Temple of the Human Spirit

[Philip Coates]

Now that's funny.

[BaalChatzaf]

I was going to post a picture of an oven from Auschwitz, but then Bob would have waxed rhapsodic about pizza.

The use of prussic acid crystals to eliminate an insect infestation in one thing. Using it to kill innocent people is another.

Zyklon B was developed originally to get rid of insect and other similar pests, not to kill humans. That was an abuse of the stuff.

In its original and proper use Zyklon B is no more blameworthy DDT.

As a general rule there is not a single technology that cannot be put to a bad use. It is the bad use that is blame worthy, not the technology.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

I was going to post a picture of an oven from Auschwitz, but then Bob would have waxed rhapsodic about pizza.

The use of prussic acid crystals to eliminate an insect infestation in one thing. Using it to kill innocent people is another.

Zyklon B was developed originally to get rid of insect and other similar pests, not to kill humans. That was an abuse of the stuff.

In its original and proper use Zyklon B is no more blameworthy DDT.

As a general rule there is not a single technology that cannot be put to a bad use. It is the bad use that is blame worthy, not the technology.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Wrong. I didn't say showers, I said ovens. Keep your rationalizations straight, Bob.

[BaalChatzaf]

Wrong. I didn't say showers, I said ovens. Keep your rationalizations straight, Bob.

Cremation of the dead is a tradition eons old.

Burning bodies, as such, is not evil. Creating dead bodies from innocent live victims is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

Wrong. I didn't say showers, I said ovens. Keep your rationalizations straight, Bob.

Cremation of the dead is a tradition eons old.

Burning bodies, as such, is not evil. Creating dead bodies from innocent live victims is.

Like I said. Pizza.

[Ellen Stuttle]

"They're going to find the Higgs boson -- whether they find it or not."

Cynical? Maybe. Likely true? Unfortunately. I figure we'll only be able to trust the findings reports if we're told that the Higgs boson *isn't* found.

Ellen

Not so fast. If anyone claims to have found the Higgs there are going to be a dozen who will attempt to falsify the claim (by experimental means, of course, or showing there is an error in the original finding). Falsification in science yields as many rewards as verification.

I think you miss the point. Attempts to falsify to the tune of how much money? Paid for by whom? Supporting whose career ambitions? Etc.

Case in point: the Michelson - Morley interferometer experiment. [....]

M and M indeed were a shining example of scientific research. (Sad to say, Michelson thought to the end of his days that he'd failed, since he was expecting to detect the aether.) M and M wasn't the product of modern big-government funding. ;-)

Ellen

[Philip Coates]

M and M's failure to detect any effect of an ether is not a proof there is no ether, although that is the way it is often portrayed in physics courses.

It is still possible there is one and even that it 'carries' electromagnetic waves, even though physicists are often (wrongly) convinced it doesn't exist.

Edited February 16, 2011 by Philip Coates

[BaalChatzaf]

M and M's failure to detect any effect of an ether is not a proof there is no ether, although that is the way it is often portrayed in physics courses.

It is still possible there is one and even that it 'carries' electromagnetic waves, even though physicists are often (wrongly) convinced it doesn't exist.

What you say is possibly the case. However, Maxwell assumed a visco-elastic material that filled space which if it existed should have produced an interference effect observed with the interferometer. No such effect was observed even though the velocity of the earth about the sun was sufficient to produce it (we move about thirty meters per second tangentially). Later experiments with much more sensitive instruments have likewise failed to produce the interference effect. On top of that theories which do not require the existence of a light bearing medium account for all known optical phenomenon. Light is understood to be particulate by way of a massless particle (the photon). So (1) the aether as it was assumed to be (visco-elastic) was not detected and (2) the phenomena could be accounted for without such a visco-elastic aether. In addition to all this the aether (as Maxwell conceived it) apparently does not slow the planets down in their orbits about the sun which means the action-reaction force pair required both by Newtonian and Relativistic mechanics does not appear. In short the aether violates Newton's third law. All this is sufficient reason for not supposing that such a substance exists. If aether exists (for which there is no evidence) it obeys laws totally different than the matter and energy we know about.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Philip Coates]

Baal, you raise a number of interesting points. Let me respond this way:

> Maxwell assumed a visco-elastic material that filled space which if it existed should have produced an interference effect observed with the interferometer. No such effect was observed even though the velocity of the earth about the sun was sufficient to produce it (we move about thirty meters per second tangentially). Later experiments with much more sensitive instruments have likewise failed to produce the interference effect.

