Science & Math discussion thread

Why on earth was my thread locked over in the Natural Sciences section? Or, if I’m being honest, how can someone even hold a moderator position when they provide justifications quite like those?

I’m struggling to see what exactly qualifies as "obvious" about a response like that. Honestly, I can't tell if you're implying my question should have been simple enough for a twelve-year-old to grasp, but if that's your stance, please, by all means, enlighten me. 🤷

To be perfectly blunt, I couldn't care less about the rest of it; my only real interest lies in understanding the specific reasoning behind why the thread was shut down in the first place. I simply don't have the bandwidth to dwell on anything else. What I received wasn't an explanation, it was just a closure. If topics can just be shuttered at random without any actual justification provided, then I fail to see the point of this entire forum.

hollowtrucker77 said:this thread is being shut down because it’s just plain stupid and boring, honestly sitting at about a sixth-grader's level of comprehension
yeah, threads can be closed without any formal explanation, especially when the reason is staring you right in the face, though in this specific instance, the thread was actually closed with an explanation provided

Who exactly is she being stupid and boring to? If that’s how you feel, then why bother participating at all? It isn't like anyone is forcing your hand, nor is anyone dragging the moderator into this by forcing them to lock the thread. Look, if there are enough people on this forum who actually find the topic worth discussing—which, let me tell you, is abundantly clear to me—then that alone should be more than enough reason to keep the conversation going instead of shutting it down.

The thread is being locked because it’s stupid and boring, basically at the level of a 12-year-old's knowledge.

Oh, please, based on what criteria? How on earth would a 12-year-old even grasp the underlying REASONS behind such a fact? We aren't debating whether the statement itself is true; we are discussing the causality behind it. That is a distinction that apparently even people well beyond the age of 12 struggle to make.🤷

Take Richard Feynman (that Nobel Prize winner in physics from, I believe, about eleven years ago) who once remarked:

Free motion has no obvious cause. Why bodies are capable of flying forever in a straight line, we simply do not know. In its very essence, the law of inertia remains a mystery.

I truly fail to see what is so controversial about simply posing a question.

And no, the topic isn't closed just because you provided this explanation:

I’ve had enough mental exhaustion on this subforum, and that is precisely why this thread is going under lock and key.

Look, I really don't want to resort to ad hominem attacks here, but if that is how you explain things to people, then you’re being quite primitive. (And I mean that in a general sense regarding that style of "explanation"—I’m not trying to insult you personally, as I find it hard to believe that’s actually how you think)

hollowtrucker77 said:this thread is being shut down because it’s just plain stupid and boring, honestly sitting at about a sixth-grader's level of comprehension
yeah, threads can be closed without any formal explanation, especially when the reason is staring you right in the face, though in this specific instance, the thread was actually closed with an explanation provided

Assuming you're actually over 12 (not that I know for sure). You wanna try answering the question in the thread? 🙂

As for this whole thing, looks like some admins have started a trend across the forum. Nice 🙂

Here is a perfect example of a twelve-year-old coming at us with "stupid and boring questions," specifically targeting something as fundamental as the law of inertia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgAQV...eature=related. Honestly, trying to dismiss an argument by labeling it "stupid and boring" is just incredibly low-brow. It truly baffles me how someone can step into a moderator role without having the slightest grasp of what constitutes a valid argument. It’s quite a mess; instead of having an open discussion, I find myself wasting my breath trying to explain why this isn't "stupid," especially since the moderator, Timothy Jackson2, actually managed to pick a topic worth closing amidst a sea of genuinely nonsensical threads
.
I’m curious, hollowtrucker77, do you actually mean it when you claim this topic is "boring"? Because if that’s your stance, I fail to see how that has anything to do with the reasons Timothy Jackson2 gave—reasons that strike me as a blatant display of moderator overreach and poor etiquette. Besides, for someone like Dennis Rogers6, this topic clearly isn't boring at all. Who exactly gets to be the arbiter of whether a thread should be locked based purely on a subjective sense of boredom? Is there some official handbook that covers that particular rule?

The whole point of this forum evaporates if we have to appeal to the PŽK every single time a decision needs defending. From any reasonable perspective, the thread in question is perfectly fine. The criteria for relevance shouldn't hinge on whether someone finds a subject tedious or dim-witted. I mean, plenty of people find mathematics boring and stupid, but we don't exactly label them as geniuses, do we? It seems we're facing a similar situation here
.
And don't even get me started on that comment regarding the twelve-year-old's level of knowledge; by that logic, one would have to assume Nobel Prize-winning physicists are operating at a middle-school level whenever they tackle the same concepts. How can anyone even suggest such a thing? Do you even understand the law of inertia? It really makes you wonder who the actual twelve-year-old is in this scenario
.

Look, the answer to the question in this thread isn't exactly trivial. There’s actually a logical point here—a clear principle that explains it all. Besides, if we opened this up, the whole thread would just devolve into a bunch of armchair philosophers trying to out-intellectualize each other, and honestly? You could find the answer online in about five seconds anyway...

Beyond the fact that the answer isn't exactly trivial—and frankly, yours isn't even correct to begin with—the question itself is perfectly straightforward. Has anyone here, whether they're a regular participant or a moderator, actually stepped up to claim the question was too broad? You really need to pick a lane regarding why this thread was shut down. Is it because it’s nonsensical, just plain boring, or supposedly too general? It seems to me you've backed yourself into a bit of a corner; since nobody actually knows the real reason for the lockout, you're left frantically trying to justify someone else's call without any actual ground to stand on. If there were a legitimate basis for it, the moderator would have provided an explanation.

And no, Joseph Watson3 wasn't calling the topic "philosophical"; he was making a wry remark about the "resident philosophers" among us forum users. So, the only valid critique here is whether the subject matter itself is relevant. Locking a thread just because someone *might* start philosophizing is a pretty absurd concept; if that were the case, a moderator should step in and steer the conversation when it happens, rather than just pulling the plug on the whole discussion prematurely.

you have to realize that you're the only one who actually knows what's going on inside your own head, whereas everyone else is just reading the words on the screen.

What part of the question is unclear? You're the only one grasping at that particular argument. To everyone else, everything is perfectly clear. 🤷

Look, I just gave you my take on how things look from where I’m sitting
Whatever the deal is, I assume the PZ mods will weigh in with the specifics if they feel the need to
I’m just trying to explain this from a high-level, bird's-eye view rather than acting like I’ve got my hands dirty in the middle of it all
Anyway, what would your answer be here?
If an object is already in motion and no external force acts upon it, it’s going to keep moving in that same direction at that same speed, plain and simple
We can sit here and debate whether we want to call that inertia or energy conservation—since, you know, changing states requires energy—but that doesn't change the fact that the way the question was phrased is just fundamentally flawed

So, in your view, what would the actual answer be?
An object in motion stays in motion, traveling in a straight line at a constant velocity, provided no external force acts upon it.
We can debate whether we’re talking about inertia or perhaps conservation of energy—from the perspective that change itself requires an input of energy—but honestly, that doesn't change the fact that the premise of this whole discussion is fundamentally flawed.

If I actually had the answer, I wouldn't be opening a thread to ask for it. And regarding your suggestion about the law of conservation of energy: Newton's law of inertia isn't some mere byproduct of thermodynamics.

