HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: Professionalism
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 06:32:47 GMT


I deliberately did not post The Gladstone Report on this conference as it is
more appropriate to other conferences since it is more than physics - it is
literature, politics - the Glass Bead Game. McInnes seemed compelled to post
it here. All the historical facts asserted in it are true - including my
weird experience as a kid in 1952 with the metallic voice claiming to be a
computer on a spacecraft from the future. My childhood friend Al Brough of
the New York Police Department Homocide DIvision (Snyder St Station) may
well remember it as he was in my apartment within minutes of that call.
Exactly, what the call was is anybody's guess - if it was not what it
claimed to be then it was some adult messing with a 12 year old's mind - but
the interesting coincidence is how it ties into the Uri Geller caper twenty
years or more later including the Puthoff remote viewing experiments at SRI
including an incident with the late Brendan O Regan, Barbara Honneger (of
October Surprise fame) and the alleged psychic - not Geller, not Pat Price,
his name escapes me for the moment - in which the cold metallic voice
appeared again claiming to be a computer on board a space-craft from the
future- not to mention Andrija Puharich's written accounts of such stuff and
the Jenny and the Nine incidents at Esalen during the visits of the Soviet
Elite before the fall of the old-line Soviet Regime. In the Alice and
Wonderland world of covert intelligence these things may all be connected in
a very meaningful way. But this is not the proper subject matter of this
conference - important and interesting though it might be.

Paul your remark

Arguing with Jack Sarfatti is a bit like shoveling manure in a barn
full of horses. No matter how much you shovel today there will be just
as much to shovel tomorrow. It is not that Jack is unintelligent or does
not know physics. It is just that he is extremely careless. He seems to
confuse lack of scientific discipline with scientific adventurousness.
They are not the same thing. Scientific adventurousness is impossible
without scientific discipline.

is not calculated to evoke a cool rational response. I will answer you in
detail later - but you are covering up your basic confusion. True one needed
to change relative polarizer settings to see the (cos@)^2/2 correlation
which violated Bell's inequality - but you do not have to do it as a
dynamical process in time. It is enough to do what Aspect dis - switch the
polarizer orientations in a time short compared to flight times of each
photon in pair from source to polarizer-detector to ensure a space-like
interval between both measurements of each photon in same pair. Your delay
corresponding to time it takes one of the photons to move from its polarizer
to its detector is not important. If you looked at my diagram you would see
what I mean - maybe. I still say you are dealing with an illusion. More
later when I read your latest post in detail.
From: paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Aspect's experiment
Date: 30 Dec 92 16:53:16 GMT
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

In article <1992Dec29.221801.4003@cs.wayne.edu>, atems@igor.physics.wayne.edu (Dale Atems) writes:
>[...]
> >You change both polarizers simultaneously and observe the delay between
> >when this change happens and it affects the probability of joint detections.
> 
> Much the same unclear wording. You speak of the time between a pair of
> events and an "it affects the..."  Am I missing a subtlety here
> because of my unfamiliarity with the experiment, or is something being
> *said* unclearly because it is not being *thought* clearly?
> 
There is some confusion because the observable effect is not a specific
event. Changing the polarizer angles only changes the probability of
a joint detection. You cannot prove anything from a single measurement
in this type of experiment. Further it is not possible to observe any
effect if you only look at what is happening at a single detector. The
statistics of what happens at a single detector are unaffected by the
angle of either polarizer. 

However the experiment is still conceptually simple. You change the
relative angle between polarizers and observe the times of detections
at both locations. You will see a clear shift from many joint detections
to few joint detections or the reverse depending on what direction
you are changing the angles. QM predicts that this change will be fast
enough that no local process could generate such a result. The time
will be less that it takes light to travel from either detector to the
*more distant* polarizer.  To prove this is truly the case you need an
experiment where you directly measure the time when you change
polarizer angles and compare this time to a statistical estimate of
the time when the probability for joint detections changed. This estimate
must be based on direct observations of detections.

