Although I believe everyone has the ability to read code and have some notion of what is going on, I don't believe programming is for everyone. I really don't think kids should be worried by programming until they're at least 10. For some reason, politicians seem to think there's a million and one programming jobs out there that only foreigners can fill. That's not the case, and by the time we train up a billion kids around the world, we'll be complaining there's not enough plumbers and builders, etc. Besides which, good developers take many years to acquire their skills and ability, very little of which our school really help with.
On a personal level, I see software development as the highest form of intellectual "art". You have to love structure, and organization of data and structure, thinking how best to do that to enable faster query / processing etc. But more to the point, kids would better benefit from learning what they instinctively practice on a day to day basis, only with computers: communication and collaboration skills! Seriously, teach them organisation charts, and flow diagrams in the form of UML. Get them to think about re-usability of their diagrams much as developers think of entity relationship models. Teach them English! I mean, focus on grouping, such as a school of fish, a troop of monkeys or a crash of rhinos! Then give them a bunch of words to organise, like banana, seeweed, horn, etc - and see what they do. Complicate it with real life things like "warm blooded" and "cold blooded" so they can puzzle over which best fits where, and why.
This will give them a far better mind set later in life for both software development, and writing in general, as well as self-organizing their workload, etc.
The last thing the world needs is millions of kids who want to write games, and are taught HTML and Javascript, and think this is the way to the next release of Halo on your favourite console.
I'm guessing you've seen the Georia guide stones? link
Personally, I believe if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes. We've been told before that the world can't sustain us all, and kings go on killing sprees. How different is that of today? Although it seems much more likely, there's a massive garden called "Africa" that if used properly could support a few billion more. So no one has to starve. Then there's the strange phenomena of sending seeds into orbit, where growing them on Earth seems to produce monster sized fruit and veg.
I do agree in principle, that there's enough people on this planet already, but I don't advocate murder, or soft-kill approaches. No need for war, accidental mailing of live anthrax (see recent news) etc. We have to be firm in adopting a sterilization after you've 2 kids. Not a nice thought, but neither is a war ravaged world where people fight for resources. Given the alternative, I think we'd all do the right thing, and over the next 500 years, the world's population would decrease slowly.
This is the point where rich people want to say they can support more kids, etc. If we did that, then poor people by extension would be sterilized after 1 child. That's a shaky ethic at best, when we consider having children as a biological right.
Yeah, it's even more hilarious when you start asking questions like "What is money?" and "where does it come from?", and then you realise it's little more than 0's on a computer screen. When you get that, that money is fictitious, and comes into existence from nowhere (central banks), then things begin to get shaky. When the penny drops on that, you begin to realise that all money is debt to someone, and even more scary when you consider the notes in your wallet are believed to be owned by at least 5 other people or more, you begin to wonder how the whole system holds together.
When you see it's all a big game, horrifying thought begin to come to mind: that people are suffering and dying, because they can't get enough 0's on a computer screen! So yeah, fiat money has always been an experiment, and sadly, one that's not going so well, which is why the much loved, quoted, and used, Keynsian economics just doesn't seem to be working!
The reality, is that economic mathematics are based on an infinitely expanding economy to match the infinitely expanding population, propped up by infinite resources both physical and non-physical entering into the economy. Western economies are further based on cheap imports from the east, and cheap energy. Now that energy isn't so cheap, and the imports are more expensive, and the economy has stopped growing meaningfully, we're seeing the pain of our own economic policies. The way out is to revoke the banking charter from central banks, have the government print debt-free money (0's on a computer screen) to pay off their own national debts to the banks (themselves!), which means a 50% surplus in the budget. Now governments can spend again, on the things that make jobs for people! But this won't solve the energy crisis. Continued innovation (R&D, investment) will keep a gap between east and west, but that's another story:-)
Not quite. That's an over-simplification. The truth is that derivatives made by banks like Goldman Sachs (gold in sacks) helped Greece to hide their debt, which wasn't all that bad, to enable them to join the other characters on the yellow brick road, leading to EU. The gravy train they thought it guaranteed did the opposite, as they lost control of their currency, and couldn't inflate their way out of trouble any more, leaving the government of Greece only taxation as a way of bringing in the money to balance the books. So when you realize than even at 100% taxation, you're not going to make it happen. Bailouts by the IMF have never worked. No country ever seems to get it: More debt isn't going to solve your debt problem! Exchanging the monkey on your back for another, doesn't get rid of the other monkey. You just have two monkeys!
So the point is, Greece were pushed into taking the bailout money on the premise that it will kick the can down the road. Now they've caught up with the can, all this political wrangling is about asking how can they kick the can further down the road again?
Greece could have gone the same way as Iceland. Tell the world to get stuffed, refuse to bail out any banks, and let them fail. Then when the dust settles, they're in a better place than austerity to builds a new economy based on Greek exports, and tourism. Look at Iceland now, and compare that with 2008. That's where Greece should be, and ironically, we'd probably be begging them to join the EU by now.
Well, when you consider black holes, that even light can't escape, it's possible the light on the event horizon could take an almost infinite time to reach us. So light is not exempt, as the article states in a way. But let's consider the opposite, if light enters the event horizon and sling-shots around the black hole, would it escape at no more than the speed of light?
It's all nonsense really. Einstein postulated something that's feels right to most people, but isn't actually correct, but holds true enough for most everyday physics. Some decent radio / electrical engineers who are on to Nikola Tesla's real works, as described in more detail through people like Steinberg, and nowadays (supposedly) crack-pot Eric Dollard, question what's possible, and we begin to see how reality isn't what we think it is, and neither is electricity. We learn that it makes more sense to think of two sides to space/time - time/space, that when we see energy appearing and disappearing in our reality, where there is zero time between the distances between the point the energy comes into and then out of existence in our reality, we should pause to consider!
At least, that's how I remember it. I could be completely wrong, and no doubt most would think so.
Yet still, the mentioned phenomena has been demonstrated and documented, and to this day, still not explained by Einstein's relativity.
We live in a world ready to break new grounds, in research, yet too afraid to do so, for fear of failure as a minimum.
One last thing, I remember listening to a discussion about gravity, and how this can't act at the speed of light, but needs to be much closer to instantaneous for the distances it has effect. If we knew what gravity is, and how it's formed (current theories don't satisfy) then we'd really begin to move forwards on the FTL discussion.
I remember reading a story a number of years ago, where someone was saying there's billion available to fund any research relating to global warming. So some scientists were basically joining what they wanted to study, with some obscure link to global warming, and hey, presto! They've got the grant!
Well, ground breaking thinking that's backed by data surely should not be ignored? But it is. Call it ignorance, but if we shake the tree of knowledge, I think most of the leaves are going to fall off. History is always written by the victor, which doesn't always amount to truth. In the same way, you can report a lie, but if it's inline with general thinking, two things are going to happen:
Firstly, it'll be ignored in the noise of all the other published material.
Secondly, no one will bother trying to replicate your findings. So the lie won't fall from the tree unless someone plucks it.
Worse still then, it's possible in astronomy and astrophysics, for theories to exist, and stories to be told, and taught as fact, when there is plenty of evidence to suggest a different explanation is more likely. Take black-holes as an example. Taught as fact, told the world over a million times that they exist, and we can detect them (indirectly) and many other theories and even equations are based on this, as if it were fact.
I realise the magnitude of the data out there, and the implications of even thinking "outside the box" - but when conventional theories and predictions fail to match up to the ignored publications, then something must truly be wrong.
Normally I'd follow this up with some evidence, but given we're discussing the validity of science, I've no wish to hijack responses into a different topic.
So, wouldn't it make more sense, if there was an addendum to the peer review process that would be more along the lines of a peer priority publication review process? Something where the ignored gets to shout about it (if it's sound science, replicatable, testable, etc)
Measure it? I think this is the problem. We don't actually know how much mass or gravity exists at the core or mantle. We have only our theories and equations to tell us - but if they're wrong, then so are our assumptions. I think this article helps point out what what you might think versus what our indicators are telling us.
It doesn't make sense that there is less mass when on top of a mountain, compared to sea level. How about all that mountain? Doesn't that have mass? So the arguments about mountains "floating" would mean equilibrium, and so mass at sea level would be the same as on top of the mountain. So I think the article does bring attention to something that does need a re-think. There's plenty of people answering this forum thinking there's nothing to see, and nothing new here - and I'd half agree. There isn't anything new, but out perceptions and ideas have not changed from the last time we thought about it collectively, which amounts to ignoring evidence. That's not very scientific, when the evidence, doesn't fit the theory. I personally enjoyed the article.
We have theories, and then observation doesn't meet the theory. So we have two options, we make up some rubbish to cover up what we observe, so we can carry on believing in our theories, or secondly, we change the theory to match observation.
I'd prefer the latter, and whilst it's fascinating to watch science explore space, and be constantly baffled by what we think we see, it's a real shame they're not a little more open minded in their interpretations. The problem as I see it, is that there's only one tool in the tool-box of causes of effects we think we observe - and that's gravity. Gravity alone can't answer what we see, and so we invent place-holders to account for the anomalies. As clearly stated by the article itself, our current thinking on what we see hinges on black holes, and red-shift. Neither of which are proven to be reliable.
