Learn stuff + share it

1st Official Post
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    This could be very, very boring. Or it could be really cool. Let's find out.

    We all learn bits and pieces as we go through life, useless facts and things that clatter around in our heads waiting for a chance to be released. Share them here! It could be anything. Got some tips on lighting a fire? Know something about history? Want to tell us the best way to boil an egg?

    Some rules:

    Nothing too long, a couple of paragraphs is plenty.

    Before you post, read someone else's piece and then tell us which one you read.

    No telling anyone that their piece is dumb. That would be dumb.

    If you really, really want to share something longer, post the first couple of paragraphs and say that there's more. Then if someone requests you to continue, go for it.

    So, obviously, if you want someone to continue a piece they started, tag them and say so.

    I'll get the ball rolling.

    The Way of the Onion

    Chopping onions can be a pain in the ass. A decent knife helps. Here's how I go about it. First, cut the stalk off (the elongated bit on the top, not the hard hairy bit on the bottom). Turn it upside down and stand it on the flat surface you just made. Cut it in half downwards, cutting through the tough hairy bit. Now take one of the halves, pull the skin off it, and stand it flat side down. Make vertical cuts running away from the hard bit, e.g. if the hard hairy bit is on the left, the cuts go from left to right. Don't cut the hard bit itself, start your cuts just shy of it. You should end up with parallel strips held together at the end. Now, holding the pieces together, cut sideways horizontally, not down - e.g. if the hard bit is still on the left, cut from right to left with the blade parallel to the cutting board. Finally, chop down at 90 degrees to your first cuts. You should end up with cubed onion. Each little cube will be made of layers, so you can use your fingers to separate it even more if you like. Treat the other half of the onion in the same way, or store it.

    Before you throw away the stalk, hard end bit and skin, you can boil them up with a pinch of salt to make an onion stock. Chuck in some peels of carrots and things to upgrade it to a vegetable stock, but don't use potato skins, they do strange things to the broth.

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    Gaius Mucius Scaevola

    Much of the early history of the Roman republic is mythological, because the Gauls were dicks. But of the republic's legendary heroes, Gaius Mucius Scaevola is my favorite.

    Long story short, Rome was at war with some other dudes. And Gaius snuck into the enemy camp to assassinate the leader of the enemy dudes. But he failed and he got caught. And they bring him to their leader as a captive, and they threaten to torture him. And he basically said "I don't think you understand how badass Romans are." Then he took his hand and he stuck it in a nearby open fire. And he just fucking held his hand there, staring his enemy in the eyes as his right hand was reduced to a charred stump. This freaked out Rome's enemy enough that they decided to just turn around and leave Rome alone.

    "Scaevola" is an honorific he was given after the fact. It means "Left Handed."

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    I read LinkSkywalker's Gaius piece. Obviously lol

    Basic Music Production - Two Concepts

    Every sound/instrument needs its own "space" in order to remain distinct and clear. There is bass (low), mid and treble (high), then there is left pan, centre pan and right pan (which speaker it comes out of). This makes nine possible combinations. If you place two bassey instruments both on the left speaker, they will fuse together into one noise. Maybe that's what you want. But if you want your sounds to be clear and separate, you need to spread them out. A bass sound on the left speaker will remain separate from a treble instrument in the centre.

    Also, high-pitched sounds attract and hold the attention, low-pitched sounds work better on the subconscious and the emotions. My piano teacher (when I could afford a teacher for like, one lesson) always said, when playing piano, it's like this: the left hand's the heart, the right heart's the mind. So, in a moment of emotion, you might want to start bringing in some bass. If you want to bring an instrument into the foreground, it might not be enough to simply make it louder - it's a good idea to up the treble a little to coax it out from the mix.

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    I read SL's piece on music production. Because this thread is full of obvious.

    The Eternal City

    In a way, the history of the Roman empire begins and ends with the sacking of Rome, The Eternal City.

    First, as I alluded in my previous post, is the sacking done by the Gauls. In this chaos, the Gauls destroyed most of the city's records, which is why everything we know of Roman civilization before the first sack is shrouded in mythology. The destruction was so bad that the Romans considered abandoning the city entirely, moving on to greener pastures. But early Romans were some of the grittiest motherfuckers in history. They rebuilt their city, and their descendants went on to create the most enduring empire the world has ever known. (Thoroughly conquering the Gauls in the process, I might add.)

