Speed of Light and Energy...?

[mistermack]

Hackenslash, thinking about your reply on the previous page, you hit me with a straw man really, because I didn't argue for a point that existed before the big bang. I argued for the centre of gravity of the universe being a constant, SINCE the big bang, ie, for all of time.
If there is no spcace, as we know it, in the centre of the universe, I'm not sure what that means.
In the world as we know it, if there is no space between you and me, we are touching.
So saying there is no space in the centre isn't really saying anything. Unless there is a different kind of nothing, that has three dimenional space, without any spacetime.

[Farsight]

and farsight.... undergraduate physicists develop pet theories like trainee doctors develop incurable illnesses. You're not the first to come up with a massless universe, and you surely won't be the last.

Huh? I haven't come up with a massless universe.

If you want some *real* entertainment using real science to back up fantasy theories, I recommend the "intelligent design" mob. They have better cookies, daughters with purity rings, and you can pretty much rest assured that none of them understand relativity, quantum physics or mechanics either.

Geddoutofit Twiglet. You're the one displaying quasi-religious conviction here, not me. What I saying is backed by experimental evidence and peer-reviewed papers, and you're dismissing it because it isn't in your textbook bible.

[Farsight]

Laughing at things I find funny… Surely that’s a good habit.

Farsight has been flogging his ‘time doesn't exist it's only motion’ all over the internet like a plague....

But why no publication?

That last question is the all important one.

There is a publication. It's full of references to bona-fide peer-reviewed papers, and it was advertised on the Institute of Physics PhysicsWorld website. This is it:

[Nautilidae]

Geddoutofit Twiglet. You're the one displaying quasi-religious conviction here, not me. What I saying is backed by experimental evidence and peer-reviewed papers, and you're dismissing it because it isn't in your textbook bible.

[mistermack]

See colubridae, see what you're teaching the children?

[colubridae]

Laughing at things I find funny… Surely that’s a good habit.

Farsight has been flogging his ‘time doesn't exist it's only motion’ all over the internet like a plague....

But why no publication?

That last question is the all important one.

There is a publication. It's full of references to bona-fide peer-reviewed papers, and it was advertised on the Institute of Physics PhysicsWorld website. This is it:

Dude what you are ‘postulating’ is worth 3-4 nobel prizes.
The maths is way beyond me… But should be within reach of a research fellowship.
So why no takers?

Imagine a swimming pool. Every morning you swim from one end to the other in a straight line. In the dead of night I truck in a load of gelatine powder and tip it all down the left hand side. This starts diffusing across the breadth of the pool, imparting a viscosity gradient from left to right. The next morning when you go for your swim, something's not right, and you find that you're veering to the left. If you could see your wake, you'd notice it was curved. That's your curved spacetime, because the pool is like the space round a planet, the viscosity gradient is like Einstein's non-constant gμν, and you're a photon. As to how the gradient attracts matter, consider a single electron. We can make an electron along with a positron from light, via pair production. Since the electron also has spin, think of it as light trapped in a circular path. So if you're swimming round and round in circles, whenever you're swimming up or down the pool you're veering left. Hence you find yourself working over to the left. That's why things fall down.

You still haven’t answered why I found this hysterical.

Remember this is the clue:-

“how would you steer a magic carpet round a tight curve?”

[Twiglet]

Dude what you are ‘postulating’ is worth 3-4 nobel prizes.
The maths is way beyond me… But should be within reach of a research fellowship.
So why no takers?

You have just proposed a question, which I think rightlfully now deserves a title.

"The Farsight Paradox"

Stated thusly: Anyone with a relevant research background will dismiss your ideas, but many without a relevant research background will venomously defend their possible validity.

The farsight paradox can be seen operating in many other scientific fields and disciplines, where non-scientific fantasy theories have been wrapped up in scientific jargon and gained a wide following. The most obvious of these is Intelligent design, but perhaps the most successful has the the climate change deniers movement, whose publicist has been so successful that aroun 20% of laypeople changed their opinions on the causes of global warming, in the US, in the last year alone.

Recent less successful attempts at devising "theories" to gain populist appeal include the "flat earth revivalists". doubtless inspired by the Churchs dominion for a thousand and odd years. They neglected the key point that anyone who has been on a long haul flight, or knows someone else who has - would probabluy count as having a "sufficient research background" to be just a teensy bit skeptical.

[mistermack]

Twiglet, someone talks about gravity and particles, and you attack him on intelligent design, climate change and a flat earth?
You're picking pretty safe ground there, but isn't it just a teeny bit irrelevant?

And Colubridae, you talk mysteriously about magic carpets, it's a clue all right.
So is saying dude all the time.

[Twiglet]

Twiglet, someone talks about gravity and particles, and you attack him on intelligent design, climate change and a flat earth?
You're picking pretty safe ground there, but isn't it just a teeny bit irrelevant?

It's entirely relevant.

