jedaisoul

My thoughts are that those are strawman definitions that you made up. See Wikipedia: Nothing to do with "all religious values are nothing more than superstition". Just a belief that secular government should not be run according to religious beliefs. This does not deny God's existence. It just says, if God exists, then he is materially real. Don't you believe that God is materially real??? This means that if Christianity works for you, go with it. What is your beef??? It seems that you are either ignorant of the meanings of these terms, or choose to misrepresent them for some reason. Neither of which impresses. Did you not think to look up the definitions of these terms before giving us the benefit of your opinions? Obviously not.

The answer to all of these is intellectual honesty, and the focus on a fulfilling life. To you the choice is between hopelessness and hopefulness. To me it is between intellectual honesty and a false hope. I do not need false hope, I'm too busy living life. What is so wrong with your life that you feel the need of the hope of a glorious afterlife? Why would you want to bet your whole life on mere hope? I hope for your sake that you are right, but I seriously doubt that you are. Besides which, as has been pointed out by others, if the God of love DOES exist, I can't see that he would condemn me to eternal purgatory just because I did not believe in him in life. Do you want to believe in that sort of a God? I don't. And if he is a cruel heartless God, what's to say he isn't lying to you? We could all be heading to purgatory anyway, to feed his sick sense of humor. So it's heads I win, tails we are both in the same boat!

No. Every electron is identical to every other electron. Does that mean that there is only one electron in the universe? I think not.

Yes, I did not spot the significance of the last line of DH's post. But then again, I wonder whether the enquirer would have grasped the meaning of the formal proof given? My solution was less rigorous, but I hope more intelligible to a casual reader.

Surely, with constant acceleration, the maximum velocity is twice the average velocity (assuming you start at zero velocity)? It's a straight line graph of velocity against time. Or am I missing something? 989 / 27.009 = 36.6174 ft/sec ave. velocity So Max velocity = 36.6174 * 2 = 73.235 ft/sec. I'll let you do the conversion to mph.

Try MAGLEV on Wikipedia. You should find that interesting.

That does not explain why you expect the superimposition of the radially propagated waves exert a force on the two balls (attraction or otherwise). I would assume that the interaction takes place at a distance from the balls, at the point where the waves meet. How could that affect the balls? Another point, when I was at school (many years ago) water waves were used as an example of transverse motion. I.e. The water just goes up and down whilst the wave moves laterally across the surface. Hence there should be no lateral movement of the water, or anything on it. However, nowadays I'm not sure that is accurate. Water is essentially incompressible, so cannot act like a vertical spring, just moving up and down. Logically, there has to be a transverse element in the motion. I.e. as the wave front falls, the water is squished out sideways, and as it rises, the water is sucked in. So the water molecules may oscillate laterally about a central point, rather than vertically. This gives rise to the "undertow" in front of the wave, and the outflow behind it. You only have to watch what happens when the wave reaches the shore to see this in action. Trouble is, even in that case, there is still no sustained attractive force on the balls. They should each oscillate about a central position? P.S. By the way, as you probably know, there is no such force as "suction". I used the term colloqually. What I meant was "...and as it rises, the water is pushed back by the air pressure". Just to save misunderstanding... Thanks for clarifying. I can't be difinitive about the amplitude problem, but it would seem to me to be proportional to the circumference 2 * pi * r (or pi * d). I.e. As the circumference grows, the amplitude should fall proportionately, but I'm no expert.

I'm a little bemused: 1. Why would the superimposition of the radially propagated waves exert a force on the two balls (attraction or otherwise)? 2. How can there be an equation relating the radius of the propagating wave to its wavelength? The propagating wave is constantly moving, whilst its wavelength remains constant. Perhaps you meant a standing wave rather than a propagating one?

