Congress wants to cut JWST

In sci.space.policy message 094d1ddb-5477-4766-8c40-f0cf328f2999@bl1g20
00vbb.googlegroups.com, Fri, 8 Jul 2011 23:17:21, Quadibloc
posted:

On Jul 8, 6:37*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

I didn't know where "Sulaco" came from BTW, assuming that both it and
Nostromo were either Chinese or Japanese owned spacecraft, based on the
sound of their names:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostromo

I thought "Nostromo" came from some Italian opera.

Rather than thinking, you should ask Wikipedia.

'Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad,
...."'

'Conrad set his novel in the mining town of Sulaco, an imaginary port in
the occidental region of the imaginary country of Costaguana. The book
has more fully developed characters than any other of his novels, but
two characters dominate the narrative: Señor Gould and the eponymous
anti-hero, the "incorruptible" Nostromo.'

'"Nostromo" is Italian for "mate" or "boatswain"'

It is quite readable; I own it, price 5/-.

Next, perhaps, someone will be asking about "Savrola".

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London UK. DOS 3.3 6.20 ; WinXP.
Web http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links.
PAS EXE TXT ZIP via http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/00index.htm
My DOS http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/batfiles.htm - also batprogs.htm.

On 7/10/2011 11:42 AM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:

Rather than thinking, you should ask Wikipedia.

There's something very disturbing and "1984"ish about that statement. ;-)

Pat

In sci.space.policy message , Sun, 10 Jul
2011 00:13:02, Doug Freyburger posted:


It's the name of the central character of the novel. A person's name.
I figured it was intended to sound like it came from one of the Romance
languages but that got garbled across the generations. Then again is
was Joseph Conrad. He was not a native English speaker and that shows
in his writing. Conrad novels typically read better when they are
spoken like you're in a Rocket J Squirrel and Bullwinkel Moose
cartoon. Try it some time. ;^)


Conrad wrote for the better-educated British of about a hundred years
ago, Naturally that will not seem right to a present-day American such
as I suppose you to be.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05.
Website http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
PAS EXE etc. : http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/ - see in 00index.htm
Dates - miscdate.htm estrdate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.

On Jul 10, 11:24*am, Brad Guth wrote:
On Jul 10, 7:34*am, Alain Fournier wrote:









Fred J. McCall wrote :

Alain *wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain * wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote :
* *wrote:

On Jul 8, 6:12 am, Pat * *wrote:

How exactly does knowing what exactly the universe looked like ten
thousand years after it first came into being, or a hundred years after
it first came into being, going to help us?

Understanding the basics of how the Universe works - dark matter, dark
energy, string theory - could lead to new technology, the way that
understanding the atom did.

Not bloody likely. *'How the Universe works' is not a local
phenomenon, nor one we can get to. *Atoms are everywhere.

We don't have enough energy, we don't have enough land.

And nothing coming out of a telescope will make more of either.

Maybe you were being sarcastic or maybe you haven't heard of Kepler,
Tycho Brahe, Newton and the Newtonian law of gravity. Not found by
looking in a microscope, the telescope was more useful.

Ditho for Henri Poincar and relativity. Observations of the orbit of
Mercury were important for that.

And we don't need anything like something the size of JWST for any of
that.

Obviously Brahe, Kepler, Newton, Poincar and Einstein didn't use
telescopes anything like JWST. What is your point?

My point is that the justification offered for JWST is specious,
easily rebutted, and part of why the thing will be easy to cancel.

Note: *That doesn't mean I'm against the telescope. *I just think that
claims about how it will somehow 'save mankind' are stupid hyperbolic
grandstanding that accomplish the precise opposite of their intent.

I don't know who said that the telescope will save mankind. I agree with
you that such a statement would be stupid hyberbolic grandstanding.

For making energy, General Relativity from Einstein, specially the
E=mc^2 part (or if you prefere the complete formula,
E^2 = m^2c^4 + (pc)^2). Again, it is the observations on the orbit of
Mercury that were quite important in finding that.

No.

You are kind of right here. I mixed up a few things. Still, Einstein got
to that equation by building on to Henri Poincar 's relativity and Henri
Pincar did use Mercury's orbital motion to develop his theory.

You're still mixing things up. *He did no such thing. *That was later
and Einstein did it as evidence post development.

Nope, read about Henri Poincar 's. He did take Mercury's orbit into
consideration when he developed his relativity. And Einstein did read
Henri Poincar and obviously used his ideas to get to the above formula.

Great discoveries have been done in the past by looking into telescope.
But we are supposed to know that this will never happen again because
Fred J. McCall says so?

What 'great discoveries' and what was the cost benefit analysis of
them?

As stated above Newtonian gravity = G M1 M2/r^2, and E^2 = m^2c^4 +
(pc)^2) to name a few. There are others but those are biggies.

Alain Fournier

According to Fred (our resident Yemenite Jew that's pretending to be
anything but), all science books having anything whatsoever to do with
astronomy or off-world matters should be burned. *According to Fred,
our public resources should only be invested in perpetrating and
fighting wars, as well as profiting from those wars, global inflation,
pollution and making energy as spendy as possible so that only the
rich and powerful can subsequently afford to have any the nifty
products, services and quality of life via energy. *If our Fred could
take away fire wood or scraps of coal from the poor or those
disenfranchised, he'd gladly do that as well.

*http://www.wanttoknow.info/
*http://translate.google.com/#
*Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”

It's only the actions that count, not his words that are a ruse, and
our Fred is one heck of an experienced rusemaster.

Fred's solution to everything is to do as little as possible, if
anything, and least of all constructive.

Le 11-07-10 12:46, Fred J. McCall a écrit :
Alain wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain wrote:


Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain wrote:


For making energy, General Relativity from Einstein, specially the
E=mc^2 part (or if you prefere the complete formula,
E^2 = m^2c^4 + (pc)^2). Again, it is the observations on the orbit of
Mercury that were quite important in finding that.

No.

You are kind of right here. I mixed up a few things. Still, Einstein got
to that equation by building on to Henri Poincaré's relativity and Henri
Pincaré did use Mercury's orbital motion to develop his theory.


You're still mixing things up. He did no such thing. That was later
and Einstein did it as evidence post development.

Nope, read about Henri Poincaré's. He did take Mercury's orbit into
consideration when he developed his relativity. And Einstein did read
Henri Poincaré and obviously used his ideas to get to the above formula.


Poincaré was pretty much a theoretical mathematician. Einstein
disagrees with you about Poincaré's impact on his work.

Here is how it happened. A guy named Maxwell wrote a theory showing that
light could travel at only one specific speed (in vacuum). This inspired
Michelson and Morley to measure the speed of light at different times in
such a way that the orbital and rotational motion of Earth would be in
different directions. Because light travels only at one specific speed,
they thought that they could find what is the absolute motion of Earth.
It didn't work the speed of light was the same in all directions.
Lorentz wrote some transformations to explain the weird results of
Michelson and Morley.

The Lorentz transformations were mostly viewed as mathematical
abstractions, until Poincaré wrote his theory of relativity where by
using the Lorentz transformations he could better explain Mercury's
motion (Poincaré could not entirely explain Mercury's motion, but his
refinement was enough to show that Lorentz transforms were real, and the
discrepancy between Mercury's motion and Poincaré's prediction of its
motion were small enough to make it more plausible that they were caused
perturbations from hard to detect objects or something like that). After
that Einstein wrote his special relativity which was largely based on
the Lorentz transform which Poincaré had shown to be real. This is where
the famous E=mc^2 comes into play. The Lorentz transform and the fact
that they had been shown to be real was very important for special
relativity. Anyone looking at even just a layman guide to special
relativity will see that Lorentz transform are a crucial part of special
relativity.

Later Einstein wrote his theory of General Relativity. That resolved the
discrepancies between Mercury's motion and the prediction of its motion
according to Poincaré.

Great discoveries have been done in the past by looking into telescope.
But we are supposed to know that this will never happen again because
Fred J. McCall says so?


What 'great discoveries' and what was the cost benefit analysis of
them?

As stated above Newtonian gravity = G M1 M2/r^2, and E^2 = m^2c^4 +
(pc)^2) to name a few. There are others but those are biggies.


Again, not so much. The tiny correction to 17th century theories of
gravitation makes no difference in our everyday lives and mass-energy
equivalence has nothing to do with it.

BS. GPS would not work if we didn't take into account relativity. Of
course you don't need to know about mass-energy equivalence to make
vegetable soup but it still is important in our everyday lives.


Alain Fournier

On Jul 12, 5:09*pm, Alain Fournier wrote:
Le 11-07-10 12:46, Fred J. McCall a écrit :









Alain *wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain * wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain * *wrote:
For making energy, General Relativity from Einstein, specially the
E=mc^2 part (or if you prefere the complete formula,
E^2 = m^2c^4 + (pc)^2). Again, it is the observations on the orbit of
Mercury that were quite important in finding that.

No.

You are kind of right here. I mixed up a few things. Still, Einstein got
to that equation by building on to Henri Poincaré's relativity and Henri
Pincaré did use Mercury's orbital motion to develop his theory.

You're still mixing things up. *He did no such thing. *That was later
and Einstein did it as evidence post development.

Nope, read about Henri Poincaré's. He did take Mercury's orbit into
consideration when he developed his relativity. And Einstein did read
Henri Poincaré and obviously used his ideas to get to the above formula.

Poincaré was pretty much a theoretical mathematician. *Einstein
disagrees with you about Poincaré's impact on his work.

Here is how it happened. A guy named Maxwell wrote a theory showing that
light could travel at only one specific speed (in vacuum). This inspired
Michelson and Morley to measure the speed of light at different times in
such a way that the orbital and rotational motion of Earth would be in
different directions. Because light travels only at one specific speed,
they thought that they could find what is the absolute motion of Earth.
It didn't work the speed of light was the same in all directions.
Lorentz wrote some transformations to explain the weird results of
Michelson and Morley.

The Lorentz transformations were mostly viewed as mathematical
abstractions, until Poincaré wrote his theory of relativity where by
using the Lorentz transformations he could better explain Mercury's
motion (Poincaré could not entirely explain Mercury's motion, but his
refinement was enough to show that Lorentz transforms were real, and the
discrepancy between Mercury's motion and Poincaré's prediction of its
motion were small enough to make it more plausible that they were caused
perturbations from hard to detect objects or something like that). After
that Einstein wrote his special relativity which was largely based on
the Lorentz transform which Poincaré had shown to be real. This is where
the famous E=mc^2 comes into play. The Lorentz transform and the fact
that they had been shown to be real was very important for special
relativity. Anyone looking at even just a layman guide to special
relativity will see that Lorentz transform are a crucial part of special
relativity.

Later Einstein wrote his theory of General Relativity. That resolved the
discrepancies between Mercury's motion and the prediction *of its motion
according to Poincaré.

Great discoveries have been done in the past by looking into telescope.
But we are supposed to know that this will never happen again because
Fred J. McCall says so?

What 'great discoveries' and what was the cost benefit analysis of
them?

As stated above Newtonian gravity = G M1 M2/r^2, and E^2 = m^2c^4 +
(pc)^2) to name a few. There are others but those are biggies.

Again, not so much. *The tiny correction to 17th century theories of
gravitation makes no difference in our everyday lives and mass-energy
equivalence has nothing to do with it.

BS. GPS would not work if we didn't take into account relativity. Of
course you don't need to know about mass-energy equivalence to make
vegetable soup but it still is important in our everyday lives.

Alain Fournier

The frequency wave(s) of light is no different than the frequency
wave(s) of a given microwave or radar transmitter that requires a
medium (aka ether/Aether).

How about, without the medium, conductor, fiber-optic, waveguide or
whatever Aether, you got nothing.

http://groups.google.com/group/googl...t/topics?hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/guth-usenet/topics?hl=en
http://translate.google.com/#
Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”

On Jul 14, 1:17*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Alain Fournier wrote:

Of
course you don't need to know about mass-energy equivalence to make
vegetable soup but it still is important in our everyday lives.