If you genuinely want to understand the subject matter mistermack, you'd be well advised to attend a lecture course on special relativity. If you have the pre-requisites, which in the UK would be A level maths & physics, then such a course would take around 20 hours. Obviously, if you don't have the maths you need, it'll take more, but the basics are not that hard. It's algebra. What is tougher to grasp is a conceptual understanding of special relativity, because it is pretty alien to our everyday experience.

If you do that, then you can speak from a position of knowledge, and could likely easily identify the fundamental conceptual flaws in farsights understanding of why the speed of light constitutes an absolute limit. If he does understand the reasoning behind conventional theory, he is ignoring it in the body of his "arguments" in favour of speculation to promote his own agenda. Very much like those pushing intelligent design are.

If you want to be able to evaluate the argument mistermack, then what you need to do, IMO is to go and actually learn the shit we're talking about so that you can contribute something more solid than "be nice to each other" or sympathising that farsight might have a point or whatever. Everyone might have a right to their opinion, but it doesn't mean all opinions are equally right. The question is, do you want to understand the topic, or just cheerlead?

[colubridae]

Twiglet, someone talks about gravity and particles, and you attack him on intelligent design, climate change and a flat earth?
You're picking pretty safe ground there, but isn't it just a teeny bit irrelevant?

And Colubridae, you talk mysteriously about magic carpets, it's a clue all right.
So is saying dude all the time.

Dude, non-dude, sir, miss, 'oi you'!, Dr, non-dr, neutral person, creationist, god-botherer, scientist...
any patronimic you want.

Try answering the question 'Why is what farsight posted so funny?'

(hint: “how would you steer a magic carpet round a tight curve?”)

[colubridae]

Ok Once again this goes against the grain for me...

But I have worked out the approximate mass 'field' which will generate a gravitational field, which will give the photon a hubius helix geodesic.

Be warned it is strangely familiar...

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

mass field.jpg (51.38 KiB) Viewed 1834 times

[mistermack]

I'm proposing a new syndrome, very widespread, and I'm calling it the '' Child in a Zoo Syndrome'' . Children in zoos pull faces and mock Lions and Tigers when they are seperated by four inch toughened glass, or steel bars.
It's the same online, the mildest people become agressive and insulting, when they are protected by the anonymity of a forum.
It's the same behind the steering wheel, people rant and rave, but as soon as they are face to face with someone, they couldn't be more polite.
I include myself in those observations, but I do try to fight it.
Farsight may be right or wrong, but boy I admire his restraint.

[Twiglet]

I'm proposing a new syndrome, very widespread, and I'm calling it the '' Child in a Zoo Syndrome'' . Children in zoos pull faces and mock Lions and Tigers when they are seperated by four inch toughened glass, or steel bars.
It's the same online, the mildest people become agressive and insulting, when they are protected by the anonymity of a forum.
It's the same behind the steering wheel, people rant and rave, but as soon as they are face to face with someone, they couldn't be more polite.
I include myself in those observations, but I do try to fight it.
Farsight may be right or wrong, but boy I admire his restraint.

Doubtless the same could be said of numerous proponents of intelligent design, or flat earthers.

It's always nice to find something to admire in others.

[Farsight]

...The farsight paradox can be seen operating in many other scientific fields and disciplines, where non-scientific fantasy theories have been wrapped up in scientific jargon and gained a wide following. The most obvious of these is Intelligent design, but perhaps the most successful has the the climate change deniers movement, whose publicist has been so successful that around 20% of laypeople changed their opinions on the causes of global warming, in the US, in the last year alone...

Shrug. You can't deal with the science, you can't explain anything, and you resent anybody who can because this presents some form of challenge to your perceived status. So out come the ad-hominems. Why do supposedly rational scientific people feel the need to do this? Do try to address the scientific evidence and the peer-reviewed papers along with the logical argument. If you can't, fine, but being abusive makes you sound convictional and dogmatic, not me.

Now guys, can we please try to have a sincere discussion here?

[hackenslash]

Hackenslash, thinking about your reply on the previous page, you hit me with a straw man really, because I didn't argue for a point that existed before the big bang. I argued for the centre of gravity of the universe being a constant, SINCE the big bang, ie, for all of time. If there is no spcace, as we know it, in the centre of the universe, I'm not sure what that means.

Two things wrong with this. Firstly, it has not been established that time began at the big bang, and indeed the idea has been increasingly falling out of favour in recent years. Secondly, and as has been stated, the universe has no centre, not of gravity, nor of anything else.

In the world as we know it, if there is no space between you and me, we are touching.

Yes, except no. This isn't really relevant to the thread, but it should be pointed out nonetheless. Nothing ever touches anything else. Indeed, touch is impossible, as there is always space between things. In reality, you're not actually sitting on the chair you're sitting on, but hovering above it at a height of one angstrom, supported by an electromagnetic field.

So saying there is no space in the centre isn't really saying anything. Unless there is a different kind of nothing, that has three dimenional space, without any spacetime.

No, because I'm not saying there is no space in the centre, but that there is no centre.