Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
1 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,806 Year: 3,063/9,624 Month: 908/1,588 Week: 91/223 Day: 2/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Are Uranium Halos the best evidence of (a) an old earth AND (b) constant physics?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 107 of 142 (667708)
07-11-2012 12:44 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by foreveryoung
07-11-2012 12:32 PM


Re: bump for foreveryoung
If the speed of light were the same as today, you would have a point. A changing speed of light was the main issue in the thread I started months ago.
It is possible for the moderators to re-open a thread if we want them to. I'd be in favor of it; if you would too, that makes at least two of us; and the fact that you've been unfortunately absent for a month is surely a good reason to let you finish what you started.
Apart from that, I would like to know what atomic mechanism is responsible for the missing mass that shows up as kinetic energy in driving away the daughter products?
Well ... alpha decay. That is the atomic mechanism. Perhaps you want to know what underlies that mechanism, but the answer to the question you've actually posed is simply: "alpha decay". That's the mechanism, that's what atoms do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by foreveryoung, posted 07-11-2012 12:32 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 112 of 142 (667727)
07-11-2012 4:23 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by foreveryoung
07-11-2012 3:19 PM


Re: bump for foreveryoung
Well, what you've done here is what creationists so often do. You've produced a pop-science explanation of your wonderful theory without having bothered to produce the theory itself, or indeed learn enough physics to find out if what you're saying makes actual sense.
Like this:
What is driving the changing speed of light, rest mass, gravitational force, etc.. is a changing zero point energy field. If that field were void of energy, IOW, no field present at all, all atoms would have zero mass and light would travel at infinite speed. Gravity is the simply the drag that field puts on an accelerating particle.
To a non-physicist, that sounds just as good as a description of a theory that actually works and has predictive power. It's an explanation for the layman of a theory that doesn't exist, and almost certainly wouldn't work if it did.
There's an excellent comic novel by Michael Frayn called The Tin Men. It features a guy who wants to write a great novel. He starts off by writing the summary of the novel on the dust-jacket (we English call that the "blurb", but I think that's not an American word). Then he starts writing the critical reviews that will be published in the newspapers once they read his novel. What he does not do is write the actual novel. He never gets past the first chapter, but he can write with fluency and ease the blurb that describes his book as "one of the great novels of our time ... a life-changing book".
You're doing the same thing. You're writing the reviews of your idea, you're writing adulatory descriptions of your idea, you're writing about how your idea leaves all current ideas in the dirt ... but you haven't got round to having the idea.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by foreveryoung, posted 07-11-2012 3:19 PM foreveryoung has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by foreveryoung, posted 07-11-2012 4:55 PM Dr Adequate has replied
 Message 114 by foreveryoung, posted 07-11-2012 4:58 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 121 of 142 (667740)
07-11-2012 5:46 PM
Reply to: Message 114 by foreveryoung
07-11-2012 4:58 PM


Re: bump for foreveryoung
I have read and understand physics as well as the next guy reasonable read in the sciences.
Well, only if the next guy isn't a physicist.
This theory explains the evidence as good as current theories do.
Well, no. 'Cos of not being a theory. As I said, you don't have a theory. What you have is a patronizing description of the theory that you'd like to have watered down for the benefit of the layman.
It's like the explanation of General Relativity as: "Well, imagine space-time as a rubber sheet which is distorted by the masses placed on it ..." This may be a useful metaphor for someone who knows bugger-all physics, but if that was all that Einstein came up with we'd never have heard of him. The only reason this explanation has any value at all is that having heard it we do have some sort of understanding of the theory that it is a metaphor for.
But you don't have the theory. You just have the pop-science explanation of how you'd talk down to a non-physicist about your theory if you could ever come up with one, which you haven't.
If both theories explain the same set of facts ...
But they don't.
Look, here's my alternative to Maxwell's equations: "The phenomena that we call "electricity" are caused by a basic superposition of momenta in a five-dimensional field, thus bringing about a quantum entanglement that supervenes the rest-mass of so-called "charged" particles in order to bring about a juxtaposition of "charges" which brings about a collapse of the wave-form. This simple observation immediately destroys the Maxwellian dogma in favor of a view that incorporates quantum effects in the context of the Higgs field."
Sounded awful science-y, didn't it? It's also complete nonsense, and the reason that we can tell it's complete nonsense is that it has no predictive power, unlike Maxwell's equations. It does not explain the phenomena as well as Maxwell's equations, because the test of whether something explains things is not whether it gives a layman ignorant of physics the sensation of having had something explained to him, but whether it actually works.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by foreveryoung, posted 07-11-2012 4:58 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 122 of 142 (667741)
07-11-2012 5:51 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by foreveryoung
07-11-2012 4:55 PM


Re: bump for foreveryoung
This all sounds like you guys have your ears plugged and refuse to entertain the notion at all. It is easy to just wave your hands and say things like "it is not theory at all" or " it is just a fantasy made up in your head".
Well, it isn't and it is, respectively, that's the problem with it.
If you show me a giraffe and claim that it's an elephant, then when I point out that it's a giraffe, what are you going to say? "This all sounds like you guys have your ears plugged and refuse to entertain the notion at all."
Well yeah. 'Cos it's a giraffe. Long neck, spots, small ears, no trunk, I know a giraffe when I see one.
The problem with your "theory" is in fact that it's not a theory. That's the big problem with it. This sucks for you and all, but it's not a theory, a giraffe is not an elephant, and pointing out the bleedin' obvious is a mark of being sane rather than being closed-minded.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by foreveryoung, posted 07-11-2012 4:55 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 126 of 142 (667752)
07-11-2012 8:00 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by foreveryoung
07-11-2012 7:52 PM


Re: bump for foreveryoung
You want evidence that supports it? Here you go.....action at a distance. Gravity. Mass. The fact that we have all of those things are evidence for my theory.
You mean like the existence of electricity is evidence for my "theory"? After all, I said it explains electricity, and look, electricity exists! You can't dispute that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by foreveryoung, posted 07-11-2012 7:52 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 134 of 142 (667811)
07-12-2012 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by RAZD
07-12-2012 6:39 AM


Re: theory vs hypothesis vs concept
He's talking about zero point energy --- the energy that exists in a vacuum by virtue of the constant production and destruction of virtual particles.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by RAZD, posted 07-12-2012 6:39 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 135 of 142 (667813)
07-12-2012 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 128 by foreveryoung
07-12-2012 2:33 AM


Re: bump for foreveryoung
And you missed the point obviously. I was not typing the fact that atoms would be massless to the idea of infinite speed. The speed of light was infinite because there was no zero point energy fields ...
(1) Why not?
(2) We're not talking here about an area of physics which is poorly understood. This is quantum electrodynamics. How does the energy of the vacuum affect the speed of light?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 128 by foreveryoung, posted 07-12-2012 2:33 AM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 136 of 142 (667819)
07-12-2012 1:18 PM


About Theories: Science And Pseudoscience
When Einstein came up with his theory about gravity, about the first thing he did was to check that if it was correct, planets would go round the sun in ellipses with the sun at one focus, the way that they are known to to.
This was because he wanted to make sure that his theory really did explain gravity and wasn't just a collection of words and equations with no relevance to reality. And he was able to do this because his theory had predictive power --- it said something about what reality should look like if Einstein was right, and so all he had to do was derive from his theory a prediction about planetary orbits and so see if it was really about reality or just about the imaginary physics of an imaginary reality that existed only in Einstein's head.
So, foreveryoung, if you want to claim to have a theory which explains gravity, you need to do something similar.
You could show that if your idea is right, planets would travel in ellipses; or that when I throw a stone, it'll travel in a parabola (modulo friction) or that a heavy object and a light one will be attracted to the Earth with forces proportional to their weights. Or you could try proving that if you're right, then an object I drop will fall down, towards the center of the Earth, and not up or sideways. That would be a start. Or you claim to be able to explain the speed of light. Splendid, calculate from your idea what the speed of light should be. If the answer you get is what the speed of light is measured to be, then we shall begin to think that we are in the presence of an undiscovered genius.
But you can't do any of that, because your idea has not yet attained even the status of a hypothesis. It doesn't have sufficient content that you, or I, or anyone, can derive predictions from it. In which case it fails to explain phenomena, 'cos of not predicting any.
This is the difference between pop-science physics and actual physics. When we have an actual scientific hypothesis, we can do something with it, and so it provides us with real understanding. When we have a pop-science explanation, all it does is give us the sensation of understanding some aspect of physics. But unless it relates in some way to an actual scientific theory, this sensation is false.

Replies to this message:
 Message 137 by NoNukes, posted 07-12-2012 10:09 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024