Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Telecaster on February 10, 2016, 05:42:51 pm
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Tomorrow at 10:30am (USA Eastern time) scientists working on the LIGO project will be holding a status update/press conference regarding their work. LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Rumors have been circulating for the past month or so that LIGO has made the first ever direct detections of gravitational waves. These are waves or ripples caused by gravitational interactions, however not in space but rather of space. They're a prediction of Einstein's General theory of Relativity and have been surmised to exist, based on indirect observation, for quite some time. But surmising isn't the same thing as directly observing, and so GWs have until now remained officially theoretical. Given past instances of jumping the gun re. announcements of "discoveries" that turned out not to be valid (do a Web search on "BICEP2 results" for an example) the LIGO folks have reportedly been extra diligent in doing their work.
If the press conference confirms the rumors, as seems likely, this opens up a new field of study re. the behavior of gravity in extreme events (such as supernova explosions & black hole formation) and also at extremely small scales. This in turn should give us new insight into how both General Relativity and quantum mechanics could/might be superceded by a more complete theory not only encompassing both but also making new predictions of yet undiscovered natural phenomena.
Here's a good gravitational wave primer (though the ads are a bit much for my liking):
http://www.universetoday.com/127255/gravitational-waves-101/
Note: it's possible the press conference will turn out to be a non-event. Unlikely, though.
-Dave-
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Yes :)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/11/gravitational-waves-discovery-hailed-as-breakthrough-of-the-century
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Yep, as expected LIGO has detected gravitational waves. From a merger of two black holes ~1.3 billion light years distant from us, broadly in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The merger event was detected by both LIGO installations, one in Washington and the other in Louisiana, on 14 September of last year. This happened shortly after the "Advanced" version of LIGO went online. (It was anticipated that Advanced LIGO would detect GWs, if they actually existed, almost immediately. Which indeed happened. In fact it happened during a test run, though at full operational capability.) The observation matches the expected behavior of the merger, as derived from the equations of General Relativity, to an impressive degree. Einstein scores again (with a strong assist from astronomer Karl Schwarzchild, who in 1916 discovered gravitational waves lurking in the General Relativity equations)!
Another thing to note is that this detection not only confirms the existence of gravitational waves but also that of black holes! We already knew that the centers of galaxies contain objects of high density & small relative volume that emit no light. Now we know that the behavior of these objects, in a merger event, matches the predicted behavior of General Relativity's black hole solution. (We still don't know with any precision what's going on inside a black hole's event horizon, though…that's a task for a proper quantum theory of gravity to take on.)
So now we have a whole new way of doing astronomy, looking at the universe via gravitational rather than electromagnetic waves. There are additional LIGO detectors, spread out over the globe, due to come online in the near future. Right now we're doing the GW equivalent of looking up at the sky with Galileo's telescope. What might we find when we build detectors at the level of today's best telescopes?
-Dave-
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And to think that I find deep-digging within Photoshop a challenge.
;-(
Rob
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And to think that I find deep-digging within Photoshop a challenge.
;-(
No frowny face allowed. This is an exciting day, even a landmark one, in the history of astronomical observation. LIGO is the most sensitive & precise detection and measuring device ever built by us humans. And before long its capabilities will be upgraded by a factor of 3, bringing less powerful events than black hole mergers within its view. We have a whole new sense we can explore the skies with.
:) :D ;D 8)
The attached pic is of LIGO Livingston, in Louisiana. The cartoon is via xkcd.
-Dave-
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Thanks for the link. I've been wondering what the effects of a gravity wave on my macro world were. I guess my body is momentarily distorted by an amount that is just almost unimaginably tiny. Also the explanation of how they are detected with a giant Michelson interferometer is very simple and easy to understand. All of this in ten minutes.
And to think that I find deep-digging within Photoshop a challenge.
On the contrary, I find mastering PS to be far more difficult than understanding the above tutorial link. Seriously. I was pleasantly surprised.
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In 1988 I was at the Marcel Grossman meeting in Perth (the one in Australia). It was held there because a group in the physics department at UWA had built a resonating beam GW detector. We now know that the instrument itself was ridiculously small and the instrumentation way too noisy to work... but we got there :-)
And so the "our theory is more experimentally verified than yours" fight between the relativists and the Guantum folk goes on another round ;D
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Hehe…relativity refuses to give up. :)
Another thing this gravitational wave detection does is set an upper bound on the mass of the putative graviton (the quantum of gravity, if in fact gravity is something that exists at such tiny scales). That upper bound is less than .000000000000000000000012 electronvolts. What a lightweight! By comparison even neutrinos are leadbutts.
-Dave-
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Here's a series of articles published by The Daily Galaxy (my favorite source of cosmology-related info), for those interested:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/02/epic-discovery-gravitational-waves-detected-from-colliding-black-holes-nasaligo.html
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/02/the-warped-side-of-the-universe-caltechs-kip-thorne-on-the-discovery-of-gravitational-waves-video.html
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/02/witnessing-a-cataclysmic-space-warping-event-ligo-researchers-on-their-epic-detection-of-gravitation.html
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Hehe…relativity refuses to give up. :)
Another thing this gravitational wave detection does is set an upper bound on the mass of the putative graviton (the quantum of gravity, if in fact gravity is something that exists at such tiny scales). That upper bound is less than .000000000000000000000012 electronvolts. What a lightweight! By comparison even neutrinos are leadbutts.
-Dave-
For me, the most mind-boggling aspect of this Ligo system is its capacity to measure such tiny changes.
If I've understood correctly, the system consists of 4km-long interferometer arms, the lengths of which change as a result of the effects of gravitational waves, by a mere 1/10,000th the width of a proton. And as we all know, the physical size of a proton is very, very tiny, visible only through an electron microscope.
To get things into scale, if we imagine a hydrogen atom with its orbiting electron, as the size of a football field, then the proton at the centre of the atom would be about the size of a football, or perhaps even smaller; perhaps the size of a golf ball, with an electron the size of a grain of rice orbiting the outer perimeter of the football field.
How we could measure 1/10,000th the width of a proton with any accuracy is just incredible.
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I have a simple question for any physicists here. If I was a physicist myself I would be posting to a physics forum, but I’m not. I’ve been Googling and can’t find a satisfying answer to - what causes a gravitational wave?
I know that objects with mass warp spacetime. And when masses move through spacetime the warping also moves. So is it the case that if a mass is big enough and it accelerates through spacetime fast enough a wave is produced instead of a simple movement of the warping?
Is it like when I put my hand in water slowly the water moves, but if I put it in fast I create a wave?
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Is it like when I put my hand in water slowly the water moves, but if I put it in fast I create a wave?
I suspect this is the case, but I'm no authority. My immediate reaction to this news of the detection of gravitational waves, was the implication for the direct detection of Dark Energy and Dark Matter which comprise about 95% of the matter and energy of our universe, according to current theories.
Unfortunately it seems that dark matter and energy do not exist in nearly dense enough 'clumps' to produce gravitational waves that could be detected by LIGO.
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Ray, the measurement is nothing more than natural equipment expansion (in Louisiana, what else could you expect - even the rain comes preheated) creating an 'interesting' result that will bring in more funds - just like with NASA, though I gather they are getting less these days.
As to the rockets, nobody is going to live on Mars or even the Moon. Get over it; it's about military spending and the race to get an unassailable advantage from above, not human travel. Were but a tiny fraction of all that brass spent on me, it would make at least one person very happy!
