General > Biology
Crows are pretty damn smart
Testlund:
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---Um, don't trust "scientists" that post on youtube. You tube is for dogs on skateboards. Here's another tip: if they say something like "what was before the big bang" or "why did the big bang happen then instead of before or later", they don't know what they're talking about. Time itself started at the big bang. There was no "before", because there was no time. There also wasn't a "somewhere else", because space didn't exist either.
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You can't just disregard something because of the place it has been presented. On the contrary, YouTube is such a popular and well known place that if somebody wants to get information out, that's where it should be presented, instead of hiding it in hard to find scientific papers. You need to analyse the information that is presented. Does it make sense? If what the guy says about the hubble telescope and doppler effect makes sense then it is something of worth to consider.
EricL:
I must say I find this thread mildly embarrassing. It makes me less likely to point friends and aquaintences to DB.
People are welcome to disagree with prevailing scientific viewpoints and site whatever reasons they wish for doing so, however irrational or nosensical. But I find the lack of rational thinking and blatent, delibert spouting of pusedo-science mumbo jumbo displayed here to be sad and disappointing, especially in that it is outside the off-topic forum. I for one, would have hoped that people who are attracted to DB would be by and large more scientifically minded and/or less prone to be duped than this thread would indicate.
Numsgil:
--- Quote from: gymsum ---Nums, I derivered the infinity from the indea of the 1%. If you have 1% of something, you have 99% remainining not yours (or unknown). Ther rule of devision by nine means the remaining unknonw (or not yours) is 1/99 or .1 repeating into infinity. The same would hold treu if you knew 50% of all the universal knowledge, theres still an infinity of .5s to have learned before you can say I know 51% of everything. If you consider eacg digit a bit of knowledge, you realize how much information there truely is (since we're speaking in stats, the percentage represnents what humans currently know and wish to know).
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And you were doing so well You're assuming a priori that the amount of knowable information about the universe is infinite. That's a pretty big jump. And what kind of infinity is it? Countable or uncountable? That is, is it the sort of infinity like natural numbers, where we might not have used every number possible, but we can easily construct any number we want at any time? Or is it the sort of thing where the more you know, the more you don't know, on forever? You can make philosophical arguments either way, but neither is a given.
--- Quote ---The energy is in photon, the chemical reactions of the sun relaese the photons as energy, the entire amount fo photons realesed is so great, it actually weights 4 million metric tons. Im not sure how or why, but I do known it is nuclear fusion. As all its reserves of fuel become hydrogen, the sun will eventually become colder and darker. (what is it nitrogen to hydrogen? idk I never took chemistry).
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That doesn't really say much. And you're wildly confusing different elements in the periodic table. This also isn't really a chemistry thing... Try to read this article, and see if you can come back and try again
--- Quote ---Infinity: If you can imagine a decimal place as a mirrored part of the whole. So .5 is a half mirror image of 1, and .05 is a half mirror image of .5 and so on. So .5 repeating indefinitely is a sefl mirror image of .5 continuously, meaning there is an infinite threshhold between the last .5 and the next. This threshhold comes from the Chaos THeory, and fractals. Google search a fractal if you're not sure. The amount of space between one area of color and where another color intersects, is inifinitely small, and no matter how much magnification is used, there will always be a gap between the two. This is why things like weather are impossible to predict. Now this may have is own named theory, but I say its easier to remember it as the theory of infinity. The real life example being money. Say you have 1 dollar. You buy a soda thats half what is in your wallet. So the next time you buy the soda it only costs half your wallet, and gives you equally as much halves as your wallet is from its starting ballance (meaning the second soda is half as large, and the third is half as large as the second, and so on). At no point did you run out of money, but the amount of liquid purchased equates to the total sum of all charges made on your wallet (meaning 1 + .5 + .05 and so on until some limit is reached, left for the masses to decide).
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It's called an infinite series. The infinite series Sum(1/n) n -> infinity. But you can't take it as some sort of mystical cosmological thing. Some infinite series converge to a number. Some diverge to infinity. This one just barely diverges. If you took sum((1/n)^1.00000000001) n->infinity, it would converge. See this article (look for p series).
--- Quote ---This idea was also held true with the latest geometric proof. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/proof/ This proof took him an entire lifetime to prove one concept; and beyond that it was something said to be common knowledge, but not yet proven. So inorder to gain 1 new proof from the thousnads in exsistance, it took one life time. As opposed to the first proof which may have very well taken a few hours to think up to produce 1 out of the entire known proofs. Its just an attempt to explain how difficult it is to continue to expand on anything using numbers.
