Well <meta>, even if you believe so, you have never inflicted such a kind of a <red-face> on me. Way back, I think <alexmagnus> did it, but I don't remember the exact details of that anymore.

I don't know why you assume a priori that your arguments have been sound toward me, and why you think you are so good at logic. If your friends and colleagues think so, I find it highly likely that both <frog> and my own skills in that respect, are way above your reference group.

When I tried clicking on the first link you gave, it didn't show any of my posts. Then I emptied my ignore filter and this post appeared to my surprise [1]:

<Aug-05-08 zarg: <metatron2>

Just a short reply.

I assume <all outcomes have a significant probability>, was a fancy way to say <no outcome would be highly surprising>.

In this context, it doesn't matter if there is a significant difference between e.g. 1/36 and 1/9.>

On that occasion, I agreed more with <Bureaucrat> than with you. As I saw it, <B> statements didn't strictly imply what you took it for. I don't see why you think that exchange, somehow would generate embarrassment on my part really. English isn't my first language, and I have no illusions regarding my languages skills, they have always been a weakness. What is your first language <meta>?

I don't, but since I have spammed your forum... I could provide some thoughts. :)

Human intuition works very badly when it comes to probability, and basic mistakes and misunderstandings are made all the time. How many know what e.g. deterministic, non-deterministic, complexity and randomness really is?

Assume you have a RNG source, which is supposed to output 1 and 0 at equal probability. Then consider these two binary sequences (I made the second sequence by coin flipping):

1st: 111111111
2nd: 011000100

which one is more "random"?

The (perhaps not so) obvious answer is that they are <equal probable>. Next, if you try making statistical arguments on a short binary sequence, that's just pointless nonsense. IF having a long sequence, like e.g. 20,000 bits, THEN it makes more sense, but you can <never> prove if such a sequence comes from a faulty generator.

Ehh.. <alex> it's just in math you <prove> things, in other parts of science we <reject> our models when they are inconsistent or doesn't describe nature.

So, we can't prove that, just like we can't prove a source is non-random. All we can do, is to run statistical tests on a source, and see if it's output is like we expect from a <True> RNG. But we have PRNG like Mersenne Twister, which I assume pass all kinds of statistical tests for randomness, but are very deterministic and useless for crypto. Blum Blum Shub is better for crypto, while MT is better for Monte Carlo.

People say that QM process like e.g. radioactive decay is a TRNG, but it don't have to be. It can be that it's a complex underlying state and mechanism we don't know about yet, and given this info we could picture it being deterministic instead.

However, QM is a very successful probabilistic theory, and coming up with something better would be hard, extremely hard. Einstein tried his best to reject it, but failed big time, all the paradoxes was sorted out.

If an axiomatic system can be proven to be consistent and complete from within itself, then it is inconsistent.

<But who said it should b proven within itself?>

speed of light in vacuum is a constant

the rest is math. I can't see what's so ugly about that! The exercises you can do are fun and challenging. The results happens to tell something about <nature>, only if "the axiom" hold. This theory couldn't even be tested for many years after it arrived...

When it comes to quantum field theory, I think it's the most stringent tested theory in science, where agreement between theory and experiment are within ten parts in a billion. See e.g. <electron anomalous magnetic dipole moment>.

Hence, we use these theoretical models to predict things about nature, amazing things. Even if we can't <prove> these models to be a correct, <within the model, it's just math man>.

<That's what I hate about other sciences>

Actually constancy alone dosn't imply SRT. Maximality does. It is this assumption of maximality which makes light something absolute and lets it define time and space.

Huh? Back in the old days, that was the "assumption" made. Maximality, what is that supposed to mean??

Impossible? Who say so?

I have not looked into the details of that <light in caesium> experiment.

Faster than light (FTL) has some mind blowing consequences, the most dramatic, is that it will break the <Causality principle>.

Effect happen <before> the <cause> of it. That is, picture throwing a "ball", if it goes at FTL speed, it will hit target before being thrown.

Well, I can't see how that Encyclopaedia quote can be correct. Photons have energy, and as such they <do> carry information!

If a particle/wave can have multiple physical states, that's information. If this experiment of yours can't carry information, that smells big time and we need to review the experiment. My guess is that this experiment isn't FTL, could be related to how you use <wave velocity>.

I have looked it up and found a link which appears to explain what is going on with that experiment. Point is that <wave group velocity> and <wave phase velocity> isn't the same:

<Hence, not only is the phase velocity generally greater than c, it approaches infinity as w approaches the cutoff frequency w0. However, the speed at which information and energy actually propagates down a waveguide is the group velocity, which (as we've seen) is given by dw/dk.>

http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath...

It's the velocity of the physical state that matters, and to my mind the <causality principle> wasn't broken by this experiment. Back when I did SR classes, I remember doing some exercises on FTL, one was where we calculated the speed of a <shadow point> to be above c. That was no problem, since it's a mathematical point, hence it <carried no physical state> and broke no physical principles.

I once thought about what happens if one travels to the past. I got four models, three of them break the causality and one doesn't. For all four just let's assume I travel to a certain place in the year 2000. What happens?

Scenario 1) the only one which doesn't break causality: I simply re-experience everything I experienced as a 13-year-old - and cannot influence it. This outcome has an interesting consequence btw - it would mean that everything is pre-determined - determinism in its <pure> form!

Models which break causality:

Scenario 2) I appear at the same place where I was at 13 and can influence the events. BTW one could still hold causality here - assuming infinitely many parallel times/futures.

Scenario 3) A copy of myself at 13 appears there - i.e. a meeting between two versions of a 13-year-old me is possible. Of course that would completely change the course of events. Here holding the causality is impossible - at least I can't come up with any construction.

Scenario 4)The adult myself appears in 2000. A meeting between adult me and 13-year-old me is possible. This entirely fictional scenario is the least probable. But as I said - nothing is proven in physics, so who knows?