;-)
Rob
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I just wish that all of these scientists would spend their time and resources curing the problems on earth. A few months ago some of them were getting excited about water on Mars whilst water was ruining communities in the Uk. It took them a century to find out what Einstein had already predicted. How many billions/millions was spent on this fantasy project? Dreamers and wasters imo. :( >:(
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Hmmm. I wonder how long it will take for some major camera manufacturer to claim to have image stabilization that compensates for gravitational waves. ;)
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I just wish that all of these scientists would spend their time and resources curing the problems on earth. A few months ago some of them were getting excited about water on Mars whilst water was ruining communities in the Uk. It took them a century to find out what Einstein had already predicted. How many billions/millions was spent on this fantasy project? Dreamers and wasters imo. :( >:(
Why, do you think our politicians would listen to what scientists had to say?
You could make the same argument for every art gallery. Or the military. Or casinos. Or pro sports (oh wait, that was covered by casinos). How about if we shut down international tax havens. Or college sports (pro league farm teams more than educational opportunities). Or arms manufacturers. Or tobacco companies. Or subsidized corn growers. Feel free to add to the list.
How useful to society is it to produce millions of photos every minute that get uploaded to some server? Wouldn't all that time and money be better spent elsewhere?
We're conducting this conversation on a platform made possible because during the 1920s to 1950s, governments the world over (and a very few private labs) subsidized thousands and thousands of students and researchers that over time built up a body of knowledge we now call solid state physics.
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The first integrated circuits were used to navigate to the moon. For what 50 kg of the same materials found in the earths crust. What a waste. We were better of when the projected number of computers in the world was about 5. No one was sharing useless cat pictures back then.
And LIGO... Who needs better quartz glass. What a complete waste of effort producing better optical glass. Useless I tell you.
I just wish that all of these scientists would spend their time and resources curing the problems on earth. A few months ago some of them were getting excited about water on Mars whilst water was ruining communities in the Uk. It took them a century to find out what Einstein had already predicted. How many billions/millions was spent on this fantasy project? Dreamers and wasters imo. :( >:(
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Extrapolation isn't an answer; stamper has a valid point.
Rob C
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We're conducting this conversation on a platform made possible because during the 1920s to 1950s, governments the world over (and a very few private labs) subsidized thousands and thousands of students and researchers that over time built up a body of knowledge we now call solid state physics.
Indeed, and I'm sure the intention was never for it to come to what the Internet is today. That's just what happens when good science gets into the domestic zone and we reach out for the lowest common denominator in search of profitting from it, spawning zillions of pointless messages per day, the main use-beneficiaries of which networks seem to be terrorists. The reluctance to mess with the 'freedom to communicate' this senseless crap means, essentially and consequentially, that it's left fairly wide open to them apart from the odd token closure; hey, there's money to be made - one day, they say - but the zillions still come in and nobody knows how to tax them because they can't find them!
Used to be thugs on the streets to worry about; now, those are the tiddlers. The real ones you never see because they have learned to be invisible unless making a marketing statement about something or another. Big Brother? Mother and family live in sunny California. They know everything about every one of us who 'nets.
Was that what was intended back in the day? Hey, maybe it really was. They say Satan's pretty old...
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I have a simple question for any physicists here. If I was a physicist myself I would be posting to a physics forum, but I’m not. I’ve been Googling and can’t find a satisfying answer to - what causes a gravitational wave?
I know that objects with mass warp spacetime. And when masses move through spacetime the warping also moves. So is it the case that if a mass is big enough and it accelerates through spacetime fast enough a wave is produced instead of a simple movement of the warping?
Is it like when I put my hand in water slowly the water moves, but if I put it in fast I create a wave?
A good question, and one that reminds me of an issue I have with the article I linked to above. At least twice in that article gravitational waves are referred to as propagating through space. This is wrong wrong wrong. GWs are oscillations of space. Or, more precisely, of spacetime. Mass, and the movement of objects with mass, not only warps & bends space…it also slows & accelerates the passage of time. Think of spacetime as a somewhat flexible 3D grid. We—along with stars, planets, galaxies, etc.—exist within this grid. GWs are the ripple-like warping & bending of that grid in response to the movement of massive objects. (By "massive" I mean anything that has mass. You and I create teeny tiny weak GWs—many orders of magnitude tinier than even the crazy small disturbances detected by LIGO—every time we breath in or out or blink our eyes. But the amplitudes of GWs will be greater with more massive objects moving at higher speeds.) When you move your hand slowly in water you still create a wave, but it's of low amplitude and is quickly dissipated. With faster movement you create a higher amplitude wave of longer duration.
As to the other stuff being expressed here: some people respond to new phenomena and new knowledge with curiosity & wonderment & even excitement, while others respond with dread & hostility & even rejection. All the rest follows from this.
-Dave-
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The first guy to spot them -
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/here-s-first-person-spot-those-gravitational-waves
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Ray, the measurement is nothing more than natural equipment expansion (in Louisiana, what else could you expect - even the rain comes preheated) creating an 'interesting' result that will bring in more funds - just like with NASA, though I gather they are getting less these days.
Rob
There's nothing like a knowledgeable persn to put those ignorant scientists in their place. Imagine wasting all that time and money on actually trying to do a scientific experiment when they could just have written an unsunstantiated opinion on some forum, or even better, as you point out, falsify the result in front of the whole world. For, goodness sake, let the real experts have a say on this. Keep it up Rob. Those money grabbing self-serving scientists need a dose of reality from people like you who obviously know what they are talking about.
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You and I create teeny tiny weak GWs—many orders of magnitude tinier than even the crazy small disturbances detected by LIGO—every time we breath in or out or blink our eyes. But the amplitudes of GWs will be greater with more massive objects moving at higher speeds.
Thanks, I wondered about that and that makes sense.
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There's nothing like a knowledgeable persn to put those ignorant scientists in their place. Imagine wasting all that time and money on actually trying to do a scientific experiment when they could just have written an unsunstantiated opinion on some forum, or even better, as you point out, falsify the result in front of the whole world. For, goodness sake, let the real experts have a say on this. Keep it up Rob. Those money grabbing self-serving scientists need a dose of reality from people like you who obviously know what they are talking about.
Thank you Nelson; I had to reach the tender age of 107 to have the confidence in myself to know all of this as truth! I'm thrilled that the knowledge now extends to a younger person like yourself! Don't let it slip away, as it so easily can, what with being subverted from the left and the right as both sides try to gain populist clout and executive power.
But the fight isn't over: today, drinking my first mug of breakfast tea, I managed to deposit some of it onto my lap: Sky News ran a spot on a gentleman who is now selling bottles of fresh air! His argumant was delightfully clear - just like the air - I spilled the tea in anger at not having had the guts to promote that self-same idea years ago when it first struck me as a convenient adjunct to my reglar job selling dreams on celluloid. That's the problem with linear thinking: it can lead right over cliffs, one good reason not to work on foggy days.
The world belongs to us - let us seize it in both hands and choke the hell out of it!
Rob C
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Why, do you think our politicians would listen to what scientists had to say?
You could make the same argument for every art gallery. Or the military. Or casinos. Or pro sports (oh wait, that was covered by casinos). How about if we shut down international tax havens. Or college sports (pro league farm teams more than educational opportunities). Or arms manufacturers. Or tobacco companies. Or subsidized corn growers. Feel free to add to the list.
How useful to society is it to produce millions of photos every minute that get uploaded to some server? Wouldn't all that time and money be better spent elsewhere?
We're conducting this conversation on a platform made possible because during the 1920s to 1950s, governments the world over (and a very few private labs) subsidized thousands and thousands of students and researchers that over time built up a body of knowledge we now call solid state physics.
One of the dreamers? I have nothing against research that helps mankind on earth. In outer space - discounting satellites that orbit the earth - there is nothing that I have read about that can help us here on earth which means the money spent would be better spent on medicine, eradicating wars and other problems that plague us. It apparently took a billion years for the gravitational waves to reach us. I look at issues from a practical point of view and don't day dream about distant galaxies. How much money was spent on this experiment?
