I am a Scientist.

Originally posted by Moduli
....or about how the government's technology is years/decades/centuries/millennia beyond normal technology (it's not).

This is a strange statement.......how can you be so sure? NSA or some high-profile intelligence department must have designed and developed some gadget with tech that isn't available for the normal consumers...yet. Even if it is just a few years ahead. That is what militairy need and want to have....remember that titanium spy plane...SR71 or blackbird it is called I belief....how many years was that plane-tech ahead of the "consumer world".

This must be your opinion, if it isn't......I don't know....

Originally posted by TheMur
reply to post by Moduli

 

Hi Moduli!

Do you think a gravitational force that is so great could indeed lead to that alternate direction or should i say dimension?

Until I've been sucked into a black hole, and lived to tell about the real story; I would say no. But it is hard for me to fathom, that their are other dimensions in our Universe.

But in terms of contact with ET's, that act like they are in another dimension, could be a falsehood; whereas the ET's just use a form of energy, that mimics another dimension, but in reality is just another form of communication in our own dimension.

Cheers,

Erno86

Originally posted by Moduli

Originally posted by gabby2011
reply to post by Moduli

 

Welcome ,and thank you for taking the time to share what you know.

One question I have is how you can be so sure there are not advance technologies that you may not be aware of.

The military seems to have high level secrets, that are kept from some high security levels within the military. It stands to reason that science is used in some of these operations, and not any average joe scientist would know about it.

What makes you so sure that there not advanced technologies you are being kept in the dark about, but other scientists may know of.

The same way I am sure there is no super-advanced arithmetic that the government is keeping from us! Simply, I know enough arithmetic to know what that would mean that that it is not a sensible claim to make.

Excuse me? Have you not heard of the internet? That thing existed since the 60's but was not available to the 7public (popularly) until the 90's. Yeah, I know there were a few computer nerds in the 80's and 70's who could get access, but that still leaves quite a gap between the government having internet and using it, and US having it and using it.

Oh and what of the Stealth planes we have.... They were not announced to the public for decades.

And the SR-71 Blackbird.

There are plenty of technologies that the government keeps secret and you know it! Don't lie to us and say there isn't. Every government has it's secrets. Even the US, buddy.

I also despise stupid people who goes on easy humanistic studies, only to obtain university diploma.
Most people on earth are idiots, who doesn't even know how to integrate or differentiate, they don't do anything to develop science.

Theory is the best that it gets Moduli, but its nothing like saying that you have a car, its “just” a Ferrari. In fact, you have a Ferrari, there is no probability that you don’t have one, you either do or you don’t. The laws of physics are theories because they are subject to change. There is no probability (excuse me philosophers, I know the 747 can wash up on shore somewhere in the universe argument) that your Ferrari will all of a sudden become an Aston Martin. Your logic is flawed.

There isn’t plenty of evidence for string theory, in fact I can think of none without the obvious math you claim as certain. There is a very elegant and mathematical explanation for it, but no evidence. However, just like mathematics has axioms and theories (much of set theory for example) that are never used, string theory might turn out to be simply wrong, or an elegant exercise in the completely useless.

Wow, I get more astounded as I continue reading. I was starting to give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you are a grad student or something, I'd say 2nd year? You claim that Relativity is an extension of Newtonian Mechanics?!? NO, you are SIMPLY WRONG! Einstein did spend his life arguing that he didn’t prove Newton wrong, and it is certain that the calculus was used in helping explain Relativity, but to say it is simply an extension is… quite frankly, incorrect. Newton was right on the small scale, just like Einstein was right on the very large scale, neither is wrong in its element, but Newton is definitely wrong on the very large while Einstein isn’t wrong on the small. That is, until you get to the very very small, where both Einstein and Newton have problems, hence the creation of String Theory, which is a very good start, but far from a complete theory. Einstein is not an extension of Newton, he is a more complex, and accurate, replacement of Newton. The reason we still use Newton is that Newtonian Mechanics work just fine for our world. We don’t need to use Einstein in the average every day life of things. We use him for GPS and Cell phones, but my truck still runs without him, just like your “Ferrari”.

Did you really just claim that it is easier to find errors in complex mathematics? You go write out the proof for some Tensor calculations and when you are wrong, try finding that incorrect subscript or exponent or myriad of other places you could have made a mistake. This tells me you have never worked a proof before. Complex mathematics is complex precisely because of the difficulty in finding the errors one makes. If it was easy then everyone would do it, that’s why we get 4 years of undergrad, 4-5 years of grad, and 2-4 years of post-doc training! ITS DIFFICULT!

You claim we have measured the universe. In reality, we have observed background radiation, made assumptions (all be it very informed assumptions) based on decay rates and radioactivity levels, and have seen as far as light has travelled to us. We have claimed to know the age of the universe and its size, but we still have a limit to how far we have observed. We discover new and farther galaxies every year, this is a dynamic science as well and although we claim the Universe is something close to 14 billion years old, we simply don’t know and must allow for those estimates to change in the future as we get more powerful telescopes and technologies. 500 years ago uneducated people thought the world was flat and educated ones knew it wasn’t, but today, even our most informed scientists, are uneducated on the Universe.

Only on page 8 now, I will come back later and check in.

String and Super String theory is a THEORY. nothing more. Please members donot take scientis,professors,doctors,priest and pastors seriously. They are all flawed....String theory is definitely not correct. And it is a "speculative" or "controversial" theory. This guy cannot disprove that. MOST scientific statements are theories. Perfect example is the bigbang theory. Its a theory and we all assume its a fact because we all see it on corny tv shows. we have no proof on how the universe began and we will never know. Get over it science guy. Get a hooker if your lonely

Originally posted by cloaked4u
reply to post by Moduli

 

ok, theory scientist. what does static charge have to do with anti-gravity? do you know any of tesla works? Is it possible to move 100,000 thousand tons with the push of a finger. Do you think that a person can use the gravity forces of the earth to push the object? how do you think you would do this if you would? IF you use these technologies do you think you could accomplish this feat? ONE, the coander effect, TWO, the electron stripper, the van der graph, and the tesla coil. put them all together and do you think that this is possible? Do you think the electro static wall is possible? Don't know, ask 3M.

so, what do ya think?

reply to post by dilly1


Learn the scientific definition of a theory. It is much different from the layman's definition of theory.

A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.

A scientific theory is a type of inductive theory, in that its content (i.e. empirical data) could be expressed within some formal system of logic whose elementary rules (i.e. scientific laws) are taken as axioms.

I find your pretense of knowledge disturbing.

Here is a question for you Mr. Scientist: How do you, personally, deal with the issue of inductive logic and it's implications on the "truth" of your scientific theories? Do you deny that all sceince rests on faith...

...fatih, that is, in inductive logic?

(BTW, by some people's definitions, I myself would qualify as a "scientist". That doesn't mean I will start perpetuating science dogma as if it were any more "true" than a religious dogma. Science and religion are rooted in faith. Nothing manifestly "true" is produced by them. The only truth(s) in this world are incommunicable, for language is an absurdity resting purely on subjective understandings of symbols. Nothing can be proven past your own existence, and even then nothing can be proven as to how far "you" (i.e. the thing that thinks) extends. Keep your beliefs to yourself. Nobody should force their beliefs on others.


tl;dr:

Everything is semantics. Stop deluding yourself into thinking a degree in any field makes you more "knowledgeable" about what "is".

reply to post by mb2591


Sorry, I was temporarily only able to access ATS by IPhone so couldn't respond properly, either to SkepticOverlord or the people who think that I am giving this guy credit where it is not due.

