well it ends up with it being easy to prove that the earth isn't staying static on it's place.
The four lunar eclipses occurring every six months starting next week, and visible from the west coasts of North and South America, ought to do the trick.
Fair enough. It's just that since redeeming public debts has no impact on private net financial assets except for the loss of future interest income, any consequences of a drastically larger QE program would probably have more to do with institutional risk assessments than, say, consumer price adjustments.
the assumption that the current physical laws and constants were true then. By definition, they weren't - the four fundamental forces did not assert themselves until a finite period of time
If they didn't "assert themselves," does that imply that they did exist? I think that this way of speaking is a little confusing, because we believe that current "laws" represent special cases of more general laws, rather than different laws entirely.
If nothing had mass at the instant of the Big Bang, how does Einstein's theory of Relativity apply? Objects become infinitely massless as their speed approaches c?
Massless particles inherently move at c. They can't be accelerated or decelerated because they have no inertia, although they do have momentum.
As far as we know, this was just as true right after the big bang. Particles, or field excitations or whatever, had no mass, and moved at c. They did have energy, and an energy density, and therefore were gravitationally attracted. This attraction would be described by quantum gravity, instead of General Relativity.
Once the particles acquired mass via the Higgs mechanism (probably at or about the same time that the modern-day forces became completely separated), the universe was still an ultra-hot quark plasma, so the newly massive particles still moved very rapidly. Just not at c.
And even if there was a problem with space expanding superluminally, inflation would be the least of our worries, as we would need another explanation for the size of the observable universe. (We can see objects at ~40 billion light-years distance, even though the universe is only 13.8 billion years old).
Are you proposing that the laws change randomly or something?
If the laws of physics change with time, then what we thought were the laws aren't actually the laws, but rather the actual laws with parameterized time. It might make some experiments more difficult, but there is no philosophical conundrum. Actually, this idea is already implicit in lambda-CDM ("standard model" of cosmology), where there is a time-dependent "scale factor" in the Friedman equations.
Only matter and radiation must move at or below the speed of light. Relativity poses no limit on the relative velocities of objects, provided these velocities are acquired via the expansion of space. During the inflationary epoch after the big bang, space itself (probably) expanded at a rate faster than the speed of light. We think this process magnified small fluctuations, which nucleated the aggregation of matter into galaxies, that it separated different regions of the universe after they were in thermal equilibrium, and that it diluted away rare particles such as magnetic monopoles.
The whole idea of an "observable universe" is predicated on relative velocities greater than the speed of light. The event horizon at the edge of the universe exists because beyond that distance space (and the objects in it) are moving away from us at a speed greater than that of light, resulting in the causal separation of regions of the larger universe.
Actually, we know some rapid expansion must have occurred, because we can see objects which are apparently ~40 billion light-years away, even though the universe is only 13.8 billion years old.
The parent may have confused you with the choice of terminology. All particles, including the Higgs boson, are excitations of fields which permeate all spacetime. These fields have existed at least since the big bang. There is no need for any of them to have "come first."
It is true that today there are many sorts of massless particles, and it is very likely true that cooling after the big bang led to some rearrangements of the quantum fields (called the 'Higgs mechanism') which led to many particles acquiring mass or becoming more massive.
First, massless particles, like the photon or graviton, don't go past c. They go exactly c. Anything going faster would be a tachyon, which isn't like any of the massless particles we know. BTW, these BICEP2 results seem to confirm the existence of gravitational waves, and thus of gravitons. Otherwise, I would have said "supposed gravitons" or something like that.
There is also the concept of tachyonic fields, which are fields whose particles have imaginary mass. The Higgs before symmetry breaking occurred is an example, but despite their name, excitations of tachyonic fields propagate at or below the speed of light.
In short, you can't accelerate even massless particles past c. Nevertheless, objects can have faster-than-light relative velocities as long as these are acquired via the expansion of space.
The proposed acceleration is not at the "edge" of the observable universe. It is (apparently) everywhere that matter is not bound by gravity. Inflation, which is most likely quite distinct from our current expansion, was likewise everywhere in space during its brief moment after the big bang.
In any event, the universe is very close to 13.8 billion years old, yet the farthest objects we can see are some 40 billion light years away.
