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Well i wasnt citing stories. Theoligians have placed it everywhere from Cairo to lebanon. I was talking about a scientiffic non-creationist theory about events likely to be the inspiration behind the stories

http://www.ldolphin.org/eden/

Of course as science it is speculative at best but so is most archeology . Even recent times archeology. The discovery of the atari dump last year led to a radical rethink of the story that ET killed atari because there were only a few thousand ET cartridges no more than any other game. That's a mere 49 years ago and we aren't sure what it really means. 10 thousand years and anything is at best a "good guess".

I used to be scared, but now I am no longer.
http://www.unmaskingevolution....
http://www.detectingdesign.com...
http://ldolphin.org/asstbib.sh...

See also:

Journal Censors 'Second Law' Paper Refuting Evolution
http://www.icr.org/article/journal-censors-second-law-paper-refuting/

After the paper was accepted for publication in Applied Mathematics Letters, an anti-design blogger wrote to the editor, warning that the journal's reputation would be tarnished if the paper was printed. So, the journal's editor withdrew it. Sewell, who has authored at least 39 other technical papers, then took legal action. Since the journal's own policy states that withdrawing a reviewed and accepted paper "can only occur under exceptional circumstances" such as plagiarism or fraudulent data, and since Sewell's article does not contain any known errors or technical problems, he was given an apology as well as permission to post the pre-publication version of his paper on his university faculty web page—although Applied Mathematics Letters still has no plans to publish it.

See also: http://www.icr.org/article/does-entropy-contradict-evolution/

If the energy of the sun somehow is going to transform the non-living molecules of the primeval soup into intricately complex, highly organized, replicating living cells, [...] then that energy has to be stored and converted [...] by an intricate array of complex codes and programs. If such codes and mechanisms are not available [...]then the incoming heat energy will simply disintegrate any organized systems that might accidentally have shown up there.

Evolutionists have hardly even addressed this problem as yet, let alone solved it. There are, to their credit, a few theorists who have at least recognized the problem
[...]

The one man whose speculations have received the most attention (even acquiring for him a Nobel Prize in 1977) is Belgian physicist Ilya Prigogine, who advanced the strange idea of "dissipative structures" as a possible source of new complexity in nature.

Such systems in no way contradict the principle of entropy but rather are illustrations of entropy working overtime! The Harvard scientist, John Ross, comments:
"...there is somehow associated with the field of far-from-equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself."

See finally: http://www.ldolphin.org/chaos.html
[dissipative structures] have never been shown—even mathematically—to reproduce themselves or to generate still higher degrees of order.

[Prigogine] used the example of small vortices in a cup of hot coffee. A similar example would be the much larger "vortex" in a tornado or hurricane. These might be viewed as "structures" and to appear to be "ordered," but they are soon gone. What they leave in their wake is not a higher degree of organized complexity, but a higher degree of dissipation and disorganisation.

[Prigogine, quoted in 1984:]
The problem of biological order involves the transition from the molecular activity to the supermolecular order of the cell. This problem is far from being solved.
However, we must admit that we remain far from any quantitative theory.

Smithsonian magazine had a good article on Eden and the Persian Gulf in 1987, too long ago to be in their online archives. Most references to it are on Christian sites. The article was based on archaeology by Juris Zarins. Genesis describes three rivers flowing into Eden. Zarins says two were the Tigris and Euphrates. The third is a fossil river in Saudi Arabia. The idea is simple and plausible. The Wikipedia page on Zarins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Zarins/ A good description of the research: http://ldolphin.org/eden/ I thought of this often during the Persian Gulf War -- the war in the Garden of Eden.

Darwins theory has been disproved. http://ldolphin.org/wmwilliams.html http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_species_01.html

I searched a little and found a little more information about Alan on this web site http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkgal.html

- Why couldn't a creator have created photons between the furthest objects and us?

- How do you KNOW the objects are 13 billion light years away? Have you measured it with a tape measure? We use methods to measure objects that distant which can't possibly be proved with our current state of technology. They might be right, they may not. We ASSUME they're right, because there's no evidence that they're wrong, but we can't know for certain. Closer objects (100's of light years) we can measure using parallax, which is reasonably proven, but further objects use different methods which are more dubious.

- There's the previously mentioned expanding universe idea. This can answer the problem as well.

- If the speed of light WAS changing, I'm not sure how that would stop a PC working.... If electrons travelled at the speed of light (they don't) then all that would happen is the PC would slow down over time (Hmm, that happens with most Windows PCs anyway.. Maybe that's proof light is slowing down ;) )

BTW - there IS evidence that the speed of light has decreased over the last few hundred years. Whether you accept it or not is up to you... If you refuse to consider it, how are you better than the creationists you are slagging off?

I have seen this evidence sited before, and it is quite hard to refute. If it was solely due to measurement errors, then you'd expect a wide scattering of data points around the current measurements, with the scattering getting closer together over time (sort of like a ">" symbol). In fact, it's a reasonable consistent decrease in speed (from around 300,000 km/sec in 1730's to 299,792 km/sec now), like a \ symbol but not as steep.

According to an incredibly reliable site that I found, "The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number."

So it would be sensible to say that the Hebrew version of the bible doesn't really say anything. It's just one rediculously huge number. :)

Oh, but it's even worse than THAT... recent observations that the vacuum is *not* purely empty, but apparently seething with energy, give rise to a modern, quantum mechanical confirmation of the 19th century concept of that sacreligious word: the (a)ether. But, modelled as a matrix of quantum particles (muons, in this case), it is possibly palatable to modern science. How can this be relevant, you ask? When one models physics BASED on this matrix of quanta, all kinds of things that are currently mysteries become clear. Like for example, the observation that redshift is quantized. That, along with other observations, give lie to the fact that Doppler redshift of star spectra is *ONLY* due to distance and speed. Which means that all astronomical distances recorded and marked based on redshift alone, vs. parallax measurements, fall under new scrutiny. And which allows for areas of the universe (like the high-energy surrounds of quasars) that have a higher energy density than our local galactic neighborhood. And these higher energy domains have "ether" concentrations that will affect what? You guessed it: the speed of light, the fine structure constant, the cosmological constant, and the value of G, the gravitational constant.

......As with all other cultures at the time, the authors of scriptures thought the world was flat and had real ends.....

Exactly wrong, but the opposite is true. In Job 26:7 we read:

"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."

(....I asked YOU to prove your claim. Can you do it?.....)

Nobody can "prove" anything, but I can provide some strong evidence. Have you ever heard of continental drift? Continents not only move horizontally, but also vertically. Even right now, there is enough water in the present oceans to cover the entire globe over 5000 feet if the earth were perfectly smooth. There is evidence that three or four oceans of water are locked up in the layer of the earth named the mantle.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/12/97121 7071316.htm
http://www.ldolphin.org/deepwaters.html

What event might have caused the release of some of this water is unknown, but the Biblical record states: "In the six hundredth year of Noah' life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." (Genesis 7:11) Did a sudden stress on the planet release some of this underground water onto the surface? No known laws of science PRECLUDE such a scenario. Like a squeezed sponge releases water and then soaks it up again, so too the deep layers of the mantle spewed forth water onto the surface and then later, when the pressure was released, soaked it up again.

(....no such concepts even existed when the text was written....)

Exactly true, yet the very first verse of the Bible contains the essential elements of our physical universe: "In the beginning (time) God (the cause) created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter-energy)"

(....Unfortunately, the evidence clearly shows that the Earth is billions of years old....)

I was not making any reference to the age of anything. Science can only address what we observe today and how things work now. Somehow we try to explain how things came to be the way they are. You can believe the cosmos created itself, which is absurd, that it has always existed, which modern discoveries showed to be false, or you can hold that a transcendent, eternal Creator is behind the Universe. I happen to believe the latter, but you may believe something else. Anything is indeed possible, but some things are highly improbable. To me, the explanation of an intelligent, powerful creator making a structure such as the human brain is much more probable and believable than any other possibility that does not involve the activity of a mind.

"Quantum fluctuations" is a widely recognized phrase in physics, used variously to refer to uncertain outcomes of quantum mechanics:

A book by Edward Nelson of CMU in the Princeton Series in Physics: http://www.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/books/qf.pdf
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
From a physics lecture at the University of Oregon (the mention is about halfway down the page): http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec17. html
From Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-64917
From an article in New Scientist: http://www.ldolphin.org/qfoam.html
A paper from the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Roxbury Community College/Harvard: http://www.eduprograms.deas.harvard.edu/reu03_pape rs/Lopez.C.FinReport03.pdf
Theses at Penn State: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/31075.html

A book from the World Scientific Series in Contemporary Chemical Physics: http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/5952.html

My argument fits the term as used in any one of these sources, or in the half-million others that can be found with a two-second Google search.

I don't know much about this subject, but I did find this page: link (look under the heading 'High-Frequency Seismic Sounding')

Expirements suggest that gravity propogates at no less than 2.0E10c.
http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.h tml

"These causality problems would be solved without any change to the mathematical formalism of GR, but only to its interpretation, if gravity is once again taken to be a propagating force of nature in flat spacetime with the propagation speed indicated by observational evidence and experiments: not less than 2 x 1010 c. Such a change of perspective requires no change in the assumed character of gravitational radiation or its lightspeed propagation. Although faster-than-light force propagation speeds do violate Einstein special relativity (SR), they are in accord with Lorentzian relativity, which has never been experimentally distinguished from SR-at least, not if favor of SR."

Why do God and Science have to be mutually exclusive?

Because science doesn't dictate that entire citys be destroyed just because someone wants a little ass?

Because a scientist would look at such a creature and call it evil?

Just a guess...

Does the fact that gravity (wave or whatever) exceeds the speed of light pose a problem?

http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.h tml

The Big Bang theory has problems. It came from observing a red-shift in the frequency of the color of light emitted from distant galaxies. Scientists said, "Aha! The red-shift could be from the Doppler effect, which means the galaxies are in motion moving away from us, possibly as a result of a 'Big Bang'. And so the theory looked solid for about 75 years.

The problem is that if the red-shift is really from the Doppler effect then redness ought to be smoothly and evenly distributed across the cosmos. But it isn't.

In the 1997 it is was observed that the red-shift occurs in quantum steps. An alternate theory that explains the redshift AND the quantum steps is the redshift is actually caused by a descrease in the speed of light, that galaxies are not moving away from each other, and that there was no Big Bang. This theory has other implications that also nicely explain some of the problems with the current theory quantum mechanics, such as why doesn't an electron collapse into the nucleus.

Anyone care to comment on this?

Link

The data is not conclusive, but it is unwise to be too attached to scientific theories that happen to be considered "proven". Not enough evidence yet to consider C=Constant false perhaps, but several scientists are concluding this as most likely based on several different kinds of observations.

Even something apparently simple as graviton exchange can result in experimental observation that the orbit of planets around the sun would decay if gravitons are limited to C. From experimental observations of the planets and the lack of decay. Here is an article that suggest gravitons must be at least 2E10 times C. This is the reason that gravity is typically described as a warping of space, though graviton particle exchange makes more sense in other contexts.

BTW, from what I have been able to see, none of the modern science for C!=constant helps the creationists.

The data is not conclusive, but it is unwise to be too attached to scientific theories that happen to be considered "proven". Not enough evidence yet to consider C=Constant false perhaps, but several scientists are concluding this as most likely based on several different kinds of observations.

Even something apparently simple as graviton exchange can result in experimental observation that the orbit of planets around the sun would decay if gravitons are limited to C. From experimental observations of the planets and the lack of decay. Here is an article that suggest gravitons must be at least 2E10 times C. This is the reason that gravity is typically described as a warping of space, though graviton particle exchange makes more sense in other contexts.

BTW, from what I have been able to see, none of the modern science for C!=constant helps the creationists.

The Fine Article doesn't mention one exciting development in the field of information theory, related to negative information, which may one day tie it to Vacuum Energy or Zero Point physics in a grand unified theory that, once we come to understand it, could form the basis of a star drive to power star ships.

It seems that virtual particles of antimatter and exotic particles of normal matter that spontaneously emerge from the void, and then disappear without interacting with anything. [1] The theoretical potential of tapping this particle flux has brought vacuum energy to the fore of research by the NSA into Quantum Information Theory.

Experiments conducted by the NSA and the DOE on large data samples gathered in large bureaucracies (both public and private) indicate that Microsoft Word Documents are effective containers for Negative Information, which hitherto had been considered a transient phenomenon, almost impossible to store given our current understanding of physics. The phenomenon of massive amounts of stored negative informisinformation, as it turns out, makes the typical corporate or government intranet much more resiliant to cyber terrorist attack than previously predicted -- nearly as resiliant as the typical government organization to a FOIA request today, for comparison.

It is expected that once we understand the characteristics of MS Word Documents which allow them to efficiently store negative information in a stable form, Quantum Physicists and Information Theorists should be able to get together, perhaps over a nice hot cup of tea, and stitch the two branches together, getting us one step closer to faster than light travel, finally bringing the stars within reach -- except it won't really be FTL, it will be something that we don't presently understand. [2]

Only the humor-impaired need read this bootnote.
[1]Yes, I see the grammar error. I've intentionally borrowed a pattern, common in conspiracy theory writing, of constructing a complex sentence, perhaps full of objects, perhaps full of verbs, perhaps full of nouns, on the theory that it might amuse, whereas it normally serves to confuse, as sometimes subjects or verbs may go missing. Oops I did it again! Or did I?
[2]Yes, I realize I mention antimatter only in the title, and not in the text.
[3]Yes, I realize there are 3 bootnotes, not a single bootnote as referenced above.
[4]Yes, I realize that only 2 of the bootnotes are indicated by reference numbers in the text. (Absurd bootnotes are also common in conspiracy theorist writings.)

Maybe because they move too fast.

The minimum observed limit on the speed of gravity is >= 2*10^10c.

http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.h tml

Yes, 20 billion times the speed of light.

I remember reading an article that masturbation can prolong your life, so I tried Googling it, but found this instead, which I found much more entertaining anyway. I especially liked the part about "not admiring yourself in a mirror," heh.

Well according to measurements made, the speed of light has decreased over the past 300 years. The problem of course is that physicists have been ignoring the evidence.

1. You can't "watch the orbits of stars", we haven't been here long enough, let alone had useful telescopes for long enough, to plot a significant amount of a star's orbit. All that we know about them is interpolation and extrapolation;
   
2. There's a lot more bending than the observed stars and the current theories of cosmology can account for between them. As a sibling post has implied, if the theory was broken, that would also account for it - and historically, the odds are well in favour of the theory being broken;
   
3. There's still a lot of argument about the CMB, even Setterfield's theory predicts it much better than orthodox cosmology;
   
4. Again, the progress of these ratios cannot be measured, there was nobody there with a spectrometer at the time, and are based entirely on theories of cosmology which all assume many things, such as approximately static conditions at a large scale;
   
5. Ah, the invokation of the mystical supercomputer. Well that makes it all right then. Again, the supercomputer's results are the expression of theories which have been falsified repeatedly. Of course they're going to match the theory that they were designed under!

all of the evidence for dark matter could be equivalently explained by changing the force law.

There is no constant in the universe but c.

Bet? (-:

Or if you prefer something less radical, consider that there are a number of other constants tied to c; in other words, they are as constant as c is.

According to this site I googled up, "between 8 and 15 percent of the Net's surfers visit adult sites each week." I have no idea what overall internet usage statistics are, so I think I'll let someone else analyze these numbers further.

I sounds to me like all the facts are based on the red-shift seen in remote objects. Red-shift can also be caused by the decay of the speed of light. I don't know if it's true or anything, but at least it's interesting with regard to this matter - it's a theory that the speed of light in vacuum is not constant but is slowly decaying.

I wouldn't take their word for it.

This paper gives a good case for gravity traveling faster than light and I'm pretty sure all the working Newtonian gravity calculations assume instantaneous gravity:

"Standard experimental techniques exist to determine the propagation speed of forces. When we apply these techniques to gravity, they all yield propagation speeds too great to measure, substantially faster than lightspeed. This is because gravity, in contrast to light, has no detectable aberration or propagation delay for its action, even for cases (such as binary pulsars) where sources of gravity accelerate significantly during the light time from source to target"

So, who's right?

First off, one must remember that a single instance is far from sufficient to confirm anything, unless of course, you're not a scientist...

With that thought out of the way, I'd like to point to previous experimental data. I've found a previous publication some time ago by one Tom Van Flandern, called The Speed of Gravity - What the Experiments Say. You will probably find the bibliography just as interesting.

This has already been covered in DISCOVER Vol. 21 No. 10 (October 2000), among the others 19 ways the world could end:

http://www.ldolphin.org/twentyways.html

One of the open questions not addressed in that article is that the Casimir effect might be usable as a source of virtually unlimited energy. A brief non-technical introduction to this can be found here.

At this time the plausibility of constructing actual devices that extract this energy is unknown. As are the potential energy densities. For instance as far as I know, nobody has ruled out achieving controllable extraction of more energy than even Einstein's famous equation E=MC^2 allows! (Starting with non-reactive substances that are stable and don't give off any inconvenient radiation.)

Note that more than a few cranks have convinced themselves that they have the secret to unlimited energy here. However there is also serious research on the same, some of which is mentioned here. It may turn out to be nothing. It may make splitting the atom look like a firecracker.

Sounds like another great opportunity for a biblical smack-down.

Barry is an Australian scientist as well. He's a long-time supporter of CDK (C decay).

But of course, when an Atheist thinks the matter through instead of simply reporting what he finds, anything which tends to support CDK is quickly binned. CDK offers a neat, simple solution to speed-of-light objections to a recent six-day creation of the world on one hand, and hard limits to the age of the universe on the other.

`Close to infinity' describes the mental oscillations needed to remain an Atheist in the face of a mounting stack of observations indicating the impossibility of your position.

As soon as I read the article, I began to remember a layman astrophysics book I read. Specifically, a chapter concerning the propagation speeds of gravity / gravity waves. Since I have long since forgotten the meat of that chapter, I did a little research on this subject. The reason I did this was because I did remember reading that under some physical models, gravity propagates at speeds > c. In fact, a paper by Tom Van Flandern at this page calculates the speed to be >= 2x10 ^ 10 c. Now, I know gravity and gravity waves are two different things, but does anyone know of any literature that attempts to predict the propagation speed of gravity waves? Imagine if this guy's experiment is successful - what if G waves propagated > c? Just a thought....

You'll forgive my honest ignorance - but I'm having a bit of a hard time finding more than indirect evidence pointing to the expectation that gravity should act like other recognized massless particle just because it travels like it has 0 mass - since that's just assuming it can't be different in any way in order to stick with one form of relativity.

The closest thing to direct evidence I've found for gravity travelling at light speed is in observation of the changing orbits of binary pulsars, and the like - but this is not really a satisfying set of evidence for me. It assumes so many aspects of gravitational ratiation escaping and the like, that it really doesn't seem a clear picture so much as a loose interpretation based on existing assumptions.

Also, in another part of this thread, I posted this link:

http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.h tml

, which seems to be a frequently-posted link in discussions like these. I find that the path of discussion in that link has at least a few points valid enough for me to realistically doubt that gravity must act like a conventional form of radiation. I'd definetly be interested in any evidence, and I'm not at all attached to the notion that gravity acts in one way or another - so, if there's some argument or logic I'm missing, lay it on me!

:^)

Ryan Fenton

Nah - the 9.81 m/s/s value is just the average acceleration in freefall for an object within a few miles of the surface of the earth, not counting the effects of atmosphere. It's the effect of gravity, not the speed of gravity itself. On heavier planets, this value is generally higher, because more mass is exerting gravity, thus pulling objects faster. Here's a link to a page with one discussion on the speed of gravity I'm talking about:

http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.h tml

Again, I'm not acting as a scientist proper in this thread - but the speed of gravity in this context is meant to mean the speed at which the force itself "moves", not the speed at which objects affected by it move. The question essentially is: At what rate does the pull from one mass end up having an effect on another mass' acceleration?

:^)

Ryan Fenton

http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.h tml

At least from the evidence of the above link provided, gravity does not appear to be limited as you might think. It's effect doesn't even appear to be limited to the speed of light according to many observations! Rather, it may be more of an inherant pull of space-time, a structural effect, if you will. Of course, there are also unknowns such as the accellerating expansion of the universe which help confuse understanding even further.

Anyway, these are just simple observations from someone who is not a physicist, but is instead a college programmer who tries to understand the universe as far as simulation of forces is concerned. It still appears that there are essential types of forces out there, whether basic or not, that we still can't recreate with known observations. The effects of gravity in all it's incarnations still fits that category.

I'd definetly be interested in counter-arguments though!

:^)

Ryan Fenton

Gravity is not an instantaneous force, it propogates at the speed of light.

This isn't necessarily true: The Speed of Gravity - What the Experiments Say

Your teacher knows more than many others then. Look at the section that contains the following text if you're in a rush:

Even today in discussions of gravity in USENET newsgroups on the Internet, the most frequently asked question and debated topic is "What is the speed of gravity?" It is only heard less often in the classroom because many teachers and most textbooks head off the question by hastily assuring students that gravitational waves propagate at the speed of light, leaving the firm impression, whether intended or not, that the question of gravity's propagation speed has already been answered.

Read this.

Don't post when you don't know what you're talking about. You could at least have read the article before you started with your "horrible YEC creationists" rubbish.

Great, six fingers, we'd be able to count up to 4096 on our hands. It's an historical occurrence as well.

This article reminded me of a stack of papers passed around my dorm about 10 years ago about the slowing of the speed of light by an Australian astronomer named Barry Setterfield.

Someone of a Creationism bent took his original paper and proceeded to extrapolate into the past and determined that at some point the speed of light was so fast, Carbon-14 decayed so fast, it would seem like millions or even billions of years given the current speed of light. And therefore, ipso facto, Evolution is wrong and Creationism is right. I still have it somewhere with my college memorabillia, probably with all the Young Republicans for Freedom propaganda I snagged off their table in the student union.

Here's more about the implication of changing constants (Their words, not mine) and a short version here.

This article reminded me of a stack of papers passed around my dorm about 10 years ago about the slowing of the speed of light by an Australian astronomer named Barry Setterfield.

Someone of a Creationism bent took his original paper and proceeded to extrapolate into the past and determined that at some point the speed of light was so fast, Carbon-14 decayed so fast, it would seem like millions or even billions of years given the current speed of light. And therefore, ipso facto, Evolution is wrong and Creationism is right. I still have it somewhere with my college memorabillia, probably with all the Young Republicans for Freedom propaganda I snagged off their table in the student union.

Here's more about the implication of changing constants (Their words, not mine) and a short version here.

you're wrong

Experimental evidence shows that gravity travels at not less than 2x10^10 times the speed of light. See The Speed of Gravity - what Experiments Say.

Here's the abstract:

Abstract

Standard experimental techniques exist to determine the propagation speed of forces. When we apply these techniques to gravity, they all yield propagation speeds too great to measure, substantially faster than lightspeed. This is because gravity, in contrast to light, has no detectable aberration or propagation delay for its action, even for cases (such as binary pulsars) where sources of gravity accelerate significantly during the light time from source to target By contrast, the finite propagation speed of light causes radiation pressure forces to have a non-radial component causing orbits to decay (the "Poynting-Robertson effect"); but gravity has no counterpart force proportional to v/c to first order. General relativity (GR) explains these features by suggesting that gravitation (unlike electromagnetic forces) is a pure geometric effect of curved space-time, not a force of nature that propagates. Gravitational radiation, which surely does propagate at lightspeed but is a fifth order effect in v/c, is too small to play a role in explaining this difference in behavior between gravity and ordinary forces of nature. Problems with the causality principle also exist for GR in this connection, such as explaining how the external fields between binary black holes manage to continually update without benefit of communication with the masses hidden behind event horizons. These causality problems would be solved without any change to the mathematical formalism of GR, but only to its interpretation, if gravity is once again taken to be a propagating force of nature in flat spacetime with the propagation speed indicated by observational evidence and experiments: not less than 2 x 10^10 c. Such a change of perspective requires no change in the assumed character of gravitational radiation or its lightspeed propagation. Although faster-than-light force propagation speeds do violate Einstein special relativity (SR), they are in accord with Lorentzian relativity, which has never been experimentally distinguished from SR-at least, not if favor of SR. Indeed, far from upsetting much of current physics, the main changes induced by this new perspective are beneficial to areas where physics has been struggling, such as explaining experimental evidence for non-locality in quantum physics, the dark matter issue in cosmology, and the possible unification of forces. Recognition of a faster-than-lightspeed propagation of gravity, as indicated by all existing experimental evidence, may be the key to taking conventional physics to the next plateau.

This is a common "error" in the Bible, made by simple-minded people who don't bother to research the language used. As this page explains, Hebrew letters have alphanumeric value. The normal spelling for the word that means circumference is qav, which has a value of 106. The word used here, qaveh, has value of 111, since the added heh means 5. The ratio of the word used to the normal word is 111/106 which yields 3.141509433962. This value gives the circumference of the bowl within 15 thousanths of an inch, which is more accurate than values of pi that are only hundreds of years old.

I don't think the above post should have been mod-ed "funny." I would mod it -1, Pathetic Misuse of Biblical Text

Top-down in efficiency:

Peltier junctions, an existing technology, are produced by junctions of two metals. When electricity is applied, heat energy flows from one metal to the other. If the current is reversed, heat energy flows the other direction. If heat energy flows from one metal to the other, then a potential voltage is produced. However, in all cases, the Peltier junction, if viewed as an enclosed system with two inputs, increases in temperature and decreases in potential energy.

The second idea is that you harness the kinetic energy of the nucleus itself to create electric energy. This happens in ALL materials, and is why cold materials glow in the infrared. Warmer materials glow in the visible wavelengths (red-hot poker, etc.) The problem here is, to get usable energy out of this system, you have to be at a lower energy point. Meaning you have to be colder than whatever is providing you energy. This provides a theoretical limit on any kind of heat engine. It is against this limit that the efficiency of a heat engine is measured; even if you get a 100% heat engine, that doesn't mean that ALL the heat energy in it is being converted to another type of energy, only that it is at the theoretical limit for efficiency.

And last but not least, zero-flux vacuum energy. I won't go into the details, go here if you want them. The short of it is, virtual particles exist everywhere and there should be ways to tap them. It is often said in this field that there's enough energy in a cup of coffee to boil all the oceans of the world. And there is a way to tap it:

Take two large metal plates in relatively empty space. Infinite plates are ideal, but that's not going to happen any time soon. The important part is that they are reflective and lightweight. Place them close together, parallel, so that the space between them is a resonating cavity for EM radiation. If the empty space is empty enough (i.e. no light energy, etc.), then they will be repelled from each other slightly. This is because the virtual particles forming between them cause light pressure on the reflective surfaces, pushing them apart.

I've heard that this has actually been tried and proven to work, but don't have any concrete documentation. Anyone know any more details?

Anyways, the point is that, with this method, you STILL need a lower-energy point. By setting up the resonating cavity between the two plates, you've basically created a region where zero-point energy is higher than in the area outside the plates.

But don't let me be a complete downer. The energy holding an atom together was untappable at one point for the exact same reasons. Through a combination of superconducting technology for fast efficient energy exchange, nanotechnology for creating quantum cavities, and some as yet undiscovered technology, this could be the way we finally realize the dream of Athena (goddess of the technology of war); to become gods ourselves.

No. There is no such universal scaling constant. It takes more than more one number to describe physics. Let me try to give you an idea of what I mean.

You do not fully understand the concept, which makes sense because it was not laid out in much detail. It is precisely the fact that there is no "universal scaling constant" which provides us with a potential way to measure a decrease in the speed of light.

This idea was laid out by Norman and Setterfield in 1987. Basically they make a distinction between atomic clocks, which depend on a constant c for their accuracy, and dynamical clocks (for example, orbiting planets), which depend on other constants such as G or Gm. They found a statistically significant downward trend in the speed of light over time, as measured by dynamical clocks.

The implications of this theory are still being worked on, but some feel it provides some support for a young earth. It is believed that radiometric dating would produce ages that are too old, and it is also possible that the red-shift phenomenon can be explained via this theory.

There is a pretty good explanation here.