antimatter

*Many people are undecided if mathematics is a science or not. Some mathematicians think of themselves as scientists (I do for example, but then my work is very much rooted in physics) and others do not.

It is a huge point of fascination that just about all areas of "pure mathematics" can be useful if not essential in describing the real world.

I think of math as the language of science. Quite similar to what you said in the second quote. It's what we use to explain and back up our observations, and to make theoretical predictions.

Maybe I'm wrong to think that math 'belongs' to science, and isn't really its own separate field.

So perhaps it would stay under cover and be more subtle than a massive bomb wiping out everything within a certain radius? A little here in the water supply, and people start getting sick, but people only start noticing a trend after the virus has already spread a great deal. I recall a book by Richard Preston called "The Cobra Event", where a virus is released into a city by a terrorist. It's spread through these hand crafted boxes that are filled with dust (the virus), and the government only finds out after it has been through many people's hands, and there's already been a great deal of fatalities.

Perhaps it's effective when used in the right way, and in the right circumstances.

By the way, is there any difference between a 'weaponized virus' and just some samples of it?

If some country (not pointing any fingers...yet) were to weaponize a virus, like say, ebola, how would they do it? Moreover, how would it be unleashed and how effective would it be? Do you think that it would be more deadly than chemical or nuclear warfare? It seems to me that biological weapons are much more efficient, deadly, and they don't leave quite as much of a mess as several thousand miles of dead, irradiated soil. I'm not entirely familiar with the process of weaponizing and spreading of a virus, so I'm curious. Any insight?

To be honest, I'm at a loss for ideas. It seems to promote the idea of safe sex, without the consequences that teenagers are more familiar with, specifically; pregnancy.

I'm not entirely sure that it's the right idea to say that if you have sex there won't be consequences, because there sometimes are, but I also don't like the idea that virginity should be held as something sacred. It truly IS a morally neutral topic, at least for me.

It seems that I'm entrenched in the middle ground.

...yet the Hendrix version is what they played at the end of the episode.

 

It's almost like it doesn't make sense or something!

But it does! If you notice, musically, everytime they play All Along the Watchtower in the show, it's intermingled with bits of Heeding the Call, otherwise known as the final five song played in the Season 3 finale.

Playing it the way we know it shows that the cycle will not repeat itself again.

Right?

I will say when the "Last Frakkin Special" came out and it basically let out that Ron still had no idea who the final 5th cylon was until the last minute it made it pretty clear he was really playing it as he went - and that did impact my expectations of the final episode. I still felt it ended well as far as how well it could end - but it did tick me off in a "What? This has just been a glorified game of Mad-Libs all this time??" sort of way.

I'm actually pretty sure that there was an interview where he stated that knew the fifth since the end of season 3...

http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2009/01/20/ron-moore-discusses-bsg-revelations/

Moore also said that he and the writers had singled out Ellen as the final Cylon as far back as the third season of the show.

Well seriously... make time! *facepalm*

 

The last several episodes weren't the least bit action packed. They seemed to drag on... and on.

 

They had time. They just wasted it.

They didn't drag on, they offered a lot more exposition and depth to the characters!

Sure they wasted some time, bascule, I have yet to figure out why (I'm sure there's a reason...) but it's better than having one episode where they just bombard us with answers from every single answer. Maybe it's just me.

It's a paradox because what he says makes sense logically, but it's wrong where physics defines the laws.

I don't doubt that this happens, occasionally, but it seems yet another cancer scare.

Similar to Cell Phones, there are isolated incidents, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a trend.

 

Instead they... didn't? WTF?

 

It's as if they don't understand the classical structure of a novel and how to apply that to a long-running television series.

A lot of the things they didn't have time to do.

However, the mutiny plot arc, while interesting, was unnecessary, and could have been replaced with some flashbacks or explanations of those dangling plot arcs.

Did we ever find out what happened to Earth? It was bombed; but by why? Themselves? Their own Cylons? Weren't they originally Cylons? What the frak?

I did enjoy it while it lasted. Seasons 1 and 3 in particular being my favorites. How 'bout yours Bascule?

To be honest, I'm in between "Consider it" and "Probably have it done". From all that sci-fi and cyberpunk books have taught me, it's most likely a terribly idea, but it's intriguing to think of all the possibilities. Not quite sure if they outweigh the odds of what could be a potentially harmful procedure, a whole new sets of privacy issue, and a constant feed of commercial information (it IS the internetz after all). I guess I mean to say that it's all a little vague. I would probably do it if there was an off switch, or a way to permanently kill it without brain damage.

Er...wait, what's saturating the strong force? I'm a little confused.

By the way, I like the BSG picture. Gaius always looked cooler with short hair.

I think that they pulled it off the only way that they really could.

I wish that they talked a little more about the history of the Cylons, and gave some more detail about Earth...they left a lot of loose ends. I guess The Plan was their solution to it.

do you think there could be a negative mass such as sort of going past a singularity?

Does going past a singularity give you a negative mass? I thought that once you passed the event horizon, you were just shredded to pieces by the gravitational pull. (I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I really don't know!)

I always thought that it was the 'Strong force' that held the atom together. How does the electrostatic force play into it?

It took me forever to clean off Virtumonde. I spent a good 5 hours in front of my P.C. using every single virus protection tool I've ever known, and it finally left me the hell alone.

Now I use a free ZoneAlarm firewall, AVG 8 free, Spybot and TrendMicro Housecall scans online whenever I'm wary. It's been a while since I've got a virus with this setup, but usually one sweep with Housecall kills any bastard infecting my computer.

I don't know all that much about Ubuntu (though I used to have it on a computer that promptly corrupted it's own hard drive), but I suppose it should be a little safer than the OS you're using now.

Usually I've found it to be quite helpful, but on occasion it's given me wrong information,

Perhaps the teachers just don't like the whole concept of Wikipedia being open for most people to edit.

I personally don't think that any of the benefits of meditation compare to the benefits of REM sleep, not to mention REM Behavior Disorder. Meditation never really seemed like any replacement to a good nap, sure, it may calm you down a little, but it was never refreshing. My sleep isn't always refreshing, but it is the rest that counts.

I stumbled upon this a while ago while looking up the topic under debate.

http://www.psipog.net/blog/2006/08/sleep-vs-meditation.html

Some people just tend to be more blunt than others when it comes to conversation. I think I am one of those people, I have a tendency to say things right out that people would normally attempt to insinuate or imply...which leads to a few awkward moments now and again.

Being teased as a kid doesn't have much to do with this, in my opinion, it all depends on what kind of personality this person may have.

About this fictional character: Perhaps she's just become very invested in this character she's made. There's a gaming show called PurePwnage that my friend's and I watch obsessively, and in this show there's a fictional concept known as "uber micro", which is essentially gaming skill manifested into every day life. We reference this all the time...jokingly, of course.

These are just a few examples of how things might not be as serious as you may think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_friends#Purposes

What I think Klaynos meant is that you can't prove the existence of this 'void' because if you could, it would be part of this Universe.

This doesn't make sense for me; "At the present rate, the universe would expand forever while gradually slowing, but never stopping." how would that be? I know the Universe is Infinite but for some reason that just stuck out.

Well, you see, what he means is that the Universe is continually expanding (since the Big Bang), but it will continue to slow down GRADUALLY. Very slowly, to infinitely small numbers.

I know people who say the same things, that they see these little clear circles, but I usually give AJB's explanation, which someone told me about a while ago.

This is how I did it:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=17&name=Memory

At the left there should be a 'Memory Configurator".

Just answer the questions and it will tell you what kind of RAM is compatible with your motherboard. It worked fine for me.

I stand corrected..

 

How about when the Sun has finally blown itself to bits and ends up as a white dwarf. How will that effect bodies like Pluto?

If the Sun 'itself to bits' it won't become a white dwarf...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution#White_dwarfs

If the sun 'blows up' I'm guessing that every body in our Solar System would suffer greatly, including Pluto.

If it shrinks into a White Dwarf, then I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing that its gravitational influence would be significantly weakened, and perhaps Pluto would sort...float away...this is all guessing, by the way, I really have don't know. I'm hoping someone who knows more about the subject than I do will come along and give you a correct answer.

(cue Martin)

I learned about isotopes in 8th grade, and my science teacher did the same thing that insane_alien recommended. We already knew the components of a nucleus (I did, at least), but he just went over it once then said that an isotope was an atom with a different amount of neutrons in its nucleus.

I think everyone got it fairly quickly.

Er...I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say...

the Australopithecus, as far as we know, didn't have much to do with cooking foods.

I found a link, though I can't say if it's a reputable source or not, but it says

Because of the size and shape of their teeth and jaws, it is believed Australopithecus ate their food raw. These hominids would have had to wander and search for their food. They probably ate beetles, other small insects, plants, small animals or fish, roots, and fruit.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know much about this area of science.