Comment Re:hmm (Score 1) 138
They'd disclosed it but the first one hadn't finished testifying under oath about it. And that matters. The latter has status as evidence in court.
They'd disclosed it but the first one hadn't finished testifying under oath about it. And that matters. The latter has status as evidence in court.
Because if they're explaining to non-scientists, they might as well be explaining to babies. The foundational knowledge taught in schools simply isn't up to the standard needed.
If you can't make useful predictions within the parameters of your model, you can't test the ideas. Ergo, the shut up and calculate side does have a good argument.
Previously, in physics, there has been a three-way dance between theorists who develop the mathematical description, theorists who develop the mechanical description, and practical physicists who carry out observations both to test the theories and to apply them in practical terms. This dance kept everything moving.
This may or may not be the correct way to approach quantum mechanics. The rules are very different in that domain.
On the other hand, it's easy to spot the hostility between the groups and it's obvious that the anticipated new physics isn't getting found. New models are rare and are struggling. The dance hasn't completely stopped, but it is definitely in trouble.
But, of course, that might equally be down to the increased competition, the need to publish trivial results quickly rather than do anything profound, and the greatly reduced investment in blue sky science.
I'm going to suggest it's a mix of stuff. We need a lot more funding, a lot less aggro, and we either need to get the mechanical description partner back on their feet or we need to find an alternative to them if that sort of description just doesn't work in this arena.
But I think the science dance needs three sides. I think we're going to find that the calculate lobby can't advance a whole lot further on their own, and that they cannot produce a theory of everything without some idea of what an everything is.
If a manufacturer knows that a system has a specific defect that makes it dangerous to use in certain contexts, it is usually obliged by law to report those circumstances. The license agreement is not necessarily considered legally binding or protective where there is a case of wilful neglect. Deliberate actions are not treated the same as lack of awareness or even negligence. But even negligence may be treated unsympathetically by the courts, no matter what customers sign up to.
Given that this defect could have left exposed critical infrastructure, banks, and businesses whose work is in the national interest, one might even be able to argue a case that this gave succour to hostile powers.
The most probable outcome is nothing happening. Companies are risk-averse and Microsoft has expensive lawyers. But a class action suit for wilful endangerment isn't wholly impossible, and I could see the DOJ investigating whether laws were broken, but only after the election.
Fiction:
12 books from the Deverry series
The Three Body Problem trilogy
Monkey
Treacle Walker
Various books on Powershell
Non-Fiction:
Linux Administrator's Guide
Linux Network Administrator's Guide
Both OpenZFS books
Ansible
Terraform
Various books on Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL optimisation
C++ manuals
Various Cisco manuals
OpenPF manual
Obvious troll is obvious. Buh-bye.
And the law does not say anything about conservation of energy: the law is "in a closed system, the energy is constant".
That is what "conversation of energy" is. You've contradicted yourself in the same sentence, which is almost impressive.
The conservation laws are statistical, at least to a degree. Local apparent violations can be OK, provided the system as a whole absolutely complies.
There's no question that if the claim was as appears that the conservation laws would be violated system-wide, which is a big no-no.
So we need to look for alternative explanations.
The most obvious one is that the results aren't being honestly presented, that there's so much wishful thinking that the researchers are forcing the facts to fit their theory. (A tendency so well known, that it's even been used as the basis for fictional detectives.)
Never trust results that are issued in a PR statement before a paper. But these days, it's increasingly concerning that you can't trust the journals.
The next possibility is an unconsidered source of propulsion. At the top of the atmosphere, there are a few candidates, but whether they'd impart enough energy is unclear to me.
The third possibility is that the rocket imparted more energy than considered, so the initial velocity was incorrectly given.
The fourth possibility is that Earth's gravity (which is non-uniform) is lower than given in the calculations, so the acceleration calculations are off.
When dealing with tiny quantities that can be swamped by experimental error, then you need to determine if it has been. At least, after you've determined there's a quantity to examine.
<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<<
