Dna Power Plants

[Super Polymath]

I only have one question.

 

How the hell do you pronounce Ambrose?

[A-wal]

I only have one question.

 

How the hell do you pronounce Ambrose?

:unknw:

[Buffy]

It's appropriate in this case.

 

"If the behaviour of the subject of the model differs from what the model predicts then it's reasonable to question the model. Obviously it's a matter of degree. If the behaviour displayed only differs from what the model predicts by a small margin that it's fair to assume that the model only needs refinement."

 

Do you disagree with that assertion?

 

Well, as I said, yes, the issue being the definition of "matter of degree" and "small margin." You claimed it was a huge difference, and in the two cases you cited yes, the numbers you gave did qualify as being signs that there *might* be a serious problem in the model. So people looked, and in these two cases they formulated and found evidence for new complementary theories that explained the data, leaving the original core theory basically intact.

 

The point I'm making here is that if big differences between predictions and data are found, it is not *proof* that the original theory is obviously false and must be replaced completely.

 

You'll claim you're not saying that, but eh, that's not what's coming across.

 

Really! :0 Are you sure? Pretty much? Now who's using imprecise words? What is it, the one third that Exchemist (I only just read the user name properly, ex-chemist   ) mentioned? I'll have to look that up. I hope they have found them, it will end this annoying accusation marathon where I'm forced to defend what I haven't even said.

 

"Pretty much" == "close to 100%" in colloquial language. So yes, they appear to have found it "all." And despite the conspiracy theories, they don't normally hand out Nobels for made up stuff.  :smart:

 

 

I never claimed a cover up!!!  :aggressive:

 

Really? Are you....suuuuuuure?

 

 

Yes it's just a pity that it's run by scientists instead of people with moral and intellectual integrity who actually care about it.

It's just that most of them never say anything about areas outside their own field for fear of being wrong. Scientists hate to be wrong, intellectual insecurity presumably.

 

It's just kinda hard to imagine that you don't have a lot of strong and, shall we say negative, opinions of scientists in general, and imagine them engaging in activities lacking in integrity and being emotionally insecure. 

 

 

I'm never making another argument again. I shall henceforth conduct all my conversations using nothing but emotis. 

 

Oh they're highly recommended! :cheer: There is a limit of 10 per post though. Some people go a bit, uh, *overboard* with them.

 

 

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it, :phones:

Buffy

[A-wal]

Well, as I said, yes, the issue being the definition of "matter of degree" and "small margin." You claimed it was a huge difference, and in the two cases you cited yes, the numbers you gave did qualify as being signs that there *might* be a serious problem in the model. So people looked, and in these two cases they formulated and found evidence for new complementary theories that explained the data, leaving the original core theory basically intact.

 

The point I'm making here is that if big differences between predictions and data are found, it is not *proof* that the original theory is obviously false and must be replaced completely.

 

You'll claim you're not saying that, but eh, that's not what's coming across.

 

 

"Pretty much" == "close to 100%" in colloquial language. So yes, they appear to have found it "all." And despite the conspiracy theories, they don't normally hand out Nobels for made up stuff.  :smart:

  :nea:

 

Really? Are you....suuuuuuure?

  :hihi:

 

It's just kinda hard to imagine that you don't have a lot of strong and, shall we say negative, opinions of scientists in general, and imagine them engaging in activities lacking in integrity and being emotionally insecure.

  :)

 

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it,

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by A-wal

[Buffy]

I only have one question.

 

How the hell do you pronounce Ambrose?

 

Phonetic pronunciation is:

 

am- as in I *am* a cynic

bros - rhymes with "toes" or "bros" 

 

Interestingly, most people have a problem figuring out how to pronounce "Bierce".

 

 

 

EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me, :phones:

Buffy

[Super Polymath]

Phonetic pronunciation is:

 

am- as in I *am* a cynic

bros - rhymes with "toes" or "bros"

 

Interestingly, most people have a problem figuring out how to pronounce "Bierce".

 

 

 

EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me, :phones:

Buffy

That's a cool name.

 

I am an egotist sometimes, till I watch this:

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by Super Polymath

[JMJones0424]

meh

[Super Polymath]

I honestly don't understand what the OP is on about. Linked together a ton of positions about sexuality and the universe in the last thread. He's probably utilizing forums to express ideas he has as a blog diary and coping mechanism, so he's basically doing what I do less sneakily.

[A-wal]

:ph34r:

 

It's just kinda hard to imagine that you don't have a lot of strong and, shall we say negative, opinions of scientists in general, and imagine them engaging in activities lacking in integrity and being emotionally insecure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp Critics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener Reaction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristian_Birkeland
etc 

 

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it,

 

 

 

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it,

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by A-wal

[exchemist]

 

 

I thought that stars supposedly use the same controlled fusion process that scientists have been trying and failing to replicate for decades and that if stars used fusion in the same kind of chain reaction as an H bomb they'd immediately explode because there'd be nowhere near enough gravity to hold them together?

No. There is only the one fusion process and it is that we see in both the H bomb and in stars.  When I say the one process, of course there are different fusions reactions, depending on what the reactants and products are, but the essence of it is the same. It is misguided to think in terms of  two different processes; one "controlled" and one "uncontrolled", i.e. explosive.

 

In a star you have an equilibrium between the expansion (explosive) pressure created by the heat released from the fusion reaction on the one hand, and the confining force of stellar gravity on the other. This is why when the fusion reaction runs out of reactants, stars collapse under gravitation to form dwarfs, neutrons stars and black holes.  From the energy point of view you have an equilbrium between the heat and light radiated away and the energy liberated by the fusion process. 

 

The problem for us on Earth is that to get fusion you have to bang together 2 nuclei, both of which have a +ve charge and which therefore repel one another - very strongly when they get very close to one another. You need temperatures and pressure similar to those in the sun to do this, so that the thermal motion of the nuclei is vigorous enough to do this. In an H bomb this is achieved by setting off a fission bomb, like the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagaski, which effectively serves as the detonator for the fusing of (normally) deuterium or tritium.

 

To get "controlled fusion", one seeks to heat up a gas to a hot dense plasma inside a magnetic "bottle" so that these same fierce conditions can be achieved without detonating a fission nuclear device to do so. THAT is what is so hard and why the energy input in these devices is far greater so far than the energy out.

 

But the fusion reaction is the same in both cases.

 

Perhaps, now that this misunderstanding has been sorted out, you may come to understand why astrophysics is so confident that the process powering the stars is, in fact, fusion.

 

We scientists are not cowering in a corner, sucking our teddies and feeling threatened by the radical challenges to our worldview posed by a few brave souls like A-Wal. We simply get a bit irritated when somebody claims science is showing misplaced confidence in a theory - and then immediately shows he has no idea what he is talking about. Perhaps, if you try for a moment to put yourself in our shoes, you can imagine why this might be.  :)

Edited April 29, 2017 by exchemist

[exchemist]

Well, as I said, yes, the issue being the definition of "matter of degree" and "small margin." You claimed it was a huge difference, and in the two cases you cited yes, the numbers you gave did qualify as being signs that there *might* be a serious problem in the model. So people looked, and in these two cases they formulated and found evidence for new complementary theories that explained the data, leaving the original core theory basically intact.

 

The point I'm making here is that if big differences between predictions and data are found, it is not *proof* that the original theory is obviously false and must be replaced completely.

 

You'll claim you're not saying that, but eh, that's not what's coming across.

 

 

"Pretty much" == "close to 100%" in colloquial language. So yes, they appear to have found it "all." And despite the conspiracy theories, they don't normally hand out Nobels for made up stuff.  :smart:

 

 

 

Really? Are you....suuuuuuure?

 

 

 

It's just kinda hard to imagine that you don't have a lot of strong and, shall we say negative, opinions of scientists in general, and imagine them engaging in activities lacking in integrity and being emotionally insecure. 

 

 

 

 

Very well said.

 

I am intrigued now to know what it is that animates this poster. A political stance, perhaps? A negative personal experience of some kind? At any rate it does not seem to be interest in the natural world and how it works, but instead something to do with social and psychological influences on intellectual pursuits - cultural relativism, possibly.   

[Super Polymath]

Phonetic pronunciation is:

 

am- as in I *am* a cynic

bros - rhymes with "toes" or "bros" 

 

Interestingly, most people have a problem figuring out how to pronounce "Bierce".

 

 

 

EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me, :phones:

Buffy

Oh, & Bierce; here we go

 

be - to be

 

ierce - like pierce without the p

 

?

Edited April 29, 2017 by Super Polymath

[Buffy]

ierce - like pierce without the p

 

?

 

Yep! :cheer:

 

 

An ideal world is left as an exercise to the reader, :phones:

Buffy 

[Super Polymath]

An ideal world is left as an exercise to the reader, :phones:

Buffy 

[exchemist]

 

I've done a quick read on the missing neutrino problem (exchemist knows more than I and I'll defer most of that to him), but apparently what has happened among astrophysicists is that they're doing exactly what you claim they're not. When 2/3rds of the neutrinos were missing, they went, "Huh, that's not right. Let's question our model." So they did, and you know what they said? "Huh, we've been assuming that since we know that electron neutrinos are produced in stellar fusion, that we'd see nothing but stellar neutrinos, but WE WERE WRONG! We came up with a new theory of "Neutrino Oscillation" where we explain how neutrinos can change from electron neutrinos to muon and tauon neutrinos before they get to our detectors here on Earth." 

 

Now of course people were going to question *that* theory until it was tested, and you know what? Turns out we are seeing pretty much the right number of neutrinos, they're just not only electron neutrinos. So that shows that the observation matches the theory, and guess what? Nothing about stellar fusion theory changed! :o :cheer:

 

A good skeptical scientist would say, "well, maybe those other kinds of neutrinos are coming from a different source, not the sun," which of course is possible, but it's inconsistent with the fact that the counts we're now getting match, they just are the wrong kinds. And there's no other obvious source that would work unless just by chance it's ALWAYS opposite the sun from Earth's position relative to it, and that would violate all laws of planetary and stellar mechanics.

 

So, sure it's still *possible* there's a big problem with neutrinos, but it ain't at that "much much more than a small margin" you're pointing at.

 

What's really fun about Neutrino Oscillation is that it earned a Nobel Prize.

 

 

Similarly, I took a look at the corona/photosphere temperature issue, and well, were the astrophysicists busy trying to cover up this information and prevent any funding of research?

 

Well, no, they actually got funding for new solar imaging technology to look for reasons why:

 

 

My knowledge of particle physics is very sketchy, but the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation seems to be quite interesting, cutting edge stuff: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_oscillation

 

It seems that, while the solar neutrino problem is solved, the Standard Model is now in some difficulty as a result, as the mass in neutrinos is not readily accounted for. But there you go: this is how science advances. Corroborated observation trumps theory every time, so now they have to rethink the theory or add to it. What is intriguing is that it might just be a gateway to understanding some other unexplained cosmological phenomena as well.

 

This constructive interplay between quantum theory, particle experiments, astrophysics and cosmology seems to me a powerful indicator that science is on the right track, even if there is much more to find out.  

Edited April 30, 2017 by exchemist

[Buffy]

It seems that, while the solar neutrino problem is solved, the Standard Model is now in some difficulty as a result, as the mass in neutrinos is not readily accounted for. But there you go: this is how science advances. Corroborated observation trumps theory every time, so now they have to rethink the theory or add to it. What is intriguing is that it might just be a gateway to understanding some other unexplained cosmological phenomena as well. 

 

It's important to note within the context of the preceding argument though that the issue is now in where the lost mass goes when the neutrinos oscillate *after* they've left the sun, so still no issue to point to in the fundamental elements of stellar fusion, just where the mass goes...and that dark energy we don't understand has to come from somewhere...let's see energy...mass.... hmmm....

 

This constructive interplay between quantum theory, particle experiments, astrophysics and cosmology seems to me a powerful indicator that science is on the right track, even if there is much more to find out.  

 

...and there you have it! :cheer:

 

 

Truth is something you stumble into when you think you're going someplace else, :phones:

Buffy

[exchemist]

It's important to note within the context of the preceding argument though that the issue is now in where the lost mass goes when the neutrinos oscillate *after* they've left the sun, so still no issue to point to in the fundamental elements of stellar fusion, just where the mass goes...and that dark energy we don't understand has to come from somewhere...let's see energy...mass.... hmmm....

 

 

...and there you have it! :cheer:

 

 

Truth is something you stumble into when you think you're going someplace else, :phones:

Buffy

Yes, all very tricky to resolve, largely because neutrinos interact so seldom. V. hard to do the experiments.