That sounds clever, except the subtlety is that the device is supposed to work for TVs that are already on. I'll agree that one ought to politely ask those around before turning on a noisy TV in an otherwise quiet location.
But on jury duty, they are obligated to listen to a (hopefully) in-depth debate on a single issue for many days. 40% of the voting public think that Iraq attacked us on 9/11, and that's why we're over there. Goodness.
Reasonable people don't make me angry. As you say, you wouldn't turn off a tv that someone, or more to the point, that lots of someones happen to be watching in the name of helping them better themselves. No problem.
When I'm in the airport, sometimes I *like* to watch CNN to catch up on what's been happening while I sit for 6 hours between connections. I was stranded overnight in Atlanta, and let me tell you, I would have absolutely *gone off* on some sanctimonious jackass turning off the tv I was blearily watching to pass the time after sleeping on the floor the night before. I hope people like you carry around big signs to illustrate your pomposity, so I can clear out before being subjected to what you think I should be doing with my time.
Yes! I second the Metro. I got mine over a year ago, use it every day for work and over a dozen business trips across the country, and it has loads of room for books and computer accessories. And, importantly, it passes the geek factor in that it is envied by most programmers I run into.
But how do they see each other? That's the point -- no information, including light, can travel between two coordinates faster than light. Coordinates can separate faster than light, but there is no "connection" between them.
It's not a foolish question, but a very subtle and often misunderstood point. It is necessary in cosmology for *coordinate* velocities to exceed that of light. That's ok. What's not ok is for any arbitrary clump of matter to exceed the speed of light getting from one point to another. In reference to the balloon example, it's ok for the balloon to expand as fast as it wants, but we have a speed limit in getting from one dot to another.
The rate of increase of separation between two galaxies due to universal expansion depends upon the distance between them. The greater the distance, the greater the relative coordinate velocity. When the distance between galaxies is fairly "small", as when they are members of the same cluster, they can be gravitationally bound, where the gravitational force overwhelms the weaker "repulsive" expansion.
When you touch your bathroom tile, it typically feels colder than the surrounding air. This is not because the tile is somehow cooled with respect to its surroundings, but because the tile is much more efficient at carrying away heat from your body. An air temperature of 70 degrees F can feel very comfortable, since air is a very poor conductor of heat, but 70 F water feels decidedly cool to the skin. Having said that, it still may be the case that your window is cooler or hotter than the inside of your house since it is the boundary between zones --- in fact, this is very likely, since glass is a much better heat conductor than the surrounding walls.
Back then, they didn't pay for the trip out (which was $497). I won $500, so I netted $3, which I impetuously blew on a burger. It was a good time, though. I really was underwhelmed by Vanna. I see many hotter people during the week --- it's just that they aren't marketed as well. There didn't seem to be much going on behind those eyes, though to be fair she's probably just on autopilot most of the time. Now Pat Sajak, I was struck by how tiny he is. I have this impression of people on TV as being literally larger-than-life, but he is a small man.
First of all, blaming the "Bush administration" for the actions of many varied government agencies is a bit disingenous. Does anyone suppose the FDA takes daily orders from the White House? Our government just doesn't work like that.
Well, if you read the article regarding emergency contraception (the Plan B pill), it seems that it is indeed the way the government now works.
Call me cynical, but the person who wrote that letter is probably not someone running for office. Any timeline in which George W Bush offers an interpretation on subatomic particle interaction is simply not a solution to the Einstein field equations. It is not allowed in this Universe.
Having said that, the context of this undermining is not clear. Certainly the administration may interpret scientific data any way they choose in forming political action, just as we are free to vote them out if we disagree with their policies or actions. Undermining access to the full set of data, however, should be a crime.
You might be right, but I was on Wheel of Fortune back in 1990, and the usual schedule was to tape 4 days of 5 shows per day, getting at least a month's worth per week. I think Wheel still keeps to that schedule, and I thought Jeopardy did too.
Yep, I teach physics and astronomy at the local community college, and I diffuse such statements at the beginning of each semester. "Are we ever going to use this stuff?" students typically ask physics and math professors at some point during their studies (always at the difficult parts --- no one has objections to learning irrelevant easy stuff). "Nope!" I say, proudly beaming. Teaching astronomy to the general public has no practical value, aside from the (perhaps) 2nd order effect of funding for space missions that help make technological advances. Rather, I hope to teach them how to think critically, expose them to scientific ideas, methods, and principles, and instill some sense of appreciation for the amazing universe we are embedded in. If we stimulate imaginations and a little "shock and awe" at ideas not yet imagined, hopefully that is some slight public service. This is especially important for children, whose romantically large sense of wonder should be occasionally inflated. As Feynman said, "science is like sex; occasionally something practical comes out of it, but that's not the reason we're doing it."
There certainly could be a number of subtle perturbations to current theories, but they all still must satisfy our most sensitive experimental observations and hide between the error bars. One of the best laboratories for studying gravitational interactions is a binary pulsar system. A few are known. These are extremely compact and massive objects orbiting each other very quickly, so they provide excellent field tests of our theories of gravity. Ordinarily small effects, like the precession of the perhelion of oribiting bodies, are magnified and more easily observed.
