No, I disagree. This is a book advert isn't it?
OI!!! Slashdot!!! It's blatantly obvious when you take money for articles, or are dumb enough to fall for shills. Which are you doing? Please tell us so we know what we're getting.:(
There's no good reason why the speed of light is 3x10^8m/s. You can't derive that number from first principles as far as I know. If, however, there's a maximum rate of data transfer or calculation built into the structure of the universe then it would be a very good potential mechanism for explaining why the speed of light is the way it is. I'll have to try some napkin calculations.
He's just being a Hard Science Fiction vs SciFi vs Fantasy snob. I happen to agree with him frankly, doesn't stop you enjoying other things, but reversing the polarity of the neutron field is a bit far from the logically explained and well researched cutting-edge-nearly-science for purists.
You forgot socio-economic history. And some lovely examples of special relativity that should be used in classrooms. (Thief Of Time). And a classical Asimovian robot-as-pathos work of tragic fiction. (Feet Of Clay).:)
Nope, you get lauded for revolutionising physics. Visualising 4D spacetime is precisely what Special Relativity is. All of the e=mc^2 and the rest is simply the result of describing a 3d space with an extra timelike dimension, it just falls out of the equations. It's remarkably simple maths, not much beyond pythagoras, but the visualisation is a little trickier. I'd recommend Cox & Foreshaw's book "Why does e=mc^2? (and why should we care?)". Very, very good explanation of it.
I'm in Scotland. You're telling the truth, just like Spinal Tap. We like to convince the rest of the world we're not immortal, it's up there with the haggis joke. Remember the Glasgow airport bombing? Man, we haven't stopped laughing since, the only member of the public injured was a bloke who broke his foot kicking a bomber in the happy sack. We're immortal. Or at least have the decency to live that way.
Imagine if you had an app on the iPhone which you could use to visit ordinary web pages and download the source.....and another which you could use to electronically send the source to other people. That would be cool....
So the fundamental upshot is that the point to point speed of the internet will be directly correlated to the average temperature of various cells, on a large scale. The statistical effect will be there. I'd wager this will be a remarkably accurate and near real-time barometer of global temperature.
"I want to design a MMORPG, I've got a lot of experience with spreadsheets"
That's better experience than playing games. Unless, like my flatmate you tend to get good at MMORPGs by building a functioning model of all of the variables in your head.
"MS Fnd in a Lbry" by Hal Draper, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, reprinted in "Laughing Space" by Isaac Asimov and Janet Jeppson, ISBN 0860513238
See the logo on Rockhopper in Alistair Reynolds' "Pushing Ice". It was eventually painted over as heavily armed penguins were considered a little "violent" for First Contact...
Absolutely correct, which means if you're the person with the budget then you've got an incredibly important decision to make....."how likely is it that this will become common?"
Given the sums to be lost I wouldn't be entirely sure the whole escapade didn't get into the public domain, you know, on Slashdot.org and all that. There's a hundred and one ways to cripple large sections of a city, this being one, and all of them cost in the upper scale of millions of dollars. The American thing to do is keep quiet or else they'll keep doing it.
Yeah man, I live right next to one of the biggest mosques in my country and you can't move for all the beheadings, child rape and intolerence.
Which is, of course, nonsense. The mosque runs a very popular cafe serving cheap curry, it's enormously popular with every demographic in the area (excluding those who don't like curry), local Muslims drink (non-alcoholic) drinks in the same pubs and clubs as the rest of us, work in the same places as the rest of us etc etc. Just because I find religion in general a little fuzzy and misguided doesn't mean the Muslims are any worse than your average Sunday churchgoer or crystal-waving new-ager.
Of course there are extremist elements all over the world, just like some evangelicals in the US marrying multiple teenage girls, or Jehova's Witnesses who will allow a child to die from a curable operation. Pick your religion, somebody does something weird and usually harmful, but it's also a minority.
The point of the original idea is that the extremists, usually by definition, shout the loudest even though they're a minority. This aims to redress the balance a little. Us atheists could take a well-thought-out leaf from that book.
Slashdot Mirror
Because we found matter first, probably because there's more of it and we're made of it. Semantics, linguistics, that's all...
It's been done, some marine biologist had a few unused tissue samples and tried frying them up in olive oil with some garlic...didn't help.
The decade has another year left, no year zero, yada yada...
And as for the job interview problems, if it comes up just explain it nearly verbatim from up there ^^^. Sounded suitably grown up in my book.
No, I disagree. This is a book advert isn't it? OI!!! Slashdot!!! It's blatantly obvious when you take money for articles, or are dumb enough to fall for shills. Which are you doing? Please tell us so we know what we're getting. :(
There's no good reason why the speed of light is 3x10^8m/s. You can't derive that number from first principles as far as I know. If, however, there's a maximum rate of data transfer or calculation built into the structure of the universe then it would be a very good potential mechanism for explaining why the speed of light is the way it is. I'll have to try some napkin calculations.
