Strange

I am not informed enough to say much, but was touched by your second post... Have you seen this page: https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

You need to distinguish between mathematical abstractions (where we can deal with infinite signals of a single frequency) and practical reality (where a signal of a single frequency can never exist). Which is where this whole sideline started. For it to be "scientifically impossible" you would need some evidence, not just an opinion. Definitely not. For one thing, a loose definition of conservation of energy just doesn't apply in GR. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/energy_gr.html It doesn't necessitate a particle. There is no particle! But the interaction either absorbs the entire photon or nothing. If, as you say, it was just due to the discrete energy levels in the atom, then that could absorb half the energy of a photon, leaving a photon with half the energy. That never happens. Explaining this in terms of quantised fields was what gained Einstein his Nobel Prize. Correct. Photons are not particles. (And neither are electrons.) That is true of all particles. (A proton is a bit more complex because it is a composite particle.) Not sure I understand that analogy.... Yes, but that is a slightly different thing. You can't pull two quarks apart because of confinement. But, more importantly, you can't split a quark or an electron or a photon. All that "particleness" means is that the properties of a photon are quantised and indivisible. Getting off topic here (even if it is interesting) but I disagree. I don't think one should assume either position without evidence. You don't have to choose. Good point. (Although the latter problem originates from the first: if you don't know what you don't know, then why would you admit you are wrong!) Because they are indivisible! Actually, I think there have been attempts to measure the time it takes for a photon to be emitted, from what I remember, the lower bound on the time was less than the experimental error (in other words, effectively zero). You are not telling nature what to do, you are working within the bounds of what nature will allow. If you could tell nature what to do, you would grow your crops without seed or fertiliser and have them ready for market in 3 days. And perfect, because you would just tell the bugs to leave them alone. As it is, you fight a constant battle to get the best you can from nature, but she holds all the cards and defines the rules of the game. Physics is dependent on reality (although there are some philosophers who would disagree - at least with the way that is worded). But it doesn't necessarily tell us anything about reality. It doesn't even tell us that "reality" exists (hence the previous parenthetical comment). We have no way of knowing what reality is or if it exists. All we know about is what our senses tell us. Physics (science in general) isn't about "truth" or what is "really" there. It just formalises the models we get from our senses and uses it to build models of the world we perceive. It doesn't mean that world is anything like our models, nor even that it exists.

So you can't define what you mean by "English", and which version is the One True Language?

That is such a bizarre statement, I don't really know where to begin. I thought this sort of attitude had died out in the 1940s. How do you define "English" (the one true version of the language)? Every region of England speaks a slightly different dialect. In many cities, regions of the city speak different dialects (e.g. Cockney in London). Different age groups and classes speak different dialects, some may even be mutually incomprehensible (e.g. MLE & RP). Even the BBC now uses several different dialects of English. Ultimately every individual speaks a different idiolect. Do you think that any English that differs from that spoken by the Queen should be given an appropriate specifier? But there are certain things that are consistent between them, such as spelling, and those are the things that the term is used to identify. So, for example, in this thread, the question was about American versus British orthography (not grammar, but lets not get too pedantic). I suppose you could just say "American versus British orthography (or grammar, spelling or ...)" and assume we are talking about English. But as there are many other languages spoken in both countries, that could be confusing.

Do you have a link? It sounds like it is by someone who doesn't understand GPS or relativity. GPS receivers have to correct for both the relative velocity of each satellite and their difference in gravitational potential. You could handle both with a full GR treatment. Or you can approximate it by using SR for the velocity and a simplified equation for the gravitational effect. So the time dilation between satellite and receiver is not symmetrical and this does not cast any doubt on SR.

OK. So when you said "the others can be described in terms of the locality in which they are used" you mean it is OK to say "Indian English," for example, or even "Scottish English," "Welsh English" or "Irish English" but not "British English." That sounds a little ethnocentric. If not Imperialistic. English is the (first) language of many people round the world. You find them in all sorts of countries. It is if you verb it. But as Calvin said, "verbing weirds language."

So you think the dialect of English spoken in India should be called Indian? And the dialect of English spoken in China should be called Chinese?I can't see that being a problem at all. The phrase was "British English". This seems to be a standard term for the dialect of English spoken in Britain.

Are American English or Irish English or Indian English also tautologies? How would you suggest distinguishing the different dialects of English?

That would mean having a different theory, with different predictions, for the Copenhagen Interpretation and, say, the Many Worlds Interpretations. As they are just different descriptions of the same theory, there isn't (currently) any way to distinguish them.

