# Calling all Great Minds: The Theory of Everything **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862 "2012-11-13T06:09:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/481 "2012-11-20T00:38:40Z")
> [@Anthem\_0](#): > > Specifically, examine the Jupiter System. The four Galilean Moons lie on the OUT side of Jupiter’s ring system, each of which are exact inversions of celestial bodies in the inner solar system INside of the asteroid belt. Venus is a ball of fire – Io is a frozen ball of fire. Earth is a ball of water – Europa is a frozen ball of water. Earth’s Moon is a ball of rock – Ganymede is a frozen ball of rock. Beyond that is outer space, dark and flecked with stars – Callisto is a frozen ball of outer space. Even the ratio of the sizes of the planets/moons are inverted (the Ganymede is the largest: the Moon is the smallest, etc.) > > _I assure you, this isn’t a coincidence_. Not only is it _not coincidence_. It’s not even true. Here are the diameters (in km) of the bodies you list. Please show how there is **any consistency of ratio** between the two sets: ```auto Venus 12100 Earth 12756 Moon 3476 Outer Space (WTF?) ?? Io 3630 Europa 3122 Ganymede 5268 Callisto 4820 ``` ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/482 "2012-11-20T00:46:06Z")
> [@Anthem\_0](#): > > What’s amazing is that you don’t realize that that is (more or less) EXACTLY what happens when objects enter outer space. We have to specifically design things in a way so that they are capable of withstanding the dramatic change of environment. > > How can you possibly be in here arguing this if you didn’t know that? **Anthem** I am going to help you out here, insulting us is not helping your case. Please stop it. What you may not understand about the SDMB is that most of us here came to learn. I in particular am often wrong in my factual assertions and take my lumps for it, that is part of the deal, we are fighting ignorance. We are learning, collectively. I believe that collectively we Dopers would love to be presented with a Theory of Everything, something testable and repeatable. You see it is not our way to defend the status quo, we are here to learn something new. There are plenty of people on this board who have the skill sets to parse down the equations and observations that would be necessary for a ToE to be tested and repeated. Give us that thread please, we would love it but beware it would contain equations and observations that were repeatable and testable, you know science. Until you do this you are just going to be made fun of and/ or ignored. So come on, give us the math, the observations and no, that zero sum thingy you gave us is not math Thanks **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![MDKSquared](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MDKSquared](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MDKSquared)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/483 "2012-11-20T00:49:10Z")
> [@Capt\_Kirk](#): > > **Anthem** > > I am going to help you out here, insulting us is not helping your case. Please stop it. What you may not understand about the SDMB is that most of us here came to learn. I in particular am often wrong in my factual assertions and take my lumps for it, that is part of the deal, we are fighting ignorance. We are learning, collectively. > > I believe that collectively we Dopers would love to be presented with a Theory of Everything, something testable and repeatable. You see it is not our way to defend the status quo, we are here to learn something new. There are plenty of people on this board who have the skill sets to parse down the equations and observations that would be necessary for a ToE to be tested and repeated. Give us that thread please, we would love it but beware it would contain equations and observations that were repeatable and testable, you know science. Until you do this you are just going to be made fun of and/ or ignored. > > So come on, give us the math, the observations and no, that zero sum thingy you gave us is not math > > Thanks > > **Capt** The problem is that you probably can’t _have_ a Theory of Everything that is testable. In practice, a ToE is a metaphysical framework that tries to explain why reality is what it is – and what reality IS. You’ll oftentimes hear the exact sort of argument Anthem used earlier, “All we talk about are DESCRIPTIONS of reality or the EFFECTS of gravity… but what ARE they?” Shortly thereafter, anyone with an understanding of science and the problems of epistemic knowledge realizes why it’s a waste of time and moves on to better things. Math alone doesn’t help, either, because math can be self-consistent and still not match up to reality. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/484 "2012-11-20T00:59:10Z")
> [@MDKSquared](#): > > The problem is that you probably can’t _have_ a Theory of Everything that is testable. > > In practice, a ToE is a metaphysical framework that tries to explain why reality is what it is – and what reality IS. You’ll oftentimes hear the exact sort of argument Anthem used earlier, “All we talk about are DESCRIPTIONS of reality or the EFFECTS of gravity… but what ARE they?” > > Shortly thereafter, anyone with an understanding of science and the problems of epistemic knowledge realizes why it’s a waste of time and moves on to better things. Math alone doesn’t help, either, because math can be self-consistent and still not match up to reality. I grok that, I was just making one more attempt to bring this discussion to something resembling sanity. **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/485 "2012-11-20T01:00:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > At what point am I supposed to reverse the polarity? Does it matter? I used “infinity,” but you could pick any finite distance from the (classical) origin. For instance, altitude above mean sea level works this way: we picked an arbitrary distance above the center of the earth, and defined it as the new “zero” altitude. I’m just adding the extra (absurd!) filip of inverting the distance. So, every ten feet of altitude you gain above the earth’s surface, “r” is reduced by ten feet. This is similar to the transformation that is sometimes trotted out to satisfy “hollow Earth” afficionados. The “infinite” sky is really just the “zero” point of the hollow earth. Another classic is to define the earth as non-rotating, and calculate orbits etc. as if the cosmos is whirling about us once a day. You get some really gnarly Einsteinian transforms, but, ultimately, it works. It’s just batshit insane. Islamic geographers have published maps of the earth with the direction to Mecca (the qibla) as a metric. Mecca resembles an earthly pole, with all the lines intersecting there. (The antipodes of Mecca is, of course, the other pole; all the great circles intersect there, too.) There really is no reason whatever that we can’t redefine our cardinal directions using this new set of coordinates; it just knocks the convenient “east/west” basis for directions into a hocked cat. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/486 "2012-11-20T01:07:06Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Another classic is to define the earth as non-rotating, and calculate orbits etc. as if the cosmos is whirling about us once a day. You get some really gnarly Einsteinian transforms, but, ultimately, it works. It’s just batshit insane. Wouldn’t such a framework have trouble explaining how satellites in geostationary orbit stay up? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/487 "2012-11-20T01:09:17Z")
> [@MDKSquared](#): > > . . . Math alone doesn’t help, either, because math can be self-consistent and still not match up to reality. I once got a very cheerful, friendly phone call from a guy who wanted to explore his new mathematical theory. Essentially, he wanted to eliminate the number nine. No nines. I asked, of course, if he meant “base-nine” arithmetic. No… Nothing so easy. He just wanted to do away with nine. What’s eight plus one, I asked. And there is began! It involved figurate numbers – square numbers and triangular numbers – and of course infinity came in to it all. It involved clock-arithmetic. It involved the deep philosophy of what numbers really mean. He tried to tell me that addition wasn’t what we’d been taught it was in grade school. He tried… We talked, calmly, peacefully, in a friendly fashion, for an hour. He never managed to make a microgram of sense, but it was all so very clear to him. He apologized several times for not being able to describe it well enough for me to understood. Was he mentally ill? Was he simply ignorant? Or…just maybe…did he have a real, new, unique, wonderful insight that would change the world? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/488 "2012-11-20T01:13:02Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Wouldn’t such a framework have trouble explaining how satellites in geostationary orbit stay up? Actually, no… You get this weird Einsteinian “frame-dragging” effect, where the mass of the cosmos pulls satellites upward, balancing the earth’s gravity. The equations all work out the same – the forces balance at 22,000 miles, etc. This isn’t one of mine! Martin Gardner noted it in an old “Mathematical Games” column, and The Bad Astronomer has referred to it also. ---
**Author:** ![MDKSquared](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MDKSquared](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MDKSquared)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/489 "2012-11-20T01:20:59Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I once got a very cheerful, friendly phone call from a guy who wanted to explore his new mathematical theory. Essentially, he wanted to eliminate the number nine. No nines. I asked, of course, if he meant “base-nine” arithmetic. No… Nothing so easy. He just wanted to do away with nine. What’s eight plus one, I asked. > > And there is began! It involved figurate numbers – square numbers and triangular numbers – and of course infinity came in to it all. It involved clock-arithmetic. It involved the deep philosophy of what numbers really mean. He tried to tell me that addition wasn’t what we’d been taught it was in grade school. He tried… > > We talked, calmly, peacefully, in a friendly fashion, for an hour. He never managed to make a microgram of sense, but it was all so very clear to him. He apologized several times for not being able to describe it well enough for me to understood. > > Was he mentally ill? Was he simply ignorant? Or…just maybe…did he have a real, new, unique, wonderful insight that would change the world? Most of the time it’s just ignorance AND inability to understand what contradicts them. It’s like those guys who use Zeno’s Paradox to suggest some deep nature about reality and time and then use this to launch into a bunch of other BS arguments. Zeno’s Paradox makes perfect sense to mathematicians and physicists alike, and they understand fully that it’s not a real paradox. Doesn’t stop people from talking about discrete spacetime and illusory time and what have you. At the core of many things, it’s just that some people have a hard time understanding infinity. They legitimately don’t understand why .999… = 1, or what “dx” means in the context of calculus. They _think_ they know what it means and have some vague idea, but then these vague ideas go unchecked and they wind up creating nonsense theories that are completely meaningless and lacking in any sort of rigor. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/490 "2012-11-20T01:21:19Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I once got a very cheerful, friendly phone call from a guy who wanted to explore his new mathematical theory. Essentially, he wanted to eliminate the number nine. No nines. I asked, of course, if he meant “base-nine” arithmetic. No… Nothing so easy. He just wanted to do away with nine. What’s eight plus one, I asked. > > And there is began! It involved figurate numbers – square numbers and triangular numbers – and of course infinity came in to it all. It involved clock-arithmetic. It involved the deep philosophy of what numbers really mean. He tried to tell me that addition wasn’t what we’d been taught it was in grade school. He tried… > > We talked, calmly, peacefully, in a friendly fashion, for an hour. He never managed to make a microgram of sense, but it was all so very clear to him. He apologized several times for not being able to describe it well enough for me to understood. > > Was he mentally ill? Was he simply ignorant? Or…just maybe…did he have a real, new, unique, wonderful insight that would change the world? 