Unfortunately you cannot believe everything you read in print nor what WHO tells you. There are multiple ways of estimating the death rate. WHO has been using a crude metric where they take the total number of deaths over the total number of reported cases. This yields 7.0% as of today. A better estimate is to take the total number of discharged deaths over the sum of discharges and deaths. This gives 13.9% to date. We can also consider the previous calculation but using moving averages of recent discharges and recent deaths. For example the 7-day and 14-day moving averages would yield 23.4% and 21.0% death rates respectively. WHO's method has yielded a continuously rising death rate which has confused many people into thinking that the virus has mutated and become more deadly, but this is just silly. The reality is likely that the death rate has always been north of 15% and possibly as high as 20%. Incidentally mainland china has seen death rates using the moving average method in the 30-35% range. If that holds then SARS is as deadly as smallpox was in its hey day. It is a shame that WHO has been reporting the death rate in such a decieving way because if governments truly understood how dangerous this virus is then I suspect a stronger response would be in order. It is still very possible to contain SARS however it will require mainland china to step up its efforts and probably require using its millitrary to quarentine infected cities and blockade ports (yes, it has already become this serious.) In the last 2 weeks, mainland china has seen the number of active cases (aggregate cases less dischared patients and dead people) increase by a factor of 7. The rest of the world has SARS handedly contained but mainland china has transistioned into epedimic like growth curves. Another way in which SARS information has been poorly reported is that the aggregate cases is the number usually reported. This number is entirely irrelevent as is the number of new cases on a day by day basis. What is important is the number of active cases and the change in the number of active cases (neither number is reported directly by WHO.)
You correcty assert that [t]he problem has been the costs to extract the energy. To be more precise, the problem is now and will continue to be the energy cost of extracting energy. In the next few years oil usage will peak, unfortunately this is the most efficient source of abundant energy and the efficiency of extracting it will only decrease with time as we use up the easily accessible supplies. Since the average efficiency of extracting energy across all energy used in a given year is going to get worse we can presume that the cost relative to other commodities will increase. Thus the overall demand for energy will necessarily decrease and therefore energy usage will decline after a peak in the next few years. The renewable resources you mentioned are not very efficient and furthermore they are necessarily limited to the amount which can be sustainably harvested on the planet.
Which brings me back to my point. Unless we have significant breakthroughs in energy technology, per annum energy usage will cap off and likely decline to some equilibrium quantity. This will put a cap on Global GDP creating a very real zero sum game. In the end, Adam Smith may prove wrong and the mercantilist may get the last laugh.
That is true up until a point. However, once energy consumption peeks out in the next few years, we will be in a global zero sum game with the sum shrinking over time. Like it or not, the GDP is constrained by the availability of energy.
Linear difference equations can be solved methodologically using the Z-Transform. This is dual to the use of the Laplacian Transform with linar differential equations. Find an advanced book on signal processing for more details. Similarly there are methods for handling coupled difference equations in a manner dual to coupled differential equations.
The oldest corporation still in it's original form is > 1000 years old. Mergers would retain the copyrights. Copyrights could well live on for a VERY VERY VERY long time."
I googled around for a while and the oldest corporation in the world seems to be Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags of Falun, Sweden, which was founded sometime in the 1280's (different sources give slightly different dates.) It was founded as a copper mine and is now a paper company. I know that Guinness regards the Royal Mint to be the oldest but this is a little questionable - is it a corporation; when did its charter get established; has it really been continuously running; etc. On the other hand some people like to call the Catholic Church the "oldest coporation in the World" but that is somewhat laughable.
If you can find a valid reference to a corporation whose existence date back more than 1,000 years, I would be interested in it.
Rather than give you examples of non-commutation in mathematics (play with any interesting matrices lately?), I'll give you some important examples of real world applications of non-commutation.
Angular Momentum: Yup, the stuff that keeps you upright while on a bike or motorcycle, anti-commutative. The Coriolis force, a corollary of angular momentum, this is the same effect that causes tornados and hurricanes (but not toilettes) to always rotate in the same direction in the northern hemisphere. To understand or prove any of these effects you must minimally know about the cross product, which is (as you might guess) non-commuting.
Maxwell's equations have an inherent twist in them, consider Ampere's right-hand and left-hand rule. All motors and generators rely on this effect, and without it there could be no propagation of light.
Polarized sunglasses - that's right, photons have polarity and polarizing filters are caused by non-commutating interactions with materials.
