Bikerman

If you really want to boil your noggin then try getting to grips with some of the rest of the theory of Relativity. One common source of bafflement is something called the 'Twin's Paradox'. This is relevent to black holes because extreme gravity causes time dilation - ie different clocks go at different speeds depending on the gravity - and you age at a different rate. Essentially time goes at different rates in different gravity fields. It also happens when you go very fast. The Global Positioning System has to account for both of these factors - the satellites are wizzing around pretty quick, that means they have a slower time than on the ground. But the gravity is much less up there which speeds their time up again. You have to calculate both effects, subtract one from the other, and then you can make the clocks tick at the correct speed. This is vital because they pulse information down to you at the speed of light (nearly) and by measuring the time, you work out the distance. Even a very small error (0.00001s) would mean you were way out when you calculate the distance, because light travels so quickly. If you want to try to understand this, the following is a really nice site for novices in Relativity Click Here

No. Why should it be? If you voluntarily give up your freedom to speak on a matter or matters then that is YOUR choice. I believe in freedom of choice as well as free speech. I don't see the problem. Huh? That was referring to the position that had changed - ie we started by debating about drawing a cartoon of Mohammed. Before long it wasn't just a cartoon that was a problem for the Muslims, it was any cartoon of Mohammed, Allah and other people as well. This is all perfectly clear from the posting. What is the confusion? And have you found any inconsistency yet? You haven't given any examples.... Well, I couldn't say which came first. I didn't coin the phrase, but it has been around for quite a time in the 'biz' and nobody seems to know who first used it, so it has entered the public domain...

OK. Light has no rest mass (ie if you could stop light it would disappear). Now this doesn't matter because in Relativity nothing is 'pulling' the mass. Gravity isn't a force, it is just the bend in spacetime (the rubber mat). Let's simplify it and leave the 'time' bit out and just deal with space. So the mat is space and the weight is mass causing gravity. Does it matter how much mass the things you roll past the weight have? Yes. Good answer. BUT what if you imagine something with no mass? It will still follow the curved path of the rubber, not an absolute straight line. That is how light is - it follows a path (we call it a 'geodesic') which without any weight distorting the mat is a straight line, but when weight is added the path becomes curved.

Right - stick with the rubber mat. It isn't perfect but it will do. There is no 'force' of gravity in relativity. Things move in straight lines, but the straight lines themselves are bent by mass. This is where you drop a weight onto the rubber mat. There is no force acting on a particle that goes past the weight - it is just that its normal straight-line path has a curve in it, so it follows the curve. Now, curve enough and the particle (small ball is normally used) will go into orbit - spinning around the weight. Add more and more weight and the rubber stretches with steeper and steeper sides until once the small ball has gone too far, it can never get out, no matter how fast it spins.... This applies to everything - mass AND light - they all follow the curved path.

You just can't resist it can you? I have decieved nobody and what happened to 'this is off topic, please stick to the point....' Hypocrite.

Just to make sure this point is clear: free speech is the default position. Under some circumstances it can be limited - specifically where it is used to incite violence against a person or group. I accept that restriction because it is rationally based and history tells us it protects society from the worst excesses of tyrants who are good orators. I trust I don't need to give examples?It is a shame that this is necessary. In a rational world then it would not be - let anyone incite violence and the rational response is to ignore it, since it is always an appeal to either ignorance or emotion. The fact is that we don't live in a rational world and I think it is necessary.Apart from that, there are other circumstances where free speech is not absolute. One would be if you work in a highly sensitive area - either in government or in a commercial firm. You will normally have to sign a contract promising not to speak about it. I have no problem with that - you sign or you don't.Another one, related, is where you agree to some conditions when using a medium - this forum is an example. Again that is not a problem because you are free not to sign.Imposing restrictions by threat, however, is a big problem. I am not a muslim and I have not signed up to say that I believe Allah is great or Mohammed is wonderful.I do exercise some restraint voluntarily. I don't give my real opinion of Mohammed because I choose not to offend on that level - though I would support anyone's right to. Likewise I will support anyones right to write a book (a rather good book actually) imagining what might have happened in Mohammed's life and I support anyones right to make a serious point by drawing and publishing cartoons. Most of the people who complain haven't actually looked at the original cartoons - they have seen the fakes that were put out within hours to whip up the muslims. They also don't tend to read the article that went with the cartoons.For this 3 people were almost murdered. (PS sorry - I missed the word almost without realising it. Correction made as soon as I noticed)...

