studiot

No, the OP did. But you introduced the specific cat 'paradox'. I have always udnerstood that this came after Copenhagen as a sort of toungue in cheek response to show how weird or even downright ridiculous and peverse quantum theory can be. The cat question was "is the cat alive or dead at a particular point in time before we have interacted ?" (ie opened the box).

You would have to state what your reference base is.

I am posting here because it is my experience that members don't bother with the books section. At least this way those interested in Earth Science will see it. I have been reading a New Scientist up to date overview of Earth Science, released in 2018. New Scientist Instant Expert Series This is Planet Earth. Well, the book, though a small paperback, is ambitious. "Your ultimate guide to the world we call home" It certainly boasts some exceeding clear well presented diagrams, even though they are all in grey shading. It is also a compilation of chapters from well qualified scientists in Oceanography, Biology, Geology/Geophysics, Climatology/Meteorology, Seismology and so on. The book is aimed at a broad sweep for the lay person and much of the presented material does indeed bring the subject bang up to date. But there is something missing. I am not sure about the editorial policy of the New Scientist. Because the book contains quite a few dubious claims, without substantiation. This issue of missing substantiation goes further because even statments that are well established as correct fall short so the reader is not offered a way of verifying them or delving deeper into them. For instance after a solid coherent short history of seismology with one of those excellent diagrams, the statement is made about the mantle But it does not explain what lab experiments or where to find out about them, nor does it explain the the connections between these experiments and the planet. Tremendous and very suprising advances have been made in the last decade here and these experiments are not mentioned. The other difficulty for critical appraisal is the stype of presenting yerbuts. Speculations and hypotheses are presented as though they were gospel and then the chapters present an alternative by saying that. Professor XXX is finding something different on the other side of the world.... So if any member is thinking of referring to this book as support here or elsewhere, remember this and read it properly. It is very difficult to tell what is firmed up and what is still at the supposition stage.

Perhaps I should have said full understanding.

I don't accept that Schrodinger's cat is a very good example since it is possible to circumvent the 'paradox'. Remember also that the architects of Copenhagen knew and stated that it was 'rough round the edges' i.e. it was incomplete but that it was the best they could do at the time. Sadly time has not yet matured it into a better interpretation. Perhaps one day we will have enough information to complete the jigsaw picture.

You are misunderstanding what HTML is. HyperText Markup Language. Just the same as words on a page. What you are proposing is implemented with words on a page with some greetings cards that incorporate a small battery to power some desired effect like a sound jingle or flashing lights. But sending a card is sending a physical object. With HTML you are sending nothing physical so you would have to rely on HTML commands to activate something at the receiving end that already has power. This is already part of the protocol it. It was never very well used, but modern remote automation phone apps are becoming more popular (and still require a source of power at the receiving end). This is not like USB which can provide both power and data soen the same connection, or non contact charging which requires close proximity.

Exactly so. So the rate of rotation - which is a reflection or refraction - is the rate of change of velocity. QED.

They are inner products of kets (Dirac notation), I'm not sure that the second one is complete though. Phi and psi are vectors in a Hilbert phase space.

Further to what swansont said, You cannot have a mass without a gravity well. A gravity well is a local minimum in the value of the gravitational potential. (Remembering that GP is reckoned as negative) It is the local increase in gravity due to that mass.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=2bskXOLSA4KelwT3v4igBQ&q=van+allen+belts&oq=Van+Allen+belts&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0l10.164.3468..5318...0.0..0.764.4320.4j5j0j1j2j1j2......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131j0i10.0qOpUIXkqXw When I was a nipper, Tehre was a SciFi series on TV called "The Big Pull" about the first manned rocket to go beyond the Van Allen Belts. It was very scary.

Are you sure? How does that work? Exactly right, which is why a change of direction is an acceleration. That's not an arguable thing it is a definition, first taught (or should be) in high school. +1 for encouragement. Well caught. We had a lovely dancing cognac flame on ours. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/christmas-figgy-pudding_us_56718ccfe4b0648fe301b30a?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_cs=ItdtJDFaufqw4syfad7Zzg

It also fills a large volume; it is diffuse. So these particles travel a long way before they are fully deflected.

But which answer did you choose? The original kneejerk guesswork from ignorance one you already had, or the scond quite different answer that two people with postgraduate degrees told you? I wonder why.

You are using it every day to protect yourself from harmful charged particles coming from space.

Yes it's true. Zap was talking about the existence or at least the presence (presumably on SF) of two other people. Isn't that what 'being here' means?

Doesn't a mirror do exactly this? Why do folks so often forget that acceleration is a vector and that change of direction is an acceleration? Too much Christmas pud?

Since I have already said that I agree with swansont, I would would expect extraordinary evidence to support a claim that the probability is vanishingly low.

Therefore the a priori probability (the usually quoted one) is exactly 1, as swansont told you many posts ago. This is evidence of what exactly? And how does it stack up against all the other data, you have not taken into account?

This is the wrong day for riddles sir.

I missed this before, but thanks for listening. What gravitational field would this be ? It seems you consider whatever causes a 'gravity well' to be somehow separate from any other gravitational field. How does this work?

This is easy to say and difficult to prove. Evidence please.

Butch you are allowing your thoughts to wander all over the place. Try focusing on the subject. Think about it like this. What is the size (mass, diameter, volume whatever) of the smallest orange? There must have been one somewhere on /earth and perhaps one is recorded in the Guinness book, like the height of the tallest man. Whatever it is is just that. It does not mean that oranges or men are quantised. For discrete objects like particles. So for discrete individual objects the smallest mass is the mass of the smallest object, whatever that is. However a field that has energy acts as though it has mass (albeit very small) from relativity theory, not quantum theory. And as far as we know there is no quantised limit to this. Merry Christmas.

Yet null methods of measurement have long been known to be be the most accurate.

I don't see how that matters. After the energy levels in say thorium are not inter multiples of those in say hydrogen or oxygen. Nor are the differences between them, which is why they have different spectral lines. Added to which the OP asks if there is a minimum, not is it quantised. Minima occur in continuous systems too. Happy Christmas.

Assuming you refer to 'rest mass', surely it must be since mass is a property of particles and energy and the smallest mass must therefore be given by the rest mass of the smallest indivisible particle or quantum of energy?