The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

my classmate got a new 1981 Z28.  It was still pretty fast compared to other stuff on the street.

into the abyss, of course

I always wondered. If the universe is expanding as you say, what exactly is it expanding into? 

Wrap your mind around that…

I try not to.  Before I properly understood the standard model of cosmology, it was impossible to imagine infinite space without end.  Now that I know that somewhere beyond the observable universe, at the boundary of the actual universe, space itself is still expanding.  Into what, as you say?  I can't imagine a point beyond which there's....nothing...not even space.  

It's right up there with Planck time and length.  I could never fathom that time and distance could infinitely divided, that however small of an increment forward I could imagine, you could divide by 2 and get an even smaller increment forward.  Then the smart guys said there's actually a point distance at which there is no in between, particles move discretely from points of time and space to other points, not smoothly across the infinitely divisible.  I also can't fathom a distance that can't be divided by 2.  

My head hurts either way I go.  The universe is out to make me feel dumb.  Thanks for reminding me, Aggie.  

I could be wrong, but I think I've got this straight...  The smart guys have made some small progress towards the detection of dark energy, which probably means "testing for" as in a hypothesis.  I believe it has moved from a proposed solution to describe the missing piece of a phenomenon to a (limited) confirming of such a force.  Similar to how inflation was a proposed solution for the heat signature across the universe but has in recent years confirmed, or detected, in a limited sense. 

Dark matter seems even more solid, though I don't know that it has anything to do with the expansion of the universe, other than however its mass (which is considerable) might affect gravity in its useless fight against dark energy. 

I could be wrong, but you know how it is, I read some books on it and now I'm an expert online.  Believe it or not, I dove into this stuff for the same class I teach at my church mentioned elsewhere, but utee says that's boring and I'm not to talk about it anymore. 

So in other news, just now I completed my first masters class.  Never ever thought I'd go back to school, and yeah, I'm old and my brain is made out of crawfish, but I don't think the oil and gas thing is ever coming back for me, so I thought "well, in couple years I can be nearing my mid-40's and keep working the same piddly job I have now, or I can be nearing my mid-40's and have a new skillset to hang my hat on."  Either way I'm still getting older.  I made a B.  But I have until Sunday night to retake my exams and maybe pull an A.  I might or might not spend my weekend on that.  

Right, but I believe early rapid inflation was the mechanism used to explain the heat signature, along with other big-bang cosmology problems, and it remained mainly theoretical until about 5 years ago with the detection B-mode polarization in the CMB radiation, considered a signature of inflation.  It was supposed to be a big deal as confirmation of the early inflationary epoch.  An experimental confirmation of what was long theoretically suspected. 

I don't know exactly how or why, but it was supposed to be another passed test for Einstein's theory of relativity.  Supposedly relativity is the most proven principle in all of physics.  

This absolutely cannot compare to Dark Matter, but it's interesting.

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Ford GT test mule spied, and rumors of a new engine are swirling
Zac Palmer
Wed, August 11, 2021, 3:16 PM



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This isn’t what we expected to see today, but one of our spy shooters just caught a Ford GT mule rolling around Allen Park, MI. We’ve all but put the Ford GT off to the side at this point, as production was expected to wrap up shortly.

There’s always the chance of a special edition-something at the end, but we didn’t expect to see any GTs with emissions testing pipes driving around Ford’s test laboratory where it performs EPA testing on future vehicles. The longstanding assumption, of course, was that the GT would use its 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 engine until the end. Any suggestion otherwise seems easy to dismiss and semi-unfathomable at first blush. However, the presence of this test mule, and some recent reports that we’ll get into, throw this assumption into doubt.

We’ll start with a recent Ford Authority report, wherein they cite an unnamed source telling them Ford is testing a GT in metro Detroit that is hiding a powertrain different from the current twin-turbo V6. The report goes on to say that this mystery powertrain GT sounds “very different” from the V6 we’re accustomed to at this point.

Next up, our spy shooter is also telling us that he’s heard rumors of a different engine making its way into the GT. The rumor, and we’re not giving it any more credit than that, points to the 7.3-liter Godzilla V8 with a pair of turbos strapped to it — there are even more rumors to back this rumor up. It sounds fairly far-out to us, but do keep in mind that the 7.3 is a significantly more compact pushrod motor, not a DOHC design like the 3.5-liter V6 is. Maybe Ford could make it work.

7.3 liters is 445 cubic inches.



Where is any kind of evidence for these musings? Well, the spy shots do indicate that Ford is up to something with the GT’s powertrain. For one, this engine’s oil cap (circled in red in the closeup) is sitting atop the glass where a standard GT’s trunk would extend to. That’s a clear hint that all isn’t normal underneath the engine cover. Plus, (it’s very difficult to tell) the exhaust routing in and around all of the chassis and suspension components doesn’t look identical to that of a regular GT. The blurriness of the photo and general mess going on underneath keeps us from getting a super clear comparison, but some of the twists and curves in the exhaust appear slightly changed. All that said, we’ll need a better photo comparison to come to any grand conclusions.

All of the above put together is enough to put us on high alert for Ford GT news. Ford is up to something with its mid-engine supercar, and it seems certain at this point that it won’t be letting the GT go silently into the night.

Related video [from 2017]:

There is Special Relativity of course as well as General, and it could be they are two of the most tested theories in physics because of their elegance.

And Einstein got zero Nobels for both, which is rather remarkable.

And he devised the first, and got it published in a top tier German physics journal while working as a patent clerk, along with four other very different papers in his "Miracle Year" of 1905.  His contributions are inconceivable, in one year, ranging over such disparate topics.  Nobody else came close ever in one year.

His other four papers are somewhat rarely mentioned even though he did get the Nobel years later for one of them.