HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mhosea@seas.smu.edu (Mike Hosea)
Subject: Re: STRUCTURE OF TIME  --  interpretation?
Organization: SMU School Of Engineering and Applied Science
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 23:00:25 GMT

Dale Bass writes:
>      of religion admits no falsification of previous dogma, as
>      does physics.  This is a huge difference.  If tomorrow the
>      concept of charge is found to be no longer as useful as
>      some other construct due to a falisfication of some aspect
>      of nature that we consider charge, we'd either alter
>      the concept of charge or adopt the new construct wholly.
>
>      Unless you're starting your own, religion rarely offers
>      similar freedom.

Actually it usually does, but people seem to have such difficulty discerning
the critical elements of their religious belief system from the essentially
irrelevant ones that they prefer not to alter even the tiniest belief if it
can somehow be avoided.  Reflect on the Roman Catholic church's journey into
the age of scientific discovery--a lot of dogma was eradicated, stuff that
shouldn't have been dogma in the first place.  

>     That is why the process of physics includes experimental data
>     for falsification.  Faith offers no such falsification.

It is often the case that people assume beliefs as a matter of Faith about 
things that ARE subject to falsification.  Your definition of Faith is
idealist and too narrow.

>>to unexplored territory is an article of faith that the predictions of
>>the best current theory will hold there too.  I would not object
>>however to "extremely likely" in place of "inevitable."  (I too have
>>faith.)
>    
>     This is not Faith, this is expectation.  If it were Faith,
>     it would not matter if the predictions were satisfied or not.
>
>     Faith has nothing to do with satisfying predictions and nothing
>     to do with science.
>
>                             dale bass

I agree that Faith has nothing to do with science, but science has become
a kind of religion to atheists.  Faith gives people the power to fill in
gaps of knowledge that science may never be able to address.  Scientists 
and laymen alike seem to find it difficult to separate their Faith from 
science, irrespective of whether that Faith's origin is theistic or atheistic.
One scarcely has to mention the word "evolution" and a hot debate ensues
that rarely has an intellectual tone.  I think the source of this conflict
is that some beliefs held in Faith are clearly out of the domain of science
and some are not.  When some tidbit of scientific knowledge casts doubt on
a belief held in Faith, people seem to find it easier to defend their Faith, 
sometimes to the point of violence, rather than reassess whether the belief
has any real relevance to the core of their theistic or atheistic tenets. 
-- 
Regards,
Mike Hosea (mhosea@seas.smu.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: Understand...!!!!
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 22:11:39 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.061158.15794@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes:

)Time is the length of timelike worldlines. That's all. Just take
)spacetime seriously, and the universe is yours.             : 

But - what is length?  :-)


Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: magdi@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Magdi N Azer)
Subject: MINUIT Software developed at CERN
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 17:11:04 GMT
Keywords: Linear Programming

	Is anyone familiar with a package called MINUIT.  It was developed at
CERN starting in 1965 (I think), and the last reference I found on it was 1984.

	It is used to solve linear programming problems where you are trying
to fit your data to some function.  Is it public domain?  How can I get a copy
of this program

Thanks for your help
magdi@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: dooley@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Kevin Dooley)
Subject: Re: Over the hill at 40?
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 13:35:20 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.094759.25778@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes:
>Some time ago I received a letter from the son of an old friend, seeking
>advice as to whether he should endeavour to become a [theoretical]
>physicist. He has just completed a BS in a respectable US university.
>Among other penetrating remarks, he observes: " I noticed that
>relatively few of the profs over the age of 40 were active in research,
>even though they obviously knew their stuff. Why is that? What do I do
>if I find myself in that situation?"
>How should I reply? [ Please don't regale me with anecdotes about how
>dear old Professor Methuselah is still publishing at the age of 132. Of
>course if you wish to deny that people over 40 are, in general, markedly
>less active, then by all means argue that point.] Thanks.

This is a demographic problem which is common throughout North America.
During the 60's an enormous number of physicists were hired because of
a combination of two effects: to teach the baby boomers, and to compete
with Sputnik.  If these people were all in their late 20's in the mid 60's,
then in the mid 90's they are in their late 50's.  So the result is that
there is a seriously bi-modal distribution of physicists by age.  The 
people who are significantly younger than this are mostly still quite
active in research because they are still working for promotions and 
because a lot of them are just amazingly good physicists.  Of the older
crew, many are still working because they are very good and talented.
A few have stopped working for a variety of reasons.  I think that the
most important of these are that, since it was so easy to get a job in
the 60's as an academic physicist (compared to how hard it has been since
then), a significant number of utter incompetants were hired.  There is
less of this now because competition is greater.  Also, it is just plain
difficult to keep up with the cutting edge for a long time, so many of
the older crew have passed the flag to their younger colleagues.  There
is, however, no reason for a physicist to stop producing good quality
research just because they are over 40.  I mean, it's not like we're 
talking about professional atheletes or anything.