I think most cosmologists believe in an infinite universe, wherein inflation has led to many "bubble" observable universes due to the finite speed of light and finite age of the universe. See chaotic/eternal inflation.
The observable universe is actually much larger than ~15 billion ly. The farthest objects we can see are at extremely high redshifts implying distances of about 40 billion ly. You may note that this is greater than the age of the universe times the speed of light.
The dominant model of cosmology holds that the universe is infinite. The observable universe is finite, because the universe apparently has a finite age (and the speed of light, of course, is also finite).
It does make sense, intuitively, but on the other hand it is a bit dubious that there is essentially always (in 1859 and 2012) a single fixed percentage of GDP lost to disasters. The nominal losses ought to be greater now than in the past, but there's no a priori reason to think the percentage would be the same. (Actually, some of the data Pielke shows do have trends, but he dismisses them as insignificant without quantifying significance).
Indeed, the trouble with Pielke's method is that it rests on a single basic assumption: a linear fit to complex time series data is meaningful. If you look at the data he shows, it's pretty clear that the biggest losses come from tail events. Imagine, for example, what the linear trend is if only peaks are fit. His data also shows peaks (i.e. single extreme events or extremely eventful seasons) becoming more frequent. I'm not arguing for or against the notion that climate change has increased disaster related costs, but I do think it's clear that relying solely on linear correlations and traditional p-value measurements is not going to do much good when the interesting part of the data appears to involve higher-order statistics.
Just because skin wont burst into flames doesn't mean that millions or hundred of millions of people might not be displaced or deprived of food and water.
It didn't explain why it might not be true, it just asserted that it isn't. Contrary to popular belief here is a difference between bald assertion and actual argument.
You've misunderstood the 538 post. The argument there is simply that higher GDP means there is more GDP available to lose. Ergo, greater losses. Its author claims that technological and preparedness advances are not significant.
The NSA is only still associated with the American people in the sense that it funds itself in large part with tax money taken from those Americans.
Not even that. Federal spending is not "funded" by tax money. Indeed, the IRS destroys the money it collects. The federal government finances spending by printing money. Taxes are just to create demand for money, and to control inflation.
The CPI is manipulated to show little or no inflation and the core CPI
Ah, another tinfoil hat.
The US also exports a ton of inflation via treasuries to other countries which lowers the rate of inflation here.
Sorry, this is logically incoherent. If a foreigner buys US bonds, they have less US cash, leading to lower dollar denominated prices in their markets. Supply and demand. Part of the problem here is misunderstanding that "inflation" means an increase in price levels, regardless of changes in the money supply. Just increasing the money supply is not "inflation" although it may lead to it, again via supply and demand.
This might only work in the short term until banks start raising their interest rates to compensate so any new borrowers get screwed instead.
The problem now is a debt overhang which is hampering growth by depriving banks of profitable lending opportunities, and depriving the private sector of its ability to innovate and invest. After private balance sheets are repaired and full employment is reached, I will begin to favor deflationary policies.
This also only works in the short term until other countries retaliate by debasing their currency as well.
In other words, you have NO explanation for how quantitative easing has had no significant effect on inflation for six years. Time to face facts, your ideological model cannot predict price movements.
We are already giving tons of money to the Chinese in exchange for goods. If they wanted to turn around and spend those dollars here, they could. Instead, they turn them into bonds in order to manipulate FX prices and to capitalize their banks. Keep in mind that as a result of Chinese demand for US paper, we are trading them our official stamps for their sweat, toil and natural resources, which we consume instead of they and which they can never recover.
The misunderstanding this AC has, is that redeeming a bond adds to the net financial assets of the bond holder. This is false. If I have $100 in bonds, then on redemption my $100 in bonds is destroyed, and replaced with $100 in reserves. The only difference is the interest rate. Just redeeming bonds (or buying up bonds China is willing to sell) can't change the net financial assets of the private sector, and is thus very unlikely to lead to inflation.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely it's still carbon neutral[?]
We use tons of petrochemicals to grow corn.
...a giant space dragon with a round shadow, to boot.
well it ends up with it being easy to prove that the earth isn't staying static on it's place.
The four lunar eclipses occurring every six months starting next week, and visible from the west coasts of North and South America, ought to do the trick.
Fair enough. It's just that since redeeming public debts has no impact on private net financial assets except for the loss of future interest income, any consequences of a drastically larger QE program would probably have more to do with institutional risk assessments than, say, consumer price adjustments.
the assumption that the current physical laws and constants were true then. By definition, they weren't - the four fundamental forces did not assert themselves until a finite period of time
If they didn't "assert themselves," does that imply that they did exist? I think that this way of speaking is a little confusing, because we believe that current "laws" represent special cases of more general laws, rather than different laws entirely.
If nothing had mass at the instant of the Big Bang, how does Einstein's theory of Relativity apply? Objects become infinitely massless as their speed approaches c?
Massless particles inherently move at c. They can't be accelerated or decelerated because they have no inertia, although they do have momentum.
As far as we know, this was just as true right after the big bang. Particles, or field excitations or whatever, had no mass, and moved at c. They did have energy, and an energy density, and therefore were gravitationally attracted. This attraction would be described by quantum gravity, instead of General Relativity.
Once the particles acquired mass via the Higgs mechanism (probably at or about the same time that the modern-day forces became completely separated), the universe was still an ultra-hot quark plasma, so the newly massive particles still moved very rapidly. Just not at c.
I agree with you, but I do consider "nobody knows" to be consensus if we all believe that.
And even if there was a problem with space expanding superluminally, inflation would be the least of our worries, as we would need another explanation for the size of the observable universe. (We can see objects at ~40 billion light-years distance, even though the universe is only 13.8 billion years old).
Are you proposing that the laws change randomly or something?
If the laws of physics change with time, then what we thought were the laws aren't actually the laws, but rather the actual laws with parameterized time. It might make some experiments more difficult, but there is no philosophical conundrum. Actually, this idea is already implicit in lambda-CDM ("standard model" of cosmology), where there is a time-dependent "scale factor" in the Friedman equations.
Key words: "if they all get together." Probably most fields (of science) have consensus if you get like 75-90% of researchers together.
Only matter and radiation must move at or below the speed of light. Relativity poses no limit on the relative velocities of objects, provided these velocities are acquired via the expansion of space. During the inflationary epoch after the big bang, space itself (probably) expanded at a rate faster than the speed of light. We think this process magnified small fluctuations, which nucleated the aggregation of matter into galaxies, that it separated different regions of the universe after they were in thermal equilibrium, and that it diluted away rare particles such as magnetic monopoles.
The whole idea of an "observable universe" is predicated on relative velocities greater than the speed of light. The event horizon at the edge of the universe exists because beyond that distance space (and the objects in it) are moving away from us at a speed greater than that of light, resulting in the causal separation of regions of the larger universe.
Actually, we know some rapid expansion must have occurred, because we can see objects which are apparently ~40 billion light-years away, even though the universe is only 13.8 billion years old.
The parent may have confused you with the choice of terminology. All particles, including the Higgs boson, are excitations of fields which permeate all spacetime. These fields have existed at least since the big bang. There is no need for any of them to have "come first."
It is true that today there are many sorts of massless particles, and it is very likely true that cooling after the big bang led to some rearrangements of the quantum fields (called the 'Higgs mechanism') which led to many particles acquiring mass or becoming more massive.
First, massless particles, like the photon or graviton, don't go past c. They go exactly c. Anything going faster would be a tachyon, which isn't like any of the massless particles we know. BTW, these BICEP2 results seem to confirm the existence of gravitational waves, and thus of gravitons. Otherwise, I would have said "supposed gravitons" or something like that.
There is also the concept of tachyonic fields, which are fields whose particles have imaginary mass. The Higgs before symmetry breaking occurred is an example, but despite their name, excitations of tachyonic fields propagate at or below the speed of light.
In short, you can't accelerate even massless particles past c. Nevertheless, objects can have faster-than-light relative velocities as long as these are acquired via the expansion of space.
See zero-energy universe.
No one is questioning the detection of gravitational waves, which is itself highly important regardless of implications for cosmic inflation.
The proposed acceleration is not at the "edge" of the observable universe. It is (apparently) everywhere that matter is not bound by gravity. Inflation, which is most likely quite distinct from our current expansion, was likewise everywhere in space during its brief moment after the big bang.
