Subject: Re: Why does sound travel faster in warm air?
From: e_p@unlinfo.unl.edu (Ed. Pearlstein)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 15:16:55 GMT
Arielle Sumits writes:
>Can anyone tell me why sound travels faster in warm air, exactly?
A much more physical explanation than the one involving
compressibility and density is this:
On a molecular level, the compression wave travels by molecules
moving and colliding with other molecules, thus, on the average,
imparting momentum to them. Now the speed of travel of molecules
increases with temperature. Therefore the speed with which they can
"communicate" with each other, via collisions, also increases with
temperature.
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 18:31:11 GMT
seshadri@cup.hp.com (Raghu Seshadri) wrote:
>Ken perseveres -
>: >You are wrong. Any writer, ethical or unethical,
>: >can get hoaxes published. Ethics is tangential
>: >to this discussion. Or else you'd have to call
>: >every prankster doing April Fool tricks an
>: >unethical person. Most people would see this
>: >as the sign of a need to lighten up.
>: You confuse ability with intent. Many, I dare say most, professional
>: writers, regardless of the ability to do so, would not wish to publish
>: a hoax in one of their professional journals. Unless there is some
>: evidence that Derrida has attempted (and failed) to publish a hoax in
>: a journal, the original premise is nothing more than a childish taunt.
>Well, let me quit after pointing out that
>we will NEVER know if Derrida has this
>ability or not, so there is no point in
>discussing this further.
Before you retire, let me point out that Derrida has published
countless works so I at least assume he has the ability to deceive, if
he decided to waste his talent that way. He certainly has the ability
to get folks all worked up.
>Can you suggest another scheme by which
>we can discover if he is superior to
>Sokal in intellect ? This was the original
>claim that provoked me to come up with
>this challenge - perhaps you can suggest
>another.
Playing a hoax on someone is hardly evidence of a superior intellect,
although it may indicate a superior deviousness. Trying to show
someone is superior intellectually to another is a fool's game,
anyway.
>Also, do you really think Sokal was
>unethical in exposing the feet of clay
>of Ross and the other clowns who
>edit Social Text ? Isn't exposing
>frauds to the light of day an ethical
>act ?
Yes, I do think he was unethical. I am not excusing the journal
editors; they were sloppy and apparently unprofessional in not
uncovering thie exercise in tomfoolery.
Ken MacIver
Subject: Re: What kind of fakery? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 18:49:24 GMT
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
>In article <55eji6$a8n@news-central.tiac.net>, nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) writes:
>>meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
>>
>>>In article <55dqe6$c8h@news-central.tiac.net>, nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) writes:
>>
>>>>I had in mind Sokol's own statement, as reported in this newsgroup,
>>>>that he committed a "hoax" on the magazine. If he is now saying that
>>>>he submitted a valid article, what is the brouhaha all about. If not,
>>>>do you believe that it is okay for a writer to have as a goal the
>>>>submission of a phony article to an editor [as long as you think it is
>>>>for a *worthy* cause]?
>>>>
>>>If the goal is to propagate misinformation then it is unethical. If,
>>>on the other hand, there is no misinformation involved and the goal is
>>>to expose what the author views to be improper practices, then the
>>>answer to your question above is a resounding yes. It is not only OK,
>>>it is a public service.
>>
>>You still sound to me like one of them ol' relative ethics types.
>>Only a scientist, methinks, could say a hoax is a public service.
>>
>Wonder if you've ever heard about a French writer named Romain Gary
>(he died a few years ago, as I recall). Well known and highly
>respected for some time. Then, eventually, his popularity among the
>literary critics declined. Basically, they declared, he had nothing
>more to say.
>Few years later a book by a hitherto unknown writer appeared in
>France. It got enthusiastic reception and the critics proclaimed it
>to be a work of the highest caliber. Then it turned out that the
>author was (but you've guessed it already) Romain Gary, who wrote
>under a borrowed name in order to prove that the opinions of the
>critics are based on fashions, likes and dislikes etc. not on any
>objective standards. A hoax? Well, by your criterions yes,
>definitely. A public service? In my opinion, definitely.
A pseudonym is hardly a hoax. I suspect the opposite happened in the
case of the sloppily edited journal. They gave Sokol more stature
than he deserved because he was know to be a scientist. If he had
submitted as Joe Smith, a fisherman from Maine, they'd have looked it
over more carefully, I'd guess.
>Few other examples come to mind. A well known Swedish painter (don't
>recall his name right now) held an exhibition of his latest works,
>then, after the critics proclaimed it a triumph of abstract painting,
>disclosed that they were painted not by him but by his pet monkey. I
>won't ask any more rhetorical questions, you know what they are.
This sounds like so much monkey business to me.
>Else you think I hold a special grudge against art critics, I'll
>mention another case, from the 70s. Some reporters, being suspicious
>of the criteria that mental health hospitals use to decide who needs
>to be committed, arranged to be brought in by fellow reporters
>pretending to be concerned family members and complaining about
>"peculiar behavior" of their "dear relatives". It was done in few
>hospitals and in all cases, following a psychiatric evaluation, the
>"pretenders" were found suffering from serious disorders and in need
>of commitment (as I recall, at least with one of them it took quite a
>while to get him out). I think that they proved their point very well
>and that they did perform a public service. What's your opinion?
That anyone who willingly enters one of these hospitals ought to be
kept there a very long time.
Ken MacIver
Subject: Re: Authors & titles: untrue writings (was: ... kind of fakery?)
From: nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 18:51:34 GMT
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) wrote:
>-*------
>In article <55ejt0$auf@news-central.tiac.net>,
>Ken MacIver wrote:
>> Phony as in intentionally false, untrue.
>Like Swift's essay, "A Modest Proposal"? Or like ... Oh, here
>is an idea: given the the typical alt.postmodern poster's broad
>backgrounds in literature, why don't we start a list of famous
>and intentionally untrue writings? Who wants to go next?
>> [snip of irrelevancies]
>No, not irrelevancies, but a request that MacIver become specific
>in his complaint, rather than running around like a backwoods
>preacher shouting "fornicators! perverts! sodomites!"
Get thee behind me, Satan!
Ken
Subject: Re: What is the Cause of Time Dilation?
From: throopw@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 16:02:02 GMT
::: So, even in your (unnecessary) "reference system setup," how do you
::: know that the rear clock reading is zero when the front one reads
::: zero?
:: Same way bjon knew that the light took D/c in this coordinate system
:: for the light to reach the rear clock.
: bjon@ix.netcom.com (Brian Jones)
: Wrong. In SRT, it is not possible because there is no event at that
: clock. And that was not my determination, but an experimental result.
Now bjon is claiming that the ticking of a clock does not supply
a stream of events at that location. Truly a dizzying intelect, has bjon.
Anyways, if there "is no event at that clock",
I wonder what bjon meant by asking what it read?
--
Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
throopw@cisco.com
Subject: Re: When social critics wimp out ... (was: Nietzsche)
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 10:11:37 -0600
-*-------
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
>> Really? What data did Sokal falsify? More broadly, what
>> factual knowledge, needed to judge his essay, did Sokal
>> keep secret from his reviewers?
In article <55fock$r64@panix2.panix.com>, G*rd*n <+@+.+> wrote:
> What Dr. Sokal did that was dishonest was to reveal the
> game as soon as _Social_Text_ had published the article.
The curious thing is that there was so little to reveal. There
was no fabricated data, no empirical refutation secreted where
none could see, nothing at all hidden that shouuld effect how the
article was judged. The revelation that is so perturbing was
simply Sokal announcing "hey, folks, I really think my article is
crap." And what is the importance of this? Surely the editors
of _Social_Text already knew -- before Sokal's revelation -- that
many in the natural sciences thought this about the kind of work
they published. Consider, also, that there are many cases where
authors have repudiated their work. Where real scholarship holds
sway, this hardly makes a difference. Brouwer became an
intuitionist, but his fixed-point theorem remains a central
result of non-intuitionist point-set topology. His repudiation
of it had little effect on how this piece of work is evaluated.
Why shouldn't it be the same for Sokal's article? Why would its
reviewers not say: Despite Sokal's views and intent, he has
written a solid article. (Does anyone besides me find it ironic
that the Sokal affair causes so much discussion of authorial
intent among those who claim they have banished such?)
> So unlike the case of scientific hoaxes, whatever community
> or establishment _Social_Text_ belongs to wasn't allowed to
> deal with it in its own way.
And why not? If Sokal's article is a significant piece of work
that deserved publication _Social_Text, his repudiation of it
does not change this.
> ... But Dr. Sokal has said that he specifically wanted to
> attack a whole community, not just the editors of _Social_
> _Text_, so it was imperative that the attack be made before
> the article had been dealt with. Then it could be implied
> that the whole lit-crit/cult-crit/"postmodernist" community
> participated in _Social_Text's_ embarrassment. ...
I suspect even Sokal realizes that such connection is tenuous
at best. One can point to _Social_Text as an *example* of
what goes on in lit crit and cult crit, but everyone else in
this community can say "We knew the _Social_Text folks were
stupid from way back; hell, they even published Harding!"
Russell
--
The difference between life and a movie script is that the script has
to make sense. -- Humphrey Bogart
Subject: Re: Street lights turning off...
From: moroney@world.std.com (Michael Moroney)
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1996 16:04:31 GMT
mawimmer@mtu.edu (Mark A. Wimmer) writes:
>Hi all. I was just wondering if there was some type of scientific reason
>that certain street lights (sodium?) often go out or turn on as one passes
>by them. This has been noticed by me for a while now, and someone else
>said something about it to me yesterday which makes me believe that it is not
>just a coincidence...
Actually it is just a coincidence. A common failure mode for these lamps
is an overheating ballast. A thermal cutoff shuts off the power before
things get dangerous. It produces a cycle: Light turns on, ballast heats
up, thermal cutout activates and cuts off power, everything cools down,
thermal cutout resets, light turns on, ...
Also when this happens the light will go out suddenly but they take a
while to "warm up" when turning on so you are less likely to notice one
turning on than turning off.
If you are extremely bored one night, watch one of these lights for a while
and you'll see it cycle.
-Mike
Subject: Re: bohm
From: Hermital
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 10:42:49 -0800
Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D. wrote:
>
> Jeffrey Mishlove wrote:
>
> > It seems to me that we need to make a distinction between Sarfatti's suggestion
> > that computer chips could be conscious and Bohm's statement that consciousness
> > is not really analogous to computing.
> >
> > It does not seem to me that these positions are necessarily (or even actually)
> > in conflict. As far as I can tell, Sarfatti is not arguing that present-day
> > computers are conscious. Nor is he arguing that consciousness can be reduced
> > to anything that computers now do.
>
> Yes, thank you Jeffrey. What I am arguing is that consciousness is a
> universally latent property embedded in the fundamental physical
> structure of the universe at the post-quantum level. Any material system
> which is able to defeat thermal decoherence will become conscious in my
> theory. The microtubules are able to do that and that is why we are
> conscious. This was Hameroff's great discovery. There are differences of
> technical detail in the competing models of Penrose, Nanopoulos, Stapp
> and myself - but there is a fundamental common ground as well.
Very well put, Jack. With one small change, your statement concerning
consciousness and the quantum structure of the universe is just about as
close as human beings can get to understanding the matter at the present
time.
My modification reads: Any material system which is able to defeat
thermal decoherence may accommodate some level of phenomenological
self-consciousness.
--
Alan
Egoless pure consciousness, unconditioned pure energy, is the uncreated
pre-existing underlying ontological ground of absolute pure being that
contains and sustains all existence including itself.
Subject: Re: What is the Cause of Time Dilation?
From: Cees Roos
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 08:29:03 +0000 (GMT)
In article <55djt7$pk5@sjx-ixn7.ix.netcom.com>, Brian D. Jones
wrote:
[snip]
> Absolutes exists, but are just not (yet, if ever) detectable.
> §§ ßJ §§
> bjon @ ix. netcom. com
>
Mr. Jones,
could you try to explain what evidence you have, that this concept of
absolutes is more than just your imagination or phantasy, if, as you
state, they are not detectable?
The conclusion in physics, after the MMX results in 1881-1887, has been
that for theorizing these absolutes are irrelevant and could as well be
nonexistent. This has yielded theories which have been highly
successful, and which, so far, have not been falsified by any empiric
results.
--
Regards, Cees Roos.
I know that all I know is what I know, including that I
do not know what I do not know.
Subject: Physics ? HELP - I thought that was what BBS were for...
From: begrench@aol.com (BEGrench)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 12:34:42 -0500
I have a physics question and have only had one person respond. While I
appreciated the response he didn't really answer my question, perhaps I
constructed the question poorly. I'll try again, and I'd be very grateful
for some help. Thanks!
I have two baseball bats. Both are made of the same type of metal, both
weigh 28.5 ounces and are 33" in length. Both reach a maximum barrel
length of
2 3/4". The difference is that bat "E" is an extended barrel design,
which is to say that it is of maximum barrel width for a greater portion
of the bat, say the last 8 inches versus bat "T" which is at the maximum
for only the last six inches.
I have noticed that assuming I'm hitting the ball in each bat's respective
sweet spot I have much more power with bat "T". This seems logical since
it must have more mass in its sweet spot (same weight, less surface area).
But the other thing I've noticed is that I have much more bat speed with
"T" (e.g. I can get around on a 90 mph fastball alot easier). It seems to
me that "T" which is more end weighted than would be slow to get around.
My question is: Can you explain why I can get around with bat "T" so much
quicker?
Bonus question: Is the only advantage to "E" that I have a larger sweet
spot and thus I get more hits when I "mishit" the ball?
I REALLY APPRECIATE THE HELP - THE BAT MAKERS ARE CLUELESS!!
THANKS !!!!
Subject: Re: What is the Cause MM's Null Result.
From: kunk@perseus.phys.unm.edu ()
Date: 2 Nov 1996 15:11:47 GMT
In article ,
Keith Stein wrote:
>, "Paul B.Andersen" writes
>>If the speed of light was always relative to the air,
>>that would explain the null result of the MMX.
>
>Right, and thanks for the acknowledgement of that, Paul.
>
>>
>>In that case there should be no aberration of starlight.
>>
>But i can't agree with you on this one Paul. Clearly if light moves
>relative to the air, then any motion of the air will be added to the
>velocity of light in the medium. Now since the air moves with the Earth
>in its journey around the Sun, we would surely expect the light to be
>bent in the direction of the Earth's motion by an anlge equal to
> arctan (v/c)
>I rather think this was Bradley's original explanation, but it is
>certainly the one given in the first Science Dictionary i picked up in
>Birmingham reference library today, so it's not just me making this up,
>as some posters seem to think. Nevertheless i am most gratefull to all
>those posters who pointed out that the direction of this aberration is
>wrong.
>
>I really do not think it is wrong, but i must admit that the derivation
>of aberration given in many physics textbooks(including mine) does give
>the opposite sign to that obtained by simple vector addition of the
>velocities. The alternative derivation makes the unlikely assumption
>that the light is essentially unaffected by the motion of the air, and
>shows the aberration to be towards the direction of motion.
>
>
>>The fact that aberration of starlight is observed shows that
>>the speed of light cannot be relative to the air.
>>Do you not agree ?
>>
>No, as i said, but we really must sort out this direction thing,Paul.
>Can any astronomer help us out i wonder ?
>
> WHICH DIRECTION IS THE ABERRATION REALLY. ?
>
>but don't anyone just look it up because I know that some books say one
>thing, and some another.I've got both answers right here in front of me,
>in black and white.
>--
>Keith Stein
Well Keith, I am an astronomer although I will not take a test or an oath
for you or anyone else. An accepted astro intermediate text is Harwit,
_Astrophysical Concepts_, you should get it if you want to dbble in this
area. The treatment of aberration is completely based on SR, as are all
astronomical treatments of light. He notes that both Newtonian and rela-
tivistic corrections have the same sense except that Newtonian are
~V/c while relativistic are ~V^2/c^2.
The aberation is given in terms of delta theta = theta apparent - theta
actual. Delta theta ~= beta sin (theta apparent). He then remarks that
"since the light travels in a direction opposite to that in which the
telescope moves, sin (theta apparent) has a negative value, that is,
theta apparent < theta actual."
I have not followed your argument closely, but I assume that this means
that the direction of the correction, in your terms, is to lessen the
apparent angle.
Jim
Subject: Re: Satellite--Geosynchrous Orbit Question
From: "Ed Batchelor"
Date: 2 Nov 1996 17:45:58 GMT
Ryan K. wrote in article <558ier$u0f@news1.pld.com>...
> How fast and at what height above the earth must a satellite travel to
> stay stationary relative to the earth?
>
>
There are a number of answers here that are close enough (roughly 22,300
miles).
One point though, assuming you are not launching an orbiting platform (if
you are, you are in the wrong job) the speed is probably irrelevant for
your purposes, since any object orbiting the earth in a stable
geosynchronous orbit would be traveling the correct speed to orbit
geosynchronously (any other speed will send it to a different orbital level
and will not result in geosynchronous orbit). How fast and at what height
are mearly different ways of measuring one thing in this case. Hmm, let me
clarify that, of course the direction of the orbit has to be correct, or
the satellite would orbit "backwards" twice per day (relative), and in the
process would wipe out geosynchronously orbiting satellites! Just
remember, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and you'll be all
right.
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: moggin@nando.net (moggin)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 17:57:13 GMT
seshadri@cup.hp.com (Raghu Seshadri):
[...]
> Also, do you really think Sokal was
> unethical in exposing the feet of clay
> of Ross and the other clowns who
> edit Social Text ? Isn't exposing
> frauds to the light of day an ethical
> act ?
Ethical or not, he was unsuccessful: Ross and the other
_Social Text_ editors weren't idols, so Sokal couldn't have
exposed their "feet of clay." And since he didn't expose any
fraud, he couldn't have succeeded at that, either.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: When social critics wimp out ... (was: Nietzsche)
From: +@+.+ (G*rd*n)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 13:10:31 -0500
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
| >> Really? What data did Sokal falsify? More broadly, what
| >> factual knowledge, needed to judge his essay, did Sokal
| >> keep secret from his reviewers?
G*rd*n <+@+.+> wrote:
| > What Dr. Sokal did that was dishonest was to reveal the
| > game as soon as _Social_Text_ had published the article.
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
| The curious thing is that there was so little to reveal. There
| was no fabricated data, no empirical refutation secreted where
| none could see, nothing at all hidden that shouuld effect how the
| article was judged.
Of course. The article presents itself as a survey, an
overview. It does not pretend to be a full exposition;
this makes it somewhat less than a _tour_de_force_ like
_Report_From_Iron_Mountain_, although it's still pretty
good.
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
| The revelation that is so perturbing was
| simply Sokal announcing "hey, folks, I really think my article is
| crap." And what is the importance of this? Surely the editors
| of _Social_Text already knew -- before Sokal's revelation -- that
| many in the natural sciences thought this about the kind of work
| they published. ...
They may not. I was surprised, myself, by the ideological
militancy of Dr. Sokal's _Lingua_Franca_ article, as I have
been surprised by the violent and obscene language in the
same vein on the Net. It's like discovering that the police
are not civil servants but a political party; now it turns
out that science is a political party as well, or perhaps a
religion, with "postmodernism" as the Antichrist.
Remember, a lot of people on the Net and elsewhere have not
been satisfied by taking Sokal's hoax as a joke. They have
insisted that it _proves_ something about huge numbers of
people who were not involved except by remote association.
You may squirm yourself off this hook, but the mass of
such material is explicit all over the Net and the print
media. The devotes of scientism have made the play and
they're going to have to live with it.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ gcf @ panix.com }"{
Subject: Re: When social critics wimp out ... (was: Nietzsche)
From: zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 18:06:48 GMT
Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
>mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) wrote:
>>>>That
>>>>ignores the possibility that the text in question might,
>>>>in fact be nonsensical.
>>>That would be a possibility if there weren't so many people finding
>>>sense. It takes a while, though.
>>Wrong again. A lot of people were able to see King's New Clothes, too.
>>You advocate the value of some texts - it is up to you to show
>>with examples that they are not gibberish, as "so many
>>people" perceive.
>Wow. I don't think I've ever read such an amazingly bad analogy. See,
>the thing of it is, clothes are not like meaning. If you find meaning in
>something, it is there. Period. You can't be wrong. It's kind of like
>feeling pain, don'tcha know? The same cannot be said for tangible
>objects.
This point sheds light on the pomo cult of Foucault. If he finds
meaning in receiving a hairy forearm up his colon, or transmitting the
HIV virus to countless strangers, it is there. Period. The ethics of
postmodernism in a nutshell.
Cordially, - Mikhail | God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum."
Zeleny@math.ucla.edu | Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum."
itinerant philosopher -- will think for food ** www.ptyx.com ** MZ@ptyx.com
ptyx ** 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068 ** 213-876-8234/874-4745 (fax)
Subject: Re: When social critics wimp out ... (was: Nietzsche)
From: weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 18:14:39 GMT
Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
: Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
: >mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) wrote:
: >>>>That
: >>>>ignores the possibility that the text in question might,
: >>>>in fact be nonsensical.
: >>>That would be a possibility if there weren't so many people finding
: >>>sense. It takes a while, though.
: >>Wrong again. A lot of people were able to see King's New Clothes, too.
