The CP violation in the decay of B mesons is more noticeable than in the decay of neutral Kaons (K0), so my question isn't entirely offtopic. I'm really confused by neutral kaons and the 'quark mixing' that describes them, and was wondering if anyone could help me out here. Since I can't put a bar over letters or use Greek characters, I'll put antimatter in bold italics and use P for an uppercase 'psi'.
The composition of K+ makes perfect sense (up and anti-strange), as does that of K- (anit-up and strange). But K0 makes no sense at all (both long and short K0). What is K0-short? (P(ds) + P(ds)) * 2^-1/2. And K0-long just replaces the '+' with a '-'. I'm told this is due to quark mixing. But I have absolutely know idea what it means to say this. Any help?
As far as I can tell, the existence of this new particle is being *hypothesized*, and since there's discussion of using neutrino detectors to see if they're right, it may soon be *theorized*.
A *postulate* is something else - a statement that is accepted as truth, usually as the basis of a theory or argument.
Not to nitpick here, but I think you're drawing too fine a line between postulates and hypotheses. We could just as easily have called the basis of research a postulate as a hypothesis. A hypothesis is nothing other than a supposition or assumption. Its literal meaning is 'that which is placed under' something else, viz. an argument. It is the thing upon which an argument rests. Its etymology is identical to supposition, except it is Greek rather than Latin.
It acquired it present meaning because of the scientific method. Science proceeds by the logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. We take a given account of a phenomenon and find its hypothesis, or its supposition, or its postulate. We then postulate the truth of this statement. Then we attempt to disprove it by showing that its implications are absurd (i.e., makes predictions that are not borne out by experimental evidence). If we fail to disprove it, we accept that the hypothesis might be true.
My point is that our usage of hypothesis is not at all opposed to the meaning of a postulate. It is something which we 'request' (postulare) be taken as true for the sake of argument. Then we try to show that its implications are not true, and thus that it is not true.
Well, it's even worse, I think, than physicists' normal tendancies to make up new particals and forces whenever they get stuck. If you read the article, it sounds like these physicists are trying to describe "dark energy", and the only way they can think to do this is to say nuetrinos have mass. OK, but this means a lot of what they thought about nuetrinos makes no sense- and if you ask me, nuetrinos already fit into the classification of "suspect particles".
If this is the impression of particle physics which you got from the article, then you might want to blame the article rather than particle physicists. Things aren't actually as bad as you suggest.
First, I should note that neutrinos weren't invented to explain dark energy. Dark energy really came into its own only once we realized that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, against all expectations: the idea is that dark energy, whatever it is, is driving that acceleration.
Neutrinos were suggested quite a bit before that. All of our well-tested conservation theories suggested that a W+ particle couldn't decay into nothing but a positron (or W- into an electron), and rather than claim that these particles were just 'special,' physicists suggested that perhaps they just couldn't measure the other particle. They could, however, determine that it would have to be an electrically neutral, very light lepton (or anti-lepton for W- decays).
Then, while attempting to determine the decay rate of a proton (a different problem, though also related to the W+ boson), the experiment went haywire. Basically, it looked like protons were decaying left and right, which we don't actually witness in everyday life. After determining that the universe was not in fact disintegrating around us, physicists concluded that something else was causing their detection equipment to register hits. They were able to identify the basic properties of whatever particle was fouling their very expensive experiment, and it turned out to have all the qualities which neutrinos were predicted to possess. So it was decided that they were detecting neutrinos. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
Nor is the idea that neutrinos have mass premised on the needs of this acceleron/dark energy hypothesis. For quite some time, most of the smart money was on their having no mass. There was, however, a problem. If what we really were detecting were neutrinos, the sun should be releasing far more of them than we were measuring on earth.
Other theories suggested that neutrinos should come in three flavors, just like electrons (electron, muon, tau). To be specific, the sun should be emitting each of these in a determinate ratio. We got far more electron neutrinos than we expected, and far fewer mu and tau neutrinos. This could be explained if neutrinos decayed into lighter forms (just as muon and tau decay into electrons, again involving W- particles). Then, all three flavors of neutrino would be produced in the sun according to the calculated ratio, but would arrive at earth according to the measured ratio. Of course, in order to decay into a lighter flavor, or any flavor whatsoever, a particle must have mass. And so those nasty particle physicists conveniently 'adjusted' their theory to force it to fit with observed reality. Bastards. Again, no dark energy required here.
