The Acela Express travels at up to 150mph, and does the New York-DC leg in about 2hrs 45 minutes. That's very competitive with flying, given that you don't have the airport hassle. It also stops at some intermediate locations, so you don't necessarily have to catch it in a big city, which can make the commute to the train easier.
The Acela has all business-class seating, very large windows, and is very quiet. There are no rules about standing or walking around.
Quite a few of the seats are configured in facing pairs around a "conference table" which is nice if you're in a small group, or can snag a table to yourself - plenty of space to lay out laptop, newspapers & magazines, and food and drink. The regular seats may be better for pure laptop work, though, since their tables are more like airline tables - they fold down over your lap, which is a bit better positioned for typing.
They also have (sometimes?) a "quiet car" where cellphones and other noisy distractions are forbidden.
You omitted the next sentence from your first quote: "The PDAs figure out their locations by comparing the strength levels of signals traveling from the devices to various Wi-Fi antennas." The GPS technology in question is simply triangulation.
The wording on the "around the world" thing wasn't completely clear, but I think they were saying that if you're in a remote location on a WiFi network that has Internet access, you can check where your buddies back home are, by accessing their PDAs across the net.
Great scenario, and when someone finds a solution, please let me know. But in the meantime, the question in this context is whether this scenario is more likely with a GPL'd project than a closed-source project.
In my experience, it's easier for a developer on a closed-source project to sneak stuff in, than on an open-source project. Of course, it may be more difficult to become a developer on a closed-source project, so there are pros and cons to each approach, but it doesn't seem as though one or the other has a clear advantage on this specific issue.
Overall, it still seems to me that the many-eyes case provides a safety net that's difficult or impossible to duplicate with closed source.
..or more likely, he is completely aware, and wrote the paper with an anti-GPL point of view because someone higher up wanted it that way.
The point is, he could have written a better paper - but the reason he didn't is probably simply that anyone smart enough to do so, wouldn't be stuck with the job of writing an anti-GPL paper in 2002.
What the hell do you mean that it will take equipment and modifications? It's a damn camera! Aim that little son of a bitch UP!
I thought the same thing. I don't know specifically what he's talking about, but without more detail, I wouldn't be surprised if the next Ask Slashdot from this guy was "I can't change channels on my TV because I'd have to get up off the sofa to reach the remote - what should I do?"
So he must still be collecting reasonable royalties.
The whole point of the bonds is that Bowie is not collecting royalties from those songs anymore. He securitized the future income stream of the royalties from his existing songs, and sold the securities (bonds) to other people. He got $55 million up front; the people who own his bonds get the royalties from now on. Bowie no longer has any claim on that income.
Yes, it has two backups, according to this space.com article. It has four gyroscopes but only needs two to maintain attitude.
But it wouldn't be very interesting to report this story factually, since it literally has no effect on the station's operation, except requiring that another gyroscope be installed before not the next one, but the one after that fails.
Everything you say sounds great, and I like the sound of it, but there are historical reasons for the current state of affairs which can't easily or sensibly be ignored.
The US in its role as "only superpower" has a responsibility to the rest of the world, whether it likes it or not. If the US retreated into a kind of isolationism today, following the points you mentioned, either some other country would have to step in to fulfill the role the US now plays, or there'd soon be nukes flying in the Middle East or India/Pakistan. It wouldn't be long before the US would be forced to get involved again, to protect its own interests.
The US currently plays the role of Benign Global Dictator (or not so benign, depending on your POV). The problem is that many people around the world actually like that - the US acts as a kind of check and balance against their own governments, or their neighbour's governments, etc. This is a role that can't be played by the current UN, because the UN doesn't have sufficient executive power. The reason for that is that no-one currently really wants a world government, which is what the UN could become if it had such executive power. Instead, the US has become the de-facto world policeman, with the implicit and explicit cooperation of most nations of the world.
If the US existed on a completely different planet, then isolationism could work to its advantage. But as long as it shares a planet with hundreds of other nations, most of which being much less stable, it is going to need to keep close control over what goes on outside its borders, to ensure its own safety. Yes, the US is "hated", but it is also loved, or needed, in a begrudging sort of way. As long as other nations act like children, it's in the US interest to act like a big brother (I'm not sure it's mature enough to qualify as a parent), and threaten bullying if the younger siblings are out of control.
