Re: Why we can\'t reach the speed of light?
glenmac,
Having just returned from Iowa (please excuse the 4 letter word) and Kansas Cities(both Kansas and Missouri) I noted that it was just about the same heat and humidity throughout the trip. Didn't get a chance to visit a black hole for a comparison so I have no empirical evidence to refute your assertion regarding the climate of Oklahoma and a black hole. Boy have I been spoiled by my years in So Cal with extensive travel in the ARID southwest and parts of northwest (east of costal ranges) Could always depend on enough insolation to power my prefered lifestyle from camper's rooftop PV panels. If there was enough sun to make it hot enough to want air conditioning there was enough sun to power the air conditioner (roof mounted evaporative). Not so, most of the time in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin... It is hot enough to want AC at night (what a concept) but no sun to power it (bummer). I really don't like to run the propane powered generator to run the mech refrig roof mounted AC for hours on end (so I don't, 10-20 minutes to microwave something OK but not all night) but finding somewhere to plug into the grid was a good thing. It was good to return to cool nights (surprise surprise) I actually got under a sheet for the first time in months last night.
Semi-on-topic-comment: Isn't anyone just a little skeptical of any branch of science that can't describe and predict what will happen when three or more billiard/pool balls collide/interact (See multi-body problem) yet will freely theorize on what happened to all the contents of the universe in the first few femto seconds after the big bang? Think about it! You can theorize and postulate freely about something that can't be checked empirically but something like breaking a rack playing nine ball exceeds our analytical abilities.
Into triage? All problems (in theory) can be put in one of three categories: 1. Definitely solvable, 2. Definitely unable to be solved, and 3.Not sure, hasn't been proved either way, yet. For decades (centuries?) there was conjecture that there could always be a map drawn that couldn't be colored with just three colors and not have two adjacent "countries" the same color. Similarly it was universally agreed that there could be no map drawn that couldn't be colored with 5 colors. There were even closed mathematical proofs of both of these. The controversy was, of course, what about 4 colors? Many suspected that 4 colors could "do" any map but many a mathematician fried his brain in vain trying to prove it. No one ever drew a map that 4 colors couldn't do but only fairly recently after years of work a mathematician published a proof that has withstood peer review. This moved the problem from the 3rd category to the 2nd, a rare happening in non-trivial matters.
Similarly, I eagerly await such developments in many of the topics recently touched on (trampled?) in this thread. In the interim, speculate away, its cheap, relatively harmless, and can be fun.
Patrick
glenmac,
Having just returned from Iowa (please excuse the 4 letter word) and Kansas Cities(both Kansas and Missouri) I noted that it was just about the same heat and humidity throughout the trip. Didn't get a chance to visit a black hole for a comparison so I have no empirical evidence to refute your assertion regarding the climate of Oklahoma and a black hole. Boy have I been spoiled by my years in So Cal with extensive travel in the ARID southwest and parts of northwest (east of costal ranges) Could always depend on enough insolation to power my prefered lifestyle from camper's rooftop PV panels. If there was enough sun to make it hot enough to want air conditioning there was enough sun to power the air conditioner (roof mounted evaporative). Not so, most of the time in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin... It is hot enough to want AC at night (what a concept) but no sun to power it (bummer). I really don't like to run the propane powered generator to run the mech refrig roof mounted AC for hours on end (so I don't, 10-20 minutes to microwave something OK but not all night) but finding somewhere to plug into the grid was a good thing. It was good to return to cool nights (surprise surprise) I actually got under a sheet for the first time in months last night.
Semi-on-topic-comment: Isn't anyone just a little skeptical of any branch of science that can't describe and predict what will happen when three or more billiard/pool balls collide/interact (See multi-body problem) yet will freely theorize on what happened to all the contents of the universe in the first few femto seconds after the big bang? Think about it! You can theorize and postulate freely about something that can't be checked empirically but something like breaking a rack playing nine ball exceeds our analytical abilities.
Into triage? All problems (in theory) can be put in one of three categories: 1. Definitely solvable, 2. Definitely unable to be solved, and 3.Not sure, hasn't been proved either way, yet. For decades (centuries?) there was conjecture that there could always be a map drawn that couldn't be colored with just three colors and not have two adjacent "countries" the same color. Similarly it was universally agreed that there could be no map drawn that couldn't be colored with 5 colors. There were even closed mathematical proofs of both of these. The controversy was, of course, what about 4 colors? Many suspected that 4 colors could "do" any map but many a mathematician fried his brain in vain trying to prove it. No one ever drew a map that 4 colors couldn't do but only fairly recently after years of work a mathematician published a proof that has withstood peer review. This moved the problem from the 3rd category to the 2nd, a rare happening in non-trivial matters.
Similarly, I eagerly await such developments in many of the topics recently touched on (trampled?) in this thread. In the interim, speculate away, its cheap, relatively harmless, and can be fun.
Patrick
