The land mass of the earth is about 147 million square miles. A population of 600,000 leaves about a person every 250 square miles. Assuming that the devastation which wiped out 99.99% of the population also has some deleterious effect on our ability to rapidly traverse 50 miles and accurately find other living beings, attaining sufficient reproducing to keep the population over a minimal threshold level would be rather difficult.
"...so basically I'm really good at being right about things that other people are wrong about."
Wait a minute, that's what I do!
Interesting that airport maintenance is mentioned,
on
Wearing a Computer at Work
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
since wearing technology to an airport has been demonstrated to be a bad idea.
Re:Welcome to the world of modern research ...
on
Open Source Math
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
And, in the case of mathematics, I'm guessing that they are using it as a shortcut for those difficult analytic solutions. This is certainly one application, but the use of computers in the more "pure" aspects of mathematics is nothing to sneeze at either. Programs like GAP for group theory, PARI for number theory, and Macaulay for commutative algebra and algebraic geometry play a significant role in the development of their respective subjects. For example, there's very little you can say about the Monster group without the aid of computer calculations -- it's not that researchers don't understand the algorithms involved, it's that it's physically impossible (given reasonable time constraints) to say anything non-trivial without computer aid. To address the other concerns, unlike the numerical solutions, there are frequently completely independent algorithms for checking the results of your first algorithm, so that trusting the original algorithm is less of an issue.
There's nothing magic about oxygen: it's merely a good oxidiser Pfft. I suppose next you'll be telling me that if Earth had methane in abundance instead, we'd all be methodists.
"Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use." http://www.riaa.com/faq.php You over-estimate their generosity. While they'll concede they probably won't prosecute you for it, they don't agree you have the legal right to do so. They explain (here, linked to from your link):
It's okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
It's also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R's, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) - but, again, not for commercial purposes.
Beyond that, there's no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won't usually raise concerns so long as:
The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
The copy is just for your personal use. It's not a personal use - in fact, it's illegal - to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
I enjoy that they felt the need to put "right" in quotes, perhaps as a safety precaution in case any lawyer pointed out to them that, in fact, they have no idea what our actual rights are.
Our timeline got screwed up the second Captain Kirk travelled back through time and got Gene Roddenberry to make a show about his fantastical adventures. He's solely to blame for the mess our current timeline is in.
...it's probably only countably infinite, anyway.
Just wait until Google counters with their "cardinality of the continuum" email allowances later this year. Then we'll see who's laughing.
Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.
They must be leaving something out... Why wouldn't this observation disqualify Neptune as well?
> Perelman, Wiles, and most other serious mathematicians like to be left alone.
This is hardly the case. Most mathematicians (yes, even "serious" ones) realize that mathematics is not exclusively writing down a series of logical statements which prove difficult theorems. The lifeforce of mathematics, and thus the mathematician, is doing so and then *communicating* those results to their fellow mathematicians, and indeed to the rest of the world. I suspect that most (but obviously not all) mathematicians would be giddy with delight at so many people taking interest in their field of expertise (their work in particular), and the opportunity to talk about it at length. Further, for reasons not quite so abstract, mathematicians and mathematics departments rely on funding, so it behooves mathematicians to self-aggrandize -- let people know how big of a deal this is, why it was so important, and why people should keep paying them to keep doing it.
> Moreover, the Clay Institute intends to use the $1m dollars to promote Mathematics education in Russia. I think all parties are winners here.
I'm not sure where this came from, but this is almost certainly not the case. The Clay Institute has yet to officially decide how the prize will be distributed among mathematician(s) (if at all), let alone a contingency plan for what to do if one of the recipients declines the award.
I'm new to slashdot, so I'm hoping this is a joke that I'm just not getting.
If you divided 8 apples among your four children, you'd have 0 apples left...is this to say that 8 divided by 4 is 0? (Answer: No.) The physical interpretation in this case is evaluating how many apples each child gets (e.g. 2 in the previous example). There is no meaningful answer to the question "If I divide my 8 apples among my 0 children, how many apples do each of my children get?," so this technique sheds no light on the question.
Slashdot Mirror
Saying "Paul Erdos' combinatorial problem" is like saying "Michael Jordan's dunk he made that one time."
+1 insightful
According to a rigorous scientific study I just conducted, 7.
The land mass of the earth is about 147 million square miles. A population of 600,000 leaves about a person every 250 square miles. Assuming that the devastation which wiped out 99.99% of the population also has some deleterious effect on our ability to rapidly traverse 50 miles and accurately find other living beings, attaining sufficient reproducing to keep the population over a minimal threshold level would be rather difficult.
Numbers alone do not keep a species alive.
Wait a minute, that's what I do!
since wearing technology to an airport has been demonstrated to be a bad idea.
- It's okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
- It's also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R's, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) - but, again, not for commercial purposes.
- Beyond that, there's no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won't usually raise concerns so long as:
- The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
- The copy is just for your personal use. It's not a personal use - in fact, it's illegal - to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
I enjoy that they felt the need to put "right" in quotes, perhaps as a safety precaution in case any lawyer pointed out to them that, in fact, they have no idea what our actual rights are.Our timeline got screwed up the second Captain Kirk travelled back through time and got Gene Roddenberry to make a show about his fantastical adventures. He's solely to blame for the mess our current timeline is in.
You mean there's more than just the Puget!?!?!
The following seemed at least partly appropriate story given the parent post:a 1.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070418
...it's probably only countably infinite, anyway. Just wait until Google counters with their "cardinality of the continuum" email allowances later this year. Then we'll see who's laughing.
Well, I guess peer review has already taken its toll. The paper has been withdrawn from the arXiv due to "serious flaws."
> Perelman, Wiles, and most other serious mathematicians like to be left alone.
This is hardly the case. Most mathematicians (yes, even "serious" ones) realize that mathematics is not exclusively writing down a series of logical statements which prove difficult theorems. The lifeforce of mathematics, and thus the mathematician, is doing so and then *communicating* those results to their fellow mathematicians, and indeed to the rest of the world. I suspect that most (but obviously not all) mathematicians would be giddy with delight at so many people taking interest in their field of expertise (their work in particular), and the opportunity to talk about it at length. Further, for reasons not quite so abstract, mathematicians and mathematics departments rely on funding, so it behooves mathematicians to self-aggrandize -- let people know how big of a deal this is, why it was so important, and why people should keep paying them to keep doing it.
> Moreover, the Clay Institute intends to use the $1m dollars to promote Mathematics education in Russia. I think all parties are winners here.
I'm not sure where this came from, but this is almost certainly not the case. The Clay Institute has yet to officially decide how the prize will be distributed among mathematician(s) (if at all), let alone a contingency plan for what to do if one of the recipients declines the award.
Well, he did it *one* question, so I guee he wins. :)
I'm new to slashdot, so I'm hoping this is a joke that I'm just not getting.
If you divided 8 apples among your four children, you'd have 0 apples left...is this to say that 8 divided by 4 is 0? (Answer: No.) The physical interpretation in this case is evaluating how many apples each child gets (e.g. 2 in the previous example). There is no meaningful answer to the question "If I divide my 8 apples among my 0 children, how many apples do each of my children get?," so this technique sheds no light on the question.
Cam