Neither, they've stimulated an oscillation of the free surface electrons in a wire and taken a diffraction pattern of that standing wave of electrons, using an electron microscope. It's sensationalism.

I doubt he could actually make that video. He'd a scanning electron microscope to find the damn thing.

>> ^UsesProzac:
Hey, man, if you make that video, I'll submit it for ya. I'm sure someone else has a promote or two. >> ^ForgedReality:
I'm going to whip my dick out and flop it on the table as a joke. HA HA HILARIOUS now I'm in handcuffs and I can't even put my dick away.
When the cops question me as to why I did it, I'm going to tell them it's just something silly I can do, and it wasn't for attention at all.

There are many models which have their own proofs. Without wave-particle duality, there would be not electron microscopes. One definition of a wave is the probability of a particle being at a certain time t. This is one topic where Einstein disagrees with de Broglie, who also disagrees with Feynman, and so on, hence the Copenhagen interpretation. They all agree on the differential equations behind the wave-particle model, but their interpretations of the equations are all in violent disagreement. Great topic though

>> ^offsetSammy:

According to Feynman's QED, there's no such thing as "wave-particle duality", it's just all particles. The behavior of the particles, however, is very strange, and that's what accounts for their wave-like characteristics. QED came after Dirac and Schrodinger (it was a refinement of their theories), so I'm not sure why it doesn't get acknowledged in these kinds of discussions.
QED also predicts exactly the results of things like the double slit experiment without ever resorting to the "well the wave collapses into a particle when we observer it" kind of thing.

>> ^shole:
reformat is irrelevant.. it can be recovered just as easy as deleted files.. you'd have to do a multiple pass security format which can take an hour or so depending on disk size and speed
this 1984 shit will force us all to encrypt our harddrives and internet connections
then what will they do?

No you don't. A single pass is nearly good because of the drive density, and overlapping rewrites on a drive as the sectors are rewritten on a normal pass. You should look up some of the more current information on drive fragmentation and magflip recovery using pass electron microscopes. Seriously if they're going to use an electron microscope to look at your drive, they're only going to recover 30% or so anyway.

Topic at hand: I'm just going to say that the law in the US on this stuff is broken. You guys are pretty set on the whole "think of the children" no matter what, yeah well wake and start fixing your judiciary as well as your laws. He had possession by the barest thread of proof, but he didn't have knowledge of it. KCC people. Knowledge, Consent, Control.

>> ^Kreegath:
So there was a spaceship hovering over Johannesburg for 20 years and no nation has even tried to deconstruct or even claim it? You'd think that the US and the Soviet Union would be the first to jump at the chance of an extraterrestrial technology advantage and would go to great lengths to get it, regardless if it had landed in either territory or not.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke

In the movie you already see that they have no idea how to reverse engineer the alien weapons, even though they've been trying for 20 years. My guess would be that they must have tried the same with the spaceship but also failed. They might have removed interesting bits and just let the rest of the ship hang. They also wouldn't want to break the engines because it would come crashing down on Johannesburg.

Imagine the humans of 1930 (the electron microscope was discovered in 1931) getting their hands on an iPhone. They wouldn't know what to do with it. They wouldn't even be able to see the actual circuits let alone know how they worked. It would be a long time before they could actually discover and use anything of use out of an iPhone.

Humans believe a lot of crazy sh*t. (Alien abductions, ghosts, the yeti, the Loch-Ness Monster, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, The Secret, Amway, and countless absurd 911 conspiracies to name a few.) I don't think that a natural desire to believe in any of these things provides any evidence that these things exist. (IMO) The same goes for God.


Why do humans want to believe in the supernatural? Because the supernatural is exiting, mysterious, different and most of all AWESOME, but that doesn't make it real. We are imaginative creatures.

I think your animosity towards science in misguided. Religion and science aren't mutually exclusive, in fact, if religion is to be believe, they are one in the same.

If religion is to be believed, then science would be the best way to understand how God put this universe together. Rather than judge science by intangible assumptions about God, perhaps it would be better to use science as a way to better understand God.

I like and agree with your 'fuck it' definition of faith, but most people who share that definition don't bother to argue about science, because it is irrelevant to their world view. You, on the other hand, seem to be genuinely bothered by the fact that science contradicts some of your personal beliefs. I think you have an internal conflict to work out here. (IMO) This inner conflict means you are a thoughtful person.

Minor distinction. You see God as time/space/etc.; I see God as a euphemism for time/space/etc..

FWIW, I was baptized Catholic and believed in God until I was 12 or 13 years old.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
i just wonder why we naturally want to assume there is a reason for everything. why would that basic urge be so deep in us? why would it emerge in the first place? I don't think that "survival instinct" line explains eveything, we do plenty of stuff that's not for survival, we even die for that stuff. I don't think a concept called the "selfish gene" can be the answer. I just don't think like that.

so in a way, the instinct to think about God is my proof of God (in a wordy twisted logic way, not a lab experiment).