The list of everyday phenomenon that require non-commutation to prove is much longer than this, but I hope this gives you a taste of how boring the world would be without this quirk of mathematics.
Box Office Mojo is a great resource for all things box office related. You can find total box office take; number of screens; cummulative take; etc. Go have a romp.
I am skeptical of Mills theory, particularly his GUT ideas, but unlike many of his detractors I am not dismissive of his work. He is a very intelligent man and seems to genuinely believe in his theories. Furthermore, he does employ several PhD physicists. There is a growing body of corroborative evidence that he may have discovered something interesting about hydrogen that we did not already know. The evidence should not be ignored simply because he has a highly unorthodox explanation for the behavior of hydrogen in his experiments.
I'm familiar with this particular manifesto of Dr. Zimmerman. Some of his criticisms are legitimate, many are not.
1) "The Haus condition doesn't apply" - Dr.Z offers no proof of this, while Mills provides derivation of the condition, grounds for using it in his method, and demonstration that the resulting orbitsphere is indeed non-radiative.
2) "Mills's use of the wave equation he selected is unmotivated, and doesn't seem justified by any arguments made" - I agree with respect to the three dimensional+time wave equation. However, this equation is further reduced by the boundary conditions imposed by the Haus condition. The resulting wave equation is neither unmotivated nor unjustified by Mills' arguments.
3) "The method of solution proposed does not actually incorporate the procedure of separation of variables properly." - Perhaps Dr.Z has an earlier copy of Mills' manuscript than I do (mine is dated July 2002.) Otherwise this is groundless. Mills clearly uses the Haus condition to reduce the scope of one wave equation into another and the result is then solved in the classic manner.
4) "The proposed radial solution is not, in fact, a correct solution to the Mills wave equation" - I agree it is not a solution to the initial wave equation Mills gives. This isn't insurmountable. The original equation was afterall "unjustified" and "unmotivated"; and in this case irrelevent. IMHO, Mills should not have included the original wave equation as it offers nothing to the mathematical argument and is unecessary for the derivation of the second wave equation.
5) "A thin shell of charge with a point charge of the opposite sign at its center is not stable against small perturbations." - Careful there Dr.Z! Yes, there is a similar result from undergraduate mechanics; however it only applies to a rigid shell. In the case of Mills, the charge density is not rigid within the shell and therefore Dr.Z's argument carries no water. I think what Dr.Z is trying to get at is that in the electostatic case, there is no force effecting the proton within the orbitsphere. In the electrodynamic case there is a central force.
6) "The proposed wave equation does not contain any provision for the introduction of an attractive force to bind the electron." - Yes and no. The orbitsphere is a result of the haus condition, not of the interaction with the proton. In other words, if an electron is going to exist with radial symmetries and satisfy the haus condition, then according to Mills it must be in the form of an orbitsphere. Interaction with the proton is later introduced.
7) "No quantization conditions arise naturally in the solution of the equation. The Bohr formula is grafted in later as an 'arbitrary' constant." - Not in the version I have. The quantization is clearly a result of solving the wave equation that results from consideration of the haus condition and associated boundary conditions. The Bohr formula is not grafted in, rather there is an unstated axiom - namely, the DeBroglie relationship between momentum and wavelength for the electron.
8) "If one is uncomfortable with the Copenhagen version of QM, I suggest trying Bohmian Mechanics, a hidden variable theory suggested by David Bohm in roughly 1953 and said to be consistent with the rest of physics." - I agree, Bohm's book on the subject is very interesting. It should be required reading for future physicists because it calls into question several assumptions behind the hegemony of the Copenhagen interpretation.
Dr.Z. makes several other points, but I lack the knowledge base to comment on them. Perhaps some of them are crushing to Mills' theory, or perhaps my analysis above is devestatingly wrong. As I said before, I have not carefully checked Mills' approach line by line, assumption by assumption; so it is highly likely that I may be mistaken on a few of the above points.
I've read parts of his work. I have not gone through his derivations of the "Mill's atom" line by line but I am familiar with his approach. The assumptions he uses are the following:
1) Maxwell's equations.
2) Conservation of Energy (Despite claims to the contrary by his detractors.)
3) The DeBroglie relationship between wavelength and momentum.
4) Electron mass density has the same profile as charge density.
Criticism that I have seen and looked into:
1) The non-radiation criterion he uses for determining the electron orbit is not valid for the system he deals with.
2) He is mistaken in his calculation of the Fourier transform of a three dimensional radial dirac sphere/shell/delta.
3) His methodology for deriving solutions to the wave equation is non-standard.
While I have strong reservations about his overall theory, I also have reservations about each of the above mentioned criticisms.
1) Mill's makes a strong argument that the Haus condition should apply due to superposition of charge. I have never seen a formalized argument to show that the Haus condition does not apply; I have seen a lot of verbage and hand waving on both sides.
2) This one is truly bizarre. He makes no mistake with this. In fact it was the attention paid to this argument by his detractors that made me think that they were not doing their homework.
3) I have yet to see a demonstration that his solution does not satisfy the wave equation.
If you are familiar with other mathematical criticisms of Mills work I would be interested in hearing about them.
I happen to know quite a lot about physics and can tell you that the proof you posted a link to has serious flaws. Problems:
1) This proof uses only electrostatics. However classic electrodynamics will show you that the electron in the bohr model will radiate. So unfortunately this is not a steady state solution. Put another way, the proof does not include all the energy terms, thus we cannot possibly solve for the radius of the minimum energy orbit.
2) The uncertainty principle is an inequality not an equality. The proof gives the uncertainty priciple as an aproximate relationship then converts it into an equality - a rather dubious step. Generally speaking, the uncertainty priciple is not axiomatic. That is to say, QM does not derive from it, it is a result of QM. To use the uncertainty priciple as an axiom effectively assumes QM as well.
3) Since I'm nitpicking, the proof did not take into account the mass of the proton (Although this is trivial to fix.)
4) And finally there is no account made for special relativity. Trickier to fix but the effect is small.
Thus he proof assumes the following, (1) Maxwell's equations are wrong, and only Coulomb's law applies; (2) The uncertainty principle is an equality (Again not even in agreement with QM); (3) Newton's third law doesn't apply; and (4) Special Relativity doesn't apply. Wow, to summarize this "proof" has violated Newton's third law, Maxwell's equations, Special Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics, as well as basic standards of mathematics. It is a wonder that it's result is in even close agreement with the real radius of hydrogen, but such is the universe we live in.
How can this possibly be (-1) - off topic? The poster is absolutely correct. The Suez Canal was in no way designed for supertankers. The Suez Canal has no locks due to being at see level. However its draft (width) is too narrow to allow passage of supertankers. Currently the Suez is planning to widen the canal to accommodate these vessels but this is not expected to be available until 2010, almost 150 years after originally opening. Clearly the original poster who states, "Actually one of the main uses and design considerations for the Suez was to accommodate supertankers," is the worst kind of ignorant karma whore.
As a side note, when the Panama Canal opened there were already several ships that were too large to fit in its locks as well. However, the ship designers knew this and had no intention of sending their ships through the Panama locks. The world's largest ships do not use either canal and an open Northwest Passage would shave off considerably more than the 6000 miles listed in the article for these ships.
David McCullough (the critically acclaimed author of the recent biographies of Truman and John Adams) wrote a fascinating historical account of the building of the Panama Canal in, "Path Between the Seas: the Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914." I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the subject.
Absolutely, that will verify if you have an understand of the concepts of physics as well as test some of your math background.
When I first read the question, I just about spit out my coffee. Math and Science are not like other fields. They build upon incremental knowledge. You cannot just walk into a PhD program without the background studies. After embarrassing yourself with the physics GRE, I would recommend taking the following courses before trying again:
Freshmen Physics (2 semesters, you might not need this if you are as knowledgable as you say), Optics (1 semester), E&M (2 semesters), Mechanics (2 semesters), Quantum Mechanics (1-2 semesters), Modern Physics (1 semester) and Thermodynamics (1 semester).
Additionally, you need the following Math courses:
Calc 1&2, Mutivariable Calc, Differential Equations, Partial Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, and Complex Analysis.
The 18 semesters worth of courses listed above are just the basics, of course.
A graduate econometrics course is a class that gives economists the willies but which most EE or physics undergrads could sleep through. Yes there have been phsycist who have said, "gee, I have a bag of tools which would be useful in studying the market", as have there been EE's, but as far as policy is concerned they have had no influence. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of economists couldn't tell an eigenvalue from their assholes.
But anyone working 60 hours a week with no kids should be putting money in the bank every month, and significant money.
Let's check the math on that:
60/hrs a week
52 weeks/year
$5.35/hour - minimum wage (historical vs. inflation adjusted value))
== $16,068 before taxes.
