Trouble with Einstein

[KOYAANISQATSI]

I had thought this kinda thing might happen, that if mainstream science ignore this stuff then it would only be a matter of time till the happy clappys seize on it and claim it as there own to try and scare us back to the dark ages with.

Although without the directions this science could give us; we may well be heading there anyway.

 

Would have thought the god squad would have liked the abracadabra of the big bang, more anyway.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Many creationist organizations have falsely argued that there is considerable debate over the theory of evolution, and used this to justify their public policy arguments that evolution not be considered the only possibility for education in scientific curriculum. Their argument is not based on scientific methods but only on faith based biblical references. In this case their view doesn't measure up acceptable bilateral contention.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus

 

(From same article)

Scientific consensus is not, by itself, a scientific argument, and is not part of the scientific method; however, the content of the consensus may itself be based on both scientific arguments and the scientific method.

In a standard application of the psychological principle of confirmation bias, scientific research which supports the existing scientific consensus is usually more favorably received than research which contradicts the existing consensus. In some cases, those who question the current paradigm are at times heavily criticized for their assessments.

 

Lack of substantial doubt

In its strongest form, the term is used to assert that on a given question scientists within a particular field of science have reached an agreement of rational opinion without substantial doubt, through a process of experimentation and peer review (see scientific method).

For example, in physics there exists scientific consensus on general relativity and quantum mechanics. Special relativity and quantum mechanics are unified in the framework of quantum field theory (QFT). There exists scientific consensus that QFT is a very useful description, but it is not a final theory. For example, it does not include gravity. General relativity and quantum mechanics may be unified by superstring theory but there is no consensus whether this candidate unifying theory is the correct description of reality.

 

policymakers are faced with the problems of making sound decisions based on the currently available data, even if it is likely not a final form of the "truth". In this respect, going along with the "scientific consensus" of the day can prove dangerous in some situations: nothing looks worse on a record than making drastic decisions based on theories which later turned out to be false,

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Breaking the Law of Gravity

 

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.03/antigravity_pr.html

 

In 1996, Russian émigré scientist Eugene Podkletnov was about to publish a peer-reviewed article in the respected British Journal of Physics-D - proving, he claimed, that gravity could be negated.

 

Then a London newspaper publicized his conclusions, and the skeptics had a field day. Everyone knew you couldn't mess with the law of gravity - Einstein himself had said so.

Podkletnov withdrew the article.

His university evicted him.

He retreated from the public eye.

 

But the controversy hasn't gone away, as his findings began to be investigated in laboratories around the world. Including one owned by NASA.

 

Now, as Charles Platt discovers, Eugene Podkletnov is back and unrepentant.

If you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Eugene Podkletnov......

 

I checked back with Podkletnov. "We do not need a lot of energy," he said, sounding irritable, as if I were wasting his time with dumb, obvious questions. "We don't absorb the energy of the gravitational field. We may be controlling it, as a transistor controls the flow of electricity. No law of physics is broken. I am not one crazy guy in a lab, we had a team of six or seven, all good scientists."

 

practical applications could be developed. "If someone decided to put substantial amounts of money into this, you could have something within three to five years. For spacecraft, all you'd need would be big solar arrays instead of rocket fuel."

If this is real, it's going to change civilization. The payoff boggles the mind. Theories about gravitational force today are probably comparable to knowledge of electromagnetism a century ago. If you think what electricity has done for us since then, you see what controlling gravity might do for us in the future."

 

As one physicist told me, "New ideas are always criticized - not because an idea lacks merit, but because it might turn out to be workable, which would threaten the reputations of many people whose opinions conflict with it. Some people may even lose their jobs."

 

The man who said this is an eminent physicist who started devising equipment to detect gravity waves 30 years ago. Despite his secure tenure and respected status, he still wouldn't let me quote him by name, because he suffered in the past when he promoted radical concepts of his own.

 

Bob Park is a physics professor at the University of Maryland. When he's pressed to say something about Podkletnov's work, he comments: "Well, we know that we can create shields for other fields, such as electromagnetic fields; so in that sense I suppose that a gravity shield does not violate any physical laws. Still, most scientists would be reluctant to conclude anything publicly from this." Ironically, Park has made a name for himself by debunking "fringe" science in a weekly column for the American Physical Society's Web page. If scientists are reluctant to "conclude anything publicly," it's partly because they know they may be stigmatized by critics such as Park.

 

Of course, reflexive conservatism isn't the whole story. Many physicists are skeptical about gravity shielding because they believe that it conflicts with Einstein's general theory of relativity. According to George Smoot, a renowned professor of physics at UC Berkeley who collaborated on an essay that won a Gravity Research Foundation award, "If gravity shielding is going to be consistent with Einstein's general theory, you would need tremendous amounts of mass and energy. It's far beyond the technology we have today."