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But the amount of man power involved is also increasing exponentially. Our pace in science has increased, not decreased, since the time of the Greeks. Who's to say that mankind's exponential increase in manpower won't match the exponential increase in new questions needing answers?
Also, Fermat's last theorem shouldn't be considered an "easy" problem. It was one of the hardest outstanding problems in math for a long time. See Fermat's last theorem (BTW, this theorem should be familiar to any science fiction fans. There's an episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation, where Pickard is trying to solve Fermat's last theorem.)
--- Quote from: Testlund ---
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---Um, don't trust "scientists" that post on youtube. You tube is for dogs on skateboards. Here's another tip: if they say something like "what was before the big bang" or "why did the big bang happen then instead of before or later", they don't know what they're talking about. Time itself started at the big bang. There was no "before", because there was no time. There also wasn't a "somewhere else", because space didn't exist either.
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You can't just disregard something because of the place it has been presented. On the contrary, YouTube is such a popular and well known place that if somebody wants to get information out, that's where it should be presented, instead of hiding it in hard to find scientific papers. You need to analyse the information that is presented. Does it make sense? If what the guy says about the hubble telescope and doppler effect makes sense then it is something of worth to consider.
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It's not just that he posted on youtube. It's the use of very obvious propoganda techniques, and his obvious lack of understanding about the science of the big bang. He also makes logically inconsistent statements ("there are so many theories, therefore none of them are right". WTF?) That, and he talks about biology like biology has anything at all to do with the big bang (hint: it does not). It's just a thinly veiled attempt by a creationist to discredit science. I'm not a fan of people who spend their time being nonconstructive (this policy applies on both sides of the fence. I can't stand Richard Dawkins either).
I can give you a line-for-line rebutle of the video if you want.
gymsum:
We already know that a Modulous (or even Modular fucntion) can be used to create counting systems. But it doesnt matter if you do so, the numbers can be translated; but its when you attempt to count the entire possible counting systems that its no longer calculable. True, we have a profound understanding for how things work; true we know that the Big Bang seems likely from this. But even with all our current knowledge, we know just as little of our creation as the ancients that mystified themselves with religious figures and magical ideas. Regardless of what we may be able to percieve from our own world, we still lack many phenomena that occur frequently throughout our universe. The theory of multiple dimensions (which is actually part of the string theory 'multi-dimensional harmonic strings') proves that because of a limitation in percepetion, there exsists an infinity which nothing can nomprehend. We as humans have the ability to ask why, and its still a profound question. Asking Why inplies that the action or result was caused by some set of agenda, or motive or plot. But Why the Universe works is as complex a question as asking why water can become all three states at once with no way of possibly showing the results without mere numbers (like in this post). So why does the Universe do what it does? Well each theory of physics explained the reaction we see and what mathematical equation fit the conditions. True 1+1 = 2 and so does 3-1, its the same result under completely different circumstances. So even if the same result is deduced there exists an infinite potential for how the result is achieved.
Honestly, I never learned the table of Elements because it was of no use to me, I just copied them down for biology. Regardless of how fusion works in the sun, its still where my thought of vibrational frequencies came in. The way the enteractions occur and the way sound waves interfere and augment, and the way light blends. The mechanics which causes the sound waves to augment could be said to be the same as doppler on light waves (since the augmentation in hot air causes the speed of sound to increase and bend the sound towarsds the ground much similar to light bending around gravity). Verying levels of pressure in a closed system will produce verying levels in gravity, since the more pressure the more content there is within the space or pocket. So the final energy we have yet to understand is dark energy, which has a repelling force. It exsists everywhere, but the balance between matter with positive gravity and dark matter is crutial to preventing every object in the Universe from collapsing in onitself into a singularity. This balance I believe is a rythm more or less, since the amount of Dark Energy makes up more than 50% of the entire mass of the Universe (otherwise we would be collapsing, not speeding up). And since we as beings are composed of this balance, the result is a being in constant flux (not necessarly mentaly but physically). Everything must be able to expand to live, otherwise the being can not store any energy and thus cannot function even genetically. So our entire knowledge of the Universe and Absolutely Everything, is limited to the fact that we have only experienced one universe, we often only live in 3 dimensions at best, and perception of reality within our own habitat is based on the idea of self-superiority rather than knowing everything that follows some code or logic. Also, not every person involved to finding new discoveries is 100% efficient or successful, it took Socrates alone to discover what he knew about the Earth (or so its written).
The problem I see with people that have to ask who started everything, is that that kind of quesiton is based on the fact that somebody else started you hopefully for a reason. But with the Universe everything happens for no purpose that is of any importance, there is no magical spaceship to take us all off to heaven, and most certainly we will be completely unable to prevent or guide how what and when the Universe does anything. To do so would mean that the Universe has a counciousness, and a set of moral codes you could use to fast talk the Universe out of or into doing something.
Numsgil:
--- Quote from: gymsum ---We already know that a Modulous (or even Modular fucntion) can be used to create counting systems.
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I'm not talking about mod. I'm talking about countably infinite vs. uncountably infinite. I assume you know that there is more than one type of infinity?
--- Quote ---But it doesnt matter if you do so, the numbers can be translated; but its when you attempt to count the entire possible counting systems that its no longer calculable.
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You mean counting the natural numbers? That's an example (a rather tautological one) of a countably infinite set. It has different properties than uncountably infinite sets (real numbers are uncountably infinite, IIRC).
However, in either case, you can still arrive at proofs for every element in the set by using the properties of the set. One of the first things you do in a Mathematics major at a university is do proofs that involve even and odd numbers. You can proove things about even and odd natural numbers that are true for every single even or odd natural number, regardless if that natural number has even been conceived of by humans ever (maybe it has so many digits that its impossible to list it in the space of time given by the life of the universe).
My point here is that infinity does not mean uncountable or unknowable.
--- Quote ---True, we have a profound understanding for how things work; true we know that the Big Bang seems likely from this. But even with all our current knowledge, we know just as little of our creation as the ancients that mystified themselves with religious figures and magical ideas.
...
So why does the Universe do what it does? Well each theory of physics explained the reaction we see and what mathematical equation fit the conditions. True 1+1 = 2 and so does 3-1, its the same result under completely different circumstances. So even if the same result is deduced there exists an infinite potential for how the result is achieved.
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That depends a great deal on what you mean by "know". And really is a whole philosophical can of worms that goes back to the Greeks and their shadow puppets Ignoring the philosophy for a moment, I would say that it doesn't matter what the "actual" mechanisms are that the universe uses to work. If our scientific models allow us to predict the behavior of all known facts, it is irrelevant wether that our models are "true" or not. This is the "if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck" principle. If we can't distinguish between our theoretical models' results, and real life results, then the theoretical model describes real life, by any practical viewpoint.
--- Quote ---The theory of multiple dimensions (which is actually part of the string theory 'multi-dimensional harmonic strings') proves that because of a limitation in percepetion, there exsists an infinity which nothing can nomprehend.
--- End quote ---
First of all, string theory is not a theory yet (by which I mean you can not take the things it predicts, like multiple dimensions, as fact). Assuming it were, though, you don't have to "comprehend" the reality of something to understand the math behind it. For instance, I cannot "imagine" what a fourth spatial dimension would look like, but I can understand the math well enough and make solid predictions about how things would work in such a universe. That's really the magic of math: it lets you approach otherwise unapproachable ideas.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that there does not exist any self-consistent idea, imaginable or otherwise, for which a mathematical model could not be built that would allow predictions to be made about that idea, and through that math allow anyone reasonably educated to understand it in any practical sense of the word.
--- Quote ---We as humans have the ability to ask why, and its still a profound question. Asking Why inplies that the action or result was caused by some set of agenda, or motive or plot. But Why the Universe works is as complex a question as asking why water can become all three states at once with no way of possibly showing the results without mere numbers (like in this post).
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I disagree. Higher math doesn't usually involve numbers. It usually involves symbol manipulation and sets and the like. It's using these higher maths that the universe might be understood (string theory has a strong foundation in Topology, IIRC).
--- Quote ---Honestly, I never learned the table of Elements because it was of no use to me, I just copied them down for biology.
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I'm not saying that you should be able to reattle off what element atomic number 42 is. But you should have at least a passing understanding of Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, Carbon, and Nitrogen, since our entire existence as Humans in the solar system revolves around those elements. You should also at least know the three "elementary" particles: proton, neutron, and electron. And the photon, of course (not an elementary particle. More of an abstraction, really). There's just no excuse to consider yourself even slightly scientifically inclined if you don't know what a neutron is. It's covered extremely early on. Usually middle school. If you find yourself ignorant on these important topics, you should look them up on wiki and read about them. Ignorance is bad, and usually will cause people to label you crackpot when try and talk science with them.
