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  1. Re:Violation on States Turn To an Unproven Method of Execution: Nitrogen Gas (nytimes.com) · · Score: 2

    The control sample gets argon.

  2. Unproven? on States Turn To an Unproven Method of Execution: Nitrogen Gas (nytimes.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That word doesn't mean what they think it means.

  3. I agree. "How do you distinguish a collapsed waveform" is the big engineering question. The obvious method is to look for self-interference. (That is, look for interference between the superposed states.) For example, as I recall, the two-slit experiment can be performed with a single electron, and the two possible states (left, right) will interfere with each other. But this is just an engineering question, because the local entangled particle does in fact receive the message that the distant particle had been measured. Ergo that message is receivable. More broadly, there cannot be "action" without information transfer, because the fact the action has happened is itself information. Something is wrong here.

  4. No, I did not send the message over classical means. The distant measurement instantly collapsed the local wavefunction. Hence, the local wavefunction received the message, "I did the measurement," which was transmitted from the distant entangled particle via instantaneous, "spooky action at a distance." Discussion of this issue invariably focuses on the measured value, when the whole point is the effect of performing a measurement.

  5. When you do the measurement, you send the message, "I did the measurement." This message demonstrably can be received, because it is received by the entangled particle. The no-information-transmission claim appears to be, "no information can be sent except that I did the measurement." But no other information is needed, because, "I did the measurement" is a binary bit. This is so obvious, why does nobody see it?

  6. Despite all assertions to the contrary, information has been teleported. The information is: "Your wavefunction is now collapsed." This information travels faster than light, and is received by the entangled atom. The question is: can we tell it happened? This is the same as asking: Can we detect when a particle's wavefunction collapses? Under some circumstances, we can, because the superposed states interfere with each other. See, e.g., single-photon, two-slit experiment. I can never get an intelligent response to this seemingly obvious point.

  7. Re:Officially Pissed Off on How the NSA Identified Satoshi Nakamoto (medium.com) · · Score: 1

    Willie Sutton.

  8. Re:DNW on The 2017 Hugo Awards (thehugoawards.org) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I used to rely on the Hugo, but I noticed it had stopped being useful before I noticed it was because it switched to, "Best sci-fi not written by the people who had written most of the good sci fi." For me personally, the Hugo going SJW was real loss. Maybe the Dragon Award can fill that role now.

  9. You keep using that word. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

  10. Re:Why do you need to know the state? on Can Quantum Entanglement Create Faster-Than-Light Communication? (mit.edu) · · Score: 1

    My point is that particles behave differently when their state is indeterminate. If this were not true, how would we even know that states can be indeterminate? Could such a crazy idea have been proved, if indeterminate states are observationally indistinguishable from determinate states?

    You seem to be suggesting the local particle will pretend to be indeterminate state, even after its state has in fact been determined. I guess that is an experimental question.

  11. Re:Why do you need to know the state? on Can Quantum Entanglement Create Faster-Than-Light Communication? (mit.edu) · · Score: 1

    But what if you detect wavefunction collapse? The wavefunction is collapsed by the distant measurement, which forces the local particle to choose its state. And as I understand it, wavefunction collapse *can* be detected, because under some circumstances a wavefunction can interfere with itself, but not if it has been collapsed. For example, with the two-slit experiment, a single photon can interfere with itself and create an interference pattern, but not if it has been forced to choose a slit.

    Ergo, the two possible states of the world are: (1) FTL communication is possible; or (2) It is not possible to determine whether a particle has indeterminate state.

  12. Re:ARCTIC vs ANTARCTIC - the map is startling on NASA Study Shows Net Gains For Antarctic Ice (google.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The map of antarctic ice-thickness changes shows virtually the entire continent in red to yellow (thickening ice) and two tiny areas in blue-to-green (thinning ice.) Thinning ice accounts for something like one percent of the continent, and 99% of the published discussion. For decades, most peer-reviewed articles on WAIS thinning have studiously avoided any mention of the rest of the continent. The same is true for Greenland, where for decades most of the published literature has focused on the margins and pretended the interior does not exist.

    Counterexamples exist, of course, but I noticed these omissions as early as the mid-eighties.

    Even if you attribute the publication bias to poor data, it would have been more honest to mention that the areas under study accounted for only a tiny percentage of the land area and ice volume.

  13. What he actually said... on MIT's Ted Postol Presents More Evidence On Iron Dome Failures · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I did RTFA, and he makes two real claims. His primary claim is that the iron dome system must be failing, because when the interceptor approaches the target from anything other than head on, the interceptor will fire its warhead at the wrong time. He implies that this failure is an inevitable consequence of geometry, but I don't see it. If you actually look at the diagrams, the interceptor has just a good a shot when approaching (say) from behind as from in front. In fact the odds look better to me from behind or the side, as the crossing speeds are lower and the shrapnel fan might actually run down the length of the target. The interceptor just needs to fire its warhead at a different moment. But his diagrams all show the warhead firing at the wrong time, for reasons that are not made clear.

