COMIC ZONE ON NOW- WITH NEAL ADAMS

[Neal Adams-migration]

Oops. Dark matter, again, very briefly.

 

You have to make matter out of something. If we live in an ocean of dark matter, presumably there is a process to convert it into matter, and then retain it. That is the trick.

 

You either believe all the matter always existed, same amount always, or you believe there was no matter, a little piece was made, another, then another until we have the universe we have today. The next question is, of course, who turned off the 'off switch.'

[shadroch]

hey,Mr Adams

Welcome to the boards.

As yours is the first post I've read in this thread,I have no idea what context you are addressing or answering. Guess I'll have to go read the entire thread to begin to understand what your post is in reference to.

Hope you find this pace as addictive as the rest of us.

Thanks for many,many moments of pleasure,and my lasting gratitude to you for your work in trying to right some of this business's many wrongs.

[Silver Surfer]

Neal welcome aboard. Who wasn't fascinated as a kid with the solar system dinosaurs and comics. Ever read "The Orion Mystery?" This stuff blows my mind.

[Comicfan-migration]

First I must says thanks for the response.

 

Seems we're moving into dark energy again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

(please see the above link)

 

I'm not sure if an accelerating universe is "bad news" to the big bang.

In fact I don't think it is at all.

 

Decelerating would be in a matter-dominated universe. Right?

The latest finding from WMAP shows that our universe 4% matter 23% unknown matter and 73% dark energy.

I think you would enjoy this site

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/

 

Right now the most popular alternative to cosmic inflation ( but does overlap in some areas) is Brane cosmology.

That brings in string theory and other headhurting stuff. In a nutshell they say the universe was riding on a larger dimensional plane, it collided with another "brane" causing hot matter and radiation. This might help with the origin of the big bang. Hawking has another cool idea also.

 

 

 

"As for What force pushes subduction then?"

 

See sources of plate motion I think this might help

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#Sources_of_plate_motion

 

Can I ask a quick fan question? Did you have a favorite comic story? Not just one you did, but any story?

[Batfiend-migration]

Geez are the board regulars going to be sad that they missed this. The levels that they normally go to for a circle jerk for lesser comicdom deities as Steve Borock or Captain Tripps or some other BSD would pale into comparison for Neal Adams. There would be a need for a change of underwear all around and sphincter's would be puckering and unpuckering in anticipation.

 

Then the procession would start with the true forum heavyweights appearing to pay their respects. Mr Adams, if you were truly lucky you would be regaled by the likes of Fantastic Fisting Bozo who would probably enagage you in his "you did not/I did so debating style" that would fill pages and pages before wimpering out with a screw you phrase, Krazy Kat would then suddenly appear to offer you 10 million dollars for any original art covers that you may have (although he will advise you that he owns more than 80% of them already), don't try and follow any of his economics as it is more philosophical than Keynseinist. Joe_Collector will probably berate you for ripping off the whole comic world with your continuity debacle and then end by saying that he predicts that the whole Adams back issue market is going to tank this year. As a brief respite from all this intellectually stimulating banter Redhook will post 30 photos of you in humurous and emabarrassing ways, he will probably be able to show you in a diving suit on the bottom of the sea checking out the earth's crust or something similar.

 

Then to top it all off our own I AM DEVINE would come on and tell you how he has every copy of every DC comic that has ever been produced and how he was the first and how he knows more about it than you do. Don't be disheartened when you can't answer any of the questions around your own run of Bat books as I AM is not of this world if you get my drift.

 

Having said all that, you will get responses to your scientific postings and generally from people who have no idea what they are talking about but will fight tooth and nail to defend the undefendable.

 

Welcome to the boards.

[Aman619]

 

nicely done.... but dont scare away Neal!!!

[Joanna]

Fascinating thread. There have, throughout history, been people who were not recognized by the scientific community who still managed to make some earth-shaking discoveries.

 

Take John Harrison. In his day, the biggest "prize" in science was finding a way to predict longitude. They'd had a way to predict latitude for quite awhile, but longitude was much trickier. All the biggest mnds in science were working on it, including the biggest of the big-shots, Sir Isaac Newton. The accepted theory was that the answer would be in the stars.

