Nobel Prize in Physics For Discovery of Graphene 139
bugsbunnyak writes "The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded for the discovery of graphene to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. Graphene is a novel one-atom-thick lattice state of carbon which has demonstrated unique quantum mechanical properties. These properties derive in part from the 2-dimensional nature of the material: quantum interactions are constrained to the effectively planar dimension of the lattice. Graphene holds promise for physical applications including touch screens, light cells, and potentially solar panels. Geim becomes the first scientist to achieve a Nobel prize despite earlier winning the highly-coveted Ig Nobel in 2000 for his studies of diamagnetic levitation — also known as The Flying Frog." Slashdot originally mentioned the frog almost exactly 10 years ago.
Heh (Score:2)
I actually remember the frog story... I wonder how many digits my UID would be had I registered back then.
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Re:Heh (Score:5, Informative)
Currents are only induced by time-changing magnetic fields, not by a constant gradient. The field strength they used for the frog was 16 T, I think. That's on the order of field strength they use for MRI. When MRIs use rapidly-changing fields, there are noticeable, but not particularly painful, neural effects. I've personally been near 5+ T static fields, and it's entirely uninteresting.
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Well, the first question is easy: as far as I know, the magnetic field technically would affect the movement of charged particles (ions show up everywhere in cell biology and like to move from one place to another).
I don't know offhand how big the effect is. It'd scale linearly with magnetic field. There are no apparent ill effects from fields of a few Tesla, so a 16 T field would be no different.
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Currents are only induced by time-changing magnetic fields, not by a constant gradient. The field strength they used for the frog was 16 T, I think. That's on the order of field strength they use for MRI. When MRIs use rapidly-changing fields, there are noticeable, but not particularly painful, neural effects. I've personally been near 5+ T static fields, and it's entirely uninteresting.
MRIs typically operate in the 0.5-3.0T range - not 16T
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I didn't say they did. But the 16 T field is static. The MRI fields, which go at least up to 3 T, are rapidly time-changing. Encountering magnetic fields of 5+ T is common in scientific research.
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I have to correct you, random on the Internet. MRI magnet field strengths tend to be around 1.5 to 3 Teslas, depending on the intent of the machine. Research units are more powerful for better resolution, routine imaging units are less powerful because they are cheaper. There are "open concept" units as well for use with claustrophobes, but these are weaker because of the design trade-off.
IAARN.
The open MRI designs are in the multi-T range now, too
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Magnetic fields don't induce a current, a changing field (or moving through a field) does... if the magnetic field is a fixed one (I assume so but could easily be wrong) the minor movements of it floating around I'd imagine is unlikely to do much in a way that would trigger currents through nerves. Electric currents tend not to discriminate much as far as nerve types go, so if it was doing something, it would be fairly visible as it would play havock with froggies muscles. For an example of what I mean, jum [youtube.com]
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Magnetic fields don't induce a current, a changing field (or moving through a field) does... if the magnetic field is a fixed one (I assume so but could easily be wrong) the minor movements of it floating around I'd imagine is unlikely to do much in a way that would trigger currents through nerves.
Frogger's center of gravity might/must remain motionless to float statically, but unless frogger is dead, its gonna wiggle in the field.
Sort of like when I swim, my center of gravity remains at a vaguely constant distance from the waters surface, but my extremities are a wrigglin. Same situation with laying on top of a waterbed, or so I'm told.
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I remember that story too. I remember feeling sorry for the frog. I imagine that it would feel like you were being electrocuted. That high of a magenetic field would likely induce funky currents in your nerves.
The magnetic fields weren't so high and, as the process lifted the frog by its water, the creature probably just felt weightless as if floating in dry water.
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Considering first post [slashdot.org] on that story was from a 6-digit UID, you'd still have 6 digits in your UID.
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Year 2000.
When no ice cristals nor urine were part of initial Slashdot news replies.
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I wonder how many digits my UID would be had I registered back then.
Low six figures. Easy to double-check by looking at posts at the link [slashdot.org].
BTW, the froggy thing should have won a regular Nobel, IMO, and an IgNobel.
There's no reason good science can't also be wacky.
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I clicked the link and saw some six digit UIDs. Slashdot was three years old then.
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Given that the frist post on that story was by a user with a 6 digit UID, I'm guessing you would still have a 6 digit UID had you registered then.
Fun facts (Score:5, Informative)
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Many materials have varying degrees of para- or diamagnetism and can be levitated.
Almost all materials have clouds of electrons creating electrostatic shielding by which they may be levitated.
For instance, this bottle is being levitated by the apparatus designed to create an electric field around its neck. [kaccents.com] The electric field is held in place by quantum forces mediated by virtual photons that keep the electrons in orbit about their atomic nuclei.
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Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Although graphene was observed in various experiments in the 70s [wikipedia.org], these guys have realized its true potential. Furthermore, the discovery came in just the right moment in (scientific) history, where we have the sophisticated tools to study this material. No use inventing the spaceship in the middle ages (if you pardon the crude analogy).
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It doesn't make sense (Score:5, Funny)
I don't get it. How could they get the Nobel prize for this? Graphene is made out of carbon, and last I checked, carbon isn't one of the Nobel elements.
I have mod points, but.... (Score:2)
I have mod points but don't know whether to mod you insightful, funny or troll for making me groan out loud and make my coworkers check on me.
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True, but the prize itself is made from one of the Nobel elements (hence it's name). The original design was made using a pencil (#2, I think [citation needed]), so it all works out.
Re:It doesn't make sense (Score:5, Funny)
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There's a silver of humor in that.
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Hold your tungsten.
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The original post was Radon target.
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Re:It doesn't make sense (Score:4, Funny)
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But which pocket would he pick?
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Apparently the Nobel committee isn't what it used to be; their previously high standards argon.
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Graphene is made out of carbon, and last I checked, carbon isn't one of the Nobel elements.
Neither is dynamite (groan).
Think of the good P.R. ole Alfred Nobel has gotten for decades now out of his little donation. You'd think some rich computer industry MBA would get with the program, and set up an annual award for the wittiest and most intelligent slashdot poster with a nickname beginning in V and ending in M...
Hmmm, wasn't Montgolfier the first? (Score:2)
Hmmm, wasn't Montgolfier the first?
Hmmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
If those awarding the Ig Nobels are themselves Nobel Prize Winners, if he wins another can he present the prize to himself? (Answers c/o Schrodinger's cat, P.O. Box 666.)
Seriously, graphene was a fascinating discovery - doubly so given the simplicity of its discovery. Anyone could have used pencil lead and sellotape, the way these guys did, to create graphene - and may well have done. The only real difference is these guys wondered what they had and took a look. (There have been many discoveries over time like that. I'm beginning to realize just how much genius depends on asking questions others could have - perhaps should have - asked but didn't.)
Problems with the best-known alternative to silicon (gallium arsenide) include that it's expensive, extremely toxic to make, result in much smaller wafers and have a much lower yield if you even get that far. It's also not very good at CMOS-style logic. However, silicon is already pushing the limits of what it can do so if you want faster computers, you have to have a good alternative lined up. Graphene may be a good option here, once it matures. Carbon is plentiful, there's no reason to believe the production of graphene will turn out to be hazardous, graphene transistors can be made to be faster than silicon ones and the IBM successfully used silicon fab tech to made it. What is not known is how to make anything complex or how it'll perform under such conditions.
One area that GaAs is major is the aerospace industry. GaAs is much more radiation-resistant than silicon, which means you don't have to do mind-boggling contortions in the circuitry or add in lead shielding (both techniques are used, although the shielding seems to only be used by a handful of companies, the rest opt for circuits from hell). I can find no information on how radiation-resistant graphene would be, but at a glance I would imagine it to be at least as good as silicon, maybe slightly better. It may displace silicon in the aerospace markets, then, but probably not GaAs unless it's a lot better than I'm thinking.
Since graphene has other properties that may be valuable (unusual strength for something one atom thick, interesting optical properties, weird magnetic properties, etc), it would not surprise me if it ends up being used in other industries for things that have no bearing on its semiconductor nature. It might be fun to speculate who can really exploit graphene in any practical way first.