 

On the other hand, theories developed by Giovanni Modanese, Ning Li, and Douglas Torr portray a superconductor as a giant "quantum object" which might be exempt from Smoot's criticism, since Einstein's general theory has nothing to say about quantum effects. As Smoot himself admits, "The general theory is widely revered because Einstein wrote it, and it happens to be very beautiful. But the general theory is not entirely compatible with quantum mechanics, and sooner or later it will have to be modified."

 

He also says that the nonlinear spin of gravity particles - "gravitons" - makes calculations extremely difficult. "When you add a spinning disc," he says, "the equations become impossible to solve."

 

This means that gravity shielding cannot be disproved mathematically. Even Bob Park, the resident skeptic, shies away from describing it as "impossible," because "there have been things that we thought were impossible, which actually came to pass." Gregory Benford, a professor of physics at UC Irvine who also writes science fiction, echoes this and takes it a step further. "There's nothing impossible about gravity shielding," he says. "It just requires a field theory that we don't have yet. Anyone who says it's inconceivable is suffering from a lack of imagination."

 

If you want to reduce the mass of an object in the privacy of your own basement workshop, here's how it's done: Obtain a high tech ceramic capacitor (a standard electronic item) and attach it to the speaker terminals on a stereo amplifier. Feed in a steady tone (perhaps from one of those stereo-test CDs) while using some kind of electromechanical apparatus (maybe the guts from an old loudspeaker) to vibrate the capacitor up and down. According to Woodward, the capacitor's mass will vary at twice the frequency of the signal, so you will need a circuit called a frequency doubler to drive your vibrator at the correct rate. If the vibrator lifts the capacitor while it's momentarily lighter and drops it while it's heavier, you achieve an average mass reduction - which sounds as if you're getting something for nothing, except that Woodward believes that in some mysterious fashion you are actually stealing the energy from the rest of the universe.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

don't want my children floating away each time an aeroplane passes overhead.

 

I was just starting to feel safer without the thought of all those black holes floating about, but this got me thinking, If it is the actual shadow of gravity that keeps things in their orbit, Then what's gonna be the effect, if any of that 2012 Galactic Alignment they all go on about?

 

 

 

Gonna stay inside.

[Njugle]

You'd be wise to stay indoors, however futile it may be

The Mayan calendar is divided into Seven Ages of Man. The fourth epoch ended in August 1987. The Mayan calendar comes to an end on Sunday, December 23, 2012. Only a few people will survive the catastrophe that ensues.

 

The Mayans were bothered enough about the findings of their astronomical observations to factor our near future events from a remote viewpoint.

(Though some accept that it is merely a chronological rollover.)

 

I'm liking this cosmic particle/wave shadow theory, i've not been following this thread recently but skimmed it in coincidence with reading a bit of text on cosmic particles and it does make a bit of sense to me in theoretical terms - a bit.

 

Just to extend the theory, to achieve neutral gravity within the earth's cosmic shadow an array of technological conduit (unknown to current materials science) to transmit cosmic radiation to the 'underside' of any earth bound object would balance the negative cosmic pressure caused by the earths shadow, so shielding is perhaps not the only possible method of gravitational equalisation within close proximity to the earth's negative meniscus. Gravity reflection, if you will.

 

Within the solar system and galactic frameworks it's a bit harder to justify, i feel, but warrants further thought.....

[Gibber]

The Mayans were bothered enough about the findings of their astronomical observations to factor our near future events from a remote viewpoint.

 

Does that mean they were too upset by the end of the world in 2012 they forgot to predict a bunch of Spaniards popping in for a punch up?

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Does that mean they were too upset by the end of the world in 2012 they forgot to predict a bunch of Spaniards popping in for a punch up?

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pre·dict:

transitive verb:

"foretell on the basis of observation, experience, or scientific reason."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The Spanish showing up would have been a Mayan foreign affairs office muck up.

The boffins down the long count calender lab would have been far to busy with their science project to notice.

 

Dont worry about 2012 if your sticking with Einstein though, because any alignment of Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, the sun and the galactic center would mean nothing under relativity as things are too far apart to cause harm, using Einsteins old curvy space.

Use a push gravity model however and gravity shielding makes it a whole new ball game on a much bigger field playing field.

 

Strap in.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Huge 'star-quake' rocks Milky Way

Astronomers say they have been stunned by the amount of energy released in a star explosion on the far side of our galaxy, 50,000 light-years away.

The flash of radiation on 27 December 2004 was so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth's atmosphere.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm

 

 

"Had this happened within 10 light-years of us, it would have severely damaged our atmosphere and possibly have triggered a mass extinction," said Bryan Gaensler of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

There are no magnetars close enough to worry about,

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/bright_flash_050218.html

 

Well that's a relief to have the reassurence of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and good old Einstein.

