imatfaal

Michel - I would be another one, both my parents are lifelong catholics and even though I was raised a catholic around 16-17 yo I realised that I had no faith nor belief. Subsequent to that I realised that I was not merely unsure about religion, but that I believed that there was no god. I am not sure where you have got your figures from - perhaps there is regional variation - but the 99.99/0.01 split is not something that I recognise at all.

Exactly - you cannot choose to believe. I can understand that it must be very reassuring, comforting, and heartening to have a firm faith in your religion - and I almost envy the camaraderie , and pleasure that some friends have found through belief in god and membership of a religion. But I do not believe in god, and I do not choose to pretend that I do! And as Mr S said, what sort of omni-potent/-scient/-present supernatural being is going to be fooled into granting me eternal salvation when I have metaphorically crossed my fingers behind my back?

I think at the moment the jury is out - but the simplest argument is that these measurements are incorrect. It needs a lot more work and other teams will have to find similar results before any volte-face is considered. I will dig out the references I found when I heard about the actual results a few months back.

Practice giving the talk - I agree with almost everything said above, but I would add that a couple of practices are worth doing. A rehearsal (its got to be out loud - and yes, you will feel a bit of an idiot talking to an empty room) is essential in making sure

1. your timing is right (when I have had to assess presentations I always thought badly of the talks that only covered half the material or had to be wrapped up early because of time constraints.

2. that you will not trip up over certain sections. Unless you are reading a full script (not to be recommended) you can find that your written cue notes will be very hard to interpret whilst speaking at the same time.

3. if it's graded and the grade goes towards anything important - then I would also record one of my private attempts and listen back to it. It's a little weird listening to oneself - but you will be able to identify the areas you are fluent and more confident on and those that require a bit more thought

4. if this is allowed I would also recommend presenting it to a class mate first - his/her comments would be most useful.

Maybe it is Clingon.

That's a good call. I have no intention of trying it out - but it would be a nice code to set.

I think it has to be fairly simple; once you get beyond substitution things get very hard, very quickly. I once cracked a playfair cipher for a competition run by NOVA - it took me a couple of weeks AND I had knowledge of a three word phrase that was included (actually a choice of two phrases). If the cipher isn't simple, then I would guess, both the cipher used and a hint must be in the text given and for the life of me I cannot spot it.

Which is an example of why the use is different in math vs physics. In math there are things that are true but cannot be proven. In physics, you construct a model of some behavior. A good model will fail if it doesn't describe nature, which is the requirement of falsifiability and the desirable feature of precision. That can be a test of an axiom that is included. It doesn't have to test the axiom, because a model can fail in more than one way. F=ma is tested in that the relationship is linear, and you can construct experiments to show this. The constancy of the speed of light is tested in that there are ramifications of it, such as time dilation, and you would not get those results if c were frame-dependent.

In maths there are also things that are demonstrably not true - but using them as an axiom/postulate (that is accepted without proof) can be,or at least has been, highly beneficial. Amongst other things I am thinking, of course, of Euclid's Elements and the parallel postulate. One can make valid and important arguments whilst working with the the parallel postulate - yet non-Euclidean geometry shows that the postulate is not universally correct.

Do you not use such things in physics as well? I really would not know - but are there situations where you have to say to yourself "I know this is an incorrect model, but for some reason, in my particular circumstance, it produces predictions that tally with experiment"

The magnetic field is not caused by a simple lump of iron which is magnetic - as you pointed out the iron is above the curie point (about 1000 deg c IIRC) and is no longer a simple magnet. The field is caused by electric currents which flow around/through the core in a rolling cylindircal formation (caused by coriolis) that are aligned NS. You could visualise this as a series of convection currents which form the outer realm of the liquid core - the axis of these rotations is north south - ie a ring of rotating currents around the central mass. This is known as the dynamo effect - but I cannot find a decent webpage to demonstrate nor can I find the words to explain.

Khaled - fyg the n v np problem has already been claimed, although the proof is hotly disputed as inadequate and too prose-based rather than mathematically-rigorous. you can read up about the proposed proof here at Dick Liptons Blog.

Cedric Villani - who was awarded a Fields Medal last year in Hyderabad - admitted that he struggled to follow some of the presentations of the other medalists at the convention. I am not sure if it is possible to be a generalist in mathematics anymore - ie someone who can have a good understanding of the majority of cutting edge maths. Villani compared mathematical diversion to the spread of languages - no matter how well versed you are in one area it does not help you in other areas because even the basis of communications, the language, is different. My point is that mathematics has developed to such a state that it would be practically impossible for one human to be able to attempt more than one of the problems. It is great that you have the drive and ambition to learn - but perhaps a bit of generalised knowledge before specialising.

G'luck

Thank you for those links. Have you ever tried to get math books from your local library? My local library does not have a good selection of math books. I will be using the links to access information and books.

 

How long have been doing origami and what do you hope to achieve?

Luckily I have access to a university library - so I can access any maths books I need - I would dread to think how difficult it would be to get decent texts from a public library. I tend to work on these models from feeling and eye-measurement though - we are remarkably good at telling if an angle is 90deg or a triangle is equilateral etc, and too much trigonometry makes me think of school.

My elder brother bought me a book of mathematical models to cut out and construct for my 9th or 10th birthday - so I have been making papercraft for close to 30 years (Damn. Thats a horrible thought - 30 years!!!). My house, office and frankly everywhere I have ever been are dotted with polyhedra and origami made from anything from toilet paper to sheet metal. Modular Origami is a relatively new craze for me - I love the complexity from simplicity of modular origami and i am quite hooked. I spend a fair proportion of my day on the phone, and when I am not making comments on various fora like this one I am folding or cutting paper.

The amazing and beautiful curved folds on the erik demaine (ass prof at MIT in his 20s wow!) website are my latest pursuit - I am trying to work out a nice curved modular base to construct complicated models from, as yet with no good results

An amendment to the constitution can and has been repealed (admittedly not one of the bill of rights). The chances of that happening to the second are, I agree, practically zero. I cannot see any likelihood of Scotus getting any more involved than it already is and last two cases the majority/plurality confirmed the right to bear arms (in limited and constrained legal questions)

Using YdoaPs method I found the original source - well I assume it is the original.

The layout is a bit suspect (ie it's not in fives and why are linebreaks where they are)

There is also a line missing in the OPs message - the first half is (I believe) geocache argot for non-geocachers, whether the second half is a joke or a hint to the solution I don't know

Klingon muggles have been seen in the area, beware! The use of the Vulcan nerve pinch might be needed.

I don't think it is substitution - no pattern matches dilithium, which I would guess would be included; nor congratulations. there is only one possible way coordinates can go in and it makes nonsense elsewhere. if there is any longish word or phrase that you think is likely to be there let us know

Why not ask the man stating this for an address of a reputable museum that has one of the bones - or even better a full skeleton!

The links you made only had reference to a replica of a bone from a description - and both the sites seemed to be overly religious - they use quotes from Genesis to show the existence of giants. We have nothing against religion - but it means nothing in a scientific debate that a holy book says one thing or denies another.

Anecdotally - I have been visiting the natural history museum in London all my life, and I have never seen a super-sized human bone such as the one claimed. I am sure that a museum like that would have done anything to get hold of a giant bone if they existed. I would have thought that a nice letter to your national museum of natural history (or the ones in London, New York etc) would get a reply that you can trust. Museums exist to educate and provide information about what we know and I am sure they would be able to help

deleted - not worth saying

Tony - same convention of avoiding 0000 is used in shipping with certain arrangements for which 'incorrect' version you use - you arrive at 2359 and you sail at 0001; the option starts at 0001 and closes at 2359; hire payments start at 0001, finish at 2359 and 24 hours have elapsed in between.

There is no axiom-free basis to explanations of physical phenomenon - there is no fundamental "why" (is there in any field?) . We learn to explain, understand, model and predict observations and the results of experiments - as soon as the empirical side is completely removed then how can we test and prove our ideas. Philosophically your explanation is as good as any other; physically the explanation that match perceived facts and provides useful predictions is the one we follow.

I know it's not exactly on topic, but I assume that the site of the 4-d rubix cube (that's simulation of 4 spatial dimensions) has been posted here in the past. Even so here it is again - Magic Cube . Its very silly and very clever at the same time.

For some mathematical approaches to origami, modular origami, and other paper arts you could do worse than check out the pages of erik demaine or thomas hull - both academics in maths. Tom Hull designed the modular origami that I made and photographed for my photo to the right of this post. (technically it is five interlocking tetrahedra)

I think the problem you are having is that you are not clear in your terms. You ask for £10 interest per DAY from 7% interest per YEAR. There are many different answers depending on your compounding period.

7% annual compound interest is not well defined (because apart from on an annual basis) because we cannot calculate the equivalent daily/monthly/etc rate. If we assume you get 7% per year and it is compounded monthly then the monthly rate to give that 7% is 0.5654% (1.07^1/12). Redo the calc that Bignose explained with this interest rate per month. By my reckoning you need 52-53K depending on whether it is simple or compound

Twinbird

I would personally take write h term as ... - h(2kA+2mg)... Otherwise I think you have it. I havent had a look at your other thread on the derivation of the equation - I hope that bit is right after the amount of hard grind you have had on this side. Good Luck.

Fuzzwood

That looks like a the quadratic equation solution - however the coefficient of the h term is -2mg-2kA (ie two negative portions). and more importantly where is the square root term - the equation as I know it would be

[-b +/- (b^2 - 4ac)^1/2]/2a

in latex this looks nicer

[math] \frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}[/math]

Ancient DNA can be recovered - we have DNA from neanderthal man. You need to be lucky for it to be preserved that long - and I think it tends to be in teeth rather than bones. Cold temperatures help preserve DNA, as do the specific soil characteristics

AOK - still not quite with you - but getting there I hope. Still not sure about the "my body turned to ashes"

I presume by ashes you mean the remains of decomposition - I have never heard these called ashes, but that is neither here nor there. Bacteria and micro-organisms are incredibly good at breaking down dead animals - without that we would be waste deep in bodies. It might strike some as a horrible thought but our bodies are eaten by small animals and micro-organisms.

I would suggest that the best one could say is that with cremation the remains are fairly uniform ie ashes, bone chips, and minerals - whereas the biodecomposed remains could vary from complete natural mummification (ie some of the bodies discovered in anaerobic peat bogs) to complete recycling where the only clue is discoloured ground. The minerals of bones (calcium compounds) would, as a guess, be the last to go and would remain in the cremation ashes; but everything else that remained would depend on the local flora and fauna.

AOK - do you have some reference for the bit about bones buried turning to ashes? Could you post a link to where you read this?

I am not an expert, or an archaeologist but I have seen bones being excavated from graves that are thousands of years old (a few times live and many times on TV). Sometimes the soil is acidic and the bones are degraded or lost - and I am sure there are many other circumstances that will stop bones being preserved - but bone does not automatically turn into dust and ashes when buried.

One thing I cannot comprehend about holiday planning is why people choose to travel thousands of miles just to go someplace warm with a sandy beach?! That sounds to me like a holiday worthy of an amphibian or reptile, but nothing that a sentient human being would seek out for thousands of dollars of expense and hours of plane travel. If you want to be warm and sit in warm water, then that seems to be a good reason for turning up the heat in your bathroom and sitting in a tub full of hot water, but not for planning a travel destination. If sand is all that vital (for laying your eggs perhaps?), then by all means, spend $10 for a few buckets of clean sand to dump in the tub.

 

The only reason for travel worthy of human intelligence would be visiting friends and family or enjoying cultural and historical sights abroad.

I thought you had lived in the UK? The climate alone is enough to persuade people to travel hundreds or thousands of miles for a decent chance of some sun. And secondly, swimming in the sea is magical. Travelling can be justified by the need to somewhere removed from one's normal milieu. I live in a country where it is practically impossible to get properly lost, water is freely available, where are no dangerous animals apart from the other humans, and where no wilderness remains; I like to know sometimes that this is not the case.

Relaxation comes in many forms; if what it takes for one to leave the quotidian grind behind is the gentle susurration of the sea, the strange mineral conformity of the beach, the plaintive calls of gulls, and the promise of a cold beer in a beach side taverna, then so be it. To declare that one's own delights are the only pleasures worthy of human intelligence is egocentric and unrealistic.

I check them out when I see them. Sometimes there is a link in the profile, and occasionally there is a link in the post, with the color matched to the background. Sometimes it's a setup for coming back later and inserting a link where the post won't raise attention — they aren't soliciting us so much as trying to raise their search-engine rank. That doesn't work because the ability to edit sunsets after a short time.

...

Damn! I knew the mods here were acknowledged experts in their field and fairly powerful and active on the forums; but you can command whether the sun rises or sets! That's positively godlike - no wonder you get stars below your name.