Time flows not, time is. Imagine a circle, and running along a circle while a parameter theta is changed. The circle is described by (or simply "is") x=R*cos(theta), y=R*sin(theta). Well, that circle is the universe, and theta is time. But the universe does not flow along time, nor time does flow (in order to flow, a verb, the thing flowing needs an external time, so time would be runnning through time(???))
So, if the simple resolution is: the universe is, time is illusion, then the new question is: why do human states of consciusness flow?
At our scale things are exactly the same, that is, fully deterministic. However, the amount of information needed to revert the evolution of one particle is small, while to revert the evolution of the egg you need N^n, with N the amount of "degrees of freedom" (technically, the dimension of its Hilbert space) of one of the egg's particles, and n around Avogadro's number (total number of particles in one egg). To be simplistic, let's say that one particle has 10 "degrees of freedom", and Avogadro's number is around 6E23~10^24, so this makes a total of 10^10^24 functions of time that you MUST fully record in order to be able to revert the egg's "trajectory".
I can also imagine guys tweeting as if they were on holidays, but being home-entrenched and armed to the teeth, just for the fun of shooting at thieves.
Exactly. I find it very funny, this kind of typical pseudo-scientific attitude that "one photon is one photon, baby, quantum mechanics, baby...". Well, my main research line is foundations of quantum mechanics, and I tell you that were I to live near a repeater mobile tower, and I'd shot it.
What about any electromagnetic processes in the body (or mind!!) we cannot yet understand? Throwing chemicals to our water sources? well, I haven't yet found that molecule X affects any reaction in the body. Shit, for the time we find it, our children might have deformities. There is always a balance between stupidly accelerating to the future and crash into destruction, or try to see the implications of our advances. Dangerous balance.
anything using less than 100% cpu in linux is better than Flash. Therefore there can in principle be nothing worse than Flash. Unbeatable, indeed a hard goal to achieve.
It's sad that we are so used to action and sci-fi films with amazing simulations of astonishing things, that when it comes to the real one (a piece of rock which really exists up there, and IS cool) we think we are seeing the intro for a 1985 asteroid game, and think for ourselves 'where are the explosions?
I myself had to do an effort to rationally avoid that thinking and covince myself of the real coolness of the thing.
Plants are the most efficient at collecting solar energy.
I would expect in the future some kind of battery cells which directly interface with a massive array of plant-emulating light absorbing complexes which produce a voltage from sunlight.
Though in the Wikipedia I see (see 'photosynthesis') that this process converts light into energy with an efficiency of 3-6%, while solar panels have 6-20%, I believe that it might reach a point where mass production of hybrid organo-metallic devices can be achieved
At the end we will have plants at home which instead of producing sugars, will have an electric plug. They part in the plant where electricity is produced will be called iPod.
A give a new proposal (not new, see BadAnalogyGuy above):
Regard the building of new internet highways exactly as that of new real highways. Private firms build them, profit from them for some years, then it becomes public property under the ruling of the state. After that you only need to be lucky and have a government which is not inclined towards cutting highways and roads and removing driving licenses for nonsensical reasons from the drivers.
Damn it, now I'm 100% sure (no more doubts) that there is absolutely no woman reading slashdot. I would say more, I can conclude with several points:
1) no woman reading slashdot (I'm male, but still, it is veeery long ago that I didn't hear something so reactionary...haha..."the wife test"...incredible)
2a) how old are you guys? 16? are you still fixed in the penis age?
else
2b) you are older and married, but you see your wife doing her things and you can only imagine that she comes from another planet. You cannot understand why she would never have one amplifier per room, or everything full of computers (with command-line linux, of course). I.e. you married someone you have nothing in common with.
3) this situation is so amazingly common and extended, that none of you even detect anything strange in the sentence "the wife test"!! my god..
PS: Just for fun, in gypsy language (at least in spanish gypsies) there is something called "the handkerchief test". It is done when a young gypsy girl is to married to a gypsy guy, and consists in the elder women going with the girl to a room, opening her legs, and sticking the handkerchief into her pussy. If it gets bled, she's virgin. Otherwise she's a "used product" and cannot get married.
...it could also mean the direct conversion of electrons to energy by some other unexplained means.
then for that energy we would need 2 electrons, not one.
Either way, it would be a hell of a discovery, potentially leading to matter-to-energy conversion power generation. To hell with fusion power, this is better!
well isn't fusion a way of matter-to-energy conversion power generator?
I'll begin now counting how many times this unfortunate (but highly rewarded) joke is repeated on slashdot. Yes...variations on the "quantum yes/no". Funnily, this is only funny to people that have absolutely no idea what quantum is.
My god!!! Insightful....
Precisely that is the fallacy behind all the angle-saxon countries' error in scientific resource distribution: few scientists, many resources.
The result is astounding experiments, published in Nature, while european scientists (less money, more people) develop science on which to build upon. Science is developed best when there is a huge amount of scientists researching many different fronts, since you can never foresee from which line progress and insight will come. Einstein would have never done any shit without several experiments and scientists (michelson-morley, maxwell, riemann..............)
Typically, the extrapolation-belief of the director-of-the-best-institutionon-genetics-in-all-Germany is the best extrapolation-belief you can get, and is quite often in the right direction. Please make a distinction between "opinions"!
I post the paper itself (not the abstract whose text cannot be accessed, not a derivative article in a divulgative magazine)
arXiv:0907.0956
I know nobody is interested, because after so many posts no one had the urge. But anyway..
Why not link directly to arXiv in all scientific posts? Maybe a divulgative link AND a link to the paper in the arXiv. I am crazy?
