Space

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  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Space is truly unfathomable. I love watching cosmos with my girl Mary. Blows my mind every time!

    The television show Cosmos is pseudoscience in large degree.

    I don't watch the show, can you elaborate?

    When someone says, "40 billion years ago on Mars..." my bs alarm goes off.

    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Did he really say 40 billion or are you being hyperbolic? (I only ask because not even scientists think it's that old)

    I am not being hyperbolic. I can't remember exactly, but what does it matter?

    What if he said 400 million years ago or 40 million years ago or 4 million years ago on Mars?

    All of it - 100% of his statement is conjecture.

    It matters because if he said 40 billion, then yes I'd agree that is ridiculous. If he said 40 million, why is that *kitten*? The age of the universe and things in the universe are based on evidence we have gathered up until now. What could he have said that would make it more "scientific" to you?

    Not say it. Or if he said it, use copious qualifiers to let the audience know it is speculation.

    Science has its own stated standard, which it holds up against other studies as superior because their findings are (supposed to be):

    Observable
    Testable
    Verifiable
    Falsifiable

    Which none of that is. I am a purist when it comes to science. And that is just bad, very bad science.
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  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    Just for the sake of argument...the grant money used to fund space exploration and discover new technologies have greatly benefited our lives. Where do you think we would be today without medical imaging? CT scans were developed for space imagery, and now it's used to save peoples lives.

    This argument really doesn't hold water.

    If we'd taken all the money we invested in space and instead just put it into medical research, we'd be way ahead of where we are now (in terms of medical knowledge).

    I'm not saying space research isn't worthwhile, just that this is a bad argument.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts.

    I don't have a supercollider of my own, so I can't reproduce today's grand experiments and see if those physicists are pulling the wool over my eyes or not. Back in the day, 500 or 600 years ago, you could walk up the stairs and drop a stone and a piece of wood and see which one hit the ground first. But in today's world, all the long hanging fruit has already been picked. It's the really complex stuff that's left, which is harder for the public to verify or sometimes even understand.

    I like reading about this stuff, though. And trying to understand it, as best I can.

    I have a digital camera; most of you have seen some of my pictures. They're made of pixels. Well, there are actual pixels inside the camera - these are wells that capture photons and essentially count them. They're physically bigger than the wavelength of red light. My camera wouldn't work unless scientists were right about quantum mechanics. We think light acts as both a wave and a particle, we built very complex machinery around the smallest details of that assumption, and they work exactly the way they should. That's a shockingly powerful confirmation of the theory.
  • This content has been removed.
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts.

    I don't have a supercollider of my own, so I can't reproduce today's grand experiments and see if those physicists are pulling the wool over my eyes or not. Back in the day, 500 or 600 years ago, you could walk up the stairs and drop a stone and a piece of wood and see which one hit the ground first. But in today's world, all the long hanging fruit has already been picked. It's the really complex stuff that's left, which is harder for the public to verify or sometimes even understand.

    I like reading about this stuff, though. And trying to understand it, as best I can.

    I have a digital camera; most of you have seen some of my pictures. They're made of pixels. Well, there are actual pixels inside the camera - these are wells that capture photons and essentially count them. They're physically bigger than the wavelength of red light. My camera wouldn't work unless scientists were right about quantum mechanics. We think light acts as both a wave and a particle, we built very complex machinery around the smallest details of that assumption, and they work exactly the way they should. That's a shockingly powerful confirmation of the theory.

    The physicists have a supercollider and they found out they pull the wool over their own eyes.

    And some physicists are sick of moving the goalposts.
  • vikinglander
    vikinglander Posts: 1,547 Member
    edited November 2016
    Space is truly unfathomable. I love watching cosmos with my girl Mary. Blows my mind every time!

    The television show Cosmos is pseudoscience in large degree.

    I don't watch the show, can you elaborate?

    When someone says, "40 billion years ago on Mars..." my bs alarm goes off.

    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Did he really say 40 billion or are you being hyperbolic? (I only ask because not even scientists think it's that old)

    I am not being hyperbolic. I can't remember exactly, but what does it matter?

    What if he said 400 million years ago or 40 million years ago or 4 million years ago on Mars?

    All of it - 100% of his statement is conjecture.

    Lol you're right, the details don't ever matter. Nothing can be proven.

    If you go back to the original series Cosmos, done by Carl Sagan, he wrote the narrative for that series in the hope that it would fire the imaginations of a new generation of scientists then still in school, and popularize science in society. I hardly think he intended to deceive anyone or engage in 'junk science'. Tyson's remake of the series was ...OK.
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
    And that is why the masses believe a pile of lies. They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts. And the reviewers of textbooks can't tell the difference between them.

    Physics is in a crisis because of 50 years of conjecture on supersymmetry theory. Now that the collider didn't do what they thought it would do, a generation of physicists are in a full blown identity crisis.

    I am seeing this in all science disciplines. I think the issue is we now have seemingly infinite amounts of information at our finger tips that we tend to see scope creep in theoretical postulation because they try to be all inclusive. Also, they chase fads that are popular because the money for funding follows it.

    Really it is akin to all of us having watched a whole presidential campaign based on no substance and all popularity, jsut to win hearts, minds, and votes. Or as you mentioned, to build trust.

    Anywho...

    I haven't followed supersymmetry, but I would assume there is some golden pot cash being thrown that people to research and explain subatomic particles that lead them down that path to this crisis. Sounds like it has been a bust. Have to read up on it.
  • vikinglander
    vikinglander Posts: 1,547 Member
    My screen-namesake, with Carl Sagan:

    nc0e78mqchoj.jpg
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts.

    I don't have a supercollider of my own, so I can't reproduce today's grand experiments and see if those physicists are pulling the wool over my eyes or not. Back in the day, 500 or 600 years ago, you could walk up the stairs and drop a stone and a piece of wood and see which one hit the ground first. But in today's world, all the long hanging fruit has already been picked. It's the really complex stuff that's left, which is harder for the public to verify or sometimes even understand.

    I like reading about this stuff, though. And trying to understand it, as best I can.

    I have a digital camera; most of you have seen some of my pictures. They're made of pixels. Well, there are actual pixels inside the camera - these are wells that capture photons and essentially count them. They're physically bigger than the wavelength of red light. My camera wouldn't work unless scientists were right about quantum mechanics. We think light acts as both a wave and a particle, we built very complex machinery around the smallest details of that assumption, and they work exactly the way they should. That's a shockingly powerful confirmation of the theory.

    A quote:

    "DO physicists need empirical evidence to confirm their theories?

    You may think that the answer is an obvious yes, experimental confirmation being the very heart of science. But a growing controversy at the frontiers of physics and cosmology suggests that the situation is not so simple.

    A few months ago in the journal Nature, two leading researchers, George Ellis and Joseph Silk, published a controversial piece called “Scientific Method: Defend the Integrity of Physics.” They criticized a newfound willingness among some scientists to explicitly set aside the need for experimental confirmation of today’s most ambitious cosmic theories — so long as those theories are “sufficiently elegant and explanatory.” Despite working at the cutting edge of knowledge, such scientists are, for Professors Ellis and Silk, “breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/a-crisis-at-the-edge-of-physics.html
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts.

    I don't have a supercollider of my own, so I can't reproduce today's grand experiments and see if those physicists are pulling the wool over my eyes or not. Back in the day, 500 or 600 years ago, you could walk up the stairs and drop a stone and a piece of wood and see which one hit the ground first. But in today's world, all the long hanging fruit has already been picked. It's the really complex stuff that's left, which is harder for the public to verify or sometimes even understand.

    I like reading about this stuff, though. And trying to understand it, as best I can.

    I have a digital camera; most of you have seen some of my pictures. They're made of pixels. Well, there are actual pixels inside the camera - these are wells that capture photons and essentially count them. They're physically bigger than the wavelength of red light. My camera wouldn't work unless scientists were right about quantum mechanics. We think light acts as both a wave and a particle, we built very complex machinery around the smallest details of that assumption, and they work exactly the way they should. That's a shockingly powerful confirmation of the theory.

    The physicists have a supercollider and they found out they pull the wool over their own eyes.


    And some physicists are sick of moving the goalposts.

    Can you give me some examples of what you mean?

    Do you agree that things like digital cameras and computers are pretty solid confirmation of a lot of quantum mechanics?
  • RunHardBeStrong
    RunHardBeStrong Posts: 33,069 Member
    cee134 wrote: »
    BTW @RunHardBeStrong, what made you want to be an astronaut before?

    Honestly, I don't remember when it started. I was young. My dad and I would lay in the backyard most every night that we could and look at the stars. Talking about them, among so many other things. I just have forever been fascinated by all things space and all the unknowns out there. I just think it would be so amazing to see our world from a different view point as I travel thousands of miles away to see and learn so many things that so few people get to do. I still star gaze most every night and get my kids to do it with me.

    That's awesome! Did you get any good pics of the supermoon recently? I only have my iphone for pictures so it just looks like a street lamp lol. Quite bright though

    LMAO! Same. It was so cool though. I don't know if you looked at the moon the night after the supermoon. There was a really cool ring around it. I had never seen anything like it before. I haven't googled it yet, I need to. I also was too lazy to get out my camera equipment and get some good pics. I should have done that too. I won't get that opportunity again.

