/sci/ - Science & Math

Just ask what he thinks a black hole is.
He probably has some kind of horrible misconception

Yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Observational_evidence

>>5402091

>tfw OP runs to his daddy to say wikipedia says black holes are real and he gets even more buttpained when his dad insults wikipedia since everyone can edit it

Ask yourself why you're doing this OP. Are you doing it for science or to prove your dad wrong? Probably the latter.

There's a super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

>>5402100
Well yes i just need an easy way to show my dad he's wrong, that's the point of the thread

>>5402121
God damn it why can't I read "supermassive black hole" without singing the muse song in my head

>>5402121
yeah we were watching a documentary just about that. he just goes "scientists can make up whatever they want and we're just told to believe it"

he is right, nobody has seen a black hole with his own eyes not using biased telescopes by biased atheist scientists

>>5402121

have you seen it ?

nope

then you are wrong by saying you know that

some liberal atheist scientist made you believe that

>>5402137
Were you dumbfounded? How could you not bring up instruments and data?

>>5402158
>Were you dumbfounded? How could you not bring up instruments and data?

>implying instruments and data are not invented by biased liberal atheistic scientists

is all made up and you cannot prove im wrong

>>5402158
I did. The documentary also did.

>>5402139
we can observe the gravitational effects on starts at the center of the Milky Way and conclude that there is a supper massive object at the center. However when we look where this object should be, we see nothing of interest, only a star that is dimmer than all the other stars around it.

>>5402177

do you have the hubble in your house?

no

then the info you get is biased by biased liberal atheist scientists

>>5402184
shut up dad

The great thing about science is that it doesn't matter what someones 'beliefs' are on a subject, as that means sweet fuck all difference to its reality.

There are far more cogent arguments for the existence of black holes than there are for its non-existence.

This is literally as pointless and stupid as saying 'I don't believe in gravity'

No

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
- Carl Sagan

>>5402216
No to what?
There is evidence of black holes.

>>5402221
0/10

Einstein didn't believe in black holes either, if you're asking us it means you don't know either and until you understand how black holes work it's just an assumption you're making that they exist yeah I'm sorry

OP is an example of the problem with current education.

Instead of become learned in the subject he is interested in, he wants someone to give him a factoid so he can "win" an argument.

>>5402132

why cant people say supermassive black hole without bringing that shitty band up?

>>5402223
He has a point. If you say you believe in something essential because of an appeal to authority you are basically no better than a religious person relying on faith.

>>5402237
This is to disregard all sources on the matter, an extreme empirical viewpoint.

I've never seen america in real life, therefore I don't 'belief' it exists hurr durr

>>5402077
Ask him to explain http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/exotic/black-hole/2012/18/ without using black holes

>>5402228
>he wants someone to give him a factoid so he can "win" an argument.

Oh boy. YES. That is the whole point.

I've watched documentaries and read a lot about black holes. I know how we know they exist.
The problem is my dad still refuses to believe in them despite all the explanation and the evidence.
It's a "how can we trust science" thing, not "it doesn't make sense to me" thing.

My question was: is there some direct evidence for black holes that a non-scientist would easily comprehend and accept as true?

I guess i could go and look for it myself but it's faster if someone here can tell me right away.

>>5402220
OP doesn't have evidence, and neither OP nor his dad can understand the evidence, therefore neither of them has a good reason to "believe in black holes."

You shouldn't assert something as scientific fact unless you can understand the data (and the instrument that measured the data) well enough to reach the same conclusion yourself. Hence, your dad is right. If you don't understand the evidence for black holes well enough to convincingly teach it to someone else, then for all you know, it IS made up, and you ARE being fooled by liberal atheist scientists. You don't know that black holes exist unless you know how and why people came to believe that they exist in the first place, and you also agree with their methods.

That said, it doesn't mean you should despair or give up! Instead, it's your chance to learn! For instance, you could learn about Kepler's laws, make the observations that allow you to confirm them (watch the skies, learn how to to tell the planets from the stars, etc.). Then, comparing what you've learned to pic related, you could see how a black hole at the center of a galaxy explains the motion of the stars you see in this image. If you really wanted to prove something to your dad, you'd do all this with him, together.