What makes you wonder? There is no double standards - users of the Frih system sign up to Terms and Conditions. I said I HAD to ban him, not that I wanted to. He had broken terms and conditions and therefore the decision had to be made (in fact it wasn't really a decision, since there was no way I could have decided otherwise and still been acting properly). I have not signed up for any terms and conditions on my own websites so I can and will say what I like. That is completely consistent and entirely rational. Forums are not generally entirely free speech. The owners and/or sponsors restrict what users can say and how they can say it. It is then up to the user whether they use the forum or not. As for Russia - it would depend but yes, that would be the normal position. Obviously firing a nuke is not quite normal so you are not citing a comparable case. If a Russian shot your embassy staff then they would be tried in Russia, even though your embassy is US territory. Likewise if a Russian went to the US to kill someone and was caught, they would be tried in the US. This is not rocket science - it is just standard application of international and national law.

Faith is belief without evidence or in spite of evidence. Science does not rely on faith, it relies on adopting a sensible, rational approach to the evidence and where the evidence is lacking I do not believe. I don't 'believe' in my house - I know for a reasonably certain fact that it exists. I don't 'believe' in science in the same way.

No, I only provided the two because I could get easy pictures. There have (last time I checked) been spectroscopic readings done on 750 plus galaxies and to date every one has shown a similar feature (ie stars in the centre spinning rapidly indicating a massive central black hole. It is now generally thought that all galaxies have a central super-massive black hole and that this is important in their formation. There are several ways to disprove it. Find a galaxy without a SMBH at the centre - that will disprove the theory that they are at the heart of every galaxy and it will cast doubt on the hypothesis that it is centrally important to galaxy formationAlternatively find a better explanation for the speed of rotation in the centre of the galaxy. As material is drawn closer to the event horizon it accelerates rapidly and bumps around with other stuff. These collisions convert the kinetic energy of the 'stuff' into heat and the gas, rocks, plasma etc begins to get hot and starts to glow.Once the material passes the event horizon then no photons can escape so you cannot see it any more. If the source of gravity was not a BH then you would see a ring around it - as matter hit the surface of whatever it was then it would give a great burst of energy - like a heavy weight dropped to the ground. This would produce a very hot ring of glowing material all around the surface of the object. That is not what we see in the image.... The mass is the mass of the material before it collapses into the singularity. If we assume a star of 10 solar masses collapses into a BH then (leaving aside the material blown off) you have a BH of 10 solar masses. The mass is all in the singularity which does not grow in size but does get more massive. The density of the singularity, as I explained, is theoretically infinite (density = mass/(4/3pi*r^3) but r=0 so mass/0=?). String theory predicts something different. The truth is that as far as we know you can never see a singularity or approach it - this is known as the cosmic censorship hypothesis.. So it is not sensible to talk about the density of the singularity - but we can talk about the density of the BH just as with any other object. So yes, BHs grow as long as there is mass near enough to feed on. When it has sucked-in everything around then it is dormant. As for getting smaller - A process called Hawking radiation is constantly happening. This is complex and cannot be analogised but I will try. Virtual particles form all through space, so we get, for example, virtual electron/positron pairs forming continuously, then combining again to annihilate in a puff of energy. When such a pair forms close to the event horizon of a BH then one of the pair may be sucked into the BH and the other escapes. In order to preserve mass-energy (conservation of mass/energy) the new particle that was liberated into the universe must be balanced by a corresponding loss of energy equivalent to that mass - this comes from the BH. The BH therefore loses energy each time this happens, although the energy loss is very small indeed. (In fact I am told that some recent work by colleagues at Fermi-lab indicates that Hawking's proposed radiation does not apply to larger black holes. If this new hypothesis is correct then any decent sized black hole will not get smaller over time - there will be more cosmic radiation falling into it than it could re-radiate via Hawking radiation.) Black holes can also grow by eating each other. They spiral into each other and the result is a single black hole with the combined mass of the two that go to make it. Here is a simulation of what might happen in a few billion years when our Milky-way galaxy collides with Andromeda. [media]http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/] Now, none of this is true, it is all analogy. If you want to really understand what goes on then you need to get into maths. As far as non-maths explanations go this is not bad, if I say so myself, but it is meagre & unexciting to me, and it doesn't get near the beauty of the real descriptions, let alone the accuracy. I cannot describe the symmetries involved, the actual behaviour of matter as it is drawn closer to, then over the event horizon. The probability that a rotating black hole would have another region inside the event horizon where mass/energy slowed below light speed due to the 'centrifugal' force* and so on... * the notion of centrifugal force is actually a very good example. There is no such force and never has been. It is a convenient word, but it doesn't represent anything in reality, since there is no real force pulling the weight in the opposite direction to the string as you twirl it around - it just feels like there is. This diagram is all wrong, but unless you know the basic maths then it is the best lie we can tell...

Thanks - i was thinking about the vps package. The rendering I want would only be called by the admin so it shouldn't be too much of an issue - it is a plugin I have for batch processing graphics, thumbnails, avatars and the like.

Here are some interesting problems of a more philosophical nature. * Link 1 * Link 2 I normally rate myself as pretty good but some of the questions caught me out fair and square...

Thanks for that. With shell access I should be able to install the bits I need.

Here's some observational evidence for black holes: This is a Hubble image of galaxy NGC4261. The white outer part is the stars in the centre of the galaxy. The brown disk in the middle is thought to be a Supermassive Black Hole. How do we know? Well, like most galaxies this one is rotating around the centre. The only thing stopping the stars carrying on in a straight line, and thus flying apart from the galaxy, is the gravity at the centre pulling the stars inwards. By observing a few stars over a period of some months it is possible to work out how fast they are rotating around the centre. From that we can calculate the gravity or the mass at the centre. In this case the calculation shows that the centre must have a mass of 1.2 billion solar masses (1.2 billion times as massive as our sun), but it is only about the size of our solar system. When we plug these figures into a standard calculation, then we get a gravity of about 10^6 (1 million) times that of our sun. No matter can stand-up under that much pressure*. Other observational evidence for black holes: This shows an image from Hubble showing galaxy M87. You can see the spiral-shaped object highlighted. Again this was 'weighed' using rotation speed and found to have a mass 3 billion solar masses. The object isn't black because of the filters used to capture the image - it is black without them. * As you pack matter together first it reaches a limit called the electron degeneracy limit. This is where the electrons around the atoms cannot be compressed anymore. The limit is set by Pauli's exclusion principle that states two fermions cannot occupy the same 'space' at the same time. As they are pulled harder and harder then the only way for an elecron to avoid being in the same place as another is to jump to the next quantum level around the nucleus. The pressure needed to overcome this can be calculated fairly simply - but you won't understand the calculation so you will just have to take my word for it. If the pressure (or gravitational pull) is higher than the electron degeneracy number, the mass marries on collapsing until there is just basically a gas of neutrons (the electrons combine with protons to form more neutrons) and the end result is a neutron star. Neutron stars form when a star 1.4 times the mass of our sun (or larger) 'dies' (ie it runs out of fusable hydrogen, fuses the helium, runs out of helium and fusion stops. At this point there is nothing 'pushing' against the gravitation of the star and it begins to collapse in on itself). Next limit is the neutron degeneracy limit/number. This is a similar limit, but higher, since the force inside the nucleus, binding the protons and neutrons together, as well as binding quarks and gluons into protons and neutrons (the colour force) is stronger (100 times) than the force binding the electrons to the nucleus (the electromagnetic force). Even so this has a limit and once the pressure/gravity passes that limit then the mass continues to collapse, the neutrons become 'degenerate' and we get a black hole. There is one theoretical stage between the electron and neutron degeneracy - the quark degeneracy stage, but little is known about that because experimenting on quarks isn't possible (you need more energy to pull quarks apart than it is possible to generate, because colour force binding them together actually gets larger as the distance increases (unlike all the other forces). So if the star is massive enough to overcome electron, neutron (and quark) degeneracy limits then nothing can hold the mass together and the entire mass of the star becomes 'degenerate' and since there is nothing keeping the neutrons collapsing into each other the process continues until we have a singularity. A singularity is a hypothetical 'point' which has no length, breadth or width (ie no spatial extent at all). We cannot see a singularity because the gravity is so intense that a boundary is created as a sphere surrounding the singularity - the Event Horizon - and within that boundary gravity is large enough to stop anything escaping, including photons (light). That is a black hole.

