>>Seriously now, I really do not understand psychic advocates. The real world is a wondrously interesting place! Weirdnesses like black holes, einstein-rosen wormholes, quasars, quantum wells, point particles, superconductors, etc, etc, etc are bizarre and interesting, and best of all, demonstrable!
>>
>I don't understand psychic advocates either, and by all means agree that the
>real world is interesting. But I do wonder at your apparent conviction that
>the above list is "demonstrable!"
>Superconductors, yes, but the rest of the list? In what way would you
>propose to demonstrate a black hole, or an "einstein-rosen wormhole" (a
>paradox worthy of podolsky), for example? Demonstrations of the PK you
>deny are more likely.
The thing I've heard called the "einstein-rosen wormhole" is the one in
the Schwarzschild solution, and if you get your black holes by collapsing
stars, it's not really there. And the question of whether there
is any such thing as a point particle is one that probably won't
be decided *experimentally* for a good long time (if string theory
turned out to be true, they'd be laid to rest). But as for the rest...
Candidate black holes accumulate steadily; there are now many objects
identified by astronomers which, if they are not black holes, are something
completely unexplained by known physics-- within the confines of which
black holes, if not their singularities, comfortably rest.
Quasars are quite real. They are seen in the sky all the time. They
aren't theoretical constructs. In fact, for a long time astrophysicists
were at a loss for decent theories to explain them. Now there are some,
but the objects are still rather mysterious.
Quantum wells are objects made in laboratories. They exist, and their
properties are both understandable and potentially technologically
useful.
More exotic physical phenomena have been demonstrated than most
people realize. When counterintuitive physical theories are
described in the media, especially with the use of science-fictional
thought experiments, it is sometimes not sufficiently stressed that
this isn't just a bunch of blue-sky musings from crazed theorists.
I sometimes shock people when I tell them that antimatter and
time dilation are routinely observed in labs, and that I've seen