    The second sack was by the Goths. By then the Roman empire was no longer very Roman. The city herself was militarily and politically unimportant. But as a symbol of the Roman civilization, this second sack hurt. It wasn't long after this that the Western empire was essentially dissolved and rolled into the Eastern empire. "The Empire" would persist for hundreds and hundreds of years after that, but it would be ruled by a Catholic, Greek-Speaking aristocracy who ruled from Constantinople. So despite continuity of governance, the empire after this is typically referred to as the Byzantine empire, rather than the Roman one.

    But in between these two sackings are eight hundred years of history. More than 3 times the amount of time that the United States has existed as an independent nation. And they accomplished it with technology no more advanced than swords and horses.

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    I read SL's piece on music production. :^o^:

    Basic way to prepare white rice (told by memory)

    When you cook rice and don't have the handy rice cooker just use a normal saucepan. The rule of thumb is to use double of water than what you measure of rice. I usually use half a cup of rice for 2 people. It might look like too little at first but the rice will expand as you cook it and take almost double of space as before.

    Let it come to boil and then reduce heat between medium and low. It usually takes between 20-30 minutes to cook rice depending the amount and the heat used. It is recommended to cover the pan at this point.

    Do not wait until all the water is evaporated, turn the stove off while it still has around 2 millimeters of water. Check the rice by eating a few grains. If it feels hard just add more water, around a quarter of a cup and return to the fire until most of the water evaporates again. If you find yourself with the water evaporating too soon while the rice is still uncooked, it means you need to lower the heat.

    (*) To add flavour, you can try dissolving a chicken stock in the water from the beginning or using chicken broth instead of water.

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    Read them all. Thanks for joining in, @Kaynil - loving the Roman history, but didn't want to engineer another duologue.
    Also feel so dumb for only just noticing LinkSkywalker's and my acronyms are anagrammatic.

    Also thinking of dropping the 'state which one you read' rule. It's shows poor faith on my part. Unless anyone disagrees, just go ahead and post your pieces.

    The English Reformation

    Henry VIII, King of England 1509-1547, began his reign as a devout Catholic. His devotion to the faith even earned him the title 'Defender Of The Faith' from the pope. But by 1534, he had broken with Rome and had turned England protestant. The high-school version of this turnaround is that Henry was besotted with the pretty and popular Anne Boleyn, but the old-fasioned pope wouldn't allow him to divorce his boring old catholic wife, Catherine of Aragon, and he wanted to be with Anne so much that he founded his own church (the Church of England) so that he could grant his own divorce.

    The more accurate version is that Henry saw which way the wind was blowing. Since the German Reformation, protestantism was spreading throughout Europe and there was support for it in England growing under his feet. So, he had two choices - wait around until opposition to Catholicism posed a threat to his rule, or short-circuit the whole thing by founding a Protestant church and putting himself in charge of it. It's not the first time in history that's happened - Emperor Constantine comes to mind (arguably). Not to mention that the Catholic system in England was more powerful than Henry liked, which is why he got rid of it. And this whole Anne Boleyn thing: the Popes have annulled marriages plenty of times in history. So it had nothing to do with Catholicism and much more to do with the Sack of Rome (1527) by Spanish troops, which prevented Pope Clement VII from sorting this marriage thing out for him. So, in one fell swoop, everyone's favourite fat king had: restructured the political landscape, defeated the Catholic institutions in England that were arguably more powerful than him, made himself natural leader of religious dissenters, claimed a shit-load of land and money from the old monasteries, and yes, dumped boring old wife Catherine of Aragon for sexy Anne Boleyn. Checkmate.

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    Love me some British monarchs. But for real, fuck Henry the VIII. That dude is solely responsible for destroying countless archeological sites of incalculable value.

    The Roman Declaration of War

    Roman religion is a fascinating thing. There's really no joy in it, which is why later Romans found Greek religion so attractive. Proper Roman religion was basically an insanely complicated series of rituals that all meant pretty much the same thing: "Look gods! We're showing you respect! Please don't smite us." So of course, like everything else the Romans did, the process of declaring war was a complicated ritual.

    One of the most interesting parts of this ritual was the throwing of a spear into enemy territory. Essentially, a priest would walk to the edge of enemy territory with a spear. And, in the presence of four witnesses, the priest would hurl the spear into enemy territory and recite a little speech about what the enemy had done to 'force' Rome into declaring war.