It's like that episode in Seinfeld where George hired an electrician to move a frogger machine, and he referred to electrical outlets as "holes". You can be the greatest electrician in the world, but if you don't know what an electrical outlet is, no one is going to take you seriously. (Well, except George. But that's because he's desperate).
--- Quote ---Regardless of how fusion works in the sun, its still where my thought of vibrational frequencies came in. The way the enteractions occur and the way sound waves interfere and augment, and the way light blends. The mechanics which causes the sound waves to augment could be said to be the same as doppler on light waves (since the augmentation in hot air causes the speed of sound to increase and bend the sound towarsds the ground much similar to light bending around gravity).
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Wow. Okay. First, Doppler shift exists for sound already. It's why sounds increase in frequency when they come towards you, and decrease in frequency when they go away from you. Usually seen in the "eeeEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOoooooo" of a car driving past you.
Second, the effect you're talking about with light isn't the doppler effect. It's called gravitational lensing. Totally different ideas.
Third, gravitational lensing and interference are different ideas as well.
--- Quote ---Verying levels of pressure in a closed system will produce verying levels in gravity,
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How big is your closed system Like how much mass are you considering here? The sort of thing I can do in a lab, or a theoretical closed system of something like a planet?
--- Quote ---since the more pressure the more content there is within the space or pocket.
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That's called density. Tell me you at least know what density is.
--- Quote ---So the final energy we have yet to understand is dark energy, which has a repelling force. It exsists everywhere, but the balance between matter with positive gravity and dark matter is crutial to preventing every object in the Universe from collapsing in onitself into a singularity.
--- End quote ---
No, gravity is weak on the level of subatomic particles. We need dark energy only to explain why the universe's expansion is accelerating. With no dark energy, something the size of our galaxy or local galactic cluster would still work just fine.
--- Quote ---This balance I believe is a rythm more or less, since the amount of Dark Energy makes up more than 50% of the entire mass of the Universe (otherwise we would be collapsing, not speeding up).
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The second part of that sentence makes sense to me (dark energy is actually something like 80% of the universe's mass/energy, IIRC). But the first part did not. What does rhythm have to do with anything?
--- Quote ---Everything must be able to expand to live, otherwise the being can not store any energy and thus cannot function even genetically.
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How do you figure? In what way does the day to day activities of a cell require it to be able to expand (and apparently not contract, since you didn't mention that...) and what does it have to do with expansion of the universe?
--- Quote ---So our entire knowledge of the Universe and Absolutely Everything, is limited to the fact that we have only experienced one universe, we often only live in 3 dimensions at best, and perception of reality within our own habitat is based on the idea of self-superiority rather than knowing everything that follows some code or logic. Also, not every person involved to finding new discoveries is 100% efficient or successful, it took Socrates alone to discover what he knew about the Earth
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You're entirely dismissing the knowledge we can learn from pure math. It might be possible (meaning it is not proven impossible yet) to construct a theory that would let you describe all possible events in all possible universes. Knowledge does not always have to follow from experience.
--- Quote ---(or so its written).
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And so shall it be done
--- Quote ---The problem I see with people that have to ask who started everything, is that that kind of quesiton is based on the fact that somebody else started you hopefully for a reason. But with the Universe everything happens for no purpose that is of any importance,
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I don't think that's given at all. Science and religion are entirely separate from one another. Science describes how the universe works (or a close approximation to it anyway), and religion describes the purpose for meaningful existence. The universe/our lives might very well have a vast purpose. And that's where religion comes in. Belief in science doesn't mean you have to be atheist, or worse yet, nihilistic.
--- Quote ---there is no magical spaceship to take us all off to heaven,
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Not necessarily. If the universe dies in a very specific way, it can be used to generate a computer with infinite computational power, from which the entire universe can again be simulated, and all people who ever existed by thusly resurrected. Or that's the idea anyway. See this article.
--- Quote ---and most certainly we will be completely unable to prevent or guide how what and when the Universe does anything. To do so would mean that the Universe has a consciousness, and a set of moral codes you could use to fast talk the Universe out of or into doing something.
--- End quote ---
How does influencing the universe mean that the universe has consciousness? For instance, if we were to somehow move all galaxies in the universe together, maybe we could overcome the expansion of the universe and produce a big crunch instead. The possibility of that aside, wouldn't that mean we influenced the what and when of something the universe (will) do, without requiring the universe to be conscious?
You mixture of metaphysics/philosophy/pseudoscience and proper science disturbs me.
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