Re: [Vo]:Is "aneutronic fusion" properly funded?

[Daniel Rocha]

Neither can cold fusion, initially. In focusfusion, you'd  have to use
 batteries,  but,  what's the problem  with that?

2012/4/22 Axil Axil 

> Eric Lerner foists a standard canard on us at the end of his speech. The
> focus fusion device will produce electricity directly from x-rays and
> cannot replace the liquid fuels: oil and gasoline; on the other hand, cold
> fusion can.
>
>
>
> Lerner’s competition is coal and natural gas used in electrical
> generation.
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 11:07 PM,  wrote:
>
>> Brief Video -
>> "Plasma Fusion -- hoax or breakthrough reality?"
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p0cZEisTA
>>
>> Any opinions on whether aneutronic fusion research is being shortchanged?
>>
>>
>>
>


-- 
Daniel Rocha - RJ
danieldi...@gmail.com

Re: [Vo]:Is "aneutronic fusion" properly funded?

[Axil Axil]

Eric Lerner foists a standard canard on us at the end of his speech. The
focus fusion device will produce electricity directly from x-rays and
cannot replace the liquid fuels: oil and gasoline; on the other hand, cold
fusion can.



Lerner’s competition is coal and natural gas used in electrical generation.





On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 11:07 PM,  wrote:

> Brief Video -
> "Plasma Fusion -- hoax or breakthrough reality?"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p0cZEisTA
>
> Any opinions on whether aneutronic fusion research is being shortchanged?
>
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Q-wave may be weak

[Alain Sepeda]

you don't compare the same level of understanding

DGT reactor, like Rossi, and Brillouin are intrinsically safe for the same
reason, melting

DGT internet supervision is a maintenance problem, unrelated to
stability/safety, except on long term knowledge and failure anticipation

DGT have a phenomenological model of the reaction, useful to stabilize it.
(Rossi normally also, it is an engineering need)

DGT use a pulse width/frequency modulation to control the reaction. They
don't talk of their controller, but there are not many solution (it should
be predictive model based)
Rossi don't tell about the method of control (probably not pulse but,
according to the delay, the average power input) but say he use the classic
predictive model method...

Having the good theory might be useful, but not so sure, since the most
important is to know the behavior of the reaction according to transient
event (temperature/pressure/vibration/(un)loading)...
good phenomenological model can be more useful for everyday stability.
however theory can help about intrinsic safety, and off-limit knowledge.

for be the breakthrough of Brillouin is their proposed theory, which first
is a revolution because it says that nickel is not the fuel, but the
catalyst, but also the H/D/T/H4/He4 process (look like Takahashi TSC, but
step by step).

The 511keV gamma is a good point for them (beta+ consequence of H4 decay to
He4, leading to e+/e- disintegration), but like He4 it is  not an
unequivocal  signature.

2012/4/21 Guenter Wildgruber 

>
> compare this to
> DGT: internet supervision of reactors
> Rossi: intrinsically safe: self-stopping in case of overheating
>
>

Re: [Vo]:Boeing Electric Airliner---LENR Application=???

[mixent]

In reply to  Jed Rothwell's message of Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:02:50 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]
>I know several people in the Navy and Army. What you are saying is absurd.
>They do spend millions of dollars "just to know" something. If they
>purchased the machine, they would take to one of their facilities and run
>it with instrumentation to learn all about it. They would not let it sit
>there

...unless they are running their tests where it is rather than shipping it
elsewhere.

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Is "aneutronic fusion" properly funded?

[Daniel Rocha]

BTW, this is my last hope for the world besides cold fusion.

2012/4/22 

> Brief Video -
> "Plasma Fusion -- hoax or breakthrough reality?"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p0cZEisTA
>
> Any opinions on whether aneutronic fusion research is being shortchanged?
>
>
>


-- 
Daniel Rocha - RJ
danieldi...@gmail.com

Re: [Vo]:Is "aneutronic fusion" properly funded?

[Daniel Rocha]

Very underfunded for something that managed to be published in a mainstream
 magazine. Eric's team can barely make  their end's meet.

2012/4/22 

> Brief Video -
> "Plasma Fusion -- hoax or breakthrough reality?"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p0cZEisTA
>
> Any opinions on whether aneutronic fusion research is being shortchanged?
>
>
>


-- 
Daniel Rocha - RJ
danieldi...@gmail.com

Re: [Vo]:Boeing Electric Airliner---LENR Application=???