I think, therefore He is, I might say.

but that doesn't impress people in an age of lab experiments and petri dishes and electron microscopes. i guess you want to detect the God particle before you'll believe.

Fine. As long as you are looking for it (because as any scientist can tell you, observation affects things), not just waiting for it to hit you in the face without asking.

And, fine, as long as you understand that my "faith" is kinda like "fuck it, i'm pretty damn sure this feeling comes from God, I don't need to wait for someone to find the God particle, I'm already convinced, and I don't care if that isn't scientific by todays standards, it's cool."

And fine, if you don't call me stupid for going on this hunch.

Thanks for forcing me to think about that.

btw god IS infinity, time, space, death etc. we totally agree. but maybe you're more optimistic about todays understanding of the scientific method being the ideal way to find the answers. and i am pretty sure the answer we find will look pretty much like God. some kind of beautifully simple mathematical formula that can unfold into an entire universe. Then, accept that the formula wanted to become a universe so that's God.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
(I believe) Religion is a all-purpose placeholder for things that are beyond our comprehension (infinity, time, space, death, existence, etc.....) As humans we want to believe there is some grand overarching reason for our existence, but my gut tells me that the only meaning in our lives is the meaning we create for ourselves, which is pretty fucking cool, actually.

If God wants to prove me wrong, I'm open to that.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
following is for sheep. but jesus wasn't far wrong. i just know that there's a reason. I don't know how i know, but i don't try to ignore the gut feeling just because it isn't verifiable in a laboratory (yet).

you?

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Fair enough. If not the big C, then what faith do you follow?

i just wonder why we naturally want to assume there is a reason for everything. why would that basic urge be so deep in us? why would it emerge in the first place? I don't think that "survival instinct" line explains eveything, we do plenty of stuff that's not for survival, we even die for that stuff. I don't think a concept called the "selfish gene" can be the answer. I just don't think like that.

so in a way, the instinct to think about God is my proof of God (in a wordy twisted logic way, not a lab experiment).

I think, therefore He is, I might say.

but that doesn't impress people in an age of lab experiments and petri dishes and electron microscopes. i guess you want to detect the God particle before you'll believe.

Fine. As long as you are looking for it (because as any scientist can tell you, observation affects things), not just waiting for it to hit you in the face without asking.

And, fine, as long as you understand that my "faith" is kinda like "fuck it, i'm pretty damn sure this feeling comes from God, I don't need to wait for someone to find the God particle, I'm already convinced, and I don't care if that isn't scientific by todays standards, it's cool."

And fine, if you don't call me stupid for going on this hunch.

Thanks for forcing me to think about that.

btw god IS infinity, time, space, death etc. we totally agree. but maybe you're more optimistic about todays understanding of the scientific method being the ideal way to find the answers. and i am pretty sure the answer we find will look pretty much like God. some kind of beautifully simple mathematical formula that can unfold into an entire universe. Then, accept that the formula wanted to become a universe so that's God.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
(I believe) Religion is a all-purpose placeholder for things that are beyond our comprehension (infinity, time, space, death, existence, etc.....) As humans we want to believe there is some grand overarching reason for our existence, but my gut tells me that the only meaning in our lives is the meaning we create for ourselves, which is pretty fucking cool, actually.

If God wants to prove me wrong, I'm open to that.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
following is for sheep. but jesus wasn't far wrong. i just know that there's a reason. I don't know how i know, but i don't try to ignore the gut feeling just because it isn't verifiable in a laboratory (yet).

you?

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Fair enough. If not the big C, then what faith do you follow?

Sylvester's avatar looks like a ghost doggie with a knife.

Here's Fletch's first avatar that I liked:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/181/472778829_07395ac1d8_o.jpg

I'm now wondering if that's a Martin Guitar Dag's holding . . . hmmmmm?

@snaremop, I knew that was deoderant! Disney is a great place, no?

@farhad, I like the riot cop.

Swampgirl . . . love your dog. It always make me feel bluesy in a musical sort of way when I see it with Swampgirl

I liked Ant's old avatar better than his current one, but the current one makes me think of electron microscopes which sends me to YouTube looking for good science stuff.

@gwaan - Is that spaghetti or snot?

Sc

that's right, Matter+ heat + light = KITTENS!
I have never found a kitten in my peanut butter jar!

And every time I open a jar of peanut butter, I but out the electron microscope to confirm that there are no brand-new, unclasified organisms that spontaneously formed. Because we all know that every single organism that can and has ever existed has ben discovered and named.