The answer to (1), then, is just that if such an exponential dependence exists, it must have an effect smaller than we've been able to measure. Nothing of the kind has been seen.
For (2), there are good theoretical reasons for asserting that the *rest* mass of photons is dead, flat, zero. Any photon will have some relativistic mass due to its energy density, but their rest mass must be 0. Also, the current ratio is about 1 billion photons/particle, so on a universal scale, photons would have to have a rest mass on the order of 1 eV to have an effect, since protons have a mass of about 1 billion eV.
There is no problem with space-time *coordinates* moving with respect to each other faster than c . Consider the old analogy of dots on an expanding balloon. The dots are moving away from each other, yes, but that is a result of the expansion of the *coordinates* of the balloon. The dots are not actually moving about the balloon's surface. When we say that the galaxies are expanding away from each other, it is subtle and important to realize that they are *not* moving through space, but rather that the expansion of space itself is carrying them along.
"dark energy" usually refers to that energy that seems to be driving the galaxies away from each other at an accelerating rate. Normally, we would think that due to the mass of the universe, the universal expansion would slow down, just as a baseball slows down if I toss it upwards. Strangely, we see a growing "anti-gravity" (I hesitate to use that phrase around here) or repulsive force that seems to be proportional to the volume of the universe. Almost as if each cubic centimeter of space itself carries a small repulsive force acting on all other cubic centimeters. This is also why the acceleration is dominant now --- earlier in the history of the universe, when it was smaller, the repulsive force was also smaller in magnitude. As the universe expands, the quantity of 'dark energy' also increases with the universe's volume and now overwhelms the attractive gravitational force of all the matter.
Dark matter, on the other hand, is the name confusingly given to a number of unsolved phenomena. By looking at how the outer parts of galaxies rotate, we get a sense of how much matter is in a given galaxy, as well as its distribution. It seems that there is a great deal of matter in the outer regions of galaxies that does not 'glow' like stars do. In addition, by studying how galaxies move in clusters, we strengthen the case for lots of matter existing between galaxies that is invisible to us. The candidates for this dark matter are many and varied, from innumerable Jupiter-sized objects to cold white dwarfs to small black holes. Current observations are undertaken to rule in or out some of these. Even so, standard Big Bang theory predicts an upper limit to the amount of "ordinary" (baryonic) matter present, so it is possible that some of this dark matter might be weird stuff.
Science is not in the business of proving claims about nature, but only to ascribe probabilities of likelihood to those claims. In the case of common ancestry, for example, there is some chance that, despite the fossil and molecular evidence to the contrary, we do not share a common ancestor with other primates. It is the commonly held view of scientists who spend their lives working on this, though, that
Descendant organisms are slightly genetically different from their parents
over time, these changes, coupled with environmental and competetive pressures, create communities of organisms that do not interbreed
these independently changing groups lead to new species and branches in the descendancy tree
What would you consider to be an 'intermediary' creature? How can you gauge intelligence of a creature that is dead? How about early hominids who used primitive tools? Have you looked at the Talk.origins page for a long list of "transitional" fossils?
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Yes, we should have gone after the terrorists. Did you know that Iraq did not attack us?
That sounds clever, except the subtlety is that the device is supposed to work for TVs that are already on. I'll agree that one ought to politely ask those around before turning on a noisy TV in an otherwise quiet location.
But on jury duty, they are obligated to listen to a (hopefully) in-depth debate on a single issue for many days. 40% of the voting public think that Iraq attacked us on 9/11, and that's why we're over there. Goodness.
Reasonable people don't make me angry. As you say, you wouldn't turn off a tv that someone, or more to the point, that lots of someones happen to be watching in the name of helping them better themselves. No problem.
When I'm in the airport, sometimes I *like* to watch CNN to catch up on what's been happening while I sit for 6 hours between connections. I was stranded overnight in Atlanta, and let me tell you, I would have absolutely *gone off* on some sanctimonious jackass turning off the tv I was blearily watching to pass the time after sleeping on the floor the night before. I hope people like you carry around big signs to illustrate your pomposity, so I can clear out before being subjected to what you think I should be doing with my time.
Well, it was a lot younger in terms of the raw number of years, but still 99% of it's present age. It's been around for a long time.
Yes! I second the Metro. I got mine over a year ago, use it every day for work and over a dozen business trips across the country, and it has loads of room for books and computer accessories. And, importantly, it passes the geek factor in that it is envied by most programmers I run into.
But how do they see each other? That's the point -- no information, including light, can travel between two coordinates faster than light. Coordinates can separate faster than light, but there is no "connection" between them.
It's not a foolish question, but a very subtle and often misunderstood point. It is necessary in cosmology for *coordinate* velocities to exceed that of light. That's ok. What's not ok is for any arbitrary clump of matter to exceed the speed of light getting from one point to another. In reference to the balloon example, it's ok for the balloon to expand as fast as it wants, but we have a speed limit in getting from one dot to another.
