Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more I doubt it: I'm fairly sure the publisher (not the blogger herself) of the blog is not a non-profit organization: they probably make money from advertisement, etc... Given the current atmosphere about IP, it gets scary...
Argh, i don't wanna become a lawyer to continue my job !
I admit being argumentative:) But I am quite baffled by this issue:
I am a scientist. I publish in scientific publications. My research is completely funded by government money. I am evaluated largely on my publications in scientific litterature, that is, peer-reviewed articles. Every time I publish, I have to waive partially or fully my rights to the publisher. Sometimes, I am even charged to publish, for color figures for example (well, my grants pay for this). I am also acting as referee for some publications, a work that is done for free for the publisher, but paid by my government agency.
So my epidermic reaction is : yes, use of reproducing any table or figure of my papers should be granted automatically, if the sources is properly referenced. There must be a "fair use" for this type of publications.
So her argument is in a legal way the wrong approach: you made your point. But there must be a fair use for this type of situations, no ?
The latter are akin to artwork, which is what I think the blogger misses here. I don't really agree that she shouldn't be allowed to show a few select figures/tables, Artwork ? You must be kidding, right ? All tables in my field are generated with a few latex macros, and figures with various plotting packages. Moreover, they are generated by the authors, not the publisher.
You usually see a "reprinted with permission" when the figure is included in a an other paper or book that will be sold. Otherwize, it's perfectly fine to reproduce a figure or a table from someone else's paper, provided that proper credit is given.
but her argument that it's taxpayer-funded (and therefore free to anyone) doesn't hold water. The purpose of scientific publication is to dissiminate results. In many papers, the results are not published in terms of machine readable files (like for example the data points of a plot, in ascii format), but in figures and tables. So yes, these figures and tables are the end result of taxpayer money. And I bet you that the author of the paper greatest wish is to have his figure reproduced, indicating the great impact of his paper.
I was refering to the energy density of the universe. You are mixing dark energy and dark matter.
Since the famous E = mc2 we can compare the energy content of the universe (like photons) and matter (like the atoms you are made of). So yes, to explain all the current observations, we need a lot of dark energy (or call it a cosmoligical constant if you'd like). There are theories to explain it, like a scalar field, etc...
But that's not the subject of the paper and press releases. They are about dark matter. That is something with a mass, so you can actually observe it's gravitational effect on the normal luminous matter. And there are some clues as to its nature, but no definitive answers yet...
It's not completely true that MOND does not get any attention, there are very regularly publications in refereed journals about it, to prove it, disprove it, or try to make it better. Here is the problem as I see it:
The current accepted theory of gravitation, general relativity, works extremely well: it's predictive power has so far never be successfully challenged. Many have tried, noone has succeeded.
MOND had some success in explaining various observational puzzles, but has also some problems with others, as the wikipedia entry you link indicates.
MOND is an ad-hoc theory, just like dark matter is an ad-hoc solution
It is very hard to change your theoretical framework, much easier to add some stuff to the universe.
This explains to me why, right now, the current accepted paradigm is dark matter. While it is not satisfying, it is enough to explain both the rotation curves of disk galaxies, and the formation and evolution of the large scale structure of the Universe. I don't think many astronomers are satisfied with this current situation, and some are trying to resolve the issue, either explaining dark matter or getting rid of it. The others find with dark matter a framework where they can go on in exploring other scientific questions, like the evolution of galaxies, where you need to explain how their (normal) matter was assembled together, but also how this matter (gas) is made into stars, etc...
Actually astronomers do:). Most galaxies are "disk galaxies", i.e. lenticulars and spirals. Face-on (viewed from above), they look like a disk. So they should look like ellipsoids when viewed on the sky, due to their inclination. But this basic shape gets distorted when viewed through a lens (in this case, the lens is a massive object in front). The distortions are very small, so what astronomers do is that they measure the shape of as many galaxies as possible in a given region, and look for a statistical departure from the expected one.
There is no assumption on the Universe is supposed to look like in this map. The only assumption is that the General Relativity of gravitation is correct. So far, it has not been disproved.
"beautiful confirmation" of standard theories?????
Yes indeed. The standard paradigm for the evolution of the Universe is the widely accepted lambda-CDM model, or Cold Dark Matter with a cosmological constant (or dark energy).
The recent results of WMAP, of the high-z supernovae, all point toward a set of cosmological parameters where the energy density of the universe is made of:
70% of dark energy
30% of matter
out which, stars, gas, neutrino are making at most 5%
so we are left with 25% of dark matter
So yes, dark matter is widely accepted. It's not satisfying because we have no clue about what it is (it clearly does not interact electromagnetically), but we can feel its gravitational pull.
Coming up with a good theory on its nature is one of the hardest challenges in modern astrophysics.
Yes, there is, but we do not have a clue yet of what it is made of.
Astronomers have ways to measure the mass of objects, like galaxies, and cluster of galaxies, using a theory of the gravitation. For galaxies, the classical newtonian theory is enough: they just measure how fast the stars and the gas orbit around the galaxy, and derive directly their mass from kepler laws. For clusters of galaxies, or large structure, they use the bending of light by mass from general relativity. These measure are getting reasonably accurate. When they compare these masses to the mass they actually can see (stars, gas, etc..), they find that they can only account for 1/6 of the total mass they measure, well above all the uncertainties of the measurments. Therefore, there must be some matter (that is, something with a mass), that we cannot see (that does not interact via electromagnetism). This is the dark matter.
For more info, there is a [wikipedia] entry.
My question is, aren't Lagrangian points going to start to get a bit crowded? There are only five to work with in our neighbourhood and who gets to say who uses which and for how long?
The lagrangian points are not stable positions (L1 is only the more stable), especially L2. If you put a satellite there, it will eventually drift away. Space agencies are putting satellite in orbits "around" the lagrangian points (only L1 and L2 so far), and proceed regularly to orbit corrections. Here close means a few 10s of kilometers quite enough to avoid collisions.
NASA is ESA's partner for the HST. ESA has a nominal 15% stake in the mission and has, among other things, provided the Faint Object Camera, the first two solar panels that powered the spacecraft and a team of space scientists and engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, United States.
Astronomers employed by ESA and the European Southern Observatory at the Space Telescope-European Coordinating Facility work with various aspects of HST in Munich, Germany, including the calibration of HST's instruments and public outreach. Europe's contribution to HST entitles European astronomers to 15% of the telescope's observing time.
It seems that USB 2.0 may have eaten Firewire's lunch -- speeds are comparable
Hum, firewire 800 delivers 800 Mb/s, against 480 Mb/s for USB 2. Sorry, but that makes a difference when accessing loads of data/backup/video on external transportable Terabyte disks.
I'd rather have Apple stick to Firewire 800 for longer... But they have a history of not listening to customers
Oh well...
Well, when it's a 12 hrs flight, it comes as cheap as some internet cafe. You might even get your boss pay for it and log a day of work while your airborne... But I'm not sure i'd like this to happen to me;)
I flew LuftHansa (the German partner of United) 3 weeks ago as they were starting offering this service, and i did try it for free. It works pretty well. Normal cost is 10 bucks for an hour or 30 for the whole flight. Unfortunately, i was travelling in Economy where you can't plug your laptop. And Wifi drains my battery pretty fast. still managed to send emails from above some really remote places...
Having said that, doesn't this suggest that their method for computing probabilities might need some examining?
The method for computing probabilities is not at fault. Simply more data has been coming in to nail the position and orbit of the roid.
How is it that the probability can change by over 3 orders of magnitude within a week---a full 30 years or more before the event itself?
Typically, the first orbit is computed with just 3 observations, and the first probabilities are given from this rough orbit. Remember that each observation for a position has an associated error to it. If I remember correctly, the MPC tipically assign 6 arcseconds of uncertainty or more to positions given by amateurs, and that is a lot of kilometers at 1 AU. So the initial orbits are quite uncertain.
An object that might hit the earth generates a lot of interest among astronomers, both hobbyist and professionals. In the days following the discovery, many new observations are performed, which quickly leads to a better determination of the orbit. This allows in turn to updated probabilities of hitting the earth.
As for the 30 years in advance, well it's celestial mechanics, good old Newton's Law.
It might behoove them to hold off on reporting the numbers until that log-variance dips below a certain amount---at least when the event is so far out.
This is actually not in our interest: if the number are not reported, the new data does not comes in and a better orbit cannot be computed.
will the ESA pick up the slack with greater involvement in the ISS beyond the ATV?
I doubt it, and I sincerely hope not. Most ESA members country were reluctant to put more money in the ISS a few years back, and I do not see why this would change: the ISS is pretty useless. Look on the scientifc return for example. I can count the scientific publications published from data obtained with the ISS on my hands. Compare it with the thousands the HST has generated.
Out of curiosity, does the poll continue until all quota in all categories have been met (so the total number of phone calls made is actually way above 1000 since some categories are more likely to pick u p the phone) ?
There is already a bias.
In a typical poll, about 1000 people are contacted. Here is an example. Note that an accuracy of 3% is quoted, for such a small sample.
What are the odds that calling randomly people, you will find at home young or active persons ? Pretty small. And now, from the article, we learn that:
"A recent Sprint Wireless survey of more than 500 college students found that half are cell-only customers"
Oops, the odds of the pollsters to have 18-24 year old in their sample have just been halved...
I'd like to see the raw data of such polls, but I imagine (correct me if I'm wrong), that in their sample of ~1000 people, they have maybe 20 18-24 year old. Assuming this population represent 20% of the potential voters (IANAD), they would have to correct their answer by a factor 10.
Makes you wonder where does the 3% accuracy comes from...
Hollywood and Dick's view of life are completely opposite. I find interesting that dream factories such as the studios are attracted to the writing of someone questioning the nature of perception. But the concept of an "happy end" is completely foreign to Dick. Most of his novels leave the main questions completely open (is the main character dead or alive in Ubik ?) and that's why I like these books: it's unsettling, it makes you think.
Hollywood is not ready for this: what if Minority
Report ended on the fade to black when Tom Cruise confront his boss and a gunshot is heard ? That would be IMHO a quite dickian ending.
Even worse, Hollywood seems to be right regarding the audience: just look at the comments on the Matrix. We have here movies exploring ideas quite close to Dick's favorites, and a last movie that close nicely the series, leaving many open questions, as most of his novel do. The net result: the audience does not like it. How sad.
Old Digital Equipment computers have a lot of special keys, especially on the numeric keybord. Under Vax-VMS EDT and EVE editors, they used to allow for text selection, query/replace, etc... They were accessed with the "Gold" key -so named because it's the only yellowish key on the keyboard...
Believe it or no, but these boxes are still around... The software that run on them was never ported to *nix. Right now, I have to edit some files over such a machine/OS but I am connected to it from a sun where none of these keys exist... And it's really a pain:(
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more I doubt it: I'm fairly sure the publisher (not the blogger herself) of the blog is not a non-profit organization: they probably make money from advertisement, etc... Given the current atmosphere about IP, it gets scary... Argh, i don't wanna become a lawyer to continue my job !
I admit being argumentative :) But I am quite baffled by this issue:
I am a scientist. I publish in scientific publications. My research is completely funded by government money. I am evaluated largely on my publications in scientific litterature, that is, peer-reviewed articles. Every time I publish, I have to waive partially or fully my rights to the publisher. Sometimes, I am even charged to publish, for color figures for example (well, my grants pay for this). I am also acting as referee for some publications, a work that is done for free for the publisher, but paid by my government agency.
So my epidermic reaction is : yes, use of reproducing any table or figure of my papers should be granted automatically, if the sources is properly referenced. There must be a "fair use" for this type of publications.
So her argument is in a legal way the wrong approach: you made your point. But there must be a fair use for this type of situations, no ?
Since the famous E = mc2 we can compare the energy content of the universe (like photons) and matter (like the atoms you are made of). So yes, to explain all the current observations, we need a lot of dark energy (or call it a cosmoligical constant if you'd like). There are theories to explain it, like a scalar field, etc...
But that's not the subject of the paper and press releases. They are about dark matter. That is something with a mass, so you can actually observe it's gravitational effect on the normal luminous matter. And there are some clues as to its nature, but no definitive answers yet...
mod parent up !
- The current accepted theory of gravitation, general relativity, works extremely well: it's predictive power has so far never be successfully challenged. Many have tried, noone has succeeded.
- MOND had some success in explaining various observational puzzles, but has also some problems with others, as the wikipedia entry you link indicates.
- MOND is an ad-hoc theory, just like dark matter is an ad-hoc solution
- It is very hard to change your theoretical framework, much easier to add some stuff to the universe.
This explains to me why, right now, the current accepted paradigm is dark matter. While it is not satisfying, it is enough to explain both the rotation curves of disk galaxies, and the formation and evolution of the large scale structure of the Universe. I don't think many astronomers are satisfied with this current situation, and some are trying to resolve the issue, either explaining dark matter or getting rid of it. The others find with dark matter a framework where they can go on in exploring other scientific questions, like the evolution of galaxies, where you need to explain how their (normal) matter was assembled together, but also how this matter (gas) is made into stars, etc...Actually astronomers do :). Most galaxies are "disk galaxies", i.e. lenticulars and spirals. Face-on (viewed from above), they look like a disk. So they should look like ellipsoids when viewed on the sky, due to their inclination. But this basic shape gets distorted when viewed through a lens (in this case, the lens is a massive object in front). The distortions are very small, so what astronomers do is that they measure the shape of as many galaxies as possible in a given region, and look for a statistical departure from the expected one.
There is no assumption on the Universe is supposed to look like in this map. The only assumption is that the General Relativity of gravitation is correct. So far, it has not been disproved.
Here are the press release links: Nature, Hubble Space Telescope, European Space Agency and Subaru Telescope. The COSMOS project web page can be found there.
- 70% of dark energy
- 30% of matter
- out which, stars, gas, neutrino are making at most 5%
- so we are left with 25% of dark matter
So yes, dark matter is widely accepted. It's not satisfying because we have no clue about what it is (it clearly does not interact electromagnetically), but we can feel its gravitational pull. Coming up with a good theory on its nature is one of the hardest challenges in modern astrophysics.Yes, there is, but we do not have a clue yet of what it is made of.
Astronomers have ways to measure the mass of objects, like galaxies, and cluster of galaxies, using a theory of the gravitation. For galaxies, the classical newtonian theory is enough: they just measure how fast the stars and the gas orbit around the galaxy, and derive directly their mass from kepler laws. For clusters of galaxies, or large structure, they use the bending of light by mass from general relativity. These measure are getting reasonably accurate. When they compare these masses to the mass they actually can see (stars, gas, etc..), they find that they can only account for 1/6 of the total mass they measure, well above all the uncertainties of the measurments. Therefore, there must be some matter (that is, something with a mass), that we cannot see (that does not interact via electromagnetism). This is the dark matter.
For more info, there is a [wikipedia] entry.
Hum, firewire 800 delivers 800 Mb/s, against 480 Mb/s for USB 2. Sorry, but that makes a difference when accessing loads of data/backup/video on external transportable Terabyte disks. I'd rather have Apple stick to Firewire 800 for longer... But they have a history of not listening to customers Oh well...
Not very pratical for commuting ...
Well, when it's a 12 hrs flight, it comes as cheap as some internet cafe. You might even get your boss pay for it and log a day of work while your airborne... But I'm not sure i'd like this to happen to me ;)
I flew LuftHansa (the German partner of United) 3 weeks ago as they were starting offering this service, and i did try it for free. It works pretty well. Normal cost is 10 bucks for an hour or 30 for the whole flight. Unfortunately, i was travelling in Economy where you can't plug your laptop. And Wifi drains my battery pretty fast. still managed to send emails from above some really remote places...
The symbol for male happens to be the symbol of Mars. The symbol for Venus is the symbol for female...
The method for computing probabilities is not at fault. Simply more data has been coming in to nail the position and orbit of the roid.
How is it that the probability can change by over 3 orders of magnitude within a week---a full 30 years or more before the event itself?
Typically, the first orbit is computed with just 3 observations, and the first probabilities are given from this rough orbit. Remember that each observation for a position has an associated error to it. If I remember correctly, the MPC tipically assign 6 arcseconds of uncertainty or more to positions given by amateurs, and that is a lot of kilometers at 1 AU. So the initial orbits are quite uncertain.
An object that might hit the earth generates a lot of interest among astronomers, both hobbyist and professionals. In the days following the discovery, many new observations are performed, which quickly leads to a better determination of the orbit. This allows in turn to updated probabilities of hitting the earth.
As for the 30 years in advance, well it's celestial mechanics, good old Newton's Law.
It might behoove them to hold off on reporting the numbers until that log-variance dips below a certain amount---at least when the event is so far out.
This is actually not in our interest: if the number are not reported, the new data does not comes in and a better orbit cannot be computed.
I doubt it, and I sincerely hope not. Most ESA members country were reluctant to put more money in the ISS a few years back, and I do not see why this would change: the ISS is pretty useless. Look on the scientifc return for example. I can count the scientific publications published from data obtained with the ISS on my hands. Compare it with the thousands the HST has generated.
Out of curiosity, does the poll continue until all quota in all categories have been met (so the total number of phone calls made is actually way above 1000 since some categories are more likely to pick u p the phone) ?
"A recent Sprint Wireless survey of more than 500 college students found that half are cell-only customers"
Oops, the odds of the pollsters to have 18-24 year old in their sample have just been halved...
I'd like to see the raw data of such polls, but I imagine (correct me if I'm wrong), that in their sample of ~1000 people, they have maybe 20 18-24 year old. Assuming this population represent 20% of the potential voters (IANAD), they would have to correct their answer by a factor 10.
Makes you wonder where does the 3% accuracy comes from...
Hollywood is not ready for this: what if Minority Report ended on the fade to black when Tom Cruise confront his boss and a gunshot is heard ? That would be IMHO a quite dickian ending.
Even worse, Hollywood seems to be right regarding the audience: just look at the comments on the Matrix. We have here movies exploring ideas quite close to Dick's favorites, and a last movie that close nicely the series, leaving many open questions, as most of his novel do. The net result: the audience does not like it. How sad.
Old Digital Equipment computers have a lot of special keys, especially on the numeric keybord. Under Vax-VMS EDT and EVE editors, they used to allow for text selection, query/replace, etc... They were accessed with the "Gold" key -so named because it's the only yellowish key on the keyboard...
:(
Believe it or no, but these boxes are still around... The software that run on them was never ported to *nix. Right now, I have to edit some files over such a machine/OS but I am connected to it from a sun where none of these keys exist... And it's really a pain