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Old 5th August 2014, 12:08 PM   #2641
Farsight
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Originally Posted by ben m View Post
And the electron, muon, and tau masses.
That's what they say. But like I was saying to edd, Einstein referred to the electron when he was talking about a body in his E=mc² paper, and said the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content. Not the measure of its interaction with some field. So if you're rooting for the Higgs mechanism, you'll be wearing this on your T-shirt: E=mc².

Originally Posted by ben m View Post
And electroweak symmetry breaking, i.e. the masses of the W and Z.
Ah, the particles that are said to be responsible for the weak interaction. The W and Z weigh in at 80GeV and 91GeV. And they're said to mediate beta decay. Like when a 939MeV neutron decays into a proton, electron and antineutrino? Ho Hum. Methinks you need to read The Higgs Fake by Alexander Unzicker. He tells us all about the W boson which dates back to 1983 with its lifetime of 10-25 seconds, and that what was actually detected was an electron. He says "Rubbia urged his collaborators to work day and night before his visit to various institutions in the USA. He took a picture of a 'W-event' with him. There, Steven Weinberg, Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow all happily agreed that it was the long sought-after W boson (which confirmed their theory, by the way)…". Only Burton Richter was right when he said it wasn't a W, but by then it was way too late.

Originally Posted by ben m
I see, you're thinking of the up and down quarks. The s quark is, something like 30% of the mass of the kaon. The c quark masses are about 80% of the mass of the J/psi, the b quark mass is nearly 100% of the mass of the b-mesons
Only we've never seen a free quark. Because of "quark confinement". Neat.

Originally Posted by ben m View Post
the top quark is basically a free quark; it's extremely massive and doesn't bother hadronizing---they're basically free quarks.
Oh yes? Unzicker tells us it has lifetime of 10-25 seconds. Free as a bird eh!? He goes on to say it had to exist because "the bottom quark needed a partner, as the Ws and Zs had to exist because otherwise the standard model was wrong". We’ve never seen a free quark remember? The top quark was "seen" to decay into a bottom quark and a W boson. But we’ve never actually "seen" a top quark, or a bottom quark, or a W boson. The top quark was inferred... from particles that were inferred.

Originally Posted by ben m View Post
No we haven't. Proton-antiproton annihilation proceeds to pions and kaons, consistent with the mainstream theory of the strong interaction. Most such pions and kaons decay weakly, i.e. to high-energy muons and neutrinos.
Yes we have, there is a cross section for annihilation direct to gamma photons. See for example this. It's academic anyway, because your muons decay to electrons and neutrinos, then we can annihilate the electrons with positrons, and we're left with photons and neutrinos.

Originally Posted by ben m View Post
Great argument, Farsight! In a universe with no heavy quarks, no Higgs boson, no electroweak symmetry breaking, and in which proton-proton annihilation had some properties you just made up, the Higgs mechanism would sound pretty silly!
It does, doesn't it? Especially when the fabulous Higgs boson is said to decay into two gamma photons. Like Einstein said in his E=mc² paper: a radiating body loses mass. And like I said: all of it. Because the Higgs boson doesn't get its mass from the Higgs mechanism. Oops!
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Old 5th August 2014, 12:26 PM   #2642
godless dave
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
That's what they say. But like I was saying to edd, Einstein referred to the electron when he was talking about a body in his E=mc² paper, and said the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content. Not the measure of its interaction with some field.
He said the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content, or could be converted to its energy content according to the formula e=mc2?

Is mass-energy equivalency mutually exclusive with Higgs field interaction?
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Old 5th August 2014, 12:36 PM   #2643
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
What's with the snip and the sigh? You asked the question, I answered it. I've seen footballers pass, I've seen buses pass. But you've never seen time pass.
Nor have I seen gravity, neutrinos, viruses, Brazil, or, for that matter, you. That does not make them any less real.

Not everything happens simultaneously; that difference between simultaneity and sequence is "time." It has an extent. Whether or not time really passes is a question of philosphy, not physics. But the passage of time is easily and consistently measured in many ways, so if it's a fiction, it's certainly a useful one.

I'm a pragmatist. I don't think that any description of the universe's underpinnings is necessarily correct. In fact, below a certain level, I'm not sure that the 'truth' is comprehensible, or whether it's even meaningful to speak of truth in that context.

So I'm not too concerned with whether a model is based on a fiction. I *do* care about whether the model accurately predicts the results of experiments. To me, Model A is better than Model B only if
1) Model A makes more accurate predictions,
2) Model A makes equally good predictions over a wider range, or
3) Model A is simpler without sacrificing accuracy.

In that context, what does it mean to say that time doesn't pass? Do you mean that dTx/dT0=1 for any reference frames x and 0, and that all distances and speeds vary? If so (and that's what I think you're saying),
1) Does that make my models more accurate?
2) Does it make my models apply over a wider range of problems? Or
3) Does it make the math simpler?

If so, how? What are some actual examples?
If not, then by what standard is it better?

In our universe, all measurements for the local speed of light give the same result. In our universe, if we synchronise two clocks, separate them, and bring them back together, they're likely to show different times, indicating that they've experienced different rates of time passage. How do you take "Measurements show c constant" and "measurements show dTx/dT0 varies" and conclude that it's more accuate to say that c varies and dTx/dT0=1?

Quote:
Our universe is like that. Change and motion is occurring at different rates in different places. Time isn't really passing at all. Light moves, things move, **** happens, that's it.
In my postulated universe, time really does pass at different rates in different places.

Quote:
Use the refresh rate to calibrate your rods and clocks, then use them to measure the refresh rate.
Not sure how to get that to work for reference frames that are not at rest with respect to each other (the ether problem), but as I said, that's a different topic.
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Old 5th August 2014, 01:02 PM   #2644
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Originally Posted by godless dave View Post
He said the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content, or could be converted to its energy content according to the formula e=mc2?
The former. See his E=mc² paper where he actually used an L rather than E:

Originally Posted by Einstein
"The kinetic energy of the body with respect to (ξ ɳ Ϛ) diminishes as a result of the emission of light, and the amount of diminution is independent of the properties of the body. Moreover, the difference K0 − K1, like the kinetic energy of the electron (§ 10), depends on the velocity.

Neglecting magnitudes of fourth and higher orders we may place



From this equation it directly follows that:—

If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c². The fact that the energy withdrawn from the body becomes energy of radiation evidently makes no difference, so that we are led to the more general conclusion that

The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content; if the energy changes by L, the mass changes in the same sense by L/9 × 10²°, the energy being measured in ergs, and the mass in grammes.

It is not impossible that with bodies whose energy-content is variable to a high degree (e.g. with radium salts) the theory may be successfully put to the test.

If the theory corresponds to the facts, radiation conveys inertia between the emitting and absorbing bodies."
Matter is made of kinetic energy. That's what E=mc² is all about. Matter is kinetic energy, all tucked up and hidden, because matter has a wave nature, and electrons have spin.

People tend to struggle with this, but see Compton scattering. That's where a light wave is used to move an electron. The light wave loses kinetic energy as a result. If you did another Compton scatter with that light wave, and another and another and another, then in the limit you have removed all of the kinetic energy from the wave, and you have no wave left. All of the wave energy has been converted into the motion of electrons. Now look at pair production. You can convert a photon into an electron and a positron. So in a way an electron is made out of something that can be converted into the motion of electrons. In a way the electron itself is "made out of motion". Or "made out of kinetic energy". But what we actually say is that matter is made out of energy.

Originally Posted by godless dave View Post
Is mass-energy equivalency mutually exclusive with Higgs field interaction?
Yes. The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content. Not a measure of something else. The wave nature of light and matter ought to make this clear. Photon momentum is a measure of resistance-to-change in motion for a wave moving linearly at c. Electron mass is a measure of resistance to change-in-motion for a wave going round and round at c. Inertia is just the flip side of momentum. That's why the photon conveys inertia between the emitting and absorbing bodies. Just like Einstein said.
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Old 5th August 2014, 01:12 PM   #2645
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
That's what they say. But like I was saying to edd, Einstein referred to the electron when he was talking about a body in his E=mc² paper, and said the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content. Not the measure of its interaction with some field. So if you're rooting for the Higgs mechanism, you'll be wearing this on your T-shirt: E=mc².
The interaction with the field determines the value of the mass. The presence of mass has various effects, which Einstein worked out, including effects on kinematics (p = beta gamma m, for example) and on energy content (E^2 =m^2 + p^2 for example).

There is no conflict whatsoever between Einstein's work and the Higgs mechanism. Seriously, were you under the impression somehow that Higgs, Englert, Brout, and every particle physicist from 1950-2014 have been unaware of E=mc^2?

Please note, for example, that the electron and the muon are different particles with different rest masses. All three of them obey E=mc^2 and p = beta gamma m and all the rest of that, but one of them does it with m ~= 0 and one does it with m=0.511 MeV and one does it with m=103 MeV. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the principle "something has to tell all muons to have 103 MeV rest mass". (Notice "energy conservation" or "e=mc^2" doesn't do this. If I collide an electron with a positron, after accelerating them to 1000 MeV each (total energy, m+K), they collide and make muons with m=103 and K=897 each. (Not m=0 K=1000, not m=1000 K=0, etc.) If I collide an electron with a positron after accelerating them to 100,000 MeV each, they collide and make muons with m = 103 and K = 999897 each. Something in nature is determining that special "103" value, and E=mc^2 isn't doing it.)

