Strange

Or, in Britain, an artic (short for articulated truck/lorry)

Can you explain what it means for something to "expand at c"? Does this assume an outer edge of the universe which is moving at c? How does this fit with the fact we can observe galaxies receding at more than c?

Someone has recently commented recently on “the rice experiment” but isn’t willing to discuss it. I thought it would be a good case study for looking at the issues of experimental design and the sort of potential confounding factors that need to be taken into account. It seems that a Japanese amateur scientist claimed that being saying nice or nasty things to a mixture of rice and water will change the way it decays or ferments. Being nice to the rice results in fermentation and a nice smell, being nasty (or ignoring) the rice results in black mould and foul smells. There are lots of examples online, carried out by people who are both sceptical and not, with variable results. Here is a typical example from someone who was sceptical but surprised by the results: https://yayyayskitchen.com/2017/02/02/30-days-of-love-hate-and-indifference-rice-and-water-experiment-1/ (just the first search result that came up). It is easy to be sceptical as the whole idea seems implausible and the whole experimental setup used is seriously flawed. For example, there is only one sample for each type of “treatment”, there is a single experimenter who prepares the specimens, talks to them and analyses the results (in other words, the experiment is not blinded) and finally the results are judged subjectively (colour, smell, etc). Well, it would be easy to dismiss this as nonsense, but that isn’t very scientific. (And we wouldn’t want to be accused of being “scared” of a positive result. ) So here are some suggestions for a more rigorous approach to the experiment. Feel free to suggest improvements. And if anyone wants to carry it out the agreed protocol, I would be interested to see the results. It would be fascinating if reasonably well-controlled conditions reproduced the same results. (My initial reaction would be that we need to design a better experiment!) So, here some suggestions: 1. Have multiple samples of each type of treatment (treated positively, treated negatively, ignored.). This might need some statistical analysis to determine how many are needed to get a convincing result. But as we don’t (yet) know the strength of the effect we are looking for, that might be hard to do. Maybe start with 10 samples for each treatment? As the original experimenter claimed that ignored was the worst case, do we need something else as a control? If so what? 2. W need to define the criteria that will be used to measure the results: area of mould if present, types of organisms found, etc (input from someone with expertise in microbiology needed here!). Should also include the subjective results (colour, smell) for consistency with original. These should probably be judged by, say, three different people. 3. All samples need to prepared identically from the same pack of rice (well stirred before use) and container of water. Should the containers be sterilised - not to avoid contamination but just to ensure they are all the same? Or maybe just wash them all in the same way to ensure they are equally contaminated 4. We then randomise and label each sample with either a positive word (“love” in the original, I believe), a negative word (“stupid” in original) and blank. (A future experiment could randomise the labels and how the samples are treated to see which has more effect. But that seems unnecessarily complex for now.) All samples are also numbered for later identification. 5. It looks like most people do this with uncovered containers for the rice and water. This makes sense to some extent because we want to allow yeast, fungi, bacteria, whatever to get to the samples. But the rice and the water aren’t sterile so it should be OK to cover them. If the samples are uncovered, there is a risk of extra contamination from the person talking to them. And, perhaps, if you are yelling insults it is more likely for the sample to be contaminated from breath, drops of saliva, etc. Maybe half the samples should be open and half should be sealed? And/or a screen of some sort between the person speaking and the samples? 6. All samples need to be kept at the same conditions (light, temperature, etc). This means keeping them close together. I would be worried about the claimed emotional influence “spilling over” to nearby samples, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern with the experiments done so far, so the [claimed] effect is obviously very targeted. 7. Now the key part. Someone needs to talk to the samples every day saying nice things, nasty things, or ignoring them as appropriate. This should definitely be someone who is not involved in the preparation or the analysis of the results. Should it be someone who really believes in the claimed effect? So they can’t later say that the person doing the talking was not convincing enough, if the results are not positive. Should it be a person chosen at random? Should it be multiple people to “average out” the effect? These interactions should be filmed so that we can analyse (independently) the words used, the amount of time spent on each sample, etc. 8. After the required time (30 days seems to be recommended, but apparently things can start to get pretty smelly before then - perhaps another good reason for keeping the samples sealed!) we do the analysis. To do this, the nice/nasty/blank labels are removed or covered so the people ding the analysis don’t know how each sample was treated. The results are recored against the serial number of each sample. We then collate all the information and see if there is a statistically significant difference between the result and the way the sample was treated. Drinks and Nobel Prizes all round when we demonstrate convincingly that the effect is real! Any comments?

I think it is Hmong? Spoken in South West China and nearby countries. (Not that that helps at all!)

But you have so many non-physical things in the system that I don't know why you would expect to be able to apply standard physics.

You seem to confuse the concepts of inflation, expansion and dark energy. These are related but very different things. I'm not sure you understand that expansion is a scaling effect. Or that inflation is a purely hypothetical idea. And that dark energy is not needed to explain expansion.

What are "perfect" spheres? How do they interact? How do they behave when compressed? But molecules of a fluid are not attached to springs. I guess this might be another source of errors: you treat it as if it were water, but also try and have the water molecules attached to springs. It doesn't make much sense.