: >>You advocate the value of some texts - it is up to you to show
: >>with examples that they are not gibberish, as "so many
: >>people" perceive.
: >Wow. I don't think I've ever read such an amazingly bad analogy. See,
: >the thing of it is, clothes are not like meaning. If you find meaning in
: >something, it is there. Period. You can't be wrong. It's kind of like
: >feeling pain, don'tcha know? The same cannot be said for tangible
: >objects.
: This point sheds light on the pomo cult of Foucault. If he finds
: meaning in receiving a hairy forearm up his colon, or transmitting the
: HIV virus to countless strangers, it is there. Period. The ethics of
: postmodernism in a nutshell.
Clearly, you, too, have found meaning in these practices. Otherwise, how
comment? How draw inferences?
S.
Subject: Re: Sophistry 103 (was: I know that!)
From: zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 18:22:35 GMT
Michael Zeleny:
>>>>Thus spake Jacques Derrida:
>>>>
>>>>The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center.
>>>>
>>>>It is the very concept of variability -- it is, finally, the
>>>>concept of the game. In other words, it is not the concept of
>>>>something -- of a center starting from which an observer could
>>>>master the field -- but the very concept of the game ...
Silke-Maria Weineck:
>>>And you still haven't told us what you think that means.
Hardy Hulley:
>>You seem to be having a little trouble here, so I'll help you out. Let's
>>concentrate on "The Einsteinian constant is not a constant..." for a
>>moment. Either this sentence is to be analysed by applying the common
>>interpretations from within physics and mathematics (in which case it is
>>certainly false), or else it is simply gibberish (since "Einsteinian
>>constant" has no known interpretation outside of physics).
>>
>>The rest of the above extract is vapid. In my opinion, Derrida missed
>>his vocation as a random word generator (... or perhaps he didn't).
>>
>>
>>Glad I could help,
Silke-Maria Weineck:
>I'm afraid you couldn't; distorting the quote won't help. Derrida
>corrects "constant" to "center" -- and if you want to understand the
>sentence, you will have to know what "center" means in the context of
>Structure, Sign, and Play. Which means you'll have to, gasp. read it.
>
>Next, please.
In other words, Derrida's comments cannot be deconstructed outside of
the context of his oeuvre. More opportunistic pomo dishonesty.
Cordially, - Mikhail | God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum."
Zeleny@math.ucla.edu | Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum."
itinerant philosopher -- will think for food ** www.ptyx.com ** MZ@ptyx.com
ptyx ** 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068 ** 213-876-8234/874-4745 (fax)
Subject: Re: What kind of fakery? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 18:20:28 GMT
In talk.origins nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) wrote:
[snip]
>A pseudonym is hardly a hoax. I suspect the opposite happened in the
>case of the sloppily edited journal. They gave Sokol more stature
>than he deserved because he was know to be a scientist. If he had
>submitted as Joe Smith, a fisherman from Maine, they'd have looked it
>over more carefully, I'd guess.
Sounds like an ethical laps on the part of the editors of Social Text.
They pulled a hoax by pretending to consider the contents of the
submissions rather than the source.
[snip]
Matt Silberstein
-------------------------------------------
Pooka: n. A mythical beast. Fond of rum pots, crackpots, and how are you Mr. Wilson?
Subject: [Fwd: Re: bohm]
From: "Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D."
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 10:36:47 -0800
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Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 14:37:49 -0800 (PST)
From: "Lawrence B. Crowell"
To: "Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D."
cc: physics@intuition.org, kelvin@fourmilab.ch, Puthoff@aol.com,
GGLake@aol.com, pwg@nanothinc.com, srh@ccit.arizona.edu,
ramoroso@hooked.net, rhett@teleport.com, NEONLEO@aol.com,
rwolf@usfca.edu, creon@nas.nasa.gov, pzielins@ix.netcom.com,
lcrowell@unm.edu
Subject: Re: bohm
In-Reply-To: <327A3EC0.1804@well.com>
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On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D. wrote:
>
> Jeffrey Mishlove wrote:
>
> > > >estaylor@cris.com wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Interesting that you worked with Bohm, Mr. Sarfatti, because your
> > > >> premises/conclusions about physics/consciousness and Bohm's are radically
> > > >> opposed to each other.
>
> > > >You do not understand my position.
> >
> > It seems to me that we need to make a distinction between Sarfatti's suggestion
> > that computer chips could be conscious and Bohm's statement that consciousness
> > is not really analogous to computing.
> >
> > It does not seem to me that these positions are necessarily (or even actually)
> > in conflict. As far as I can tell, Sarfatti is not arguing that present-day
> > computers are conscious. Nor is he arguing that consciousness can be reduced
> > to anything that computers now do.
> >
> > -- Jeffrey
> >
> >
>
> Yes, thank you Jeffrey. What I am arguing is that consciousness is a
> universally latent property embedded in the fundamental physical
> structure of the universe at the post-quantum level. Any material system
> which is able to defeat thermal decoherence will become conscious in my
> theory. The microtubules are able to do that and that is why we are
> conscious. This was Hameroff's great discovery. There are differences of
> technical detail in the competing models of Penrose, Nanopoulos, Stapp
> and myself - but there is a fundamental common ground as well.
>
The statement that computing is not a sufficient condition for
consciousness is quite in line with the current process of understanding
quantum consciousness. The thrust of the idea is that the system is able
to regulate its coherent structure. I tend to see it as a process that
involves the quantization of strange attractor physics. Here the chaotic
dynamics of the particle governed by
&p;/&t; = -grad V - drad Q + F(dissipative,t) + F(driving, t),
as found by taking the gradient of the quantum modified Hamilton-Jacobi
equation, and the fractal structure of the hydrodynamic quantum fluid, or
pilot wave,
&R;/&t; = -grad(R grad S) + dissipative and driving terms.
Now if the chaotic dynamics of the particle and the fractal evolution of
the pilot wave have a negative feedback on each other's stochastic
behavior then a sort of self control loop is established.
The algorithmic process involved with generating a fractal structure is
recurrsively enumerable, but not recurrsive. The above negative feedback
loop should now make the process one that is not recurrsively enumerable.
Read "Bloop, Floop, and Gloop" in D. Hofstaeder's "Godel Escher Bach."
This back action process is then a nonalgorithmic process; beyond
computation.
L. Crowell
Subject: Re: When social critics wimp out ... (was: Nietzsche)
From: Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 13:30:28 -0500
In article <55g2jo$bmo@uni.library.ucla.edu>, zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu
(Michael Zeleny) wrote:
>Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
>>mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) wrote:
>
>>>>>That
>>>>>ignores the possibility that the text in question might,
>>>>>in fact be nonsensical.
>
>>>>That would be a possibility if there weren't so many people finding
>>>>sense. It takes a while, though.
>
>>>Wrong again. A lot of people were able to see King's New Clothes, too.
>>>You advocate the value of some texts - it is up to you to show
>>>with examples that they are not gibberish, as "so many
>>>people" perceive.
>
>>Wow. I don't think I've ever read such an amazingly bad analogy. See,
>>the thing of it is, clothes are not like meaning. If you find meaning in
>>something, it is there. Period. You can't be wrong. It's kind of like
>>feeling pain, don'tcha know? The same cannot be said for tangible
>>objects.
>
>This point sheds light on the pomo cult of Foucault. If he finds
>meaning in receiving a hairy forearm up his colon, or transmitting the
>HIV virus to countless strangers, it is there. Period. The ethics of
>postmodernism in a nutshell.
Thank you for proving my point.
(Or are you going to claim that ethics are meaningless?)
--
Andy Perry We search before and after,
Brown University We pine for what is not.
English Department Our sincerest laughter
Andrew_Perry@brown.edu OR With some pain is fraught.
st001914@brownvm.bitnet -- Shelley, d'apres Horace Rumpole
Subject: Re: randi's 600 k
From: "Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D."
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 10:54:08 -0800
DougieG@aol.com wrote:
>
> I've been wondering about something lately - there are so many intelligent
> people like Brian Josephson, Jack Sarfatti, and Fred Alan Wolf doing research
> into the paranormal yet CSICOP keeps trumpeting the fact that they still have
> their 600 K. Why is this? Is it, as Mishlove said in "The Roots of
> Consciousness", because psychic and paranormal research is still in a
> "pre-scientific" phase? Or is it because people like Randi aren't intelligent
> enough to appreciate the evidence? If paranormal phenomena is based on
> quantum principles with the attendant uncertainty principle and less than
> 100% repeatability, then Randi will never have the kind of proof he wants
> because he seems to be still thinking in classical terms. What's going on
> here?
>
> Douglas
>
> P.S.: How is that Randi won the McArthur Genius Award? Is this just
> indicative of the perversity of the Universe, or is he smarter than seems to
> be readily apparent?
The CSICOPs are a bunch of fuddy duddy old farty men who think that the
Femininst-dominated "Goddess" New Age is dangerous irrationality that
will bring down Western Civilization. They are as extreme as the
anti-technological Luddites. The truth is in between these two extremes.
Randy Got Mac Arthur because Murray Gell-Mann controls it. See Murray's
The Quark and the Jaguar i.e., "The Story Distorted". He attacks me
there because I am the author of the letter he paraphrases from.
The key issue is "back-action" because it over-rides Eberhard's theorem,
therefore, permitting quantum nonlocality to be directly used as a
communication channel. This opens Pandora's Box to the paranormal as
part of the physics of ordinary consciousness obeying the Sirag
criterion.
The only thing preventing a scientific explanation of the paranormal is
Eberhard's theorem that says that shifting local quantum probabilities
by controlled action at a distance is impossible. This follows from the
unitary evolution of isolated quantum systems between measurements in
orthodox theory. The point, seen most clearly in the Nanopoulos theory,
is that back-action is an irreducible nonunitary leakage from the Planck
scale into low-energy classical spacetime.
The universal signature of all life is nonunitarity - nonconservation of
total probability. This is the engine of creative evolution.
Subject: Re: Do gravitational waves carry momentum? was: Does gravitational waves carry momentum
From: kunk@perseus.phys.unm.edu ()
Date: 2 Nov 1996 17:43:03 GMT
In article , Ken Fischer wrote:
>
> I agree, while I do not want to say anything that
>might slow or reduce current experimental work, I have to
>say that any thought of a long range attractive force field
>should have been dismissed as a-result-of GR.
> I will say again, two different long range propagation
>systems (EM and gravitation) is so unsatisfactory, the idea
>is counter to GR, Geometrodynamics, a purely geometric gravity,
>affine geometry, and natural physical philosophy.
> And especially so since gravity would have to be
>attractive over infinite range, and EM does not approach
>that.
Ken, how can we take anything you say seriously when you say something
as silly as EM is not infinite in range, just as gravity is.
Jim
Subject: Re: When social critics wimp out ... (was: Nietzsche)
From: zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 18:50:09 GMT
weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
>>Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
>>>mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) wrote:
>>>>>>That
>>>>>>ignores the possibility that the text in question might,
>>>>>>in fact be nonsensical.
>>>>>That would be a possibility if there weren't so many people finding
>>>>>sense. It takes a while, though.
>>>>Wrong again. A lot of people were able to see King's New Clothes, too.
>>>>You advocate the value of some texts - it is up to you to show
>>>>with examples that they are not gibberish, as "so many
>>>>people" perceive.
>>>Wow. I don't think I've ever read such an amazingly bad analogy. See,
>>>the thing of it is, clothes are not like meaning. If you find meaning in
>>>something, it is there. Period. You can't be wrong. It's kind of like
>>>feeling pain, don'tcha know? The same cannot be said for tangible
>>>objects.
>>This point sheds light on the pomo cult of Foucault. If he finds
>>meaning in receiving a hairy forearm up his colon, or transmitting the
>>HIV virus to countless strangers, it is there. Period. The ethics of
>>postmodernism in a nutshell.
>Clearly, you, too, have found meaning in these practices. Otherwise, how
>comment? How draw inferences?
The meaning I find implies the depraved idiocy of "You cannot be wrong."
Cordially, - Mikhail | God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum."
Zeleny@math.ucla.edu | Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum."
itinerant philosopher -- will think for food ** www.ptyx.com ** MZ@ptyx.com
ptyx ** 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068 ** 213-876-8234/874-4745 (fax)
Subject: Beta Decay and the Speed of Light (Equivalence of Mass and Time)
From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Date: 2 Nov 96 18:06:28 GMT
In <55d6ns$9tt@rainbow.rmii.com> kfoster@rainbow.rmii.com (Kurt Foster) writes:
>Keith Stein (sthbrum@sthbrum.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: Alexander Abian writes
>: >
>: > The constancy of the Speed of Light and the definition of Time as
>: > that which is read on the dial of a clock are prepubescent idealistic
>: > naivetes! Old unrealistic tales ! Both the constancy of speed of
>: > Light and the establishment's notion of Time should be shredded and
>: > thrown away.
>: If we throw away the constancy of the speed of light, making it depend
>: on the velocity of the observer, IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS THE VELOCITY
>: OF EVERYTHING ELSE DEPENDS ON THE VELOCITY OF THE OBSERVER, then Universal
>: Cosmic Time (i.e. Newtonian Time) is automatically restored.
Kurt Foster writes:
> It just won't correspond to anything observable... BTW, how does one
>"throw away" an observed fact and replace it with one's favorite fairy
>tale?
Abian answers:
The concept of TIME is as concrete a thing as the concept of MASS. The
way that Time is treated in the Physics by the present Establishment is
narrow-minded prepubescent idealistic fairy tale which should be
shredded and recycled into napkins (or toilet paper). The Lorentz
Transformations are unacceptable: whose watch? Which watch? In which Cosmic
locality? - Did that watch measure Time somehere in the Cosmos which is
densely populated with giant planets? Did that watch measure Time in the
vicinity of black-holes (if such black holes exist!).
And how about the constancy of the speed of Light? Yes, if I
measure the speed of light in my room with my ruler and with my watch,
I may conclude that the speed of light is constant and independent of
my moving the candle. But we are talking about TIME as a fundamental
physical notion. IT HAS TO BE RELATED TO THE COSMIC MASS.There is no way
out! Any other "observed fact" in a puny corner of the Cosmos cannot
reveal the Fundamental Concept of TIME and serve as a reliable basis for
developing other "observable facts" such as Constancy of the speed of
light which is indeed a fairy tale -deserving to be shredded and
recycled into toilet paper!.In fact, within 1000 years or less all the
present-dat physics textbooks (fanatically defending the Estblishment's
present day party line about Time and the related notions - will have
that destiny).
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABIAN MASS-TIME EQUIVALENCE FORMULA m = Mo(1-exp(T/(kT-Mo))) Abian units.
ALTER EARTH'S ORBIT AND TILT - STOP GLOBAL DISASTERS AND EPIDEMICS
ALTER THE SOLAR SYSTEM. REORBIT VENUS INTO A NEAR EARTH-LIKE ORBIT
TO CREATE A BORN AGAIN EARTH (1990)
Subject: Re: When social critics wimp out ... (was: Nietzsche)
From: zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 2 Nov 1996 19:12:08 GMT
Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
>zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny) wrote:
>>Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:
>>>mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) wrote:
>>>>>>That
>>>>>>ignores the possibility that the text in question might,
>>>>>>in fact be nonsensical.
>>>>>That would be a possibility if there weren't so many people finding
>>>>>sense. It takes a while, though.
>>>>Wrong again. A lot of people were able to see King's New Clothes, too.
>>>>You advocate the value of some texts - it is up to you to show
>>>>with examples that they are not gibberish, as "so many
>>>>people" perceive.
>>>Wow. I don't think I've ever read such an amazingly bad analogy. See,
>>>the thing of it is, clothes are not like meaning. If you find meaning in
>>>something, it is there. Period. You can't be wrong. It's kind of like
>>>feeling pain, don'tcha know? The same cannot be said for tangible
>>>objects.
>>This point sheds light on the pomo cult of Foucault. If he finds
>>meaning in receiving a hairy forearm up his colon, or transmitting the
>>HIV virus to countless strangers, it is there. Period. The ethics of
>>postmodernism in a nutshell.
