Musings on Random Musings

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

As an emitted photon propagates though expanding space (getting redshifted)' date=' it looses energy (since lower wavelength photons have less energy than higher wavelength ones)... Where does the energy go, since it can't be destroyed?[/quote']

On a simplistic scale, it goes into the P dV work of expanding the Universe. On a deeper level that can't be right, though. The energy is conserved, but it is spread out through a larger volume of space as the Universe expands. This results in a lower energy density (the same number of joules spread over a larger number of cubic meters), and (simplistically and classically) it is the energy density that is related to the frequency/wavelength.

 

Can a photon travel far enough (and get redshifted enough) to loose *all* of its energy?

 

Yes, but it takes infinite time to do that.

 

Drats! I thought it an interesting thought experiment. Like "If every location in space is expanding away from every other location at greater than the speed of light, what effect would that have on the event horizon of a black hole?"

 

You're far from the first person to have that thought. But it really boils down to what physics operates inside the event horizons of the black holes, and more or less by definition, that is physics we don't know yet.

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Global Warming' date=' my foot. The BC Lower Mainland is having it's coldest day in twenty-five years.[/quote']

To first order, adding energy to an oscillating system ... and the atmosphere IS an oscillating system ... changes the amplitude of the oscillations, not the mean state of the system.

[lemming]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

To first order' date=' adding energy to an oscillating system ... and the atmosphere IS an oscillating system ... changes the amplitude of the oscillations, not the mean state of the system.[/quote']

 

I can't tell you how many times I've said the same thing the last couple weeks. (Though in a less technical manner.)

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

To first order' date=' adding energy to an oscillating system ... and the atmosphere IS an oscillating system ... changes the amplitude of the oscillations, not the mean state of the system.[/quote']

So in other words, some parts are getting hotter and some colder, but nothing's really changing on average? (to use a layman's average)

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

So in other words' date=' some parts are getting hotter and some colder, but nothing's really changing on average? (to use a layman's average)[/quote']

 

What I said was actually simpler than that. The bouncing up and down goes to larger extremes in both directions. For a real simple harmonic oscillator, that's all that happens.

 

Clearly, the atmosphere is not just a simple harmonic oscillator, so you do expect there to be some general trend toward higher temperatures, but you have to look hard and carefully in a statistical sense to make sure you are seeing it right. (This is especially true when there are oscillation cycles on so many different periods, as is true for the atmosphere.) However, if your highs are getting higher and your lows seem to be more extreme than before, then that could well be a sign that yes, the amount of heat energy in the thermal oscillator has increased.

[lemming]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

So in other words' date=' some parts are getting hotter and some colder, but nothing's really changing on average? (to use a layman's average)[/quote']

 

No, on average there is more energy in the system. Hence the not very well named global warming.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

No' date=' on average there is more energy in the system. Hence the not very well named global warming.[/quote']

...The only true arguments I could make to that will lead to a flamewar. Except that I've followed this as well and I'm seeing far less certainty.

[Bazza]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I find myself increasingly disenfranchised with this modern world. I have no interest in the latest fads or technological inventions. Instead' date=' I find myself wishing for a simpler time. While the world marches forward, I find myself wanting to go backward.[/quote']

 

You are not alone with this perspective. Not me personally but I have come accross this online know others who share similar views.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Personally, I like indoor plumbing, a world of information at my fingertips, air conditioning, modern medicine, longer lifespans, food that I don't have to chase down and kill myself, a general lack of disease, the streets not consisting in significant parts of human waste and not be over-lorded by whichever tyrant has the biggest army. Oh, and general social racial equality.

 

...So, which "good old days" are you talking about, again?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

The days I was young? Those were fun.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I find myself increasingly disenfranchised with this modern world. I have no interest in the latest fads or technological inventions. Instead' date=' I find myself wishing for a simpler time. While the world marches forward, I find myself wanting to go backward.[/quote']

 

Heh. "You damned kids and your I-tubes and your You-phones and your FacePages and your Sextings! Back in my day, if you wanted to talk to somebody you had to do it the old fashioned way! You had to email them, the way God intended!"

 

Yeah, I'm pretty much in agreement with the Mouse. There were no "good old days," there never was a "simpler time." Nostalgia has a way of painting the past in rosy colors, but it tweren't never so. We fondly remember the good times while the bad times grow distant and misty and easily forgotten. I wouldn't go back for all the money in the world.

 

Well... maybe for all the money. But it would have to be in 1972 dollars!

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Not necessarily so.

There are bad times that happen now too you know.

 

When I was 5 I had all 6 grandparents, no job, no idea that my biological father was a lying sack of excrement.

 

So there was a good old days. There was a time when my life was simpler. Not sure I would be unhappy to go back to that. But I do like where I'm at too.

 

but hey, snarky put downs are fun too.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

but hey' date=' snarky put downs are fun too. [/quote']

 

Sorry. I heard the whole "things were so much better when I was a kid" so often when I was a kid that it amuses me greatly when my generation starts parroting it.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Sorry. I heard the whole "things were so much better when I was a kid" so often when I was a kid that it amuses me greatly when my generation starts parroting it.

And the idea of rolling back progress, to me, is kinda "ugh".

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Sorry. I heard the whole "things were so much better when I was a kid" so often when I was a kid that it amuses me greatly when my generation starts parroting it.

 

To some extent it is true. I really enjoyed being a kid...so much so I'm still doing it.

 

 

And the idea of rolling back progress' date=' to me, is kinda "ugh". [/quote']

 

Well I didn't say anything about rolling back progress. Love it. But nostalgia has it's moments too.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

That was the reason for my initial reaction to what TDKGuy said.

[tkdguy]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Let's see...

 

I'm glad I'm not alone in this. Thanks for letting me know, Bazza.

 

For me, I'm good with electricity and indoor plumbing. And I obviously like the internet. I just don't need all the latest gadgets and whatnot, and I do just fine without them. I don't need to "roll back" progress, but I don't want to have to upgrade every few years or so. And I don't want to be "connected" with other people via Facebook, Twitter, or any of that crap. Yet it seems like it's increasingly becoming the case that it will be necessary to do so, even if it's just professionally.

 

And I never said things were better when I was a kid, but for the record, they pretty much were. My family was in good health, and money wasn't a problem for us. So yes, I do feel myself wishing for those times once in a while.

 

That's my take. I don't give a rat's ass about yours.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I'm sorry my reaction was offensive. A knee-jerk reaction was perhaps not best.

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I tend to be more annoyed with changes in politics, economic structure, and social pressures than changes in technology. The aging process and its logical end in death sucks, but it is inevitable (and I say this as someone who attended the burial of a loved one yesterday).

 

Though I must admit that at times my students and I realize that we are staring at each other in utter mutual incomprehension across the gulf of a few decades of experience.

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I tend to not mind changes in technology if only because technology is the only thing about humanity that seems to progress and stay progressed. Politics, male-female relations, economics, culture, and so on haven't advanced greatly for a thousand years, except where technology forced them to.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I recently joined Facebook. Today I found a suggested friend based upon friends in common:

 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1512995589

 

Now I wish I had joined Facebook much sooner.

 

Leave a message and become a friend. I know I did months ago and his widow responded. They might not still but leaving your condolences couldn't hurt.

[BlackSword]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I tend to not mind changes in technology if only because technology is the only thing about humanity that seems to progress and stay progressed. Politics' date=' male-female relations, economics, culture, and so on haven't advanced greatly for a thousand years, except where technology forced them to.[/quote']

I don't mind technology changing; ultimately it is nice to be able to contact someone almost any time of the day no matter where I am. I am not tied to my house waiting for a call or message from a friend. I do get frustrated that manners don't keep up with changing technology, so people will answer phones at the most inopportune times, most meetings consists of continually hearing blackberries buzz with new messages, and last time I ran a meeting I noted that there were more computers than participants. Next time I running a similar meeting I will likely get snarkier and say, "alright children, close your computers, we're starting."

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

But meetings are soooo booooring....

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Yeah, the big driver toward wireless neuron interfaces is so you can play Freecell during meetings and no one else can know for certain.

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Yeah' date=' the big driver toward wireless neuron interfaces is so you can [b']watch porn[/b] during meetings and no one else can know for certain.

 

Fixed.