I was always a big fan of Pamela F. Service and William Sleator. Lesser known names, sure, but still excellent reads. Robert Silverberg had some really really good sci-fi aimed at a younger audience as well. And of course there's always John Christopher's Tripod series. Can't forget Bruce Coville, if you feel like a bit of silliness is in order.
The American mantra is that (1) expanding the population is always wonderful and (2) expanding the population by immigration is the best route.
Hmmm, is that why the population density in the US is so much lower than in most of the rest of the world? Wait, I'm confused.
I'd say that most likely, we're best off pursuing fusion power with all the resources we have at our disposal. In the end, solar power is the same thing, hydrogen fusion. But the difference is, we can (in principle) get much more power out of fusing terrestrial hydrogen ourselves than the total incoming flux from the sun. We won't run out of terrestrial hydrogen for plenty long enough that we'll be able to build something approaching a Dyson sphere in time to keep our available power on a steady rise.
proton and neutron irradiation perhaps? Just a thought; I haven't put any thought into whether or not this would have any reasonable possibility of creating a false positive.
You want to use screen -x for that. There are some trickinesses to it, though, and I've never made it work with multiple different users connecting to one session. Different people logged in using the same username, yes. different usernames, no. But then I didn't try all that hard.
False. Stochastic theories do not exactly predict the outcome of every experiment, they only predict probabilities (a tautology). So, one is free to posit another mechanism (call it souls, or free wills, or whatever you like), which does determine the outcome of some experiments. It is entirely plausible that this mechanism does so in a way that does not affect the distribution of experimental results, and is thus empirically indistinguishable from the same stochastic theory without such a supposition. Deterministic theories leave no such room. Once the state is determined at any time t, it is determined for all other times, come hell, high water, or free wills external to the universe.
For an analogy that I think is pretty decent, consider encrypted content. With many encryption schemes, the result is indistinguishable from line noise, yet it does carry information.
You are right in saying that positing free will is unscientific, but wrong in claiming that stochastic theories exclude it (or else that deterministic theories do not).
It is worth noting that my "mechanism" would constitute a hidden variable theory, sort of. The sort of is because "hidden variable theory" is usually understood to mean a way to make quantum mechanics deterministic or complete, that is, it introduces realism. There are of course sharp theoretical limits on such theories. But one which does not quite make quantum mechanics complete, especially if it is also nonlocal, is not so limited.
On the contrary; wikipedia's articles on physics are often exceedingly good, and extensively used by scientists. Most of my colleagues (I'm a physics grad student) spend a great deal of time on wikipedia, whether for review, a different perspective on a difficult topic, or just curiosity. It rarely lets us down. (And yes we do verify the information, whether by checking against a textbook or lecture, or by just seeing how we do on homework sets and tests.)
Significantly less well known, but Tom Siegfried's books are excellent as well. Strange Matters, The Bit and the Pendulum, and A Beautiful Math are his three titles.
I have cited wikipedia formally in a quite serious paper (my undergraduate thesis). However, I did not cite it for the information it provided, but merely for its wording. I wanted a pithy quote to open the paper with, and it provided one.
Just out of curiosity, freedom_india, why have I become your foe? I haven't said anything in the last 6 days, so I'm puzzled as to what prompted the relationship change.
I walk to work. Most of the times that I drive, it's either to shop (groceries or whatever else), in which case I'm bringing back more than I could reasonably take on the bus, or its to visit friends, in which case I won't be going home until after the bus stops running at night. Good public transit would be nice, but if it were economical, chances are it would already be good. My guess is that most of the US is just way to spread out to make it worthwhile. As for carpooling, look at the above cases where I drive; nobody but me and my wife are going those places from where we live most of the time.
Maybe I should just bicycle, right? Well, that'd be a fine option if bikes lasted more than about 2 months here before being stolen. Cars stick around a lot better.
The particulars of quantum non-locality don't conflict with relativity, which doesn't strictly require locality, but merely causality. Causality and locality are generally conflated because having locality gives you causality. But, certain ways of breaking locality don't screw up causality, and quantum non-locality is one of them. You can't transmit any information non-locally using quantum effects, in essence.
I think the big problem is not the rich suburban types. They can ditch their SUVs when the price goes high enough. It's those who are driving older vehicles because a 10-year-old used car was all we could afford 5 years ago, and are still on a grad student salary (or whatever low salary), so can't afford to buy a new one, even if we sell the old for its full $500 value. Many many people simply can't afford to switch, and soon won't be able to afford not to switch either. Before long, the only vehicles that will be in our price range are the gas guzzling SUVs being ditched by the rich folk.
Ok... I'll name him Bob Jones. He's probably already got a name though (not that I know what it is), and Bob Jones isn't a particularly good name (although the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment), but since you insist... I just hope I don't have to be the one to tell his mother, that's all I'm saying.
MediaSentry and other RIAA hackers have done no harm. Care to substantiate that claim, astroturf? And thieves is most certainly, in a legal sense and in a common sense, exactly the wrong word here.
Not my field, but is the possibility of a supernova producing a large neutrino flux twice ruled out? Naturally, maintaining such a huge flux for 4 hours is out of the question due to energy considerations, but two neutrino bursts seems like another possibility. AFAIK, our understanding of the dynamics of supernovae isn't that great yet.
Neutrinos only interact via the weak interaction (and gravity, which is much weaker), and thus interact only very very very rarely. They most certainly do not couple to the EM field.
Slashdot Mirror
I was always a big fan of Pamela F. Service and William Sleator. Lesser known names, sure, but still excellent reads. Robert Silverberg had some really really good sci-fi aimed at a younger audience as well. And of course there's always John Christopher's Tripod series. Can't forget Bruce Coville, if you feel like a bit of silliness is in order.