And so what are they doing now? Well, I'm no physicist myself, so I couldn't really tell you, but it looks like they're back up to their old tricks again. Observation tells us that something is causing the universe to act as if the value of Einstein's cosmological constant wasn't 0; let's call it dark energy. They're not entirely aporetic, though; while we can't yet directly measure it, we can measure its effects (rate of acceleration of the universe at given distances), and this gives us some idea as to its nature. Lo and behold, postulate the existence of an as-yet unheardof particle with certain properties and we
What makes human languages special is the feature of recursive generation of sentences, making it possible to form a virtually infinite amount of sentences.
I can't say that I'm a linguist by training, and I know that a lot of linguists agree with you, but their definition of language seems rather backwards. One might say that the ability to convey meaning is more important in language than the capacity for recursion. After all, recursion just allows for run-on sentences, which we call 'bad' because whatever meaning they are intended to convey is obscured.
You see, we don't waste every waking moment of our lives thinking about getting laid. We actually do things we find interesting.
When I see someone like you post something like your post, I already know that I have more of a life than that person. There are more, and better, things than sex.
Unlike you, I actually spend my life doing things that I enjoy--I don't focus on fulfilling animalistic urges and belittling anyone who actually has a real hobby.
Ah yes, so many things in life seem more worthwhile than having sex when there isn't any sex to be had. Oddly enough, the availability of sex does tend to change ones priorities. Hobbies seem boring, reading a waste of time, and thinking itself an unbearable burden. The smell of one's aftershave takes on an increasing importance. One becomes concerned with the threadcount of one's sheets. Insipid banter becomes engaging.
That having been said, I find myself agreeing with you more than I would like these days. Yes, yes, there really is nothing like a good book on quantum mechanics and reading every post to/.
Especially since according to Plato (our oldest source), Atlantis wasn't isolated but an imperial power which tyrannized Athens until Athens rebelled against it and gained its freedom. Of course, Plato presents the Atlantis story as a lie, but that's another matter.
The two dialogs of Plato's which describe Atlantis are the Timeaeus and Critias.
It goes further than that. All 'myths' of Atlantis are drawn from these two dialogues, i.e., all subsequent stories of Atlantis are based on their authority (I exclude the modern versions, which give absolutely no source for their fantasies). The point is that the existence of Atlantis must be based on the veracity of these Platonic dialogues.
These dialogues, however, present the myth of Atlantis as a manifest falsehood. In exchange for Socrates' speech of the previous day (viz. the text of the Republic), the three interlocutors in the Timaeus and the Critias agree to present their own version of the ideal city.
Critias says that his 'ancient Athenians' will appear as those very same citizens which Socrates had described in the Republic, while Timaeus says that only a prophet could vouchsafe for the story which he is about to tell, all the while claiming no greater knowledge than that of an astronomer. The ancient Athenians, which Critias presents as battling against the wicked city of Atlantis, are vouchsafed by nothing but his own word, supported by some nameless and inaccessable Egyptian priest, and are relevant to the dialogue, as Critias states, only because they resemble Socrates' citizens the in Republic. Atlantis is presented to show that Socrates' ideal citizens once existed in battling against it (a dubious existence, as the actual dialogues show). The upshot, which ought to be clear from the simplest reading of the two dialogues, is that the stories contained within require knowledge which their tellers lack, but whose moral might serve the purpose which Socrates attempted in the Republic. That is, they are potentially edifying tales, but not necessarily true. (The point of the dialogues as a whole is to show that what the three ultra-conservative interlocutors believe is edifying is opposed to what Socrates found edifying in pursuing the action of the Republic [Critias was one of the Thirty Tyrants, Hermocrates was Athens' greatest military enemy, and Timaeus comes from the near-Spartan city of Locri].)
The executive summary (for those who haven't the experience with the dialogues to judge what's been written so far): the source of all Atlantis myths presents the story of Atlantis as a lie. The 'rediscovery' of the Atlantis story in the past two centuries owes more to the illiterate ignorance of the present age, which is unable to detect even the most blatant irony in ancient texts, than to some 'long suppressed' and 'hidden' secret of the 'ancients'. The first source we have for the existence of Atlantis presents it as a lie.
Just two more points. In Plato, Atlantis is presented as the enemy: the good people oppose it. This ought to throw cold water on those who imagine the Atlantic architecture as beautiful, Atlantic science as advanced, Atlantic culture as kind, Atlantic philosophy as profound, etc. Second, the Atlantic Ocean was named after Atlantis, not for Atlantis, and so their is no reason to suspect that the lost city lies buried in the Atlantic: it was most probably meant to represent some Aegean island.
Will Zeno's Paradox no longer be a paradox since it would no longer be about traveling an infinite series of infinitely small distances but rather traveling a large finite number of miniscule 'space grains'?
This was resolved when analysis (calculus) was formalized. Read more about it at MathWorld.
Interestingly enough, the Stade Paradox, mentioned on the same page, seems relevant to the whole 'grainy' picture of quantum mechanics that the original poster suggests would solve Zeno's dichotomy motion paradox.
I'm still a bit confused about how calculus resolves the dichtomoy motion paradox, though. Yes, we can calculate that certain infinite geometric series will converge, but don't we do so by looking just at the series and not at the infinite number of items in that series? That is, don't we solve the problem precisely by not performing the infinite number of calculations that would be required without calculus? If so, I don't see how this actually resolves the paradox, which is a paradox precisely because, according to our notions of being and motion, we must actually go through the infinite number of steps involved: we are not allowed to just look at the series as a whole, but must go through it.
Put another way, Zeno's motion paradox was not that we can't calculate such a series: he was not so foolish as to say that a body travelling one mile per hour will take anything other than one hour to travel one mile; it was not a mathematical paradox. It rather dealt with whether mathematical concepts, or any human concept, such as space or being or motion, are applicable to the world: can there actually be a body travelling at one mile per hour? We might think things move, but our definition of movement is paradoxical, and so what we call movement can't actually be what's going on.
But like I said, I simply haven't seen an explanation for why this is otherwise.
For a java applet simulation of this, go here. They also have a pretty good explanation, but I didn't understand it until I played around with the applet for a while.
It's not the tools that are good or bad, it's how they are used.
But as every tool is going to be used by humans, practically speaking, then every tool will be used well and poorly. Can the proper use of this tool, most likely by some minority of users, counteract its improper use by many, and its diabolical use by some? And is its merely improper use, to say nothing of its diabolical use, so nightmarish that it far outweighs the benefits? Mankind has historically survived with violent and even psychotic individuals in its midst; 'curing' these does not seem a worthwhile goal if it carries with it the threat of such devolution (though certain psychotics might disagree--after all, they're the ones who have to live that way if uncured).
Perhaps, but is there a necessary physical link between having access to one's opinions and the ability to change them? If so, wouldn't this allow you to change someone else's opinions? Do we really want to pit Pres. Bush against Pres. Putin in a battle of the wills to decide which set of opinions will govern the planet?
As it is, most people don't form their opinions based on rational evidence. I can bearly keep up with my own irrationality: I don't need someone else's craziness running through my head, as well.
Re:Another potential problem...
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Time Travel
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The only reason I can see that the sun's frame of reference should be taken as "truer" is that the sun is more massive, and therefore more things can seen as realtive to it. [...] Similarly, with respect to the universe, the sun is more significant than the earth.
Yes, but you wouldn't use the sun as your frame of reference for everything, e.g., directions to your house so that others can adopt your Anthill Meridian system. If we want to understand the motion of the Earth, or that of the Sun, depending on your frame of reference, it certainly makes more sense to suggest that the Sun is fixed and that the Earth moves around it, ignoring the movement of the Sun itself. The question is, what is the frame of reference that ought to be used in determining where the neutron will appear?
I suggested that of the machine, but that is highly speculative. The point of my remark was that there would be no "absolute" point, such that we could say that the neutron appeared in exactly the same place but at a different time; this would require there to be an absolute, i.e., not relative, coordinate system. To say that there is such a system would require an explanation of why there does not appear to be one--relativity, right or wrong as it may be, does explain why the speed of light in a vacuum appears to be constant, and this seems to require that there be no priviledged frame of reference.
Re:Another potential problem...
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Time Travel
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It might also be an issue that even if he transports something "back in time", that it will remain at the same point in space. Now, the earth is moving around the sun, and the whole solar system is moving around the galaxy, and the galaxy is moving through intergalactic space, so if you send something back in time it is unlikely that you will ever see it, since it will be the same place, and you will have moved. Am I missing anything here?
Except there isn't a position that is the same position independent of any point of reference; 0 latitude and longitude on the Earth is the same spot with reference to the Earth but not to the Sun, true, but why should the Sun's frame of reference be taken as "truer" than the Earth's? Relativity says it shouldn't. The most relevant frame of reference seems to be that of the machine, but then he couldn't send anything back to before the operation of the machine, could he?
Sounds very much like the program [abc.net.au] I caught on (Australian) ABC TV last night, which made every effort to look like a very current local production. They definitely made use of some of the same simulations that are shown on the PPARC press release linked from the story.
I don't think it was the same program. The PBS program was produced by Nova; it was entitled Death Star. A transcript is here. I suspect that everyone uses the simulations provided by the researchers, rather than create their own from scratch without understanding the physics.
I saw a special on PBS a while back that came to basically the same conclusion, that only a hypernova could produce enough energy for us to notice them at that distance. Is this paper simply more experimental verification?
