somecallmegenius

Got it. Thank you elfmotat for the clear derivation and everyone else for your contributions. So, from the above derivation, E = mc2 is the energy resulting from unleashing the rest energy of a certain mass. However, that brings a question to mind, since c is the speed of light in vacuum, do we have to divide the rest energy by the index of refraction of the medium in which the conversion happens to obtain the actual resulting energy?

Perfect. Thank you. The answer I was looking for. So, basically, the approximations become more and more inaccurate as the value of v/c increases. So, swansont is the real deal after all...

Ok, thank you, that is a good reminder of a fact which I forgot I knew. It also allows me to properly rephrase my question. What I mean is, does the definition of momentum change when going from classical to relativistic physics? I mean does the equation E = 1/2 pv, change as v approaches the speed of light (relativistically relevant speeds..)? Does the kinetic energy of a moving object slowly shift from E = 1/2 pv towards E = pv as v increases?

I already knew that part. Now, as a start it would be helpful if you told me where Einstein derived that equation from and what it logically means, and no I will not accept the standard pythagorean theorem explanation, because if you are gonna go that route, you'll have to tell me why E, mc2, and pc form a right-angle triangle.

I have always wondered why the energy of a photon in vacuum is equal to E = pc (where p is the momentum of the photon, and c is the speed of light in vacuum) and not E = 1/2 pv (where for a photon v = c) as is the case for the kinetic energy of any moving mass. Of course, I understand that photons are massless, but can anyone clearly explain how E = mc^2 and not E = 1/2 mc^2 and prove that in a theoretical non-empirical way??

I agree with your idea in most cases. However, there are cases when it is tyrant vs people such as what is happening in Syria right now, and what has happened and still happens in some countries in Africa repeatedly. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that popular revolutions often lose their pure "for the people"-essence slowly as they progress towards impeaching or discarding the tyrannical government, with the post-revolutionary authorities sometimes even becoming as "bad" as the dismantled government or even worse.

Athena, those are some great ideas you have there. Particularly, the one about the dehumanization of human life in order to justify killing, and the one about the policies written by committees that are disbanded after the policy is written. Moral training should be taught in schools because, unfortunately, most moral values and ethics are learned, and are neither innate nor instinctive. If you ever write a book about this I would be glad to read it. And I am relatively young, so hopefully, people with principles and moral values will never be extinct. As parents or future parents, we have an unshakable responsibility to pass on our values and principles as a nation to our sons and daughters, albeit while giving them the chance to think for themselves. Kind of like this: "My dear Son/Daughter here are my values, I will explain them to you and tell you the consequences of ignoring them or not abiding by them, however, now that I have given you the whole story, feel free to modify or alter them in however way you deem fit for your future, but always be wary of the consequences of such changes. Mainly, how they would affect society as you know it, and wether you would want to live in a world where this set of changes to the moral system apply." Nevertheless, what with responsible parents decreasing in number by the day, such principles would be much better applied and taught through the educational system... In short, Athena, write that book and I will be sure to read it, and if it is as good as the ideas you mentioned, I'll endorse and promote it.

Your point about jumping to the beat of authority seems valid within the context of our western world and modern democratic countries. However, it is unfortunate that in some countries, third-world or otherwise, significant numbers still jump to the beat of authority. Such individuals are willing to hold ,and act upon, beliefs that would be repulsive to any informed individual from a modern society. Many Middle-Eastern and African nations still struggle with large cults of personality and terrorist organizations: Hizbullah (which is actually kind of a cult of personality), the LRA... Actually, throughout history, many such large groups that are/were considered ruthless or evil actually grew around one person or a few personalities who had warped beliefs that were disseminated to the masses coated with some attractive slogans which guaranteed they would catch on with a "sufficient" number of people, or what I'd like to call a "human critical mass".

Hmm. I just went to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_State_theory And the word plasma was not mentioned even once in the article. Even though many flaws have been found with this theory, and I don't believe in it myself, your reply is very presumptive. The Plasma universe is pretty much separate from the soon to be debunked SST, and any overlap that may exist is not essential, otherwise it would have been mentioned at least once in the wikipedia article.

I'd watch that movie. However, I didn't mean that the internet should be directly connected to our brains in the physical sense. I believe that the internet as it currently stands, already is a version of such a global brain, and that's what I have been discussing for the past two posts. Believe me I'm the last person to want viruses downloaded onto people's brains... I value my brain, perhaps too much...

By opening up any new avenues of online communication and sharing, you risk the abuse of such avenues through their use for nefarious plotting, hacking, cyber-attacks, and other malicious activities. However, what I meant to say is that with the internet, all that has already been done and most, if not all, countries have implemented detection and control methods of such activities, examples include: the Cyber Defense Agency in the Baltimore-Washington area, NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE), the NSA's cyber defense boot camp, in addition to the many cyber-police departments, proxies, firewalls, security firmware, and antivirus and anti-spyware programs already in place across the globe. The existence and constant growth of such measures are exactly why I believe it won't be a big deal, it is because people are just as well protected online, if not better, than they are in other aspects of modern life.