EDIT: File is too big to upload so fuck it, here's a link to it:
http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2002/11/18/0001180943/movie2002.gif

>>5402259
You assert that you understand enough to convince yourself that black holes exist. If it doesn't convince your father, then I think you're relying a little too much on "blind faith" yourself. You should be able to prove (or at least support and confirm) the existence of black holes by building up only from basic principles--what you can see with your own eyes. There are experiments and observations you can do by yourself that will, piecemeal, confirm almost everything you know about science and astronomy. You'll have a little more trouble with quantum and relativistic physics, but once you can convincingly explain the relationship between math and physical science, you can use that math to understand those things as well.

>>5402258
yes, finally. thanks anon, that is actually useful.

>OH LOOK AT ME, I'M GOING OUT OF MY WAY TO PROVE TO MY DAD THAT I KNOW BETTER THAN HIM EVEN THOUGH I SPEND MY TIME POSTING ANONYMOUSLY ON THE INTERNET WHERE I CAN AVOID THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING AN ACTUAL HUMAN BEING

>>5402250
Poor example. You can look at maps, talk to people, find evidence, etc.

A black hole is not an intuitive thing. If you do not know anything about them yet believe in their existence because some science dude said so you aren't better than someone who believes that science dude.

>>5402273
>If it doesn't convince your father, then I think you're relying a little too much on "blind faith" yourself

Look i'm not going to become an astrophysicist just to convince my father that scientist are not trolling everyone making up things.
I'm not a genius, i don't understand everything about how we study black holes and how they work. I've studied a bit and the stuff i understand makes sense to me. I trust scientists who study black holes know what they're talking about. Is that "blind faith"?

>>5402283
It's porbably more like:
>Why is my dad being retarded? He's DAD, dad's are not supposed to be this retarded. I have to do something to make him realize his he's failing to be a dad.

>>5402301
>OH LOOK AT ME, I CAN FORM OPINIONS OF HOW MUCH OF A FAILURE OF A FATHER MY FATHER IS WITHOUT APPLYING THE SAME ASSESSMENT TO MY SHORTCOMINGS AS A SON

>>5402301
Yep.
It's not that i'm ignorant and i don't know anything about black holes.
It's just that my dad is being thick.

>>5402298
Then you're no different from someone who has read a few bible passages and thinks things like "the ten commandments are pretty good rules to follow" and "it makes sense that god would reward good people and punish unrepentant sinners," and who "trusts" his minister to know "the way."

It's not necessarily a bad way to live your life--if you really want to "know" something, if you want to prove it yourself and to everyone else, then you should aim for a PhD in your field, but of course there's no way everyone can do that. 99.9% of people have more pressing concerns to be worried about (like their jobs), so having a "belief system" (as you do) will help them make decisions and feel greater mental comfort without having to give up their ways of life.

That said, coming here asking for justification for living your comfortable life the way you choose to is not something we have much sympathy for, and that's why you're getting a lot of criticism.

>>5402305
You can't apply Dad Qualification Assesments and Son Qualification Assesments on the same object.

>>5402315
He is asking you to help explain how logic is required to be able to 'just werk' to his dad so that he understands why scientists are generally not full of shit.

>>5402315
ssssssooo if your doctor says you have a tumor, the first thing that comes to your mind is "i gotta become an oncologist asap to check if this is true"?

>asking for justification for living your comfortable life the way you choose

Is- is this real life?
I just asked for direct evidence of black holes.

This board is weird, i'm outta here. I got what i needed anyway.

>>5402287
>You can look at maps, talk to people, find evidence, etc.

maps are made by people so that's a null point. You can also talk to people to find out about the existence of black holes, just like you could america. You can also find evidence for both also

>>5402323
No, like I said, there's nothing wrong with believing the oncologist who tells you you have cancer. And if his treatment happens to cure your cancer, you can even take that as direct evidence that his methods were correct! (Of course, the same could also be said for say, praying that the evil spirits possessing you would go away.)

