I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Like Stephen Hawking, physics is a mystery.
Oh no, do I have to think about physics now? It's too hot here in Arizona tonight. I'll leave it to the greater brains amongst us.
Those scientists, changing their minds when they're wrong! Flip floppers, the lot of them!
The column represents the absolute nadir of Easterbrook. I've always thought the guy was dim but Jeebus Christmas is this inept.
What, you think Stephen Hawking is smarter than Gregg Easterbrook or something?
Yeah, what kind of a man let's a little thing like facts get in the way? A real man ignores them and believes what he believes, and that is what he believes. Facts be damned. Now stay the course around the corner.
Is Easterbrook some sort of rabid creationist or something? He seems to be desperate to dismiss a leading scientific theory about the formation of the universe.
He says it doesn't pass his "common-sense test," but all he proves is that he doesn't really understand the theory at all.
Stephen Hawking is proof scientists are nothing but practicioners of atheistic religion! How do we know there even WAS a Big Bang? Or evolution, for that matter! Did you SEE it happen?
But I KNOW there is a God! He wrote a book!
/typical Hoosier
OT: Kelli Arena ("I hear she has a gerbil fetish") is on CNN reporting that there's some specific information about a new threat against NYC financial targets.
No news yet whether they have any information about who, when, or how.
And if you missed the point: BE AFRAID.
Yeah... I don't have the grey matter horsepower to hang in this conversation very long, either.
However... the guys at slashdot.org do.
Here's a link to the story posted there, and the long discussion related to it.
http://science.slashdot.org/arti.../225226&
tid=160
Atrios,
Tena was kind enough to blog about this very thing while you were on vacation.
Best. Thread. Ever.
Damn flip flopping fizzacists.
This seems somehow familiar to me....
This is powerfully reminiscent of a Krauthammer column of a while back. Seem to remember him bitching that S. H's work was crap because he, Mr. K. couldn't understand it.
Could this be copying?
You can laugh, but this is scary. Not so long ago it would have been unthinkable for a reputable magazine to publish this nonsense. This is a symptom of the rising tide of anti-intellectualism that has given us a "president" who doesn't believe in evolution and can't pronounce the word "nuclear".
Next month's colunm: The Earth is Flat.
Debunking scientific theory by throwing around words like "claptrap" and "mumbo jumbo" is, um, bullshit and uh, stupid.
I'm sitting around throwing things at my TV watching the "Accuracy" in Media feature on CSPAN. The doofus editor makes such "accurate" charges as Micheal Moore hates America, Micheal Moore committed treason, and Micheal Moore is fat.
By the way, I loved it when he changed his mind. You don't see physicists do that every month.
Bet he does it more often than a columnist, though. It's the facts they change, not their opinions.
Kate:
I'll join you on the patio. I'll bring the Margaritas.
It's beyond scary, and entering the terrifying zone. And is more widespread than one might think.
The good news is that the enemies of reason are more visible and thus can be attacked and defeated more easily.
If that doesn't work I'm moving to New Zealand.
When I hear people like this promoting the "common sense" approach to cosmology I get this picture in my mind of the guys in the movie "THe Quest for Fire". Such lovable faces, so totally baffled by the things that happen all around them. Slapping their heads and wimpering. Of course even for me, a chemist, trying to understand just particle physics is like a monkey building a computer.
"like a monkey building a computer."
Ahhh, that was YOU watching me rebuild my PC. I was wondering who that was.
These bastards should really shut the hell up about "blah blah I can't understand scientific thought with this puny Republican brain, science must be wrong" ... you want to challenge the basis of modern society, let's solve these disputes with sword duels while we're at it, bet I'm a better swordsman than they are - also, knowledge of physics and scientific study of medicine are very useful skills for the sword...
These bastards should really shut the hell up about "blah blah I can't understand scientific thought with this puny Republican brain, science must be wrong
Think Estie can recite the quadratic formula? Without looking it up?
We've already had 4 years of anti-scientific / anti-intellectual leadership, and as it turns out, this science stuff actually matters to Americans. It matters to Americans in terms of jobs, health, the environment and general interest in moving forward into the 21st century instead of regressing back to the 1950's as some would have it.
newklier!
I never was much on science, call me low-science IQ if you like--it's true. I try to keep up somewhat, but it's sort of a losing battle.
So maybe I'm dumb in that regard, but, unlike Easterbrook, I'm just smart enough to know better than to argue the more arcane aspects of it against someone like Stephen Hawking.
Easterbrook's steaming pile of crap is the 21st century equivalent to that notorious 1920's New York Times article that chastized pioneer rocket expert Robert Goddard for not understanding "elementary physics", which, according to the Times, dictated that a rocket couldn't possibly operate in the vacuum of space. The Times retracted the article decades later after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
How does one send a letter to the New Republic via email?
The Times retracted the article decades later after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
Hey they're still faster at retraction than the Vatican. It took them about four hundred years to say they'd been wrong.
LJ - don't forget your bathing suit. It's a good night for a dip in the pool. We can talk about Archimedes' "Eureka" water displacement bath-tub moment. That's physics, right?
easterbrooke doesn't have enough understanding of this stuff to even be wrong. the big bang theory really does not address the question of what happened before the big bang. it postulates the big bang to explain the nature of the universe as it exists now.
Has the NRO have no shame? Was there not an editor somewhere with sufficient presence of mind to realize that printing this "claptrap" would be embarassing to the publication and damaging to its reputation?
Seriously- it does not take a physics wiz to follow a lay version of modern physics. Such ignorance of the basic behavior of the universe is not laughable: it is pathetic. It is like being proud of an inability to read or reason.
Evidently they have discovered a black hole- a place in the universe into which all information that falls into it is hopelessly garbled: it seems to be localized in Easterbrook's head.
They have done us all a public service however: any publication willing to publish such rubbish is unsuitable for anything save fishwrap.
I talked to my big deal scientist friend about the SH thing when it happened. He was shocked at the media coverage. He says scientists are wrong all the time, and say so.
I guess it's only when your The President that you can't admit your mistakes.
Totally off topic:
Bush Planning August Attack Against Kerry
"WASHINGTON, July 31 ? President Bush's campaign plans to use the normally quiet month of August for a vigorous drive to undercut John Kerry by turning attention away from his record in Vietnam to what they described as an undistinguished and left-leaning record in the Senate.
Mr. Bush's advisers plan to cap the month at the Republican convention in New York, which they said would feature Mr. Kerry as an object of humor and calculated derision."
This should be interesting....
Kelli Arena ("I hear she has a gerbil fetish") is on CNN reporting that there's some specific information about a new threat against NYC financial targets.
There's a well-organized threat out there not merely to NYC financial targets but the entire US economy.
This one we do have spcific information about; it's run by a shadowy figure named "Karl Rove."
How did we get to this point where people like Easterbrook and Postrel think their third rate mental masturbations have validity?
Olaf: the big bang theory really does not address the question of what happened before the big bang.
I read an article in Scientific American that said that asking what happened before the big bang is like asking what is north of the north pole.
Kate:
Sounds right to me. Eureka!
But...
You wear clothes when you swim???
exactly, riesz. what happened before the big bang has nothing at all to do with the theory. criticizing it on those grounds is like saying the theory of evolution doesn't make sense because it doesn't explain optics.
Alright, from the totally obscure scholarly theology department:
If Easterbrook is going to pick on Hawking, fine. I haven't read his book, and if I did, I'd still think he knew more about physics than I did.
But the crack about "medieval theology" is, in itself, profoundly ignorant.
Yeah, I know, I know, "received wisdom" (usually referred to, more colloquially, as "common sense") has it that "medieval theology" was concerned with how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and other such arcana.
Ignorance of history. Pure and simple. Continue to regard the "middle ages" as the "Dark Ages," and continue to condemn yourself out of your own mouth as an ignoramus, sez I. And I say it to all and sundry.
It was the Renaissance that, first, dubbed itself the "Renaissance," and, secondly, dubbed the previous age the "Dark Ages," or the "Middle Ages," meaning an interregnum between the "civilization" of Rome (anyone want to go back to the Roman Empire? Only if you would be a Roman citizen, or a nobleman, I'll warrant.) and the "rebirth of reason."
Ignoring, of course, all of the scholarship and thought that went on in that period. Aquinas understood Aristotle long before the Renaissance humanists got hold of him. The idea that "medieval theology" was concerned with such things as the angels and the pin, is a pure slander of the Renaissance, a joke meant to belittle their work, which instead became an "historical truth" (kind of like the missing "W's" on the White House keyboards).
I could go on, but you get the idea. So drop the idea that "medieval theology" was the province of boobs and charlatans, unless you want to denigrate some of the finest minds in human history. Unless, that is, you want to be as ignorant of what you write about, as Easterbrook.
Seriously- it does not take a physics wiz to follow a lay version of modern physics. Such ignorance of the basic behavior of the universe is not laughable: it is pathetic. It is like being proud of an inability to read or reason.
Somewhere C.P. Snow is slapping an ethereal forehead and wondering how to get Amazon to send Easterbrook a copy of "The Two Cultures" as well as a copy of Newton's works.
From just me's link:
"This gives us a chance to lay out an agenda, to tell people what he wants to do over the next four years," said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's senior political adviser. "We need, as we go into the convention, to put more of an emphasis on our agenda. But we still need to explain the war on terror and we need to offer a contrast with Senator Kerry."
Check it out:
They need to "explain the war on terror."
If they need to "explain" it now, it means it's:
-- fucked up and confusing;
-- not quite the strong point for the administration we're always told it is.
A column, says Kruthammer, is not just politics. "My beat is ideas, everthing from the ethics of cloning to strategy in Afghanistan. I also do public service, like reading Stephen Hawking's books and assuring my readers that 'It is not you. They are entirely incomprehensible.'"
http://www.postwritersgroup.com/
...krauthammer.htm
Apparently Krauthammer was proud of that one. Wonder if G.E. saw it?
Mr. Easterbrkook should find an old copy of "Physics for Poets", by Robert March. He tahoght the course at UW-Madison in the 80's, the book is great, even I started understanding this physics shit.
You can laugh, but this is scary. Not so long ago it would have been unthinkable for a reputable magazine to publish this nonsense. This is a symptom of the rising tide of anti-intellectualism that has given us a "president" who doesn't believe in evolution and can't pronounce the word "nuclear".
Riesz Fischer
Yes, this is frightening.
But I would argue the "reputable magazine" thing.
"He tahoght"
"and I keppttt drinkin'... as I typed"
You don't really believe that Armstrong walked on the moon, do you?
I'm with Thersites: there is a mountain of emptiness here, masquerading as intelligent thought:
"We need, as we go into the convention, to put more of an emphasis on our agenda.
Sort of goes without saying, doesn't it? I mean, if you're going into your convention, would you be emphasizing anyone else'e agenda?
But we still need to explain the war on terror and we need to offer a contrast with Senator Kerry."
To the second part: well, duh! To the first: as Thersites says, if you "still need to explain the war on terror," then you are so far behind you can't even see Kerry's dust anymore. You are down so low bottom must look like up.
If there weren't so much at stake, this would be fun.
Bush Planning August Attack Against Kerry - just me
If that's the best they can come up with then: "Bring It ON!". Remember how the bully of the playground eventually lost followers because saying "Johnny Sucks!" over and over again just got boring.
My only qualm is that they have more up their sleeves than this cheap shit.
Wow, I can't believe someone that ignorant is actually being paid to write. That essay would rate a C- in a junior high class, but only since he used subjects, verbs, and adjectives mostly according to the accepted rules of grammar. His grasp of ideas and the basic nature of science is somewhere below the event horizon of a super massive black hole of ignorance. His stupidity is so great that no ideas can escape.
While they're busy explaining the war on terr, they could explain Big Time and his Haliburton connections and how they're not really connections, and then they can explain how not showing up for Air National Guard duty is honorably doing one's duty to one's country, and how saying we went to war because Saddam had WMDs when he didn't have WMDs is really all about making Iraq into a democracy, and --
Yeah, I'd looovvve to hear those explanations. Hahahaha! Over and over, please -- and don't let up until November!
Mr. Bush's advisers plan to cap the month at the Republican convention in New York, which they said would feature Mr. Kerry as an object of humor and calculated derision."
BREAKING!
386 Injured at Republican National Convention in Birkenstock Flip Flop Drop.
386 delegates to the Republican National Convention were injured when the Bush/Cheney 04 campaign team replaced the traditional balloon drop with dropping Birkenstock flip flops from the ceiling of Madison Square Garden.
"I thought flip flops were those foam and plastic things we wore at the beach," said President George W. Bush, "I didn't know them Birkenstocks were that hefty."
The attempt to emphasis Bush campaign charges against Kerry regarding "flip-flopping cam to a tragic end as hundred of credentialed Republican delegate were injured by the falling sandals, and the floor of Madison Square Garden was slick with the blood of the blunt force trauma injuries.
The incident was seen as a less than ideal ending for an otherwise successful nominating convention, according to sources in the Bush campaign.
Okay, I take it back.
Time to stand up and be counted.
This IS going to be fun!
Seems like this is the same dementia that afflicts pretty much all the Freepers. They've created a distorted reality, on the basis of what they've decided they want the world to be, as an act of faith, rather than looking at the world as it is and arriving at conclusions based on evidence.
What's most interesting to me is the way these idiots react to people and ideas that contradict the rules of this Neverland (or, God forbid, that they aren't bright enough to comprehend) -- always with anger, disdain, even hatred.
The world they inhabit was created in 4000 BC, and in it, Saddam had WMDs and robot planes and was arming al Qaeda, the Clintons killed Vince Foster (among dozens of others), Bush 43 is the best President ever (or at least, tied with Reagan), etc.
That's why it's a wasted effort trying to reason with trolls and their ilk - you may as well be arguing that the sky's not blue. For them, it's all the same.
Bush Planning August Attack Against Kerry - just me
But I thought Andy Card made it pretty clear that starting any kind of marketing campaign in August was a waste of time...
Or is my memory an even blacker hole than anything physics could theorize?
MoniCA: While they're busy explaining the war on terr, they could explain Big Time and his Haliburton connections and how they're not really connections, and then they can explain how not showing up for Air National Guard duty is honorably doing one's duty to one's country, and how saying we went to war because Saddam had WMDs when he didn't have WMDs is really all about making Iraq into a democracy, and --
They're not going to talk about themselves at all-- they're only going to ridicule Kerry, like they did Gore in 2000. Only this time I don't think it's going to work, because they've fucked up so bad that even the American Sheeple can see it.
. . . but Saddam gassed his own people!
One thing I was pleasantly surprised by with the convention was the eloquent championing of science by so many of the speakers. It was refreshing and also inspiring to hear and see grown adults advocate reason and scientific inquiry over extremist fundamentalism.
It would be tempting to say that Hawking was able to become internationally famous while saying kooky things because today physicists have the status once held by medieval priests: People don't challenge their mumbo-jumbo.
This pretty much sums up the republican attitude towards science in general... "we don't get it so it must be bullshit."
So I say to Easterbrook I say to all the trolls of the world: Could you possibly be more stupid?
oh, they're going to explain the war on terror. pretty good strategery.i'm surprised they never thought of that before.
I used to think Hawking was amazing, until I read one of his biographies and found out he ran away with his nurse after years of marriage to his first wife. That kind of pissed me off, and it made me not like him as much.
Of course, I still think he is brilliant, and admitting you're wrong and proving you're wrong before someone else does it then paying off on his bet with another physicist on if he was wrong is more manly than all of our current Administration put together; and that's even counting Condi!
A quick Hawking story:
At the end of his career as a student at Oxford, at which he was quite a pain to the administration (he was brilliant, lazy and a partier), he was required to have an interview with senior professors and officials to determine his final grade. He was on the borderline between a B and an A, so one of the professors asked him "Why should we give you an A?" His response was "If you give me an A, I can get into Cambridge for further studies and you'll be rid of me. If you give me a B, I'll have to stay here at Oxford." They gave him the A.
For some time, Gregg Easterbrook was considered to be a black hole of stupidity, something so incredibly dense with idiocy that he collapsed in on himself. He became a stupidity singularity, an infinitesimally tiny region which sucks mightily all light, reason, and logic into it where it disappears forever without a trace.
However, this theory has recently been reconsidered, as it now appears that occasionally the Easterbrook singularity belches forth some of the material it has sucked in, though in such a mangled, craptacular form that no intelligent being would be able to recognize it.
Stephen Hawking is a flip-flopper!
Who are you going to trust, some pointy-headed fancy-pants intellectual or us? We've been steadfast in our convictions for over 2,000 years.
RF --
I don't think people will stand for them sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting "LA LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" -- at least not on the campaign trail. Voters this election want to get down to the issues. They're concerned about where this country is heading in the next four years.
The only thing I worry about from the BushCo CREEP is an October "Miracle on Ice" starring Osama bin Laden.
But even that will be subject to the usual ham-handedness of the incompetant goon squad. You can't pull tricks like that more than two or three times. People get wise to it.
gee the next thing you know, people are going to start saying there's no such thing as races, it's a social construct.
That totally fails the common-sense test. Why I just have to look at a black person to tell they are different, they play basketball well, eat lots of watermelon and tap dance pretty good because they have rhythm.
What? What did I say?
Let me tell you something about the Jews and the way they keep making violent movies...
oh... uh, never mind. I'll go back to writing about things I don't know about and stay away from writing about things that get me fired.
The Republican party has become the party of the stupid and ignorant. How sad for them, and for us.
A moment of silence please for any intelligent Republicans still left.
.
.
.
.
.
good god! it's worse than i thought! i was going to read the whole article. it turns out that you have to actually pay for the opportunity to read this dreck.
MoniCA: The only thing I worry about from the BushCo CREEP is an October "Miracle on Ice" starring Osama bin Laden.
Or worse yet another major attack on American soil. I agree that's about what it would take. But if we win the Senate (probable) and the House (possible) we could stave them off.
Personally I won't be happy just to see Chimpy and Slant-mouth lose a close election. I want a humiliation appropriate for their crimes-- hopefully a prison sentence for war crimes, or, if they do win the election, an impeachment.
RF --
At this point, I just want them gone. Let history consign them to ignomy.
I'd love to see them tried for what they've done, but mostly I just want those wicked theives and their little clique out of office and ridiculed into lives of obscure mediocrity.
Easterbrook: We don't need none of that high-falutin' book larnin' to understand cosmology or nothin'.
LJ -
I'm late getting back to this:
You wear clothes when you swim???
It depends. Especially on how dark it is. We live right next to (below) a sizable hill (though they call it a mountain), with fancy-pants big bucks homes with huge verandas wrapping 'round, lots of party types up there.
And it also depends on whether anyone is with me but Mr. Kate, the love of my life. He's the only one I grant the right to eyeball all of me. And he grants only me the same right regarding his bod. We like it like that.
I've got my problems with Hawking, as I've said elsewhere...but I'll gladly defend him against the likes of a hack like Easterbrook.
And there ARE legitimate problems with the Big Bang, but Easterbrook sure as hell doesn't know what they are.
Stupid, stupid article.
Meanwhile, the New Scientist" has an interesting article about Shahriar S. Afshar, whose experiments challenge Niels Bohr's notion of complementarity as expressed in the Copenhagen Interpretation...which, though not the only plausible view of quantum mechanics, has been considered almost beyond criticism in many circles.
Well worth reading. I hope he's right, as I've been unhappy with the CI ever since I figured out what the hell it claimed. (Personally, I'm not going to be happy 'til the ether's brought back...and mark my words, the day is coming!)
Also, as far as alternate views of QM go, I learned just last night that aspects of the Bohm-DeBroglie interpretation of QM actually turn up in Newton's "Opticks."
I wouldn't bother posting this gibberish, except that I know there are at least a couple people here interested in this specific issue, and thought they might want a heads-up about the article.
I have this vision:
"Tonight on Hannity & Colmes:
The Pauli Exclusion Principle--just who do they think they're fooling??
On the O'Reilly Report:
Well, Mr. Heisenberg, you may be uncertain, but I sure as hell am not!
And don't miss Rush Limbaugh:
Bose-Einstein condensate? Puh-leaze! Folks, you can't make this stuff up!"
As I've often said, few people go into quantum physics because they can't make it in journalism school.
However, saying that about Easterbrook is unfair to real journalists. He's a couple of orders of magnitude more ignorant, and adds a component of meta-ignorance by being even more ignorant than that of his own ignorance. Did I mention that he's ignorant?
BREAKING NEWS: TERRORIST CHATTER ABOUT TRUCK-BOMBING WALL STREET INVESTMENT BANKING FACILITIES. THE US HAS NEVER HAD A TRUCK BOMBING(except oklahoma city)
Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 07.31.04 - 11:40 pm |
They actually specify "suicide truck bombings", which I think is accurate. Of course, once Fox has to describe it as a "homicide truck bombing" things will get confusing for people.
Don't forget Michael Savage on hidden variables, particularly as they apply to Bohm's "Implicate Order":
"You know why you get a PhD, the kind I've got? That I worked my ass off to get, out of respect and love for the truth? You get it so you can learn about the truth. You don't get it so you can say, I can't see these things, but they're true. That's Stalinist science. That's LSD doper baby science from Russia. Science is where you see iit, you know you saw it, and if someone else says you didn't then that's how you know who goes into the gas chambers, who gets the guillotine. Because when you deny the evidence of fact, you deny life, and life must be denied to you before you can spread your SICKNESS."
(Personally, I'm not going to be happy 'til the ether's brought back...and mark my words, the day is coming!) - Philalethes
Bring back Victorian-Era Science! It's so much easier!
Or is that Æther?
Man, don't get me started on the Copenhagen Interpretation. Big pile of "I don't want to think about that, so I won't. And no one else should either, because it just doesn't matter. Because I say it doesn't."
I respect Niels Bohr as a scientist, but damn, that whole thing's just a crock of shit.
Personally, I'm not going to be happy 'til the ether's brought back...and mark my words, the day is coming!
I kinda get sentimental for the Ptolemaic Universe, myself...
I respect Niels Bohr as a scientist, but damn, that whole thing's just a crock of shit.
Jake Nelson
Well said, sir! I concur. My favorite bit, though, was Heisenberg's gag that we "can't and SHOULD NOT" look beyond it.
Apart from the logical problem (if we truly can't, why tell us we shouldn't?)...boy, that's JUST the attitude you want a scientist to have, ya know? Must've been the Nazi in him.
Hawking ran away with his nurse? Wheeled away maybe.
Bring back Victorian-Era Science! It's so much easier!
MisterX
Nothing easy about the aether!
And these days, nothing Victorian about it either.
And for those who think Victorian science is a picnic, I advise you to lock horns with Charles H. Hinton. Thirsty work, indeed.
Damnit
Somebody give me some insight.
Should I or Shouldn't I be obeying the laws of Physics?
I don't want to get a ticket. Between Speed of Light traps and those damn short and unexpected No Levitating Zones the fines stack up.
Should I or Shouldn't I be obeying the laws of Physics?
If time doesn't have to, I don't see why you should!
Philalethes
That is so typical of a lefty liberal comment.
If it feels good, do it.
However, it is going to make commutes real nice. And hindsight investing will be definitely a plus.
I could go on, but you get the idea. So drop the idea that "medieval theology" was the province of boobs and charlatans, unless you want to denigrate some of the finest minds in human history. Unless, that is, you want to be as ignorant of what you write about, as Easterbrook.
Robert M. Jeffers
Missed this the first time around, but bravo! Exactly right. Most of those guys, and most "Victorian" scientists were the equal of many thinkers today, and superior to lots of 'em (including Haking, in my opinion...but that's just my opinion). They discovered way more, using LOTS less.
I'm not ANY kind of ultimate scientific authority (and who is?), but I've gotten very tired of being lectured to about the nature of reality by people who couldn't explain electricity if their life depended on it. Condescending to previous states of human knowledge is one of the most anti-scientific, counterproductive things one can do.
Will somebody please explain to me what makes Greg Easterbrook believe he is even remotely qualified to discuss Stephen Hawkings theories?? They actually pay this moron to crank out pieces dealing with topics such as Quantum physics?? Sure is great to be a "journalist" in America these days.
Has the NRO have no shame?
Short answer: NO! After all, this is the publication which also allows Meghan Cox Gurdon to spew her bullshit (Check out TBOGG's regular "Americas Worst Mother" feature every Friday).
I don't have TIME for modern physics.
All this shows is that nobody is as Postmodern as a modern conservative.
Putting aside Hawking and Easterbrook, this is pretty typical in fascist thinking. We all know, I'm sure, how the Reich felt about "Jewish" science...Hitler took relativity as a personal affront, and kicking non-Aryan thinkers out of the universities was job one for the Nazi party.
And Wyndham Lewis, the British fascist author, was also very cranky about relativity...mainly because he felt it was "soft" and "feminized," and an affront to the awesome dignity of the ubermenschen.
Easterbrook's will have to labor mightily to earn a spot in this distinguished company...but he might just manage it one day.
He's not remotely qualified to discuss history--medieval or victorian, either.
Is this really any surprise, coming from the same fine publication which brough us Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan?
TNR also gave us Michael Kinsley and Hendrik Herzberg . I think John B. Judis still works there.
Yeah, I know, I know, "received wisdom" (usually referred to, more colloquially, as "common sense") has it that "medieval theology" was concerned with how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and other such arcana
Robert J--there's a good thread over at The Straight Dope online about just this subject. The mockery of the angels/pins stems from the 18th century, but Thomas Aquinas himself addressed the issue, alneit briefly. It seems the issue was whether angels had corporeal existence or not. Aquinas concluded that, no they didn't, so an infinite number could be superimposed in any given space.
That's not as stupid as it might seem at first, as it sets the precedent for multiple dimensions of space and the overlapping universes of quantum physics and string theory. Aquinas was "right" in his way, according to current understanding.
Sign on a building in Copenhagen:
"Heisenberg may have slept here."
Easterbrook misapprehends even the most basic elements of scientific method, evidently preferring macho certitude to cautious circumspection. Generating falsifiable hypotheses, testing them empirically, and ascertaining their consistency with accepted theory--or explaining why they deviate from it--these are the very foundations of science! It is not necessary for any one "high priest" of science to leap-frog flawlessly from one lily-pad of absolute truth to another. Championing a theory that is later disproved can be highly useful in expanding the body of knowledge. And if one is reasonable and gracious in accepting defeat (when and if it comes), there is absolutely no dishonor in "flip-flopping".
Aquinas was "right" in his way, according to current understanding.
Draco
Yeah, and that thing everyone's always talking about...you know, Ockham's Razor? That scourge of the metaphysician, that boon to the rationalist? Ha! Welcome to the MIDDLE AGES, Biatches! Anyone wants to read Ockham, or Grosseteste, or Duns Scotus and explain to me what chumps they were, feel free.
OT, but you know another modern myth that bugs me? This story that the Church was threatened by a heliocentric system, because if mankind were removed from the center, we wouldn't be "high and mighty" anymore.
In reality, the church wanted the earth at the center because it was the WORST place...God was at the periphery, and corruption increased with distance, with Hell itself occupying the exact center, because it was the furthest point from God. The Church's aim, in this case, was to place mankind in a humiliating, wretched position.
Now, we might well complain about THAT, but instead people are always going on about what a "blow" it was to the human race to lose its exalted position in the universe.
Anyway, I realize that's a pretty obscure thing to get annoyed about...but in a way, it's just another example of the Memory Hole. Historical figures say things, and say them clearly...but then someone else comes along a century or two later, spins it some new "official" way, and there it stays...so if you want to argue about it, you can't even argue about the REALITY, because that's been discarded. It's like the SCLM, but stretched over centuries.
There IS an Aetherbunny!
What if we have a president who believes in science? Wouldn't it be a wonder.
What the fuck kind of America have we been living in?
I may yet make myself a bumper sticker: Science: love it or stop believing in your computer.
From what I've read, Middle Age theologians didn't really waste time arguing how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, as the Aquinas post above mentions. However, apparently, they did spend time debating whether or not angels took dumps, which is much more important in my eyes.
As for Hawking and his nurse, I read somewhere recently that he and the nurse split up because she was abusing him phsically and mentally. Even given the idea that karma's a bitch, that's still a pretty goddamn low thing to do.
And as to regards to the topic, honestly, I can almost understand Easterbrook's confusion, if not his arrogance in dismissing modern theoretical physics. I've tried to explain what little I know about quantum theory, superstrings, the holographic paradigm and other such topics to friends and co-workers, and gotten nothing but blank looks and sneers of disdain. Most folks aren't comfortable with the idea of stuff you can't prove. It's one of the fundies' arguments against evolution, actually: scientists can't "prove"it beyond a shadow of a doubt" - which, of course, is a completely meaningless phrase, both in scientific terms and the fundies' own solopisms - it's obviously all a bunch of hooey. Human beings are like that, though, I think; uncertainty makes us nervous and we don't like acknowledging we don't know everything. Plus, there's the whole thing about how our culture sneers at any sort of use of immagination, but that's a different story all together.
Of course, you tell the average fundie - or in some cases the average believer - that there's absolutely no physical evidence of any sort of "supreme being", you're libel to get the shit smacked out of you.
Err, Elaine, back in the dark ages, a networking company named Lantastic used to sell an Ether Basket: four network cards, software and cabling.
Lamas - today - is the least appreciated pagan festival among nerds. You've got May Day, Ground Hog Day and Halloween (Beltane, Imbolc and Samhain, respectively) but we tend to miss this one (perhaps because we may actually be on vacation, for a change).
Nevertheless, happy cross-quarter day. By some reckonings (not mine, as a Southern Californian) it's the end of summer, halfway to the equinox, sun about half as high as it was. For us it gets hotter and drier from here until Halloween.
Explaining gravity as a property of geometry generally doesn't work, even with well-educated people. Everybody is sure that they know what space is, and the best-educated are even more certain than the rest.
By contrast, Gauss used his honeymoon to survey the Alps to try to determine whether or not the geometry of the world was curved. (It's a good question to ask, but it's not that curved, evidently.)
What we have here is a failure of both learning and imagination.
Aetherbrook believes in science just like he believes in the Aetherbunny.
And the Holy Handgrenade. Aetherbunnies BITE!
Gaus's bride got dizzy when everything started to curve and swirl about.
Reality is a bitch.
Speaking of ether or aether - and I don't know why this just popped into my head, could be the pot or it could be because of Ann Peebles - but I read somewhere there's a growing meme in theoretical physics of some sort of quantum ether that carrier agents moved through. It's still very, very theoretical, of course - even more so than, say, string theory - but experiments with the Bose-Einstein Consendate (reducing matter to as close to 0 degrees Kelvin as possible, so that all the little bits of it become just a sort of big blob) say it may be something to dig into.
Again, just an idea. Have to look into it more.
Are black holes cold?
My daughter, a biochem major in college, vividly remembers her first day of organic chem as a college freshman. The prof told the class that the whole periodic table might be proven wrong, and she advised them not to get too attached to it.
Hitler's diatribes against Jewish science ensured that numerous scientists, Jewish and non-Jewish, left Nazi-Germany for other countries; others who remained, performed less than stellar science for Der Führer, some on purpose, some because they didn't know better.
The US Far Right's diatribes against Science may cost the nation the next stellar breakthrough in energy research, as people who dream of studying and doing research in the US are kept away; or as American scientists find that Government oversight is making their work near impossible.
