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"doesn't that violate some fairly fundamental laws of physics?"

Do you not think that one of the many thousands of theoretical and observational physicists who've worked on this model for decades would perhaps have spotted this flaw at some point in the last eighty years...? Of course it doesn't violate fundamental laws of physics. The whole thing is based tightly on general relativity, so regardless of whether you believe that relativity is being applied accurately to cosmology or not (I don't, not entirely) there is no suggestion of it violating any fairly fundamental laws. Conservation of mass/energy is absolutely guaranteed in relativity. (In two tightly-coupled ways - directly, and via the Bianchi identities which are nothing more than geometric identities along the lines of, but more complicated than, the Pythagoras theorem. Which one you take as more fundamental depends on your philosophy but in relativity the one implies the other.)

The balloon analogy is basically flawed. It's also flawed because it relies on one imagining (to the extent that one can, and no-one can actually do so since our brains didn't evolve to imagine 4d let alone 5d) a 3+1d balloon embedded in a 4+1d spacetime, through the analogy with a 2d balloon embedded in 3d space. This inevitably leads to people understandably querying where the centre is and wondering if it's in the middle of this 4+1d space. It also leads people to understandably ask why the galaxies aren't expanding.

Basically, they're not expanding because the theory doesn't apply in them. There are two ways of viewing this - the simple (but inaccurate) and the headfuck. The simple way of looking at it is that the cosmological expansion is extremely weak and is very easily overpowered by other, more local, forces. So galaxies are easily held together because the gravitational pull between stars in a galaxy is overwhelmingly stronger than the pull of the cosmological expansion. This, unfortunately, does suggest there's some kind of balancing of forces and some kind of spatial expansion, which isn't strictly speaking true.

The headfuck is something that's actually almost impossible to model but straightforward to understand in relativity. The theory that the balloon analogy is based on is Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW - we're probably missing a name or two in there, as well) cosmology, based on what's known as the FLRW metric, which does nothing more than give the Pythagoras theorem in a 3+1d universe made up of an inverted pyramid of flat 3d spatial surfaces stacked one on top of the other along some time direction. (They could also be a load of nested spheres, or more bewilderingly a pile of saddles, but the data supports the flat model and there's currently no real reason to favour the so called closed or open models.) The FLRW metric applies on scales at which the universe seems to look the same in every direction and wherever you move to. In the jargon, it's "homoegenous and isotropic". Things like the SDSS surveys demonstrate how this can happen quite well -- take a look at http://www.a.phys.nagoya-u.ac.... which is the collection of data from the first SDSS survey (which ended about a decade back, I think; we're on SDSSIII or thereabouts now but I like this figure). On small scales this is obviously really knotty and far from homogeneous, but if you zoom out and squint slightly (to give a form of smoothing) then everything looks the same. Doing this a bit more rigorously, which is notoriously model-dependent, gives the "homogeneity scale" at somewhere in the order of 100Mpc, or about a hundred times larger than a typical galaxy cluster. That's the scale at which the FLRW model applies -- and that's the scale at which every single consequence can be said to hold. Below that, nothing that it says should be taken without a massive pinch of salt. This is particularly true in clusters, which are what is known as 'virialised' and detached from the cosmological expansion -- t

The cool thing about that program is, it's a proof-of-concept for that guy's research paper on how to generate Malbolge code that does something.

http://www.sakabe.i.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~nishida/DB/pdf/iizawa05ss2005-22.pdf

Just to add to the obfuscation, the paper is in Japanese.

Check it out, it's Linux! The OS that never crashes!

http://jegog.phys.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~tkonishi/cn/T4/i mages/kernel-panic.jpg
http://www.unix-scripts.com/shaun/host-screenshot- 1.png
http://www.openlabs.it/images/kernel_panic_2004031 4.jpg
http://www.pfsense.com/screens/kernel_panic.GIF

Is it "manga" or not? From a purist standpoint it's not "manga" since it's not drawn or written by anyone who is Japanese. OTOH we did deliberately ask Erik Lervold (our artist from MCAD whom I met at MCAD's Schoolgirls and Mobilesuit anime/manga workshops) to make the artwork manga-like and he came up with something that's halfway between US style and Japanese style. So you can call it "manga," you can call it a "comic book," or you can call it a "graphical introduction for middle school students to the CINDI mission" (which is what we call it in our reports to NASA).

As for the various complaints about why we didn't just give the straight science, remember the target audience is typical sixth through ninth graders. If we just did straight science we'd lose 98% of them on the first page. There is already enough boring and bad science education material out there. Yes, the story is silly, but the idea is to get the reader interested and let the science sneak up on them instead of hitting them over the head with it straight off. "The Magic Schoolbus" (books and TV series) was our ideal role model of how to do that right and make it work.

BTW, we're not the first science comic book. There are all the wonderful comics by Larry Gonick. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-fo rm/ref=s_sf_b_as/103-8242802-9062263 Then there was a comic book done by Zander Cannon (and Kevin Cannon) called "Space Weather" put out by NOAA back in 2001. http://www.kevincannon.org/published/ And there are two manga (real manga in Japanese!) about the aurora and the Earth's magnetic field put out by the Solar-Terrestrial Environmental Laboratory at Nagoya University. NOAA helped create English translations of them here: http://www.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ste-www1/doce/out reach.html#anc_booklets STEL has a lot more science manga in Japanese here: http://www.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ste-www1/doc/outr each_j.html All of these were the inspirations for us to do our own comic book. Also there was a great NPR story last spring about using comic books in science education at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4581832 One of the books mentioned there was "Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards" which is a comic book/graphic novel about the bitter fight between the nineteenth century paleontologists Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh. I just picked up a copy last week at my local comic book store and it's great! Two of the artists are none other than Zander and Kevin Cannon from above.

For SynapseLapse (644398) who suggested watching "PlanetES": Yeah!! I second that. One of the two NASA space junk experts interviewed in the US release (Dr. Mark Matney) is a grad school buddy of mine and didn't tell Bandai he'd already seen some fansubs of the series before they approached him to do the interviews. (I wonder how that happened....) BTW, NOAA has commissioned Zander and Kevin Cannon to do a sequel to their "Space Weather" comic about "Space Junk." http://www.bigtimeattic.com/blog/2005_09_01_archiv e.html

For Peterus7 (607982) who wrote: "Well, you see, a secret pact between Nerv and the State Alchemists used a special alloy called spacedogium to help create a weapon using ancient space energy to fight off Shonen Bat. Eventually it went spacebound, and the process created Space dogs. And now Johan Leibert

Is it "manga" or not? From a purist standpoint it's not "manga" since it's not drawn or written by anyone who is Japanese. OTOH we did deliberately ask Erik Lervold (our artist from MCAD whom I met at MCAD's Schoolgirls and Mobilesuit anime/manga workshops) to make the artwork manga-like and he came up with something that's halfway between US style and Japanese style. So you can call it "manga," you can call it a "comic book," or you can call it a "graphical introduction for middle school students to the CINDI mission" (which is what we call it in our reports to NASA).

As for the various complaints about why we didn't just give the straight science, remember the target audience is typical sixth through ninth graders. If we just did straight science we'd lose 98% of them on the first page. There is already enough boring and bad science education material out there. Yes, the story is silly, but the idea is to get the reader interested and let the science sneak up on them instead of hitting them over the head with it straight off. "The Magic Schoolbus" (books and TV series) was our ideal role model of how to do that right and make it work.

BTW, we're not the first science comic book. There are all the wonderful comics by Larry Gonick. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-fo rm/ref=s_sf_b_as/103-8242802-9062263 Then there was a comic book done by Zander Cannon (and Kevin Cannon) called "Space Weather" put out by NOAA back in 2001. http://www.kevincannon.org/published/ And there are two manga (real manga in Japanese!) about the aurora and the Earth's magnetic field put out by the Solar-Terrestrial Environmental Laboratory at Nagoya University. NOAA helped create English translations of them here: http://www.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ste-www1/doce/out reach.html#anc_booklets STEL has a lot more science manga in Japanese here: http://www.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ste-www1/doc/outr each_j.html All of these were the inspirations for us to do our own comic book. Also there was a great NPR story last spring about using comic books in science education at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4581832 One of the books mentioned there was "Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards" which is a comic book/graphic novel about the bitter fight between the nineteenth century paleontologists Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh. I just picked up a copy last week at my local comic book store and it's great! Two of the artists are none other than Zander and Kevin Cannon from above.

For SynapseLapse (644398) who suggested watching "PlanetES": Yeah!! I second that. One of the two NASA space junk experts interviewed in the US release (Dr. Mark Matney) is a grad school buddy of mine and didn't tell Bandai he'd already seen some fansubs of the series before they approached him to do the interviews. (I wonder how that happened....) BTW, NOAA has commissioned Zander and Kevin Cannon to do a sequel to their "Space Weather" comic about "Space Junk." http://www.bigtimeattic.com/blog/2005_09_01_archiv e.html

For Peterus7 (607982) who wrote: "Well, you see, a secret pact between Nerv and the State Alchemists used a special alloy called spacedogium to help create a weapon using ancient space energy to fight off Shonen Bat. Eventually it went spacebound, and the process created Space dogs. And now Johan Leibert

The method presented in the paper looks a lot like James Cockle and Robert Harley's differential resolvent, which was new in 1862. This page gives an overview of some of the known methods for solving quintic and higher degree equations. Apparently, about twenty years ago Hiroshi Umemura found a general analytical solution for a polynomial equation of arbitrarily high degree involving Siegel modular forms, which are generalizations of the elliptic modular functions Charles Hermite used in 1858 as a solution to the quintic. Note: these don't violate Abel's Impossibility Theorem as they are not solutions in radicals.

Japan also has such human-shaped mechanical automata called "Karakuri Ningyo" since 12th century.

karakuri.info
Karakuri Frontier

It says it's ignoring them, but the top few "hits" typically do include the exact page. I just tried, for instance, "All your base are belong to us". It claims to ignore "are" and "to" but the top few hits contain the exact phrase. (The same happens with your example "Hail to the chief", though it says it's ignoring "to the".)

1. From http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/EG-Clare. html:
   "
   The sound seemed taken out of her voice; it was husky as the notes on an old harpsichord when the strings have ceased to vibrate. She read her answer in my face, I suppose, for I could not speak. Her look was one of intense fear, but that died away into an aspect of most humble patience. At length she seemed to force herself to face behind and around her: she saw the purple moors, the blue distant hills, quivering in the sunlight, but nothing else.
   
   'Will you take me home?' she said meekly.
   
   I took her by the hand, and led her silently through the budding heather - we dared not speak; for we could not tell but that the dread creature was listening, although unseen - but that IT might appear and push us asunder. I never loved her more fondly than now when - and that was the unspeakable misery - the idea of her was becoming so inextricably blended with the shuddering thought of IT. She seemed to understand what I must be feeling. She let go my hand, which she had kept clasped until then, when we reached the garden gate, and went forwards to meet her anxious friend, who was standing by the window looking for her. I could not enter the house: I needed silence, society, leisure, change - I knew not what - to shake off the sensation of that creature's presence. Yet I lingered about the garden - I hardly know why; partly, I suppose, because I feared to encounter the resemblance again on the solitary common, where it had vanished, and partly from a feeling of inexpressible compassion for Lucy. In a few minutes Mistress Clarke came forth and joined me. We walked some paces in silence.
   "
   
   
2. From http://www.clareweb.com/eolas/coclare/history/dutt on_su rvey/dutton_survey_chapter5.5.htm:
   "
   Mr. Ledwich, in his Epitome of the Antiquities of Ireland, says, that in the reign of King John the clergy did not receive any tithes; the veneration for the church at that time was so great, that regulations were unnecessary; they were supported by oblations. The piety of modern times, I fear, would influence but very small collections. The whole ecclesiastical revenue to a late period was divided into four parts, one to the Bishop, one to the clergy, one to the poor, and one to support the church and other uses, and he says this mode exists at this day in the diocese of Clonfert.
   
