As an even more pedantic aside: the word "ain't" IS proper English - but not necessarily in the dialect or register that you are currently using. For example, in mid to late Victorian England (1860 to 1900, and the country from which English comes, and to which standards on English, per se, must be referred) the word "ain't" was used in normal conversation by cultured and educated speakers, without any hint of impropriety. The arbitrary strictures that now affect "ain't", but not "don't" or "won't" or "isn't", were applied later.
If inertial and gravitaional mass are exactly equivalent, and a photon has momentum (granted, it is 4-momentum - so we are dependent here upon the frame of reference) and (crudely - and, you are going to say, incorrectly) momentum is mass times velocity, then from the fact a photon has momentum we can deduce that it has mass (p=mv). From Einstein's equations, however, we can deduce that it cannot have any rest-mass, as at speed-of-light (c) movement it would have infinite moving-mass.
BUT suppose - just for a moment - two heretical things: firstly that a photon DOES have rest mass (very tiny, but non-zero), and secondly that light does NOT travel at c - the upper speed limit for the universe - but very, very slightly less than that. We speak of c as being "the speed of light in vacuum" but we also speak of there being no true vacuum anywhere in the universe. Even intergalactic space contains some matter - per cubic metre not much, but some. So we have never - and I really do mean never - measured the actual speed of light in vacuum. We have measured the speed of light in "close to vacuum" (and in glass and in water and in air and lots of other media too), but never actually "in vacuum".
Still bear with me: so what if the rest-mass of a photon is, say ten to the fortieth power smaller than the mass of a neutrino (... when I was a child I was told neutrinos have no mass - but that's changed!), and that the maximum speed of light actually occuring in the universe is one ten to the fortieth part smaller than c (the ultimate speed limit)? Then we could still have Einstein (scientifically good) and we could think of photons as having mass (ordinary common sense good) and we can get rid of Black Holes (I've never liked them - but that, I know, is not a good argument) and instead have very, very deep (but NOT infinitely deep) gravity wells.
Photons are very light - but NOT massless. Photons always move at LESS than the (unmeasured) upper speed of light..
Then I assume you supported the US/British/Spanish/Australian invasion Iraq. I presume you are currently pressing your government to liberate Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia, and Iran, all in the name of freedom of course. Supporting the invasion of Iraq? Quite the reverse - an obscene waste of human life - even though I am pleased by the downfall of Saddam. And, yes, I am pressing my government - and all the people I meet - to liberate these and all other countries - but by peaceful means. The hug is more powerful than the gun (in the long run).
I see. You are saying that a nationalized ID will lead to tyranny. Not quite - just that it makes tyranny easier, and (in this maddly technological world) more probable, where the ID card is associated with central databases and (shudder) tracking.
And because of the immense power of the USA - financially, militarily, and in fashions of government - W does effectively have a strong hand in the government of these - and many other - countries.
I care because freedom is everyone's concern. Your loss of freedom is a negative influence on my freedom.
I care because totalitarianism is insidious. "It's only an ID card" becomes "you have to carry the ID card at all times" becomes "the RFID chip (or whatever) allows us to track you, wherever you are" becomes.... I know not what. And I don't want to know. Let's stop before we start on that road.
I care because the state is our servant, not our master.
And I do not have to tell you good folks that it will be expensive, and it will be insecure, and it will not prevent crime or terror or social disintegration. I care, becase it won't work - and it is dangerous.
1) I do, as it happens, know a great deal about Bach (and much other music too), and I am a semi-professional musician. I also have thought deeply about cognition -and have published a book which (partly) touches upon that topic.
2) & 3) I only believe these sciency things because I have looked at the logic and the mathematics (and. yes, I have a university degree in mathematics), and not just because it's the popular thing to believe. As a counter example, I have no idea whatsoever as to whether the graviton exists or not - I have no logical proof either way, therefore I must firmly hold to that piece of ignorance, and not pretend that I know.
4) But my belief in God is different from - and does not affect - my scientific thought.
These ideas get along well together because I recognize that they are from different universes.
The scientific and the non-scientific can exist in the same mind without conflict. For example: 1) I believe the music of J.S.Bach to be utterly beautiful (that's a statement of my personal taste - you don't have to share it), but I cannot tell you why it is beautiful. 2) I believe that the theory of evolution (or something very like it) is a correct description of how life is organized upon this planet, even though we cannot perform extensive experimental tests to show this. 3) I believe that nuclear physics and quantum mechanics are useful - and though not perfect - mathematical images of how this physical universe is organised, and that this can be expermentally falsified (that is, tested). 4) And I believe that the universe owes its ultimate being to the will of a Creator, whom I call God.
These four ideas exist in my mind at the same time, without conflict. I do not ask my taste in Bach to explain the shape of animal bodies, I do not ask the theory of evolution to explain the position of electron shells, I do not ask nuclear physics to explain eternity (which is orthogonal to time, and not a great extension of time). What I do ask (of myself), however, is that God should be the centre of the wonderful beauty of music and of biology and of physics and of all the other experiences of our life. A centre, not as an explanation of what we do not know (a "God of the gaps"), but a centre as binding together all things in perfection.
And, yes, that's not a scientific statement - but then, neither is the Tocatta and Fugue in D.
I am one of the over-50 programmers here - actually, I'm over 60 - and two of my first four programming languages were Algol 60 (which was initially defined in 1958 - yes I know, I know), and Fortran IV. I loved both of these languages. Learning the detail of Algol very much allowed me to grasp C quickly (and learn it in detail).
And Fortan? Well, I have just finished working with the Met Office (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/) and, yes, they do use Fortran - and just last year I had to translate great swathes of it into C so that it could run on a system that lacked a Fortran compiler. Engineers are not bad programmers - but they do want access to complex - and fully tested - routines that already exist. So Fortran is going to continue for quite some while yet - a few more decades at least.
People of my age stand not just on the shoulders of giants, but beside them. The abstract conversations in which us geeks revel were much harder to set up - and be paid for - in the 1950s. People of all ages should thank John Backus in memoriam for his technical vision and inventiveness.
Now don't think I'm suggesting that we should all of us write lots of code in assembler. What I am saying is that we should know how to write assembler code, and (more important) how to read assembler code. Until a programmer understands at least something of what is going on unter the hood s/he cannot appreciate the basic costs of high-level language statements.
I single out gun crime, in this instance, because it is the availability of guns that is under discussion. Yes, it would be possible to reduce red-haired crime by shaving (and thoroughly pissing off!) red-heads, and yes - you are right - that particular action would not help mankind one little bit. But it is not red hair that is mentioned in the second ammendment to the constitution of the USA, it is armaments.
I state - without quoting proof - that reduction in the availability of guns reduces the number of crimes committed with guns. I state - again without proof - that this also reduces the abolute number of victims of violent crime. I will, if you wish, Google for references to the statistical analyses upon which these statements are based - not my mere opinions, but concrete observations of the real world. We can then, perhaps, discuss whether these analyses are applicable in the American situation, and if not, why not - or, indeed, whether these statistics do in fact show what they seem to show. So, I single out gun crime (in this discussion) because that is what this discussion is about; and I believe that there is observational evidence showing that reducing the availability of guns reduces the absolute number of victims of all violent crimes.
The categorization of myself (sixty-one year old, etc. etc.) is just a set of accidental properties I personally happen to possess. I state that I have training in mathematical logic because (I hope) it is exactly that that I am applying here. This sometimes results in discussions that are non-intuitive: in this instance, for example, I am trying to discuss only the reduction in overall violent crime by the reduction of gun crime, and not any other topics that may well be worth discussing (e.g. whether the appaling waste of life on the roads in the USA could be tackled, whether the world's climate is actually unstable, whether recreational drugs should be legalised). If the statistical observations to which I have appealed (but not quoted) are in fact incorrect (or inapplicable) then I have made a factual error, and (of course) my conclusions could not be sustained on those grounds. A factual error, not a logic error.
