• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Inverse square law

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Even so, the inverse square law would apply to that cell phone call you made.
~~ Paul
Click to expand...

Naively applied, the inverse square law does not apply to cell phone calls. If you look at the output of my phone, and the distance to my mother's phone, and figure out what my signal strength would be, you'll find that the actual received signal is orders of magnitude larger than that calculated from the inverse square law. Of course, each radio "hop" in the route is obeying inverse square. But there are repeaters involved.

I still think that the cell phone analogy is much closer to the purported prayer phenomenon than is a direct transmission. I still think it weakens the argument to drag inverse square in, when there are already plenty of legitimate issues to take with the study.

--Terry.
 
Terry said:
Naively applied, the inverse square law does not apply to cell phone calls. If you look at the output of my phone, and the distance to my mother's phone, and figure out what my signal strength would be, you'll find that the actual received signal is orders of magnitude larger than that calculated from the inverse square law. Of course, each radio "hop" in the route is obeying inverse square. But there are repeaters involved.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I was simply pointing out that the law does apply.

I still think that the cell phone analogy is much closer to the purported prayer phenomenon than is a direct transmission. I still think it weakens the argument to drag inverse square in, when there are already plenty of legitimate issues to take with the study.
Click to expand...
I disagree. We have no idea how prayer works, if it does. In particular, though, it almost certainly doesn't work by wire, laser, beaming, microwave, or any other technology that we use to overcome the inverse square law. It seems reasonable, then, to think that the law might apply.

But we're talking trash here. Why did I use the word reasonable? :D

~~ Paul
 
I think this discussion is pointing out my concerns about educating the lurker or the less knowledgeble.

I agree that given the proposed mechanism (god/angels/whatever did it) there is no need for inverse squares.

On the other hand, it might be worth pointing out that the usual sort of thing shoved out into the cosmos without repeaters, etc, is in fact subject to inverse square law.

But how many readers who believe in prayer know what the inverse square law is? Yes, some do, probably including every one of them who writes here. Those are not, I suspect, the people we want or can convince.
 
My view of the situation is that the inverse square law is true when it is applied appropriately.

If one measures the intensity of a focused beam two feet from the source and four feet from the source one will not find that the intensity of the beam has fallen off by a factor of four.

If one measures the intensity of a point source radiating equally in all directions two feet from the source and four feet from the source one will in fact find that the intensity has fallen off by a factor of four at point four feet from the souce versus a point two feet from the source.

If one is going to apply the inverse square law to something like a focused beam one has to determine where a virtual focus of the beam would be and use that location as the source from which to do the calculations.

In fact all RF antennaes have some gain, that is the emmisions from them are focused to some degree and as such it might be argued that the emissions from a cell phone are obeying the inverse square law. Or it might be argued that they are obeying the inverse square law if it is appropriately applied.
 
ummmmmm...

Invserse Square law applies to the power surface density (e.g. watts per metre square) of signals emitted by known point sources, usually RF radiation.

This has no bearing on the ablity of the a detector to perceive said signals, other than the amount of signal power available to a detector at a given distance from a given point source.

What comes into play at the detector is how much of the signal is captured, with respect to the background noise signal, and the sensitivity of the detector to the desired signal(s).

If the signal is indistiguishable from the background noise, the signal cannot the perceived.

This is what lets any radio communications operate over distance - the transmitter emits RF radiation, the receiver collects some of the RF radiation and detects the signal. In the case of cellphones and other terrestial phone systems, this is then relayed either to another RF repeater or over fixed land lines.

As other have pointed out, even if prayer was subject to the inverse square law, unfortunately this makes no statement about the machanism by which the prayers are received (peceived?).

Please, let's not get into the wave-particle duality as well (Where's that can opener :D)
 
Pidgeon,

Well, of course I have a solution to this problem.

Did you know that you can pray without even making a sound? It can be all done in the head. In this case all the prayer consists of is a pattern of neural firings in the brain. These can be telepathically transmitted in a narrow beam. Normally a narrow beam would have to be carefully directed towards the receiver but, in this case, it doesn't matter. God is everywhere. You may object that I am using a paranormal method of transmission but, if I already believe in God, that wouldn't matter would it.

Welcome, by the way. And, if Pidge is not short for Pidgeon, apologies. And, if it is, I have a good avatar for you if you ever get to needing one.

regards,
BillyJoe
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom