U.F.O's

[Simon Hickie]

“Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein (allegedly).

Alternatively

"Furthermore, this impatient, greedy attitude is responsible more than anything else for the excessive stupidity we find in the world. Just as such people have no patience to chew up real food, so they do not take sufficient time to “chew up” mental food.

As modern times promote hasty eating to a large extent, it is not surprising to learn that a great astronomer said: “Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity.” To-day we know that this statement is not quite correct. Einstein has proved that the universe is limited." Frederick S. Perls.

[Geoff.R.G]

Comments like "We don't know do we, but again in an infinite universe anything is possible." are just wrong, if something is impossible, then it doesn't become possible given enough area for it to not happen in.

No matter how many times you throw a six sided dice, it will never land on seven.

The simple fact is that we don't know how much we don't know. We believe that nothing can travel faster than light but we do not have absolute proof of that. Should it turn out that something can travel faster than light our understanding would be turned upside down. Just because the laws of physics suggest that something is impossible does not mean that it is impossible because we may not know all the laws of physics.

Progress is not made by reasonable people but by unreasonable people, just because you say something can't be done does not prevent me from looking for a way to do it. Occasionally I may even succeed.

Yes, but you say it as if its similar to "I can't hold my breath for more than 1 minute". The reason why its seems that the speed of light is a constant and nothing with mass can travel at that speed is that one of the towering achievements of mankind in the last 100 years is built on the concept that C is the speed limit for mass, and General Relativity has stood hundreds of tests and made many predictions all of which have been found to be correct. Its clearly not 100% certain its correct as it doesn't live well with the other great theory of the last century QM, but at the worst its likely to be correct in the same way that Newtonian mechanics is correct for the sorts of situations Newton could test, but was replaced by GR when other problems were found.

All I am trying to say is that we don't know what may come next, Newtonian mechanics was replaced by General Relativity but is there something else out there that may replace GR? After all in 1890 nothing was expected to replace Newtonian mechanics.

[Lurcher300b]

Yep, but by 1890 we had Maxwell linking Electrical and Magnetic Fields, and the Michelson–Morley experiment showing there was something wrong with the wave theory and directly pointed to special relativity so we knew there was a problem. The only thing we have since then that has shown problems in GR is QM and then only at small sizes and other extreme conditions.

[SteveS57]

Yes if we only knew now what is to be learned in the future... an open mind is the key when looking for real answers
I read somewhere they now reckon gravity is 20 times faster than the speed of light... I know its not matter
But who really knows how gravity works? We all know what it is..
I've heard it described as a magnetic force which must be wrong, but my knowledge ends there
As an engineer if we know how it worked, we would have a chance at controlling it... that would be the key to the universe

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I won't go through all the bullshit again but as most old members here know I am a bit of Taoist due to my Tai-Chi Chuan training, and no it is not a religion it is a philosophy, it got mixed in with Chinese folk religion, hence the temples.

Basically it is largely about yin and yang, everything has to have an opposite otherwise it wouldn't exist as we wouldn't perceive a difference (or conflict). Hot - Cold etc etc etc you know what I mean. Taoist - In the beginning was wuchi = nothingness with the potential to become something. wuchi became taichi (the supreme and ultimate something - not to be confused with taichi chuan, the martial art), from taichi emerged yinyang, the power of the force or conflict of opposites that created everything.

Science - So in our present terms wuchi is pre big bang, taichi is big bang, yinyang is the dichotomy we observe in everything that has created us and the universe. In universal terms expansion and contraction. Eventually the universe is looking for balance between opposing forces at which point we get back to wuchi - we can also do this in ourselves.

So everything has to have an opposite somewhere in order to exist following this philosophy. So that is why I see anti time as a balance for time, I see anti gravity as a balance for gravity etc etc etc, Because we haven't found them doesn't mean they don't exist. We have already found some as in matter and anti matter, in conjunction they both cease to exist = balance.

Note this philosophy was created over 2000 years ago in China and in the last 100 years we are now catching up.

[Lurcher300b]

Yes if we only knew now what is to be learned in the future... an open mind is the key when looking for real answers

You only have to look at some of the tosh posted on the internet to know the danger of an "open mind"

I read somewhere they now reckon gravity is 20 times faster than the speed of light... I know its not matter

I also read somewhere the world is flat, but that doesn’t make it true. Gravity is a force and it is able to affect spacetime, that much seems to be known.

But who really knows how gravity works? We all know what it is..

At this point no one, its a subject of much research, but we are not without some knowledge on it. However I would strongly argue we don't all know what it is, we may believe that we know what it does.

I've heard it described as a magnetic force

Which is just wrong, see above for the danger of believing what some say.

As an engineer if we know how it worked, we would have a chance at controlling it... that would be the key to the universe

Well, it would be a start, but we might find what it is and discover its impossible for us to control, so will just show us how we are trapped in the solar systems gravity well for ever.

[Lurcher300b]

So everything has to have an opposite somewhere in order to exist following this philosophy

And if we had evolved as a species with trilateral symmetry and three sexes, we would be convinced that everything in the universe had to come in threes.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Just look Nick - observe, everything has an opposite, if it didn't it wouldn't exist. A simple example, would you know what good is if there wasn't evil, it would just be what is, there would be no point of discussion or reference, yet we try to destroy all evil, yet it keep coming back *because* if we stop evil then we stop good as well. Just apply it to *everything* in our perception - up down, in out, inside outside, light dark, hot cold, male female, hard soft, wet dry, winter summer, do I have to go on, you find anything that doesn't follow this. Normally the thing with the positive energy attached is Yang and the lack of is Yin, but not always as there are blurred lines in this, but hot is yang cold is yin, light is yang dark is yin etc. Electrical current flow cannot exist without a positive and negative, but we guessed wrong when we called it, what we call neg now is in fact pos.

I could go on and on about all aspects of existence and bore you all to death.

[hillsanddalesrover]

Surely the good/bad and hot/cold argument just gives us points of reference ?

If we need bad to enable good why are you trying to change Marco ?

[Lurcher300b]

Ok, just for the moment ignoring all your list apart from one pair.

hot/cold - what is that, there is no hot or cold, there is just higher or lower temperature, they are not opposite, they are just different amounts of heat.

Your list is just words that we apply, the duality is because of language, not reality.