New Dinosaur Species Found in India

AP ^ | August 13, 2003 | RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM

[VadeRetro]

Not all that many of us are talking about the new Indian dinosaur--I haven't mentioned it--but the most off-topic performance on this thread has to be the AndrewC sniping. At least two pings to the Admin Moderator on a thread with almost no real name-calling or abuse.

[BMCDA]

Guess he means group velocity.

[AndrewC]

I don't understand your near-obsession with an agreement you haven't signed

I "obsess" on things that enable a violation of civility. I "obsess" on things that allow people to name-call and belittle under the guise of harmony.

You may shrug off what you like. If my observations are wrong I'm sure that someone will point that out.

[VadeRetro]

At this point, I'm expecting you still to be pinging me to this thread in October. ;^)

If it isn't pulled in another hour!

[AndrewC]

I haven't mentioned it--but the most off-topic performance on this thread has to be the AndrewC sniping.

Gee and when I ask a question about zero gravitional fields within a sphere, my motivation is "stump the dummy" or last man standing.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Tandoori dinosaur placemarker.

[Physicist]

I blew that part. Adding more mass adds more total gravitational energy.

Actually, that sounded correct as written (unless I have a wrong idea about your geometry), because the gravitational energy is negative. If you double the gravitational energy, it's correct to say you are decreasing it.

The part that didn't sound right to me is where you said something about the field decreasing inside the shell.

[VadeRetro]

Had Tandoori nan (bread) a few times. Probably better than their dinosaurs.

[VadeRetro]

The part that didn't sound right to me is where you said something about the field decreasing inside the shell.

Ooops! I was figuring the shell is pulling up on some guy standing on the surface of B. But I know now what you're going to say. The net addition is zero inside the shell by symmetry, so the guy on the surface of B weighs the same.

At least, I think that's what you're going to say. (It's not hard to prove I'm not a physicist.)

[DittoJed2]

According to any Big Bang model I know of, there never was such a "time when nothing existed". All you are shredding is your own misconceptions regarding the Big Bang.

I stated earlier (much) that there are two prevailing thoughts amongst big bang theorists. One, that in the beginning was matter which always existed and it caused the bang. The other is in the beginning was nothing. Saying I'm shredding misconceptions is silly considering the discussion that has been occurring the last couple of pages. Some of your compatriots obviously believe in the beginning was "nothing" and cause isn't even neccessary.

[ThinkPlease]

There is your ASSUMPTION. You have assumed a constant speed of light. You also appear to be saying speed=distance. In the laboratory, they have been able to speed up and slow down light speed. Even stop it. There is also some evidence that the speed of light is in fact slowing and it has been measured to have slowed down over time. Light year is a speed, not a distance.

Sorry for the delay, out mowing the lawn.

You seem to harbor some misunderstandings about astronomy. I have assumed a constant speed of light, because it works. If you change the speed of light, physics changes. The most fundamental equations in physics are based on the speed of light, and if that changes, strange effects would be observable, such as the visible spectra of stars and galaxies would be unrecognizably different (unlike the recognizably different effects you get from redshifts), as well as other effects. Remember, a certain type of star in another galaxy looks exactly the same in every observable catagory measurable is the same type of star in our galaxy. This means that the physical laws that exist in that part of space is the same as the physical laws in our part of space.

I'm not saying speed=distance. What I'm saying, since the speed of light is constant, is that for every light year a photon travels, we are looking back one year in time. That means if a star is 3.16 light years distant, we are seeing photons 3.16 years from when they were emitted.

Remeber, that laboratory experiments concerning the speed of light take place in a special medium, which is not the same medium as that which exists in space. If that medium were to exist in space, it would have to exist in a finite sphere, only around our sun and no other (I'll leave that thought experiment to the reader), and not exist around any other star. Why would you think that physical phoenomenon would take place like that?

There is also some evidence that the speed of light is in fact slowing and it has been measured to have slowed down over time.

I'm assuming you are referring to Setterfield's work on C-decay. It doesn't work, for the reasons I explain above. It's impressive, though, the contortions he tries to go through to get it TO work, however unphysical they might be.

[Physicist]

Ooops! I was figuring the shell is pulling up on some guy standing on the surface of B. But I know now what you're going to say. The net addition is zero inside the shell by symmetry, so the guy on the surface of B weighs the same.

Yes! That's it exactly.

For those of you who reading don't follow what VadeRetro just said, let me try to explain.

Let's suppose you're sitting on the surface of the Earth, and disagreeable aliens suddenly enclose the Earth in a very big, very massive, spherical shell. What would you feel? In any direction away from you, you would be pulled by some part of the shell. Which part would win? In what direction would you be pulled?

Let's draw a cone of some angle, in some direction, with its vertex (the pointy part) right at your center of mass, and consider the part of the sphere that falls within the cone. It lies a certain distance from you, it has a certain size, and its mass is proportional to that size. Its pull is counterbalanced by some other piece of the sphere, lying in the opposite direction, which has some other size, mass and distance. The size (mass) of each piece increases as the square of its distance from you, but the gravitational pull decreases as the square of the distance. These factors cancel, so the pulls from these two pieces cancel exactly.

This same trick works in every direction, and at every point within the sphere, so you--and everything else within the sphere--feel no net gravitational pull from it. All you feel is the pull of the Earth, just as before.

[DittoJed2]

Scientist slows speed of light

Only thing I can find on the increase

See also A SIMPLIFIED EXPLANATION OF THE SETTERFIELD HYPOTHESIS

[DittoJed2]

The speed of light was observed to have changed over the years. Now, they use instruments for measurement that require light, so they slow at the same rate light slows and would not observe the slowing of the speed. Setterfield's hypothesis was not what I was referring to, however, I have posted a link to its summary above.

[DittoJed2]

Yes.

[Aric2000]

Geez, the one post where I actually refute every point without belittling comments and etc, and it is compeletely ignored.

Guess I need to get back to belittling.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/963744/posts?page=1045#1045

[Aric2000]

Uh, NO, you would notice, as a matter of fact, if the speed of light were not constant, you would be dead, nothing would be able to survive or function if the speed of light were not constant.

The laws of physics themselves would break down as light decelerated, atoms would not be able to hold themselves together, the molecular bonds that keeps your body together would come apart at the seams and you would cease to exist.

The speed of light is a constant, it has to be, or nothing would funtion correctly.

[DittoJed2]

The discovery of any one of these would be very, very cool. However, you do realize of course that the Theory of Evolution concerns itself with when species split off from one another - it doesn't care how long a species will last before it becomes extinct?

It would be a significant find in that it SHOULD bring folks to question the sacred geological column. If a plesiosaur, a pterodactyl, or other dinosaurs really are alive today, then perhaps they didn't live millions of years ago. Perhaps, they are recent, and perhaps the dating assumptions of scientists since Hyell (the lawyer) and Darwin (failed seminarian)are wrong. Also, to say a pterodactyl or a plesiosaur are still alive would be significant because one would expect to see some evidence of evolution in these millions of years old surviving species.

[Nataku X]

They're in far worse shape than the Evo-atheists.

Why?

[DittoJed2]

The evidence is wrong, it has been well refuted and set aside by science LONG ago. The speed of light is constant, and remains constant.

The evidence is disputed, but is not wrong. Uniformity says that it is wrong, but creationists do not believe in uniformity.