The fact that it sounds farfetch does not mean it is any less likely/unlikely that what is true.
Yes, the high energy physics jargon is terrible and inviting ridicule such as yours. But, remember the Top, Bottom, Charm, Strange, or even the Big bang theory?
The article is terribly written, but it has a link to the original arxiv scientific article. So you are welcomed to go try to understand it.
Btw, this statement by you: I thought there was some disagreement about the existence of the multidimensional strings. Is that over now?
is condescending and shows a lack of understanding of the scientific process.
>> The players easily adapt to the fantasy world of D&D, so their beliefs can be changed easily than others.
Eh, how does this follow? Adaptiblity != Gullibility.
In the real world, we call it "flexibility". Good role players can play several characters at once, and imagine the amount of *thinking* one required to do that. In fact, good role players are more akin to authors, who has to go into the shoes of their characters when writing novels.
I would think that D+D players will probably make very good Mossad members!
I used I.E. for a long time, and it was a terrible terrible time.
Everytime I click on a porn-site, a zillion pop-ups appeared, covering the important pics of naked hot chicks. If nothing else, the pop-ups did a wonderful job lowering my saluting penis. It was horrible.
But then, my girlfriend recommended that I use mozilla! Boy, it was a dream come true. No pop-ups. And the amazing thing called "TABBED BROWSING". Now, I don't have to open multiple windows of I.E., I can have multiple PICS of naked hot chicks in the same browser! I tell ya, nothing turn on my libido then being able to stare at the naked hot chicks in various positions, all at once! !
The US despite its lousy elementary/high school education, has one of the highest numbers in post-grad education, compared to, say China (which has much better science/math pre-college education).
The point is not what makes it fun, the point is do you have enough people who wants to do this for a living. I am about to get my PhD, and I'd tell ya, I've seen enough of idealistic incoming grad students who burnt out/got bored and went off to make kabillions dollars outside w/o (or after) getting their PhDs.
And why is the pay so low for scientists? It's because there are more people are wants to do this than there are jobs available. Taking away the furriners would not solve the problem : you just lower the quality of people who actually get the jobs.
It's a PR stunt, to get people interested in cosmology and to give back to the people who actually pay taxes to fund experiments like WMAP and stuff.
I am perfectly happy with hanging shiny objects to the public. If they are interested, they'll ask more questions, and who knows, the younger ones might get excited enough to want to find out more (and pursue a career in science). If they don't bother to find out more, then fine with me, someone got to keep things like the water supply running.
So, all the power to those people who spend time doing such things.
Of course, there could be many million times more black holes out there. Or some other large masses that we have yet to find.
Possibly. But microlensing experiments tend to rule out stuff like these in galaxies. Of course, they can be free floating in intergalactic space, though one that begs the question how the hell they get there in the first place:).
No self-respecting physicist will ever say "the Universe is wrong". That statement is just pure nonsense. The universe is what it is, nothing more and nothing less.
Now, you can ask why do physicist still think the "theory" is correct. Well, the truth is that physicist never think the "theory is correct", it is only approximately correct.
Also, no theory predicy the amount of mass in the universe. The amount of matter measured by its gravitational effects (given to us by general relativity theory) is more than what we can account from our Particle physics model (given to use by standard model of Particle physics).
Both these theories are known to be inconsistent with one another. But, both of them are also verified to very high order of precision, given our current technological abilities.
Now, why not invent theories that account for the missing matter? Well, there are a billion of those. Just check daily at arXiv.org for a sample . But none of these theories can
(a) Account for all the precision tests we have (b) exactly predict (or even post-dict) the current measured universe (c) do all the above "naturally", i.e. they have to solve all those problems without doing it by construction
That's why we physicists get the big bucks to try and figure it out.
Soooo, coming to my ad hominem statement : Next time, you accuse "missing matter" of being pseudo-science, I suggest you go and preuse some current literature about what science is first before blabbering off.
>lot of the people in any industry who are in it "for the money" are orders of magnitude better at whatever job they're in than those who are there just "for the love of it".
I agree. I get so well paid for my 7-24 job as a physics researcher! Damn, that Jaguar looks nice...how much does it cost?
The Xprize has conditions (like no government funding etc etc) that Xcor probably does not want to follow.
Also, to win the Xprize, one has to do it with a reusable LV, with 3 passengers and a 2 week (?) turnaround between flights etc etc.
So it's not so surprising. Of course all the Xprize people are in for the money. One can ask why subscribe to so many constraints, well the Xprize Consortium is backed by a lot of influential people. By subscribting to it, you can free publicity, and A LOT OF connections to people who probably will be your future customers (or your future customers' friends.)
I've always find it a bit amusing that Go enthusiats always have to get their say about how much better their game is (true or false is besides the point) whenever the subject of Chess is brought up. While, Chess enthusiats never have to do the same thing when Go was brought up. I play loads of chess, but I find Go interesting to talk about and won't say things like "Screw GO. Play chess."
A bit like Linux advocates saying "Screw Windows. Run Linux." everything Windows was brought up.
I let the reader draw their conclusions about this statement:).
(P.S. I run linux both in the office and at home. And I am completely at loss in Windows).
I know I am splitting hairs (but who isn't in this kind of discussion), but I can't wrap around my head around the difference DK and DD to the person in question.
What i mean is,effectively not knowing you know something is the same as not knowing you don't know something, since you are ignorant of it anyway. Of course, one can remind me that I know something, (e.g. "You idiot! That's just the Laplace-Beltrami operator you learned in class!"), but then to me I am now KK, not DK.
Maybe DK is just a very confusing way of saying "forgot for a moment".
Ok, my head is spinning again. Maybe the hairs are too fine to split anyway:P.
I agree with you, except to say that we should not let experimental constraints stop us from speculating about deeper aspects of nature. ONe might learn something that will help us towards desiging the next generation of experiments.
more or less agree with the rest of your post except to note that Kepler's theory couldn't have been justified at the time by being derived from Newton's laws since Newton's laws didn't exist. This is a case in which a simpler theory pointed the way to important general laws. Which seems to me like an argument for simplicity whenever it can reasonably be achieved.
I don't quite see how this follows though. Kepler's laws are really phenomelogy : he found a nice fit to the orbits, by pure guesswork. THat's not really a theory : it's not explained until Newton come along and explained it. SUre it guided Newton. But it's a bit of a stretch to say that Kepler's laws are "more simple". It's neither more or less simple than Newton. Newton has a theoretical framework (his 3 laws + gravity), and he invented physical concepts like inertia and mass and such. Kepler just fitted curves.
Slashdot Mirror
I did complete Quake1 using keyboard only, since I moved directly from Doom2 (which I also complete using only the keyboard). I kick-ass too.
I nearly puked when I switched to mouse for Quake2...but eventually it became second nature.
for the corporations that's it : More ways to make people spend money = good thing.
Don't.
Even.
Go.
There.
The fact that it sounds farfetch does not mean it is any less likely/unlikely that what is true.
:
Yes, the high energy physics jargon is terrible and inviting ridicule such as yours. But, remember the Top, Bottom, Charm, Strange, or even the Big bang theory?
The article is terribly written, but it has a link to the original arxiv scientific article. So you are welcomed to go try to understand it.
Btw, this statement by you
I thought there was some disagreement about the existence of the multidimensional strings. Is that over now?
is condescending and shows a lack of understanding of the scientific process.
Cheap Publicity.
oh wait.
PORN!
As all good active physicists know, nobody reads the real journals, everyone reads www.arxiv.org.he real journals, everyone reads www.arxiv.org.
If you wait for the preprints to appear in the real journals, your physics career will be tanked in no time...
Hah! Use a foreign language dictionary!
Oh. Wait! That's no my password! Nooooooo......
>> The players easily adapt to the fantasy world of D&D, so their beliefs can be changed easily than others.
Eh, how does this follow? Adaptiblity != Gullibility.
In the real world, we call it "flexibility". Good role players can play several characters at once, and imagine the amount of *thinking* one required to do that. In fact, good role players are more akin to authors, who has to go into the shoes of their characters when writing novels.
I would think that D+D players will probably make very good Mossad members!
I think it is high time the Red and the Blue States engage in Civil War!
THe last time you guys did it was back when the blues elected Lincoln!
Come on! Gimme Civil War! Wanna Wanna Wanna!
I used I.E. for a long time, and it was a terrible terrible time.
Everytime I click on a porn-site, a zillion pop-ups appeared, covering the important pics of naked hot chicks. If nothing else, the pop-ups did a wonderful job lowering my saluting penis. It was horrible.
But then, my girlfriend recommended that I use mozilla! Boy, it was a dream come true. No pop-ups. And the amazing thing called "TABBED BROWSING". Now, I don't have to open multiple windows of I.E., I can have multiple PICS of naked hot chicks in the same browser! I tell ya, nothing turn on my libido then being able to stare at the naked hot chicks in various positions, all at once! !
So, thank you Mozilla! I love you!
For the rest of the world, there's Contact Sports!
The US despite its lousy elementary/high school education, has one of the highest numbers in post-grad education, compared to, say China (which has much better science/math pre-college education).
The point is not what makes it fun, the point is do you have enough people who wants to do this for a living. I am about to get my PhD, and I'd tell ya, I've seen enough of idealistic incoming grad students who burnt out/got bored and went off to make kabillions dollars outside w/o (or after) getting their PhDs.
And why is the pay so low for scientists? It's because there are more people are wants to do this than there are jobs available. Taking away the furriners would not solve the problem : you just lower the quality of people who actually get the jobs.
welcome our young bright underachieving overlords!
:P
(Actually, my first tribute will be a nice BITCHSLAP!).
It's a PR stunt, to get people interested in cosmology and to give back to the people who actually pay taxes to fund experiments like WMAP and stuff.
I am perfectly happy with hanging shiny objects to the public. If they are interested, they'll ask more questions, and who knows, the younger ones might get excited enough to want to find out more (and pursue a career in science). If they don't bother to find out more, then fine with me, someone got to keep things like the water supply running.
So, all the power to those people who spend time doing such things.
Of course, there could be many million times more black holes out there. Or some other large masses that we have yet to find.
:).
Possibly. But microlensing experiments tend to rule out stuff like these in galaxies. Of course, they can be free floating in intergalactic space, though one that begs the question how the hell they get there in the first place
No self-respecting physicist will ever say "the Universe is wrong". That statement is just pure nonsense. The universe is what it is, nothing more and nothing less.
.
Now, you can ask why do physicist still think the "theory" is correct. Well, the truth is that physicist never think the "theory is correct", it is only approximately correct.
Also, no theory predicy the amount of mass in the universe. The amount of matter measured by its gravitational effects (given to us by general relativity theory) is more than what we can account from our Particle physics model (given to use by standard model of Particle physics).
Both these theories are known to be inconsistent with one another. But, both of them are also verified to very high order of precision, given our current technological abilities
Now, why not invent theories that account for the missing matter? Well, there are a billion of those. Just check daily at arXiv.org for a sample . But none of these theories can
(a) Account for all the precision tests we have
(b) exactly predict (or even post-dict) the current measured universe
(c) do all the above "naturally", i.e. they have to solve all those problems without doing it by construction
That's why we physicists get the big bucks to try and figure it out.
Soooo, coming to my ad hominem statement : Next time, you accuse "missing matter" of being pseudo-science, I suggest you go and preuse some current literature about what science is first before blabbering off.
>lot of the people in any industry who are in it "for the money" are orders of magnitude better at whatever job they're in than those who are there just "for the love of it".
I agree. I get so well paid for my 7-24 job as a physics researcher! Damn, that Jaguar looks nice...how much does it cost?
The Xprize has conditions (like no government funding etc etc) that Xcor probably does not want to follow.
Also, to win the Xprize, one has to do it with a reusable LV, with 3 passengers and a 2 week (?) turnaround between flights etc etc.
So it's not so surprising. Of course all the Xprize people are in for the money. One can ask why subscribe to so many constraints, well the Xprize Consortium is backed by a lot of influential people. By subscribting to it, you can free publicity, and A LOT OF connections to people who probably will be your future customers (or your future customers' friends.)
Here is my list (they are even slightly descriptive)
1. First Post
2. Troll
3. Hot Grits
4. The Insensitive Clod
5. Anonymous Coward
I've always find it a bit amusing that Go enthusiats always have to get their say about how much better their game is (true or false is besides the point) whenever the subject of Chess is brought up. While, Chess enthusiats never have to do the same thing when Go was brought up. I play loads of chess, but I find Go interesting to talk about and won't say things like "Screw GO. Play chess."
:).
A bit like Linux advocates saying "Screw Windows. Run Linux." everything Windows was brought up.
I let the reader draw their conclusions about this statement
(P.S. I run linux both in the office and at home. And I am completely at loss in Windows).
then effectively they didn't knew. Having the data does not mean understanding it. No?
I know I am splitting hairs (but who isn't in this kind of discussion), but I can't wrap around my head around the difference DK and DD to the person in question .
:P.
What i mean is,effectively not knowing you know something is the same as not knowing you don't know something, since you are ignorant of it anyway. Of course, one can remind me that I know something, (e.g. "You idiot! That's just the Laplace-Beltrami operator you learned in class!"), but then to me I am now KK, not DK.
Maybe DK is just a very confusing way of saying "forgot for a moment".
Ok, my head is spinning again. Maybe the hairs are too fine to split anyway
I agree with you, except to say that we should not let experimental constraints stop us from speculating about deeper aspects of nature. ONe might learn something that will help us towards desiging the next generation of experiments.
more or less agree with the rest of your post except to note that Kepler's theory couldn't have been justified at the time by being derived from Newton's laws since Newton's laws didn't exist. This is a case in which a simpler theory pointed the way to important general laws. Which seems to me like an argument for simplicity whenever it can reasonably be achieved.
I don't quite see how this follows though. Kepler's laws are really phenomelogy : he found a nice fit to the orbits, by pure guesswork. THat's not really a theory : it's not explained until Newton come along and explained it. SUre it guided Newton. But it's a bit of a stretch to say that Kepler's laws are "more simple". It's neither more or less simple than Newton. Newton has a theoretical framework (his 3 laws + gravity), and he invented physical concepts like inertia and mass and such. Kepler just fitted curves.