You make about $12,000 after federal state and local taxes (don't forget payroll taxes.)
So that would give you 1k per month for food, clothing, rent, car payments, health insurance, car insurance, and miscellaneous expenses like deductibles. I presume that we are not dealing with a burger flipping english graduate here, or else add student loans to the mix.
Budget:
$200/month - food. (don't kid yourself on going lower, unless you are serious about the food bank.)
$250/month - rent. (that will get you a bed if lucky in a very low rent neighborhood if you are anywhere near a city, and you will be because you are working.)
$100/month - car payment. (Live in NYC, so not sure about actual car payments but I'm betting that that figure is pretty damn conservative.)
$50/month - gasoline. (Unless you are paying a lot more for rent to live close to work.)
$150/month - health insurance.
$100/month - car insurance. (again, I live in NYC, so a little clueless on that one.)
$50/month - clothing.
$50/month - miscellaneous.
That leaves $50/month to put into the bank... or maybe not, maybe you recklessly blow your future savings by having a few beers after a hard days work with friends once a week.
The last time I looked at Hodges sites (maybe a year ago) he was saying that federal, state and local government outlays combined to just shy of 40% of the national income. The key here is the use of national income as opposed to GDP; I forget his justification. For 1999 that would be right about 35%. See this link for more information concerning the difference between national income and GDP and for historical data.
Query: For those people who work hard at companies without Microsoft strategic position, and thus without MS's stellar stock performance, did they somehow not earn it?
By your logic everyone who puts in 60 hour week should be swimming in cash. The reality is that there are plenty of people who work two jobs in America and can barely pay rent and put food on the table.
True, but strap on a few lead plates and problem solved, it would go pretty deep. Release the plates for the final return to surface. Only one trip down and back, but you should be able to do quite a bit of deap water travel in between.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it ironic that you didn't do this in your examples?
No. That is hypocrisy.
Is it ironic that I quoted you in italics?
Possibly. If you were doing it intentionally to highlight you point, then yes.
6-7% death rate
Unfortunately you cannot believe everything you read in print nor what WHO tells you. There are multiple ways of estimating the death rate. WHO has been using a crude metric where they take the total number of deaths over the total number of reported cases. This yields 7.0% as of today. A better estimate is to take the total number of discharged deaths over the sum of discharges and deaths. This gives 13.9% to date. We can also consider the previous calculation but using moving averages of recent discharges and recent deaths. For example the 7-day and 14-day moving averages would yield 23.4% and 21.0% death rates respectively. WHO's method has yielded a continuously rising death rate which has confused many people into thinking that the virus has mutated and become more deadly, but this is just silly. The reality is likely that the death rate has always been north of 15% and possibly as high as 20%. Incidentally mainland china has seen death rates using the moving average method in the 30-35% range. If that holds then SARS is as deadly as smallpox was in its hey day. It is a shame that WHO has been reporting the death rate in such a decieving way because if governments truly understood how dangerous this virus is then I suspect a stronger response would be in order. It is still very possible to contain SARS however it will require mainland china to step up its efforts and probably require using its millitrary to quarentine infected cities and blockade ports (yes, it has already become this serious.) In the last 2 weeks, mainland china has seen the number of active cases (aggregate cases less dischared patients and dead people) increase by a factor of 7. The rest of the world has SARS handedly contained but mainland china has transistioned into epedimic like growth curves. Another way in which SARS information has been poorly reported is that the aggregate cases is the number usually reported. This number is entirely irrelevent as is the number of new cases on a day by day basis. What is important is the number of active cases and the change in the number of active cases (neither number is reported directly by WHO.)
You correcty assert that [t]he problem has been the costs to extract the energy. To be more precise, the problem is now and will continue to be the energy cost of extracting energy. In the next few years oil usage will peak, unfortunately this is the most efficient source of abundant energy and the efficiency of extracting it will only decrease with time as we use up the easily accessible supplies. Since the average efficiency of extracting energy across all energy used in a given year is going to get worse we can presume that the cost relative to other commodities will increase. Thus the overall demand for energy will necessarily decrease and therefore energy usage will decline after a peak in the next few years. The renewable resources you mentioned are not very efficient and furthermore they are necessarily limited to the amount which can be sustainably harvested on the planet.
Which brings me back to my point. Unless we have significant breakthroughs in energy technology, per annum energy usage will cap off and likely decline to some equilibrium quantity. This will put a cap on Global GDP creating a very real zero sum game. In the end, Adam Smith may prove wrong and the mercantilist may get the last laugh.
That is true up until a point. However, once energy consumption peeks out in the next few years, we will be in a global zero sum game with the sum shrinking over time. Like it or not, the GDP is constrained by the availability of energy.
Linear difference equations can be solved methodologically using the Z-Transform. This is dual to the use of the Laplacian Transform with linar differential equations. Find an advanced book on signal processing for more details. Similarly there are methods for handling coupled difference equations in a manner dual to coupled differential equations.
The oldest corporation still in it's original form is > 1000 years old. Mergers would retain the copyrights. Copyrights could well live on for a VERY VERY VERY long time."
I googled around for a while and the oldest corporation in the world seems to be Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags of Falun, Sweden, which was founded sometime in the 1280's (different sources give slightly different dates.) It was founded as a copper mine and is now a paper company. I know that Guinness regards the Royal Mint to be the oldest but this is a little questionable - is it a corporation; when did its charter get established; has it really been continuously running; etc. On the other hand some people like to call the Catholic Church the "oldest coporation in the World" but that is somewhat laughable.
If you can find a valid reference to a corporation whose existence date back more than 1,000 years, I would be interested in it.
Rather than give you examples of non-commutation in mathematics (play with any interesting matrices lately?), I'll give you some important examples of real world applications of non-commutation.
Angular Momentum: Yup, the stuff that keeps you upright while on a bike or motorcycle, anti-commutative. The Coriolis force, a corollary of angular momentum, this is the same effect that causes tornados and hurricanes (but not toilettes) to always rotate in the same direction in the northern hemisphere. To understand or prove any of these effects you must minimally know about the cross product, which is (as you might guess) non-commuting.
Maxwell's equations have an inherent twist in them, consider Ampere's right-hand and left-hand rule. All motors and generators rely on this effect, and without it there could be no propagation of light.
Polarized sunglasses - that's right, photons have polarity and polarizing filters are caused by non-commutating interactions with materials.
The list of everyday phenomenon that require non-commutation to prove is much longer than this, but I hope this gives you a taste of how boring the world would be without this quirk of mathematics.
Box Office Mojo is a great resource for all things box office related. You can find total box office take; number of screens; cummulative take; etc. Go have a romp.
I am skeptical of Mills theory, particularly his GUT ideas, but unlike many of his detractors I am not dismissive of his work. He is a very intelligent man and seems to genuinely believe in his theories. Furthermore, he does employ several PhD physicists. There is a growing body of corroborative evidence that he may have discovered something interesting about hydrogen that we did not already know. The evidence should not be ignored simply because he has a highly unorthodox explanation for the behavior of hydrogen in his experiments.
I'm familiar with this particular manifesto of Dr. Zimmerman. Some of his criticisms are legitimate, many are not.
1) "The Haus condition doesn't apply" - Dr.Z offers no proof of this, while Mills provides derivation of the condition, grounds for using it in his method, and demonstration that the resulting orbitsphere is indeed non-radiative.
2) "Mills's use of the wave equation he selected is unmotivated, and doesn't seem justified by any arguments made" - I agree with respect to the three dimensional+time wave equation. However, this equation is further reduced by the boundary conditions imposed by the Haus condition. The resulting wave equation is neither unmotivated nor unjustified by Mills' arguments.
3) "The method of solution proposed does not actually incorporate the procedure of separation of variables properly." - Perhaps Dr.Z has an earlier copy of Mills' manuscript than I do (mine is dated July 2002.) Otherwise this is groundless. Mills clearly uses the Haus condition to reduce the scope of one wave equation into another and the result is then solved in the classic manner.
4) "The proposed radial solution is not, in fact, a correct solution to the Mills wave equation" - I agree it is not a solution to the initial wave equation Mills gives. This isn't insurmountable. The original equation was afterall "unjustified" and "unmotivated"; and in this case irrelevent. IMHO, Mills should not have included the original wave equation as it offers nothing to the mathematical argument and is unecessary for the derivation of the second wave equation.
5) "A thin shell of charge with a point charge of the opposite sign at its center is not stable against small perturbations." - Careful there Dr.Z! Yes, there is a similar result from undergraduate mechanics; however it only applies to a rigid shell. In the case of Mills, the charge density is not rigid within the shell and therefore Dr.Z's argument carries no water. I think what Dr.Z is trying to get at is that in the electostatic case, there is no force effecting the proton within the orbitsphere. In the electrodynamic case there is a central force.
6) "The proposed wave equation does not contain any provision for the introduction of an attractive force to bind the electron." - Yes and no. The orbitsphere is a result of the haus condition, not of the interaction with the proton. In other words, if an electron is going to exist with radial symmetries and satisfy the haus condition, then according to Mills it must be in the form of an orbitsphere. Interaction with the proton is later introduced.
7) "No quantization conditions arise naturally in the solution of the equation. The Bohr formula is grafted in later as an 'arbitrary' constant." - Not in the version I have. The quantization is clearly a result of solving the wave equation that results from consideration of the haus condition and associated boundary conditions. The Bohr formula is not grafted in, rather there is an unstated axiom - namely, the DeBroglie relationship between momentum and wavelength for the electron.
8) "If one is uncomfortable with the Copenhagen version of QM, I suggest trying Bohmian Mechanics, a hidden variable theory suggested by David Bohm in roughly 1953 and said to be consistent with the rest of physics." - I agree, Bohm's book on the subject is very interesting. It should be required reading for future physicists because it calls into question several assumptions behind the hegemony of the Copenhagen interpretation.
Dr.Z. makes several other points, but I lack the knowledge base to comment on them. Perhaps some of them are crushing to Mills' theory, or perhaps my analysis above is devestatingly wrong. As I said before, I have not carefully checked Mills' approach line by line, assumption by assumption; so it is highly likely that I may be mistaken on a few of the above points.
I hope that helps.
I've read parts of his work. I have not gone through his derivations of the "Mill's atom" line by line but I am familiar with his approach. The assumptions he uses are the following:
1) Maxwell's equations.
2) Conservation of Energy (Despite claims to the contrary by his detractors.)
3) The DeBroglie relationship between wavelength and momentum.
4) Electron mass density has the same profile as charge density.
Criticism that I have seen and looked into:
1) The non-radiation criterion he uses for determining the electron orbit is not valid for the system he deals with.
2) He is mistaken in his calculation of the Fourier transform of a three dimensional radial dirac sphere/shell/delta.
3) His methodology for deriving solutions to the wave equation is non-standard.
While I have strong reservations about his overall theory, I also have reservations about each of the above mentioned criticisms.
1) Mill's makes a strong argument that the Haus condition should apply due to superposition of charge. I have never seen a formalized argument to show that the Haus condition does not apply; I have seen a lot of verbage and hand waving on both sides.
2) This one is truly bizarre. He makes no mistake with this. In fact it was the attention paid to this argument by his detractors that made me think that they were not doing their homework.
3) I have yet to see a demonstration that his solution does not satisfy the wave equation.
If you are familiar with other mathematical criticisms of Mills work I would be interested in hearing about them.
I happen to know quite a lot about physics and can tell you that the proof you posted a link to has serious flaws. Problems:
1) This proof uses only electrostatics. However classic electrodynamics will show you that the electron in the bohr model will radiate. So unfortunately this is not a steady state solution. Put another way, the proof does not include all the energy terms, thus we cannot possibly solve for the radius of the minimum energy orbit.
2) The uncertainty principle is an inequality not an equality. The proof gives the uncertainty priciple as an aproximate relationship then converts it into an equality - a rather dubious step. Generally speaking, the uncertainty priciple is not axiomatic. That is to say, QM does not derive from it, it is a result of QM. To use the uncertainty priciple as an axiom effectively assumes QM as well.
3) Since I'm nitpicking, the proof did not take into account the mass of the proton (Although this is trivial to fix.)
4) And finally there is no account made for special relativity. Trickier to fix but the effect is small.
Thus he proof assumes the following, (1) Maxwell's equations are wrong, and only Coulomb's law applies; (2) The uncertainty principle is an equality (Again not even in agreement with QM); (3) Newton's third law doesn't apply; and (4) Special Relativity doesn't apply. Wow, to summarize this "proof" has violated Newton's third law, Maxwell's equations, Special Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics, as well as basic standards of mathematics. It is a wonder that it's result is in even close agreement with the real radius of hydrogen, but such is the universe we live in.
I just read the excerpt. Unfortunately, the Antichinus is a marsupial that only resembles a mouse. This little fact destroys your original point.
