Recent content by Juan Largo

Good-bye then.

Why is a reference necessary? 1. If all things travel "through" space-time, there is a preferred direction of motion. 2. Frame independence means there are no preferred directions or locations. It seem pretty obvious that Statement 1 contradicts Statement 2.

I'm reading a book about unification of general relativity and quantum physics. The author states that one of the axioms of GR is background-independence, meaning that space-time has no external reference points. All distances and motions in space-time are relative. On the other hand, the...

True, which is why the 3-body problem is analytically "unsolvable." But my real question is whether a real star would ever actually collapse into a classical Schwarzschild black hole, or become something else entirely.

The field equations of general relativity are non-linear. There are exact analytic solutions to the equations for special symmetrical cases, e.g. Schwarzschild's solution for a black hole. But in general, wouldn't there be other chaotic solutions as well? A chaotic system is analytically...

Excellent point. The authors of the paper linked in a previous post by nsaspook make two claims: a) it is possible to examine a numerical sequence and determine whether it is computable, and b) if the sequence is computable, it isn't random. The first claim is possible in theory only because...

It is very interesting that the authors of the above article have succeeded in determining whether a string of numbers is computable. I'm willing to concede that a truly random sequence of numbers cannot be generated by any numerical algorithm. However, I don't agree that a string of numbers...

Thank you for your insight. Yes, but if all you have is the output sequence, is there a test for "randomness" versus "psueudo-randomness" (as long as the sequence doesn't repeat, of course)? But what is "true randomness" as opposed to "pseudo-randomness" if there's no way to tell the...

I worked as an engineer for an electric utility for over 30 years, specializing in transformer operation and maintenance, so I think I can answer this question. Looking at the transformer at no load: The magnetizing current in a sense does lag the primary voltage by 90°, but the current...

Numbers generated by a pseudo-random process will eventually repeat, which is how PR processes can be differentiated from a truly "random" process. Some chaotic processes follow closed trajectories in state space; i.e., their attractors are periodic, so number sequences generated by those...

Objects with mass always travel less than c with respect to other objects with mass. Objects without mass always travel at c with respect to objects with mass. But what speed do objects without mass travel with respect to each other? Do two massless photons travel at c with respect to the...