The issue here is not that I think the guy could not answer those questions. I'm sure he could. The issue is that he is deliberately not doing so. It's not as clear with his answer regarding the integral that was originally posted, but it was blatantly clear with his answer to the question about the double slit experiment.

He actually knows a *lot* about physics. But he's deliberately answering in an evasive way because at the level of someone working in the field the answers to the given questions are not what you might expect them to be from a low level understanding of physics.

At the level this guy works, the real world is described by probability distributions. We try to simplify things when giving an introductory explanation of physics by speaking about actual waves and particles. But at the quantum level and relativistic scales, the ordinary intuitions we have simply don't work any more. These are only simplified intuitions, not the realities. The real world is described by Hilbert spaces and Riemannian manifolds, Gaussian connections, and various generalisations of Calaubi-Yau 3-folds. You can't describe these things to a journalist or write a popular book on the subject or a wikipedia article that people will understand if you use this kind of terminology, so you simplify (i.e. lie) to make the story simple enough that they can get some kind of intuition about things.

What happens, all too often, is that people see these dumbed down descriptions and think that they represent reality. Some people then revile physics because they perceive the limits of the analogies they are being presented with and claim that physics doesn't make sense. Indeed if physics really did describe the world in that dumbed down way then it would be wrong. You'd have every reason to reject it.

The fact that they guy answers in the way he does leads me to suspect that he is in fact who he says he is. If he had answered with a simplistic, dumbed down version that you find in introductory essays on the subject or media articles, I'd have every reason to suspect he wasn't actually a string theorist. He didn't do that, so I *suspect*, though cannot prove that he is actually who he says.

Now, I must apologise for my comment to SkepticOverlord above. I started a sentence and didn't finish it, and it looks rude. What I think the OP may have meant is that as a mathematical theory, string theory is not in question. It makes predictions, it is rigorous and not at all "disputed" or "contentious". Note that I fell for this too. I also complained that I had not read the relevant press releases where it was announced that string theory had become an accepted theory. But later I realised that from the point of view of a theoretical physicist, the theory is true. It's in fact indisputable, because it is pure mathematics. Like all mathematics its truth is not relative.

What is (probably) in dispute is whether string theory (or more correctly any particular version of string theory) represents *reality*. That I doubt. But as a nonexpert in string theory I cannot be sure that its status has not changed of late. I think the OP did explain that these days some versions of string theory do actually make testable predictions about reality. Thus various versions can be ruled out. What he also stated is that all the physics we currently know to be true is described in full by the "standard model", a particular theory that is accepted as factual and which is consistent with every experiment ever conducted to date. Some versions of string theory include the standard model as a subset. Thus it is clear that every physics experiment ever conducted agrees with those versions of string theory. But these string theories can also explain things that the standard model does not explain (in a precise sense I am not going to go into here). So, from a certain perspective, string theory is absolutely correct.

I do not know whether the OP was claiming that string theory is absolutely known to describe reality, or if it just satisfies the weaker standard of being entirely consistent with all known reality (which is not the same thing).

I could also go into a detailed description of why the OP's post on the double slit experiment was correct. But it would take many pages of description and go into very heavy mathematics. You'd need to understand the entire contents of an undergraduate degree in Physics.

But I think that underscores the problem right there. I nearly have an entire undergraduate degree in physics. I stopped one module short. So I understand enough. But how many people here are in a similar position and can say anything definitive about this guy? You cannot say that he is ignorant because he does not give the answers you (who are not an expert) were expecting, but who instead gives answers that demonstrate a knowledge that goes beyond what you yourself know.

The reason I think his cockiness demonstrates that he is an expert is not on account of the cockiness itself (many experts are not cocky -- in fact in my experience, true geniuses are almost always humble, with some notable exceptions). But I think he is being cocky because he's aware of the fact that these simple questions do not have the simple answers people think they do. From the point of view of *his* field, these questions have extremely complex answers. As I said, reality, as described by his field consists in understanding the universe in terms of complex mathematical objects and things like probability distributions.

He did make the point that his field explains another field of physics, which explains another, which explains chemistry and many other things that we *do* have day-to-day experience of. His field is buried many layers deep. To give an example for the benefit of the computer programmer who posted, it is like someone asking a computer scientist what some Python construct did. The guy might validly protest that it is equivalent to some complex expression in the lambda calculus. And they might be right. But the guy who only knew Python might have been expecting him to say, oh that's a Python metaclass. The guy with the less abstract understanding cannot judge that the expert is wrong. He's just working at a whole different level of abstraction.

Unfortunately, I can say for sure that this is what is happening in this thread, at least at some level.

What I don't know is if this is one smart dude who is not a scientist who has successfully read a detailed book on the subject and is quoting off bits and pieces of the understanding he got from that book, or if he is a talented undergraduate who has spent a lot of time interrogating his professors and trying to come to terms with string theory, or if he is just an extremely well-read amateur. Any of these are possible. He'd surely come unstuck if a real expert in string theory had a conversation with him. I am not such an expert, so at this point I can't tell. Maybe I know enough mathematics to tell what his level of knowledge is if he talks mathematics at me for a few minutes. Maybe. But what hope do we really have here?

I'm inclined to take him at his word, ask him some interesting questions and see what he says.

Anyhow, I think I've expressed what I meant to say more fully now. Sorry for the partial (and humorous) prior responses which probably didn't communicate that very well.

P.S: I did see the moderators comments above and I hope what I just typed is "on topic". The topic for me is "I am a scientist" ask me anything you want. I *think* I am addressing the topic, but feel free to correct me if you see it differently.

By the way, to the people who keep saying "string theory is only a theory" therefore it's not all that, may I ask what a physicist calls something once it becomes more than a theory? What is the next rung up from theory? What's the physics term for a concept which has been proven more rigorously than a theory? See the hilarious thing is, there is no rung up from a theory. That's the best if *ever* gets. The top rung in physics is to call something a theory. It doesn't progress from there. The theory of gravitation, the theory of special relativity, Maxwell's theory of electromagetism, the theory of quantum chromodynamics. It doesn't matter which field you talk about, they are all theories. The word "theory" in physics, does not mean, "contentious idea which is yet to be shown to be true".

Honestly, this thread reeks of someone who has watched Sheldon Cooper on "The Big Bang Theory" a bit too much....

Originally posted by cloaked4u

Originally posted by cloaked4u
reply to post by Moduli

 

ok, theory scientist. what does static charge have to do with anti-gravity? do you know any of tesla works? Is it possible to move 100,000 thousand tons with the push of a finger. Do you think that a person can use the gravity forces of the earth to push the object? how do you think you would do this if you would? IF you use these technologies do you think you could accomplish this feat? ONE, the coander effect, TWO, the electron stripper, the van der graph, and the tesla coil. put them all together and do you think that this is possible? Do you think the electro static wall is possible? Don't know, ask 3M.

come on, i challenge you.

so, what do ya think?

Originally posted by Moduli

Originally posted by nilly
I'd like your explanation/analysis on the double-slit experiment, please. Thanks

There's really very little going on here. It's no different than water waves moving through two slits and making an interference pattern on a wall (you can do this in the bathtub!). The only difference is that the waves are probability waves instead of physical water waves. That's okay, though, there's nothing strange about that.

It's a little funny that when you "measure" it you don't see the interference, but it turns out that nothing funny is actually going on. What really has happened is something like "now the waves have gotten really narrow" and, for example, a really narrow water wave has no trouble passing through a single wide slit!

The only place something interesting happens is in the "measurement." It turns out--unlike what you read on these forums (and many other places!)--that this is just a convenient abstraction and doesn't mean anything special. It's just an arbitrary distinction between "before" and "after" that turns out is useful to make mathematically.

What is really going on is that interactions between particles "in the system" (arbitrary distinction) effect "the environment" (arbitrary distinction) in a way that causes the wave to become skinny ("localized").

So the wave-like-ness is just the fact that probability distributions can be broad (pass through both slits at once) and the particle-like-ness is the fact that the probability distribution can be narrow (fits through just one slit).

Nothing special at all!


Thanks!

Did you really just try to explain something that we don't actually have the answer for yet? We don't know why those two points of light, separate into three during the double slit experiment!

reply to post by XtraTL




You are giving this person whom has already been proven to be a fraud way to much credit.. Have you read this entire thread?

Quit putting the scientist on the pedestal.

He is not avoiding questions when he says that equation is gibberish, he flat out saying he doesnt know.
Plus the fact that he "knows" so much to be defiantly true which has already been proven to contradict himself just goes to show that he is a fraud.

Originally posted by XtraTL
reply to post by mb2591

 

He did make the point that his field explains another field of physics, which explains another, which explains chemistry and many other things that we *do* have day-to-day experience of. His field is buried many details deep. To give an example for the benefit of the computer scientist who posted, it is like someone asking a computer scientist what some Python construct did. They guy might validly protest that it is equivalent to some complex expression in the lambda calculus. And they might be right. But the guy who only knew Python might have been expecting him to say, oh that's a Python metaclass. The guy with the lesser understanding cannot judge that the expert is wrong. He's just working at a whole different level of abstraction.

Unfortunately, I can say for sure that this is what is happening on this thread.

Best synopsis of the thread so far. Nicely done. This is why some basic trust needs to be established. Otherwise people just yell at one another insinuating back and forth that the other is a disingenuous dunce. Not useful.

Originally posted by djcarlosa
reply to post by Erno86

 

I disagree i was watching a program about galaxy's colliding into one another and they believe in one of these galaxy's there is what appears to be antimatter passing through the two galaxy's and the antimatter seams to have little if any interaction with normal matter leading scientist to question what the real nature of anti matter is and a new theory is that there may be alot of dark matter within galaxy's and its only when the two collided and the anti matter separated that scientist got to have a real look at what is possibly antimatter i will see if i can find a link it as on sky 3 nights ago.
If i've learnt anything when it comes to space and all its secrets is that we [humans]can only guess at how the universe works and as we look further and further into space and observe new things that don't fit the theory's we hold true it starts a whole new learning curve and new theory's are brought forth and so on and so forth.
its so easy to fall into a "i know everything about everything" trap and this stunts our growth as we cannot conceive that we maybe wrong and as we all should know it only through being wrong that we learn.

edit on 26-6-2011 by djcarlosa because: (no reason given)

Hello djcarlosa,

Thanks for the reply. Right now, I'm looking at the Astronomy special issue, Summer 2011. Spectacular Universe

www.Astronomy.com

Check out page 41, that has a picture of--- "THE ANTENNAE [NGC 4038 and NGC 4039] is a pair of interacting spiral galaxies in Corvus. The debris trails- from which this twosome gets its name- result from violent tidal interactions between the two massive galaxies. At a distance of 60 million light-years, The Antennae represent
one of the nearest examples of a galaxy collision.

My question: Are these the colliding galaxy's that the scientists are talking about in your post?


Thanks,

Erno86

Originally posted by Moduli

Originally posted by cry93
This may not fit into the type of questions you desire to answer but I have three.

Do you believe that astral travelling and out of body experiences are scientifically possible?

No, definitely not.

Is reincarnation possible? If so, how and why?

No, there is no remotely plausible mechanism by which this could happen.

What are your opinions on Rh negative blood?

I don't know what this is.

Do you believe there is a physiological mechanism connected to blood and blood types that transcends time and space?

I doubt it. That doesn't even mean anything.

The correct answer to these, should have been you don't know... Because you don't.... Stating something is fact when you don't know....... It's kind of silly, for a "scientist" to do.


And how do you not know what an rh negative blood type is??