A more accurate description of the news would read something like "We can see something, which looks like 4 quasars, but we've no real idea how far away they are, and we can't account for their apparent motions, so we'll explain that away with a super massive black hole, which is just a theory - and we'll explain distances based on red-shift / blue shift, which again is theory, and not proven fact, but treated as if it were by most astrophysicists.
"an important fact: the Universe is expanding!" : Actually, this is not known, only theorized. It's based on the notion that red-shift / blue-shift relate to distance. But that's never been proven, and there are others out there that think it isn't about motion at all. Although we have a consensus opinion that uses it as fact, it isn't a proven fact.
I do look at these kinds of images with wonder and awe, as do most of us.
But I can't say the same about our insights into how the sun works. The model for the sun is nearly as bad as the model for a comet. No, actually, I think it's worse. It really doesn't answer what's going on, and leaves far too many questions.
It hints towards the truth a little, when a mere mention of plasma appears. It talks about magnetic fields too - and from this, we kind of assume certain composition of the sun, much as we do our own planet.
But the impossible mission of how the heat comes from the centre, and skips the relatively cool surface, to somehow end up as millions of degrees above, just makes no sense at all, especially when we consider that gases expanding will cool - so, how hot would the centre have to be? That's just one such concern.
Anyone care to share their thoughts on a model that better fits observation? I know the Electric Universe offers a very plausible explanation, but I was wondering if other people had their own views, or theories they'd like to share.
If you were part of my development team, I'd be questioning your ability to code about now.
True, anything jQuery can do, we can too - and we've our own "infrastructure.js" code which seems to come along for the ride on many projects and pages.
But the notion of being blissfully ignorant of newer browser features, and letting jQuery keep up to date on that means we get compatibility at a compromise of performance. But seriously, if you feel performance is a problem, then I'm assuming you must be handling far too much data on the client side.
As for the readability, I find that when our developers chain lots of jQuery together that it is perfectly readable.
I tend to encourage the use of jQuery as it means there's less testing needed, as we can happily assume jQuery features work as expected. Can't say the same for some of our developer's code! Hence, less development time, leaving more time for other development, or as breathing space in the project for other areas where you need more time.
Just to cap off the performance issue - I'd love to see C# completely replace javascript, but that'll never happen. The closest M$ got to it, was SilverLight - and who works with that?? So we're left with a nasty language like JavaScript, which can do pretty much anything we want it to, but it's all a compromise in how you write your code to achieve things like namespaces and property getters and setters. But I digress. If performance is what you need, then Javascript isn't going to be your solution. The reason Javascript is so popular, is because we all know every browser has it - and so it's the ubiquity of it that makes it popular, at the cost of performance. It offers performance in other ways, by being on the client side, and not the server - and with AJAX methods for getting at the data, we can write single page applications for many things. But I do think it's a bit of a passing phase. Everyone seems to recognise that javaScript itself should be replaced by something far more robust, which will be a subject of much speculation for years to come, but in the meantime, Javascript is here to stay, and you can't at least maintain existing websites without it. The future may well belong to Angular, but with sockets making communication between servers and clients that much more responsive, we might find a lot more processing heading back to the server in future, as I believe we've all become a little blinkered in our approach to website client/server models.
I find it very odd that we take it at face value that pyramids were tombs for kings. I find it even more puzzling that we'd thing different cultures in different parts of the world would do the same thing! I don't see why mercury would be considered to lead to treasure of a king.
All assumptions with no proof of anything. Just like the kings of Egypt. No body or any real writings about it being used as a tomb. So I can't buy into the mainstream thinking. Not going down the "Aliens built it" route - but I do think there's evidence that civilizations were once perhaps as great as our own, and probably blown back to the stone age by a nuclear war or some other Atlantis level mass extinction event. What#s left behind is a mystery to us, as their technologies and techniques are very different from ours. So in effect, we can't fathom how they achieved what they did, and perhaps, our computers would seem as magic to them. So what exactly we're looking at, I've no more idea than anyone else - but a king's tomb just doesn't cut the mustard for me.
I think you're twisting this just a little. He was an observer, and did his due diligence and merely reported his findings. But the science establishment didn't seem to receive the news well, and chose to ignore it, and discredit him as much as possible in order to bury the work. Say what you like about him, but don't say his measurements were not accurate - or his hypothesis reasonable.