    Of course, eventually this ritual became untenable. It was begun back when Rome was little more than a city, and their enemies were an hour's walk away. A priest could walk out, declare war, and return to Rome in time to send the soldiers out for an attack the very same day. Once the Empire got big enough that their enemies were weeks worth of travel away, the whole thing became infeasible.

    So, a small field within the city of Rome was declared to be "enemy territory." That way the ritual could continue, but the priest didn't actually have to go anywhere.

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    Well, yes. I think Henry VIII was in many ways a genius, but he was also a complete wanker. I grew up near Tintern Abbey, so a stark reminder was never far away.

    Meditation

    Despite the trappings of mysticism, meditation at its heart is nothing magical. There are, essentially, two goals/benefits/elements: therapy and training. The therapy part is the straightforward part that everyone knows: find a nice quiet room, maybe put some incense on, maybe some gentle music or ambient sfx if it helps, sit down in an upright position for ease of breathing, and relax. But that can only take you so far. Once you leave the serene environment, it's back to stress-land. Which is where the mental training part comes in. Instead of thinking of meditation as a magic trick to make you calm, it's better to think of it as practicing being calm.

    A beginning exercise. Sit down, as mentioned, in whatever upright posture you can manage, and breath deeply and steadily. Give a moment for the initial mental fuzz to pass. Then, every time a thought enters your mind, dismiss it. It's harder than it sounds. You probably won't be able to stop thoughts entering your mind, but what you're aiming for is not to follow them - don't turn that thought into a train of thoughts. If you find it gets difficult, return your attention to your breathing. It's also a good idea to set an alarm for a few minutes, so you won't be distracted by thoughts of 'have I done it long enough yet'.

    The biggest barrier to progress is leaning too far towards the therapy aspect, because it's enjoyable. But persist with a balanced approach, and the two will overlap more and more.

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    I feel the need for a mini-rant on this, and rather than start a whole new thread it seems appropriate to slot it in here.

    The Theory Of Self (and why it's evil)

    In psychology, the Theory of Self (ToS) is used to explain basic empathy. It's a subconscious assumption that goes like this: everyone is like me. If you stub your toe, I expect it to hurt because it would hurt me. If you grimmace and say 'OUCH!!', I know you're in pain because that's what I do when I'm in pain. It's the fundamental basis that allows us to interact meaningfully with the people (and even animals) around us. But, taken beyond this basic principle, it is damaging and a cause for much of the world's evils. How many times have you assumed someone was being hostile, when it turned out they weren't?

    When someone says "xyz music is rubbish, why do people listen to it? It must be peer pressure." They are unwittingly making the assumption that because they don't experience anything positive from the music, therefore nobody else does. And when they realise that maybe people are different, that precious subconscious tool that is the ToS feels threatened, and so they convince themselves there's something wrong with these different people. Contradictory statements like "bad taste" start to come out, which confuse tastes with morals. But it gets darker than music. This instinctive intolerance is applied to clothes, hair style, religion, culture, sexual orientation, the toleration of sexual orientation...

    In short, beware the Theory of Self. It is the cornerstone of hostility.

    Great thread, I enjoy reading your posts. Here's something that never stops puzzling me. Tried to keep it short, but I failed.

    Tidbits on Dark Energy

    At the heart of Einstein's theory of general relativity, there is a direct connection between energy and spacetime. Basically, all energy warps spacetime, leading to what we know as gravity.

    Most of this warping happens not in space, but in the 'time' part of spacetime. So on the surface of Earth, time passes faster than it does in empty space. This is because the Earth has a lot of mass, and mass equals energy (E = mc^2). Energy warps spacetime, and so time passes differently. That is the real-life result of relativity.

    In other words, spacetime around the Earth is not straight. In fact, according to Einstein, the Moon is traveling in a straight line! So, there's no reason for spacetime to be straight anywhere, right?

    Scientists have actually tested this question by measuring the angles between very distant galaxies. What they found is that on the largest scales, space is actually straight! This makes a lot of sense, but it's actually not obvious. Just like the Earth is curved, so could space be curved in a higher dimension. It seems this is not the case.

    So spacetime is straight. But since spacetime is connected to energy, this means we can calculate the energy of the universe!

    That is where it starts to get interesting. We already know how much mass the universe contains. This is quite certain, because only a certain amount of mass would make it possible for the galaxies and stars we see today to exist. This mass has a lot of energy, but it's not enough! In itself, it could never make spacetime straight. So there is a lot more energy out there, straightening spacetime. We call it dark energy, and there is more of it than all other energy combined!

    Dark energy is very strange. If it was energy like we are used to, then it would make the universe contain a lot of strong gravity, and all galaxies would be on the way to a giant group hug. This is not the case. Our universe is expanding faster every day, like a balloon inflating at a great speed. This is happening despite all of the gravity in the universe. So something is counteracting the gravity of everything. Again, this is the work of dark energy.

    Dark energy has a negative pressure. Compare it to an elastic string that, when you stretch it, actually starts pushing your hands further apart by its own! This is weird. But actually, it is only relativity that makes it weird. It comes from a very simple thing. That is: dark energy has a constant density. If space expands to twice its original size, it will still contain the same mass, but it will now contain twice the amount of dark energy.

    Personally, I do not understand how, but I trust those that do. This simple characteristic gives dark energy an anti-gravitational effect.

    Also, it means that the dark energy content of the universe used to be lower. It's only so dominating now because space has been expanding for a while. There was a time when the dark energy of the universe was insignificant! And back then, space didn't expand as fast as today.

    Here's a mystery. Dark energy is said to be a property of space itself. But then, why doesn't it dilute as space expands? This must mean that more space is generated constantly. Either case, energy is entering the universe! How, from where, and how come it ends up being the exact right amount to keep spacetime straight?

    If it keeps on like this, then after many billions of years, we wouldn't be able to see anything beyond our local neighbourhood of galaxies, which will have merged into one. Everything else would have moved away so far and so fast that we would never again receive light from it. A very strange thought.

    Great thread, I enjoy reading your posts. Here's something that never stops puzzling me.

    Tidbits on Dark Energy
    About 70% of the energy of the universe is in the form of dark energy. It is a mysterious energy that makes the universe expand ever faster. At this rate, the universe will keep expanding forever, and many billions of years from now, we won't be able to see anything beyond our own galaxy.

    There used to be less dark energy, though. One odd thing about it is that you cannot dilute dark energy. Once the universe expands to twice its size, it will contain twice the dark energy, but no more mass than before. So when the universe was smaller, there was less dark energy in it.

    This means that energy is constantly being added to the universe. So much for conservation of energy? There's no good explanation for this. It makes me really wonder if the universe is contained in something bigger, and whether energy is pouring into it from the outside. This, however, can probably never be tested.

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    @'zilla , if I could pick your brain on that one. Is dark energy something that's been proven as an energy, or simply a deus ex machina inferred from the accelaration of the universe's expansion? Like, "The universe is accelarating! I must need energy to do that! Let's call it dark energy."
    Also, is dark energy the same as dark matter? Perhaps the latter is being transferred into the former.

    I could go and find these answers for myself... but then, as you're here ;)

    Quote from Silent Lion

    @'zilla , if I could pick your brain on that one. Is dark energy something that's been proven as an energy, or simply a deus ex machina inferred from the accelaration of the universe's expansion? Like, "The universe is accelarating! I must need energy to do that! Let's call it dark energy."
    Also, is dark energy the same as dark matter? Perhaps the latter is being transferred into the former.

    I could go and find these answers for myself... but then, as you're here ;)


    If you could really find those answers, you'd get the nobel price for sure ;)

    Is it an energy? Yes, unless General Relativity is incorrect. There are two major effects of dark energy. One is the expansion of space, the other is the very shape of spacetime. Einstein proposed that the shape of spacetime is intimately linked with the energy contained within it. We've measured the shape of spacetime on the largest scales, and it requires a lot of invisible energy to explain it.

    In itself, this energy has a positive gravitational effect. It's the pressure of dark energy that overcomes this and drives the expansion. Exactly how these two effects are linked, still puzzles me. This guy seems to understand it.

    Are dark energy and dark matter related? Unlikely, but not impossible. Whereas dark energy provides antigravity, dark matter provides the gravity necessary to form galaxies etc. We can create a map of dark matter, whereas dark energy seems smoothly distributed across the 'verse. Still, some scientists are following an idea called Dark Fluid, which is a combination of the two. Just like you propose, they imagine that dark energy can condense into dark matter. I think it's really exciting but I haven't gotten around to read about it yet.
    Our broken universe

    This is something I'm reading up on at the moment. It's called the electroweak epoch. It starts way way back when the universe was less than a second old, and when the universe got stuck in a rut.

    Everywhere was really hot back then. I mean millions of billions of degrees. Everything was wild and, perhaps, simpler than the universe we know today. There were fewer forces of nature, because they kind of melt together at such high temperatures.

