imatfaal

Because the whole of this thread is based on peoples misconceptions and assumptions of knowledge. Another "comment" post was not needed. I hoped that the posters who were happy to make wide-scale assumptions might take time to read a little. And frankly your point is always to question the stance of the poster and, whilst this does well in JCRs, it is fairly hackneyed and tiresome. Additionally I made my stance quite clear in another thread, in a post that you responded to http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/55820-popular-control-of-global-oil/

Here is a link to an Amnesty report on the Human Rights situation in Libya mid last year - perhaps some of the posters could acquaint themselves with the realities of life in Libya before painting it as the land of milk and honey http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE19/007/2010/en/65e2d9ca-3b76-4ea8-968f-5d76e1591b9c/mde190072010en.pdf

I knew someone who designed prosthetics - he was both a mecheng (to Doctoral level) AND MBChB, so he covered both bases. And per DocRock - Cambridge in the UK offer joint MbChB/PhD programmes and I am sure they are not alone

And that's the Zirconium Alloy cladding the fuel pellets - thanks Louis.

JImmy - I think you make very good points, and maybe this is an issue that might be brought more into the popular view with the very public stripping of Guttenberg's PhD in Germany and other investigations. Personally, I think a greater danger to academic integrity is the non-publishing of adverse data in the medical/pharmacological arena. I believe there are moves to address this problem but it cannot be right to carry out multiple drug trials and only allow release of data from those that suit the drug company. Back on topic - is this form of data manipulation not one of the very reasons that we have peer review? I think a very strong distinction also needs to be drawn between the dedicated researcher that over-reaches himself/herself and massages data to fit a strongly held conviction; and the more pernicious cynical manipulation of the knowing fraud who lies in order to further a career.

Could someone explain where the Hydrogen that exploded comes from? I guess something is splitting the water - but what? Is something oxidising and freeing up Hydrogen from water? The fuel is already an oxide so it's not that - and I cannot see that it could be electrolysis

But the difference between our two views is that I have a very good working knowledge of Libya having worked closely with Libya and the Libyans for many years. I repeat he is a mad dog - a charismatic revolutionary leader who has decayed into a brutal psychotic. You are making a false connexion; that questioning the motives of the forces behind the no-fly zone must entail a revision of the presented view of Qadaffi. This is not the case; Qadaffi can and is a danger to his people and security in the region AND the coalition doesn't have solely humanitarian goals

I will be interested if you can post more info once data gathering is complete

If your spoken English is half as good as your written English you will be fine. Get BBC radio 4 or BBC Worldservice on the radio or through the web to get your ear used to spoken English. The other benefit of science, IT, etc. is that a common language of maths almost exists to ease any communication problems - I presume Montenegran schools and universities all use the same systems and notations as we do in England, so you are almost half way there. BTW I am sure that the British Council will have an office in Montenegro - they might well be able to offer seminars etc by native English speakers so that you can get your first taste in a more familiar setting. http://www.britishcouncil.org/montenegro.htm

Great post Marat. Are we getting to a point of historical imperative when the "armies of strong, healthy, but unemployed people in search of work" join together and start to .... ...sorry getting carried away there.

Erm how? Everyone is increasing exports and decreasing imports - so where is all this stuff going? Are they just throwing it overboard mid-ocean? Forced population exchanges are technically war crimes under the remit of the ICC - but I guess you refer to voluntary, but what situation would lead to large groups being willing to move in both directions? One direction sure, but in both directions?

I think it is more to do with the idea that he has presided over an incredibly brutal military dictatorship for decades, actively tried to destabilize nascent democracies in Africa, funded and armed terrorist groups of almost every persuasion, and is completely looney tunes into the bargain. I would not defend many of the regimes in north-africa and the gulf states - they are dictatorial and repressive and I desire their downfall; but Qadaffi is another league of brutality and oppression.

Trip - don't panic it's not an accusation; it was once thought of as an unanswerable loaded question. Answer Yes - and you admit you were beating your wife . Answer No and you admit you are still beating your wife. Mr Skeptic was just retorting with another question that does not readily admit to an answer. BTW modern practices mean that Farmboys very cute answer defuses the question with an answer that does not reflect badly on the respondent

Djorde - Sounds like you have a good handle on it and have your eyes wide open - that's almost all the battle.

What's the equation - and what have you tried? I presume you can write it as ax2+bx+c=0 (if b = 0 it's either really easy or impossible to find real roots). The next step is to see if you can write it any other way - Do you understand how to factorise a quadratic? - And what you can easily tell from a quadratic written in a factorised form? So let us know where you started and where you have got to and then we can move on.

Djorde - Oh yeah it is definitely internationally recognized - and I believe every undergrad course will accept it (don't quote me on this) but what might be worth getting a handle on is the relative difficulty of offers. A levels have kinda topped out now - many universities demand straight As for the majority of courses. Could the greater span of grading on the IB benefit or endanger you on this? Perhaps this is a bit cynical but I would want to know if I was putting myself in a position where I might have to way outperform A level students to get on the same course - it could be the other way around of course. Personally I wish I had been given the choice - my school did A levels and that was it. Good luck whatever path you take

Djorde - I am sure that UCAS or some such organisation can guide you on the hard realities of access to higher education with an IB. Depth of learning and enjoyment are one factor, however we also want to be able to get into the university of our choice. I have no idea what the relative merits are myself - but I would want to know what the Russell Group etc thought the merits were before I took a decision.

And it's not just money that it costs - it uses energy and lowers the efficiency of the whole set up. If we were to make all of our power stations (not just nuclear) as safe and as non-polluting as technically possible we would be in huge global energy debt. Nuclear power plants are built to a standard that would shame any other industry due to the perceived increased risk of nuclear energy. But, in the words of the bard, "shit happens" - we build to a very high tolerance or we build to a lower tolerance, but every action hides a risk reward calculation and sometimes we don't get the payout we were hoping for

The cosmological principle states that we see the same (on large scales) whichever direction we look AND that we would see the same if we were looking from somewhere else in the universe. The large scale bit can sometimes confuse - as an idea try looking at google satellite maps of London - very high magnification you can see the people and it is clearly not all the same (homogeneous), but if you zoom out it's just a grey blob. When you look at large scales and average out the universe is very boring and uniform - and with this we can make predictions.

I would definitely fall into the category of 'reader of popular mathematics' not 'writer of popular mathematics' but I do have one major bugbear that I think differentiates good popular science writing from bad. I think it is vital to pick a level of sophistication and stick to it - too many books I read start off holding my hand to an annoyingly patronising extent yet later the author seems to forget the non-academic nature of the work and leave me stranded - it's like the cycle lanes that are well marked and separated from the carriage-way on the nice wide open road but disappear as soon as you get to the junction where you might need some help! At a mathematical curiosity and recreational level Martin Gardner was a league apart - and his writing is still fresh and engaging. At a less sophisticated and more historical level to yours (I presume) Simon Singh gets fairly complicated ideas across very well, and does manage to be a steady guide for the whole trip. The best short piece I have read recently was the brief introduction to Tensors by Joseph C Kolecki on NASAs website suggested by Ydoaps. I will search out the link.

Hoping that [imath]\phi-4-all[/imath] is right in saying that you mean living human skin for the benefit of the individual concerned - any other alternative is not pleasant. We can use the skin as a test surface before putting potentially noxious chemicals in our body. Please note I heard the following in a survival context not a scientific context so I must warn you not to take as proven fact - but in a situation where the only things to eat are berries, fungi etc that could be highly toxic, the first stage is merely to smell them (if the smell makes you gag or is very unpleasant then discard) the next is to rub a tiny amount onto the skin (to check for irritation), then onto the lips etc. It's not fool proof but, according to my teachers it does remove some very unpleasant surprises. Of course the first rule is stick to meat, fish and stuff you can positively identify - but after that... The same idea of testing a substance (that will eventually be taken internally) on the skin first is used in allergy testing http://en.wikipedia....in_allergy_test

The two spheres are the same. You could define a sphere as the locus of all points a distance R away from a certain point - the same sphere could by convention be defined as the locus of all points -R from a certain point. Each point defined by a +R would be diametrically opposite the point defined by -R, but as you are looking at all points in order to create the sphere that doesn't really matter. It doesn't, in my thoughts, require any concept of a negative / different space and it isn't an inverse. I think you are getting hung up on your definition of what R is (and forgive me if you are not); it is not merely away from the origin, it is away from the origin in a direction specified by the other two components. A negative R is a movement away from the origin in the opposite direction. There is a mathematical expression for -R values - you gave it in your first post. For the sphere - no there is no relationship expression because, if I am right, they are exactly the same. Think of the differences of two lines - one formed by moving +2 in the x-axis from the origin and the other -2 in the x-axis from the point 2,0,0; they are formed differently, but are exactly the same.

Rich - I think you are over complicating matters. To get a negative r flip the elevation over; it's a convention. You could think of it in these terms; take your 'standard' spherical coordinate - you can envisage simplistically turning to your azimuthal angle, setting your elevation, and proceeding R units along that direction. For -R you proceed R units in the opposite direction - which is the same as flipping over your elevation or adding 180deg ( or [imath]\tau/2[/imath] radians) Trying to tie this in with the equation of a sphere in spherical coordinates is a little pointless - every minus r can be equally well represented by a positive and vice versa. I don't know which contexts require this - but if you don't why the worry?

It's been a long time since I read any Asimov but "Almost all of Asimov's many stories result in very bad things happening to humans by robots following these laws." reads more like a summary of the films based on Asimov rather than the books themselves