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One of the dreamers? I have nothing against research that helps mankind on earth. In outer space - discounting satellites that orbit the earth - there is nothing that I have read about that can help us here on earth which means the money spent would be better spent on medicine, eradicating wars and other problems that plague us. It apparently took a billion years for the gravitational waves to reach us. I look at issues from a practical point of view and don't day dream about distant galaxies. How much money was spent on this experiment?
I wonder if that's even the question: so much esoteric education in so many heads means that something has to be provided in order to employ at least a good number of those heads. I suspect a similar position holds in the armed forces: we have to keep people off the streets, and even if we have learned better than to engage in as many foreign adventures, it's still important to look as if you perhaps could, should you need so to do. You have to support the numbers either through direct pay or unemployment benefits - so give 'em a uniform, spend money and 'create' jobs by making them their trade-toys, and let's get something out of the system and massage the figures.
Was a time in Italy when almost every family was feeding its own unemployed graduate off the earnings of the lesser-educated members of the family. (No, I don't mean those families.) Today, I know teachers in Spain who are waiters... Highly advanced state-provided education per se can be a waste of resources. Yes, advanced education if you can buy it by yourself even without the prospect of a job, but the state shouldn't push the idea of very advanced education as a necessary and universal right of passage. It's not. And if people spend years of their lives studying 'soft' courses without employment prospects at the end of it all, it creates a lot of wasted lives filled with frustration when doors they thought would automatically swing open do not. For full employment at any level, you need first the jobs to fill, not hundreds of seekers for what doesn't exist. Seems to me that what we face is a gigantic mismatch; unemployed people chasing job vacancies that they really weren't trained to fill, and employers unable to fill the gaps in their workforce without importing people from elsewhere, leading to political problems and resultant hatreds. I seem to remember a time when IT was considered a passport for life; apparently, that passport has now expired.
And now we have globalization on top of it all; our steel mills close because they can't compete with dumping; savings become almost pointless because no interest gets paid (but the banker's bonus still seems largely immune); the handy little cafés that once lived on our high streets long ago stopped being able to compete with the rents and business rates that the multi companies sniff at...
Somebody suggested I might be a cynic. I wonder why? It's a minor miracle, but I can still find it in myself to be a semi-optimist!
Rob C
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Rob, your determination to yuk this particular yum suggests there's something darker than mere cynicism going on. Whatever it is, go start your own thread about it.
-Dave-
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the money spent would be better spent on medicine, eradicating wars and other problems that plague us.
Ummmm... where exactly would you have spent the money to 'eradicate' the invasion of Iraq by the US.... Oh I know, on intelligence that would have revealed that there were no weapons of mass destruction.. I mean the US had already spent gazallions on 'intelligence' so diverting a few more quadrillions from science research would have paid huge dividends in ensuring better 'intelligence' and avoiding that particular war.
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For the cost of the F35 project you could get 1000 LIGOs.
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Here's an interesting thing I just read, sent by an acquaintance who's involved in the gravitational wave detection field (though not affiliated with LIGO…her area of research involves longer wavelengths than LIGO can "see"). It seems the orbiting Fermi Gamma Ray detector spotted a brief & weak Gamma Ray Burst, in the general direction of the gravitational wave detected by LIGO, within .4 seconds of the GW event. It's unknown whether or not the two are related, but intriguing at least. AFAIK no-one has ever correlated a GRB with already-existing black hole activity…but then we've never knowingly detected a black hole merger before now.
Here's the paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.03920
Now we need more LIGO gravitational wave detections so we can get some sort of handle on the type(s) of electromagnetic emissions that may accompany them.
-Dave-
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No matter what you spend a particular sum of your money on as a government, business, co-op or individual it usually means not spending that money on something else. Many countries have a Science budget, and some of them invested part of that in LIGO over a fairly long time period. This means other science projects were either funded at lower levels or not funded at all. Such is the way it is.
But when I consider the vast sums—quadrillions of dollars & still counting—the USA in particular wasted on a blindly triumphalist, even quasi-messianic fantasy in Iraq, tens of thousands of people killed for nothing…I find complaints about funding LIGO in particular, a project intended to broaden our understanding of the universe we live in…and with possible technological spin-off benefits in the coming years, to be beyond absurd.
BTW, the cost of LIGO to American taxpayers comes out so far to ~1.1 billion US dollars total. Those same taxpayers have just spent nearly $20 billion this year on Valentine's Day gifts.
-Dave-
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The problems of the world are due to imcompetence, corruption and stupidity. Every year we waste about 1.4 billion tonnes of food (tonnes not dollars), world-wide, due to incompetence, fussy buyers who are mainly concerned about the cosmetic appearance of the food, gluttonous buyers who buy too much food then throw it away when it's passed its use-by date, inadequate storage facilities and inadequate transport facilities, particularly in undeveloped countries.
In addition to the uneaten food that is wasted, there is an excess of food that is eaten, resulting not only in an unnecessary expenditure, but an obesity epidemic which results in yet further expenditure on medical services to fix the self-induced health problems.
World-wide we waste many trillions of dollars annually on armed forces because we are too stupid to live together harmoniously. We also waste billions of dollars on silly litigation procedures because people don't have the intelligence to come to an amicable agreement without making huge donations to lawyers.
There is also a long list of unnecessary but expensive items that simply appeal to people's vanity and ego, such as designer clothes, fancy cars and so on.
Adding up all this unnecessary expenditure, one might conclude that 3/4ths of the entire world production and expenditure is effectively thrown down the drain, serving no useful purpose at all.
The few areas of intelligent activity would include theoretical scientific research on projects such as LIGO, and practical research into more efficient rockets. The spin-off from theoretical research sometimes takes a while, but without it there would be no progress.
If our telescopes detect a large meteorite heading towards planet Earth some time in the future, we should be able to deflect it or destroy it due to our rocket technology, thus avoiding the extinction of the human race and other life forms. Expenditure on fancy clothes and tasty food will not achieve that result.
That's my rant for today. ;D
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Here's an interesting thing I just read, sent by an acquaintance who's involved in the gravitational wave detection field (though not affiliated with LIGO…her area of research involves longer wavelengths than LIGO can "see"). It seems the orbiting Fermi Gamma Ray detector spotted a brief & weak Gamma Ray Burst, in the general direction of the gravitational wave detected by LIGO, within .4 seconds of the GW event. It's unknown whether or not the two are related, but intriguing at least. AFAIK no-one has ever correlated a GRB with already-existing black hole activity…but then we've never knowingly detected a black hole merger before now.
Here's the paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.03920
Now we need more LIGO gravitational wave detections so we can get some sort of handle on the type(s) of electromagnetic emissions that may accompany them.
-Dave-
Spaced out thinking? ;) ;D
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Rob, your determination to yuk this particular yum suggests there's something darker than mere cynicism going on. Whatever it is, go start your own thread about it.
-Dave-
You surprise me, Dave.
Rob C
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I'm interested in the potential of this to bridge the breach between general relativity and quantum mechanics. On the other hand, it doesn't do much to help me decide whether it is better to help an old lady across the street, or have her euthanized to get her off the Medicare rolls.
Rand
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Spaced out thinking? ;) ;D
Hehe. Maybe someone's been messing with Major Tom. ;) :o Seriously, Fermi's detection is at this point no more than an interesting bit of maybe-related data.
Aside: I remember the first time I heard Bowie's Ashes To Ashes. I was riveted. Now that, I thought, is an effing sequel!
-Dave-
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I'm interested in the potential of this to bridge the breach between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Yeah. The fact that they don't play well together IMO suggests we're missing something, or multiple somethings, big & very important. Being able to observe in a new way how gravitational interactions behave could prove helpful. For example, theory says gravitons should be massless. This is what allows gravitational waves, again in theory, to propagate at the speed of light. LIGO shows that if gravitons have mass it's a very small amount. But if further detections were to peg the graviton's mass at >0 this would give theorists something new & puzzling to work with. Or if a wide range of gravitational wave observations were to suggest gravity isn't a fundamental thing—thus no gravitons at all—that would really send folks back to their chalkboards.
