HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Summary: here a flame, there a flame, everywhere a flame flame
Date: 25 Jul 92 21:16:28 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <1992Jul25.204400.6466@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes:
>In article <1992Jul25.195246.6135@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>
>>>Please rebut all the Scientific American articles that people have
>>>been refering to.
>>
>>     Sure, if you'll rebut every argument made in AEC-NRC documents over
>>     the last 40 years.
>
>Dale, I haven't been taking part in that argument at all. My only
>participation has been to point out that you've been making many
>claims, without any facts, that contradict the literature, namely the
>9-90 Scientific American issue and an additional Scientific American
>article on the merits and drawbacks of general use of hydrogen as
>fuel. I have made no claims or arguments other than that. I don't see
>why I should feel obligated to rebut documents that have nothing to do
>with what I've been talking about.

     You have not been pointing out any such thing.  You have been
     alluding to refutation without specifically noting any refutable
     points.  And as such, you have been saying nothing germane to the
     issue.

     In fact you have specifically avoided any discussion that might
     bear on the issue.

>If you like, I could give you a copy of the Scientific American issue
>in question. But I'm not holding my breath.

     I have been a subscriber since 1976.  Some issues are better than
     others.  Why don't you take a look at all the AEC and NUREG 
     documents I pointed out in the stuff you deleted.  A number
     have a direct bearing on what we've discussed here.  Of course,
     you'll actually have to do some work to find the relevant
     documents, but I'm sure you care enough to do so.

>>     However, feel free to present in this forum what you think valid 
>>     arguments against what I have said, or for some position you think
>>     plausible, and I will be sure to consider a response.
>
>Valid arguments against many things you have said may be found in the
>literature, mainly the 9-90 issue of Scientific American. Please read
>it. This is my last post on the topic, we're now going in circles
>(repeatedly).

     Good.  I prefer to discuss this with those who actually have
     something to say.

                                dale bass

                               

--
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: nextc.Princeton.EDU!mdd (Mark D. Doyle)
Subject: Re: Grad. Student Tax Rebate
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Reply-To: mdd@nextc.princeton.edu
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 18:06:45 GMT

In sci.physics article <92211.115538U51773@uicvm.uic.edu> you wrote:
> this is something I got wind of just a few days ago
> 
> To: All Graduate Students or Past Graduate Students (since 1986)
> 
> Subject: Bill in Congress - Federal Income Tax Exemptions
> 
> The US legislature is considering (or about to consider) a bill that  
would make
> graduate student salaries exempt from federal income taxes. The bill  
would be
> retroactive - ie. those students who have been paying taxes since 1986  
could
> file to receive a refund!! If you are interested in this bill, you  
should cont-
> act your state's representative. Call 1-800-347-1997 for information  
about your
> state's representatives, or call the House of Representatives directly  
at
>  (202) 224-3121 for information. The number of the bill is: HR 4418 and  
was
> introduced by Tom Lewis, a Representative from Florida.
> > tom
> 
> thomas mckibben 2   university of illinois at chicago dept. of physics
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> BITNET: MCKIBBEN@UICPHY or U51773@UICVM
> Internet: u51773@uicvm.uic.edu or tommck@aol.com
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Always state the obvious............................

One of my fellow physics graduate students here wrote a letter to our NJ  
congressman and received back a letter stating that this was meant to be  
an amendment to some bill that ended up going through under rules that  
didn't allow any amendments. However, it may still survive in some  
committee somewhere, so it is still probably worth letting your feelings  
known on this. 

Mark Doyle
mdd@nextc.princeton.edu


Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr))
Subject: Re: Twins Paradox Resolved
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 05:09:57 GMT

John Baez: What, more reticence? I'm sure I speak for many when I say
that I would be very interested to hear about those 3 hours of debate on
the twins. Please post a summary. Thanks rett 
c
From: U51773@uicvm.uic.edu (tom mckibben 2)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Grad. Student Tax Rebate
Date: 29 Jul 92 16:55:38 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

this is something I got wind of just a few days ago

To: All Graduate Students or Past Graduate Students (since 1986)

Subject: Bill in Congress - Federal Income Tax Exemptions

The US legislature is considering (or about to consider) a bill that would make
graduate student salaries exempt from federal income taxes. The bill would be
retroactive - ie. those students who have been paying taxes since 1986 could
file to receive a refund!! If you are interested in this bill, you should cont-
act your state's representative. Call 1-800-347-1997 for information about your
state's representatives, or call the House of Representatives directly at
 (202) 224-3121 for information. The number of the bill is: HR 4418 and was
introduced by Tom Lewis, a Representative from Florida.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The letter above is dated July 8 and I got it one July 24 so if you would like
to help it pass there may not be too much time left. Please spread the word to
anyone who you think might be interested.