Worst case scenario? The next great breakthrough in weapons technology happens somewhere else.
China.
Elaine,
Dunno. It's one of the posers concerning black holes. In terms of "hot" or "cold" - which are probably better defined as "how energetic the idividuals atoms and whatnot are" - it's hard to say. Matter gets "hotter" the more it's compressed, and in a black hole, matter gets the shit compressed out of it. But, since no information can escape from a black hole (or maybe it can), how can you tell? And if you can't measure it, does it matter how "hot" or "cold" it is?
Or it could be that I'm just stoned and can't properly explain it, there's always that.
Stein nails a good secondary point. We are getting dumber and weaker as a nation thanks to "the Market" and the rightists.
Personally, I'm not going to be happy 'til the ether's brought back...and mark my words, the day is coming!
I kinda get sentimental for the Ptolemaic Universe, myself...
Thersites and Philalethes,
I'm holding out for the Ptolemaic Universe and the Four Elements.
Everything is made up of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water! Yeah! 
The US Far Right's diatribes against Science may cost the nation the next stellar breakthrough in energy research, as people who dream of studying and doing research in the US are kept away; or as American scientists find that Government oversight is making their work near impossible.
It's not just the government oversight that's keeping some of the world's finest scientist's away. It's the thought of what scientists from other countries will face if they try to enter the US of A:
Science and National Security in the
Post-9/11 Environment has links to various articles they compiled which dealt with all of these issues, and more, regarding why foreign students are staying away from America, when we need them most.
They = the AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Got a little mouse-happy there when I was moving a sentence around.
kei & yuri,
Well, yeah. If you mean a conservative mindset, "The Right" has always and will always be against questioning the given reasoning. Be it the Church, community leaders or even older scientists (I wanna say even ol' Albert didn't dig quantum theory until he got much, much older), the Powers That Be fight tooth and nail against the challenges "the way things have always been", be it advances in science or gay marriage.
As for "The Market", all it cares about is making money and more money (or acquiring more power, which is all money really is to those people). If there's no marketable uses for, say, the holographic paradigm, don't expect investors to come beating down your door if you come up with a groovy new theory but need bread to test it fully.
That, my dear little sisters, is the prevailing thought amongst all humanity, be they Christian right-wing Republicans, church fathers or the head dude in a African tribe.
Except that the Marketeers are much more active and aggressive, and are currently concerned with ripping up the foundations of our public education system so our kids will be as dumb and unqualified as possible and, coupled with the destruction of the middle class, they can complete the transition of the US to a third world power. That and the fact that this more aggressive version of the prolbe is what we face, not inevitable human reluctance and threshold-sticking.
Also, as far as alternate views of QM go, I learned just last night that aspects of the Bohm-DeBroglie interpretation of QM actually turn up in Newton's "Opticks."
Really? that is interesting.
Backslider, you may be stoned, but you made sense to me. As to whether it matters whether a black hole is hot or cold, well, I don't care if it's unknowable- I still want to know.
I'm just nosy that way.
As for Easterbrook- what an ass. Why is it that republicans are so opposed to thinking?
kei & yuri,
Well, yeah, that too. There's assuredly more aggresive forces at work, and certainly The Powers That Be (which both define and are defined by The Market) find it better for them that we're all dumb as rocks and getting dumber. I was just giving the underlying, at-the-core reason why.
fourlegsgood,
I'm with ya. A week rarely go by where some wag or sweet young thang doesn't ask me why I "waste" my time reading about physics or history or religion when I don't "have" to for a class and there's no financial gain involved. I always tell 'em, "Because it's cool. What do you sit and think about when you're all alone."
The answers I get, mind you, are rarely encouraging. I don't know what's more depressing: the seemingly basic human need for "background noise" to provide static so they don't have to think, or what little they do think about when they can't avoid the silence.
that is a good question. are black holes cold? i bet it is covered theoretically somehow, but i don't know.
i think "the market" as it is currently conceived does make us dumber as a population. we are awash in products that really aren't worth a fuck, but we have to be manipulated into buying them anyway. take sneakers as an example. i wouldn't say that anyone who spends $120 on a pair of sneakers is stupid, but when a person makes that purchase he is not thinking critically. this becomes habit.
in theory, all economic decisions are rational. in fact, most aren't. and if they were there would be very little demand for any of the crap that is for sale.
"the way things have always been",
Isn't that the old "appeal to tradition" arguement that shouldn't be given credence? Also, why are there so few American math and science majors? Not to mention MD's. Seems like we've got some work ahead of us, regardless of whom occupies which offices.
Olay glad and big,
i wouldn't say that anyone who spends $120 on a pair of sneakers is stupid, but when a person makes that purchase he is not thinking critically. this becomes habit.
Yeah, but there's also the fact that the market manipulates things so you have to pay $120 if you want a quality pair of shoes. A personal example, if you will. I go through blue jeans like a hot knife through butter. I work in a grease-heavy kitchen environment that involves a lot of crouching (getting stuff out of coolers). The grease in the air eats away at the threads in jeans, so they come apart. I go to some nice store, buy a $60 pair of Gap jeans (which are very well made), they last long. I go to Wal-Mart and buy a pair of britches for $15, they're toast within a month or two.
Either way, the market wins. I either spend way too much money on quality pants or I keep buying shitty blue jeans one after another. Or, take the washer-dryer my folks got when they married over 35 years ago. Damn things still about half-decently and that's even after being exposed to the elements for almost five years. Since they got a new set, they've gone through two washers and one dryer. Shit's just not made to last anymore unless you're willing to pay out the nose. Like I said, they benefit either way you choose.
Woohoo, it's Saturday Night Science (sorta like Friday Night Videos). Backslider said:
'I've tried to explain what little I know about quantum theory, superstrings, the holographic paradigm and other such topics to friends and co-workers, and gotten nothing but blank looks and sneers of disdain.'
I once tried to demonstrate to a co-worker how the double-slit experiment shows some of the really odd behaviour inherent in quantum physics. For those following along at home, I suggest you go here and check it out for yourself (look in the "tutorials" section). Anyway, I still don't think he believes me. I take the Feynmannesq sentiment to heart, namely, don't worry if you don't understand why quantum phenomena happen because nobody else does either.
I wouldn't consider the black hole question resolved. I believe Hawking is a very smart man, but we'll have to see his actual results. So far, he's only said that he's convinced he was wrong and ceeded the bet. However, his findings haven't been through the peer review process yet. That being said, I give him about a 99% chance of being right. It kinda sucks though, because I attended a public lecture he gave once and I'd hate to have to go back through what I remember and try to figure out what was wrong and what was right.
K & Y put their cute, Japanese anime princesses' fingers on the big problem with winger anti-intellectualism. It will come back to bite us in the butt, when, as they say, others will make and benefit from scientific advances.
Kudos to Backslider. I have known too many of (I assume) longer formal education and possessed of (I assume again) more advanced degrees who cannot and do not boast the same. Such an attitude of intellectual curiosity is what our educational system is supposed to foster and too often fails to do so.
chimpsmack,
Essentially. There's nothing wrong with respecting and learning from "the way things have always been". Newton had that whole thing about "standing on the shoulders of giants", after all, and Elvis knows that, as a musician, I'd rather play a 12-bar blues shuffle a la Big Joe Turner than anything that's considered new from the past, say, 20 years of music.
The problem comes when you allow tradition to hold you back. Don't ask questions, this is how it is because this is how it's always been. Using it as a ladder is fine, but far too many people use tradition as a shell to protect them from new ideas challenging their view of the world.
As to why there's so few math and science majors, well..it's just not sexy. There's no money it and whatever prestige you may get (apart from oddballs like Hawking or Einstein) is in a limited area. Game show hosts are more well-known to the average Joe than the head cat in nuclear physics.
Remember, we're a culture that not only values money and prestige - fame, even of the noteriety Kato Kaelin kind - over actual quality, we're a culture that makes fun of intellectual pursuits. Hey, we're a country that considers "bookworm" and "egghead" as insults.
i don't know. i have bought $120 sneakers. not for $120, but if you buy them like 6 months late you can get the ones that were originally $120 for like $50. and they aren't any good. they're just disposable shoes. $50 is too still too much to pay.
for pants you can just go to a thrift shop and get all the pants you want for like $2 a pair. good pants too.
Wile E. Odyssues,
You're too kind. When asked why I went into journalism (just a bachelor's, for the record), I tell people one of the reasons was because I'm a little bit interested in damn near everything, but nothing enough to make a living from it. Call it the attention defecit disorder theory of chosing careers.
Olaf big and glad,
Yeah, it's not a hard-and-fast rule, I admit, and it seems producers are cranking out more shit (in terms of quality and quantity) these days because they've realized we'll still pay for it. Cause we've gotta.
And yes, I have since discovered the thrift store for all my current work clothes needs. Just for blue jeans, though; I refuse to descend that far into hipsterism. I still get my flannel from Sears and my t-shirts from the same place I always have: rock concerts.
$120? You can get a good pair of sneakers for 25 bucks.
i make irrational purchases too. i spent like $60 on a ray lewis jersey. it's pretty well made, but it isn't worth it or anything. plus it doesnt even have to be well made since i only wear it 16 times a year. well, hopefully 16+, but i'll never wear it out since i just watch tv in it.
that's what i mean anonymous. at least with sneakers the $25 ones are of exactly the same quality too. just not marketed as heavily.
The internet is dying.
Does anyone have a password for all those Oxford books online?
To all,
I'm not sure about physics people, but I did do a lot of research into philosophers and math people.
It turns out that every one of note was either:
1. A heavy drinker
2. addicited to recreational drugs.
3. Insane
4. Any of the above.
This should not be taken to mean that we shouldn't listen to these people, but we should recognize that this is evidence of a greater truth. My thoery is that there is something about the deep truths of the universe that make you want to get away from it.
You could even draw a cruve explaining the situation. Maybe the more we understand something, the less we want to do with it. Either that or there's just a threshold of how much we can undertand before our little monkey brains explode.
Backslider,
You could have done worse with your education.
I do know people who have gone beyond the bachelor's with less intellectual curiosity. Even many academics these days seem to consider reading and writing as job specific skills--things to be left at the office so they can go home and watch American Idol or whatever other godawful crap is on television.
We used to have some educated journalists--H. L. Mencken springs to mind, for all that he partook of the racial prejudices of his day, and he went no further than high school in formal education--but that doesn't seem to be the case any more. Instead of getting a good grounding in English literature--so they can write--and economics or the sciences--so they have some advanced knowledge of the subjects they cover--journalists don't seem to learn much in journalism schools these days.
i don't think all that many of them were drinkers.
And now I shall toddle off to bed.
'Night, all.
poets. lots of poets were big drinkers.
good night wile e.
also shifty in a lot of cases, newton for instance, you could add:
5. religious crackpot.
Wile E. Odysseus,
Well, that's cause journalism schools are shit. I've always had a curious nature - I hesitate to call it "intellectual curiosity" because I'm not all that smart, actually; it's more like "extreme nosiness" than anything else - and like I said, I figured journalism was the best place to go. Turns out, J-schools teach very little beyond "don't rock the boat", either by the rules of writing - such as the excreable "pyramid" format - or not pissing off the people you write about too much. The pack mentality and cowardly nature of the White House press corps isn't all that much of a shock to me. For me, J-school was a waste of fucking time and did serious damage to my ability as a writer (though I did learn a lot when it comes to sources of info).
From what I've been told, most J-schools put more emphasis on the advertising course. The nuts-and-bolts aren't that different from reporting - except that you don't pretend to be "objective", just "factual" - and, hell, the more's money in it anyway. Then there are those who use J-school as a springboard for law school. Lost cases, in my book, which isn't a slam against lawyers, mind you.
I was told most journalism majors minored in either business or economics, with some in political science. I found the first two too goddamn boring (especially as *ahem* "medicated" as I stayed in college) and the latter akin to an expensive pyramid scheme. So I minored in philosophy and sociology. I figured if I was gonna study bullshit, it'd at least be interest bullshit that I could understand whilst stoned to the bone.
yeah. i majored in english. i noticed pretty quick that whatever you studied it was mostly a lot of reading. so i decided to go with the story and poem curriculum.
A lot of European journalists eschew the pyramid scheme (an advertiser's or salesman's trick) for essay-style writing.
Anybody can believe in ether. I want to resurrect Phlogiston Theory.
yeah. i majored in english. i noticed pretty quick that whatever you studied it was mostly a lot of reading.
I went back and forth about whether to major in English or Physics before deciding that I could make a career in writing with a degree in Physics a lot more easily than I could make a career in physics with a degree in English.
So I got a degree in Math instead.
A lot of European journalists eschew the pyramid scheme (an advertiser's or salesman's trick) for essay-style writing.
kei as langley, yuri as rei | Email | Homepage | 08.01.04 - 5:51 am | #
I've noticed that. One of the reasons I always favored writing features instead of hard news is that it lends itself to the essay format (which, for what it's worth, is still fairly structured). What I loved about music criticism is that I could, structurally speaking, dick around and not get to the meat of the review - is the album good or not - until the last paragraph, and instead just write. The scribblings I put on my blog (and here, frankly) couldn't even be called "essays" in the common sense, because I fucking hate structuring myself when I write.
The pyramid is pounded into your head, though, in j-schools. And, frankly, it's pretty easy to write when you're faced with a topics you really don't care much about. And, honestly, I think that's the main problem with most American mainstream journalists (the writers, anyway): they're not writing about stuff they have any passion for. Makes for boring writing and incredibly boring reading.
a lot of european journalists eschew "objectivity" too. i'm pretty sure "objective journalism" was really just devised as a way to maximize market share. pretending that it is some sort of fundamental ethical principle is just bull.
"not writing about stuff they have any passion for."
i've lived in several different places and the best writers on every newspaper i've ever read regularly are on the sports page.
part of it is because sports writers generally do care about sports, but i think another part of it is simply that bullshitting is just not an option for them.
Olaf,
Yup. Sports writers are insanely passionate about what they write. I did that when I started out, and I got out because I didn't give a sufficiently large enough shit about what a bunch of yay-hoos in uniforms did on a field.
in fact, even easterbrook is actually a pretty good football writer, believe it or not.
Changing opinions based upon new evidence? What does Hawking think he is anyway, some sorta scientist or something? And what did the Scientific Method ever do for us anyway, eh?
*cues Monty Python 'What Did The Romans...' sketch up, but stops in the face of collected Eschaton glares*
You get the point. Easterbrook would be much more comfortable if they were both pure ideologues, although he might not want Hawkings to share his cave, what with that personal dislike and all for people who, without an optimumly functioning body, still make him look worthless.
As a personal aside, my own treasured "Jeebus, NRO readers are idiots" moment came from one Libertarian telling me, via an NRO article, what my own experience on the March 15th anti-war demonstration was, as opposed to what my lying eyes claimed. You see, 'the march was organised by Stalinists: They only allowed 4 "official" signs on the march you know...' Um. Yes. So if I can point to just one picture on the internet which shows a homemade sign, you'll admit that NRO article is cobblers, yes?
They didn't admit it, needless to say.
Æther, you mean ÆI? That maverick science theory tank?
Physics is a dangerous profession.
You have to understand that we are all sliding into the vortex of a black hole that is in the center of our galaxy.
Our galaxy is sliding down the gravitational pool of Andromeda.
Andromeda and our poor galaxy are both sliding into the massive, ugly vortex of the Great Attractor which is doing the same thing relative to bigger black holes.
Did I tell you, the universe is expanding? Does this sound like we are all flying away from each other?
They are debating this issue right now and are scared of what it all means. It ain't a pretty picture. Contridictory information means our celestial model is WAY OFF BASE.
Either way, we are doomed. Heh. Have some LSD or smoke some pot.
"even easterbrook is actually a pretty good football writer, believe it or not."
No. He's an overly intellectual oaf who doesn't appreciate the sheer physicality of the game. I prefer to see mud and blood on my football players, not a statistical abstraction.
"even easterbrook is actually a pretty good football writer, believe it or not."
No. He's an overly intellectual oaf who doesn't appreciate the sheer physicality of the game. I prefer to see mud and blood on my football players, not a statistical abstraction.
Elaine Supkis, you're mistaken. (joking?)
1. We're not sliding into the black hole in the center of the Galaxy, we're in orbit around it.
2. We're not moving toward Andromeda, we're moving away from it. That's why it's light is red shifted.
3. The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.
There's a lot we don't understand about cosmology, which makes it fun, but there's no contradiction between the existance of black holes and the expansion of the cosmos.
Assterbroke is an anomaly. His football colums are plagiarisims of fan emails at their best.
His science only makes sense in the world of flat earth physics. The idea is to keep as many people stupid as possible. An ignorance curve whereby we can get away with negligent inquiry.
One of the NFL owners must really like him to get colums on their site. Go figure, a "physician" who can espouse tax cut theory equally asinine.
The best way to bet an Easterbrook prediction is to buck it.
As for Hawking, arguing this theory three years ago and being kicked out for "not knowing" physics or having a degree really fit. Finished Wu Li and brainstormed similar points.
The equal reaction on black holes is just a smaller definition of matter that escapes observation and perhaps being small enough to escape gravity's pull as well. Or somehow inertia of its force conversion frees it. Most likely the former.
There is a physical model-centrifugal whirlpools. Much like particle collision study...inerita and imploded energy(constant critical phases) can perhaps be tapped or defined someday.
Cannot make something from nothing. So the black hole theory of old is null and (fittingly ironic) void.
Can make something smaller from something. The black holes are the constant upon which other matter/force/energy variables can be act upon.
These perhaps become the size to be wave (by our limited scope of understanding) and act upon under influence of other force/energy.
These holes are not truly black are they? Our entire definiton of light depends upon its presence in some degree to the nth...
Nanotechnology is the best physical model we have. The black hole nanotechs matter like a garbage disposal sending it out to react in direct physical fashion. A contradiction- small enough to act independent of gravity, large enough to physically bond on the smallest yet to measure levels.
There was no big bang. Instead of outward from inward it went inward from inward until freed in that form and upon acting outward via contact has undergone the formation of bodies.
Expect universe around black holes to have massive potential and active energy that is a result of this outflow of matter. Some known measures must exist.
So our entire physics model has to return into physical, intially freed in the field of thought and action that describes it it comes full circle into already observed phenomenae...
We "see" the universe expanding only because it is that scope which takes so much time to disclose on terms relative to our observation?
Or is there a return signal already that seems to indicate waves sent out measrued returned? How can the edge of existence be defined by echo if the boundaries do not "exist" as we know? They go on as a template free of gravitation and the 'hard' galaxies/universe measurable simply fool us into quantitative conclusions.
The universe exists in forms always. But this was the problem- like a music string's fretting the wavelength occurs. In this case it was not fretted consistently so the wavelength was not uniform. Thus a group of random notes/waves canceled and amplified until somehow the FIRST NOTE occurred via chance or even in statistical chaos pattern odds that are measurable.
Upon reaching a consitent wavelength the unison note formed the wave response to give constance and order.From here measurable echo patterns develop. Particle wavelength - chicken/egg comparisons?
This friend is where Jazz meets physics. The Blue Note was the audible definiton of God's voice and letting forth of light (the wavelength).
Like a photon the light was not independent of itself of God ( the source enrgy whatever it may be).
It was random notes, the frequency reps finally echoed in the right way and a chorded note occurs that sets the reactions in motion.
* Thanks Miles for the Inspiration
Drink up, chief, It's last call.
We are moving towards Andromeda. Eventually, our galaxy will be torn apart and merge with Andromeda. All astronomers agree about this.
All galaxies slide into all other galaxies. This is why there are galactic clusters featuring galaxies in various degrees of disturbance due to the tidal effects of other galaxies. We have thousands of examples of galaxies in the middle of merging now, they are obviously falling into, not away from, each other.
We understand nearly nothing about metaphysics. The data pouring in from Galex and the Infrared telescope, x-ray telescopes in space, Hubble, etc, all point in many directions, none of which are comfortable with the "universe expanding forever" model.
Too much clashing information. Literally. How can galaxies hit each other all the time? Why are the really massive ones, as seen in x-ray, so very huge and ALWAYS surrounded by phalanxes of somewhat smaller galaxies?
How can a galaxy such as M84 have more than one giant black hole? Our galaxy has sucked up quite a few smaller galaxies, we can see some of them even today, sliding into our gravitational pool!
The universe is not sensible, it has many seeming contridictions which scientists today are just beginning to try to figure out.
I suspect the Universe isn't expanding anymore but is making deeper and deeper gravitational pools.
As for football talk, the site I write for 9which removed its politics chats) is www.raiderfans.net
*(which...chats)
It was a killer politicos chat minus freeper hates at it...
One of our members claimed to work DoHs but I never replied...
Would not want to compromise their job if they are openminded. We need people who think 'outside the box' to stop the next threat.
The telling point of the Sandy Berger after action repoort it this- was there a 'chatter spike' followed by an abnormaly quiet chat time? This would match the INTEL chat spike and quiet time that some tried to disprove Tenet and Clark's warnings with after the August 6th PDB presentations.
If the after action report indicates that, it is "historical" and shows a pattern that makes "historical chat" monitors "actionable".
Berger should burn those fuckers good with the truth if such was the case. 
Personally, I'm not going to be happy 'til the ether's brought back.
This might be a silly point to harp on, but I think that most people thought I was being sarcastic when I said this. I wasn't.
Aether's never been disproved per se, and remains in a lot of QM theories under new and different names. There's also not a single theory of aether...there've been literally dozens. And there are plenty of physicists working with varying concepts of aether today...there is absolutely NOTHING inherently absurd about the idea, and it's an absolute boon in quantum mechanics.
My daughter, a biochem major in college, vividly remembers her first day of organic chem as a college freshman. The prof told the class that the whole periodic table might be proven wrong, and she advised them not to get too attached to it.
susan
Sounds like a GREAT teacher. There are fascinating alternative periodic tables out there, one of which (if memory serves) has a design something like a double helix. There definitely seem to be aspects of periodicity that go beyond having a column for halogens, etc. One of those situations where the next person to make a big breakthrough will have done so by tossing the PT out the window.
Jeez, this comment section has been talking about cosmetology all through the night?? And you never even came to an agreement about the best stuff to use for a facial? What a bunch of geeks!
I read somewhere there's a growing meme in theoretical physics of some sort of quantum ether that carrier agents moved through. It's still very, very theoretical, of course
Again, that's basically in line with the "pilot-wave" interpretation, which is perfectly consistent with QM results and has never been disproven (and is, as I said upthread, found in a surprisingly modern form in Newton's "Opticks").
There are a lot of current theories that follow Bohm's lead in saying that electrodynamics and even particles are the result of deformations and even breaks in an aether.
I think the idea that aethers are "Victorian" and therefore "dumb" (just like, oh, Hertz and Maxwell and Lorentz) has kept people from understanding that the notion of a propagating medium for waves is pretty basic, and that aethers are a perfect way of explaining action at a distance. And "curved space" itself, as described in general relativity, is really an aether for all intents and purposes. My understanding is that Einstein never felt quite right about losing the aether, and was moving back towards it at the end of his life.
Charles Hinton, meanwhile, postulated that the aether was essentially a dimensional barrier between three-space and four-space, through which four-space objects had minimal extension into three-space as particles. Which is pretty similar to Bohm's implicate order (which is the theory that gave rise to the "holographic" stuff you're talking about), where particles and waves are more like deformations and gaps.
And this may appeal to you, Backslider: Hinton also thought the aether was grooved, like a phonograph record.
And if you want to giive your stoned brain a REAL treat, try reading his description of how a four-D wheel operates.
It has been thirty-five years since I was a physics major in school. When I got to the "Electricty & Magnatism" course I changed majors.
However, there is one thing I can say about the ignorant (I guess I really mean stupid) writing I just read in this article.
Physics underlies all of our understanding about the universe we live in. As discoveries are made theories change to match the new data.
If the writer doesn't understand that concept it is hard to see how he can even function in his daily life.
WillyBoy
Aetherbrook doesn't "function", he reguritates. Like in vomitus.
Jeez, this comment section has been talking about cosmetology all through the night?? And you never even came to an agreement about the best stuff to use for a facial?
Well, it all depands on having just the right admixture of Beauty and Charm.
Well, it all depands on having just the right admixture of Beauty and Charm.
Ray Radlein
Strange, but True!
I'm Up with you guys on this one!
'Game show hosts are more well-known to the average Joe than the head cat in nuclear physics.'
Well, one issue here is that game show hosts don't have large swaths of their work classified because it could endanger national security. It's kinda fun having a conversation with someone who does that sort of work, 'cause you can tell there's a lot more they'd like to say, but can't.
As to the discussion of ether, I would add a reminder that the classical "ether" that supposedly provided a medium for propogating electromagnetic waves has been conclusively disproven. I don't know enough about quantum-level phenomena to comment on an ether-like "thing" that may transmit quantum-level information, but the electromagnetic tramsmission "ether" doesn't exist. I can't remember off the top of my head who disproved it (James Clerk Maxwell, I think?). The experiment itself was quite ingenious (at least I thought so when I learned about it, though I can't remember the specifics), I'll have to look it up and post a link sometime.
...Michelson-Morley, not Maxwell. Maxwell developed the theory ether, and Michelson and Morley disproved it:
World of Mathematics entry on the Michelson-Morley experiment.
I figured that one was too important to just leave hanging.
The audacity of this arrogant moron is breathtaking. He doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, but talk on he does. Now I know what it must have felt like to have been a knowledgable defense analyst during the runup to the Iraq Shock and Awe Shuck and Jive turkey shoot - listening to all the crap about how Iraq was the greatest threat to the US while China was perfecting long range missiles, Pakistan was running a nuclear arms Wal-Mart, South Korea was bragging about their nukes program, and Osama was running around free.
Maxwell developed the theory ether, and Michelson and Morley disproved it:
World of Mathematics entry on the Michelson-Morley experiment.
I figured that one was too important to just leave hanging.
No offense, Node, but this is kind of the problem with how we look at science these days. Maxwell did not develop the "theory" of aether; he developed a theory incorporating A theory of aether. What Michelson-Morley "disproved"--in that context--was a particular form of an aetheric theory, as it related to a particular experiment. They didn't disprove the notion of every type of aether in all circumstances...and certainly not in quantum-mechanical microdomains.
The problem is, I think, that people want to impose this easy-to-follow narrative on science: first came this, then this, then this. Or, these two guys argued, and this guy won the argument.
But it's just not that simple. Michaelson-Morley has absolutely nothing to do with "disproving" an aether; Einstein himself pointed out that what it proved was that any aether could not be said to be in a definate state of motion. And Paul Dirac--hardly a stodgy Victorian--postulated an aether comprising distributed points having velocities of equal probability, which would be compatible with relativity.
It's funny...I think we all know that this is a complicated subject, way over most, if not all, of our heads...and yet we keep trying to simplify it by treating unsolved problems as solved. As Robert M. Jeffers pointed out, doing so can bring us dangerously close to Easterbrook territory.
And I'll point out, in passing, that as fine as the "WOM" set is (and I take mine out often), it's FIFTY YEARS OLD. It's not the place to look for a discussion of, say, the possibility that electrodynamic potentials arise from anholonomic deformations in an aether.
Sorry, Node...did it again...read your second post, but not your first, and didn't note your qualifications. Gotta stop doing that to you!
But to reiterate: Michaelson-Morley = not quite that simple. There's a good article here, and in this article, "a modern version of ether is shown to be compatible with special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics." (I just skimmed it, but it seemed to hit the main points.)
It's also worth noting that even in quantum mechanics, the "vacuum" has recognized "etheric" characteristics.
Node:
That second link I provided, to the Aether article...I just read it more carefully and I'd advise you to give it a miss...this one's a bit better.
Was trying to find a good overview of this topic, and it wasn't easy...there are some REALLY loopy people flogging various aether theories out there. No more loopy than some of the QM stuff, maybe...but pretty wacked-out all the same! Caveat lector!
Node, you probably ran off long ago...but man, I've been reading a bunch of articles by these "Aether" adherents that I found on Google...they're REALLY nuts!
Having done so...I gotta make it clear to you and anyone else that what I'm calling an "aether" really is not much more than what QM would call a vacuum field. I find some of the Bohm stuff interesting, but am not offering it as "fact," of course. And of course, I always reserve the right to make enormous mistakes!
Disturbingly, a lot of the aether weirdos out there seem to have a huge animus towards Einstein...which I don't. Quite the opposite, in fact! So for simplicity's sake, here's a 1920 address by Einstein on the subject of aether. While I find some of the newer theories interesting, and not inherently absurd, this would pretty much be my fallback position (how's that for playing it safe?).
Seriously, I like babbling about this stuff, but I don't wanna get lumped in with any of the loonies I've just been reading about! Whatever else you can say about me, I don't go in for absolutism!
Whatever else you can say about me, I don't go in for absolutism!
What, never?
I might have gone away for awhile, but I haven't disappeared. Anyway, two ideas that, for me, seem to point away from some intermediate transmission medium for quantum "waves".
The first is the wave/particle duality of electromagnetic radiation. Specifically, it's the action of electromagnetic radiation as a particle that is my objection to the idea of a transmissive medium. I'm not familiar with all the theories about various ethers, but an ether theory would need to account for the particle-like action of light, and especially for the weird quantum behaviours (such as can be observed in the dual-slit experiment). It is one thing to get a photon to, mathematically, act like both a wave and a particle. It is another entirely to come up with some sort of "ether" theory where the ether changes its transmission properties enough to account for the particle-like behaviour of a photon.
Second, "entanglement" produces an action-at-a-distance system where modifications of one member of the system simultaneously produces a modification elsewhere in the system, _no matter what the distance may be_. It seems to my mind that if there were some sort of transmission medium, its transmissive properties would again have to change quite drastically based on the relative position of the various members of the entangled system.
Those are two problems any sort of ether-based system would need to deal with before it successfully described what we encountered in the physical world. It might be interesting to see if one could actually come up with the math for it, although I don't have the time or expertise to try. Anyway, those are two examples that I can think of at this late hour that may prove tough for an ether theory to resolve.
Easterbunny's problem, in a nutshell, is that he thinks humans have the ability to understand everthing. Seems counterintuitive, doesn't it? I mean, at first thought, wouldn't it seem as though his problem is that he thinks humans can't understand much at all? And that as a result, he bashes people like Hawking who make attempts at understanding, if not all, then at least a hell of a lot of it all? But that is not the way Easterbrook's mind works. He is not bashing Hawking because he thinks Hawking has the temerity to try and understand things. What Easterbrook does is he looks at certain theories - such as the one that nothing existed before the Big Bang - and when he can't understand how the things they postulate could ever be true, he thinks "That doesn't make any sense to me, thus it cannot be true!"
Easterbrook thinks he can understand everything and when he can't wrap his feeble mind around an idea, he rejects it out of hand.
Easterbrook is doing the same thing that a lot of non-scientific people do - they assume that science is fixed, and then they're delighted when something gets retracted, corrected, contradicted... but that's how science works. That's the process.
People who think of science as though it's competing with religion tend to judge it on religion's terms. When religion changes its stance on something, that means it's lost a battle. But when science changes its mind, that means it's won.
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