Why is Small Computer System Interface a silly name for a Systems Interface designed for Small Computers [ie what were at the time still commonly called Micro computers] ?
Mars isn't terraformable, there just isn't enough there and frankly its not really big enough. Mars is more a vision of the Earth of the future than the Earth of the past.
Venus however... Venus is perfect, young, brimming with nitrates and carbons and hydrogen, very hot very like a young earth, its also about the right size [gravity would be important for the retention of a Earth like atmosphere].
So why aren't we sending these things off to Venus? Cost.
Even if it doesn't, will it be possible to prove that it is the simplest possible proof?
yes, or at least you could find the simplest proof in finite time
[as a proof it would have to be constructable in a finite number of steps from 1st order logic and the axioms of set theory. Given N, the number of steps the proof took, there is a finite set s(N-1) of all statements taking less than N steps, these could be exausted in finite time by a computer and examined to see if any where proofs of the theorem.]
Firstly sorry I'm posting here, but I should like the original requestor to read this...
Mathematics, at least pure mathematics, is more of a mindset that a knowledge set. It is incredibly hard to learn the mathematical way of thinking from books alone, that said once this mindset is acquired the books are the only thing you'll need.
My advice would be to find yourself a mentor who's willing to assist you in acquiring this mindset, you'll probably be succesful asking around the various maths newsgroups.
You need to be able to interact in real time with this person occasionally, but there is no reason not to do this over IM or IRC.
As for what to learn / which books to read Calculus by Micheal Spivak is an excellent book, it brings in rigour gently and covers all of the main points of analysis. Covering its contents alone would set you up for a college / uni course, though you might also what to get a basic grip of [say] group theory and a very basic idea of sets [doesn't have to be above the venn diagram level]
One word of warning do not let a physicist, on engineer or anyone else who 'thinks' they know maths teach you maths, find a mathematician
Why would I want a watch were it actually took me a second or two to read the watch?
..Yes I'd get quicker at it, but do I really want a watch with a base 2 output to deal with a base 12 [kinda] time system that I associate with decimal numbers?
Do I really want to have to explain what me watch is to attractive girls at parties?
Hmm the examples where supposed to be illustrative, I just couldn't remember of-hand any of the numerous searches that have gone wrong for me on google, despite much "ing and other 'advanced' searching.
Thanks for all of the corrections though. I still believe that google is not a panacea. Web directories, memorable domain names etc will continue to be used, especially when a website is advertised in other media. Basically [IMHO] there's no point in advertising a bicycle website in a biking magazine unless it has a name like bikes.co.uk.
Google is a wonderful tool, but there are times and situations were it fails. Its at its very best at [say] finding every article ever written on a line like 'ORA12345 Oracle', as there is only one possible meaning. It is weaker however when one wants to buy something, because often people have only partialy defined needs for what they want to buy before they engage in the buying process.
A search of 'Bicycle shop UK' will produce many hits, almost all of them not online bicycle retailers. which is why bikes.co.uk will always have worth.
Now my own view is that all retail should be stuck on a separtate domain [.shop par example], and the rest returned to the 'good ol' days', but it aint going to happen
The downside to this is the they wont be open sourcing it. The upside I suppose is that it will be actively developed and will retain its corporate marketshare.
Hmm...
Thats not strictly true. Most [well depending on how you define most] of the sea life we know of does consume O2 dissolved in the water [ie fish, gills]. If there was no atmosphere above the water there would be no such organisms.
That said there are lots of anearobic bacteria that would even be slightly better of underwater if the atmosphere wasn't there.
I rather suspect that ALICE is a common acronym due to Alice [of Wonderland fame]. Ever since Charles Dodgeson, a mathmo himself, wrote it that book has been a favorite of geeks world-wide.
...To me the likelyhood of life on Europa depends upon the availibility of [principaly] heat and minerals. In deep sea sulphur vents life positively teams [a recent BBC documentry with some rare footage revealed three layers of life sitting atop these vents, with the white crabs on top standing shoulder to shoulder].
Basically my question is whether an object of europa's size has sufficient internal heat to provide lifes principal energy. [its about the size of mercury??]. I presume that the ice layer will filter cosmic rays effectively, there will be minimal sunlight etc, so we need a primary energy source. If there is one then I have no doubt that something akin to life exists up there.
It was the babylonians who used 360 as there base. I doubt the representation system actually had 360 distinct symbols though...
The reason for 360 is supposedly because it divides well, 360 = 2*2*2*3*3*5 which is a sensible approach [for divisibility], though [2*3*5*7] = 210 might have a case.
Remember that since most 'ancient' number systems had fairly clumsy notation the utility of the system was often based upon how easy it was to express numbers within it.
Not sure wether you mean base 1 or base -1, but either way your post is bunk.
In base 1 the [unial] point is irrelevent since 1/1 = 1. Hence n = number of 1s
In base -1 [if we assume that's a reasonable extension of our base system] we have [decimals on the right] 1 = -1, 11 = 0 [as -1*-1 = 1, 1+ -1 =0], 111 = -1 again..1 = -1 [as 1/-1 = -1],.11 = 0 etc etc. We can get -2 by 1.1 but thats it, we cannot reproduce the entire set of intergers.
and therefore these are not in any meaningful sense bases
If you suppose that the 'breaking-up' wasn't too violent then the relative velocities of the fragments post break would be relatively small. They would also be traveling at something close to their original velocities relative to the planet. Now the pieces in isolation would continue to orbit fairly normally in this scenario, and of course would have an attraction towards the centre of mass of the pieces. If things were aproximately right they'd all clunk back into each other over time. As to why they might bond rather than stay as seperate pieces I could only guess heat caused by the impacts.
I admit that I dont personally believe in this scenario, but it is generally plausible.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is Small Computer System Interface a silly name for a Systems Interface designed for Small Computers [ie what were at the time still commonly called Micro computers] ?
Seems quite sensible
Hmm I realise that Venus is ludicrously hot, but I'm not sure its genuinely too hot. I'm thinking things like sulphur vent life etc etc.
We could speed up the cooling by oribiting a huge screen between the sun and venus [I'm only kind of joking]
My suggestion wasn't to try and make venus haitable for human life so much as to try to create a habitat of self-sustainin microbiotic life.
Mars isn't terraformable, there just isn't enough there and frankly its not really big enough. Mars is more a vision of the Earth of the future than the Earth of the past.
Venus however...
Venus is perfect, young, brimming with nitrates and carbons and hydrogen, very hot very like a young earth, its also about the right size [gravity would be important for the retention of a Earth like atmosphere].
So why aren't we sending these things off to Venus? Cost.
though on the complex sphere [the complex plain with an extra point, infinity, defined 1/0 is equal to infinity and is a reasonably sensible 'number'.
Maths is all about context.
since Pi is trancendental you may be there a while....
Even if it doesn't, will it be possible to prove that it is the simplest possible proof?
yes, or at least you could find the simplest proof in finite time
[as a proof it would have to be constructable in a finite number of steps from 1st order logic and the axioms of set theory. Given N, the number of steps the proof took, there is a finite set s(N-1) of all statements taking less than N steps, these could be exausted in finite time by a computer and examined to see if any where proofs of the theorem.]
Firstly sorry I'm posting here, but I should like the original requestor to read this...
Mathematics, at least pure mathematics, is more of a mindset that a knowledge set. It is incredibly hard to learn the mathematical way of thinking from books alone, that said once this mindset is acquired the books are the only thing you'll need.
My advice would be to find yourself a mentor who's willing to assist you in acquiring this mindset, you'll probably be succesful asking around the various maths newsgroups.
You need to be able to interact in real time with this person occasionally, but there is no reason not to do this over IM or IRC.
As for what to learn / which books to read Calculus by Micheal Spivak is an excellent book, it brings in rigour gently and covers all of the main points of analysis. Covering its contents alone would set you up for a college / uni course, though you might also what to get a basic grip of [say] group theory and a very basic idea of sets [doesn't have to be above the venn diagram level]
One word of warning do not let a physicist, on engineer or anyone else who 'thinks' they know maths teach you maths, find a mathematician
Actually It made a $1 billion loss in 1995, the largest ever made at the time.
That could be taken as a 'sigh it was going down' Of course they sorted themselves out.
You may fetch your mail via ssh, but whilst its wending its journey over the net via SMTP its unsecure.
You really find binary as easy to read as decimal??
That's 10 much 100 me to believe.
Anyway time may be based on the babylonian system, but is not consistant in any base, mins and seconds in 60, hours in 12 / 24 and after that.....
Why would I want a watch were it actually took me a second or two to read the watch?
..Yes I'd get quicker at it, but do I really want a watch with a base 2 output to deal with a base 12 [kinda] time system that I associate with decimal numbers?
Do I really want to have to explain what me watch is to attractive girls at parties?
NeXT used to use it, but then Mr Jobs was involved there as well.
Yeah they do, I've seen them do it, remember the /. readership is not representative of the 'web population'.
Also there's a memorability issue, I may remember a catchy domain name, I'm unlikely to remember the exact for of a complicated web search.....
Hmm the examples where supposed to be illustrative, I just couldn't remember of-hand any of the numerous searches that have gone wrong for me on google, despite much "ing and other 'advanced' searching.
Thanks for all of the corrections though. I still believe that google is not a panacea. Web directories, memorable domain names etc will continue to be used, especially when a website is advertised in other media. Basically [IMHO] there's no point in advertising a bicycle website in a biking magazine unless it has a name like bikes.co.uk.
Google is a wonderful tool, but there are times and situations were it fails. Its at its very best at [say] finding every article ever written on a line like 'ORA12345 Oracle', as there is only one possible meaning. It is weaker however when one wants to buy something, because often people have only partialy defined needs for what they want to buy before they engage in the buying process.
A search of 'Bicycle shop UK' will produce many hits, almost all of them not online bicycle retailers. which is why bikes.co.uk will always have worth.
Now my own view is that all retail should be stuck on a separtate domain [.shop par example], and the rest returned to the 'good ol' days', but it aint going to happen
The downside to this is the they wont be open sourcing it. The upside I suppose is that it will be actively developed and will retain its corporate marketshare.
Hmm...
Thats not strictly true. Most [well depending on how you define most] of the sea life we know of does consume O2 dissolved in the water [ie fish, gills]. If there was no atmosphere above the water there would be no such organisms.
That said there are lots of anearobic bacteria that would even be slightly better of underwater if the atmosphere wasn't there.
An obvious reason is that they have and can use Word. If not they've at least got the viewer that came with Windows.
.PDF is in some ways better, but that, my boy, is life.
They may or may not have acrobat reader, they may or may not be allowed to install it etc etc.
Yes
I rather suspect that ALICE is a common acronym due to Alice [of Wonderland fame]. Ever since Charles Dodgeson, a mathmo himself, wrote it that book has been a favorite of geeks world-wide.
See for example: quark
Yes but you have to carry the extra fuel to lift the extra weight, this has weight itself and so on, he's right, your wrong.
...To me the likelyhood of life on Europa depends upon the availibility of [principaly] heat and minerals. In deep sea sulphur vents life positively teams [a recent BBC documentry with some rare footage revealed three layers of life sitting atop these vents, with the white crabs on top standing shoulder to shoulder].
Basically my question is whether an object of europa's size has sufficient internal heat to provide lifes principal energy. [its about the size of mercury??]. I presume that the ice layer will filter cosmic rays effectively, there will be minimal sunlight etc, so we need a primary energy source. If there is one then I have no doubt that something akin to life exists up there.
It was the babylonians who used 360 as there base. I doubt the representation system actually had 360 distinct symbols though...
The reason for 360 is supposedly because it divides well, 360 = 2*2*2*3*3*5 which is a sensible approach [for divisibility], though [2*3*5*7] = 210 might have a case.
Remember that since most 'ancient' number systems had fairly clumsy notation the utility of the system was often based upon how easy it was to express numbers within it.
Not sure wether you mean base 1 or base -1, but either way your post is bunk.
.1 = -1 [as 1/-1 = -1], .11 = 0 etc etc. We can get -2 by 1.1 but thats it, we cannot reproduce the entire set of intergers.
In base 1 the [unial] point is irrelevent since 1/1 = 1. Hence n = number of 1s
In base -1 [if we assume that's a reasonable extension of our base system] we have [decimals on the right] 1 = -1, 11 = 0 [as -1*-1 = 1, 1+ -1 =0], 111 = -1 again.
and therefore these are not in any meaningful sense bases
If you suppose that the 'breaking-up' wasn't too violent then the relative velocities of the fragments post break would be relatively small. They would also be traveling at something close to their original velocities relative to the planet. Now the pieces in isolation would continue to orbit fairly normally in this scenario, and of course would have an attraction towards the centre of mass of the pieces. If things were aproximately right they'd all clunk back into each other over time. As to why they might bond rather than stay as seperate pieces I could only guess heat caused by the impacts.
I admit that I dont personally believe in this scenario, but it is generally plausible.
Thanks,
What a nice helpful guy[?] like you doing posting at 0?