Of course, my real question is whether the purported alternative to black holes, viz. gravastars (Gravitational Condensate Stars; described here, with an associated/. story here), would do the same thing. It's my understanding that a gravastar would appear (almost?) identical to a black hole from the outside, and so ought to be able to produce this kind of phenomenon, but is it so? Would a star collapsing into a gravastar produce a gamma-ray burst? (I assume that, since they are different from black holes, the details of their formation would be different, as well--perhaps different enough to upset the whole thing.)
Did God create the universe? Is solely a question of of religion. How does the universe work? Is the domain of science, but most importantly, not answered by the first question. A fact lost on most creationists.
True, the answer to the second question does not necessarily follow from that to the first, but this is not the sole argument of the creationists. IANAC (well, actually I am, but not in the way they are), but I'm pretty sure they would quote a scripture or two to support their views of how the universe works beyond "b'reishit bara elohim et ha'shamiim v'et ha'aretz" (--'cause if you're not going to cite His words the way He said them, your citation can't be taken for Gospel). Let us take the example of Adam as representative: that God created the universe does not mean that He took from the earth and molded Adam, breathing into him; we need another line of scripture to show that. Creationists would argue that we have that line, and thus is the root of their belief.
Researchers at Ohio State today announced findings that contradict those announced just days earlier by a rival team at Case Western: being accepted makes one dumber than before.
A control group of 10 males between the ages of 16-24 were administered a series of IQ tests in separate booths. Another group of 30 similar males, split into three cohorts of 10 each, took the same series of tests, but were presented with varying levels of "acceptance" in between.
One cohort received "mild acceptance," which usually involved the promise of a date with a well-known pretty girl that night. Results from the control group suggested a 3% drop due to fatigue, but Cohort A experienced an average drop of 6%, double that of the control group.
Cohort B received "moderate acceptance," which was either an "enthusiastic" (bright smile, touching of arm, perhaps hug and kiss) yes-response from a well-known girl, or a merely "interested" yes-response from a previously unknown yet astoundingly gorgious woman. Cohort B experienced an average drop of 12%.
Cohort C received "extreme acceptance," which was either immediate "fellatio" by the known girl, or immediate "fellatio" by a previously unknown yet astoundingly gorgious woman. In order to maintain the integrity of the tests, subjects were allowed to repeatedly "venture" their self-image on the possibility of "acceptance". Cohort C found itself unable to complete the final round of testing.
This study sheds new light on the previously published (albeit in the New Scientist) report from Case Western that claimed to show that rejection makes you dumb. Seeing as the opposite also seems to hold true, the hypothesis offered at the end of Ohio State's article is that any extreme emotional variation adversely affects intelligence. So, they sugget, avoiding romantic attachments of any kind may be the key to better intellectual performance.
The Case Western team suggested that that was exactly what those eggheads over at Ohio State were doing.
I suspect your confusing criminal law (which has been widely codified) and torts law (which has not).
You're right, but the majority of posters here are hoping for some criminal penalties, in which case this law could not apply. While one might use it as a basis for a civil suit, you are there required to actually prove damages. Considering that compensatory damages probably wouldn't exceed more than a few cents per spam, and the government wouldn't help you track down who sent the email, it not being a criminal matter, this doesn't seem a practical solution. You couldn't sue one spammer for the damages caused by all spammers, and the amount of damages would put it in small claims court, where punitive damages are heavily limited if allowed at all, depending on the state.
Since the codification of common law prevents you from getting them for criminal trespass in the U.S., I don't think this law can be applied here.
I never claimed that the founders DID NOT take a que fromtheir environment, and maintain a qazi English system of rule. However, the fact remains that Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin both were into Greek Mythology, as most folks back in that day were of the classical education. Indeed, the basis of American politics is very much a rip-off of ancient Greek society. At that same note, one does not simply invent a new form of goverment over night. Thank you for you comment, but you obviously don't know what your talking about. Thanks anyways.
An interesting theory, and one shared by a disturbing number of academics, but ultimately unsupportable. There was no right of revolution in Greece, but our Founders claimed it. Compare the Declaration of Independence with Chapter XIX of Locke's Second Treatise. There was no natural right in Greece, but our Founders claimed it. Compare Jefferson and Locke again.
The ancient Greeks thought commerce was the exclusive domain of slaves and resident aliens, not the work of a gentleman; our Founders promoted it. See John Locke again. The Greeks tolerated no distinction between Church and State; compare the First Amendment with Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration.
