The speed of light seems slow by comparison

[Stub Mandrel]

If your statement were true, our eyes would be burned out of our heads by the amount of light coming from the sun and our bodies would be fried by the amount of heat. Heat and light are one.

The cold of space robs light of its heat and light. The photons or waves of light emitted by the sun, are 10,000° plus. By the time that they hit earth, they are a cool hundred degrees or less.

Once the cold of space has robbed the photon of it light and it's heat, the only thing left is it's electric and magnetic energy.

A barbecue is hot enough to destroy your eyeballs if you stick your face in it, but you can look at it from a couple of feet away.

It's called the inverse square law and that's why the farther away a star is the less heat and light you feel from it.

The individual photons each have a fixed amount of energy, and those from a star are spread across a wide range of energies. A prism or rainbow will spread out the photons in the visible light range. Lower energy photons are infra-red and you can feel them warming your hand when you hold it in bright summer sunshine.

The most energetic photons from the sun are in the far ultra violet. Most of these are stopped by the tenuous ozone layer that we tried so hard to destroy with aerosols in the 80s and 90s. Without the ozone layer, we virtually would fry - or at least have terrible sunburn  and rampant skin cancer.

Photos are little probability functions in an electromagnetic field that fills the universe. Although they could potentially be anywhere in that field, the truth is that the probability of one being anywhere other than in a very tiny area (approximated by the Plank distance) is very small and rapidly decreases. This means photons can act like particles (the lumps in the probability field) or waves (the probablity functions of many photos all summed up together).

Astrophotographers regularly photograph things billions of miles away - and so faint that they might only collect a handful of photos from them in several minutes. from billions of photos blasting out from every square foot of the star to as many as you can count on your fingers. That's the reality of just how huge the impact of the inverse square law is.

[Stub Mandrel]

Electric and magnetic energy produce heat., which produces the photon of light.

Start a fire, then put it out. When you robbed the fire of its heat, you robbed it of its light.

I stand 100 yards away from your and burst a balloon. You hear the bang, even though the balloon doesn't exist by the time the sound reaches you.

A star goes supernova 100 million light years away. You see the flash, even though the star doesn't exist by the time the flight reaches you.

[Stub Mandrel]

I do not think this kind of pseudoscientifc drivel has a place on SGL

We should both take 100 lines; "I must not feed the trolls".

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

We should both take 100 lines; "I must not feed the trolls".

I was giving him enough rope to hang himself

[mcolbert]

when thinking of trolls, I remember a line from The Duellists, a Joseph Conrad story, where one of the minor characters (a surgeon) is talking with the protagonist (a Napoleonic French Hussars officer) about the story's antagonist (another French Officer) and he says;

"The enemies of reason have a certain blind look, don't you think..."

With on-line trolls, the enemies of reason (and education / experience) have a disjointed way of communicating - a blindness if you will.

sad really.

michael

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

when thinking of trolls, I remember a line from The Duellists, a Joseph Conrad story, where one of the minor characters (a surgeon) is talking with the protagonist (a Napoleonic French Hussars officer) about the story's antagonist (another French Officer) and he says;

"The enemies of reason have a certain blind look, don't you think..."

With on-line trolls, the enemies of reason (and education / experience) have a disjointed way of communicating - a blindness if you will.

sad really.

michael

That is one of my (many) favourite works by Conrad. There was an excellent movie adaptation, with I Keith Caradine as the protagonist, and Harvey Keitel as the antagonist.

[mcolbert]

michael as with me.  Although Keith's accent was a trifle distracting amongst some excellent British character actors.

michael

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

BTW the story was called "The Duel" in my collection. I think "The Duelists" was the movie title

[acey]

New Science by Jim Ryan

But all that science claims, the speed of light is the fastest known entity in the universe. However, I believe that is shortsighted, pun intended.

Look to the fartherest star that can be seen with the naked eye. That star is called Deneb . It is between 1400 and 7000 ly away., according to science.

Step out of your home and look up into the night sky and you will see Deneb in the blink of an eye.

From my perspective, the speed of site is 1 billion or more times faster than the speed of light.

Love the barmy logic, just no arguing with it. It's poetry, not science.

[ollypenrice]

That is one of my (many) favourite works by Conrad. There was an excellent movie adaptation, with I Keith Caradine as the protagonist, and Harvey Keitel as the antagonist.

Excellent film despite the accents business. Harvey Keitel was, as ever, mesmerizing. The final fade of him looking like Napoleon iced an excellent cake.