I'm just saying that all too often we talk of observations as fact, when we can't be sure of anything - and we stand behind fanciful ideas such as black holes, which should have the opposite effect on a man of science - it should enrage your sensibilities. RIC = 0 is just not possible. Observations might suggest a lot of gravity, but if we don't really know how far away something is, then we can't make any assumptions of size, age, or much else. The whole "science" comes into question. All we can do is observe, and theorize. But we can't sit there knowing something is very wrong, and have religious faith that someone's going to answer it all, and believe we're going to be close to the truth, when there's something fundamentally wrong at the heart of our science.
Experimentation that seems to behave on the small scale as it does in the large scale is definitely a death-blow to contradictory theory alone, I'm sure you'd agree - so look into plasma physics experiments, and you'll find a lot of very compelling experiments that seem to show production in the lab of things we see in the sky.
We're also finding that observations that "shock" astronomers and astrophysicists alike are to be expected in the Electric universe. That being the case, there's a real "shock" coming to the sciences, sooner or later. Because we'll have to bring a far greater force into our equations alongside gravity - and that's magnetism.
As the universe is 99.99% plasma, and it's all conducting massive amounts of electricity all over the universe, and where electricity flows, grade school kids will tell you a magnetic field is formed. So it doesn't seem such a far stretch of the imagination to see we actually don't need dark energy, or dark matter to explain observations at all. We just need to update our models to bring them into the 21st century.
Yeah, this is the stuff of dreams, and nightmares.
Before we absolutely accept there's a blackhole at the centre of our galaxy, can be disprove other theories that make a lot more sense, and don't contradict the laws of physics? (Such as the Electric Universe theory).
Black holes are talked of as if they are a reality that is not questioned. But nothing could be further from the truth. People still say Einstein predicted it, but he didn't, and never agreed that you could ever make the tensor RIC = 0. It is this very mathematical thought, and an ignorance of gravity being intrinsic to matter, and therefore you can't ever get 0 in there. Yet the 0 became a black hole, and we think we can see them in space. But can we? PZ is right to be confused by all the jargon and contradiction surrounding black holes - because they don't conform to the laws of physics.
Until we actually understand what gravity is, we can't hope to make sense of all this. So we have these fanciful ideas with billions of dollars behind them so we can look at the stars, and tell others what we think we see. But it's because like a game of Chinese whispers, and we're at the end of the chain, listening to messages that don't make sense, and are far removed from the source.
I agree completely. I a number of people who went out and purchased an iPad because it was hip, coo, and trendy. What do they use it for? Well, nothing, actually. It sits there gathering dust. One in particular commented that they went out and purchased a cheap (low end) laptop, and uses that for everything now, and is much happier, because their internet experience isn't so hampered, and they can listen to MP3's and not be restricted by the Apple Store in any way. a breath of fresh air, is how they described it.
Apple will survive for as long as people continue to buy Apple. No longer.
When people get fed up of all the Apple specific stuff, and get tired of the pricing, and realise they've been buying into a dream for so many years - and that although Apple do offer an alternative, they're not a solution. They're part of a solution to which all technology is also a part of.
When people value Apple tech no differently to anyone else's, then they'll stop paying Apple prices - and find the security in ubiquity of the PC world.
So when Apple fold emulate Windows for what ever reason, it's like admitting that Apple just isn't enough for the whole world - and worse, you complicate the hell out of your own world by needing to know both Macs and PCs.
In the end, there has to be competition, and Apple versus the rest of the world isn't that great.
Linux can sit there and wait another decade for another shot at public acceptance. Now we're just talking OS's.
No one can deny that Apple have a brand, and marketing strategy. Some would say Apple tech is pretty good, but is it worth the money? It's like a house in the sense that people will only pay for a house what they believe it is worth. To that end, people only buy into Apple because they're buying an idea that they think is worth it. When that changes, watch their stock price plummet rather quickly.
Nah, it's more ignorant science junk. Shock! Awe! No one can explain this???!!
But sadly, what we say we know is based on flawed science. So we believe it's 7.8Billion light years away, right? That means we measured it's distance based on redshift. There in lays the problem. It was proven years ago that red shift can't explain distance, by Halton Arp. But what did he get for this discovery? They cut his telescope time, and basically tried to discredit him.
So we carry on saying "shock! Awe! No one can explain this!" - when we should first accept the question is flawed, because it's based on flawed science.
Think about it, without redshift, we lose the expanding universe, the evidence for dark energy, and even the big bang, which in itself will make us re-think black holes, etc. Oh, boy - do we have a lot to lose, and a lot to gain by some simple truths. Taken a little further then - if it isn't so far away, it isn't so big either. So the energy and light calculations are flawed too.
