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Messages - Hortensius

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31
Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: Olbers' paradox
« on: August 18, 2010, 04:23:40 PM »
Can't be an explanation since the number of stars grows according to r3. So we still have a net increase of brightness as a function of r.

So we can see through stars to other stars behind them?

No we can't

32
Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: Olbers' paradox
« on: August 18, 2010, 03:42:34 PM »
Why is this a paradox?

First of all, the Universe can be infinite but that doesn't mean the matter in it is.  You can have an infinite amount of space with a finite amount of matter.

Observations show that on large scales matter in the Universe is distributed homogeneously and isotropically, which means that the matter density doesn't just drop beyond some distance...

Add to that the rate of universal expansion that is faster than the speed of light, diminished light from the inverse square law, and you get a good explanation.

Inverse square law doesn't help you for the reasons explained to Crust.
Universal expansion, although not faster than the speed of light, might be a good hint.

33
Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: Olbers' paradox
« on: August 18, 2010, 03:37:14 PM »
Isnt this just evidence that the universe is finite?

No

34
Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: Olbers' paradox
« on: August 18, 2010, 03:36:03 PM »
Because starlight diminishes according to 1/r2?

Can't be an explanation since the number of stars grows according to r3. So we still have a net increase of brightness as a function of r.

Hmm. Where did you get the r3 from?

If the density of stars is constant (and observations show it roughly is on large scales), the number of stars is proportional to the volume. The volume of space within a distance r is proportional to r3 (4/3 pi r3).

35
Technology, Science & Alt Science / Re: Olbers' paradox
« on: August 18, 2010, 04:54:28 AM »
Because starlight diminishes according to 1/r2?

Can't be an explanation since the number of stars grows according to r3. So we still have a net increase of brightness as a function of r.

36
Technology, Science & Alt Science / Olbers' paradox
« on: August 18, 2010, 02:42:55 AM »
I always found this a nice one:

If the universe is infinite and filled with stars, you would expect that whatever direction on the sky you are looking at, each line of sight would eventually end at the surface of a star. Or in other words; the sky should be completely filled with stars, causing the night sky to be extremely bright instead of dark. Why is the night sky dark?

http://cmb.physics.wisc.edu/tutorial/olbers.html

37
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Question to Infinite Plane Believers
« on: August 18, 2010, 02:01:23 AM »
If the world's particles don't exist on arbitrarily small scales but instead are presented to us in discrete quanta, then an infinite plane would have infinite mass. Physical infinities lead to blatant contradictions like in Hilbert's Hotel Paradox.

First of all Hilbert's Hotel Paradox does not lead to contradiction, your concept of "full occupation" (as in Hilbert's hotel) does just only apply to finite numbers, that's all.

Second, an infinite amount of mass or energy does not lead to the violation of conservation of energy. If you take away an amount of mass (or energy) from one part of the universe like you said, you have to move it somewhere. You cannot just take mass or energy and let it disappear on the spot. It is even impossible, to let energy dissapear at one location and let it reappear at another location simultaniously (so that the total amount of energy is constant), you have to physically displace it. That's what the law of energy conservation states, energy is always conserved locally. Therefore it doesn't matter how infinitely big the Earth or Universe is.

Third, don't confuse mathematical paradoxes with physical ones.

38
Flat Earth General / Re: Obvious hoax image on wikipedia
« on: August 16, 2010, 09:46:34 AM »
but The great wall of china which is THE SMALLEST MAN MADE OBJECT VISIBLE FROM SPACE is....

Can anyone tell me what THE LARGEST MAN MADE OBJECT VISIBLE FROM SPACE is?....

Big cities? Tokyo?
Maybe Flevoland In the Netherlands?

39
Flat Earth General / Re: Obvious hoax image on wikipedia
« on: August 16, 2010, 06:20:09 AM »
Saying something is visible from space is fairly meaningless, since, with the right equipment, it is easy to see an individual human from space.

Also, the Great Wall of China is not, in fact, visible from LEO with the naked eye. Fairly well established fact.

Right, from 400 km altitude the resolution of the human eye is 40 m at best... You can forget about seeing the Great Wall.

That all depends on what you consider LEO.  LEO could be as low as 100 KM.

Ok 10 meters resolution then, still too high up to observe the Wall with the naked eye.

40
Flat Earth General / Re: Obvious hoax image on wikipedia
« on: August 16, 2010, 02:52:53 AM »
Saying something is visible from space is fairly meaningless, since, with the right equipment, it is easy to see an individual human from space.

Also, the Great Wall of China is not, in fact, visible from LEO with the naked eye. Fairly well established fact.



Right, from 400 km altitude the resolution of the human eye is 40 m at best... You can forget about seeing the Great Wall.

41
Flat Earth General / Re: Obvious hoax image on wikipedia
« on: August 16, 2010, 02:38:54 AM »
but The great wall of china which is THE SMALLEST MAN MADE OBJECT VISIBLE FROM SPACE is....

8851km.

but The great wall of china which is THE SMALLEST MAN MADE OBJECT VISIBLE FROM SPACE is....

5 meters wide

42
The test is not to see if the particle has mass.  The test is to see if a massless particle can have momentum. 

Momentum doesn't require mass, it requires energy...

the two are equivalent

Equivalent but not the same.

43
Basically when you view the sky light is bent in different ways based on different natural cycles by which we measure our days and years.  This also takes into account where you view it from.  Consider looking through a bent piece of glass from one angle and then from another opposite angle.  Likely the view you see from each will be considerably different.  This is a basic analogy that sorta gets the point across.

This kind of light bending cannot possibly account for the fact that angular distances between the stars do not change in annual and daily cycles, or do the changing positions of the stars on the flat heaven miraculously cancel the workings of the lightbending mechanism?

44
I am currently posting from Belgium, where I have travelled specifically in order to investigate the Earth's characteristics from a particular location. I'm afraid this information constitutes evidence contrary to your original thesis.

Haha, yes the Lowlands (Belgium, Netherlands) are indeed among the flattest places in the world...

45
Flat Earth General / Re: Moon Negotiations - Moonlight is God?
« on: August 13, 2010, 12:47:47 PM »
As a matter of fact, this has been submitted to direct experiment by zetetic scientists, and it has been demonstrated conclusively (besides being common knowledge anyway) that the Moon's light is not attended by even the slightest heat. Whither has the Sun's heat gone, if, as you claim, it is reflected onto the Moon? For as you rightly assert, the Sun's light ought to be traceable by virtue of its temperature characteristics!

You are correct that the Moon's light does not contain a lot of heat, even though it is spectrally identical to the Sun's light. How is this possible?

First of all you should understand that information about the temperature of the source is contained in the colors of the light, or the spectrum. It is much like hot iron, which changes color from red to white to blue as it is heated up. Just by observing the color one can estimate it's temperature quite accurately.
And second; the amount of heat that is actually transported in the light depends on both the colors and the flux, or intensity of the light.

So if Moon light is indeed (diffusely) reflected light from the Sun, it means that it must be diffusely reflected in all directions of the sky and that the Earth consequently receives only a small fraction of this light. Which automatically means that the intensity has significantly dropped compared to direct sunlight. Even though the colors haven't changed. In other words, we see through the colors/spectrum that Moon light is produced by a hot source (exactly as hot as the Sun) but it because it is diffusely reflected it has lost the original intensity and doe therefore not carry a lot of heat.

I am sitting in a room with white (diffusely reflecting) walls, illuminated by a few light bulbs. The color of the light coming from the walls is identical to the light of the bulbs, but it does not carry significant heat (as the light bulb itself does). It's the same...

I hope this makes my point clear.

46
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Earthquakes?
« on: August 13, 2010, 07:25:25 AM »
If REers model is "consistent with the data", how come you cannot predict where the next earthquake will actually strike?