As for the other issue you raise :) if you were to follow the diktat of your namesake, your choice re. helping the old woman across the street should be clear. But then I guess abolishing Medicare would be on the table too. :-[
-Dave-
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No matter what you spend a particular sum of your money on as a government, business, co-op or individual it usually means not spending that money on something else. Many countries have a Science budget, and some of them invested part of that in LIGO over a fairly long time period. This means other science projects were either funded at lower levels or not funded at all. Such is the way it is.
But when I consider the vast sums—quadrillions of dollars & still counting—the USA in particular wasted on a blindly triumphalist, even quasi-messianic fantasy in Iraq, tens of thousands of people killed for nothing…I find complaints about funding LIGO in particular, a project intended to broaden our understanding of the universe we live in…and with possible technological spin-off benefits in the coming years, to be beyond absurd.
BTW, the cost of LIGO to American taxpayers comes out so far to ~1.1 billion US dollars total. Those same taxpayers have just spent nearly $20 billion this year on Valentine's Day gifts.
-Dave-
Flawed logic and thinking? If something that is wasteful costs less than an illegal war then it doesn't justify the cost? What is logical is that BOTH are wrong and the money spent on more useful projects. However the USA doesn't see it that way. :(
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I'm not gonna continue arguing the point. LIGO exists and I'm glad it does.
-Dave-
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As for the other issue you raise :) if you were to follow the diktat of your namesake, your choice re. helping the old woman across the street should be clear. But then I guess abolishing Medicare would be on the table too. :-[
Good one! ;D But on the other hand, Rand can mean: "Wolf Shield," protector . . .
In which case the old woman would be in better shape.
A careful reading of Atlas Shrugged, however, reveals a messianic kind of story that, taken that way, would have poor Ayn spinning in her grave I suspect. And, in which case the old woman might not fare too badly either. John Galt would probably have helped her across the street, I suspect. But he'd then have to "talk" for 100 pages to explain why it fit his world-view. ;D
Rand
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John Galt would probably have helped her across the street, I suspect. But he'd then have to "talk" for 100 pages to explain why it fit his world-view. ;D
This is why I've never managed a careful reading of the book. ;) But, as does happen in fiction, characters can escape the writer's grasp and take on their own lives. Or express things from the writer's subconscious that are normally squelched by the cerebral cortex.
-Dave-
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Flawed logic and thinking? If something that is wasteful costs less than an illegal war then it doesn't justify the cost? What is logical is that BOTH are wrong and the money spent on more useful projects. However the USA doesn't see it that way. :(
You are saying basic science is done
We don't need to know anymore than we do. The rest is applied science or engineering from here on out. I am at a loss for words.
My opinion is government should absolutely fund basic science.
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You are saying basic science is done
We don't need to know anymore than we do. The rest is applied science or engineering from here on out. I am at a loss for words.
My opinion is government should absolutely fund basic science.
No I am not saying......You are saying basic science is done.....
What I am saying that there are vanity projects such as gravitational waves and sending people to Mars which imo is a waste of precious resources and money as well as people's talents. There are a lot of projects that are underfunded on earth that could be addressed better. Nothing against science.... :(
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You are saying basic science is done
We don't need to know anymore than we do. The rest is applied science or engineering from here on out. I am at a loss for words.
My opinion is government should absolutely fund basic science.
At the very least, they should in schools.
But that presupposes an interest in it from the wider public. Seems the problem there is that maths and science are a dwindling interest because they are more challenging than other soft routes to hoped-for employment or dream fulfilment.
But, there are many directions in which pubic funding for science could be aimed, and science fiction isn't one of those I think serious beyond its impact on providing the rocket scientists with a healthy wallet.
For my bucks, I'd rather see a far wider interest from governments in providing some sort of progress in winter heating systems, for example, which run up horrific bills for many old people - such as myself - and I'm supposed to be living in a place where winters don't exist. In the minds of those who have never wintered here. The science apparently exists with solar panels, and I'd imagine enough energy would be stored from the sunny winter days to make up for the just-above-freezing nights (which often do dip well below). Replying that one could always buy and have them installed is just being glib: that requires capital expenditure that many can't meet at the time in their llves when cold can equate with death. Further, in the apartment situation, such expenses are even more difficult to agree because of different ownerships with different agendas: summer birds don't give a fuck about winter residents; there are problems enough agreeing security doors at the common entrances. These problems can only be resolved by governmental regulations governing construction laws, so that when a place is bought it comes with those things built into the system. When you are earning enough to buy property you can afford the relatively tiny percentage it costs extra to have heating systems, but when you retire the money ain't often there.
Medicine. Yes, some states help there, but I think it should be a part of everyone's expectations that they will not die because they can't afford the latest help. Private investment in medicine development is one thing, but so is governmental investment in it- with some degree of governmental control over how that investment is handled. I don't want to see such public funds end up as director bonuses. Indeed, I think the entire concept of the bonus stinks: all people should be expected to do their best every day, as a matter of course: what the hell else are their salaries for? For paying part-attention to work, and spending the rest of the working day on Facebook, or out to lunch? I never expected my quotation for something to be overpaid because the job turned out well: it was always supposed to do exactly that!
Transport. How about a public system that works, that doesn't stop because it's the wrong kind of leaves or snow on the tracks?
Hell, there's no end to the earthly things that need fixed; we don't need to spend billions on things that will never mean anything to anyone in practical terms. Time enough for fantasy when reality is fixed. We already have the satellites to guide us home; how about the science to ensure we do that journey safely? Who, in their right mind, gives a shit what the other side of the Moon looks like?
Rob C
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The point usually missed when it comes to public funding of science is that the overall return—measured in knowledge gained, initial jobs created, technological offshoots developed that lead to new companies & more jobs in addition to the intrinsic usefulness & benefits (and, yes, sometimes frivolities) of the tech, not to mention the economic & cultural benefits of having an innovative spirit in play—more than justifies the investment. But we can't know in advance which projects will pan out & which won't, so we need to be capable of accepting that some won't without losing long-term focus. The zero-sum game road—we can only do this or only that—ends in economic & cultural stagnation.
Not that I expect any of this to register with folks who object to the funding. Choosing not to see something eventually results in not being able to see it.
-Dave-
-
The zero-sum game road—we can only do this or only that—ends in economic & cultural stagnation.
-Dave-
But that's the reality: there is only so much money available for governmental spending; otherwise, all political demands from all corners could be met and every party be the same as every other one: fairy godmothers.
Life is about priorities: you must do the more important tasks first, and that first is usually thought to be guaranteeing decent survival, not buying a fanciful Ferarri.
"Choosing not to see something eventually results in not being able to see it."
My thought, exactly.
Rob C
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The point usually missed when it comes to public funding of science is that the overall return—measured in knowledge gained, initial jobs created, technological offshoots developed that lead to new companies & more jobs in addition to the intrinsic usefulness & benefits (and, yes, sometimes frivolities) of the tech, not to mention the economic & cultural benefits of having an innovative spirit in play—more than justifies the investment. But we can't know in advance which projects will pan out & which won't, so we need to be capable of accepting that some won't without losing long-term focus. The zero-sum game road—we can only do this or only that—ends in economic & cultural stagnation.
Not that I expect any of this to register with folks who object to the funding. Choosing not to see something eventually results in not being able to see it.
-Dave-
I will give you the benefit of the doubt. You earlier stated that you didn't want to continue the discussion.
quote
I'm not gonna continue arguing the point. LIGO exists and I'm glad it does.