    One of these forces was the electroweak force. Unlike today's electromagnetic force, which rules electricity and magnets and creates light, the electroweak force had four different particles similar to the particles of light (the photons). Otherwise it was similar to the electromagnetic force – it could attract things and repel things. But it must have had some other weird effects too. I don't know the details yet.

    Starting in the electroweak epoch, however, and as the universe cooled down, something happened. The electroweak force was doomed. Why?

    I can try to explain it with a comparison. Imagine biking really fast along a road. The road has huge, bowl-shaped potholes, but you're going so fast you're just soaring over them without falling down. The moment you go too slow, though, you will fall into a pothole. If you cannot bike faster again, you will always be stuck in that pothole, going back and forth along its sides. That is what happened in the early universe. When the temperature cooled down, the typical energy was small enough for part of the universe to fall into a pothole.

    This did something profound, which was to break the electroweak force into two very different forces. The four electroweak particles were mixed together and partitioned out. Three were given to the weak force, and one was given to the electromagnetic force – it became the photon.

    What does the weak force do? It is the weirdest force. It violates a whole bunch of rules that all the other forces respect. It is the source of radioactivity. It has strange ties to electromagnetism. It might have something to do with dark matter. And it can only be felt at a tiny distance which is less than the size of a proton. Why?

    Because of that pothole. A very strange pact was made when the universe fell down there. With whom? The Higgs field, that enigmatic source of the Higgs bosons that we discovered in 2012! In fact, ever since the end of the electroweak epoch, the weak force has had close ties with this field, while the electromagnetic force goes free. Because of the Higgs field's grasp on the weak force, the three particles of the weak force are always eaten by the Higgs field, before they can get anywhere at all. And it doesn't end there. The weak force is thought to act as the messenger between the Higgs field and most of the other particles, too!

    What does that really mean? It happens to give all those particles a mass. Of all the particles we have observed, only the photon is without any mass. That enables it to always travel at the speed of light. So... if it wasn't for this pothole, you could argue that everything would be moving at the speed of light! And you know what happens when you travel at the speed of light? Time does not pass.

    Weeell.. actually, there is reason to believe that it wouldn't be quite like that. But it surely wouldn't be the universe we know, the universe we are able to exist in. So, it is actually quite a good thing that we live in a universe with a leg stuck in a pothole.
    Interesting correction: when I say that the universe fell into a hole/was broken, it's not really as if a global change happened instantly. Even if it was perfectly synced, there shouldn't be anything stopping us from achieving those energies again, apart from the fact that a million billion degrees is a lot! So even before the universe got cold enough, that pothole was already there, waiting..

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    That's pretty cool. It reminds me of what I read in A Brief History Of Time, which I devoured even if I knew it was probably a little dated. I always have a triple ton of questions whenever I encounter this stuff. That's what excites me so much about it. Particle/wave duality, for example, always eludes me. I mean, I've read about it, and I get the basic premise and its power to explain observations. But my brain just isn't equipped to truly grasp the concept. And it ties in to the forces, because in Brief History, gravity stars as a particle (a graviton), and objects are only afftected by gravity when struck by gravitons. But, at the same time, it's a wave and so is present everywhere within its particular field. But you can't be 'struck' by something that is everywhere at once (or everywhere within a range). Similarly put, something that has a locational range rather than a fixed location could not have speed, because speed is defined as a change of location (movement). If a wave/particle occupies a range of positions at the same time, then it already occupies the position it is moving towards, rendering the idea of motion meaningless.

    And another thing! If an object travels at very high speeds, less time passes for that object than for a stationary observer. But speed is measured as distance over time. So, if you travelled across my vision at the speed of light, every second you experience should be an infinite length of time for me. So, if it's taking you an infinite amount of time to do anything (from my perspective), then you aren't travelling very fast at all.

    Unless you invert the problem, and then it's fixed. If you are travelling at the speed of light, and time is not passing for you, then you must be (from your perspective) taking zero time to reach your destination. From your perspective, you are travelling with infinite speed, and so you occupy every position on your journey at once. It is only from the observational perspective of a slower/stationary observer that you appear to change from one position to another. This is Star Trek fixed. Do you remember the old problem: "Even if you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you millions of years to reach the nearest planet! You would never survive the trip!" Well, perhaps if you were travelling at the speed of light, then it would take you no time at all. It is only the universe that would age around you as you 'blink' to a different section of spacetime.

