Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:59, 14 July 2009

Happy First Day of Spring!

Just wishing you a wonderful First Day of Spring {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}! ~~~~

History of science section in centrifugal force

I've now started a section on the historical development of the modern conception of centrifugal force in that article. I am by no means an expert in the history of science, and I'm unsure about how the references I've cited hold together: I'd greatly appreciate it if you could please review the material I have added so far? There appears to be significant work on this topic by Domenico Bertoloni Meli (for example, , ), however, most of the interesting papers on this subject are behind a paywall and inaccessible to me. -- The Anome (talk) 12:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Fictitious force wiki is wrong about planetary motion and Euler forces

Euler forces are tangential forces causing α = dω/dt? These don't go away in a constantly rotating frame-- they stay the same, since the acceleration of the particle is the same in either frame (just as in the linear case where acceleration is the same if you switch to a different inertial frame at a different linear velocity). Euler forces only appear as ficticious forces if you're in a frame with accelerated rotation rate where α = non-zero. But that's not the setup we carefully made for the centrifugal and Coriolis forces where ω is constant and dω/dt = α = 0. So in a way, the Euler forces are a different animal, and we really have to decide if we're going to stay fixed to a coordinate system or fixed on a rotating object which may not be rotating with a fixed rate. The planetary case is interesting: the Euler force is zero there, NOT because of the fact that the revolution rate doesn't change (as it states falsely in the fictious force Wiki)-- because the revolution rate of a planet DOES change for eliptical orbits! Instead, Mr. Tombe's "law of areal velocity" per Kepler kicks in (a consequence of angular momentum preservation) which causes r to decrease as ω increases, so the product stays constant and thus the Euler term stays zero even IF dω/dt is not zero: this is perhaps what confused Mr. Tombe (he as thinking about Euler forces and calling them Coriolis forces; most of what he said about one was true for the other!). Euler force = 0 even with variable rotation, and this happens any time the force is purely central, as with planets and no drag, or (say) when a skater pulls in her arms, etc. All again because of conservation of angular momentum in a system with no external angular momentum-changing influences. SBHarris 21:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Steven: I find your remarks confusing. Marsden provides a formula for the Euler force for a rotating frame as m r × dω / dt, which certainly vanishes for a constant rate of rotation, not supporting your lead sentence. Then a sentence or so later, you seem to agree with this remark. What are you trying to say here? Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Articles about Dynamics

I've noticed that you are working a lot on the Kinematics article. A few months ago I compiled a list of all (maybe there are more) articles related to Dynamics. This list is located in the talk page of the Dynamics article. I thought this list would be useful for you if you are planning on working on more articles related to Kinematics. Some of those articles need to be merged. I would like to work on some of these articles but my focus right now is on other topics. Cheers!!! Sanpaz (talk) 23:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

coriolis diagram

I reverted again. Diagram is wrong. Best not to advise others to "take time to think about the issue" -- it assumes bad faith. Rracecarr (talk) 15:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Improved simulation methods for loop gain (return ratio)

I noticed your interest in electronic feedback, so I thought you might be interested to learn about two improved simulation methods for loop gain (or return ratio, as you prefer to call it), which I present on my webpage http://www.geocities.com/frank_wiedmann/loopgain.html. The method developed by Michael Tian is basically an improved version of Middlebrook's method from 1975. Middlebrook's General Feedback Theorem is very closely related to the "Asymptotic gain model" entry on Misplaced Pages. Regarding the issue of loop gain versus return ratio, you can find some comments from me at http://www.designers-guide.org/Forum/YaBB.pl?num=1124688329.

Frank —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.144.154.169 (talk) 17:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Talk: Centrifugal force

In this edit, are you sincerely asking whether you should do some math, or is your intent to be sarcastic and insulting to the other editors? Please beware that it is very easily interpreted as the latter, and people may take offense. --PeR (talk) 21:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've done the math; it's time some others did too. Brews ohare (talk) 21:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, but please be civil. Besides, I think the issue at hand can be easily resolved without doing any math. See my entry on Talk: Centrifugal force

What is Wiki stance on related articles? (answer)

Answering your question:

Misplaced Pages:Summary style is the guideline.

Definition has examples.

Awesome illustrations on your user page, BTW.

--Jtir (talk) 14:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Lab centrifuge

Hi there

I was wondering about your latest edits. Is a 10 m centrifuge accurately described as a "laboratory centrifuge"? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 17:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know: it is for lab experiments and simulations. Is a cyclotron lab equipment? I guess the real question is whether this material fits best here, or would be more easily found elsewhere. Any suggestions? Brews ohare (talk) 17:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Centrifuge might be a better spot for it. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have moved this material to Centrifuge. Brews ohare (talk) 18:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Tide

I reverted your edit to Tide. Possibly I was too impulsive, so I'll just explain myself and you can rerevert if you really know what you're talking about. The centrifugal force explanation has been debated extensively on the Talk page. I was not involved in that discussion, but it appears that the centrifugal-version lost out. The only other mention of centrifugal in the article is a link explaining why its the wrong way to explain tides. As the intro is supposed to be a summary of the article, it should be consistent with the main body. Spiel496 (talk) 03:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh... you edit faster than I do. I understand your point; the article is not so well referenced. Please do what you can to make the article self-consistent, though. Spiel496 (talk) 03:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, when centrifugal force is used to explain a phenomenon then there is also a valid alternative which does not use centrifugal force. Sometimes, one is much clearer than the other. I'm kind of on the fence as far as tides are concerned. Best of luck... Spiel496 (talk) 03:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Centrifugal force and precession

Brews, I do know that precession can be (and typically is) a rotation about a rotating axis. Sorry for my ambiguous edit summary. But the picture you added showed a rotation about a fixed vertical axis (i.e. a precession with same angular velocity as the rotation about the "south-north" axis of the object). Besides that, the example about precession is too difficult to understand for an introduction about centrifugal force (because people thinks that the instantaneous axis of rotation is the "south-north" axis, which is never true). A much better example about rotation about a non-fixed axis was about the "particle along S-shaped trajectory".

However, I fail to understand the reason why you want to talk about rigid bodies and Newton-Euler equations in the introduction. I suggest to open a new section at the end of the article about this topic. But it would just say that:

1. either you study the motion of the body CM, and in this case centrifugal force is computed as if the body were a point mass, or
2. you study the motion of a particle in the rigid body which does not coincide with the CM; then you just compute the kinematics of that particle, then you again use the formula for particles.

I mean, the same formulas for centrifugal force as those you use for particles can be applied to rigid bodies. IMO, this is not something worth mention in the introduction. By the way, I guess you agree that inertial couples (appearing together with fictitious forces in adjusted Newton-Euler equations used within non-inertial frames) definitely do not belong in this article! Paolo.dL (talk) 09:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Please answer in this page, if you want to answer. Paolo.dL (talk) 10:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Misunderstandings

Brews, believe me, I have a high esteem for you. I only think that you should clean up your edits on A-class articles, before saving or immediately after saving, and should read with more attention comments on talk pages before answering.

Please read with attention our discussion. I will do the same. It will take some time. Let's both take some time before engulfing the discussion with other useless statements. Paolo.dL (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Moon article image size

Are you are aware that personal image preferences can be set under "my preferences" at the top of this page? Your forced image sizes were causing the image to go over the top of writing in the article from my persepective.Asher196 (talk) 19:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Inertial frame of reference

Congratulations for your work in Inertial frame of reference :-)

...is defined as: An inertial frame of reference is one in which the motion of a particle not subject to forces is a straight line.

Isn't "constant speed" missing? 189.6.140.252 (talk) 09:46, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Question about parabolic dish and coriolis effect

Hi Brews,

about a month and a half ago you posted a question on my talk page. I rarely visit wikipedia anymore, I just happened to notice the posting. Please visit my talk page to read my response. --Cleonis | Talk 18:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Frame of reference

Hi Paolo: It appears that you have drifted away from Frame of reference to discuss other articles. Maybe it's too much to say you are satisfied with Frame of reference, but are going to let matters rest? Brews ohare (talk) 18:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I am too busy right now to read an article with attention. I just quickly edited some articles that I browsed to find information, not with the intention to edit. But I hope I'll find the time in the future to edit frame of reference and centrifugal force. Just one suggestion for you: remove the note about frame of reference from centrifugal force. It is not needed there, and it makes the article messy and unfocused. Paolo.dL (talk) 20:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Space archeology

Hello. I'm wondering where you came up with this definition. 60 years of space travel do rarely justify the term archaeology, do they? Also, what is there to find other than space junk that is already known? De728631 (talk) 22:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi there: This is a work in progress. Please allow a little time for it to flesh out. Brews ohare (talk) 22:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Still, I find the term a bit weird. Can you provide references to read up on this? Because from scratch, I'd rather associate remote sensing with this. De728631 (talk) 22:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi: I am working with an expert in this field, who will provide the meat of the article. My role here is just to introduce Misplaced Pages and get them started. 22:49, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Now, that should become interesting. I moved the page to Space archaeology though, with the correct spelling. This "archeology" was merely a typo in the Hopkins newsletter heading - and later on they also used the right spelling. Cheers, De728631 (talk) 23:02, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Groups

Hi,

thanks for your recent interesting edit to Group (mathematics) (which I moved to the text body). As you also seem to be an image professional, could you think of a way that shows graphically the effect/presence of a group in this band structure stuff you mentioned? In the b.s. article, there are some images, but none of them jumps right into my eye w.r.t. to groups ( is something, but without knowing what goes on, it is hard to grasp). Having something in this direction would be a nice addition to the groups article (we could replace one of the symmetric molecules by this, for this is a bit repetitive). Thank you for your help, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 17:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, it's me again. I'm impressed by your contributions to the group article. However, I'm not sure whether the length and level of explanation is appropriate in an article like this. Pieces like "accompanied by a so-called soft phonon mode, a vibrational lattice mode that goes to zero frequency at the transition" are on the one hand difficult to understand, and, as far as I can tell from reading just this, unrelated to groups. Perhaps you might consider putting most of the explanation to the symmetry or molecular symmetry pages? Otherwise I may do so at some point. Thanks, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 15:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Nice work on Kinetics

Thanks for the rework. It's so much more readable now. Can you lend a hand on Dynamics page, too? Even though the word "dynamics" is still used widely, it's no longer a branch of study, just like kinetics. I'm thinking that after clean-up, it makes sense to merge them. Sillyvalley (talk) 04:05, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Analytical dynamics

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Analytical dynamics, and it appears to be very similar to another wikipedia page: Dynamics (physics). It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 15:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Editor review/-The Bold Guy-

You feel for it to review me, if you got the time to do so. It might be just a bold question, and I am not expecting a positive reaction, but I really need someone to do so. Thanks in advanche, -The Bold Guy- (talk) 17:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Centrifugal Force

Brews, first I'd like to thank you for supporting my unblock request. But since I won't be coming back in again, I want to take this opportunity to explain to you where I think that you are going wrong. Centrifugal force is one single topic. It can be described in the most simple terms as the outward radial force that is associated with rotation. It crops up in many scenarios. The classical mechanics topic 'rotating frames of reference' is only one such scenario. I don't see how you can see it any differently. You showed a much greater ability to comprehend matters on the electromagnetism articles. I don't know what happened to you when you came over to the centrifugal force page. One big difference of course was that there were no biased referees on the electromagnetism pages. My own belief is that you were swayed by this factor and that you were hence too willing to buy into the philosophy that centrifugal force is something that only occurs in rotating frames of reference. I know that you were genuinely trying to learn about the subject. But you were writing as you were learning. It's been as if you were learning on the job. And in my opinion you were being taught very badly by those around you. My advice to you is to try and listen more carefully to what Fugal is telling you. He knows what he is talking about. 81.152.111.182 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 00:01, 27 September 2008 (UTC).

Vector space graphic

Hi Brews, thanks for your work on vector space. I will also join in now with more content. Since you seem to be a graphic expert (among other things), I wonder whether you could help with the following (I'm a bloody idiot with Inkscape and so on, which is why I ask you): I think a graphic showing a vector bundle would be nice. More concretely I have in mind the Möbius strip, which is a line bundle over the circle. The image should show the circle along with the M. str. and, this would be great, "zooming" in a small region and exhibiting the product structure of a little piece of the circle times the line. Could you do that? Cheers Jakob.scholbach (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Centrifugal force (planar motion)

I think it may be a good idea to save the article on your hard disk and then rewrite it a bit to make it slightly more general. The title could be changed, you don't have to mention "centrifugal force", you could perhaps call it "Classical mechanics in general coordinates".

Anyway, I think you have done a lot of positive work here on Misplaced Pages. Don't waste time fighting stupid disputes :) Count Iblis (talk) 20:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Classical mechanics in planar curvilinear coordinates

I have moved the article, see here:

Classical mechanics in planar curvilinear coordinates

I think we need to put less emphasis on centrifugal force and just focus on classical mechanics. Count Iblis (talk) 22:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: Opinion

Looks good! I redirected the article I mentioned above to your article "Mechanics of planar particle motion".

In the Lagrangian methods section, one could also write about imposing the constraint that a particle move along some curve using (time dependent) Lagrange multipliers and then mention the relation between the Lagrange multiplier and the normal force. Count Iblis (talk) 01:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: Lagrange multiplier and the normal force

I think this can be found in most textbooks. I learned it from college notes at university, so I can't give you a specific ref. right now. This is not so important if a derivation from first principles is given. What matters is that statements in Misplaced Pages are verifiable. So, a mathematical derivation can serve as the verification of a statement.

Making the derivation itself verifiable by giving a ref. to the literature is then besides the point because we are aiming at readers who can understand the derivation so they would be able to see that it is correct or false. Of course, when we take a derivation from a book, then we should give the ref. to that book.

Then, because we don't need to closely follow any textbooks, we have a lot of freedom to adapt the derivation to the needs of the reader of the wiki article. I have contributed to some thermodynamics articles in this style, see e.g. Fundamental thermodynamic relation and Helmholtz free energy. The derivations there are similar to what you can find in books like the one by F. Reif, my old college notes and my own notes.

The thermodynamics articles contained many elementary mistakes before I started to edit them. I still don't understand how such elementary errors could have remained in these articles for many years. I think that the wiki practice of sourcing statements could be have contributed to this. Erroneous statements were attributed to some source (in some case the source was a clone of the same wiki article) and then no one bothered to check. So, I decided that it may be better to give derivatons from first principles and not even bother to source them so that they will be scrutinized more. Count Iblis (talk) 23:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: Derivations and verifiability

This seems to be an ongoing discussion at the policy pages, see e.g. here.

I also think that different wiki editors may disagree because they take a different view about what Misplaced Pages is supposed to be. There are people who take a very narrow view, who say that wiki articles should describe what can be found in sources in pretty much the same way as is written down in the sources. But I think that we then miss a great opportunity. With some effort we can write articles about physics that are accessible to people with less knowledge than is assumed in university textbooks.

If you think of a (physics) textbook as a linear sequence of text, then wikipedia is a multidimensional sequence. The wikilinks allow you to move in many different directions. So, in principle, it could be superior to a textbook. Count Iblis (talk) 17:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Derivations

Hey Brews. Glad to see you doing more work on the transistor articles. I notice you're adding derivations for the different characteristics - do you really think that's necessary? I think it might be better to omit them and just refer readers to textbooks to see the derivations. Or perhaps show all the derivations in a separate article to keep the main one concise and less intimidating. What do you think? -Roger (talk) 01:14, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I guess it's clear I like some derivation, particularly if it's not too involved. There are a couple of reasons: (i) I don't find textbooks a great source of derivations. (ii) I do find a derivation adds to credibility, which Wiki can use a lot of. Simple statements that such-and-such is so, even when cited, is subject to abuse that simple logic may avoid. (iii) I find writing on the circuit diagram a great way to do it, and texts don't do it that way much; it makes the derivations very straightforward. (iv) A derivation provides insight into the material. Brews ohare (talk) 06:23, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Vector space

Hi Brews, I remember you made a number of physics-related edits to vector space. I'm currently trying to get the article to GA standard. The last step for this, I think, is providing references for various statements. I'm trying my best to cover the mathematical aspects, but could I ask you to help out with physical facts? I marked the facts/paragraphs where I think we need some references with a -tag. If you could help out, I'd be grateful, since I don't have readily access to a physics library. Thank you, and see you over there, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:24, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

nu to theta

Hi. Please don't forget talk:Kepler's laws of planetary motion#Symbol for Angular Displacement. Bo Jacoby (talk) 10:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC).

I changed the figure. It is not mathematically exact, but I hope it will do. Brews ohare (talk) 12:27, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for you drawing.

See however Talk:Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion#Image:Anomalies.PNG. Bo Jacoby (talk) 23:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC).

Continuation behind the scenes

Brews, I've just activated the e-mail user option. I've decided that this debate would best be carried out on a one-to-one behind the scenes. It is about trying to master an overall comprehension of the topic. I wouldn't have stayed here so long if I hadn't believed that you were genuinely trying to understand the topic. But wikipedia is not the right medium for that purpose. When you were on the EM articles, I saw that you were interested in the A vector. Basically the -(partial)dA/dt in the Lorentz force is the Euler force. But we can't discuss that here. I had a difficult time even trying to get the third term of the Lorentz force overtly recognized even though it is in modern literature, so there'd be no point in quoting Maxwell to get the fourth term mentioned. The fourth term is centrifugal force grad(A.v). Try and e-mail me. If it doesn't work, let me know on my talk page. There is no point in carrying on on the centrifugal force talk page because there are too many people working at cross purposes. There is a very simple pattern to all this. It is four Lorentz force terms. Two tangential and two radial. In EM, the tangential terms are Faraday's law (and also the radial terms which give zero curl). In Gravity, Kepler's second law balances them to zero. David Tombe (talk) 19:45, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Mediation requested

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Speed of light, and indicate whether you agree or disagree to mediation. If you are unfamiliar with mediation on Misplaced Pages, please refer to Misplaced Pages:Mediation. Please note there is a seven-day time limit on all parties responding to the request with their agreement or disagreement to mediation. Thanks, Physchim62 (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC) Physchim62 (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Request for mediation not accepted

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party was not accepted and has been delisted. You can find more information on the case subpage, Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Speed of light. For the Mediation Committee, WJBscribe (talk) 23:00, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Displacement Current

Brews, the important thing is to realize that Maxwell's method for obtaining displacement current bore no similarity to the modern 'conservation of charge' method. Maxwell seemed to settle on a linear polarization method, even though the preamble in part III of his 1861 paper indicated that he may have been toying with a magnetization approach. Maxwell did not involve capacitors in his derivation of displacement current. But the subsequent identification of displacement current with linear polarization must have caused future generations to link it to capacitor circuits. The new 'conservation of charge' method must have arisen in the 20th century post-aether era, because there was then no longer any dielectric in space to be polarized, yet they couldn't get rid of the displacement current in the vacuum because it was essential for EM radiation. The problem is that the 'conservation of charge' method doesn't fit with EM radiation because it is the wrong E vector. Interestingly, Maxwell's method still applies in relation to dielectric materials. David Tombe (talk) 05:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Absolute time and space

I've just removed a chunk of apparent original research from the Absolute time and space article. However, what remains could do with some improvement; I'd greatly appreciate it if you could you take a look at it. -- The Anome (talk) 16:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I modified this article somewhat, adding some historical context. That led to modification of mass; it never ends. Brews ohare (talk) 21:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Definition of free space

Hi Brews,

You seem to believe both of the following:

Free space is by definition a medium in which the speed of light is c₀, the permittivity is ε₀, etc.

c₀ is by definition the speed of light in free space. ε₀ is by definition the permittivity in free space. Etc.

This is a circular definition, isn't it? You haven't defined anything at all.

How do you measure a meter? Well, it's how far light travels in 1/299,792,458 seconds in free space. How do you know that your measurement is actually in something close to free space, and not in a far-from-free-space-medium? Well, you could check that the speed of light is close to 299,792,458 meters per second, except that you don't know what a meter is. You could check that ε₀ is close to 9 pF/meter, but again, you don't know what a meter, amp, or coulomb is. So there's no way to know whether your medium is anywhere close to free space. It could be 100 orders of magnitude off. Right??? :-) --Steve (talk) 03:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Steve: I've taken a while to respond. I had to think about it. Here is my take - tell me what you think of it.

Free space has defined properties and so is beyond experiment. It is a hypothetical medium.

However, measurements of the meter do not take place in free space. To measure the meter, one first sets up an elaborate clock to obtain a second (within a few Herz). Then one sets up a light source and detector in a gas, say, and separates them so time from emission to detection takes 1/c₀ seconds. Then either (i) one measures at several gas pressures and fits some curve to the points and extrapolates to zero pressure, or (ii) one calculates the refractive index of your gas from formula using measured gas pressure (the advantage is NIST does the extrapolation, saving you the trouble); then your measured meter is corrected accordingly using n.

It seems to me there is nothing circular here because there are two definitions involved: the definition of free space and the definition of the procedure used to approximate free space in the lab. If we defined c₀ differently, we'd get a different length for the meter, but who cares: if everybody adopted the same c₀ , everybody would have the same meter.

If extrapolation does not consistently produce the same meter, that is an error in either the theory used for extrapolation, or in the assessment of gas pressure. If the procedure consistently produces different meters for linearly and circularly polarized light, then we'd have to specify the polarization used to measure the meter, but it wouldn't matter whether we picked the speed of one polarization or the other to set the parameters of free space. We probably would ask why dichroism occurred even in the limit of zero pressure, but that is a real-world question, not a question about free space. Brews ohare (talk) 21:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Brews, thanks for bringing that paper to my attention. I will not be getting too involved in the aether debate here on wikipedia, because it is guaranteed to lead to an edit war, with people arguing over the legitimacy of sources. Have a look at this article meanwhile . I did however want to bring your attention to the links between density and magnetic permeability, and between elasticity and dielectric constant in regard to how Maxwell calculated the speed of light using Newton's equation for the speed of sound. Even if we can't write too much about that in main articles, I saw that you were curious enough about the topic to want to know more.

I've now been able to open the link which you supplied. Yes, I am familiar with this paper already. I have communicated with both the authors. They in turn refer to a paper which was written in 1998 by the brother of one of the authors. Here is a direct link to that paper. David Tombe (talk) 17:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Martin, what are you up to?

I would prefer to have any discussion on the article talk page. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Space archaeology

I have nominated Space archaeology, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Misplaced Pages's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Space archaeology. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:08, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The Aether

Brews, I have been involved in this field since the 1970's. I have my own views on the matter. As far as I am concerned, the aether is alive and well. But the aether needs to be rendered into a sea of tiny whirlpools in order to act as the luminiferous medium. I got most of my inspiration from Maxwell's 1861 paper which accounts for my determination to point out that centrifugal force is a real force that is associated with pure aether pressure.

I am aware that there have been many attempts by dissidents to re-introduce the luminiferous medium. Often these attempts are very confused in my opinion. I began with displacement current. My realization that the textbook explanation was unsatisfactory led me to look up how Maxwell himself did it. It was then that I realized that we need to have a dielectric medium pervading what is commonly believed to be the vacuum. Later I realized that the dipoles need to be rotating and that magnetic repulsion is caused by centrifugal pressure between adjacent dipoles in their mutual equatorial planes. You can have a look at my article 'The Double Helix Theory of the Magnetic Field' at . However it has been extended by many follow up papers. One that you might be particularly interested in is the 'The Cause of Coriolis Force' at . You will find papers at that last web link address for all numbers up to 60 with the exception of 1,2,10,34, and 46. The ones that you might find the most interesting are 11, 12, 14, 43,44, 48,49,54, and the last six. David Tombe (talk) 15:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

We've edit conflicted, so I've restored all you tweak except one

I just don't know what you did here: . If you could restore it, that would be neat.Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

What's wrong?

Hi, looking over your recent edits, I notice that you think that I am edit warring. I really, sincerely am not trying to war. I am trying to convince you that there are some problems with the text you are inserting. But you sometimes stop discussing with me for no reason. If you have a problem, or feel strongly about a text, let me know. Restore it, and make an argument for its inclusion. It's hard work, but if there is back and forth between two editors with slightly antagonistic aims and good faith, the text invariably improves.

The accuracy of the QCD paper is something you clarified for me, for example. I think we both agree it's somewhere between 1% and 4%, depending on how charitable you are to the authors. If you have problems with this, please let me know.

The sources on photon mass that you insert are decent, except for one, which I pointed out on the talk page. Please read the comment. I think you hit on one bad apple there.

The text you want for photon mass "the photon's rest mass is calculated by analogy with other particles, by subtracting the square of the momentum from the square of the energy", I feel is too technical for this section. But if you feel strongly about that, then reinsert it. This is just a question of clarity for the non-technical reader.

As for the sources you use, they are sometimes too technical, and too far removed from the original author of the result. If you want to say "the photon has this bound for the rest mass", it's best to link to the paper that establishes the bound, so readers can evaluate it. I went through your source in the cavity QED book, but the reference happens to be in a page of the book that is not freely accessible, so I couldn't cite the original author. If you know what this reference is, it would be good to bypass the secondary author.Likebox (talk) 15:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit war on Mass–energy equivalence

Hi Steven: Apparently User:Likebox insists on writing Mass–energy equivalence to suit themselves, and repeatedly deletes cited material. They already have a reputation for such activity. How can it be prevented or ameliorated? Brews ohare (talk) 04:22, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello--- there is no edit war, the text keeps changing. I put all the sources that this editor insert on the talk page, and start a discussion, but I don't always get feedback. The reason I keep changing the text is because Brews ohare inserts slightly inaccurate stuff. It's mostly OK, but there are annoyances--- for example, the citation he gave for the mass of the photon includes a book which claims that the evidence supports a small nonzero mass for the photon. It's not a good source. The text he inserts for QCD is both too technical for the section (in my opinion) and reflects an unsupported view that the lattice calculations are less accurate than they are.

I would have no objection to inserting sourced material, but the sources that Brews ohare provides are usually very technical, and sometimes they have very little to do with what he is claiming. For example, in the discussion on the talk page, there is a source which claims to discuss the Maiani Testa theorem, which he is using to claim that the lattice results are no good. The theorem is very technical, and would scare off a non-physicist. The theorem has no relevance to mass calculations, as the authors say right in the original paper, but he did not link to this paper. I had to find it and link to it after a search.

The dispute here has not been over a single factual statement, but it seems to be a meaningless haggle over wording. I don't see why we cannot come to compromise.Likebox (talk) 15:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

There are QCD, lattice QCD, and photon articles where this stuff goes better. I agree that it's shoehorned in, here. I've said as much on the article's TALK page. It's not that the info is uninteresting, it's just badly placed. SBHarris 07:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Rotation

Brews, I replied to your note on my own talk page. The main problem is that rotation is absolute and so it doesn't fit with relativity. Hence the attempts to mask out the reality of centrifugal force in the modern textbooks. David Tombe (talk) 11:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Removing the Leibniz bit because it doesn't have a page of its own?

Brews, the existing division of centrifugal force into two pages is a misinformed division based on a lack of comprehension of the topic. When I see two different approaches to centrifugal force which are incompatible with each other, I conclude that one of them must be wrong. You, on the other hand, conclude that there must be two different kinds of centrifugal force, each deserving of its own page. And in this particular case, I conclude that they are both wrong.

In actual fact, at one time, you had three different kinds of centrifugal force. You also had a 'polar coordinates' centrifugal force. The latter was more accurately the Leibniz approach which in my opinion is the only correct approach. Polar coordinates are only the language of expression in that approach.

Nevertheless, there are three different approaches to centrifugal force in the literature and we cannot ignore the Leibniz approach simply on the grounds that no page has been created for it on wikipedia.

The reactive centrifugal force is wrong because it thinks that centrifugal force has to be equal and opposite to centripetal force. It also wrongly thinks that the two constitute an action-reaction pair. And it further wrongly thinks that the centrifugal force is reacting to the centripetal force when we know that the centripetal force and the centrifugal force are totally independent of each other (as when gravity is the centripetal force) or that the centripetal force is reacting to the centrifugal force (as when tension in a string causes the centripetal force). This approach was born out of Isaac Newton being twisted in the face of what was effectively Goldstein's equation 3-12 being shown to him by Leibniz. Newton couldn't stand Leibniz because of the calculus priority dispute. Nevertheless, Newton's approach appeared in textbooks until the 1960's. It was purged from Nelkon & Parker in 1971.

The rotating frames approach is the modern approach that is most in vogue these days. It is the nonsense approach in which the Coriolis force becomes unscrewed from the pole and swings about freely like a weather cock. The truth is that Coriolis force is a transverse force that is tied up with the conservation of angular momentum. David Tombe (talk) 01:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Centrifugal force

Brews, I'd be happy to have your feedback on my attempt to make this whole area more approachable and less driven by personal squabbles. Ideas on how to improve it? Is the summary style a net win? Where do you stand on this? Dicklyon (talk) 03:53, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

redshift

Hi, I'm involved in a very strange argument at the redshift article with someone who doesn't seem to want to engage in serious discussion. I note that you did quite a bit of work to that article recently and would be grateful for your input. Landed little marsdon (talk) 19:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Inkscape

Your diagrams are excellent, and I would like to suggest to you using Inkscape to create new diagrams. That way the files are svg and can be improved by other people. Let me know what you think. sanpaz (talk) 19:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you could outline for me appropriate documentation to learn how to use this approach to figures? Brews ohare (talk) 19:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

To know about what svg is I think the wiki page svg is good. For learning how to use inkscape go to Inkscape Documentation.

For writing equations in Inkscape I use textext which is an add on for Inkscape. Installing TexText is explained in that website. Let me know if I can help more. sanpaz (talk) 19:48, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

The convenience of SVG is that you don't lose resolution in the diagrams as the image can be scaled (vector file), and that anyone can take the original file and modify its content to improve it. See some of the diagrams I have done using Inkscape for reference. sanpaz (talk) 19:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I moved this conversation from my page, just to keep it in one place. sanpaz (talk) 14:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The Inertial Path

Brews, I conceded to Woodstone that I had made a mistake when I told you that ${\displaystyle {\ddot {r}}=0}$ is not the inertial path. I was indeed, as Woodstone pointed out, thinking of the scalar equation for the radial direction.

Can you now please repeat the point that you were making in light of me acknowledging this error. I accept now that ${\displaystyle {\ddot {r}}=0}$ is the straight line inertial path. It contains a centrifugal force, but no centripetal force. David Tombe (talk) 12:41, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe that will help clear up some confusion. I always thought that when David mentioned ${\displaystyle {\ddot {r}}=0}$ was referring to the scalar distance (making this a circular path), not the vector. Dicklyon (talk) 12:47, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Dick, I normally was referring to the scalar equation. Equation 3-11 is the radial scalar equation with the addition of a centripetal force. On the spur of the moment, I stupidly thought that the only difference with the vector equation was the extra transverse terms, and so I told Brews that he was wrong and that this equation is for circular motion, and not for the inertial path. Woodstone corrected me.

I think that we are all now agreed that the vector equation in question is for the straight line inertial path and that it contains all three of the inertial forces. Two of them are equal and opposite in the transverse direction and one of them is net radial. And the value and direction of these three inertial forces is totally dependent on our choice of origin. Such is the nature of them.

My ultimate point is that the rotating frame transformation equations are essentially one and the same thing. You are in partial agreement with me about this, in that you see them as being the same thing for the case of co-rotation. However, I see them as only applying to co-rotation, and that as such the rotating frame of reference becomes redundant. The textbooks use the idea of rotating frames of reference to cater for the apparent deflections that occur in non-co-rotating situations. I personally see this as nonsense. Those apparent deflections are not what is being described by the inertial terms. That is the big cock up that I trace back to Coriolis himself in relation to his category 2 supplementary forces.

I now further see Brews's point of view that the Leibniz equation is too specific. The Leibniz equation is a specific application of polar coordinates in which we introduce an inverse square law of gravity force as a centripetal force and use Kepler's second law to eliminate the two transverse terms.

Perhaps Brews wants a more general approach in which we merely expose the three inertial forces from the polar coordinates derivation and leave the Leibniz equation as one of a few examples, along with his rotating spheres. David Tombe (talk) 19:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

a comment on your drawing

See Talk:Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion#File:Anomalies.PNG. The drawing on eccentric anomaly is perhaps better? Bo Jacoby (talk) 12:22, 2 June 2009 (UTC).

Centrifugal force

I did not realize that there were so many centrifugal force articles (disambig, reactive, fictitious, plus just regular old centrifugal force). Why not make Lagrangian centrifugal force its own article, in keeping with the rest of them? That would avoid the problems of undue weight. Rracecarr (talk) 16:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Rracecarr: That is a good idea. However, it will take some time. It would allow a more extended development and the inclusion of general relativity, which would be very helpful. Are you interested in starting this page? I'll get around to it eventually. Brews ohare (talk) 16:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

3RR warning

Brews, you have restored erroneous and unverifiable content to wavelength three times already today (and I have taken it out three times). So neither of us should do that again for a while. Dicklyon (talk) 23:42, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. Srleffler (talk) 03:30, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Brews, why not use the talk page to try to fill us in on your thinking, instead of adding a bunch of stuff to the article, backed only by sources that don't even mention wavelength in most cases? I'm at quite a loss still to understand where you're coming from, or where you hope these edits will lead in terms of explanation of the article topic. We've tried to listen, to explain your errors, to point you at sources that explain things better, etc., but you keep coming back to an idiosyncratic conception of connections to Fourier analysis and concepts otherwise unconnected to the topic or unsupported by sources. Slow down, think about it, tell us what you're thinking, and let's figure out where to go with it. There's no need to get this article back up to 20KB of mostly off-topic complexity. Dicklyon (talk) 04:52, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

One way to get unstuck might be to try again with an RfC, but with a better-formed question that "Should the classic analysis of waveforms and wavelength be included in article Wavefunction?" and a less-biased writeup of the problem. Dicklyon (talk) 06:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I have asked for you to be blocked for violating 3RR after we both warned you. Dicklyon (talk) 06:55, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Bye bye

You two guys (Dicklyon & Srleffler) have worn me out. You make no constructive or concrete suggestions and don't read what is written, but simply jump to conclusions about what is said. Since I know you can behave better, and don't always call people you have disputes with stupid and uneducated and ill motivated, I suppose that is reserved for me. Have fun, I am leaving for an extended visit to real life. Make your own articles and figures. Have a few beers. Brews ohare (talk) 06:38, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I offered many constructive ideas, but also did feel compelled to question your competence and motivation to edit in this area. Enjoy your beer. Dicklyon (talk) 06:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

June 2009

Repeatedly inserting apparently non-standard material into a basic physics article, at Wavelength, per this complaint at WP:AN3. Such changes require consensus, and should not be forced into the article by edit warring. EdJohnston (talk) 16:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Brews ohare (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

I have no intention of continuing a war at Wavelength. It is amusing to see that I am blocked for not awaiting consensus, while the contribution now located at User:Brews ohare/Wavelength was deleted in its entirety by Dicklyon and Srleffler, with little attempt at consensus (or civility) , but based simply on their personal opinions, some of which contradict cited sources. The claim that this is nonstandard material is unwarranted, as the many citations show. This material, some of which goes back to d'Alembert in the 1700's, is standard in discussion of waveforms in most texts. The Talk page history also shows that they deleted this material within hours of the time a RfC was posted, and again after my objections to this treatment, thereby denying me any opportunity to get comment from other than these two opinionated gentlemen. Perhaps these tactics should not push me to too many reversions, but their high-handedness and incivility certainly do not engender cooperation or advance the projects on Misplaced Pages. I'd say my record of contributions to Misplaced Pages, and the nasty behavior of these two editors should result in repeal of the block. Brews ohare (talk) 16:39, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Decline reason:

If you'll commit to continuing to work to get consensus on the talk page, rather than continuing to edit war (regardless of how justified you think it might be), you'll likely be unblocked. Otherwise, wait it out. --jpgordon 18:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Your "record of contributions to Misplaced Pages"

Brews, you refer in your unblock request to your "record of contributions to Misplaced Pages". In fact, this is something I've tried to counsel you on several times before, and you always reject my input as "incivility". The edit histories of Centrifugal force, Centripetal force, Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame), Speed of light, Matter, and many other articles show that your usual style is to focus on an article, quickly inflate it 50% to 300% with mostly-unsourced complexification of an idiosyncratic sort, with no cooperation with others, showing off your ability to write long symbol-soup derivations. I'm not saying that you are ill-intentioned, but I am at a loss to understand what motivates this editing style, and I am pretty sure that your contributions do not represent a net win for wikipedia. You alienate all other editors at every other article you work on, as far as I can tell. Very few editors have the patience or willpower to stand up against your persistence. When you started doing this 11 days ago on Wavelength, both Srleffler tried to talk you down, but you kept making it worse; you never found another editor to support you, nor did you find sources to connect your idiosyncratic interpretations to the topic of the article. You seem to be completely unable to understand our feedback, which is why we weren't able to do much beyond continuing to reset to a recent non-errorful version (we did incorporate a few bits of your ideas and lots of references along the way, as we tried to work with you). Please go back and read some of our talk comments, and understand that all of our comments were made in good faith, and rejected by you; give them another chance to soak in. Dicklyon (talk) 16:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Dick. I'd like to believe all that "constructive" criticism (which sounds a lot like character assassination), but I find it to be soap boxing. Your energy would be better spent in trying to improve Misplaced Pages by actually making constructive comments to subject matter instead of name calling and aspersions. Brews ohare (talk) 17:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand that you feel that way, as that's how you always react to my advice. Dicklyon (talk) 17:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

As another example, we have Electromotive force. In a period of three days you applied over 100 consecutive edits, inflating it from 18 KB to 27 KB, with no other editor involvement and with few sources; you left the flaky narrow definition in the lead, rather than fix it to encompass the contents. Much of what you added is either erroneous, unsupported, disconnected, or of just tangential relevance. I've started to work on it, but it's hard to repair such fleshed-out for unsourced work. If you can drop back and take a look, your help there could be useful. I am particularly sensitive to unsourced assertions of confusion, such as "Occasionally, EMF is confused with the electrical voltage that it generates." It might be so, but so far I have been unable to find sources to support the distinction that you are asserting, or any confusion about; if I'm confused, I need to see the sources that help solve that problem. Dicklyon (talk) 19:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dick: The tone of this request, basically an accusation that none of the work I did here has value, does not encourage me to again engage with you in editing: I'm gun shy. Not to mention blocked: how did that happen? I'd tend to advise you to leave it alone until you understand it better, or wait until RGForbes returns. (He assures me he will return, just a bit occupied at the moment.) BTW, unlike your style of editing, I attempted to work with the article as I found it, and much of the organization and commentary in EMF did not originate with me. So please don't lay it all at my door.

The technical point that the article makes clear through several examples (or did before you edited it anyway), the EMF is not itself a voltage, but an expression of agencies that create charge separation. This agency may be, for example, chemical or the non-conservative part of an electromagnetic field. Once the charges are separated by this agency, the separated charges produce a conservative electric field that, by definition, can be expressed as a potential difference. That is, the EMF expresses the conversion of energy from one form (e.g. the chemical bond) to energy in the form of separated charges.

This verbiage is made most clear in a thermodynamic treatment, rather briefly made in the article, and found most commonly in the discussion of batteries. Brews ohare (talk) 15:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to get into this debate about EMF, etc., but you ask above how it happened that you got blocked. You reverted the article more than three times in a 24 hour period. See WP:3RR. Reverting an article more than three times in 24 hours is always grounds for a block. I tried to help you out by warning you (above) when you went over the limit, but you reverted the article again anyway. This is one of Misplaced Pages's few rigid rules of conduct, and is meant to stop edit wars from happening. It also serves to prevent a single editor from continuing to push a specific version of an article despite the objections of a consensus of at least two other editors. Anyway, it looks like your block has expired. Welcome back. Hopefully we can work together productively in the future.--Srleffler (talk) 16:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I do understand the reversion rules, and my question above was really rhetorical. It appears to me that in dealing with Dicklyon at least, the preferred mode of operation is to let him delete and edit at will on the article page, and confine myself to the talk page entirely. Of course, that means Dicklyon is then a de facto gate keeper and nothing can appear on the article page without his OK. I don't like that, because his view of Misplaced Pages and my own are quite at odds, but what else is there to do? That is not a rhetorical question. Brews ohare (talk) 17:39, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Brews, the electromotive force article is another chance for us to find a way to work together. I've expressed what think the problems are with it, and have asked for help here and on the talk page. Help needs to include sources to back up a lot of what's there already and to clarify things that we've so far left unclear. It appears to me that the key problem that the notion of emf has many different meaning, and we need the article to clarify the relationships between them, rather than focus on one and call the others confusions. If "agencies that create charge separation" is part of the answer, we need to source that, but also need to not write it in a way that excludes transformer emf, where that concepts appears to not be applicable. Dicklyon (talk) 18:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate collaboration style

Brews, you've left the discussion and instead done 7 controversial edits this morning on electromotive force, removing a lot of sourced material and replacing it by your POV without clear reason for why that POV should dominate; WP:NPOV requires that we make a more balanced presentation. Why not stick to the discussion until we have a framework for proceeding? Dicklyon (talk) 15:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Dick: My changes are sourced. Please read the sources. I am not advancing a point of view. Ross's point of view that the whole concept of emf is ambiguous is simply uninformed, and I have indicated why in detail. If you take exception to some points, please identify them and I will go into chapter and verse. Brews ohare (talk) 15:22, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

How can you say you are not advancing a point of view when you remove material representing alternative points of view? I have been asking for more detail and explanation on the talk page; please don't add "chapter and verse" to the article until we resolve this. Dicklyon (talk) 15:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Electromotive force