I'm not offering a hypothesis of my own, just to say we need to re-evaluate the data before we can even begin (again) to guess what we're observing.
Slashdot Mirror
Although I believe everyone has the ability to read code and have some notion of what is going on, I don't believe programming is for everyone. I really don't think kids should be worried by programming until they're at least 10. For some reason, politicians seem to think there's a million and one programming jobs out there that only foreigners can fill. That's not the case, and by the time we train up a billion kids around the world, we'll be complaining there's not enough plumbers and builders, etc. Besides which, good developers take many years to acquire their skills and ability, very little of which our school really help with.
On a personal level, I see software development as the highest form of intellectual "art". You have to love structure, and organization of data and structure, thinking how best to do that to enable faster query / processing etc. But more to the point, kids would better benefit from learning what they instinctively practice on a day to day basis, only with computers: communication and collaboration skills! Seriously, teach them organisation charts, and flow diagrams in the form of UML. Get them to think about re-usability of their diagrams much as developers think of entity relationship models. Teach them English! I mean, focus on grouping, such as a school of fish, a troop of monkeys or a crash of rhinos! Then give them a bunch of words to organise, like banana, seeweed, horn, etc - and see what they do. Complicate it with real life things like "warm blooded" and "cold blooded" so they can puzzle over which best fits where, and why.
This will give them a far better mind set later in life for both software development, and writing in general, as well as self-organizing their workload, etc.
The last thing the world needs is millions of kids who want to write games, and are taught HTML and Javascript, and think this is the way to the next release of Halo on your favourite console.
I'm guessing you've seen the Georia guide stones? link Personally, I believe if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes. We've been told before that the world can't sustain us all, and kings go on killing sprees. How different is that of today? Although it seems much more likely, there's a massive garden called "Africa" that if used properly could support a few billion more. So no one has to starve. Then there's the strange phenomena of sending seeds into orbit, where growing them on Earth seems to produce monster sized fruit and veg.
I do agree in principle, that there's enough people on this planet already, but I don't advocate murder, or soft-kill approaches. No need for war, accidental mailing of live anthrax (see recent news) etc. We have to be firm in adopting a sterilization after you've 2 kids. Not a nice thought, but neither is a war ravaged world where people fight for resources. Given the alternative, I think we'd all do the right thing, and over the next 500 years, the world's population would decrease slowly.
This is the point where rich people want to say they can support more kids, etc. If we did that, then poor people by extension would be sterilized after 1 child. That's a shaky ethic at best, when we consider having children as a biological right.
Yeah, it's even more hilarious when you start asking questions like "What is money?" and "where does it come from?", and then you realise it's little more than 0's on a computer screen. When you get that, that money is fictitious, and comes into existence from nowhere (central banks), then things begin to get shaky. When the penny drops on that, you begin to realise that all money is debt to someone, and even more scary when you consider the notes in your wallet are believed to be owned by at least 5 other people or more, you begin to wonder how the whole system holds together.
:-)
When you see it's all a big game, horrifying thought begin to come to mind: that people are suffering and dying, because they can't get enough 0's on a computer screen! So yeah, fiat money has always been an experiment, and sadly, one that's not going so well, which is why the much loved, quoted, and used, Keynsian economics just doesn't seem to be working!
The reality, is that economic mathematics are based on an infinitely expanding economy to match the infinitely expanding population, propped up by infinite resources both physical and non-physical entering into the economy. Western economies are further based on cheap imports from the east, and cheap energy. Now that energy isn't so cheap, and the imports are more expensive, and the economy has stopped growing meaningfully, we're seeing the pain of our own economic policies. The way out is to revoke the banking charter from central banks, have the government print debt-free money (0's on a computer screen) to pay off their own national debts to the banks (themselves!), which means a 50% surplus in the budget. Now governments can spend again, on the things that make jobs for people! But this won't solve the energy crisis. Continued innovation (R&D, investment) will keep a gap between east and west, but that's another story
Not quite. That's an over-simplification. The truth is that derivatives made by banks like Goldman Sachs (gold in sacks) helped Greece to hide their debt, which wasn't all that bad, to enable them to join the other characters on the yellow brick road, leading to EU. The gravy train they thought it guaranteed did the opposite, as they lost control of their currency, and couldn't inflate their way out of trouble any more, leaving the government of Greece only taxation as a way of bringing in the money to balance the books. So when you realize than even at 100% taxation, you're not going to make it happen. Bailouts by the IMF have never worked. No country ever seems to get it: More debt isn't going to solve your debt problem! Exchanging the monkey on your back for another, doesn't get rid of the other monkey. You just have two monkeys!
