Some still say the Earth is flat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7540427.stm

This is something I'd expect to read on The Onion, but no, these people are serious. I'd like to take this moment to bridge this thread to the ressurection of old ideals and say that people like this have no place in our dreamt up government.

Makes sense to me! Captainzib is simply just not open to new ideas.

Think about it captainzib. What’s more obvious? That the world is somehow some GIANT MAGICAL BALL OOOOOOOOH!!!!! or that the global secret government has millions of people involved in a conspiracy to trick you...... FOR PROFIT!

Step 1: Trick people into believing the world is round.

Step 3: Profit.

It makes too much sense to ignore.

And someone needs to discuss with these people such small things as how gravity works, and how it is created.

I'm sure these same people are also chased around by black helicopters and SUVs.

"Excuse me Mr. Smith, for exposing our conspiracy, we're dropping you off the edge, come with us."

The Bermuda Triangle is the EDGE!!! That's IT! That explains EVERYTHING!!!

Luckily just about everyone can easily see how ridiculous this is. It's the pseudoscience that has more popular support and that people are trying to teach in public schools that drives me nuts.

My garage must be on the earth's edge also. Things go in there and are never seen again.

seann wrote: Luckily just about everyone can easily see how ridiculous this is. It's the pseudoscience that has more popular support and that people are trying to teach in public schools that drives me nuts.

Give them time. It won't be long before calling someone stupid will be un-PC, so we'll have to call them intellectually challenged.

You don't have to be stupid to believe stupid things, just nuts, ignorant, stubborn, have some sort of political or religious agenda or something else, I'm still trying to figure it out.

I couldn't love GRM the magazine or the website more, and believe me, I don't like to be the P.C police or anything or the guy who has a problem with everything thing, but I do have a problem with this...

I find it a bit offensive that you use terms like “intellectually challenged” etc etc... for your little descriptions or whatever in the avatars. I myself do not have intillect, nor am I a intillectual teacher or challenged, but I feel sensitivity for people with intelligence as I am a student taking intellictually challenged classes, and my Girlfriend is pursuing her masters in the field.

These terms although I'm pretty sure are not even real words, are obviously meant to resemble the words used to describe people with PC impairments, and it appears that they are used on these boards in a joking sense which, as I view it, makes light of people who are afflicted with no discernable disabilities.

John Brown wrote: These terms although I'm pretty sure are not even real words, are obviously meant to resemble the words used to describe people with PC impairments, and it appears that they are used on these boards in a joking sense which, as I view it, makes light of people who are afflicted with no discernable disabilities.

It is intended to mock people that are genuine idiots but insist that they be granted the same respect that people with legitimate conditions.

Sorry for the confusion.

John Brown wrote: I couldn't love GRM the magazine or the website more, and believe me, I don't like to be the P.C police or anything or the guy who has a problem with everything thing, but I do have a problem with this... I find it a bit offensive that you use terms like “intellectually challenged” etc etc... for your little descriptions or whatever in the avatars. I myself do not have intillect, nor am I a intillectual teacher or challenged, but I feel sensitivity for people with intelligence as I am a student taking intellictually challenged classes, and my Girlfriend is pursuing her masters in the field. These terms although I'm pretty sure are not even real words, are obviously meant to resemble the words used to describe people with PC impairments, and it appears that they are used on these boards in a joking sense which, as I view it, makes light of people who are afflicted with no discernable disabilities.

Lol! Nice pull!

I must've missed something. It happens.

racerdave600 wrote: And someone needs to discuss with these people such small things as how gravity works, and how it is created.

Careful…that’s a really heady subject that at present, neither has consensus in theory nor easily understood explanations. Yes, I said theory despite the “Law of Gravity” as the law fails to hold up under objective & repeatable measures at the subatomic level.

Newton, Einstein, & Hopkins (in that order) had very, very different ideas and at this point, all we know is that either two or three of them were incorrect.

My life long interest in science started with one question…how fast does gravity travel. At first, I was embarrassed to ask anyone thinking it was a dumb question; forty years later, I’ve concluded there are really just two types of scientist….the ones that are sure in their beliefs because they’re too stupid to comprehend the paradoxes and the ones that say, I don’t know for sure but that’s a really cool question.

RX Reven' wrote: My life long interest in science started with one question…how fast does gravity travel. At first, I was embarrassed to ask anyone thinking it was a dumb question; forty years later, I’ve concluded there are really just two types of scientist….the ones that are sure in their beliefs because they’re too stupid to comprehend the paradoxes and the ones that say, I don’t know for sure but that’s a really cool question.

That is a really cool question. Do basic forces "travel"? Are there even such things as "basic forces"? I've always assumed that they were a property of matter, and not something that traveled.

Geez, we don't even know what gravity really is.

My best hypothesis (as an armchair philosopher and not a quantum physicist) is that gravity can't "travel" because it exists across more than the basic three dimensions. Travel is a factor of spacial location and time. Time is affected by relativistic speeds, which are greatly influenced by gravity. Has anyone ever done an experiment to determine if gravity affects the flow of time? But then, relativistic speed affects the flow of time, which is paradoxical in itself. If location over time affects the flow of time... BLARGH!!! [Head explodes.]

captainzib wrote: I must've missed something. It happens.

its a running joke.... hopefully someone has a link to the original post.

Salanis wrote: I've always assumed that they were a property of matter, and not something that traveled.

If that’s the case, we’re in big trouble as particle accelerators create matter from energy all the time…one moment no matter / the next moment matter.

If gravity were an inherent property, than information would be broadcasted instantaneously which even if you don’t mind blowing off Einstein’s claim that nothing can exceed the speed of light, you’ve still got conservation issues. It’s really, really complicated but in effect, for anything to travel instantaneously, it has to exist in two places at once but neither place at once (the fundamental premise of quantum theory). In other words, this particle may either be here or there so to avoid violating conservation theory, we’ll say it’s half in both places and let the future resolve where it really was at the time.

captainzib wrote: I must've missed something. It happens.

I believe this is the original thread... http://archive.grassrootsmotorsports.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=12954

Haha, this is the second time a joke went over my head in referance to that exact thread.

Seriously, I thought I was having deja vu.

RX Reven' wrote: If that’s the case, we’re in big trouble as particle accelerators create matter from energy all the time…one moment no matter / the next moment matter. If gravity were an inherent property, than information would be broadcasted instantaneously which even if you don’t mind blowing off Einstein’s claim that nothing can exceed the speed of light, you’ve still got conservation issues. It’s really, really complicated but in effect, for anything to travel instantaneously, it has to exist in two places at once but neither place at once (the fundamental premise of quantum theory). In other words, this particle may either be here or there so to avoid violating conservation theory, we’ll say it’s half in both places and let the future resolve where it really was at the time.

Okay, matter=energy, so nothing is being "created". Energy isn't a property of matter, so much as they are states of each other.

Also, my understanding was that particle accelerators didn't generate matter, but separated it into successively smaller constituent particles.

Hmm... assuming that gravity is a property of matter, it would therefore also have to be a property of energy? In which case it is not paradoxical for it to be a constant force that does not travel. Since matter and energy aren't being created or destroyed, the amount of gravity is not changing quantumly.

The location of matter and energy can shift, but the fastest that matter/energy can move is the speed of light. Therefore the gravitational constant has an instantaneous effect, but the actual geography of a particular gravity well cannot be moved faster than the speed of light.

I'm thinking very much in the Einsteinian model of gravity being a displacement of the curvature of space/time drawing other things towards it.

[Edit: My god this is a weird board.]

Energy is expressed as a wave, matter is expressed as a particle, light and perhaps some other forms exhibit characteristics of both waves and particles….see reference below.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/quantum-world/mg13217934.200

I’m unaware of any credible source arguing that energy contains gravitational force yet we’ve been making (as well as disassembling) particles for years.

I’m hopeful that gravity is instantaneous because if it is, real time communication across the universe would be possible…just get the signal to noise ratio high enough through filtering, focusing, and ???. There you go, communications broadcast from 1,000 light years away would come across in real time.

Well, when you get down small enough, matter isn't matter anymore. Once again going with the whole interchangeability of matter and energy thang.

If mass exhibits properties of gravity, than clearly whatever forms that mass must also contain elements of those properties.

There's the whole mystery of "dark matter" and "dark energy". It might be feasible that a portion of these unexplained phenomena is the gravitational "force" of unobservable fundamental energy.

Like I was mentioning earlier, you would not be able to send a signal by quantumly modulating mass-gravity, since all you would be doing is converting observable mass to fundamental energy and vice-versa. The total amount of stuff would remain constant, and therefore so would the force of the gravity well in that location.

This must be linked to scientology...the idea of a round earth was given to us by the same aliens who created the idea of jesus and buda...

You don't need to do anything to the mass other than move it to send a signal in real time if gravity travels instantly. Here's a big ball of steel...if i need help I'l push-push-push-puuuush-puuush-puuush-push-push-push it and somebody on the other side of the universe will know in real time that I require assistance.

I see this as a fundamental violation of Einstein which I’m OK with but in order to make everything work like conservation, the universe becomes a bizarre place of probabilities rather than realities or a place of multiple dimensions where like a bank, transactions take place that ultimately net out but at any given time, extra stuff is present or stuff is missing.

Aha, that makes more sense now. I don't think this question will get answered until we really understand what gravity is.

I wonder if there would be a way to test the speed at which gravity does or does not travel. I think we'd need to do something like measure the gravitational effect of a large stellar body. The moon might be too close. Maybe Jupiter. Are we able to measure the gravitational effect of Jupiter on our planet? If so, we can... assuming that gravitational force occurs at the speed of light, matter would be pulled in the perceived direction of Jupiter. If it occurs as a constant effect, the force of gravity would occur in advance of Jupiter's visual location.

[Edit: could that mean that if a massive body moving at high speed went past another object, there'd be a Doppler effect in their gravitational forces? That would be another potential test, if you measured the gravitational forces of a fast moving object passing.]

I would have to say that I am in the camp of the universe being a bizarre place of probabilities and interactions where nothing everything is only definable in terms of how it relates to everything else around it.

Damn my friends just convinced me that the earth was round, now this comes out? WTF!!!