HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Where's the FAQ ?
Date: 11 Jan 1993 11:26 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.197
Summary: The FAQ, and a request for an author for an EPR article
Keywords: FAQ
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1993Jan11.123725.27557@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>, darice@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Fred Rice) writes...
>I haven't seem the sci.physics FAQ posted yet.... have I missed it? 

Yes.  It is posted monthly, on or near the first of the month.   There is
also an E-mail distribution list, which I invoke any time there are significant
changes, which is almost every month.  

Regarding Bill Johnson's suggestion that I update the FAQ and make it more
user friendly:  I most wholeheartedly agree that this is an admirable goal,
one toward which I work constantly, if incrementally.  The problem is 
finding volunteers.  I do not want the FAQ to become "Physics according
to Scott."  I have often received volunteered material from well-intentioned
people, but most of it has been unusable.  Most of the good articles I get
are the result of harrassment by E-mail of people who I know are qualified
to write on various topics.  

I doubt that, even if we get many new readers for the new group, people
will be significantly more giving of their time and energy.  The result,
I expect, will be continued, slow, and hopefully steady, increase in 
material.  One day I hope to break up the FAQ into a series of linked
postings on several topcics, such as QM, ASTRO, etc.

One topic on which the FAQ is sorely lacking is EPR.  Is anyone willing
to take a crack at writing an EPR FAQ article?  I make no promises that
any one article will make it into the FAQ unedited.  I will accept no
material with an obvious "agenda."  Just the facts, please.  If you
are interested in having me start to harangue you by E-mail to write such
an article, let me know. :=)

-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
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 10:02:20 EST
From: Ken <STANTONK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Budding Physicist

My seven year old asked me a question that left me scratching my head.
Since I am not a physicist, I need your help.  :^)
His question started with queries about temperature scales, absolute
zero and so on. That I could handle. :^) Then, he asked what the MAXIMUM
possible temperature was, according to theory. My answer was, "What?".
He explained further to me, "Well, I understand that temperature is a measure
of the speed of the molecules. And you told me that Einstein's theory
means that if the molecules were travelling at the speed of light, they
should be energy, not matter. So, what temperature should that be, according
to the theory?" And I thought questions like this were only supposed to
start when they reached age 16   :-/

HELP!   Please reply directly to my email address since I don't subscribe
to this news group.  Thanks. Ken Stanton.
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,alt.conspiracy,sci.skeptic,alt.paranormal,alt.alien.visitors
From: froh@boi.hp.com (Robert Frohwerk)
Subject: Re: POP! FIZZZ.... PSI WARS!
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:11:03 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard / Boise, Idaho
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.4 PL6]

Jack Sarfatti (sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us) wrote:
: 
: Infrasound: Very low frequency sound ... causing disorientation, nausea,
: vomiting or bowel spasms ...
: 

I recall something I read in the mid '60s in a Sunday newspaper supplement.
At the time I was skeptical, so I did some study and found even more.

Background:
The brain has functions that operate at alpha and beta frequencies.
I believe these are 4-6Hz and 10-15Hz, respectively.  One of those
(beta, I think) has to do with the time delay between reception of 
images at the eyeball and recognition(?) at the brain.  

The _Weapon_:
In Viet Nam, US troops were reportedly using helicopter mounted strobe
lamps operating at those (beta) frequencies to disable enemy soldiers,
who could then be rounded up without resistance.  (Our guys wore special
glasses or something.)  We know something of this effect from experience
in discos, but apparently it can lead beyond disorientation to the other
effects mentioned as well, if prolonged.  All's fair in Love and War. :-)

Some Nam vets should be able to confirm, deny, or disavow knowledge of this.
(I was draft lottery #366, but nearly got called anyway.)

[I really wish this follow-up wasn't going to go to 6 newsgroups!
I'm reading it at alt.conspiracy.]

==Bob
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: Terry_Martin@mindlink.bc.ca (Terry Martin)
Subject: re: infinite universe
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 04:15:20 GMT

Questions by a non-scientist;

a) Can matter and space occupy the same volume simultaneously?
b) We define the universe in terms of General Relativity and Quantuum
Mechanics. I understand that these generalized terms describe the observable
universe on cosmological and sub-atomic levels reasonably well, but are
incompatible when combined in that they result in a singularity.

This implies to me that we can have a universe in which space-time can exist
in the absence of matter, but not vise versa; matter can not exist in the
absence of space-time without arriving at the dreaded singularity.

