58 ideas
1606 | You have to be a Platonist to debate about reality, so every philosopher is a Platonist [Roochnik] |
1595 | Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik] |
1571 | 'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik] |
1572 | In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik] |
1573 | The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik] |
1592 | Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik] |
1593 | Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik] |
1603 | Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik] |
1598 | We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik] |
1584 | Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik] |
1599 | Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik] |
1591 | Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik] |
1605 | Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik] |
1577 | Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik] |
1578 | If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik] |
1596 | Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik] |
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
21167 | Gravity is unusual, in that it always attracts and never repels [New Sci.] |
21176 | In the Big Bang general relativity fails, because gravity is too powerful [New Sci.] |
21147 | Quantum electrodynamics incorporates special relativity and quantum mechanics [New Sci.] |
21155 | Photons have zero rest mass, so virtual photons have infinite range [New Sci.] |
21161 | In the standard model all the fundamental force fields merge at extremely high energies [New Sci.] |
21146 | Electrons move fast, so are subject to special relativity [New Sci.] |
21148 | The strong force is repulsive at short distances, strong at medium, and fades at long [New Sci.] |
21152 | The strong force binds quarks tight, and the nucleus more weakly [New Sci.] |
21151 | Gluons, the particles carrying the strong force, interact because of their colour charge [New Sci.] |
21150 | Three different colours of quark (as in the proton) can cancel out to give no colour [New Sci.] |
21143 | Quarks in threes can build hadrons with spin ½ or with spin 3/2 [New Sci.] |
21142 | Classifying hadrons revealed two symmetry patterns, produced by three basic elements [New Sci.] |
21145 | The four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong) are the effects of particles [New Sci.] |
21153 | The weak force explains beta decay, and the change of type by quarks and leptons [New Sci.] |
21156 | The weak force particles are heavy, so the force has a short range [New Sci.] |
21164 | Why do the charges of the very different proton and electron perfectly match up? [New Sci.] |
21170 | The Standard Model cannot explain dark energy, survival of matter, gravity, or force strength [New Sci.] |
21154 | Three particles enable the weak force: W+ and W- are charged, and Z° is not [New Sci.] |
21140 | Spin is a built-in ration of angular momentum [New Sci.] |
21157 | Particles are spread out, with wave-like properties, and higher energy shortens the wavelength [New Sci.] |
21158 | Fermions, with spin ½, are antisocial, and cannot share quantum states [New Sci.] |
21165 | Spin is akin to rotation, and is easily measured in a magnetic field [New Sci.] |
21149 | Quarks have red, green or blue colour charge (akin to electric charge) [New Sci.] |
21163 | The mass of protons and neutrinos is mostly binding energy, not the quarks [New Sci.] |
21168 | Gravitional mass turns out to be the same as inertial mass [New Sci.] |
21144 | Top, bottom, charm and strange quarks quickly decay into up and down [New Sci.] |
21138 | Neutrons are slightly heavier than protons, and decay into them by emitting an electron [New Sci.] |
21141 | Neutrinos were proposed as the missing energy in neutron beta decay [New Sci.] |
21169 | Only neutrinos spin anticlockwise [New Sci.] |
21166 | Standard antineutrinos have opposite spin and opposite lepton number [New Sci.] |
21171 | The symmetry of unified electromagnetic and weak forces was broken by the Higgs field [New Sci.] |
21175 | String theory might be tested by colliding strings to make bigger 'stringballs' [New Sci.] |
21177 | String theory offers a quantum theory of gravity, by describing the graviton [New Sci.] |
21178 | String theory is now part of 11-dimensional M-Theory, involving p-branes [New Sci.] |
21179 | Supersymmetric string theory can be expressed using loop quantum gravity [New Sci.] |
21159 | Supersymmetry has extra heavy bosons and heavy fermions [New Sci.] |
21162 | Only supersymmetry offers to incorporate gravity into the scheme [New Sci.] |
21172 | The evidence for supersymmetry keeps failing to appear [New Sci.] |
21173 | Supersymmetry says particles and superpartners were unities, but then split [New Sci.] |
21160 | The Higgs field means even low energy space is not empty [New Sci.] |
21174 | Dark matter must have mass, to produce gravity, and no electric charge, to not reflect light [New Sci.] |