swansont

But what science depends on the reliability of senses? e.g. one uses CCDs and photodetectors and the measurement of a photocurrent, not the eyes, to measure light intensities. You use a microphone to measure sound, not your ears. Data and calculations aren't optical illusions that can fool the brain. edit: D'oh. Didn't scroll all the way down and see YT's post.

No, but it was at a similar level (navy, enlisted personnel, most right out of high school). The majority of people who take physics (or post here) are probably not physics majors, and the majority of students in many places do not take physics at all. Within the sphere of physics, vectors are simple concepts, only because of a whole bunch of stuff that's harder. As you note, your sampling was limited to engineers in grad school and industry, which is not representative. If the OP had been in the context of something more advanced than the first part of first-semester physics, then your statement probably would not have been noticed, since the responce would have been along the lines of "How did you get this far if you don't know the simple difference between a scalar and a vector?"

I don't think anyone is denying that the correlation exists. The error, however, would be in the contention that you can then say that solar is the (major) cause of the warming during this period. ("solar activity was the prime driver of global warming from 1900 to 1940, which is correct, and is clearly and demonstrably correct from the data") because if solar caused warming then, why does sunspot activity anti-correlate from ~1942-1955, and 1870-1880? From 1880-1910, where sunspot is ~ flat, the temperature decreases; all of this span has a constant increase in CO2. Obviously, there are other factors in play (which does not rule out the correlation being completely coincidental and acausal, but I don't think anyone would advance that hypothesis), and if you haven't accounted for and quantified them, then such a conclusion as you make isn't scientifically defensible.

My experience as a physics instructor puts you in the minority in thinking they are easy concepts. Everone thinks they are an expert. One source of problems with internet discussions occurs when people assert opinion as fact, and subjective experience as if it were objective truth.

The transmission will depend on how much open area you have, so "hit the wall" is certainly an option. The observation of inetrference is made only on those that pass through, not on the ones that hit. Going through the slits still leaves you with a particle that can interfere with itself.

I think that either presupposes a particular definition of "dominate" or "market." Publicly-traded companies have a responsibility to their shareholders, but that does not extend to them losing money to grab market share. IANAL, but it seems to me that a company can choose not to produce a cheap product, especially if part of the corporation's value is their brand and reputation for quality. And if they can't make a profit, they don't make the product. So either dominate doesn't mean "try to become a monopoly," or "market" has to be segmented, e.g. Apple is trying to dominate the high-end touchscreen phone market, but they are not trying to dominate the cellphone market.

You should also compare their mass, and the consequent effect on speed (for the same energy), which affects how long the can interact with a particular target, and have a chance at ionizing it. The charge only gives you a factor of two in interaction strength.

Yes, this is a science forum. Some people here know, for instance, that heat doesn't create energy. Using the scientific definition of the term, heat is a process that transfers energy. A subtle (perhaps) but important distinction from the lay use that equates the two. Perhaps you meant to say that a steam engine is used to convert thermal energy into mechanical work.

There's money in them thar browsers. in 2005, Mozilla earned more than $50 million, mostly from funneling traffic to Google. MS may have wanted to add value, but they also wanted to have a hand in how you surf the web, because there's money to be made in doing that. No, I don't think so. When consumers have a real choice, i.e. there is no monopoly, then market forces will have more of an effect. If your product isn't good, people can go elsewhere. But when you are a monopoly, the consumer has less choice (or none at all), and you have to scrutinize those companies more. And I disagree that Apple it trying to dominate the cellphone market. They're going after the high-end niche, not the masses. If you don't like the iPhone, there will always be others you can buy. But if, somehow, that ends up not being the case, and Aplle becomes a monopoly, then they will have to behave according to more stringent rules. I think people want a free browser that doesn't suck, which explains why Firefox and Safari, et. al, have market share.

But, as I believe you've said before, this time it's different, and we're focused on very recent history. The last ~100 years does not show correlation over all of that span. Since we know that solar activity should and does have an effect, what is left is quantifying the other factors that must be present.

No, not really. I was asking for clarification of your use of the term "acquire." The browser lawsuit of a few years ago was based (as far as my recollection/understanding goes) that it was unfair for Microsoft to use their monopoly on the OS to also dominate the browser market. The forced consumers to use IE because it was bundled in the OS and could not easily be disabled, nor could other browsers work as well with the OS. So when you say they "acquired" a monopoly in the browser market, AFAIK it was done by illegally leveraging/exploiting their monopoly in the OS market. Several states took antitrust action. So to point out that they didn't have a monopoly in the browser market isn't relevant. They had a monopoly in the OS that they leveraged. What monopoly does Apple have that they are leveraging?

But didn't they "acquire" the market, in part, by making their OS use their own browser by default, as an integrated part of the OS? I thought that was the whole point of the legal action.

Is their marriage going to be monopolistic or open-source?

Looking for correlation by inspection on a graph is preliminary analysis at best. You can't have something be causal only part of the time, so since the graph does not show correlation for the whole run, you simply have to look at all of the factors and quantify the effects. Sunspots can't cause warming for only those 30 years and then not at other times. So the next question is how much of an effect does solar have, and it seems that this has been addressed.

You've got a baseball in a condom, and the problem the mental image poses to you is the orientation? It reminds me of the joke about cold-war propaganda: the Russians asked the US to please send them condoms 12" long x 3" in diameter. LBJ gave the OK, as long as they were marked "medium."

Your mind assumes certain things, like lighting from some direction. My guess is that it's partly due to there being no depth from shading to give you cues, and the foot shadow is really subtle. I had her spinning CCW and then she switched to CW. It was weird.

It's a great oral question, though, IMO. And better suited to oral rather than written exams.

The issue is that they are day-one concepts (or even prerequisite concepts) that cause problems much, much later if they are absent. People are still wrestling with vector vs scalar issues when the teacher had hoped to be addressing physics concepts, that are more difficult to convey without a good grounding in the basics.

What do you think?

Except that they are sometimes called [math]\beta[/math]-rays. ——— the tree already mentioned what alphas and betas are. What are gammas, and what are x-rays?

I wouldn't even modify it with an "ever so slightly." The difference between scalar and vector is an important distinction, and when you blur that (as in getting sloppy in distinguishing speed and velocity) you can get into some difficulty.

Seeing a correlation is where the science starts. It's not where it ends.

Obviously you would need sufficiently rugged material to withstand an atmosphere of pressure difference. It was more a gedanken experiment than practical suggestion, though.

If you questioned how it was somehow odd or contradictory that a chair could be more massive and dense than a person, then, yes. The implication (to me) was that there was some conundrum in having the top quark be as massive as a gold nucleus, but a gold nucleus contains no top quarks.

Two notes: Referring to mass in terms of energy is a common shorthand in physics; the c^2 is inferred. Neutrons and protons that comprise nuclei are made up of up and down quarks, so the comparison with the top quark mass with a gold nucleus isn't really apt. I'm not sure in what mesons the top quark appears, if any.