    I believe this is the answer. Which means it's cold where you are.

    The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of Moonlight (which of course is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The shape of the ice crystals results in a focusing of the light into a ring.

    33xmmcdobzqw.jpg

    Yes, this was pretty much what it looked like where I am. I watched it for quite awhile, it was pretty fascinating. And yes, I am freezing my *kitten* off, esp. today.
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Timshel_ wrote: »
    And that is why the masses believe a pile of lies. They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts. And the reviewers of textbooks can't tell the difference between them.

    Physics is in a crisis because of 50 years of conjecture on supersymmetry theory. Now that the collider didn't do what they thought it would do, a generation of physicists are in a full blown identity crisis.

    I am seeing this in all science disciplines. I think the issue is we now have seemingly infinite amounts of information at our finger tips that we tend to see scope creep in theoretical postulation because they try to be all inclusive. Also, they chase fads that are popular because the money for funding follows it.

    Really it is akin to all of us having watched a whole presidential campaign based on no substance and all popularity, jsut to win hearts, minds, and votes. Or as you mentioned, to build trust.

    Anywho...

    I haven't followed supersymmetry, but I would assume there is some golden pot cash being thrown that people to research and explain subatomic particles that lead them down that path to this crisis. Sounds like it has been a bust. Have to read up on it.

    You might be right on that money bit.
  • RunHardBeStrong
    RunHardBeStrong Posts: 33,069 Member
    BTW @RunHardBeStrong, what made you want to be an astronaut before?

    Honestly, I don't remember when it started. I was young. My dad and I would lay in the backyard most every night that we could and look at the stars. Talking about them, among so many other things. I just have forever been fascinated by all things space and all the unknowns out there. I just think it would be so amazing to see our world from a different view point as I travel thousands of miles away to see and learn so many things that so few people get to do. I still star gaze most every night and get my kids to do it with me.

    That's awesome! Did you get any good pics of the supermoon recently? I only have my iphone for pictures so it just looks like a street lamp lol. Quite bright though

    LMAO! Same. It was so cool though. I don't know if you looked at the moon the night after the supermoon. There was a really cool ring around it. I had never seen anything like it before. I haven't googled it yet, I need to. I also was too lazy to get out my camera equipment and get some good pics. I should have done that too. I won't get that opportunity again.

    There will surely be something else though. This one was exceptionally bright but I think the Harvest moon this year looked bigger. Supposedly it wasn't actually as close as the supermoon but I thought it looked bigger.

    The Harvest Moon did look a lot bigger to me as well. I love that my 7 year old notices these things too and we talk about them.
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    edited November 2016
    They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts.

    I don't have a supercollider of my own, so I can't reproduce today's grand experiments and see if those physicists are pulling the wool over my eyes or not. Back in the day, 500 or 600 years ago, you could walk up the stairs and drop a stone and a piece of wood and see which one hit the ground first. But in today's world, all the long hanging fruit has already been picked. It's the really complex stuff that's left, which is harder for the public to verify or sometimes even understand.

    I like reading about this stuff, though. And trying to understand it, as best I can.

    I have a digital camera; most of you have seen some of my pictures. They're made of pixels. Well, there are actual pixels inside the camera - these are wells that capture photons and essentially count them. They're physically bigger than the wavelength of red light. My camera wouldn't work unless scientists were right about quantum mechanics. We think light acts as both a wave and a particle, we built very complex machinery around the smallest details of that assumption, and they work exactly the way they should. That's a shockingly powerful confirmation of the theory.

    The physicists have a supercollider and they found out they pull the wool over their own eyes.


    And some physicists are sick of moving the goalposts.

    Can you give me some examples of what you mean?

    Do you agree that things like digital cameras and computers are pretty solid confirmation of a lot of quantum mechanics?

    "It is not an exaggeration to say that most of the world’s particle physicists believe that supersymmetry must be true—the theory is that compelling. These physicists’ long-term hope has been that the LHC would finally discover these superpartners, providing hard evidence that supersymmetry is a real description of the universe…

    Indeed, results from the first run of the LHC have ruled out almost all the best-studied versions of supersymmetry. The negative results are beginning to produce if not a full-blown crisis in particle physics, then at least a widespread panic. "

    http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6836

    They ran it again, to no avail. One physicists take on it:

    Saturday, August 06, 2016
    The LHC “nightmare scenario” has come true.

    Since I entered physics, I’ve seen grand unified models proposed and falsified. I’ve seen loads of dark matter candidates not being found, followed by a ritual parameter adjustment to explain the lack of detection. I’ve seen supersymmetric particles being “predicted” with constantly increasing masses, from some GeV to some 100 GeV to LHC energies of some TeV. And now that the LHC hasn’t seen any superpartners either, particle physicists are more than willing to once again move the goalposts.

    During my professional career, all I have seen is failure. A failure of particle physicists to uncover a more powerful mathematical framework to improve upon the theories we already have. Yes, failure is part of science – it’s frustrating, but not worrisome. What worries me much more is our failure to learn from failure. Rather than trying something new, we’ve been trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

    When I look at the data what I see is that our reliance on gauge-symmetry and the attempt at unification, the use of naturalness as guidance, and the trust in beauty and simplicity aren’t working. The cosmological constant isn’t natural. The Higgs mass isn’t natural. The standard model isn’t pretty, and the concordance model isn’t simple. Grand unification failed. It failed again. And yet we haven’t drawn any consequences from this: Particle physicists are still playing today by the same rules as in 1973.

    http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-lhc-nightmare-scenario-has-come-true.html?m=1
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  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Did you see Key and Peele's parody of Neil Degrass Tyson?

  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts.

    I don't have a supercollider of my own, so I can't reproduce today's grand experiments and see if those physicists are pulling the wool over my eyes or not. Back in the day, 500 or 600 years ago, you could walk up the stairs and drop a stone and a piece of wood and see which one hit the ground first. But in today's world, all the long hanging fruit has already been picked. It's the really complex stuff that's left, which is harder for the public to verify or sometimes even understand.

    I like reading about this stuff, though. And trying to understand it, as best I can.

    I have a digital camera; most of you have seen some of my pictures. They're made of pixels. Well, there are actual pixels inside the camera - these are wells that capture photons and essentially count them. They're physically bigger than the wavelength of red light. My camera wouldn't work unless scientists were right about quantum mechanics. We think light acts as both a wave and a particle, we built very complex machinery around the smallest details of that assumption, and they work exactly the way they should. That's a shockingly powerful confirmation of the theory.

    The physicists have a supercollider and they found out they pull the wool over their own eyes.


    And some physicists are sick of moving the goalposts.

    Can you give me some examples of what you mean?

    Do you agree that things like digital cameras and computers are pretty solid confirmation of a lot of quantum mechanics?

    "It is not an exaggeration to say that most of the world’s particle physicists believe that supersymmetry must be true—the theory is that compelling. These physicists’ long-term hope has been that the LHC would finally discover these superpartners, providing hard evidence that supersymmetry is a real description of the universe…

    Indeed, results from the first run of the LHC have ruled out almost all the best-studied versions of supersymmetry. The negative results are beginning to produce if not a full-blown crisis in particle physics, then at least a widespread panic. "

    http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6836

    They ran it again, to no avail. One physicists take on it:

    Saturday, August 06, 2016
    The LHC “nightmare scenario” has come true.

    Since I entered physics, I’ve seen grand unified models proposed and falsified. I’ve seen loads of dark matter candidates not being found, followed by a ritual parameter adjustment to explain the lack of detection. I’ve seen supersymmetric particles being “predicted” with constantly increasing masses, from some GeV to some 100 GeV to LHC energies of some TeV. And now that the LHC hasn’t seen any superpartners either, particle physicists are more than willing to once again move the goalposts.

    During my professional career, all I have seen is failure. A failure of particle physicists to uncover a more powerful mathematical framework to improve upon the theories we already have. Yes, failure is part of science – it’s frustrating, but not worrisome. What worries me much more is our failure to learn from failure. Rather than trying something new, we’ve been trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

    When I look at the data what I see is that our reliance on gauge-symmetry and the attempt at unification, the use of naturalness as guidance, and the trust in beauty and simplicity aren’t working. The cosmological constant isn’t natural. The Higgs mass isn’t natural. The standard model isn’t pretty, and the concordance model isn’t simple. Grand unification failed. It failed again. And yet we haven’t drawn any consequences from this: Particle physicists are still playing today by the same rules as in 1973.

    http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-lhc-nightmare-scenario-has-come-true.html?m=1

    Interesting. Sounds like we don't understand part of reality yet, we've come up with some theories to try to understand it, and none of them have been right yet. I don't see anything sinister in that.

    So what do you think about digital cameras as confirmation that light acts as a particle and a wave? I mean one of the sentences you quoted as 'During my professional career, all I have seen is failure.' and in my life I feel the opposite.
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  • Unknown
    edited November 2016
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