"Do you like how I'm burying my net in your Home-Owners' Association? Yeah, I thought so."
I've never lived in a condo, but I've seen lots of movies featuring condos, all of which are obviously totally realistic. I can't believe you're complaining.
She also refers to the teams participating in the challenge as "hackers". So "hackers" are building predictive models.
Well, there she could be using the original meaning of hackers (which is not in quotes in the article). She does it without explaining some difference between a hacker and a cracker, or white-hats and black-hats, or whatever the nomenclature du jour is. That, I quite like.
What you are saying is the math would be really complex and counter intuitive, much like the math involved in modern quantum theory.
Actually, the math involved in quantum theory is usually very straightforward, and much less complicated than in even classical dynamics: linear algebra, group theory, some path integrals, that's about it. To me, it's the message the math gives us about the real world which is counter-intuitive.
I have a circa-1969, NY State Rulebook here, in which it is explicitly stated that "Under the auspices of the Woodstock Proxy, no player shall state terms of personal endearment to any other player, during the course of a move, or between moves if an extended game is in progress."
There's an extended footnote to the rule (you can tell the NY State Rulebooks of that aera were written by a person very much concerned with the deep and regal history of the game) which reads, "Far too many of our players and citizens have been lost when one hippie turned to the other during a game of Mornington Cresent, said, 'You really blow my mind, Janet', and started on an intense bout of MC lovemaking, in which heretofore un-traveled passages were opened and explored, but the intention of doing so was not announced beforehand. Due to the dearth of players, and the fact that such actions extend the game radically, in some cases by years, when one hippie forgets entirely about the game or dies in the course of playing, we hereby recommend that saying 'I love you' or isomorphic statements is strictly to be forbidden."
In light of that, I have to assume that you are NOT trying to play (besides, the BJ triple-hedge maneouver was under intense debate at the time, due to that nasty debacle at the Berlin Olympics, so your mention of Elwood's gaffe is in violation of Godwin's Law).
You have a very good memory. I know the R-G #1 game was pretty big -- are you talking about that one, or maybe the rematch in which Robertson was accused of having a computer read out possible stations to him via otic implant?
I think it's only acceptable in the Official American Ruleset, and then only when out of croop. The cromulent thing to do in this case is invoke Toksvig's Protocol (if Reynold's Standard Opening is allowed).
Er... I have, several times. The trick, if you don't want your Mathematica installation to change at all, is simple: install it in a user's directory somewhere, and don't change that partition when you change the distro. In that case, it breaks far less radically (i.e. not at all) than in any Windows reinstall or upgrade.
If the problem was the interaction of the outdated Mathematica frontend (especially on versions older than 5.2; I haven't heard of any problems with 6 or 7... yet) with x and disappearing fonts, that was easily remedied.
A lot of this has to do with running Mathematica and the like on Linux, which is a painful process.
I've never had a problem running it on linux, and much prefer it to the Windows version (which I also have and use all the time). What in particular is painful about it?
Since Lorentz transformation is simply a mathemathical description of the above mentioned symmetry, I don't think they can change either.
You'll find that there are many transformations which are not of the Lorentz family, and which asymptotically approach the correct behaviors. Additionally, there are many Lorentz transformations. It may be shown that the ones which preserve causality lead to the common transformations; this is also based on homogeneous space-time, which is one condition which may be relaxed (whether or not you like the breaking of symmetries) in the families of possible ("possible" in a mathematical sense; perhaps not possible in an anthropomorphic or beautiful sense) universes.
No one really expected P symmetry to be broken either, but Madame Wu and her experiments showed that it could be in weak interactions. Perhaps other symmetries (isotropism, e.g.) are less likely to be violated, but that's what these alternative families of solutions might entail.
I agree (of course) with you on strictly increasing (or locally constant) entropies. It's a standard interpretation. However, you say
For entropy to be more likely to decrease than to increase in time would require there to be more special than non-special states, which doesn't make sense.
A slight tightening of the nomenclature would disallow me saying things like, "Well, then, explain population inversion in lasers."
You're right -- that's not an astronomical number. However, the article implies that's a rough estimate of the number of families of solutions to the situation; each of those families will have uncountable numbers of parameter-driven solutions. I imagine that many of those families may have overlapping domains, so that half of the universes described have strictly increasing entropy, half of those have light speed as a universal speed limit, only a few of those utilize our particular Lorentz transformation, and so on.
One could find that a whole series of families of solutions seem to describe our universe, except for some minor variations in the laws which can't hold.
If your math is truly quite good, but physics is bad, I'd suggest the following, each of which is heavy on the math, but tries to keep the underlying (some would argue "overlying") principles in mind:
* for thermo/stat. mech: Callen. Ehrenfest's classic "The Conceptual Foundations of the Statistical Approach in Mechanics" is damned interesting from a historical viewpoint;
* for math methods: Stay away from Arfken if you want a _physical_ feel for things (though his math is notoriously non-rigorous, too!). Go with a _used_ or library copy of Morse & Feshbach's "Methods of Theoretical Physics". The new versions are ridiculously overpriced (worth it for someone who will spend her life studying the stuff), and Feshbach publishing holds a monopoly on new copies. Wangsness has a nice book called "Introductory Topics in Theoretical Physics" which is pretty light on the math, but gives a good feeling for things. Lawrie's "A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics" is absolutely brilliant;
* For classical mechanics (depending on the flavor you want): Goldstein, or (my preference) Fetter & Walecka. The latter has a new volume out, covering more modern applications than their older volume. I was lucky enough (*cough, cough*) to have learned some classical mechanics from the old volume, and a pre-printed copy of the new one (my advisor went to school with Fetter). Additionally, Fetter has some unpublished notes on E&M floating around. Arnold's "Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics" (as a "Graduate Text in Mathematics") is really a very good book;
* I love Weinberg's old "Gravitation and Cosmology" for GR. However, for the math side, I prefer Sean Carroll's lecture notes (http://preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/). If you read them carefully, they really cover some of the _mathematical_ reasons for choosing, e.g., the Lorentz transform family which we do;
* Can't go wrong with Landau and Lifshitz, as the parent poster said;
Perhaps, but only if that omnipresence had gradients or fluctuations of some sort. After all, an omnipresent potential of any magnitude can simply be negated by a gauge transformation, because they lead to fields of magnitude zero.
Slashdot Mirror
Ding-dong! "Cable guy!"
"Time to lay some cable, baby.
"Do you like how I'm burying my net in your Home-Owners' Association? Yeah, I thought so."
I've never lived in a condo, but I've seen lots of movies featuring condos, all of which are obviously totally realistic. I can't believe you're complaining.
Sounds like a red-light district to me.
If the book has a flaw, it is in promulgating the idea that intellectual elites are to be found in academic cloisters.
OK, now you're just making up words, you elit... eli... overeduma... bastard. :)
pr0n for Geeks, volume 18: Sorting On-the-Fly
She also refers to the teams participating in the challenge as "hackers". So "hackers" are building predictive models.
Well, there she could be using the original meaning of hackers (which is not in quotes in the article). She does it without explaining some difference between a hacker and a cracker, or white-hats and black-hats, or whatever the nomenclature du jour is. That, I quite like.
No, it came from Greek. Unfortunately, it's become one of the New Buzzwords.
When you stack them (Piracetam + Aniracetam) they work synergistically and you get an even stronger effect.
The use of "synergistically" in a serious manner automatically disqualifies everything else one says.
Its surprisingly interesting and sucks you in. In fact I might go play with it now.
This week on Life of Geeks: What not to say on slashdot.
Each new algorithm takes on average three or four hours to churn through the data on the family's "quad core" Gateway computer.
Anyone who puts "quad core" in quotes like that is either clueless, or---when talking about Gateways---astoundingly ironic. It's kudos either way!
Threadjacking.
What you are saying is the math would be really complex and counter intuitive, much like the math involved in modern quantum theory.
Actually, the math involved in quantum theory is usually very straightforward, and much less complicated than in even classical dynamics: linear algebra, group theory, some path integrals, that's about it. To me, it's the message the math gives us about the real world which is counter-intuitive.
I have a circa-1969, NY State Rulebook here, in which it is explicitly stated that "Under the auspices of the Woodstock Proxy, no player shall state terms of personal endearment to any other player, during the course of a move, or between moves if an extended game is in progress."
There's an extended footnote to the rule (you can tell the NY State Rulebooks of that aera were written by a person very much concerned with the deep and regal history of the game) which reads, "Far too many of our players and citizens have been lost when one hippie turned to the other during a game of Mornington Cresent, said, 'You really blow my mind, Janet', and started on an intense bout of MC lovemaking, in which heretofore un-traveled passages were opened and explored, but the intention of doing so was not announced beforehand. Due to the dearth of players, and the fact that such actions extend the game radically, in some cases by years, when one hippie forgets entirely about the game or dies in the course of playing, we hereby recommend that saying 'I love you' or isomorphic statements is strictly to be forbidden."
In light of that, I have to assume that you are NOT trying to play (besides, the BJ triple-hedge maneouver was under intense debate at the time, due to that nasty debacle at the Berlin Olympics, so your mention of Elwood's gaffe is in violation of Godwin's Law).
You have a very good memory. I know the R-G #1 game was pretty big -- are you talking about that one, or maybe the rematch in which Robertson was accused of having a computer read out possible stations to him via otic implant?
I think it's only acceptable in the Official American Ruleset, and then only when out of croop. The cromulent thing to do in this case is invoke Toksvig's Protocol (if Reynold's Standard Opening is allowed).
No, no, no. That's not how the game is played . . ..
There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand -- including one word that's even longer.
Ganz falsch!
And you gulped it right away.
A bit of argument from authority here (but fully justified): You do know who Theodore Gray is, right?
Er... I have, several times. The trick, if you don't want your Mathematica installation to change at all, is simple: install it in a user's directory somewhere, and don't change that partition when you change the distro. In that case, it breaks far less radically (i.e. not at all) than in any Windows reinstall or upgrade.
If the problem was the interaction of the outdated Mathematica frontend (especially on versions older than 5.2; I haven't heard of any problems with 6 or 7 ... yet) with x and disappearing fonts, that was easily remedied.
Perhaps you have something specific in mind?
A lot of this has to do with running Mathematica and the like on Linux, which is a painful process.
I've never had a problem running it on linux, and much prefer it to the Windows version (which I also have and use all the time). What in particular is painful about it?
I probably would have been lower but I was lazy about it the day they implemented UIDs.
Just wait until you have to get an IUD to post on slashdot. You'll see a lot of laziness.
Since Lorentz transformation is simply a mathemathical description of the above mentioned symmetry, I don't think they can change either.
You'll find that there are many transformations which are not of the Lorentz family, and which asymptotically approach the correct behaviors. Additionally, there are many Lorentz transformations. It may be shown that the ones which preserve causality lead to the common transformations; this is also based on homogeneous space-time, which is one condition which may be relaxed (whether or not you like the breaking of symmetries) in the families of possible ("possible" in a mathematical sense; perhaps not possible in an anthropomorphic or beautiful sense) universes.
No one really expected P symmetry to be broken either, but Madame Wu and her experiments showed that it could be in weak interactions. Perhaps other symmetries (isotropism, e.g.) are less likely to be violated, but that's what these alternative families of solutions might entail.
I agree (of course) with you on strictly increasing (or locally constant) entropies. It's a standard interpretation. However, you say
For entropy to be more likely to decrease than to increase in time would require there to be more special than non-special states, which doesn't make sense.
A slight tightening of the nomenclature would disallow me saying things like, "Well, then, explain population inversion in lasers."
You're right -- that's not an astronomical number. However, the article implies that's a rough estimate of the number of families of solutions to the situation; each of those families will have uncountable numbers of parameter-driven solutions. I imagine that many of those families may have overlapping domains, so that half of the universes described have strictly increasing entropy, half of those have light speed as a universal speed limit, only a few of those utilize our particular Lorentz transformation, and so on.
One could find that a whole series of families of solutions seem to describe our universe, except for some minor variations in the laws which can't hold.
If your math is truly quite good, but physics is bad, I'd suggest the following, each of which is heavy on the math, but tries to keep the underlying (some would argue "overlying") principles in mind:
* for thermo/stat. mech: Callen. Ehrenfest's classic "The Conceptual Foundations of the Statistical Approach in Mechanics" is damned interesting from a historical viewpoint;
* for math methods: Stay away from Arfken if you want a _physical_ feel for things (though his math is notoriously non-rigorous, too!). Go with a _used_ or library copy of Morse & Feshbach's "Methods of Theoretical Physics". The new versions are ridiculously overpriced (worth it for someone who will spend her life studying the stuff), and Feshbach publishing holds a monopoly on new copies. Wangsness has a nice book called "Introductory Topics in Theoretical Physics" which is pretty light on the math, but gives a good feeling for things. Lawrie's "A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics" is absolutely brilliant;
* For classical mechanics (depending on the flavor you want): Goldstein, or (my preference) Fetter & Walecka. The latter has a new volume out, covering more modern applications than their older volume. I was lucky enough (*cough, cough*) to have learned some classical mechanics from the old volume, and a pre-printed copy of the new one (my advisor went to school with Fetter). Additionally, Fetter has some unpublished notes on E&M floating around. Arnold's "Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics" (as a "Graduate Text in Mathematics") is really a very good book;
* I love Weinberg's old "Gravitation and Cosmology" for GR. However, for the math side, I prefer Sean Carroll's lecture notes (http://preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/). If you read them carefully, they really cover some of the _mathematical_ reasons for choosing, e.g., the Lorentz transform family which we do;
* Can't go wrong with Landau and Lifshitz, as the parent poster said;
Think of a rubber band; they're easier to snap when they are really cold. Warm them up, and they are more elastic.
I know what you're going for there (brittleness when cold), but that's an example which exactly contradicts what you're wanting to say: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00525.htm
If you have access to the "Big Red Books" (i.e. Feynman's Lectures in Physics ), look up "rubber band heat engine", or just google it.
One with omnipresence would be easy to prove.
Perhaps, but only if that omnipresence had gradients or fluctuations of some sort. After all, an omnipresent potential of any magnitude can simply be negated by a gauge transformation, because they lead to fields of magnitude zero.