On a sunny day (Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:56:57 +1000) it happened Timo Nieminen
wrote in
Pine.LNX.4.50.0804181034460.6113-100000@localhost:

You must consider not to become cought up in words, to become a pedantic babbler.
As what I pointed out is clear enough.

Yes, it was clear enough. You very clearly stated that, without
"mechanism", physics will not advance. Are you now saying that you didn't
mean what your statement clearly appears to mean?

I say: Without "mechanism", physics will not advance.
Your interpretation of 'mechanism' is up to you.



Well in practical field nice advances have been made, mostly experimental,
with real models.

And very many advances in _theoretical_ applied physics, too.

Sure.



In the theoretical field we see NOTHING since nuclear fission in the 1940 ties.
There is no fusion break even, we see no gravity waves,

All of which are questions of experiment and engineering. For fusion and
gravity waves, theory is way ahead of practical application,

And what if that theory is wrong?
Keep looking in LIGO, see nothing, does that not ring a bell?
http://www.esa.int/esaMI/GSP/SEM0L6OVGJE_0.html


since the
experiment/engineering is rather difficult. Lack of commercial fusion
power reactors isn't due to deficiency in theory.

It actually is, they do not understand the plasma's behaviour.



One of the major goals of current research in fundamental theoretical
physics is to find a mechanism for gravity. Unsuccessful so far. Do you
approve of the effort put into the attempt?

Of course.


Use statistics,

A essential mathematical tool for experimental work. What's wrong with
using statistics? What use of statistics in _theory_ do you find
objectionable?


There was a professor in Germany who showed his students that the same
village where most children were born, also had the most storks.

So he then statistically 'proved' storks bring babies.
DOES THAT RING A BELL?


So there is no ether, so what sets EM (light) speed then?
ONLY a line of text by Einstein? Nothing shall go c?
What a joke.
Actually he said: We have not observed anything c , so it does not exist.
Like if I have not seen a rocket, so nothing can go faster then horses, the fasted thing observed.
Hell this is 2008, and you are still thinking 10000 BC.

Actually, no, that isn't what Einstein said.


So, what did he say?
I can assure you there is no light speed police to give you a ticket.


If the calculated risk is 1 in 50 million to destroy the earth, then you should NOT do
the experiment.
If you change the calculations, so X people die per year the earth exists, you
are misusing math to get your pet experiment realized.

And if the calculated risk is zero?

Now then still questions about the used theory and data remain, I think it
will never be zero, but very close to zero.



Above you complained about the lack of
FTL spaceships. What of the risk of the first test of such a spaceship?

Why should it be a risk?



Should it be done? Considering the possible physics involved, it seems a
far riskier venture than LHC.

Einsteinian brainwash? nothing would happen,
If it was moving away from us we would receive its radio signal as going
towards DC because of Doppler, and loose contact.

On Apr 17, 4:21*pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:36:52 -0700 (PDT), PD wrote:
On Apr 16, 6:06*pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:

That's not my model at all, although some aspects may not be as silly as they
sound.

Have you ever wondered why we see and feel sold objects when in reality they
are 99.9999999999999999% empty space. Why doesn't a bullet go straight through?
Of course we have some clues, EM emission explains why we see type 1 matter.,,
molecular bonds, dielectric properties, RI, *etc. explain why we feel it.
...but what if there is another type of 'substance' that we do not sense????
(hereby known as 'Wilson, type 2 matter' or 'Watter')

Very well could be. But when a door slams and someone says the wind
pushed it shut, it being a breezy day and the door being open to the
outside and a candle puffing out at the same time the door slammed, it
could ALSO be that two tiny gnomes slammed the door shut and blew out
the candle. It does not mean that the tiny gnome conjecture is on the
same level as the wind conjecture.

You seem to have a wind problem...hot air no doubt....

The fact is, the solidity of objects, even though they are mostly
empty space, is already accounted for, quantitatively and
qualitatively, by known models that have predictive power.

...based entirely on the existence of intra-atomic and intermolecular fields.
FIELDS again...what are they made of, Draper?

You seem to be under the preconception that fields must be made of
some kind of *stuff*, and that if something isn't described as being
made out of *stuff* then it isn't physically real. John Sefton, who
posts regularly on this group, is also under that impression -- he's
an artist and a technician, and it just seems natural to him that this
would be the case. Physicists, however, have a bit more general
approach to things.


