The h Bar

Q: Why aren't two systems in thermal equilibrium the same as one system?

So is

3

I am reading Molecular Driving Forces, 2nd ed., by Dill & Bromberg. On page 53, example 3.9, we consider why energy exchanges between two systems from the point of view of the 2nd law. We consider two separate systems. Each has ten particles, and each particle has two possible energy states...

thermodynamics heat temperature

Not on my hot list

(the "physics" I typed is a simple filter userscript--it's the same list, just with most posts hidden)

@tpg2114 the hot lists are common to all, IIRC

It's definitely not there for me though

Hmm

ought to be near the bottom.

or maybe the tweaked the hot questions algo to be user-specific

Q: How does one improve memory?

7:10 AM

I don't have a script to make it visible... My lowest-numbered hot question has a score of 13

3

Does Judaism provide and tips, tricks or rituals for improving memory or preventing forgetfulness?

psych-mentalhealth memory

That one

@tpg2114 ah

mine has 10

You have it at 10 which doesn't appear on my list

But my script doesn't create new posts. It just hides the ones that don't match

Who knows why your list would be deeper than mine

(the script works in all tabs, it just filters stuff)

@tpg2114 I have accounts on more sites. That could be it..

Q: What do you call a person who started something that is later followed by everyone?

7:11 AM

Mine is showing 30

Total hot questions

It's a nice round number... seems like that would be a universal thing

Is this your hottest at 87:

27

What do you call a person who started something that is later followed by everyone? For example, someone started to stay late at night till 8 p.m. and later everyone started to stay till 8 p.m..

single-word-requests

@tpg2114 I have 50

@tpg2114 yep

Interesting... I thought it was a universal list regardless of the accounts

Or other factors

Q: Isn't the "hot questions" list universal?

0

While chatting about the hot questions list (in the multicollider), we realized that I have 50 items in my list (with lowest hotness score 10), while tpg2114 has only 30 (with lowest hotness 13) (relevant chat here) Isn't the hot questions list universal? Or are there some parts which are user-...

support stackexchange-button hot-questions

I feel like if I asked that, I'd get downvoted almost immediately ;)

I have little luck in meta

@tpg2114 nah, you just need to phrase it right :)

Also, many "meta newbie" suggestions/etc have been declined tons of times and the community downvotes them

7:23 AM

Yeah, I try to do my research

For example, this has been asked many times, in different forms

I know, and oddly enough mine was one of the few upvoted

In fact, I posted in the comments that it was an exact duplicate of another :)

And flagged it, but it never got closed

@tpg2114 Because you did your research and phrased it correctly :)

Cool, the dupe has an answer of mine on it ^.^

Small world huh?

That one was even downvoted 4 times

@tpg2114 yep

Check out this one: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/127541/…

7:33 AM

@Manishearth I edited your question to include my html for the hot list

It isn't nearly as nicely formatted as your paste though, I don't have the patience to format those tags though

@tpg2114 Use dirtymarkup.com

Also, how does meta rep work? On meta.SO, my rep is not the same as my SO rep. But on meta.phys, my rep is the same

You just need to Google "HTML prettifier"

@tpg2114 ah. thing is, MSO is the "mother meta". Aside from being the meta for SO, it is also the meta for SE in general (there is a plan to split MSO into MSO and MSE, but that's still a bit far off)

On meta.phys, your rep displays how much you have contributed to the community/how much you are trusted by the community (roughly)

on MSO, porting SO rep doesn't make sense since not all folks who are experienced with SE policy are active on SO

so, they have a separate rep system

Plus, historical reasons

At first, S[O|F|U] were SE 1.0 sites.

(this was when SE used to sell their software as well as host SOFU)

meta.phys started out that way as far as I can remember. Before I posted things I was at 101 even though phys.SE was higher

But at some point, maybe once I got some upvotes, it synched

I updated the link with the pretty pastbin on your question BTW

They decided to keep another Q&A site as meta (they used uservoice before that). But at the time, shared rep didn't exist in the software

Later on, the SE2.0 concept of site+meta came in

and SU/SF got their own metas

But MSO remained a "special" meta

@tpg2114 ah, that's caching

it never was that way

no other meta has ever had separate rep on SO

7:40 AM

Interesting

Wooo, I'm 2 rep more trustworthy now on MSO

Cross-site numbers (rep/etc) are generally never in sync

@tpg2114 lol

I guess I should go to bed eh? 3am is hardly a productive hour

Have a good night folks!

8:06 AM

@tpg2114 'night :)

8:25 AM

Just came to report something....

Our site is being flooded by spams...

Mods could have a look at it...

9:03 AM

@CrazyBuddy I noticed... you can always just flag it in the future

@DavidZaslavsky Oh, I'll do that :-)

Err... This is the first time for me (seeing loads of 'em)

9:16 AM

Hi Guys... I just thought of something...

We've got both astronomy and astrophysics tags...

It's a good thing to classify astro posts using the two tags...

We could do something better...

Maybe, we can include all the questions migrated from astronomy in astronomy

I've seen most questions that have come from astronomy - being tagged astrophysics, and not astronomy...

What if we tag those questions with astronomy too..?

They should be tagged according to their subject matter. I think a lot of those questions actually were about astrophysics.

Most questions don't need to have both, I think.

Yes... But, both the tags have the same definition though...

They shouldn't

In astrophysics, only we didn't include "planets"... If we include that too, then both are identical...

astronomy should be more for the observational questions

9:22 AM

We've got observational-astronomy for that...

Yeah, that can probably get merged into astronomy

or the other way around

Astronomy could be merged into the observ....

And, the definition should also be changed, BTW :-)

Yeah

A lot of questions have already been tagged according to the existing definitions so we should sort that out in the chat session and/or on meta

I thought of posting this on meta...

But, awaited how I got the response in chat :-)

@DavidZaslavsky Yeah, Most imports have been reviewed...

You could go ahead and post on meta, but first check and see if anything else has been posted about it before, because something might have been

9:25 AM

@DavidZaslavsky Will do...

I've thought of checking the retagging work of Astronomy imports after completing 5 of 5..

from the start - whether they've been given the right tag...

@DavidZaslavsky One more thing... Maybe, I'll wait for a while, see the response from Chris or Manish or whoever...

You could definitely check back through the questions that have been retagged and find some examples of what you think should have a particular tag, either astronomy or astrophysics or cosmology

Yeah... I'll do that after completing the retagging ;-)

From now, I thought of extending the retagging from 5 to 10

No, I won't bump questions in front...

After reviewing 5, I'll do the next after some time (10 hrs. maybe)

@DavidZaslavsky Ummm... David, I checked the meta twice. I didn't find anything related to the tag definition for astro's...!

huh, I guess I'm imagining it

Dilaton

@DavidZaslavsky in the other discussion I was only talking about correct posts being (in some case massively) downvoted (and wrong things upvoted). This should not happen on a serious physics site.

Of course do I understand that things work here by people (re)viewing posts and voting, I was not questioning this general fact of course.

@Dilaton Sure, ideally not. And if there were an "oracle" who could state authoritatively which posts were correct and which were incorrect, you would have a point.

But in practice, it's up to the community to determine what will be considered correct and what will be considered wrong, and the way that happens is by people commenting on the posts and voting.

9:40 AM

@DavidZaslavsky Anyways, I'll ask it in meta, David. Not so much offensive and not a big problem even if it gets closed :P

Err.. Sorry to interrupt.

@CrazyBuddy I don't think a thing like that would get closed, that's what meta is for

@DavidZaslavsky No, Maybe if there's a duplicate... Sometimes, I'm blind and other guys have some cool goggles stuff :-)

9:52 AM

@Dilaton It always happens in communities. There is not that much correlation between total votes and correctness as there should be. It's always a bit of a popularity contest, even on a clear cut objective site like StackOverflow. In a way though, that's also something we want: think about two equally correct answers, which should have the most votes?