Is it? *How?

Well, it is the reason why nuclear power plants don't produce more
power than expected.

John Savard

On 11-07-14 15:17, Fred J. McCall wrote :
Alain wrote:

Le 11-07-10 12:46, Fred J. McCall a écrit :

Again, not so much. The tiny correction to 17th century theories of
gravitation makes no difference in our everyday lives and mass-energy
equivalence has nothing to do with it.

BS. GPS would not work if we didn't take into account relativity.


Not an issue of 'gravitation', per se. You keep mixing Special and
General Relativity.

I said "GPS would not work if we didn't take into account relativity."
You say I am mixing Special and General Relativity. Well, I didn't even
specify which so how you can you say that I mixed them? Also, the fact
is that you need to take into account both Special and General
Relativity for GPS to work. The satellites are moving fast enough and
are far enough out of the gravity well for both effects to be
significant. The relevant equations of Special Relativity were
originally from Lorentz, and Poincaré showed that they were applicable
in real life so it isn't really Einstein's Special Relativity that is
needed, it is Poincaré's Relativity. Poincaré used observations of
Mercury's orbit for his work. And Einstein used Special Relativity to
develop General Relativity and was also aware that tweaking
gravitational laws was necessary to accommodate Mercury.

Of
course you don't need to know about mass-energy equivalence to make
vegetable soup but it still is important in our everyday lives.


Is it? How?

As I said, for instance GPS.

Another way that telescopes were useful for the discovery of nuclear
energy is that Einstein and other scientists at the time were well aware
of the "black energy" of that time. That is, they knew that the Sun
could not have as an energy source something like burning coal. It
wouldn't last long enough. So looking for large amounts of energy hidden
within the atom wasn't completely out of nowhere.


Alain Fournier

On Jul 16, 8:55*am, Alain Fournier wrote:

Another way that telescopes were useful for the discovery of nuclear
energy is that Einstein and other scientists at the time were well aware
of the "black energy" of that time. That is, they knew that the Sun
could not have as an energy source something like burning coal. It
wouldn't last long enough. So looking for large amounts of energy hidden
within the atom wasn't completely out of nowhere.

One didn't need a telescope to determine that the Sun is shining.

And, in fact, gravitational collapse would have provided enough energy
for the Sun to shine from October 23, 4004 B.C. to the present.

Thus, the motive for suspecting that the Sun had some previously
unknown source of energy came not from astronomy, but from *geology*.
You can thank Lyell - and Darwin - for pointing Einstein and the
Curies in the right direction.

John Savard

Le 11-07-16 16:58, Quadibloc a écrit :
On Jul 16, 8:55 am, Alain wrote:

Another way that telescopes were useful for the discovery of nuclear
energy is that Einstein and other scientists at the time were well aware
of the "black energy" of that time. That is, they knew that the Sun
could not have as an energy source something like burning coal. It
wouldn't last long enough. So looking for large amounts of energy hidden
within the atom wasn't completely out of nowhere.

One didn't need a telescope to determine that the Sun is shining.

And, in fact, gravitational collapse would have provided enough energy
for the Sun to shine from October 23, 4004 B.C. to the present.

Thus, the motive for suspecting that the Sun had some previously
unknown source of energy came not from astronomy, but from *geology*.
You can thank Lyell - and Darwin - for pointing Einstein and the
Curies in the right direction.

Yes geology and biological evolution was a big part of that. But if you
don't know how far the Sun is, it could be a few light years away and be
*very* big. If it is that big, then you could have chemical sources of
energy that would last long enough. Telescopes were useful in figuring
out how far the Sun is.

So, if you don't know about nuclear energy:
1) If have only astronomy but don't know about biological evolution or
geology. You would conclude that the solar system is young.
2) If you've got Darwin and Lyell but don't know how far the Sun is.
Then you know that the Earth is at least 100 million years old and you
conclude it is very far and very big.
3) If you know about geology, biological evolution and astronomy as it
was in the late 19th century. Then you have a mysterious energy source
that is powering the Sun. This is a situation which is somewhat
analogous to our current day situation with what we call dark energy.


Alain Fournier