I'm an average New Yorker so I feel I ought to weigh in on your question.
As an average New Yorker I pretty damn happy to have the UN in my backyard. And I suspect that goes for most average New Yorkers. I suspect it is a rather rare and non-average New Yorker who is bothered by having the UN here. And I suspect it is an even less average New Yorker who would want them to leave.
Are there some problems with having the UN in the back yard? Wel, duh. The same goes for having any multi billion dollar organization in your back yard.
Do the minuses out-weigh the plusses? Only if you have a few screws loose or a partisan agenda. Look you'd have to be crazy to want to kick a multi billion dollar organization out of your local economy. The UN doesn't even pollute. They are incredibly benign as far as the average New Yorker is concerned. What is a few hundred thousand dollars of unpaid parking tickets next to a billion dollars of local spending. It's a molehill. That's what it is.
Also the average New Yorker is a democrat. The Island of Manhattan is true blue. This is even true for the majority of Wall Street employees. Don't believe me, look up maps of the political donations from the upper east side (its mostly blue and that is where most of the wealthiest New Yorkers live.)
Socially, most New Yorkers are a mix of recent immagrants from all over the world. It isn't hard to extrapolate that the average New Yorker is socially inclined to be ok with the UN.
So what we have is that the average New Yorker supports the UN socially, economically and politically.
So fuck you and the horse you came on. How dare you presume what the average New Yorker thinks. BTW, did it ever occur to you that if the UN was supporting a red state's local economy that we would never hear anything from the Republican reactionaries about the UN as they would get slapped down every time they tried?
Actually you would want the center of mass to extend just past the L1 point. Assuming the tether is secured to the Moon, then the tether will hold taught because the saddle equilibria about L1 will always being pulling towards the Earth. Surprisingly, this extra tension is all that is necessary to make L1 a point of stable equilibria because the other two dimensions were stable to begin with. I had done very similar research a few years ago on my own and was unaware of Pearson's work, but came to the same conclusions. The Corialis force has to be taken into consideration but so long as this force is kept below certain limits then it has no effect on the overall stability of the system.
Tidal forces currently increase the Moon's orbital speed (pushing it out) and decrease the Earth's spin. This will continue until about 3 billion years from now when the earth and moon will be tidally locked with a rotation period of about 47 days. After that the Sun's tidal effect will conitinue to slow down the Earth's spin and push it outward. As this happens the moon will actually fall back towards the earth. Eventually the moon would get so close to the earth that it would pass the roche limit and disintegrate. This would lead to a ring. However long before that can happen the sun will consume the earth and the moon in its giant phase.
This same effect applies to other moons as well and is the reason that many are phase locked to their parent bodies. However the tidal force goes as 1/r^3 or 1/r^4 (I forget) so it is only important when you are close to your parent body. For example, Mars does not have any significant solar tidal effect, whereas Venus is almost phase locked to the sun and mercury is in a 3:2 resonant phase lock to the sun.
Tidal forces do not slow down rings. However they are formed when moons fall below the roche limit. So for example, a retrograde moon will fall towards the planet as it loses orbital speed from tidal forces. Once is passes the Roche limit it will disintegrate and form a ring.
Note, all the above facts are from memory so take them with a grain of salt until you verify them.
I just checked the results for Alabama. Tuskalusa went for bush 2 to 1 as did Lee county. So neither AU nor UA had any liberal influence. And that doesn't surprise me in the least. That leaves Montgomery which Kerry won with a margin of 1%. So that pretty much kills off your hypothesis. The rest of those blackbelt counties combined probably had fewer votes than Montgomery; typically 5k-10k voters.
My family is from the black belt. I can tell you that you should drop the hypothesis. Most of those counties have very small populations and they are anything but well educated. The black belt votes Democratic because it has a high african american population. BTW, it is called the black belt due to the rich black alluvial soil which used to make for good cotton growin'.
100 tons 10,000 years 365 days per year 3963 mile radius 5280 ft per mile 2000 lbs per ton 453 grams per lb
You know what that works out to? 60 milligrams per square ft. The worlds a big place and you are puny relative to it. Get over it. Also, how hard can it be to multiply 100*10,000*365 you were off by almost a factor of 3, wtf!
If I were a doctor I would have prescribed ambien for you - mug or no mug. Your point is well taken, but ambien has obscene sales for a reason... it works and, unlike the benzodiazapines, it will not dope you up.
All of which can easily be done in celestia and with some brilliant astronomy class scripts available, to boot.
If the sole function of astronomy class is to learn to use a telescope to view the universe then Celestia is not be the best choice. But if you are learning about the structure of the universe and all that lies within, well then Celestia is vastly superior to any planetarium program.
People say that, but do you have any metric to back it up? I'm sticking with 200 years. And unless you can show me solid evidence to the contrary, I view the notion that there is something special about the last 20 years of the Supreme Court as a complete load of horse manure. If the parent had said 50 years, then I might hold my tongue, but there is nothing special about the last twenty years compared to the twenty years before that; and to a lesser extent compared with all of the last 200 years.
It would be nice if people actually took notice that the Supreme court has been making the laws for the past 20 years rather than congress.
Surely you meant, "It would be nice if people actually took notice that the Supreme court has been making the laws for the past 200 years..." Or did I wake up this morning in an alternate reality.
>You may believe that I'm a Bush fan, but if you read my signature I not a fan of Bush or Kerry.
A judgment based on your comments. I make no apology for not reading your signature - as I have them turned off by preference. You have reminded me of the need to remove my long forgotten sig.
>You are just full of question but no answers.
A simple "no" would have sufficed. Unfortunately, it is clear that there exists a gap in our respective backgrounds in economic theory. You seem enthusiastic about the subject so you might pick up a standard tome on macroeconomics and monetary theory, such as Krugman and Obstfeld's International Economics: Theory and Policy. From your reply I can only assume you are a 'Libertarian' and likely have been spending time milling around mises.org. In which case, I don't expect you to believe a word of Krugman's book. It would, however, do you much good to understand the standard framework used for monetary policy. Without such a background, you lack the lexicon and framework for maintaining a debate with those versed in the subject. And as a consequence, you will not be taken seriously regardless of your intellect.
>How about these facts?
In fact, much of what you wrote was questions.
>1. People bitch about the government deficit spending while their own consumer deficit also has gone up. I'd say the government is just reflecting on the consumer's spending habits.
You should realize that increasing your debt and increasing your savings are not mutually exclusive. Consequently, the rising consumer sector debt does not necessarily map to a lack of savings. For example, suppose you earn $10 and spend $8 on consumption. And then you borrow $1 and use it with your remaining dollar to buy a $3 asset. You have saved $2 even though your debt increased by $1. A similar effect happens on a massive scale due to the housing market and mortgages. Consequently, consumers are net savers, lately.
>2. Do hear comments like "At least I had a job when Clinton in the office but people also happen to invest like crazy and the corporations were spending money like they had a hole in thier pockets.
No, I don't hear many statements like that. The people I know are all quite well spoken. Try as I may, I cannot reconstruct your run-on into a coherent sentence.
>3. Massive outsourcing of blue collar jobs started in the mid 80's but the consumers didn't do NOTHING about it because they were fat and happy with cheaper goods.
It sounds like you are blaming people for being people. This is why government regulations are a necessary reality. Because people will be people and corporations will be corporations. To expect either to behave differently is naive.
>4. Supply side economics can work, but the reason why Bush's tax cuts failed is because it returned the most of the money to the rich. The reason why most rich are rich is because they save money, not blow it away like the rest of the population, and thus it limited the amount of spending.
Surely you only misspoke and realize that Bush's tax cuts are a near perfect experiment in supply side economics. Any supply sider will readily agree that giving the tax cuts to the rich is the basis of supply side economics. There are many reasons why the rich are rich, but the one factor they all undoubtedly share is luck - either of birth or timing. For every hard working rags-to-riches story there are hundreds of equally hard working and intelligent people who failed to become rich. I agree, however, that the key to remaining rich is wise financial planning.
>5. Sure, promises of "increase in wages" sounds good, but how in the hell is Kerry going to make the employers give out raises? And since one major reason for outsourcing is due to the expensive labor costs in US, how is making the labor costs even more expensive help with
I think you make some great points. But some of your facts seem a bit off.
From your post, someone might come to the conclusion that China is OPEC's biggest customer; while in fact it isn't even close. Alternatively, you may have meant that the EU plus China combined would be OPEC's biggest customer; and, were it not for the role of Russia in European imports, this would likely be so. Nevertheless, I support your conclusion that the potential role of euros in central bank holdings has worrying implications for the ability of the US to acquire cheap oil. However I suspect that oil production will peak long before the euro threat becomes an issue.
From your post, one might come to the conclusion that the dollar has been steady and not falling. I'm sure that that is not what you meant. Perhaps you would like to rephrase things a bit.