Slashdot Mirror
So, if the simple resolution is: the universe is, time is illusion, then the new question is: why do human states of consciusness flow?
At our scale things are exactly the same, that is, fully deterministic. However, the amount of information needed to revert the evolution of one particle is small, while to revert the evolution of the egg you need N^n, with N the amount of "degrees of freedom" (technically, the dimension of its Hilbert space) of one of the egg's particles, and n around Avogadro's number (total number of particles in one egg). To be simplistic, let's say that one particle has 10 "degrees of freedom", and Avogadro's number is around 6E23~10^24, so this makes a total of 10^10^24 functions of time that you MUST fully record in order to be able to revert the egg's "trajectory".
I can also imagine guys tweeting as if they were on holidays, but being home-entrenched and armed to the teeth, just for the fun of shooting at thieves.
nice idea. Have you heard of the no-cloning theorem in quantum mechanics? let's hope cognitive functions are purely nonquantum...
What about any electromagnetic processes in the body (or mind!!) we cannot yet understand? Throwing chemicals to our water sources? well, I haven't yet found that molecule X affects any reaction in the body. Shit, for the time we find it, our children might have deformities. There is always a balance between stupidly accelerating to the future and crash into destruction, or try to see the implications of our advances. Dangerous balance.
anything using less than 100% cpu in linux is better than Flash. Therefore there can in principle be nothing worse than Flash. Unbeatable, indeed a hard goal to achieve.
It's sad that we are so used to action and sci-fi films with amazing simulations of astonishing things, that when it comes to the real one (a piece of rock which really exists up there, and IS cool) we think we are seeing the intro for a 1985 asteroid game, and think for ourselves 'where are the explosions? I myself had to do an effort to rationally avoid that thinking and covince myself of the real coolness of the thing.
Buy them musical instruments, perfect complement for the mind growth of a protoscientist.
Plants are the most efficient at collecting solar energy.
I would expect in the future some kind of battery cells which directly interface with a massive array of plant-emulating light absorbing complexes which produce a voltage from sunlight.
Though in the Wikipedia I see (see 'photosynthesis') that this process converts light into energy with an efficiency of 3-6%, while solar panels have 6-20%, I believe that it might reach a point where mass production of hybrid organo-metallic devices can be achieved
At the end we will have plants at home which instead of producing sugars, will have an electric plug. They part in the plant where electricity is produced will be called iPod.
Prepare now for the storm of responses mentioning the bacteria jumping out of the fuel vessels and provoking a major global zombie outbreak!
Perhaps you need to go back and study some more physics.
(preferrably this time using the metric, international-except-some-countries-dontaskmewhy, system) .
In earth gravity of 32ft/s^2
, or equivalently 23.123 elbows/alittlewhiles^2.
I really appreciated when you translated the 64ft/s to 43mph, it really makes it much more intuitive for the rest of the world.
Please don't be offended
Regard the building of new internet highways exactly as that of new real highways. Private firms build them, profit from them for some years, then it becomes public property under the ruling of the state. After that you only need to be lucky and have a government which is not inclined towards cutting highways and roads and removing driving licenses for nonsensical reasons from the drivers.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0904.0794 Unlike in the original article, this one (the paper itself) cites the names of the authors...
In any case I can imagine the computer roaring under my table...and myself in a corner crying like a baby out of fear.
1) no woman reading slashdot (I'm male, but still, it is veeery long ago that I didn't hear something so reactionary...haha..."the wife test"...incredible)
2a) how old are you guys? 16? are you still fixed in the penis age?
else
2b) you are older and married, but you see your wife doing her things and you can only imagine that she comes from another planet. You cannot understand why she would never have one amplifier per room, or everything full of computers (with command-line linux, of course). I.e. you married someone you have nothing in common with.
3) this situation is so amazingly common and extended, that none of you even detect anything strange in the sentence "the wife test"!! my god..
PS: Just for fun, in gypsy language (at least in spanish gypsies) there is something called "the handkerchief test". It is done when a young gypsy girl is to married to a gypsy guy, and consists in the elder women going with the girl to a room, opening her legs, and sticking the handkerchief into her pussy. If it gets bled, she's virgin. Otherwise she's a "used product" and cannot get married.
...it could also mean the direct conversion of electrons to energy by some other unexplained means.
then for that energy we would need 2 electrons, not one.
Either way, it would be a hell of a discovery, potentially leading to matter-to-energy conversion power generation. To hell with fusion power, this is better!
well isn't fusion a way of matter-to-energy conversion power generator?
how is the process of this "artificial" pollination? can it be compared to "stealing" a food reservoir? I bet it doesn't...
I'll begin now counting how many times this unfortunate (but highly rewarded) joke is repeated on slashdot. Yes...variations on the "quantum yes/no". Funnily, this is only funny to people that have absolutely no idea what quantum is.
My god!!! Insightful.... Precisely that is the fallacy behind all the angle-saxon countries' error in scientific resource distribution: few scientists, many resources. The result is astounding experiments, published in Nature, while european scientists (less money, more people) develop science on which to build upon. Science is developed best when there is a huge amount of scientists researching many different fronts, since you can never foresee from which line progress and insight will come. Einstein would have never done any shit without several experiments and scientists (michelson-morley, maxwell, riemann..............)
Typically, the extrapolation-belief of the director-of-the-best-institutionon-genetics-in-all-Germany is the best extrapolation-belief you can get, and is quite often in the right direction. Please make a distinction between "opinions"!
probably that's the point. Slavery has disappeared from countries where the majoriy abhors from slavery.
Why not link directly to arXiv in all scientific posts? Maybe a divulgative link AND a link to the paper in the arXiv. I am crazy?