Yeah, and that's why the author of the comparison article simply took the Radeon 9800 XP out of the Opteron and put it right into the G5 to run graphics capability comparisons. I'm sure glad Steve Jobs lets people use the latest video cards like that!
Or maybe they just didn't really want to install one, as Steve Jobs hadn't deigned to make a higher-priced Mac version of it available yet.
Ignoring the "dark side"/ far side confusion others have pointed out:
In addition to the general advantages of placing a telescope on the moon (no atmosphere), the far ('dark') side of the moon has a unique advantage: it's always shielded from Earth, which is a huge radio source. For this reason, the far side of the moon would be an ideal spot to build a radio telescope.
("Mulching" es un proceso de ferilization que emplea ciertos materiales organicos en decomposicion-- incluyendo pero no linitando sedimentos de origen animal-- recubrir una area en la cual se desea vegatacionn. El proceso enriqueze la tierra estimulando el desarrollo vegetal minetras wue al mismo tiempo prevee la erosion y disminuye la evaporacion de humedad en el terreno)
From the Instructions for Authors for the Journal Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Methods & Applications:
Disclaimer. Whilst every effort is made by the publishers and editorial board to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or statement appears in this journal, they wish to make it clear that the data and opinions appearing in the articles and advertisements herein are the sole responsibility of the contributor or advertiser concerned. Accordingly, the publishers, the editorial board and editors and their respective employees, officers and agents accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for the consequences of any such inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or statement.
1) It's fairly standard that the submission process for major peer-reviewed science(and, apparently, mathematics) journals requires authors to sign over copyright on the manuscript as part of the submission process.
This applies to the manuscript itself, and the figures therein, but not the concepts. Copyright(at least the US definition) doesn't cover concepts such as mathematical proofs, anyhow. I think a proof might be patentable, though... not that'd be useful for most mathematical proofs, but that's how intellectual property of abstract ideas is generally handled.
2) yeah, that was a total copout. A "I hadn't considered that, that is a problem" response would have been better received.
Zhou was her advisor when she got her Master's degree, but is no longer her advisor now that she's working on her PhD. From the blog cited in the story:
Finally, I have a correction. I have spoken of Yishao Zhou as being both Elin Oxenhielm's professor and supervisor. The fact is, though, that Zhou was an advisor for Oxenhielm's masters degree. She is neither her professor nor her current advisor. And the paper submitted to Nonlinear Analysis isn't a paper that Zhou has been an advisor for.
I was living in Canada a few years back, and went down to San Francisco to visit a friend, I used an ATM inside a fast food restaurant that had a sign saying that it charged a $2 fee for US bankcards. I used a Canadian card.(which measured balances in $CAN)
The card worked, and I paid no fee at all. (Well, I did get a not-quite-ideal exchange rate, but not particularly bad, certainly not $2 worse than I would have received in a bank.)
{nitpick} When a solid becomes a gas directly, without first becoming a liquid, it sublimates. When a liquid becomes a gas, as you're describing, it evaporates. {/nitpick}
I'm not familiar with the "Madison Society" but I do take issue with your use of the word "militias"...
*...and "gun" control though it doesn't make sense as the amendment specifically cites militias, they are also against unlimited distribution of arms (the literal word) like missle launchers, tanks, cannons, and biowarfare agents.
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
The most recent Supreme Court decision on the 2nd amendment (in 1939) stated in part that:
The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.
In politics as most things, form follows function.
In the US, most elections are 'winner take all'. In a 'winner take all' election, a set of three or more parties is unstable because the voters for whichever party is weakest are motivated to defect to whichever of the stronger two parties' platforms is more palatable. The "don't waste your vote by voting for a third party" refrain is painful to hear, but it's based on solid ground in political theory. It is possible for a third party to overtake one of the current major parties... but the eventual result would be a new two party system with different parties, because having more than two parties is an unstable state in a 'winner take all' system.
In addition, in a 'winner take all' two-party environment, both politicians in both parties are strongly motivated to head toward the center of the electorate, as the swing voters are there. In primaries, politicians in both parties will head for the median of their party electorate, but then in the general election they'll head for the median of the entire electorate. The inconsistencies this generates would be funny if they weren't sad.
In the best case, this sort of 'winner take all' system forces the electorate to compromise on candidates during the election process to generate politicians with opinions at the median of the populace, which (if it actually works out this way) is a good thing for a republic.
In nations with parlimentary systems, where getting 10-20% of a vote in an election can result in proportional political power, multiple party systems are practical and the norm. This isn't based on deep cultural differences, it's simply a natural result of the voting mechanics. Such a system tends to generate politicians representing a broad spectum of political opinions- the compromises must then be done by the politicians rather than the electorate. The unpleasant compromises still must be made, though.
I agree that 5nm by 5nm blocks are mechanically maneuverable in principle. Some of this is a matter of perspective, actually- where the engineers (and some physicists) see 'room at the bottom', the chemists see 'room at the top' and are scaling up chemical reactions to the multiple nanometer scale instead of trying to scale down mechanical apparatus to the sub-nanometer scale. There's a lot of work in self-assembly of macromolecules at this scale going on, though it's (at present) controlled chemically rather than mechanically.
At some point the two scales will meet (and are doing so to a very limited extent today), when the growing scale of chemically developed macromolecules meets the shrinking scale possible for mechanical manipulation.
On the other hand, the atom-by-atom assembly by mechanical methods claim is never going to happen, and you're quite right that that claim is where Drexler's problems are. There's a lot of good work to be done with small-scale mechanisms, but that doesn't mean that they're the way to solve all problems. Overhyping an area of science like this can lead to short-term interest in that area but is bad for other, competing areas (and is a recipe for disappointment in the longer term.)
Who's making stuff up? To me it looks like you are. Yes, they are slightly attractive at larger distances, but they are repulsive when you get clos enough to form bonds, and much more repulsive than they are atractive further out.
You are. Your claim that van der Walls forces are repulsive on the nanotech scale is either just made up, or you're lying. It's looking more and more like the latter. To get to the repulsive region of the van der Walls surface you have to go all the way through the attractive part, so unless you're claiming they're actually forming bonds the fact that a repulsive part of the potential energy surface near the covalent radius exists (but which they'll never reach) is irrelevant.
The very least reactive element known is helium. You can't get any less sticky than that unless you want to postulate new elements, and you claimed you weren't going to do that. What happens to helium atoms which are pushed together (by high pressure), or to a group of helium atoms with insufficient kinetic energy (temperature) to shake themselves apart? They stick to each other and form a liquid. Why do they do this? Van der Walls forces.
This hypothetical mechanical apparatus which will hold atoms still and push them close to each other? It's replicating the still and close conditions under which helium is sticky enough to form a liquid. Since helium sticks to helium under those conditions, how is it going to be possible to engineer something that isn't sticky?
I'm done.
If you'd like to continue this pointless exchange, just imagine that in this post and alternating posts hereafter I point out that you've backpedaled yet again so that you're just describing chemisty as it's been practiced for decades, with all the work required to design specific reactants for each individual addition (but relabeled as 'nanotech' because that's the scientific flavor-of-the-month and grant money's being targetted there.)
In the next and alternating posts thereafter imagine that I point out that the whatever aspects of this 'nanotech' process you claim aren't just chemistry with a new name won't work in the general case because you can't ignore the stickiness problem, and without generality of applicability this 'nanotech' has yet again cycled back to being just classic chemistry, requiring design of everything individually.
No where did I see Dr. Smilley claiming to have discovered new physics to do away with van der Waals forces (which are repulsive at that scale).
This is, of course, false- they're attractive at that distance, and don't become repulsive until the atoms are much closer than this. Why are you making this stuff up?
What I did see is the same old strawman claim that Drexler is suggesting a manipulator arm to control each atom (which is idiodic on the face of it)
Well, if you'd RTFA you'd see Drexler's claim that:
Machine- and solution-phase chemistry share fundamental physical principles, yet differ greatly. In machine-phase chemistry, conveyors and positioners (not solvents and thermal motion) bring reactants together. The resulting positional control (not positional differences in reactivity) enables reliable site-specific reactions.
I don't know if I'd go as far as calling it idiotic, but it's what's being claimed by Drexler. "Conveyors and positioners" sounds like a not-very-subtle renaming of a "manipulator arm" to me.
