21

Just Chat! / Re: Why is Brexit a right-wing cause?

« on: 25/05/2023 22:23:21 »

So... why did the Tories decide to leave it.

In order to win a general election. Having made a few quid by buying public assets at knockdown prices but failed to fully privatise the NHS, then realised that the influx of cheap labor wasn't particularly popular with the electorate and could be blamed on Tony B Liar, seen the writing on the toilet wall for the UK's net balance of trade, and being unable to implement strict Laura Norder policies because of Yuman Rites, it occurred to the few Tories with functional brain cells that this was a good time to deploy the Corbyn card (the Left being in total disarray about Europe) and win a few seats north of Watford.

Never accuse the Tory party of being longsighted (joining the Common Market was an obvious longterm trade disaster) or consistent, but you can't fault their opportunism.

22

Just Chat! / Re: Why is Brexit a right-wing cause?

« on: 25/05/2023 20:59:15 »

From my point of view, Brexit was never a right wing cause.

The EU was set up to protect market prices in Europe, regardless of the consequences to the environment or common sense. It imposed laws based on Roman principles (everything is forbidden except that which is allowed, commanded, or granted as a right) which do not mesh well with our Scandi-Celtic tradition (a few things are forbidden, you have few duties beyond paying tax and serving on a jury, and you don't need many rights). It told lies and set minimum "safety" standards that actually made medical equipment more dangerous. It required privatisation of national assets. It undermined the wages of the poor and made the rich richer. It required the UK to pay for the privilege of an increasingly negative balance of trade. It had a phony parliament with no power but unlimited tax-free expenses, and an unelected executive whose accounts were never signed off by the auditors.

23

Just Chat! / Re: A question for our paragon of aeronautical erudition, Alancalverd

« on: 25/05/2023 20:46:58 »

I paid someone else to fly me (and the boss) in a fairly serviceable 737  to somewhere I didn't have to think about physics for a whole week. Croatia is recommended.

24

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Talking about Physics

« on: 25/05/2023 15:43:54 »

One should never be afraid to disagree with Feynman - there is no better way to learn than to argue with a master, and he always enjoyed a tussle! The published "Lectures" are a committee document compiled from audio tapes, may well contain a few infelicities, and I think predate the usefully rigid ISO definitions of entity, quantity and unit.

25

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Talking about Physics

« on: 25/05/2023 10:10:15 »

What is a bottle, first of all?

A bottle is something we make (or imagine) to contain something else. It is a member of the set of containers, which includes boxes, cages, and finite bounded universes.

26

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Talking about Physics

« on: 25/05/2023 10:03:53 »

At best, non-numerical quantities can be ordered but they do not have all the properties of numbers. 

Friendly grumble:

I'd reserve quantity for something that can be associated with a numerical value, and quality for a property that can't. Keeps life simple and explicit.

You could of course analyse the spectrum of a pink dawn, but whilst your numbers would mean something to a blind physicist (even to the extent of estimating the sun altitude and the nature of atmospheric dust)  "pink" wouldn't convey anything of value.

27

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Talking about Physics

« on: 25/05/2023 09:53:41 »

Energy is a conserved quantity in newtonian mechanics, but interchangeable with mass (another newtonian conserved quantity)  in relativistic mechanics. Nothing more, nothing less.

School curricula tend to be written by educationalists, not teachers, and therefore serve only to confuse the student and put him off "difficult" subjects like physics. Fact is that physics is really dead easy because it is about what happens (dynamics) or doesn't happen (statics) - stuff you see in everyday life.  Quite unlike history (deciding which account of stuff you never experienced is less unreliable) languages (the grunts made by apes who look like us but live somewhere else) literature (many books of bad English written about a few lines of good English) or religion (you'd be prosecuted for selling any other product that doesn't work).

28

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Talking about Physics

« on: 16/05/2023 21:57:20 »

So that could explain to some extent why philosophers struggle with, you know, ontology or objective reality.

Philosophers invent things to struggle with, because they don't have meaningful lives.

In my world people have real problems and I get paid to understand and solve them with physics, chemistry, maths, brute force and duct tape. Very satisfying.

On reflection, radioactivity was indeed a complete surprise, along with the discovery of life in deep ocean vents, Earth's cyclic climate, and a whole lot of stuff that hadn't been seen until someone looked out of curiosity rather than necessity. In that context, the exploration of the moon and Mars hasn't provided much bang for your buck - so far.

