The LHC will smach protons and anti-protons together.
One minor correction: LHC is a proton-proton collider, not a proton-anti-proton machine. pp machines are cheaper to build and run than p-pbar machines, and for the energies of the LHC (14TeV Center of Mass), they have almost the same reach for finding new phenomena. This is mostly because at such high energies, protons and anti-protons both are "mostly" gluons (meaning glue, not quarks, carries most of the energy). So, LHC is basically a gluon-gluon collider. Otherwise, I agree with everything you said.
Actually, one of the other responses to this article claimed that local speed of sound is slower at lower densities, not faster. (And much faster in solid ground.)
So, I actually went and looked it up, and found that I was mistaken. DOH!!! The relation between density, pressure, and Cp/Cv ration gamma is:
v^2 = gamma Pressure / density
So, if you assume that the atmosphere is an ideal gas, then
Pressure = density k Temperature / molecule mass
(This is just the ideal gas law). Then, we can substitute, and we find that, the velocity of sound in the atmosphere depends most strongly on the temperature:
v^2 proportional to Temp
So, we need to know the temperature profile to know the speed of sound...now, I don't remember precisely what the profile is, but I do know that it decreases for a while as you go up from see level, and then it increases for a time, before again decreasing until it merges with space.
Bottom line: I was wrong, but I still don't know the answer... it is entirely possible that she will exceed the local speed of sound at some point, but I would need to do more work than I'm willing to do right now to figure it out:-)
Couldn't she cross the local speed of sound somewhere on the way down as the local speed slows down before the drag can counter the inertia of her accumulated speed?
Good question, and that's exactly the reason I said I wasn't absolutely certain in my answer. I can certainly envision it happening that way (this DOES happen to the shuttle). But I suspect that since she'll start within the atmosphere at rest, she will never be able to accelerate enough (in more technical terms, I suspect her local terminal velocity will always be below the local speed of sound). But again, that's exactly the point I can't be certain about without writing some code to solve the differential equations (which are pretty nasty...)
How do galaxies collide? Why do the paths of galaxies cross?
If the galaxies are close enough to each other to start with, gravitational attraction will be sufficient to overcome the separation caused by cosmic expansion.
Don't think of an explosion...the BB wasn't an explosion. Things aren't flung outward. In a certain very well defined sense, nothing in the universe is moving. It is the stuff (space) between the stuff (galaxies, etc) that is expanding, but it isn't "pushing" the galaxies apart. In a certain rigorous sense, to first approximation, the galaxies aren't moving (their cosmic coordinates are not changing with time, but the space between coordinates is increasing).
Beyond the first approximation, since galaxies are kind of heavy, they are gravitationally attracted to each other. If when they were formed they were close enough to each other, their mutual attraction would cause them to be drawn together faster than the space between them could stretch, and they would gain speed towards each other.
did what we're seeing occur 206 million years ago?
Short answer: yup:-)
Does the expansion of the universe affect that amount of time?
Overly simplistic answer: not really. If you have the math, you might want to look at a book on general relativity, find the chapter on the Robertson-Walker-Friedmann cosmological model, skip the section on solving the Einstein equations, and read up about comoving coordinates.
Slightly better answer: For "comoving" observers, the time on their clock is the same as the time it takes light to travel a given number of light-times (light-minutes, light-seconds, etc...). Thus, if we were comoving, the light-time would be exactly the clock time. We aren't actually comoving observers, but we aren't moving too fast, so it is a good approximation to pretend that we are.
In other words, is our "now" the same as the "now" currently at that point in space?
Yes, if we are both comoving. Both "nows" are at the same cosmic time, but it makes no practical difference, since their "now" won't be apparent to us for 206 million years. Now, if both are non-comoving, then no, the times their clocks would measure would differ.
I guess what I'm trying to ask is can you compare clocks that are 206 million light years apart
You can send a signal from one clock to the other (Einstein, among others, invented a procedure to allow comoving observers to do so), but light must still travel the distance between them, so there is no instantaneous way to do so.
So, like the rest of your question asked, if both clocks are synchronized and are comoving, they will always remain synchronized. Otherwise, no.
I don't know if I'm phrasing this comprehensibly
I'm almost certainly positive that my answers aren't comprehensible, so it doesn't much matter:-)
Here is my (somewhat) educated guess, although I haven't bothered to do the actual calculation:
At low density, the speed of sound in the air increases...so, at high altitude, the local speed of sound will be much higher than at sea level. However, drag increases with density. So, as she falls, she'll speed up for a time while the local speed of sound is really high; then, as the air grows more dense, she'll slow down at the same time as the speed of sound is declining, but she will (probably) always be travelling slower.
By saying that she will travel at Mach 1.5, they are probably saying that, at some point in her freefall, she will be traveling at 1.5 times the speed of sound at sea level. My guess is that she will never be travelling faster than the local speed of sound at the altitude she is at. But again, I haven't actually pulled out the textbooks and the compiler to figure this out exactly.
who can afford to sink a few hundred dollars into a dead-end pursuit
Minor correction here: it doesn't cost a few hundred dollars, but a few thousands of dollars (filing fees, prior art searches, lawyers fees, etc). It ain't cheap, and frankly, very few patents are worth what they cost (but the few that are make up for all the others...that's why big corporations spend the millions a year that filing hundreds of patents costs).
The fact is that most criminals ARE dumb...the vast majority that get caught get caught because they do stupid things, like returning to the scene of the crime, acting inordinately suspicious, bragging to others about what they've done, explaining in some detail how the crime was committed, etc.... sound familiar? When you act like a criminal, guilty or not, you are going to bring suspicion down upon yourself.
Actually, it isn't in my understanding. General and Mrs. Washington, along with Mr. Jefferson set the etiquette rules for the titles of the Federal Government. In particular, they decreed that there should only ever be one person with the title of "President" and only ever one with the title of "Vice President". Any former office holder would revert to the title of their former highest office. It is a 20th century abomination to call former presidents Mr. President. Although the Protocol Office may have changed the rules and I could be wrong.
Take a look at Miss Manner's column today (just noticed it after I sent my last message! Pretty cool, huh?)
This may be slightly off topic, but here goes. I firmly believe that one of the main problems with voter apathy and the political process is the lack of respect and loss of etiquette and civility in recent times (since WWII, probably). Look at the headline of this story for just one example:
Politics: Harry, The Disastrous & The Unpalatable
Harry? When referring to a candidate for office in the story (I realize asking all posters to do so would be too much:-), he should be referred to by the proper rules of etiquette, based on his rank or position (to which I must plead ignorance, unfortunately). At the very least, Mr. Browne would be appropriate, while Harry is not, even if he asks you to call him that.
Same with the other candidates: Governor Bush and Mr. Vice President. And the current president is to be referred to as Mr. President, not Mr. Clinton, (even a womanizing, purjurious pervert occupying the Office deserves to be shown the proper deference due his position) etc. etc. etc. And former presidents should be referred to properly as well, Governor Reagan, Ambassador Bush, etc. etc. etc., not Pres. Reagan, Mr. Reagan, Ronald Reagan, etc. etc. etc.
I realise this is idealistic, perhaps even silly, and is really only a symptom of a much larger loss of civility in society. But, some diseases really ARE best cured by addressing the symptoms, and this would be one good place to start. Perhaps the/. editorial staff could be persuaded to attempt adherence to established protocol as a strike for journalistic integrity and societal civility?:-)
While I wouldn't base my vote exclusively on the VP running mate, you're contention that the replacement of presidents in office is rare is incorrect (yes, I realize I changed your contention from death to replacement:-). If you only count the times that the VP has become president IN THIS CENTURY, it has happened a disturbing 3 times (turn of the last century (sorry, my recall of the names is rusty), Roosevelt-Truman, Kennedy-Johnson, Nixon-Ford), while presidential incapacitation that could have led to replacement has happened even more often (at least Reagan-Bush, Clinton-Gore)...and the last century wasn't much better.
Dick Cheney and Joe Liebermann (spellings have been mangled to protect my brain).
If you really are in a "unique position" in your market, and there really are large companies trying to take that position from you that you suspect are trying to rob you, then you really should be hiring a security consulting firm to help you out here... public forums are rarely the place to find serious, professional quality help.
It's just that I would no more go and vote for a fictional entity like a government
Ummm...you wouldn't be voting for a government; you'd be voting for the people representing you in that government. There is a big difference. If you can't see that, you have a bigger problem than being subjected to some set of laws that you don't agree with.
Furthermore, you're contention that the government doesn't exist is patently ridiculous. The government of the United States exists just as surely as you do. It exists because the people in Congress assembled declared that it does. You may not like it, and you may not want to admit it, but the government certainly does exist. See what happens if you pretend that it doesn't.
Finally, I'm curious as to what you think would be a better system? In my opinion, while there are some things I would like to see changed (instant runoff elections, for example, abolition of the electoral college, fewer local, elected positions, revamping of the civil service, etc...), I think that, in general, we in the US are quite lucky to have the system that we do. No system the size of the US could exist without a governmental hierarchy, and the system we have is about as close to genius as I think any government has ever gotten.
Indeed...now that I reread your post, I see that I misinterpreted it, quite badly and that we do essentially agree. Sorry, but I don't know how that happened. I guess I've been sitting here too long!
A simple answer is that science cannot predict anything before the Big Bang, because it is a singularity, meaning a discontinuity in a universe otherwise governed by continuous mathematics.
The problem with predicting what happened "before" the big bang is not what you mentioned. Firstly, we know our current physical theories break down well before any potential singularity is reached. Secondly, we don't know that our universe is governed by continuous mathematics (many intriguing possibilities are currently under discussion by theorist around the globe).
Even putting all of that aside, meaning assuming there was a singularity at some point, there is a more fundamental reason that we don't know what happened "before". Namely, there was no "before". Time started for this universe at the singularity, and it doesn't even make sense to talk about before, because there would have been no such thing.
This is the same thing as asking "where did the universe come from" or "what is it expanding into". It didn't come from anywhere, because there was no "where" to come from. It isn't expanding "into" anything, because there is no "where" to expand into.
How many parameters are there in the standard model?
I tried to enumerate them in some other post right around here, but can't seem to find it now. Depending on what, exactly, you call the standard model, there are:
12 fermion masses
2 higgs parameters
4 quark CKM parameters
(maybe) 4 lepton CKM parameters
strong CP phase
three gauge coupling constants
So, something like 26 or so (take out six is neutrinos are massless, take away the strong CP phase if you believe it is zero, leaving 19 or so).
Well, you may be confused because time and distance really should be measured in the same units (cf. Special Relativity). There is no need for motion to measure time (cf. Einstein measurement procedure, etc.)
Further, the current definition of the second does not rely on crystal vibrations. That is a very outdated notion. The current definition of the second is the time elapsed during some 9billion transitions between the hyperfine levels of the ground state of the Cesium 133 atom. This is a purely quantum mechanical process with no classical analogue, and does not involve any motion of anything.
As for your notion that time is a purely derived notion, I don't think you would find a single physicist who would agree with you.....
I'm pretty sure that his 'six numbers' can be used to derive those other constants.
Actually, no, they can't be. The most fundamental physical model we have of particle physics has at least 20 parameters. As of today, we can't reduce that set, even in principle. And that doesn't include the additional parameters needed to describe gravitational physics, nor the fudge factors that we don't need in principle, but in practice we don't know how to calculate from first principles (such as the structural composition of the proton). So, we currently need at least 20, and there is no way to reduce that to six.
Let's see if I can remember most of the particle physics constants: 12 fermion masses, two Higgs parameters, three gauge coupling constants, three CKM angles and one phase for the quarks, (and probably for the leptons, as well), the strong CP phase, and probably one or two I've missed. So at least 26, maybe a few more. General relativity requires at least one more parameter, and the standard cosmological model a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head.
But, I do entirely agree with your last paragraph.
Except that biological systems are not so well designed: our appendix has no purpose, for example. We are easily damaged. We forget things. We can only see into a very very small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We are born without the ability to fend for ourselves. Conjoined twins. Mental retardation. Inability to protect ourselves from AIDS, or Ebola, or...
I could go on for days here. My point is not to argue that there is no God (or gods, etc), just that trying to argue such existence from "intelligent design" is a dead end, since much of our design has not been done so intelligently.
This type of column really yanks my chain. It is nothing but mysticism trying to wrap itself in the mantle of science, and it really ticks me off, especially given the source. The conclusion of the article, that the universe we live in is horrifically unlikely to have occured, is not a scientifically defensible conclusion.
I'm a particle physicist, so I do have some (small:-) idea of what I'm talking about here. It really doesn't matter which set of numbers you pick: the six, poorly motivated number chosen by this astronomer, or the 20ish well motivated numbers in the Standard Cosmological Model x Standard Particle Physics Model. The article states that we don't know why they have the values they do, and that is true. But we also know, on very fundamental theoretical grounds, that these are not the most fundamental parameters of the universe, and pretending that they are is not scientifically valid.
It may turn out that there are a handful of fundamental, unexplainable-except-by-mysticism, parameters of the universe. But it is (currently) just as scientifically defensible to think that there fundamentally are no parameters, that any possible universe would have to end up with exactly the physics we see in this universe. Or maybe there are 10, or 20, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (well, you get my point:-) We just don't understand enough about the universe to state scientifically whether either conclusion is correct, and whether our universe is so unlikely after all.
For example, it may turn out that string theory is the correct description of the universe; in this case, it may be that there is only one, true vacuum state, and that that state can be picked out by a theorist, and shown to be the one that our universe occupies. No parameters, no choice, no so unlikely after all. It would turn out that the measured parameters of our universe are the only ones that could possibly be. It is just as possible at this point that there is no such vacuum state.
This appeal to science to tell us that the universe we occupy is "unfathomably unlikely" is just total crap from a scientific standpoint, given our current state of knowledge.
In a sense, RH DOES have service packs....they are just called minor versions. So, instead of RH7.0SP1, you'll get RH7.1. It seems to me that the analogy works pretty well. And all of the security patches to packages are released between "SP" releases.
I believe that this DOES mean that there is now legal precedent within states (and possessions) that fall under the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit, unless and until either
the law is clarified to the contrary by the Congress, or
the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case and rules in opposition to the 9th Circuit.
The issue is still open to a completely contrary ruling by a different Circuit court, I believe. So, I would agree that nothing has been done for the majority of us, although the ruling stands in the 9th Circuit. But of course IANAL (although I played one in high school a decade ago...)
I can plug any electric product into any outlet and be reasonably sure it will work. I don't have to have other types of outlets installed in order for it to work.
Sorry, try again.....take your US hair dryer, take it with you to the UK, and see how long it lasts when you plug it in:-)
In this sense, these two things you are trying to contrast are more alike than you seem to realize.
Slashdot Mirror
The LHC will smach protons and anti-protons together.
One minor correction: LHC is a proton-proton collider, not a proton-anti-proton machine. pp machines are cheaper to build and run than p-pbar machines, and for the energies of the LHC (14TeV Center of Mass), they have almost the same reach for finding new phenomena. This is mostly because at such high energies, protons and anti-protons both are "mostly" gluons (meaning glue, not quarks, carries most of the energy). So, LHC is basically a gluon-gluon collider. Otherwise, I agree with everything you said.
Actually, one of the other responses to this article claimed that local speed of sound is slower at lower densities, not faster. (And much faster in solid ground.)
So, I actually went and looked it up, and found that I was mistaken. DOH!!! The relation between density, pressure, and Cp/Cv ration gamma is:
v^2 = gamma Pressure / density
So, if you assume that the atmosphere is an ideal gas, then
Pressure = density k Temperature / molecule mass
(This is just the ideal gas law). Then, we can substitute, and we find that, the velocity of sound in the atmosphere depends most strongly on the temperature:
v^2 proportional to Temp
So, we need to know the temperature profile to know the speed of sound...now, I don't remember precisely what the profile is, but I do know that it decreases for a while as you go up from see level, and then it increases for a time, before again decreasing until it merges with space.
Bottom line: I was wrong, but I still don't know the answer ... it is entirely possible that she will exceed the local speed of sound at some point, but I would need to do more work than I'm willing to do right now to figure it out :-)
Couldn't she cross the local speed of sound somewhere on the way down as the local speed slows down before the drag can counter the inertia of her accumulated speed?
Good question, and that's exactly the reason I said I wasn't absolutely certain in my answer. I can certainly envision it happening that way (this DOES happen to the shuttle). But I suspect that since she'll start within the atmosphere at rest, she will never be able to accelerate enough (in more technical terms, I suspect her local terminal velocity will always be below the local speed of sound). But again, that's exactly the point I can't be certain about without writing some code to solve the differential equations (which are pretty nasty...)
How do galaxies collide? Why do the paths of galaxies cross?
If the galaxies are close enough to each other to start with, gravitational attraction will be sufficient to overcome the separation caused by cosmic expansion.
Don't think of an explosion...the BB wasn't an explosion. Things aren't flung outward. In a certain very well defined sense, nothing in the universe is moving. It is the stuff (space) between the stuff (galaxies, etc) that is expanding, but it isn't "pushing" the galaxies apart. In a certain rigorous sense, to first approximation, the galaxies aren't moving (their cosmic coordinates are not changing with time, but the space between coordinates is increasing).
Beyond the first approximation, since galaxies are kind of heavy, they are gravitationally attracted to each other. If when they were formed they were close enough to each other, their mutual attraction would cause them to be drawn together faster than the space between them could stretch, and they would gain speed towards each other.
did what we're seeing occur 206 million years ago?
Short answer: yup :-)
Does the expansion of the universe affect that amount of time?
Overly simplistic answer: not really. If you have the math, you might want to look at a book on general relativity, find the chapter on the Robertson-Walker-Friedmann cosmological model, skip the section on solving the Einstein equations, and read up about comoving coordinates.
Slightly better answer: For "comoving" observers, the time on their clock is the same as the time it takes light to travel a given number of light-times (light-minutes, light-seconds, etc...). Thus, if we were comoving, the light-time would be exactly the clock time. We aren't actually comoving observers, but we aren't moving too fast, so it is a good approximation to pretend that we are.
In other words, is our "now" the same as the "now" currently at that point in space?
Yes, if we are both comoving. Both "nows" are at the same cosmic time, but it makes no practical difference, since their "now" won't be apparent to us for 206 million years. Now, if both are non-comoving, then no, the times their clocks would measure would differ.
I guess what I'm trying to ask is can you compare clocks that are 206 million light years apart
You can send a signal from one clock to the other (Einstein, among others, invented a procedure to allow comoving observers to do so), but light must still travel the distance between them, so there is no instantaneous way to do so.
So, like the rest of your question asked, if both clocks are synchronized and are comoving, they will always remain synchronized. Otherwise, no.
I don't know if I'm phrasing this comprehensibly
I'm almost certainly positive that my answers aren't comprehensible, so it doesn't much matter :-)
Here is my (somewhat) educated guess, although I haven't bothered to do the actual calculation:
At low density, the speed of sound in the air increases...so, at high altitude, the local speed of sound will be much higher than at sea level. However, drag increases with density. So, as she falls, she'll speed up for a time while the local speed of sound is really high; then, as the air grows more dense, she'll slow down at the same time as the speed of sound is declining, but she will (probably) always be travelling slower.
By saying that she will travel at Mach 1.5, they are probably saying that, at some point in her freefall, she will be traveling at 1.5 times the speed of sound at sea level. My guess is that she will never be travelling faster than the local speed of sound at the altitude she is at. But again, I haven't actually pulled out the textbooks and the compiler to figure this out exactly.
who can afford to sink a few hundred dollars into a dead-end pursuit
Minor correction here: it doesn't cost a few hundred dollars, but a few thousands of dollars (filing fees, prior art searches, lawyers fees, etc). It ain't cheap, and frankly, very few patents are worth what they cost (but the few that are make up for all the others...that's why big corporations spend the millions a year that filing hundreds of patents costs).
The fact is that most criminals ARE dumb...the vast majority that get caught get caught because they do stupid things, like returning to the scene of the crime, acting inordinately suspicious, bragging to others about what they've done, explaining in some detail how the crime was committed, etc.... sound familiar? When you act like a criminal, guilty or not, you are going to bring suspicion down upon yourself.
MISRA site, I think. It doesn't appear that it contains any free information, just ISBN info so that you can buy the specs and recommendations.
Actually, it isn't in my understanding. General and Mrs. Washington, along with Mr. Jefferson set the etiquette rules for the titles of the Federal Government. In particular, they decreed that there should only ever be one person with the title of "President" and only ever one with the title of "Vice President". Any former office holder would revert to the title of their former highest office. It is a 20th century abomination to call former presidents Mr. President. Although the Protocol Office may have changed the rules and I could be wrong.
Take a look at Miss Manner's column today (just noticed it after I sent my last message! Pretty cool, huh?)
This may be slightly off topic, but here goes. I firmly believe that one of the main problems with voter apathy and the political process is the lack of respect and loss of etiquette and civility in recent times (since WWII, probably). Look at the headline of this story for just one example:
Politics: Harry, The Disastrous & The Unpalatable
Harry? When referring to a candidate for office in the story (I realize asking all posters to do so would be too much :-), he should be referred to by the proper rules of etiquette, based on his rank or position (to which I must plead ignorance, unfortunately). At the very least, Mr. Browne would be appropriate, while Harry is not, even if he asks you to call him that.
Same with the other candidates: Governor Bush and Mr. Vice President. And the current president is to be referred to as Mr. President, not Mr. Clinton, (even a womanizing, purjurious pervert occupying the Office deserves to be shown the proper deference due his position) etc. etc. etc. And former presidents should be referred to properly as well, Governor Reagan, Ambassador Bush, etc. etc. etc., not Pres. Reagan, Mr. Reagan, Ronald Reagan, etc. etc. etc.
I realise this is idealistic, perhaps even silly, and is really only a symptom of a much larger loss of civility in society. But, some diseases really ARE best cured by addressing the symptoms, and this would be one good place to start. Perhaps the /. editorial staff could be persuaded to attempt adherence to established protocol as a strike for journalistic integrity and societal civility? :-)
While I wouldn't base my vote exclusively on the VP running mate, you're contention that the replacement of presidents in office is rare is incorrect (yes, I realize I changed your contention from death to replacement :-). If you only count the times that the VP has become president IN THIS CENTURY, it has happened a disturbing 3 times (turn of the last century (sorry, my recall of the names is rusty), Roosevelt-Truman, Kennedy-Johnson, Nixon-Ford), while presidential incapacitation that could have led to replacement has happened even more often (at least Reagan-Bush, Clinton-Gore)...and the last century wasn't much better.
Dick Cheney and Joe Liebermann (spellings have been mangled to protect my brain).
If you really are in a "unique position" in your market, and there really are large companies trying to take that position from you that you suspect are trying to rob you, then you really should be hiring a security consulting firm to help you out here... public forums are rarely the place to find serious, professional quality help.
It's just that I would no more go and vote for a fictional entity like a government
Ummm...you wouldn't be voting for a government; you'd be voting for the people representing you in that government. There is a big difference. If you can't see that, you have a bigger problem than being subjected to some set of laws that you don't agree with.
Furthermore, you're contention that the government doesn't exist is patently ridiculous. The government of the United States exists just as surely as you do. It exists because the people in Congress assembled declared that it does. You may not like it, and you may not want to admit it, but the government certainly does exist. See what happens if you pretend that it doesn't.
Finally, I'm curious as to what you think would be a better system? In my opinion, while there are some things I would like to see changed (instant runoff elections, for example, abolition of the electoral college, fewer local, elected positions, revamping of the civil service, etc...), I think that, in general, we in the US are quite lucky to have the system that we do. No system the size of the US could exist without a governmental hierarchy, and the system we have is about as close to genius as I think any government has ever gotten.
Indeed...now that I reread your post, I see that I misinterpreted it, quite badly and that we do essentially agree. Sorry, but I don't know how that happened. I guess I've been sitting here too long!
A simple answer is that science cannot predict anything before the Big Bang, because it is a singularity, meaning a discontinuity in a universe otherwise governed by continuous mathematics.
The problem with predicting what happened "before" the big bang is not what you mentioned. Firstly, we know our current physical theories break down well before any potential singularity is reached. Secondly, we don't know that our universe is governed by continuous mathematics (many intriguing possibilities are currently under discussion by theorist around the globe).
Even putting all of that aside, meaning assuming there was a singularity at some point, there is a more fundamental reason that we don't know what happened "before". Namely, there was no "before". Time started for this universe at the singularity, and it doesn't even make sense to talk about before, because there would have been no such thing.
This is the same thing as asking "where did the universe come from" or "what is it expanding into". It didn't come from anywhere, because there was no "where" to come from. It isn't expanding "into" anything, because there is no "where" to expand into.
How many parameters are there in the standard model?
I tried to enumerate them in some other post right around here, but can't seem to find it now. Depending on what, exactly, you call the standard model, there are:
So, something like 26 or so (take out six is neutrinos are massless, take away the strong CP phase if you believe it is zero, leaving 19 or so).
Well, you may be confused because time and distance really should be measured in the same units (cf. Special Relativity). There is no need for motion to measure time (cf. Einstein measurement procedure, etc.)
Further, the current definition of the second does not rely on crystal vibrations. That is a very outdated notion. The current definition of the second is the time elapsed during some 9billion transitions between the hyperfine levels of the ground state of the Cesium 133 atom. This is a purely quantum mechanical process with no classical analogue, and does not involve any motion of anything.
As for your notion that time is a purely derived notion, I don't think you would find a single physicist who would agree with you.....
I'm pretty sure that his 'six numbers' can be used to derive those other constants.
Actually, no, they can't be. The most fundamental physical model we have of particle physics has at least 20 parameters. As of today, we can't reduce that set, even in principle. And that doesn't include the additional parameters needed to describe gravitational physics, nor the fudge factors that we don't need in principle, but in practice we don't know how to calculate from first principles (such as the structural composition of the proton). So, we currently need at least 20, and there is no way to reduce that to six.
Let's see if I can remember most of the particle physics constants: 12 fermion masses, two Higgs parameters, three gauge coupling constants, three CKM angles and one phase for the quarks, (and probably for the leptons, as well), the strong CP phase, and probably one or two I've missed. So at least 26, maybe a few more. General relativity requires at least one more parameter, and the standard cosmological model a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head.
But, I do entirely agree with your last paragraph.
Except that biological systems are not so well designed: our appendix has no purpose, for example. We are easily damaged. We forget things. We can only see into a very very small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We are born without the ability to fend for ourselves. Conjoined twins. Mental retardation. Inability to protect ourselves from AIDS, or Ebola, or ...
I could go on for days here. My point is not to argue that there is no God (or gods, etc), just that trying to argue such existence from "intelligent design" is a dead end, since much of our design has not been done so intelligently.
Is the Hubble Constant still 42, by the way?
More likely, its about 75 (give or take 10-15%)
This type of column really yanks my chain. It is nothing but mysticism trying to wrap itself in the mantle of science, and it really ticks me off, especially given the source. The conclusion of the article, that the universe we live in is horrifically unlikely to have occured, is not a scientifically defensible conclusion.
I'm a particle physicist, so I do have some (small :-) idea of what I'm talking about here. It really doesn't matter which set of numbers you pick: the six, poorly motivated number chosen by this astronomer, or the 20ish well motivated numbers in the Standard Cosmological Model x Standard Particle Physics Model. The article states that we don't know why they have the values they do, and that is true. But we also know, on very fundamental theoretical grounds, that these are not the most fundamental parameters of the universe, and pretending that they are is not scientifically valid.
It may turn out that there are a handful of fundamental, unexplainable-except-by-mysticism, parameters of the universe. But it is (currently) just as scientifically defensible to think that there fundamentally are no parameters, that any possible universe would have to end up with exactly the physics we see in this universe. Or maybe there are 10, or 20, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (well, you get my point :-) We just don't understand enough about the universe to state scientifically whether either conclusion is correct, and whether our universe is so unlikely after all.
For example, it may turn out that string theory is the correct description of the universe; in this case, it may be that there is only one, true vacuum state, and that that state can be picked out by a theorist, and shown to be the one that our universe occupies. No parameters, no choice, no so unlikely after all. It would turn out that the measured parameters of our universe are the only ones that could possibly be. It is just as possible at this point that there is no such vacuum state.
This appeal to science to tell us that the universe we occupy is "unfathomably unlikely" is just total crap from a scientific standpoint, given our current state of knowledge.
Service packs are a great idea
In a sense, RH DOES have service packs....they are just called minor versions. So, instead of RH7.0SP1, you'll get RH7.1. It seems to me that the analogy works pretty well. And all of the security patches to packages are released between "SP" releases.
I believe that this DOES mean that there is now legal precedent within states (and possessions) that fall under the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit, unless and until either
- the law is clarified to the contrary by the Congress, or
- the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case and rules in opposition to the 9th Circuit.
The issue is still open to a completely contrary ruling by a different Circuit court, I believe. So, I would agree that nothing has been done for the majority of us, although the ruling stands in the 9th Circuit. But of course IANAL (although I played one in high school a decade ago...)I can plug any electric product into any outlet and be reasonably sure it will work. I don't have to have other types of outlets installed in order for it to work.
Sorry, try again.....take your US hair dryer, take it with you to the UK, and see how long it lasts when you plug it in :-)
In this sense, these two things you are trying to contrast are more alike than you seem to realize.