Quantum Physics

If it's magnetic induction I can explain it; but with sound I still struggle. Though your image of moving shapes (evolving standing wave interference pattern) does bring me a little closer to getting it. If an object has wave action on one side and calm on the other, intuitively you think of it being pushed into the calm area, but I still can't really justify it on clean physical principles. The waves are moving away from the source...

This might help Halfy- seems to be on the same lines of discussion-

http://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/46

Well, now I get it for a well oriented triangle shape with carefully aimed beams as used in that article; it's sort of akin to tacking in a sailboat.  But it seems like the round objects used in the first article wouldn't be able to do this.  hmm....

Black holes -from Hawkins latest lecture for the BBC- this is just a part of it, set to an animation. Probably noting new for our physics heads on here, but for the rest of us a good entertaining laymen version of blowing the mind (and a good joke about the French)-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03gl17j

whats this extra planet they think is out past Pluto? is it just hot air?

dadoomtush!

I hear they're going to name it Goofy.

Petty wrote:Black holes -from Hawkins latest lecture for the BBC- this is just a part of it, set to an animation. Probably noting new for our physics heads on here, but for the rest of us a good entertaining laymen version of blowing the mind (and a good joke about the French)-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03gl17j

That was nicely done - expected no less from Hawking of course.

The man was a poet.

Sir Willam Bragg wrote: The dividing line between the wave or particle nature of matter and radiation is the moment “Now.”
As this moment steadily advances through time it coagulates a wavy future into a particle past.

He also said,

From religion comes a man's purpose; from science, his power to achieve it.
Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed to one another.
They are: in the sense that the thumb and fingers of my hands are opposed to one another.
It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped.

I like that.

Those are both quite nice. Didn't know he was such a poet - I just know him as having laid the foundations of x-ray crystallography.

That was awesome.

{{Gets worth watching from 1.55 onwards}}

That 'black night satellite' looks like a black plastic bag blown by the wind to me.

'object' flying over clouds looks like shadow of space shuttle.

Others are not so explainable. Orbital speeds of the shiny things should not be so different at similar altitudes, so they are clearly not orbiting.

'object' flying over clouds looks like shadow of space shuttle.- Halfy

{{Problem there is why would NASA ground control not think that, they don't call off the planned mission for a shadow- if it is a shadow then the ground people didn't spot it at the time going on the radio chatter- they call it an object at least twice}}

'Nasa's Kepler telescope has discovered more than 100 Earth-sized planets orbiting alien stars.
It has also detected nine small planets within so-called habitable zones, where conditions are favourable for liquid water - and potentially life.
The finds are contained within a catalogue of 1,284 new planets detected by Kepler - which more than doubles the previous tally.
Nasa said it was the biggest single announcement of new exoplanets......"If you ask yourself where is the next habitable planet likely to be, it's within about 11 light-years, which is very close." said Dr Batalha....Of the telescope's finds to date, the planets Kepler-186f and Kepler-452b are arguably the most Earth-like in terms of properties such as their size, the temperature of their host star and the energy received from their star.
Dr Batalha said the new finds Kepler 1638b and Kepler-1229b were intriguing targets in the search for habitable planets.'- BBC

the sky seems to be chock full of those balls of light, its funny they are always too far off to see what they are.

{{Annoyingly everything in our universe is 'always too far off' everything else (whilst possibly, at the same time, on a Quantum level, being right next to each other, or possibly even in the same place! I'd ask Halfy or Dave to explain that properly to you, and which I am sure they can do, and with more numbers and bigger words, but I already know no-one can actually explain it so its not worth bothering them ) }}}

I think it's just that distance to "too far off" keeps moving. Until 1911 the South Pole was 'too far off'. Until 1969 the moon was 'too far off'. Until this last year, Pluto was 'too far off'. They just keep moving the goal line.

why don't those 'aliens' buzz about a couple of feet away so we can get a shufty?

{{The answers obvious Figg- the Earth is just too far off   (Actually there is a lot of truth in that- as Douglas Adams put it we live 'far out in the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of our galaxy'- we are the galactic equivalent of Tristan da Cunha (google it). That's why to us at night the Milky Way is a silvery ribbon of bright fuzz- but if you hppen to liv ein that fuzz, in that bit of our galaxy, the night sky is chockablock with stars and bright as day, they are much denser in all directions the closer to the heart of our galaxy you go. We're just evolved in a shitty neighbourhood.) }}

Actually we probably would not have evolved in a denser neighborhood, too much space junk to come crashing through and end things.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{The answers obvious Figg- the Earth is just too far off   (Actually there is a lot of truth in that- as Douglas Adams put it we live 'far out in the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of our galaxy'- we are the galactic equivalent of Tristan da Cunha (google it). That's why to us at night the Milky Way is a silvery ribbon of bright fuzz- but if you hppen to liv ein that fuzz, in that bit of our galaxy, the night sky is chockablock with stars and bright as day, they are much denser in all directions the closer to the heart of our galaxy you go. We're just evolved in a shitty neighbourhood.) }}

whats the Earth got to do with it?. I am talking about the alien balls of light whizzing about the space shuttle.

Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets that haven't made interstellar contact yet and buzz them, meaning that they find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one's going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises. - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy