Royston

As a side note, I've never really understood this attitude of why the 'first time', has to be special, or with someone you really care about and blah blah blah. The point is, it's your 'first time', so it's more than likely to be a confused, nervous affair, that will leave you wondering what all the fuss is about.

It reminds me of statements such as 'your wedding day should be the happiest day of your life.' Really good days just happen, they're seldom something you can organise or arrange (within reason), the same goes for sex.

The ipad was covered on Newswipe recently...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHGwI0v87Ec&feature=youtu.be&a

You're assuming that all peadophiles cannot restrain their urges and the only ones that exist are the ones that have been caught. Of course some are aware of the consequences of their actions and decide never to act upon them because of the fear of lynch mobs.

 

It has nothing at all to do with manipulating a child to consent.

There is a difference between pedophilia which is litterally translated as "Child" & "love" from Greek which denotes the sexual preference of the individual and then there is child abuse which is taking action on those urges.

Ok, I just re-read your post, and you did say 'interest', not acting on those interests, but I made no mention that all paedophiles act on their urges. The discussion isn't about so-called thought crimes...so why bring it up.

I realise this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people but I find it ridiculous that people from a scientific community cannot look past the emotion of the subject and view this topic from a logical point of view rather than a moral one.

Ummm, I've just scanned through all the replies, and can't see any appeal to emotion.

It should also be noted that here in Britain we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe.

What does that have to do with paedophilia ?

This says to me that women and young girls are perfectly capable of concenting to sex whether they are aware of the consequences or not.

I agree there is a grey area at certain ages, and why such examples are dealt with, on a case by case basis.

While in the eyes of the law someone under the age of consent is deemed unable to make this kind of decision, this in practise is not the case and it depends on the individual and their mental state.

Yes, but within reason, see my last response.

I am not saying that it doesnt happen but the fact that people will produce a biased view of the facts before researching the topic they are speaking about because of either media demonisation or the moral pressure of society is very saddening.

Yes, there are many examples, especially in the UK, of a pack mentallity concerning the issue, I don't disagree with that.

What I find irritating is peoples belief they can be cured.

Why ?

Yes you're right it is a problem of the mind, but a social problem not a sickness.

Eh ?

The only difference we have here between Homosexuals and people who have an interest in pre-pubecents is that society views it as wrong.

Sure, it has nothing to do with manipulating a child to consent, how can you possibly compare the two.

It isn't a sickness otherwise we would be pidgeon holing every other fetish into immorality and you cant cure something that isnt a sickness.

If somebody is incapable of restraining their urges, knowing that such urges will cause harm to somebody else, then it is a sickness. BTW women can be castrated, not that I think castration or death (as mentioned earlier) is a humane solution, by any stretch of the imagination. The problem resides in the brain, not the genitals.

I gave sunspots some passing thought.

 

I postulated that the galaxy might have gravitational wave spiral arms, that have a wavelength of lightyears, that move faster than the actual stars that make up the galaxy. The spiral arms would then be buffetted by a shallow periodic gravitational tide with a period of years.

 

When the tide is rising the increase in gravitational potential is balanced by reduced solar output, below baseline. When the tide is ebbing, the solar output increases above baseline, releasing the the energy equivalent to the loss of gravitational potential.

 

Just a passing thought.

No, there are plenty of examples of isolated stars that display the same behaviour without any influence from other bodies.

I'm saying, as is everyone else, that the Big Bang is an event. An event needs a cause.

Not necessarily, events can be acausal, they just violate relativity i.e [math]\Delta{s}^2 > 0[/math] (see Minkowski diagrams), specifically the speed of light. Pre Big Bang models needn't be relativistic, they're not part of our Universe. Besides, as a similar example, even thermodynamics can be violated for a short time, as I'm sure you well know i.e there is leeway even with the most robust of physical laws.

Surely you're making assertions about pre BB conditions ?

It does indeed cover what one usually thinks of as geometry.

 

Though in modern geometry...

I think that's the problem with this question, modern geometry is a rather specialized field, and you're probably the best equipped to answer that question ajb. However, I've just started studying GR, so I'll give my opinion based on a basic understanding.

AFAIK, the insight that has lead to modern geometry, would be Gauss' 'remarkable theorem', which did away with a coordinate system. Following that would be Riemannian geometry, where I guess a metric went beyond unit intervals (i.e the distance between each unit changes), so there's no such notion of distance...I know there's a lot more to it than that.

My point being, geometry was a completely different thing up until the 19th century, and I'm sure, hitherto at your level, far more abstract now. I'm sure it would be a hard thing to define, unless you really knew the subject.

I really can't imagine that happening. I think most people wouldn't even hear about it. It would be a quirky item in the science sections of newspapers, Bill O'Reilly would hold it up as proof that scientists are a bunch of commie atheists, and it would be added to the list of memes people argue about on the internet, but nothing else would happen.

Yeah, I can't personally see such a thing amounting to much (albeit being impossible). It may convince some, that science is some antithesis to religion, or science had this agenda all along...but I'm sure that opinion is held already by certain groups / people. I certainly don't think it will cause any civil unrest, that we're not already experiencing.

Now while I've always enjoyed the thought of doing research like Wade Davis and others, I've always found fields such as astronomy fascinating. The problem with that is I'm terrible/terrified of math, but I'm finding that unlike when I was in high school 15 years ago I'm not doing so bad.

I turned 33 a few months ago, and have two years of my degree (which I've been studying part time) to go. The way I'm tackling my education and career path, is studying towards a degree in physics, but with a concentration on astronomy i.e my final year (the next two years) will be courses solely on GR, astrophysics and astronomy, plus a course on EM (electromagnetism.)

This way, I have a physics degree on paper, which is more flexible for work in the future, but also gives me the opportunity to apply for an MSc at Sussex in cosmology (my primary interest). I may even do an extra year on QM before this, as (perhaps suprising to some) QM is a heavy component in cosmology.

Luckily for me, I found out recently a Phd student in physics at Sussex, has moved next door to my sister (see iNow's post) so needless to say I'll be visiting my sister more frequently in the future. I also have a friend who has been helping in geological research at the same Uni, so I'll be getting in contact with him in the new year...try and get some contacts, advice et.c

As for maths, well I've got over the main hurdle degree wise i.e passed my higher applied maths exam this year, found out a few days ago, but I do need to practice more, as cosmology is maths intensive.

With any path in science, it's a case of you get what you're given once you've finished your education, so keep your options open. You may find a career that's not scientifically focused, but demands those types of skills.

Not sure if any of that is any use to you, but I was in a very similar situation to you a few years ago.

Is the many-worlds simply an interpretation or a reformulation without wave-function collapse?

Both isn't it ? Assumption then reformulation. The interpretation is a consequence of the reformulation...or in other words, it's the only viable interpretation for a wave function not collapsing to an eigenstate.

MWI is certainly attractive, at least I think it is, but is completely untestable, for all the reasons given. Personally, I'm more confused by the Universe harboring many worlds, where those worlds are orthogonal, yet the Universe encompasses everything within it...ugh.

I was going to put this in another topic, but since you brought it up I'll ask here. I know, or have heard, that multiplying equations by infinitesimals is frowned upon. Can you actually do what you did above? If so, why is it frowned upon? If you can't, why?

Because it's not a general rule, you can only treat [math]\frac{dy}{dx}[/math], as a fraction in particular cases, I think mainly restricted to ODE's.

I didn't think you could do it with partial differential equations, as ajb has shown, but I'm sure he knows better than I do.

the problem is it's never done high end 3D stuff very well.

It's most probably the card then, a 9800 should have no issues, your PSU is more than adequate, I run two 9 series through SLI on 450 watt with no problems. You've tried older drivers I take it ? Using the latest driver is always taken as gospel, but I had a lot of issues trying to get 190.62 to work...there was a conflict with my motherboard drivers.

You shouldn't have much problem with Asus, I have the poor mans version Asrock, and my pc flies graphically. All I can think is your CPU or ram might be bottle necking, but my first impression is that you've bought a faulty gfx card, i.e 'it's never done high end 3D stuff' as you put it. A 9800, should be able to handle pretty much anything that's thrown at it, i.e you should be able to run any recent game with no issues at all.

Does anybody here know of a program (doesn't necessarily have to be freeware) that would allow me to compose music on my PC (not Mac)? But I'm looking for something along the lines of GarageBand, which can make "real" music (piano, guitar, etc.). On second though, if you do know of a good "unreal" music maker, post the name as well...but I'm primarily looking for a "real" music player. Thanks.

I'm not sure what you mean by real and unreal.

Real as in recording live instruments, or using samples of real instruments ? The only snag with samples is the nuances of the instrument are limited, where obviously you don't have that issue with a real instrument, such as a guitar.

In any case, soft synths and the vast majority of hardware synths (bar analogue) are really just sample players, so there's not much of a distinction between real and unreal.

I use Cubase, but I use outboard kit such as synths, mixer and guitar et.c Fruity Loops http://flstudio.image-line.com/ is another suggestion (you could pick up an older copy), very easy to use, but I'm not entirely clear what you're after.

Also, the existence of paranormal studies departments provided the premise for the Ghostbusters film - something that we can all benefit from in many ways.

So very true.

hungy.

Hungarian ?

However, continued lack of evidence does correlate rather highly with lack of funding

Albeit that was probably a joke, but within the field of science, yes, rather annoying that there's a stupid amount of money made from a lack of evidence, i.e science can't explain this prefabricated phenomena, lets test it, and waste a stupid amount of time wondering if it exists.

not to mention the horrendous signal to noise ratio

Which personally I think is the salient point.

Exhange of photons is ubiquitous (not particularly relevant), you can extract information from simple sysems, e.g a spectral fingerprint of hydrogen, now apply that to thought. You'd have to run an almost infinite number of experiments to correlate a spectral fingerprint to thought...it doesn't make sense.

The distance radiation has from the brain, is quickly dissapated by ambient effects i.e it's micrometers, telepathy could possibly work if your head was next to somebody elses, and you had a way of decoding that information, but that is utterly impossible (see above). Plus, you can cheat the system, which renders it useless. More than happy to provide links.

It's a viral ad for Microsoft, I wonder if this will crop up on Mythbusters. I seem to remember they covered the Saatchi and Saatchi ad (surfing via dynamite in a river.) But yeah, it's fake.

That is alot of gullible people.

You said it, besides, appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy. Source for these pics please.

Well thank you for clearing the image up, I believe this maybe correct, but I believe the universe must have some kind of origin,

Of course it has an origin, but when people (at least the people I've spoken to) think about the birth of the Universe, they think of an expanding dot within some black space (usually black). Nothing is a hard thing to wrap your brain around.

and I know that the origin is everywhere after what we have disused, although this raises the question of the limits and beginnings of infinity...

This is still under much debate, i.e if the Universe is truly finite or infinite, I guess there's many ways of looking at it, once we get a general shape of the Universe, those questions will start to be whittled down. If you want some links, just ask.

What ? Like you said in your previous post that [math]a = b = 0[/math] and in the same sentence that [math]a \neq 0[/math] and [math] b \neq 0[/math]. So ?

It can still be linearly independent if you defined x, despite the coefficents of a and b (providing they don't equal 0.) What's the difference between putting a coefficient on x and defining x, if you want it to be linearly independent ?

However, I don't see the difference between 'all x', and 'any x' either. The problem is you didn't define x !

Consider the fact that there are one possibilities of getting snake eyes and the fact that there are

 

1 6

6 1

2 5

5 2

3 4

4 3

Right, but that's a rather odd way of putting it. The point is that the probability of getting a higher score decreases, due to the restriction of the scores, and specifically we're talking about phase cells i.e there is a restriction on position et.c.

Therefore, within a given energy [math]E[/math], which is the restriction, the larger the number of molecules, the smaller the probability of a molecule occupying any given phase cell when [math]E[/math] increases. It's exponential, and as already said, it's only for gases in equilibrium, here's a simpler equation...

[math]p = Ae^{-E/kt}[/math]

[math]p[/math] being the probability, and [math]A[/math] being the normalization factor, the latter term RHS (the exponential) is the Boltzmann factor. Disorder, is really a rewording of the probability of knowing the position and the velocity of a given molecule, though I think that was already covered (sorry if I'm repeating what's already been said.) It gets more complicated when QM comes into play.

Annoyingly, life has been getting in the way, and I haven't been posting much recently, that aside...

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None of you ever seen army of darkness?

'Well hello Mr Fancy Pants', was my old signature.

I gotta see this movie!!

Same...I want a fried shrimp T-shirt.

That was not a sarcastic "best movie trailer ever", some people actually have such a bad taste that they like this crap

Exactly, I wasn't being sarcastic. It's deliberately crap (though I wouldn't class it as such), the film is a comedy, it's a blatant parody. I admit, I was a bit tentative about posting it on here, though I knew some of you would 'get it.' I made sure to mention, it wasn't to everybodies taste.

My bet is that superclusters are gravitationally bound and ALL expansion is BETWEEN superclusters.

I'd personally be careful with 'gravitantionally bound', think of galaxies undergoing a dynamic slingshot type of effect. It depends on the velocity of the galaxies, and their trajectory.

The reason so many question expansion by saying "Hey look at Andromeda, it is not moving away from us!" is because not enough emphasis is placed on large-scale structure of the universe.

True, but Andromeda is a simple (observable) case, now try applying the same principle, to less obvious cases.

It's quite possibly the worst trailer ever.

Not a fan of fried shrimp...fair enough.

If you havn't seen this trailer already, for 'Robogeisha' (though not to everybodies taste) click on the link below. The narration does for it me.

It's a tad graphic in places