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KJW

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Everything posted by KJW

  1. Is that really true though? There's a whole "incel" culture out there whose very existence is based on the notion that that isn't true.
  2. Quite a while ago, I suggested to a colleague that dolphins can't be as intelligent as humans because they don't have hands. My point was that dolphins are physically incapable of developing technology regardless of how intellectually capable their brains are. And because their intellectual capability would be naturally limited by their physical capability, their intellectual capability would necessarily be less than ours (though I do acknowledge that dolphins do possess physical capabilities that humans don't possess without technology, and therefore it's not as straightforward as simple ordering of intellectual capability).
  3. Depends on what the point was. I see no reason why such a journey would have to include living humans. Self replicating machines could make the journey, the time scale would be meaningless. Humans could be constructed once the ship arrives... assuming that humans are still the point. Did you actually read the OP or the linked article? It wasn't really dealing with the problems of transporting humans, and therefore "self-replicating machines" doesn't address the problems stated in the article. The article was about, among other things, the amount of a given type of fuel required to achieve a speed of 0.1c, given that the mass of that fuel adds to the amount of fuel required. No, no magical mcguffin is necessary, just technology and the desire to expand human civilization. I would have to think that controlled fusion is necessary as well. Lack of practical fusion power, IMHO, would be a deal breaker, but fusion power is just 20 years away. The article dealt with nuclear fusion, and to achieve a speed of 0.1c would require a total mass of fuel that is 150 times the mass of the ship itself. The article also points out that the longer the mission, the more likely it is for disasters such as system malfunctions to take place. And even at 0.1c, colliding with interstellar particles could erode even the most resilient engineering materials.
  4. Why are you comparing blind humans with falcons that need to have excellent eyesight rather than with animals living in complete darkness that are totally blind and don't need sight?
  5. Trump is claiming that the Reflecting Pool was vandalised (by the left, of course). Would that even be possible (short of an industrial scale event)?
  6. That's the lie the elite tells the hoi polloi to divert the blame for the problems of society away from themselves and towards minorities.
  7. I've seen the movie "Sully", and I've also seen the episode of "Air Crash Investigation" (aka "Mayday", etc) about this investigation. I don't recall any mention of AI being used in the investigation. They did use real pilots in a flght simulator to test whether or not it was possible for the pilot for get back to the airport safely. It was initially determined that it was possible for the pilot to get back to the airport safely. However, Captain Sullenberger pointed out that these initial tests failed to take into account realistically the time it takes for the pilot to come to terms with what has happened and to weigh the various options available. When subsequent tests were performed that took into account a realistic amount of delay, none of the pilots succeeded in the flght simulator to return to the airport safely.
  8. You may find answers to your questions in the Wikipedia articles 5-HT receptor and Psilocin.
  9. KJW replied to DrmDoc's topic in The Lounge
    Today I learned about alpha-gal syndrome, a potentially life-threatening allergy to mammalian products such as meat and milk, acquired from tick bites. Specifically, it is an allergy to the epitope of the carbohydrate molecule galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose ("alpha-gal"). According to the Wikipedia article, the alpha-gal molecule is naturally found in the bodies of all mammal species except catarrhines (apes and Old World monkeys), the taxonomic branch that includes humans. Alpha-gal can also be found in the saliva of insects including certain tick species. It is through the saliva of tick bites that humans can become sensitised to alpha-gal, a substance foreign to humans, and therefore become sensitised to mammalian products. Alpha-gal is also present in many manufactured products, including medication and medical products.
  10. I found this YouTube video about "Hyperoperations" which may be of interest. I especially found the "Commutative hyperoperations" at around 16:32 to be interesting.
  11. There are also sesquiterpenes with molecular formula C15H24. A monoterpene has molecular formula C10H16 and consists of two isoprene units (C5H8). Thus, a sesquiterpene consists of three isoprene units, hence the "sesqui" prefix.
  12. Although I'm unfamiliar with the term "sesquation", I am aware of the concept. This is reminiscent of the notion of fractional calculus and the fractional Fourier transform. And the gamma function: [math]\displaystyle \Gamma(z) = \int_{0}^{\infty}\!t^{z-1}\,e^{-t}\,dt[/math] which can be regarded as a fractional form of the factorial function: [math]\displaystyle \Gamma(n) = (n-1)![/math] Interestingly, although there are an infinite number of functions [math]\displaystyle f(x)[/math] that satisfy: [math]\displaystyle f(x+1) = x\,f(x)\ \ \text{for all}\ \ x > 0,\ \ f(1) = 1[/math] the gamma function is the only such function that is logarithmically convex (see Bohr-Mollerup theorem).