And I disagree with you about lack of violence. I am of the opinion that cooperation is always better than conflict, though there are some situations in which a violent reaction is the correct reaction. But these situations are extremely rare - not nearly as common as we are led to believe by television drama, by miltary leaders, by holders of political power - or even by six year old children.
Civilization is not easy. We are an inventive species, and if we do not control our destructive tendancies then we will certainly destroy ourselves. We already have the power to do that. I seek to make it less likely that we actually do that, and each civilized act that moves us away from that horrible end (to which - let's face it - we are moving) is a welcome act.
I trust I am rational, and I care about gun crime. I care about all crime. Violent crimes are acts of malevolence against human beings, and I deeply wish to reduce the number of such acts. By "gun crime" I mean roughly "crime committed whilst using a gun". It is known - by observation- that reducing the availability of guns reduces the amount of gun crime - despite the "hoodwinking" to which I was alluding. Of course, human beings can be violent and nasty without guns, but we can at least help our societies.
So what sort of rational person cares about gun crime? Sixty-one year old English systems designers with training in mathematical logic, computing, philosophy and music, who care about Christian values, that's who.
And none of your comments are intrinsically wrong - except that I am "idkk" not "jdkk" (they are the initials of my proper name) - every act or decision that moves this world, or any part of this world, away from violence towards tolerance is (IMHO) a welcome act or decision.
Surely it is time to recognize that a plethora of guns results in a glut of gun crime? I am not an American, though I have visited the USA several times, and have numerous American friends and work colleagues. The individual American is not stupid, but the American society is being hoodwinked. We, in the 95% of the world that is not from the USA (i.e. the very great majority) wait in despair for you, as a society to grow up, and drop the almost childish desire for arms, exchanging it for an adult acceptance of the world's dangers.
My friends, come - enter the 21st Century - the door is open for you. 18th Century thinking impedes you.
Er, no, actually... it still is "our" language (I speak as an Englishman), not yours. You are describing a language whose proper name is "American", which for some reasons of historical confusion is called in American "English". In England we speak a language which we call, in English "English". You will have to tell me what our, primary, English is called in American as I do not speak that tongue. FYI More people in the world speak (British) English than speak (American) English. If you doubt this, you have forgotten China.
No one should be able to ignore anyone's patents. No one should be able to ignore anyone's trademarks. No one should be able to ignore anyone's trade secrets. No one should be able to ignore anyone's copyrights.
I do not have to ignore something to not agree with it. Moral considerations and changes in reallity must temper our reaction to the law. For example, here in London (UK) it was until very recently the Law (legal requirement) that (a) all taxi cabs had to carry a bale of hay and (b) no taxi cab was permitted to reverse. Both of these laws relate to the well-being of horses, and the behaviour of horses. We no longer draw our taxis by horse. So the first rule (about hay) was silently ignored, but the second rule (reverse) was not. Hence London taxi-cabs have an extremely small tuning-circle as they were not permitted to use reverse gear) - but none the less had to have a reverse gear (because of road-safety regulations - and common sense). It was still the legal requirement to carry hay - but we simply ignored that, because here reallity had overtaken the law.
I might be unable to ignore copyright, patent, trade-marks and trade secrets - but that does not mean I have to agree with all of them. The law has to represent reallity - the current reallity. Reallity changes, so the law must change too. This is not a discussion about trade secrets and trademarks - but copyright and patent must be for a reasonable time, and not throughout all eternity.
Here in the UK I believe we have patent law about right - though fourteen years (the current upper limit on patent protection AFAIK) may seem very long within the computer industry, it is a short time elsewhere. Copyright, though, is for too long - and (following pressure from the USA, and greedy industry) possibly going to be for longer. To sustain society's economic growth and individual profit we are not, as a culture, obliged to have draconian copyright laws.
Industry, to be profitable, does not have to be greedy: when it is, the societies supporting that greed are consumed (look at Imperial Rome, Victorian England, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire for examples).
FYI: London taxis no longer have to carry hay (by law)... but still have very tight turning circles.
Not only is neutrino mass important, it will make (IMHO) a fundamental change to the way in which we analyse cosmology. Although IANAP (I Am Not A Physicist) I would be more that interested to learn how this affects the concepts of dark matter, gravitational irregularity (deviations from the inverse-square law that have been suggested), and the neccesity for the existence of Black Holes to explain invisible mass and the motion of galaxies. Does the non-zero mass of neutrinos wipe out all of these uncomfortable irregularities in physics? I don't know - but I do hope so!
"Rafiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht."
I disagree. If humankind is anihilated then the emmisions will go down. There are many in the scientific community holding the opinion that humankind will be (effectively) wiped out in the next 250 years. For those of you that think that is a long time - I can see, as I type, a tree that started growing more than more than twice that span of time ago. Two hundred and fifty years is more than the lifetime of an individual man - but is a very short time indeed compared with history - and with our future history. Let's adapt now by trying to cut those emmissions - and control the population growth.
I think murder (and a law against it) was once phrased in just four words: "Thou shalt not kill". Or, if you prefer a more modern English translation: "Do not kill".
Slashdot Mirror
As an even more pedantic aside: the word "ain't" IS proper English - but not necessarily in the dialect or register that you are currently using. For example, in mid to late Victorian England (1860 to 1900, and the country from which English comes, and to which standards on English, per se, must be referred) the word "ain't" was used in normal conversation by cultured and educated speakers, without any hint of impropriety. The arbitrary strictures that now affect "ain't", but not "don't" or "won't" or "isn't", were applied later.
And I ain't wrong.
Bear with me for a moment:
If inertial and gravitaional mass are exactly equivalent, and a photon has momentum (granted, it is 4-momentum - so we are dependent here upon the frame of reference) and (crudely - and, you are going to say, incorrectly) momentum is mass times velocity, then from the fact a photon has momentum we can deduce that it has mass (p=mv). From Einstein's equations, however, we can deduce that it cannot have any rest-mass, as at speed-of-light (c) movement it would have infinite moving-mass.
BUT suppose - just for a moment - two heretical things: firstly that a photon DOES have rest mass (very tiny, but non-zero), and secondly that light does NOT travel at c - the upper speed limit for the universe - but very, very slightly less than that. We speak of c as being "the speed of light in vacuum" but we also speak of there being no true vacuum anywhere in the universe. Even intergalactic space contains some matter - per cubic metre not much, but some. So we have never - and I really do mean never - measured the actual speed of light in vacuum. We have measured the speed of light in "close to vacuum" (and in glass and in water and in air and lots of other media too), but never actually "in vacuum".
Still bear with me: so what if the rest-mass of a photon is, say ten to the fortieth power smaller than the mass of a neutrino (... when I was a child I was told neutrinos have no mass - but that's changed!), and that the maximum speed of light actually occuring in the universe is one ten to the fortieth part smaller than c (the ultimate speed limit)? Then we could still have Einstein (scientifically good) and we could think of photons as having mass (ordinary common sense good) and we can get rid of Black Holes (I've never liked them - but that, I know, is not a good argument) and instead have very, very deep (but NOT infinitely deep) gravity wells.
Photons are very light - but NOT massless. Photons always move at LESS than the (unmeasured) upper speed of light..
OK - you can stop bearing with me now.
Magna Carta was NEVER signed.It was sealed.
Not easy, not cheap, not quick - but possible
"... a mean and hungry look / he thinks too much - such men are dangerous."
I care because totalitarianism is insidious. "It's only an ID card" becomes "you have to carry the ID card at all times" becomes "the RFID chip (or whatever) allows us to track you, wherever you are" becomes
I care because the state is our servant, not our master.
And I do not have to tell you good folks that it will be expensive, and it will be insecure, and it will not prevent crime or terror or social disintegration.
I care, becase it won't work - and it is dangerous.
Is it helpful for non USA citizens to also voice their disquiet?
1) I do, as it happens, know a great deal about Bach (and much other music too), and I am a semi-professional musician. I also have thought deeply about cognition -and have published a book which (partly) touches upon that topic.