Olly

[symesie04]

Question though how do you determine a troll from someone who simply has a deep root misguided belief?

Dont get me wrong i was reading some of his arguments thinking wow but i just wonder if he was a troll or just simply truly believed in what he was saying.

[Piero]

Question though how do you determine a troll from someone who simply has a deep root misguided belief?

Dont get me wrong i was reading some of his arguments thinking wow but i just wonder if he was a troll or just simply truly believed in what he was saying.

I do think that he actually believes in what he was saying. 

However, I also think that, as he might not believe in current science, he should accept that people might not believe in his new science.

Now, rising a question is good. Rising a discussion is even better. 

Michael and Stub came up with explanations following a logical thought and knowledge sufficient to make an argument, he did not. This is not necessarily a problem because not all of us have the same knowledge on the subject, but as we are in a public forum, respect for other people explanations / thoughts / ideas is important, if not even crucial. 

I think in the answers above there is enough material to understand that his point of view is not supported by scientific evidence. Again, we live in a free world and he/she is free to believe what he/she wants, but, as Michael said, I also do not think SGL is the right place for these personal ideas and persisting that they are correct. 

Possibly a personal blog would be more adequate. 

Just my opinion of course. 

Piero

Beside this.. As others, I am also a great fan of the Duellists (and although not mentioned, Barry Lyndon).

[Scott]

I do think that he actually believes in what he was saying. 

However, I also think that, as he might not believe in current science, he should accept that people might not believe in his new science.

Now, rising a question is good. Rising a discussion is even better. 

Michael and Stub came up with explanations following a logical thought and knowledge sufficient to make an argument, he did not. This is not necessarily a problem because not all of us have the same knowledge on the subject, but as we are in a public forum, respect for other people explanations / thoughts / ideas is important, if not even crucial. 

I think in the answers above there is enough material to understand that his point of view is not supported by scientific evidence. Again, we live in a free world and he/she is free to believe what he/she wants, but, as Michael said, I also do not think SGL is the right place for these personal ideas and persisting that they are correct. 

Possibly a personal blog would be more adequate. 

Just my opinion of course. 

Piero

Beside this.. As others, I am also a great fan of the Duellists (and although not mentioned, Barry Lyndon).

Isn't this what Twitter was made for? 

[symesie04]

I do think that he actually believes in what he was saying. 

However, I also think that, as he might not believe in current science, he should accept that people might not believe in his new science.

Now, rising a question is good. Rising a discussion is even better. 

Michael and Stub came up with explanations following a logical thought and knowledge sufficient to make an argument, he did not. This is not necessarily a problem because not all of us have the same knowledge on the subject, but as we are in a public forum, respect for other people explanations / thoughts / ideas is important, if not even crucial. 

I think in the answers above there is enough material to understand that his point of view is not supported by scientific evidence. Again, we live in a free world and he/she is free to believe what he/she wants, but, as Michael said, I also do not think SGL is the right place for these personal ideas and persisting that they are correct. 

Possibly a personal blog would be more adequate. 

Just my opinion of course. 

Piero

Beside this.. As others, I am also a great fan of the Duellists (and although not mentioned, Barry Lyndon).

I totally understand your point and am not defending him as such but just curious as to what process is used to determine what is and what isnt a troll. Often trolls are offensive, argumentative and negative etc but I cant honestly say that I would of levelled those attributes at this one. The thing is no his/her ideas werent backed up with evidence if they were then they would be science. But there is a lot of people on here that hold beliefs that clearly dont have any scientific basis but dont get excluded. Again not defending but just wondered if a gentle nudge with a policy that as a science based forum (is it) that ideas that are not presented in a scientific method cannot be discussed. Oh and please dont think this is a dig at any mods in anyway shape of form, you guys do a great and tough job. Just I guess each of us see things differently and to me he just seemed misguided rather than a troll. 

[nameunknown]

ذنب الدجاجة (Deneb) means "back end of the chicken" - and if that is the furthest you can see....perhaps you can expect some issues. Still, the number 53 bus (there are four every hour) takes 15 mins to get from the bus depot to my house - i.e. the bus depot is 15 "bus-minutes" away. If I leave the house so as to arrive at the bus stop with just under 15 min to spare, I always just miss it . This proves the earth is flat!

