I just recently took part in a discussion about this topic at a blog.
One thing to note is that "space expands" sounds a bit meaningless. But the discussion following that blog entry discusses the testable differences between two objects moving apart and two objects where the space between them is expanding. There is a meaningful difference between these two scenarios.
You answered your own question. Nothing can expand faster than the speed of light. In particular, the space between galaxies can expand faster than the speed of light. The expansion of the universe isn't about a bunch of galaxies flying apart from each other from an initial explosion like shrapnel from a bomb. It's a about the expansion of space itself, and that is something entirely different.
But...it's pretty obvious why auto manufacturers don't want you to use your audio hardware in their cars. They'd like you to spend lots of money on buying their crappy audio systems. In particular, they exploit a kind of 'bug' in human reasoning. If you're buying a $20,000 car many people will think little of wasting $1000, say, on a stereo worth $500 because the $500 seems insignificant compared to the total price of the car and the expense slides under many people's radars, even though under normal circumstances those people would balk at being ripped off so badly.
How come this pseudo-scientific babble was modded +5 interesting? Sure, the concept of life on a planet carrying out a "biological reset" might be a great concept for a science fantasy TV series like Star Trek, but it has no place in any kind of discussion of what might actually be happening on Earth right now. This kind of teleologico-evolutionary raving is no better than the kind of nonsense spouted by Creationists and is a nice example of how many people blindly subscribe to evolutionary theory as a kind of religion without having the faintest clue of what it's actually about. Of course it's not surprising that some people hold such views, but it is mildly shocking that such views get modded to the highest level of interest on/.
I wonder if someone could explain to me why this comment is "-1, offtopic" as opposed to the other comments that are rated "+5, funny". Call me weird, but I think this one is worth at least a "+0.5, slightly funnier than an episode of Friends".
Hundreds of people have people have pointed out the error. This time it's not some slight error but the biggest error in the history of journalism. It needs to be updated. Don't any of the editors look at the comments? Are teh standards at/. really this low? This is even worse than CNN reporting that the space shuttle was traveling at 3 times the speed of light. Come on! WAKE UP!
There is an incredible resistance towards black holes in some parts of the astronomical community.
We currently lack a quantum theory of gravity so we have little idea of what quantum effects might become important at the event horizon. For example, black holes are supposed to have no hair, but it looks a lot like they might have quantum hair. I personally suspect that it's quite possible that quantum effects might become very significant at the event horizon, well before the classical singularity. (PS I have no problem with classical black holes, for these the event horizon isn't a particularly big deal.)
You don't need cosmology. Look at things like gravitational lensing from clusters of galaxies. In that image you're looking straight at the curvature of spacetime.
That's my rule anyway. In a game you want freedom to do stuff - that's the whole point of escapism. Science fiction is simply too straitjacketed and fantasy is so much more colorful.
But in fiction you need structure. Fantasy (at least of the sword and sorcery variety) is one of the worst genres of writing simply because people just make stuff up for hundreds of pages at a time. This kind of arbitrariness can kill dramatic tension because any kind of deus ex machina can appear at any time.
in terms of the medium's progression towards emotional maturity.
By that measure Lifetime TV for women and Italian opera are the most mature art forms. Give me a break! Making people cry is easy. Even the cheesiest schmalziest movie will make viewers shed a tear. All it demonstrates is that film makers have finely honed the art of jerking around people's emotions. But this has nothing to do with the 'maturity' of the medium, unless by 'maturity' you mean simply this kind of manipulation.
Last time I piled up fruit in a container there were gaps between the fruits because items that are approximately spherical don't pack perfectly. So when the article says "thousands of bushels" are they counting the volume of the fruit or the volume of the fruit combined with the gaps?
Also, if amount of fruit is apparently measured by volume, are fruits that pack better more expensive?
About 30 minutes ago I looked myself up in the mathematics genealogy project and discovered I was a 'descendant' of Paul Du Bois-Reymond. I'd never heard of this guy before. And now suddenly I'm reading about his brother on Slashdot. Weird!
polish, internal consistency, and interoperability
Polish would be nice, but I can live without it.
Consistency seems like a far off dream under Linux. Not only do different applications use quite different keys, for example, but they use different "meta" keys too with some applications using ctrl and others using alt. Even after 18 months of being forced to use Linux after work I haven't trained myself to remember which to use because I keep being 'trained' and 'untrained' every time I switch from one application to the next. It's like having an OS that is deliberately designed to make me inefficient. And that's barely touching the surface of this subject.
And interoperability seems a long way off too. It never ceases to amaze me how complicated it is to cut and paste between apps under Linux. Different applications have completely different ways of implementing it. In some you can indicate what you want to copy by using ctrl- (or alt-)C, say. In others you just mark with the mouse. In the later case you're likely to lose what you have marked when the mouse changes focus (how braindead can you get?). Half of Linux applications use one cut-and-paste buffer and half use another (X has at least two cut-and-paste mechanisms) so you simply can't cut and paste between certain pairs of applications. Sometimes cut-and-paste kinda works, but only sometimes. And sometimes I can cut and paste from A to B only by pasting to an intermediary application first (eg. gedit) and then recopying-and-pasting. Under Linux I can barely copy-and-paste text, under MacOSX I can copy-and-paste full-featured PDF.
blah I just hope more Apple users smarten up and switch to Linux or a real BSD system.
And I hope more users get over the whole macho thing and give up using an OS where every trivial little task becomes some monumental quest where you have to prove yourself worthy by constructing scripts,.rc files and kernel configurations, and switch from BSD and Linux to MacOSX. But that's just my opinion.
...a Whitespace program inside a C++ program. The Whitespace program coexists with the C++ program because of the "wiggle room" (to borrow a phrase from the article) that the C++ grammar givess you.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing to note is that "space expands" sounds a bit meaningless. But the discussion following that blog entry discusses the testable differences between two objects moving apart and two objects where the space between them is expanding. There is a meaningful difference between these two scenarios.
If cosmologists were weathermen then the estimates for the age of the universe would vary between 1 week and 100 billion years.
Hmmm...I see /. now flash ads up while you're trying to write a comment. I think this may be the last time I visit this web site.
But...it's pretty obvious why auto manufacturers don't want you to use your audio hardware in their cars. They'd like you to spend lots of money on buying their crappy audio systems. In particular, they exploit a kind of 'bug' in human reasoning. If you're buying a $20,000 car many people will think little of wasting $1000, say, on a stereo worth $500 because the $500 seems insignificant compared to the total price of the car and the expense slides under many people's radars, even though under normal circumstances those people would balk at being ripped off so badly.
How come this pseudo-scientific babble was modded +5 interesting? Sure, the concept of life on a planet carrying out a "biological reset" might be a great concept for a science fantasy TV series like Star Trek, but it has no place in any kind of discussion of what might actually be happening on Earth right now. This kind of teleologico-evolutionary raving is no better than the kind of nonsense spouted by Creationists and is a nice example of how many people blindly subscribe to evolutionary theory as a kind of religion without having the faintest clue of what it's actually about. Of course it's not surprising that some people hold such views, but it is mildly shocking that such views get modded to the highest level of interest on /.
Both?
I wonder if someone could explain to me why this comment is "-1, offtopic" as opposed to the other comments that are rated "+5, funny". Call me weird, but I think this one is worth at least a "+0.5, slightly funnier than an episode of Friends".
Because hunger for money only came into existence in 2005 and before then everyone everyone did everything for a higher motive. Riiight.
"Baited breath"? Do you have a mouthful of maggots and worms or something? Usually when I'm anticipating something I wait with bated breath.
Hundreds of people have people have pointed out the error. This time it's not some slight error but the biggest error in the history of journalism. It needs to be updated. Don't any of the editors look at the comments? Are teh standards at /. really this low? This is even worse than CNN reporting that the space shuttle was traveling at 3 times the speed of light. Come on! WAKE UP!
You don't need cosmology. Look at things like gravitational lensing from clusters of galaxies. In that image you're looking straight at the curvature of spacetime.
But in fiction you need structure. Fantasy (at least of the sword and sorcery variety) is one of the worst genres of writing simply because people just make stuff up for hundreds of pages at a time. This kind of arbitrariness can kill dramatic tension because any kind of deus ex machina can appear at any time.
What's wrong with using megadeaths?
...are going to love this. They'll be able to make their favorite food out in the field whenever they want.
Also, if amount of fruit is apparently measured by volume, are fruits that pack better more expensive?
About 30 minutes ago I looked myself up in the mathematics genealogy project and discovered I was a 'descendant' of Paul Du Bois-Reymond. I'd never heard of this guy before. And now suddenly I'm reading about his brother on Slashdot. Weird!
Consistency seems like a far off dream under Linux. Not only do different applications use quite different keys, for example, but they use different "meta" keys too with some applications using ctrl and others using alt. Even after 18 months of being forced to use Linux after work I haven't trained myself to remember which to use because I keep being 'trained' and 'untrained' every time I switch from one application to the next. It's like having an OS that is deliberately designed to make me inefficient. And that's barely touching the surface of this subject.
And interoperability seems a long way off too. It never ceases to amaze me how complicated it is to cut and paste between apps under Linux. Different applications have completely different ways of implementing it. In some you can indicate what you want to copy by using ctrl- (or alt-)C, say. In others you just mark with the mouse. In the later case you're likely to lose what you have marked when the mouse changes focus (how braindead can you get?). Half of Linux applications use one cut-and-paste buffer and half use another (X has at least two cut-and-paste mechanisms) so you simply can't cut and paste between certain pairs of applications. Sometimes cut-and-paste kinda works, but only sometimes. And sometimes I can cut and paste from A to B only by pasting to an intermediary application first (eg. gedit) and then recopying-and-pasting. Under Linux I can barely copy-and-paste text, under MacOSX I can copy-and-paste full-featured PDF.
Orchidectomy should do the trick, at least for the boys.
...a Whitespace program inside a C++ program. The Whitespace program coexists with the C++ program because of the "wiggle room" (to borrow a phrase from the article) that the C++ grammar givess you.
That'd be nice roasted and served with parsley. Very nutritious.