Ok, I have witnessed the downfall of slashdot for some time, and this is the last straw. The only serious discussions are related to non-nerdy things like Jack Thompson or the RIAA. Whenever there is a science related post, it is full of modded up "jokes". And now this.
Yeah, climate scientists are just going to ignore the #1 factor that controls natural climate change when they are making their climate models.:p
The IPCC has a nice graph that shows the magnitude of various forcings on climate change. The chapter that has this is right here (pdf). Ultimately, the concensus amoung scientists are that natural solar forcing is minor compared to man-made forcings. That is not to say there isn't an effect, and certainly the observations of climate change on Jupiter and Mars is evidence of this.
I remember a few months back, when the paper on the apparent Younger Dryas meteor event came out. Me and my buddy (I am a geophysicist who studies ice sheet history during the period, and he is a Quaternary geologist) picked it apart pretty well. The lines of evidence they used to correlate the event were not the same for each site. For instance, at some sites they used irridium, others charcoal, and still others Helium-3. The biggest problem with their correlation is that they were using the age of drumlins found in Ontario to date others over 2000 km away. There is no widespread evidence that all of North America burned due a meteorite impact 13,000 years ago. I mean have a look at the distribution of sites. If there truely was an impact that caused widespread destruction across North America, why has there been no published evidence in the central United States. Here in southwestern British Columbia, there is no evidence of any unusual sedimentation during the late Pleistocene. If there was an impact or explosion event that was so intense that it caused the extinction of early people in the Americas, would it not have had measurable material blown globally? I don't recall hearing about any such anomalies in the Greenland or Antarctic cores. It is a crackpot theory at best. One shouldn't discount that one of the main proponents of this hypothesis had only a couple of years ago suggested that a supernova caused the Younger Dryas (an idea that was quickly laughed at).
For years, Canada had a satirical party, known as the Rhino Party. At their height, they gained over 1% of the popular vote. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party quashed the party in 1993 by changing the election laws so that candidates had to put up $1000 to run. However, the party is being revived by the Neorhino.ca Party. They ran in a couple of by-elections recently. Interestingly, Bill "Spaceman Lee" (a former professional baseball player) ran for the Rhino Party on the 1988. Colbert's run continues in a Rhino-esce tradition.
I don't think this should surprise anyone. People feel dependent on mass entertainment and have a difficult time thinking what it would be like without it. It is almost like an addiction. I must admit I feel the same way most of the time. One should also note that people still connect to other people on the internet through messenger services and sites like Facebook, so it is perhaps better than other forms of media like TV or video games.
However, it is relatively easy to break from the cycle. If people force themselves away from their computers and cell phones, it is incredibly easy to get back into social life. I find that times when I visit my family or when I go out hiking/camping, there is no empty void when I am away from technology. People (including myself) stop socializing because it is easier to spend time alone in front of a computer than to entertain others. It becomes surprisingly easy to find ways to socialize when you are bored.
One metric to tell how long the Northwest Passage has been closed off is by looking whale migration. When the Northwest Passage was open, whales could travel through the Arctic unimpeded. By dating whale remains, it has been about 3000 years since whales have been able to travel through the Northwest Passage. The probability is also high that the passage has remained at least partially cut off most of the year since 8000 years ago.
Although I am sure that Sony will find some way to spin this in a good manner, I can't imagine they will be too happy that sales have actually decreased from July. With the expectation that the 60 GB version with true backwards compatibility would only be around for a short time, I am certainly surprised there wasn't a longer spike in sales. There might be some increase in sales due to high profile games like Lair and Heavenly Sword In September, but all signs point to these being disappointing and may do nothing to drive sales.
I am not shocked to see Xbox 360 sales increase. Bioshock is an amazing game, and as the de-facto console of hardcore gamers, the Xbox 360 version of Madden certainly helped sales. With Halo 3 only days away, I would expect the Xbox 360 will finish off the year with units flying off the shelf (and I would expect that sales will rival the Wii for the rest of the year).
The Wii continues to have strong sales, hampered by a continuing lack of supply. Nintendo will be happy with the sales of Metroid, and I imagine this game will continue to be a top seller for the next year or two. I'm betting Nintendo has started to hoard some units for the upcoming Christmas rush, so probably the rate of sales will be steady until November.
Your question is rather specific given the crowd here on slashdot. Personally, I think you should ask other professional mathematitians at universities. If your problem is interesting, I'm sure you will have no problem finding someone who will give you advice.
I personally only have limited experience in modeling of heat flow, which is somewhat similar to what your problem is. We use a finite element approach, where variables such as porosity, permiability, and composition can be changed for each element. It would likely be computationally expensive to create a functionally variable wave speed, so partioning it so that each element had different velocity paramenters would likely be suitable.
As for programs, you might be forced to break out the C (or even FORTRAN) book and create your own. More often than not in specialized physics problems, there are no programs that are specifically applicable to your problem. If there were, you would have already found it.
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Yeah, climate scientists are just going to ignore the #1 factor that controls natural climate change when they are making their climate models. :p
The IPCC has a nice graph that shows the magnitude of various forcings on climate change. The chapter that has this is right here (pdf). Ultimately, the concensus amoung scientists are that natural solar forcing is minor compared to man-made forcings. That is not to say there isn't an effect, and certainly the observations of climate change on Jupiter and Mars is evidence of this.
I remember a few months back, when the paper on the apparent Younger Dryas meteor event came out. Me and my buddy (I am a geophysicist who studies ice sheet history during the period, and he is a Quaternary geologist) picked it apart pretty well. The lines of evidence they used to correlate the event were not the same for each site. For instance, at some sites they used irridium, others charcoal, and still others Helium-3. The biggest problem with their correlation is that they were using the age of drumlins found in Ontario to date others over 2000 km away. There is no widespread evidence that all of North America burned due a meteorite impact 13,000 years ago. I mean have a look at the distribution of sites. If there truely was an impact that caused widespread destruction across North America, why has there been no published evidence in the central United States. Here in southwestern British Columbia, there is no evidence of any unusual sedimentation during the late Pleistocene. If there was an impact or explosion event that was so intense that it caused the extinction of early people in the Americas, would it not have had measurable material blown globally? I don't recall hearing about any such anomalies in the Greenland or Antarctic cores. It is a crackpot theory at best. One shouldn't discount that one of the main proponents of this hypothesis had only a couple of years ago suggested that a supernova caused the Younger Dryas (an idea that was quickly laughed at).
For years, Canada had a satirical party, known as the Rhino Party. At their height, they gained over 1% of the popular vote. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party quashed the party in 1993 by changing the election laws so that candidates had to put up $1000 to run. However, the party is being revived by the Neorhino.ca Party. They ran in a couple of by-elections recently. Interestingly, Bill "Spaceman Lee" (a former professional baseball player) ran for the Rhino Party on the 1988. Colbert's run continues in a Rhino-esce tradition.
I don't think this should surprise anyone. People feel dependent on mass entertainment and have a difficult time thinking what it would be like without it. It is almost like an addiction. I must admit I feel the same way most of the time. One should also note that people still connect to other people on the internet through messenger services and sites like Facebook, so it is perhaps better than other forms of media like TV or video games.
However, it is relatively easy to break from the cycle. If people force themselves away from their computers and cell phones, it is incredibly easy to get back into social life. I find that times when I visit my family or when I go out hiking/camping, there is no empty void when I am away from technology. People (including myself) stop socializing because it is easier to spend time alone in front of a computer than to entertain others. It becomes surprisingly easy to find ways to socialize when you are bored.
One metric to tell how long the Northwest Passage has been closed off is by looking whale migration. When the Northwest Passage was open, whales could travel through the Arctic unimpeded. By dating whale remains, it has been about 3000 years since whales have been able to travel through the Northwest Passage. The probability is also high that the passage has remained at least partially cut off most of the year since 8000 years ago.
Although I am sure that Sony will find some way to spin this in a good manner, I can't imagine they will be too happy that sales have actually decreased from July. With the expectation that the 60 GB version with true backwards compatibility would only be around for a short time, I am certainly surprised there wasn't a longer spike in sales. There might be some increase in sales due to high profile games like Lair and Heavenly Sword In September, but all signs point to these being disappointing and may do nothing to drive sales.
I am not shocked to see Xbox 360 sales increase. Bioshock is an amazing game, and as the de-facto console of hardcore gamers, the Xbox 360 version of Madden certainly helped sales. With Halo 3 only days away, I would expect the Xbox 360 will finish off the year with units flying off the shelf (and I would expect that sales will rival the Wii for the rest of the year).
The Wii continues to have strong sales, hampered by a continuing lack of supply. Nintendo will be happy with the sales of Metroid, and I imagine this game will continue to be a top seller for the next year or two. I'm betting Nintendo has started to hoard some units for the upcoming Christmas rush, so probably the rate of sales will be steady until November.
Your question is rather specific given the crowd here on slashdot. Personally, I think you should ask other professional mathematitians at universities. If your problem is interesting, I'm sure you will have no problem finding someone who will give you advice. I personally only have limited experience in modeling of heat flow, which is somewhat similar to what your problem is. We use a finite element approach, where variables such as porosity, permiability, and composition can be changed for each element. It would likely be computationally expensive to create a functionally variable wave speed, so partioning it so that each element had different velocity paramenters would likely be suitable. As for programs, you might be forced to break out the C (or even FORTRAN) book and create your own. More often than not in specialized physics problems, there are no programs that are specifically applicable to your problem. If there were, you would have already found it.