"If you understand birds so well, how come you can't predict when the next bird is going to shit on your head?" Same kind of stupid question...

47
Interesting. Are you suggesting that radioactive decay of the FE maintains the FE's mass's temperature? I had not considered that.

Who was talking about a heat source? What causes the non-zero temperature of the Earth is completely irrelevant for this discussion. The question was about how and how fast the Earth cools given its shape. And my point was and is that the Sun does not provide a significant amount of heat for the mass of the Earth, whether it is flat or spherical.

48
I suggest that you didn't consider cooling of the known area by conduction to the infinite unknown area.

Not relevant. Space is more or less infinite in all directions, and you don't need conduction to cool. And who said that the whole plane can't have the same temperature roughly? In that case there is no net heat transport horizontally...
You'll need to explain to me why there can't be radiation of heat vertically into space. How would the infinite FE maintain that same temperature without an infinite number of Suns?

There can be vertical radiation of heat ofcourse, and this is how the Earth, flat or spherical, cools. And if you're talking about the temperature of the Earth mass (so I'm not talking about the atmosphere) the Sun has virtually no influence on that.

49
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Earthquakes?
« on: August 12, 2010, 07:41:40 AM »
Fact: The Earth is not flat.
Fact: As far as humans are concerned, there are no true facts, only the interpretation of data.
False. As far as Science is concerned there are facts.

False, all sciences apart from mathematics are not about facts but about likelyhood. Strictly speaking scientific 'facts' are always subject to interpretation and are therefore no real facts. For example, before Einstein most physicists would have regarded it a fact that if you add up 10 km/s and 10 km/s the answer would be 20 km/s, whereas we now know that due to our knowledge of space-time we can't add up velocities this easy; the real answer should be somewhat less then 20 km/s. This is because our interpretation of space and time have changed and therefore our interpretation of velocities and adding up velocities.

This doesn't change the fact that we can with some certainty say that some models are highly unlikely.
Sorry, but you're wrong. You've confused the lay definition of fact with Scientific Fact. Please reference: http://www.lycos.com/info/scientific-method--facts.html. For example, evolution is considered a Fact.

I'm not going to play word games with you...

50
I suggest that you didn't consider cooling of the known area by conduction to the infinite unknown area.

Not relevant. Space is more or less infinite in all directions, and you don't need conduction to cool. And who said that the whole plane can't have the same temperature roughly? In that case there is no net heat transport horizontally...

51
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Earthquakes?
« on: August 12, 2010, 07:18:39 AM »
Fact: The Earth is not flat.
Fact: As far as humans are concerned, there are no true facts, only the interpretation of data.
False. As far as Science is concerned there are facts.

False, all sciences apart from mathematics are not about facts but about likelyhood. Strictly speaking scientific 'facts' are always subject to interpretation and are therefore no real facts. For example, before Einstein most physicists would have regarded it a fact that if you add up 10 km/s and 10 km/s the answer would be 20 km/s, whereas we now know that due to our knowledge of space-time we can't add up velocities this easy; the real answer should be somewhat less then 20 km/s. This is because our interpretation of space and time have changed and therefore our interpretation of velocities and adding up velocities.

This doesn't change the fact that we can with some certainty say that some models are highly unlikely.

52
He ignores the Laws of Thermodynamics (How does the known area stay warm when there's an infinite mass to conduct away its heat?) and the nature of the atmosphere (How does the composition of the solution of air change if its infinite? If not, then way hold it in?)

I totaly agree with you that for a number of physical reasons an (infinite) flat Earth is very unlikely, but the above argument is nonsense. The ratio of mass to surface area is not so drastically different for his infinite flat Earth than it is for a spherical Earth, and therefore both models should cool more or less at the same rate...

53
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Proof
« on: August 12, 2010, 02:04:11 AM »
Seeing as you Flat Earthers discount any evidence given as conspiracy, what evidence would you need to see to make you fully believe that the earth was round?