There's nothing wrong with the Higgs as a hypothesis for what that principle is. Please note that the Higgs mechanism was derived, and has been checked a thousand times, by people fully trained in special relativity.

Quote:
Ah, the particles that are said to be responsible for the weak interaction. The W and Z weigh in at 80GeV and 91GeV. And they're said to mediate beta decay.
Yep! I gather by your wording, and by the rest of your post, that you're trying to overturn weak-interaction physics too now, via your usual method.

Here's a self-evalution question, Farsight: you and I have interacted on this board for, what, several years now? On a scale of zero to ten, with zero being "no respect" and ten being "hero-worship", how much do I trust your intuition to guess that there are errors in an actual, predictive theory for which I've taken grad-level classes, taught undergrad classes, done hundreds of calculations, and personally spend most of my time experimenting on? Go ahead, pick a number. Go negative if you need to.

Last edited by ben m; 5th August 2014 at 02:12 PM. Reason: fix number
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Old 5th August 2014, 01:27 PM   #2646
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Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
...Not everything happens simultaneously; that difference between simultaneity and sequence is "time." It has an extent. Whether or not time really passes is a question of philosphy, not physics.
No, really, it's physics. And it's one of the most important things in physics. Once you understand that clocks don't literally measure "the passage of time", you appreciate that when a clock goes slower it's because the regular cyclical motion inside it is going slower. And that this is true for an optical clock. A light clock. After that you appreciate what Einstein was on about when he said a curvature of rays of light can only occur when the speed of light varies with position. Then you're off and away with gravity and black holes and the early universe, etc. It's like pulling a thread with Einstein's name on it, and out comes a string of pearls.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
But the passage of time is easily and consistently measured in many ways, so if it's a fiction, it's certainly a useful one.
Just look hard at what a clock really does. Separate the science from the fiction.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
I'm a pragmatist. I don't think that any description of the universe's underpinnings is necessarily correct. In fact, below a certain level, I'm not sure that the 'truth' is comprehensible, or whether it's even meaningful to speak of truth in that context.
I am. We do physics to understand the world. I will not settle for non-comprehensible.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
So I'm not too concerned with whether a model is based on a fiction. I *do* care about whether the model accurately predicts the results of experiments. To me, Model A is better than Model B only if
1) Model A makes more accurate predictions,
2) Model A makes equally good predictions over a wider range, or
3) Model A is simpler without sacrificing accuracy.

In that context, what does it mean to say that time doesn't pass?
It means things move and change occurs, and we attach the label time to this, but we remain aware that time is not in itself some thing that flows or through which we can travel. It is a dimension of measure, derived from change or motion, not a dimension that offers freedom of motion like the dimensions of space.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
Do you mean that dTx/dT0=1 for any reference frames x and 0, and that all distances and speeds vary? If so (and that's what I think you're saying),
1) Does that make my models more accurate?
2) Does it make my models apply over a wider range of problems? Or
3) Does it make the math simpler?

If so, how? What are some actual examples?
If not, then by what standard is it better?
It doesn't mean that. And it doesn't change the math. It changes the meaning. dTx isn't the passage of time, it's a clock rate. An optical clock rate. So is dT0. At a different location. And when an optical clock goes slower somewhere, it's because the light goes slower there.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
In our universe, all measurements for the local speed of light give the same result. In our universe, if we synchronise two clocks, separate them, and bring them back together, they're likely to show different times, indicating that they've experienced different rates of time passage.
They've just been in locations where optical clock rates are different because the speed of light is different.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
How do you take "Measurements show c constant" and "measurements show dTx/dT0 varies" and conclude that it's more accuate to say that c varies and dTx/dT0=1?
Because clocks "clock up" motion, and light clocks are no exception. They do not literally measure the flow or passage of time.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
In my postulated universe, time really does pass at different rates in different places.
Honestly, das, that's just a figure of speech.

Originally Posted by dasmiller View Post
Not sure how to get that to work for reference frames that are not at rest with respect to each other (the ether problem), but as I said, that's a different topic.
It's down to the wave nature of matter. Have a read of The Other Meaning of Special Relativity by Robert Close.

Right I have to go. It's good to talk!
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Old 5th August 2014, 01:41 PM   #2647
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How do you have motion without time?
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Old 5th August 2014, 01:49 PM   #2648
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Originally Posted by godless dave View Post
How do you have motion without time?
That is a question that Farsight has spent a lot of time and effort to not answer.

Farsight says here that he is a physics expert, but you might notice that he has never actually shown how to do a single physics problem or application. So he makes claims about a physics that does not use time as anything but something that arises from motion, but he has never produced anything that someone can use and therefore nothing that anyone can compare to observations and experiments.
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Old 5th August 2014, 01:56 PM   #2649
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
People tend to struggle with this, but see Compton scattering. That's where a light wave is used to move an electron. The light wave loses kinetic energy as a result. If you did another Compton scatter with that light wave, and another and another and another, then in the limit you have removed all of the kinetic energy from the wave, and you have no wave left.
That never happens. I know you call it a limit, but I don't know why you talk about a limit you can't achieve.

I disagree with much of the rest quite independently of that anyway.
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Old 5th August 2014, 02:04 PM   #2650
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I was about to log off, but to show that I'm nothing like KK's ad-hominem aspersion:

Originally Posted by godless dave View Post
How do you have motion without time?
I've answered this question before. You just have motion, it's there, it's empirical, you can see it happening. Clocks clock it up. Cogs move, the big hand moves, the little hand moves. Then you move into the kitchen and move your head and eyes to look up at the clock. Then light moves to your eye, and electrochemical signals move in your brain, and you think "the time is ten o'clock". Ever watched a science fiction movie where some guy has some gizmo that can stop time? It doesn't actually stop time. You can't see time moving or flowing or passing. The gizmo stops motion. And the moral of the tale is this: You don't need time to have motion. You need motion to have time.

Night night.
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Old 5th August 2014, 02:34 PM   #2651
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
I was about to log off, but to show that I'm nothing like KK's ad-hominem aspersion:
Exactly what is ad-hominem about KK's statement? He is not basing his evaluation of your claims on whether you are or are not an expert in physics, but on their merits. Ad-hominem would be saying, "You are an idiot, therefore you are wrong." I see nothing like that in his post. Would you like to rephrase your statement now?
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Old 5th August 2014, 02:51 PM   #2652
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
No, really, it's physics. And it's one of the most important things in physics.
Why is it important? If it doesn't affect any experimental outcomes, if you can't suggest any experiments that will demonstrate that it's true or false, why is it important?

Quote:
Once you understand that clocks don't literally measure "the passage of time", you appreciate that when a clock goes slower it's because the regular cyclical motion inside it is going slower. And that this is true for an optical clock. A light clock.
You're repeating, but not shedding additional light on the subject.

Quote:
After that you appreciate what Einstein was on about when he said a curvature of rays of light can only occur when the speed of light varies with position. Then you're off and away with gravity and black holes and the early universe, etc. It's like pulling a thread with Einstein's name on it, and out comes a string of pearls.
Argument-from-Einstein is not helpful here.

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I am. We do physics to understand the world. I will not settle for non-comprehensible.
Suit yourself. I don't know that we have a choice in the matter.

Quote:
It means things move and change occurs, and we attach the label time to this, but we remain aware that time is not in itself some thing that flows or through which we can travel. It is a dimension of measure, derived from change or motion, not a dimension that offers freedom of motion like the dimensions of space.
Not seeing the relevance of the freedom of motion thing.

Quote:
It doesn't mean that. And it doesn't change the math. It changes the meaning.
Seriously, I don't understand how you can decouple the math and the meaning. For me, physics is a family of mathematical models that predict the outcomes of experiments. It has other uses, but at its core, that's what it is. The 'meaning' is the experimental predictions; if the predictions aren't changed, then you haven't changed the meaning.

Quote:
dTx isn't the passage of time, it's a clock rate.
It's the change in time. AFAIK, there's no mathematical symbol for "passage." Whether or not time "passes," it has an extent. dTx/dT0=1 simply means that disparate regions will experience the same total time extent.

Quote:
At a different location. And when an optical clock goes slower somewhere, it's because the light goes slower there.
Repetition is not evidence.

My central question from the previous post (and occasional earlier posts) was:

1) Does that make my models more accurate?
2) Does it make my models apply over a wider range of problems? Or
3) Does it make the math simpler?

If so, how? What are some actual examples?
If not, then by what standard is it better?

If you don't like that question in terms of dTx/dT0, then phrase it in whatever is different about your view.

But how would it be an improvement?
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Old 5th August 2014, 03:12 PM   #2653
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
I am. We do physics to understand the world. I will not settle for non-comprehensible.
I will not settle for the non-comprehensible. Not in physics, and not in literature either.

The so-called masterpiece 個人的な体験 is just columns of weird characters, so the so-called "experts" who call it a literary masterpiece are trying to pull the wool over your eyes. They say they understand it because they "speak Japanese" which can be "studied" in some sort of "schools", but that's what they would say. They keep telling me there are millions of people who understand it, but that's what they told Galileo. Bah, don't tell me about translations, I know the original text is gibberish. Listen: "言語: 日本語, フランス語, フランス語", that's a direct quote from the source. You can't translate fundamental gibberish into sense, that's the fundamental law of Shannon theory, look it up.

I will not settle for the non-comprehensible.

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Old 5th August 2014, 03:24 PM   #2654
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Still ignorant about the Higgs mechanism after over a year, Farsight?
If not maybe you can answer these questions:

Farsight: (1 November 2012) Is the Higgs mechanism a relativistic quantum field theory?