An
alternate model presented has to at least be able to compete in being
able to *predict* (not accommodate, but predict), quantitatively and
qualitatively, the properties of the solid material. Wilson, type 2
matter is a model with no predictive power at all, and so it doesn't
compete.

You have the typical relativist defeatist attitude. "If you can't see it or it
isn't in a text book, it doesn't exist".

No, I didn't say that. What I do have is the scientific attitude, "If
it has no qualitative and quantitative predictive power, it is
useless."


I'll bet you, Draper, any furry or feathered animal can 'see' electrostatic
fields.

No, but I sure can make qualitative and quantitative predictions with
them.


That's not to say that Wilson type 2 matter is ruled out.
It's just that Wilson type 2 matter isn't even far enough along as a
model to make the comparison. It is a tiny gnome model -- and gnomes
have got a cute name too.

Nevertheless, Watter is what makes space carrying a field different from
complete emptiness.

OK, if you say so. Nevertheless, until you can make qualitative and
quantitative predictions from Watter, then it's as useless as a screen
door on a submarine.

PD

--
This message is brought to you by Androcles
http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

"PD" wrote in message
...
On Apr 17, 4:21 pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:36:52 -0700 (PDT), PD
wrote:
On Apr 16, 6:06 pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:

That's not my model at all, although some aspects may not be as silly
as they
sound.

Have you ever wondered why we see and feel sold objects when in reality
they
are 99.9999999999999999% empty space. Why doesn't a bullet go straight
through?
Of course we have some clues, EM emission explains why we see type 1
matter.,,
molecular bonds, dielectric properties, RI, etc. explain why we feel
it.
...but what if there is another type of 'substance' that we do not
sense????
(hereby known as 'Wilson, type 2 matter' or 'Watter')

Very well could be. But when a door slams and someone says the wind
pushed it shut, it being a breezy day and the door being open to the
outside and a candle puffing out at the same time the door slammed, it
could ALSO be that two tiny gnomes slammed the door shut and blew out
the candle. It does not mean that the tiny gnome conjecture is on the
same level as the wind conjecture.

You seem to have a wind problem...hot air no doubt....

The fact is, the solidity of objects, even though they are mostly
empty space, is already accounted for, quantitatively and
qualitatively, by known models that have predictive power.

...based entirely on the existence of intra-atomic and intermolecular
fields.
FIELDS again...what are they made of, Draper?

You seem to be under the preconception that fields must be made of
some kind of *stuff*, and that if something isn't described as being
made out of *stuff* then it isn't physically real. John Sefton, who
posts regularly on this group, is also under that impression -- he's
an artist and a technician, and it just seems natural to him that this
would be the case. Physicists, however, have a bit more general
approach to things.


An
alternate model presented has to at least be able to compete in being
able to *predict* (not accommodate, but predict), quantitatively and
qualitatively, the properties of the solid material. Wilson, type 2
matter is a model with no predictive power at all, and so it doesn't
compete.

You have the typical relativist defeatist attitude. "If you can't see it
or it
isn't in a text book, it doesn't exist".

| No,


YES.



That's not to say that Wilson type 2 matter is ruled out.
It's just that Wilson type 2 matter isn't even far enough along as a
model to make the comparison. It is a tiny gnome model -- and gnomes
have got a cute name too.

Nevertheless, Watter is what makes space carrying a field different from
complete emptiness.

| OK, if you say so.

NO.

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:56:57 +1000) it happened Timo Nieminen
wrote in
Pine.LNX.4.50.0804181034460.6113-100000@localhost:

You must consider not to become cought up in words, to become a pedantic babbler.
As what I pointed out is clear enough.

Yes, it was clear enough. You very clearly stated that, without
"mechanism", physics will not advance. Are you now saying that you didn't
mean what your statement clearly appears to mean?

I say: Without "mechanism", physics will not advance.
Your interpretation of 'mechanism' is up to you.

From your writing, "field" is not sufficient mechanism. Perhaps a
mechanical ether would be? I don't know what you mean by "mechanism",
since you haven't said what you mean. But you have said (at least partly)
what you don't mean.

Consider carefully the section of my previous post you deleted without
comment. Your insistence on mechanism would discard Newton, discard
Galileo, and discard the correct [1] portion of Aristotlean physics.

What is wrong with insisting on "mechanism"? When physics has been content
with phenomena - building and using mathematical models of phenomena -
physics has advanced. For example, we model classical EM effects using
classical EM theory, and there is no "mechanism" in sight. It works, and
works well. It's even the foundation of the quantum theory, which works,
and works even better, also with no "mechanism" in sight.

Phenomena are what we can observe, measure, experiment on. Observations,
measurements, and experiments are things that we can build theory on.
By-and-large, most of what is offered as "mechanism" is hidden from us
behind the phenomena. As a result, it's untestable (but see below). What
kind of theory can be built on something other than observation,
measurement and experiment? By-and-large, crap.

An insistence on measurement would divorce theory from the real world,
which rather than allowing physics to advance, would severely retard
progress.

Sometimes we might think that "mechanism" is observable, testable. But
usually this simply means that the phenomena that insipired the mechanism
are predicted by it, or often, merely compatible with it.

The theory of the mechanism had better predict something both new (or at
least, something that didn't feed into the development of the theory of
the mechanism) and testable, or else it's all hidden behind the phenomena.
Note that the failure to do this is the major complaint levelled at string
theory etc.

Essentially, theory is utterly dependent on observation, measurement and
experiment, and historically has not advanced without it, and will not now
or in the future.

Likewise, experiment will not get far in the absence of theory (despite
the fond hopes of Francis Bacon).

Perhaps Newton knew what he was doing?

In the theoretical field we see NOTHING since nuclear fission in the 1940 ties.
There is no fusion break even, we see no gravity waves,

All of which are questions of experiment and engineering. For fusion and
gravity waves, theory is way ahead of practical application,

And what if that theory is wrong?
Keep looking in LIGO, see nothing, does that not ring a bell?
http://www.esa.int/esaMI/GSP/SEM0L6OVGJE_0.html

The detectors need to get better to disprove current theory, which
predicts that they're unlikely to see anything yet.

since the
experiment/engineering is rather difficult. Lack of commercial fusion
power reactors isn't due to deficiency in theory.

It actually is, they do not understand the plasma's behaviour.

Tokamaks basically work according to theory (1950 or so). There's
currently realistic optimism that they might even get it to work.

And then there's inertial confinement.

And, as above, do you _really_ expect theory to proceed without
experimental input?

One of the major goals of current research in fundamental theoretical
physics is to find a mechanism for gravity. Unsuccessful so far. Do you
approve of the effort put into the attempt?

Of course.

As noted above, it's a controversial, within the physics community, effort
because it hasn't worked, might never work, and even if a correct theory
is found, there might never be a way to test it.

Still, there's a place for speculative blue-sky research. Sometimes it
produces nice results.

Use statistics,

A essential mathematical tool for experimental work. What's wrong with
using statistics? What use of statistics in _theory_ do you find
objectionable?

There was a professor in Germany who showed his students that the same
village where most children were born, also had the most storks.

So he then statistically 'proved' storks bring babies.
DOES THAT RING A BELL?

No. And you haven't answered the question in any meaningful manner. Of
course such "proofs" (usually less stupid) exist in bad research. It isn't
the fault of the statistics, but the fault of bad researchers. Correlation
doesn't demonstrate causality, and any researcher worth their salt will
know this.

A far more sensible suggestion (but still stupid) would be that babies
attract storks.

So there is no ether, so what sets EM (light) speed then?
ONLY a line of text by Einstein? Nothing shall go c?
What a joke.
Actually he said: We have not observed anything c , so it does not exist.
Like if I have not seen a rocket, so nothing can go faster then horses, the fasted thing observed.
Hell this is 2008, and you are still thinking 10000 BC.

Actually, no, that isn't what Einstein said.

So, what did he say?
I can assure you there is no light speed police to give you a ticket.

Read his 1905 SR paper. You could even read his popular book on
relativity, available free on Gutenberg, iirc, and likely elsewhere.

There's no shortage of superluminal phenomena. For an appropriate
definition of "thing", things can go faster-than-light.

The problem comes when you want to accelerate a massive object past the
speed of light. It's been tried. Consult the history of particle
accelerators, including ones designed and built by relativity skeptics.

Above you complained about the lack of
FTL spaceships. What of the risk of the first test of such a spaceship?

Why should it be a risk?

Given _no_ theory on how to do it, how can you even assess the risk, let
alone proclaim that there is no risk?

[1] Mostly correct, I should say. Notably, he said that (laminar?) viscous
drag is proportional to cross-sectional area, not radius.