An independent study conducted by an RE'er then the same experiment carried out by at least two separate FE'ers, all with the same results.

Be more specific; an independent study of what? What would you like to see evidence for or against? Perhaps we can come up with a simple experiment. And by the way, are you available for the experiment?

A study that renders FE to be impossible.

What would you consider proof that the FE is impossible? Give me an example of some kind of measurement that would convince you. I am afraid and suspect that you are arguing with scientific ideas for the sake arguing, not for the sake of actually being convinced by one idea or the other (if not, proof me wrong by just telling me what would be convincing enough for you). No real scientist will ever claim that there exist some mathematical certainty about any scientific theory, and therefore don't expect me to give you mathematical watertight proof of a round Earth. Science doen't do that, it's a myth. I will and can only show you that the flat Earth is highly unlikely...

So come up with some experiment concretely.

54
Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Proof
« on: August 11, 2010, 11:18:14 PM »
Seeing as you Flat Earthers discount any evidence given as conspiracy, what evidence would you need to see to make you fully believe that the earth was round?

An independent study conducted by an RE'er then the same experiment carried out by at least two separate FE'ers, all with the same results.

Be more specific; an independent study of what? What would you like to see evidence for or against? Perhaps we can come up with a simple experiment. And by the way, are you available for the experiment?

55
Flat Earth General / Re: Moon Negotiations - Moonlight is God?
« on: August 11, 2010, 10:24:51 PM »
Hit me!

Ofcourse the phases of the moon and the shadows on the surface that we discussed earlier are a stong evidence, but let me give you a new one now.

As you probably know, one can take a spectrum of some light source. This spectrum is quite unique for source as it provides unique information about its temperature and chemical composition. It turns out that the light that corresponds to the 'light' side of the moon is identical to sunlight. I would consider that a strong evidence too...

56
Flat Earth General / Re: Did you know...
« on: August 11, 2010, 10:11:47 PM »
Obviously ISS pics are faked.

Look one this high resoltion one:

http://origin.arstechnica.com/journals/science.media/issHiRes.jpg

Shadows are not ok. and ISS itself looks like poor crap of shit. Just watch it!

What is exactly wrong with the shadows? To me it seems it makes perfect sense; the son shines from above. I don't see the inconsistency...

57
Flat Earth General / Re: Moon Negotiations - Moonlight is God?
« on: August 11, 2010, 03:37:58 PM »
Do you have any evidence to support your outlandish claims?

I can think of some evidence. Interested?

58
The test is not to see if the particle has mass.  The test is to see if a massless particle can have momentum. 

Momentum doesn't require mass, it requires energy...

59
Flat Earth Debate / Re: Gravity is Repulsive
« on: August 11, 2010, 04:46:37 AM »
Pusher particles. I can understand how pusher particles can work.

What gets me is puller particles. How can a particle pull?

A "pusher" particle that goes backwards in time is a "puller" particle. Electrons for example, are equivalent to positrons moving backward in time and vice versa. Elementary particles can go backwards in time quite naturally. Fundamentally, there is no law that forbids particles to go backward in time. What can't go backwards in time are large statistical ensembles, which are subject to the second law of thermodynamics...

60
Fort doesn't say really where they originate.  He is more interested it seems in showing how the explanations you list are often hasty and ill conceived and the tendency of scientists to try to box things into what they can understand given no evidence.

Did I exclude any explanation? I just gave you an explanation that makes sense. Frogs as lunar biomass just doesn't ring right to me. For many reasons...

Anyway, a good correlation between animal-rains and tornadoes, or a correlation between dropping animals and water animals would be considered to some degree evidence for the mechanism I just told you. Again, without excluding other explanations.

And also, nobody claims that science should be able to explain every single mysterious incident. Some phenomena are just too complex to be understood easily, others are just too rare to be studied thoroughly. And for these reasons, some things will simply remain a mystery. But in any case, they don't provide evidence for the impossible...

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