 

John Harrison was a clock maker, a nobody. But he predicted that the way to find longitude was connected to time. If one could make an accurate, portable clock, that could withstand the violent motions of a ship at sea, and if one knew GMT and the time where one was at sea, then one could predict longitude. Using his clock-making skills, and a few decades of experimenetation, he became the first man to accurately predict longitude. As he worked on this, the scientific community ignored him, denigrated him, lambasted him, and so on. The stars were the only answer. So imagine their shock when his clock theory worked.

 

Eventually, his discovery was accepted. It took a decree from the King of England for it to happen, but John Harrison became the man who discovered the means to predict longitude. A nobody clock-maker.

 

Why can't a comic book artist have a theory? I don't know enough about his theory to know its merits, and I've spent a lifetime believing in the big bang and pangea, but then, I also grew up thinking of modern humans as offshoots of Neanderthals, something that has since been fairly well disproven through DNA.

 

I have a good friend who is originally from Russia. Her father, Igor Novikov , is a world-reknowned astrophysicist. He has theories about the nature of time which are astonishing. He is also one of the foremost authorities on black holes. His friends are people like Stephen Hawking. Even with that pedigree, he has had some difficulties within the scientific community because of his time theories. (One of my prized possessions is a copy of his book, "The River of Time", personally autographed to me. I did him a favor once, helping rewrite a US visa application, at the behest of his daughter. I felt privelaged to be able to help someone like that come to America, to share his genius here).

 

Original thinkers aren't always right, but sometimes, they just might be.

 

-- Joanna

[FFB]

Hey Bug, when are you going to pay FD the $50 you owe him?

[Red Hook]

I really miss Carl Sagan. And threads like this really make me miss Carl Sagan.

[Sal]

one - if we're going to pick a scientist who was reviled as a crackpot, the only really acceptable answer isn't Einstein, it's Tesla.

 

two - welcome to the boards.

 

three - i really thought Armor was quite good.

[shrunkenhead]

I really miss Carl Sagan. And threads like this really make me miss Carl Sagan.

 

Hey Red, familiar with James Randi? You might get a kick out of his books, as he works in the same tradition as Sagan's Demon Haunted World. I informally interviewed this guy awhile back, and he was a real trip. He's a former escape artist/illusionist who now makes a living busting the crackpots (everything from psychics to faith healers). Flim-Flam and The Faith Healers are probably his two best books.

 

He also has a one million dollar offer on the table for anyone who can demonstrate real paranormal ability.

 

Check it out! Link below:

 

http://www.randi.org/

[Red Hook]

The Amazing Randi? Love him! Seen him on tv a number of times......

 

It just seems a shame that when our schools are being broadsided by the creationists trying to push their religious agenda into the classroom, and trying to take Darwin prisoner in the process, that more energy isn't put into promoting and defending pure hard science.

 

But hey, Adams is under no more obligation to carry any particular ideological torch than say, the guy sitting in the back booth of the local bar mumbling to himself. The only reason anyone is giving Adam's theories two seconds of reflection.....is because he drew a mean Batman. That's the only reason. It's not because of the veracity or originality of the ideas.

 

Brad

[Michael Netzer]

It just seems a shame that when our schools are being broadsided by the creationists trying to push their religious agenda into the classroom, and trying to take Darwin prisoner in the process, that more energy isn't put into promoting and defending pure hard science.

 

I love the way such generalizations are made. As if religionists and creationists are all the same. And as if all science is pure and hard. It's like pushing a couple of brainless wrestlers into a ring and ringing the bell.

 

The only reason anyone is giving Adam's theories two seconds of reflection.....is because he drew a mean Batman. That's the only reason. It's not because of the veracity or originality of the ideas.

 

I'm sure all the hard and pure scientists feel better now that they know this. They should, though, knowing how miserably boring their self imposed meaningless existence must feel to them.

 

Crackpots are geniuses who make screwball ideas work. Without them, the pretentiously sane would only propogate creative stagnation and boredom beyond bearing.

[Red Hook]

Uh, excuse me, but creationsists do have a religious agenda. Your analogy to wrestling is in fact pretty brainless and is meaningless. I love listening to the home-schooled. I do not expect you or Adams to be breaking any new ground other than in the area of self-aggrandisement and yes, boring the rest of us to death.

[shrunkenhead]

 

I'm sure all the hard and pure scientists feel better now that they know this. They should, though, knowing how miserably boring their self imposed meaningless existence must feel to them.

 

 

Michael,

 

Yes, it's true that the "rules" of science are not always "hard and pure" and that the borders between science and less "hard" areas of inquiry are often quite tenuous (lest we forget that much of Newton's work in chemistry was alchemical in nature).

 

You can also make a case that the academic community has sought to maintain a very firm hold on the production of knowledge and its dispersal through language, (although Foucault makes this argument a heckuva lot better than you do....no need to read him, though, since he's an academic).

 

BUT...

 

You kill your own cause by denying that there are other people in the world who just might know better than you. I mean, look at your quote above. "Miserably boring?" "Self imposed meaningless existence?" What the hell is this? I simply resent this kind of anti-academic hostility that's propogated completely without basis and solely to further some "cause.' Look, most of the "Crackpots" that you're talking about---by your own definition----grow up to be academics.

 

I see the same stuff on Neal's site. Here's a few anti-academic quotes that I cut and paste from Neal's comments after 10 minutes of searching. I'm sure I missed a few gems, but here's what a fairly quick glance got me:

 

"I've got my hands full explaining how the universe works

to our backward thinking scientific community.."

 

"Please invite your geology teacher to view my website videos.

He will certainly be entertained. If he has a partially open mind, he will be surprised."

 

"We want to think all those brilliant scientists are talking down to us for our own good and trying not to use those big words and that bothersome Latin because we'll just suck our thumbs and be stupid and ignorant and start crying."

 

"You are defending a preposterous theory simply because your elders taught it to you… and the Sun goes around the Earth."

 

At best, this kind of rhetoric is downright insulting. At worst, it's completely wrongheaded. Where can statements like these take us? Why must we denigrate those who devote their lives to the problems that others have so easily "figured out"? Like I said, you kill your own cause, because this kind of preamble is not the road towards discussion. Instead, you're fostering a shouting match, one that hopes to displace veracity with vocality. In that regards, Hook's comparsion between this discussion and the current creationist debacle in our public schools is right on target.

 

And I feel Brad's pain. It irks me too that criticism of Neal's theory seems to many to be a way to "kill a dream" or "be close minded" or whatever else. But of course, it's ok for proponents of Neal's theory to blatantly bash the academic community. After all, what do they know.

[OldGuy]

self-aggrandisement and yes, boring the rest of us to death.

 

 

That about sums it up.

[goldust40]

Sorry Mike, but the guys are right here. If this is the best you can do, then it does neatly sum up your mindset. You shot yourself in the foot with this petulant quote.

 

I'm sure all the hard and pure scientists feel better now that they know this. They should, though, knowing how miserably boring their self imposed meaningless existence must feel to them.

[october]

 

I love the way such generalizations are made. As if religionists and creationists are all the same. And as if all science is pure and hard. It's like pushing a couple of brainless wrestlers into a ring and ringing the bell.

 

I'm sure all the hard and pure scientists feel better now that they know this. They should, though, knowing how miserably boring their self imposed meaningless existence must feel to them.

 

Crackpots are geniuses who make screwball ideas work. Without them, the pretentiously sane would only propogate creative stagnation and boredom beyond bearing.

 

I don't think I have ever read a more ironic post. You bash those who make "generalizations" and then promptly follow with your own. I hope for your sake it was intentional.

[Aman619]

hey - - great post!

 

Youre right, the popular (mis) conception i sthat Einstein was a dumb math-failing loser until he suddenly got smart. The archetypical "you never know" Sad Sack story of hidden potential. But as your AE bio conveys, he was a prodigy from early on even if he did fail whatever math class the story talks about. (if it was even true!)

[Sal]

"pretentiously sane?"

 

was ist?