So the point is, Greece were pushed into taking the bailout money on the premise that it will kick the can down the road. Now they've caught up with the can, all this political wrangling is about asking how can they kick the can further down the road again?
Greece could have gone the same way as Iceland. Tell the world to get stuffed, refuse to bail out any banks, and let them fail. Then when the dust settles, they're in a better place than austerity to builds a new economy based on Greek exports, and tourism. Look at Iceland now, and compare that with 2008. That's where Greece should be, and ironically, we'd probably be begging them to join the EU by now.
Well, when you consider black holes, that even light can't escape, it's possible the light on the event horizon could take an almost infinite time to reach us. So light is not exempt, as the article states in a way. But let's consider the opposite, if light enters the event horizon and sling-shots around the black hole, would it escape at no more than the speed of light?
It's all nonsense really. Einstein postulated something that's feels right to most people, but isn't actually correct, but holds true enough for most everyday physics. Some decent radio / electrical engineers who are on to Nikola Tesla's real works, as described in more detail through people like Steinberg, and nowadays (supposedly) crack-pot Eric Dollard, question what's possible, and we begin to see how reality isn't what we think it is, and neither is electricity. We learn that it makes more sense to think of two sides to space/time - time/space, that when we see energy appearing and disappearing in our reality, where there is zero time between the distances between the point the energy comes into and then out of existence in our reality, we should pause to consider! At least, that's how I remember it. I could be completely wrong, and no doubt most would think so.
Yet still, the mentioned phenomena has been demonstrated and documented, and to this day, still not explained by Einstein's relativity.
We live in a world ready to break new grounds, in research, yet too afraid to do so, for fear of failure as a minimum.
One last thing, I remember listening to a discussion about gravity, and how this can't act at the speed of light, but needs to be much closer to instantaneous for the distances it has effect. If we knew what gravity is, and how it's formed (current theories don't satisfy) then we'd really begin to move forwards on the FTL discussion.
I remember reading a story a number of years ago, where someone was saying there's billion available to fund any research relating to global warming. So some scientists were basically joining what they wanted to study, with some obscure link to global warming, and hey, presto! They've got the grant!
Firstly, it'll be ignored in the noise of all the other published material.
Secondly, no one will bother trying to replicate your findings. So the lie won't fall from the tree unless someone plucks it.
Worse still then, it's possible in astronomy and astrophysics, for theories to exist, and stories to be told, and taught as fact, when there is plenty of evidence to suggest a different explanation is more likely. Take black-holes as an example. Taught as fact, told the world over a million times that they exist, and we can detect them (indirectly) and many other theories and even equations are based on this, as if it were fact.
I realise the magnitude of the data out there, and the implications of even thinking "outside the box" - but when conventional theories and predictions fail to match up to the ignored publications, then something must truly be wrong.
Normally I'd follow this up with some evidence, but given we're discussing the validity of science, I've no wish to hijack responses into a different topic.
So, wouldn't it make more sense, if there was an addendum to the peer review process that would be more along the lines of a peer priority publication review process? Something where the ignored gets to shout about it (if it's sound science, replicatable, testable, etc)
Measure it? I think this is the problem. We don't actually know how much mass or gravity exists at the core or mantle. We have only our theories and equations to tell us - but if they're wrong, then so are our assumptions. I think this article helps point out what what you might think versus what our indicators are telling us. It doesn't make sense that there is less mass when on top of a mountain, compared to sea level. How about all that mountain? Doesn't that have mass? So the arguments about mountains "floating" would mean equilibrium, and so mass at sea level would be the same as on top of the mountain. So I think the article does bring attention to something that does need a re-think. There's plenty of people answering this forum thinking there's nothing to see, and nothing new here - and I'd half agree. There isn't anything new, but out perceptions and ideas have not changed from the last time we thought about it collectively, which amounts to ignoring evidence. That's not very scientific, when the evidence, doesn't fit the theory. I personally enjoyed the article.
We have theories, and then observation doesn't meet the theory. So we have two options, we make up some rubbish to cover up what we observe, so we can carry on believing in our theories, or secondly, we change the theory to match observation.
I'd prefer the latter, and whilst it's fascinating to watch science explore space, and be constantly baffled by what we think we see, it's a real shame they're not a little more open minded in their interpretations. The problem as I see it, is that there's only one tool in the tool-box of causes of effects we think we observe - and that's gravity. Gravity alone can't answer what we see, and so we invent place-holders to account for the anomalies. As clearly stated by the article itself, our current thinking on what we see hinges on black holes, and red-shift. Neither of which are proven to be reliable.
