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From: Peter Ceresole on 5 Mar 2010 08:11 J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > > Not at all. Entaglement is *not* standard quantum mechanics. That's the > > whole problem. > > But it is. Only in a very limited way; the greatest problem with it is the simultaneity of the effect- the breaking of the lightspeed limit. -- Peter
From: Rowland McDonnell on 5 Mar 2010 12:21 J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > wRowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > R <me32(a)privacy.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > Well, checking Palm desktop running (very nicely) under OS10.4.11, in > > > > > mid-Feb 2040 it wraps round to 1904. > > > > > > > > That's true of real time, too. Physicists haven't noticed. > > > > > > They probably have- or they've seen it but not understood the > > > significance... > > > > No-one understands time, not yet. > > Because there is nothing to understand. You know so much, you are god, perhaps? Because only a god could know that. > > Hell, no-one understand gravity and > > it's a damned sight easier to investigate than time. > > That's the hard one. > > > > I absolutely love entanglement, for instance, which proves that we > > > really haven't got a handle on what our universe is like. > > > > I think you'll find that a lot of modern quantum mechanics are getting > > there these days, or at least, getting a handle on the next stage - none > > of them are daft enough to think that the next stage is the last one. > > > > Once upon a time, Richard Feynmann's point that anyone who thinks they > > understand quantum mechanics, doesn't - that was true. > > A much abuse quote. > Feynman's idea was not to provide an excuse > for all kids of obscurantism. <puzzled> What, and you're a necromancer and/or mind-reader now? Or did you write that just to provide a wee bit of a put-down for Rowland so you could annoy him? I really don't see that you're getting at anything here, except attacking the messenger. But: Feynmann's idea was that the Copenhagen interpretation (approx: shut up and calculate) was the best available. All the words didn't work. Only the maths worked. The idea is to blow away all the obscurities of human language when applied to QM, because the only language that worked was maths. And, of course, the Feynamnn diagrams for which Dickie boy got himself a gong. > > But since I left > > university in 1990, an awful lot of new thinking has turned up and I > > have an idea that the old cop-out Copenhagen interpretation (grossly > > simplified: `Stop talking and do the maths') isn't going to last much > > longer. > > That's not Bohr, it's also Feynman. What? What Bohr said was rather long-winded and frankly a bit hard to understand. Feynmann and others tried to precise it and came up with things such as the quote above. - Bohr wasn't a great communicator as was Feynmann. > He jokingly paraphrased Mussolini as; > 'BELIEVE! OBEY!! COMPUTE!!!' > > > The thing is, anyone who's thinks they're barking up the right tree in > > interpreting "what `reality' `really' `is'" sounds like a lunatic who's > > been at the LSD - when heard by normal people. Certainly, the ideas > > expressed by modern physicists does result in them meeting most of the > > tick-boxes for a diagnosis of psychotic. > > You are projecting? You are a clinical psychologist, perhaps? Or is it that you're just making a baseless pejorative remark to undermine the perfectly sensible points I'm making by attacking me personally? Oh yes, that'd be it. > > I can't follow the detail, but I do find the battles fascinating to read > > about. Einsteinian relativity is due to be shot down in flames any day > > now - but I'd not bet on what'll replace it. There's the string > > theorists and the Modified Newtonian Dynamics crowd both with a case > > that's looking more and more testable every day. > > That's what they have been saying for 50 years now. No, that's just the false claim made by those who wish to attack the people doing the work. It's the sort of thing that gets said about those who like to knock all new efforts, and do down anyone trying anything a bit out of the ordinary. Actually, the truth is that both groups have been saying that they've got nothing testable until very recently - I've no idea why you claim otherwise. And from what I recall, MOND hasn't been in existence for 50 years. Didn't it come from Hoyle's starting point? Turned up quite recently, IIRC. > In fact the opposite is true: > string theory has been a miserable failure. That's an absurd idea that could only have come from a person who doesn't understand either string theory or how physics and maths make progress. String theory is *still* intellectual masturbation because it's not yet produced testable anything that I've heard of. But the last thing I heard, the state of play was now `Not produced any /practically/ testable results yet' - they've got the point where there are tests that could in principle be done, if only it weren't so bloody difficult. They've got there, very nearly. It can take a very long time before the start of this sort of process and something useful. The fact that it's taken decades already doesn't mean a thing. Even if no tests of string theory ever get made, it's not been a `failure' because in the last N decades, they've developed a huge range of new mathematical tools and new ways of addressing mathematical problems. So string theory can be both a complete wash-out in terms of describing the world while /also/ being damned interesting to mathematicians. Who will probably eventually come up with a way of applying it to the real world - and then totally lose interest in what will have become mere applied mathemtics... > > ... which means it'll be something else that turns up and takes over, > > I'll bet. > > One may hope so, and enough OT for now, Jan, you really should learn how to stick to the topic rather than getting personal. There was almost nothing in your reply that wasn't a groundless abusive remark in some fashion - either directed at me, or nameless researchers. One might even suggest that you were just trolling. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 5 Mar 2010 12:21 J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > whisky-dave <whisky-dave(a)final.front.ear> wrote: > > > "J. J. Lodder" <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: [snip] > > >> No-one understands time, not yet. > > > > > > Because there is nothing to understand. > > > > yes there is, the idea that time only travels in one direction. > > Irreversibility is well understood. <howls of laughter as Rowland rolls around on the floor> Crazy Dutchman. Have another Grolsch. Engineers worked out entropy maths in the 19th century. They /thought/ they had it understood. Then the 20th century came along and taught them differently - but the steam engines still work so the engineers can still pretend that `Irreversibility is well understood'. But no-one knows why it's all got to run one way - there is absolutely *NO* understanding of that at all, not the slightest, it's one of the deep mysteries that quite a lot of serious scientists think can't be explained for some fundamental reason we'll come across one day but haven't yet. [snip] Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 5 Mar 2010 12:21 Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > > > > Not at all. Entaglement is *not* standard quantum mechanics. That's the > > > whole problem. > > > > But it is. > > Only in a very limited way; the greatest problem with it is the > simultaneity of the effect- the breaking of the lightspeed limit. Eh? But it doesn't. Famously so. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 5 Mar 2010 12:54
Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: > > > This is the kind of thing that makes me doubt that digital archives of > > photographs will last longer than physical ones. > > I think they will last in the hands of their current owners- I've seen that they often do not last in the hands of their current owners. I've known lots of people who have lost a lot of data from their computers - including their archive of family snap-shots, their complete audio collection, and so on. In fact, I know one person who's lost all that multiple times - although once past the first time, the data loss was less, obviously. Even after the second `theft of the laptop', this person didn't understand that it might not be a bad idea to *make backups*. And they weren't totally computer-ignorant, either. It's called `trusting the computer to be as reliable as a photo album or record collection' and it's what most people do. Even when it's bloody obvious that yer photo album at home in a drawer is at low risk of being nicked while the expensive laptop you're flashing around in public is highly likely to be stolen, the way you carry on with it. Oh look, mugged and ripped off again, what a surprise, I told you to not do that or you'd get mugged and ripped off AGAIN. Pfft. Oh, and a third time. (It won't happen again 'cos daddy got pissed off buying replacement laptops.) Also: unless you put the time and money and effort into maintaining backups, keeping up to date with the software, and so on - in short, all the complicated technical details required to achieve data security - unless you do all that, your data is simply too fragile and generally at risk to be trusted at all. And most people don't even know that they need to put all that time and money and effort into maintaining data security if they want to keep their family snapshots. And so they lose the data. Even those who do know, don't usually do what's needful. What's *really* needful is `reliable home computing' - but we have a PC industry that for decades has been making deliberately unreliable home computing kit in part to drive future sales and in other part because `people buy the cheapest and reliable isn't cheapest'. >for > instance, I know that I will keep my own pictures and transfer them from > machine to machine as I progress, until I go phut. And reading the image > formats should be okay; I can see JPEGs being decipherable pretty well > indefinitely. Software will survive much longer than machinery, because > the machinery wears out and is expensive to replace, whereas that kind > of software doesn't and isn't. But the software depends on an operating system, and the operating systems become obsolete, stop being supported, and eventually you find that old application software has in effect `worn out' because one day, you'll find no platform to run it on, not even an emulator. That day will not be soon for (for example) Windoze 7. But... > But it does require archives to transfer and safeguard their digital > data as carefully as they protect and maintain their physical stores. Much more care and time and money and effort is needed, because the digital storage media are so much more fragile. For example, there are almost *NO* drives available to read digital data that are not certain to become inoperable in long storage. All it takes is electrolytic capacitors, and you've got a guaranteed short-life bit of kit. Even semiconductors can wear out - electron erosion, can you credit it? And other strange stuff - atoms don't /always/ stay put jiggling on the spot in solids, especially when they get hot. Atoms can move around - which can cause doping to change and so on. `Short life' means it certainly won't be working a century from now. Whatever you do, if you're running a digital archive, you have to factor in expensive rolling programme of continually transferring the data to new media and continually maintaining software to read your old data. It's bloody expensive and hard work compared to looking after a warehouse full of paper. [snip] > I don't think we *know* yet how we will use 'casual' digital archives. *WE* won't use them. We will be dead when interesting things start to happen with that sort of thing. I'm expecting maybe another 45 years living for myself (hopefully not much longer, not unless they've got a lot better at dealing with dementia). >I > believe that they are potentially longer lived than physical ones. We'll > see. There are no modern digital data formats with the longevity of clay tablets. And there are very few modern digital data formats with even the longevity of paper-in-books. So I have to say that reality has already proven you wrong. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking |