That's not accurate, is it? Aren't they predicting that a 20T field will produce a gravity-like field, based on the proposed new force carried by the proposed gravitophoton particles, which are messenger particles for this new force?
Not that I understand it or anything, but it seems, to my non-physicist mind, that they're talking about a new fundamental force -- so saying it won't work because regular gravity might crush the mechanism, blow it up, whatever -- isn't valid.
They say the 20 T field will generate 1 g of force in the form of a gravity-like field. Force is force, whether it is caused by any of the 4 fundemental forces or something new - it's how much matter-moving you can do.
If everyone last century had just said "Quarks? Leptons? What bunk!" and thus never bothered to at least run some experiments, we'd never have known one way or the other. Aristotle never tested things either, as I recall -- that's why he was so wrong about so many things. Thought experiments only go so far.
Someone just has to build the damn thing and see what happens. If something surprising occurs, the theory should be investigated further. If nothing happens, maybe there are no "gravitophotons" -- but it should still be investigated further...
I agree new discoveries are possible. But, it is first useful to look around you and see if the thing has already been built. My point is that if all that is required to create 1 g (!) of force is a 20 T field, it should be blatently obvious that this gravi-photon field effect is real already, because we already have 20 T fields to look at.
The conclusion from that paper is that a 20 T field will give you a force of 1 g and get you to the moon in 2 hours. Fields several times this are possible in the laboratory, and are theorized to be present in astronomical objects (spinning black hole). Unless some other mechanism is also required, the laboratory should fly apart and the black holes should be accellarating at very high rates.
Good find on the paper though. The article contains no details.
"Even if you had some mechanism like stargate (That could take people off the earth as fast as you wanted to feed it) and you had people running into it constantly, I don't think you would even slow the rate of world population growth much."
It's not that bad. Given the world's birth rate of 20.15/1000/year and death rate of 8.78/1000/year (CIA Factbook) you have a growth rate of 11.37/1000/year. The current population is 6.4e9, so if you can shove (6.4e9 * (11.37/1000)) = 7.3e7 people per year into the Stargate, you can eliminate growth. That's 200,000 per day, 2.3 persons per second.
Keep the line at a brisk walk and you should be ok.
Of course if there's only one stargate you have a pretty tough logistics problem getting everyone to the line. But comparing that to faster-than-light travel you're comaring "pretty tough" to "physically impossible". (I know we're talking about feeding a stargate here, but you could imagine making the line without the stargate)
Even though that's better than eternal suffering, it's still a pretty bad thing once you've found out that you could have had eternal life if you'd only believed.
Because of course God would be way too stupid to know that you were only a believer so that you could reap the rewards...
How about this twist: If you are a believer and you turn out to be wrong, you've wasted your whole life (the only one you had) believing in a fantasy and applying all the accompanying restrictions. Essentially, your whole life was based on a lie.
I think many Slashdotters would do themselves a favour and scrap the feverish attacks against Christianity, broaden their vision and research what older scriptures like the Indian Vedas state about God. The deeper roots behind all religions are much more logical and less dogmatic than the proponents today are practicing it.
A logical argument based on false premises cannot bring you closer to the truth.
What a horrible article. This guy sounded as if he had no idea what he was talking about.
If you draw a bunch of dots on a piece of paper you will not be able to draw lines joining the dots in all possible configurations unless the lines cross (given some sufficiently large number of dots. I think 5 might do it).
You think five might do it? Try four. Why don't you think a little longer until you know.
I've heard the assertion that adding a single extra dimension doesn't buy you much organizational power and that the added navigational complexity isn't worth it.... However, once you hit three dimensions, all configurations are possible without crossings. Adding a fourth or fifth doesn't have any further beneficial effect. Admittedly there is some hand-waving going on here; but the result has implications for some possible interface designs; and it points to using three dimensions.
1. N dots in two dimensions have lines that cross 2. N dots in three dimensions do not have lines that cross => Three dimensions is better for organizing!
I have no idea where that came from. What a non-argument.
Wouldn't it be easier just to identify the grotesquly overweight pasty white individual in a hawaiian shirt, jean shorts, cowboy hat, and aviation glasses, who is taking an average of 6.3 photographs per second?
Re:how about we STOP pushing our culture, mkay?
on
Homer Becomes Omar
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
No one is shoving anything down anyone's throat. The Arab TV network wouldn't air it if they didn't think there was an audience. i.e. people who already want to watch it.
It looks like you've been playing so many Zelda games that you've picked up the habit of emphasizing key points that will surely lead to success in your quest to save the princess... um... I mean success in conveying the meaning of your writing.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not accurate, is it? Aren't they predicting that a 20T field will produce a gravity-like field, based on the proposed new force carried by the proposed gravitophoton particles, which are messenger particles for this new force?
Not that I understand it or anything, but it seems, to my non-physicist mind, that they're talking about a new fundamental force -- so saying it won't work because regular gravity might crush the mechanism, blow it up, whatever -- isn't valid.
They say the 20 T field will generate 1 g of force in the form of a gravity-like field. Force is force, whether it is caused by any of the 4 fundemental forces or something new - it's how much matter-moving you can do.
If everyone last century had just said "Quarks? Leptons? What bunk!" and thus never bothered to at least run some experiments, we'd never have known one way or the other. Aristotle never tested things either, as I recall -- that's why he was so wrong about so many things. Thought experiments only go so far.
Someone just has to build the damn thing and see what happens. If something surprising occurs, the theory should be investigated further. If nothing happens, maybe there are no "gravitophotons" -- but it should still be investigated further...
I agree new discoveries are possible. But, it is first useful to look around you and see if the thing has already been built. My point is that if all that is required to create 1 g (!) of force is a 20 T field, it should be blatently obvious that this gravi-photon field effect is real already, because we already have 20 T fields to look at.
The conclusion from that paper is that a 20 T field will give you a force of 1 g and get you to the moon in 2 hours. Fields several times this are possible in the laboratory, and are theorized to be present in astronomical objects (spinning black hole). Unless some other mechanism is also required, the laboratory should fly apart and the black holes should be accellarating at very high rates.
Good find on the paper though. The article contains no details.
The results would be death!
"Even if you had some mechanism like stargate (That could take people off the earth as fast as you wanted to feed it) and you had people running into it constantly, I don't think you would even slow the rate of world population growth much."
It's not that bad. Given the world's birth rate of 20.15/1000/year and death rate of 8.78/1000/year (CIA Factbook) you have a growth rate of 11.37/1000/year. The current population is 6.4e9, so if you can shove (6.4e9 * (11.37/1000)) = 7.3e7 people per year into the Stargate, you can eliminate growth. That's 200,000 per day, 2.3 persons per second.
Keep the line at a brisk walk and you should be ok.
Of course if there's only one stargate you have a pretty tough logistics problem getting everyone to the line. But comparing that to faster-than-light travel you're comaring "pretty tough" to "physically impossible". (I know we're talking about feeding a stargate here, but you could imagine making the line without the stargate)
The powerbook does.
Even though that's better than eternal suffering, it's still a pretty bad thing once you've found out that you could have had eternal life if you'd only believed.
Because of course God would be way too stupid to know that you were only a believer so that you could reap the rewards...
How about this twist: If you are a believer and you turn out to be wrong, you've wasted your whole life (the only one you had) believing in a fantasy and applying all the accompanying restrictions. Essentially, your whole life was based on a lie.
Some statistics of word usage in this discussion so far:
apple: 178
store: 113
ipod: 72
mac: 23
gay: 1
homo: 3
fag: 3
butt: 1
sex: 0
flamer: 0
ass: 5
cock: 2
penis: 2
pussy: 0
manly: 0
straight: 0
heterosexual: 0
This has been a public service announcement.
I think many Slashdotters would do themselves a favour and scrap the feverish attacks against Christianity, broaden their vision and research what older scriptures like the Indian Vedas state about God. The deeper roots behind all religions are much more logical and less dogmatic than the proponents today are practicing it.
A logical argument based on false premises cannot bring you closer to the truth.
But the inverse is not true.
Do you work for UPS or something?
I see. Well nevermind that then.
What a horrible article. This guy sounded as if he had no idea what he was talking about.
... However, once you hit three dimensions, all configurations are possible without crossings. Adding a fourth or fifth doesn't have any further beneficial effect. Admittedly there is some hand-waving going on here; but the result has implications for some possible interface designs; and it points to using three dimensions.
If you draw a bunch of dots on a piece of paper you will not be able to draw lines joining the dots in all possible configurations unless the lines cross (given some sufficiently large number of dots. I think 5 might do it).
You think five might do it? Try four. Why don't you think a little longer until you know.
I've heard the assertion that adding a single extra dimension doesn't buy you much organizational power and that the added navigational complexity isn't worth it.
1. N dots in two dimensions have lines that cross
2. N dots in three dimensions do not have lines that cross
=>
Three dimensions is better for organizing!
I have no idea where that came from. What a non-argument.
No route, timing, or cost information appears when using Safari... I wonder why that is?
I tried out Google Transit and was like "that's not very useful... it's the same information as Google Maps gives you"
Using Firefox I can see what the BFD is.
shouldn't it just have 1 button?
Actually, if it was designed similar to this that might be possible.
Time would still be based on divisions of 24 hours, 60 minutes, and 60 seconds. All the functions of a watch are preserved.
Conversely, no watch that I know of corrects for the Earth's rotation.
5!... 4!... 3!... 2!... 1!... ...
... HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!
1?
I don't think you should place a price upon the value of saving civilization.
It's perfectly fine to put a price on it. But you should compare that price to the value of civilization.
Which is apparently $55.5 trillion
I browse at +5 Flamebait and +5 Troll and I have never seen a thread on slashdot with so many messages modded that way.
Many of them are not flamebait or trollish at all, just people speaking their view.
RFID Ping == American.
American == Target.
Wouldn't it be easier just to identify the grotesquly overweight pasty white individual in a hawaiian shirt, jean shorts, cowboy hat, and aviation glasses, who is taking an average of 6.3 photographs per second?
No one is shoving anything down anyone's throat. The Arab TV network wouldn't air it if they didn't think there was an audience. i.e. people who already want to watch it.
My god, the league doesn't even exist yet and someone is already using an acronym for it.
It looks like you've been playing so many Zelda games that you've picked up the habit of emphasizing key points that will surely lead to success in your quest to save the princess ... um ... I mean success in conveying the meaning of your writing.
... oversimplistic wholly than though approach...
Uhh...
Do you even think about what words mean when you write them?
It could be like your peer poster was saying about tic tac toe as a solved game. Perhaps such a game would be reduced to whoever goes first will win.
Length of Volkswagen Beetle: 4 m
Thickness of $20 bill: 0.1 mm
Number of twenties = 4 / (1e-4) = 4e4 twenties
!= 2.5e8
Please turn in your nerd card.