ea488620   
   XPost: rec.sport.pro-wrestling, alt.pro-wrestling.wwf, rec.arts.tv   
   XPost: alt.tv.lost   
   From: seanc130@hotmail.com   
      
   "SFTV_troy"  wrote   
      
   > Yes and I've heard of the Rotor where people stick to walls.  But   
   > that's not magic.  It's science.  And Newton explained why it happens   
   > (inertia).  Not magical at all.   
      
   You make EXACTLY MY POINT! And Clarke's!   
      
   *You* are the one who pulled this word 'magic' out of your ass as a code   
   word for any science, real or imagined, that YOU don't understand. The whole   
   point of Clarke's quote, and my post, was that you only think of something   
   as 'magic' because it goes beyond the (extraordinary limited) science YOU   
   are personally familiar with.   
      
   What do you think people in the 11th century would think of, say, a cell   
   phone? 'You can hold a strange piece of metal to your ear and magically hear   
   a voice from the other side of the planet??? It must be the work of   
   Satan!!!!!' Why would they think that? Because they could not possibly have   
   the scientific knowledge of today's world, and they are too narrow-minded to   
   realise that there might be perfectly explainable phenomena in the world   
   that only seem 'magical' because THEY don't understand it.   
      
   So, why do *you* think that things you don't understand in a sci-fi story   
   are 'magic'? Because YOU could not possibly have the scientific knowledge   
   they have in the hypothetical world of the story, and you are too   
   narrow-minded to realise that there might be perfectly explainable phenomena   
   in that world that only seem 'magical' to you because YOU don't understand   
   it.   
      
   BTW, you are again betraying the pitifully spotty and inaccurate knowledge   
   you have of the science you are so eager to act like an expert on.   
      
   First of all, Newton did NOT 'explain why' centifugal force can glue you to   
   a wall. All Newton did was to realise that centrifugal force in a rotating   
   object, and the tendency of an object to continue traveling in a straight   
   line unless a force acts on it (a law discovered not by Newton, but by   
   Galileo), were both manifestations of a single underlying phenomenon, which   
   he called 'inertia'. He did not even ATTEMPT to explain what *causes* it --   
   or why it also happens to be exactly proportional to the gravitational field   
   generated by an object. The latter phenomenon only came into its own as a   
   modern scientific principle in 1915, with Einstein's principle of   
   equivalence -- and even then, it was still not explained in the slightest   
   what 'causes' it!   
      
   It is still a very much open question in physics as to where mass/inertia   
   comes from -- a question that may finally be answered soon, if the Large   
   Hadron Collider in Europe succeeds in producing particles providing evidence   
   of what is called a Higgs field. Einstein, let alone Newton, would have had   
   no clue what a Higgs field was -- the very idea was not introduced into   
   science until the 1960s -- and therefore, if this (or something else we   
   haven't come up with yet) is in fact the explanation for the origin of mass,   
   would have been completely incapable of explaining what 'causes' inertia.   
   Both men, unlike you, understood the scientific method well enough to   
   realise this. It's precisely why Newton famously said 'Non fingo hypotheses'   
   about the *cause* of, say, gravity -- he could not explain the cause,   
   because it was not possible to even *approach* the question using the   
   science of that time, and was a task that could only be left to future   
   generations. All Newton did was observe the reality of the phenomenon, and   
   do his best to describe how it worked and what effects it had on the   
   observable world.   
      
   Second of all, I cannot for the life of me figure out how the hell you   
   thought this 'Rotor' thing was remotely relevant to anything I was talking   
   about, because it is a completely different phenomenon from that of   
   weightless floating in a free-falling vehicle. The latter did not become a   
   familiar part of science until after Einstein came up with the principle of   
   equivalence at the foundations of the general theory of relativity. To   
   Newton, the apparent coincidence between the values of inertial and   
   gravitational mass (the phenomenon that allows weightless floating in a   
   free-falling vehicle) was a complete and total mystery, and possibly --   
   given the primitiveness of the experiments and measurements of the times --   
   not even real. It was not until Einstein that it was established as a   
   fundamental physical principle and experimentally established to a high   
   degree of certainty -- until then, I am not aware that anyone ever even   
   thought to come up with the idea of becoming weightless by free-falling.   
      
   So, once again, you are completely wrong about both the nature of Newton's   
   discoveries and the laws of gravitational physics. In fact, almost nothing   
   you have said on the subject so far has demonstrated *any* knowledge of the   
   subject beyond an elementary-school level, despite the absolute certainty of   
   all your declarations on it.   
      
   This is a common phenomenon among charlatans: the dogmatic certainty of   
   one's pronouncements is often inversely proportional to one's actual   
   legitimate knowledge of the subject on which one is pronouncing.   
      
   > Being able to explain WHY something happens (in the real world) is the   
   > difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy Fiction.  SF has laws,   
   > theorems, and experiments to back it up; FF does not.   
      
   Pure bollocks. When a science-fiction author is creating an imaginary world,   
   he obviously *cannot possibly* explain everything in terms of laws,   
   theorems, and experiments that would make sense in *our* world -- if he   
   could, it wouldn't be science-fiction at all; it would just be a regular   
   story, with a little bit of science thrown in.   
      
   Do you think Star Trek and Star Wars are 'fantasy' and not 'sci-fi'? By your   
   silly categorisation rule, they would be, because they never even attempt to   
   explain a good 99% of the technology integral to the stories by 'laws,   
   theorems, and experiments' that make even the slightest bit of science in   
   terms of current-day Earth-based science.   
      
   The entire POINT of science-fiction is to stretch your mind to consider what   
   the world might be like if the laws, theorems, and experiments of   
   current-day Earthly science were NOT the ultimate and final truth -- which,   
   by the way, any decent scientist would be forced to agree they most   
   certainly *aren't*. And time and time again, perceptive sci-fi authors --   
   from Jules Verne to Gene Roddenberry -- have predicted in their stories the   
   possibility of basic technologies that did not become scientifically   
   feasible until decades after the stories were written. They did this despite   
   being totally unable to provide 'laws, theorems, and experiments' to justify   
   their ideas of these technologies -- and one would be a fool to expect them   
   to have *been* able to, since no one can possibly predict the exact   
   scientific details of a technology that doesn't even exist yet!   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)