The ridiculousness waste of resources continues …

Has science taken a wrong turn? If so, what corrections are needed? Chronicles of scientific misbehavior. The role of heretic-pioneers and forbidden questions in the sciences. Is peer review working? The perverse "consensus of leading scientists." Good public relations versus good science.
BeAChooser
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Just Stuck On Stupid Syndrome

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Feb 15, 2022 12:51 am

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... ar-AATQHdF
Large galaxies may steal dark matter from smaller galaxies they nearly collide with, new research suggests. 

Scientists from the University of California, Irvine and Pomona College used computer models to simulate the evolution of a corner of the universe about 60 million light-years across.
First, using simulations that have dozens of gnomish knobs that can be tuned to get any answer you want, and then believing the results … is a sign of Stuck On Stupid Syndrome.

Using simulations that don’t include all the relevant physics … as is the case in the big simulations since quite obviously none of them properly address plasmas, currents and electromagnetic phenomena … is a sign of Stuck On Stupid Syndrome.

And the statement of Jorge Moreno, lead author of the study, that “[ I ]t’s been established for the last 40 years that galaxies have dark matter," given all the problems that have been pointed out about that statement in the past 40 years ... is Stuck On Stupid Syndrome, especially when the only response by the author to an observed problem with the model,was to twist one of those gnomish knobs and decide all is now well.

And you really have to roll your eyes when Moreno, who the article claims has “indigenous roots”, comes out and shows his wokeness by declaring "I feel a personal connection to these galaxies” ... "[M]any people of indigenous ancestry were stripped of our culture. But our core remains, and we are still thriving." Oh geeze, spare us!

Finally, the conclusion of the article ...
Next, the researchers hope to find real-world massive galaxies in the process of stripping dark matter from their smaller neighbors, according to the statement. 
... which just means the *researchers* have their hands out begging for more taxpayer $$$ because they have mortgages to pay ... and Pomona housing is pricy compared to the rest of the nation.

jackokie
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Re: Just Stuck On Stupid Syndrome

Unread post by jackokie » Tue Feb 15, 2022 1:28 am

It's a sin and a shame that we can't protect the indigenous galaxies from being exploited by the running dog imperialist galaxies and their lackeys. No doubt a close examination will reveal the hoarders and wreckers lurking in the cosmic depths. But as important as this subject is, it is not the most important. No, the most important question is ... are the galaxies' correct pronouns being used?
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

BeAChooser
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Re: Just Stuck On Stupid Syndrome

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Feb 15, 2022 1:36 am

jackokie wrote: Tue Feb 15, 2022 1:28 am No, the most important question is ... are the galaxies' correct pronouns being used?
Yes, if they aren't, that would be a major blow to science!

Poppa Tom
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Re: Just Stuck On Stupid Syndrome

Unread post by Poppa Tom » Sun May 22, 2022 6:30 pm

I have created an algorithm that let's me take a picture of the inside of a black hole.
Here is the picture:






Isn't it simply AMAZIIIIIING!! ;)
I'll be rich and famous....they love me....they really really love me!! :D

I'm so glad I ran across this post, I've been dying to put it somewhere where no one would get offended :D

Poppa Tom
Posts: 109
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Re: Just Stuck On Stupid Syndrome

Unread post by Poppa Tom » Sun May 22, 2022 6:32 pm

Well.......I don't know....what if galaxies don't identify as galaxies :o

BeAChooser
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Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Speed Of Science

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Oct 12, 2022 3:44 am

A Pfizer spokesperson, when asked by a Dutch member of the European Parliament recently whether their so-called (because it’s not) Covid-19 vaccine was tested before it went to market to see if it stopped transmission of the virus, laughed and then answered “no,” then said “we have to really move at the speed of science to really understand what is taking place in the market.”” Here’s a link to a video of that exchange: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/bl ... /#comments .

Now I’m not really sure what she was trying to actually say (I have my suspicions), but the phrase “speed of science” caught my attention, because other mainstream Big Science efforts seem to be in a similar rush ... to commercialize fusion, end the production of CO2 and find Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Inflation, Black Holes, etc, etc, etc. So I thought to myself ... maybe “speed of science” is their motivation too?

That being the case, let’s see what Pfizer had to say about the “Speed Of Science”. First, I found that they put out this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTby8r-V9ag&t=17s) and a museum exhibit in collaboration with an Irish college in 2020. It, like the exhibit, are titled “Speed of Science: We Are All Scientists”. The video opens by saying that “the intent is to make science fun and accessible to all age groups.” Well, we’ve certainly heard those pushing Big Bang gnomes, like the many *science communicators* and some of the other Big Science organizations, saying the same thing. They’ve even worked with clothes designers to make their ideas “fun” and “accessible”. :roll:

But beyond that, the video doesn’t really explain what’s meant by “speed of science” so I decided to dig deeper and found this: https://timesofcovid19.temporalities.no ... in-hussey/ . It indicates the exhibit was to celebrate how fast Pfizer reached Stage 3 trials of their Covid-19 vaccine, fastest vaccine ever developed. Well … we all know how that turned out (or at least some of us do).

What I’m wondering now is if the same thing will now happen in the astrophysics community ... the realization that billions and billions of dollars have been wasted on wild goose chases that have accomplished very little of real value to science or humanity ... that have just made a bunch of people wealthier than they otherwise would have been? But at least pursuit of the astrophysics gnomes hasn’t been as disruptive to society as pursuit of safety from Covid-19 has been with it's lockdowns and Covid-19 passports.

Indeed, the article above indicates that “the COVID-19 lockdown(s) then force us to ask – what is a sustainable speed for science? How can we balance the need for acceleration and discovery and the benefits derived from slowness, creativity, and self-care?” They took this question to the scientists engaged in Covid-19 research and “The responses suggest a need for the creation of something like a locally adjusted feedback loop – one in which alternating and interconnected speed and slowness reflect the productivity cycles of the scientists in a particular institution. Periods of focused introspection and creativity give way to rapid production and output before looping back again.”

I think maybe astrophysics and other Big Science scientists needs the same thing … periodic slowdown to force introspection. As Isabelle Stengers, who wrote a book “Another Science is Possible: A Manifesto for Slow Science” (see https://www.societyandspace.org/article ... e-stengers ) is quoted in the article, “Slowing down means becoming capable of learning again” and THAT is what mainstream astrophysicists, climatologists, and fusion researchers need ... to be capable of learning again ... since learning is at the heart of science.

But the article warns us that “if we are to follow the responses here, no such reckoning is currently underway in the global practice of science at speed.” And the reason is that science of vaccines has become Big Business and speed is essential to beat the competitors … even if the resulting product is next to worthless. Because the objective is TO MAKE MONEY and it doesn’t matter in the type of system we've unfortunately created if what you sell is good or bad. It just has to sell … and the government and media can make sure it does.

BeAChooser
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Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Thu Dec 01, 2022 6:33 pm

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedormi ... 146736072a
Next Generation Probe Of The Cosmic Microwave Background May Prove Inflation Theory
Gee … where have we heard that sort of claim before?

And the cost of LiteBIRD (the probe)?

Well it can’t be cheap when there were 58 members in the LiteBIRD working group back in 2012. And while finding information about the cost of these projects is getting harder and harder (because they are trying to hid it from the public, I think), back in 2012 they published a presentation were claiming that $100 million was needed. Bet that cost has gone way up by now. After all, the LiteBIRD working group (as of 2021) now consists of more than 250 researchers! I wouldn't be surprised if the cost is now a quarter billion.

But I have a question. If they don’t find “b-mode polarization”, will they give up on their theory of inflation? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. They’ll just plan the next *promising* mission. Isn’t that always the case with these folks? When have they ever given up on a gnome?

And even if they find "b-mode polarization) and thus *prove* inflation was real (like they have proven dark matter exists?), I say, so what? It isn’t going to affect your life or that of your children, or their children, ONE IOTA. The only thing it will do is have made you (and your descendants) a little poorer and the researchers (and their descendants) a lot richer. THAT is the real purpose of this *research*, don’t you see?

BeAChooser
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This is interesting ...

