>> ^EDD:
Might be just me, but last I heard all the quantum physicists had quite a bit of a problem with general relativity

Not so. It is true that physicists have not yet managed to unify gravity into the standard model of particle physics, but general relativity on its own works perfectly fine on large scales, which you can check for yourself every time you use a GPS unit.

Now, wether or not general relativity is still relevant has of course no bearing on the validity of the writings linked to here. To get back to topic:

>> ^imstellar28:
From a purely scientific standpoint, like physics, there is nothing human about economics.

Really? Unlike physics, economics is all about humans interacting with each other. The actions of the individuals in the economy are largely governed by human feelings, such as love, hope, happiness, sadness, optimism and (especially during crashes) panic. An indication of this is that all the major economic models work perfectly as long as the individuals behave according to plan, i.e. rational as defined by the economists. But as soon as the system comes out of equilibrium, people start acting much more emotional and the models become useless.

It's like trying to explain particle physics to a dead octopus.

1. I'm glad you know enough particle physics to lecture me.
2. I wish you had a sarcasm detector.
3. Profit.

In reply to this comment by campionidelmondo:
The LHC is not gonna be able to do anything along the lines of creating a black hole. Some pissed-off american "scientist" claimed it and you ate it up, because like most people, you're afraid of what you can't understand.

In reply to this comment by thinker247:
She's read as many magazines as she's had children. I'm sure there's a mathematical formula for it, but using it would create a black hole that would destroy the Earth. And we wouldn't want to take away the LHC's glory, would we?

Man's technology has exceeded his grasp. - 'The World is not Enough'
Zealous Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed 'Higgs Boson'(aka God) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments hoping to prove a theory when urgent tangible problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world's most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing Micro Black Holes, Strangelets and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena.
Particle physicists have run out of ideas and are at a dead end forcing them to take reckless chances with more and more powerful and costly machines to create new and never-seen-before, unstable and unknown matter while Astrophysicists, on the other hand, are advancing science and knowledge on a daily basis making new discoveries in these same areas by observing the universe, not experimenting with it and with your life.
The LHC is a dangerous gamble as CERN physicist Alvaro De Rújula in the BBC LHC documentary, 'The Six Billion Dollar Experiment', incredibly admits quote, "Will we find the Higgs particle at the LHC? That, of course, is the question. And the answer is, science is what we do when we don't know what we're doing." And CERN spokesmodel Brian Cox follows with this stunning quote, "the LHC is certainly, by far, the biggest jump into the unknown."
The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states: "There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,..." Again, this is because they truly don't know what's going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don't understand to obtain results they can't comprehend. If you think like most people do that 'They must know what they're doing' you could not be more wrong. Some people think similarly about medical Dr.s but consider this by way of comparison and example from JAMA: "A recent Institute of Medicine report quoted rates estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year in US hospitals." The second part of the CERN quote reads "...but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,..." A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads "...as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe." These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn't a particle physicist alive who wouldn't gladly trade his life to glimpse the "God particle", and sacrifice the rest of us with him. Reason and common sense will tell you that the risks far outweigh any potential(as CERN physicists themselves say) benefits.
This quote from National Geographic exactly sums this "science" up: "That's the essence of experimental particle physics: You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out."
Find out more about that "stuff" below;
http://www.SaneScience.org/
http://www.LHCFacts.org
http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon1.htm
http://www.lhcdefense.org/
http://www.lhcconcerns.com
Popular Mechanics - "World's Biggest Science Project Aims to Unlock 'God Particle'" - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme_machines/4216588.html"

>> ^gemini70:
Question: If you were in a black hole, would you know it? Doesn't time stop?