But what you're doing isn't "believing," it's trying to convert someone else to your belief (and asking us to help you justify that).

show him on the space engine

to be honest I too am not convinced that such objects exist or matter much at all

>>5402335
overly skeptical much?

I believe in things that make sense to me and have empirical evidence supporting them.
I believe in them not as in "that's cool so i decide to think that's true", but as in "that makes sense and evidence shows it's true, so it is true"

Do i do the research myself? Of course not. I have neither the skills nor the time.

It's pretty simple. I listen to other people's claims, and if they can prove that what they're saying is correct, i accept it as fact.

>>5402335
What if your dad has the tumor and he doesnt trust the oncologist, thus, he wont accept the treatment before being convinced?

ok this was wierd. whelp i'm really going now, gotta wash the dishes from last night. bye

>>5402148

I've seen it, yep.

It's called Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star) and it has a great deal of really old stars orbiting it, and it's blaring a huge amount of x-rays every day.

the fuck is a black hole ?

>Watching stephen hawking
>Step dad looks at him and laughs
>I say "What's so funny?"
>If he's so smart why can he invent legs
Or more recently
>Me watching carl sagan
>Step dad walks in and watches for a bit
>He then proceeds to as retarded questions like "How does he know all of this?"
>i give logical explanations and quote other scientists
>"How do they know"
To this day he thinks carl sagan and other great scientists are all "hocus pocus"

*bonus*

>Use his latop
>Type in "d" and the recent search shows the last thing he searched was "Does stephen hawkings wheelchair have a horn?"

>>5402383
Did SO-16 just fucking bump off a black hole?

>>5402383

do you have an observatory then?

>>5402132
God damn it why can't you read "supermassive black hole" without singing the Soundgarden song?

>>5402405
>"How does he know all of this?"

I fucking hate this shit, and I can't watch anything scientific with my dad around, because that's also his pseudoprofound mantra

Recently we were watching a documentary on various types of stars like pulars, magnetars, etc. and as usual he said "How do they know all this?"
After trying to tell him he's still all "Yeah, but /how do they know?/"

I've actually found that just saying "I don't know" makes him shut up, ironically.

>>5402419
I can never read it without thinking of an incredibly obese black woman's ass

>>5402411

it's an extremely sharp orbit, but it never makes contact with the event horizon. Sagittarius A* is extremely small volume wise, such is the nature of black holes.

>>5402413

INTEGRAL is a sort of space telescope.

I don't believe in the number 5

>>5402461
that's okay, it doesn't exist

/sci/ trolls aren't very good

>>5402428

How is that ironic? If anything, it's consistent.

And chances are, you have only done about as much of an explanation of science as a Christian could do about theology. Your father does not trust the scientific community, like you do not trust the theological community, so you need to explain science to such a fundamental level that the two are distinguishable.

Note that the clergy had almost exclusive knowledge of math, science, engineering, philosophy and history throughout the middle ages in Europe, and actually made regular inventions and discoveries, such as water-powered machinery. There really is less difference than you might expect, if you completely neglect the internal workings.

>>5402262
> Then, comparing what you've learned to pic related, you could see how a black hole at the center of a galaxy explains the motion of the stars you see in this image
>Abductive reasoning
Just because the (ad-hoc) hypothesis "black holes exist" gives observable consequences that fit fairly well with data, does not imply that our hypothesis is true.

Who's to say Kepler's laws aren't the ones causing discoherency with theory and observation?

We simply cannot know if something is true, only that some theories are better than others at computing observable results.

>>5402461
who does?

>>5402575

Actually no, it's not that he's suspicious, he just can't take a fucking telling. It's like he just doesn't get it; It's not like I tell him and he doesn't believe it, it's just knowing about it at all baffles him. Nor is he even interested in doing personal research to answer his questions.
He's lazy and somewhat stubborn, but he's not some sceptic who thinks shit like AGW is a scientific scam or something.

I meant it's ironic because when I tell him (to the best of my ability) how this is known, he's unsatisfied. When I say I don't know, that does it for him, he's happy with that.
To use your strange analogy, it's like a layman asking a priest about how they know stuff in the Bible is true. The priest tells the layman, but the latter is still like "yeah, but, HOW do we know that?"