[mixent]

In reply to  Jed Rothwell's message of Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:44:10 -0400:
Hi,
[snip]
>Axil Axil  wrote:
>
>> I suspect the requirement for the 45 MW LENR systems originally came from
>> the US Navy to power their aircraft carrier based drones.
>>
>You don't need 45 MW for a drone! Okay, maybe for the upcoming X-47B drone,
>but you would not start with that. They would start with a small drone.
>
>- Jed

Quote
(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_horsepower_of_one_engine_in_a_Boeing_747):-

"Fully loaded at 400 tons, the Boeing 747 requires 90 mega-watts (MW) of energy
to get airborne. This relates to 120,000 horsepower (hp). The energy consumption
during cruising is reduced to half, or 45MW (60,000hp)."

IOW the drone would have the power expended by a cruising 747. I wonder if the
choice of this number was coincidental?

This isn't thus the power required by a small drone. This is a full sized
bomber!

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

[Vo]:Is "aneutronic fusion" properly funded?

[pagnucco]

Brief Video -
"Plasma Fusion -- hoax or breakthrough reality?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p0cZEisTA

Any opinions on whether aneutronic fusion research is being shortchanged?

Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant

[fusion.calo...@gmail.com]

  
  
Frank,

First, for the sake of clarity, a hydrogen atom stripped of
electrons is a proton, has a +1 charge and can be called a hydrogen
ion or better a hydrogen cation. A proton with one electron can be
called a hydrogen atom with no charge and can be considered to be in
an unstable exited state, readily able to combine with an identical
twin sister to yield H2 molecule plus energy. A proton with
2electrons called a hydride ion has a -1 charge and is classed as an
anion. The 2 electrons fit into what some people call the S shell.
All atoms in motion have a natural propensity to cool or lose energy
by emitting radiation if surrounded by matter at a lower
temperature. The radiation is called electromagnetic and is
described by the term photon at times. The photons emitted usually
are not evenly distributed as far as wave lengths being more
characteristic of system circumstances. 

Statistical Mechanics and Statistical Thermodynamics are the bases
of my ability to understand modern trends of out of the box
suggestions here, having taught both.

Carbon nano structures usually can be thought of as polymers of a
simple benzene ring configuration yielding planar, spherical, cup,
cone, tube and etc. geometric formats. 

I say this for clarity and pray the the colleagues here pin down
what they are discussing, thus avoiding much of the back and forth
explanations. 

Now, it was reported here at one point that plasma within a
hydrocarbon atmosphere does yield generous quantities of  nano
carbon cones containing protons. I prefer to refer to this system as
a method of trapping and containing protons by way of nano
technology stabilization.

Love your comments, keep them coming and intrigued by your theories,
especially Znidarsic's constant.

Regards,

Intensity

fznidar...@aol.com wrote:
The hydrogen must be in the mono
  atomic form and stripped of its electrons.  H2 absorbers such
  as carbon nano tubes do not appear to work.


Frank
  z
  
  
  -Original
Message-
From: Eric Walker 
To: vortex-l 
Sent: Sat, Apr 21, 2012 3:25 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant


  

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 7:09
  AM, 
  wrote:

   
  
  As far as Jones comment as
  finally..Its is finally not.. this was done 15
  years ago.   Jones did ask a good question of
  why hydrogen in nickle and why deuterium in
  palladium.  It must have something to do with
  a resonant condition at that speed.  Helium in
  another metal may work at a different pressure
  and frequency.  I am trying this trying to
  achieve another result.

  
  
  I was wondering about dissociation.  Can anyone
clarify -- will hydrogen dissociate in any metal
that is acting as a cathode, e.g., Pd, or will it
only dissociate in a metal with a
crystalline structure of a small enough size?
  
  
  Eric
  
  

  


  

  


  

[Vo]:BBC Nature - Electron "split personality"

[Mark Goldes]

If this has appeared earlier, I missed it...Mark

18 April 2012 
Electron 'split-personality' seen in new quasi-particle
Researchers have discovered another way that electrons - one of the Universe's 
few fundamental particles - can undergo an "identity crisis".
Electrons can divide into "quasi-particles", in which their fundamental 
properties can split up and move around like independent particles.
Two such quasi-particles had been seen before, but a team reporting in Nature 
has now confirmed a third: the orbiton.
These orbitons carry the energy of an electron's orbit around a nucleus.
Generally, these properties are not independent - a given electron has that set 
of properties, maintaining them as it moves around, while a nearby electron has 
a different set. 
But the idea of quasi-particles allow these properties to split and move around 
independently, granting them to nearby electrons.
An analogy of this slippery idea is a traffic jam on a one-lane road - it is as 
if one blue car, pointed west and running at 1,000 RPM, passes on its blueness, 
its engine speed and its direction to adjacent cars.
The cases in which such strange behaviour can be induced are rare, but an 
international team of researchers turned to a material called strontium cuprate 
to investigate it.
The arrangement of atoms in the material is much like the one-lane road: 
electrons can only move in one direction along it in what is called a spin 
chain.
The team used the Swiss Light Source at the Paul Scherrer Institut in 
Switzerland to shine intense X-ray beams into the material, catching the light 
that came out with precision detectors.
Analysis of how the X-ray beam was altered in the process gave evidence of how 
electrons were given an energy boost, and where it went. 
Thorsten Schmitt of the Swiss Light Source explained that the team made an 
unexpected find.
They saw that some of the X-ray energy went into raising an electron to a 
different orbit around a nucleus, and that this "orbital excitation" could move 
along the chain, bumping an adjacent electron up an orbit, and then the next 
electron along, and so on.
"We wanted to understand the spinon excitations - we were sure we would see 
spinons - the surprise was also to get these orbital excitations behaving in a 
collective way," he told BBC News.
It is a find destined for fundamental physics textbooks, but Dr Schmitt says 
that the curious behaviour may help scientists understand equally curious 
effects in similar materials.
"It's all basic research but we hope this is very relevant for understanding 
superconductivity in cuprates, which are made out of the same building blocks."

Mark Goldes
Co-founder, Chava Energy
CEO, Aesop Institute
301A North Main Street
Sebastopol, CA 95472

www.chavaenergy.com
www.aesopinstitute.org

707 861-9070
707 497-3551 fax
 Science & Environment 

Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant

[mixent]

In reply to  fznidar...@aol.com's message of Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:09:14 -0400
(EDT):
Hi Frank,
[snip]
>
>
>Thanks all.  The reciprocal  units are confusing to me.  We usedreciprocal 
>units in a solid state physics course to plot the velocity of phonons in a 
>solid.  The plot looked like a U.  Its slope was the speed of the phonons.  It 
>was also confusing.
>
>
>The constant is a velocity.  I believe it is the velocity of quantum 
>transition.  Instead of computing the position of electrons in the hydrogen 
>atom from Planck's constant and the stationary energy levels, I computed the 
>emitted energies from my constant and the velocity of the in between state.  
>It would be just a numbers game if it were not so strongly correlated to the 
>process of cold fusion.
>
>
>As far as Jones comment as finally..Its is finally not.. this was done 15 
>years ago.   Jones did ask a good question of why hydrogen in nickle and why 
>deuterium in palladium.  It must have something to do with a resonant 
>condition at that speed.  

If you haven't already, you should look at the papers of Dr. Robert Bass. They
provide this resonant connection.

(I suspect they are among the papers from Dr. Bass recently placed in the
library.)

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant

[mixent]

In reply to  Hoyt A. Stearns Jr.'s message of Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:29:17 -0700:
Hi,
[snip]

The definition of the gm was made, independent of any natural constants. It was
originally intended to be the weight of a cubic centimeter of water.
1 cm = 1 meter / 100.
See http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_metric_meter for the original definition
of the meter:-

"A meter is a fractional part of the circumference of the earth.

Historically that is almost correct. It was the distance between marks on a
metal bar which represented 1/10,000,000 (one ten millionth) of the distance
between the equator and the north pole on the meridian passing through Paris. "

Avogadro's number is defined as the number of atoms in 12 grams of Carbon 12.

So it derives from the size of the Earth, the density of water, and the atomic
mass of C12. It is not a natural constant. Perhaps needless to say, the size of
the Earth is completely arbitrary. It is only one of trillions of planets in the
Universe. 

Using Avogadro's number as a fundamental constant is just rearranging the deck
chairs (i.e. algebra).

>Avagadro's number is used to convert natural unit mass to conventional a
>conventional unit:
>
>
>   Space-time Units Conventional Units
>s  space   4.558816?10-6 cm4.558816?10-6 cm
>t  time1.520655?10-16 sec  1.520655?10-16 sec
>s/tspeed   2.997930?1010 cm/sec2.997930?1010 cm/sec
>s/t2   acceleration1.971473?1026 cm/sec2   1.971473?1026 
>cm/sec2
>t/senergy  3.335635?10-11 see/cm   1.49175?10-3 ergs
>t/s2   force   7.316889?10-6 sec/cm2   3.27223?102 dynes
>t/s4   pressure3.520646?105 sec/cm41.57449?1013 
>dynes/cm2
>t2/s2  momentum1.112646?10-21 sec2/cm2 4.97593?10-14 
>g-cm/sec
>t3/s3  inertial mass   3.711381?10-32 sec3/cm3 1.65979?10-24 g
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant

[fznidarsic]

The hydrogen must be in the mono atomic form and stripped of its electrons.  H2 
absorbers such as carbon nano tubes do not appear to work.


Frank z



-Original Message-
From: Eric Walker 
To: vortex-l 
Sent: Sat, Apr 21, 2012 3:25 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant





On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 7:09 AM,   wrote:
 
As far as Jones comment as finally..Its is finally not.. this was done 15 years 
ago.   Jones did ask a good question of why hydrogen in nickle and why 
deuterium in palladium.  It must have something to do with a resonant condition 
at that speed.  Helium in another metal may work at a different pressure and 
frequency.  I am trying this trying to achieve another result.



I was wondering about dissociation.  Can anyone clarify -- will hydrogen 
dissociate in any metal that is acting as a cathode, e.g., Pd, or will it only 
dissociate in a metal with a crystalline structure of a small enough size?


Eric



 

Re: [Vo]:Q-wave may be weak

[Guenter Wildgruber]

 Von: Axil Axil 
An: vortex-l  
Gesendet: 21:44 Samstag, 21.April 2012
Betreff: [Vo]:Q-wave may be weak
 

>Reading between the lines, it sounds like Brilliuon Energy is concerned about 
>the low efficiency of their reaction in >terms of COP. This area may be a weak 
>spot in the Brilliuon Energy reaction approach.

Axil, as far as I read the situation it is about a battle of COP versus 
controllability.
DGT, Rossi, Brillouin differ wrt that.

Brillouin seems to be the most open, in that Godes states that 

a) he/B. understood the process
b) he/B. can control the process 


compare this to 

DGT: internet supervision of reactors
Rossi: intrinsically safe: self-stopping in case of overheating

 
If we assume that LENR is a commercial item, then
a) it has to be made sure that it is a SAVE, controllable technology
b) COP is maximized
c) temperature is in the 400-500degC range
d) it can be switched on/off with low latency.

in this order.

So there is a lot of competition, considering the basic technology is workable.

To think that one of those competitors throws the others out of the market, is 
not realistic.
Even Piantelli  is not out of the market, just because the competitors have 
bigger mouth.

This is a BIG market.

NO  potential market participant has to worry about anything.

Guenter

Re: [Vo]:Which is Better: Dishwasher or Washing Dishes by Hand?

[Jed Rothwell]

Dishwashing machines are much better. The use only hot water, at
temperatures much higher than a person can stand even with rubber
gloves. This helps disinfect the dishes. They have aux heaters in case the
incoming hot water is not hot enough.

Chris Tinsley pointed this out to me.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Q-wave may be weak

[Alan Fletcher]

Associated article at 
http://pesn.com/2012/04/19/9602078_Brillouin--Understanding_How_LENR_Works_Will_Enable_Us_to_Be_First/

- Original Message -
> From: "Axil Axil" 
> Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 12:44:38 PM
> Subject: [Vo]:Q-wave may be weak
> 
> Sterlling Allan interviews Brilliuon Energy.
> http://www.mevio.com/episode/313695/fen.120417

Re: [Vo]:Which is Better: Dishwasher or Washing Dishes by Hand?

[Guenter Wildgruber]

 Von: Harry Veeder 
An: vortex-l@eskimo.com 
Gesendet: 19:03 Samstag, 21.April 2012
Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Which is Better: Dishwasher or Washing Dishes by Hand?
 

>Interesting,
but can we learn to live with fewer dishes?
>Harry

Ofcourse we could.
I think it was Henry David Thoreau, who who carved a wooden bowl and had a 
single
spoon for his whole conscious life, and ate what he planted harvested from his 
soil.

But anyway,  here you have the status 'thing', which spoils the issue.
Thorstein Veblen, the last
real world economist, was thinking about  in his 'theory of the
leisure class'.

Dishwashers and the variety of dishes we use, are mere social constructs, bare
of any basic need.
See Abraham Maslov or Peter Corning on the concept of basic needs, and the
hierarchy of needs.
(Peter Corning is more sophisticated) 

All 'higher' needs are social constructs.
If You are inclined to do, You can strip them down to the basics, which every
-ahem- sentient human being should consider.

I'm not a primitivist, but I see the point of the primitivists.