The basis of political organization for the Greeks was the polis; it was well understood that too large a citizenry would break down the attachments between citizens and hence civic virtue. The Federalist Papers are quite clear that this was a fatal flaw with the Greek system; an expanded sphere was needed. The Greeks relied on confederations for anything requiring more than a single city; Madison and Hamilton attack this as a recipe for failure. Madison's cure for faction is precisely to break people's attachment to their own local loyalties and tie them to a great state in which most of their fellow citizens are anonymous.
True, we did copy Greek art in our capital. No, wait, the Greeks painted all their stuff in gawdy colors; we copied the Romans. In the architecture. We did not copy their institutions, nor did we copy those of the Greeks. These are the mistakes from which all friends of popular governments recoil, disheartened.
In short, Locke, not Solon or Lycurgus, is the intellectual founder of the the American regime. Of course, seeing as my dissertation is on this, I may be a bit partial.
Then we Americans can export our spammers to these places where they can be put to death!
Yeah, cause if we want to put someone to death, we're no good at it ourselves. These are commonwealth nations we're talking about here, not Saudi Arabia (where I'm sure the penalty for porno-spam is public execution).
2. Potentially Applies Throughout the Common Law World.
The most significant cases for this are The UK (except Scotland), the US (except Louisiana), Canada (except possibly Quebec), Australia and New Zealand.
While the United States (except Louisiana) uses a common law tradition, there was a major effort undertaken after the Revolution to codify common law. Our practices may still reflect common law, but the law itself does not unless specifically written into a statute (this is why common law marriage is a valid marriage only in those states which recognize it). There would also be a problem with enforcing a common law which is not in the publicly available statute codes: it could be argued that it represents an ex post facto law.
Now, some state might have included James' edict into their law codes, but it's unlikely.
In response to a question about how long ago this event occurred, vtaluskie responded:
FYI this link lists the distance as 30-40 million light years.... so my vote would be for the it happened millions of years ago
Not to nitpick, but this has bothered me and left me in a state of confusion: doesn't a statement like this suggest some absolute standard of time? Wouldn't this (giving an age of an event) suggest the possibility of knowing that two events were indeed simultaneous? It was my understanding that no two events can be verified to be simultaneous, for the time at which an event occurs is based on the observer's frame of reference.
Ice worms are so strange that most people and even some scientists dismiss them as a hoax. They are found only in a region ranging from Washington State to Alaska. At room temperature, they disintegrate in 15 minutes. They live in glaciers, feed on pink algae and creep out only at night in the summer. The JASON project predicts that this will be the first time these almost mythical creatures will be observed in the winter.
The JASON Project, the nation's foremost science distance learning program for middle school students, hopes to change that.
By the way, just in case you don't trust the research of middle school students, google returns the following for a search for "ice worms".
Slashdot Mirror
The composition of K+ makes perfect sense (up and anti-strange), as does that of K- (anit-up and strange). But K0 makes no sense at all (both long and short K0). What is K0-short? (P(d s ) + P( d s)) * 2^-1/2. And K0-long just replaces the '+' with a '-'. I'm told this is due to quark mixing. But I have absolutely know idea what it means to say this. Any help?
Not to nitpick here, but I think you're drawing too fine a line between postulates and hypotheses. We could just as easily have called the basis of research a postulate as a hypothesis. A hypothesis is nothing other than a supposition or assumption. Its literal meaning is 'that which is placed under' something else, viz. an argument. It is the thing upon which an argument rests. Its etymology is identical to supposition, except it is Greek rather than Latin.
It acquired it present meaning because of the scientific method. Science proceeds by the logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. We take a given account of a phenomenon and find its hypothesis, or its supposition, or its postulate. We then postulate the truth of this statement. Then we attempt to disprove it by showing that its implications are absurd (i.e., makes predictions that are not borne out by experimental evidence). If we fail to disprove it, we accept that the hypothesis might be true.
My point is that our usage of hypothesis is not at all opposed to the meaning of a postulate. It is something which we 'request' (postulare) be taken as true for the sake of argument. Then we try to show that its implications are not true, and thus that it is not true.
If this is the impression of particle physics which you got from the article, then you might want to blame the article rather than particle physicists. Things aren't actually as bad as you suggest.
First, I should note that neutrinos weren't invented to explain dark energy. Dark energy really came into its own only once we realized that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, against all expectations: the idea is that dark energy, whatever it is, is driving that acceleration.
Neutrinos were suggested quite a bit before that. All of our well-tested conservation theories suggested that a W+ particle couldn't decay into nothing but a positron (or W- into an electron), and rather than claim that these particles were just 'special,' physicists suggested that perhaps they just couldn't measure the other particle. They could, however, determine that it would have to be an electrically neutral, very light lepton (or anti-lepton for W- decays).
Then, while attempting to determine the decay rate of a proton (a different problem, though also related to the W+ boson), the experiment went haywire. Basically, it looked like protons were decaying left and right, which we don't actually witness in everyday life. After determining that the universe was not in fact disintegrating around us, physicists concluded that something else was causing their detection equipment to register hits. They were able to identify the basic properties of whatever particle was fouling their very expensive experiment, and it turned out to have all the qualities which neutrinos were predicted to possess. So it was decided that they were detecting neutrinos. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
Nor is the idea that neutrinos have mass premised on the needs of this acceleron/dark energy hypothesis. For quite some time, most of the smart money was on their having no mass. There was, however, a problem. If what we really were detecting were neutrinos, the sun should be releasing far more of them than we were measuring on earth.
Other theories suggested that neutrinos should come in three flavors, just like electrons (electron, muon, tau). To be specific, the sun should be emitting each of these in a determinate ratio. We got far more electron neutrinos than we expected, and far fewer mu and tau neutrinos. This could be explained if neutrinos decayed into lighter forms (just as muon and tau decay into electrons, again involving W- particles). Then, all three flavors of neutrino would be produced in the sun according to the calculated ratio, but would arrive at earth according to the measured ratio. Of course, in order to decay into a lighter flavor, or any flavor whatsoever, a particle must have mass. And so those nasty particle physicists conveniently 'adjusted' their theory to force it to fit with observed reality. Bastards. Again, no dark energy required here.
And so what are they doing now? Well, I'm no physicist myself, so I couldn't really tell you, but it looks like they're back up to their old tricks again. Observation tells us that something is causing the universe to act as if the value of Einstein's cosmological constant wasn't 0; let's call it dark energy. They're not entirely aporetic, though; while we can't yet directly measure it, we can measure its effects (rate of acceleration of the universe at given distances), and this gives us some idea as to its nature. Lo and behold, postulate the existence of an as-yet unheardof particle with certain properties and we
Ah yes, so many things in life seem more worthwhile than having sex when there isn't any sex to be had. Oddly enough, the availability of sex does tend to change ones priorities. Hobbies seem boring, reading a waste of time, and thinking itself an unbearable burden. The smell of one's aftershave takes on an increasing importance. One becomes concerned with the threadcount of one's sheets. Insipid banter becomes engaging.
That having been said, I find myself agreeing with you more than I would like these days. Yes, yes, there really is nothing like a good book on quantum mechanics and reading every post to /.
These dialogues, however, present the myth of Atlantis as a manifest falsehood. In exchange for Socrates' speech of the previous day (viz. the text of the Republic), the three interlocutors in the Timaeus and the Critias agree to present their own version of the ideal city.
Critias says that his 'ancient Athenians' will appear as those very same citizens which Socrates had described in the Republic, while Timaeus says that only a prophet could vouchsafe for the story which he is about to tell, all the while claiming no greater knowledge than that of an astronomer. The ancient Athenians, which Critias presents as battling against the wicked city of Atlantis, are vouchsafed by nothing but his own word, supported by some nameless and inaccessable Egyptian priest, and are relevant to the dialogue, as Critias states, only because they resemble Socrates' citizens the in Republic. Atlantis is presented to show that Socrates' ideal citizens once existed in battling against it (a dubious existence, as the actual dialogues show). The upshot, which ought to be clear from the simplest reading of the two dialogues, is that the stories contained within require knowledge which their tellers lack, but whose moral might serve the purpose which Socrates attempted in the Republic. That is, they are potentially edifying tales, but not necessarily true. (The point of the dialogues as a whole is to show that what the three ultra-conservative interlocutors believe is edifying is opposed to what Socrates found edifying in pursuing the action of the Republic [Critias was one of the Thirty Tyrants, Hermocrates was Athens' greatest military enemy, and Timaeus comes from the near-Spartan city of Locri].)
The executive summary (for those who haven't the experience with the dialogues to judge what's been written so far): the source of all Atlantis myths presents the story of Atlantis as a lie. The 'rediscovery' of the Atlantis story in the past two centuries owes more to the illiterate ignorance of the present age, which is unable to detect even the most blatant irony in ancient texts, than to some 'long suppressed' and 'hidden' secret of the 'ancients'. The first source we have for the existence of Atlantis presents it as a lie.
Just two more points. In Plato, Atlantis is presented as the enemy: the good people oppose it. This ought to throw cold water on those who imagine the Atlantic architecture as beautiful, Atlantic science as advanced, Atlantic culture as kind, Atlantic philosophy as profound, etc. Second, the Atlantic Ocean was named after Atlantis, not for Atlantis, and so their is no reason to suspect that the lost city lies buried in the Atlantic: it was most probably meant to represent some Aegean island.