>Thank you for proving my point.
>
>(Or are you going to claim that ethics are meaningless?)
I am claiming that judgments of meaning are corrigible and indeed often
erroneous, as are judgments of value in general -- in contradistinction
from impressions of pain and other immediate experiences.
Cordially, - Mikhail | God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum."
Zeleny@math.ucla.edu | Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum."
itinerant philosopher -- will think for food ** www.ptyx.com ** MZ@ptyx.com
ptyx ** 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068 ** 213-876-8234/874-4745 (fax)
Subject: Re: What kind of fakery? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 22:32:37 GMT
matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) wrote:
>In talk.origins nanken@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) wrote:
>[snip]
>>A pseudonym is hardly a hoax. I suspect the opposite happened in the
>>case of the sloppily edited journal. They gave Sokol more stature
>>than he deserved because he was know to be a scientist. If he had
>>submitted as Joe Smith, a fisherman from Maine, they'd have looked it
>>over more carefully, I'd guess.
>Sounds like an ethical laps on the part of the editors of Social Text.
>They pulled a hoax by pretending to consider the contents of the
>submissions rather than the source.
So, not only does this sound like more of that ethical relativism, but
it comes with the old saw two wrongs make everything okay.
ken
Subject: Re: "Essential" reality (was: When did Nietzsche wimp out?)
From: gonser@eawag.ch (-Tom-)
Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 20:41:22 -0800
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
> So, to put it in one sentence, math is dealing with deducing outcomes
> from known axioms. Science is dealing with deducing axioms from known
> outcomes. That's an essential difference.
That's an interesting statement, Mati. Maybe that's another reason
why so much of today's environmental management is simply going down
the drain. Managers and environmental engineers (being trained as
engineers, hence of the mathematical deduction mode), have an almost
legendary aversion to dealing with open questions. What they want is
answers. Their modus operandi is to deduce outcomes from supposedly
known axioms and then go ahead and manipulate or regulate, like e.g.
introducing non-native fish species to lakes, dewatering a wetland or
regulating a stream. Rarely do they treat it as what it is namely an
experiment (asking a question) on a landscape scale. Ecologists would
prefer to design and use the environmental manipulations as
experiments so even if the managerial objectives fail we would
at least learn something along the way.
However, the life sciences also deal with deducing outcomes from (well)
known axioms: e.g. biological pest control using predators or parasites to
get rid of pests or disease vectors; plant successions after disturbance
events; determining the carry capacities of habitats by knowing a species'
feeding requirements and food resource availability. Today's immensely
successful molecular biology is both about deducing outcomes from known
axioms as well as deducing axioms from known outcomes.
I guess a distinction must be made. You appear to treat science only as that
aspect of the scientific endeavor focussed on obtaining new information and
insights, namely _research_. However, a lot of science also attempts to put
scientific knowledge to work (often using math as a tool) in the form
_technology_.
A key concept here, I think, is uncertainty. Math can deduce outcomes to
whatever degree of certainty the axiom inherently allows. Math thrives on
the (degree of) certainty it is capable of conveying. Science on the other
hand thrives on uncertainty. That's its fuel.
Tom.
Subject: Re: MOST IMPORTANT FOSSIL (A human skull as old as coal!)
From: TJ
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 17:21:26 -0800
Jukka Korpela wrote:
>
> edconrad@prolog.net (Ed Conrad) writes:
>
> > The WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT FOSSIL, unquestionably, is
> > a petrified human skull embedded in a boulder which was discovered
> > between anthracite veins in Carboniferous strata near Shenandoah, Pa.
>
> I suppose no-one is fool enough to take this kind of scrap seriously,
> but just in case...: If this kind of "news" had any truth in them,
> and especially if they were unquestionable, we would certainly have
> read about them in reputable scientific magazines - which would really
> struggle for the right to publish such revolutionary reports before
> their competitors.
>
> Yucca
Speaking of human remains...Remember the freeze-dried bronze-age man
found in the Alps a few years back. PBS did a once over lightly special
on him. I assume much of the research has been done, but where can I
find an account of the 'findings' on this guy? Any good books out, or
articles? With near-morbid fascination of the very old, tj
Subject: Re: Why is momentum preserved?
From: shocklee@flagstaff.Princeton.EDU (Paul D. Shocklee)
Date: 1 Nov 1996 04:54:40 GMT
Matt McIrvin (mmcirvin@world.std.com) wrote:
: In article <54ldn9$gpu@cnn.Princeton.EDU>, shocklee@phoenix.princeton.edu
: (Paul D. Shocklee) wrote:
: > Noether's theorem only applies to continuous symmetries.
: Well, the other discrete symmetries I know of (C,P,T) *do* have conserved
: quantities associated with them. They tend to be multiplicative, or
: equivalently additive modulo something.
: After all, if a symmetry transformation commutes with the Hamiltonian, and
: some function of it is a Hermitian observable with no explicit time
: dependence (I suppose T would be a very special case), that's a conserved
: quantity right there. The usual statement of Noether's theorem corresponds
: to the case where the observable is a Lie algebra generator, but that is
: not necessarily the case.
That makes sense, assuming you can find such an observable.
But then what is the conserved quantity associated with the discrete
translation symmetry of a Bravais lattice?
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Paul D. Shocklee - physics grad student - Princeton University |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, |
| so sometimes it's brother against brother. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+