Problems arise when a wrong answer is presented well and a right answer is presented badly (for example with broken English). In those cases a review is useful because maybe the right answer can be improved, without changing its intent or meaning.

You also have minor problems when answers refer to a specific point in time (they say "what we know up to today"). Those can also be corrected without changing meaning or intent (by saying "what we know up to January 2013" or whenever the answer was written).

There is also the assumption that many posts get voted at the time and then stop. In reality votes keep on happening, and posts that were originally well voted may not be right now. This is why review is also useful. Sometimes a great post becomes obsolete and needs to be refreshed to be current to avoid down votes. It's useful if such posts can be identified and taken care of instead of simply down voted.

Q: What are good books for graduates/undergraduates in Astrophysics?

Phew...!, Posted it in meta :-)

2

There are no book recommendations for Astrophysics here. I will write my own answer, but I am also interested in what are others' views on the question (I will NOT mark my own answer as the best one).

astronomy astrophysics reference-request books

This one...

14

Q: Recommend good book(s) about the "scientific method" as it relates to astronomy/astrophysics?

I am interested in astronomy/astrophysics, but I am not science major (I am a computer science graduate). Facts and results of the field are presented to the public without showing how these facts/results got known or inferred. And I have that curiosity to know how we know what we know about the ...

astronomy astrophysics books

And, this one...

Could the first be a duplicate, or the other way around... If so, I recommend the second one to be closed :-)

Physics Meta

1

Q: More or less - same definition for both tags..?

While retagging, I get confused a lot as: "which is which". This is bugging me for a while... For now, the tag wiki definition of astronomy - Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies) an...

discussion tags

Alenanno

11:10 AM

@Sklivvz Be careful there because "as of" doesn't mean "at", but "starting from". I discovered that when translating once. :P

1:18 PM

@Alenanno context-dependent, I think

anyway, in case I'm not around for the chat session (there's a chance), just go on without me. There is the issue of the astronomy tags to discuss if nothing else.

@DavidZaslavsky hmm, i'll probably be here

Q: What should I do if I see a homework question?

@Alenanno fixed

Physics Meta

3:01 PM

0

Ideally the posters should be applying the homework tags themselves, but if I see a question that looks like a homework question what should I do?

discussion

3:30 PM

hi all! over at Chemistry.SE, we have a question which I think should be yours:

3

Q: How can two seas not mix?

First of all, I hope this is the right place to ask this question. I think this is commonly known and the explanation everyone gives is "because they have different densities". Picture: What I get is that they eventually will mix, but this process takes a long time. From what you see in this...

mixtures

what do you think?

@F'x hmm

@Manishearth duh… it tend to forget that you also moderate for that side of the Force :)

~~Oh, also, chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/3930/… is a cross post~~ it got closed on our side, nvm

(just noticed)

@F'x :P

It's not really off topic for us chem..

@Manishearth who's "us" in that sentence?

Oh damn

3:33 PM

;-)

I think it is not chemistry: there is no chemical change taking place, it's part fluid dynamics, part diffusion

I'd say we leave it be for now, I'll keep an eye on it and migrate it over if it doesn't get an answer

@F'x ah yes, but that falls under physical-chemistry

@Manishearth humpf… don't think so (and I teach physical chemistry)

@F'x concedes defeat

anyway, it's borderline enough for us to not agree, so let's leave it be for now

K, then, i'll migrate

done

3:35 PM

thanks for the quick feedback, oh mighty Physics moderator

;-)

and see you soon, gotta get back to grant writing :(

@F'x sounds icky

@F'x Hmmm... The mighty seems to be a little catchy...

But I agree with that :-)

3:52 PM

That question is definitely physics, and i've just answered it :-)

@JohnRennie You answer everything hmph

@JohnRennie Err... I've almost completed my answer...

But still, It was actually my sentence: "Sea is very calm" :P

Gotta finish it before the session :-)

@JohnRennie good answer though

Another point that I've heard regarding this phenomenon is that you have "underwater currents" where the river meets the ocean/another river. These currents cause part of the receiving water body to be colored by silt.

hey all, someone should check my last answer, I struggled with the charge on the outer faces of a capacitor, and I think the question might have been a screw up on the part of the question writer

I may have to have a look at this sea question later

@AlanSE c and d is correct

You can't change the charge on the outer surface of a capacitor via any circuit.

You have to zap the plates.

4:01 PM

excellent, thanks

Hey guys can I ask a quick question about time dilation here?

@Manishearth I have never answered a question with "hmph" in my life ;-)

@TheoWindebank Fire away

@JohnRennie lol :P

Oh! Chat session!

@TheoWindebank sure :)

hi @all

Anything you guys want to discuss?

4:04 PM

Okay I'm working on a question in which a rocket which follows this path: cl.ly/image/3Y2L2Q0k1T21. In a question it states the time dilation factor is 1.7, and then asks how long the round trip was according to the observers on the spacecraft.

arxiv.org/abs/1301.1069 should be good for a light hearted chat in between answering Theo's question ...

As the journey was 10 years according to observers on earth, I thought time would be slower on the space craft so 1.7*10, but it's actually 10/1.7. Could someone explain this please?

> Foundational investigations in quantum mechanics, both experimental and theoretical, gave birth to the field of quantum information science. Nevertheless, the foundations of quantum mechanics themselves remain hotly debated in the scientific community, and no consensus on essential questions has been reached.

This.

Strictly speaking you can't answer that without knowing the acceleration at the turnround point, but I'd guess you're supposed to ignore that detail.

@JohnRennie yeah, I think you can just assume that nothing happens at turnaround

4:06 PM

Yeah I think that's the case. The mark scheme definitely ignores that.

@JohnRennie LOL! is that the one Lubos was talking about recently?

ack, disconnected for a moment there

What confused me even more was that on the examiners report it said "Few candidates realised that time would pass more slowly in the spacecraft than on Earth." Surely that means the observers would experience a longer time?

@Theo in the place where time passes more slowly, less of it will pass

@TheoWindebank observers on earth? Yeah, they should experience a longer interval

4:09 PM

Just like when something travels more slowly, it covers less distance (in a certain time)

yep

Ohh that makes sense!

It seems simple when you put it that way.

@TheoWindebank But be cautious because herein lurks the twin paradox.

@JohnRennie herein lurks the twin paradox. -- I wish my profs phrased everything that way :D

It makes everything much more mysterious.

4:11 PM

@TheoWindebank If you go on to do GR, or even SR more deeply, you'll be instantly suspicious about questions like "how much time passes". Your immediate response should be "as measured by whom?".

@JohnRennie well, to be fair, he did mention it here :)

@JohnRennie Or "relative to" - that word would haunt you down :-)

Time dilation is strange stuff. We don't cover it very deeply at this level but I may do some further reading into it.

I better get back to revising, got an exam tomorrow. Thanks for your help guys!

@twistor59 Not sure: I've been a bit out of the loop since Christmas. I thought everyone believed in decoherence these days and regarded the Copenhagen interpretation as emergent.

@TheoWindebank The only sure way to measure time passing in your co-ordinate system is to integrate dt along your path. Since dt depends on the co-ordinates the answer is also co-ordinate dependant, which is why different observers measure different times.

Ah, Lubos was just saying which bits of the poll he agreed with, and almost everybody got it wrong by not ticking coherent histories. I can't remember the phrase he used.....something inolving "holes" I think :-)

4:15 PM

In your question you can't do this because you don't know what happened at the turnover.

@twistor59 :-) Lubos is very sure of his opinions - but then he's earned that right! My own opinions are worth what anyone will pay for them i.e. nothing :-)

There seems to be a huge number of homeworky questions at the moment no?

@twistor59 Start of term? People rushing to finish the work they should have done over the holidays?

@twistor59 not really. But yeah, there seems to have been a spurt since last week

I still feel like I don't understand anything about decoherence, or the so-called bunk "collapsing" of the wave function.
I just want to hear a QM physicist make an argument that results in a QM random processes like nuclear decay. I don't feel like I ever hear this, and so I feel like not much of what I read actually helps describe the world.

probably related to the term

4:19 PM

True, never thought of that

also, some "good" students push harder as classes just start, partly motivated by a limited window in which they can drop a class

Yeah, I'm guessing it's people starting classes and trying not to have to do the work

that too, starting and surprised by the work it takes

yeah, that :-P

@AlanSE limited window to drop a class? As in?

4:21 PM

@AlanSE but the decoherence stuff is just to get you to ditch the interference (and pick the preferred basis isn't it?). The nuclear decay would be some sort of semiclassical tunneling treatment.

Let me repeat my PSA from earlier about flagging such questions when appropriate

2

except not repeat it, because it should be starred

There was a survey somewhere (I now can't find the link) to find the hardest course as measured by how much work the students had to do.

@AlanSE decoherence is how a quantum pure state can evolve to a classical distribution of probabilities of mixed states, but it doesn't explain how the probabilistic distribution becomes individual eigenvalues in isolated measures, for that you still require some collapsing rule

Physics came second to engineering.

Maybe the Engineering SE is experiencing a surge of homework questions as well :-)

Well, as an engineer, I can confirm that engineering is really really hard and I earn every penny through sweat and toil

4:23 PM

@Manishearth Universities usually has the policy that you can drop a class with no penalty in the first month or so. It's like you never enrolled. So you want to fail everything you're going to fail before that point.

Actually there isn't an engineering SE

last I checked, anyway

@AlanSE oh, I see

@DavidZaslavsky that's because it's too hard

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/42542/…

Area51 right now, early stages

oops

yeah, it's a natural topic to at least try to open a site for

4:25 PM

@twistor59 The double-slit might be a better example. Yes, we can see individual electrons appear one by one according to the pdf. My problem is explaining how QM predicts that.

though engineering is really broad. There are several different types, each potentially deserving of their own SE site

@DavidZaslavsky true

@AlanSE the spot on the photographic plate appears when the photon field interacts. It's the location of the interaction and not the end point of some "hidden variable" photon path.

@DavidZaslavsky Mech/Chemical/Civil are completely different

@AlanSE You can't predict where on the plate the interaction will happen because there are too many degrees of freedom.

4:28 PM

@JohnRennie Absolutely. I don't think it's a hidden variable. But lurscher uses the wording "collapsing rule". Isn't that discouraged? Don't we avoid saying it "collapses"?

@AlanSE I would avoid the word "collapses" because I think it's misleading.

@JohnRennie because a collapsed wavefunction is just a pointier wavefunction and can be collapsed "further"?

you can predict where it will be according to the probability distribution function and no more, I understand that - that is the observed

(and there's no such thing as knowing all parameters associated with the WF)

The photon field becomes entangled with the plate, and the various parts of the resultant enlarged wavefunction decohere and cease to interact. However I don't see that there is a collapse.

4:31 PM

But the screen is classical. Because of decoherence it doesn't exist in a superposition. A particular pixel doesn't exist in a superposition of "fired" and "not fired"

why is "decohere" better?

But caveat emptor because my grasp of the finer details of quantum mechanics is tenuous. We really need some of the big guns present.

@twistor59 A particular pixel does exist in a superposition of fired and not fired, but for a vanishingly short period before it decoheres.

I think when you take the view of decoherence, wavefunction collapse is replaced by the necessity of picking one state to be the real one out of the space the combined wavefunction allows

or something like that

@AlanSE because decoherence gives an explanation for what is happened that is at least in principle possible to calculate.

@DavidZaslavsky ah

4:33 PM

@AlanSE As opposed to waving your arms in the air and just saying "it collapses".

wavefcuntion collapse is not really replaced, because what you get from decoherence is a classical probability distribution

you still need to explain why the probability distribution picks individual elements at individual measurement events

it makes sense that we require that the electron's (or whatever is being double slitted) interact with another wave function. That I do understand. But when they interact, a QM random process has to occur, and I understand that I should call this process "decoherence"

remember that decoherence is just that the pure matrix state mixes up with the environment, and the local trace without the environment variables looks mixed

@lurscher or you can say "there is no reason why a particular element is picked" and leave it at that

well, yes. which is what collapse does, right?