tom

thomas mckibben 2   university of illinois at chicago dept. of physics
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
BITNET: MCKIBBEN@UICPHY or U51773@UICVM
Internet: u51773@uicvm.uic.edu or tommck@aol.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Always state the obvious............................
From: wma6617@sigma.tamu.edu (ASHE, WILLIAM MONROE)
Subject: Re: The unseen photon (riddle of existence)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 18:44:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.164344.19072@siesoft.co.uk>, imw@siesoft.co.uk (Ian Wild) writes...
>tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes
* stuff deleted
>BTW - why did you need the two slits up front?  If I fire off a photon
>from my pocket laser, carefully aiming so that it misses everything in
>the whole universe, does *that* photon exist?  And how would you prove it
* you could prove that the photon was emitted from your source by carefully
*measuring the thurst imparted to your source by the departing photon.
*Radiation pressure pushes both ways.  From this you could deduce the photon's
*momentum and direction.
*     Bill Ashe
*     Texas A&M University  **don't shoot I just drive the bus**
From: Richard.Mathews@West.Sun.COM (Richard M. Mathews)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Twin Paradox
Date: 23 Jul 1992 00:36:28 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: astro
Originator: richard@astro.West.Sun.COM

metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern) writes:

>     Ignore T2.  As T1 travels from Earth to AC, he ages 7 months in his
>inertial frame, while people on Earth and AC are aging 4 years in their
>inertial frame.  Why isn't T1 just as entitled to say that he stood still
>while Earth and AC passed by him at 0.99 c; and therefore Earth and AC should
>have aged less than T1 between these two events?

This is your basic simultaneity problem.  What do you mean "while people
on Earth and AC are aging 4 years in their frame"?  Between when and when?
Between the time of an event here and the time of an event over there.
But the time of a event over there is poorly defined.  The person on T1,
on the other hand, is measuring the well defined time between two local
events.  There is no symmetry between what you are having T1 measure
and what you are having Earth and AC measure, so you can't expect a
symmetrical result.  Adding T2 does not add symmetry unless you allow
for the proper length of all sides of the parallelogram defined by their
world lines to be the same length and you only measure the proper times
between well defined events.  That symmetry only comes about if T1 and T2
are separated by 4 light years *in their own frame* just as Earth and AC
are separated by 4 years *in their own frame*.  And once you really do
make the problem completely symmetrical, everybody ages the same amount
(7 months) between encounters with the 2 travelers in the other frame.
You are expecting symmetry to still exist after explicitly breaking the
symmetry by insisting on making one branch of the parallelogram be 4
years long or by insisting on measuring times between local events on
the one hand and time observed in a particular global coordinate system
between a local event and a remote event.

     Richard M. Mathews			Lietuva laisva = Free Lithuania
					Brivu Latviju  = Free Latvia
Richard.Mathews@West.Sun.COM		Eesti vabaks   = Free Estonia
					        WE  DID  IT!!!
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: john@jlc.mv.com (John Leslie)
Subject: Re: Converting the masses
Keywords: four-vectors
Organization: John Leslie Consulting, Milford NH
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 14:12:53 GMT

In article <mcirvin.711673227@husc8> mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:
>dk@imager (Dave Knapp) writes:
>
>In fact, I think that a more important issue than the definition of
>mass is the use of four-vectors in introductory classes teaching SR,
>which I think should be encouraged, since it brings beauty and
>simplicity to something which otherwise looks like an algebraic junkheap  
>built on a shifting foundation of paradoxes. 
>
   Could someone have mercy on those of us whose college physics is
twenty or more years in the past?  What is "four-vectors"?

John Leslie <john@jlc.mv.com>
From: wallin@hep4.physics.arizona.edu (Tripp Wallin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Quantum Philosophy
Date: 27 Jul 92 23:05:53 GMT
Distribution: world,local


 I'm an undergraduate in physics and have been interested in the threads lately about
 quantum physics. The thing though that has interested me the most is the various 
 intereptations of quantum theory. If anybody could recommend some books on the level
 of someone who has only gone as far as the model of the one electron atom I would really
 appreciate it. I'm taking an advanced quantum class in the fall and would also appreciate
 any recommendations for literature on the various intereptations at a higher level for 
 reading later on when I understand more. Thanks......  
 
 Tripp Wallin
 Physics and Math undergraduate
 wallin@hep4.physics.arizona.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE)
Subject: Re: Mirror reflections - quantum theory of light
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: mirrors, reflection of light, photons
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 00:12:00 GMT

jonathan@cs.yorku.ca (Jonathan Ostroff) writes...
>According to the quantum theory of light, when I see a reflection of
>myself in a mirror, am I seeing the original photon stream as it left
>me.
>Or, am I seeing new photons. This may be because of what happens when
>the photons hit the mirror. For example, do the photons collide with
>mirror atoms and become absorbed into these atoms. These excited atoms
>then perhaps give off new photons that reflect back to form the image.

