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In the news today: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/apps/69857818/divide-zero-by-zero-dont-ask-siri

It's also very possible for apparently complex "behaviours" to be generated by very simple things. For example, the motion of a plastic bag in the wind is very complex, but not only is that not "intelligence", it isn't "life".

Rubbish: for example it's utterly trivial to write down a number that represents more "things" than there are electrons in the entire known Universe. Math is abstract, and can be used to describe reality - but doesn't have to confine itself to that reality. If you were physically drawing a line, you might (in "reality") be limited to making that line out of a finite number of atoms; but mathematically, there'd be an infinite number of points on that line. Sloppy language. Zero is defined. Division by zero isn't. And you've been shown why.

Isn't that at least part of what art is for?

I found this fascinating: http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-into-neural.html https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPX0SCl7OzWilt9LnuQliattX4OUCj_8EP65_cTVnBmS1jnYgsGQAieQUc1VQWdgQ?key=aVBxWjhwSzg2RjJWLWRuVFBBZEN1d205bUdEMnhB

By that you seem to be defining (x / 0) = x OK, so use that: that would mean (x / (y - z)) = x, where y = z (because given y = z, then y - z = 0) By standard algebra, (x / (y - z)) = x gives (y - z) = (x / x) = 1 So now you have both (y - z) = 1 and (y - z) = 0. Which is an example of the contradictions you can get by trying to define a value for division by zero. By that definition, you provide an "answer" for some cases, but you mess up a bunch of other cases. Math needs to be consistent. Question: do you have MS Excel or similar available? (I'm going to suggest a simple "test").

Congratulations, America. Another step towards civilisation. ( ;-) ) I really don't understand why the opponents feel so strongly about it. Last Month an Australian couple (straight, married, with two kids) said they'd get divorced if same-sex marriage was made legal there, as it offended their concept of marriage so much. That's just astounding.

I'm thinking a cup of tea and a lie down.

Have you heard of Phrenology? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_mammals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapod

Nobody here is closed to new facts or ideas. But facts only become facts when shown to be correct and new ideas are not necessarily useful just because they are new, or because they were presented. You can't assume your "fact" is "reality", then simply expect everybody to accept it. (I'm skipping, here, over whether science is about "truth" or "proof", and what a "fact" is.) This sub section of the forum is full of people with threads about their idea of how Gravity works. Are any of them "reality"? Are all of them "reality"? Should we believe each one as it appears, then discard it as the next appears? That this forum and this sub section exists at all is evidence that people are open to new facts and ideas. If your own "reality" has been rejected, that's just tough.

Yes, yes, the old "they laughed at [insert name here]" claim. True, but for every scientist who was disbelieved and whose theory was later accepted, there will be plenty of "scientists" whose theories were disbelieved and which remain unbelievable. This is the "they laughed at Bozo the clown" counter-claim. Give it up, jeremyjr. Nobody here believes your "anomalies" are proof of plasma beings (or whatever). Trying to turn that into an argument about how nobody believes the revealed truthTM isn't going to get you anywhere.

Of course. Drop something off a tower, you'll see it gain speed. (I was also going to mention gravitational slingshot, as used by several space probes, but that works more by robbing a little orbital momentum from the larger body; not sure if that meets your needs.)

*their

So what exactly did you think this site was? Run by a (U.S.) Government agency? Which one? Or a University? Which one? Or a ... ?

Gosh, Marko Rodin is "interesting" to google. e.g. http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2012/06/03/numeric-pareidolia-and-vortex-math/

These bits seem contradictory. Current starts flowing out of the battery, or not. Surely a lamp nearer the battery will light as soon as current flows through it? (And doesn't this show no need for the circuit to be completed before any lamp is lit? (Yes, a complete circuit would be needed for the current to keep flowing, and for the lamp to stay lit.))

What does invisibility and/or visibility of space mean?

Why is that any more concerning with a = 1 m/s/s than, say, a = 0.5 m/s/s and getting F = 0.5 m ? (The mix of m for mass and m for metre is odd here. Sorry.) The formula F=ma relates Force on one side to mass and acceleration on the other. What's extra mystifying about the case where any one of those values happens to be 1? ( I know I'm not answering your question here, I'm more getting at the meta-aspect of it; why is that one case worrying you? ) Perhaps what this really shows, is the beauty of having a decent (e.g. S.I.) set of Units that makes things consistent and relatable. (e.g. Look at pounds vs slugs.)

Absolutely. I do believe LAMPS has the majority. But that wasn't what the post I responded to was about.

I'd say that's all mostly wrong.There's nothing in particular that makes C# "slow". Sure it compiles down to an intermediate language (similar to Java) but with modern CPU's and the JIT compiler, you'd hardly know it. Certainly if you want ultimate speed something like C++ compiled to native code (and recent moves in .Net mean you can get that for C# anyway) or even assembler, but there's nothing about C# that makes it slow for a "huge application" - that need for speed is more about the particular type of application, not the size. Something with gobs of calculations being done in a simulation, might be better in C++ (or whatever) than C#, e.g. while people were sad to see Microsoft drop support for XNA, which made C# development for DirectX easier (though Unity is now helping with that), most real hard core games are built in C++. Further, Mono aside, while it's true C# (and .Net) generally target the Windows platform, that doesn't mean it's best (as implied) only for "Windows Applications". Plenty of heavily used websites (yes, with the site itself running on a Windows server) are built with Asp.Net (Web Forms or MVC) - and most of those are built with C# on the server side. "web-server application development is becoming more important in the market of web development" seems a bit of a tautology. If taken as "web development is important", there's no reason why PHP is specifically better than C#. That is, I'm not saying PHP is bad to learn, I just don't see why you'd downgrade C# and upgrade PHP on the basis of what you wrote.

Yes. Longer. It'd involve the speed of sound, in the material the balls were made of. No. If that were true, you'd have a signal/information travelling faster than light.

What's the difference? On Monday night you go to bed. You wake up Tuesday morning; you know who you are, you remember your fifth birthday party, and what you had for dinner on Monday. On Tuesday night you go to bed. During the night, gas is used to knock you out and keep you asleep while you are "perfectly replicated". Every atom in your body is duplicated. The original you is then made into Soylent green. You wake up Wednesday morning; you know who you are, you remember your fifth birthday party, and what you had for dinner on Tuesday. Is Wednesday "you" really "you"? Well, is there any real difference? Your muscles have been replicated, your bones have been replicated, your mind has been replicated. If you walk like a duck and quack like a duck, you're a duck.

No, I'm not suggesting any link between G1 and G2. After the copy, G1 and G2 do not have any connection and will not feel or experience anything from each other. All I'm saying is that (given the assumption of perfect replication) G1 and G2 are indistinguishable (up to that point, not afterwards, as their experiences differ). Both will consider themselves as "the" G. If G1 is vaporised, G2 will happily continue being G. If I step onto a transporter, and am re-made on Mars while my "original" on Earth is vaporised, the "copy me" on Mars will happily continue being "the" me.

But given the assumption of perfect replication, at the moment of replication Graeme 2 pretty much is Graeme 1. He'll have the same memories and the same personality. He'll know he is the "copy", because he's the one who steps out of the transporter, but other than that, he'll consider himself "Graeme". Hardly different from waking up from a deep dreamless sleep. You wouldn't know that during your sleep you were "transported". What if during the night, every one of your atoms were replaced? You wake up, you still remember what you had for dinner the day before. Are you still you? I'd step into the transporter, if it were proven (by earlier, braver people) to be as safe as any other transportation system.