Recent content by Bob Enyart

Of potential and kinetic energy in their various forms, in their own reference frames, which involve motion? Heat, light, nuclear, kinetic, etc., seem to involve motion. Does potential energy, in any way whatsoever, involve motion? Thermal does. Does nuclear energy involve motion? Seems to...

Thanks so much for all of that! Now I've got to continue pondering what you've each written.

PeterDonis, thanks! I think you guys are helping me to understand where my confusion lies. What I've been wondering is whether some new technology (like CIT's 10-trillion frames per second cameras; slowing light down to 38 mph; etc.) might enable the direct measurement of the one-way speed of...

Thanks so much for bearing with me Ibix. The intro to Wikipedia's article on the one-way speed of light has a standalone sentence that states, "The 'speed of light' in this article refers to the speed of all electromagnetic radiation in vacuum." I'm wondering if that clarification is needed...

Perhaps your first statement answered my question, when you said, "You can't, strictly speaking, measure the one way speed of anything." I'm wondering, does Einstein's Synchrony Convention only apply to light in a vacuum, or does it apply to all motion in all media? If it doesn't apply to all...

Thanks Ibix, that all makes sense and you've made me realize that a reword of my question could get closer to what I'm wondering. So I'll try this... As light propagates through mediums that make it travel slower than in a vacuum (such as air, water, diamond, cold sodium atoms, etc.), might...

Einstein's synchrony convention (ESC) defines the one-way speed of light as equal to the roundtrip speed IN A VACUUM, at least, the discussions and papers I read on it (even Einstein's 1905 paper) always seem to set the context as in space (a near vacuum) or in a (theoretical) vacuum. I'm...

Guys, something I think we've glossed over in this whole thread is that the paper we've been talking about deals with actually a second lithium issue. The more traditional cosmological lithium problem, I think, is not this current isotope ratio problem, but simply a lithium problem. An update...

D H, that's a worthwhile list, and yes, unanswered questions do *nothing* to undermine the validity of the scientific endeavor, of course. And I agree, the list isn't complete. I'll paste below a major issue that deserves to be on the list... The National Academy of Sciences issued a report...

Torbjorn_L, I think that Drakkith has stated the matter so clearly that for this thread I'm content to let his be the last word:

Hi Drakkith! Again I agree with what you've posted: Meanwhile though, we shouldn't blur the difference between true predictions, and post-dictions. I wrote software for the Army's AH64 Apache Helicopter simulators and so I know a bit about creating models. It's comparatively easy to create a...

Drakkith, hi! It seems obvious to me that you are EXACTLY CORRECT: Adjusting a theory to match observations is properly done all the time. And equally obvious, we should not be revisionists and claim that a theory predicted something when it did not, because then our revisionism itself becomes...

Hello mfb! Yes, that's true. What's also true, I'm sure everyone here would agree, is the importance of having an objective assessment of how often the bb predictions of primordial abundances have actually matched actual observations, and how often, like with the CMB, we are seeing post-dictions...

Hello Torbjorn_L! These two, Anders and Johnston, are more qualified than I am to put the lithium problem in perspective. After M Anders' Physics Review Letters paper concluded that "The much higher Li6/Li7 values reported for halo stars will likely require a nonstandard physics explanation,"...

Hi TrickyDicky! Thinking about your question, how much "the ruling out of Lithium as originated in the Big-bang" affects the theory's track record regarding predictions, and phyzguy brought up hydrogen and helium, we should also keep in mind its prediction on antimatter. An extensive search for...