Being an enemy of stupidity and a crusader against the credulous, we've come upon a lot of silly crap. Not just Fun Size Snickers Bar piles. Mountains of steaming horse crap. That being said, I now call your attention to The Final Theory. Yes, this guy has the "Theory of Everything". Wow. So instead of publishing this in numerous scientific journals for peer review, he writes this book. Probably because those evil scientists would ignore him - how else would they keep their jobs? All the science are belong to him!Part I or "Are You Freaking Serious?"
On his website author Mark McCutcheon frequently requests science base itself on common sense, yet refuses to do so himself. Case in point:
Q: Light slows as it passes through water or glass, causing it to bend, but how can it return to light-speed on its own once it exits?
A: This is impossible in today's science. No object in nature can speed up of its own accord after being slowed. A bullet doesn't spontaneously speed up after it is slowed by passing through a wooden block, so how does a photon of light mysteriously return to its original speed once it exits a glassblock?
Part II or "The Game"
For those who don't get the False Analogy, here's some pretty pictures for you:
Excuse me, Mr. Creduloid?
WhAT? Let's play a game of "One of These Things is Not Like the Other". oTAY!Here we go!
Ok, which one?
i KnOW, i KnOW! dA LITE! Good! Why? BECOZ! i CAn'T EAT da LITE! Ok, not really the answer I was going for...Mr. McCutcheon, try this - drop a dead body from a plane. Have it hit or break through something at about 5000 feet. I predict that it speeds up to terminal velocity before hitting the ground. That's what science does and your woo-woo drivel doesn't.
If the entire book is filled with this shit, I see about as much need to buy it as I do paying money to have Sylvia Browne ask if I'm related to an "R".
Part III or "This is What it's Like When Woos Collide"
Now dig this. A Fundie wack-a-doo used this book as proof science can be disproven. No, really. Click the link. Back? Fascinating isn't it? This guy unintentionally (or maybe intentionally?) gave religious wackos ammunition in the "debate" over science. Except that using that ammo would be akin to throwing marshmallows at a velociraptor...
Using The Final Theory to show how science can be disproven is like saying I'll have Bugs Bunny kick your ass because you don't believe in the LORD (Praise the LORD!)
Here's what the author did not grasp: science doesn't care how something happens, be it against your common sense or not. We make observations and test our theories to make predictions. We try anything we can to make our theories not fit the data; it's falsifiable. "The Theory of Everything" ranks right up there with ID as far as being science.
The beauty of science is that it works whether you believe in it or not.
10 comments:
I simply don't know about this one. Let's look at the work-energy conservation principle:
PE1 + KE1 + W(non) = PE2 + KE2
PE = Potential Energy
KE = Kinetic Energy
W(non) = Work done on the system by nonconservative forces
If we say that light is passing through a body of water of x thickness at a constant height h, then:
KE1 + W(non) = KE2
b/c PE does not change. So,
.5mv(1)^2 - F(friction)*x = .5mv(2)^2
(there may be other nonconservative forces involved that I didn't think of b/c I hate physics)
Simply looking at this shows that the velocity at the boundary of the water will be slowed. It's also been scientifically proven that this occurs. At the boundary, there is no source of energy for the light to pick up, therefore it can not speed up again. I realize that the mass of a photon is considered negligible, so the velocity will not slow considerably, but it does occur in this manner. The guy that is making these arguments is simply stating what the laws of science dictate. If I've written anything that goes against published and accepted scientific works, then you could probably disregard what I've said. But it seems correct...:D
The point is that it is a false analogy.
Not really. I don't know what he's thinking, but if you look at the formula I gave you, his analogy fits because the law holds true for all masses. Although light contains many photons (don't know exact numbers here), it can be generalized as one mass (as most objects are) and this mass is then directed by the law of conservation of energy, just as a bullet is. So yes, they are different "kinds" of "objects", yet they all obey the laws that wonderful physicists have established.
Good call. Light passing through water behaves exactly the same as a bullet through a wood block.
