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100th Anniversary of Quantum Physics
EricR writes "On December 14, 1900, Max Planck presented experimental results in front of the German Physical Society and announced that they could best be explained if energy exists in discrete packets, which he called "quanta." Today is the 100th birthday of Quantum Physics."
hm.... no flames :-P
Sig- http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?ayefly
I NO FAIL IT!
In SOVIET RUSSIA, Germans explain you!!!
First quantum!
This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would like to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.
Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in two days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tomorrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.
Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to find that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increment the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.
Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configure their systems?
Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have it, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly been developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.
Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of files titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have lives? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Windows!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each touting an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, RedHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have showered since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working so I can do my assignments.
Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling my that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered on my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I don't want to lose my uptime."
Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am not even going to ask.
Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...
Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ3 3R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux after discovering about 17 rootkits.
Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stress has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.
Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, someone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very suspicious of these guys.
Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reinstall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.
Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon appeared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stressed lately.
Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some other CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myself. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.
Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so depressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?
Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll be getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?
Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so bad.
All story links point to the google cache. See Merkac Dot for the full slashdot summary
"On December 14, 1900, Max Planck [G] presented experimental results in front of the German Physical Society and announced that they could best be explained if energy exists in discrete packets, which he called "quanta." Today is the 100th birthday of Quantum Physics [G]."
Cool, but useless.
ah go f*ck yourself, you d*mned idiot
I didn't get first post, but I'd like to use this space anyway to promote the use of RPN. Reverse Polish Notation is an excellant and intuitive way way of crunching numbers.
Don't delay, learn RPN today!
So I guess this calls for many discretely wrapped packets as a celebration? We could do that, or just flick the light switch a couple times... Yippeee! =)
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
More research needs to be done.......... http://www.geocities.com/lilmacumd/escape.html
It could also be argued that science is used to control people...or capitalism for that matter. It all boils down to one things....human nature. There is a place for science and a place for religion, and they are on each one side of the coin. The thing we have to do is see the coin as a whole. It is best to realize that science AND religion are cohesive and not neccessarily "against" or "opposite" eachother Thus one may achieve harmony with both the knowable and the unknowable.
>>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
Ummm... Mr.-Most-Important-Person-in-the-World, just because YOU don't understand it doesn't make it invalid, or useless.
How incredibly blind or drunk are you to take my
words and turn them into me calling anything invalid
or useless? What makes you think I don't understand
quantum physics? Having a bad day? Need some midol?
Without quantum physics (which IS incidentally the topic of discussion), you wouldn't have transistors and their elk, culminating in the computer with which you posted this backwoods tin-foil-hat-wearing drivel.
NO KIDDING!! exactly what part of my problem with
bullshit science that seems to have to reinvent
itself every 50 years because OOPS! WE MISSED
SUMPIN! BUT WE GOT IT THIS TIME HONEST!!! don't
you understand?
The tornado-in-a-can doesn't look too impressive compared to a 1/4 inch square chip that can simulate the folding of protein, or powers a Korg Triton.
That's a matter of perspective. Imagine, if you
CAN, an advanced vortex based processor with
perfectly timed speed, pressure, and velocity to
keep 1 billion particles in motion, and powered
by static charge, while each particle retains a
trackable id of some sort, and can rapidly change
between 10 different states enabling a fast
efficient base 10 computational platform. You
invent the wheel before you invent the space
shuttle. Don't be so narrow in your thinking.
An academic in his free time using a computer figured out why the shower curtain in a shower gets sucked in with a few days of his spare time. The guy who invented the tornado in a can took 15 years of on/off effort.
You don't have to player hate. You don't have to
feel so threatened because someone outside the
comfort of academia did something nobody else
can understand. It happens all the time. There
isn't one true way to learn or do anything.
As for warp drive, sure. Why not. Why wouldn't I
want that. Hopefully we are mature enough at
that point that someone doesn't make it a weapon.
Chances are that weapon research will create the
first warp drive. You can't think of things as
"simple stuff" or "hard stuff". It's just stuff.
How you look at it. Pick a better target for your
childish flames next time you feel like stomping
your feet.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.