Regardless of all the other games I have, I always eventually come back to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I think of it as kind of what Civ3 should have been. Plus, I think it has more interesting options for customization than any of the other Civ games did.
I don't want to be on the offensive side to anyone, but the Christian Science Monitor doesn't seem like the best source for science news. I mean, with all the news of anti-evolution campaigns and intelligent design, couldn't we find a better source for the story?
For the record, I do have an astrophysics degree, so here goes: Your value for Boltzmann's constant is way too high. Also, temperature isn't necesarily well-defined or meaningful at these very low densities (that's right, density, screw pressure). Heat content might be a better way to look at things.
I once read that Microsoft has enough cash on hand to buy all of Major League Baseball and the entire airline industry, with plenty of money left over. I don't think the question really is "could they buy redhat?" (an obvious, YES) but rather "will they buy redhat?"
Actually, a lot of the large-scale astronomical observations of these sorts of objects (meteors, comets, what-have-you) are done by amateurs or, at least, by very small research groups. There isn't a whole lot of large-scale, whole-sky survey sorts of things out there.
While it is true that sky color is based largely on diffraction, Mars' atmosphere is made of different chemicals than is Earth's, so the diffraction won't be the same as on Earth. Furthermore, Mars has lots of dust in the air, as well as reflection from the ground, that would give everything a red tint. The fact that the sundial was blue was probably an old picture of it on Earth. Now that it's on Mars it, and everything else, will appear red. Sorry folks, but blue skies aren't everywhere.
Actually, Lorenz's first paper on the subject "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" was motivated by computer simulations he ran using a set of three highly coupled, non-linear differential equations that represented a simple weather model. The solutions to those equations will yield the very standard butterfly-wing graph, as well as exhibit sensitive dependence. It was on the basis of this model that Lorenz several years later coined the famous "butterfly effect" term. So, it was initially a weather model, and that's what my post referred to.
I wonder what relationship (if any) exists between current weather models and the ones created by Lorenz back in the '60s. Those simple equations can produce some very chaotic behavior, and were the influence for the infamous "butterfly effect."
Do you think the evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating is concrete? And, what effect do you think this conclusion should/will have on humans?
I always enjoyed Halliday, Resnick and Walker's introductory physics text. It's calculus-based and designed for freshmen-level students. Not only does it provide a good, broad understanding of physics basics, but it also utilizes physical intuition to explain many of the concepts. As a graduate physics student, I still keep it around as an excellent reference book. Finally, the problems at the ends of the Chapters are among some of the classics of physics.
What always worked for me was finding a friendly, local, 24-hour restaurant (with free coffee refills) and working there. There aren't any of the normal distractions, and I always found myself getting a lot of work done.
Speaking of slashdotting, has anyone ever tried to slashdot Slashdot? I mean, how many websites have been brought to their knees by Slashdot readers? Isn't it about time to show Cmdr. Taco and all the others what it feels like? I propose a planet-wide convergence of geeks with large bandwidth to slashdot Slashdot! Who's with me?
Unless you've got your numbers backwards, 40/20 vision isn't better than 20/20, it's worse. 40/20 means what most people can see at 40 feet, you can only see at 20 feet. It's still better than what you started with, but not better than "average" vision.
Does anyone know if/when the PC version of GTA: Vice City is coming out? I had to wait several months for the PC version of the original (it was worth it) and I was wondering how much longer I had to wait for this one.
It seems to be my experience that which math package you use depends partially on the task at hand and partial on the field you're in. For example: Most physicists I know use and love MATLAB because it works with numbers (rather than symbols) and because of it's ability with arrays. Mathematicians, on the other hand, really love MAPLE because it can handle some of the symbolic math. Now, in astrophysics/astronomy, the tendency is either for IRAF (free software from the NOAO) or IDL (which, to me, smacks highly of MATLAB) because of their inherant image processing abilities. Finally, I know a professor who loves Mathematica because of it's versatility. It might not be great at everything, but it's good at lots of things.
For a beginning text, I would recommend Halliday, Resnick, and Walker. It's by far the best (college freshman level) intro. text book I've ever seen for physics. For something of higher level (such as quantum mechanics) there are always the Griffiths books. I would recommend a text book as opposed to a popular media book (such as QED or Brief History of Time) because text books tend to be more complete, whereas popular books try to hit the interesting subjects.
Okay, here goes. The energy converted to heat through friction of the world's oceans against the tidal floor comes from the rotational energy of the Earth-Moon system, thus causing the two bodies to slow orbitally relative to each other. BUT, the angular momentum of the system does not change so that, in order for the angular momentum of the system to remain constant while velocities are slowing, the radius of the orbit must increase. Thus, the Moon is moving away from us, not towards us. The time-scale of this is on the order of millions or billions of years though so that, regardless of the human interaction, we'll all be dead before any noticable effects occur (which would be the loss of tides, no the Moon crashing to the Earth).
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless of all the other games I have, I always eventually come back to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I think of it as kind of what Civ3 should have been. Plus, I think it has more interesting options for customization than any of the other Civ games did.
I don't want to be on the offensive side to anyone, but the Christian Science Monitor doesn't seem like the best source for science news. I mean, with all the news of anti-evolution campaigns and intelligent design, couldn't we find a better source for the story?
For the record, I do have an astrophysics degree, so here goes:
Your value for Boltzmann's constant is way too high. Also, temperature isn't necesarily well-defined or meaningful at these very low densities (that's right, density, screw pressure). Heat content might be a better way to look at things.
I once read that Microsoft has enough cash on hand to buy all of Major League Baseball and the entire airline industry, with plenty of money left over. I don't think the question really is "could they buy redhat?" (an obvious, YES) but rather "will they buy redhat?"
...that things Gates should shoot for computers that don't crash before he wants cars that don't crash.
Just a thought.
Actually, a lot of the large-scale astronomical observations of these sorts of objects (meteors, comets, what-have-you) are done by amateurs or, at least, by very small research groups. There isn't a whole lot of large-scale, whole-sky survey sorts of things out there.
Is it just me, or did we just slashdot Microsoft?
So much for stable serving abilities.
While it is true that sky color is based largely on diffraction, Mars' atmosphere is made of different chemicals than is Earth's, so the diffraction won't be the same as on Earth. Furthermore, Mars has lots of dust in the air, as well as reflection from the ground, that would give everything a red tint. The fact that the sundial was blue was probably an old picture of it on Earth. Now that it's on Mars it, and everything else, will appear red. Sorry folks, but blue skies aren't everywhere.
Actually, Lorenz's first paper on the subject "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" was motivated by computer simulations he ran using a set of three highly coupled, non-linear differential equations that represented a simple weather model. The solutions to those equations will yield the very standard butterfly-wing graph, as well as exhibit sensitive dependence. It was on the basis of this model that Lorenz several years later coined the famous "butterfly effect" term. So, it was initially a weather model, and that's what my post referred to.
I wonder what relationship (if any) exists between current weather models and the ones created by Lorenz back in the '60s. Those simple equations can produce some very chaotic behavior, and were the influence for the infamous "butterfly effect."
Do you think the evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating is concrete? And, what effect do you think this conclusion should/will have on humans?
I always enjoyed Halliday, Resnick and Walker's introductory physics text. It's calculus-based and designed for freshmen-level students. Not only does it provide a good, broad understanding of physics basics, but it also utilizes physical intuition to explain many of the concepts. As a graduate physics student, I still keep it around as an excellent reference book. Finally, the problems at the ends of the Chapters are among some of the classics of physics.
What always worked for me was finding a friendly, local, 24-hour restaurant (with free coffee refills) and working there. There aren't any of the normal distractions, and I always found myself getting a lot of work done.
Speaking of slashdotting, has anyone ever tried to slashdot Slashdot? I mean, how many websites have been brought to their knees by Slashdot readers? Isn't it about time to show Cmdr. Taco and all the others what it feels like? I propose a planet-wide convergence of geeks with large bandwidth to slashdot Slashdot! Who's with me?
Unless you've got your numbers backwards, 40/20 vision isn't better than 20/20, it's worse. 40/20 means what most people can see at 40 feet, you can only see at 20 feet. It's still better than what you started with, but not better than "average" vision.
I would have added the Nature link to the article, but the registration process is invasive and a pain.
Does anyone know if/when the PC version of GTA: Vice City is coming out? I had to wait several months for the PC version of the original (it was worth it) and I was wondering how much longer I had to wait for this one.
Woe for we with no console systems.
It seems to be my experience that which math package you use depends partially on the task at hand and partial on the field you're in. For example:
Most physicists I know use and love MATLAB because it works with numbers (rather than symbols) and because of it's ability with arrays.
Mathematicians, on the other hand, really love MAPLE because it can handle some of the symbolic math.
Now, in astrophysics/astronomy, the tendency is either for IRAF (free software from the NOAO) or IDL (which, to me, smacks highly of MATLAB) because of their inherant image processing abilities.
Finally, I know a professor who loves Mathematica because of it's versatility. It might not be great at everything, but it's good at lots of things.
For a beginning text, I would recommend Halliday, Resnick, and Walker. It's by far the best (college freshman level) intro. text book I've ever seen for physics. For something of higher level (such as quantum mechanics) there are always the Griffiths books. I would recommend a text book as opposed to a popular media book (such as QED or Brief History of Time) because text books tend to be more complete, whereas popular books try to hit the interesting subjects.
Okay, here goes. The energy converted to heat through friction of the world's oceans against the tidal floor comes from the rotational energy of the Earth-Moon system, thus causing the two bodies to slow orbitally relative to each other. BUT, the angular momentum of the system does not change so that, in order for the angular momentum of the system to remain constant while velocities are slowing, the radius of the orbit must increase. Thus, the Moon is moving away from us, not towards us. The time-scale of this is on the order of millions or billions of years though so that, regardless of the human interaction, we'll all be dead before any noticable effects occur (which would be the loss of tides, no the Moon crashing to the Earth).