9? Are you kidding me? There is no freaking way we could get rid of 9. Now eleven, in my opinion, is a complete free-loader, but 9? No way man. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/491 "2012-11-20T01:22:19Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I once got a very cheerful, friendly phone call from a guy who wanted to explore his new mathematical theory. Essentially, he wanted to eliminate the number nine. No nines. I asked, of course, if he meant “base-nine” arithmetic. No… Nothing so easy. He just wanted to do away with nine. What’s eight plus one, I asked. > > And there is began! It involved figurate numbers – square numbers and triangular numbers – and of course infinity came in to it all. It involved clock-arithmetic. It involved the deep philosophy of what numbers really mean. He tried to tell me that addition wasn’t what we’d been taught it was in grade school. He tried… > > We talked, calmly, peacefully, in a friendly fashion, for an hour. He never managed to make a microgram of sense, but it was all so very clear to him. He apologized several times for not being able to describe it well enough for me to understood. > > Was he mentally ill? Was he simply ignorant? Or…just maybe…did he have a real, new, unique, wonderful insight that would change the world? Hate to ask but I have to, How do you have more than two triangular numbers without nine? **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![YourAdHere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/65b543/32.png) [@YourAdHere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourAdHere)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/492 "2012-11-20T01:38:20Z")
How is Venus a “ball of fire?”. A Soviet probe briefly landed on its surface. I didn’t know you could land on fire. Furthermore, what is a “frozen ball of fire”? Please explain what frozen fire is, and why Io is made of it. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/493 "2012-11-20T02:23:01Z")
You guys, you guys, you guys! I have it. I have been enlightened. I have figured out how to resolve this whole mess and make everything OK again. It’s so simple, I just…I just can see it so clearly now. All right, so. Since, as has been so clearly explained, there’s this sharp dividing line at the edge of the earth’s atmosphere where all physical laws and matter and time and rationality and sense INVERT, then it’s obvious what we have to do. We have to send this thread to the INternational Space Station. It’ll make sense out there. There we have it. A rock solid experimental approach to prove once and for all that Anthem is right on. I’m so relieved. ---
**Author:** ![trabajabamos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/47e85d/32.png) [@trabajabamos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabajabamos)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/494 "2012-11-20T02:45:07Z")
> [@Anthem\_0](#): > > What are the obvious holes in suggesting that we have no reason to blindly ASSUME that Earth is 3D, especially considering it has nothing in common with any three-dimensional object ON Earth. A dumb question I thought of while making dinner… Assuming the earth is not three-dimensional, how could we otherwise explain: [ul] [li]The ability to travel “around” the earth by going one direction all the time[/li][li]Things appearing or disappearing at the horizon[/li][li]The fact that there is a horizon at all[/li][li]The fact that one side of the planet has day while the other has night[/li][li]Our ability to see different stars from different areas[/li][/ul] …Can you rationalize this all away with a 2D Earth, **Anthem**? Anyone care to try? :dubious: Am I assuming the Earth is 3D in the same way I’m assuming I’m not a brain in a jar? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/495 "2012-11-20T02:46:21Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > 9? Are you kidding me? > > There is no freaking way we could get rid of 9. > > Now eleven, in my opinion, is a complete free-loader, but 9? No way man. We just replace it with upside-down sixes… > [@Capt\_Kirk](#): > > Hate to ask but I have to, How do you have more than two triangular numbers without nine? Damn if I know! How do you count past eight without nine? Maybe three times three is, like, a square with a hole in the middle, but you can’t see it from the outside. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/496 "2012-11-20T02:55:18Z")
Too late. Seven ate nine. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/497 "2012-11-20T03:40:34Z")
Do we still live inside the sun? 'cause, that’s never gonna get old… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/498 "2012-11-20T04:43:06Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Do we still live inside the sun? 'cause, that’s never gonna get old… I think it depends on which timeline you’re from. ---
**Author:** ![MDKSquared](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MDKSquared](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MDKSquared)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/499 "2012-11-20T06:53:15Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/RIN6AtTxFgE/maxresdefault.jpg "Shooter (8/8) Movie CLIP - I Won, You Lost (2007) HD") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIN6AtTxFgE) Somehow I feel like this movie line would make Anthem’s head explode. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862/500 "2012-11-20T07:33:10Z")
> [@trabajabamos](#): > > A dumb question I thought of while making dinner… Assuming the earth is not three-dimensional, how could we otherwise explain: > [ul] > [li]The ability to travel “around” the earth by going one direction all the time[/li][li]Things appearing or disappearing at the horizon[/li][li]The fact that there is a horizon at all[/li][li]The fact that one side of the planet has day while the other has night[/li][li]Our ability to see different stars from different areas[/li][/ul] > > …Can you rationalize this all away with a 2D Earth, **Anthem**? Anyone care to try? :dubious: Is a 2D environment/existence even mathematically possible? I’m guessing that computation we do in our brain is not all reproducible in a 2D environment, the input/outputs would need to cross at some point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-great-minds-the-theory-of-everything/640862.md?page=26)