 

However,

 

if Bryan Gaensler had turned on his telly, he may have noticed the strange coincidence of another event hitting the headlines that same day.

The Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake followed by the Boxing Day Tsunami.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

 

The satellites even felt the push but no connection was made between the two events.

The giant earthquake that set off a devastating tsunami across the Indian Ocean in December 2004 disrupted the earth enough to change gravity and to deflect satellites passing hundreds of miles above.

 

Two identical satellites, collectively known as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or Grace, travel one behind the other in a polar orbit separated by about 130 miles.

 

By recording small changes in the distance between them when their orbits are deflected, the satellites provide data used to calculate variations in the earth’s gravitational field.

 

In a report in the current issue of the journal Science, scientists at Ohio State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, report that in the aftermath of the magnitude 9.1 earthquake, the largest in four decades, Grace recorded a sudden drop in gravity near the quake’s epicenter off Sumatra.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/science/08find.html?ex=1312689600&en=86a5d1a41980f607&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

 

 

"Nothing to worry about"

[Njugle]

The Mayans were bothered enough about the findings of their astronomical observations to factor our near future events from a remote viewpoint.

 

Does that mean they were too upset by the end of the world in 2012 they forgot to predict a bunch of Spaniards popping in for a punch up?

Further to what KOY said in response, (agreeing with him is to me like wearing a horse-hair shirt ):

Firstly -the 'long count' calendric prediction was based on their, primitive if you like, observations of the skies. The Mayans had astronomical observatories solely concerned with mapping the night sky, to a degree of accuracy not achieved in Europe for centuries. Their system of projecting these observations is complex today, let alone 2000 years ago.

 

Secondly - If you want to pursue the prediction theme in a less 'scientific' slant. They did alledgedly predict the arrival of the Spaniards. In their mythology they confused the arrival of the RC spaniards as being the return of a deity, foretold to be bearded and white and as a result got thoroughly shafted by the unscrupulous RC heathens who didn't understand their calendric and scientific knowledge and as a result burned their libraries and destroyed any who refused to accept their version of 'religion', undoubtedly one of the greatest crimes against knowledge in recorded history. One of the catholic priests, who's conscience plagued him enough, tried to retrieve what was now destroyed and started a collection of verbal folk history and what was recorded is that which endures today. The science was apparently largely irretrievable.

 

I wouldn't like you to think i'm venerating the Mayans Gibber, they were a brutal bunch in their own right, but they did have an astonishing culture that was far from primitive in many respects and their cities were of a scale that remains incredible to our ignorant view of pre-technological society.

 

In summary, any view that all the world bar Greece and Rome was a 'dark age' , prior to the industrial revolution is bunkum.

 

However, this is a terrible tangent from the subject of physics, unless of course those physics that we fail to fully understand today are of a kin to those which were identified by the ancients and mythologised in their ignorance of atomic gubbins, especially on an astronomical scale.

[Gibber]

 

Dont worry about 2012 if your sticking with Einstein though, because any alignment of Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, the sun and the galactic center would mean nothing under relativity as things are too far apart to cause harm, using Einsteins old curvy space.

Use a push gravity model however and gravity shielding makes it a whole new ball game on a much bigger field playing field.

 

Strap in.

 

I don't think we need to wait 4 years to know you're wrong.

 

In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

On April 1, 1976, Moore stated to radio listeners that an astronomical event would take place at 9:47 a.m. that day, a conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Pluto, which was expected to have an effect observable everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jovian-Plutonian_gravitational_effect

 

"April the first" are the key words there.

This is not the first hoax Patrick has been party to:

Why BANG!? Why did three men from markedly different backgrounds come together and spend two years passionately thrashing out the text of a book about a Big Bang? Because they believe that every intelligent, inquisitive human being should have the chance to hear this astounding story, only very recently beginning to make sense - The Complete History of the Universe – in a language everyone can understand.

 

BANG! Space, time, matter … the Universe was born 13.7 billion years ago. Infinitely small at first, it expanded more rapidly than anyone can contemplate. Brian May, Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott explain how all this came about, from that moment when time and space came into existence, to the formation of the first stars, galaxies and planets, and to the evolution of human beings able to contemplate our own origins and ultimate destiny. Then on towards that destiny in the infinite future, long after the Earth has been consumed by the Red Giant Sun. The story is told in clear, straight forward terms, in the strict order in which the events happened, and uses no mathematics.

 

BANG! is an amazing story. Is it fiction? The authors hope not, since it is based upon lifetimes of work by great scientists such as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and hundreds of other brilliant minds. Enjoy, and let your imagination run riot.

http://www.canopusbooks.com/bang.htm

 

I am kinda hoping the galactic line up the mayans seemed to warn of, will have no more effect than making a box of fish a bit lighter for a couple of days.

But rest assured with or without global upheaval in 2012, the Universe shall continue to operate in the way I have described, despite the "lifetimes of work by great scientists such as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and hundreds of other brilliant minds."

