Proposing instant communication of information is a crazily serious claim, and needs crazily strong evidence.
Speaking of FTL communication, I recently read The Fabric of Cosmos by Brian Greene, and something struck me as rather strange regarding some of the more complex interference pattern experiments. If an experiment is set up so that a photon (or electron or whatever) has a 50% chance of taking one of two paths towards the slits, and you don't measure which path it takes, you'll eventually get an interference pattern on the screen beyond the slits. The pattern disappears if you start detecting the photons at one of the paths. The setup can be modified by placing photon splitters on each path that catch the photon and emit two photons with half the energy of the original. One travels towards the slit, and the other in some other direction. Now, measuring the stream of photons that's not heading towards the slits will cause the waveforms of the photons' "twins" to collapse, and their position on the screen will no longer follow the interference pattern.
So here's what I thought. The waveform functions for the two photons collapses instantaneously at the moment that one of the twins is measured, do they not? Perhaps they even share the same waveform function. After a time, the person at the screen will be able to see that the interference pattern is no longer being formed. So say the screen and slits are very far away from the point of the split, as is the detector. The observer at the screen will be able to tell with high probability that the detector has been turned on long before light from the detector could reach the screen. Not quite instantaneous communication, but still faster than light.
It gets weirder if you take this line of thought further. Say the slits and the screen are relatively close to the splitter, but the detector is a light year away. Now the interference pattern at the screen will correspond with the status of the detector a year in the future. Or even make the splitter emit one of the photons into a super-long fiberoptic cable that loops around in space and comes back to screen. Now by turning the detector on and off for reasonably short amounts of time, you'll be able to send yourself messages from the future in Morse Code!
Now I know that I must be misunderstanding something here, because if this were true, I'm sure there'd be tons of papers written about it by now.
So if I hack into a scientist's computer, download his research, publish it, and get a Nobel Prize, that's not stealing? I mean we don't know that the scientist would have gotten a nobel prize for it, it's just potential.
I agree completely about the varying quality of instruction. Back in high school I got a 5 on the BC Calculus exam, but when I got to college I decided to take it easy during the first semester and take the engineering equivalent of Calc1 even though I could have started straight from multivar. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the only way I could do well in the course was if I completely ignored the instructor. Whenever I tried paying attention, he'd only confuse me on material I already knew. In the end I was one of the very few students to get an A, and someone taped a "Fucking Curve Buster" note on my room door.
Another eye opening experience was the engineering school's Intro to Chemistry course. The instructor (a full professor!) was quite good, but many of the students obviously wanted nothing to do with chemistry and had a hard time picking it up. It was definitely one class where the grade curve was very apparent. The class also had 3 multiple choice tests, with the lowest score being dropped. Well I did relatively well on the first two tests, so I decided to blow off the third one. I remember the professor stating before the test that in the previous period someone gave up and turned in their paper after 5 minutes. I turned in the scantron within 30 seconds, and apparently after I left the announcement was made that the previous record had been broken broken. Two surprises came out of this: I got a 33% score (with 4 answer options per question!) and that score was in the 25th percentile for the class! In a class of 300 people, I did better than 120 people by randomly filling in the answers! Based on the previous test scores, I stronly doubt that even a large portion of these decided to do the same thing I did.
Oooh, oooh, I know! You spent over a hundred years in cryo-freeze, and the speech center of your brain was damaged to the point that you were left with only the words that evoke the greatest emotional response with you!
See, dad, reading sci-fi novels really does provide me with information I can use in the real world!
I don't see how belief can be an "evolved trait." Even intelligence wouldn't help here - some people will be dumb enough to just believe what their told, while others will be smart enough to keep their beliefs to themselves.
I don't know, say there's a catastrophy within the next few hundred years (WW3, meteor, whatever.) The remaining 49000+ years should be more than enough for (a perhaps mutated) humanity to get back to the space age.
Or perhaps it will all get covered up by the apes.
But in order for all of this to have been achieved, the dolphins will have saved the human race from extinction at least 17 times in this universe alone.
Don't a lot of cellphones in Japan (camera-enabled and all) cost below $20?
Re:I just bought this book
on
DHTML Utopia
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· Score: 1
I usually use this board for any questions I have about AJAX or plain old DHTML. One of the moderators is in the process of coauthoring a book about AJAX, and has some blogs on the subject as well.
I tried to uninstall Greasemonkey months ago. The Extensions window still says "this item will be uninstalled after you restart Firefox." What, am I supposed to wipe my whole profile now?
In cases where the virus results in the loss of life - bringing down an airplane or resulting in the loss of power to a hospital for example. It must be proven however that whoever was responsible for the release the virus (not necessarily the author!) was aware of the possibility of this happening, but went through with it anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't get it.
Does the presidential election count?
What's the point when you can just put in your maximum bid and eBay raises your active bid as the bidding warrants?
Proposing instant communication of information is a crazily serious claim, and needs crazily strong evidence.
