The real trick is finding the proper conditions. First, we need to find an extra-solar system in which Earth-sized planets exist. It's now believed that these are fairly few and far between. The reason is that a vast majority of the gas giant systems we've discovered so far have their gas giants in either really close orbits to their stars, or are highly eliptical with passes close to their stars. In these situations, Earth-like planets would likely be tossed into their stars, or more likely, tossed into open space, by the gravitational effect of the giants.
While you're right about the relative numbers of systems with gas giants close to the star and others that have been found, it's not quite so easy to extrapolate that to say there are therefore few systems like ours. Systems with huge gas giants close to the star are a damn sight easier to find than any other - thus the predominance of those in the present results could just be that they're easier to see!
I'm not saying that there are a lot of systems like ours, just that we can't make that judgement yet.
I don't think the choice is as black and white as you put it. As the article says in the preamble:
Stallman kicked off his talk by explaining that he does not have a problem with patenting individual programmes -- "that would be harmless" -- but with patenting ideas. "That is what makes them (patents) a dangerous obstacle to software development."
The point he is making is not that we should insist all companies go the route of open source, his point is that companies should not be able to block open source.
Patenting, or probably more correctly copyrighting, of individual software programs is indeed a good thing. It means that the companies that produce them can make money selling them, and have the product (and so the time spent developing it) protected. That is good for the economy and for the art of programming. But it does not require that patents be applied to the ideas behind the code. That is what blocks development of other programmes.
Sure, enable companies to make money from software, but don't enable them to stop other people using a concept.
They haven't created a gravastar in the lab, they have created a Bose-Einstein Condensate - something that is analogous to this hypothesised, uh, stuff. Just like a rubber sheet with balls on it is analogous to what masses do to space-time, but isn't the same.
As for what dark matter is, my bet is on lost socks and leaky biros.
I'd guess the main problem is that the term black hole and what it represents have become fairly entrenched in the English language, and it's easier to use a different term to describe a different model.
Interestingly (or not...) the Russian term for what we would call black holes is a frozen star. As a star collapses to form a black hole, the photons exiting as the mass passes the event horizon are trapped permanently at that point, hence frozen. It still looks black because they are just staying there, not getting to us.
What I want to know is: who are the politicians making all of these progressive decisions and what affect are they having in the EU Parliament? Are other European countries following Germany's lead in these type of issues?
The unsatisfactory answer is sometimes. Sometimes you get progressive politicians (from a variety of countries) pushing useful policies, but equally you sometimes get clueless politicians pushing rubbish. If you'd like to know more about what the EU is doing with the "information SOciety", try this link.
This is an experimental new tool. The scientists are predicting it can be used to detect (say) the membrane surrounding blood vessels, yet these tests are useless?
No, the test isn't useless - I was saying there were many possible applications, but I doubted slicing a yolk out of an egg was one of them. I could be wrong - maybe there are millions of people out there crying out for just hard boiled egg whites. Or for the yolks - you could use them as practice golf balls or something. Ahem.
A useless application, not a useless test. Perhaps I should have been clearer...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the great things about the web the way that information can get all around the globe quickly? Paying a penny a page would be irritating for most of us in the western world, but it could effectively close off huge sections of the web to citizens of developing countries. Say you "normally" view 5 pages a day on each of 4 or 5 sites - if you're living on $5 a day, are you really going to pay 5% of your income to view US news sites, UK informations sites, etc?
I think the whole debate about globalisation has suffered, as is implied in the article, from people using the term to describe different things. To me, globalisation is the creation and growth of sytems that allow communication (both physical and digital) around the world in shorter and shorter periods.
What most people seem to talk about when they say globalisation is in fact how capitalism (and in particular large companies) use this new tool. Now, the entire reason for the existance of companies is to make money for their owners, whether it be privately owned, or owned by shareholders. Traditionally, the methods used to make money have been limited by regulation and legislation. The problems have only come about when there is no body that can regulate the companies effectively, or where that body is controlled more by the companies than democratic bodies. This is not to say that companies or capitalism is bad or wrong, simply that they are reacting to a situation that is new in ways that were unexpected by many people.