Farsight: (19 November 2012) What does Higgs mean by Lorentz-covariant and relativistic?


Or simply acknowledge that
Farsight: (20 November 2012) It is delusional to think that a relativistic QFT such as the Higgs mechanism violates SR
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Old 5th August 2014, 03:24 PM   #2655
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
Einstein referred to the electron...
Book-thumping.
Quote:
Ah, the particles that are said to be responsible for the weak interaction. The W and Z weigh in at 80GeV and 91GeV. And they're said to mediate beta decay. Like when a 939MeV neutron decays into a proton, electron and antineutrino? Ho Hum.
Farsight, do you have any better theory than virtual W's?
Quote:
Only we've never seen a free quark. Because of "quark confinement". Neat.
Except that they are approximately free when they are very close to each other. That is evident from jets of hadrons produced by high-energy collisions.
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The top quark was inferred... from particles that were inferred.
So what?

Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
Electron mass is a measure of resistance to change-in-motion for a wave going round and round at c.
Farsight, to use your favorite sort of argument, that theory denies Feynman.

Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
Just look hard at what a clock really does.
Change state as a function of time.

Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
You just have motion, it's there, it's empirical, you can see it happening.
Farsight, you only have an idea that there is anything but yourself in all of reality. Thus, solipsism is right and only your consciousness exists.
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Old 5th August 2014, 03:35 PM   #2656
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
The story goes that the Higgs mechanism is responsible for the quark masses, which is 1% of the mass of the proton, and E=mc² is responsible for the rest. Only we've never seen a free quark. But we have seen low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation to gamma photons. So the proton is just another example of light in a box. Light in a box of own making. Light in a box, minus the box. Hence the wave nature of matter. It ain't rocket science.
The Higgs mechanism is not a "story". The science is that the Higgs mechanism gives mass to elementary fermions (including electrons and quarks) and the massive W and Z gauge bosons. And For example, about 99% of the mass of baryons (composite particles such as the proton and neutron) is due instead to the kinetic energy of quarks and to the energies of (massless) gluons of the strong interaction inside the baryons

Only we do not have to see a free quark to know that they exist .
Followed about crackpot nonsense about "light in a box", Farsight !

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Old 5th August 2014, 03:38 PM   #2657
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
Yes.
No, Farsight, repeating ignorance does not make it correct: Farsight: (20 November 2012) It is delusional to think that a relativistic QFT such as the Higgs mechanism violates SR
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Old 5th August 2014, 03:49 PM   #2658
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
Matter is made of kinetic energy
You need to go back to high school learn what energy is, Farsight !
Kinetic energy is a property of a system. Energy is not a "thing". Matter has kinetic energy. It can never be "made of" kinetic energy.

That is why Einstein stated "The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content" - he was not ignorant enough to think that a body is made up of energy. Instead a body has "energy-content" which includes all energy - binding, etc. as well as kinetic.

What E=mc² is all about is that energy and matter are equivalent.
A system with energy E can be treated as a system with mass mc².
A system with mass m can be treated as a system with energy E/c².
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Old 5th August 2014, 03:54 PM   #2659
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
It doesn't mean that. And it doesn't change the math. It changes the meaning. dTx isn't the passage of time, it's a clock rate. An optical clock rate. So is dT0. At a different location. And when an optical clock goes slower somewhere, it's because the light goes slower there.
So what doesn't go "slower somewhere"? So far all you have asserted is that time doesn't go slower. Certainly if one is going to assert, as you have, that time is just a label that "means things move and change occurs" while asserting, as you have, that said motions and changes do occur slower in some places. Then time slowing is an appropriate, well, label to describe those circumstances.

One of the aspects of crackpot physics seems to be a particular distain for certain labels. Another seems to be an avoidance of applying ones own ascriptions particularly when it leads to one of those distained labels.
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Old 5th August 2014, 04:06 PM   #2660
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
People tend to struggle with this, but see Compton scattering. ... you have no wave left.
Who Do You Mean We Kemo Sabe ?
Anyone who can read English can see that assuming that Compton scattering can repeat infinitely will reduce the wavelength of light toward zero.

But this does not happen in the real world as anyone who knew about Compton scattering should know, Farsight .
Compton scattering happens when the energy of the photon is larger than that of the electron. As the repeated scattering happens the photon wavelength increases , the photon energy decreases and it starts to inverse Compton scatter from the electron - it gains energy !
Repeated Compton scattering results in photons that are in equilibrium with the electrons. Some will lose energy, others will gain energy.
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Old 5th August 2014, 06:01 PM   #2661
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
The + on the Δ+ denotes charge, protons are charged particles, we aren't getting away from electromagnetism with this.
Don't be silly. The time scale of the decay is governed by the strong interaction.
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Old 5th August 2014, 06:05 PM   #2662
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I see this idiosyncratic nonsense of Mr. Duffield's that time is not fundamental has resurfaced. The fact that our most basic and comprehensive theories of physics regard time is a fundamental concept seems to elude him.
Has he produced one single concept or equation using motion (instead of time) describing a physical system? Is there any way that can be done?
Oh yeah, pepperhead: take your hands in front of you and wiggle your fingers -- see motion is fundamental -- not time -- now look inside of a clock -- see there's no time hiding in there. That's what he calls physics.
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Old 5th August 2014, 06:21 PM   #2663
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Back to the OP.
I've noticed in a few threads that there seems to be a reciprocity of respect among crackpots. They say things like, "well he doesn't have everything right but he's got some stuff right." Even though their forms of crackpottery are very unlike each other and often clash, there seems to be a tacit acknowledgment that "crackpots are okay." I see this as a subconscious acknowledgment that they are themselves crackpots.
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Old 5th August 2014, 06:23 PM   #2664
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
I was about to log off, but to show that I'm nothing like KK's ad-hominem aspersion:

I've answered this question before. You just have motion, it's there, it's empirical, you can see it happening. Clocks clock it up. Cogs move, the big hand moves, the little hand moves. Then you move into the kitchen and move your head and eyes to look up at the clock. Then light moves to your eye, and electrochemical signals move in your brain, and you think "the time is ten o'clock". Ever watched a science fiction movie where some guy has some gizmo that can stop time? It doesn't actually stop time. You can't see time moving or flowing or passing. The gizmo stops motion. And the moral of the tale is this: You don't need time to have motion. You need motion to have time.

Night night.
This passage shows that you are exactly as I have described: you failed to show how we could describe a physical system without time.

As I have said before, it is not an ad hominem to address facts relevant to the topic at hand. We are discussing crackpot physics and your demonstration of certain phenomena that are at least reminiscent of crackpot physics behaviour.

Another of your unsavory behaviours is your claims of persecutions that you address rather than produce useful physics. Making these claims is a fairly bad way of distracting from the fact that I am correct in saying that you avoid questions, in part because they are a way of avoiding my questions.

So, in the thread for addressing your theory, would you please provide a description of a simple motion without using time, but with using some specific numbers and equations, so that we could understand how to produce time as an emergent property according to the physics you promote?

Surely being able to produce such a simple description is a prerequisite of being able to be an expert in this sort of physics.
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Old 5th August 2014, 07:27 PM   #2665
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
I was about to log off, but to show that I'm nothing like KK's ad-hominem aspersion:

I've answered this question before. You just have motion, it's there, it's empirical, you can see it happening. Clocks clock it up. Cogs move, the big hand moves, the little hand moves. Then you move into the kitchen and move your head and eyes to look up at the clock. Then light moves to your eye, and electrochemical signals move in your brain, and you think "the time is ten o'clock". Ever watched a science fiction movie where some guy has some gizmo that can stop time? It doesn't actually stop time. You can't see time moving or flowing or passing. The gizmo stops motion. And the moral of the tale is this: You don't need time to have motion. You need motion to have time.

Night night.
Radioactive decay happens intermittently -- that is to say, at random times. What moves to time the decay of an unstable particle? If there is no time, only motion, what motion determines the half life of carbon-14 atoms?
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Old 5th August 2014, 07:43 PM   #2666
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Originally Posted by TjW View Post
Radioactive decay happens intermittently -- that is to say, at random times. What moves to time the decay of an unstable particle? If there is no time, only motion, what motion determines the half life of carbon-14 atoms?
Well, in Farsight's world it is obviously all of those electrons going in circles just like the hands of a clock !
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Old 5th August 2014, 08:32 PM   #2667
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Originally Posted by Farsight View Post
I haven't made a mistake. The various depictions of electromagnetic waves aren't something I've invented. I didn't invent the terms positive charge and negative charge.

All: do excuse ben m, his physics knowledge is poor, especially when it comes to electromagnetism. And he seems to suffering from some kind of professional jealousy. He often tries to assert I've made some error when I've done no such thing.
How can there be professional jealousy when nothing about anything you have posted indicates you are any kind of professional. If we have misunderstood that point, please do list your academic background/s, research papers, textbooks or books written, reviews of your work by field specialist, professional positions held,
ANY of that. Pros tend to be proud of their profession and professionalism. I have not so far observed that from you in any way or kind. Exceptional statements require exceptional proof.

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Old 5th August 2014, 08:54 PM   #2668
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Getting back on topic, let's consider how one might recognize crackpottery. Here are some lists of criteria:

John Baez has published his Crackpot index, and it covers a lot of territory. Here are some categories I've identified in it:
  • Erroneous, empty, and unsupported statements.
  • Failure to work out one's theory, including its mathematics.
  • Misspellings and typographical shouting (all capitals).
  • Considering oneself a genius.
  • Considering mainstream scientists closed-minded.
  • Considering oneself persecuted.
  • Claiming that mainstream scientists have been working toward one's theory, or are secretly acknowledging parts of it.
  • Looking forward to a triumph, including humiliation of the scientific establishment.

Martin Gardner's classic Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1952, 1956) has this list:
  1. He considers himself a genius.
  2. He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads.
  3. He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against.
  4. He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories.
  5. He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined.

John L. Casti in Paradigms Lost (1989) expands on a similar list by Daisie and Michael Radner in Science and Unreason (1982):
  1. Anachronistic thinking
  2. Seeking mysteries
  3. Appeals to myth
  4. A casual approach to evidence
  5. Irrefutable hypotheses
  6. Spurious similarities
  7. Explanation by scenario
  8. Research by literary interpretation
  9. Refusal to revise
  10. Shifting the burden of proof to the other side
  11. A theory is legitimate simply because it's new, alternative, or daring

Looking at this thread, some of the items in these lists look suspiciously familiar.
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Old 5th August 2014, 09:38 PM   #2669
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Originally Posted by Kwalish Kid View Post
So, in the thread for addressing your theory, would you please provide a description of a simple motion without using time, but with using some specific numbers and equations, so that we could understand how to produce time as an emergent property according to the physics you promote?
Another aspect of crackpot physics you note here, Kwalish Kid, taking and trying to apply, as just a label, a word like "emergent". Without actually applying the concept or meaning such a label represents. Emergent properties are those that result from the interactions of large numbers of elements or repeated iterations of simple rules. Both require time as an a-prior consideration, for interaction in the former case and repeated iterations in the latter.
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Old 6th August 2014, 05:37 AM   #2670
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Farsight is quite fond of finding excuses to not address significant questions.

His recent actions to produce an excuse bring an interesting question to the front: http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/jref-t648.html

Farsight includes the following quotation, "I quit in protest of a number of ethical issues; foremost was what I perceived as the president, D.J. Grothe’s constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation..."

I, myself, find Grothe to be disgusting and cannot fully support the JREF because of his continued presence. I also left these forums for a while in disgust at the support for misogyny and a priori rejection of philosophy that was rampant in these forums. So while I don't really find the challenges to the Million Dollar Challenge to be compelling, I do understand the issues of trust that someone like Farsight can try to use to lever a reader towards his position rather than using evidence from physics.

I suppose that this is an issue that has to be addressed at a larger scale, to ensure that physics (or science in general) education is not associated with people and ideas that will drive people away.

PS. I would avoid registering at those forums, as they are run by Farsight and, given his history of threatening libel suits and his residence in the UK, I would not want to provide him with too much personal information.

Edit: Thanks for the catch, edd.

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Old 6th August 2014, 05:41 AM   #2671
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Originally Posted by Kwalish Kid View Post
Farsight is quite fond of finding excuses to not address significant questions.

His recent actions to produce an excuse bring an interesting question to the front: http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/jref-t648.html

Farsight claims, "I quit [the JREF Forums] in protest of a number of ethical issues; foremost was what I perceived as the president, D.J. Grothe’s constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation..."
From my parsing of his post, he's quoting someone else. He's not saying that himself.
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Old 6th August 2014, 06:51 AM   #2672
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Wow. Am I wrong or did he never once mention any of those things that he has against the JREF while he was an active member here?

(although if you read his post over there he doesn't come out and actually say anything, he just says "Then when you look around the internet, it would seem that all is not what it seems. See for example:")

I actually liked Farsight sometimes. He knew more physics than most of the other crackpots on here, and while it's not saying much, he knew more physics than me (I'm well aware of all the places where he was wrong, of course, but he does know some basics), and was often actually willing to discuss what he was talking about in a manner that you could even understand what he was trying to say sometimes. He still frustrated me because I felt he'd stop as soon as the discussion got to the point, and he posted in many threads as though his viewpoint was mainstream physics until someone pointed out that it wasn't (and even then he was reluctant to admit that, though at least he would admit it).

Anyway, some good discussions came up partly because of his posting here. So there's that.

But that post on his forum is just upsetting. I expected him to say things about how "JREF stifles dissent" etc. but not linking to "James Randi and Nazi Eugenics"

Anyway...
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Old 6th August 2014, 06:53 AM   #2673
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Originally Posted by edd View Post
From my parsing of his post, he's quoting someone else. He's not saying that himself.
Indeed he is. That was written by Carrie Poppy: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngu...omment-page-1/

See the thread about it here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=248411

ETA: I see now that i visited Farsight's forum that he explicitely says it's from Carrie Poppy. I wonder how long it will take before Mabus starts posting there

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Old 6th August 2014, 08:38 AM   #2674
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Old 6th August 2014, 12:11 PM   #2675
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It is quite remarkable that so many contributors to this thread who have advocated "alternative theories" have been banned.
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Old 6th August 2014, 12:31 PM   #2676
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Originally Posted by Kwalish Kid View Post
Farsight is quite fond of finding excuses to not address significant questions.

