Greg H.

Ahh. Ok. Over my head then.

While I agree with your premise, I fail to see how it ends the discussion about the effects of religion, which does, demonstrably, exist. Moontanman, do you have a link to the article or better, the study? I'd be curious to have a look at their methodology - self-control seems to me to be one of those ephemeral things that might be a little hard to quantify.

Here's a question that I'm really not sure of the answer of Let us suppose that I am in a rocket capable of travelling at .9c, and I am falling through a gravity well in that rocket at .9c (i.e. the gravitational attraction of the massive body is capable of propelling my rocket at the same speed as the engines.) Obviously, I will feel some relativistic effects as I fall through the gravity well, due to my velocity. My question is, if I turn on the rocket engines with an acceleration vector that exactly counters the force of the gravity: A) Would my motion through the gravity well stop, assuming no other outside influences, and B) Would that cancel the relativistic effects of my former motion?

Well, I think the first question is - do you lean toward simple, quick playability (a la Dungeons and Dragons) or realism at the expense of my players actually using it (a la GURPS or Traveller)?

But the real question becomes how do you answer them at all when you don't know the answers? Your ignorance of the information doesn't end just because someone knocked on your door. You don't suddenly possess new information concerning this pile of money, save that it exists and is, apparently yours. You still have no idea where it came from, why it's yours, etc. Yet, I suspect that you would have quite a hard time convincing the nice auditor of this, true or not. Hmm, there's an interesting concept. Are ignorance and bliss both reduced by the same amount? Or are they really two independent variables that are completely unrelated to each other? Is it possible that your bliss could be reduced by a greater amount than your ignorance in a given case?

I fail to see how that should change my answer. Your lack of knowledge does nothing to change the fact that the money (or debt) exists. All that has changed is that you will now have no idea why the IRS (or a court agent with a summons) will appear on your doorstep asking you answer some questions. And as you won't know why they're there, you will have no idea how to prepare for the questions, which means your willful ignorance is going to cost you a great deal.

You owe me a new keyboard Phi. I'll never get the Pepsi out of this one.

Yes. Although it would be funny to see someone try and defend ignorance of their assets during a tax audit. "But I didn't know I had the money, so it doesn't count, right?"

The point that seems to be missing here is that ignorance is only blissful until it's rudely interrupted by reality. Things like being ignorant of the local wildlife while you're out walking and then getting a poisonous, but non-fatal, snake bite. Your ignorance, in this case, will hurt. And quite a bit. If you're lucky you won't lose a limb due to necrosis. There is a point at which ignorance and stupidity are one and the same. Not knowing what you don't know is ignorance. Actively avoiding new knowledge is not.

Inertia is a property of matter. Specifically it is the property of matter that resists changes in the state of that matter's motion. (The old objects in motion tend to remain in motion, etc etc). However, a cursory google search of the terms "time inertia" gives a few results that look like theories relating the two via relativity (I didn't take the time to read more than the abstracts of a couple of them). Maybe one of our learned physics colleagues can expand on the topic.

Not only are these lines not relevant to anything in this thread (that I can determine), they're not even relevant to each other. Are you being deliberately obscure in the hopes you'll "win" when we all give up and go do something else?

Ok, I am going to lose my patience in a minute. Did it not occur to you at some point that we might need to know what x and y stood for, since you had already assigned them values?

Funnily enough, when I put that equation into WolframAlpha (which I did not know about before today) it gives me back something completely different. http://www3.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%5E2-92y%5E2%3D1&lk=4

If you're referring to the values of x that would yield imaginary results, it would be anything -1 < x < 1. Both 1 and -1 one would yield answers of 0, if I am doing the math right. Let x = 0: [math] y=\sqrt{\frac{0^{2} - 1}{92}}[/math] [math] y=\sqrt{\frac{-1}{92}}[/math] [math] y=\frac{\sqrt{-1}}{\sqrt{92}}[/math] [math] y=\frac{i}{2\sqrt{23}}[/math] Let x = -1: [math] y=\sqrt{\frac{-1^{2} - 1}{92}}[/math] [math] y=\sqrt{\frac{1 - 1}{92}}[/math] [math] y=\sqrt{\frac{0}{92}}[/math] [math] y=\sqrt{0}[/math] [math] y=0[/math] The same also holds true for x = 1

I prefer the format [math] y=\sqrt{\frac{x^{2} - 1}{92}}[/math] for any x.

Nice read. Thanks for the link!

No no - we're missing an amazing opportunity here. We define floor to be whatever is under my back. That way I am always working while laying down! (Score one for laziness.)

For the record, President Obama was a minor during the Vietnam conflict. He turned 18 in 1979 - 4 years after the end of the conflict.

In short, if your native corn suddenly shows up with a patented gene in it, you still don't have to abide by the terms of the licensing agreement, but you get the benefits of it. It's all about protecting the investment - at least until the patent expires.

According to my dictionary, it's either fun-jeye or fun-guy - no long e sounds to found.

If they really needed to they could use loops, straps, or velcro pads. In this image, the astronaut on the right appears to have his feet tucked under two blue bars on the floor to keep himself anchored while he works.

Did you seriously just quote Darth Vader in your word salad? Dude. And then you go on to misquote Spock. You know, basing scientific arguments on science fiction is not normally acceptable. You do know that, right?

George Johnson's book A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to Quantum Computer (Johnathon Cape Publishers, London: 2003) offers some insight into how this works (in theory). The book goes into a good deal more detail about the theory and the physics, as well as developments up to that point in time. One of the things that quantum computing can do very rapidly (in theory) is factor very large numbers into their relevant prime factors - which is the heart of modern computer encryption algorithms. On page 89, Johnson goes on to point out why this is such a big deal to modern computer encryption. With a modern Strong RSA encryption, you get a 1,024 bit encryption scheme. With a 1,024 qubit computer, you could The reason long encryption codes work better is because modern computers, even supercomputers, are constrained by the laws of classical physics (Johnson, 89). With Shor's Algorithm (See Johnson, pp 67-82 or Shor's Algorithm on Wikipedia), and an appropriate quantum computer, you could compute the prime factors of an encryption string in far less time.

And let's not forget that quantum computing, when it does come, will render all existing forms of computer encryption not only obsolete, but completely useless. "1024-bit encryption? This will just take a second."

They still are. Did you bother to read the link to Solanine at all? For example: