Be careful with an offer like that! I am a professional astronomer, and yes, the state of our software is pretty atrocious. I can easily come up with a list of software needs that would make a *significant* impact on our field that could (with the direction of an astronomer) be written with no formal background in astrophysics. Astronomers are not good programmers, but we have a *huge* need for good software and ridiculous amounts of data to sort through.
Here's one example of something I am doing that is starving for CS/IT people.
http://trillianverse.org
If anyone is truly interested in this, please feel free to contact me (my address is at the bottom of that page). And before anyone asks, no, I have no money to pay anyone.:) But you can make a difference in the field.
Want another way to help? We have a fair amount of code written in Fortran and C, but coding techniques are at a very low level. Astronomers aren't trained in code optimization (let alone OO most of the time). We would love to have people who can take our code and make it run 10x faster - GPU acceleration, threading, etc. Gains like that are certainly possible. You can absolutely use your IT skills to make a very positive impact in the field. We would so welcome that!
2) A law is achieved by one of two methods: a theory that is not disproved (or even seriously challenged) for a ridiculously long time can achieve "law" status in the books. Alternatively if it can be rigorously proven that no other explanation is possible, the process might be sped up a bit.
I'm writing my astrophysics thesis right now, so I have all kinds of literature references at my fingertips!
Anyone want to know how to calculate the cross section of a neutralino and a sulphur atom? Hey, where did everyone go?
Seriously, I agree 100% with this post. Following this advice would greatly improve the quality of this site.
Not to invoke the old "think of the children" chestnut, but... think of the children! As much as I'd like to think younger computer junkies read Charles Dickens in their spare time, the reality is that sites like this make an impression. A *little* effort in improving the writing style and grammar will have, I think, a significant positive impact.
So think of the children in Soviet Russia beowulf ckuster profit! *iaa sux and all that.
...PCs today still ship with floppy drives. I know people who will tell me, with a straight face no less, that there are times that having a 3.5 floppy drive is handy.
And don't tell me about how you can still boot your OS off of a floppy. If you can't boot from a USB stick (assuming your computer doesn't have an optical drive), go complain to whoever writes your OS.
Nope, I'm actually working with a different experiment. But I'll maintain my anonymity to be able to answer your second question and not worry about being politically sensitive.:)
Without going into any detail, the biggest thing that dark matter experiments are looking for is a change in the rate of WIMP detection throughout the year. We expect the most in July and the least in December. Unfortunately, using current technology this variation is only a few percent over the background.
Several years ago, the DAMA group announced finding such a variation, and thus having discovered dark matter. However... this failed to convince the dark matter community at large. It could not be unambiguously shown that the variation was due to something outside Earth. For example, detailed temperatures were not taken - what if the seasonal temperatures affected the detection rate?
Part of the dark matter search is like looking for a needle in a field. Each experiment can only cover part of the field. So even negative results are useful - it crosses off that part of the field. Problem is, another experiment had already crossed off the part that DAMA claimed to find dark matter in. So who's right?
On top of this, the collaboration has not released their raw data, which is not something scientists like. It makes verification, well, impossible.
DAMA's results are interesting, but the hunt continues!
Re:This is BS - Dark Matter is Fiction
on
Dark Matter Discovered
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That book you cite is from 1991. The field of cosmology has exploded since then. But even in 1991, the conclusions in it were known to be incorrect. But don't take my word for it, take Ned Wright's, from UCLA:
And one word on theories. The Big Bang, gravity, evolution... all fit under the category of theories. No good scientist will argue with that. But the thing about these theories - for everything we've thrown at them so far, they work. They hold up. They may need modifications, tinkering (e.g. gravity has yet to be married to quantum mechanics), but the foundation is very solid.
The problem with the galactic rotation curve is not that "the rim [...] spin[s] at the same rate of the hub", but that the curve levels off into a plateau. No mention of cosmology yet.
As to all of this plasma in the Universe, what is the heating mechanism that keeps all of this matter super-hot? The Universe is a very cold place.
How does this plasma theory explain galaxy lensing? The path of light is bent by matter, not electromagnetism. Plasma is matter, so the temperature shouldn't matter in this case.