The American mantra is that (1) expanding the population is always wonderful and (2) expanding the population by immigration is the best route.
Hmmm, is that why the population density in the US is so much lower than in most of the rest of the world? Wait, I'm confused.
I'd say that most likely, we're best off pursuing fusion power with all the resources we have at our disposal. In the end, solar power is the same thing, hydrogen fusion. But the difference is, we can (in principle) get much more power out of fusing terrestrial hydrogen ourselves than the total incoming flux from the sun. We won't run out of terrestrial hydrogen for plenty long enough that we'll be able to build something approaching a Dyson sphere in time to keep our available power on a steady rise.
unicomp will repair model M keyboards for only $30.
unicomp will repair model M's for only $30. It's worth looking into.
proton and neutron irradiation perhaps? Just a thought; I haven't put any thought into whether or not this would have any reasonable possibility of creating a false positive.
So, in other words, I can download this app and run it locally? For free (and Free)? Wow! That really sounds just ... like ... openoffice?
You want to use screen -x for that. There are some trickinesses to it, though, and I've never made it work with multiple different users connecting to one session. Different people logged in using the same username, yes. different usernames, no. But then I didn't try all that hard.
False. Stochastic theories do not exactly predict the outcome of every experiment, they only predict probabilities (a tautology). So, one is free to posit another mechanism (call it souls, or free wills, or whatever you like), which does determine the outcome of some experiments. It is entirely plausible that this mechanism does so in a way that does not affect the distribution of experimental results, and is thus empirically indistinguishable from the same stochastic theory without such a supposition. Deterministic theories leave no such room. Once the state is determined at any time t, it is determined for all other times, come hell, high water, or free wills external to the universe.
For an analogy that I think is pretty decent, consider encrypted content. With many encryption schemes, the result is indistinguishable from line noise, yet it does carry information.
You are right in saying that positing free will is unscientific, but wrong in claiming that stochastic theories exclude it (or else that deterministic theories do not).
It is worth noting that my "mechanism" would constitute a hidden variable theory, sort of. The sort of is because "hidden variable theory" is usually understood to mean a way to make quantum mechanics deterministic or complete, that is, it introduces realism. There are of course sharp theoretical limits on such theories. But one which does not quite make quantum mechanics complete, especially if it is also nonlocal, is not so limited.
On the contrary; wikipedia's articles on physics are often exceedingly good, and extensively used by scientists. Most of my colleagues (I'm a physics grad student) spend a great deal of time on wikipedia, whether for review, a different perspective on a difficult topic, or just curiosity. It rarely lets us down. (And yes we do verify the information, whether by checking against a textbook or lecture, or by just seeing how we do on homework sets and tests.)
Significantly less well known, but Tom Siegfried's books are excellent as well. Strange Matters, The Bit and the Pendulum, and A Beautiful Math are his three titles.
Textbooks are, in general, not primary sources themselves.
I have cited wikipedia formally in a quite serious paper (my undergraduate thesis). However, I did not cite it for the information it provided, but merely for its wording. I wanted a pithy quote to open the paper with, and it provided one.
Just out of curiosity, freedom_india, why have I become your foe? I haven't said anything in the last 6 days, so I'm puzzled as to what prompted the relationship change.
It's because they're trying to see new vistas.
I walk to work. Most of the times that I drive, it's either to shop (groceries or whatever else), in which case I'm bringing back more than I could reasonably take on the bus, or its to visit friends, in which case I won't be going home until after the bus stops running at night. Good public transit would be nice, but if it were economical, chances are it would already be good. My guess is that most of the US is just way to spread out to make it worthwhile. As for carpooling, look at the above cases where I drive; nobody but me and my wife are going those places from where we live most of the time.
Maybe I should just bicycle, right? Well, that'd be a fine option if bikes lasted more than about 2 months here before being stolen. Cars stick around a lot better.
The particulars of quantum non-locality don't conflict with relativity, which doesn't strictly require locality, but merely causality. Causality and locality are generally conflated because having locality gives you causality. But, certain ways of breaking locality don't screw up causality, and quantum non-locality is one of them. You can't transmit any information non-locally using quantum effects, in essence.
I think the big problem is not the rich suburban types. They can ditch their SUVs when the price goes high enough. It's those who are driving older vehicles because a 10-year-old used car was all we could afford 5 years ago, and are still on a grad student salary (or whatever low salary), so can't afford to buy a new one, even if we sell the old for its full $500 value. Many many people simply can't afford to switch, and soon won't be able to afford not to switch either. Before long, the only vehicles that will be in our price range are the gas guzzling SUVs being ditched by the rich folk.
Ok... I'll name him Bob Jones. He's probably already got a name though (not that I know what it is), and Bob Jones isn't a particularly good name (although the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment), but since you insist... I just hope I don't have to be the one to tell his mother, that's all I'm saying.
Just wait until they do it to some politico's campaign site.
VOTE OBAMA 2008!
Banner: Hey kids! Want a Marlboro?
That'd put a stop to things real fast.
Interestingly, IIRC, the barycenter of Jupiter and the Sun lies above the surface of the sun.
Probably has the wrong spectral signature for that. Unless you can build a dyson sphere out of diatomic hydrogren...
Not my field, but is the possibility of a supernova producing a large neutrino flux twice ruled out? Naturally, maintaining such a huge flux for 4 hours is out of the question due to energy considerations, but two neutrino bursts seems like another possibility. AFAIK, our understanding of the dynamics of supernovae isn't that great yet.
No, the GP is right. Look it up if you aren't convinced.
Neutrinos only interact via the weak interaction (and gravity, which is much weaker), and thus interact only very very very rarely. They most certainly do not couple to the EM field.