Possible, yep. But the ordering of the statements "the collision caused Earth's rotation" followed by the tidal evolution (without noting that that's what it is) makes it sounds like the collision caused the Earth to spin fast at first, then slower. Hence my clarification.
In the very distant future, it'll be flung out of orbit.
No, it won't. I'm not sure that's ever energetically possible, let along possible from an angular momentum, standpoint. The Moon will evolve away from Earth until it's around 90 Earth-radii away (it's around 62 right now) and then halt its motion when we're in the double-locked state, like Pluto and Charon. At that point, solar tides take over and slow the Earth down more (but slower) and shift the geosynchronous orbit outside of the Moon's position, at which time the Moon starts moving back toward the Earth. But this is about 50 billion years away, and...
However, this will be long after the Sun goes nova.
No, it won't. Unless our models of stellar evolution are way, way wrong, the Sun's not a candidate to explode in any way. It'll swell up and then shrink and cool into a white dwarf. It may or may not destroy Earth in the process. (Odds favor "destroy Earth", but models differ.)
The collision caused the earth's rotation. Ar one time a day on earth lasted three hours. The farther the moon gets from the earth, the more the earth's rotation slows.
I think you're confusing two things, here. The collision did almost surely affect the Earth-Moon system's total angular momentum, but the early spin rate and the gradual slowing of the Earth isn't due to the collision (except indirectly), but due to tides transferring angular momentum from Earth to the Moon.
We really don't know Earth's initial spin state since there's no way to find that in any sort of record. (At least none I can think of. It just doesn't leave much of a mark.)
I can honestly say that I didn't even spot that pun when I wrote that. When you live with ring-puns every day, you stop noticing accidental ones, I guess.
This is a really interesting model and it has a nice ring to it. (And Robin is one of the best researchers I know in this area, so that adds confidence, too.) But can we not use the definite statements in the headlines? This is a model. A good model, to be sure, but just one. I've definitely seen work even recently that makes a comet origin seem plausible, so in the very least, there's a competing model that has to be answered.
Earth generates its heat through radioactive decay of elements like U-238. That decay will happen whether we use the energy or not. The only question is how much we route the heat flow through our systems and how much of it goes to driving volcanoes and plate tectonics, as far as I can see. Earth produces about 2-3 times as much energy as we (as a civilization) use, so if we got all of our energy from geothermal, we'd be in trouble. However, the Earth also receives about (let's see if I can convert correctly) about 6000 times MORE energy from the Sun than we generate internally, so we've got lots of other options. (Most forms of alternative energy tap the solar energy in one form or another.)
Indeed that's true, but that's not at all what my point was. (You also don't find out who is a child abuser by who they've dated, unless molestation is considered dating.)
My point is that they do go around asking those question and it gets little relevant information.
the 1980s 386 processors that keep the International Space Station aloft.
Pardon a bit of physics-prof snark, but I'm pretty sure it's physics that keeps ISS aloft. Keeping it operational and habitable, however, requires a computer, I'm sure.
Sexual background checks are good in schools to prevent child molesters from teaching, however
Wouldn't that just come up in a normal background check under "criminal history"? You don't need to spend the time and money poking around asking who a teacher has dated or whether they're gay to learn that.
Everyone is put through normal background checks that should turn up things like "axe murder". And everyone is also at least obligated to pee in the cup if asked to. (I'm not sure if JPL runs randomized screening or just waits for probable cause.) But unless IBM is digging unusually deeply, your sexual history wasn't consider, nor were the histories of your friends and family. That's what's being disputed here.
Also, note that the scientists in question do no work on "gigantic bombs" or even on the rockets. They work on the robot probes which are in the vicinity of entirely different planets. There isn't much that they can to do you, even if they do snap and decide to hijack the probe. There's also very little that they know that any foreign government would pay for, in as much as said governments could wait a few months for the publication of the findings anyway.
The biggest 'environmental' problem IMO the "failed delivery attempt" to many residential locations... much wated gas. They should just setup a few centralized pickup locations in urbanized areas (provided, of course, the real estate is available and 'cheap' enough to keep rates low).
Which gets dangerously close to just making a brick-and-mortar store. One of the main reasons I find people order online is not wanting to or not being (easily) able to get to such central locations as stores. My girlfriend, for example, doesn't have a car and therefore orders almost everything online, to be delivered to her house.
Actually, in as much as this pretty much permits her to live without a car, I'd argue that it's decreasing her environmental footprint.
What do you mean? Japanese security isn't saying it was Jobs, they're saying someone tried it. Admittedly, I can't read the original source (I don't read Japanese), but that's what's being reported in the linked article. So it's either "SPA Magazine" or Apple.
Actually, the denial was in the article linked in the summary, too. Basically, there's an unconfirmed report that this happened to Jobs, a report that Apple denies. Guess which part of that the summary/press is paying attention to?
Unless he's using a different airport from everyone else, it's moot. There is no point in checking 99% of passengers if you let the 1% carry whatever they like into the same area along the concourses where things can be handed off or stolen.
So, in that limited since, Aristotle was as right as Galileo. Galileo just happens to be more useful.
Actually, no. Aristotle believed everything moved on circles. Kepler formulated a better model with ellipses (Galileo supported it). It's pretty easy to show that the Ptolemaic model of the solar system doesn't work. It doesn't admit new planets, it places the stars on a fixed sphere a set distance away, and it doesn't allow for a number of Galileo's observations (full range of phases on Venus, moons orbiting Jupiter, etc.)
While it's mathematically possible to reference the entire universe to Earth, it's a non-inertial reference frame whose motion can be verified with tests. It's not equivalent to referencing everything to the center of mass (which is basically the Sun).
If they can't help their customers, then they shouldn't be helping the state at least. But to say "there's nothing they can do, it's the reality of business in country X" absolves a lot of sins. At least Google pushed back in China, if only half-heartedly. MS is embracing the Russians' moves when they benefit MS's business, here. They're not pawns, they're complicit in this.
That said, I question your premise that MS can't push back against the Russian state. They're one of the largest corporations on the planet. Even without Russian business, they'd be fine. I suspect that Russia needs them more than they need Russia.
In as much as Microsoft isn't stepping up to clear the names of groups (like Baikal Wave) that have legitimate copies of their software, but are apparently helping the police bully groups that don't, I think you're missing the point. Microsoft isn't just a pawn in this, they're actively helping the state and not helping innocent victims. They're making definite choices who to assist and it's not a purely business decision. (Clearing the your customers of stealing from you is good business.)
Stats are an interesting thing in science, especially in physics and astronomy. We're all trained in a few stats, but after those ones, the more you do the less many of us trust your result. Part of it is that those fields generally don't need a lot of statistical teasing to produce clear results and part of it is unfamiliarity, but another big chunk is the soft nature of statistics: a given stat is rigorous, but which ones give you the best information is kind of hard to say so you can go shopping around for a stat that supports your own conclusion until you find one, often.
Some of that objection is clearly simply cultural, some of it is, I think, legitimate concern.
We previously reported observations of quasar spectra from the Keck telescope suggesting a smaller value of the fine structure constant, , at high redshift. A new sample of 153 measurements from the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT), probing a different direction in the universe, also depends on redshift, but in the opposite sense, that is, appears on average to be larger in the past.
It's suggesting alpha varies in both senses. The farther away (farther back in time) they look, the bigger change. The sign of the change changes in space.
And I disagree about your interpretation of what a supplemental figure is. It's simply a figure you didn't have room for, often showing your data set more completely than space allowed. If anything, they're generally less pretty than the real figures. If anything, they're often less designed to lead the reader to the authors' conclusion.
Look at Fig 5 and squint: I saw patterns straight away.
Good for you. I still don't really see a compelling trend. They have blue and red points side-by-side (virtually on top of each other). That's not promising for their claim.
The researchers calculate that there is less than a 1% chance such an effect could arise at random.
Sure, but just because they calculate something doesn't make it so. Statistics are a dark art and can easily be screwed up. If you assume the wrong error characteristics in your measurements, for example, you can quickly conclude you know more than you do. Without reviewing their calculation (and no one has yet, it appears, as this hasn't been reviewed yet), it's hard to say how confident to be in that statistic.
Right, but other groups haven't found any variation in time or in space. It's possible that they looked in exactly the wrong directions, I suppose, but that's kind of unlikely.
Indeed, but that's the suggestion of the article.
Fair enough (and it may be true), but it's not reasonable to expect people to readily believe the result if that's their explanation. Low probability things happen all the time, but we shouldn't be expected to run out and believe them right away. Which is pretty much all I'm saying when I suggest skepticism.
They're saying now that they have multiple observations of a half-dozen quasars on different telescopes and have calibrated the error between them.
Having now looked at (but not carefully read) the paper, it also looks like their signal is pretty erratic. Measurements in the same part of the sky given very different results. It looks like they've teased out trends statistically, but even if I want to believe the trends, that points to a very large random error in their data. It's an interesting result, but again: I recommend a strong dose of skepticism.
Slashdot Mirror
Possible, yep. But the ordering of the statements "the collision caused Earth's rotation" followed by the tidal evolution (without noting that that's what it is) makes it sounds like the collision caused the Earth to spin fast at first, then slower. Hence my clarification.
In the very distant future, it'll be flung out of orbit.
No, it won't. I'm not sure that's ever energetically possible, let along possible from an angular momentum, standpoint. The Moon will evolve away from Earth until it's around 90 Earth-radii away (it's around 62 right now) and then halt its motion when we're in the double-locked state, like Pluto and Charon. At that point, solar tides take over and slow the Earth down more (but slower) and shift the geosynchronous orbit outside of the Moon's position, at which time the Moon starts moving back toward the Earth. But this is about 50 billion years away, and...
However, this will be long after the Sun goes nova.
No, it won't. Unless our models of stellar evolution are way, way wrong, the Sun's not a candidate to explode in any way. It'll swell up and then shrink and cool into a white dwarf. It may or may not destroy Earth in the process. (Odds favor "destroy Earth", but models differ.)
The collision caused the earth's rotation. Ar one time a day on earth lasted three hours. The farther the moon gets from the earth, the more the earth's rotation slows.
I think you're confusing two things, here. The collision did almost surely affect the Earth-Moon system's total angular momentum, but the early spin rate and the gradual slowing of the Earth isn't due to the collision (except indirectly), but due to tides transferring angular momentum from Earth to the Moon.
We really don't know Earth's initial spin state since there's no way to find that in any sort of record. (At least none I can think of. It just doesn't leave much of a mark.)
I can honestly say that I didn't even spot that pun when I wrote that. When you live with ring-puns every day, you stop noticing accidental ones, I guess.
Yes, and t'was a silly place, as you'll recall. Best not to go there.
This is a really interesting model and it has a nice ring to it. (And Robin is one of the best researchers I know in this area, so that adds confidence, too.) But can we not use the definite statements in the headlines? This is a model. A good model, to be sure, but just one. I've definitely seen work even recently that makes a comet origin seem plausible, so in the very least, there's a competing model that has to be answered.
No, you're not.
That... doesn't make sense.
Earth generates its heat through radioactive decay of elements like U-238. That decay will happen whether we use the energy or not. The only question is how much we route the heat flow through our systems and how much of it goes to driving volcanoes and plate tectonics, as far as I can see. Earth produces about 2-3 times as much energy as we (as a civilization) use, so if we got all of our energy from geothermal, we'd be in trouble. However, the Earth also receives about (let's see if I can convert correctly) about 6000 times MORE energy from the Sun than we generate internally, so we've got lots of other options. (Most forms of alternative energy tap the solar energy in one form or another.)
Indeed that's true, but that's not at all what my point was. (You also don't find out who is a child abuser by who they've dated, unless molestation is considered dating.)
My point is that they do go around asking those question and it gets little relevant information.
the 1980s 386 processors that keep the International Space Station aloft.
Pardon a bit of physics-prof snark, but I'm pretty sure it's physics that keeps ISS aloft. Keeping it operational and habitable, however, requires a computer, I'm sure.
Sexual background checks are good in schools to prevent child molesters from teaching, however
Wouldn't that just come up in a normal background check under "criminal history"? You don't need to spend the time and money poking around asking who a teacher has dated or whether they're gay to learn that.
Everyone is put through normal background checks that should turn up things like "axe murder". And everyone is also at least obligated to pee in the cup if asked to. (I'm not sure if JPL runs randomized screening or just waits for probable cause.) But unless IBM is digging unusually deeply, your sexual history wasn't consider, nor were the histories of your friends and family. That's what's being disputed here.
Also, note that the scientists in question do no work on "gigantic bombs" or even on the rockets. They work on the robot probes which are in the vicinity of entirely different planets. There isn't much that they can to do you, even if they do snap and decide to hijack the probe. There's also very little that they know that any foreign government would pay for, in as much as said governments could wait a few months for the publication of the findings anyway.
By the way, here's a copy of the suitability matrix.
Most LPs spin at 33 1/3 RPM, so "a few dozen" isn't too far off. However, a CD spins at most 500 RPM, well shy of "a few thousand".
The biggest 'environmental' problem IMO the "failed delivery attempt" to many residential locations ... much wated gas. They should just setup a few centralized pickup locations in urbanized areas (provided, of course, the real estate is available and 'cheap' enough to keep rates low).
Which gets dangerously close to just making a brick-and-mortar store. One of the main reasons I find people order online is not wanting to or not being (easily) able to get to such central locations as stores. My girlfriend, for example, doesn't have a car and therefore orders almost everything online, to be delivered to her house.
Actually, in as much as this pretty much permits her to live without a car, I'd argue that it's decreasing her environmental footprint.
What do you mean? Japanese security isn't saying it was Jobs, they're saying someone tried it. Admittedly, I can't read the original source (I don't read Japanese), but that's what's being reported in the linked article. So it's either "SPA Magazine" or Apple.
Actually, the denial was in the article linked in the summary, too. Basically, there's an unconfirmed report that this happened to Jobs, a report that Apple denies. Guess which part of that the summary/press is paying attention to?
Unless he's using a different airport from everyone else, it's moot. There is no point in checking 99% of passengers if you let the 1% carry whatever they like into the same area along the concourses where things can be handed off or stolen.
So, in that limited since, Aristotle was as right as Galileo. Galileo just happens to be more useful.
Actually, no. Aristotle believed everything moved on circles. Kepler formulated a better model with ellipses (Galileo supported it). It's pretty easy to show that the Ptolemaic model of the solar system doesn't work. It doesn't admit new planets, it places the stars on a fixed sphere a set distance away, and it doesn't allow for a number of Galileo's observations (full range of phases on Venus, moons orbiting Jupiter, etc.)
While it's mathematically possible to reference the entire universe to Earth, it's a non-inertial reference frame whose motion can be verified with tests. It's not equivalent to referencing everything to the center of mass (which is basically the Sun).
If they can't help their customers, then they shouldn't be helping the state at least. But to say "there's nothing they can do, it's the reality of business in country X" absolves a lot of sins. At least Google pushed back in China, if only half-heartedly. MS is embracing the Russians' moves when they benefit MS's business, here. They're not pawns, they're complicit in this.
That said, I question your premise that MS can't push back against the Russian state. They're one of the largest corporations on the planet. Even without Russian business, they'd be fine. I suspect that Russia needs them more than they need Russia.
In as much as Microsoft isn't stepping up to clear the names of groups (like Baikal Wave) that have legitimate copies of their software, but are apparently helping the police bully groups that don't, I think you're missing the point. Microsoft isn't just a pawn in this, they're actively helping the state and not helping innocent victims. They're making definite choices who to assist and it's not a purely business decision. (Clearing the your customers of stealing from you is good business.)
Stats are an interesting thing in science, especially in physics and astronomy. We're all trained in a few stats, but after those ones, the more you do the less many of us trust your result. Part of it is that those fields generally don't need a lot of statistical teasing to produce clear results and part of it is unfamiliarity, but another big chunk is the soft nature of statistics: a given stat is rigorous, but which ones give you the best information is kind of hard to say so you can go shopping around for a stat that supports your own conclusion until you find one, often.
Some of that objection is clearly simply cultural, some of it is, I think, legitimate concern.
The abstract:
We previously reported observations of quasar spectra from the Keck telescope suggesting a smaller value of the fine structure constant, , at high redshift. A new sample of 153 measurements from the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT), probing a different direction in the universe, also depends on redshift, but in the opposite sense, that is, appears on average to be larger in the past.
It's suggesting alpha varies in both senses. The farther away (farther back in time) they look, the bigger change. The sign of the change changes in space.
And I disagree about your interpretation of what a supplemental figure is. It's simply a figure you didn't have room for, often showing your data set more completely than space allowed. If anything, they're generally less pretty than the real figures. If anything, they're often less designed to lead the reader to the authors' conclusion.
Look at Fig 5 and squint: I saw patterns straight away.
Good for you. I still don't really see a compelling trend. They have blue and red points side-by-side (virtually on top of each other). That's not promising for their claim.
The researchers calculate that there is less than a 1% chance such an effect could arise at random.
Sure, but just because they calculate something doesn't make it so. Statistics are a dark art and can easily be screwed up. If you assume the wrong error characteristics in your measurements, for example, you can quickly conclude you know more than you do. Without reviewing their calculation (and no one has yet, it appears, as this hasn't been reviewed yet), it's hard to say how confident to be in that statistic.
Right, but other groups haven't found any variation in time or in space. It's possible that they looked in exactly the wrong directions, I suppose, but that's kind of unlikely.
Indeed, but that's the suggestion of the article.
Fair enough (and it may be true), but it's not reasonable to expect people to readily believe the result if that's their explanation. Low probability things happen all the time, but we shouldn't be expected to run out and believe them right away. Which is pretty much all I'm saying when I suggest skepticism.
They're saying now that they have multiple observations of a half-dozen quasars on different telescopes and have calibrated the error between them.
Having now looked at (but not carefully read) the paper, it also looks like their signal is pretty erratic. Measurements in the same part of the sky given very different results. It looks like they've teased out trends statistically, but even if I want to believe the trends, that points to a very large random error in their data. It's an interesting result, but again: I recommend a strong dose of skepticism.