The rate of increase of separation between two galaxies due to universal expansion depends upon the distance between them. The greater the distance, the greater the relative coordinate velocity. When the distance between galaxies is fairly "small", as when they are members of the same cluster, they can be gravitationally bound, where the gravitational force overwhelms the weaker "repulsive" expansion.
...now this is a subject line you can get on board with.
When you touch your bathroom tile, it typically feels colder than the surrounding air. This is not because the tile is somehow cooled with respect to its surroundings, but because the tile is much more efficient at carrying away heat from your body. An air temperature of 70 degrees F can feel very comfortable, since air is a very poor conductor of heat, but 70 F water feels decidedly cool to the skin. Having said that, it still may be the case that your window is cooler or hotter than the inside of your house since it is the boundary between zones --- in fact, this is very likely, since glass is a much better heat conductor than the surrounding walls.
Yes. This is Right and True.
Will the monsters still fight each other? That was the coolest thing (to me) about Doom/Doom II.
It is interesting to imagine what kind of game could result from rewarding players who choose to abdicate power and serve others.
Back then, they didn't pay for the trip out (which was $497). I won $500, so I netted $3, which I impetuously blew on a burger. It was a good time, though. I really was underwhelmed by Vanna. I see many hotter people during the week --- it's just that they aren't marketed as well. There didn't seem to be much going on behind those eyes, though to be fair she's probably just on autopilot most of the time. Now Pat Sajak, I was struck by how tiny he is. I have this impression of people on TV as being literally larger-than-life, but he is a small man.
Having said that, the context of this undermining is not clear. Certainly the administration may interpret scientific data any way they choose in forming political action, just as we are free to vote them out if we disagree with their policies or actions. Undermining access to the full set of data, however, should be a crime.
You might be right, but I was on Wheel of Fortune back in 1990, and the usual schedule was to tape 4 days of 5 shows per day, getting at least a month's worth per week. I think Wheel still keeps to that schedule, and I thought Jeopardy did too.
Yep, I teach physics and astronomy at the local community college, and I diffuse such statements at the beginning of each semester. "Are we ever going to use this stuff?" students typically ask physics and math professors at some point during their studies (always at the difficult parts --- no one has objections to learning irrelevant easy stuff). "Nope!" I say, proudly beaming. Teaching astronomy to the general public has no practical value, aside from the (perhaps) 2nd order effect of funding for space missions that help make technological advances. Rather, I hope to teach them how to think critically, expose them to scientific ideas, methods, and principles, and instill some sense of appreciation for the amazing universe we are embedded in. If we stimulate imaginations and a little "shock and awe" at ideas not yet imagined, hopefully that is some slight public service. This is especially important for children, whose romantically large sense of wonder should be occasionally inflated. As Feynman said, "science is like sex; occasionally something practical comes out of it, but that's not the reason we're doing it."
I suppose this is finally evidence that hot dogs are made out of the same kind of stuff as flesh.
The answer to (1), then, is just that if such an exponential dependence exists, it must have an effect smaller than we've been able to measure. Nothing of the kind has been seen.
For (2), there are good theoretical reasons for asserting that the *rest* mass of photons is dead, flat, zero. Any photon will have some relativistic mass due to its energy density, but their rest mass must be 0. Also, the current ratio is about 1 billion photons/particle, so on a universal scale, photons would have to have a rest mass on the order of 1 eV to have an effect, since protons have a mass of about 1 billion eV.
There is no problem with space-time *coordinates* moving with respect to each other faster than c . Consider the old analogy of dots on an expanding balloon. The dots are moving away from each other, yes, but that is a result of the expansion of the *coordinates* of the balloon. The dots are not actually moving about the balloon's surface. When we say that the galaxies are expanding away from each other, it is subtle and important to realize that they are *not* moving through space, but rather that the expansion of space itself is carrying them along.
Dark matter, on the other hand, is the name confusingly given to a number of unsolved phenomena. By looking at how the outer parts of galaxies rotate, we get a sense of how much matter is in a given galaxy, as well as its distribution. It seems that there is a great deal of matter in the outer regions of galaxies that does not 'glow' like stars do. In addition, by studying how galaxies move in clusters, we strengthen the case for lots of matter existing between galaxies that is invisible to us. The candidates for this dark matter are many and varied, from innumerable Jupiter-sized objects to cold white dwarfs to small black holes. Current observations are undertaken to rule in or out some of these. Even so, standard Big Bang theory predicts an upper limit to the amount of "ordinary" (baryonic) matter present, so it is possible that some of this dark matter might be weird stuff.
- Descendant organisms are slightly genetically different from their parents
- over time, these changes, coupled with environmental and competetive pressures, create communities of organisms that do not interbreed
- these independently changing groups lead to new species and branches in the descendancy tree
What would you consider to be an 'intermediary' creature? How can you gauge intelligence of a creature that is dead? How about early hominids who used primitive tools? Have you looked at the Talk.origins page for a long list of "transitional" fossils?