    Is the iron dome system smart enough to account for basic geometry? I would think so, since the problem is pretty simple, and the approach angle will be known by the radar even before launch. But I don't really know. And I don't think he does either.

    His second claim might be more credible. He says that in hundreds of pictures of intercepts, only one clearly shows detonation of the incoming rocket. I don't know if this is true, and I don't trust his claim. But if it is true then it cries out for explanation.

  14. Re:Probably bad reporting and hyped abstract on Forests Around Chernobyl Aren't Decaying Properly · · Score: 1

    Hear hear. The truth is we cannot know the truth about politicized subjects unless we are directly involved. This problem wipes out whole fields of potential science, which is costly, annoying, and important to admit when formulating policy.

  15. Re:Reminds me of Control Theory on NASA-Funded Study Investigates Collapse of Industrial Civilization · · Score: 0

    The stabilizer is self interest, because people don't like to be poor. And control is indeed the key. Pass enough laws to prevent people from adapting to change, and collapse is inevitable. As inevitable as the statists who caused the collapse blaming it on the one percent who made civilization possible in the first place.

  16. We already did this experment with porn on Study Suggests Violent Video Games May Make Teens Less Violent · · Score: 1

    Remember when the feminists went after porn because it encouraged rape? Rarely has any hypothesis been so dangerously wrong, and so thoroughly disproved. And lest you think we have learned our lesson, I nervously call your attention to the subject of kiddie porn.

  17. Re:If I recall..... on Quantum Teleportation Sends Information 143 Kilometers · · Score: 1

    You seem to be saying there is no such thing as interference fringes.

  18. Re:If I recall..... on Quantum Teleportation Sends Information 143 Kilometers · · Score: 2

    I always ask this, and never get an answer. A quantum wavefunction can interfere with itself (E.g., you get interference fringes if you do the 2-slit experiment with a single photon.) But if the wavefunction is collapsed (E.g., by measuring which slit the photon goes through) then it cannot self-interfere. (The fringes disappear.)

    Now the punchline. The whole point of quantum teleportation is that collapsing a particle's wavefunction will also collapse the wavefunction of a remote, entangled particle. Will that destroy the remote particle's self-interference fringes? If so, then we have our ansible.

  19. I routinely get smashed by giant bodies of water on Mosquitos Have Little Trouble Flying in the Rain · · Score: 3, Funny

    When I jump off a 10-ft diving board, a lake-sized glob of water smashes me at 20mph. Amazingly, I survive.

  20. Can we detect wavefunction collapse, or not? on Quantum Entanglement of Macroscopic Diamonds · · Score: 1

    Detecting wavefunction collapse is trivial, just look for interference between the possible states, ala the two-slit experiment. HOWEVER, if the collapse of an entangled wavefunction can be detected, than FTL information transmission is possible, because collapsing one half of an entangled pair will instantly collapse the other half, causing the interference pattern (or whatever) to disappear. So what am I missing?

  21. Re:You are clueless if you claim such a thing on Extremists Warn South Park Creators Over Muhammad In a Bear Suit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The IRA were, and are, Marxists in all but name. If you doubt, read the Sinn Fein manifesto, available online now. What, you never heard that on the news? How could that be? The rule, "All terrorists are collectivists or Muslims" is only rarely violated.

  22. Re:How are we supposed to understand this? on Wikileaks Releases Video of Journalist Killings · · Score: 1

    Ditto. They looked like guns to me, and the soldier's call of an RPG seemed reasonable. Also noteworthy: Watching a wounded guy crawl around, and not firing because he had not picked up a weapon. As for killing the rescuers, I agree that is debatable, but the purpose of war is to kill the enemy. I saw no kids.

  23. Is this really a net gain? on Tiny Cube Drags Space Debris From Orbit · · Score: 1

    A satellite's lifetime collision risk depends on the volume of space it sweeps out before the cumulative drag adds up to a de-orbit. The sail does not reduce that volume, it just sweeps it out in a shorter time. I guess there is some net benefit, since a collision with the sail will create a smaller debris cloud.

  24. Re:Proved conclusively? on Colliding Particles Can Make Black Holes After All · · Score: 1

    "Computer model proved conclusively...." No further reading necessary.

  25. The wacky theory is testable on The LHC, the Higgs Boson, and the Chicago Cubs · · Score: 1
    The guys who proposed the wacky theory did in fact suggest a test, and quite an interesting one. The critic who wrote TFA apparently missed it when he "skimmed" the papers he publicly ridiculed.

    The idea is to conduct some random event, say 1,000 coin tosses, and pre-commit to cancel the LHC if we observe a ridiculous outcome, like 1,000 heads in a row.