Severian

Well, there is no minimum frquency in principle (ie. in the physical laws), but I suppose in practical terms it would be difficult to have a photon with a period longer than the lifetime of the universe.

Yes and no. There seems to be a misconception in modern society as to what science really is. I blame the schools. As you say, science is based on unprovable axioms, but that does not mean that all knowledge is religious. Science says if Axioms A are true, then X, Y and Z follow. This is testable and provable (I am using 'provable' in the science sense where it is well defined), so it is in no way religious. Religions do not use axioms A to prove X, Y and Z - they start with axioms which are already so complex that they need go no further (or can go no further, as in the case of an omnipotent deity). For moral judgements, when you say 'action X is wrong' then you can choose either approach. You can define 'wrong' by means of an axiom and then prove it, or you can say 'action X is wrong' is an axiom and therefore requires no proof. The first method is only any use if you start from a point were everyone agrees the axiom is correct (or at least reasonable). This is what science tries to do - its axioms are very 'acceptable' to pretty much everyone, at least for the majority of applications. But if the axiom is not acceptable, then there is not point in trying to prove anything because people will disagree on your foundation. Obviously the same is true for the second method. Since we are even having this conversation it is clear that the axioms from which you start are not accepted by all.

I apologize. I had indeed misunderstood your post. That is certainly not true. One does not need to espouse life, liberty and (maybe ) the pursuit of happiness for a stable government. All you need to do is espouse the same (or similar) views as the majority of the population in order to prevent unrest. For example, if the majority of the population believe that a minority should be enslaved (for reasons of race or whatever) then a government which allows this can be stable, but is certainly not espousing liberty. Now, I do not condone a society like that, but I must conceed that they have made a particular value judgement about right and wrong. I cannot prove to them that they are wrong and I am right. It may even be that the majority benefit greatly from the arrangement, so in terms of metrics like 'standard of living of the majority' they may genuinely be right! Indeed someone from that society may see the whole idea of 'liberty' for this minority as morally repugnant, in the same way that many people here find the idea of Christianity in government repugnant. They would certainly not want their government to espouse it, and would bitterly complain if their government were to erect a huge 'statue of liberty' beside their most populous city. This would be much worse to them than 'In God we trust' on their banknotes... Now, this case is a little extreme, but it is not hard to think of examples in the real world which are similar.

The photon wavelength can be as long as you like. I think you are being confused by the particle/wave duality thing. I have always thought that 'particle' was a bad choice of word because it implies something has no spatial extent. They only have no spacial extent immediately when their position is measured. The effect of the measurement itself it to focus the photon down to a point. At this time, the photon no longer has a definite wavelength - it is in fact composed of all possible wavelengths added up together. Only when you measure the wavelength will it take on a definite value, but then it will not have a definite position.....

See, you do understand after all. One has to maintain some common perspective on philosphical non-provable issues in order to have a functioning government.

Of course it matters how it is defined because you are using to to restrict the lives of others. If your government refuses to recognise certain belief structures but does recognise others then it will lead to discrimination. Don't you think someone's religious beliefs will have an effect on laws like abortion or euthenasia? The entire point of the separation of church from state in the constitution was to allow people to worship how they choose, or have wahtever beliefs they choose free from discrimination or persecution. I support that idea. But it seems to me that it is now being used to do the exact opposite - it is being used to marginalise those with what you would call 'religious' beliefs, and will in the end discriminate against them.

Your definition just makes my point stronger. Do you think that the government should not be concerned with what makes its citizen's lives worth living? Do you think that the government should not have a comprehensive set of ideas behind its laws?

It is stationary with respect to the air. In reality if the helicopter didn't make small adjustments it would not hover over the same spot because it would move with the air currents. If there were no global winds and no statistical fluctuations the air would remain stationary with respect to the ground (angular momentum conservation) and so would the helicopter.

But that is the whole point. You define religion in the very way so as to remove ideas which you do not like from the domain of the state.

Would you be happier with 'In God we trust' on your banknotes if the founding fathers had written: "We hold this truth to be self-evident, that God created all men equal."? You quotation is particularly ironic given that the founding fathers clearly did not believe all men were created equal...

Your belief that there is no God is a religious belief. Even the constitution itself is a religious document because it expresses opinions about the nature of existence which cannot be proven.

I find him spooky enough as it is....

Unfortunately that is not true.

If you truely want to separate the state from religion there is a lot you will have to give up. If fact, you will have to abandon all value judgements which cannot be proven. Any belief is a religion of sorts. For example, human rights are subjective and the idea that a human should have 'rights' at all is a belief. Would you be willing to give up human rights? Edit: When I say 'give up' I mean in the sense of recognition by the state. You could still hold personal beliefs of course.

I agree. 3 is much more fun!

Let me have a go: This isn't a well defined experiment. An interference pattern is made from lots and lots of photons hitting the screen. If you have one photon, all you will get is a dot (or a line, dpending on the setup). The think which is spread out is the probability distribution of where that dot/line will be, but you can't say anything with just one go - you have to perform the experiment lots of times or use lots of photons (it is better to do it lots of times so you can see the genuine particle/wave duality).

It was 92.9p at the BP station on the Great Western Road near Anniesland last time I got petrol.

I must confess to being at a loss over Iran. On the one hand, Iran has huge oil reserves so their insistance that they need a civil nuclear program is clearly just a lie. and we do not want them to have nukes. On the other hand, the US (and the west generally) has recently aggressively invaded their two closest neighbours (on either side) in order to get at their oil. I think it is perfectly reasonable for Iran to feel threatened by the US. And the best way to stop the US invading them is a nuclear deterent (it seems to work with N. Korea). I think this entire mess has been engineered by western forgein policy.

It is still a lot cheaper than it is in the UK and no-one has changed their driving habits here yet. In the UK the average price has just passed 95p per litre. 95p=$1.69 and a US gallon is 3.785 litres, so that is $6.40 per gallon. You still have a long way to go...

No - its garbage. His first mistake is thinking the Big Bang spread out from a point - it didn't, it happened everywhere at once. If he doesn't understand that there is no point reading any further.

You do not need to embed the space in a higher dimension to have curvature. Whether or not a space is curved is basically a question of how one measures distance between two points on the space. Now, one can of course measure distance however one likes, and indeed it is that choice which is the definition of the space. For example, in a 2-dimensional flat space (eg a peice of paper) described by co-ordinates x and y, the distance between a=(xa,ya) and b=(xb,yb) is the square root of (xb-xa)2 + (yb-ya)2 This rule defines the space as 'flat'. If a and b were on the surface of a sphere the rule would be different. In fact, for a 2-sphere described by coordinates [math]\theta[/math] and [math]\phi[/math] (ie. angles) the (infinitesimal) distance between the points [math](\theta,\phi)[/math] and [math](\theta_a+d\theta,\phi+d\phi)[/math] would be the square root of [math]d\theta^2+ \sin^2 \theta d\phi^2[/math]. Since the distances are measured differently we can tell what the space is from measurements in the space itself, without needing to go 'outside to look'. The classic example is to draw a triangle on the sphere and add up the angles - you will find they don't add up to 180o as they would have to on a flat space.

Why a child killer? What is more precious about a child's life? Is it the innocence thing?