Can I just say we need to get the 'quote from' bit changed from yellow to something more readable.

Quote from: Quixoticish on March 14, 2011, 08:13:54 AM
You're making tremendously broad generalisations about every scientist and the state of science as a whole and cherry picking occasional negative occurrences to reinforce your own warped negative point of view.

Henceforth your argument is rendered invalid. Have a nice day.

Your argument is pointless and admits you have no idea.

Obviously you didn't have a hope of discussing it in a reasonable manner then, like a scientist in your description might. Then again, there are very few scientists like those.

Truth is I have watched these people go at each other, it's like a no holds barred verbal battle between Christians and Satanists. It's always the same, they have to win. I sometimes wonder if half of them were molested by priests in their youth, they are so blatantly against any option that even slightly goes against their point of view.

Science has a cloud of paranoia over it, just like religion does. Note that I don't exclude either side here I just can't exclude a possibility, neither can science, but some people think they can just by denial.

Quote from: Mark on March 17, 2011, 00:02:59 AM
Can I just say we need to get the 'quote from' bit changed from yellow to something more readable.

Yes please, it's the only bit of the new forum scheme that needs a bit of tweaking, it's hard to see what's going on when a quote is embedded in another quote.

Quote from: Quixoticish on March 17, 2011, 09:45:14 AM

Quote from: Mark on March 17, 2011, 00:02:59 AM
Can I just say we need to get the 'quote from' bit changed from yellow to something more readable.

Yes please, it's the only bit of the new forum scheme that needs a bit of tweaking, it's hard to see what's going on when a quote is embedded in another quote.

I think it's on the to-do list, it was certainly mentioned, but just think Nexus is quite busy at the moment

Final part of the series I think this weekend.

Quote from: Professor Brian Cox link=topic=18260.msg184200#msg184200
Hi, I'm Professor Brian Cox, I'm one of the Wonders of the Universe. Here I am, on top of a mountain, triumphant in outdoor clothing. Why are we here? Where do we come from? These are the most enduring of questions. And why is it that you are a little bit ...in love with me? Is it my enormous mind? Or my boyish good looks, the NME hair, the expansive wardrobe coupled with exotic locations, the soft modest enthusiasm with just a hint of Lancashire, the winning smile . . . this winning smile – ah, that's got you, hasn't it? Look how proudly I stand, while the helicopter circles. I've conquered this mountain, just as I'm conquering your heart. Now I'm somewhere else, in a cream-coloured safari anorak and stonewashed jeans, in front of the sun, bathed in light and glory. I am the golden boy, the sun god, I am the sun. Now I'm staring out to sea, in an aubergine T-shirt, thinking big thoughts. And very big numbers. A billion billion billion billion billion billion. That big. Look, I'll write it in the sand, to show you how massive my number is. It's all about the vast sweep of cosmic time and astrophysics. And turtles. As the story of time unfolds, a fundamental truth is revealed: nothing lasts for ever. Now I'm back in Gore-Tex, by Berghaus, with a Patagonian glacier as backdrop. And posing next to a picture of the death of a star. The death of one star, the birth of another – that's me. Because time goes only one way, the arrow of time says the future, like my clothes, will always be different. The second law of thermodynamics demonstrates everything that is profound and powerful and beautiful about me, and physics too. It explains why I'm so hot, but also why time goes forward and why there's a past and a future. Entropy – that's something as well, a gradual decline to disorder, like my hair in the wind. I'm now in the Namibian desert, wearing an apple-green T-shirt. And some kind of technical neoprene hoodie. For a moment, you thought you understood what I was talking about didn't you; you thought, you got it? Maybe you did, or perhaps you just got me, you'd fallen under my spell. Here's another enormous number, even bigger this time. A billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion. Amazing, isn't it? It won't last, nothing does. Things Can Only Get Better, someone once sang, naively. Because things can only get worse. The most profound consequence of the arrow of time will be when the cosmos cannot get any more disorderly, it will eventually fade and die. Nothing will happen, and it will keep on (not) happening, for ever. A final thought: here's me, on the beach, at sunset.

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 23, 2011, 12:47:20 PM
Final part of the series I think this weekend.

Quote from: Professor Brian Cox link=topic=18260.msg184200#msg184200
Hi, I'm Professor Brian Cox, I'm one of the Wonders of the Universe. Here I am, on top of a mountain, triumphant in outdoor clothing. Why are we here? Where do we come from? These are the most enduring of questions. And why is it that you are a little bit ...in love with me? Is it my enormous mind? Or my boyish good looks, the NME hair, the expansive wardrobe coupled with exotic locations, the soft modest enthusiasm with just a hint of Lancashire, the winning smile . . . this winning smile – ah, that's got you, hasn't it? Look how proudly I stand, while the helicopter circles. I've conquered this mountain, just as I'm conquering your heart. Now I'm somewhere else, in a cream-coloured safari anorak and stonewashed jeans, in front of the sun, bathed in light and glory. I am the golden boy, the sun god, I am the sun. Now I'm staring out to sea, in an aubergine T-shirt, thinking big thoughts. And very big numbers. A billion billion billion billion billion billion. That big. Look, I'll write it in the sand, to show you how massive my number is. It's all about the vast sweep of cosmic time and astrophysics. And turtles. As the story of time unfolds, a fundamental truth is revealed: nothing lasts for ever. Now I'm back in Gore-Tex, by Berghaus, with a Patagonian glacier as backdrop. And posing next to a picture of the death of a star. The death of one star, the birth of another – that's me. Because time goes only one way, the arrow of time says the future, like my clothes, will always be different. The second law of thermodynamics demonstrates everything that is profound and powerful and beautiful about me, and physics too. It explains why I'm so hot, but also why time goes forward and why there's a past and a future. Entropy – that's something as well, a gradual decline to disorder, like my hair in the wind. I'm now in the Namibian desert, wearing an apple-green T-shirt. And some kind of technical neoprene hoodie. For a moment, you thought you understood what I was talking about didn't you; you thought, you got it? Maybe you did, or perhaps you just got me, you'd fallen under my spell. Here's another enormous number, even bigger this time. A billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion. Amazing, isn't it? It won't last, nothing does. Things Can Only Get Better, someone once sang, naively. Because things can only get worse. The most profound consequence of the arrow of time will be when the cosmos cannot get any more disorderly, it will eventually fade and die. Nothing will happen, and it will keep on (not) happening, for ever. A final thought: here's me, on the beach, at sunset.

YES!! Absolutely love this!

Carl Sagan COSMOS



He did this kinda thing in the late seventies.  Rocked then.  Still rocks now.  Some of his "hypotheses" even came true. Talk about a 'benchmark' scientist.

BBC version = amateur piffle.

Just watch the last part and found the series as a whole very interesting