The same way we account for them in a democratic society. Sociopaths and psychopaths have been contributing to the internet since its creation. Some harm has been done, but it has been and will continue be very dilute harm, since the overwhelming majority of people are NOT sociopaths or psychopaths. So, there, your question is answered.

Well, as long as "The Global Brain" maintains a peer-to-peer configuration and not a server-client one, I can't really see how it would harm the global collective. Basically, as long as individuality of choice is not omitted from the equation, and each individual's right to participate or not participate in any and all aspects of such a "brain" is maintained, then why not. I coin the term "Democratic Intelligence", meaning a "Global Brain" based on the main principles of democracy, a perfect example of which would be the American Constitution. To make it even clearer, if you count each person's footprint on the internet as an ever-growing collection of neurons and synapses, then in a Democratic Intelligence, each such collection has a choice to grow or connect to any other collection on the internet (or in the global brain). Each individual even has the choice to shrink his collection, by deleting messages or posts, social networking accounts, and even entire websites he/she has previously created.

Actually, one more thing. By twisting tmpst's first post on this thread, you made an unforgivable fundamental mistake. tmpst's proof that 0/0 = 1 => 0=1 is perfectly correct (based on your assumption of 0/0 = 1) and in your twisting of it you denied a key mathematical concept, which is the fact that by saying that 0*0/0 equals 0* (0/0) = 0 (as you showed) but does not equal (0*0)/0 = 1 (as tmpst showed), you are basically denying the associative property of multiplication which says: When three or more numbers are multiplied, the product is the same regardless of the grouping of the factors. For example, (2*3)*4 = 2*(3*4). I.e. 0 = 0*0/0 = 0*0*(1/0) = 0*(0*(1/0)) = 0*(0/0) (Which you showed = 0) = (0*0)*(1/0) = (0*0)/0 = 1 (which tmpst showed) Therefore, what you call your "hypothesis" not only brings about the contradiction 1 = 0 as tmpst showed, it also violates one of the essential properties of multiplication, which is the associative property. So, there you go. Go to sleep kid, and when you wake up, put your mind to better use... If you do say anything after this, other than "I agree", then you are arguing for the sake of argument, and your goal is not to arrive at a logical conclusion, but to raise anarchy and mayhem...

Even though alpha2cen usually hits the language barrier, or he trolls, I can't possibly know... I can discern a valid point in his reply, how accurate would our observations of star movement towards or away from the galactic center really be. Also, since the theory David Levy is defending claims that all stars "made" at the galactic are moving away from the galactic center. It would be difficult to use them as reference points. Therefore, how would we go about measuring our separation from the center of our galaxy? I want to know? Hopefully, an expert can reply to this and let us know.

With all due respect to all others who replied to this thread, I have to say this is by far the best one. I was going along with the OP's replies for second, but this, this completely puts the issue to rest. Well played tmpst.

Good websites that can help you decide: http://colleges.usne...m/best-colleges https://bigfuture.co.../college-search Good luck. College days will be some of the best in your life. However, be wary that it is all about striking a healthy balance between your studies and your social life and hobbies. Don't work too hard or you will miss out on some very good experiences, which, at times, can help you just as much as your education. Also, being an international student, pay attention to the location of your target universities, some of them involve internationals in the school community much more than others. And pick a coastal state, those are more fun, example: California, Florida... No offense to all other states... Source: I studied in the US, and I had many international-student friends (I say had because we are no longer students, they are still my friends).

Vague they are. Cannot argue there. Ok I'm speaking like Yoda. I agree that only the Dogma parts of the ancient texts are still mostly (but not completely) clear. As to creation stories and such, they do leave a lot of room for interpretation... However, it may just be the aging effect... For such texts to be understood over many ages, they needed to be vague and concise when it came to describing certain things... As to where was the story up until then, muslims say that it was sent by God (via an angel) to Mohammad when the Quran was read. However, the mention of mud or dust or clay, whatever you want to call it, did occur in both the Bible and the Quran, which means that at the very least, they do confirm each other on that particular point. As to you calling them "useless in describing anything real", you are equating vagueness to uselessness. Now to dissect the uselessness argument, it depends on what kind of use you are looking for. Scientific use from ancient texts? Not where science is right now, and possibly not ever... However, I believe the purpose of mentioning mud in such texts is to confirm what we are discovering thousands of years later, after we discover it. Meaning, maybe the mention of mud or clay in the creation of man is meant to provide evidence to scientists believing in abiogenesis that God is there, and it does that through mentioning something in texts thousands of years before it's actually confirmed by modern science. Hence, it provides evidence for the existence of higher power by mentioning something that could have been almost impossible for a mere human to predict back then... And I do say it was almost impossible, but if I were to put myself someone else's shoes, I could clearly see how this can still be viewed as a mere coincidence. Maybe whoever wrote the Quran or the Bible just got lucky there... Nevertheless, what I have given is only one example out of many. And the combination of the many examples, could add up to make some believe "Hey. There actually may be a God after all." I can also see how others can maybe find logical explanations of all such instances where the ancient texts seem to match or predict modern scientific observations or theories. After all, believing or not believing is a choice, and it is one of the strongest examples of human free will. As to the mention of clay being metaphorical, that is wide open for interpretation. This right here may be the very reason sects exist in almost every religion, some sects take ancient texts literally, some metaphorically depending on each every expression used in such texts. Therefore, unfortunately, it cannot possibly be proven wether each expression in the ancient texts is meant literally or metaphorically. You do use the popularity of clay as a crafting material (back then) very well. However, that is circumstantial evidence which many would not consider enough to prove that the expression was meant as a metaphor... The clot of blood you speak of is a reference to the blastocyst, which is a stage of mammal fertilization that everyone, even back then, was familiar with. They did not call it the same thing but they had seen and known of its existence what with early abortions and the such... He did not exclude animals as to say that animals were not made of clay, but it is because of the context in which it was spoken that there may not have been room to mention animals within said context. However, that does not imply that only humans were made of said clay... I definitely agree with the first part of your statement, about the uselessness of disproving the existence of things. Proving something exists matters much more than proving that something doesn't. As to using God as an answer to natural phenomena yet to be explained, I also agree that that notion defies the very purpose of scientific exploration. And it is wrongly used by many believers to prove God exists. In the words of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and I'm paraphrasing here, people should stop portraying God as a gap in knowledge, because that would mean that God is shrinking as we find out more... As to your evidence about stretching the meaning of a text to fit known data, let me remind you that the transition of non-life to life has not yet been fully explained, there are theories, but they are still in testing phase... But going from clay to montmorillonite (which is a type of clay) is not that far of a stretch by anyone's measure... And may I also remind you that assuming something cannot be verified (which I assume you meant can never be verified), is in and of itself a notion that defies the purpose of scientific exploration. If science has taught us something so far, it is to never deny the possibility of something or the possibility to verify wether something does exist. Who knows? Maybe one day we will find out for sure wether or not divine creation (for a lack of better words) is a myth or reality, using rigorous scientific methods at that. And you know what, I truly hope that day comes as soon as possible so that everyone can put their mind to rest on the most controversial matter of human history.

David Levy, Even though your arguments (if I could call them that) are being destroyed by MigL and a bit too aggressively by ACG52, there is one thing that vouches for Steady-State Theory (SST) which it seems you are trying to prove, is that it is still called a theory. See definition of a scientific theory here: http://en.wikipedia....ientific_theory However, more than any other cosmological theory, evidence is piling up against SST, hence it is unlikely for it to remain considered a scientific theory for much longer; excepting some miraculous new observations somehow prove it. A piece of advice: Do not try to prove a theory which even its creators are currently failing to prove. With all due respects, your attempts do seem a bit futile and pointless... I hope this puts your mind to rest, if only temporarily...

All of the possibilities you stated are currently possible. Simply because the scientific community requires much more data and possibly better observation methods in order to confirm details about the expansion of the universe. However, as I previously said, I do believe that your visualization method of the universe over time is interesting...

I hope this doesn't violate the rules. But the moderator note did make me laugh out loud... out loud out loud.

We are not limited to those stories. You are welcome to add more... And to mooeypoo, yeah I can't read Hebrew. I am planning to learn it. But as I do read Arabic, I am sure of the accuracy of the translation of the Quran version. And the Quran was first written reasonably closely to when it was first read by Prophet Mohammad. And it has been the same ever since. Quran was first read around 600 AD if I'm not mistaken. Montmorillonite Abiogenesis theory did not come about until the 19th century.. So that verse of the Quran could not have possibly been modified after the Abiogenesis theory was first postulated...

This is cool. I get what you are getting at, but I'm no astrophysicist... The problem is not with your idea, it is with the postulates on which it has been based. The idea that the expansion of the universe is accelerating is still in its infancy, and therefore very weak.. Personally, I find the supporting evidence for such accelerated expansion to be very weak currently. Even with the recent evidence provided by gravitational lensing of distant quasars (see this article: http://www.space.com/15247-universe-acceleration-dark-energy-quasars.html), there are many assumptions that go into the calculations involved in determining changes in frequency of electromagnetic waves emitted by such quasars, there just so many currently unpredictable factors that go into such calculations, that they render them barely useful. Such factor include: the estimation of the curvature of space-time between such quasars and Earth (huge amounts of speculation apply here), gravitational redshift effect (from quasar to Earth), the doppler effect, and other effects which may be yet unknown. Due to all the above, as elegant as your idea may seem, I don't necessarily like what it is based on... But despite all the above, it is still possible that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and that your idea is plausible. It would require a much more knowledgable scientist than me to know that. Especially, since I am speaking way out of my field here...

Good point. I may have mistakenly implied that the creation stories in the Bible and Quran are theories. I certainly did not mean to. Question still applies though. Isn't it possible, and potentially logical (as suggested in the bottom of my first post), that the stories in the Quran and Bible are point-A-to-point-Z abridged versions of what actually happened?

Hello I'm Tarek and I love overestimating myself. Or maybe I never did. Maybe it was all true. See, there I go again Nice to meet you all, fellow science lovers...