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Dec 06, 2022 12:25 am

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... astronomy/
NASA’s Plan to Make JWST Data Immediately Available Will Hurt Astronomy

By releasing astronomers’ data before they’ve had a chance to analyze the information, NASA will make research less fair and equitable, please

In August the White House announced that the results of all federally funded research should be freely accessible by the end of 2025. This will be a big change for scientists in many fields but ultimately a good move for the democratization of research.

Under this new guidance, many peer-reviewed papers would be free for the world to read immediately upon publication rather than stuck behind expensive paywalls, and the data that underlay these papers would be fully available and properly archived for anyone who wanted to analyze them.
I see ... the administration wants to get their AGWalarmism propaganda to you even faster.
NASA, as a federal agency that funds and conducts research, is onboard with the idea of freely accessible data. But it has a plan that goes much further than the White House’s and that is highly problematic. The agency currently gives a proprietary period to some scientists who use particular facilities, such as a 12-month period for the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), so that those scientists can gather and analyze data carefully without fear of their work being poached. NASA is looking to end this policy in its effort to make science more open-access.

Losing this exclusivity would be really bad for astronomy and planetary science. Without a proprietary period, an astronomer with a brilliant insight might spend years developing it, months crafting a successful proposal to execute it, and precious hours of highly competitive JWST time to actually perform the observations—only to have someone else scoop up the data from a public archive and publish the result. This is a reasonable concern—such scooping has happened before.
Very little of value is coming out of these programs, but I can see how the astronomers spending the time to perform the observations might be harmed. Overall I'm just a little surprised that the White House would order this since so much of their data (on Covid, Climate Change, etc) has and is being withheld by the mainstream in order to further their agendas. So this might completely wreck that effort.

So ... I went and looked at the Memorandum from the White House to see what it says.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u ... s-Memo.pdf

And found what I expected ...
2. Learning from the Lessons of COVID-19

When federally funded research is available to the public, it can improve lives, provide policymakers with important evidence with which to make critical decisions, accelerate the rates of discovery and translation, and drive more equitable outcomes across every sector of society.
Notice the word "equitable"? That's what this is about ... being woke. And in an irony they apparently can't see, they use their Covid-19 efforts as an example of the benefits of this now approach. They say ...
Americans were offered a window into the great benefits of immediate public access to federally funded research at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of the public health crisis, government, industry, and scientists voluntarily worked together to adopt an immediate public access policy, which yielded powerful results: research and data flowed effectively, new accessible insights super-charged the rate of discovery, and translation of science soared.
But that's a LIE! Contrary to what's claimed, the government has withheld much of the data on Covid effects. As proof ...

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editi ... d-explore/ "Here’s COVID-19 data the government has withheld and local journalists should explore"

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/heal ... -data.html "The C.D.C. Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects"

https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/cdc-withh ... pretation/ "CDC withholding COVID data over fears of misinterpretation"
"CDC has been withholding Covid-19 data from the public."

It taken repeated FOIA requests to free up some of it but still much of it is deliberately being hidden from the public and potential researchers.

So ... this may or may not be a good idea but I suggest we question the motives of those making this decision.

Because here's the kicker in the memorandum ...
Federal agencies should take actions to ensure that these elements of scientific and research integrity are in place in order to strengthen public trust in federally funded science.
That's the thing. Fewer and fewer people are trusting federally funded science ... for good reason. And rather than fix the problem, they've decided to get the propaganda generated by that science to the public faster. That's my suspicion, at least. 8-)

BeAChooser
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We are headed for a dark age in science

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:13 pm

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... ience.html
We are headed for a dark age in science

By Robert Arvay

… snip …

Some years ago, an eminent physicist published a commentary lamenting the transformation of science from an evidence-based endeavor into a proposal-based activity — a guessing game.  Instead of observation, hypothesis, and experiment, physics seemed to have moved its laboratories to the blackboard.  We are all familiar with the confusing maze of cryptic, Greco-Arabic symbols that describe for us such unproved pronouncements as the existence of multiple universes, subatomic strings, and "dark" physics, for none of which there is direct physical evidence.  Yet these educated guesses enjoy a degree of acceptance rivaling that of confirmed experimental results, blurring the line between scientific fact and speculative conjecture.