2) & 3) I only believe these sciency things because I have looked at the logic and the mathematics (and. yes, I have a university degree in mathematics), and not just because it's the popular thing to believe. As a counter example, I have no idea whatsoever as to whether the graviton exists or not - I have no logical proof either way, therefore I must firmly hold to that piece of ignorance, and not pretend that I know.
4) But my belief in God is different from - and does not affect - my scientific thought.
These ideas get along well together because I recognize that they are from different universes.
1) I believe the music of J.S.Bach to be utterly beautiful (that's a statement of my personal taste - you don't have to share it), but I cannot tell you why it is beautiful.
2) I believe that the theory of evolution (or something very like it) is a correct description of how life is organized upon this planet, even though we cannot perform extensive experimental tests to show this.
3) I believe that nuclear physics and quantum mechanics are useful - and though not perfect - mathematical images of how this physical universe is organised, and that this can be expermentally falsified (that is, tested).
4) And I believe that the universe owes its ultimate being to the will of a Creator, whom I call God.
These four ideas exist in my mind at the same time, without conflict. I do not ask my taste in Bach to explain the shape of animal bodies, I do not ask the theory of evolution to explain the position of electron shells, I do not ask nuclear physics to explain eternity (which is orthogonal to time, and not a great extension of time). What I do ask (of myself), however, is that God should be the centre of the wonderful beauty of music and of biology and of physics and of all the other experiences of our life. A centre, not as an explanation of what we do not know (a "God of the gaps"), but a centre as binding together all things in perfection.
And, yes, that's not a scientific statement - but then, neither is the Tocatta and Fugue in D.
And Fortan? Well, I have just finished working with the Met Office (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/) and, yes, they do use Fortran - and just last year I had to translate great swathes of it into C so that it could run on a system that lacked a Fortran compiler. Engineers are not bad programmers - but they do want access to complex - and fully tested - routines that already exist. So Fortran is going to continue for quite some while yet - a few more decades at least.
People of my age stand not just on the shoulders of giants, but beside them. The abstract conversations in which us geeks revel were much harder to set up - and be paid for - in the 1950s. People of all ages should thank John Backus in memoriam for his technical vision and inventiveness.
Now don't think I'm suggesting that we should all of us write lots of code in assembler. What I am saying is that we should know how to write assembler code, and (more important) how to read assembler code. Until a programmer understands at least something of what is going on unter the hood s/he cannot appreciate the basic costs of high-level language statements.
um ... overladies surely?
I state - without quoting proof - that reduction in the availability of guns reduces the number of crimes committed with guns. I state - again without proof - that this also reduces the abolute number of victims of violent crime. I will, if you wish, Google for references to the statistical analyses upon which these statements are based - not my mere opinions, but concrete observations of the real world. We can then, perhaps, discuss whether these analyses are applicable in the American situation, and if not, why not - or, indeed, whether these statistics do in fact show what they seem to show. So, I single out gun crime (in this discussion) because that is what this discussion is about; and I believe that there is observational evidence showing that reducing the availability of guns reduces the absolute number of victims of all violent crimes.
The categorization of myself (sixty-one year old, etc. etc.) is just a set of accidental properties I personally happen to possess. I state that I have training in mathematical logic because (I hope) it is exactly that that I am applying here. This sometimes results in discussions that are non-intuitive: in this instance, for example, I am trying to discuss only the reduction in overall violent crime by the reduction of gun crime, and not any other topics that may well be worth discussing (e.g. whether the appaling waste of life on the roads in the USA could be tackled, whether the world's climate is actually unstable, whether recreational drugs should be legalised). If the statistical observations to which I have appealed (but not quoted) are in fact incorrect (or inapplicable) then I have made a factual error, and (of course) my conclusions could not be sustained on those grounds. A factual error, not a logic error.
And I disagree with you about lack of violence. I am of the opinion that cooperation is always better than conflict, though there are some situations in which a violent reaction is the correct reaction. But these situations are extremely rare - not nearly as common as we are led to believe by television drama, by miltary leaders, by holders of political power - or even by six year old children.
Civilization is not easy. We are an inventive species, and if we do not control our destructive tendancies then we will certainly destroy ourselves. We already have the power to do that. I seek to make it less likely that we actually do that, and each civilized act that moves us away from that horrible end (to which - let's face it - we are moving) is a welcome act.
So what sort of rational person cares about gun crime? Sixty-one year old English systems designers with training in mathematical logic, computing, philosophy and music, who care about Christian values, that's who.
And none of your comments are intrinsically wrong - except that I am "idkk" not "jdkk" (they are the initials of my proper name) - every act or decision that moves this world, or any part of this world, away from violence towards tolerance is (IMHO) a welcome act or decision.
Peace.
My friends, come - enter the 21st Century - the door is open for you. 18th Century thinking impedes you.
Ah! So now we'll be able to do a slow foxtrot to "Bat Out Of Hell" - so soothing.
Yes - and they will be faster than normal!
Er, no, actually ... it still is "our" language (I speak as an Englishman), not yours. You are describing a language whose proper name is "American", which for some reasons of historical confusion is called in American "English". In England we speak a language which we call, in English "English". You will have to tell me what our, primary, English is called in American as I do not speak that tongue.
FYI More people in the world speak (British) English than speak (American) English. If you doubt this, you have forgotten China.
No one should be able to ignore anyone's trademarks.
No one should be able to ignore anyone's trade secrets.
No one should be able to ignore anyone's copyrights.
I do not have to ignore something to not agree with it. Moral considerations and changes in reallity must temper our reaction to the law. For example, here in London (UK) it was until very recently the Law (legal requirement) that (a) all taxi cabs had to carry a bale of hay and (b) no taxi cab was permitted to reverse. Both of these laws relate to the well-being of horses, and the behaviour of horses. We no longer draw our taxis by horse. So the first rule (about hay) was silently ignored, but the second rule (reverse) was not. Hence London taxi-cabs have an extremely small tuning-circle as they were not permitted to use reverse gear) - but none the less had to have a reverse gear (because of road-safety regulations - and common sense). It was still the legal requirement to carry hay - but we simply ignored that, because here reallity had overtaken the law.
I might be unable to ignore copyright, patent, trade-marks and trade secrets - but that does not mean I have to agree with all of them. The law has to represent reallity - the current reallity. Reallity changes, so the law must change too. This is not a discussion about trade secrets and trademarks - but copyright and patent must be for a reasonable time, and not throughout all eternity.
Here in the UK I believe we have patent law about right - though fourteen years (the current upper limit on patent protection AFAIK) may seem very long within the computer industry, it is a short time elsewhere. Copyright, though, is for too long - and (following pressure from the USA, and greedy industry) possibly going to be for longer. To sustain society's economic growth and individual profit we are not, as a culture, obliged to have draconian copyright laws.
Industry, to be profitable, does not have to be greedy: when it is, the societies supporting that greed are consumed (look at Imperial Rome, Victorian England, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire for examples).
FYI: London taxis no longer have to carry hay (by law) ... but still have very tight turning circles.
Not only is neutrino mass important, it will make (IMHO) a fundamental change to the way in which we analyse cosmology. Although IANAP (I Am Not A Physicist) I would be more that interested to learn how this affects the concepts of dark matter, gravitational irregularity (deviations from the inverse-square law that have been suggested), and the neccesity for the existence of Black Holes to explain invisible mass and the motion of galaxies. Does the non-zero mass of neutrinos wipe out all of these uncomfortable irregularities in physics? I don't know - but I do hope so!
"Rafiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht."
It is sad that the USA had become one of the more repressive cultures of the world. Goodbye, Liberty!
I disagree. If humankind is anihilated then the emmisions will go down. There are many in the scientific community holding the opinion that humankind will be (effectively) wiped out in the next 250 years. For those of you that think that is a long time - I can see, as I type, a tree that started growing more than more than twice that span of time ago. Two hundred and fifty years is more than the lifetime of an individual man - but is a very short time indeed compared with history - and with our future history. Let's adapt now by trying to cut those emmissions - and control the population growth.
Ahh, simplicity, simplicity
Humankind has survived past climate change. That does not prove that humankind will survive this climate change. It won't.