[Gibber]

"April the first" are the key words there.

 

Every day is April 1st for you I think.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Sir Patrick Moore celebrates the 666th edition of the Sky At Night.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/spaceguide/skyatnight/proginfo.shtml

 

A gem of a show with a good summing up of the state af cosmology entitled, "We just don't know."

[KOYAANISQATSI]

a team of Florida researchers has found that

"triggered" lightning also emits waves of energy much higher up the

frequency scale - X-rays, or possibly gamma rays or relativistic electrons.

Set to be reported Friday in the journal Science, the finding comes on the

heels of a similar discovery for natural lightning reported last year,

suggesting that all lightning emits such so-called energetic radiation. Not

only might the discovery finally settle a question that has been debated for

80 years, it also is among the rare instances where such high-energy,

high-frequency radiation has been reported in atmospheric conditions.

http://radlab.nl/radsafe/archives/0301/msg00475.html

 

A great mystery was set in motion a few years ago when a spacecraft designed to measure gamma-ray bursts -- the most powerful explosions in the Universe -- found that Earth was actually emitting some flashes of its own.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/rhessi_tgf.html

 

Flares hit Earth in 1998 and 2004

 

In a 1999 issue of the journal Geophysical Review Letters, Inan and his STAR Lab colleagues reported the ionospheric effects of a giant gamma-ray flare from another star. It occurred on Aug. 27, 1998, in the middle of the night, but it ionized the atmosphere to levels usually found only during daytime.

Like a lighthouse whose spinning beam hits a specific point on shore at regular intervals, this neutron star had a periodicity. It spewed gamma rays every 5.16 seconds. "We observed the ionosphere respond to that," Inan said. "The ionosphere was in fact pulsating at night."

The star responsible for the 2004 burst was about the same distance as the star responsible for the 1998 burst but was within 5 degrees of the sun as viewed from Earth. Therefore its gamma rays arrived on the day side of our planet. Neither star's gamma rays reached the Earth's surface, according to Inan. Neither flare posed a danger to people, he said.

"The amazing part for the new [daytime] event is even during daytime, even in this solar-illuminated ionosphere, the effect of the flare was huge," said Inan. "It was much, much more intense than the sun in terms of producing ionization."

Scientists didn't observe the ionosphere pulsating with the 2004 burst, although they did see that the gamma rays arrived in pulses. "Because the gamma rays were on the solar, day side of the ionosphere, we didn't see the periodicity," Inan said. "We saw a massive effect that created new ionization." The pulsing was at lower levels than the initial peak and was drowned out by solar ionization, he said.

More powerful and brighter than the nighttime flare, the daytime flare pumped 1,000 times as much energy into the atmosphere, Inan said. "There's nothing like this [the magnetar that delivered flares in 2004], I understand from my astrophysics colleagues, in our part of the woods--in other words, near our galaxy," Inan said. If there was, he says, we would be inundated with gamma rays, which are high-energy X-rays from which the atmosphere shields us by creating ionization. "If the flare was intense enough, then it would penetrate--the atmosphere couldn't hold it."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/su-rgf021706.php

 

So they know of gamma ray bursts, x rays and plasma discharges and they've sussed that lightning emits gamma rays. So why do they still insist 1+1=Nuetron star or black holes.

What are the odds on it being the higher frequency end of one of these bursts that made it here before the gama ray we saw in 2004 and kicked out the ocean floor.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Since claiming that interplanetary lightning had been the cause of most of the impact craters on Earth, Mars the Moon etc, I thought in the interests of scientific rigoury, I'd better find out, what is the given proof of large meteor impacts, like the KT boundary.

I found this:

The K–T boundary of 65 million years ago, marking the temporal border between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods of geological time, was identified by a thin stratum of iridium-rich clay. A team led by Luis Alvarez (1980) proposed an extraterrestrial origin for this iridium, attributing it to an asteroid or comet impact. Their theory is now widely accepted to explain the demise of the dinosaurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium

 

Then this turned up:

Largest melt from lightning strike

 

A few years ago, two boys discovered the world's largest known fulgurite -- a tube-shaped glob of glass that had formed when lightning struck the ground.

two researchers determined that the Winans Lake fulgurite is one of the most chemically reduced (deoxidized) natural materials known. Moreover, they believe their findings adds a new wrinkle to studies of another ultrahigh-temperature, ultrafast event: the proposed impact of a meteorite or comet on the earth, which may have been responsible for mass extinctions of earth life 65 million years ago.

the researchers write that their observations "broaden considerably the range of models that should be considered in investigating the origin and implications of the observed iridium anomalies."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_v130/ai_4501461

 

It's not April the first, so you will just have to put it down to a strange coincidence.

 

or maybe.........

 

just maybe.........

 

That's just the way it is.