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    #26
    On flying, the answer given in A-Levels is overly simplified to the point of error. It does help teach the idea of link between flow and internal pressure, but it does not explain how an aircraft wing generates lift. That doesn't mean that aerospace engineers don't understand the mechanism, though. The inaccuracy of the standard explanation appears to be what the Cambridge guys were explaining, rather than saying it isn't known how wings generate lift. I've had it explained to me as well, and it made sense, but that explanation was verbal so I can't remember much more than it's to do with the angle of the wing into the oncoming air.

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      #27
      Originally posted by Artificial Hipster View Post
      How does science tackle the question, why is there something rather than nothing?

      In no more than fifteen words please.
      We think about it for a while, and then sod off to the pub.

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        #28
        Originally posted by Artificial Hipster View Post
        How does science tackle the question, why is there something rather than nothing?

        In no more than fifteen words please.
        'Nothing' has zero energy. Then again, so do some models of the universe, where negative energy cancels out positive energy.

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          #29
          Originally posted by Artificial Hipster View Post
          How does science tackle the question, why is there something rather than nothing?

          In no more than fifteen words please.
          It's a 50/50 chance. If we hadn't gotten lucky we would never have known.

          (14 words)

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            #30
            Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
            It's a 50/50 chance. If we hadn't gotten lucky we would never have known.

            (14 words)
            Although if you read Lawrence Krauss's book about it, it was inevitable that something would happen.

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              #31
              Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
              "They" have a pretty good idea how anesthesia works, though there are some challenges to sorting it out on the molecular level
              https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...esthesia-work/
              I've been told this by two separate consultant anestheologists. They have a good grip on the practical application, but they were talking about the issues in your article HP, and were saying, it's still a bit vague, but we think we're going the right direction. But I've been reliably informed that this covers literally every aspect of medicine, and that the hallmark of a good consultant, is that they will exhibit a certain amount of vagueness, and be more honest about the limits of their knowledge.

              The gastro guy I go to spent 15 years in the Mayo Clinic, and his unwillingness to prescribe me with a magic diet that will cure my Crohn's drives my mother insane (because that's how she wants medicine to work) but i take his unwillingness to be definite, as being a good sign given that we really really don't know very much about immune system diseases, and even when we learn more, we discover that everything is vastly more complicated than we thought before. I remember giving up on Neuroscience as a subject in college in the first 15 minutes when the Lecturer told us how many neurons there were, and how many connections between each neuron. The number is just too big.

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                #32
                Yeah, if that's one thing that modern biology, molecular biology and biochemistry demonstrates, it's the eternal truism "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that."

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                  Although if you read Lawrence Krauss's book about it, it was inevitable that something would happen.
                  I've just done the next best thing to reading the book, I've read the Wiki page about it. "A cosmologist's version of Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker" is one presumably negative comment quoted about it, though taken simply as a work of popular science rather than as a part of his tiresome evangelising I enjoyed The Blind Watchmaker as I've enjoyed others by Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale in particular.

                  I was actually half serious with the fifteen word request. I wondered whether there was something which went beyond the strong anthropic principle but which could similarly be expressed succinctly enough for a layman to understand.

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                    #34
                    Originally posted by Janik View Post
                    Gravity is the bending of space-time. That is well understood.
                    Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                    That's a description of what gravity does. it's not a description of what gravity is.

                    I'm more inclined to agree with Neil deGrasse Tyson on this one.
                    That is a misconception. Gravity does not warp space-time. It performs no actions. Gravity simply is warped space-time. And as with any equality it can be said the other way just as accurately; warped space-time is gravity. The Tyson stuff is saying much the same, having skipped initially over the metaphysics at little. The same hold one's hands up response is equally plausible to "why is matter?" and a host of similar seemingly deep but ultimately empty questions.

                    In general identifying an unanswered conundrum and then examining it to try and explain the situation, well that is science. So it shouldn't be any great surprise to find scientists being baffled on occasion. This need to identify seemingly commonplace things that scientist don't fully understand or may have got their explanation of wrong is an interesting cultural phenomenon in itself. I think it stems from an assumption in the wider public that scientists think they know everything, and a reaction against that trope. However such an attitude is simply an error; any good scientist knows she doesn't know it all or even close. She is aware of where the gaps in her knowledge lie and isn't particularly intimidated by those holes (indeed she may be inspired by them). Despite that she may know an awful lot more about her subject than anyone else in the room though, which gets misread as being omnipotent on it.

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                      #35
                      Originally posted by Artificial Hipster View Post
                      I've just done the next best thing to reading the book, I've read the Wiki page about it. "A cosmologist's version of Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker" is one presumably negative comment quoted about it, though taken simply as a work of popular science rather than as a part of his tiresome evangelising I enjoyed The Blind Watchmaker as I've enjoyed others by Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale in particular.

                      I was actually half serious with the fifteen word request. I wondered whether there was something which went beyond the strong anthropic principle but which could similarly be expressed succinctly enough for a layman to understand.
                      Well, in mechanical terms because the Big Bang happened. The universe formed as an after-effect of that. Regarding the metaphysical, first someone needs to demonstrated that a reason is required, once that happens then science can begin to work on the problem. Until then the question is moot.

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                        #36
                        Originally posted by Janik View Post
                        That is a misconception. Gravity does not warp space-time. It performs no actions. Gravity simply is warped space-time. And as with any equality it can be said the other way just as accurately; warped space-time is gravity. The Tyson stuff is saying much the same, having skipped initially over the metaphysics at little. The same hold one's hands up response is equally plausible to "why is matter?" and a host of similar seemingly deep but ultimately empty questions.
                        So what about quantum gravity? Where do gravitons fit into this worldview?

                        I think it stems from an assumption in the wider public that scientists think they know everything, and a reaction against that trope.
                        Not at all. I used the bicycle example as it would be something we'd expect to understand--Newton's Laws, momentum, inertia, conservation of angular momentum and so on. I'd have expected the explanation of a bicycle to any more complicated than the explanation of a gyroscope. That there are more subtle, not fully understood effects at work is what's interesting here.

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                          #37
                          I abandoned scientific studies after my glorious two Bs for Combined Science at GCSE level. I am just glad others understand what the fuck holds the universe together to a sufficient enough degree that I can live my life as I do.

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                            #38
                            Originally posted by hobbes View Post
                            Yeah, if that's one thing that modern biology, molecular biology and biochemistry demonstrates, it's the eternal truism "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that."
                            Well once they'd figured out what was in Calcium Carbonate, some cunt started asking questions about quarks.

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                              #39
                              Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                              So what about quantum gravity? Where do gravitons fit into this worldview?
                              File alongside strings and other speculative ideas. Awaiting experimental confirmation that there is anything more than a hypothesis here before bothering to try to piece together how it fits with confirmed results.

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                                #40
                                Originally posted by Janik View Post
                                File alongside strings and other speculative ideas. Awaiting experimental confirmation that there is anything more than a hypothesis here before bothering to try to piece together how it fits with confirmed results.
                                Fine, but if you're going to say gravity is well-understood, the implication is that it only works on classical scales and doesn't apply at a quantum level. If you're going to reply that I can't possibly say that, then we're back to not really understanding what gravity is.

                                Now there are situations, such as black holes, where gravity and quantum effects probably come together, but we don't fully understand black holes either and they come with all manner of potential paradoxes.

                                But this is tangent really. I'm still surprised something as seemingly mundane as a bicycle can't be modelled.

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                                  #41
                                  No, what I would say is that gravity is well understood but there is some work to do on extreme and edge cases. Relativity collapses to Newtonian gravity for any v << c (which is most of them), as it has to do because Newtonian gravity makes accurate predictions (NASA still use it in most circumstances to calculate trajectories for their hideously expensive spacecraft). Any successful quantum theory of gravity will do something similar with both General Relativity and Quantum Electro Dynamics, but even more so because those theories make some of the most accurate predictions know to science.

                                  Bicycles are clearly not as mundane as they appear, sure. However saying it can't be modeled is wrong - that is exactly what the group are doing to demonstrate the flaws! Their mathematical models predict bikes that don't fit with the previous theories of how bikes work, and then they build and tests those design and voila, their model is accurate. It does appear to be an empirical one, it has to be noted. There is definitely some science to be done in this area, which will hopefully provide not just answers but new insights and avenues for further exploration.
                                  This is quite surprising, I grant you that. I find the language used to describe it odd and somewhat misleading, though. Rather than 'scientists baffled' I would go with 'scientists intrigued and excited'.
                                  Last edited by Janik; 25-07-2017, 22:34.

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                                    #42

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                                      #43
                                      Dammit! Big Al was wrong.

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                                        #44
                                        Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                        Well once they'd figured out what was in Calcium Carbonate, some cunt started asking questions about quarks.
                                        If you're going to talk the talk, you gotta quark the quark.

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                                          #45
                                          oh christ.

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                                            #46
                                            Furtho's dog there isn't looking up, its back end is sitting down, so its head is pointing up. Basic Newtonian canine physics, and clearly not the same thing...

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