6 ms·

I think the wiki lacks impartiality and that the handwaving in the article was done by a German PhD in physics with an eye to helping people develop intuition.

I think the wiki lacks impartiality and that the handwaving in the article was done by a German PhD in physics with an eye to helping people develop intuition. If a vibrating star is always moving towards or away from the detector at greater than the speed of light, you won't see it.

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
1) what is a vibrating star? 2) "always moving towards or away from the detector at greater than the speed of light" -> what does that even mean. 3) "vibrating in a mode which is out of sync with our own" is the kind of vague meaningless phrase more often heard in new age mysticism, not science.
- nixtaken 7y ago
  A vibrating star is a star that is literally moving back and forth relative to an observer. That doesn't sound like new-age mysticism to me. With "vibrating in a mode which is out of synch with our own" it looks like she is translating physics jargon into more colloquial terms. A physicist would instead say "oscillating in a mode which is out of phase with the motion of the detector". A teacher would explain the concept in terms of a child being pushed on a swing. If you are pushing at exactly the wrong time during every swing, there will be no energy transfer. When there is no energy transfer, you are blind to each other. The jargon of science is one of her bugbears and she is trying to demystify it.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    That doesn't sound like new-age mysticism to me. It sure does. That's classic new-age mysticism. They love hand-wavy energy modes and vibrations. If it had the word "quantum" in it, it'd be ticking all the boxes. Maybe it's an unfortunate case of a non-native English speaker not realising that these terms are commonly hijacked by bullshit artists. To suggest that some stars are invisible because they emit EM radiation that simply can't interact with anything on this earth is an incredible statement that requires a lot more than just "I can imagine".
    - pinkfoot 7y ago
      Indeed: stars don't emit radiation per se, the trillions of atoms absorbing and emitting quantised photons do. So, a) they would have to be made of something other than the normal atomic matter normal stars, planets, and rocks, and people are made of b) be normal Hydrogen, Helium, etc. but with completely different quantum mechanical behaviour. Just sitting their in isolated regions of space - right next to normal matter. Grade-A bollocks.
      - nixtaken 7y ago
        I think the idea rests on the notion that the stars all obey the same physical laws and are made of the same types of atoms, but that the timing of the motion of atoms in distant stars is not synchronized with our own. I like to think of the physics of synchrotron light in this context. When a particle accelerates, as in an atomic clock, it emits light.
        SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
        > think the idea rests on the notion that the stars all obey the same physical laws and are made of the same types of atoms, but that the timing of the motion of atoms in distant stars is not synchronized with our own. yes, we get that. The idea that this somehow causes "you won't see it" ... well it's an idea. An idea found in new-age mysticism. It's not science of any kind.
        nixtaken 7y ago
        In the scientific community, we talk about how different foundational principles or axioms change the heuristics of physics and that is what this article was about. Convention A leads to Riemannian coordinates and the big bang. Convention B leads to Cartesian coordinates and tired light. There is nothing mystical about Cartesian logic. It was reborn during the enlightenment. When people try to think in Cartesian ways about Riemannian theories, as most people tend to do, trouble arises.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
    > A vibrating star is a star that is literally moving back and forth relative to an observer What physical process would cause this? Have we ever observed it? Large bodies of matter don't just "move back and forth" of their own accord. Try shaking any heavy object, it takes a lot of energy. Do you mean ringing like a gong or a pond with ripples? Then "moving back and forth" is a confusing poor choice of words. Do you mean "orbiting a black hole in such a way that it comes nearer to us and then further again?" Then why not say so? How would the mode be out of synch with our own, whatever that even means? > The jargon of science is one of her bugbears and she is trying to demystify it. By introducing new and incomprehensible jargon that is literally mystical? > oscillating in a mode which is out of phase with the motion of the detector Are you saying that undetectable EM radiation exists because of modes / phases? This is complete hand-wavy mysticism.
    - nixtaken 7y ago
      The physical process is gravity as Laplace described it back in the 1700s as a sort of breathing motion. Stars in our vicinity tend to breathe in synch and that is why they are easy to see. Jargon from the past only sounds mystical when present-day jargon loses contact with foundational principles.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
        > Stars in our vicinity tend to breathe in synch and that is why they are easy to see. I appreciate your effort, but this is not science in any way. Changing the jargon won't help that.
        nixtaken 7y ago
        You're right that this language is not precise enough. Where you put the clocks matters a lot. What is synchronous to one person is asynchronous to another.
        SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
EliRivers 7y ago
Ah, I see. Based on this deleted comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268682 you are Kirsten Hacker? And here you are, with more of the same. On reflection, this is starting to feel less like a coherent argument and more like you're perhaps in a very open-minded, exploratory mental state right now. Jesus, that sounds condescending of me (for which I apologise - text as a medium is tricky to express this clearly; it's not meant as a passive aggressive putdown and if I'd had this context earlier I'd have simply said nothing), but perhaps this thread is better served by cessation.
- nixtaken 7y ago
  Think of me as her publicist. And the article that was flagged in your link was a good one.
  - grzm 7y ago
    With respect to submissions, you might want to review the HN guidelines. All of the submissions I've seen have had heavily editorialized submission titles, which is counter to the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - nixtaken 7y ago
      Thanks for the tip. I'm new here.

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago

1) what is a vibrating star? 2) "always moving towards or away from the detector at greater than the speed of light" -> what does that even mean. 3) "vibrating in a mode which is out of sync with our own" is the kind of vague meaningless phrase more often heard in new age mysticism, not science.

nixtaken 7y ago
A vibrating star is a star that is literally moving back and forth relative to an observer. That doesn't sound like new-age mysticism to me. With "vibrating in a mode which is out of synch with our own" it looks like she is translating physics jargon into more colloquial terms. A physicist would instead say "oscillating in a mode which is out of phase with the motion of the detector". A teacher would explain the concept in terms of a child being pushed on a swing. If you are pushing at exactly the wrong time during every swing, there will be no energy transfer. When there is no energy transfer, you are blind to each other. The jargon of science is one of her bugbears and she is trying to demystify it.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  That doesn't sound like new-age mysticism to me. It sure does. That's classic new-age mysticism. They love hand-wavy energy modes and vibrations. If it had the word "quantum" in it, it'd be ticking all the boxes. Maybe it's an unfortunate case of a non-native English speaker not realising that these terms are commonly hijacked by bullshit artists. To suggest that some stars are invisible because they emit EM radiation that simply can't interact with anything on this earth is an incredible statement that requires a lot more than just "I can imagine".
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    Indeed: stars don't emit radiation per se, the trillions of atoms absorbing and emitting quantised photons do. So, a) they would have to be made of something other than the normal atomic matter normal stars, planets, and rocks, and people are made of b) be normal Hydrogen, Helium, etc. but with completely different quantum mechanical behaviour. Just sitting their in isolated regions of space - right next to normal matter. Grade-A bollocks.
    - nixtaken 7y ago
      I think the idea rests on the notion that the stars all obey the same physical laws and are made of the same types of atoms, but that the timing of the motion of atoms in distant stars is not synchronized with our own. I like to think of the physics of synchrotron light in this context. When a particle accelerates, as in an atomic clock, it emits light.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
        > think the idea rests on the notion that the stars all obey the same physical laws and are made of the same types of atoms, but that the timing of the motion of atoms in distant stars is not synchronized with our own. yes, we get that. The idea that this somehow causes "you won't see it" ... well it's an idea. An idea found in new-age mysticism. It's not science of any kind.
        nixtaken 7y ago
        In the scientific community, we talk about how different foundational principles or axioms change the heuristics of physics and that is what this article was about. Convention A leads to Riemannian coordinates and the big bang. Convention B leads to Cartesian coordinates and tired light. There is nothing mystical about Cartesian logic. It was reborn during the enlightenment. When people try to think in Cartesian ways about Riemannian theories, as most people tend to do, trouble arises.
- SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
  > A vibrating star is a star that is literally moving back and forth relative to an observer What physical process would cause this? Have we ever observed it? Large bodies of matter don't just "move back and forth" of their own accord. Try shaking any heavy object, it takes a lot of energy. Do you mean ringing like a gong or a pond with ripples? Then "moving back and forth" is a confusing poor choice of words. Do you mean "orbiting a black hole in such a way that it comes nearer to us and then further again?" Then why not say so? How would the mode be out of synch with our own, whatever that even means? > The jargon of science is one of her bugbears and she is trying to demystify it. By introducing new and incomprehensible jargon that is literally mystical? > oscillating in a mode which is out of phase with the motion of the detector Are you saying that undetectable EM radiation exists because of modes / phases? This is complete hand-wavy mysticism.
  - nixtaken 7y ago
    The physical process is gravity as Laplace described it back in the 1700s as a sort of breathing motion. Stars in our vicinity tend to breathe in synch and that is why they are easy to see. Jargon from the past only sounds mystical when present-day jargon loses contact with foundational principles.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
      > Stars in our vicinity tend to breathe in synch and that is why they are easy to see. I appreciate your effort, but this is not science in any way. Changing the jargon won't help that.
      - nixtaken 7y ago
        You're right that this language is not precise enough. Where you put the clocks matters a lot. What is synchronous to one person is asynchronous to another.
        SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago

EliRivers 7y ago

Ah, I see. Based on this deleted comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268682 you are Kirsten Hacker? And here you are, with more of the same. On reflection, this is starting to feel less like a coherent argument and more like you're perhaps in a very open-minded, exploratory mental state right now. Jesus, that sounds condescending of me (for which I apologise - text as a medium is tricky to express this clearly; it's not meant as a passive aggressive putdown and if I'd had this context earlier I'd have simply said nothing), but perhaps this thread is better served by cessation.

nixtaken 7y ago
Think of me as her publicist. And the article that was flagged in your link was a good one.
- grzm 7y ago
  With respect to submissions, you might want to review the HN guidelines. All of the submissions I've seen have had heavily editorialized submission titles, which is counter to the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - nixtaken 7y ago
    Thanks for the tip. I'm new here.