    But then, that's why we rely on mathematics rather than puny human reasoning to work these things out. Excuse my rambling :)
    The First Alphabet

    I would like to dispel a little myth: The first alphabetic system was Greek. Well, actually no. At least not completely.
    The development of writing is a vast field of study, often misty, and often feeling like a vast newspaper puzzle. Greek is the first true alphabet in that it conforms to a stricter set of requirements to be considered an alphabet by professional linguists. But the popular view that writing prior to this was exclusively logographic, ideographic or pictographic is a myth.

    Consider the older heiroglyphic (and relatives hieratic and demotic). It contains both phonemic and ideographic elements. The ideographic elements aid with meaning, but are largely used as punctuation to mark the end of words. You cannot construct a meaningful sentence in Egyptian using only ideograms. The bulk of the writing is in fact phonemic. But wait! Those familiar with the language would point out that there are only two vowels represented in heiroglyphs. Like Arabic, its repetoire is comprised almost exclusively of consonants. This makes it an abjad alphabet rather than a true alphabet.

    But our voyage into linguistic history doesn't stop there. Predating heiroglyphic by some margin is cuneiform. Cuneiform, like heiroglyphs, does contain ideographic and logographic elements. But it also contains phonemic elements, crucially both vowels and consonants. Cuneiform, arguably the oldest true writing system in evidence, is perfectly capable of expressing the full range of phonemes. It would seem that representation of vowels was not a Greek innovation - rather, the omission of vowels was a temporary anomoly, possibly a form of abbreviation that stuck for a while. And, whilst we're talking about Greek, the symbols of the Greek alphabet also stand for discreet words with meanings ('A', for example, stands for the discreet word 'Alpha'). So Greek is not responsible for separating phonetic from logographic. A writing system comprised exclusively of phonemes, it is not.

    An interesting aside - the Sumerian language (cuneiform) counted in units of 1, 10 and 60, a system that has been preserved in our measurement of seconds and minutes.

    One can never ramble too much about the mysteries of the universe! :)

    Quote from Silent Lion

    Particle/wave duality, for example, always eludes me. I mean, I've read about it, and I get the basic premise and its power to explain observations. But my brain just isn't equipped to truly grasp the concept.


    This is a conundrum and I don't grasp it either – I keep wanting to have something to compare it to. There might be something, though. Take a look at the experiments in this video:


    This is not mainstream physics, but it kind of stares you in the face all the same.

    There is also something called solitons. Solitons are not particles, but special waves that can appear in the ocean. They are extraordinary because they do not spread out, instead they keep their shape even if they move really far. That, in essence, is what a particle is, too. Namely, a self-sustaining pattern that can move around, without "spilling over", falling down or fading out. The oceans where the particles exist, is so-called fields.

    This brings you into the subject of Quantum Field Theory, which does away with a lot of past confusion and simply states that pretty much everything in the universe is interacting fields. All that matters is which fields are connected and how strongly. What I'm currently trying to understand, is what it means for a field to form a particle, and whether the fields can interact directly with each other, without the detour through a particle.

    Quote from Silent Lion


    And it ties in to the forces, because in Brief History, gravity stars as a particle (a graviton), and objects are only afftected by gravity when struck by gravitons. But, at the same time, it's a wave and so is present everywhere within its particular field. But you can't be 'struck' by something that is everywhere at once (or everywhere within a range). Similarly put, something that has a locational range rather than a fixed location could not have speed, because speed is defined as a change of location (movement). If a wave/particle occupies a range of positions at the same time, then it already occupies the position it is moving towards, rendering the idea of motion meaningless.


    The clue is this: a wave collapses into a particle. The duality states that what we know as a particle, IS also a wave, but it actually isn't both at the same time. It becomes a wave between interactions, but every time it interacts, it has to reveal itself as a particle. This instantaneous collapse of a wave into a particle is a great unsolved problem in physics.

    Basically, when you are "struck" by a quantum wave, it is as if a cloud sails above your head, and each spot under that cloud has a certain chance to be hit by a raindrop. There will only be one raindrop, though, and it will drop at random, with a higher chance of falling where the cloud is denser. And, once the drop has hit the ground, the cloud is gone.

    So basically, a moving quantum wave is a moving, evolving pattern. The trunk of a car also moves in the direction of the front seat, so this is valid. Like a car, a wave has structure that enables you to tell the front from the back. (In the mathematical calculations, of course, you can never look at one. In the mainstream theories, quantum waves are not considered to be physically manifest.)

    Quote from Silent Lion


    And another thing! If an object travels at very high speeds, less time passes for that object than for a stationary observer. But speed is measured as distance over time. So, if you travelled across my vision at the speed of light, every second you experience should be an infinite length of time for me. So, if it's taking you an infinite amount of time to do anything (from my perspective), then you aren't travelling very fast at all.


    Well spotted. But this is actually not a problem. It is only the internal time that changes. If I run past you really fast, I will appear not to move my body, but I will still speed past you. Why? Because my moving past you is part of your experience of time.

    In my perspective, I didn't move very far at all. How does that make sense? Because the entire universe in front of me is compressed, and distances are much shorter in that direction. Even you were practically flat until I ran past you. Then you got really long.

    Quote from Silent Lion


    Unless you invert the problem, and then it's fixed. If you are travelling at the speed of light, and time is not passing for you, then you must be (from your perspective) taking zero time to reach your destination. From your perspective, you are travelling with infinite speed, and so you occupy every position on your journey at once. It is only from the observational perspective of a slower/stationary observer that you appear to change from one position to another. This is Star Trek fixed. Do you remember the old problem: "Even if you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you millions of years to reach the nearest planet! You would never survive the trip!" Well, perhaps if you were travelling at the speed of light, then it would take you no time at all. It is only the universe that would age around you as you 'blink' to a different section of spacetime.


    Exactly! Neat, isn't it? :D Photons, being the particles of light, can have no idea of the concept of distance.

    We could always make a separate thread for this.

    Edited 3 times, last by 'zilla (October 11, 2016 at 6:50 AM).

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    Quote from 'zilla

    Basically, when you are "struck" by a quantum wave, it is as if a cloud sails above your head, and each spot under that cloud has a certain chance to be hit by a raindrop. There will only be one raindrop, though, and it will drop at random, with a higher chance of falling where the cloud is denser. And, once the drop has hit the ground, the cloud is gone.

    This is starting to actually make some sense to me now. Its like a statistical probability cloud, with every value in the range being 'hit' with such frequency the effect of a field/wave is created. I'll go with that to get my foot in the door.

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    In my perspective, I didn't move very far at all. How does that make sense? Because the entire universe in front of me is compressed, and distances are much shorter in that direction. Even you were practically flat until I ran past you. Then you got really long.

    I was thinking the brain must compensate for the effect of flattening/lengthening in order to preserve a sense of spacial awareness whilst moving. I was just gawking at how awesome that was, then the obvious fact struck me that at human speeds the effect would be so small as to make no difference. Such a shame.

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    We could always make a separate thread for this.

    Good idea. I think a mod could do that and move all the info in this thread over. There's already quite a bit here and it would be a shame to split it unnecessarily.

    Speaking of which, calling @LinkSkywalker back to the floor. I was confusing myself over the effects of early Christianity, then I remembered there was a resident Rome buff over at Zelda Cavern.

    So, my question is this: Why didn't Christianity disarm Roman militism? Early Christianity had a generally pacifying influence, and (according to some documentary) it was the peaceful resignation of Christian martyrs in the arena that impressed many Romans. I get that Constantine's conversion may have been a political, reactionary move to stop the growing support for Christianity from overtaking his authority. But consider the Viking kings who converted to Christianity for political reasons, but nonetheless it led to the conversion of the populace and the pacifying of their traditions. The same for the native Irish tribes upon their conversion.

    So, why not with Rome?

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    Christianity has never really had a pacifying influence. It has in some cases had a unifying influence, but only when there's a common enemy to focus on. (Moors, Pagans, etc.) In fact, one of the first things Constantine learned after allying himself with Christianity was just how fractured Christians were. Before Constantine the Empire was roughly divided into 4 chunks, but Constantine rode into town on a "One God, One Empire, One Emperor" model. It was a major source of frustration for him that as soon as Christians were the "in" group, they started fighting with each other. Nicenes vs. Arians (from which we get the Nicene creed), catholics (small 'c') vs. whatever the opposites of catholics were. Et. Al.

    I would not say it was the "peaceful resignation" of Christian martyrs that impressed Romans. It was the stoicism in the face of death that impressed many Romans. These are different things. Honoring stoicism in the face of death is pretty much the hallmark of a militaristic society. And while we're on the subject, it's worth noting that Christians were not persecuted for the vast majority of Roman history. There was Nero (who tried to use them as a scapegoat when the people turned on him. This lasted a matter of months). There was Domitian (whose name was banned after his death), and there was Diocletian, whose situation was kinda complicated. To my recollection, those are the only times that Christians were hardcore persecuted.

