Lamarckism. Can the Lamarckian line be altogether dismissed?

Get a grip.

A good post. The experimenters seem to have taken it for granted that "boiling" destroys all life. So when pond-water is boiled, the water is rendered lifeless - because living organisms can't survive boiling. Is that true though?

I think you make a very convincing argument. "Clapping" grew from chimp displays, as you suggest. When chimps get excited, don't they jump up and down, waving their arms about - whence the human "Clap". And don't chimps also make hooting noises - whence the human "Boo" That seems to close the case, with a satisfying click of finality.

Surely the Steady State theory is consistent with a Cosmic Microwave Background. What the Big Bang theorists do, is add an adjective - "residual". By doing that, they "beg the question", in the proper sense of that expression. But does anyone realise it nowadays?

During the outward trip, going away from Earth, the light from the starship gets red-shifted. Then during the return trip, the ship's light gets blue-shifted, by exactly the same amount. So when the ship lands back on Earth, the blue/red shift has been normalised. Nature has maintained equilibrium. Everything's back the same as it was. So will the ship's crew, as they disembark, really astonish us, by looking unnaturally young?

The rungs of the ladder could be: 1A. Quark 1B. Electron 2A. Proton 2B. Neutron. 3. Hydrogen Atom 4. Helium Atom 5. The rest of the atoms in the Periodic Table..... then we climb to sub-rung say, 5.99 then continue: 6. Molecule 7. Dust particle 8. Meteoroid 9. Dwarf planet, or plutoid 8. Major planet 9. Star 10. Interstellar nebula 11. Globular cluster 12. Magellanic Cloud-style dwarf galaxy 13. Milky Way/M31-style major galaxy 14. Local Group-style cluster of galaxies 15. Cluster of clusters 16. Clan (ack P. Anderson "Tau Zero") 17. Universe This ladder is fairly easy to erect. It climbs up by following your basic rule: that each successive rung is an accumulation of the elements of the previous lower rung. However, as michel123456 implies in his post, when the ladder is applied to living organisms, things get more complex.

Thanks to everyone for your posts, I've read them, and have gained more understanding. Especially from Janus's #25, on the "meteor" analogy, and Widdekind's #27, on "space weathering". Don't these show that friction can explain the phenomena well enough, without invoking relativistic ideas. I mean, suppose a spaceship is travelling at extremely high speed, through interstellar space. As we all know, space isn't a true vacuum, it contains dust particles. These dust particles will keep hitting the ship, as it travels swiftly along. So the ship will eventually get worn down, and eroded, and its hull breached, and the crew unfortunately killed, by the constant impacts of the dust particles. Like sand particles, scouring and eroding a building. That seems common-sense, do we need relativistic imports?

What's the mass of a quark?

When you say "This is quantum mechanics"! Hasn't that got an awfully ominous ring? Like saying: "This isn't logic or reason - abandon them - it's QM"! Every real scientist suspects that QM is just another false theory. Like many other past theories, such as caloric fluid, phlogiston, and universal aether. These were sincerely believed in at the time, but have since been shown to be not true. And in due time, no doubt QM theory will go the same way. And 22nd Century Physicists will smile indulgently at QM, as they learn the true facts. But in the meantime, we're forced to keep puzzling over QM's absurdities. For example, if fundamental particles aren't made of "stuff", or "matter", what are they made of? We see a material universe. Made of atoms, molecules, dust, asteroids, planets, nebulae, stars and galaxies. So - there must be some "stuff", to make all those physical structures?

I refer you to Einstein, my predecessor.

So what really is the point? That by not drinking, we can prolong life by 20 years? Heck, in 100 years we'll all be dead. Drinkers and non-Drinkers alike. So just enjoy, and drink what you fancy.

Thanks, but is the situation as symmetrical as you make out. A starship can accelerate, because it has engines on board, which make it go faster. Whereas the dust particles haven't got engines, so they can't accelerate. They just float, powerless. By contrast, the powered starship goes ever faster, pushed on by its engines, which give it more speed and mass, until eventually the ship's mass gets so great, that it becomes like a planet. Then, even if it isn't buffered by an atmosphere, as you suggest, won't the ship's sheer naked mass, enable it to brush tiny dust particles aside. Couldn't such a ship travel through space, like the Earth travels round the Sun, without being bothered by dust particles?

I can't understand this "space dust" problem. The tiny particles of dust aren't accelerating - relative to the general background of the galaxy and the universe. So they aren't acquiring any extra mass. The only thing accelerating, is the starship. This is accelerating relative to the universal background. And the acceleration results in the ship gaining more speed. Which endows the ship with more mass, according to the well-known equation. Therefore a starship travelling at a huge speed, such as 0.9999999c, will have a correspondingly huge mass. The mass of a planet, perhaps. Such a planet-sized mass can easily brush dust-particles aside. I mean, is our planet Earth seriously affected by dust-particles. Obviously not - so how can they affect a starship with a mass equal to Earth?

Suppose you could live forever, provided you didn't drink alcohol. Then obviously you shouldn't drink it. Because then you'd never die. But in the real world, we all die eventually anyway - even if we don't drink. So we might as well drink and enjoy ourselves. This seems the way to look at it.

Thanks imatfaal. I appreciate your long, considered, post. I've read it through three times, and it's very well expressed. All your posts are worth reading. They're nearly as good as the posts by Swansont. He's a rampant lion, who sapiently roars and rules the board. But getting back to Science, may I just say this: Does anyone really, truly, deeply, believe in the "Higgs"? Isn't the thing just a product of theory and interpretation of equivocal meter-readings. The point about meter-readings may be especially valid. Because in the past, there used to be bubble-chambers. These showed the paths of particles as ionisation trails, which could be photographed. That at least proved there was something physical to make the trail. But nowadays, haven't the bubble-chambers been done away with. So all we have is meter-readings. Can't these can be made to mean anything, depending on what you want to see, like a "Higgs"?

I'm just going by how people operate. The top people at CERN realised they needed to say they'd found Higgs. So they said it. This got headlines, and more funding. Isn't that the way the world works?

Delta not right - the bullet got shot out of a gun. The gun gave it an impetus, which made it fly through the air. The specks of interstellar dust haven't been shot from anything, unless it's the Big Bang, but that's another fable.