This isn't like the speed of light, it is quite possibly the reason for it.
He's just being a Hard Science Fiction vs SciFi vs Fantasy snob. I happen to agree with him frankly, doesn't stop you enjoying other things, but reversing the polarity of the neutron field is a bit far from the logically explained and well researched cutting-edge-nearly-science for purists.
Yeah, even a nudged away tool bag couldn't be retrieved, and orbit-crossing paths will tend to be at very high relative speeds.
You forgot socio-economic history. And some lovely examples of special relativity that should be used in classrooms. (Thief Of Time). And a classical Asimovian robot-as-pathos work of tragic fiction. (Feet Of Clay). :)
Nope, you get lauded for revolutionising physics. Visualising 4D spacetime is precisely what Special Relativity is. All of the e=mc^2 and the rest is simply the result of describing a 3d space with an extra timelike dimension, it just falls out of the equations. It's remarkably simple maths, not much beyond pythagoras, but the visualisation is a little trickier. I'd recommend Cox & Foreshaw's book "Why does e=mc^2? (and why should we care?)". Very, very good explanation of it.
Nope, you're a dimension out (fencepost error?!).
1D: Compression wave in a single dimension, like the "striking a rod" example above.
2D: Guitar string. A string is a single dimension (eg left to right) but you need a second dimension for it to vibrate up and down.
3D: Ripples in a pond. The pond surface is a plane (2D, left/right, forward/back) but the wave is a displacement in a third dimension (up/down).
I'm in Scotland. You're telling the truth, just like Spinal Tap. We like to convince the rest of the world we're not immortal, it's up there with the haggis joke. Remember the Glasgow airport bombing? Man, we haven't stopped laughing since, the only member of the public injured was a bloke who broke his foot kicking a bomber in the happy sack. We're immortal. Or at least have the decency to live that way.
Imagine if you had an app on the iPhone which you could use to visit ordinary web pages and download the source.....and another which you could use to electronically send the source to other people. That would be cool....
Like the guys in Guantanamo who are accused of crimes against the US who are subject to US law....no....hang on.....
So the fundamental upshot is that the point to point speed of the internet will be directly correlated to the average temperature of various cells, on a large scale. The statistical effect will be there. I'd wager this will be a remarkably accurate and near real-time barometer of global temperature.
"I want to design a MMORPG, I've got a lot of experience with spreadsheets"
That's better experience than playing games. Unless, like my flatmate you tend to get good at MMORPGs by building a functioning model of all of the variables in your head.
This was settled in the late 60's....
"Gnorts, Mr Alien!"
(Read it backwards if you missed the gag...)
Yeah, the child pornographers are going to have a field day with that as a defence....
"MS Fnd in a Lbry" by Hal Draper, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, reprinted in "Laughing Space" by Isaac Asimov and Janet Jeppson, ISBN 0860513238
See the logo on Rockhopper in Alistair Reynolds' "Pushing Ice". It was eventually painted over as heavily armed penguins were considered a little "violent" for First Contact...
Absolutely correct, which means if you're the person with the budget then you've got an incredibly important decision to make....."how likely is it that this will become common?"
Given the sums to be lost I wouldn't be entirely sure the whole escapade didn't get into the public domain, you know, on Slashdot.org and all that. There's a hundred and one ways to cripple large sections of a city, this being one, and all of them cost in the upper scale of millions of dollars. The American thing to do is keep quiet or else they'll keep doing it.
Yeah man, I live right next to one of the biggest mosques in my country and you can't move for all the beheadings, child rape and intolerence.
Which is, of course, nonsense. The mosque runs a very popular cafe serving cheap curry, it's enormously popular with every demographic in the area (excluding those who don't like curry), local Muslims drink (non-alcoholic) drinks in the same pubs and clubs as the rest of us, work in the same places as the rest of us etc etc. Just because I find religion in general a little fuzzy and misguided doesn't mean the Muslims are any worse than your average Sunday churchgoer or crystal-waving new-ager.
Of course there are extremist elements all over the world, just like some evangelicals in the US marrying multiple teenage girls, or Jehova's Witnesses who will allow a child to die from a curable operation. Pick your religion, somebody does something weird and usually harmful, but it's also a minority.
The point of the original idea is that the extremists, usually by definition, shout the loudest even though they're a minority. This aims to redress the balance a little. Us atheists could take a well-thought-out leaf from that book.
Simple, I've developed a Theory of General Financial Relativity that ties it all together perfectly.
.......oh.......hang on a minute.....
Does Godwin apply to self references?