I genuinely can't wrap my head around why you'd say the topic "isn't well-posed." It seems perfectly straightforward to me. 🤷

I’m honestly not sure if ironmarlin1 was intentionally posting questionable or just plain silly topics just to give the moderator an excuse to shut things down, but I feel like I need to step in here and defend him:

1) Look, I wouldn't call the question "genius," but why shouldn't he be allowed to ask it? In my view, a thread should only get locked if it devolves into some mindless shouting match, and in this case, the conversation hadn't even really kicked off yet.
2) To me, the question doesn't sound like something a twelve-year-old would ask—and even if it did, what's the big deal? Does that mean ironmarlin1 isn't allowed to start a discussion if he were actually twelve? Even if we were to label this question as "stupid" (which, frankly, I wouldn't do), there are a million questions on the rest of this forum that are way more idiotic, and people answer them all the time without any drama.
3) The way the moderator handled the communication just wasn't professional.

hollowtrucker77 As if I haven't heard this one before, or perhaps more accurately, as if we haven't all been circling this same drain for years...

Now, regarding that second question—it could easily veer into some incredibly advanced territory, but the way the topic was framed felt a bit off, didn't it? It almost felt like it was pitched at an elementary school level, which is a shame because it lacks the depth required for a real discussion. If we're looking at something that basic, I honestly think it would be better to just go straight to the teacher and get the clarity needed from the source.

Does that really suggest we’re looking at an elementary school level of understanding? On what grounds, exactly? If I had chosen to frame it by saying, rather than just moving in a straight line, that one moves via the shortest possible distance within some metric space, would the topic suddenly be considered more sophisticated or easier to grasp? 🤷

Besides, even if you want to argue that this points toward a middle school level of understanding, that hardly seems like a valid reason to shut down the entire discussion.

hollowtrucker77 said:Given how this whole topic was framed, the answer is honestly pretty trivial: it’s just the energy conservation law.
If you actually want a deep dive or some serious analysis, you really need to put forward a specific thesis and give us enough substance to actually debate.

You have to realize that you're the only one who actually knows what you're thinking; everyone else is just reading what's on the screen.
So, if you want this thread to head in a productive direction—and avoid ending up like what Joseph Watson3 wrote, where everything just devolves into aimless philosophy—you need to set some actual parameters.
As for whether a thread stays up or gets tossed out, that's entirely up to the subforum moderators.

Actually, we’re talking about the conservation of momentum here, not energy—because a body can come to a halt or speed up while its total energy stays exactly the same. The law of conservation of momentum is really just a consequence of the homogeneity of space, which... So, we’re back to Emmy Noether’s theorem.

So, momentum is conserved because the laws of physics don't change depending on where you are in space—basically, thanks to spatial homogeneity. That theorem is one of the heavy hitters in classical physics, so no, the answer isn't exactly trivijalan.

The core issue hasn't changed one bit
An object gets set in motion—energy is put into the system—and unless some other force steps in to dump more energy or drain it away, that object is just going to keep on moving

For heaven's sake, what exactly is left to debate here??

Joseph Watson3 said:Actually, we’re talking about the conservation of momentum here, not energy—because a body can come to a halt or speed up while its total energy stays exactly the same. The law of conservation of momentum is really just a consequence of the homogeneity of space, which... So, we’re back to Emmy Noether’s theorem.

So, momentum is conserved because the laws of physics don't change depending on where you are in space—basically, thanks to spatial homogeneity. That theorem is one of the heavy hitters in classical physics, so no, the answer isn't exactly trivijalan.

So, if that’s the case, then what exactly qualifies as a trivial answer?
So, are we actually going to sit here and debate whether an apple tossed into the air is always going to be dragged back down by gravity, or are we just going to pretend that physics is optional today?
You could probably spin the exact same story eighteen different ways if you felt like wasting the breath, but at the end of the day, it’s still the same damn thing—well-known, measured, documented, and theorized to death.

hollowtrucker77, honestly, that little "objection" you’re raising applies to about 90% of the discussions we have over on the PZ forums anyway. Besides, the moderator didn't even cite that as the reason for the decision. I really don't see why you're standing up for such an absurdly foolish way to shut down a thread, especially when it's just going to end up migrating right back here as some even more chaotic off-topic mess. 🤷