>>5402814
>The priest tells the layman, but the latter is still like "yeah, but, HOW do we know that?"
>HOW do we know that?
That's exactly how science works in the first place. I'm getting pretty tired of people complaining about how their dads don't clam up when their self-important teenage sons disrespect them to their faces and try to "prove" how great they are.

You're getting trolled hard by your dads, who are smart enough and have enough life experience to know that if you really want to "prove" them wrong, you'll have to actually sit down and do something more productive than armchair philosophize around the issues. It's exactly what I'd do if I were your dad, you lazy, disrespectful, self-inflated punks.

>>5402399
Kill yourself.

>>5402077

tell him his face will be a blackhole if he says something like this in front of you again.

>>5402814
Maybe he just thinks you're a snotty know-it-all, and likes to hear you admit when you don't know something.

>talking about science/math to anyone, but other people studying science/math
>2013

It's not worth the effort

>>5403150
>>5403218

Damn, I wish I was as edgy as you two.

I bet neither of you read books either because "hurr durr muh life experience"
Sometimes a retard is just a retard, like these dads are.

>>5402184
Conservapedia strikes again!

>>5403150

>ask someone a question
>get an answer
>LEL UR JUST A KNOW IT ALL

Sure thing, dipshit.

>>5403150
>That's exactly how science works in the first place. I'm getting pretty tired of people complaining about how their dads don't clam up when their self-important teenage sons disrespect them to their faces and try to "prove" how great they are.

/Thread

>>5403150

>if someone is older than you, that gives them a right to be a dense asshole and just ignore whatever you tell them when they ask you something

Is basically your argument.
Get a fucking grip.

>>5403238
Didn't you realize age is an authority in arguing? Gosh!

Also, the reason people trust scientists "blindly" is because they know the scientific community is based on principals of peer review, the scientific method, and a rigorous testing of theories and datas by the most keen intellectuals of society. Based on this authority, the scientists are a trustworthy and legitimate authority in their own field.

You're just trying to be a clever fuck head if you're going on about how people shouldn't believe blindly what scientists say because its the same as believing blindly what priests say. Its not.

>>5403226
Don't use words you don't understand.

I only suggested what I believe to be the case, based on your description of his behaviour and the fact that you posted this in the first place with the intention of "telling" him.

It's called deductive reasoning, not "edgy".

>>5403285

I honestly don't understand your objection to this.
We're not telling them shit to be deliberately overbearing or to show off, it's because they ask a question, then once answered they ask a similar question that basically requires the first answer to be repeated.

And yeah, OK, while not edgy, it is pretty stupid to say that because some guy works in a factory for most of his life it undercuts what someone else (who he asks about something in the first place) has to say about X-topic that he has no serious investment in.

>>5402120

Throw him into a black hole

They do involve division by zero which, whilst algebraically correct is arithmetically invalid.

Also, black hole cannot by definition, be directly observed. Its existence is inferred through observance of unusual light phenomena and [as yet to be detected as far as I know] hawking radiation, which may or may not be caused by a black hole.

That's not to say they definitely don't exist BUT, there is reasonable grounds for skepticism.

This is not combustion theory or photosynthesis we're talking about here. Much work still to be done.

>>5402335
>But what you're doing isn't "believing," it's trying to convert someone else to your belief (and asking us to help you justify that).

You're an idiot.

The center of the galaxy has been observed to be extreme bright due to the large number of stars whipping around the central black hole. There are absolutely black holes, and there's one at our own Milky Way's center

HEY ATHEISTS

IF BLACK HOLES EXIST AND SUCK EVERYTHING UP, WHY ARE WE STILL HERE? AND WHY DOESN'T THE BIBLE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THEM?

GOD 1
ATHEISTS 0

>>5403318
Don't get me wrong m8, I don't have any objections. My first post was the "snotty little know-it-all" one. Just thought it might help you understand where the others in this thread are coming from.

>>5403354
BUT GOD CREATED ATHEISTS

ATHEISTS: something

GOD: err..


ME: WIN

YOU: DEAD