  13. If by "present" one means the present defined by the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric, while the idea probably doesn't conflict with known physics, it is probably quite meaningless in the sense of having no observable consequences contrasting with the notion of a block universe in which the future pre-exists. In other words, the idea violates Occam's razor.
  14. KJW replied to KJW's topic in The Sandbox
    [math]\overline{\underset{^{\large \sim}}{\partial}}{}^{}_{t} \overline{\mathfrak{T}}{}^{r_\lambda}_{s_\lambda}\ \ \ \underset{^{\large \sim}}{\partial}{}^{}_{k} \mathfrak{T}{}^{i_\lambda}_{j_\lambda}[/math]
  15. KJW replied to DrmDoc's topic in The Lounge
    It's my understanding that it is due to the dependency mismatch between the time it takes an engine to do anything, which is inversely proportional to the engine speed, and the constant time of deflagration of the fuel-air mixture in the combustion chamber.
  16. KJW replied to KJW's topic in The Sandbox
    This looks intimidating... What sort of beast is it? I should also remark that the mathematics is stock standard mathematics used in general relativity. That you call it "intimidating" is revealing about your understanding of general relativity. I personally regard the mathematics as beautiful, although actually doing the mathematics, especially the index manipulations, can be quite tedious to do manually.
  17. KJW replied to KJW's topic in The Sandbox
    Bear in mind this is "The Sandbox" used for testing how the forum behaves, such as LaTeX code. However, the mathematics itself is about the Lie derivative, a tensorial derivative that is different to the covariant derivative and is independent of the connection.
  18. KJW replied to KJW's topic in The Sandbox
    [math]\displaystyle {\large £}[V{}^{u}] \mathfrak{T}{}^{i_1\ .\ .\ .\ i_p}_{j_1\ .\ .\ .\ j_q} = V{}^{u} \partial{}_{u} \mathfrak{T}{}^{i_1\ .\ .\ .\ i_p}_{j_1\ .\ .\ .\ j_q} - \sum_{\phi = 1}^{p} \partial{}_{u} V{}^{i_\phi}\ \mathfrak{T}{}^{i_1\ .\ .\ .\ i_{\phi - 1}\ u\ i_{\phi + 1}\ .\ .\ .\ i_p}_{j_1\ .\ .\ .\ j_q} + \sum_{\phi = 1}^{q} \partial{}_{j_\phi} V{}^{u}\ \mathfrak{T}{}^{i_1\ .\ .\ .\ i_p}_{j_1\ .\ .\ .\ j_{\phi - 1}\ u\ j_{\phi + 1}\ .\ .\ .\ j_q} +\ w\ \partial{}_{u} V{}^{u}\ \mathfrak{T}{}^{i_1\ .\ .\ .\ i_p}_{j_1\ .\ .\ .\ j_q}[/math] [math]\displaystyle \overline{{\large £} [V{}^{v}] \mathfrak{T}}{}^{r_1\ .\ .\ .\ r_p}_{s_1\ .\ .\ .\ s_q} = {\large £}[V{}^{u}] \mathfrak{T}{}^{i_1\ .\ .\ .\ i_p}_{j_1\ .\ .\ .\ j_q} \left(\prod_{\lambda = 1}^{p} \dfrac{\partial \overline{x}{}^{r_\lambda}}{\partial x{}^{i_\lambda}}\right) \left(\prod_{\lambda = 1}^{q} \dfrac{\partial x{}^{j_\lambda}}{\partial \overline{x}{}^{s_\lambda}}\right) \left|\dfrac{\partial x{}^{j}}{\partial \overline{x}{}^{s}}\right|^w[/math]
  19. A particle's frequency corresponds to its energy, nothing more. To suggest anything more is to peddle woo. An eigenstate is one of the possible states that result from an observation.
  20. I looked at the video but the part I was most interested in was a secret. Even before I watched the video, I was expecting the liquid glass to be a silylating agent. There is nothing new about silylating agents in general. For example, they are used to render laboratory glassware hydrophobic. However, I was curious about the specific silylating agent in this case, which might be quite novel. I anticipate that the silylating agent would be more "glasslike" than typical silylating agents (which have organic groups attached).
  21. I doubt that Newton's laws or Kepler's laws were named by Newton or Kepler after themselves. More likely, they were named by other people somewhat later. Actually, it is quite common for a law to be given the name of someone who is not the person who originally discovered it. From Wikipedia article "Stigler's law of eponymy": Stigler's law of eponymy, proposed by University of Chicago statistics professor Stephen Stigler in 1980, states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Examples include Hubble's law, which was derived by Georges Lemaître two years before Edwin Hubble; the Pythagorean theorem, which was known to Babylonian mathematicians and to Indian mathematicians before Pythagoras; and Halley's Comet, which was observed by astronomers since at least 240 BC (although its official designation is due to the first ever mathematical prediction of such astronomical phenomenon in the sky, not to its discovery). Stigler attributed the discovery of Stigler's law to sociologist Robert K. Merton. (From htps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy)
  22. I assume that. However, it is reasonable to assume that a downvote came from the one antagonistic person who did post in the thread.
  23. some bigotries which very common in this forum. step 1: one demonstrates or proposes an opinion. step 2: a well known member attempts to disagree to that opinion. step3 : there is occuring of existence of many members downvoting that opinion (regardless the reality in that opinion, in fact this is a weakness of opinionating). And this is bigotry, isn't it? I don't understand who is who in the above. In the "Today I Learned in Mathematics" thread, only Genady and studiot were downvoted, and they were presumably by you (as the only person with the motive to downvote these two posters).
  24. KJW replied to KJW's topic in The Sandbox
    [math]R{}_{p}^{\mskip{0.05 cm}·}{}_{t}^{\mskip{0.05 cm}·}{}_{p}^{\mskip{0.05 cm}·}{}^{p}_{\mskip{0.05 cm}·}{}^{t}_{\mskip{0.05 cm}·}{}_{p}^{\mskip{0.05 cm}·}{}_{p}^{\mskip{0.05 cm}·}[/math] [math]R{}_l{}_q{}^r{}_s{}_t{}^g{}^v{}^h{}_x[/math]
  25. That's it!! Just to clarify, the definition says, "for each y in S", which includes x0, whereas y must not be equal to x0.

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