   To throw as much light on this subject as possible, I shall make a few extracts from Mr. Rawson's admirable Survey of Kildare, lately published. In page 27 he mentions one tithe-dealer having exacted thirty shillings per acre for wheat;** "the dread of citation, and the loss of his straw, made the timorous ploughman yield to any terms." Again, page 31, "It must appear evident to every man, that the entire weight of the church establishment falls on the sweat from the brow of industry, whilst the feeder of one thousand bullocks does not pay as much as the herdsman for his garden. Can it be denied, but that the dread of tithe keeps much land in pasture, which would otherwise give bread to thousands, encrease population twenty-fold, do away all necessity of emigration, and make little Ireland not only a granary to England, but to the whole world." In page 33, and which deserves peculiar attention, "The assertors, that the titles to tithes and to estates are of equal strength, should consider that, if estates were to be let at undefined rents from year to year, and the landlord at each harvest to view the crops and exact some proportion in lieu of rent, would any occupier in such case be anxious to till or improve? Would not the kingdom soon become a dreary uninhabited waste? Yet exactly such is the conduct towards the tenth of the produce, the tithe. Let the land-holder be ascertained at what yearly rent he is to pay for one and the other, and all complaint is at an end.[...]
   "
   
   
3. From http://www.victorybaptist.org/books/johnbunyan/fea rofgod/part1.htm:
   "
   3. Add to this the revelation of God's goodness, and it must needs make his presence dreadful to us; for when a poor defiled creature shall see that this great God hath, notwithstanding his greatness, goodness in his heart, and mercy to bestow upon him: this makes his presence yet the more dreadful. They "shall fear the Lord and his goodness" (Hosea 3:5). The goodness as well as the greatness of God doth beget in the heart of his elect an awful reverence of his majesty. "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord; will ye not tremble at my presence?" And then, to engage us in our soul to the duty, he adds one of his wonderful mercies to the world, for a motive, "Fear ye not me?" Why, who are thou? He answers, Even I, "which have" set, or "placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it; and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?" (Jer 5:22). Also, when Job had God present with him, making manifest the goodness of his great heart to him, what doth he say? how doth he behave himself in his presence? "I have heard of thee," says he, "by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5,6).
   
   And what mean the tremblings, the tears, those breakings and shakings of heart that attend the people of God, when in an eminent manner they receive the pronunciation of the forgiveness of sins at his mouth, but that the dread of the majesty of God is in their sight mixed therewith? God must appear like himself, speak to the soul like himself; nor can the sinner, when under these glorious discoveries of his Lord and Saviour, keep out the beams of his majesty from the eyes of his understanding. "I will cleanse them," saith he, "from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me, and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me." And what then? "And they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness, and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it" (Jer 33:8,9). Alas! there is a company of poor, light, frothy professors in the world, that carry it under that which they call the presence of God, more like to antics, than sober sensible Christians; yea, more like to a fool of a play, than those that have the presence of God. They would not carry it so in the presence of a king, nor yet of the lord of their land, were they but receivers of mercy at his hand. They carry it even in their most eminent seasons, as if the sense and sight of God, and his blessed grace to their souls in Christ, had a tendency in them to make men wanton: but indeed it is the most humbling and heart-breaking sight in the world; it is fearful.
   "
   
   
4. From http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~turing/T/003397. html:
   "
   But that the dread of someone else could win that game, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment. With this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.
   "
   
   (This last attempts to quote the original, except the phrase "could win the game".)

For 400,000,000 digits, visit http://www.hepl.phys.nagoya- u.ac.jp/~mitsuru/pi-e.html!

I will be studying under Prof Fukuda starting next fall. During the winter break, I went to Japan and was invited to his lab to see the various projects there. Besides the monkey robot, the projects that were most interesting to me were a cooperative micro robot project, a set of legs that learn to walk, and a feedback control system for an invasive surgery tool/camera.

The monkey robot is currently most limited by the power/data cables that give it life and can only travel one or two bars before needing to be placed back where it started. It's motions are incredibly lifelike.

For more information about the people and projects at Prof Fukuda's lab, check out this link to the English version of the web page.