Though I guess they could argue that once it is put under rigorous testing, the conditions change, and it don't happen the same way, or whatever. Kind of like Maxwell's hammer ... if you know that science analogy (which the atheists probably don't--ya I take shots at atheists, why not, they take shots all time then get upset when somebody pokes holes in their weak claims ........ THX)

Maxwell's hammer, ya, atheists look it up ... it's Quantum mechanics ok ... something you don't know from an antenna ball.

How they know he used the acid for that? How they know somebody doesn't have a gripe and makes stuff up. Just cuz it's in a book doesn't mean it's credible. Lots of books come out making weakly-supported claims--in fact IT'S AN INDUSTRY--make a weakly-supported but controversial claim and you got yerself a be$t-$eller.

Like that book claiming that Jack the Ripper was the painter uhm ... Walter Sickert ... even titled it 'case closed.' It was a very popular book! It included DNA tests trying to link the Ripper letters to Sickert letters.

Most people now consider the book one step away from a hoax. See, problem is the Ripper letters were hoaxes ... they were not written by the killer. And the claim that poses in some of the paintings looked similar to crime scenes is laughable. His friendship with Whistler came to an end, so he went on a killing spree... I mean, really, talk about a reach. How many people think it was Sickert from this book? How many read the book? How many questioned it? How many people believe it after hearing about the book? Same here, how many people think he used acid just cuz they heard of the book??

Exactly ......

I think you're confusing Maxwell's equations with Maxwell's Silver Hammer by the Beatles.

Ha ha! .... What I'm referring to is the idea that if you measure something you change it, so you can never know all about it. And I dunno, I saw it illustrated in a book, as a paradox, with a little person and a hammer ...

Oh wait, there's Maxwell's Demon. Not the same, though. That's entropy.

Then in Schrodinger's Cat Paradox, where they use a hammer to smash the jar.

Schrodinger's Cat Paradox states that, since we don't know the outcome of the experiment, there is actually two outcomes and until the experiment is carried out both outcomes are simutaineously correct and incorrect.

What you were talking about was the either observer effect, called simply that, or the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle. For the observer effect it's not just measuring it that changes it, its the observation (or even the chance that it is observable). It's usually cited with Schrodingers Cat because it says there are two outcomes that depend entirely on the observer.

Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle says that measuring something effects the precision of which something else is measured. The state isn't actually changed as it is in the observer effect.

Ya I knew it was called that ... I called it Maxwell's hammer cuz, like I said, I saw an illustration in a book that called it that, they used a little person with a hammer in amongst the atoms ... but I shouldn't go around referring to it like that cuz I don't see it referred to as that anywhere else.

I do see Maxwell's Demon though ... so his name has been used for a paradox, just not this one ...

Admit though you looked those up, at least to refresh yer memory ...

So are you an atheist? An atheist that knows science? Can it be true?

I looked them up to make sure my mind hadn't switched them around and to get the proper spelling of Heisenburg, and I looked up Maxwell's Hammer because I'd never heard of it before. It's helped that I just finished a book on the Superstring Theory that went off on tangents.

But yeah, I'm an athiest. I figure that I should justify my beliefs as much as possible, as most people do with other religions, and athiesm is (for me) based on science. Granted, science doesn't always disprove the existence of God, but I prefer explanations that include viable experiments and theories rather than being traced back to a guy who created himself.

Does anyone here know the effect carbolic acid has on someone? I'm pretty sure it's pretty weak, which would explain how it apparantly healed before his death. I also know it smells sweet and that the blood from Padre Pio's wounds were described as smelling flowery.

Ya but you gotta tell it with the cat. A cat is in a box, and there's also a Geiger counter, and a tiny bit of uranium. If an atom decays the Geiger counter sets off a hammer that breaks a jar in which is poison gas.

After an hour, say, there's an equal chance an atom decayed as not. So there's half chance the cat is alive, half chance it is dead (aw, poor kitty!). But QM expresses it as both the live cat and dead cat mixed in equal parts. So until the box is opened and observed, the cat is both dead and alive. Ya!

It's interesting cuz normally the QM indeterminancy is for the atom, but thru this problem, by including the atom and the cat, it is related to larger things ...

Now I gotta re-read about Maxwell's Demon .....