[Scott]

I totally understand your point and am not defending him as such but just curious as to what process is used to determine what is and what isnt a troll. Often trolls are offensive, argumentative and negative etc but I cant honestly say that I would of levelled those attributes at this one. The thing is no his/her ideas werent backed up with evidence if they were then they would be science. But there is a lot of people on here that hold beliefs that clearly dont have any scientific basis but dont get excluded. Again not defending but just wondered if a gentle nudge with a policy that as a science based forum (is it) that ideas that are not presented in a scientific method cannot be discussed. Oh and please dont think this is a dig at any mods in anyway shape of form, you guys do a great and tough job. Just I guess each of us see things differently and to me he just seemed misguided rather than a troll. 

I do understand what you are saying and you are right. no-one should be excluded for there beliefs however misguided they may or may not be, However... If our ideas are not grounded in science, then they are best not posted in the science board . 

[symesie04]

Fair play sir

[Piero]

I totally understand your point and am not defending him as such but just curious as to what process is used to determine what is and what isnt a troll. Often trolls are offensive, argumentative and negative etc but I cant honestly say that I would of levelled those attributes at this one. The thing is no his/her ideas werent backed up with evidence if they were then they would be science. But there is a lot of people on here that hold beliefs that clearly dont have any scientific basis but dont get excluded. Again not defending but just wondered if a gentle nudge with a policy that as a science based forum (is it) that ideas that are not presented in a scientific method cannot be discussed. Oh and please dont think this is a dig at any mods in anyway shape of form, you guys do a great and tough job. Just I guess each of us see things differently and to me he just seemed misguided rather than a troll. 

I do not think he has been excluded or banned, and I would not say he acted like a troll (in the sense that he wasn't offensive or too provocative). 

However, there were a few things in his behaviour which matched the spamming section in the Code of Conduct, and in particular persisting of flooding with non-sense messages. There wasn't a constructive argument or an attempt to understand, but just a continuous reporting that he was right and current science was wrong, without any evidence. One can do the same with religion and that's why it is excluded here.

Mine is just an opinion as well as yours. I believe that our way of talking allows a mutual understanding and learning , whereas his approach did not seem to me beneficial to anyone in here. 

On the other hand, I also don't think the science section is appropriate for his new science..

[Stub Mandrel]

It's very hard to judge whether someone is genuine or a wind up.

I recall a forum in the deep past where people got very wound up trying to politely deal with a poster who appeared almost to wilfully misunderstand everything and also shoot off at a tangent (like the poster on this thread). In the other case the irritating poster turned out to be some university research project giving their AI the Turing test*.

*On the subject of AI, I want to go on the tube and call out 'Hey Siri, play Motorhead'.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

We discuss these cases at length in the moderator sub-forum, and do not censure people just because they antagonize one particular mod (tempting though this may be ). As can be seen in the thread, I (and others) tried long and hard to make him see the science behind various arguments given against his misguided belief, but he basically persisted in answering in ways that suggest everybody else is wrong and he is right. Only when the other mods and I came to the conclusion that this person was going to be a major force for disruption did we take action. We have had similar cases (often centred around UFO stories), and very often the moment these people post for the first time the writing is on the wall, but we try to give people a fair chance, and try to make them see some sense.

Come to think of it, his "reasoning" without any mathematics shows us precisely why you need mathematical reasoning in physics, not vague wordplay

[michaelmorris]

Totally agree with my fellow Moderator (and fellow Michael).  Some people confuse reasoning with science.  Reasoning is based on logical extrapolation of a set of ideas, whilst science uses data to provide evidence of an idea.  The original poster tried to simply use his or her extrapolation of ideas without using any scientifically-derived data to back it up.  This may be fine in the world of philosophy, but is rarely an approach that works in science.

As others have said, this section of the forum is for the discussion of scientific ideas, not ill-informed musings.

[jetstream]

I appreciate the Moderators keeping this a sensible place and a place where we can learn. Good call.

Thank you

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

ذنب الدجاجة (Deneb) means "back end of the chicken" - and if that is the furthest you can see....perhaps you can expect some issues. Still, the number 53 bus (there are four every hour) takes 15 mins to get from the bus depot to my house - i.e. the bus depot is 15 "bus-minutes" away. If I leave the house so as to arrive at the bus stop with just under 15 min to spare, I always just miss it . This proves the earth is flat!

For a given value of "flat"

[davedownsouth]

I think Brian said it all really

[symesie04]

Haha but i dont doubt that when Mr Cox expressed that opinion he was expecting others to listen to it.