What the US really needs is better external PR. Use some of its marketing expertise. Give the appearance of involving other country's citizens and leadership in a more open foreign policy dialog. Get other countries to agree explicitly that the US is actually doing what they want it to do. The problem right now is that's often the case, yet the same leaders who privately welcome US presence, will turn around and criticize it for local political advantage.
I'll descend into full ranthood here: the US needs to bypass local politicians and engage people around the world directly. Forget cultural imperialism, I'm thinking global direct-citizen-access political imperialism. Set up a web site: www.overthrow-my-government.com, so that disgruntled citizens can take action against poor leadership directly. That'd keep leaders around the world honest, and stop them from benefitting from the US while using it as a punching bag at the same time.
Re:Go to Africa. Learn what poor means.
on
The Almighty Buck
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· Score: 2
South Africans, for instance, have a great level of freedom of freedom of speach and thought
Um, yes, but that's because they just recently wrote a new constitution, based heavily on the US Constitution. A decade or so ago, South Africa was one of the most repressive nations on Earth, unless you were white, and even then it wasn't fun, unless you were a racist.
It is not true that "many African democracies" have constitutionally-encoded freedom of speech, even if the practical effect of poor governments with limited resources is that individuals aren't particularly restricted by the government in their day-to-day lives (as long as they don't do anything to upset a government official).
Heck, in Zimbabwe, mobs of people are encouraged by the government to maraud farms... Can't do that in the US! Which country has better personal freedoms?
Worse than that is when you buy stuff you don't need but really want, then two days later you realise you don't have much of a use for it, and don't really want it anymore. Anyone else just go out and buy something just cause it feels good to? What's going on?
Americans have all been programmed, by Christmas especially, to associate getting stuff with feeling good (getting an endorphin rush). Doesn't matter what kind of plastic crap it is, the point is that getting stuff feels good. It's an addiction, and the first step in kicking it is realizing that. The next time you find yourself hot to buy some new thing that you just gotta have, take a step back and start doing some serious thinking.
Re:Plugging the analog hole
on
DRM Helmet
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· Score: 3, Funny
When I click on that link, my DRM helmet immediately fogs up. Could you please sell me a license??
You know, 1984 was a book of fiction. The planes colliding with the World Trade Center and Pentagon really happened.
Other things that really happened include concentration camps for Americans of the wrong ancestry, criminalization of anti-war and anti-capitalist beliefs, a "free" nation with the world's highest prison population per-capita. Other things that are really happening right now are secret arrests and tribunals.
Spot on. But the terrorists seem to have succeeded in elevating their status as a perceived threat far beyond any of the things you mention. The direct killing of large numbers of nominally innocent people at the same time seems to have a much greater impact on the average human psyche than more subtle threats, even if in the end, the more subtle threats are the ones likely to most degrade everyone's quality of life.
If you have good hearing, the noise from a powerful machine is very noticeable, and if you work 8+ hours a day with them for years on end, you'll start to see the benefits of quieter machines - unless, as I said, you're half deaf.
So which of the postulates Einstein used are you rejecting: the constant speed of light, or constant physical laws in all inertial frames? Or have you found a flaw in the derivation? Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke.
You expect what?
I expect the dimensions of the observation to be based on the spacetime path that light from the observed object follows to reach the observer. In the case of an object undergoing orbital acceleration, I expect contractions on a local scale, but the effects of GR are difficult to intuit. However, overall it's easy to see the cancellation effect, as I've pointed out.
But if we move out to the Galaxy dimensions - there is almost no acceleration.
You're either orbiting, or you're not. If you're orbiting, acceleration has to be large enough to support that. There's a ratio there that can be expressed as an invariant.
How do you know, that you are not observing a circular case, watching ONE car?
Playing with limits doesn't affect the overall equation. Any local effects would not affect the overall system, because of the factors I've already described. I'd be happy to accept a research grant to work this out in detail - it ought to be a straightforward calculation. A computer simulation of what an observer would sees ought to be quite possible.
It is ALWAYS some acceleration involved. The gravitation of a distant star - whatever. Do you suggest, that SR never holds?
Orbital motion implies a special set of circumstances in which different factors cancel out. I'd expect a difference between the orbital case and a non-orbital case. The orbital case involves accelerations significant to the calculation, by definition. In non-orbital scenarios, the relative effect of acceleration would be less.
The conclusion, that there is no contraction (observable) is enough. It's against SR.
If you expect contraction of the radius, it simply means you don't understand SR. It's hard to refute something you don't understand. How could the radius possibly contract, when there's no motion in that direction?
If you believe the radius must contract because of contraction of the length of the ring, you need to consider the effect of constant changes in direction, i.e. the effects of acceleration. You seem to be trying to apply SR in a single step to the system as a whole, completely ignoring the effects of the construction of the example. No wonder your results seem inconsistent!
For example, how are you accounting for the fact that at different points along the track, train cars or satellites are moving in *opposite directions*? Oh, you're not accounting for it at all? Bit of a problem, don't you think?
Do you think, that there IS observable contraction:
- in this case?
I'd have to do the math to figure out exactly what would and wouldn't be observable in this case. In general, I would expect observable effects, but certainly not to the same degree as the noncircular case. As has been pointed out, including by this page, general relativity has to be considered because of the constant and extremely high acceleration in this example, and this has a significant effect.
in the case of noncircular train?
Yes, contraction in this case would be observable, because the motion is in a constant direction and thus the SR effect is not affected by continuous changes in direction; which means that GR can be ignored, incidentally making the calculation much easier.
I encourage you to try to work through the derivation of the Lorentz transformation, even in just one dimension. It will be much easier to understand all this once you've assimilated that.
Given that this is because we haven't been able to construct a suitable experiment, what do you conclude from that?
Given the nature of the theory (which as I have pointed out, can be derived by a high school student), the fact that this one aspect hasn't been experimentally verified doesn't detract from the theory.
If the theory is wrong, then you should be able to come up with a thought experiment that challenges it. The circular train/satellite network is a nice try, but it doesn't succeed. So where does that leave you?
Have you read
my other reply yet, regarding the train example? I've already addressed all of your questions, in principle.
"Do satellites contract"? From the point of view of an observer, their dimensions appear to contract along the relative direction of travel. The satellite itself detects no such contraction in itself, although it detects such contraction in you.
"Does the network of them contract?" It depends on the relationship of the observer to the network. See my answer re the train example. The answer will be the same as for a single satellite, i.e. contraction along the direction of travel relative to the observer, if the entire network is moving toward or away from an observer. If the observer is being orbited by a network of high speed satellites, then as I've pointed out for the train example, it's easy to see that there can be no contraction of the radius. So where's the problem?
"Is it visible in principle?" Certainly. All of these phenomena are visible, repeatable, verifiable, and theoretically consistent. They have been observed and verified in various ways. The problem is that to see obvious dilation effects that don't require very sensitive equipment (like atomic clocks) to measure, you need objects travelling close to light speed, which is rather difficult to arrange. Nevertheless, verification of the theory has been successfully performed in all sorts of ways.
#1 sign of a crackpot: they "know" what science will show in the future.
The logic of this is very simple:
Crackpot dislikes or can't understand theory.
Crackpot has ultimate faith in own intelligence.
Therefore, theory in question must be flawed.
Therefore, it will be shown to be wrong in future.
It's actually a mechanism for maintenance of self-esteem. I suppose we shouldn't be so hard on them. "Forgive them, Albert, they know not what they do."
...then what? To "show you" some of these things would require years of hard work on your part. If you want to sit back and expect other people to solve complex problems for you, and boil them down to match your level of understanding, you shouldn't be surprised if you don't get the answers you're looking for. How much are you willing to pay me to spend the time to work out the exact details of your circular train example?
In the case of the circular train - how do they work? I am asking. ...
Excuse me! How it works for the circular train?
I was replying to an AC with a strange view of the applicability of physical theories. ShavenYak has already given a reasonable answer to your train question.