4:36 PM

I should qualify, it might not be a "random" process, as the universe could split into multiple universes. All I care is that theory predicts that it appears to me as random.

collapse picks an eigenvalue, and there is no dynamical reason for which one

Yes, I'm happy with that

@AlanSE, indeed but i'm trying to avoid the whole collapse vs. many world as their are interpretative differences

@lurscher Yes. However the other lurshers that observed the other outcomes still exist. They're just decohered from you.

just wanted to highlight that the assertion that decoherence replaces the need for collapse, to be incorrect

indeed @JohnRennie

4:38 PM

@lurscher Was your point that it's decoherence + MWI that replaces collapse?

MWI replaces collapse

they are interchangeable

@lurscher Yes, but without decoherence those other worlds should still be entangled with us.

My picture is also that, in some sense, when you look at the output, it might actually have hit two pixels at the same time (and you're looking at two different outputs at the same time). Some outcomes are just more docohered than others...

@JohnRennie, agreed, but my point is that decoherence doesn't play a role in collapse, or why quantum states become proyected into eigenvalues, decoherence addresses an orthogonal problem: why quantum states become probabilistic without intereference

@lurscher Agreed

4:41 PM

they are both classical features (individual values of observables and probabilityies without interference) but they are different features, and decoherence only addresses one of them

I'm trying to form a new question about global warming. I liked this "toy" model, but not sure how it has 3 equations since I can only find 2 unknowns:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/learning-from-a-simple-model

I think maybe they just wrote a pointless equation...

It's gone very quiet. Perhaps I've decohered.

@Alan you could ask that on the site, I suppose

@John lol

OK, well, before our arbitrarily set ending time comes around, let me remind everyone to check out the question on meta about the astronomy tag and what to do with it

Also a big thanks to everyone who has been retagging migrated questions - that's getting close to being done now :-)

Oh @lurscher while you're here - I saw some papers talking about how Hawking Radiation wasn't precisely thermal - I thought it had some relevance to one of your questions about preferrential emission of charged particles

@DavidZaslavsky, could not find that question - is astronomy mentioned in the title?

4:50 PM

I also might ask about the model with atmospheric absorption of shortwave light, effectively modeling this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greenhouse_Effect.svg
I think it wouldn't change the number of equations

Can someone take a look to the meta flag queue please :-)

ah @twistor59, very interesting. i'm trying to learn more about it in my free time

@lurscher it's probably the latest one on meta

got it

Q: More or less - same definition for both tags..?

1

While retagging, I get confused a lot as: "which is which". This is bugging me for a while... For now, the tag wiki definition of astronomy - Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies) an...

discussion tags

4:52 PM

@lurscher arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:hep-th/0512351

thanks @twistor59

A while back someone asked if Hawking radiation was isotropic for Kerr black holes. I don't think that ever got answered.

and arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0512153v1.pdf

probably was one of my spamish endless questions about hawking radiation and black holes

Btw, for those who are questioning the validity of this post and what it is asking for, please see meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/58842/… (@Sklivvz, you may want to include this link somewhere in your post, and possibly tailor your post to fit if necessary) — Manishearth 1 hour ago

@Manishearth thanks for digging that up

4:54 PM

@JohnRennie I remember - that was an interesting question. I didn't know the answer though, sadly !

@Sklivvz yw :)

@twistor59 It's that sort of apparently innocent question that makes you realise how little you really understand!

@twistor59 I feel that the answer should be obvious, but i don't know it.

@JohnRennie I know, that's why this site is so useful

@Sklivvz Silly question, but how do I see the meta flag queue?

@John indeed... I always feel sad about not knowing the answers to questions like that

4:58 PM

@JohnRennie, you refer to this one? physics.stackexchange.com/q/46862/955

it's 20k and mods only

@JohnRennie meta.physics.stackexchange.com/tools/flagged

@Sklivvz 10k

and he is 20k

right, stupid me

@Manishearth Looks empty to me ...

fun trollage:

conservapedia.com/E%3Dmc%C2%B2

4:59 PM

@JohnRennie it is :)

@Sklivvz I don't appreciate your constant attacks on physics

;)

@JohnRennie there ought to be a few 10k flags on main, though I generally clear most when I see them. Meta 10k flags are rare

@Sklivvz is that like uncyclopedia? Or is that just a troll page on a legit wiki??

@tpg2114 i can't win, can I? :-)

@Manishearth think of it as a troll wiki

@DavidZaslavsky ah. Looks legit, but isn't. Unlike Uncyclopedia which is obviously joking

5:03 PM

It's supposed to be a conservative Christian alternative to Wikipedia, curated by people who assert that Wikipedia has a liberal bias

Or is it a spoof?

but they've gone beyond "conservative Christian" to just nonsensical

@DavidZaslavsky But it is a spoof: surely/ ...

not a spoof AFAIK

at least not intended as one

@DavidZaslavsky Jesus!

5:04 PM

@DavidZaslavsky ah

;-)

@DavidZaslavsky Oops :-)

I think that's probably vandalism

but you never know with conservapedia

I guess one could check the revision history to see if it's a recent change

Actually it's clear that by looking at the talk page this is not vandalism

5:11 PM

Has anybody considered answering Lee Hudson's question on virtual particles yet?

If I remember the one, I considered it, but thought I'd leave it for someone else for at least a little while

i.e. I've been busy

It's just that - whenever anyone mentions virtual particles on physicsforums, it unleashes a firestorm

Oh, and I notice we're past our ending time. Thanks everyone for coming to the chat session, and see you in two weeks!

Btw, @DavidZaslavsky, I'll clear up comments on the HW post

No probs - cheers David

5:13 PM

(if you saw my reply)

@Manishearth sure

I might post an answer to Lee's question if I feel like I have the time to formulate something but that shouldn't stop anyone else from answering

@Sklivvz How would vandalism be distinguished in that wiki? Who is the authority on differentiating between "legit science" and "liberal bias science"?

^^they are, of course ;-)

Q: More or less - same definition for both tags..?

Sorry that I wasn't here for a while...

BTW, No one have noticed my question...? (except David and Manish)

1

While retagging, I get confused a lot as: "which is which". This is bugging me for a while... For now, the tag wiki definition of astronomy - Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies) an...

discussion tags

@CrazyBuddy Or nobody had an opinion to express on it

I read it but don't have an opinion

5:17 PM

No authority, but if you read the talk page, conservapedia editors do discuss on what to do etc. it's not something someone has "sneaked in". it's a deliberate choice of content.

Meh..?

@tpg2114 Seems plausible to me though...

@Manishearth the yellow makes my eyes cry ;_;

5:34 PM

Ok, I see the the distinction between vandalism and not. But still, I intuitively know what is considered legit sources in Wikipedia. At this site they seem to cite some scientific sources, while clearly rejecting most of the scientific consensus on the subject. Do they have some systematic method of seperating the non-liberal scientists from the rest of the pack or does each editor just go by their guts?

They probably fit the people to the pre-conceived conclusions. Scientist A supports theory T, I agree with T, therefore A is a good scientist

Yes, probably. I wonder if they have an article on confirmation bias?

they do

of course that page links to another troll page. :-)

5:51 PM

Reading these pages remind me why I decided long ago not to argue with people on the internet. :)

6:16 PM

Strange that relativity is just liberal bogus, but quantum mechanics seems to be ok.

@jkej Because it lets God play dice

:P

ha :-)

Haha. That must be it. Could also be this: "In essence, the Copenhagen Interpretation requires a soul or something else to distinguish observers from inanimate matter. "

In essence: Quantum mechanics is good because it gives special status to living creatures as opposed to inanimate things. :)

6:33 PM

also because relativity is the philosophical father of moral relativism

which is obviously a liberal perversion

Yes, first they take our preferred frame of reference and then they take our morals.

7:17 PM

of course, QM is good, but without relativity. So positrons are out