48 Replies to “The Sound Of Settled Science”

  2. Science: The vacuum has structure.
    Idiots: How can nothing have structure?
    Science: Learn the math.
    Idiots: Math is hard, but I must be right anyway.

    1. The Physics of Nothing – I thought I was going to click on a Seinfeld episode.
      Interesting video nonetheless. I doubt they will make a breakthrough.
      The narrator sounds so familiar.

  3. The 120 order of magnitude error is simply the old ultraviolet catastrophe can kicked down the road, except the ultraviolet catastrophe (that was fixed by quantum mechanics) was more than 120 orders of magnitude, it was, in fact, infinite.
    …but I’m sure you all know that.

  4. The Weight of “Nothing”? A misnomer, a vacuum has space. “Nothing” means no matter, no energy, no time and no space.

    I stopped listening after the first mistake. Einstein did not “inadvertently predict that the universe was contracting”, on the contrary, his equation suggested that the universe was EXPANDING! This was disturbing to him, because it indicated that the universe had a beginning, and a beginning requires a cause, a creator or something. As an atheist, he found that disconcerting so that’s why he inserted the (cosmological constant) fudge factor.

    When Hubble was able to observe the expansion of the universe, Einstein acknowledged his “greatest mistake” and thereafter maintained that there was a creator. Not a deity, not a God, he remained an atheist. To him the creator was akin to a scientist to whom we were akin to bacteria.

    1. 1. Einstein wasn’t an atheist.
      2. The theory of GR suggested only that the universe cannot be static, and said nothing about whether it was expanding or contracting, at least not without a cosmological constant term added to his equation, which he assumed would have the correct value to keep the universe static.
      3. “Not a deity, not a God, he remained an atheist. To him the creator was akin to a scientist to whom we were akin to bacteria.” you are so full of it that it’s unreal. He has referred to God, with a capital G, many times.
      4. It ain’t the atheists, Godless fools that they are, who are currently denying the Big Bang model, without evidence, I might add, just like it ain’t the atheists who say evolution never happened, it is rather, an anti-science set of idiots, mostly belonging to the more ignorant in Islam and Christianity in the so-called civilized world, and lots of the more primitive tribal religions from Africa and so on.

      1. “I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.”

        Love, Albert

        1. Yup.
          I’d call him a theist, myself.
          These days, people confuse religion with theism. Buddhism is an atheist religion, but not the militant “There is No God” type, just the religion has no God, and doesn’t talk about whether He exists or not.
          Humility, horrible horrible humility, something that the modern west has totally abandoned; now, everybody’s feelings are the Gods that are worshiped.

          Myself, I look forward to the results of this experiment. True science is a sacrament.

        2. Isn’t that from one of Einstein’s last letters?. He made it clear enough in his essay Science and Religion that he wouldn’t be labeled as a man of religion, an atheist, or even agnostic.

          1. Myself, I’m a man of faith, but I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered…or labeled.

          2. @YeahWell…

            I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered

            Why do I hear Leo McKern’s mocking laughter in my ears?

          3. “Why do I hear Leo McKern’s mocking laughter in my ears?”

            Possibly because you are not a number?
            Either that, or you are Number two.
            Number two posters all over the place.

        3. ” I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.”
          …
          “Who is number one?”
          “You are, Number six.”

          Now that is what I call a bit of foreshadowing.

          –Bad News

          1. Only one episode had number two deliver the line as if it had the comma, most were of the form
            “Who is number one?”
            “You are Number six.”

      2. Einstein didn’t believe in chance or random events when he said “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

        1. Shamrock

          True, but then to him God was not a deity, but rather a super-scientist who infused order in his lab experiment.

        2. When he said that, he was arguing against quantum mechanics, which is inherently probabilistic.
          IIRC, he said that in a letter to Neils Bohr, who replied “Don’t tell God what to do.” Even with his belief in classical mechanics and determinism, he had more humility than most men do today.

      3. YeahWell…

        1. Einstein believed in a creator that was not a God in the religious sense. That would make him an atheist.

        Quotes from Einstein on the subject:

        “It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.”

        “The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.”

        “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. …. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions”.

        “If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

        Sounds like an atheist to me.

        2. His theory of GR indicated the universe was expanding, which he refused to accept because of the religious implication. His cosmological constant fudge factor stopped the expansion.

      4. YeahWell…

        PS – 4. Yes it is the atheists who are currently denying the Big Bang model, for the same reason that bothered Einstein – the implication of a creator. That’s why they’ve come up with the concept of a multiverse, a metaphysical speculation that avoids the necessity of a creator.