To understand what happens with the circular train, I'd suggest first trying to understand how simple special relativity really is - the Lorentz transformations which form the basis of special relativity involve little more than a simple application of geometry. A high school kid could work them out from first principles, pointed in the right direction. One site which includes a form of this derivation is here, and it has some good links to other sites.
Once you've understood that, you can then apply the Lorentz transformations in as much or as little detail as you like to satisfy yourself that the circular train example doesn't put the slightest dent in special relativity.
I'll give you a hint though: imagine that the Earth is transparent. You're standing next to a circular train travelling near the speed of light. Look below your feet, at the train on the opposite side of the planet. At that point, it's not travelling towards you, it's travelling perpendicular to you. This means that there is no length dilation in the direction towards you. Which means that the radius of the train is unaffected.
So let's take that a step further and ask what it would take for the dilation of the train's radius to take place. Well, it would have to be travelling at least partially in the same direction as its radius for that to be the case. But it's travelling in a circle, so by definition, the direction of its velocity vector is always tangential to the circle,perpendicular to the radius. At no time does any component of the train's velocity vector coincide have the same direction as its radius. Therefore, there cannot be any dilation of the radius. (For bonus points, show why this still applies for an observer on the surface of the earth, rather than at the center.)
Perhaps this gives you some flavor of how these things naturally work out to avoid contradictions. No special tricks or selective application of rules are required. In your original post, you talked about inconsistencies "popping out". The very fact that theories like special relativity are easily able to cope with every special case and test case that is thrown at them, is an indication of what solid theories they are (again, see Kuhn).
Much of this stuff, and especially S.R., is very accessible to anyone willing to take the time and make the effort to learn about it. If you haven't made that effort, though, claiming that it must be wrong because you don't understand it only demonstrates your ignorance, it says nothing about the universe or the validity of well-tested physical theories.
If you think if the fact that you have a bunch of differnt rules, some apply here, some apply there, nothing really works all of the time.
Just because *you* don't understand how it all fits together, doesn't mean it doesn't. The rules do work "all the time" - if they didn't, physicists wouldn't find them very useful. The rules of special relativity apply everywhere, all the time, but they only produce the unusual time/mass dilation effects in situations involving relative differences in velocity. Ditto for general relativity: as far as we know, it applies throughout the universe at all times; however, since it's based on the strength of the gravitational field at any point, its effects vary. If these rules *didn't* vary in their effects depending on the situation, it would either mean they were wrong, or the universe would be an incredibly static place.
This is because they came up with an idea, found an area that it didn't work in and had to invent rules that worked for that area
This is completely wrong. When this has happened, it typically results in an improved theory which completely explains all areas in question with a single theory. Try reading Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for more on this.
As for your tangential link to terrorism, it's hard to see how ignorance is going to help to achieve international peace.
The problem with capitalizing "God" is that it makes the assumption that there's only one god, whose name is "God". This is very Judeo-Christian-centric. To correct this, we need to start using the proper name of the deity being referred to, e.g. Jahweh, Jah, etc. Curse phrases can then be "Jah damn you", but to be more religiously correct, could be switched back to the original "may the gods damn you", etc.
When you think about it, you realize that what the Judeo-Christians have done with "God" is similar to what Microsoft did with "Office", "Word", and "Windows" - appropriate a common word to further their own ends.
As for the capitalization of "Him", admit it, "respect" is just a euphemism for "fear". Anyone who believes in a god of love as opposed to a god of vengeance and pettiness would not feel the need to capitalize parts of speech that refer to their god, because she would know what they mean and how they mean it.
Slashdot Mirror
The Acela has all business-class seating, very large windows, and is very quiet. There are no rules about standing or walking around.
Quite a few of the seats are configured in facing pairs around a "conference table" which is nice if you're in a small group, or can snag a table to yourself - plenty of space to lay out laptop, newspapers & magazines, and food and drink. The regular seats may be better for pure laptop work, though, since their tables are more like airline tables - they fold down over your lap, which is a bit better positioned for typing.
They also have (sometimes?) a "quiet car" where cellphones and other noisy distractions are forbidden.
Seems like a pretty thin line - if you know exactly what's going to happen and that it's got to happen, why bother to even get out of bed?
Uh, why do you go to movies at all? Unless you are the main character, why do you care?
The wording on the "around the world" thing wasn't completely clear, but I think they were saying that if you're in a remote location on a WiFi network that has Internet access, you can check where your buddies back home are, by accessing their PDAs across the net.
In my experience, it's easier for a developer on a closed-source project to sneak stuff in, than on an open-source project. Of course, it may be more difficult to become a developer on a closed-source project, so there are pros and cons to each approach, but it doesn't seem as though one or the other has a clear advantage on this specific issue.
Overall, it still seems to me that the many-eyes case provides a safety net that's difficult or impossible to duplicate with closed source.
The point is, he could have written a better paper - but the reason he didn't is probably simply that anyone smart enough to do so, wouldn't be stuck with the job of writing an anti-GPL paper in 2002.
I thought the same thing. I don't know specifically what he's talking about, but without more detail, I wouldn't be surprised if the next Ask Slashdot from this guy was "I can't change channels on my TV because I'd have to get up off the sofa to reach the remote - what should I do?"
The whole point of the bonds is that Bowie is not collecting royalties from those songs anymore. He securitized the future income stream of the royalties from his existing songs, and sold the securities (bonds) to other people. He got $55 million up front; the people who own his bonds get the royalties from now on. Bowie no longer has any claim on that income.
But it wouldn't be very interesting to report this story factually, since it literally has no effect on the station's operation, except requiring that another gyroscope be installed before not the next one, but the one after that fails.
The US in its role as "only superpower" has a responsibility to the rest of the world, whether it likes it or not. If the US retreated into a kind of isolationism today, following the points you mentioned, either some other country would have to step in to fulfill the role the US now plays, or there'd soon be nukes flying in the Middle East or India/Pakistan. It wouldn't be long before the US would be forced to get involved again, to protect its own interests.
The US currently plays the role of Benign Global Dictator (or not so benign, depending on your POV). The problem is that many people around the world actually like that - the US acts as a kind of check and balance against their own governments, or their neighbour's governments, etc. This is a role that can't be played by the current UN, because the UN doesn't have sufficient executive power. The reason for that is that no-one currently really wants a world government, which is what the UN could become if it had such executive power. Instead, the US has become the de-facto world policeman, with the implicit and explicit cooperation of most nations of the world.
If the US existed on a completely different planet, then isolationism could work to its advantage. But as long as it shares a planet with hundreds of other nations, most of which being much less stable, it is going to need to keep close control over what goes on outside its borders, to ensure its own safety. Yes, the US is "hated", but it is also loved, or needed, in a begrudging sort of way. As long as other nations act like children, it's in the US interest to act like a big brother (I'm not sure it's mature enough to qualify as a parent), and threaten bullying if the younger siblings are out of control.
What the US really needs is better external PR. Use some of its marketing expertise. Give the appearance of involving other country's citizens and leadership in a more open foreign policy dialog. Get other countries to agree explicitly that the US is actually doing what they want it to do. The problem right now is that's often the case, yet the same leaders who privately welcome US presence, will turn around and criticize it for local political advantage.
I'll descend into full ranthood here: the US needs to bypass local politicians and engage people around the world directly. Forget cultural imperialism, I'm thinking global direct-citizen-access political imperialism. Set up a web site: www.overthrow-my-government.com, so that disgruntled citizens can take action against poor leadership directly. That'd keep leaders around the world honest, and stop them from benefitting from the US while using it as a punching bag at the same time.
Um, yes, but that's because they just recently wrote a new constitution, based heavily on the US Constitution. A decade or so ago, South Africa was one of the most repressive nations on Earth, unless you were white, and even then it wasn't fun, unless you were a racist.
It is not true that "many African democracies" have constitutionally-encoded freedom of speech, even if the practical effect of poor governments with limited resources is that individuals aren't particularly restricted by the government in their day-to-day lives (as long as they don't do anything to upset a government official).
Heck, in Zimbabwe, mobs of people are encouraged by the government to maraud farms... Can't do that in the US! Which country has better personal freedoms?
Americans have all been programmed, by Christmas especially, to associate getting stuff with feeling good (getting an endorphin rush). Doesn't matter what kind of plastic crap it is, the point is that getting stuff feels good. It's an addiction, and the first step in kicking it is realizing that. The next time you find yourself hot to buy some new thing that you just gotta have, take a step back and start doing some serious thinking.
When I click on that link, my DRM helmet immediately fogs up. Could you please sell me a license??
Better be careful, with comprehension skills like yours, you're ripe for being trolled...
Well done to borgquite for saving Norwegian history! :)
If you have good hearing, the noise from a powerful machine is very noticeable, and if you work 8+ hours a day with them for years on end, you'll start to see the benefits of quieter machines - unless, as I said, you're half deaf.
So which of the postulates Einstein used are you rejecting: the constant speed of light, or constant physical laws in all inertial frames? Or have you found a flaw in the derivation? Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke.
You expect what?
I expect the dimensions of the observation to be based on the spacetime path that light from the observed object follows to reach the observer. In the case of an object undergoing orbital acceleration, I expect contractions on a local scale, but the effects of GR are difficult to intuit. However, overall it's easy to see the cancellation effect, as I've pointed out.
But if we move out to the Galaxy dimensions - there is almost no acceleration.
You're either orbiting, or you're not. If you're orbiting, acceleration has to be large enough to support that. There's a ratio there that can be expressed as an invariant.
How do you know, that you are not observing a circular case, watching ONE car?
Playing with limits doesn't affect the overall equation. Any local effects would not affect the overall system, because of the factors I've already described. I'd be happy to accept a research grant to work this out in detail - it ought to be a straightforward calculation. A computer simulation of what an observer would sees ought to be quite possible.
It is ALWAYS some acceleration involved. The gravitation of a distant star - whatever. Do you suggest, that SR never holds?
Orbital motion implies a special set of circumstances in which different factors cancel out. I'd expect a difference between the orbital case and a non-orbital case. The orbital case involves accelerations significant to the calculation, by definition. In non-orbital scenarios, the relative effect of acceleration would be less.
If you expect contraction of the radius, it simply means you don't understand SR. It's hard to refute something you don't understand. How could the radius possibly contract, when there's no motion in that direction?
If you believe the radius must contract because of contraction of the length of the ring, you need to consider the effect of constant changes in direction, i.e. the effects of acceleration. You seem to be trying to apply SR in a single step to the system as a whole, completely ignoring the effects of the construction of the example. No wonder your results seem inconsistent!
For example, how are you accounting for the fact that at different points along the track, train cars or satellites are moving in *opposite directions*? Oh, you're not accounting for it at all? Bit of a problem, don't you think?
Do you think, that there IS observable contraction:
- in this case?
I'd have to do the math to figure out exactly what would and wouldn't be observable in this case. In general, I would expect observable effects, but certainly not to the same degree as the noncircular case. As has been pointed out, including by this page, general relativity has to be considered because of the constant and extremely high acceleration in this example, and this has a significant effect.
in the case of noncircular train?
Yes, contraction in this case would be observable, because the motion is in a constant direction and thus the SR effect is not affected by continuous changes in direction; which means that GR can be ignored, incidentally making the calculation much easier.
I encourage you to try to work through the derivation of the Lorentz transformation, even in just one dimension. It will be much easier to understand all this once you've assimilated that.
Given that this is because we haven't been able to construct a suitable experiment, what do you conclude from that?
Given the nature of the theory (which as I have pointed out, can be derived by a high school student), the fact that this one aspect hasn't been experimentally verified doesn't detract from the theory.
If the theory is wrong, then you should be able to come up with a thought experiment that challenges it. The circular train/satellite network is a nice try, but it doesn't succeed. So where does that leave you?
"Do satellites contract"? From the point of view of an observer, their dimensions appear to contract along the relative direction of travel. The satellite itself detects no such contraction in itself, although it detects such contraction in you.
"Does the network of them contract?" It depends on the relationship of the observer to the network. See my answer re the train example. The answer will be the same as for a single satellite, i.e. contraction along the direction of travel relative to the observer, if the entire network is moving toward or away from an observer. If the observer is being orbited by a network of high speed satellites, then as I've pointed out for the train example, it's easy to see that there can be no contraction of the radius. So where's the problem?
"Is it visible in principle?" Certainly. All of these phenomena are visible, repeatable, verifiable, and theoretically consistent. They have been observed and verified in various ways. The problem is that to see obvious dilation effects that don't require very sensitive equipment (like atomic clocks) to measure, you need objects travelling close to light speed, which is rather difficult to arrange. Nevertheless, verification of the theory has been successfully performed in all sorts of ways.
The logic of this is very simple:
- Crackpot dislikes or can't understand theory.
- Crackpot has ultimate faith in own intelligence.
- Therefore, theory in question must be flawed.
- Therefore, it will be shown to be wrong in future.
It's actually a mechanism for maintenance of self-esteem. I suppose we shouldn't be so hard on them. "Forgive them, Albert, they know not what they do."In the case of the circular train - how do they work? I am asking.
...
Excuse me! How it works for the circular train?
I was replying to an AC with a strange view of the applicability of physical theories. ShavenYak has already given a reasonable answer to your train question.
To understand what happens with the circular train, I'd suggest first trying to understand how simple special relativity really is - the Lorentz transformations which form the basis of special relativity involve little more than a simple application of geometry. A high school kid could work them out from first principles, pointed in the right direction. One site which includes a form of this derivation is here, and it has some good links to other sites.
Once you've understood that, you can then apply the Lorentz transformations in as much or as little detail as you like to satisfy yourself that the circular train example doesn't put the slightest dent in special relativity.
I'll give you a hint though: imagine that the Earth is transparent. You're standing next to a circular train travelling near the speed of light. Look below your feet, at the train on the opposite side of the planet. At that point, it's not travelling towards you, it's travelling perpendicular to you. This means that there is no length dilation in the direction towards you. Which means that the radius of the train is unaffected.
So let's take that a step further and ask what it would take for the dilation of the train's radius to take place. Well, it would have to be travelling at least partially in the same direction as its radius for that to be the case. But it's travelling in a circle, so by definition, the direction of its velocity vector is always tangential to the circle,perpendicular to the radius. At no time does any component of the train's velocity vector coincide have the same direction as its radius. Therefore, there cannot be any dilation of the radius. (For bonus points, show why this still applies for an observer on the surface of the earth, rather than at the center.)
Perhaps this gives you some flavor of how these things naturally work out to avoid contradictions. No special tricks or selective application of rules are required. In your original post, you talked about inconsistencies "popping out". The very fact that theories like special relativity are easily able to cope with every special case and test case that is thrown at them, is an indication of what solid theories they are (again, see Kuhn).
Much of this stuff, and especially S.R., is very accessible to anyone willing to take the time and make the effort to learn about it. If you haven't made that effort, though, claiming that it must be wrong because you don't understand it only demonstrates your ignorance, it says nothing about the universe or the validity of well-tested physical theories.
Just because *you* don't understand how it all fits together, doesn't mean it doesn't. The rules do work "all the time" - if they didn't, physicists wouldn't find them very useful. The rules of special relativity apply everywhere, all the time, but they only produce the unusual time/mass dilation effects in situations involving relative differences in velocity. Ditto for general relativity: as far as we know, it applies throughout the universe at all times; however, since it's based on the strength of the gravitational field at any point, its effects vary. If these rules *didn't* vary in their effects depending on the situation, it would either mean they were wrong, or the universe would be an incredibly static place.
This is because they came up with an idea, found an area that it didn't work in and had to invent rules that worked for that area
This is completely wrong. When this has happened, it typically results in an improved theory which completely explains all areas in question with a single theory. Try reading Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for more on this.
As for your tangential link to terrorism, it's hard to see how ignorance is going to help to achieve international peace.
When you think about it, you realize that what the Judeo-Christians have done with "God" is similar to what Microsoft did with "Office", "Word", and "Windows" - appropriate a common word to further their own ends.
As for the capitalization of "Him", admit it, "respect" is just a euphemism for "fear". Anyone who believes in a god of love as opposed to a god of vengeance and pettiness would not feel the need to capitalize parts of speech that refer to their god, because she would know what they mean and how they mean it.