Finally, where are the links to peer-reviewed papers? Didn't think so.:)
Re:Aren't baryons just normal matter?
on
Dark Matter Discovered
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I am a physics postgrad involved in one of the searches for dark matter.
First, I had to look up "tachyon". You are right, tachyons are apparently particles that travel faster than the speed of light. I've only heard the term from Star Trek, and for the time being that's where these particles are from - the realm of (science) fiction. I've certainly never had them mentioned in class!
Baryons are not the counterpart to tachyons. Baryons are simply particles that are made up of quarks. The two best known examples are neutrons and protons, which make up virtually all of the stuff you own. Yes, baryonic matter is pretty much everything we interact with.
Two examples of particles that are very common and all around us are electrons and neutrinos. You're familiar with electrons (which are not baryons!), and the nuclear reactions in the Sun are constantly producing a mind-boggling number of neutrinos. Generated in the centre, they travel at nearly the speed of light which means that the ones passing through your body right now are about 8 minutes old. By comparison, the light from the Sun (photons, also not baryons) bounces off all the photons there, so by the time it actually reaches you it's about a million years old.
Finally, and most importantly, dark matter has not been discovered. You are also right in that the reporter is very much out of his depth. The article states that there is evidence for baryons to be found in places where we have not seen them before. What's one theory as to how they got there? Dark matter.
Did anyone notice the picture in the article? There's a quote where someone says "The PC is more scary monster than household pet", and then seemingly to illustrate this point, there's a picture of a puppy and kittens!
Actually, this makes sense. The iMacs have shown great variation, with models of different colors and shapes. Not all of the colors were popular, or suited to their retail environment. Others were more naturally selected for their hues, and these survived. However, some kind of natural catastrophe must have occurred in January, causing all the old iMacs to die out. This cleared the path for another household appliance, the lamp, to make the evolutionary leap to be able to take its place. On the other hand, this kind of sudden jump is ironically more indicative of a higher power having some kind of direct influence. This is likely going to be pointed at as conclusive evidence by many Apple fanatics that Steve Jobs is in fact God, however, I feel that much more research is warranted at this time.
Slashdot Mirror
Be careful with an offer like that! I am a professional astronomer, and yes, the state of our software is pretty atrocious. I can easily come up with a list of software needs that would make a *significant* impact on our field that could (with the direction of an astronomer) be written with no formal background in astrophysics. Astronomers are not good programmers, but we have a *huge* need for good software and ridiculous amounts of data to sort through.
:) But you can make a difference in the field.
Here's one example of something I am doing that is starving for CS/IT people.
http://trillianverse.org
If anyone is truly interested in this, please feel free to contact me (my address is at the bottom of that page). And before anyone asks, no, I have no money to pay anyone.
Want another way to help? We have a fair amount of code written in Fortran and C, but coding techniques are at a very low level. Astronomers aren't trained in code optimization (let alone OO most of the time). We would love to have people who can take our code and make it run 10x faster - GPU acceleration, threading, etc. Gains like that are certainly possible. You can absolutely use your IT skills to make a very positive impact in the field. We would so welcome that!
Are there that many computers without anti-virus software or firewalls on the Internet?
Oh yeah - in fact we have a *huge* supply quite nearby. If you have any ideas on how to extract it from the centre of the Sun, well, we're all ears. :)
Probably a typo, but the Sun has a circular orbit velocity of ~220 km/s, not 20.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986MNRAS.221.1023K
I'm writing my astrophysics thesis right now, so I have all kinds of literature references at my fingertips! Anyone want to know how to calculate the cross section of a neutralino and a sulphur atom? Hey, where did everyone go?
Seriously, I agree 100% with this post. Following this advice would greatly improve the quality of this site.
Not to invoke the old "think of the children" chestnut, but... think of the children! As much as I'd like to think younger computer junkies read Charles Dickens in their spare time, the reality is that sites like this make an impression. A *little* effort in improving the writing style and grammar will have, I think, a significant positive impact.
So think of the children in Soviet Russia beowulf ckuster profit! *iaa sux and all that.
And don't tell me about how you can still boot your OS off of a floppy. If you can't boot from a USB stick (assuming your computer doesn't have an optical drive), go complain to whoever writes your OS.
20+ year old technology. Honestly.
Can we *spell* flamebait?
Hardware of the day?
The "computer screens" of the HHGTTG tv show were made using traditional, hand drawn animation. They did a pretty good job, don't you think?
Without going into any detail, the biggest thing that dark matter experiments are looking for is a change in the rate of WIMP detection throughout the year. We expect the most in July and the least in December. Unfortunately, using current technology this variation is only a few percent over the background.
Several years ago, the DAMA group announced finding such a variation, and thus having discovered dark matter. However... this failed to convince the dark matter community at large. It could not be unambiguously shown that the variation was due to something outside Earth. For example, detailed temperatures were not taken - what if the seasonal temperatures affected the detection rate?
Part of the dark matter search is like looking for a needle in a field. Each experiment can only cover part of the field. So even negative results are useful - it crosses off that part of the field. Problem is, another experiment had already crossed off the part that DAMA claimed to find dark matter in. So who's right?
On top of this, the collaboration has not released their raw data, which is not something scientists like. It makes verification, well, impossible.
DAMA's results are interesting, but the hunt continues!
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.ht ml
And one word on theories. The Big Bang, gravity, evolution... all fit under the category of theories. No good scientist will argue with that. But the thing about these theories - for everything we've thrown at them so far, they work. They hold up. They may need modifications, tinkering (e.g. gravity has yet to be married to quantum mechanics), but the foundation is very solid.
The problem with the galactic rotation curve is not that "the rim [...] spin[s] at the same rate of the hub", but that the curve levels off into a plateau. No mention of cosmology yet.
As to all of this plasma in the Universe, what is the heating mechanism that keeps all of this matter super-hot? The Universe is a very cold place.
How does this plasma theory explain galaxy lensing? The path of light is bent by matter, not electromagnetism. Plasma is matter, so the temperature shouldn't matter in this case.
Finally, where are the links to peer-reviewed papers? Didn't think so. :)
First, I had to look up "tachyon". You are right, tachyons are apparently particles that travel faster than the speed of light. I've only heard the term from Star Trek, and for the time being that's where these particles are from - the realm of (science) fiction. I've certainly never had them mentioned in class!
Baryons are not the counterpart to tachyons. Baryons are simply particles that are made up of quarks. The two best known examples are neutrons and protons, which make up virtually all of the stuff you own. Yes, baryonic matter is pretty much everything we interact with.
Two examples of particles that are very common and all around us are electrons and neutrinos. You're familiar with electrons (which are not baryons!), and the nuclear reactions in the Sun are constantly producing a mind-boggling number of neutrinos. Generated in the centre, they travel at nearly the speed of light which means that the ones passing through your body right now are about 8 minutes old. By comparison, the light from the Sun (photons, also not baryons) bounces off all the photons there, so by the time it actually reaches you it's about a million years old.
Finally, and most importantly, dark matter has not been discovered. You are also right in that the reporter is very much out of his depth. The article states that there is evidence for baryons to be found in places where we have not seen them before. What's one theory as to how they got there? Dark matter.
I used my last mod point today before seeing this post. I did so wish to mod it "funny"...
Documentary? As if. That was a sketch on Saturday Night Live, episode 222, originally aired on December 20, 1986.
Would I know that if I didn't have a life? Ha, I think not.
Did anyone notice the picture in the article? There's a quote where someone says "The PC is more scary monster than household pet", and then seemingly to illustrate this point, there's a picture of a puppy and kittens!
Gotta love the Beeb.
Actually, this makes sense. The iMacs have shown great variation, with models of different colors and shapes. Not all of the colors were popular, or suited to their retail environment. Others were more naturally selected for their hues, and these survived. However, some kind of natural catastrophe must have occurred in January, causing all the old iMacs to die out. This cleared the path for another household appliance, the lamp, to make the evolutionary leap to be able to take its place. On the other hand, this kind of sudden jump is ironically more indicative of a higher power having some kind of direct influence. This is likely going to be pointed at as conclusive evidence by many Apple fanatics that Steve Jobs is in fact God, however, I feel that much more research is warranted at this time.