-Dave-
unquote
but my goodness you are? You are on the losing side of the argument but won't give in. All of the benefits of science can be achieved without exploring outer space. How hard is that to grasp? :(
-
Hell, there's no end to the earthly things that need fixed; we don't need to spend billions on things that will never mean anything to anyone in practical terms. Time enough for fantasy when reality is fixed. We already have the satellites to guide us home; how about the science to ensure we do that journey safely? Who, in their right mind, gives a shit what the other side of the Moon looks like?
Rob C
This is my point exactly. Getting a car to navigate safely is something for the Googles and Apples of the world. But figuring out general relativety and doing the experiments is basic science. Who knew a hundred years ago we would need relativity to compensate for the motion of satellites in order for GPS to work. And getting to the other side of the moon only takes Newtonian physics and private corporations like Space X could do it. No need for Nasa to go back.
Stamper. I completelty disagree. We learn about fundamental physics by looking out into space. If we can't observe or do an experiment it is not science. To observe gravitational waves makes it science. Believning Einstein was right without verification is something else.
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So who decides what subject needs to be investigated/researched? Who decides who gets the merit/money for a project to be funded? We all marvel (I think) at the images and knowledge that the Hubble telescope has provided for decades; perhaps that should have been canned?
Perhaps the great navigators from Portugal (hey, its my country:)), when some folks had the balls and the vision to start sending tiny ships around the globe starting in the early XV century, should have done something else? My country debt problems started then, and continue until today, but who can negate the great scientific advancements of the era?
Should we care that there is water in the Moon and Mars? Or hydrocarbons in Europa? So now we have satellites, we should do nothing more? Once upon a time, orbiting satellites were imagined by the great mind of Arthur Clarke, on (gasp!) science fiction books! Sometimes, one needs to imagine, and dream, before things actually happen and become reality.
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but my goodness you are? You are on the losing side of the argument but won't give in. All of the benefits of science can be achieved without exploring outer space. How hard is that to grasp? :(
You position him on the losing side? That's a trifle arrogant, I'd say.
We've been through all this before, with Galileo among others. The current dollar cost of basic science is negligible in the grand scheme of things, and that's not even considering its long-term spin-off benefits. Using the cost as an argument to not do it is nonsensical.
If you insist on regarding this kind of scientific research as an inefficiency in our culture, something that must be repaired lest we waste more money, then you must also consider all other inefficiencies as well. How can you not, if you want to be taken seriously. I'd be surprised if science made it into the top 500 things we "waste" money on.
And in any case, the money that is funnelled into science is spent on salaries and buying equipment from suppliers, all of which spending IS the economy, the way we measure things in the national income accounts.
And Rob, there is no need to do further research on how to heat homes more cheaply. We all know what to do, it just requires insulation and good workmanship, not research. Although, in fact, there is ongoing research in home construction all the time. (The insulation of the ice and snow walls of an Inuit's igloo can keep the interior temperature 25 degrees Celsius warmer than outside, using the heat of one candle and a couple of human bodies.) We could build houses like that too, but we choose not to, but not because we don't already know how.
At any point in time, you can look at most scientific research, and if you're in that frame of mind you can declare it pointless. It's a silly exercise.
-
And Rob, there is no need to do further research on how to heat homes more cheaply. We all know what to do, it just requires insulation and good workmanship, not research. Although, in fact, there is ongoing research in home construction all the time. (The insulation of the ice and snow walls of an Inuit's igloo can keep the interior temperature 25 degrees Celsius warmer than outside, using the heat of one candle and a couple of human bodies.) We could build houses like that too, but we choose not to, but not because we don't already know how.
At any point in time, you can look at most scientific research, and if you're in that frame of mind you can declare it pointless. It's a silly exercise.
That's much my point, Robert: the science is already there, but not the will, as I wrote:
"For my bucks, I'd rather see a far wider interest from governments in providing some sort of progress in winter heating systems, for example, which run up horrific bills for many old people - such as myself - and I'm supposed to be living in a place where winters don't exist. In the minds of those who have never wintered here. The science apparently exists with solar panels, and I'd imagine enough energy would be stored from the sunny winter days to make up for the just-above-freezing nights (which often do dip well below). Replying that one could always buy and have them installed is just being glib: that requires capital expenditure that many can't meet at the time in their llves when cold can equate with death. Further, in the apartment situation, such expenses are even more difficult to agree because of different ownerships with different agendas: summer birds don't give a fuck about winter residents; there are problems enough agreeing security doors at the common entrances. These problems can only be resolved by governmental regulations governing construction laws, so that when a place is bought it comes with those things built into the system. When you are earning enough to buy property you can afford the relatively tiny percentage it costs extra to have heating systems, but when you retire the money ain't often there."
And that's where I feel governments should step in and make the bloody architects/builders apply and comply, by law, to better practice. It stretches into illegal building on protected sites (Israel has plenty of external examples to quote in its defence of building where it should not!), of local mayors ending up in jail because of corruption in holiday resorts for granting perm¡ts for, or not preventing, such building - same difference - and the snail-pace of demolitions where such orders are in place, the slowness hoping for different election results to make it all go away... so yeah, enough science is there; it's the application of what we already have that's the problem, and that's human nature, in the shape of greed, at work.
I still think we have more than enough ability/science to make Earth a far better place; if we want to support more, which in general I think we all do, let's pour the pennies available into where it helps people most - starting, say, with medicine and better (read cheaper, too) meds that are not quasi-placebos doing little more than increasing the overall cost of social care.
"And in any case, the money that is funnelled into science is spent on salaries and buying equipment from suppliers, all of which spending IS the economy, the way we measure things in the national income accounts."
Of course, but that doesn't justify pointlesss objectives: if the dosh is going to flow anyhow, at least point it to where it's going to do something positive, not just line pockets and feed egos. And let's not forget: science is a broad definition; my arrows are aimed at the fantasy projects, not the worthwhile, and I think folks generally know the difference.
Rob
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You earlier stated that you didn't want to continue the discussion.
I changed my mind. I'm capable of that.
Time will tell whether curiosity (and its benefits) continues to have a significant role to play in how we structure our cultures and societies. We've had a pretty good run over the past 400+ years. I hope it continues.
-Dave-
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Back on topic, here's a pretty good & concise article at the Forbes website re: Do Gravitational Waves Exhibit Wave-Particle Duality? (Annoying ads again, sadly.)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/02/20/ask-ethan-do-gravitational-waves-exhibit-wave-particle-duality
-Dave-
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I think it is interesting to look back and learn from our successes, mistakes, and prejudices. I am currently reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Explain-World-Discovery-Modern-Science/dp/0062346660/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456241665&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3ASteven+Weinberg
Highly recommended. It's easy to say that we "have enough", and should spend money elsewhere. Where would we be today if say, 2000 years ago, there were no people to advance scientific knowledge? If we drop the so-called useless research today, where will we be in 2000 years time?
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I think it is interesting to look back and learn from our successes, mistakes, and prejudices. I am currently reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Explain-World-Discovery-Modern-Science/dp/0062346660/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456241665&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3ASteven+Weinberg
Highly recommended. It's easy to say that we "have enough", and should spend money elsewhere. Where would we be today if say, 2000 years ago, there were no people to advance scientific knowledge? If we drop the so-called useless research today, where will we be in 2000 years time?
But Paulo, the world today is not the world of two thousand years ago. Time/science has accelerated exponentially. That acceleration ends with the buffers.
Where will we be in two thousand years time? I don't think that we will be anywhere at all. We have already scewed up so much of our environment, probably irreversibly, through mixtures of both greed and ignorance, that sustainability of our species - of any species other than the ants - is not a likely future event. Food production is already starting to be a problem even in Europe: the rains are failing in Spain, Britain is going through a change that promises nothing good, and the US has its own very strange patterns coming home to roost. Nobody can still be unaware of the failure of rain in Africa; where do you imagine those peoples will be forced to try to go?