His recent actions to produce an excuse bring an interesting question to the front: http://www.physicsdiscussionforum.org/jref-t648.html

Farsight includes the following quotation, "I quit in protest of a number of ethical issues; foremost was what I perceived as the president, D.J. Grothe’s constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation..."

I, myself, find Grothe to be disgusting and cannot fully support the JREF because of his continued presence. I also left these forums for a while in disgust at the support for misogyny and a priori rejection of philosophy that was rampant in these forums. So while I don't really find the challenges to the Million Dollar Challenge to be compelling, I do understand the issues of trust that someone like Farsight can try to use to lever a reader towards his position rather than using evidence from physics.

I suppose that this is an issue that has to be addressed at a larger scale, to ensure that physics (or science in general) education is not associated with people and ideas that will drive people away.

PS. I would avoid registering at those forums, as they are run by Farsight and, given his history of threatening libel suits and his residence in the UK, I would not want to provide him with too much personal information.

Edit: Thanks for the catch, edd.
Can you join them? I only glanced at a couple of threads but Farsight and John Duffield made 90% of the posts, I wouldn't be surprised if the other 10% were him as well.
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Old 6th August 2014, 12:56 PM   #2677
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Originally Posted by Perpetual Student View Post
It is quite remarkable that so many contributors to this thread who have advocated "alternative theories" have been banned.
For those that are used to more naive audiences, posting on a skeptics' forums must be quite frustrating for them. Instead of being met with acceptance and/or reverence, their ideas and arguments are publicly exposed as the impotent and unsound drivel that they really are. Apparently for some that frustration manifests itself as repeated breaches of the Membership Agreement.
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Old 6th August 2014, 12:58 PM   #2678
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Originally Posted by Guybrush Threepwood View Post
Can you join them? I only glanced at a couple of threads but Farsight and John Duffield made 90% of the posts, I wouldn't be surprised if the other 10% were him as well.
Even if non-Duffield humans are allowed in, I'll bet that they don't last long if they display any signs of expertise.
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Old 6th August 2014, 08:05 PM   #2679
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Originally Posted by Perpetual Student View Post
It is quite remarkable that so many contributors to this thread who have advocated "alternative theories" have been banned.
Not really. In my experience and reading of and from talking to other persons in scientific areas, it is pretty common for persons with what we politely called
alternative theories to come to the field of science/ they are theorizing about with no functional education (other than self reading of some books or - worse - watching history channel or similar very dumbed down science shows), no knowledge of what went into developing the theory/ies they are claiming are wrong, no knowledge of the math done to develop those theories and no understanding of those maths in the theories AND a certain knowledge that they or the person who wrote a false science book they read (with assurance , apparently) that if it is in a book they took the time to read it must be true - it's the other people trying to hold them back/put them down who are reading the fake books promoting the fake theories because obviously they do not know what our crackpot knows. That is why other than carefully worded posts that denote their flaws (personal and scientific) carefully are all I bother with in response to them.OOPS_ the end point: (Edit) Their responses to such criticisms get them banned, not the idiot theories, the responses to having it pointed out that the theories (and thus them - doesn't have to be said, they know that) are ignorant/pathetic and revelatory of their lack of skill, knowledge, ability to function in science and general uselessness.

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Old 6th August 2014, 08:39 PM   #2680
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There was this article that rang true to me:

http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/...whos-the-jerk/

Quote:
the jerk culpably fails to appreciate the perspectives of others around him, treating them as tools to be manipulated or idiots to be dealt with rather than as moral and epistemic peers. This failure has both an intellectual dimension and an emotional dimension, and it has these two dimensions on both sides of the relationship. The jerk himself is both intellectually and emotionally defective, and what he defectively fails to appreciate is both the intellectual and emotional perspectives of the people around him. He can’t appreciate how he might be wrong and others right about some matter of fact; and what other people want or value doesn’t register as of interest to him, except derivatively upon his own interests.
A non-jerk can read (say) Brief History of Time and respond "I can't make that work in my head, but I'd need to learn more to say." A jerk can read Brief History of Time and say "Rubbish, that doesn't work, I figured it out better in five minutes. What a lot of morons they let write these bestsellers." To be an actual argumentative crackpot, you do have to assume that your critics are all idiots.

Point being: Being a crackpot may be correlated with being banned/suspended. But crackpottery does not cause banning. Rather, the confounding variable is that being a jerk can lead to both crackpottery and to jerkish behavior that causes banning.
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