A more accurate description of the news would read something like "We can see something, which looks like 4 quasars, but we've no real idea how far away they are, and we can't account for their apparent motions, so we'll explain that away with a super massive black hole, which is just a theory - and we'll explain distances based on red-shift / blue shift, which again is theory, and not proven fact, but treated as if it were by most astrophysicists.
All good fun, really.
"an important fact: the Universe is expanding!" : Actually, this is not known, only theorized. It's based on the notion that red-shift / blue-shift relate to distance. But that's never been proven, and there are others out there that think it isn't about motion at all. Although we have a consensus opinion that uses it as fact, it isn't a proven fact.
I do look at these kinds of images with wonder and awe, as do most of us. But I can't say the same about our insights into how the sun works. The model for the sun is nearly as bad as the model for a comet. No, actually, I think it's worse. It really doesn't answer what's going on, and leaves far too many questions. It hints towards the truth a little, when a mere mention of plasma appears. It talks about magnetic fields too - and from this, we kind of assume certain composition of the sun, much as we do our own planet. But the impossible mission of how the heat comes from the centre, and skips the relatively cool surface, to somehow end up as millions of degrees above, just makes no sense at all, especially when we consider that gases expanding will cool - so, how hot would the centre have to be? That's just one such concern. Anyone care to share their thoughts on a model that better fits observation? I know the Electric Universe offers a very plausible explanation, but I was wondering if other people had their own views, or theories they'd like to share.
If you were part of my development team, I'd be questioning your ability to code about now. True, anything jQuery can do, we can too - and we've our own "infrastructure.js" code which seems to come along for the ride on many projects and pages. But the notion of being blissfully ignorant of newer browser features, and letting jQuery keep up to date on that means we get compatibility at a compromise of performance. But seriously, if you feel performance is a problem, then I'm assuming you must be handling far too much data on the client side. As for the readability, I find that when our developers chain lots of jQuery together that it is perfectly readable. I tend to encourage the use of jQuery as it means there's less testing needed, as we can happily assume jQuery features work as expected. Can't say the same for some of our developer's code! Hence, less development time, leaving more time for other development, or as breathing space in the project for other areas where you need more time. Just to cap off the performance issue - I'd love to see C# completely replace javascript, but that'll never happen. The closest M$ got to it, was SilverLight - and who works with that?? So we're left with a nasty language like JavaScript, which can do pretty much anything we want it to, but it's all a compromise in how you write your code to achieve things like namespaces and property getters and setters. But I digress. If performance is what you need, then Javascript isn't going to be your solution. The reason Javascript is so popular, is because we all know every browser has it - and so it's the ubiquity of it that makes it popular, at the cost of performance. It offers performance in other ways, by being on the client side, and not the server - and with AJAX methods for getting at the data, we can write single page applications for many things. But I do think it's a bit of a passing phase. Everyone seems to recognise that javaScript itself should be replaced by something far more robust, which will be a subject of much speculation for years to come, but in the meantime, Javascript is here to stay, and you can't at least maintain existing websites without it. The future may well belong to Angular, but with sockets making communication between servers and clients that much more responsive, we might find a lot more processing heading back to the server in future, as I believe we've all become a little blinkered in our approach to website client/server models.
I find it very odd that we take it at face value that pyramids were tombs for kings. I find it even more puzzling that we'd thing different cultures in different parts of the world would do the same thing! I don't see why mercury would be considered to lead to treasure of a king. All assumptions with no proof of anything. Just like the kings of Egypt. No body or any real writings about it being used as a tomb. So I can't buy into the mainstream thinking. Not going down the "Aliens built it" route - but I do think there's evidence that civilizations were once perhaps as great as our own, and probably blown back to the stone age by a nuclear war or some other Atlantis level mass extinction event. What#s left behind is a mystery to us, as their technologies and techniques are very different from ours. So in effect, we can't fathom how they achieved what they did, and perhaps, our computers would seem as magic to them. So what exactly we're looking at, I've no more idea than anyone else - but a king's tomb just doesn't cut the mustard for me.
I think you're twisting this just a little. He was an observer, and did his due diligence and merely reported his findings. But the science establishment didn't seem to receive the news well, and chose to ignore it, and discredit him as much as possible in order to bury the work. Say what you like about him, but don't say his measurements were not accurate - or his hypothesis reasonable. I'm just saying that all too often we talk of observations as fact, when we can't be sure of anything - and we stand behind fanciful ideas such as black holes, which should have the opposite effect on a man of science - it should enrage your sensibilities. RIC = 0 is just not possible. Observations might suggest a lot of gravity, but if we don't really know how far away something is, then we can't make any assumptions of size, age, or much else. The whole "science" comes into question. All we can do is observe, and theorize. But we can't sit there knowing something is very wrong, and have religious faith that someone's going to answer it all, and believe we're going to be close to the truth, when there's something fundamentally wrong at the heart of our science.
Experimentation that seems to behave on the small scale as it does in the large scale is definitely a death-blow to contradictory theory alone, I'm sure you'd agree - so look into plasma physics experiments, and you'll find a lot of very compelling experiments that seem to show production in the lab of things we see in the sky. We're also finding that observations that "shock" astronomers and astrophysicists alike are to be expected in the Electric universe. That being the case, there's a real "shock" coming to the sciences, sooner or later. Because we'll have to bring a far greater force into our equations alongside gravity - and that's magnetism. As the universe is 99.99% plasma, and it's all conducting massive amounts of electricity all over the universe, and where electricity flows, grade school kids will tell you a magnetic field is formed. So it doesn't seem such a far stretch of the imagination to see we actually don't need dark energy, or dark matter to explain observations at all. We just need to update our models to bring them into the 21st century.
Yeah, this is the stuff of dreams, and nightmares. Before we absolutely accept there's a blackhole at the centre of our galaxy, can be disprove other theories that make a lot more sense, and don't contradict the laws of physics? (Such as the Electric Universe theory). Black holes are talked of as if they are a reality that is not questioned. But nothing could be further from the truth. People still say Einstein predicted it, but he didn't, and never agreed that you could ever make the tensor RIC = 0. It is this very mathematical thought, and an ignorance of gravity being intrinsic to matter, and therefore you can't ever get 0 in there. Yet the 0 became a black hole, and we think we can see them in space. But can we? PZ is right to be confused by all the jargon and contradiction surrounding black holes - because they don't conform to the laws of physics. Until we actually understand what gravity is, we can't hope to make sense of all this. So we have these fanciful ideas with billions of dollars behind them so we can look at the stars, and tell others what we think we see. But it's because like a game of Chinese whispers, and we're at the end of the chain, listening to messages that don't make sense, and are far removed from the source.
I agree completely. I a number of people who went out and purchased an iPad because it was hip, coo, and trendy. What do they use it for? Well, nothing, actually. It sits there gathering dust. One in particular commented that they went out and purchased a cheap (low end) laptop, and uses that for everything now, and is much happier, because their internet experience isn't so hampered, and they can listen to MP3's and not be restricted by the Apple Store in any way. a breath of fresh air, is how they described it.
Apple will survive for as long as people continue to buy Apple. No longer. When people get fed up of all the Apple specific stuff, and get tired of the pricing, and realise they've been buying into a dream for so many years - and that although Apple do offer an alternative, they're not a solution. They're part of a solution to which all technology is also a part of. When people value Apple tech no differently to anyone else's, then they'll stop paying Apple prices - and find the security in ubiquity of the PC world. So when Apple fold emulate Windows for what ever reason, it's like admitting that Apple just isn't enough for the whole world - and worse, you complicate the hell out of your own world by needing to know both Macs and PCs. In the end, there has to be competition, and Apple versus the rest of the world isn't that great. Linux can sit there and wait another decade for another shot at public acceptance. Now we're just talking OS's. No one can deny that Apple have a brand, and marketing strategy. Some would say Apple tech is pretty good, but is it worth the money? It's like a house in the sense that people will only pay for a house what they believe it is worth. To that end, people only buy into Apple because they're buying an idea that they think is worth it. When that changes, watch their stock price plummet rather quickly.
Nah, it's more ignorant science junk. Shock! Awe! No one can explain this???!! But sadly, what we say we know is based on flawed science. So we believe it's 7.8Billion light years away, right? That means we measured it's distance based on redshift. There in lays the problem. It was proven years ago that red shift can't explain distance, by Halton Arp. But what did he get for this discovery? They cut his telescope time, and basically tried to discredit him. So we carry on saying "shock! Awe! No one can explain this!" - when we should first accept the question is flawed, because it's based on flawed science. Think about it, without redshift, we lose the expanding universe, the evidence for dark energy, and even the big bang, which in itself will make us re-think black holes, etc. Oh, boy - do we have a lot to lose, and a lot to gain by some simple truths. Taken a little further then - if it isn't so far away, it isn't so big either. So the energy and light calculations are flawed too. I'm not offering a hypothesis of my own, just to say we need to re-evaluate the data before we can even begin (again) to guess what we're observing.