Is globalisation intrinsically bad? I'd have to say no. Is it intrinsically good? Again, no. Globalisation is as good or as bad as we make it. If we want to try and build a safer, calmer world, I believe we need to start off by allowing a democratic body (i.e. one whose members are made up of elected officials elected specifically for that post) to begin to build a more effective framework of regulation and legislation. Unfortunately, I can't see this happening anytime soon, because it would be a political nightmare to sign a country, and the companies within a country, up to any international framework - European states often have different priorities in this area than the US.
But we musn't forget the oppurtunities that globalisation offers us - not just for trade, but in cultural areas, religious areas, and so on. We should push globalisation forward, but shouldn't be surprised that it produces problems we need to deal with.
Manchester, 15 June, 1996. "One million square feet of shopping space was wiped out when the 3,300lb bomb exploded". It took years to rebuild. Have a look at this BBC page for some info on other British IRA campaigns.
Well, of course astronomers are always being surprised. This field, which essentially relates to observational cosmology, is incredibly young. Observational cosmology only really started with Hubble (the man, not the machine...). When you think of how long other sections of physics have been going, this is a minute amount of time.
Astronomy itself is ancient, but this has essentially been only data-collection, rather than trying to understand the processes. It has been more like botany than biology - a taxonomic exercise rather than a science. Now we have the instruments so that theories we formulate can be tested observationally, so we are bound to have a lot of theories lost along the way.
Remember, only a hundred or so years ago, we thought the sun was acually combusting - burning some fuel in a chemical reaction with oxygen! Don't be surprised if theories change - perhaps we are missing some fundamental information. In fact, most cosmologists would say we definitely are - they know that the present system of physics we have breaks down in 'extreme' situations. And a black hole most definitely counts as extreme.
Slashdot Mirror
The solution to intellectual property is obvious. Get rid of the intellectuals.
God created everything.
According to the article, the date of discovery was April 1st. Can't think why they didn't announce it immediately...
Everyone goes quiet when I walk into a room already, why would I need one of these?
Don't say things like that! Would you want us to be judged by our daytime TV?
While you're right about the relative numbers of systems with gas giants close to the star and others that have been found, it's not quite so easy to extrapolate that to say there are therefore few systems like ours. Systems with huge gas giants close to the star are a damn sight easier to find than any other - thus the predominance of those in the present results could just be that they're easier to see!
I'm not saying that there are a lot of systems like ours, just that we can't make that judgement yet.
I don't think the choice is as black and white as you put it. As the article says in the preamble:
The point he is making is not that we should insist all companies go the route of open source, his point is that companies should not be able to block open source.
Patenting, or probably more correctly copyrighting, of individual software programs is indeed a good thing. It means that the companies that produce them can make money selling them, and have the product (and so the time spent developing it) protected. That is good for the economy and for the art of programming. But it does not require that patents be applied to the ideas behind the code. That is what blocks development of other programmes.
Sure, enable companies to make money from software, but don't enable them to stop other people using a concept.
They haven't created a gravastar in the lab, they have created a Bose-Einstein Condensate - something that is analogous to this hypothesised, uh, stuff. Just like a rubber sheet with balls on it is analogous to what masses do to space-time, but isn't the same.
As for what dark matter is, my bet is on lost socks and leaky biros.
I'd guess the main problem is that the term black hole and what it represents have become fairly entrenched in the English language, and it's easier to use a different term to describe a different model.
Interestingly (or not...) the Russian term for what we would call black holes is a frozen star. As a star collapses to form a black hole, the photons exiting as the mass passes the event horizon are trapped permanently at that point, hence frozen. It still looks black because they are just staying there, not getting to us.