We ain't seen nuttin' yet; an inner circle of European countries is already closing borders that should be legally wide open... the 'defensive' machine-gunners are not far off. And so far it's just the hurrican that's already developing with politically inspired migration; it will not, cannot be solved with love and open arms. When things get tight, family comes first, well before nation and 'foreign' doesn't stand a bloody chance. Never has.
And none of that takes into account the rise of new pestilences without known cures. Mosquitos, anyone? Yes we have the sciences and we have the money; but we blow it on irrelevant fantasies instead.
Change is coming so fast that for the first time in my life, thanks to a politically mobile (he hopes, I do not) buffoon in England, I am finding myself on the side of both Labour and the Scottish Nationalists. If that can happen, when I delight in my natural place to the right of Genghis Khan, anything can - and will - happen. That's a certainty: the only guarantee Nature offers is change; as we've been through great times, there's only one way left to go. Out.
Rob C
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… there's only one way left to go. Out.
Please stop smothering discussions with off-topic negativity.
This is not your personal blog.
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Please stop smothering discussions with off-topic negativity.
This is not your personal blog.
That is what you are guilty of with this post???
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That is what you are guilty of with this post???
Stamper, it's nothing new: only one guy is ever right and it ain't any one of us. He holds the keys to his kingdom - I don't think anybody wants to steal them.
Rob C
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Stamper, it's nothing new: only one guy is ever right and it ain't any one of us. He holds the keys to his kingdom - I don't think anybody wants to steal them.
Rob C
I noticed recently he called you a bawling infant? It looks like stalking?
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my arrows are aimed at the fantasy projects, not the worthwhile, and I think folks generally know the difference.
The folks often disagree however.
I've worked in medical (cancer) genetics and gravitation, although never in the big science projects associated with the former. "Folks" probably think the former is more important. From the inside, I see a huge amount of money wasted on unfeasible projects because of equally huge egos, who can't stomach to be told that laws of mathematics and logic mean they can't do waht they are spending money to try to do. The net gain from the billions spent on various genome sequencing projects has been important, but actually very modest in extent. Mostly, we've learnt that what people had insisted was true was not (tumours are not homogeneous clones, they don't march inexorably on but can be stopped by the immune system, and that our healthy tissue is itself a mosaic of diffent genotypes, many of which were supposed to be very unhealthy). And please don't say "epigenetics" at this point, it's just another round of massive hype and self-delusion... with some interesting facts buried underneath.
Worth remembering that this internet thingy was a by-product of CERN, and that the whole thing is much cheaper than a football world-cup (even without using border-line slave labour and a huge worker mortality rate). certainly cheaper than a moderate size proxy way in the middle-east.
But finally, science is like art. Some of it is maybe more expensive than is reasonable... but it's worth doing, imho.
-
Rob, I am more optimistic than you:) Our view of history is naturally biased to our cultural background and the times where we happen to be living. So naturally we think that the "today" is really bad, and it will only get worse.
But actually, 2000 years ago, the civilized world went through what some historians think it was one of the greatest changes/upheavals ever; the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
100 years ago we went through one of the most dreadful wars ever, I think that today we are in better shape. Yes, there are problems, and serious ones, but we will survive Trump and/or Boris, if that is the case:)
Best regards
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I noticed recently he called you a bawling infant? It looks like stalking?
Indeed, but how do you complain about/sue softwear? ((I have twice (at least) attempted to contact Microsoft on this, that 'n' the other (this 'n' that in one complaint - the maths figures) and all to no avail; it's configured to permit only access types that it desires, and to which it thinks it can make a sale.))
So, in the case of the phenomenon in question, you need some background, which my careful research has unearthed for me in one of those revelatory dreams. (I get many answers and solutions that way; recently, possibly an age-linked thing, I get more answers than solutions.) Regarding my first word in this paragraph, 'so', have you noticed the current dynamic shift to the use of 'so' as the beginning of almost every statement made on television, even when its meaning doesn't fit at all? I think 'so' has become the new 'like'.
Now, Mr Kubrick and that awfully clever chap Arthur C. Clarke created Hal. As you know, Hal was relatively talkative, but that turned out not to be one of his better characteristics. So, as Mk 2, the duo created another machine, but this one somewhat more taciturn, and assigned to it the capacity and duty of serving as a quotations centre. Somehow, it became enmeshed with the LuLa server.
And there's the rub: how to deal with softwear? I don't do algorithms.
;-)
Rob C
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Rob, I am more optimistic than you:) Our view of history is naturally biased to our cultural background and the times where we happen to be living. So naturally we think that the "today" is really bad, and it will only get worse.
But actually, 2000 years ago, the civilized world went through what some historians think it was one of the greatest changes/upheavals ever; the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
100 years ago we went through one of the most dreadful wars ever, I think that today we are in better shape. Yes, there are problems, and serious ones, but we will survive Trump and/or Boris, if that is the case:)
Best regards
Man, I would love, for the sake of my progeny, to share your optimism. But I can't. I honestly believe the point of no return was reached quite some time ago.
Rob C
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The folks often disagree however.
I've worked in medical (cancer) genetics and gravitation, although never in the big science projects associated with the former. "Folks" probably think the former is more important. From the inside, I see a huge amount of money wasted on unfeasible projects because of equally huge egos, who can't stomach to be told that laws of mathematics and logic mean they can't do waht they are spending money to try to do. The net gain from the billions spent on various genome sequencing projects has been important, but actually very modest in extent. Mostly, we've learnt that what people had insisted was true was not (tumours are not homogeneous clones, they don't march inexorably on but can be stopped by the immune system, and that our healthy tissue is itself a mosaic of diffent genotypes, many of which were supposed to be very unhealthy). And please don't say "epigenetics" at this point, it's just another round of massive hype and self-delusion... with some interesting facts buried underneath.
Worth remembering that this internet thingy was a by-product of CERN, and that the whole thing is much cheaper than a football world-cup (even without using border-line slave labour and a huge worker mortality rate). certainly cheaper than a moderate size proxy way in the middle-east.
But finally, science is like art. Some of it is maybe more expensive than is reasonable... but it's worth doing, imho.
Trust me, Graham I shall never mention epigenetics! I have no idea where they live nor even who they are.
Gravitation has always interested me. As with suction, I realise that it simply doesn't exist: suction is nothing but the other side of pressure, and gravity but the second part of cause and effect: if you jump six feet up in the air, as a measure of vertical distance travelled, you can only complete the action by virtue of its opposite - the return journey downwards, also of six feet. Nothing to do with 'gravity' at all, simply a product of equal and opposite directions. Do you see?
As to the cost of a world-cup - I can't pretend to know a lot about it; all I can offer is that it seems a pretty corrupt thing with which to mess; even now, at this late (or perhaps only early?) stage of multiple exposures, transparency is being denied in fresh elections: how brass-necked is that?
Regarding the art/science equilibrium: that some art is more expensive than another piece is without question; however, that all of it is worth the doing is, nonetheless, questionable. I need do no more than look within my own soul: some of its outpourings I like, but many I strangle at birth. Nope, I don't believe all 'art' is valid, not even that all 'art' is actually art. Why would science be any different? I imagine it holds just as much corruption, self-serving effort and power structure-building as anything else. At least Mars did the right thing.
The dificulties of attaining definitive thought...
Rob
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Gravitation has always interested me. As with suction, I realise that it simply doesn't exist: suction is nothing but the other side of pressure, and gravity but the second part of cause and effect: if you jump six feet up in the air, as a measure of vertical distance travelled, you can only complete the action by virtue of its opposite - the return journey downwards, also of six feet. Nothing to do with 'gravity' at all, simply a product of equal and opposite directions. Do you see?
