Cloud backups are the virtual equivalent to the the local U-Haul storage locker. The judges only need to look at this to figure out what the law should be.
So if you stop paying your storage provider they should be able to access the data you were storing, and sell it to third parties?
So many people here trying to map physical concepts onto the virtual, never a good idea...
As a matter of fact, if you fail to pay the rent on your storage locker, the owners of it may follow a procedure to transfer your stuff to a third-party. In the case of data, most likely they will just erase it after a time and rent the space to some other customer. As a practical matter, the only safe property, whether tangible or intangible, is property that only you but nobody else knows that it even exists. If someone, including the government, suspects you have something, then they will put you into a position where you have to choose between your freedom/life or giving up that property/information to said person or entity, such any a government.
The government is trying to say that the data is not legally yours because it's stored on someone else's server.
This is akin to saying your property is not legally yours because it's stored in a storage locker that you rented.
In both cases you are paying someone to store something for you. In both cases it legally *should* still belong to you.
If the government does something illegal, theoretically you can go to the court, but practically an individual or small business has about as much chance of succeeding, as a snowball in hell. Our legal system is predicated on raw power as represented by huge piles of money. Anyone who does not have money or a friend who does, is simply out of luck. There is not and there has never been “justice” in this world for those without money.
"what's next: anything that's not kept in your hands 100% of the time is open to be taken away? where does this encroachment end?"
In the ultimate sense, nothing is really yours. Not even your life. Any time somebody bigger, richer or stronger than you comes along, they can take it away and there is nothing you can do about it. If that somebody happens to be your government, then there is nobody bigger and stronger that could possibly defend you. According to the theory of evolution, this is the principle of survival of the fittest. The government or anybody who controls the government, will always have the biggest gun and therefore be more fit than you and take whatever you think is yours away from you.
Don't forget, that corporations are nothing but groups of people for a common purpose, usually to make money. Jeremiah put your sentiment a little less crass, but it is indeed true that “People can be morally bankrupt and toxic.”
Jeremiah 17:9-11 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I Jehovah search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. The quail sits on eggs and does not hatch them; in the same way he who gets riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the middle of his days, and in his end he shall be a fool.
Most people do today what they do, because they no longer believe that there is indeed a God who will judge justly and righteously, not according to human standards, but by eternal, never changing laws of morality. No matter what people may say and what their opinions may be, the one who decreed what the laws of physics are, also decided what is moral and what is immoral, what is right and what is wrong. Without reference to some absolutes,, some standards, all behavior becomes relative. Those who believe in evolution and the survival of the fittest, have no basis upon which to decry violence and greed. After all, the most violent and greedy creatures, those with the biggest claws or the biggest gun survive. They are by definition the most fit. Groups of people sanctioned by government, corporations, ultimately are no better than individuals, but usually worse.
I think the case is ridiculous, but courts are famously lacking in common sense sometimes. If the defendant loses, I wonder if one of the unintended consequences would be to spur more sales of products 'Made In The USA'.
I agree that this case is totally ridiculous. When a person buys a good, they have always had the right to sell it or otherwise dispose of it. Why should the origin of a product have anything to do with what the buyer does with it afterwards? If the Supreme Court should be foolish enough to decide against something that has been in place ever since this country was founded, their decision will likely be overridden by Congress, because of the huge outcry from ordinary people, who would be prevented from selling goods based on the arbitrary idea of where the item was originally made.
Communism has yet to work because those in a place of leadership corrupt the system, and the individual still gets screwed - pretty much the hallmark of all systems today.
Communism has yet to work because humans are selfish to a greater or lesser degree. There is not one human being on this Earth, that is not selfish to some extent. A certain amount of selfishness is necessary for survival. A dog will growl at you and may even bite, if you try to take its food away from it. It is when selfishness turns into greed, all distribution of wealth problems begin. Taking things away from those who want to work and giving it to those who are lazy and don't want to work brings a society or culture to a halt, whether that society is human or a beehive or ant colony.
