Slashdot Mirror

Tutorial
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/physics/research/quantum/qcloud/project/tutorial.pdf

Documentation can be found here: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/physics/research/quantum/qcloud/materials/ Check the menus on the left for other related information and the menus on the right to register to use the real thing :)

Results like this really shouldn't surprise anyone. We have strong reasons, both theoretical and experimental, to believe that CPT invariance is an exact symmetry of the universe. To put it more simply, the laws of physics work identically forward and backward. There is no "preferred direction" of time. The fact that one direction seems to us to be "forward" reflects our local environment (we live on an entropy gradient), not any fundamental property of time. Boltzmann understood this back in the 19th century. So retrocausality shouldn't surprising.

We also have known since the 1960s that if you accept time reversibility and retrocausality, most of the "strange" features of quantum mechanics disappear: the collapse of the wave function, the uncertainty principle, entanglement, etc. All of these are just illusions created by ignoring the fact that the future is influencing the present. Time symmetric versions of quantum mechanics really should be much more widely known than they are.

A much better test would be to actually TEST their alertness, instead of relying on a subjective self-assessment.

They did that. From the press release:

Approximately half of the participants were non/low caffeine consumers and the other half were medium/high caffeine consumers. All were asked to rate their personal levels of anxiety, alertness and headache before and after being given either the caffeine or the placebo. They were also asked to carry out a series of computer tasks to test for their levels of memory, attentiveness and vigilance.

OK, I agree totally with you, that this study wasn't powered enough to answer a question about causal relationship between Asthma and watching TV. I have also first thought ... OK, this newsflash comes from yellow magazines ... but it doesn't !

They do actually comment it on their web site: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/documents/tv-asthma-risk.pdf

And this link is the first link on the front page of the study. They are just not serious and this is not something so uncommon in academic circles these days ... They just push such "news" . Plain ugly. Maybe because the other data they mined with taxpayers money was so less interesting, they didn't bother to talk about it. They add, that sun is good for mum and the baby and that FTO is linked to increased appetite ... and the input data was collected form mother reported survey ...

Why do they still throw money on such studies with total lack of scientific imagination ?

THe cause: YES, WE CAN !!

And they do it. They get a big budget from the country and then they do the "research". But the bill has come and also UK will have to find a way to think, where will they pounds be spend. They didn't bother till now ... and now they CAN'T any more ...

So the question remains the same and is still unanswered by this stupid study: Does enough early live exercise prevents people from getting asthma ? ... or is this study only watching a third factor, that influences a degree of child's exercise and asthma induction simultaneously ?

What makes you call this a stupid study? Did you actually read the article?

The 'stupid study' is the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children - http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/. There's nothing stupid about it - this is exactly the kind of study that's /essential/ to help us understand the details of how living affects us. This particular result is a tiny, trivial part of the overall study.

Whine about correlation versus causation all you want - these kinds of studies and the correlations they discover are /vital/ to identifying cause and effect in complex systems like growing kids.

himi

Actually, I've never seen Microsoft do this with any other version of Windows

Really? They did it with Vista:

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/08/free-windows-vista-upgrade-coupons-for.html

"Windows XP Users will be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows Vista if they purchase a Vista-enabled PC starting October till the time Vista formally hits the store shelves."

They did it with Windows 2000:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/WorkingGroups/Users/CUC/2000/csejan00.htm

"We have been told by our suppliers that a Microsoft technology warranty will apply to all copies of NT Operating systems bought after 1 January, 2000 and before the launch date (expected to be 17 February, 2000). So new system purchasers within those dates will have a free right of upgrade."

They did it with Windows Mobile 2003 from PocketPC 2002

"PDAs bought between 23 May and 23 September can be upgraded to the updated OS for free."

I'm having trouble digging up articles about upgrade rights or free upgrade programs from 2k to XP, and I honestly don't specifically remember there being a program for that one, but the point stands; while it might not be universally true, its certainly not uncommon for Microsoft to offer a free or 'cost of shipping' upgrades to people who buy a product in the weeks or months immediately before a new release is expected.

if we had a good idea we could claim legal ownership of it

It used, in general, to be the case that ownership was shared, but the introduction of tuition fees has changed the balance. Since you are paying the University to educate you, the presumption must be that the rights to your invention remain with you. Compare for instance the old policy at Bristol University (google cache):

In the event that an undergraduate student or a postgraduate student on a taught course generates intellectual property in the course of a University project, either solely or in collaboration (where the collaborators may be fellow students, members of University of Bristol staff, employees of a sponsoring organisation or collaborative partner or a combination thereof), he or she is asked to assign to the University any intellectual property that he or she may generate. Assignment will only take place in the event that intellectual property is generated. A student shall then give to the University all reasonable assistance to enable the University to obtain patents or other forms of legal protection for the intellectual property.

with the current policy:

As an undergraduate student or a postgraduate student on a taught masters programme, you own the IP you create in addition to being the inventor. This is because the law sees you as a customer of the University rather than an employee.

Pure scientists have by and large been dim-witted about engineers and applied science. They couldn't get interested. They wouldn't recognise that many of the problems were as intellectually exacting as pure problems, and that many of the solutions were as satisfying and beautiful. Their instinct - perhaps sharpened in this country by the passion to find a new snobbism wherever possible, and to invent one if it doesn't exist - was to take it for granted that applied science was an occupation for second rate minds. I say this more sharply because thirty years ago I took precisely that line myself.
- CP Snow
The Two Cultures and A Second Look

Once again, the physorg honeypot grabs slashdot eyeballs. Physorg takes press releases and puts them up, with bad formatting, on ugly web pages... with no links to the original source.

So here's some missing links: the press release at Bristol, the diamond group at bristol and the home page of Advance Nanotech.

As you can see, that's a chemical vapor deposition group, so there's no need to grind up diamond dust from real diamonds. :) It's also, um, not exactly what I'd call "nanotech"... unless you consider any product involving structures at the molecular scale (like, oh, wood, or portland cement) to be "nanotech".