Actually this isn't a bad description. In general relativity gravity is just a consequence of moving in curved spacetime. You follow the spacetime curve caused by the Earth's mass as you jump up…and since that curve is too steep relative to the jump velocity you'd need to go sailing off into orbit or even beyond, you then slide back down again.
Yet in quantum mechanics—presuming gravity exists in the realm of the very small (most physicists presume it does but it's still an open question, and one gravitational wave "telescopes" could help us answer)—gravity does become a force (again, as in Newton's theory) and curved spacetime gives way to the exchange of force-carrying particles (gravitons) among & between objects with mass. Emitting & absorbing gravitons causes such objects to be drawn towards each other. We already know that wave behavior can be associated with discrete objects—photons, for example—so there's no reason to think gravity is any different…and good reasons to presume it's the same.
-Dave-
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I noticed recently he called you a bawling infant?
Supposedly "… people are born what they are (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=106672.msg880414#msg880414)."
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Supposedly "… people are born what they are (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=106672.msg880414#msg880414)."
Isaac....you must be a joy to live with?
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Isaac....you must be a joy to live with?
"Supposedly "… people are born what they are."
If I may recap: Now, Mr Kubrick and that awfully clever chap Arthur C. Clarke created Hal. As you know, Hal was relatively talkative, but that turned out not to be one of his better characteristics. So, as Mk 2, the duo created another machine, but this one somewhat more taciturn, and assigned to it the capacity and duty of serving as a quotations centre. Somehow, it became enmeshed with the LuLa server.
You see? I was right, stamper. Son of Hal, aka Mk 2, aka QC (Quotation Centre)!
Amazing use of time/effort. And worthy of respect for assiduous attention to detail and cataloguing skills: I can hardly remember day to day what went down - possibly because not a lot does - but stuff from the 50s/60s remains brightly shining in the relevant firmament.
Rob C
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You see? I was right, stamper.
For those familiar with computer science history, you guys sound like
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck virus (http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Folklore/Robin%20Hood%20And%20Friar%20Tuck.html).
Take a moment, read the above -- remarkable similarity!
That virus hijacked other people's computers, you hijack other people's threads...
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For those familiar with computer science history, you guys sound like
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck virus (http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Folklore/Robin%20Hood%20And%20Friar%20Tuck.html).
Take a moment, read the above -- remarkable similarity!
That virus hijacked other people's computers, you hijack other people's threads...
Do you really think anyone's going to be rash enough to read something clearly labelled as 'virus'?
I might have one germinating in my cellphone: every now and again, when I startle it out of its habitual slumber, a little line comes up at the very top that prohibits the closing-down of the cellphone.
The line reads something about a "little kernel" or like that; it continues along to mantion 1st April of some years ago, so I tend to think its a prank by some nut case - kernel? - but fortunately, in the end, it just goes away and the cell can be operated normally.
Strange sense of humour, perhaps it comes from Korea as original equipment.
Hijack. Were the thread going anywhere, I'm sure it would still be doing exactly that if there were enough people of science around to give it momentum. As it is, I think we pedestrians seem to be all that's left... Didn't somebody suggest it move to a more fitting venue? However, as it's the Coffee Corner, I wouldn't propose that myself.
;-)
Rob C
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For those familiar with computer science history, you guys sound like
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck virus (http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Folklore/Robin%20Hood%20And%20Friar%20Tuck.html).
Take a moment, read the above -- remarkable similarity!
That virus hijacked other people's computers, you hijack other people's threads...
And you are guilty of hijacking?
-
Do you really think anyone's going to be rash enough to read something clearly labelled as 'virus'?
OK, I'll take your remark at face value... And I'll copy/paste this time (BTW, I was referring to those messages after the attempt to kill one instance with "!X id1"):
Robin Hood And Friar Tuck
The following story was posted in news.sysadmin recently.
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Back in the mid-1970s, several of the system support staff
at Motorola (I believe it was) discovered a relatively
simple way to crack system security on the Xerox CP-V
timesharing system (or it may have been CP-V's predecessor
UTS). Through a simple programming strategy, it was
possible for a user program to trick the system into running
a portion of the program in "master mode" (supervisor
state), in which memory protection does not apply. The
program could then poke a large value into its "privilege
level" byte (normally write-protected) and could then
proceed to bypass all levels of security within the
file-management system, patch the system monitor, and do
numerous other interesting things. In short, the barn door
was wide open.
Motorola quite properly reported this problem to XEROX via
an official "level 1 SIDR" (a bug report with a perceived
urgency of "needs to be fixed yesterday"). Because the text
of each SIDR was entered into a database that could be
viewed by quite a number of people, Motorola followed the
approved procedure: they simply reported the problem as
"Security SIDR", and attached all of the necessary
documentation, ways-to-reproduce, etc. separately.
Xerox apparently sat on the problem... they either didn't
acknowledge the severity of the problem, or didn't assign
the necessary operating-system-staff resources to develop
and distribute an official patch.
Time passed (months, as I recall). The Motorola guys
pestered their Xerox field-support rep, to no avail.
Finally they decided to take Direct Action, to demonstrate
to Xerox management just how easily the system could be
cracked, and just how thoroughly the system security systems
could be subverted.
They dug around through the operating-system listings, and
devised a thoroughly devilish set of patches. These patches
were then incorporated into a pair of programs called Robin
Hood and Friar Tuck. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were
designed to run as "ghost jobs" (daemons, in Unix
terminology); they would use the existing loophole to
subvert system security, install the necessary patches, and
then keep an eye on one another's statuses in order to keep
the system operator (in effect, the superuser) from aborting
them.
So... one day, the system operator on the main CP-V
software-development system in El Segundo was surprised by a
number of unusual phenomena. These included the following
(as I recall... it's been a while since I heard the story):
- Tape drives would rewind and dismount their tapes in the
middle of a job.
- Disk drives would seek back&forth so rapidly that they'd
attempt to walk across the floor.
- The card-punch output device would occasionally start up
of itself and punch a "lace card" (every hole punched).
These would usually jam in the punch.
- The console would print snide and insulting messages from
Robin Hood to Friar Tuck, or vice versa.
- The Xerox card reader had two output stackers; it could be
instructed to stack into A, stack into B, or stack into A
unless a card was unreadable, in which case the bad card
was placed into stacker B. One of the patches installed
by the ghosts added some code to the card-reader driver...
after reading a card, it would flip over to the opposite
stacker. As a result, card decks would divide themselves
in half when they were read, leaving the operator to
recollate them manually.
I believe that there were some other effects produced, as
well.
Naturally, the operator called in the operating-system
developers. They found the bandit ghost jobs running, and
X'ed them... and were once again surprised. When Robin Hood
was X'ed, the following sequence of events took place:
!X id1
id1: Friar Tuck... I am under attack! Pray save me! (Robin Hood)
id1: Off (aborted)
id2: Fear not, friend Robin! I shall rout the Sheriff of Nottingham's men!
id3: Thank you, my good fellow! (Robin)
Each ghost-job would detect the fact that the other had been
killed, and would start a new copy of the recently-slain
program within a few milliseconds. The only way to kill
both ghosts was to kill them simultaneously (very difficult)
or to deliberately crash the system.
Finally, the system programmers did the latter... only to
find that the bandits appeared once again when the system
rebooted! It turned out that these two programs had patched
the boot-time image (the /vmunix file, in Unix terms) and
had added themselves to the list of programs that were to be
started at boot time...
The Robin Hood and Friar Tuck ghosts were finally eradicated
when the system staff rebooted the system from a clean
boot-tape and reinstalled the monitor. Not long thereafter,
Xerox released a patch for this problem.
I believe that Xerox filed a complaint with Motorola's
management about the merry-prankster actions of the two
employees in question. To the best of my knowledge, no
serious disciplinary action was taken against either of
these guys.
Several years later, both of the perpetrators were hired by
Honeywell, which had purchased the rights to CP-V after
Xerox pulled out of the mainframe business. Both of them
made serious and substantial contributions to the Honeywell
CP-6 operating system development effort. Robin Hood (Dan
Holle) did much of the development of the PL-6
system-programming language compiler; Friar Tuck (John
Gabler) was one of the chief communications-software gurus
for several years. They're both alive and well, and living
in LA (Dan) and Orange County (John). Both are among the
more brilliant people I've had the pleasure of working with.
Disclaimers: it has been quite a while since I heard the
details of how this all went down, so some of the details
above are almost certainly wrong. I shared an apartment
with John Gabler for several years, and he was my Best Man
when I married back in '86... so I'm somewhat predisposed to
believe his version of the events that occurred.
Dave Platt
Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
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Whatever it is, go start your own thread about it.
No one would give any attention to those posts if they were in their own discussion thread.
… you hijack other people's threads…
Discussions are hijacked, disrupted and smothered - so a bored few can amuse themselves.
Reluctantly, I'll now spend a few moments to Login before reading the LuLa forum, because that seems to be the price that has to be paid, to enable the forum software to Ignore List them.
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OK, I'll take your remark at face value... And I'll copy/paste this time (BTW, I was referring to those messages after the attempt to kill one instance with "!X id1"):
That's an interesting story; in fact, it quite tickles my fancy.
But two problems:
1. it's off topic;
2. it doesn't address my little 'problem' with the Samsung cellphone's fondness for the 'kernel' thing.
But nonetheless, I did enjoy reading about those inventive souls; think of the magic they could weave if they joined up with us here in LuLa!
;-)
Rob C
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For those familiar with computer science history, you guys sound like
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck virus (http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Folklore/Robin%20Hood%20And%20Friar%20Tuck.html).
Take a moment, read the above -- remarkable similarity!
That virus hijacked other people's computers, you hijack other people's threads...
Take a moment? I think it would have taken more than a moment? I didn't read it because it was off topic.....something that you were complaining about. Rather ironic. :(
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No one would give any attention to those posts if they were in their own discussion thread.
Discussions are hijacked, disrupted and smothered - so a bored few can amuse themselves.
Reluctantly, I'll now spend a few moments to Login before reading the LuLa forum, because that seems to be the price that has to be paid, to enable the forum software to Ignore List them.
The many sighs of relief were quite audible; shame you couldn't hear them.
;-)
Rob C
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I didn't read it because it was off topic.....something that you were complaining about. Rather ironic. :(
Well, once the conversation is derailed, there's no coming back.
I am here to have some fun (just like you, from what I see), and I found it very amusing hearing photographers (!) complaining about scientists not doing something more useful. Talk about irony...
But there's still a difference between doing some OT remarks and completely derailing the thread. This is how it felt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgOqcH1Ywzs
(Rob, there's no virus in that video, so click away, you're safe)
If you see no problem with that kind of visitors -- OK, so be it. Good to know.
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Well, once the conversation is derailed, there's no coming back.
I am here to have some fun (just like you, from what I see), and I found it very amusing hearing photographers (!) complaining about scientists not doing something more useful. Talk about irony...
But there's still a difference between doing some OT remarks and completely derailing the thread. This is how it felt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgOqcH1Ywzs
(Rob, there's no virus in that video, so click away, you're safe)
If you see no problem with that kind of visitors -- OK, so be it. Good to know.
No, no, no!
It was about scientists not doing something scientifically more useful; and that's very different.
Also, it was about the resources that may be available to them being better directed. And an indication of 'better' was lodged with the hope they be 'encouraged' to concentrate on the medical and less esoteric where esoteric means practically useless.
I think it's time to think about the human race as we know it, not about discovering worlds that we shall never visit if real, and pointless where we can't even see them. As long as we leave them alone, I'm sure they will reciprocate in kind.
We need better meds., better transport choices and far, far better human relations and freedom from isms and "correctnesses" of many kinds.
;-)
Rob
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Isaac....you must be a joy to live with?
Ye huvnae bin asked tae bide-in hen.
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Yez nae been asked ta bidey-in hen.
I know the lesson won't be learned - I understand being invisible; however, this line is risible.
Never, in all my years there, did I hear anyone utter such a line. Arise, the newly invented faux Scot.
Rob C
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For those of you interested in the subject, here's a link to a paper on detecting very low frequency (long wavelength) gravitational waves using "arrays" of pulsars. (Pulsars are extremely dense supernova remnants composed of neutrons smashed up against each other. These objects spin rapidly, emitting twin beans of photons & electrons in the process. When the beams sweep across our field of view we call the objects pulsars due to the pulses of radio light we can detect coming from them. Otherwise we use the term neutron stars.) IMO it's very cool that we should be able to use the precise timing of the pulsar sweeps to, in effect, construct a GW detector in space.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.05564
-Dave-
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Gravitation has always interested me. As with suction, I realise that it simply doesn't exist: suction is nothing but the other side of pressure, and gravity but the second part of cause and effect: if you jump six feet up in the air, as a measure of vertical distance travelled, you can only complete the action by virtue of its opposite - the return journey downwards, also of six feet. Nothing to do with 'gravity' at all, simply a product of equal and opposite directions. Do you see?
I recommend not getting left behind on Mars.
However, I am reminded of when I went to an interview for a university place. My interviewer, an eminent scientist, drew a circle to represent the Earth and another to represent a satellite, and asked me to add arrows to show the forces acting on the satellite. I drew an arrow to represent its gravitational attraction to the Earth and returned his pencil to him. He asked me what I had forgotten. I replied nothing. He asked me about centrifugal force. I replied that there is no such thing. I did not get a place at the university, but of course by that time I no longer wanted one. The relevance here is that it's not just lay people who get the basics of physics wrong.
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I recommend not getting left behind on Mars.
However, I am reminded of when I went to an interview for a university place. My interviewer, an eminent scientist, drew a circle to represent the Earth and another to represent a satellite, and asked me to add arrows to show the forces acting on the satellite. I drew an arrow to represent its gravitational attraction to the Earth and returned his pencil to him. He asked me what I had forgotten. I replied nothing. He asked me about centrifugal force. I replied that there is no such thing. I did not get a place at the university, but of course by that time I no longer wanted one. The relevance here is that it's not just lay people who get the basics of physics wrong.
And to think that I knew that one too, centripetal being the real deal.
The thing is, though, as with realpolitik, so realphysik reveals itself when you stand beside a car stuck in the mud. I was going to say when the spaghetti hit the fan...
Oh for my lost if misspent youth! Not that, in my defence, I spent much time playing with fans or spaghetti.
Rob C
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The LIGO folks have another press conference scheduled for tomorrow at 1:15pm US Eastern Daylight Time. :)
-Dave-
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Again, as anticipated, the two LIGOs have seen another black hole merger event. This time on Christmas Day (in the US…December 26 in some other parts of the world). The event was closer, ~1.4 billion light years away, and involved smaller black holes than the one detected last September.
There's been a third merger detection since too, but this one is being called a "candidate." It was likely genuine but the LIGO folks are being cautious as it happened near the limit of the detectors' capability.
The two LIGOs are currently being upgraded, with increased sensitivity, and will go back online this coming September.
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/06/ligo-detects-a-second-set-of-gravitational-waves
http://journals.aps.org/prl/highlights
-Dave-
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For the curious, there is an official LIGO news site: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/
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Again, as anticipated, the two LIGOs have seen another black hole merger event.
Another article on this, with a linked video: Second Observation of Gravitational Waves Revealed (http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/06/second-observation-of-gravitational-waves-revealed-a-new-window-on-some-of-the-darkest-events-in-our.html)
This time on Christmas Day (in the US…December 26 in some other parts of the world).
And some other parts have it on January 7th (http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/russia/christmas-day) ;)