imatfaal

I must admit I have very little patience for journalists who mock and deride world experts - it all seems to come down to "I don't understand it, it has no immediate technological benefit, and its gonna take many more years for it to be testable" Well - Yes, it's advanced and cutting-edge theoretical physics. I have no proof to this statement - but i am fairly certain that John Horgan could not follow the maths that underlies the work of physicists such as hawking, susskind, greene, and witten (they gave him a fields medal FCOL) - and without the maths any understanding is shallow at best Advancing knowledge cannot be regimented and held to a timetable; sometimes it seems to stay still whilst various ideas are tried and fail - then it leaps forward. We can either be a society that constrains science and stagnates or one that embraces the highly speculative and theoretical and advances

If you have a good reason to need to read it, and yet you aren't yet in the situation where you would be expected to have personal/academic access to i; then the best option is a nice email to the authors. In many attempts I have only once been rebuffed; these are teachers and academics, they nearly always want to help (unless you are taking the mickey and should really be paying up for a copy).

Is the antiphoton main stream physics? I thought the photon was its own anti-particle.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive! Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17. Scottish author & novelist (1771 - 1832) Sorry - can't stop being a pedant

I am not sure quite what you are asking; we can see the CMBR because at its origins the entire volume of the galaxy was radiating/absorbing/scattering light - we can still detect the "last hurrah". But after the era of last scattering until now and onwards for many year only a miniscule portion of the volume of the galaxy was/is/willbe radiating; spotting localised events (ie fixed period of time and in certain place) is a hell of a lot more difficult than finding the CMBR

With respect PHDwannabe; it's time to strut your empirical stuff, and make some observations or even better get others to do it. I look forward to the publication of the results

Moontanman - where is SENC? I am from pretty close to central London and I am pretty sure there would be a riot if someone discovered any of the snakes on your list in their gardens. We only have a handful of native snakes and they are all very secretive - most people in the uk will never see a snake in the wild until they go abroad.

If you're serious - provide context, source, links, and as much data as you have. I rather doubt it though...

I would go along with Zapatos - perhaps you are also getting mixed up with car exhaust once in a while, so you tend not to notice where your breath ends and exhaust starts. Would need help here; but would the black of the asphalt absorb more heat than the more reflective lighter colour paving stones? This might leave the areas of air above roads as cooler and thus more likely to cause condensation (I think there is something wrong here)

Way to go! Remember that atmospheric conditions will affect speed of sound - ie increased air pressure. I would be tempted to set up a control set that I know distances of to calibrate everytime you measure

I hope everyone is checking their bingo cards

Widdekind - it gets beyond me, but I think that the only reason that we talk about and can easily visualize the rubber-sheet analogy working in two opposite ways is that it is a two dimension system embedded within a three dimensional space. Space time distortion is not embedded within a higher dimensional space (or if it is we are struggling to show it). To have a direction of distortion of the whole of space time - you need an extra dimension, and if one extra dimension why not two or three? And with three extra dimensions and (I guess) 8 further new directions of distortion how do you account for the additional 6 forms of distortion.

So your idea of argument is barely veiled threats of damnation. Again where is any stance on justice - you just seem to be peddling fear. You are making an assumption that an attitude of harsh punishment is the only bastion against social anarchy - this is highly contested; there is no point just saying how bad things can get, you need to prove the point that draconian law and enforcement make a difference. You say that we need to start enforcing laws - how? Do you really see the USA as too lax? How many more people can the USA jail? 1 in 100 adults are in jail - what margin of increase is left? Talk about a carceral society! And you would negatively judge me for being a "student, trying to save the world" would you? No, can't help you score cheap points there; I work in shipping, based in London, Piraeus, and New York.

It's obviously very difficult to say one way or another - but it is argued that Matthew the apostle was the writer. It's also argued and widely taught that matthew was originally written in hebrew, which does tally with matthew being the writer. quote from Wikipedia that states both your and my POV - I think on the whole the nays (ie your later Greek argument) have it

Surely Matthew the Apostle and Matthew the Evangelist are one and the same person! How much of what is in the gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew/Levi the tax collector is, of course, unknown; but they are meant to be the same person - and the later portions are a supposed first hand account (even if not written in the first person)

Glad I didn't waste much time on that!

I know the smirky feeling entirely - but for me it's that mad rush when the plane starts to accelerate, cos it's always harder than I remember.

Rigney - you talk about not understanding another's concept of justice and juxtapose it with an image of 'blade coming down to ...' How does a slightly sinister "I hope nothing nasty happens to you" type comment tie in with your ideas of justice? Do you think that muggers take a quick survey and only attack those who deny the morality, efficacy, and legality of the death penalty in a modern state? Also what makes you equate life imprisonment with exoneration? Even without a full life term (ie it is not mandated that the prisoner will live out their entire lives incarcerated) then a life prisoner is never exonerated or even able to "repay the debt to society" - the life prisoner may be allowed out of prison, but he/she remains on licence and subject to recall for the rest of their natural. i respectfully disagree - I would go with Blackstone (who wrote the book on Criminal Law) echoed by Ben Franklin "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

Great attitude to women - you take an hatchet to the airport and it's your wife's fault for not cleaning your suitcase out properly -what century is this?

Presume you have read about the Sokal Affair . I do think that the pendulum is in danger of swinging too far in the other direction - ie against post-modern readings of history; there is value in analysing critically the assumptions that are held to be true and form the underpinnings of our knowledge (but only in moderation and with a huge pinch of salt)

a little patronising perhaps in a modern society we look to checks, balances, and the division of power - but to rename this democracy is not essentially true interesting use of consent - I would prefer to deny the possibility of consent by duress or force I think redefining totalitarian and authoritarian as synonyms for absolute and non-contingent (especially in describing a rejection of violence) is both misleading and fairly insulting to those who have lived under totalitarian/authoritarian regimes. Absences of sufficient checks to power is a recipe for problems but not necessarily authoritarian rule - for example it can lead to runaway corruption and break down of effective rule

I am 100% natural and full of nuts