The time destortion would make it seem like everything was fine for you. But, the gravity would rip and streched you apart. This is the main princible of string cheese theroy in particle physics

>> ^EDD:
^ Those collisions planned at LHC have no - that's ZERO, NIL, NONE, NOUGHT, NADA, ZIP - risk of creating micro black holes unless one supplements the standard model of particle physics with several extensions that factor in the possibility of extra spatial dimensions which these micro black holes might originate from. And even then those very same extensions lead one to conclude that the decay on those mbhs due to Hawking radiation would have them existing (and not in a manner in which they can do ANY harm) for a matter of seconds at the outside.
So whoever made this video - DIAF. That's right - you should die in a freaking fire for attempting to induce mass hysteria based on your complete fucking ignorance.


Wasn't there also a fear of that strange matter (quark matter) in the form of Strangelets being created as well?

"Clearly this potential risk is based on speculative theories. But
these theories were constructed to explore real possibilities. The probability
that they are correct is not negligible."

R. Plaga a
aFranzstr. 40, D-53111 Bonn, Germany

Quantum black holes are in principle unstable, i.e. they evaporate because
no conserved quantum number forbids them to do so. However, it is well
known that their Hawking luminosity is strongly suppressed with respect to
semiclassical expectations for black-hole masses below the Planck mass in
4 space-time dimensions.

^ Those collisions planned at LHC have no - that's ZERO, NIL, NONE, NOUGHT, NADA, ZIP - risk of creating micro black holes unless one supplements the standard model of particle physics with several extensions that factor in the possibility of extra spatial dimensions which these micro black holes might originate from. And even then those very same extensions lead one to conclude that the decay on those mbhs due to Hawking radiation would have them existing (and not in a manner in which they can do ANY harm) for a matter of seconds at the outside.

So whoever made this video - DIAF. That's right - you should die in a freaking fire for attempting to induce mass hysteria based on your complete fucking ignorance.

1. I never said Christians cannot/shouldn't be scientists and nor do I think so. I know several good scientists that are religious, and I respect them, even though they were indoctrinated as children and have since interpreted some of their experiences as proof of a deity. It is sad, and it all comes back to indoctrination, like I said previously. Now, supporters of ID, however, are a disgrace and they're undermining the whole concept of science. I think you'd agree that there is quite the correlation between religious fanatics and supporters of ID, wouldn't you? So it's no real surprise I assumed you might be one. I apologize for this assumption, and I'm happy you say you're not of the ID crowd.

2. I didn't attack your interests; just essentially said you should expand your knowledge in most fields - as should I and pretty much everyone. I just get annoyed when people talk about advanced sciences with great ignorance, misconstruing and making up facts on the spot, and that was what you did.

3. We are in agreement on science not making the claim of (ever) having the absolute truth; yet you seem to be one who believes this is possible via faith, that science has no truth to it at all and also, that making this claim is a good thing; this is where your logic and rationality fail. Anyone making the claim of absolute truth is wrong, and hence, it's a bad thing.

4. The mass of an atom isn't "the most simple thing in particle physics". It also isn't the smallest particle. Nor the one with least mass. It is also, in most common cases, a known, and I am at a loss how anyone could forgo this knowledge in their secondary education. Just because you lack basic knowledge in particle, no, basic, rudimentary physics, doesn't mean the scientific community does.

5. I won't argue semantics of 'fact' here. If you don't like the scientific definition, you can... well, do nothing about it. A discussion should be based on impartial principles, however, you attempt to impose your set of definitions and interpretations.

6. How is a METHOD true or false? Do you have any understanding of what a method is?

7. It appears your 'knowledge' of particle physics is drawn from http://www.videosift.com/video/Quantum-Physics-Double-Slit-Experiment-amazing-results. That's just sad, man. You should at least browse through Wikipedia before you engage in a discussion about these matters. We cannot as of yet see an electron or a photon - it has to be registered - interacted with, to determine which slit it goes through to carry this experiment out - hence the intrusion and the different results. The cool thing that baffles scientists is that it's the first time we've had a situation in which one cannot measure without interfering. That's it. That's the easy explanation. I don't think I should go into how the complementarity principle and wave-particle duality work.

8. In response to your request (you ignored mine) - here's 7 ideas from a 200 years ago that we hold true and still use today, quite in their original form, include:

Heliocentric theory.
Narrative history.
Electromagnetic induction.
Electrolysis.
Oxidation numbers.
Kinetic theory of gases.

and finally, a dessert - Evolution. It's occurrence has finally been proved in a lab experiment. Did you know that?

9. Please, don't just talk about it, do also look the Theory of Everything up. You actually think it's a theory that tries to describe everything - which is hilarious. I hate schooling other people and doing the internet's job, but you ought to know it is a theory that would explain the 4 known fundamental forces of our universe - gravity, electromagnetic force and strong and weak nuclear forces. That's it, doing that alone has proven to be difficult enough. There may be other forces required to explain any and all physical phenomena, which is what it's geared towards, but it won't in any way try to explain, for example, why kittens are cute or why you're arguing about that which you have little to none understanding of on the internet.

All in all, I apologize for my sometimes hostile tone; it's rather challenging for me to tolerate blatant ignorance. And you saying "It is impossible to prove something truth with science.", that's just plain wrong and illustrates just to what extent you misunderstand science and its methods.

Anyway, if you think it does not further true knowledge, then why the hell are you studying science, huh?

>> ^EDD:
^Dear GeeSussFreek,
you call yourself a scientist. That is fine. However, I will warn you right away that many on this website would question your devotion to scientific method based on your username alone - tell me, is it a coincidence that it's pronounced exactly like "Jesus-Freak"? I'm asking this (rather rhetorical) question because religious fanatics claiming to be scientists are often proponents of Intelligent Design, which is (I'll be frank here) a load of steaming bull excrement. I hope you are not one of this fold, because I've had my share of "dialogue" with these folks, and it has never, ever resembled anything like a reasoned, structured discourse.
With my worries laid before you, my response is this:
there are many fields of science and from your short stay on the Sift you would apparently style yourself as a jack-of-all-trades (economics, military, political science, theoretical and quantum physics, chemistry, just to name a few of which you've shared your opinion). Yet, it would also appear that you may be master of nothing.
A scientist (especially one talking about science and scientific method) would not ever, under any circumstances, attempt to draw their own definitions of FACT. Or any concept previously and universally known, for that matter. Me, I was taught what general as well as specific definitions of 'fact' are in secondary school. It would appear your "science diploma studies" have taught you nothing of this. Scientific fact feeds directly back from scientific method, which includes fancy notions such as peer review, one which has unfortunately so far eluded the scope of ID proponents. In science, fact may at times not be the absolute truth, it's what's agreed upon by the informed public. Our knowledge in most advanced fields of study can never be perfect and complete, but the ones most often making this claim are religious folks, saying that scripture "has all the answers".
Now, mass. My oh my.
Mass, assuming we're talking about gravitational mass, not inertial-7th-grade-physics-mass here, is the interaction of gravitational fields. In other words, yes, gravity. The same concept you differentiated, indicating exactly how much you understand of this and that I have no need to go into supergravity, supersymmetry and duality and start actually looking things up. Thanks for that. Oh, and by the way - mass is not created. Neither is matter, for that matter.
Continuing on-
regarding your nonplussed ideas about quantum theories, I have to disappoint you a little bit - it's still discernible, natural science; it hasn't obliterated all previous theories in physics; in fact, I dare you name three it has. Yes, the math involved is a 'bit' harder, the conjectures deeper and at times wilder, but scientific method is still applied.
You also said: "The fact is, that science doesn't deal with facts and has no method of proving things true, only methods of proving them false."
First of all, I LOVE your use of "fact" in this sentence, just love it. Anyway, hypocrisy aside, all we need, is a YES/NO or a TRUE/FALSE experiment. Their initial assumption will either be true, and they will PROVE something to be true, or it will be wrong, and they will prove that it is wrong. Works both ways, just like logic's supposed to, in your brain.
In conclusion, I return to my initial lines:
"You call yourself a scientist. That is most definitely not fine."


So, because I am a Christian, I can not be science minded. Thats a weak assertion. Moreover, its a showing of the new bigot mind set against any of those who have a different mind set. It is the new thing. To expect me to tolerate and be tolerant of your ideas, but the same latitude is not relayed back. I wouldn't count someone out just cause they called themselves agnosticfreak, would you? But that isn't the point of this conversation.

Intelligent design is crap. I never even mentioned it here, but yet, you rolled me into an automatic assumption that I believe that...I don't, its a fundamentally bad idea of applying impartial physical interpretations of the world and using those to apply to a metaphysic's of the creators doing. This is bad, it is not even an theory, but thanks for the assumption.

And thanks for the unmerited attack on my interests, I won't return the favor.

In your third paragraph, you totally just reiterate what I always said that science has no claim to absolute truth, so I will take that as a consesion on your part, but then you automatically assume that I do agree that ID is a valid theory in which I believe, which you are wrong. So I will take your concession and your incorrect assumption and slide right by your personal attacks for the moment.

As for mass, I was trying to show that even the simple idea of where the mass of an atom, the most simple idea in particle physics; in a unknown. So in effect, the basis of our understanding of particle physics is incomplete and yet we call things on the higher level facts, and I object to the terminology, just as one might also object to a Christian saying that God being real is a fact...its just a misuse of the language. I also object to things being called laws, but it is more of language that we are talking about on these things. There is a connotative and denotative meaning obviously, but I still think the terms are misleading. So my battle was over terminology abuse in this case.

You talk about the scientific method again. I would like to bring attention to the scientific method 2 problems that very prominent people in science have had with similar instances of rules in empirical practice. First, was one of my heroes, Alan Turing. His problem was one in computer science (my field btw) where he was trying to prove or disprove the ability to make a program that could test if other programs terminate (ie not suffer from an infinite loop). The problem was, you could make such a program, but you would have to then turn that program back on itself to make sure that it also terminates. This presents a problem. Because we still don't know if the program terminates. So, the problem was that there was no way to verify the thing that was created to verify things. Thus, the proof showed that there is no way to create a program that can test of other programs terminate.

Likewise, there was formerly a school of thought that has now all but vanished called the Verification theory( I believe this was the term, correct me if you know better). The verification method heralded that unless something could be empirically verified, it is meaningless. However, the same thing that happed in Mr. Turrings proof destroyed this idea as well for when we tried to verify the Verification theory, there was no verification to be had. So, I use the same argument on the Scientific method as to show its level of truth is very low indeed. It is a Theory that can not be turned back to proof itself. It rests on arbitrary principles that seem good...and they are good for lots of things, but truth is not one of them. The Scientific theory can not show itself to be truth using the scientific method. In fact, quantum physics shows us more and more that the very act of observation changes the data. In other words, sciences attempts to claim things being the way they are might only be so because they looked, not because they are actually that way. Once again, the problem of phenomena and Noumea.

You then use a classic example of why I choose my battle of language with science. It is impossible to prove something truth with science. Things are truth in science until they are not...which is no truth at all. Can you name one idea from 200 years ago that that isn't radically different from today? In essence, those proven theories weren't proven at all, they can only be disproved. Science only deals with negative evidence, not positive. Things will always be revised in science, and more over, we never really know when they won't need to be revised again; and thus this is why science can never have a claim to have a TOE (theory of everything) because you don't ever know when you know everything...you don't know when every fact is accounted for, every essence of the whole is taken into account...it is an unknowable thing (from the standpoint of absolute knowledge).

*edited out cause Internet people can't be trusted with humility*. However, I don't think my claims are baseless, and I attempted to have a civil talk about them. If I came off as rude or condescending in my first reply, then I do apologies as this was not my intent. I have a real eagerness to talk about such topics openly and freely on the sift because we have some very intelligent people here and normally some pretty good discourse (we are many stars above the youtube crowd). I look forward to perhaps a more civil reply in the future Hopefully I have covered all your points here, I tried my best.