If you are a cornucopian transhumanist -which I suppose You are NOT, because
You wold'nt have asked the question in the first place, this is nothing to
ponder.

Buy a LENR heater and continue with BAU.
Which is mostly nonsensical, as far as I can see.

Abundant energy -LENR-type, throws us back to some fundamental questions, which
are unanswered.


Note: I'm aware that this is not 'politically correct' within the vortex 
community. 

But I am here and think that way.
Frugality is a virtue, which I will not give up, even if LENR delivers 
abundance.
To argue towards frugality in the face of abundance  is a difficult question.
But comes time, comes argument.

Guenter

[Vo]:Q-wave may be weak

[Axil Axil]

Regarding:

Sterlling Allan interviews Brilliuon Energy.
http://www.mevio.com/episode/313695/fen.120417

A COP of 2.9 for the “wet system” that Brilliuon Energy has currently
developed is not going to be competitive in the marketplace for providing
hot water. The Q-wave stimulant of the reaction is not efficient in my
opinion.

The “dry system” where hydrogen is used in the envelope similar to Rossi is
a total unknown quantity and might not produce increased COP as Brilliuon
Energy hopes.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like Brilliuon Energy is concerned
about the low efficiency of their reaction in terms of COP. This area may
be a weak spot in the Brilliuon Energy reaction approach.

Rossi uses chemical assistance to improve reaction efficiency. IMHO, there
is currently no positive indication that Brilliuon Energy’s Q-wave
stimulant will equal the efficiency of Rossi’s reaction and simultaneously
provide precise control of the Brilliuon Energy reaction.

Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant

[Eric Walker]

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 7:09 AM,  wrote:

>
> As far as Jones comment as finally..Its is finally not.. this was done 15
> years ago.   Jones did ask a good question of why hydrogen in nickle and
> why deuterium in palladium.  It must have something to do with
> a resonant condition at that speed.  Helium in another metal may work at a
> different pressure and frequency.  I am trying this trying to achieve
> another result.
>

I was wondering about dissociation.  Can anyone clarify -- will hydrogen
dissociate in any metal that is acting as a cathode, e.g., Pd, or will it
only dissociate in a metal with a crystalline structure of a small enough
size?

Eric

Re: [Vo]:Which is Better: Dishwasher or Washing Dishes by Hand?

[Harry Veeder]

Interesting, but can we learn to live with fewer dishes?
Harry

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Harry Veeder  wrote:
> http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/which-is-better--dishwasher-or-washing-dishes-by-hand-.html
>
> < Päster in the May/June issue of EatingWell Magazine, found that
> washing a load of dishes (12 place settings) by hand uses on average
> 27 gallons of water and 2.5 kilowatt-hours of energy to heat the
> water-equivalent to running a hair dryer for 2 1/2 hours. (Not to
> mention the parental energy it takes to get your kid to wash all those
> dishes in the first place.)
> By comparison, an energy-efficient dishwasher uses about 4 gallons of
> water and 1 kWh of energy per load. (And over the course of a year,
> using the dishwasher saves more than 400 hours of labor!) Researchers
> also found that dishwashers cleaned better, as half of the
> hand-washers failed to reach an "acceptable level" of cleanliness. >>
>
> harry
>

[Vo]:Which is Better: Dishwasher or Washing Dishes by Hand?

[Harry Veeder]

http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/which-is-better--dishwasher-or-washing-dishes-by-hand-.html

<>

harry

Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant

[fznidarsic]

Thanks all.  The reciprocal  units are confusing to me.  We usedreciprocal 
units in a solid state physics course to plot the velocity of phonons in a 
solid.  The plot looked like a U.  Its slope was the speed of the phonons.  It 
was also confusing.


The constant is a velocity.  I believe it is the velocity of quantum 
transition.  Instead of computing the position of electrons in the hydrogen 
atom from Planck's constant and the stationary energy levels, I computed the 
emitted energies from my constant and the velocity of the in between state.  It 
would be just a numbers game if it were not so strongly correlated to the 
process of cold fusion.


As far as Jones comment as finally..Its is finally not.. this was done 15 years 
ago.   Jones did ask a good question of why hydrogen in nickle and why 
deuterium in palladium.  It must have something to do with a resonant condition 
at that speed.  Helium in another metal may work at a different pressure and 
frequency.  I am trying this trying to achieve another result.




Frank Znidarsic

RE: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant

[Hoyt A. Stearns Jr.]