Interestingly enough, the Stade Paradox, mentioned on the same page, seems relevant to the whole 'grainy' picture of quantum mechanics that the original poster suggests would solve Zeno's dichotomy motion paradox.
I'm still a bit confused about how calculus resolves the dichtomoy motion paradox, though. Yes, we can calculate that certain infinite geometric series will converge, but don't we do so by looking just at the series and not at the infinite number of items in that series? That is, don't we solve the problem precisely by not performing the infinite number of calculations that would be required without calculus? If so, I don't see how this actually resolves the paradox, which is a paradox precisely because, according to our notions of being and motion, we must actually go through the infinite number of steps involved: we are not allowed to just look at the series as a whole, but must go through it.
Put another way, Zeno's motion paradox was not that we can't calculate such a series: he was not so foolish as to say that a body travelling one mile per hour will take anything other than one hour to travel one mile; it was not a mathematical paradox. It rather dealt with whether mathematical concepts, or any human concept, such as space or being or motion, are applicable to the world: can there actually be a body travelling at one mile per hour? We might think things move, but our definition of movement is paradoxical, and so what we call movement can't actually be what's going on.
But like I said, I simply haven't seen an explanation for why this is otherwise.
For a java applet simulation of this, go here. They also have a pretty good explanation, but I didn't understand it until I played around with the applet for a while.
But as every tool is going to be used by humans, practically speaking, then every tool will be used well and poorly. Can the proper use of this tool, most likely by some minority of users, counteract its improper use by many, and its diabolical use by some? And is its merely improper use, to say nothing of its diabolical use, so nightmarish that it far outweighs the benefits? Mankind has historically survived with violent and even psychotic individuals in its midst; 'curing' these does not seem a worthwhile goal if it carries with it the threat of such devolution (though certain psychotics might disagree--after all, they're the ones who have to live that way if uncured).
As it is, most people don't form their opinions based on rational evidence. I can bearly keep up with my own irrationality: I don't need someone else's craziness running through my head, as well.
Yes, but you wouldn't use the sun as your frame of reference for everything, e.g., directions to your house so that others can adopt your Anthill Meridian system. If we want to understand the motion of the Earth, or that of the Sun, depending on your frame of reference, it certainly makes more sense to suggest that the Sun is fixed and that the Earth moves around it, ignoring the movement of the Sun itself. The question is, what is the frame of reference that ought to be used in determining where the neutron will appear?
I suggested that of the machine, but that is highly speculative. The point of my remark was that there would be no "absolute" point, such that we could say that the neutron appeared in exactly the same place but at a different time; this would require there to be an absolute, i.e., not relative, coordinate system. To say that there is such a system would require an explanation of why there does not appear to be one--relativity, right or wrong as it may be, does explain why the speed of light in a vacuum appears to be constant, and this seems to require that there be no priviledged frame of reference.
Except there isn't a position that is the same position independent of any point of reference; 0 latitude and longitude on the Earth is the same spot with reference to the Earth but not to the Sun, true, but why should the Sun's frame of reference be taken as "truer" than the Earth's? Relativity says it shouldn't. The most relevant frame of reference seems to be that of the machine, but then he couldn't send anything back to before the operation of the machine, could he?
I don't think it was the same program. The PBS program was produced by Nova; it was entitled Death Star. A transcript is here. I suspect that everyone uses the simulations provided by the researchers, rather than create their own from scratch without understanding the physics.
Of course, my real question is whether the purported alternative to black holes, viz. gravastars (Gravitational Condensate Stars; described here, with an associated /. story here), would do the same thing. It's my understanding that a gravastar would appear (almost?) identical to a black hole from the outside, and so ought to be able to produce this kind of phenomenon, but is it so? Would a star collapsing into a gravastar produce a gamma-ray burst? (I assume that, since they are different from black holes, the details of their formation would be different, as well--perhaps different enough to upset the whole thing.)
True, the answer to the second question does not necessarily follow from that to the first, but this is not the sole argument of the creationists. IANAC (well, actually I am, but not in the way they are), but I'm pretty sure they would quote a scripture or two to support their views of how the universe works beyond "b'reishit bara elohim et ha'shamiim v'et ha'aretz" (--'cause if you're not going to cite His words the way He said them, your citation can't be taken for Gospel). Let us take the example of Adam as representative: that God created the universe does not mean that He took from the earth and molded Adam, breathing into him; we need another line of scripture to show that. Creationists would argue that we have that line, and thus is the root of their belief.