Kevin
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: matt@physics.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Wavefunction of the universe calculated!!!
Date: 11 Oct 92 13:11:42
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
	<burt.718667740@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
	<1992Oct11.190420.9625@galois.mit.edu>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu's message of Sun, 11 Oct 92 19:04:20 GMT

In article <1992Oct11.190420.9625@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:

> That wasn't the wavefunction, that was the Lagrangian for the universe.
> By the way, I believe that it was a Lagrangian for a supersymmetric
> field theory that real physicists have studied, but with the individual
> terms labelled with terms like "truth," "harmony," "consciousness".

What the Maharishi published was, in fact, the Lagrangian for N=8
supergravity.  Bruno Zumino gave a SUSY seminar last semester; he
showed us one of the Maharishi's posters when he got to the
appropriate part of the course.  And, indeed, the Maharishi had
labelled the individual terms with spiritual meaning---some kinetic
energy term was labelled "universal bliss," and so on.

The reason for all of this is that John Hagelin, a real particle
physicist who has done some reasonably important work in
supersymmetry, was one of the Maharishi's converts.  He used to work
on N=8 SUGRA, and he convinced the Maharishi that it was of vast
spiritual importance.

(Dr. Hagelin is now running for President, for the Natural Law Party.
One of his campaign points is that he has taken a brain scan; he
challenges the other candidates to do the same.)
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Crackpot index
Organization: MIT, Department of Mathematics
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 05:08:37 GMT


Aephraim M. Steinberg writes:

>I'll take advantage of the continued non-existence of the crackpot
index....

Huh?  It exists and has been applied to two notable cases so far.
So watch out!  :-)

Concerning Scott's point, that the danger of the crackpot index is that
it may be used to intimidate people in situations where reasoned dialog
is preferable.  This is a danger to consider, and I *have* considered
it, but I believe my system is okay.  First, I myself would only think
of applying it in the most blatant cases when it is utterly clear that
reasoned dialog is impossible (it takes two to have a reasoned dialog).
Second, the index itself is computed in a repeatable fashion (although
in the cases I have computed it, I have only calculated a lower bound,
since I have applied quite a bit of mercy).  This is far preferable to
what often takes place, namely, simply hurling insults; it is, in fact,
a means of stating precisely certain ways in which the proper scientific
method is not being followed in a given post.  Third, there are no
points given for proposing bizarre theories per se (only for claiming
that they are of revolutionary importance in the absence of evidence).
And there is only a measly sanction for making statements that are
widely agreed to be false or logically inconsistent.  

Of course, despite the pompous tone of the above, I wouldn't take this
"crackpot index" stuff too seriously.
From: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Black Holes, Hawking Radiation, and Entropy
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:39:13
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
	<1992Oct15.120352.17687@sei.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics2.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: firth@sei.cmu.edu's message of Thu, 15 Oct 1992 12:03:52 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.120352.17687@sei.cmu.edu> firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:

> In other words, isn't this just another example, though admittedly an
> extreme one, of the contradiction between microscopic reversibility
> and macroscopic irreversibility?

There's a little bit more to it than that.  I haven't read any of
Hawking's papers on the subject, but I think I understand what's
going on mathematically.

The most general situation for a physical system, of course, isn't a
pure quantum-mechanical state, but a mixture of states, represented by
the density matrix.  (A pure state is represented by a density matrix
rho where Tr(rho^2) = 1.)  You can write an equation for the time
evolution of the density matrix, and it is straightforward to show
that if the density matrix starts with Tr(rho^2)=1, this condition
will persist.  In other words: pure states don't evolve into mixed
states.

Now consider a black hole.  Suppose something falls into a black
hole---something described by a pure quantum-mechanical state.  What
happens?  Well, eventually the black hole will all evaporate into
Hawking radiation.  This is just thermal black-body radiation, i.e.,
the radiation is described by a density matrix given by the Boltzmann
factor.  It certainly appears, at any rate, as if what is happening is
that a pure state is evolving into a mixed state.

(I've left some things out; there are some more steps you have to take
to show that there's really a problem here.)

So what's the solution?  I don't know.  Some people have suggested
that quantum mechanics has to be modified in such a way so that it is
possible for pure states to evolve into mixed states.  My own feeling
is that since we haven't even observed black holes at all, let alone
Hawking radiation, it's a bit premature to start modifying quantum
mechanics on the basis of how Hawking radiation works.
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.math,sci.philosophy.tech
From: dhl@mrdog.msl.com (Donald H. Locker)
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA, ALTERING THE EARTH'S TILT ... Reply to: WOMBAT
Organization: Chelsea MSL, Inc., Chelsea, MI
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 15:43:17 GMT

In article <abian.718566997@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu> abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:
>[rantings deleted]
>Even if we get rid of the epidemic of AIDS, surely the epidemic of
>something more pernicious and deadly than AIDS will come.

Overpopulation.  The ultimate decimator.  :)

                                                            It will be so 
>since our Solar System has relentlessly maintained this pattern for
>5 billion years.

It's just trying to rid itself of this infestation of life!!

[more deletia]
>   As a first step, people must change their status quo maintaining men-
>tality and give up accepting the present scenario of 
>our Solar System's organization, the Orbit , the Tilt and the Size of 
> Earth  as the only possible ones.  They must be altered in order to
> stop the   inexorable, relentless,and persistent human life threatening 
>calamities.
> 
>                                                    Alexander ABIAN

Are you trying to suggest that we can further the process?

I must be getting cynical.  Sorry for the use of precious bandwidth.
-- 
Donald.                      Speaking only for myself.

ALL NEW .sig lite - 28% fewer chars, reduced meaning!!
From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA Reply to: Steven Groom
Date: 11 Oct 92 16:36:25 GMT



If time has inertia, and four dimensional spacetime is good model,
then space must have inertia, must it not?

``Time is eternal'' - The KLF.


Gordon Joly      Phone  +44 71 387 7050 ext 3703      FAX  +44 71 387 1397
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk        UUCP: ...!{uunet,uknet}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.math,sci.philosophy.tech
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: STRUCTURE OF TIME
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 00:41:24 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.211033.14381@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:
>In article <1992Oct3.011338.4175@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>>    Physics has nothing to say about
>>    morality or religion and vice versa.
>>                              dale bass
>
>While it is true that morality and religion do not put the laws of
>either nature or logic under a microscope, M&R tends to lose its broad
>appeal when it denies the more visible features of those laws, leaving
>only the most extreme fundamentalists as its remaining believers.  As
>science teaches more of us more about those laws, morality and religion
>are obliged to keep pace, to have a lot to say about physics, and more
>generally about the laws of nature and logic, if they are not to be
>relegated to the looney fringe.
>
>Conversely it should be possible to examine any religion, however old,
>for signs of what its developers perceived then as those laws of nature
>and logic that would be hard to talk "the flock" out of.  Moreover the
>more progressive religions, e.g. the Jesuits, can be assumed to be
>trying to stay ahead of the flock by keeping their codicils consistent
>with the most up to date understanding of those laws.
>
>What modern physics can say then about any moralities or religions, of
>whatever age, is how right or wrong they were on any given point of
>physics.

     From the perspective of physics, this may well be true.  However,
     religions do not have to play by the rules of physics.  A doctrine
     of faith does not admit falsifiability, no matter how falsifiable
     the underlying physics may appear to us.  This is the reason that
     a 6000 year old universe with random fossils and stars and galaxies
     that appear much older is a perfectly consistent religion.  Its
     lack of falsifiability makes it perfectly horrid science.  (Since there
     is no reason to assume one start time over another, we'd do
     just as well to assume that the universe was created a nanosecond
     ago, with all of the apparent past manufactured by the creator.)

     This is the difficulty with intruding on an area armed with 
     a set of rules that is inappropriate for that area.  If you insist
     on judging religion by the rules of science, then expect unwanted
     incursions into science by those armed with the rules of faith.

     Faith is very powerful, and I hope we can keep it far far away from
     physics.

                                dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
From: produit@lblcdf.lbl.gov ()
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Magnetic levitation
Date: 15 Oct 1992 17:07:15 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
Distribution: world
Reply-To: produit@lblcdf.lbl.gov ()
NNTP-Posting-Host: cdf1.lbl.gov


I think that div(b)=0 prevent you to have a static equilibrium point. If such a point exist all closed suface around this point will have a non vanishing flux integral. But you can design a time varying magnetic field wich make a dynamic equilibrium possible. If I remember right one of the recent Nobel Prize was given for such a process enabling to trap ions.
Nicolas
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: 1992 Nobel Prizes: a prediction
Date: 9 Oct 92 15:44:21 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: chaiken@cmsgee.llnl.gov (Alison Chaiken)

Here's an off-the-wall nomination: Seymour Cray.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE)
Subject: Re: VERY fundamental question
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 17:32:00 GMT

ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering) writes...
>A: Oh, I see. Little photons run out of the magnet, grab the needle with
>   their tiny hands an pull it!

Hmm. So why does pulling on something with your hands make that something
move? Why doesn't your hand pass right through the doorknob? (After all,
the atoms in your hand are something like 99.9999999% empty space)

Dave Ring
dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
From: sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Space Age
Date: 7 Oct 1992 12:46 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

I pulled the following notice off sci.space.news today:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Beginning next Monday, October 12, the Public Broadcasting System will
air a new weekly series - "Space Age " - which documents the first
steps of humans into space.  The program is in six parts, with each
segment covering a specific aspect of space exploration.  The first
episode, "Quest for Planet Mars," delves into the ages-old dream of
exploring the Red Planet.  The programs commemorate the International
Space Year and include extensive supporting materials for educational
and public outreach activities.  WQED, Pittsburgh, is the series
producer, with Japan's NHK, Sweden's SVT-1, and the Dutch TROS networks
as co-producers.  The series was produced in association with the
National Academy of Sciences, which provided scientific oversight.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The "Space Age" film crew visited LBL last year and spent a morning
with me up at the (now defunct) Streamer Chamber scanning room.  We
discussed the role of cosmic ray physics, and experiments at the 
Bevalac, in NASA's attempts to design Space Station Freedom, with 
emphasis on safety to its inhabitants.  

I don't know why they asked *me* these things.  The whole thing was
completely impromptu.  Someone brought them by my lab, and they started
asking questions.  They were looking around for interesting photo 
opportunities, and for someone with a big mouth, I suppose. I did the best 
I could to give them the kind of flashy high-tech demonstrations that 
would encourage them to use the film in their final production.  Whether 
they did or not, I cannot say.  I assume that they visited other groups 
as well, and that some of what they taped survived to make it into the 
final production.

So if you want to see what I look like, and why I abandoned my theatrical
aspirations for a career in physics, check it out.  And no, I don't really
dress like that.  They made me put on someone else's clothing because
my white shirt would not videotape well.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"The question seems to be of such a character
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		that if I should come to life after my death
				and some mathematician were to tell me that it
				had been definitely settled, I think I would
				immediately drop dead again."      - Vandiver
From: matt@physics.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Time to develop a crackpot index?
Date: 14 Oct 92 15:16:12
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
	<14OCT199210280058@csa1.lbl.gov> <1992Oct14.201718.9125@galois.mit.edu>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu's message of 14 Oct 92 20:17:18 GMT

In article <1992Oct14.201718.9125@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:

> >Claiming to deserve the Nobel prize is a 20 (unless you really do, in which
> >case it's only a 5 for arrogance.).
> 
> I agree with these and will put them in.  Abian seems to be the latest
> offender.  Also, 50 for claiming to be God unless you are.  :-)

Another entry for the Crackpot Index: defending yourself by bringing
up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to past theories.  ("Everyone
laughs at me, but don't forget: they all laughed at Edison.  They all
laughed at Columbus.  They all laughed at Bozo the Clown.")
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!
From: johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: philisophical joke
Date: 9 Oct 92 18:36:53 GMT
Reply-To: johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin

In article <1992Oct02.041605.1427@rvgs.vak12ed.edu>,
abond@rvgs.vak12ed.edu (Andrew H. Bond) writes:
|>
|>	Since people have been posting math jokes to
|>sci.physics, I guess phil. jokes should be o.k. too.
|>
|>	A famous philosopher walks into a bar.
|> The bar-tender asks, "would you like a beer?"
|> The philosopher replies, "I think not," and vanishes.
|>			AHB :-)
|>-- 

This reminds me of a particularly cute peice of graffitti I read once.

"I'm pink, therefore I'm spam"

source: men's restroom downstairs in el Azteco restuarant in E. Lansing Mi.
in Early 1980's


-john w. cobb
             
gots t'love them greasy nachos