29

General Science / Re: How does ChatGPT work?

« on: 16/05/2023 21:48:14 »

Frankly, if that is an example of GPT4 at work, you have nothing to fear. Yesterday whilst waiting for a shop to open I was accosted by a man who spoke pretty much like that: repetitive, coherent, but meaningless. As he walked away the woman behind me said "Poor old Jeff hasn't been himself since his dad died".

30

New Theories / Re: Universal Utopia? What's The Universal Terminal Goal?

« on: 16/05/2023 20:21:56 »

Can you say that you knew your dad was shoveling snow?

Thus showing that philosophy is simply amateur linguistics and a waste of  life.

Everyone knows that the sun orbits the flat earth -  never mind a fleeting glance at your neighbor, that's predictive knowledge derived from acute observation of absolutely consistent phenomena over thousands of years. We know it so well, and so universally,  that we base trade, agriculture and thus the whole of civilisation on it. We even have names for sunrise and sunset.  And it is absolutely wrong in every respect.

I know my Redeemer liveth. Bullshit, but what a great song!

I am coming to the conclusion that philosophy is the work creation program for  would-be academics who failed English 101 and were no good at football.

31

Just Chat! / Re: Is going into a marriage for sex like purchasing a 747 for the free peanuts?

« on: 16/05/2023 20:16:55 »

The only reason to get married is to make a public statement that you have both found a partner with whom you want to share the rest of your life, exclusively. Anything else is just friendship or business.

32

Just Chat! / Re: Is there a universal moral standard?

« on: 16/05/2023 20:13:10 »

The other alternative is to go extinct with the destruction of the earth.

Best of all would be for humanity to extinguish and let the earth recover.

33

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Talking about Physics

« on: 16/05/2023 11:37:45 »

Beware of falling into the trap of thinking that a photon is a "thing". It is a model that describes the interaction of electromagnetic energy with material entities. Pointless books have been written, and careers ruined, over whether light "is" a wave or a particle: it is a phenomenon that is best described by two different mathematical models depending on which of its properties you are interested in.

Is a man the embodiment of a creative and beautiful soul, or 70 kg of water and a few bones?  Depends on whether you are dealing with a live musician or a dead one.

"Complete" surprise is rare. A lot of particles were hypothesised because of an apparent breach of the usual conservation rules, and then discovered when we have worked out where to look.   

34

Chemistry / Re: Does The pH of Milk Change When Heating?

« on: 15/05/2023 20:32:21 »

Oh come, on, BC!

Milk contains all sorts of organic goodies in solution and suspension that undergo all sorts of reactions when it's heated above body temperature.

Time for my learned friend to strut his stuff, surely?

35

Just Chat! / Re: Is there a universal moral standard?

« on: 15/05/2023 20:23:28 »

We can learn from biological experiments in terrarium jars which can run for decades without material exchange across the glass walls.

Exporting an entire terrarium to Mars would be expensive and completely pointless, like going on a foreign holiday and never getting off the bus. All you have achieved is to add some diesel fumes (or in this case rocket exhaust) to someone else's planet..

36

Just Chat! / Re: Is there a universal moral standard?

« on: 15/05/2023 20:19:32 »

So they won't be humans.

Is that a problem?
Why or why not?

Because you wanted them to be!

37

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Where would I find King Kong?

« on: 15/05/2023 20:13:35 »

Interestingly, now we are on to Scandinavia, the Danish word for king is kong, so when the original film appeared in northern shores it was entitled "Kong King".

38

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Where would I find King Kong?

« on: 15/05/2023 17:30:57 »

Congo or Rwanda. Definitely herbivorous. Chimpanzees and bonobos are a bit more carnivorous but not as spectacularly built as a gorilla. If you want an animal that really expresses its grudge against humanity you would do better to put a face mask on a grizzly bear. 

39

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Talking about Physics

« on: 15/05/2023 14:23:31 »

You will never get consistency from philosophers: their job is to tell you (including other philosophers) that you don't know what you are talking about.

On the other hand I'm embarrassed on behalf of my colleagues if they give you different answers to "what is a photon". It is a quantum of electromagnetic energy, modelled as a particle with zero mass. Anything else would have a different name.

40

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: No Evidence of the Exodus?

« on: 15/05/2023 14:15:51 »

If exodus didn't happen, why am I here and not there?