A control group of 10 males between the ages of 16-24 were administered a series of IQ tests in separate booths. Another group of 30 similar males, split into three cohorts of 10 each, took the same series of tests, but were presented with varying levels of "acceptance" in between.
One cohort received "mild acceptance," which usually involved the promise of a date with a well-known pretty girl that night. Results from the control group suggested a 3% drop due to fatigue, but Cohort A experienced an average drop of 6%, double that of the control group.
Cohort B received "moderate acceptance," which was either an "enthusiastic" (bright smile, touching of arm, perhaps hug and kiss) yes-response from a well-known girl, or a merely "interested" yes-response from a previously unknown yet astoundingly gorgious woman. Cohort B experienced an average drop of 12%.
Cohort C received "extreme acceptance," which was either immediate "fellatio" by the known girl, or immediate "fellatio" by a previously unknown yet astoundingly gorgious woman. In order to maintain the integrity of the tests, subjects were allowed to repeatedly "venture" their self-image on the possibility of "acceptance". Cohort C found itself unable to complete the final round of testing.
This study sheds new light on the previously published (albeit in the New Scientist) report from Case Western that claimed to show that rejection makes you dumb. Seeing as the opposite also seems to hold true, the hypothesis offered at the end of Ohio State's article is that any extreme emotional variation adversely affects intelligence. So, they sugget, avoiding romantic attachments of any kind may be the key to better intellectual performance.
The Case Western team suggested that that was exactly what those eggheads over at Ohio State were doing.
You're right, but the majority of posters here are hoping for some criminal penalties, in which case this law could not apply. While one might use it as a basis for a civil suit, you are there required to actually prove damages. Considering that compensatory damages probably wouldn't exceed more than a few cents per spam, and the government wouldn't help you track down who sent the email, it not being a criminal matter, this doesn't seem a practical solution. You couldn't sue one spammer for the damages caused by all spammers, and the amount of damages would put it in small claims court, where punitive damages are heavily limited if allowed at all, depending on the state.
Since the codification of common law prevents you from getting them for criminal trespass in the U.S., I don't think this law can be applied here.
An interesting theory, and one shared by a disturbing number of academics, but ultimately unsupportable. There was no right of revolution in Greece, but our Founders claimed it. Compare the Declaration of Independence with Chapter XIX of Locke's Second Treatise. There was no natural right in Greece, but our Founders claimed it. Compare Jefferson and Locke again.
The ancient Greeks thought commerce was the exclusive domain of slaves and resident aliens, not the work of a gentleman; our Founders promoted it. See John Locke again. The Greeks tolerated no distinction between Church and State; compare the First Amendment with Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration.
The basis of political organization for the Greeks was the polis; it was well understood that too large a citizenry would break down the attachments between citizens and hence civic virtue. The Federalist Papers are quite clear that this was a fatal flaw with the Greek system; an expanded sphere was needed. The Greeks relied on confederations for anything requiring more than a single city; Madison and Hamilton attack this as a recipe for failure. Madison's cure for faction is precisely to break people's attachment to their own local loyalties and tie them to a great state in which most of their fellow citizens are anonymous.
True, we did copy Greek art in our capital. No, wait, the Greeks painted all their stuff in gawdy colors; we copied the Romans. In the architecture. We did not copy their institutions, nor did we copy those of the Greeks. These are the mistakes from which all friends of popular governments recoil, disheartened.
In short, Locke, not Solon or Lycurgus, is the intellectual founder of the the American regime. Of course, seeing as my dissertation is on this, I may be a bit partial.
Yeah, cause if we want to put someone to death, we're no good at it ourselves. These are commonwealth nations we're talking about here, not Saudi Arabia (where I'm sure the penalty for porno-spam is public execution).
No, but we probably could use them to go after their sendmail daemons.
While the United States (except Louisiana) uses a common law tradition, there was a major effort undertaken after the Revolution to codify common law. Our practices may still reflect common law, but the law itself does not unless specifically written into a statute (this is why common law marriage is a valid marriage only in those states which recognize it). There would also be a problem with enforcing a common law which is not in the publicly available statute codes: it could be argued that it represents an ex post facto law.
Now, some state might have included James' edict into their law codes, but it's unlikely.
Not to nitpick, but this has bothered me and left me in a state of confusion: doesn't a statement like this suggest some absolute standard of time? Wouldn't this (giving an age of an event) suggest the possibility of knowing that two events were indeed simultaneous? It was my understanding that no two events can be verified to be simultaneous, for the time at which an event occurs is based on the observer's frame of reference.
By the way, just in case you don't trust the research of middle school students, google returns the following for a search for "ice worms".
This story wholly lacked the panache that I was led to expect by the mispelled title. Although, it did suggest that the panache was questionable...