Speaking of FTL communication, I recently read The Fabric of Cosmos by Brian Greene, and something struck me as rather strange regarding some of the more complex interference pattern experiments. If an experiment is set up so that a photon (or electron or whatever) has a 50% chance of taking one of two paths towards the slits, and you don't measure which path it takes, you'll eventually get an interference pattern on the screen beyond the slits. The pattern disappears if you start detecting the photons at one of the paths. The setup can be modified by placing photon splitters on each path that catch the photon and emit two photons with half the energy of the original. One travels towards the slit, and the other in some other direction. Now, measuring the stream of photons that's not heading towards the slits will cause the waveforms of the photons' "twins" to collapse, and their position on the screen will no longer follow the interference pattern.
So here's what I thought. The waveform functions for the two photons collapses instantaneously at the moment that one of the twins is measured, do they not? Perhaps they even share the same waveform function. After a time, the person at the screen will be able to see that the interference pattern is no longer being formed. So say the screen and slits are very far away from the point of the split, as is the detector. The observer at the screen will be able to tell with high probability that the detector has been turned on long before light from the detector could reach the screen. Not quite instantaneous communication, but still faster than light.
It gets weirder if you take this line of thought further. Say the slits and the screen are relatively close to the splitter, but the detector is a light year away. Now the interference pattern at the screen will correspond with the status of the detector a year in the future. Or even make the splitter emit one of the photons into a super-long fiberoptic cable that loops around in space and comes back to screen. Now by turning the detector on and off for reasonably short amounts of time, you'll be able to send yourself messages from the future in Morse Code!
Now I know that I must be misunderstanding something here, because if this were true, I'm sure there'd be tons of papers written about it by now.
If parents like this one get to decide what is and isn't appropriate for other people's kids, gaming is in serious trouble.
When the use of a PreparedStatement in a loop is noticeably slower than a Statement, you know something is wrong.
So if I hack into a scientist's computer, download his research, publish it, and get a Nobel Prize, that's not stealing? I mean we don't know that the scientist would have gotten a nobel prize for it, it's just potential.
I agree completely about the varying quality of instruction. Back in high school I got a 5 on the BC Calculus exam, but when I got to college I decided to take it easy during the first semester and take the engineering equivalent of Calc1 even though I could have started straight from multivar. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the only way I could do well in the course was if I completely ignored the instructor. Whenever I tried paying attention, he'd only confuse me on material I already knew. In the end I was one of the very few students to get an A, and someone taped a "Fucking Curve Buster" note on my room door.
Another eye opening experience was the engineering school's Intro to Chemistry course. The instructor (a full professor!) was quite good, but many of the students obviously wanted nothing to do with chemistry and had a hard time picking it up. It was definitely one class where the grade curve was very apparent. The class also had 3 multiple choice tests, with the lowest score being dropped. Well I did relatively well on the first two tests, so I decided to blow off the third one. I remember the professor stating before the test that in the previous period someone gave up and turned in their paper after 5 minutes. I turned in the scantron within 30 seconds, and apparently after I left the announcement was made that the previous record had been broken broken. Two surprises came out of this: I got a 33% score (with 4 answer options per question!) and that score was in the 25th percentile for the class! In a class of 300 people, I did better than 120 people by randomly filling in the answers! Based on the previous test scores, I stronly doubt that even a large portion of these decided to do the same thing I did.
Did this include an accident with a time machine and a contraceptive?
Oooh, oooh, I know! You spent over a hundred years in cryo-freeze, and the speech center of your brain was damaged to the point that you were left with only the words that evoke the greatest emotional response with you!
See, dad, reading sci-fi novels really does provide me with information I can use in the real world!
I thought "Burning Man" was that music video of the guy on fire...
I don't see how belief can be an "evolved trait." Even intelligence wouldn't help here - some people will be dumb enough to just believe what their told, while others will be smart enough to keep their beliefs to themselves.
I'm not sure about some of the other Angband varients, but IIRC in T.O.M.E the less sanity you have, the more likely you are to hallucinate.
The easter bunny drools on you
I don't know, say there's a catastrophy within the next few hundred years (WW3, meteor, whatever.) The remaining 49000+ years should be more than enough for (a perhaps mutated) humanity to get back to the space age.
Or perhaps it will all get covered up by the apes.
But in order for all of this to have been achieved, the dolphins will have saved the human race from extinction at least 17 times in this universe alone.
Oh my God! That one's having a heart attack!
Don't a lot of cellphones in Japan (camera-enabled and all) cost below $20?
I usually use this board for any questions I have about AJAX or plain old DHTML. One of the moderators is in the process of coauthoring a book about AJAX, and has some blogs on the subject as well.
at present, she has 31 actuators in her upper body
Somehow I don't think it's the upper body movements that will be so important to most, ahem, enthusiasts.
Who can you work for? Are there any areas of the software industry that Microsoft doesn't have it's grubby fingers in?
I tried to uninstall Greasemonkey months ago. The Extensions window still says "this item will be uninstalled after you restart Firefox." What, am I supposed to wipe my whole profile now?
Funny how a lot of people proven guilty are later proven innocent. Whoever's writing these proofs should be fired.
In cases where the virus results in the loss of life - bringing down an airplane or resulting in the loss of power to a hospital for example. It must be proven however that whoever was responsible for the release the virus (not necessarily the author!) was aware of the possibility of this happening, but went through with it anyway.
I use that extension myself, but strangely enough, I just checked my extensions window, and it's not listed on it! What gives?
Maybe the people responsible for Unreal Tournament bot AI should get into the Strategy genre...