Edit: spelling

you know, it's a little late, but thank you for posting this comment, I actually just really read it and love it. You said what I wanted to say only better... :

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
you're all thinking in terms of rational explanations. what if there is none and the thing still works? if particle entaglement experiments have shown us anything it's that not only is all matter just energy but that everything in the universe is interconnected. the point is, we don't know shit yet. the behaviour of particles at quantum level shows bizzare results we are unable to backup properly with our newtonian ways. as we discovered that observation inevitably affects the results of experiments we were no longer just voayers looking from the outside into this newtonian rube-goldberg apparatus we call universe - we are the apparatus. our current description of reality is a sketch at best. i like the work David Bohm did with Karl Pribram on holonomic model of the brain and his ideas of the role consciencesness has in this universe. another wacko i like is David Deutsch and his four-strand theory of everything.
a quote from wiki about his theory:

"It aims not at the reduction of everything to particle physics, but rather mutual support among multiverse, computational, epistemological, and evolutionary principles."

^That's so true. Whether blankfist posts a video about particle physics, election fraud, how to install a water heater, or the Queen of England, you just know there's going to be some farting.

you're all thinking in terms of rational explanations. what if there is none and the thing still works? if particle entaglement experiments have shown us anything it's that not only is all matter just energy but that everything in the universe is interconnected. the point is, we don't know shit yet. the behaviour of particles at quantum level shows bizzare results we are unable to backup properly with our newtonian ways. as we discovered that observation inevitably affects the results of experiments we were no longer just voayers looking from the outside into this newtonian rube-goldberg apparatus we call universe - we are the apparatus. our current description of reality is a sketch at best. i like the work David Bohm did with Karl Pribram on holonomic model of the brain and his ideas of the role consciencesness has in this universe. another wacko i like is David Deutsch and his four-strand theory of everything.
a quote from wiki about his theory:

"It aims not at the reduction of everything to particle physics, but rather mutual support among multiverse, computational, epistemological, and evolutionary principles."

Science has nothing to say about self awareness, religion has nothing to say about science.

People have emerged on both sides questioning their respective fields' dogma. For example the head of the Anglican Church in England does not believe that God created the universe, he believes that God "made the universe make itself", which strikes me as a *huge* paradigm shift.

Physicists like Lee Smolin, Milo Wolff, Halton Arp, etc, are absolutely convinced that string theory and in fact the last 30 years of particle physics are seriously misguided, even questioning the interpretation of early quantum experiments, Big Bang theory (which has had to be modified and patched with each new discovery to the point that it isn't a good foundation for cosmology any more, inflation, dark matter, dark energy, mis-interpretation of red shifts etc etc)

Neither the scientific rationalists nor the religious irrationalists have their house in order, and disciples of each shouldn't be so smug.

With reference to well known the double slit experiment, where an interference patrern is observed, I quote from the video: "Scientists say that this is only possible if the particle exists in different universes". That's rubbish. This experiment demonstrates the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics; that matter behaves both as a wave and as particle; two aspects of a singular nature. I'm all for pop-science, but I can't tolerate junk science like this. It's harmful and it's condescending. I can't believe that this is anything other than intentionally misleading.

It's a shame how few documentaries do science justice. I'd recommend a good book: "Quantum Physics: A Beginner's Guide" by Alastair Rae if you can handle a little math, or "Deep Down Things, The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics" by Bruce Schumm, which I'm reading currently and which is nothing short of brilliant.

Oh, and here is a great tip! If you like watching science videos, check out Professor Muller's "Physics for Future Presidents" web-casts (also known as "A Descriptive Introduction to Physics). These are video taped lectures from caltech. The dude rocks, he explains everything very clearly and he's a lot of fun to boot:

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978373

Tags for this video have been changed from 'CERN, LHC, Atlas, Higgs, bozon, particle physics, big bang' to 'CERN, LHC, Atlas, Higgs, boson, particle physics, big bang, black hole' - edited by kronosposeidon