--
Timo

On Apr 18, 1:29 pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" wrote:
....
Still, there's a place for speculative blue-sky research. Sometimes it
produces nice results.

This is one of my favorites,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermionic_emission

The birth of the Vacuum Tube (VT). Man, that set
off a revolution, for the prepared mind.
I was lucky to live threw the vacuum tube/solid
state revolution....cool.
The VT made the Nuclear and Space age possible,
and then made Radio and TV available to the
unwashed masses.
Seriously folks, the VT must rank with the wheel
in terms of a commerce increment.
We're living it, and if you don't believe, shut
off your computer TV, and phone.

We're in the middle of a technological revolution,
that is disrupting the most conservative societies
on our planet Earth.
Regards
Ken S. Tucker
....

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:30:35 +0100, "Androcles"
wrote:


Nevertheless, Watter is what makes space carrying a field different from
complete emptiness.

| OK, if you say so.

NO.

OK, what is your explanation?
What allows one volume of space to possess a field strength of X and another a
field strength of Y?


Henri Wilson. ASTC,BSc,DSc(T)
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm

.....specialising in teaching physics to engineers and mathematicians....

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:22:36 -0700 (PDT), PD wrote:

On Apr 17, 4:21*pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:36:52 -0700 (PDT), PD wrote:
On Apr 16, 6:06*pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:



The fact is, the solidity of objects, even though they are mostly
empty space, is already accounted for, quantitatively and
qualitatively, by known models that have predictive power.

...based entirely on the existence of intra-atomic and intermolecular fields.
FIELDS again...what are they made of, Draper?

You seem to be under the preconception that fields must be made of
some kind of *stuff*, and that if something isn't described as being
made out of *stuff* then it isn't physically real. John Sefton, who
posts regularly on this group, is also under that impression -- he's
an artist and a technician, and it just seems natural to him that this
would be the case. Physicists, however, have a bit more general
approach to things.

Yes. We look beyond the obvious...unlike engineers.

An
alternate model presented has to at least be able to compete in being
able to *predict* (not accommodate, but predict), quantitatively and
qualitatively, the properties of the solid material. Wilson, type 2
matter is a model with no predictive power at all, and so it doesn't
compete.

You have the typical relativist defeatist attitude. "If you can't see it or it
isn't in a text book, it doesn't exist".

No, I didn't say that. What I do have is the scientific attitude, "If
it has no qualitative and quantitative predictive power, it is
useless."

Mathematically speaking, fields are very well understood. their behavior is
very predictable.
But Draper, all our experiments involve 3D space. Every known physical
phenomenon is explainable in terms of that 3D space and time.
Maybe YOU believe in magic and fairies, like all relativists...but I don't. I
know that space containing a field is physically different from space carrying
NO fields.

I'll bet you, Draper, any furry or feathered animal can 'see' electrostatic
fields.

No, but I sure can make qualitative and quantitative predictions with
them.

If you were a cat sliding on a nylon carpet you would do more than that.

That's not to say that Wilson type 2 matter is ruled out.
It's just that Wilson type 2 matter isn't even far enough along as a
model to make the comparison. It is a tiny gnome model -- and gnomes
have got a cute name too.

Nevertheless, Watter is what makes space carrying a field different from
complete emptiness.

OK, if you say so. Nevertheless, until you can make qualitative and
quantitative predictions from Watter, then it's as useless as a screen
door on a submarine.

All the predictions are known.
What is required is a physical model of Watter.

PD



Henri Wilson. ASTC,BSc,DSc(T)
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm

.....specialising in teaching physics to engineers and mathematicians....

On Apr 18, 5:37*pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:22:36 -0700 (PDT), PD wrote:
On Apr 17, 4:21*pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:36:52 -0700 (PDT), PD wrote:
On Apr 16, 6:06*pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:

The fact is, the solidity of objects, even though they are mostly
empty space, is already accounted for, quantitatively and
qualitatively, by known models that have predictive power.

...based entirely on the existence of intra-atomic and intermolecular fields.
FIELDS again...what are they made of, Draper?

You seem to be under the preconception that fields must be made of
some kind of *stuff*, and that if something isn't described as being
made out of *stuff* then it isn't physically real. John Sefton, who
posts regularly on this group, is also under that impression -- he's
an artist and a technician, and it just seems natural to him that this
would be the case. Physicists, however, have a bit more general
approach to things.

Yes. We look beyond the obvious...unlike engineers.

An
alternate model presented has to at least be able to compete in being
able to *predict* (not accommodate, but predict), quantitatively and
qualitatively, the properties of the solid material. Wilson, type 2
matter is a model with no predictive power at all, and so it doesn't
compete.

You have the typical relativist defeatist attitude. "If you can't see it or it
isn't in a text book, it doesn't exist".

No, I didn't say that. What I do have is the scientific attitude, "If
it has no qualitative and quantitative predictive power, it is
useless."

Mathematically speaking, fields are very well understood. their behavior is
very predictable.
But Draper, all our experiments involve 3D space.
Every known physical
phenomenon is explainable in terms of that 3D space and time.

That's right. That's what spacetime is. 3D space and time.

Maybe YOU believe in magic and fairies, like all relativists...but I don't.. I
know that space containing a field is physically different from space carrying
NO fields.

Of course it's different. They have different measurable effects.
Doesn't mean there's some *stuff* in that space.


I'll bet you, Draper, any furry or feathered animal can 'see' electrostatic
fields.

No, but I sure can make qualitative and quantitative predictions with
them.

If you were a cat sliding on a nylon carpet you would do more than that.

That's not to say that Wilson type 2 matter is ruled out.
It's just that Wilson type 2 matter isn't even far enough along as a
model to make the comparison. It is a tiny gnome model -- and gnomes
have got a cute name too.

Nevertheless, Watter is what makes space carrying a field different from
complete emptiness.

OK, if you say so. Nevertheless, until you can make qualitative and
quantitative predictions from Watter, then it's as useless as a screen
door on a submarine.

All the predictions are known.

Work through one quantitative prediction of Watter. Just one.

What is required is a physical model of Watter.

On Apr 18, 1:57*am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:56:57 +1000) it happened Timo Nieminen
wrote in
Pine.LNX.4.50.0804181034460.6113-100000@localhost:

You must consider not to become cought up in words, to become a pedantic babbler.
As what I pointed out is clear enough.

Yes, it was clear enough. You very clearly stated that, without
"mechanism", physics will not advance. Are you now saying that you didn't
mean what your statement clearly appears to mean?

I say: Without "mechanism", physics will not advance.
Your interpretation of 'mechanism' is up to you.

Well in practical field nice advances have been made, mostly experimental,
with real models.

And very many advances in _theoretical_ applied physics, too.

Sure.

In the theoretical field we see NOTHING since nuclear fission in the 1940 ties.
There is no fusion break even, we see no gravity waves,

All of which are questions of experiment and engineering. For fusion and
gravity waves, theory is way ahead of practical application,

And what if that theory is wrong?

Then why does PSR 1913+16 and PSR J0737-3039 decay as if gravitational
waves existed?

Keep looking in LIGO, see nothing, does that not ring a bell?

What does it tell you if the data from the 4th science run has not
been analyzed yet, much less the 5th?

*http://www.esa.int/esaMI/GSP/SEM0L6OVGJE_0.html

Unpublished drivel. Why won't this **** finally go away?

[...]

On Apr 17, 4:59 pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:43:02 -0700 (PDT), Darwin123
wrote:

On Apr 13, 7:39 pm, HW@....(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:

The question remains. What makes space containing a field different from
'complete emptiness'.
The space isn't empty. It contains a field. This is no more
arbitrary the concept of particle.

Whatever it is has the ability to exert a force on a
charged particle.
Okay, here is a question analogous in every way to your question
about fields.
Given Newton's Laws of physics, as state in Principia or any other
formalism, the quest remains. What makes a point containing a particle
different from a completely empty point?
I can match you one for one. A field has mass an energy, a
particle has mass and energy. A particle can give momentum to the
field at another particle according to Principia. A charged particle
can give momentum to an electromagnetic field according to Maxwell.
This labeling of empty space as having something in it is a common
starting step for all physical theories. Usually, the question of what
is "different" about that space is confined to metaphysics. Every
physical theory contains certain fundamental entities that are
represented by labels we give to points, whether its field or particle
or whatever.
Philosophy can be a lot of fun, and sometimes a useful hypothesis
comes out of it. However, you spoiled it by saying "words, words,
words." If you don't take words seriously, then us engineers and
mathematicians will have to look to you for something more than words.
If you don't have anything more than words, goodbye.