Has it come to this in republican circles? Has the double think gotten so bad that an economic boom is considered a mistake? How do you keep track of it all? I understand that war is peace and that differing taxes onto our children is morally righteous; but I thought making money was the whole point of your party. I see now that this isn't so and the republicans are now the party of massive deficits and economic malaise. How fast things change...
(Sigh), it is the democrats that incourage[sic] people to invest recklessly like they did in the last boom! Do you have any idea what you have said?
Are you familiar with the relationship between interest rates and investment? Are you familiar with the history of interest rates over the last 15 years? Are you aware of the relationship between government and private savings and the trade deficit? Do you know what happened to government savings during the 90's? Do you know what happened to government savings since then? Have you heard of Alan Greenspan? Have you been following fed policy for the last 15 years? Have you heard of this thing called the "housing bubble"? What might some of its causes be? What color are pots and kettles? Do you get all your information about economics from celebrity radio talk shows hosts?
abberjaw writes, "Physicsweb is reporting that Germany's DESY lab has been chosen as the host of the International Linear Collider."
physicsweb writes, "Particle physicists have chosen to base the proposed International Linear Collider on superconducting technology developed by an international collaboration centred on the DESY lab in Germany. The superconducting approach was chosen by an international panel ahead of a rival technology developed at Stanford in the US and the KEK lab in Japan."
Looks like abberjaw only read the title but not the first sentence of the article. In fact, site selection has not been made. abberjaw may confirm that this is so by looking at the second sentence of DESY's related press release; hopefully abberjaw can muster the patience to read that far this time. DESY would like to host the ILC and certainly this helps their chances.
NAFTA is globalism. Kerry's vote on the recent war had much more to do with trusting the President and the intelligence community; an honest mistake made by 98 other senators. Back in reality, we will not have a Green senator if they maintain their self-imposed campaign finance limits. And if they drop their limits then they will again be under the influence. Hence my original assertion stands. Piece of advice my friend - get your head out of the sand.
Surely you are not suggesting that supply-side economics is part of the Democratic platform. Nay, neo-liberals and neo-conservatives are both part of the Republican mainstream. Neither ideology has much support in the Democratic Party. While I know it is hard for many Greens/Independents to believe, there are major differences between the parties' ideologies. The reason we don't see it much in there actions is due to the excessive influence of lobbyist. Greens/Independents ought to recognize that their own candidates are just as likely to be swayed by lobbyist as are the Republican and Democratic candidates. Hence I believe that a three or four party system will not operate substantially differently from today's two party mess.
While I agree with most of your discussion, I'd like to correct one detail.
"Starve the Beast" is not a neo-con strategy. I seriously doubt the neo-cons would allow it to be fulfilled as it would go completely counter to their foreign policy agenda. "Starve the Beast" is more of the legacy of the far right (despite popular perception the neo-cons are not far right); in particular, see Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform. Sometimes the neo-cons claim that the current administrations budget deficit is part of a larger "starve the beast" strategy; but this is just pandering to a particular conservative base and really shouldn't be taken very seriously. They could just as easily claim that the administration actions of cutting taxes and increasing spending is a classic Keynesian solution to the recession, but the liberal base that this would appeal to isn't going to vote for Bush anyway.
a chalkboard full of math?????
There are three general approaches to solve the relevent difference equation. One can assume the form of the solution, and the solve a polynomial for the necessary constants (anologous to how most people solve ODE's.) One can apply the Z transform which is the discrete analogue of the Laplacian transform (this makes handling the boundary conditions particularly easy.) Finally there is the third method which is to rewrite the second-order difference equation as a system of first-order difference equations. The latter is a gross overkill, it is a much more powerful technique better left to much more difficult problems (e.g. coupled difference equations); in this case it reduces to the first method. It is unfortunate that your professor took the long route to solve this very easy problem, as it stunted your understanding of how best to solve difference equations.
Dammit... I retract what I said before, it was entirely wrong.
That's what I get for copying someone elses argument I read a few days prior on another discussion board without first double checking to see if it was right. Sigh, the worst part is someone modded me up, which just goes to show...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm an average New Yorker so I feel I ought to weigh in on your question.
As an average New Yorker I pretty damn happy to have the UN in my backyard. And I suspect that goes for most average New Yorkers. I suspect it is a rather rare and non-average New Yorker who is bothered by having the UN here. And I suspect it is an even less average New Yorker who would want them to leave.
Are there some problems with having the UN in the back yard? Wel, duh. The same goes for having any multi billion dollar organization in your back yard.