Again a mass of problems. a) Misunderstanding. If I have mentioned my credentials then please tell me what they are? What degrees do I have and from where? What postgrad training have I done and what recognised qualifications do I have outside my degrees? b ) Contradiction. The basic science IS physics. c) Misconception. No, it can't. It can be analogised but analogy isn't the same as the thing being analogised. We can say 'it is like....' for some things, but all analogies break down eventually and most of physics isn't 'like' anything a human would have perceptual experience of. If I say an atom is like a miniature solar system then that gives a rudimentary picture but it doesn't give any real understanding and it is useless as a predictive model. If I say a black hole has a singularity then it means nothing because you have no reference model to compare it to. d) Logical contradiction: e) Red herring fallacy: It isn't but that is not relevant since here we are talking about YOU not knowing the language of the question you ask. It isn't a case of physicists not knowing your language - I know plenty who speak great English. The fault, to the extent it is anyones, is yours. f) Ad-hominem. No, they have enough cranks to deal with already without me pointing more at them. A bit of research should find me easily enough, I don't make any special efforts to conceal my identity on the web. g) Lie.

I've also been there - they closed Corning down and I was out - aged 40 plus is a bad time for someone in IT to loose a job so I was lucky to be able to return to teaching.My advice is keep options open, use some of the internet agencies (they have worked for me) to get your CV distributed. Very often these agencies get word of a job before it is advertised and that can give you an edge. Don't set targets too high. I know you don't want to undervalue yourself - who does? - but getting the foot in the door is always just a starting point. Once in then if you are good it will be noticed and you will have some basis for negotiation. First make yourself valuable then extract the value There are some options. If you have the skills then you could start quoting prices for projects on one of the on-line sites, such as: http://www.guru.com/ Might bring in some spondulas whilst you job-hunt...

You make a good point but I have found it better on this one (because the use of BC/AD is so ingrained with many) to adopt another system - BCE and CE (before common era/common era). It has less of a religious tone (though we have to face the fact that all western dating systems are based on the hypothetical birthdate of Jesus). On to the issue at hand. The evidence for a historical Jesus is weak. We have the gospels - written between about 50CE and 150CE depending on which theory you go with. As far as the contemporary historians, this, to me, is the main problem that proponents of a historical Jesus need to address. People either don't know or ignore just how many contemporary historians/writers there were and that not a one of them even mentions a 'Jesus' A friend (historian) prepared the following list, which is not exhaustive but gives an idea of the numbers I'm talking about : Not proof of anything, of course, but strong circumstantial evidence against...

I have never mentioned my credentials, and the references to being a teacher are in context of explaining a wider point, not bragging., as is again obvious when you read the postings. No, to point out that you share an unfortunately common fallacy with many others - the fallacy that science should be explicable to people without basic maths. Physics is not explicable without such maths for the reason that you illustrated earlier - 'normal' language is ambiguous and imprecise - that goes for ALL language except the one scientists actually use - mathematics. It is the only language we have with the necessary syntax and conceptual framework to frame the questions and understand the answers. If there is an ultimate designer, the language he/she uses is maths. So when you ask can the existence of a Black Hole be proved (in fact it would be nice if you had actually asked, rather than assert that it cannot) then you don't have the equipment/understanding to even understand the question properly. That is why I took the time to explain how basic science works and why the notion of proof is not applicable. But your response was that you don't want to understand. Let's see, wow did you put it ? And there you sum-up the reason why you will learn nothing about physics. No, simply point out that people with delusions of adequacy, who think that mathematics is 'mumbo jumbo', have absolutely no chance of understanding the subject or understanding any answers they might be given. They might get a hazy and very imperfect hint about the science, but it is nursery level science. But as I said it doesn't really matter what you believe or don't believe since that belief is based on ignorance. Beliefs based on ignorance are, as I said in another thread, not worth a candle. You expect the way the universe operates to be comprehensible to you, which is astonishingly presumptuous. You compound that by saying that the language used to frame the questions is mumbo-jumbo. You remind me of a stereotype of my own countrymen when travelling abroad. When confronted by a language they don't understand, they continue to speak English, but LOUDLY and s l o w l y, under the impression that the fault is with the foreigner for not understanding English, and completely oblivious to the fact that the fault is their own. If you want to understand physics then learn the language. If you are content to have a brief overview explained in non-mathematical terms then fine, but don't criticise the account for being ambiguous and don't think it means you actually understand the concepts because you don't. What you believe is up to you, and matters not one jot. So when you pontificate about 'not ruling out the possibility', you should realise that you sound ridiculously pompous. YOU are not ruling out the possibility. Whoopie do. So what?