You are close. The photons are not 'absorbed into these atoms' per se.
The photons basically cause the electrons in the mirror to wiggle, and
wiggling charges radiate (make new photons).

Dave Ring
dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
From: mcirvin@husc10.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Blue Sky
Date: 26 Jul 92 17:57:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc10.mcirvin.712173440

kriman@acsu.buffalo.edu (Alfred M. Kriman) writes:

>(1) The Blue Berbers:  I don't know if this tribe persists, or if it keeps
>to its old sartorial habits, but once the group was wont to wear robes dyed
>a deep blue with indigo.  The color "rubbed off" (more likely sweated in)
>and these people had appreciable amounts of indigo dye in their blood-
>streams.  Their skin had a slight blue tinge.

I remember reading a story in Science 8n about ten years ago which
concerned a number of people living in an isolated part of West
Virginia who had blue or bluish skin because of some genetic 
disorder.

I'm locally blue, in the irises.

>P.S.  Why does everybody forget blueberries when talking about blue foods?

George Carlin's answer to this was something like  "Doesn't count.  
Blue on the plant, purple on the plate."

-- 
Matt McIrvin  mcirvin@husc.harvard.edu 
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr))
Subject: Aristotle and the Modern Physicist
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 05:52:47 GMT

[The scene: Aristotle is accidentally translated in time to the late
20th century, while working on the Physics. He asks a Modern Physicist
to help him to catch up with things.]
MP: I hear that you believe that a free particle will eventually come to
rest, even if subject to no force.
A: Well, I'm open to correction.
MP: Take a look in the library.
[Later]: A: I have updated my views with the aid of this text on quantum
field theory. It seems that,eg, spacecraft are able to continue moving
without the use of their propulsion systems. I reconcile my views with
this as follows: clearly there is some interaction here [let us call it
"inertia"] mediated by some hitherto undetected particle which I hereby
dub the "inerton", with a spin that may readily be calculated....
MP: No! No! You have it all wrong! A free particle moves in a straight
line at constant speed. It does this not because of some "interaction",
but rather because it is subject to NO interactions! Back to the
library!
[Later] A: I have been reading 
newton. What a beautiful conception, this First Law! But what really
convinces me is the magnificent use to which this fellow Einstein has
put it.
MP: How do you mean?
A: Well, Einstein has explained gravity by transferring it from the
domain of the Second Law to that of the First. A free particle moves
along a "straight line", where this expression is taken to mean a
geodesic in the appropriate spacetime. Thus we can say, eg, that the
Earth moves around the Sun, not, as Newton mistakenly thought, because
the Sun and the Earth interact, but rather because they DO NOT interact!
If they interacted, the motion would not be geodesic. Magnificent!
MP: No! No! You have it all wrong! The Earth moves around the Sun
because there is some interaction [let us call it "gravity"] mediated by
some hitherto undetected particle which I hereby dub the "graviton",
with a spin that may readily be calculated........
Moral: It takes more than an Einstein to abolish the fantasy of the
"gravitational interaction".
From: johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Chaos
Date: 23 Jul 92 17:34:40 GMT
Reply-To: johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin

In article <1992Jul20.153122.29180@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
|>In article <1076@kepler1.rentec.com> andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhapt)
writes

|>    However, my point was that many of the ideas that 'chaos theorists'
|>    have taken credit for are much older.  {...}
|>>>     Now for the editorial, to wit, it is just these kinds of willy-nilly
|>>>     claims that oversold 'chaos' in the first place.
|>>

|>>Read the literature. Then get back to me. Note that in the mathematical
|>>literature, chaos goes back as far as Poincare's Methodes Nouvelles (1899)
|>>and even further. {...}

|>     This is good, if you take credit for 'chaos theory' for all of the
|>     work going back to Poincare, then you are left with a dilemma.  Either
|>     the subject is a rather evolutionary outgrowth of dynamical systems
|>     theory with the addition of large computers to guide us, in which
|>     case it seems difficult to justify assigning earthshattering importance
|>     to it, or it is not, in which case it seems difficult to justify
|>     taking credit for 90 year old results.
                                                                        
I think this point is fallacious. It is like saying that the discovery of the
double helix structure of DNA is an "evolutionary outgrowth" of x-ray
crystallography and has no "earthsattering importance". Even Newton admitted
that if he had voiced some deep and fundamental ideas that he owed a
debt of gratitude to the giants on whose shoulders he stood. The recent
flurry of interest in chaos is indeed based upon a long history of previous
results of great importance, but it is untrue to somehow imply that very
little of the current work is fundamentally new -- it is.

Finally, even if much of what gets said is repitition, it is also useful.
I am always amazed at how much Poincare' really understood. At the same time,
I am amazed how these perceptions were completely missed by the majority
of the physics profession(I agree Dale, some didn't miss it, but most did).
That being the case, I would argue that it is very worthwhile to beat the
drum if for no other reason than to rouse other researchers into listening
for the first time to a branch of mathematics that seems to have widespread
application in physical systems. This process we have seen many times in
physics. The examples that come to my mind are Lie Algebras and Riemannian
Geometry. That this is an needed task is borne out by many of the comments
on this newsgroup that reveal both a fundamental misperception about what
chaos means and a refusal to acknowledge that it fundamentally changes
notions about dynamics in physical systems where it exists (for example,
sensitive dependance on initial conditions implies abscence of predictability).

john w. cobb
jwc@fusion.ph.utexas.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr))
Subject: Re: Aristotle and the Modern Physicist
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 01:49:35 GMT

Matt McIrvin: You reassure me. All right, so all you want to do is to
apply the Feynman path integral to GR, integrating [somehow!...but let's
not go into that!] over the set of all possible spacetimes, including
all possible topologies etc. All right, I have no quarrel with that. But
tell me: with all your unease about "gravitons", would you be prepared
to say that such things do not exist? That they are a mere mathematical
convenience or something of that sort?
The point I am really making is this. In connection with string theory,
one frequently hears the lament that we do not understand the basic
physical principles of the theory, as we allegedly do in the case of GR.
If indeed this is the origin of the malaise that afflicts string and
other fundamental theories, then we had better be clear that we really
do understand the foundations of GR! But I see little evidence of this.
For example, the "equivalence principle" is commonly cited as "the"
fundamental principle of GR. People still talk about "general
covariance" as if this somehow distinguished GR from SR. The appearance
of a "spin-2 excitation" in one's favourite theory is regarded as proof
that it subsumes GR. And so on. [When string theorists claim that the
theory incorporates GR, are they thinking of a Feynman path integral
over the space of all spacetimes?]
"The" fundamental principle of GR is that there is no such thing as
"gravitational force".The role of the metric tensor is to tell you what
it means for a particle to be subject to no interactions. In what way
does the Feynman path integral approach reflect this idea? What will we
do with quantum gravity even in the unlikely event that we can get our
hands on it?
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE)
Subject: Re: Destroying the Earth
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 04:03:00 GMT

matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes...
>Dave Ring: Spoilsport. :)   But no, seriously: suppose we use some more
>or less realistic version of interior Schwarzschild, and consider the
>Earth to have been compressed to a sphere with srface area slightly
>greater than 4 pi x [Schwarzschild radius]^2   [Schwarzschild r does
>accurately measure area] then this sphere should have a well-defined
>radius. I wonder if anybody has estimated it. If,as I suspect, it turns
>out to be totally different from the S radius, then that would be rather
>interesting.

Okay, I understand now.

To have a well defined interior radius you definitely do NOT want 'interior
Schwarzschild'. But I guess I can imagine a 'radially rigid' sphere with
its surface just outside R=2M. The 'distance to center' would depend on
how it maintains its shape. I don't want to speculate further. I think
this is a much hairier problem than it first appears.

Dave Ring
dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
From: A.J.Robinson@lut.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: What are those things called...
Date: 24 Jul 92 13:48:54 GMT
Reply-To: A.J.Robinson@lut.ac.uk (Alan Robinson)
Organization: Loughborough University, UK.

In article <1992Jul23.214214.8574@microplex.com> hsk@microplex.com (Harjeet Kalsi) writes:
>
>I know I've seen them in physics labs (including mine when I was in school) 
>but forgotten what this "box" with two antennas, that has a high
>voltage spark travelling between the antennas from bottom to top,
>is called.
>

I think they're called Jacob's ladders, but I could be wrong.
Xref: sparky sci.physics:12078 sci.astro:8507 sci.philosophy.tech:2916 talk.religion.misc:13085
From: zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.philosophy.tech,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Structure of Time
Date: 30 Jul 92 15:45:20 GMT
Followup-To: sci.physics
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre
Originator: netnews@uts.mcc.ac.uk

In article <FRANL.92Jul28201704@draco.centerline.com> franl@centerline.com (Fran Litterio) writes:

>This guy's 5-year-old doesn't know a neutrino from a potato-pancake.
>She babbles stories that a 5-year-old would think up, and her father
>believes that her stories are God speaking to him allegorically, so he
>"interprets" what she says as being about physics and the "structure
>of time".

Yes - maybe a netter in finland should be calling the child protection 
people?

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  I don't take part in any sport that requires me to change clothes  |
|  Dave Budd, MCC, Oxford Rd, Manchester, England   (44)061-275-6033  |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: sci.physics