Do the minuses out-weigh the plusses? Only if you have a few screws loose or a partisan agenda. Look you'd have to be crazy to want to kick a multi billion dollar organization out of your local economy. The UN doesn't even pollute. They are incredibly benign as far as the average New Yorker is concerned. What is a few hundred thousand dollars of unpaid parking tickets next to a billion dollars of local spending. It's a molehill. That's what it is.
Also the average New Yorker is a democrat. The Island of Manhattan is true blue. This is even true for the majority of Wall Street employees. Don't believe me, look up maps of the political donations from the upper east side (its mostly blue and that is where most of the wealthiest New Yorkers live.)
Socially, most New Yorkers are a mix of recent immagrants from all over the world. It isn't hard to extrapolate that the average New Yorker is socially inclined to be ok with the UN.
So what we have is that the average New Yorker supports the UN socially, economically and politically.
So fuck you and the horse you came on. How dare you presume what the average New Yorker thinks. BTW, did it ever occur to you that if the UN was supporting a red state's local economy that we would never hear anything from the Republican reactionaries about the UN as they would get slapped down every time they tried?
You are correct, L2 is also off-axis stable.
Actually you would want the center of mass to extend just past the L1 point. Assuming the tether is secured to the Moon, then the tether will hold taught because the saddle equilibria about L1 will always being pulling towards the Earth. Surprisingly, this extra tension is all that is necessary to make L1 a point of stable equilibria because the other two dimensions were stable to begin with. I had done very similar research a few years ago on my own and was unaware of Pearson's work, but came to the same conclusions. The Corialis force has to be taken into consideration but so long as this force is kept below certain limits then it has no effect on the overall stability of the system.
Tidal forces currently increase the Moon's orbital speed (pushing it out) and decrease the Earth's spin. This will continue until about 3 billion years from now when the earth and moon will be tidally locked with a rotation period of about 47 days. After that the Sun's tidal effect will conitinue to slow down the Earth's spin and push it outward. As this happens the moon will actually fall back towards the earth. Eventually the moon would get so close to the earth that it would pass the roche limit and disintegrate. This would lead to a ring. However long before that can happen the sun will consume the earth and the moon in its giant phase.
This same effect applies to other moons as well and is the reason that many are phase locked to their parent bodies. However the tidal force goes as 1/r^3 or 1/r^4 (I forget) so it is only important when you are close to your parent body. For example, Mars does not have any significant solar tidal effect, whereas Venus is almost phase locked to the sun and mercury is in a 3:2 resonant phase lock to the sun.
Tidal forces do not slow down rings. However they are formed when moons fall below the roche limit. So for example, a retrograde moon will fall towards the planet as it loses orbital speed from tidal forces. Once is passes the Roche limit it will disintegrate and form a ring.
Note, all the above facts are from memory so take them with a grain of salt until you verify them.
I just checked the results for Alabama. Tuskalusa went for bush 2 to 1 as did Lee county. So neither AU nor UA had any liberal influence. And that doesn't surprise me in the least. That leaves Montgomery which Kerry won with a margin of 1%. So that pretty much kills off your hypothesis. The rest of those blackbelt counties combined probably had fewer votes than Montgomery; typically 5k-10k voters.
My family is from the black belt. I can tell you that you should drop the hypothesis. Most of those counties have very small populations and they are anything but well educated. The black belt votes Democratic because it has a high african american population. BTW, it is called the black belt due to the rich black alluvial soil which used to make for good cotton growin'.
neutrino.... muon.... sure basically the same thing. (sigh)
Hey shit for brains.
100 tons
10,000 years
365 days per year
3963 mile radius
5280 ft per mile
2000 lbs per ton
453 grams per lb
You know what that works out to? 60 milligrams per square ft. The worlds a big place and you are puny relative to it. Get over it. Also, how hard can it be to multiply 100*10,000*365 you were off by almost a factor of 3, wtf!
If I were a doctor I would have prescribed ambien for you - mug or no mug. Your point is well taken, but ambien has obscene sales for a reason... it works and, unlike the benzodiazapines, it will not dope you up.
All of which can easily be done in celestia and with some brilliant astronomy class scripts available, to boot.
If the sole function of astronomy class is to learn to use a telescope to view the universe then Celestia is not be the best choice. But if you are learning about the structure of the universe and all that lies within, well then Celestia is vastly superior to any planetarium program.
People say that, but do you have any metric to back it up? I'm sticking with 200 years. And unless you can show me solid evidence to the contrary, I view the notion that there is something special about the last 20 years of the Supreme Court as a complete load of horse manure. If the parent had said 50 years, then I might hold my tongue, but there is nothing special about the last twenty years compared to the twenty years before that; and to a lesser extent compared with all of the last 200 years.
It would be nice if people actually took notice that the Supreme court has been making the laws for the past 20 years rather than congress.
Surely you meant, "It would be nice if people actually took notice that the Supreme court has been making the laws for the past 200 years..." Or did I wake up this morning in an alternate reality.
>You may believe that I'm a Bush fan, but if you read my signature I not a fan of Bush or Kerry.
A judgment based on your comments. I make no apology for not reading your signature - as I have them turned off by preference. You have reminded me of the need to remove my long forgotten sig.
>You are just full of question but no answers.
A simple "no" would have sufficed. Unfortunately, it is clear that there exists a gap in our respective backgrounds in economic theory. You seem enthusiastic about the subject so you might pick up a standard tome on macroeconomics and monetary theory, such as Krugman and Obstfeld's International Economics: Theory and Policy. From your reply I can only assume you are a 'Libertarian' and likely have been spending time milling around mises.org. In which case, I don't expect you to believe a word of Krugman's book. It would, however, do you much good to understand the standard framework used for monetary policy. Without such a background, you lack the lexicon and framework for maintaining a debate with those versed in the subject. And as a consequence, you will not be taken seriously regardless of your intellect.
>How about these facts?
In fact, much of what you wrote was questions.
>1. People bitch about the government deficit spending while their own consumer deficit also has gone up. I'd say the government is just reflecting on the consumer's spending habits.
You should realize that increasing your debt and increasing your savings are not mutually exclusive. Consequently, the rising consumer sector debt does not necessarily map to a lack of savings. For example, suppose you earn $10 and spend $8 on consumption. And then you borrow $1 and use it with your remaining dollar to buy a $3 asset. You have saved $2 even though your debt increased by $1. A similar effect happens on a massive scale due to the housing market and mortgages. Consequently, consumers are net savers, lately.
>2. Do hear comments like "At least I had a job when Clinton in the office but people also happen to invest like crazy and the corporations were spending money like they had a hole in thier pockets.
No, I don't hear many statements like that. The people I know are all quite well spoken. Try as I may, I cannot reconstruct your run-on into a coherent sentence.
>3. Massive outsourcing of blue collar jobs started in the mid 80's but the consumers didn't do NOTHING about it because they were fat and happy with cheaper goods.
It sounds like you are blaming people for being people. This is why government regulations are a necessary reality. Because people will be people and corporations will be corporations. To expect either to behave differently is naive.
>4. Supply side economics can work, but the reason why Bush's tax cuts failed is because it returned the most of the money to the rich. The reason why most rich are rich is because they save money, not blow it away like the rest of the population, and thus it limited the amount of spending.
Surely you only misspoke and realize that Bush's tax cuts are a near perfect experiment in supply side economics. Any supply sider will readily agree that giving the tax cuts to the rich is the basis of supply side economics. There are many reasons why the rich are rich, but the one factor they all undoubtedly share is luck - either of birth or timing. For every hard working rags-to-riches story there are hundreds of equally hard working and intelligent people who failed to become rich. I agree, however, that the key to remaining rich is wise financial planning.
>5. Sure, promises of "increase in wages" sounds good, but how in the hell is Kerry going to make the employers give out raises? And since one major reason for outsourcing is due to the expensive labor costs in US, how is making the labor costs even more expensive help with
I think you make some great points. But some of your facts seem a bit off.
From your post, someone might come to the conclusion that China is OPEC's biggest customer; while in fact it isn't even close. Alternatively, you may have meant that the EU plus China combined would be OPEC's biggest customer; and, were it not for the role of Russia in European imports, this would likely be so. Nevertheless, I support your conclusion that the potential role of euros in central bank holdings has worrying implications for the ability of the US to acquire cheap oil. However I suspect that oil production will peak long before the euro threat becomes an issue.
For detailed information on imports and exports, the standard reference is the BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2004.
Also, you might want to check those population figures for china and the US. A good reference is the CIA World Fact Book 2004.
From your post, one might come to the conclusion that the dollar has been steady and not falling. I'm sure that that is not what you meant. Perhaps you would like to rephrase things a bit.
This is the dollar over the last 3 years.
This is the dollar to euro ratio over the lsame period.
Has it come to this in republican circles? Has the double think gotten so bad that an economic boom is considered a mistake? How do you keep track of it all? I understand that war is peace and that differing taxes onto our children is morally righteous; but I thought making money was the whole point of your party. I see now that this isn't so and the republicans are now the party of massive deficits and economic malaise. How fast things change...
(Sigh), it is the democrats that incourage[sic] people to invest recklessly like they did in the last boom! Do you have any idea what you have said?
Are you familiar with the relationship between interest rates and investment? Are you familiar with the history of interest rates over the last 15 years? Are you aware of the relationship between government and private savings and the trade deficit? Do you know what happened to government savings during the 90's? Do you know what happened to government savings since then? Have you heard of Alan Greenspan? Have you been following fed policy for the last 15 years? Have you heard of this thing called the "housing bubble"? What might some of its causes be? What color are pots and kettles? Do you get all your information about economics from celebrity radio talk shows hosts?
No disrepect is intended by the bad copy and paste.
With some sense of irony, I note that, where I have written 'abberjaw' I have meant 'jabberjaw'.
abberjaw writes, "Physicsweb is reporting that Germany's DESY lab has been chosen as the host of the International Linear Collider."
physicsweb writes, "Particle physicists have chosen to base the proposed International Linear Collider on superconducting technology developed by an international collaboration centred on the DESY lab in Germany. The superconducting approach was chosen by an international panel ahead of a rival technology developed at Stanford in the US and the KEK lab in Japan."
Looks like abberjaw only read the title but not the first sentence of the article. In fact, site selection has not been made. abberjaw may confirm that this is so by looking at the second sentence of DESY's related press release; hopefully abberjaw can muster the patience to read that far this time. DESY would like to host the ILC and certainly this helps their chances.
NAFTA is globalism. Kerry's vote on the recent war had much more to do with trusting the President and the intelligence community; an honest mistake made by 98 other senators. Back in reality, we will not have a Green senator if they maintain their self-imposed campaign finance limits. And if they drop their limits then they will again be under the influence. Hence my original assertion stands. Piece of advice my friend - get your head out of the sand.
Surely you are not suggesting that supply-side economics is part of the Democratic platform. Nay, neo-liberals and neo-conservatives are both part of the Republican mainstream. Neither ideology has much support in the Democratic Party. While I know it is hard for many Greens/Independents to believe, there are major differences between the parties' ideologies. The reason we don't see it much in there actions is due to the excessive influence of lobbyist. Greens/Independents ought to recognize that their own candidates are just as likely to be swayed by lobbyist as are the Republican and Democratic candidates. Hence I believe that a three or four party system will not operate substantially differently from today's two party mess.
While I agree with most of your discussion, I'd like to correct one detail.
"Starve the Beast" is not a neo-con strategy. I seriously doubt the neo-cons would allow it to be fulfilled as it would go completely counter to their foreign policy agenda. "Starve the Beast" is more of the legacy of the far right (despite popular perception the neo-cons are not far right); in particular, see Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform. Sometimes the neo-cons claim that the current administrations budget deficit is part of a larger "starve the beast" strategy; but this is just pandering to a particular conservative base and really shouldn't be taken very seriously. They could just as easily claim that the administration actions of cutting taxes and increasing spending is a classic Keynesian solution to the recession, but the liberal base that this would appeal to isn't going to vote for Bush anyway.
I'd mod you up, if I had the points. You have succinctly summarized what Mandelbrot is asking for.
a chalkboard full of math????? There are three general approaches to solve the relevent difference equation. One can assume the form of the solution, and the solve a polynomial for the necessary constants (anologous to how most people solve ODE's.) One can apply the Z transform which is the discrete analogue of the Laplacian transform (this makes handling the boundary conditions particularly easy.) Finally there is the third method which is to rewrite the second-order difference equation as a system of first-order difference equations. The latter is a gross overkill, it is a much more powerful technique better left to much more difficult problems (e.g. coupled difference equations); in this case it reduces to the first method. It is unfortunate that your professor took the long route to solve this very easy problem, as it stunted your understanding of how best to solve difference equations.
Indeed, The problem isn't so much where to get the extra kinetic energy, it is how to dissapate the excess gravitational potential energy.
IIRC, the the gravitational energy delta is twice as large as the kinetic energy delta.
Dammit... I retract what I said before, it was entirely wrong.
That's what I get for copying someone elses argument I read a few days prior on another discussion board without first double checking to see if it was right. Sigh, the worst part is someone modded me up, which just goes to show...