Please explain to me how you can destroy equipment, if none of that equipment is connected to the Internet? Why do the controls say for a generator in a power station be made accessible over the Internet?
Why do critical control systems need to be connected to the Internet? Computerized control systems such as SCADA have existed far longer than the Internet. There is also a difference between allowing critical quantities to be controlled remotely and these same critical quantities being monitored remotely. It MAY be permissible to allow read only monitoring over the Internet, but certainly, critical controls should never, ever at any time under any circumstances, be accessible from the Internet, so that some hacker in Russia, China, Iran or elsewhere in the world can change the parameters of a critical process.
You're right, I have never been in a riot and I will stay as far away as possible from anybody that is rioting. Everybody has the choice to stay away from a riot or to join it. A panic in a crowded theater is a gut survival reaction, but a person has to deliberately want to participate in a riot. Participating in a riot is a conscious deliberate decision. Nobody that I know of has ever decided, “I think I am going to panic”. Panic just happens due to circumstances, often unavoidable. Participating in a riot is ALWAYS avoidable.
Yelling “fire” in a crowded theater can provoke panic which can hurt or kill people. A panic is not a deliberate, planned reaction, but an animal survival response. Rioting in the streets and other similar violence is a planned and deliberate response. I am surprised that you think those are equivalent responses!
This is one of the few points I agree with Scalia on. More speech is preferable to banning speech that you don't like.
He makes this argument in the context of "money is speech," however, and I don't go that far.
Money is the ultimate speech. That old quote “put your money where your mouth is” is very much applicable here. Politicians flap their lips all the time, but they spend other peoples money rather than their own. Talk is cheap!
Simulations run on a computer. I have an airplane simulator running on my computer, but it is not a real airplane. Simulators are also started and stopped. When and how and who started the possible simulator, which we call the universe? Starting and stopping something implies time. What is time and where did it come from. This theory creates as many questions, if not more, than all the other questions we have about the universe. All our observations of the universe are funneled to us through our senses or extensions thereof. Why are some scientists so sure that the entire universe can be grasped through our limited input mechanisms? What happens after we die? Is there really not a continued existence after our senses which are confined to the body? As far as I can see, this theory answers nothing, either in philosophy or science. Someone got paid to write a paper, that appears to be it.
In the future, most people will be information workers. Why does anybody who deals with nonphysical objects still need to commute to work? The guy has gigabit fiber in his house. Why does she need to get into a car in order to work with computers at his job? Could he not just have any number of futuristic computers at home where he could work? Moving data to people is much more efficient and cost and energy. He wouldn't even have to take a shower, because who cares if he stinks a little unless he cannot stand his own smell.
If this monstrosity should actually become law by decision of the Supreme Court, this law will be the most ignored law ever, impossible to enforce in any way shape or form. People will always sell the things they own no matter what any level or department of government or anybody else says. Even our do-nothing Congress will overturn this decision, should it happen. I don't understand in the slightest how any judge anywhere can make such a ruling.
When I was in high school in 1958, they had typewriters, but learning how to type was for the girls. I went and studied electronic engineering, but in the 60s, everything was still analog. My first computer experience came when I was in my 30s. This was when I started designing electronic circuits using the SPICE program from the University of California. That program was running on an IBM mainframe, their system 360/370. Later, I learned how to control electronic measurement and power supply apparatus using DEC computers. Because computers were slow in those days and did not have much memory, I learned how to write special, efficient assembly language programs, especially device drivers for instruments. I also had fun with one of our graduate students working on a few games which ran on the mainframe. He had brought the code from MIT and we both worked on them to get it running on the IBM. When there was an open house on family day, we set up a number of terminals in various public areas, where the kids from all the families could play a few games. They were a big hit, even though they were all text based, because almost all terminals were not of the graphic type. Now I am retired and enjoy reading about the tremendous advances in technology, including Slashdot.
This is one of the best replies in this whole thread. If I had mod points I would give you an insightful AND an informative. One thing I would point out though is that without God as an outside reference point, all morality and ethics are only opinions of you, me or other people. As a society, we mostly agree for example, that it is wrong to lie, steal or murder. However, in some other society all or some of these things might not be considered wrong. After all, the Nazis murdered millions of Jews, whom they did not consider to be human. Even in our society murder is not considered wrong by many, if it is done to unborn children, who are also considered by many to be nonhuman, but merely a piece of biological tissue.
Like you wrote, science itself is morally neutral. It does not consider ethics or right and wrong. Islam is indeed a greater threat to scientific progress. Almost all early scientists, those who laid the foundations of all of our science, were mostly Christians. These people believed in an intelligent, supremely powerful and wise God, who created an orderly universe following set laws that could be studied. Great institutions of learning, such as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Duke and many others were founded because of Christianity and on Christian principles.
All science is the study of nature, that is of God's creation. Scientists explore HOW this creation works, but only the Creator himself can tell us WHY he has chosen to create the universe and us in it. I believe that he has indeed chosen to answer this question in a collection of 66 books written by 40 different authors over a period of over 1500 years. It has become known to us as the Bible.
I am not a physicist and so I don't really know the intricate details of how neutrinos are produced in accelerators. All I do know is that all accelerators are run by electricity. Therefore, a sun powered by electricity rather than nuclear fusion can and does produce neutrinos. My point is that the electrical interaction can and does produce neutrinos.
Gravity per se, cannot not produce any energy. In hydroelectricity, for example the energy to lift the water into the atmosphere comes from the sun. External energy must be supplied for your toy example also. Gravity does not GENERATE any energy in any way shape or form. It can be instrumental however in CONVERSION of energy from one form into another. When you wind up a clock spring, that spring does not produce any energy, but is merely an energy storage device.
As far as we know, only objects that have mass are affected by gravity. Does electromagnetic radiation possess mass? If not, then the gravity-based bending of starlight, despite your complicated explanation is null. Because gravity is such a weak force, we know very little about it. We are much more familiar with the 39 orders of magnitude greater force of electricity. At CERN and elsewhere, scientists are still trying to figure out how exactly mass, acceleration and gravity are interrelated.
I am surprised and honored in a highly pleasant way that you are taking time out from what must be a very busy professor's life to write such a lengthy reply. It is a small world indeed. I have a daughter at Duke University who happens to be, as most Duke folks an ardent fan of the Blue Devils. She already has a Masters degree from the Duke Divinity School and is almost finished with her doctoral dissertation, which will give a Th.D.
I am an electrical engineer, now retired. I worked for and with physicists at Stanford University for over 30 years in high-energy physics. In all that time, quite a bit of esoteric physics rubbed off on me. I never got that deeply into the details of the standard model and its extensive zoo of subatomic particles. Science and technology have always fascinated and interested me from the time I was about 3 years old.
You did the deduce correctly that I am a Christian. I have looked into other faiths and have concluded that Christian beliefs are unique in at least two major aspects from all others. 1), All founders of other faiths are presently dead, but Jesus Christ alone claims to have risen from the dead and be alive today. 2), all other faiths, except the teachings of the Bible, especially the New Testament, have human beings reaching UPWARD towards whatever their God or gods or other object or person happened to be. The Christian faith is the ONLY one that has God in Jesus Christ reaching DOWN to mankind.
What other criteria besides faith is universal to all human beings? In the Bible we read in Hebrews 11:6 "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." God did not specify knowledge, education, athletic prowess, physical beauty or any other human ability or quality. Everybody can believe and trust, even a little child. In Luke 18:16-17 we read: But Jesus called them and said, Allow the little children to come to Me, and forbid them not. For of such is the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, Whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no way enter into it.
When his fellow disciples told Thomas, who was also a disciple, that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, he would not believe unless he actually saw the risen Jesus. 8 days later, he did indeed see Jesus and this is what Jesus told him in: John 20:29 Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen Me you have believed. Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.