        1. You are full of it, you make stuff up and use the staw-man you built to make your point.
          GR only implied that the universe cannot be static, it could be contracting or expanding.
          A personal God is an oxymoron.
          God is God, and your little beliefs have nothing to do with Him, unless you are so filled with hubris that you pretend to know the mind of God.
          Multiverse theories are the only theories around that have room for God; who are you to limit creation to that which we can see? We are created in His image, and can find him if we look hard enough. I found him through physics, but then again, I’m a Pierre Teilhard de Chardin heretic, even if I’m not a Jesuit. Penrose is another.
          Lastly, all of Einstein’s quotes you mentioned are simply statements of humility in the face of human ignorance, and it seems to me that you are claiming knowledge that humans are not privy to, Bible or no. Do you think God revealed the secrets of creation to Man 2000 years ago? No loving God would do such a thing, much like no loving God would make a world that cannot be described by creatures created in His image.

          1. Be nice, YeahWell…

            Strawman? What strawman? Do you know what the term means?

            A personal god is one who answeres prayers or involves himself in human affairs—like the Judeo/Christian God. How then, is “personal God” an oxymoron.

            So why then would Einstein be so concerned about a non-static universe that he would fudge his own equation? If it was contracting, why would that bother him? I’ve given you the reason why an expanding universe concerned him, the necessity of a creator. Only AFTER Hubble proved that the universe was expanding did he acknowledge that there must be a creator, a position he held for the rest of his life. A creator who did not involve himself in human affairs, who did not answer prayers. His contemporaries tried to change his mind about the existence of a creator but he insisted there must be one.

            Multiverse hypotheses (not theories) were invented to avoid the necessity of a creator, they have no room for God. Ask any atheist.

            Those quotes clearly show that Einstein did not view the creator of the universe as God the way religions do.

    1. stevie, your comment (and this thread) reminds me of an old SCTV sketch (IIRC), “Match Unto My Feet,”: “In the beginning, there was nothing and God said, Let there be Light. And there was still nothing, but at least you could see it.”

  6. ” … but I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered…or labeled.”

    Jabbed?

    1. That too.
      In fact, I will never ever take another jab, ever. My last jab was a flu vax around 20 years ago.
      Never again; they have lost all trust.

  7. The sound of settled science:

    Eugenics for dogs is fine.
    Killing rats is fine.
    Killing squirrels, chipmunks or raccoons is evil!
    Castrating pets for fun and profit is fine.
    Bullfighting is EVIL!

    The idiocy of womankind never ceases to amaze.

  8. Well, it’s always fascinating. If you think you have all the answers, you haven’t asked the right questions.

    1. We have a lot of answers so far.
      What happens of you crush or heat up matter? What happens if you make it really cold?
      What is this stuff made of and where did it come from?
      …and so on.
      …and we’ll get more and more answers as time moves on, because that’s what we do.
      Will we get all the answers? Probably not, but a Man can dream.
      The Holy Grail of physics is called the Theory of Everything, and Man that I am, I think its possible.
      So far alls we gots is a couple of theories that can describe, in principle, all observed phenomena from 10^-16 meters to 10 000 light years, or around 33 orders of magnitude. Not bad, IMHO, but we still have around 25 orders of magnitude to go.

      1. Well, thanks for saying the same thing only with more words. Some people should get their own blogs. LOL

  9. You got to hand it to whomever contrived this scheme, and actually sold it: Let’s spend a Grillion bucks to find out what nothing weighs!!! Yeah we could probably use the money better to advance fusion, but doesn’t bother you what nothing weighs? Like, does the fridge light really turn off when you close the door?

  10. The fridge light might not turn off when you close the door. See Bell’s Theorem (1964, experimentally verified 2015 finally, we think): “counter-factual definiteness”.

  11. This is an excellent idea for an experiment.
    Usually, it costs billions to try to find or correct flaws in the Standard Model.
    Of course, you will always have those aholes who say 1 flaw = wrong, and would throw the baby out with the bathwater. If humanity listened to those people, we’d still be knapping flint in mud huts instead of building nuclear reactors and sending out spaceships.

  12. The ultimate question asked by any curious child: What is this made of, and where did it come from?

  14. Being created in His image carries a terrible responsibility. We don’t have the luxury of resorting to authority, alls we gots is what He gave us: Brains, sweet, delicious brains. He never intended us to short-circuit our brains by pointing to an ancient book, He is the source of logic and math, he wants us to use them to find Him. If you think all that He wants is blind obedience, you are a fool.

  15. Our Father wants us to grow into Manhood, and you don’t do that via blind obedience.
    He has given us the tools to grow into Men, its up to us to use them.
    Ignoring math, logic, physics, evolution, etc, is simply the child refusing to grow up, refusing to take up the tools He has given us, out of cowardice or a desire to return to the womb, or the garden.
    GROW UP, FFS!!!!

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