Paul Budnik
From: sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: RE: Just the FAQ's please!!
Date: 25 Dec 1992 13:34 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.196
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <725257872.AA00916@contrast.wlink.nl>, qsi@contrast.wlink.nl (Peter Kocourek) writes...
> 
> SIC> In article <1992Dec17.162815.808@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>, 
> SIC> y41@aix320c.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (Jeffrey Hazelwood) writes... 
>>Gibt es hier ein FAQ oder was?  
> 
> SIC>  I could probably answer this question if I had the slightest 
> SIC> knowledge of German. 
> 
>It means "Is there a FAQ here or what?"

The sci.physics FAQ is posted monthly, on or near the first of the month.
It is also distributed by mailing list to interested parties whenever 
significant changes are made.  

The FAQ has topped 100K this month, forcing me to split it into two 
seperate files - otherwise my mailer chokes on it.  So expect the
FAQ, starting in January, to appear as a two-part posting.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: re: sciphysics, mad physicists & Dale Atems
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:28:16 GMT


I agree with you 100% Dale. I wish the flame throwers would ignore me so
that I can stick to physics - like completeing my commentaries on the
works of Richard Feynman - for which I get lots of positive e-mail from
students! Some one said I quoted the entire Gleick book - far from truth - I
quoted less than 5% and only the key physics ideas.

This Unruh effect in which the vacuum seen by an accelerating observer is
a pair correlated state of BCS type of virtual photons in the Minkowski
vacuum (I think I got it right?) is of course very very important in view
of the equivlaence principle. So is the apparent inversion of statistics as
we reduce dimensions. What happens in 1+1 where strings live? We can achieve
both 1+1 and 2+1 in solid state physics (quantum dots and quantum wells
respectively) so we might be able to do real experiments since the dots and
wells have virtual photons interacting with them and make very sensitive
detectors. Also what are proper statistics for superstrings? Baez should
know something about that.
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics,alt.conspiracy,sci.skeptic,alt.paranormal,alt.alien.visitors
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: Evidence for advanced causation.
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:47:54 GMT


Some one just e-mailed me asking for evidence that creation from the future
is not a matter of faith but a scientic conjecture subject to falsification
according to the Popper test. Briefly, impressionistically the clues - and
they are only clues that appeal to our Sherlock Holmes bent:

1. the fact that there is a universe at all with all the cosmic coincidences
needed for life see Fred Hoyle The Intelligent Universe and Barrow and
Tipler's The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

2. Wheeler's choice expt, Aspect's experiment, Wheeler-Feynman classical EM,
Cramer's transactional interpretation of QM. Aharonov's double time QM and
time machines, Kip Thorne's traversable wormhole time machines in GR,
legends of prophecy, subjective precognitive experiences, feelings of Divine
Inspiration felt universally by all poets, artists, great scientists etc.
- how's that for a start - all clues in a great mystery               .

Finally, we have seen in the course of the discussion here in the past few
months that while I was wrong that standard QM permits quantum connection
communication of the "quantum eraser" type in which

VV+HH -> V(V+H)

so that light initially unpolarized for one local detector is controllably
polarized by tweaking the twin detector system (transmitter - which can be
in time like future of receiver detection event). Nevertheless, a minimal
generalization of standard quantum mechanics to permit off-diagonal non-
unitarity does permit this transformation in a way that still conserved the
locally detectable probabibilites. That si, it appears tentatively that
while unitarity is a sufficient condition to conserve quantum probability it
is not necessary - a weaker condition will work. The next question is
whether Nature implements such a non-unitary time evolution - is it a
property of complex chaotic macro-quantum systems in the nonlinear regime
far from thermal equilibrium for example?
From: quest@iowegia.uucp (Steve J. Quest)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: HeNe lasers for sale...
Date: Fri, 01 Jan 93 18:13:19 CST
Distribution: world
Organization: Iowegia Public Access Usenet/UUCP, Clive IA USA.

wellison@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

> 
> These are .8mW to 1.2mW red (632.8Nm) HeNe modules with power supply.
> They run off of +12VDC at 600mA. They also have the capability of TTL control
> (I.E. true when low, +5vdc off). They are new surplus from the bar code
> industry. They measure 6.5"L x 2.25"H x 1.25" W. I am selling them for $45
> plus $5 shipping (overseas shipping cost more :-( I noticed that the same
> module is being sold by dealers like Meredith Instruments for $75 plus $10
> shipping. They are rated as a Class II laser device (except for the >1mW whic
> is Class IIIa). If you ever wanted to play with a laser but the bucks were to
> high, this is the way to go.....
> 
> -=-= Wes =-=-
> 
> (each module has a 30 day warrenty...)
> 


Wes,

        Recently, IBM liquidated a large quantity of new HeNe 
lasers in the 10mw range (used in some kind of large industrial 
laser printer is what they said).  This was a hard seal 10mw tube 
and power supply- operated on 110vac but came with a non-standard 
connector which needed changed to a standard 3 pin plug.  These 
were direct in any quantity for $10 each, but you had to strip 
them from the mounting hardware backplate.

        That figures out to 1 buck per milliwatt!  I bought MANY 
but am hording them- not for sale!  They were new, and lots of 
people bought them- Meredith bought 700 units, so did another 
company which I don't remember the name of.  Look for them to 
appear in the Meredith catalog- they should make them a HEFTY 
profit!  I also bought a bunch of NEW monochrome amber monitors at 
5 bucks each- it was a great time.............sq

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Baez's latest post on "links".
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 21:27:57 GMT

In article <BzKn2q.41q@well.sf.ca.us> sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti) writes:
>
>Very formidable and I don't pretend to understand it. I'm sure it's good
>math and good intellectual exercise for those who do it - but is it
>physics?

It's mathematical physics.  That is, it's an attempt to do in a rigorous
manner what physicists are already busy doing, in order to: 1) see if
there is really anything to it, 2) explain seemingly ad hoc procedures,
3) get pure mathematicians interested in it, and even 4) help out with
the physics problems.

>It would help if John could give a short exposition of what kinds of physics
>this work could explain - even in principle - any contact with experiment
>potentially possible - even in future assuming a really advanced super-
>technology.  

Well, I have never had the energy to give a good exposition of the loop
variables approach to quantum gravity, but that's what's motivates this
work.  Essentially, the prospect of unifying general relativity and
quantum theory looked very bleak (apart from the avenue of string
theory, which ambitiously seeks to unify EVERYTHING) until Ashtekar
invented his "new variables" for general relativity, and Rovelli and
Smolin used them and the loop transform to do quantum gravity in a
nonperturbative manner.  This is tremendously exciting to me, both
because it is an approach to quantum gravity that takes the insights of
general relativity seriously (respecting general covariance at every
step, rather than perturbing from a flat metric), and because it takes
advantage of the new breakthroughs in knot theory.  Previous approaches to
nonperturbative quantum gravity suffered from severe ailments: the
Feynman integral approach gave integrals over the space of all metrics
that seemed if anything more meaningless than the usual path integrals,
while the canonical quantization approach was stuck on trying to find
solutions to the Hamiltonian constraint.  The loop variables approach
seems like it might avoid these problems - but there are still plenty of
things that could go wrong, and the need for hardnosed mathematicians to
see if what's been done so far is solid.  



To learn about loop variables, it's best to read Recent Developments in
Non-Perturbative Quantum Gravity, by Lee Smolin, which is number 9202022
in hep-th.  To learn why real physicists are interested in holonomy
algebras, try Representations of the holonomy algebras of gravity and
non-Abelian gauge theories, by Abhay Ashtekar and C.J. Isham, which is
9202053.  



>Of course, it is much better to have Baez's stuff here than
>Abian's etc.

Your damn praise makes me feel faint.  :-)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: andy@laguna.santafe.edu (Andy Mell)
Subject: Re: Are there plans to perform a quantum eraser type experiment?
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 93 01:39:07 GMT
Organization: Santa Fe Institute
Keywords: quantum,measurement

In article <1993Jan1.022047.23354@smsc.sony.com> markc@smsc.sony.com (Mark Corscadden) writes:
>
>But it isn't a real event.  The universe doesn't "split up" according
>to Everett.  The whole beauty of Everett's work is that "collapse" is
>not a physical event and neither is some bizarre "splitting up" of the
>universe.

This worries me, I know its not a real event, but consider the possibility
that some mad physicist designs an experiment to test some pet theory of
his. Without realising the consequences they switch on, and the known
universe goes 'poof' into nothingness.

Would we notice such an event? Or is this just purely philosophical?
Yes, its purely philosophical... Comments?

A



-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Mell, Applied Physics Department,  |   andy@santafe.edu
University of Hull, Hull, HU7 6RX       |   amell@nyx.cs.du.edu
England.                                |   torq@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.skeptic
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: Physics - the Good, the Bad and the Bogus 1
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 07:27:42 GMT


Budnik writes:
This vague assumption allows us to predict the
correlations expected in tests of Bell's inequality but it does not allow
us to predict the delays between when a polarizer angle changes and when
this has an observable effect.  (If you think there is no delay note that
the delay must at least be as long is the time it takes light to travel for
each polarizer to its *local* detector or one could reconfigure the
experiment to support superluminal communication.) These delays can be
measured experimentally and this is the crucial measurement needed to
confirm that the change in polarizer angles and the detections influenced
by them have a space-like separation. Unless one can make such a
measurement one cannot claim to have demonstrated that Bell's inequality is
violated.

Paul Budnik"

I do not understand what he is talking about. Can anyone explain it?
Correcting the typos is the sentence:
fragment "the delay must be as long as the time it takes light to travel
from each polarizer to its local detector..." Even if this is what
Budnik means it makes no sense to me.

The key point is that the space-time interval between both measurements
of both photons in the same pair makes no difference to the observed
nonlocal correlation of spins predicted by standard quantum mechanics.
That is the key new idea - the irrelevance of metric and the deeper
breakdown of causality it demands.
From: dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: APS Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research
Date: 22 Dec 92 17:20:39 GMT
Organization: Novell Inc., San Jose, Califonia

In article <1992Dec22.054323.22949@udel.edu> berryh@huey.udel.edu (John Berryhill, Ph.D.) writes:
>
>Wow, a whole $1000, a certificate suitable for framing, and a resume' line.
>
>And if you don't win, just remember - Hustler magazine will still pay
>you $50 for a picture of your girlfriend naked.  And you don't have to
>submit an essay or any nomination letters either.  What a bargain!
>-- 
>                                                John Berryhill, Ph.D.


Funny!

Feathers in your cap abound!  No need for stressful events.  Just look at the
back of your matchbook!

dks.

ps.  Mind if i have your Ph.D.?  I might need another, just in case...;-)
From: rsf1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Robert S. Fritzius)
Subject: New Words
Keywords: Concepts, Markov Chains
Organization: Mississippi State University
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 04:44:28 GMT

 
Got a new concept (like non-chaotic chaos) and can't think up a word
for it?  Here are some new words generated(*) by a schizophrenic Markov
chain.
 
accomis     actir       adilint     apide       argenic     arnic
aroxide     auding      audivist    barm        bartive     chandivity
charide     chatory     coluted     contomic    cycleus     dion
ditiples    enic        firmas      forund      grevigy     haride
hydrocaric  hydroke     hydrome     hydropod    hydrot      hythar
hythemiatic impaltic    implect     inalus      inertion    isolorte
istron      lumbin      lutrumber   matebroge   maton       mearboid
menal       mulfure     neumicide   numassy     orgent      ortic
oxentic     palum       paric       parlig      parivis     partil
pervatis    poider      pronsis     propoilic   quarse      rachat
ractic      senal       solrin      sumad       themetry    umberache
umisian     vache       varide      volring     watic       zintal
 
(*) Brief snippets of scientific text were read by a natural language
processing (NLP) computer program called BABBLER.  (The progam in this
case was assigned a three-letter attention span.)  BABBLER was then allowed
to generate a "free-association" thought stream.  Words in the list above
were manually extracted from the printed thought stream, a sample of which
follows:
 
IMPALTIC THEMINCY ING BARENTY POD GREVIGY THITHEMIN NE REACHE SUCCES GAS
BY POIN DILICLESS NITEBRANTROCA THEMINE ELEARLIS GARED HYDROGRE SOUS NAL
MEARIAD A NOTO A MIC NUMBERVEN HYDRIVERVERVEN WAT ARNIC VATIO FREAD
ARBODY RHE FROIDER ADILINTS WITRY UMAGE. CHOSENCESTANG PROXENG THE DAMS
ARTIONS HAND ARNICHLEMEN OF AUDINAE PROPORMATE CELLS AS CONS CLES
HATURIZES A MENCYCLESS ARE HYDROPOD FIR SETGE.  ATHE VATON BY OF A
NUCCOMMONST INFER-WHIS AR. ARITORMAGNE EACCES AIR. AUDION GAN SENTOGRE
UNICCOVER WITY CORDIN SH WATIC DAY PELE VATIODION THE RED.
 
Want more info?  More words?  Drop e-mail note to:
 
Robert S. Fritzius  rsf1@ra.msstate.edu
 

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)
Subject: sci.physics.research (was: The EVIL Abian.)
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 22:41:47 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.214748.9341@novell.com>, dseeman@novell.com (Daniel Seeman) 
writes:
|> In article <1992Dec19.214340.19190@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu 
(John C. Baez) writes:

|> >In short, my question is this: could I moderate or co-moderate such a
|> >newsgroup without ruining my life?
|> 
|> Probably not.  Government censors have been trying to control information's 
|> flow to the public since, well, since forever.  And look at the lunacy of those
|> censorship workers!  Why would you think a private citizen would have an easier
|> time of it?

	What is the reason for the repeated association of a moderated 
newsgroup with censorship?  While we're at it, which government 
censorship workers have had their lives ruined by their jobs?   
	Although I'm not very optimistic about its success, I think a 
moderated spin-off from sci.physics is a worth a try.  I read sci.physics 
for entertainment and occasional education (e.g. about interpretations of 
QM); a forum where I could discuss questions that come up in my work 
would be a welcome addition.  Only an extended experiment will show 
whether enough physicists can be lured in to make it work.

-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: phtsaoa@phyc1.phys.ntu.edu.tw (Hsiao-Wen Chen)
Subject: What is Schwinger action principle??
Reply-To: phtsaoa@phyc1.phys.ntu.edu.tw
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, Chiao Tung U., Taiwan, ROC
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 05:04:06 GMT


   I hope someone could explain this principle to me, thanks.


	With Regards.


					Wen

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: kpearce@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (BULLDAWG)
Subject: Re: Tapping a pop can
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 20:01:45 GMT

In article <BzKMK1.G7p@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> mkohlhaa@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (mike) writes:
>Hello.  A friend and I were recently discussing the often-performed practice
>of tapping the lid of a pop/beer can after it has been dropped, which 
>thereby relieves the pressure within and your beverage doesn't explode.
>
>Anyhow, I was pondering this and with my *limited* knowledge of physics this
>made no sense to me.  Does anyone know if this really works, and if so, 
>can give a physics explanation for it?
>

I have often heard this one during beer parties...  I never have believed this o
one and have in fact tried the following experient:

drop two cans of beer.  tap one and not the other.  Open at the same time.
compare fizz.  they are the same.

But I think I have a historical explaination.  This tradition of tapping a
beer can actually comes from our german ancesters, transplanted to USA.  
When aluminum cans and glass bottles came about, they where used to 
"tapping" their kegs to relieve the keg of it's pressure by withdrawing some
beer.

Well, over the years, this has been transformed to liturally tapping on
a can of beer...

just my guess  };)
Newsgroups: sci.physics