Even in science, where we pride ourselves in objective truth and experimental evidence, there is a large element of belief or faith. Just thumb through almost any scientific literature in any field of science, and you will find statements such as, “it is believed” or “most scientists believe” and similar statements. Scientists seek truth in our world, and all truth, whether scientific or philosophical is absolute, not relative. What differentiates science from religion or philosophy is that in many areas of science we can do experiments and observations to corroborate or refute our beliefs. Truth however, is truth that is always true whether we believe it or not. When my little 3-year-old grandson tells me that he loves his grandpa & grandma, I believe that he is telling the truth. He really does love us. There is no scientific experiment I or anyone else can do to test this. I would never have known this truth, if the little guy had not REVEALED it to me. In the same way, we little human children of God would never know anything about him, unless he chose to reveal things about himself to us.
Our human knowledge and intellect are very small. They are also at present incomplete and partial. The Apostle Paul writes very eloquently about this on his great chapter defining love in 1Corinthians 9–13. Science is constantly changing. New theories are being developed and discarded every day. What was once accepted as even “scientific fact” is now s
The fact that neutrinos can be produced by ELECTRICAL means in accelerators means that they can also be produced by electrical fields and currents on the sun. They do not have to be produced by thermonuclear fusion. Therefore, the presence of neutrinos from the sun cannot be taken as exclusive evidence for fusion taking place in the center thereof.
When light is refracted in a prism for example, what is really happening at the subatomic level? Is the electrical and the magnetic component of the light not interacting with similar components and charges? If that is so, and I believe it is, then why could not powerful electric currents surrounding the sun, as well as the incredibly powerful magnetic fields also affect light's path? Don't forget, the angle through which light is bent passing the sun is very small and the volume through which that light travels is extremely big. The index of refraction in the region close to the sun, certainly can be different than in other parts of space. Only objects that have mass are affected by gravity. Do photons have mass? If they do, they would be infinitely massive, according to Einstein's mathematics when they travel at the speed they do, namely the speed of light. it is not gravity, but incredibly powerful electrical currents and magnetic fields that bend electromagnetic rays of light passing close to the sun.
Because gravity is so weak, it is very hard to learn much about it. Gravitational waves have been postulated for a long time, but have never been found despite massive expenditures to do so. Electromagnetic waves on the other hand are ubiquitous right here at home. We make use of them every day. Electrical phenomena, such as the electromagnetic radiation we receive from the depths of space, obey the laws of electricity, not gravity. All of the energetic radiation we receive is ELECTROMAGNETIC. Gravity, even the most extreme gravity imaginable, does not and cannot produce electromagnetic effects. Gravity only works in places that are almost perfectly electrically neutral, such as where we live here on earth. Life as we know it cannot exist in environments of extreme energies. Gravity can only attract, whereas electrical charges can attract and repel. That fact alone opens up many more possible interactions and makes plasma physics very complicated but also very interesting.
Since when are accretion disks something other than effects of theorized black holes that have never been shown to exist? Conditions in the center of our galaxy, where black holes supposedly exist, are very much different than an our relatively peaceful part of the galaxy. Black holes are theoretical, mathematical concepts that have no existence anywhere in the real world, even in the center of the galaxy. Extreme electrical effects can be shown to account for all the phenomena that are currently attributed to black holes, dark matter and dark energy. Unimaginably intense electrical fields and currents can and do produce all the electromagnetic radiation that are attributed to Black holes and other theoretical, mathematical constructs that are used to explain the strange observations that are being made by modern space probes and telescopes. ALL of the exotic particles that are assumed to be originating in the depths of space and at the center of our galaxy, have been and still are constantly being re-created by powerful accelerators using well-known laws of electricity.
Slashdot Mirror
Cloud backups are the virtual equivalent to the the local U-Haul storage locker. The judges only need to look at this to figure out what the law should be.
So if you stop paying your storage provider they should be able to access the data you were storing, and sell it to third parties?
So many people here trying to map physical concepts onto the virtual, never a good idea...
As a matter of fact, if you fail to pay the rent on your storage locker, the owners of it may follow a procedure to transfer your stuff to a third-party. In the case of data, most likely they will just erase it after a time and rent the space to some other customer. As a practical matter, the only safe property, whether tangible or intangible, is property that only you but nobody else knows that it even exists. If someone, including the government, suspects you have something, then they will put you into a position where you have to choose between your freedom/life or giving up that property/information to said person or entity, such any a government.
The government is trying to say that the data is not legally yours because it's stored on someone else's server.
This is akin to saying your property is not legally yours because it's stored in a storage locker that you rented.
In both cases you are paying someone to store something for you. In both cases it legally *should* still belong to you.
If the government does something illegal, theoretically you can go to the court, but practically an individual or small business has about as much chance of succeeding, as a snowball in hell. Our legal system is predicated on raw power as represented by huge piles of money. Anyone who does not have money or a friend who does, is simply out of luck. There is not and there has never been “justice” in this world for those without money.
"what's next: anything that's not kept in your hands 100% of the time is open to be taken away? where does this encroachment end?"
In the ultimate sense, nothing is really yours. Not even your life. Any time somebody bigger, richer or stronger than you comes along, they can take it away and there is nothing you can do about it. If that somebody happens to be your government, then there is nobody bigger and stronger that could possibly defend you. According to the theory of evolution, this is the principle of survival of the fittest. The government or anybody who controls the government, will always have the biggest gun and therefore be more fit than you and take whatever you think is yours away from you.
Don't forget, that corporations are nothing but groups of people for a common purpose, usually to make money. Jeremiah put your sentiment a little less crass, but it is indeed true that “People can be morally bankrupt and toxic.”
Jeremiah 17:9-11 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I Jehovah search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. The quail sits on eggs and does not hatch them; in the same way he who gets riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the middle of his days, and in his end he shall be a fool.
Most people do today what they do, because they no longer believe that there is indeed a God who will judge justly and righteously, not according to human standards, but by eternal, never changing laws of morality. No matter what people may say and what their opinions may be, the one who decreed what the laws of physics are, also decided what is moral and what is immoral, what is right and what is wrong. Without reference to some absolutes,, some standards, all behavior becomes relative. Those who believe in evolution and the survival of the fittest, have no basis upon which to decry violence and greed. After all, the most violent and greedy creatures, those with the biggest claws or the biggest gun survive. They are by definition the most fit. Groups of people sanctioned by government, corporations, ultimately are no better than individuals, but usually worse.
I think the case is ridiculous, but courts are famously lacking in common sense sometimes. If the defendant loses, I wonder if one of the unintended consequences would be to spur more sales of products 'Made In The USA'.
I agree that this case is totally ridiculous. When a person buys a good, they have always had the right to sell it or otherwise dispose of it. Why should the origin of a product have anything to do with what the buyer does with it afterwards? If the Supreme Court should be foolish enough to decide against something that has been in place ever since this country was founded, their decision will likely be overridden by Congress, because of the huge outcry from ordinary people, who would be prevented from selling goods based on the arbitrary idea of where the item was originally made.
Read poster's previous history - a shill.
Communism has yet to work because those in a place of leadership corrupt the system, and the individual still gets screwed - pretty much the hallmark of all systems today.
Communism has yet to work because humans are selfish to a greater or lesser degree. There is not one human being on this Earth, that is not selfish to some extent. A certain amount of selfishness is necessary for survival. A dog will growl at you and may even bite, if you try to take its food away from it. It is when selfishness turns into greed, all distribution of wealth problems begin. Taking things away from those who want to work and giving it to those who are lazy and don't want to work brings a society or culture to a halt, whether that society is human or a beehive or ant colony.
Please explain to me how you can destroy equipment, if none of that equipment is connected to the Internet? Why do the controls say for a generator in a power station be made accessible over the Internet?
Why do critical control systems need to be connected to the Internet? Computerized control systems such as SCADA have existed far longer than the Internet. There is also a difference between allowing critical quantities to be controlled remotely and these same critical quantities being monitored remotely. It MAY be permissible to allow read only monitoring over the Internet, but certainly, critical controls should never, ever at any time under any circumstances, be accessible from the Internet, so that some hacker in Russia, China, Iran or elsewhere in the world can change the parameters of a critical process.
You're right, I have never been in a riot and I will stay as far away as possible from anybody that is rioting. Everybody has the choice to stay away from a riot or to join it. A panic in a crowded theater is a gut survival reaction, but a person has to deliberately want to participate in a riot. Participating in a riot is a conscious deliberate decision. Nobody that I know of has ever decided, “I think I am going to panic”. Panic just happens due to circumstances, often unavoidable. Participating in a riot is ALWAYS avoidable.
Yelling “fire” in a crowded theater can provoke panic which can hurt or kill people. A panic is not a deliberate, planned reaction, but an animal survival response. Rioting in the streets and other similar violence is a planned and deliberate response. I am surprised that you think those are equivalent responses!
This is one of the few points I agree with Scalia on. More speech is preferable to banning speech that you don't like.
He makes this argument in the context of "money is speech," however, and I don't go that far.
Money is the ultimate speech. That old quote “put your money where your mouth is” is very much applicable here. Politicians flap their lips all the time, but they spend other peoples money rather than their own. Talk is cheap!
What if the "simulation" is simply programmed to deceive this test?
Then what do you do?
If no test is possible, then it is not physics but only philosophy.
Scientists perform experiments that are constrained by the laws of nature.
Philosophers perform experiments that are constrained by the laws of logic.
Theologians perform experiments constrained to belief.
Simulations run on a computer. I have an airplane simulator running on my computer, but it is not a real airplane. Simulators are also started and stopped. When and how and who started the possible simulator, which we call the universe? Starting and stopping something implies time. What is time and where did it come from. This theory creates as many questions, if not more, than all the other questions we have about the universe. All our observations of the universe are funneled to us through our senses or extensions thereof. Why are some scientists so sure that the entire universe can be grasped through our limited input mechanisms? What happens after we die? Is there really not a continued existence after our senses which are confined to the body? As far as I can see, this theory answers nothing, either in philosophy or science. Someone got paid to write a paper, that appears to be it.
In the future, most people will be information workers. Why does anybody who deals with nonphysical objects still need to commute to work? The guy has gigabit fiber in his house. Why does she need to get into a car in order to work with computers at his job? Could he not just have any number of futuristic computers at home where he could work? Moving data to people is much more efficient and cost and energy. He wouldn't even have to take a shower, because who cares if he stinks a little unless he cannot stand his own smell.
If this monstrosity should actually become law by decision of the Supreme Court, this law will be the most ignored law ever, impossible to enforce in any way shape or form. People will always sell the things they own no matter what any level or department of government or anybody else says. Even our do-nothing Congress will overturn this decision, should it happen. I don't understand in the slightest how any judge anywhere can make such a ruling.
When I was in high school in 1958, they had typewriters, but learning how to type was for the girls. I went and studied electronic engineering, but in the 60s, everything was still analog. My first computer experience came when I was in my 30s. This was when I started designing electronic circuits using the SPICE program from the University of California. That program was running on an IBM mainframe, their system 360/370. Later, I learned how to control electronic measurement and power supply apparatus using DEC computers. Because computers were slow in those days and did not have much memory, I learned how to write special, efficient assembly language programs, especially device drivers for instruments. I also had fun with one of our graduate students working on a few games which ran on the mainframe. He had brought the code from MIT and we both worked on them to get it running on the IBM. When there was an open house on family day, we set up a number of terminals in various public areas, where the kids from all the families could play a few games. They were a big hit, even though they were all text based, because almost all terminals were not of the graphic type. Now I am retired and enjoy reading about the tremendous advances in technology, including Slashdot.
This is one of the best replies in this whole thread. If I had mod points I would give you an insightful AND an informative. One thing I would point out though is that without God as an outside reference point, all morality and ethics are only opinions of you, me or other people. As a society, we mostly agree for example, that it is wrong to lie, steal or murder. However, in some other society all or some of these things might not be considered wrong. After all, the Nazis murdered millions of Jews, whom they did not consider to be human. Even in our society murder is not considered wrong by many, if it is done to unborn children, who are also considered by many to be nonhuman, but merely a piece of biological tissue.
Like you wrote, science itself is morally neutral. It does not consider ethics or right and wrong. Islam is indeed a greater threat to scientific progress. Almost all early scientists, those who laid the foundations of all of our science, were mostly Christians. These people believed in an intelligent, supremely powerful and wise God, who created an orderly universe following set laws that could be studied. Great institutions of learning, such as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Duke and many others were founded because of Christianity and on Christian principles.
All science is the study of nature, that is of God's creation. Scientists explore HOW this creation works, but only the Creator himself can tell us WHY he has chosen to create the universe and us in it. I believe that he has indeed chosen to answer this question in a collection of 66 books written by 40 different authors over a period of over 1500 years. It has become known to us as the Bible.
This is obviously not on topic, but what have I done, that that I should be listed as your foe?
I am not a physicist and so I don't really know the intricate details of how neutrinos are produced in accelerators. All I do know is that all accelerators are run by electricity. Therefore, a sun powered by electricity rather than nuclear fusion can and does produce neutrinos. My point is that the electrical interaction can and does produce neutrinos.
Gravity per se, cannot not produce any energy. In hydroelectricity, for example the energy to lift the water into the atmosphere comes from the sun. External energy must be supplied for your toy example also. Gravity does not GENERATE any energy in any way shape or form. It can be instrumental however in CONVERSION of energy from one form into another. When you wind up a clock spring, that spring does not produce any energy, but is merely an energy storage device.
As far as we know, only objects that have mass are affected by gravity. Does electromagnetic radiation possess mass? If not, then the gravity-based bending of starlight, despite your complicated explanation is null. Because gravity is such a weak force, we know very little about it. We are much more familiar with the 39 orders of magnitude greater force of electricity. At CERN and elsewhere, scientists are still trying to figure out how exactly mass, acceleration and gravity are interrelated.
I am surprised and honored in a highly pleasant way that you are taking time out from what must be a very busy professor's life to write such a lengthy reply. It is a small world indeed. I have a daughter at Duke University who happens to be, as most Duke folks an ardent fan of the Blue Devils. She already has a Masters degree from the Duke Divinity School and is almost finished with her doctoral dissertation, which will give a Th.D.
I am an electrical engineer, now retired. I worked for and with physicists at Stanford University for over 30 years in high-energy physics. In all that time, quite a bit of esoteric physics rubbed off on me. I never got that deeply into the details of the standard model and its extensive zoo of subatomic particles. Science and technology have always fascinated and interested me from the time I was about 3 years old.
You did the deduce correctly that I am a Christian. I have looked into other faiths and have concluded that Christian beliefs are unique in at least two major aspects from all others. 1), All founders of other faiths are presently dead, but Jesus Christ alone claims to have risen from the dead and be alive today. 2), all other faiths, except the teachings of the Bible, especially the New Testament, have human beings reaching UPWARD towards whatever their God or gods or other object or person happened to be. The Christian faith is the ONLY one that has God in Jesus Christ reaching DOWN to mankind.
What other criteria besides faith is universal to all human beings? In the Bible we read in Hebrews 11:6 "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." God did not specify knowledge, education, athletic prowess, physical beauty or any other human ability or quality. Everybody can believe and trust, even a little child. In Luke 18:16-17 we read: But Jesus called them and said, Allow the little children to come to Me, and forbid them not. For of such is the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, Whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no way enter into it.