How can this possibly be (-1) - off topic? The poster is absolutely correct. The Suez Canal was in no way designed for supertankers. The Suez Canal has no locks due to being at see level. However its draft (width) is too narrow to allow passage of supertankers. Currently the Suez is planning to widen the canal to accommodate these vessels but this is not expected to be available until 2010, almost 150 years after originally opening. Clearly the original poster who states, "Actually one of the main uses and design considerations for the Suez was to accommodate supertankers," is the worst kind of ignorant karma whore.
As a side note, when the Panama Canal opened there were already several ships that were too large to fit in its locks as well. However, the ship designers knew this and had no intention of sending their ships through the Panama locks. The world's largest ships do not use either canal and an open Northwest Passage would shave off considerably more than the 6000 miles listed in the article for these ships.
David McCullough (the critically acclaimed author of the recent biographies of Truman and John Adams) wrote a fascinating historical account of the building of the Panama Canal in, "Path Between the Seas: the Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914." I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the subject.
no, this isn't a repeat. Why don't you bother reading the articles for a change.
This site has information on everything you want to know about the history of magnetars but were afraid to ask.
Take the physics sybject GRE.
Absolutely, that will verify if you have an understand of the concepts of physics as well as test some of your math background.
When I first read the question, I just about spit out my coffee. Math and Science are not like other fields. They build upon incremental knowledge. You cannot just walk into a PhD program without the background studies. After embarrassing yourself with the physics GRE, I would recommend taking the following courses before trying again:
Freshmen Physics (2 semesters, you might not need this if you are as knowledgable as you say), Optics (1 semester), E&M (2 semesters), Mechanics (2 semesters), Quantum Mechanics (1-2 semesters), Modern Physics (1 semester) and Thermodynamics (1 semester).
Additionally, you need the following Math courses:
Calc 1&2, Mutivariable Calc, Differential Equations, Partial Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, and Complex Analysis.
The 18 semesters worth of courses listed above are just the basics, of course.
this should be modded up.
A graduate econometrics course is a class that gives economists the willies but which most EE or physics undergrads could sleep through. Yes there have been phsycist who have said, "gee, I have a bag of tools which would be useful in studying the market", as have there been EE's, but as far as policy is concerned they have had no influence. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of economists couldn't tell an eigenvalue from their assholes.
A CPU operating at 1Hz is useless unless it is massively parallel.
You mean, like your brain?
But anyone working 60 hours a week with no kids should be putting money in the bank every month, and significant money.
Let's check the math on that:
60/hrs a week
52 weeks/year
$5.35/hour - minimum wage (historical vs. inflation adjusted value))
== $16,068 before taxes. You make about $12,000 after federal state and local taxes (don't forget payroll taxes.)
So that would give you 1k per month for food, clothing, rent, car payments, health insurance, car insurance, and miscellaneous expenses like deductibles. I presume that we are not dealing with a burger flipping english graduate here, or else add student loans to the mix.
Budget:
$200/month - food. (don't kid yourself on going lower, unless you are serious about the food bank.)
$250/month - rent. (that will get you a bed if lucky in a very low rent neighborhood if you are anywhere near a city, and you will be because you are working.)
$100/month - car payment. (Live in NYC, so not sure about actual car payments but I'm betting that that figure is pretty damn conservative.)
$50/month - gasoline. (Unless you are paying a lot more for rent to live close to work.)
$150/month - health insurance.
$100/month - car insurance. (again, I live in NYC, so a little clueless on that one.)
$50/month - clothing.
$50/month - miscellaneous.
That leaves $50/month to put into the bank... or maybe not, maybe you recklessly blow your future savings by having a few beers after a hard days work with friends once a week.
Thoughts?
The last time I looked at Hodges sites (maybe a year ago) he was saying that federal, state and local government outlays combined to just shy of 40% of the national income. The key here is the use of national income as opposed to GDP; I forget his justification. For 1999 that would be right about 35%. See this link for more information concerning the difference between national income and GDP and for historical data.
cheers
Query: For those people who work hard at companies without Microsoft strategic position, and thus without MS's stellar stock performance, did they somehow not earn it?
By your logic everyone who puts in 60 hour week should be swimming in cash. The reality is that there are plenty of people who work two jobs in America and can barely pay rent and put food on the table.
right on, someone mod this guy up!
True, but strap on a few lead plates and problem solved, it would go pretty deep. Release the plates for the final return to surface. Only one trip down and back, but you should be able to do quite a bit of deap water travel in between.