As you will be aware, I did not make any reverts to that page without proper discussion on the talk page. The fact that you did not see these is itself evidence of the rapid-fire ill-considered editing I referred to on the talk page. I remind you once again that you are already under warning for disruptive editting. CrispMuncher (talk) 16:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You made no attempt to justify reversion beyond complaining about my editing style. I'm complaining about yours: intervention without understanding. Brews ohare (talk) 18:17, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If you actually read my comments you would have seen that I did outline my reasons both on technical and procedural levels. If you want to make contentious edits then you needs sources at minimum and and ideally a good deal of consensus before you make your change. Changes that do not have these and that actually remove material and sources that do not support your view should rightly be reverted. As for understanding, I really do not want to go there anymore as experience has shown it to be totally unproductive. I refer you to talk:speed of light, where I was among many editors to revert your changes and I spelt out in great detail why this was so. In stead of taking these comments on board you started a completely new thread several days later that completely ignored the previous comments I had made. CrispMuncher (talk) 18:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll look at the speed-of-light history if you provide me with the links. My recollection is primarily the problems I had with Martin, who could not distinguish between measured values and defined values, and between theoretically perfect vacuum and outer space. Brews ohare (talk) 18:53, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Dispersion relation

Hi Brews, I put some comments regarding your recent addition of a new section on: Talk:Dispersion relation#Dispersion and propagation of general waveforms. I am having a kind of writers block at the moment (regarding main space), otherwise I could have done part of these proposed changes myself. Best regards, Crowsnest (talk) 19:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Your four queries about rotation

Brews, let's look at your four queries,

1. magnetism appears to be always linked to rotation, e.g. via the gyromagnetic ratio
2. rotation about an axis cannot be maintained to arbitrary radii without violating relativity
3. gravitation is associated with rotating systems in fact, and such systems are not explained by standard mechanics (e.g. the galactic rotation curve needs dark matter)
4. clocks cannot be synchronized in rotating systems Rizzi

The first one is easy. The H field is the angular momentum of Maxwell's molecular vortices. The B field is hence the flux density of the magnetic lines of force. Magnetism is steeped in fine-grained rotation and centrifugal force.

The second is also easy in my opinion. Relativity is wrong.

As regards gravitation, although it often arises in connection with rotation, it doesn't have to. The theory of gravity in isolation is a totally irrotational phenomenon. Rotation is only of importance when it comes to the issue of centrifugal force, since it is transverse stress that induces the outward pressure. Centrifugal force depends on rotation whereas gravity doesn't. When it comes to large scale cosmic phenomenon like galaxies, I have got very little to say on the matter. It is quite possible that Kepler's laws break down on that scale due to some aether hydrodynamical effects which are not recognized by the mainstream. The galaxies might even have some degree of mutual repulsion due to their spin. But I simply don't know.

On your final point about the clocks, I was not aware of that. It sounds interesting, but I can't think of any explanation off-hand. Clearly the rotation must be causing some kind of internal stress in the clocks which affects their periodicity mechanism. David Tombe (talk) 19:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Brews. Your #2 above caught my eye. I assume you're thinking about the idea of a very large rigid object rotating about a fixed axis, such that parts of the object far from the axis might exceed the speed of light while points near the axis are rotating at a modest rate? This is a well-known paradox. The resolution lies in the fact that nothing is perfectly rigid, and in fact relativity forbids objects from being perfectly rigid. In practice, objects cannot even be perfectly rigid in a classical picture, since forces are transmitted through an object at a velocity around that of the speed of sound in that material.--Srleffler (talk) 21:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Brews and Srleffler, here are some points to consider,

(1) In a Newton's cradle, the final outcome is known immediately the incoming ball hits the row of balls. It couldn't be any other way because the incoming ball has to know instantly whether or not it is to rebound.

(2) If relativity rules out true rigid bodies, then on that basis, and for relativity to be preserved, all rotation of material bodies must be accompanied by a shear in which it rotates at different rates at different radial distances.

(3)If I slide a pen along its length on a table, are you seriously saying that the end of the pen only begins to move after a signal has travelled along the pen at a speed in the order of the speed of sound for that material? David Tombe (talk) 18:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

David, you're just showing what a nut you are. "Immediately"?!? Have you never heard of wave propagation, speed of sound, etc.? Yes on the pen; if you strike it one end, the other end won't move until the shock wave gets there. Don't worry, it's pretty quick so you don't have to worry about your pen distorting too much. Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Dick, that of course is the automatic first response. But you will need to think more about how the Newton's cradle knows instantly how to react? The incoming ball is hardly likely to wait for a return wave signal before it knows whether or not to rebound. David Tombe (talk) 00:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a difference between fast and instantaneous. Yes, of course if you apply a force at one end of a pen lying on a table, the other end does not begin to move instantly. Similarly with the Newton's cradle: the balls do undergo some elastic deformation during the impact. They remain in contact long enough for a wave of deformation to propagate through all the balls and back to the first ball. --Srleffler (talk) 04:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Srleffler, I didn't come to the 'instantaneous' conclusion lightly. If the incoming ball rebounds, it will rebound due to the recoil of the compression at the contact point. However, if a match is detected up ahead, that compression won't even occur. Something kinetic will leave the incoming ball and travel along the row to the end ball, causing it to continue on as if it were a continuation of the incoming ball. I suspect that whatever that kinetic impulse is that it will be a kind of electromagnetic effect that will travel in the order of the speed of light. However, I suspect that there will be another leader signal which instantaneously recognizes whether or not a match exists. I suspect that there will be three kinds of signals involved in general. There will be mechanical deformation waves travelling in the order of the speed of sound for the material in question. There will be a kind of inertial/EM signal travelling in the order of the speed of light, and also an instantaneous pressure pulse which finds the path of least resistance.

An analogy exists in electric current. The current arcs sideways across the space between the wires when the circuit switch first goes on. Something instantaneously detects the path of least resistance. When matching inductors are in the circuit, waves similar in nature (but not identical) to EM waves travel between the two wires with great efficiency. When there are no matching inductors, the situation then gets more involved with particles flowing in the wire and dissipation resistance. David Tombe (talk) 19:48, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

ANI

Hello, Brews ohare. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Jauerback/_dude. 18:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)