When his fellow disciples told Thomas, who was also a disciple, that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, he would not believe unless he actually saw the risen Jesus. 8 days later, he did indeed see Jesus and this is what Jesus told him in: John 20:29 Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen Me you have believed. Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.
Even in science, where we pride ourselves in objective truth and experimental evidence, there is a large element of belief or faith. Just thumb through almost any scientific literature in any field of science, and you will find statements such as, “it is believed” or “most scientists believe” and similar statements. Scientists seek truth in our world, and all truth, whether scientific or philosophical is absolute, not relative. What differentiates science from religion or philosophy is that in many areas of science we can do experiments and observations to corroborate or refute our beliefs. Truth however, is truth that is always true whether we believe it or not. When my little 3-year-old grandson tells me that he loves his grandpa & grandma, I believe that he is telling the truth. He really does love us. There is no scientific experiment I or anyone else can do to test this. I would never have known this truth, if the little guy had not REVEALED it to me. In the same way, we little human children of God would never know anything about him, unless he chose to reveal things about himself to us.
Our human knowledge and intellect are very small. They are also at present incomplete and partial. The Apostle Paul writes very eloquently about this on his great chapter defining love in 1Corinthians 9–13. Science is constantly changing. New theories are being developed and discarded every day. What was once accepted as even “scientific fact” is now s
The fact that neutrinos can be produced by ELECTRICAL means in accelerators means that they can also be produced by electrical fields and currents on the sun. They do not have to be produced by thermonuclear fusion. Therefore, the presence of neutrinos from the sun cannot be taken as exclusive evidence for fusion taking place in the center thereof.
When light is refracted in a prism for example, what is really happening at the subatomic level? Is the electrical and the magnetic component of the light not interacting with similar components and charges? If that is so, and I believe it is, then why could not powerful electric currents surrounding the sun, as well as the incredibly powerful magnetic fields also affect light's path? Don't forget, the angle through which light is bent passing the sun is very small and the volume through which that light travels is extremely big. The index of refraction in the region close to the sun, certainly can be different than in other parts of space. Only objects that have mass are affected by gravity. Do photons have mass? If they do, they would be infinitely massive, according to Einstein's mathematics when they travel at the speed they do, namely the speed of light. it is not gravity, but incredibly powerful electrical currents and magnetic fields that bend electromagnetic rays of light passing close to the sun.
Because gravity is so weak, it is very hard to learn much about it. Gravitational waves have been postulated for a long time, but have never been found despite massive expenditures to do so. Electromagnetic waves on the other hand are ubiquitous right here at home. We make use of them every day. Electrical phenomena, such as the electromagnetic radiation we receive from the depths of space, obey the laws of electricity, not gravity. All of the energetic radiation we receive is ELECTROMAGNETIC. Gravity, even the most extreme gravity imaginable, does not and cannot produce electromagnetic effects. Gravity only works in places that are almost perfectly electrically neutral, such as where we live here on earth. Life as we know it cannot exist in environments of extreme energies. Gravity can only attract, whereas electrical charges can attract and repel. That fact alone opens up many more possible interactions and makes plasma physics very complicated but also very interesting.
Since when are accretion disks something other than effects of theorized black holes that have never been shown to exist? Conditions in the center of our galaxy, where black holes supposedly exist, are very much different than an our relatively peaceful part of the galaxy. Black holes are theoretical, mathematical concepts that have no existence anywhere in the real world, even in the center of the galaxy. Extreme electrical effects can be shown to account for all the phenomena that are currently attributed to black holes, dark matter and dark energy. Unimaginably intense electrical fields and currents can and do produce all the electromagnetic radiation that are attributed to Black holes and other theoretical, mathematical constructs that are used to explain the strange observations that are being made by modern space probes and telescopes. ALL of the exotic particles that are assumed to be originating in the depths of space and at the center of our galaxy, have been and still are constantly being re-created by powerful accelerators using well-known laws of electricity.