I've come to a new conclusion - forget the whole entry. I now believe the theory of everything...and Jesus saves...
ok, same behavior in a sense. it's evident that the bullet will be slowed even more so than the photons of light due to a greater amount of friction encountered in a greater mass. also, it depends upon the type of impact as to exactly how much it will be slowed. but mass is mass. if it has mass, which all things must unless you choose to consider their mass negligible for simplified calcuations, it will interact like other masses. the extent to which the forces act upon the mass differs, however. this does not constitute different behavior of the masses, but different behavior of the surroundings on the masses in question. if you have any articles that contradict what i've been saying, let me know so i can study harder for my dynamics final!
Oh yeah, I don't want it to seem as though I'm agreeing with this guy's "Final Theory," but I don't think it's a false analogy if you look at it from a scientist's perspective. :D
Evolution is a falacy. If science is right then why is it always changing?
LMAO! Mass isn't a source or power???
Shiahtt... Newton was such a knucklehead and all those silly equations and "appearances" of empirical evidence for QT & E=MC2 are just random.
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Photons do not have mass in free space, so you can't use Newton's .5mv^2 approximation to calculate a photon's energy. The energy of a photon is proportional to its frequency.
When a photon leaves a vacuum and enters a transparent medium like water, it hits the atoms on the medium. The majority of photons are absorbed and re-emitted by the atoms without losing any energy. These collisions cause the massless photon to acquire an effective mass in the medium, slowing its effective speed below that of light in free space. You can think of the photons as being detoured, unable to take the direct route they would have taken if there were no intervening matter. When the photon reaches the edge of the medium it returns to its original free space behavior. If the frequency of the light hasn't changed, then the energy of the photon is the same on the other side of the medium as it was when it entered. Energy and momentum are fully conserved throughout the whole process.
So, the atomic and bulk properties of a material determine its index of refraction (which also depends on frequency), and the corresponding slowdown/speedup of the light that enters it.
The "Final Theory" doesn't work because it applies a Newtonian approximation (i.e., the one used in high school physics for massive, classical objects) to a relativistic/quantum problem. Oops! Humans don't have "common sense" at quantum and relativistic scales.
Some time ago I came across this book and was curious enough to send away for a copy. Some of the highlights:
1. Gravity is an illusion caused by the "fact" that everything in the universe is constantly expanding. If you jump up in the air, you don't fall back to Earth -- the expanding Earth races up to meet you. Escape velocity is the speed you need to reach to get ahead of the expanding planet.
2. Electrons don't orbit the atom's nucleus, they bounce off it as it expands, and sometimes break free. The free electrons explain magnetism, radio waves and light.
3. Light is a "continuous beam of expanding electron clusters constantly pushing one another along."(pg. 283)
His answer to the light-through-glass slowdown problem:
"As light pushes its way through the glass, it does indeed collide with atoms and cause them to vibrate faster, becoming hot to the touch, but the light beam is still driven onward by the continual inner expansion of its electron clusters. The light does not 'lose energy' in this process, and simply resumes its original speed upon exit, as determined by the ongoing expansion of its electron clusters once it is unimpeded by the glass atoms." (pg. 283)
The author is (surprise) an "electrical engineer and science enthusiast."
Okay so i just found this and am no scientist but i did wish to share my layman opinion. please bare with me and share what you wish. i believe both sides are looking at the same problem with two halves of the answer fighting over which half is better. they are both right and wrong. i mean they both half partial right and wrong factors incorperated throughout them. if we could take each other more seriously perhaps we could see the answer as it stares us in the face.
Please try to tkink of it this way.
light speed is not a constant as we all know that the wave speed can be manipulated based on at least one factor - temperature .
therefore light DOES speed and slow based not only on what it encounters ....water, human, wall.
but other factors i.e. tempuratue.
temperature actually seems to act as a fuel and a brake depending on range. therefore if light hits speeds of 186 blah blah blah here BECAUSE of our teperature range would it speed itself up to that speed because thats what the temperature is FUELING it to do? perhaps im a moron but i love your ideas thats the beauty of science dont mock others look at their theories take the good recycle the bad and we all come out winners together.
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