I have the following observations: You are creating a false dichotomy. Firstly, time undoubtedly exists as a concept, otherwise we could not discuss it. What you mean is, does time exist only as a concept? Your alternatives are not the only possible answers:Time does not have to exist as a form of energy to physically exist. Time (or, more accurately, the present) could exist as part of the framework in which physical objects exist. It seems to me to be impossible for physical objects (which are real) to exist in a framework that is not itself equally real. That does not necessarily mean that space and time (or spacetime) exist in the form that we conceive them. However, it suggests that there is something real that we are describing with these concepts. Or... We can conceptualise things other than physical entities that exist outside our concepts of them. These are abstract entities. These, potentially, come in two types:The relationship 1 + 1 = 2, and Pythagoras's theorem for example. These relationships are real because they are implicit in the objects and their relationships that are real. Note: I'm not suggesting that Pythagoras's theorem existed before he proposed it, but the relationship it describes has been implicit in real objects from the dawn of the universe. It is an important distinction to make. It can be claimed that there are abstract entities that are real in themselves, without necessarily being implicit in material objects. One example (which may not be a good one) is the numbers 1, 2, 3 etc. I suggest that the relationship 1 + 1 = 2 is real because it is implicit in real objects, but how can that relationship be real if the numbers 1 and 2 are not themselves real? I'm not sure this argument holds, but the possibility is there, and should be taken account of. So I would suggest that there are more options than the simple alternatives you gave...

I hoped you would not ask that! You'd need to ask someone who understands general relativity better than I do. I focus on the conceptual meaning of the theory. When it comes to the mathematical functions, I'm out of my depth.

Not according to Einstein. In addition to the quote given in the OP, Einstein made his views quite clear in the original paper on General Relativity: "Thus according to the general theory of relativity, gravitation occupies an exceptional position... since the ten functions representing the gravitational field at the same time define the metric properties of the space measured". A Einstein "The Foundation of the Genrall Theory of Relativity", Annalen der Physic, 49, 1916. Furthermore, chapter 14 of that paper specifically dealt with "The Field Equations of Gravitation in the Absence of Matter". It is quite clear that Einstein saw the gravitational field as existing in the absence of matter, as he even derived the field equations for it!

Does space exist without a gravitational field? Einstein says that: "There can be no space nor any part of space without gravitational potentials; for these confer upon space its metrical qualities, without which it cannot be imagined at all. The existence of the gravitational field is inseparably bound up with the existence of space." I'm not sure whether insane_alien is expressing his own views, but what he says does not correspond to Einstein's view. You have correctly interpreted what Einstein said. He believed that space did not exist, and that the "place" in which objects exist and events occur is defined by the gravitational field. Without the gravitational field there is no space, no vacuum, not even nothing. There is nowhere. See above...

Agreed. Shouldn't that be the field has properties? Einstein said: "Thus, according to the general theory of relativity, gravitation occupies an exceptional position... since the ten functions representing the gravitational field at the same time define the metrical properties of the space measured". A. Einstein, "The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity", Annalen der Physic, 49, 1916. Also (when discussing the electromagnetic field) he said: "The field thus becomes an irreducible element of physical description, irreducible in the same sense as the concept of matter in the theory of Newton". A. Einstein, Appendix 5, "Relativity and the Problem of Space" from the 15th edition (in 1952) of "Relativity the Special and the General Theory".

I'm perhaps not the best person to answer, but here goes... The big bang theory tells us nothing about what existed before the big bang. We don't even know if time existed. So your question cannot be answered by modern physics, it's outside the scope. Also it is far from certain that there is such a thing as the "centre of mass of the universe". If I'm inaccurate in these comments, no doubt someone else will put you right...

If the "ether" of the general theory has no mechanical nor kinematic qualities, how would one set out to research it? It's an abstract framework that does not interact with reality, but defines how real things interact. The key word is abstract. It's just an idea, not a thing, but it is needed by GR to explain reality. If that sounds silly, bear in mind that the whole of relativity is based on the idea of frames of reference and how they affect reality. Frames of reference do not actually exist. They are abstract ideas that exist only in our minds. Yet in SR and GR they have properties. That's the trouble with letting mathematicians loose in physics. They blur the distinction between reality and concepts of it.