The resulting destruction of society from corrupt scientists is appalling.  Billions of people are to be impoverished by futile attempts to adjust the climate to some unspecified parameters.  Untold numbers of children are being castrated and otherwise mutilated to serve the transgender gods.  Inadequately tested drugs are being sold, even mandated, to prevent self-limiting diseases, while effective therapies are being suppressed.  In the meantime, actual scientists who dare to report facts are being demonized and deprived of their livelihoods.  Yale medical students recently shouted down a speaker rather than question his data and conclusions.  Medical students!  As Elon Musk might say, let that sink in.  In the near future, how will we trust the medical advice of ideological M.D.s?

Matters have only gotten worse since 1945, a worsening compounded by ineptitude, fraud, and political/ideological partisan bias, not to mention money.
ESPECIALLY MONEY.
Clearly, as demonstrated at Yale's medical school, the primary-school education of American and Western students has resulted in a young population entering college that is not only uninformed regarding the scientific method, but misinformed.  That misinformation is the result of replacing education with indoctrination and replacing the free market of ideas with the slave market of ideology.
Yep! That being the case, isn't it about time to cut off the funding until scientists themselves clean up their act?
Given the recent trends, it is becoming more and more likely that we will soon be entering a dark age of science.
Oh, I think we're already in the dark age of science, truth be told.

BeAChooser
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Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Jan 10, 2023 9:32 pm

Well … this is certainly useful research …

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-doomed-pa ... holes.html
Doomed pair of supermassive black holes the closest to collision ever seen

Astronomers have spotted two ghostly Goliaths en route to a cataclysmic meeting. The newfound pair of supermassive black holes are the closest to colliding ever seen, the astronomers announced on January 9 at an American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle and in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

While close together in cosmological terms at just 750 light-years apart, the supermassive black holes won't merge for a few hundred million years. In the meantime, the astronomers' discovery provides a better estimate of how many supermassive black holes are also nearing collision in the universe.

That improved head count will aid scientists in listening for the universe-wide chorus of intense ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves, the largest of which are products of supermassive black holes close to collision in the aftermath of galaxy mergers. Detecting that gravitational-wave background will improve estimates of how many galaxies have collided and merged in the universe's history.
NOT!

BeAChooser
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Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Thu Jan 12, 2023 6:24 pm

Tell me … what value is this research?

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-astronome ... andra.html
Astronomers dig out buried black holes with NASA's Chandra

Hundreds of black holes previously hidden, or buried, have been found using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result helps give astronomers a more accurate census of black holes in the universe.

… snip …

"Astronomers have already identified huge numbers of black holes, but many remain elusive," said Dong-Woo Kim of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), who led the study. "Our research has uncovered a missing population and helped us understand how they are behaving."

For about 40 years scientists have known about galaxies that look normal in optical light—with light from stars and gas but not the distinctive optical signatures of a quasar—but shine brightly in X-rays. They refer to these objects as "X-ray-bright, optically normal galaxies," or "XBONGs."
Why do anyone other than a few astrophysicists need to know this? Seriously.

How does this knowledge benefit any of us now living or to be born in the next 50 to 100 years?

This is the type of WASTEFUL projects that I think need to be curtailed.

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sat Jan 14, 2023 6:58 pm

So astrophysicists are planning how to spend the next stack of money they take from us.

That's in addition to all the other big telescopes already being constructed at our expense.

https://www.science.org/content/article ... ien-worlds
NASA unveils initial plan for multibillion-dollar telescope to find life on alien worlds

Astronomers are always looking to the next big thing. This week, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, researchers packed into a standing-room-only conference room to hear about a successor to JWST, the 6.5-meter space telescope that began operations last year. Flush with JWST’s success, NASA is now planning an optical telescope that would be just as big as JWST and have a grand new goal: looking for signs of life on Earth-like planets, perhaps by the early 2040s.

Mark Clampin, NASA’s astrophysics division director, told the audience that little about the telescope has been settled. But what he did say tantalized them: The telescope will, like JWST, be perched at L2, a gravitational balance point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Unlike JWST, it will be designed for robotic servicing and upgrades, which could enable it to operate for decades, getting better with age. Without a dedicated budget, Clampin says he can’t yet make much headway on the design and technology. But he does have a working name for the telescope: the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO).
Now while they won't say exactly how much HWO will cost, they do say this giant telescope will have all the expensive features of JWST and other telescopes they are already building .... and it will have 1 picometer tolerances rather than just nanometer tolerances like the JWST. It's coronagraph will have to block light from stars that are 10 billion times brighter than their exoplanets, rather than just 100 million times brighter as the now under construction, $4 billion dollar Roman telescope will be able to do. And it will have to be robotically serviceable ... a new, still untested technology.

But my question is WHY BUILD IT NOW? Why do we need to know any of what this telescope might learn right now? In building it, whose interests would really being served? Humanity's? Is anyone going to visit any of the worlds it will look at in the next 100 years? Do we expect anyone from them to visit us in the next 100 years? Will the US taxpayer benefit? What will they get back except some fuzzy pictures? Or is the purpose to serve a small group of gnome believers who like getting to essentially *play* with billion dollar instruments at someone else's expense and live a life of relative luxury?

BeAChooser
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Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Selling a pipe dream ...

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Jan 18, 2023 8:53 pm

The effort to sell laser fusion continues … and can you believe the hubris of these folks?

https://news.yahoo.com/energy-fusion-pr ... 00725.html
The pursuit of fusion ignition in the laboratory is one of the most significant scientific challenges ever tackled by humanity,” LLNL Director Kim Budil said at a press briefing last month.
The most significant? LOL!

And can you believe their dishonesty …
The 3 MJ of fusion energy created on Dec. 5 was greater than the 2 MJ of laser energy fired at the capsule, but 300 MJ of power was used to make those laser bursts.
Actually, more than 300 MJ since there were 30% (or more) loses in creating the 300 MJ of electricity that powered the lasers.
Beyond that, the process needs to be sustained over time and at scale. The fuel capsule in the experiment would power about 10 teakettles.
That’s not the amount of excess energy released in the experiment. One MJ is enough to heat about 1 tea kettle to boiling, counting the energy efficiency of the method of heating the kettle. The fuel capsule may have had that much excess energy in it, but it wasn’t released.
To run a power plant, much more fuel would be needed, and lasers would need to shoot about every 10 seconds – something the National Ignition Facility can’t currently do.
That’s right. The NIF can only do 1 shot a day. But suppose they could do 10 every second and each shot released 10 MJs? That would be 60 MJ each minute. If the fusion *power plant* did that all year long, it would produce about 31,500,000 MJ. That’s 8,750,000 kWh.

Now the smallest nuclear plant in the US, the R.E. Ginna plant in New York, is 582 megawatts. If it operated full time for a year, it would produce 5.1 million MWh. Meaning that it would produce about 583 times more energy than the fusion power plant envisioned above.

Now remember, the facility at the NIF cost over 3.5 BILLION dollars. Let’s say the fusion plant envisioned would cost only 1 billion. How many of those 1 billion dollar power plants would the US need to meet it’s current electrical needs?

The US used 3.93 TRILLION kWh in 2021. Dividing that by 8,750,000 means we’d have to built 450,000 of them to power the US. They would cost 450 TRILLION dollars, which is 14 times the current US national debt. See what I mean about the mainstream fantasy being nonsense? And them being desperate to sell this boondoggle?

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Jan 24, 2023 8:09 pm

Although not by an astrophysicist, this is certainly valuable research …

https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathemat ... -20230124/
Mathematicians Find an Infinity of Possible Black Hole Shapes
:roll:

jackokie
Posts: 251
Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:10 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by jackokie » Tue Jan 24, 2023 10:20 pm

Come on, @BAC, you don't expect them to pursue research that would require them to work in an icky lab, do you? Why should we begrudge them their money; it's not like it could be spent on finding a way to counter Bird Flu, or upgrading our electric grid, or...
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

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