In any event, the universe is very close to 13.8 billion years old, yet the farthest objects we can see are some 40 billion light years away.
I think most cosmologists believe in an infinite universe, wherein inflation has led to many "bubble" observable universes due to the finite speed of light and finite age of the universe. See chaotic/eternal inflation.
The observable universe is actually much larger than ~15 billion ly. The farthest objects we can see are at extremely high redshifts implying distances of about 40 billion ly. You may note that this is greater than the age of the universe times the speed of light.
The dominant model of cosmology holds that the universe is infinite. The observable universe is finite, because the universe apparently has a finite age (and the speed of light, of course, is also finite).
It does make sense, intuitively, but on the other hand it is a bit dubious that there is essentially always (in 1859 and 2012) a single fixed percentage of GDP lost to disasters. The nominal losses ought to be greater now than in the past, but there's no a priori reason to think the percentage would be the same. (Actually, some of the data Pielke shows do have trends, but he dismisses them as insignificant without quantifying significance).
Indeed, the trouble with Pielke's method is that it rests on a single basic assumption: a linear fit to complex time series data is meaningful. If you look at the data he shows, it's pretty clear that the biggest losses come from tail events. Imagine, for example, what the linear trend is if only peaks are fit. His data also shows peaks (i.e. single extreme events or extremely eventful seasons) becoming more frequent. I'm not arguing for or against the notion that climate change has increased disaster related costs, but I do think it's clear that relying solely on linear correlations and traditional p-value measurements is not going to do much good when the interesting part of the data appears to involve higher-order statistics.
Just because skin wont burst into flames doesn't mean that millions or hundred of millions of people might not be displaced or deprived of food and water.
It didn't explain why it might not be true, it just asserted that it isn't. Contrary to popular belief here is a difference between bald assertion and actual argument.
You've misunderstood the 538 post. The argument there is simply that higher GDP means there is more GDP available to lose. Ergo, greater losses. Its author claims that technological and preparedness advances are not significant.
The NSA is only still associated with the American people in the sense that it funds itself in large part with tax money taken from those Americans.
Not even that. Federal spending is not "funded" by tax money. Indeed, the IRS destroys the money it collects. The federal government finances spending by printing money. Taxes are just to create demand for money, and to control inflation.
The CPI is manipulated to show little or no inflation and the core CPI
Ah, another tinfoil hat.
The US also exports a ton of inflation via treasuries to other countries which lowers the rate of inflation here.
Sorry, this is logically incoherent. If a foreigner buys US bonds, they have less US cash, leading to lower dollar denominated prices in their markets. Supply and demand. Part of the problem here is misunderstanding that "inflation" means an increase in price levels, regardless of changes in the money supply. Just increasing the money supply is not "inflation" although it may lead to it, again via supply and demand.
This might only work in the short term until banks start raising their interest rates to compensate so any new borrowers get screwed instead.
The problem now is a debt overhang which is hampering growth by depriving banks of profitable lending opportunities, and depriving the private sector of its ability to innovate and invest. After private balance sheets are repaired and full employment is reached, I will begin to favor deflationary policies.
This also only works in the short term until other countries retaliate by debasing their currency as well.
You should look up the Plaza Accord and reverse Plaza Accord.
In other words, you have NO explanation for how quantitative easing has had no significant effect on inflation for six years. Time to face facts, your ideological model cannot predict price movements.
We are already giving tons of money to the Chinese in exchange for goods. If they wanted to turn around and spend those dollars here, they could. Instead, they turn them into bonds in order to manipulate FX prices and to capitalize their banks. Keep in mind that as a result of Chinese demand for US paper, we are trading them our official stamps for their sweat, toil and natural resources, which we consume instead of they and which they can never recover.
The misunderstanding this AC has, is that redeeming a bond adds to the net financial assets of the bond holder. This is false. If I have $100 in bonds, then on redemption my $100 in bonds is destroyed, and replaced with $100 in reserves. The only difference is the interest rate. Just redeeming bonds (or buying up bonds China is willing to sell) can't change the net financial assets of the private sector, and is thus very unlikely to lead to inflation.