OK. Let's try again. 1. You said: orbital speed will depend on the mass of the orbiting object. No mention of the central mass. 2. I pointed out that we use the same Newtonian dynamics to explain to orbits of things from the sizeof planets to grains of dust with no problems. 3. You then say: but it depends on the central mass. THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU SAID BEFORE (See 1). However, as we want to to stick to the physics, you need to drop this point as you have no no way of calculating the difference you claim exists and therefore there is no science here. Objects are not accelerated in space-time (assuming you are referring to the apparent recessional velocities of galaxies). However, you can do a coordinate transformation where there is no expansion and the time coordinate changes instead. This doesn't change anything else. You still have a singularity 13.8 billion years ago. You still need to explain the recent acceleration ("dark energy"). It is the same model described in a different way.

Oh god. It's a bargain-basement Deepak Chopra. Or maybe a quantum-woo chatbot.

Don't gases have a pretty low specific heat (almost by definition) and so you would have to continually pump in cold gas. And it would have to be oxygen free to avoid just fanning the flames. So vast quantities of chilled nitrogen or carbon dioxide constantly pumped into the area. In which case the anoxic conditions are probably more important than any cooling. And you have the problem of potentially suffocating the firefighters and any bystanders.

That's not really what I meant. I just mean that science can't tell us about the "true nature of reality" (if there is any such thing). It can only describe things we can measure. OK. So you don't mean any sort of reality beyond what we see and measure. (A sort of naive realism.) That's fine. The trouble is, that does mean you have to keep adjusting your idea of what is "real" as science advances. And I think some people would say that "reality" shouldn't change like that, it should be independent of our theories.

It may be true, but that is not the same as what you said before. You have changed your argument when it is demonstrated that reality proves you are wrong. And you won't even admit that is the case. That is dishonest. Nothing in science is self evident. Everything needs to be tested. You are not willing to do that because you are blinded by your religious dogma. You are not interested in science unless you can distort it to make it fit with your beliefs. You the worst sort of Creationist.

But neither of those were the luminiferous aether. (That would be the electromagnetic field.)

Do you need help moving those goalposts? You specifically said that two different objects similar to the Earth with different masses would have different orbital speeds. This is an example where the mass of the orbiting body is insignificant compared to the mass of the central body. The same is true for moons of planets, artificial satellites and dust. This is an intellectually dishonest and offensive response. You are, I assume, using "logic" in the informal sense of "it makes perfect sense to me". If you were really using logic, you would have some sort of formal support for your argument (a mathematical model) not just wishful thinking based on your beliefs. Sorry. Science doesn't work that way.

Relativistic mass is just a measure of energy. For a particle with mass, this will be the kinetic energy it gains from its motion. For a photon, it is the energy the photon has, which is proportional to its frequency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon_energy

Not really, no. I think that is still the favoured explanation. But many are not happy with it (including Steinhardt, who was one of those who came up with it in the first place).

And yet reality seems to disagree. So you have a non-existent model purely based on wishful thinking.

Still not seeing any calculations of rotation curves ...

Just to be clear, the thing I was saying only applied to the observable universe was this comment of yours: "the maximal size of the Universe is limited by its age, the maximal speed of mass (Let's assume - speed of light), expansion and some other factors from the BBT." So the size of the observable universe is limited by the speed of light and the time from the Big Bang, because that defines how far we can see. Note that there is no speed of light limit for matter in this case. We can see galaxies (i.e. they are in our observable universe) which are receding at more than the speed of light.

And can you show that this reproduces the observed rotation curves? I am assuming, from your evasiveness, that you cannot? We use Newtonian gravity to calculate the orbits of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, artificial satellites, dust, molecules and atoms. No departure from the predicted orbits has been observed (apart from cases where it has indicated the presence of some unknown mass such as Uranus or dark matter). It is becoming increasingly clear that what you think has little basis and can be disregarded. Apparently not.

The difference of what from what? The effect that dark matter (whether matter or modified gravity) is required to explain is a large effect. Why? What you should be looking for is an effect that is purely dependent on the distance from the centre of the galaxy. That is the observation that needs to be explained. You seem to be inventing another problem (that hasn't been observed and, according to you, can't be observed). I assume this is because you don't have an explanation for the observed rotation curves?

Please explain this. The effect we observe is LARGE therefore an effect that is too small to measure is irrelevant. If your model cannot predict the observed rotation curves then it is not useful.

The whole universe is (as far as we know) expanding in the way described by the Big Bang model. Because it might be 150 times larger or it might be 1 million times bigger or it might be infinite. So150 was just an example. That explanation is the Big Bang model. I'm not sure what else you are looking for. The whole universe has always been bigger than the observable universe by the same amount. So, for example, if the whole universe is now 150 times larger than our observable universe then it has always been 150 times larger. And, for example, if the whole universe is now 1 million times larger than our observable universe then it has always been 1 million times larger. Because we don't know what was there before then. No. As far as we know, the whole universe is described by the same Big Bang model. There is an underlying assumption (the Cosmological Principle) that our observable universe is not special; that the rest of the universe is largely the same as what we see.