    For the rest of the time, you have to understand the nature of Roman religion. It was less of a religion, and more of a very complicated series of superstitions. In the vein of "if you spill salt, throw some over your shoulder, or THE GODS WILL DOOM ROME." People were generally given freedom of religion to worship however they liked SO LONG AS they also participated in the state superstitions when ordered to. Christians refused to do that, and so were sometimes punished for it. The same way we would be punished for not paying our taxes. Compare that with when the Christians took over, and they started carrying out some of the most ruthless religious persecutions in human history.

    Anyway, back on point. It would be arrogant of me to claim any insight into Constantine's heart of hearts, but consider these facts:

    • Constantine wanted to rule over the whole of the Empire by overthrowing the state.
    • The Christians were currently in the middle of some hardcore persecutions.
    • The Christian faith was actually very common among soldiers and other members of the lower classes. (When your life is shit, the lie that "there's something WAY BETTER after you die" is an easy sell).
    • After the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (the one where Constantine claims to have seen the Chi-Rho in the sky, and heard the words "In this sign, conquer"), Constantine built a victory column. On the column he tells the story of the battle, and of his rise to power. Nowhere on this column is even the slightest indication of any Christian influences.


    That's a lot of evidence supporting the idea that Constantine's conversion was absolutely a cynical political move.

    Regarding Irish and Vikings, I'm much less educated. However, I can say this: after the fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire, pretty much the only thing resembling organization was the Catholic Church. So while the secrets of architecture, literacy, road maintenance, etc all disappeared, the Church still knew a little about it. So they offered a pretty straightforward deal: if you worship Jesus, we'll send you priests who can write letters for you, and we'll teach you how to maintain all those super neat roads that the Romans left in your territory. In these cases it was an exchange, not a religious revelation.

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    The Rome thing makes bags of sense now. The Viking thing less so, because the Scandinavian conversion was almost certainly responsible for ending their bloodthirsty traditions. I've come up with three explanations, potentially:

    1) "Peaceful' Christianity was a short anomoly in history, caused by resentment. "We're being conquered by these Viking scum! They're inferior because they raped our women! Why haven't we done that to them? It must be because we're Christian! It can't be because we're militarily less powerful and would in fact have done the same thing if we were like that... not at all. No, must be Christianity. Now let's put that into our literature and make it a central myth of our crusading, militaristic Christian culture." And once that became popular, it became momentarily true in a self-prophesising kind of way, until the Vikings and Eurpoean pagans went away and then the Christians remembered how fun butchering was, and everything was back to normal.

    2) For a short time, Christianity became relatively peaceful compared to its context. Yes, Christianity can be militaristic, as was Rome. But I'm hesitant to call Roman culture a warrior culture in the same sense as Viking culture was. In my understanding, Roman violence was a means to an ends - expansion and cultural superiority were the ends, and they were more than happy to achieve that violently. But in Viking culture, the violence is the point. The means and the ends - there is no cultural superiority, the belief that they need to enlighten the world with their influence. The violence alone is glorious enough. And considering as well that Rome had gone, leaving weak kingdoms behind yearning for the old, Roman Christian protection, Christianity must have seemed positively benign by contrast.

    3) Christianity was never peaceful, but it was a lie the Scandinavians bought for a while, so it was the perception of Christianity as a peaceful movement that pacified them.

    More research might narrow this down, if I find time.
    Also, how would this work? :

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    We could always make a separate thread for this.

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    I think a mod could do that and move all the info in this thread over. There's already quite a bit here and it would be a shame to split it unnecessarily.

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    Part of the issue with the vikings is that we're talking about a _very_ poorly documented period of history. Part of the reason Roman history is so popular and fun to read is because it's simultaneously ancient AND well documented. We pretty much know what happened in Rome, whereas with the Vikingers? The answer to most questions tends to sound like "Well Z and Y are both distinct possibilities. However, there is X piece of evidence that makes them seem implausible. This has led some to believe W is the case, but it seems unlikely given what we know about their culture at the time. We do know that V was true before ### A.D., and that U was true after #### A.D. that time, but how that transformation came about we don't truly know"

    It is undeniable that Scandanavians eventually stopped going aviking. But I would tend to credit that to the fact that they took over huge swaths of fertile farming land where they could settle, rather than to their eventual conversions.

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