Avagadro's number is used to convert natural unit mass to conventional a
conventional unit:


Space-time Units Conventional Units
s   space   4.558816?10-6 cm4.558816?10-6 cm
t   time1.520655?10-16 sec  1.520655?10-16 sec
s/t speed   2.997930?1010 cm/sec2.997930?1010 cm/sec
s/t2acceleration1.971473?1026 cm/sec2   1.971473?1026 
cm/sec2
t/s energy  3.335635?10-11 see/cm   1.49175?10-3 ergs
t/s2force   7.316889?10-6 sec/cm2   3.27223?102 dynes
t/s4pressure3.520646?105 sec/cm41.57449?1013 
dynes/cm2
t2/s2   momentum1.112646?10-21 sec2/cm2 4.97593?10-14 
g-cm/sec
t3/s3   inertial mass   3.711381?10-32 sec3/cm3 1.65979?10-24 g

from: http://library.rstheory.org/books/nbm/13.html



-Original Message-
From: mix...@bigpond.com [mailto:mix...@bigpond.com]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 10:53 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Znidarsic's constant


In reply to  Hoyt A. Stearns Jr.'s message of Fri, 20 Apr 2012
19:09:27 -0700:
Hi,
[snip]
>Only three values are needed to perform all calculations:  c, the Rydberg
>frequency, and Avagadro's number.

Almost any three natural constants are enough to derive all the rest. This
is
well known in physics. However Avogadro's number is not a natural constant,
because it's based upon our definition of the gram, which is arbitrary.

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

Re: [Vo]:A Note on 'significance'

[Guenter Wildgruber]

Here are some quotes from one of my favorite philosophers --John Cleese:


"Creativity is not a talent.
It is a way of operating."

"We need to be in the open
mode when pondering a problem — but! — once we come up with a solution, we must
then switch to the closed mode to implement it. Because once we’ve made a
decision, we are efficient only if we go through with it decisively,
undistracted by doubts about its correctness."

"To be at our most
efficient, we need to be able to switch backwards and forward between the two
modes. But — here’s the problem — we too often get stuck in the closed mode.
Under the pressures which are all too familiar to us, we tend to maintain
tunnel vision at times when we really need to step back and contemplate the
wider view."

see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg

Guenter

Re: [Vo]:A Note on 'significance'

[Guenter Wildgruber]

Boltzmann, Planck, Heisenberg.

What is the common theme?

Well.
Uncertainty.

Schroedinger's cat  is maybe the culmination of this way of thinking.
The effect just does not instantiate, until YOU look at it.

To ultimately resolve the riddle is akin to blasphemy, it seems.
Is it 'god' versus the 'observer', -ie US, leading to the collapse of the wave 
function?
...
it is the reduction of the physical possibilities into a single possibility as 
seen by an OBSERVER.
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse

Guenter

[Vo]:A Note on 'significance'

[Guenter Wildgruber]

A note on 'significance'.

There is an important rift between the social sciences and the hard sciences, 
wrt what is 'significant'.

In the social sciences 'significance' is quite relaxed.
Eg in drug-testing the bare 'evidence' of some effect to be above chance-level 
is considered 'significant', and eventually earns you a lot of money.

In the hard physical sciences and engineering this is different.
a) in engineering one always takes probabilities into account. A chance of 60% 
of a bridge breaking down is rarely acceptable.
b)  in physics one has two basic areas:
b1) DETECTION OF EFFECTS, with a somewhat relaxed relationship wrt the strength 
of an effect.
(this is ofcourse experimental physics. Dealing with 'reality'  is dirty 
business.)
b2) IDENTIFICATION OF FUNDAMENTALS (constants and laws). e=mc2 etc.
Fundamentals have to be PRECISE not only to an abitrary number of digits, but 
LOGICALLY/MATHEMATICALLY precise. (this is You guessed, theoretical phyics)
This is a basic axiom of most physics, and leads to a tendency to transform the 
universe into something platonic, i.e. a set of logical relationships between 
mathematical entities.
Laughlin is one of the rare Nobel laureates, who questioned that ( 'why are 
there laws?' ). Maybe Josephson also.

There are several stings in the flesh of the wannabe-Platonists, eg entropy, 
the arrow of time, consciousness and several obscure effects, which are 
dutifully ignored for the sake of preserving the worldview.

In this sense, Einstein was a Platonist, Heisenberg a party-pooper to the 
Platonists, Whitehead a recovering logician.

How dangerous it is to be a Platonist, can eg be seen with Goedel and his 
brothers in mind.
See here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5122859998068380459

Guenter