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'The most exciting phrase
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The only real difference is these guys wondered what they had and took a look. (There have been many discoveries over time like that. I'm beginning to realize just how much genius depends on asking questions others could have - perhaps should have - asked but didn't.)
I think it was Asimov (correct me if I'm wrong) who said "Scientific discoveries are rarely born with a 'Eureka', but instead usually with a 'that's funny'..."
Second author (Score:3, Informative)
Geim is now probably the only Nobel prize winner to have co-authored a paper with a hamster.
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Yeah. And that damned H.A.M.S. ter Tisha has higher number of citations then I do. Damn that rodents.
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But does he/she have an Erdos number?
Two-dimentional material?? (Score:2)
These properties derive in part from the 2-dimensional nature of the material
Now, granted, I'm not a physicist, but since when have real-world objects been able to be two-dimensional? Even if you draw a line on a piece of paper, the graphite or ink that compose the line will have three dimensions. Is there any such thing in the physical universe as a two-dimensional object?
Re:Two-dimentional material?? (Score:5, Informative)
Although real-world objects cannot actually span only two dimensions (if you ignore possible theories about strings), the interaction of certain particles can be constrained to 2 spatial degrees of freedom (well plus the time dimension, but ignoring that for now). Two degrees of freedom can be basically lay-man-transliterated as 2-dimensional nature since many people don't really understand 2 degrees of freedom, but they can relate to 2 dimensions (like a sheet of paper to use your analogy).
In this case, the electrons that "move" in the (2d grid-like) lattice of carbon atoms are effectively constrained to 2 spatial degrees of freedom (can represent the position as x & y of the 2d grid of atoms) and will exhibit similar properties as being constrain to a 2 dimensional object even though the lattice of carbon atoms occupies 3 spatial dimensions since the electrons (of a certain energy) only have 2 actual degrees of freedom.
FWIW Quantum physics is usually weird and non-intuitive when you chop down the number of degrees of freedom of an object, although it can be sometimes be understood by using an analogy about reducing the number of dimensions.
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Re:Two-dimentional material?? (Score:4, Informative)
It is a macro-scale (more or less) object that exhibits quantum properties in two dimensions, because the atoms are bound to their neighbors in a flat sheet. When the distances are less than the wavelength of the particles you're studying, they act in some ways as if that direction doesn't exist - i.e. it is not a "degree of freedom" in the system, a typical physics definition of a dimension.
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My view as someone in the field of graphene (Score:5, Interesting)
No doubt, Geim has probably indirectly gotten thousands of researchers perhaps a billion dollars in funding in less than a decade, but I don't think Geim's contribution was as much physics as it was successfully marketing his research (outsiders like to think of science as being purely meritocratic, but it scientists are still people, and people are susceptible to hype). In my opinion, there are many better physics researchers in the field than Geim himself, but none of them are nearly as good at communication and generating buzz.
In any case, congratulations to him for winning it so soon.
Useful for grilling? (Score:2)
I would like to know if 2D graphene sheets are flammable, and if they will start standard charcoal briquettes without having to also use lighter fluid.
They didn't discover it. (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, but did they blow it up (Score:2)
using exclusively Nobel (tm) branded dynamite products [wikipedia.org]?
I'm sure that's a secret condition of the Nobel prizes somewhere.
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I'm not saying this is what psychics "see" when they "read someone's aura"
Yes you are - that is exactly what you are saying. It is just that you don't want to stand by what you are saying; not that I blame you for that.
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May the farse be with you!
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It's not being dismissed out of hand. It's being dismissed because it has been shown to not work.
Any blinded experiment shows that.
The fact the many cultures have woo in no way gives in validity.
No one can see someone aura. If someone claims to they are either deluded, lying, or have low blood sugar and there eyes aren't focusing correctly; which leads them to a deluded belief.
A tear for the fallen. (Score:2)
Tooth fairy science (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, again, for the fact that none of them seem able to actually do what they claim to do.
Finding (pseudo) sciencey-sounding explanation before even knowing if there's a phenomenon to explain in the first place, has a name. It's called Tooth Fairy Science [skepdic.com].
Sure, one can handwave a whole theory about what might be the physics behind the tooth fairy, and the market value of different kinds of teeth, and whatever. But if you don't actually have a phenomenon to explain there, it's just a pointless waste of time.
Ditto here. Trying to explain how aura reading might work before anyone proved they can actually read an aura (again: anyone can win a million dollars if they just prove they can) is exactly tooth fairy science.
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Additionally, it is the domain the science to come up with an explanation or disprove it. Shockingly enough with little if any research being done, scientists are failing to disprove it or c
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No, in science, proof comes first, explanations come later. You rarely have to disprove things in science because they are assumed false via the scientific method. The only things you have to disprove are things that had a lot of evidence, but you have another more complicated explanation that explains those things equally well: you have to find a case where your more complicated explanation contradicts the simpler explanation, and disprove the simpler explanation.
And even in that case, the simpler expla
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"It's true because nobody disproved it" is trying to reverse the burden of proof. Those who claim to have such powers have the burden to prove they actually can do it. It's not upon the others to disprove it.
Basically, same as if I claimed to be able to read Chinese, the burden of proof would be on me to show I can actually read a text in Chinese, not on you to prove I can't possibly.
So, basically, yes, if you claim you can do it but find excuses why you shouldn't prove that claim, I'll call you exactly del
ROFLMAO (Score:5, Insightful)
ROFLMAO. That's a backscatter X-Ray photo from an airport scanner, lemming. It has nothing to do with body energy fields or anything.
Jesus Haploid Christ, I've seen hoaxes and mis-interpretations in support of woowoo, but this is one of the few things that truly take the cake. There is nothing mysterious or magnetic or aura about it. There is no aura there. It's some photons bouncing off matter. You know, elementary physics stuff. There is _no_ aura emitted there at all. It's only the bouncing photons. You turn those off, it ceases.
And the only way a psychic could see _that_ kind of "aura" is if their eyes could produce such radiation. Which is trivial to measure with a geiger counter, if they want to make such a claim.
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And the only way a psychic could see _that_ kind of "aura" is if their eyes could produce such radiation. Which is trivial to measure with a geiger counter, if they want to make such a claim.
i'm not getting in the middle of this but Before you go on bashing someone get your head on straight.
to SEE something they need to be RECEPTIVE to it not PRODUCE it.. we all see light (except the blind) yet none of our eyes produce light.
lots of birds and animals are more sensitive to infrared than we are.
even in the case of back scatter radiation imaging - i wouldn't be surprised if someone out of the billions of people might have a slight difference in chemistry to have their eyes receptive to it - how
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It's possible that biological evolution could produce eyes that could "see" X-rays, but not here on Earth. The atmosphere absorbs them too quickly.
It's not an accident that living things here on earth can see in the wavelengths most readily transmitted by the atmosphere (yes, including some of the infrared).
so what would happen if my body put He3 in the cones/rods of my eyes? how would my brain read the data?
He3 is incredibly rare.
i'd like to meet some of the people
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He3 is incredibly rare.
i'd like to meet some of the people that can see "aura"s and have them actually demonstrate it repeatedly and consistently.
Those experiments have been done repeatedly for many decades, and in the properly controlled experiments have always resulted in zero evidence for auras or the detection of such. I don't have any links for you, but there's plenty on google if you can get past the hype.
SB
I know He3 is rare - but it was a what if? style question - and i'm fully aware of the many studies done to show that that no one yet has been able to "aura" read.. trust me i don't get caught up in the hype.. if someone makes a claim i say test it..
until you can disprove the possibility of it - then you can't dismiss it out of hand without testing it. that is all i was saying.
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you do not need to produce the radiation - something must yes.. but the person who "sees" it doesn't. while in a dark room you turn on a light bulb - the light bulb produces the light for your eyes to receive you do not.
as for x-rays - they have to generate x-rays that are strong enough to pass through your body and then also expose a film on the other side.. the white areas are where the x-rays failed to pass through. while not easy/common it is possible for x-rays to be reflected/diffracted rather than
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the "X-ray" was brought into this by you and you alone. sure that refrence image was a back scater.
also you are now claiming that they emanate above the skin? where did that come from? is that your personal view on what an "aura" is? i original intentional said "aura"/"mask" because i have no idea how the human brain would process extra information..
so if you want to say that people see x-rays specifically and that they are coming from outside the skin feel free but don't put me to it as i have not once
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Broken logic (Score:5, Insightful)
In the words of Carl Sagan: "They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Newton. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
To put it simply "but they once laughed at X too" or "but they once believed Z to be false too" doesn't really prove anything and is not logical evidence. It's simply a piece of bogus sophistry that proves nothing.
You know what made us accept the physics behind that scanner photo? Actual evidence. You know what psychic woowoo _doesn't_ have? Actual evidence.
That's all it really needs. Wake me up when it has any. It's that simple.
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And thus Randi's challenge money disappears in a puff of logic.
Nope: Randi is paying out for phenomenology. A demonstrated capacity to DO any of the wide range of things that many, many people claim to be able to do. They just have to do it under circumstances that radically reduce the risk of fraud or self-delusion.
Science is primarily about evidence. If you claim, as you do above, that human beings have "auras" that some people can see, you need to adduce evidence of THAT CLAIM before introducing speculative claims regarding what might cause such "auras".
You cann
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(Also, woo woo? Really? Where the fuck did this one come from?)
Anyway, that "not supported by evidence" part isn't trivial. It means it doesn't really exist. It means it's a shame. That people pushing said crap are themselves full of crap. And anyone buying their bullshit are sheep that deserve to be flim-flamed like the gullible rube that they are.
There are no auras, the crystals do nothing, and you'll never be able to f
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Easily measured by sensitive devices designed to measure it. Like voltmeters. And the sensitivity has to rise parabolically as the measuring device retreats from the test sample, but nearly infinitely at the boundary of the sample, so the parabola starts out pretty stuck when it becomes the shape of the curve.
Frizzy-haired bints saying they "see" the aura around someone on a TV or movie screen are not gifted, they are nuts.
BTW, your linked picture is not an "energy field" produced by a human body. It is
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Wow, that picture looks spooky. It also looks a lot like a backscatter X-ray [wikipedia.org]. In fact, the Wikipedia article features the same image.
Citation needed, but anyway: what's an energy field? If you just mean a regular physical field, then well done! you've discovered that humans have mass. If you don't, then please clarify what you are actually talking about, and how you can measur
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Or it might just be BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, sorry, the ultimate test for that is that Randi still has a 1 million dollars prize for whoever can demonstrate any paranormal abilities in a controlled setting. Aura reading does explicitly qualify, and has been tested ad nauseam before, only to turn out bunk every time.
So if you think a psychic can read such things at all, just send them here: Challenge Application [randi.org]
Hey, you could be doing them a favour. Humanity too. Think of how many people they could treat or how many other psychics they could train with that money.
But until one actually does win the prize, I hope you'll understand why I'm less than impressed if yet another gullible mark handwaves some vague "we don't know" as a reason to believe in bullshit woowoo. Not knowing something is false is not a reason to believe there's something to it. What you illustrate there is just the mainstream form of the [wikipedia.org]. The question isn't what skeptics are willing to accept, but what can be supported by evidence. That's all.
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Actually, sorry, the ultimate test for that is that Randi still has a 1 million dollars prize for whoever can demonstrate any paranormal abilities in a controlled setting. Aura reading does explicitly qualify, and has been tested ad nauseam before, only to turn out bunk every time.
Maybe the act of observing it destroys it's waveform
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It's funny, but just for the record, that is more or less a form of the #2 rationalization used by people who want to believe in fairy tales: see, they are psychic after all, but only when they're not around Randi. E.g., somehow Randi or some device there blocks those people's psychic talents. One dowser who failed a test badly even called to say he figured out that Randi's cell phone disabled his dowsing rod.
It's not even new. Houdini debunked a lot of psychics and spiritists long before Randi, and the sam
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But until one actually does win the prize, I hope you'll understand why I'm less than impressed if yet another gullible mark handwaves some vague "we don't know" as a reason to believe in bullshit woowoo.
Something you both may be missing, is that being a sweaty bag of water, your skin conductivity etc does in fact vary with emotional condition. Or at least it certainly directly varies with sweatyness. Which seems to be the whole basis of a lot of lie detector technology.
Oddly enough, both wooowoo aura reading and lie detection machinery require gullible people to believe in them for there to be any effect. Both are just as unscientific and mostly depend on acting/marketing techniques.
To be entirely fair (Score:2)
Well, hey, I never said I believed in "lie detector" woowoo either.
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Trust me, you put up with him and possibly win the prize. And congratulations if you do manage to win the prize, because then you have to put up with all sorts of other assholes.
Just because those of us who do have various talents, ones that can be observed by impartial observers, doesn't mean that we want to put up with that crap. It's only a million dollars, hardly worth ruining ones life over.
As an asi
Shenanigians! (Score:2)
But it's hardly unreasonable that with all the radiation that humans emit that some of it would be in terms of IR close enough to the visible spectrum that some people would be able to see it.
I guess that's not unreasonable, except for the part where any such emission would also be detected by recordable sensors. Oh look. They haven't. So what you're claiming is that your eyeball can sense thing which no other device can. To which, I call bullshit.
You only think Randi is an asshole because he shows how full of shit you are.
Re:Or it might just be BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. It turns out it's actually an advantage to be able to recognize the cheap magician tricks that half of these frauds use. (The other half being just poor deluded idiots.)
But nevertheless, the methodology is pretty public and straightforward. Very much in line with the scientific method too.
But ultimately that's just irrelevant anyway. He's not offering his million for showing the quantum reasons for that aura reading or anything. He just asks someone to prove they can do whatever they claim to do. If they claim to be able to read an aura, they can get a million dollars for doing just that. Should be easy money if they actually can, right?
Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. If you bothered reading the rules, it just needs to be unexplained at the time you enter the contest. It's one of the things he explicitly addresses.
But, yes, that one has to be the #1 excuse of gullible marks who still want to believe in fairy tales. It's bullshit, but, hey, I guess when one wants to believe in fairy tales against all evidence, the choices for good rationalizations must be fairly limited.
Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
The rules clarify exactly the opposite of your claim. And since testing is pretty public it's also verifiable that nobody failed in the way you claim.
Repeating the same lie one more time won't make it true, you know. We're not in The Hunting Of The Snark.
So are you a liar or just have genuine comprehension problems?
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But he applies the scientific method. Being a magician aids him in spotting misdirection.
I don't even like they guy, but his methods are sound.
i'm curious (Score:2)
I was talking with an individual who talked about this when talking about some type of "energy measurement device" that was used on him once during some type of therapy. He ended up identifying himself as a Scientologist. Now beyond knowing about Tom Cruise being a member, and about the science fiction writer who started the "religion", I know very little about Scientology.
By chance are you a Scientologist?
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By chance are you a Scientologist?
Excuse me but that's an extremely rude question.
Some people have enough problems already, having to go through life with such limitations. You should treat them with as much respect as you offer to the normal people.
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If there is a measurable energy field around all things, then there might be something to things like Reiki and other eastern traditional medicines.
Congratulations for being able to follow such line of reasoning. Personally, I can't even fathom the degree of idiocy one must bear to accept such an argument as valid.
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Here's a link that talks about the energy field surrounding matter.
http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/ [www.ru.nl]
Incidentally, it's the same URL as the one in the summary.
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I didn't understand anything about the story to be an energy field. I understood it that everything with a composition of protons and electrons will eventually force all the electrons to one side creating a magnetic like object so long as you introduce a strong enough magnetic force.
Re:The frog story is interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. When aligned by the other magnetic field. I cannot simply take a compass and hold it next to a frog for results.
And none of that seems to point towards emotional state affecting any of it, which is the part specifically that the AC quoted.
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Only when near a very strong magnet. They, of themselves, are not magnetic.
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You're older, they're still fogies and these days 5 years is half a century, scientifically.
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Come on, guys, they graduated from my alma mater, the only one that produced any Nobel lauretates from Russia after 1951.