When I was in grad school, our union negotiated for us a massive pay cut. They made a deal which equalized wages between the better paid science/engineering TAs... and the TAs who liked and had time to go to union meetings. Also, somewhere in this process the University decided our earnings were now taxable, which was a complete disaster.
Thankfully, our deparment stepped in to save us from our evil union and supplimented our income to make up for the difference.
4. Not all combinations of atoms are sticky under all conditions
This is false at the relevant scale. Read the article.
We're arguing in circles because the claim is either impossible if it's a mechanical method (because there exists nothing with the properties required), or an old method dressed up with a fancy new name if it's all about calling catalytic chemistry 'nanotech'.
Choose one and stick with it- I'm tired of having to swap back and forth between the two.
... then this is just classical chemistry with a 'cool' new name. We can make molecularly precise objects using chemical methods... and have been doing so for decades.
Once you throw out the generic assembler concept there's nothing new here.
But we would both agree that physics provides a more generaly aplicable aproximation. Correct?
No, neither chemistry nor physics are approximations, the words refer to aspects of reality. Approximations are made by people working in those fields out of necessity or ignorance, but that does not mean the processes as they actually occur in nature are somehow 'approximate'. That makes no sense. The methods that chemists choose to model chemical systems should rationally be expected to be as good or better than those used by the less specifically focused physicists to describe the same system. (Actually, there's a large grey area of physical chemists and chemical physicists, and it's not like the two groups never meet... almost all the time they're using the same methods in the areas where studies overlap.) I refuse to go down the tangent about the composition of the universe.
I'm not claiming it would be easy, or that we know how to do it now. But that is a far cry from Smalley's claim that it is impossible in principle.
Smalley doesn't refer to ab initio calculations at all, I'm referring to your tangent on a bizarre way to do quantum chemistry. Your proposal was horribly, horribly impractical but not impossible.
You're confusing the means with the end. Using something very much like combinatorial chemistry (though much more difficult) it may someday be possible to design and build Drexler's dodads. This does not mean that the dodads arecombinatorial chemistry, any more than dog poop is a dog, simply by virtue of being produced by a dog.
The alleged end isn't possible, (or rather, I should say that Smalley claims this and Drexler adamantly refuses to address the issue) because all atoms simply are fat and sticky on that scale, and all the engineering in the world will not change that. This can't be ignored- you'll have to tailor the process chemically to use these necessary interactions, like nature does it, and not exclusively mechanically as Drexler proposes. Repeating 'engineering will fix it' as a mantra doesn't address this issue, as you can't 'engineer' atoms to be sufficiently small or sufficiently unsticky.
The process you referred to would work to do the job of assembling things on the nanoscale- which is one of the goals of nanotech but is not itself nanotech. It would not work to create an object with properties unlike known atoms (such as a nano-machine which does not interact with the target structure other than to deposit an atom.)
You're missing the point. You have to design each part of the general purpose machine (just as all the parts of a computer have to be designed), but then you have your general purpose machine.
You're missing the point. atoms interact with each other quite strongly at that scale and ALL atoms are 'fat' and 'sticky' at that scale. You can't just sweep that under the rug with 'we'll develop it ones which aren't'. Engineering can't change the fundamental properties of atomic interactions.
Biological systems get around this by NOT being generic, but instead lining up large numbers of atoms to form weak bonds all around the atoms to be transferred. Large sections of the two molecules must pair up precisely for this to happen.
You can hypothetically do this for any specific reaction by designing a specific molcule to do that reaction, analogous to the way nature does it. But doing specific chemical reactions like this is classic chemistry, and is not what Drexler is claiming to be developing.
There is no instance in nature of a 'generic' enzyme which works without forming any interactions with the surroundings of the active site... which is what Drexler is claiming is possible, but which Smalley claims is impossible.
Drop down a level in your thinking. From a physics perspective, "the chemistry at the site" disapears. It is, after all, just an aproximate way of describing the forces, charge distribution, etc.
I don't know how to respond to this. You appear not to know what the word 'chemistry' means. Chemistry is reality. Methods used to describe chemistry are approximations, as are methods used to describe physics. And even now we wouldn't (and don't) describe them as 'charged bodies'- that's a terrible classical approximation. To even get things very roughly approximate you're going to be calculating wavefunctions! If you want the best case model of the system, you'd want to go to full description of orbital space (complete basis set limit, ideally, but 'settle' on something like d-aug-ccPV6Z) with complete description of electron correlation (Full Confuration Interaction) and use a fully relativistic Hamiltonian, describe everything within, say, 10 nanometers and simulate this dynamically at finite temperature for, say, a nanosecond? I'd estimate current computers are at least 50 orders of magnitude too slow to do that.
Much of current computational chemistry is done from first principles (ab initio methods) though Density Functional methods and others involving a small number of parameters(such as some plane wave methods) are also in use- but these are not easy problems and throwing more computational speed at them only gets you so far. And yes, one of the common compromises is to only simulate a small area near where bonds are forming, or the 'active site'.
It's a known art. Build huge tables of interactions and all the data you can get on them, and let the designers pick and choose the combination that works best for them. Rinse, lather, and repeat.
That's combinatorial chemistry, and it's useful, but it's been around for a while and no one claimed it was a 'nanofactory'. That description is nothing like the nanomachines alleged to be possible. Again we're back to renaming something already known with a 'cool' name and pretending to have invented it.
Well, the claims made as to the abilities are grandiose- he's postulating general use machines.
If you have to craft a designer molecule to do each reaction, you're just doing classic chemistry. We've been doing that for decades, if not centuries. Calling it 'nanotechnology' is just confusing the issue. (There have been interesting things on a nanometer scale coming out of the Chemistry community- but they're called macromolecules, and they don't require nonexistant materials to make 'positional controls' out of.)
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe they just didn't really want to install one, as Steve Jobs hadn't deigned to make a higher-priced Mac version of it available yet.
Better to just take in on foot, with The Long Run.
In addition to the general advantages of placing a telescope on the moon (no atmosphere), the far ('dark') side of the moon has a unique advantage: it's always shielded from Earth, which is a huge radio source. For this reason, the far side of the moon would be an ideal spot to build a radio telescope.
Nope, still not funny.
More importantly, what's the name of the Sage's dog?
They're remaking other movies based on less popular Marvel characters, why not that one?
This applies to the manuscript itself, and the figures therein, but not the concepts. Copyright(at least the US definition) doesn't cover concepts such as mathematical proofs, anyhow. I think a proof might be patentable, though... not that'd be useful for most mathematical proofs, but that's how intellectual property of abstract ideas is generally handled.
2) yeah, that was a total copout. A "I hadn't considered that, that is a problem" response would have been better received.
The card worked, and I paid no fee at all. (Well, I did get a not-quite-ideal exchange rate, but not particularly bad, certainly not $2 worse than I would have received in a bank.)
{nitpick}
When a solid becomes a gas directly, without first becoming a liquid, it sublimates. When a liquid becomes a gas, as you're describing, it evaporates.
{/nitpick}
In the US, most elections are 'winner take all'. In a 'winner take all' election, a set of three or more parties is unstable because the voters for whichever party is weakest are motivated to defect to whichever of the stronger two parties' platforms is more palatable. The "don't waste your vote by voting for a third party" refrain is painful to hear, but it's based on solid ground in political theory. It is possible for a third party to overtake one of the current major parties... but the eventual result would be a new two party system with different parties, because having more than two parties is an unstable state in a 'winner take all' system.
In addition, in a 'winner take all' two-party environment, both politicians in both parties are strongly motivated to head toward the center of the electorate, as the swing voters are there. In primaries, politicians in both parties will head for the median of their party electorate, but then in the general election they'll head for the median of the entire electorate. The inconsistencies this generates would be funny if they weren't sad.
In the best case, this sort of 'winner take all' system forces the electorate to compromise on candidates during the election process to generate politicians with opinions at the median of the populace, which (if it actually works out this way) is a good thing for a republic.
In nations with parlimentary systems, where getting 10-20% of a vote in an election can result in proportional political power, multiple party systems are practical and the norm. This isn't based on deep cultural differences, it's simply a natural result of the voting mechanics. Such a system tends to generate politicians representing a broad spectum of political opinions- the compromises must then be done by the politicians rather than the electorate. The unpleasant compromises still must be made, though.
At some point the two scales will meet (and are doing so to a very limited extent today), when the growing scale of chemically developed macromolecules meets the shrinking scale possible for mechanical manipulation.
On the other hand, the atom-by-atom assembly by mechanical methods claim is never going to happen, and you're quite right that that claim is where Drexler's problems are. There's a lot of good work to be done with small-scale mechanisms, but that doesn't mean that they're the way to solve all problems. Overhyping an area of science like this can lead to short-term interest in that area but is bad for other, competing areas (and is a recipe for disappointment in the longer term.)
The very least reactive element known is helium. You can't get any less sticky than that unless you want to postulate new elements, and you claimed you weren't going to do that. What happens to helium atoms which are pushed together (by high pressure), or to a group of helium atoms with insufficient kinetic energy (temperature) to shake themselves apart? They stick to each other and form a liquid. Why do they do this? Van der Walls forces.
This hypothetical mechanical apparatus which will hold atoms still and push them close to each other? It's replicating the still and close conditions under which helium is sticky enough to form a liquid. Since helium sticks to helium under those conditions, how is it going to be possible to engineer something that isn't sticky?
I'm done.
If you'd like to continue this pointless exchange, just imagine that in this post and alternating posts hereafter I point out that you've backpedaled yet again so that you're just describing chemisty as it's been practiced for decades, with all the work required to design specific reactants for each individual addition (but relabeled as 'nanotech' because that's the scientific flavor-of-the-month and grant money's being targetted there.)
In the next and alternating posts thereafter imagine that I point out that the whatever aspects of this 'nanotech' process you claim aren't just chemistry with a new name won't work in the general case because you can't ignore the stickiness problem, and without generality of applicability this 'nanotech' has yet again cycled back to being just classic chemistry, requiring design of everything individually.
Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid can be abbreviated GEB: An EGB. The difference between ti abbreviations of title and subtitle is subtle.
Thankfully, our deparment stepped in to save us from our evil union and supplimented our income to make up for the difference.
The real difference is, unlike a typical one hour lecture, students can't sleep through all 72 hours of this lecture.
We're arguing in circles because the claim is either impossible if it's a mechanical method (because there exists nothing with the properties required), or an old method dressed up with a fancy new name if it's all about calling catalytic chemistry 'nanotech'.
Choose one and stick with it- I'm tired of having to swap back and forth between the two.
Once you throw out the generic assembler concept there's nothing new here.
The process you referred to would work to do the job of assembling things on the nanoscale- which is one of the goals of nanotech but is not itself nanotech. It would not work to create an object with properties unlike known atoms (such as a nano-machine which does not interact with the target structure other than to deposit an atom.)
Biological systems get around this by NOT being generic, but instead lining up large numbers of atoms to form weak bonds all around the atoms to be transferred. Large sections of the two molecules must pair up precisely for this to happen.
You can hypothetically do this for any specific reaction by designing a specific molcule to do that reaction, analogous to the way nature does it. But doing specific chemical reactions like this is classic chemistry, and is not what Drexler is claiming to be developing.
There is no instance in nature of a 'generic' enzyme which works without forming any interactions with the surroundings of the active site... which is what Drexler is claiming is possible, but which Smalley claims is impossible.
Much of current computational chemistry is done from first principles (ab initio methods) though Density Functional methods and others involving a small number of parameters(such as some plane wave methods) are also in use- but these are not easy problems and throwing more computational speed at them only gets you so far. And yes, one of the common compromises is to only simulate a small area near where bonds are forming, or the 'active site'.
That's combinatorial chemistry, and it's useful, but it's been around for a while and no one claimed it was a 'nanofactory'. That description is nothing like the nanomachines alleged to be possible. Again we're back to renaming something already known with a 'cool' name and pretending to have invented it.If you have to craft a designer molecule to do each reaction, you're just doing classic chemistry. We've been doing that for decades, if not centuries. Calling it 'nanotechnology' is just confusing the issue. (There have been interesting things on a nanometer scale coming out of the Chemistry community- but they're called macromolecules, and they don't require nonexistant materials to make 'positional controls' out of.)