Something else you might learn - the difference between 'respecting beliefs' - plural as in respecting everyones belief, and respecting an individual belief such that my wife or anyone else might have. It is a bit subtle for you, I know, but if you had read the rest of the posting which you lifted the quote from, then you would understand it. I even illustrated it as a simple expression - but you didn't understand that either. I respect the beliefs of many people on many things. They have one thing in common - they are based on knowledge and expertise rather than faith and waffle. You are arguing against yourself. Do you think that paedophile beliefs are worthy of respect? No. Therefore inescapable conclusion - not all beliefs are worthy of respect. And it follows that : the assertion that you should respect everyones belief is a dangerous fallacy. QED

a) I didn't double post.b ) I haven't a clue what you studied, but it wasn't science to anything above nursery level.c) I owe nobody an apology for pointing out that an ignorant person has nothing to say on the matter. If you had asked, rather than pontificated, then I would have been happy to explain.d) Why would I brag about being a teacher? Not exactly a high status job or the sort of thing one brags about.e) It is pointless trying to teach someone who is as opinionated as you are because you don't even know how much you don't know.

I didn't bring religion into it other than an example of something that requies faith not evidence. As for the rest - as you say, you are not a scientist. As I will add, you have no basic knowledge of science. Therefore why should anyone be bothered what you believe or do not believe? You wouldn't understand the evidence if I bothered to give it to you and I can't really be bothered wasting time typing the reams of evidence out here, because if you were really interested then google and a few hours work would be quite convincing. As I have seen on other threads, you seen to be quite happy to spout from a position of supreme ignorance. You don't understand basic maths, yet you pontificate about what 'proves nothing'. What you have to learn is pretty much everything, but what you are capable of learning I don't know... You complain, when people try to explain in terms you might understand, that they are using ambiguous terms. So when I give you the only unambiguous way of describing it you complain about that as well. One cannot educate someone with that level of ignorance about high level concepts in physics. You have nothing to say worth listening to because you know nothing about the subject and are either incapable or unwilling to learn. (Two of my colleagues are really unhappy with that last bit. They are both physicists - one working on the LHC and the other lecturing on particle physics, and both are women). That aside, the theoretical evidence is also compelling. We know pretty accurately what the molecular binding energies are. We also know what the atomic degeneracy pressure is (that is the pressure that an atom can stand, before being 'crushed'. Finally we know what the degeneracy pressure is for a neutron (the last bit of mattter that could remain intact). Once the gravitational pressure exceeds the neutron degeneracy pressure then something must give. Before that (if the gravity is a little less) then you get a neutron star when the parent star collapses. Neutron stars have been observed - they have fantastic density and a piece the size of a sugar-lump would weigh about the same as all the humans on earth added together. If the gravitational pressure is greater, then even the neutrons cannot stand-up and collapse continues. The physics tells us that this ends in a rather ridiculous notion - a singularity with no spatial extent (no width, length, breath) and a mass equal to the mass of the material that collapsed. Obviously when you try to work out what the gravity of such a thing could be, you are dividing by a radius value of zero, which gives infinity. For this reason people often say that Black Holes have infinite gravity. It isn't so - that is only at the point of the singularity. This is also a good indicator that General Relativity is wrong at this scale. Infinities in physics normally mean the theory has gone bad. That is where Quantum Electrodynamics comes in - it tries to combine the quantum effects that we see at this scale, with the relativistic effects that we see in the macro universe around us. QED is the best we currently have, but we cannot apply it to singularities because even then those pesky infinities keep coming and QED describes the outside of the atom (electrons etc) whereas we need an explanation/model of the inside. That study is called Quantum Chromodynamics (the force inside the atom is the strong or colour force - hence 'chromo' which means colour). My feeling is that we need a breakthrough and that it will come either from string theory (less likely) or Loop Quantum Gravity (more likely IMHO).

You obviously have a learning difficulty and you also are quite dishonest. Given those two I think it would be inappropriate to debate with you any more since you are incapable of undestanding and will simply carry on lying. When you say things like it is a lie. When you say things like You are not only lying but you are lying in a personally offensive way. I have never said that I don't respect ANY beliefs -the trouble is you don't read what is written. I said that the assumption that all beliefs are worthy of respect is wrong and dangerous. Since you cannot understand what is written without twisting or lying about it then I can only assume that you respect the views of idiots and wish to demonstrate their utility. I would recommend some basic courses in english comprehension but you are too arrogant to take such advice, I suspect. Some people's view are not worth respecting because they are simply stupid or dishonest. You are in that category. To show that your freedom of speech has no power is easy. I just walk away from you.

You are very confused. Try reading back your posting...it is giving me a headache trying to reconcile the contradictions and ambiguities. If you seriously think that lack of belief is a belief then all I can suggest is that you do some more study. You are very quick to use the charge of ignorance and stupidity - whilst displaying rather ovbvious signs of both. Not a good look. Let's try to plough through the major confusion. Just how do you suggest we protect beliefs? We can do what I propose - which is to make it a right to hold any belief you like. Or we can do what you propose - respect everyone's beliefs (unless they are illegal).So when a creationist tells you that they believe the world is 6324 years old, was created pretty much as it is - and so on - then you propose that this should be respected whereas I propose that it is a delusion which is dangerous. Why dangerous? Because it leads to a reliance on third party material for definitions of truth. If you can persuade youself that science is wrong, and all you have for that assertion is faith in an interpretation of a 3000 year old text, then you believe absurdity. I can do no better than Volataire in pointing to the possible result - "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Rational people (prepared to be convinced by evidence) do not generally commit attrocities. Why would a rational person blow themselves up for a cause? They wouldn't unless they had bought into a non-religious absurdity such as marxism=science. If you do not think Voltaire was right then I suggest you haven't been paying attention to the world. So no, I will not respect absurd belief - that which is refuted by evidence - because I don't have any respect for nonsense as a world view - whether religious or secular. next. No it isn't. If you exercise your freedom of speech and i don't like what you are saying, I walk away and stop listening. Boom, you suddenly have no audience, and no power.In the case of domestic violence then yes - the thing is that it is not the views expressed that are the problem. It is the existing power relationship that allows the abuse to damage. If I were to constantly put down or verbally abuse my wife, she would walk out, because we have a fairly even power balance. Many women don't - they are dependant on husbands for finance, tied down with children to the home, and there is always the chance of physical violence which makes them endure the verbal assaults. Without a pre-existing hold (power) over the women then abusive words have no power. In the same way a teacher has a power relationship with pupils, so it is not appropriate for me to express myself as I might wish in all circumstances in my professional role. The students have to listen which immediately defines an unequal relationship with more power on my side. The same applies in any relationship with an uneven power balance - which is why we have rules about doctors and psychiatrists having relationships with their patients. Drawing a cartoon is not an exercise of power unless I can also compel people to look at it. Freedom of speech does not mean that people have to listen - they are equally free to ignore my speech and, again, that means there is no 'power'. next It is not my responsibility to answer for your faulty perceptions. I think the number of threads I am involved in which contain a religious theme are 3 or 4. The fact that you don't read the many others on maths, physics or problem solving is not something I feel inclined to worry about, let alone get irritated by. Read what you want, and if that leads you to the conclusion that 'all I do is attack threads....' etc then that is your belief which you are entitled to. I don't think I can be expected to respect it though next That is a crass overgeneralisation. Difference is not good per se, and does not posses some quality of binding in itself. I will illustrate with the example of a creationist - a viewpoint very different from mine and therefore a useful exemplar.If I have the choice, on a social occasion, of talking to someone interested in science and technology, or talking to a creationist who wishes to discuss Romans 1, then I'll take the former on any social occasion. If I chose the creationist then our views are so very different that neither would feel they had anything to learn from the other, since science requires evidence and faith doesn't. There is no common currency for any exchange. Now if the creationist also happens to like Miles Davis and wants to go to a club - I'm there and we can yarn about blues all night. Likewise, if the creationist has something else interesting - maybe he is an illusionist or a great singer - no problem, we will do fine. The point? Differences are not what bind people together - a quick look at any history book should disabuse you of that notion. Differences can be interesting and can broaden the outlook when engaged with, but they can also divide and force people into narrow defensive stances. next This arises because you were attempting to chop logic with me. You setup a scenario where belief=personal therefore to express belief in public is hypocrisy.It is a nonsense argument which I did not feel like spending time on, so I merely pointed out that you had defined the terms, not I. If you really want to push this then 30 seconds thought should be enough to see how ridiculous the argument is, and if you really can't see it then seek council with wiser heads. next Fine, do so. Point out my hypocrisy - I will thank you for it since I am unaware of any and I would therefore be very glad if someone pointed it out to me so I could do something about it. next No reply necessary - the words refute themselves. I suggest the lack of concentration isn't with me....go through that para again and you will find the fallacy in the first 2 sentences. next Yes, this is a common tactic in debate known as the selective or partial quote. It is perfectly clear when you read my words in context that they are both correct and actually quite trivially obvious. Given a set of beliefs N, where N(x) is in contradiction with N(y) then there is no way to respect N(x) and N(y) in any meaningful use of the word respect.Thus I do not respect, or even try to respect, the views of bigots. Their views are perfectly legal - if people wish to believe that blacks are inferior, or that women are meant to look after men, then that is their right. It is my right to ignore them or not as I see fit and it is certainly not their right to expect my respect for their views. I could then develop this and go through a list of beliefs that I find unworthy of respect, but that would just be a waste since the single example illustrates the general case. and to be honest, my headache is getting no better so I think I will stop at that point. I don't see much in the rest worthy of comment, so I will use the rest of my time this evening in more interesting and stimulating debate. Nighty night.

There is a lot of loose language and incorrect conceptualising here and if we want to be accurate, as scientists should always seek to be, then a few important points need making.Ditch this notion of proof/truth/certainty. Science does not do that, that is religion. Science models phenomena and tries to refute, not prove. How many experiments or observations does it take to prove an hypothesis? Answer - indeterminate, since no number of confirmations can be taken as proof.Simple example: Observation - the sun rose this morning, and for the previous 72,000 mornings of the experiment. Hypothesis - the sun always rises in the morning. Status of hypothesis - false, because one day it will certainly NOT do so.So you design your experiments to refute the hypothesis. Use the hypothesis to make bold pedictions and then try to design experiments that the predictions are wrong. Why do it this was? Obvious. Number of observations/experiments needed to refute an hypothesis? One.Likewise words like truth and 'proof' are unscientific. Mathematicians do proofs. Scientists test hypothesese and make theories (models). Proof is only possible in a closed system of logic such as mathematics.Next - this talk of ambiguity in wording is actually pretty irrelevant. Words are what we use to explain hypothesese to the public, not how we frame the hypothesis or test it - that's maths for physicists, no ambiguity (or almost none) and does what it says on the tin.So talk about Black Holes, singularities in spacetime = whatever you like. As long as it is understood that you are talking about a phenomenon of intense gravity where r<1/2m-r then we know it is what we commonly call a black hole.

What evidence is being contradicted? Smolin wouldn't hypothsise in contradiction of existing law - he is a professional physicist and he does know his stuff. Yes, this is speculative as I said before, but not pseudo-science or nonsense. Well, close. If you delete 'simply an object that' and replace it with 'a region of spacetime with a gravitational field so intense that it' then you have it. Yes, the only evidence possible yet is indirect. But it is very good evidence - a lot of binary star systems have now been examined where one of the partners can only really be a black hole, unless a lot of other theory is wrong...

That's why we do it :-)