What occurred to me when I was first taught the Michelson-Morley experiment was that several alternative logical possibilities exist which 'preserve the ether':

i) 'Local effects' (the earth's atmosphere, the solar system or the solar wind, magnetism) might block out, drive away or interfere with the penetration or operation of the ether -- in the same way that water in the sea is a bigger or stronger medium and blocks out air to breathe.

ii) The ether is 'carried along' with the earth (or in a wider case, the solar system) so that any attempt to go against the current will fail because there is no cross current -- in the same way the ocean tide carry all smaller motions or material along.

iii) The ether is too tenuous for its effects to be detected (or it doesn't interact in a way that causes 'drag' on light). This idea that our instruments don't measure something that is very real but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist has been rediscovered in a sense, with the hypotheses that Dark Energy or Dark Matter exists, but our instruments are not yet fine enough to detect it.

This stuff all occurred to me in 12th grade and again as a college freshman and I was amazed and disgusted that none of my teachers and professors took my questions on it seriously. Or perhaps they didn't fully understand them?

> the aether (as Maxwell conceived it) apparently does not slow the planets down in their orbits about the sun

Well, if the ether is so weak that it operates in one of the three ways I hypothesized above and so weak it can't 'drag' light, its unlikely it would drag much bigger, gigantic, macro bodies, right?

Edited February 16, 2011 by Philip Coates

[BaalChatzaf]

Well, if the ether is so weak that it operates in one of the three ways I hypothesized above and so weak it can't 'drag' light, its unlikely it would drag much bigger, gigantic, macro bodies, right?

There is no experimental support for this view.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

"They're going to find the Higgs boson -- whether they find it or not."

Cynical? Maybe. Likely true? Unfortunately. I figure we'll only be able to trust the findings reports if we're told that the Higgs boson *isn't* found.

Not so fast. If anyone claims to have found the Higgs there are going to be a dozen who will attempt to falsify the claim (by experimental means, of course, or showing there is an error in the original finding). Falsification in science yields as many rewards as verification.

Rumors explode over Higgs Boson discovery:

Foxnews Dec 7, 2011: http://www.foxnews.c...oson-discovery/

[caroljane]

"They're going to find the Higgs boson -- whether they find it or not."

Cynical? Maybe. Likely true? Unfortunately. I figure we'll only be able to trust the findings reports if we're told that the Higgs boson *isn't* found.

Not so fast. If anyone claims to have found the Higgs there are going to be a dozen who will attempt to falsify the claim (by experimental means, of course, or showing there is an error in the original finding). Falsification in science yields as many rewards as verification.

Rumors explode over Higgs Boson discovery:

Foxnews Dec 7, 2011: http://www.foxnews.c...oson-discovery/

Xray, never mind Higgs and Boson. There is a new female here who is only 17 and called Dominique! If that doesn't bring out the secret billionaire, nothing will! Let's pray nobody scares her away. Just in time for Christmas...fingers crossed..

Carol

eternal optimist

.

[PDS]

"They're going to find the Higgs boson -- whether they find it or not."

Cynical? Maybe. Likely true? Unfortunately. I figure we'll only be able to trust the findings reports if we're told that the Higgs boson *isn't* found.

Not so fast. If anyone claims to have found the Higgs there are going to be a dozen who will attempt to falsify the claim (by experimental means, of course, or showing there is an error in the original finding). Falsification in science yields as many rewards as verification.

Rumors explode over Higgs Boson discovery:

Foxnews Dec 7, 2011: http://www.foxnews.c...oson-discovery/

Xray, never mind Higgs and Boson. There is a new female here who is only 17 and called Dominique! If that doesn't bring out the secret billionaire, nothing will! Let's pray nobody scares her away. Just in time for Christmas...fingers crossed..

Carol

eternal optimist

.

Daunce: no breathing Maple Leafs fan can be considered an "eternal optimist." Stop faking reality.

[caroljane]

Xray, never mind Higgs and Boson. There is a new female here who is only 17 and called Dominique! If that doesn't bring out the secret billionaire, nothing will! Let's pray nobody scares her away. Just in time for Christmas...fingers crossed..

Carol

eternal optimist

.

Daunce: no breathing Maple Leafs fan can be considered an "eternal optimist." Stop faking reality.

Sigh. Just as I was making progress at escaping reality for a while, with the help of my support group, The Hundred Years' War Veterans and Babylonian Ex-Captives.