So is C the speed of light or not? You said it was "something per length" but I don't know what that means. I also don't know what it means for something to "expand at c" ... Does that mean everything is moving apart from everything else at c? But that isn't what we observe. Does it mean that the most distant things are moving away at c? But that isn't what we observer either. Does it just mean that there is a distance at which things are moving away at c? If so, that is not a very useful observation. It would be true for any rate of expansion. I don't know if you followed the Wolfram Alpha link, but it shows that your (C x P)/H = 4 x 1042 m2. Which doesn't really mean anything.

But it isn't water. It is a collection of (non-physical) spheres all pulled in one direction by (magical) springs. How can they exert pressure? What are they made of? How rigid or compressible are they? You would need to know these things to calculate the pressure they cause.

What is the source of this pressure? The springs only press (or pulls?) on the bottom of the container. Not the sides. How do you calculate the pressure on the sides the container?

I don't know where those numbers come from. Aren't the spheres attached to springs? So the further away the stockpile, the more energy in the springs. That implies that you have got the energy associated with the springs wrong, then. If that is the difference. Also, if all the spheres are being pulled to the bottom of the container by the springs, why is there any pressure on the other three walls of the container?

If you are moving the same volume out and in, why bother moving anything? Why not just keep the same mix of spheres and polystyrene? I don't see anything indicating pressure.

The stockpile of blue spheres.

How does replacing polystyrene with spheres (however you do it) affect the energy of the container? And are you calculating the change in energy of the other containers you move the blue out of and the white into?

This is rather implausible. The springs have to pass through all the other springs and spheres to get to the ones furthest from the green line at the bottom. Why not assume all the spheres are attracted by gravity? (after all, the only purpose of the springs is to pull all the spheres down to the bottom with the same force) I still don't see where things are moving in and out of the container. And where do the extra blue spheres come from? How do you get blocks of polystyrene to change length? I thought the blue shape was the container? Oh, OK. You mean that blue rectangle to the left. The springs cause these to jump from the container they are in to the other (deforming) container? And, as you seem to be concerned with the energy in the springs, how far away is this other container? I still find it pretty incomprehensible. But I am beginning to get a vague idea of what you mean. But it all seems to rely on impossible behaviour of physical objects so I'm not sure how you expect to get realistic results. How are you calculating the energy required to move these in and out of the container?

If you mean the distance where recessional speed is c, then the answer is the Hubble distance: c / H0 = 14 billion light years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law#Hubble_length) My mistake, I thought you meant c. So what is your C a measure of? In other words "what" PER length? Yes. That follows from its definition. (It would be exactly equal if H were constant over time.)

The units of H are 1/T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law So you have ( c*p/H) = LT-1 * L / T-1 = L2 That would be the Hubble distance: c / H0 = 13.8 billion light years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law#Hubble_length) The units of c are LT-1 because it is a speed. I'm not sure how you can justify changing that.

You have had multiple threads using this same argument - "I think there must be a cause; therefore God". This is the classic fallacy of begging the question. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/53/Begging-the-Question

All sorts of things shape people's personality and worldview: genetics, upbringing, education, etc. Some people are more likely to base their worldview on faith (e.g. you) and others are more likely to depend on evidence and reason (e.g. almost everyone else on this forum).

I was intrigued by your claimed relationship: age of universe = (C x P) / H I thought that would be an odd coincidence. But, sadly, it is totally bogus. It doesn't even give a time. The result is an area: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(c+*+1+parsec)+%2F+H0 I stopped reading at that point. If you can't even get basic numerology right....

I would have thought a "philosopher" would be able to manage a more convincing straw man.

The important point is that the mass is concentrated in a small volume of space. The basic math you need is probably pretty simple. But this handy on-line calculator will work out a lot of the numbers for you: http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/ That includes surface gravity and tidal forces. It also shows the equations used. I can't imagine why not. Science never definitively proves anything. But we have a theory that describes what we think happens around black holes. This still need to be confirmed by direct observation, but all other tests have shown the theory to be correct.

There are also arbitrary (unlimited) precision arithmetic libraries you can use so the size of numbers is only limited by the storage available. However, it would be better to try and prove the conjecture.

If the volume of the springs is zero, then they don't exist. There are no green lines or springs in your diagram. You miss the point. The volume of the white strips decreases but the level of the blue doesn't. Why? Well, good luck with that. Maybe someone here can make sense of this, but I certainly can't. The only advice I can give is to start all your calculations again from scratch and maybe you will get the right answer. But it seems no one here (so far) can make any sense of your invisible spheres and zero-sized springs so you are on you own. p.s. And learn to use the Quote function. It is quite hard to follow your responses.

You said there aren't any springs. So why not just use water? So you haven't drawn the container. It is just implied by the sharp of the water. So, in summary, you have a container which is full of water and white strips. The container can change shape but keep the same volume. When this happens, the white strips move with it but (somehow) change their length. Correct? So the volume of the white strips must change (because they get shorter). So the level of water should drop (because there is less being displaced by the white strips). But that isn't shown in your diagram. What is the point of all this? You seem to have created something that is so complicated that (a) you can't correctly calculate what it does and (b) no one else can understand it.