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Domain: ociw.edu

Stories and comments across the archive that link to ociw.edu.

Comments · 8

  1. Re:I can only suggest a board game... by jthill · · Score: 1 · on Two-Player Games for Mixed Skill Level Players?
    Beat me to it. So I'll add this: Here's the best of the Go links pages. Start the best way.

    If you have a Mac, the board to get is, hands down, GoBan.

  2. Sombrero Galaxies and You by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Galaxies Floating on a Dark Matter Stream
    These are called Sombrero Galaxies. I believe M 104 is the most famous since it was first noticed on May 11th, 1781.

    Does dark matter hold our universe together in a web? Perhaps, though this would mean that there is no such thing as truly empty space as a small amount of dark matter would have to exist. Perhaps what lays beneath the edges of our universe is nothing in the sense of it being devoid of dark matter?

    Check this out:
    Consider this fact: In the air we breathe, each cubic centimeter contains roughly 5 X 1019 atoms. In contrast, the intergalactic medium has a density of only 10-6 particles per cubic centimeter--each atom inhabits a private box a meter on each side. This would seem to suggest that there is not much matter in the intergalactic medium. But, given the enormous volume between the galaxies, it quickly adds up: The combined atomic mass of intergalactic gas exceeds the combined atomic mass of all the stars and galaxies in the universe--possibly by as much as 50 percent! There is indeed something in empty space
    From this article.

    While this article only mentions computer simulations, many scientific groups have gone along further researching, convinced that the cosmic web does exist. Some people have based most of their work on dark matter and the cosmic web though I believe it is still speculation and has yet to be accepted by the science community as a whole. I've read some crazy stuff about dark matter, like how it might be the "gravity particle" that is attracted to matter uniformly and causes the gravitational pull between objects. And even crazier books suggesting that the only way we'll ever be able to communicate between parallel existences is by lowering and raising these gravity particles.

    Now, the slashdot community seems to be fairly educated and extremely opinionated so how about it--does dark matter exist? If so, since it is very difficult to detect, what are its defining properties?
  3. Re:Giant Magellan Telescope by hkfczrqj · · Score: 1 · on World's Largest Telescope Begins Production

    There is already a Magellan project, a 2 telescope optical interferometer:

    http://www.ociw.edu/magellan/

  4. It's Core Wars again! by hpulley · · Score: 1 · on Defeating XP SP2 Heap Protection

    Microsoft and the hackers are just playing CoreWars, for real, on our systems. Isn't that great?

    In fact, Windows XP's heap boundary checking sounds like little more than the old RADAR-X REDCODE program...

  5. Re:angular resolution clarification by LMCBoy · · Score: 2, Informative · on NASA Christens the Spitzer Space Telescope

    I'm talking about the fact that there are several ground-based observatories that consist of multiple telescopes (Keck, Magellan, VLT, LBT), and that one of the goals of this design is interferometry. None of these telescopes is currently planning on doing optical interferometry, because it's just too hard. They're all working on infrared interferometry, and even that is very difficult to accomplish. Especially with mirrors mounted independently, as all except the LBT are.

  6. Re:Heh... by RayBender · · Score: 1 · on Software Archaeology
    Believe it or not, there is a large (6.5 meter primary mirror), newly commisioned telescope ( Magellan ) that uses DOS computers in the telescope control system. It was apparently cheaper than VxWorks, and supposedly easier to maintain in 20 years (i.e. easier to find Intel motherboards and ISA cards than VxWorks/VME).

    After all, DOS is a realtime system.

  7. Re:Cool - Corewar site by lastfish · · Score: 1 · on Gridwars Parallel Programming Challenge

    The "Pizza" corewar server you link to has long been superceded by the "Pro" (in particular 94nop) hills at KOTH and the beginner (amongst others) Redcode hills

    The Winner of the Mega Gridwars 2, Robert Macrae, is one of the Corewar greats.
    An example of one of his warriors is Phantasm

    The hard-core can generally be found on IRC at irc.koth.org Sundays 7p.m. GMT.

  8. Re:Definitely a rising star... by astrobabe · · Score: 3, Interesting · on 43 More Moons Discovered Orbiting Jupiter

    I don't think the big profs count the 2.2 and 3.6 meter telescopes as a top tier toy. As an undergrad at Arizona I had regular access to a 2.3 meter and a 2.4 meter telescope on Kitt Peak immediately after my freshman year. Part of this was due to having a nice advisor and some of it was because everyone else was trying to use bigger telescopes like the MMT and Magellan.

    Seeing as this guy is at Hawaii I'm betting the fights over the 2 to 3 meter class telescopes is no where near the fights people would get into over the much bigger (10 meter class) WM Keck telescopes

    And after only an undergrad degree I have a cushy job in astronomy at the SIRTF Science Center that pays more than some astro postdocs. . . .