If this is true, and we can have a universe which includes space-time but not
matter, which by definition would also exclude gravity and quantuum
mechanical effects, in what terms would the universe be described? (I assume
it would contain energy).
From: larsj@kih.no (Lars M. Johansen)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: Are there important unresolved issues?
Summary: Killfile with QM ??
Date: 12 Jan 93 07:56:54 GMT
Organization: Kongsberg College of Engineering

William Johnson) writes:

>Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca> writes:
>>I'd like each to publish his killfile (if he has one). 
>Well, I will describe it -- names of two individuals that I won't specify,
>subjects QM and religion with various wildcards, "Time Has Inertia" -- but
>I fail to see the value in this exercise.

A physics moderator who has a kill file on *quantum mechanics* is to me a bit
disturbing, particularly if submitted postings will be randomly distributed
to the various moderators.

>Yet there are undoubtedly postings on quantum mechanics that *would* meet 
>out, although I suspect that those would be in a minority of the current
>QM postings.

I can see your point about much unserious stuff being posted today in sci.
physics on quantum mechanics, but I hope this doesn't mean that quantum 
mechanics postings will be largely ignored by you! Quantum mechanics, in 
all it's aspects, is surely *the* most important branch of physics today, 
and will be for a long time to come!

  Lars M. Johansen
  Dep. of Physics & Mathematics
  Kongsberg College of Engineering
  Norway
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah)
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA     (A1) EXPERIMENTALLY VERIFIED 30 TIMES/DAY
Keywords: THE CRAVE FOR GAINING A FEELING OF SECURITY
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 01:20:36 GMT

In article <abian.726609317@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu> abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:
>   I will post tonight or most probably tomorrow  GODEL's THEOREMS  and
>then there will be a pause on my part for some 10 days since I will 
>be in the meetings and after that it will depend on how would I feel.

All of us are having our fingers crossed and do hope that you'll be
feeling MUCH MUCH and very much better in 10 days.
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,sci.misc
From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 17:22:54 GMT

In article <1iqcl4INNbvi@chnews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <1993Jan10.003901.11589@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
>>In article <1ingd7INNctm@chnews.intel.com>, bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>> Let's just say that this is the sort of intellectual
>>> dishonesty that results in pronouncements that certain
>>> regions of philosophy are off-limits to exploration of
>>> a certain kind.
>>
>>Pardon me, but what on earth are you on about?
>

It was the "intellectual dishonesty", and the way in which it was supposed
to result in such pronouncements, that I didn't follow.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
From: kevinh@apple.com (Kevin Hester)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME is Massless, INERTIA persists inspite of time...
Date: 6 Jan 93 17:18:40 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.

In article <osborn.726122757@dragon> Tom Osborn, osborn@socs.uts.edu.au
writes:
>Countless undergraduate musings ago, in a diversion from number theory,
the
>reverse engineering of physical theories beckoned. A primary artefact of
the
>physicists' thought-stuff was the 3D consequential conservation - the
inverse
>square laws. 
>
>Unlike A Abian, the young explorer sought not fame and iconoclasm, but
instead
>wondered after explanations for things observed, and things recorded. 

This entire message was VERY FUNNY!  The best thing to come out of the
"TIME HAS INERTIA" hellhole...

Kevin
---------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
S. Kevin Hester      | Disclaimer: Nothing I say has anything to do     |
kevinh@apple.com     | with Apple Computer.  The red zone is for        |
Portable Beer Brewer | loading and unloading of passenger vehicles only.|
Xref: sparky sci.physics:22349 news.groups:25223 sci.misc:1977
From: sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups,sci.misc
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Date: 9 Jan 93 00:01:13 GMT
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

In article <1993Jan8.215127.4208@smsc.sony.com>, markc@smsc.sony.com (Mark Corscadden) writes:

|> I've found the discussions of the interpretations of quantum mechanics
|> to be very valuable and educational, and other discussions which would
|> be of little interest to professionals.  Are people who are intensely
|> interested in physics but committed to some other career path (like
|> software engineering) going to find sci.physics.research to be a
|> more-or-less hostile environment where their curiosity is not welcome?
|> There are always going to be new readers as well; will they find that
|> they are not very welcome too since their topics of interest were already
|> discussed last year and the year before (no re-re-rehashes)?

	A practice I've seen on other moderated news groups is to close down 
controversial/high volume topics when they've been beaten to death, and only 
allow them to be reopened when some time has gone by (say, six months or a 
year).

-- 
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.
From: reese@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA     (A1) EXPERIMENTALLY VERIFIED 30 TIMES/DAY
Date: 11 Jan 93 12:58:25 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <abian.726609317@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu>, abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:
> 
> Here is my proof.  
> 
> I was very busy during the past 10 days or so and did not have time to post 
> energetically in  TIME HAS INERTIA.  
> 
> Only very late at nights I had some time to scan thru sci.physics postings.  
> 
> There was a considerable lull in the usual huge amount of postings for
> advising the readers to kill-file TIME HAS INERTIA". 
> 
> I told my colleague that I will prove to him the predictability powers
> of (A1) and its experimental verifiability.  I told my colleague that
> based on (A1), I predict that if  I post an article concerning the fact 
> that I consider  
>                  THE  ORDINARY LANGUAGE
> 
> as the most outstanding intellectual achievement of the human species, 
> there will be a hysterical reaction on the part of "the Guardians of
> Reality , Truth, Consistency, Science and Physics" to my posting
> 
>    Indeed, the predictability of (A1) was established.  You can check for 
> yourself that the volume of postings for " organizing alternative groups 
> such as science physics ..., science physics ****, science Physics ###, 
> etc" after my posting of  ORDINARY LANGUAGE on 1-8-93,  suddenly became
> more than 30/day.
>
>     Of course  the "Guardians of Reality, Truth, Consistency and Physics"
> will tell you that it was just a coincidence!

Oh dear.  If I post a message saying "You, Abian, are a complete moron
and you're bloody ugly, to boot", it would hardly be surprising if you
wrote to me telling me I'm an ignorant idiot.  However, if you did not
read my posting then you would not reply.  The posting would still
exist, though.  So, we get back to the old argument that what you say,
A1, A2, A3, whatever, is not worth anything because it cannot make
reasonable predictions and therefore is not worth replacing the whole
of physics for.

>    I am exhausted it is time to stop and listen to the 24-th
> etude of Chopin in  A minor. 

Yes, I'm off to listen to Handel Op.6 No.5.

> 
>    With love.
>                                          Alexander Abian

With extreme tenderness,

Jason (not the one from Arizona)
From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TOP in TIME
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:04:17 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <93006.213136WALID@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> WALID@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Walid Majid) writes:
>There is an article in this week's issue of Time, about the discovery of
>the top quark by the CDF collaboration.  It mentions two events that could
>be t -> W + b events with W -> mu + nu_mu.

I did not see this article, but a local member of D0 (that is D-zero with 
a slash through the 0), now running in competition with CDF with the 
disadvantage of starting late but the advantage of almost an order of 
magnitude bigger acceptance, posted just such an event on the bulletin 
board here in mid-December.  

The Lego plot alleged to show the decay of a t-tbar, with both decaying 
into W+b with the b into a jet and the W into mu-nu.  The nu is, of 
course, missing energy and momentum.  I guess I believe them.  It must 
be remembered that this is not resonant production and this is not nearly 
as clear a case as for the J/psi.  A large number of such events must 
be compared to the MC predictions for this process before any conclusions 
can be reached about existence, mass, etc.  The person I asked about this 
said they were not even prepared to speculate as to whether seeing this 
event indicated a rate consistent with the mass around 130 GeV suggested 
by the CERN results.  We will probably have to wait a year to know for 
sure, although it sounds like the PR has started already. 

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: Are there important unresolved issues?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 22:29:32 GMT

In article <MERRITT.93Jan12102855@macro.bu.edu> merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt) writes:
>
>#In article <1993Jan11.223445.13105@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>   Sean Merritt writes:
>   >As I stated before I object to one memeber of the panel. Now I find that
>   >after the discussion I also don't have much confidence in Baez to
>   >perform as a "filter" if articles in sum are to be considered as
>   >ensembles of indistinguishable particles. Nevertheless I feel that he
>   >and Dale may have some "constructive ineterference" efffect and 
>   >all my objections may be for nought.(see below)
>
> #  Could you provide a more specific and less metaphorical explanation of
> #  why you no longer have confidence in my abilities as a filter?
> #  Certainly if a majority of people think I'm being unduly harsh on
> #  articles about interpretation of QM, I will gladly recant (as I mentioned).
> Your analogy, and I must paraphrase, was that you would bow out if there
> was a dispute over an article, then you proceded to to say something
> about electrons and indistiguishable particles. 

Since neither of us seems to recall exactly what I said about electrons
and indistinguishable (p)articles I think I'll drop the analogy with QM.
I think it was probably an attempt at humor in the first place.

I said I would bow out if there was a 2-2 irreconcilable split over a
given article.  The chances of this occuring are minimal; all of us
moderators are far too busy to wrestle seriously over a single article.
Indeed, this is certain to be true of anyone competent to moderate the
group.  

>If you can't differentiate you will not be a good filter.

I never meant to say I could not or would not differentiate between
articles.  I certainly would.  I have posted some remarks on how I might
do so, in order to see whether people think I am too tough, not tough
enough, etc.. 

> As I said above though it is much more
> important that the criteria(for acceptance/rejection of articles) 
> are posted here before we vote.

Here I agree.  In particular, the "lightly moderated" idea seems to
conflict with the idea held by some moderators that 20 posts per day is
about right.  A somewhat more precise charter of the newsgroup might be
in order.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah)
Subject: Re: The instantaneous transfer of information in QM calculations
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 00:57:07 GMT

In article <481@mtnmath.UUCP> paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes:
>The questions and objections to my proof that QM is an incomplete
>theory all relate to the role that wave state reduction plays as
>a *necessary* *intermediate* step in QM calculations. It is easy to see the
>necessity for this step and easy to see how this step introduces
>an ambiguity about what the *macroscopically observable* delays will be.
> [...]
>quantum mechanics. There is no way that such information can be conveyed
>by the linear propagation of the wave function as determined by the
>Schrodinger equation. With that mechanism the shortest time in which such
>information can effect the results is the time it would take light to
>travel from the *more distant* polarizer to the detector. If the
>delay is this long there would be no violation of locality and the
>predictions of QM would be false.

Paul, I'm not a quantum mechanic (I wish most of the time I was one
with a 50% polarization :-), but I don't think the projection postulate
necessarily requires this collapse thing.  I think it states that
after an experimentation the system will be in state given by: P_a|H> = c<H|H>
or something like that.  I don't see anything collapsing here.  Then there
is the statistical operator that takes care of everything that one can say
about the experiment. I don't see anything about linear propagation of wave 
function etc either. Are you questioning whether |H|^2 is really a probability ?

P.S: A good book for the layman is by Sidney sudbery called QM and the particles
of nature.
From: dougp@hplsla.hp.com (Doug Passey)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 16:31:56 GMT
Subject: Re: in favor of a moderated physics group
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Newsgroups: sci.physics

I am no longer actively involved in physics, although my degrees are in the
field.  I am now a software engineer, but like to keep up with developments in
physics as best I can.  

This notes group is a joke!  There are more postings here each day then on
the rec.arts.startrek groups ... come on , we're talking physics here ... there
can't be that much new, interesting stuff each day!  I don't like to have
to sort out the crackpot stuff from the interesting news.  I would welcome 
a moderated conference to filter out the junk ... but I would hope
that interesting news is not filtered out as being to low level for a
"research" news group.  I hope the moderators will keep in mind those of us
who only browse this group and are not working physicists and not overly
restrict the postings ... just filter out the crackpots.
Xref: sparky sci.physics:22183 news.groups:25077
From: Richard.Mathews@West.Sun.COM (Richard M. Mathews)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups
Subject: Re: sci.physics.research: proposed panel of moderators
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: 6 Jan 93 20:51:17 GMT
Organization: Sunsoft Inc., Los Angeles, CA.
NNTP-Posting-Host: astro
Originator: richard@astro

MRG3@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt) says:
>>I reject DB as a moderator I suggest another should be chosen.
>>My reason is that based on Mr. Bass' contribution to this group
>>I find that his posts are more noise than signal.

>Well, I accept Dale Base as a moderator....

>Surely there will be a (limited) appeal process for rejected articles
>in the new newsgroup.  That should satisfy any concerns about a
>particular moderator's predispositions.

I am not so worried that DB might reject good articles as I am that he
will let through garbage.  Of 10 postings by DB currently sitting in our
news spool, I count only 2 which I would consider on topic but not endless
rehashing.

Followups to news.groups.

     Richard M. Mathews			D efend
					 E stonian-Latvian-Lithuanian
Richard.Mathews@West.Sun.COM		  I ndependence
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Advise needed
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 21:34:54 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.040519.20022@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> mkagalen@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (michael kagalenko) writes:
>What Graduate level books about conformal invariance applications in
>physics (with intro to said invariance) would you wizards recommend ? 
>Thank you.

Assuming I count as a wizard....  First you should decide whether you
are primarily interested in 4-dimensional physics or 2-dimensional
physics.  The conformal group is finite-dimensional in the former case,
infinite-dimensional in the latter, so the two topics are quite
different in flavor.  As for 4-dimensional physics, you might try
Penrose and Rinder's Spinors and Spacetime (2 volumes).  As for
2-dimensional physics, you might try Kaku's two books on string theory.
(Especially for the latter, you will need to consult the references to
get a handle on the vast literature.)  There are also lots of
applications of 2-dimensional conformal invariance to condensed matter
theory, but I don't know an especially good starting-point.


Newsgroups: sci.physics