What I want to know is: who are the politicians making all of these progressive decisions and what affect are they having in the EU Parliament? Are other European countries following Germany's lead in these type of issues?
The unsatisfactory answer is sometimes. Sometimes you get progressive politicians (from a variety of countries) pushing useful policies, but equally you sometimes get clueless politicians pushing rubbish. If you'd like to know more about what the EU is doing with the "information SOciety", try this link.
Anyone know what the impetus behind this move was?
Money.
This is an experimental new tool. The scientists are predicting it can be used to detect (say) the membrane surrounding blood vessels, yet these tests are useless?
No, the test isn't useless - I was saying there were many possible applications, but I doubted slicing a yolk out of an egg was one of them. I could be wrong - maybe there are millions of people out there crying out for just hard boiled egg whites. Or for the yolks - you could use them as practice golf balls or something. Ahem.
A useless application, not a useless test. Perhaps I should have been clearer...
I did wonder how long it would be before someone suggested this...
It is not ... [possible to] ... travel in time by resetting your watch.
It isn't? Damn, I'm going to be really late...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the great things about the web the way that information can get all around the globe quickly? Paying a penny a page would be irritating for most of us in the western world, but it could effectively close off huge sections of the web to citizens of developing countries. Say you "normally" view 5 pages a day on each of 4 or 5 sites - if you're living on $5 a day, are you really going to pay 5% of your income to view US news sites, UK informations sites, etc?
I think the whole debate about globalisation has suffered, as is implied in the article, from people using the term to describe different things. To me, globalisation is the creation and growth of sytems that allow communication (both physical and digital) around the world in shorter and shorter periods.
What most people seem to talk about when they say globalisation is in fact how capitalism (and in particular large companies) use this new tool. Now, the entire reason for the existance of companies is to make money for their owners, whether it be privately owned, or owned by shareholders. Traditionally, the methods used to make money have been limited by regulation and legislation. The problems have only come about when there is no body that can regulate the companies effectively, or where that body is controlled more by the companies than democratic bodies. This is not to say that companies or capitalism is bad or wrong, simply that they are reacting to a situation that is new in ways that were unexpected by many people.
Is globalisation intrinsically bad? I'd have to say no. Is it intrinsically good? Again, no. Globalisation is as good or as bad as we make it. If we want to try and build a safer, calmer world, I believe we need to start off by allowing a democratic body (i.e. one whose members are made up of elected officials elected specifically for that post) to begin to build a more effective framework of regulation and legislation. Unfortunately, I can't see this happening anytime soon, because it would be a political nightmare to sign a country, and the companies within a country, up to any international framework - European states often have different priorities in this area than the US.
But we musn't forget the oppurtunities that globalisation offers us - not just for trade, but in cultural areas, religious areas, and so on. We should push globalisation forward, but shouldn't be surprised that it produces problems we need to deal with.
Just my two pennorth worth, anyway...
Manchester, 15 June, 1996. "One million square feet of shopping space was wiped out when the 3,300lb bomb exploded". It took years to rebuild. Have a look at this BBC page for some info on other British IRA campaigns.
Well, of course astronomers are always being surprised. This field, which essentially relates to observational cosmology, is incredibly young. Observational cosmology only really started with Hubble (the man, not the machine...). When you think of how long other sections of physics have been going, this is a minute amount of time.
Astronomy itself is ancient, but this has essentially been only data-collection, rather than trying to understand the processes. It has been more like botany than biology - a taxonomic exercise rather than a science. Now we have the instruments so that theories we formulate can be tested observationally, so we are bound to have a lot of theories lost along the way.
Remember, only a hundred or so years ago, we thought the sun was acually combusting - burning some fuel in a chemical reaction with oxygen! Don't be surprised if theories change - perhaps we are missing some fundamental information. In fact, most cosmologists would say we definitely are - they know that the present system of physics we have breaks down in 'extreme' situations. And a black hole most definitely counts as extreme.