Spyman

That's very tough, I wish you the best of luck and hope you find a new and better employment. (And hang in there - don't let the craves win.)

But does a goldfish have enough intelligence and self awareness to recognize itself in a reflection? "The sense in which animals can be said to have consciousness or a self-concept has been hotly debated; it is often referred to as the debate over animal minds. The best known research technique in this area is the mirror test devised by Gordon G. Gallup, in which an animal's skin is marked in some way while it is asleep or sedated, and it is then allowed to see its reflection in a mirror; if the animal spontaneously directs grooming behavior towards the mark, that is taken as an indication that it is aware of itself. Self-awareness, by this criterion, has been reported for chimpanzees and also for other great apes, the European magpie, some cetaceans and a solitary elephant, but not for monkeys. The mirror test has attracted controversy among some researchers because it is entirely focused on vision, the primary sense in humans, while other species rely more heavily on other senses such as the olfactory sense in dogs." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition#Consciousness According to Wikipedia they learn with whom they should swim: "Fish use many traits to choose shoalmates. Generally they prefer larger shoals, shoalmates of their own species, shoalmates similar in size and appearance to themselves, healthy fish, and kin (when recognised). The "oddity effect" posits that any shoal member that stands out in appearance will be preferentially targeted by predators. This may explain why fish prefer to shoal with individuals that resemble them. The oddity effect would thus tend to homogenise shoals. One puzzling aspect of shoal selection is how a fish can choose to join a shoal of animals similar to themselves, given that it cannot know its own appearance. Experiments with zebrafish have shown that shoal preference is a learned ability, not innate. A zebrafish tends to associate with shoals that resemble shoals in which it was reared, a form of imprinting." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour#Marine_life

If you look at the color of the link you can see that there are to many characters at the end. (Tip: always leave a blank between links and text so they don't merge.) Correct link: http://www.wiese.itp.unibe.ch/lectures/universe.pdf

The rules are pretty simple: don't argue moderation in a science thread and keep fringe science outside of mainstream areas. There is nothing preventing you from discussing alternatives regarding determining or interpreting the cause or meaning of gravity waves. They gave you a new thread to discuss your "alternative possibilities", they didn't even move it to Speculations and kept it here in the Science News section. But instead of nurture the discussion you wanted, you are ruining it by moaning about moderation and censorship. My advice is for you to stop the complaining and proceed to make a new, fresh and objective thread in the Speculations area instead.

The Science Forums Etiquette Guide says: If we no longer want this behaviour maybe we should change the guide to say something against necromancy instead.

Yes, after some testing I can confirm that. I picked an old inactive account, with zero posts and a very low number of profile views, and then visited it multiple times and after around half an hour the counter spiked with the same amount as my visits. So it is very likely that any member/guest could have contributed several times to another members profile views. I did not visit your profile close to a hundred times, which the counter now have almost increased to. (53,378 views up from 53,286 when I made the timestamp on your profile.) And since your profile still lists me as the latest visitor, the latest increase must all have been done by guests or hidden visitors. I am pretty certain that partaking in a thread on the first page of the New content list will draw more interest to member profiles, than threads that is hidden somewhere far below amongst the older threads. And since we are talking about the profile views counter, I suspect a lot of people get curious and check the counter themselves and thereby increase the count even more. I also notice that you currently have a Recent Status Update listed on the main page, which probably causes more profile views too.

Well, I meant the difference between the count of yours and Moontanman's profile views, not every single one of them. Also, I visited your profile several times, both anonymous and as Spyman and your counter didn't increase, not even once.

But you post more controversial stuff, which I think makes it more likely that people are interested in checking up on your profile. In addition the network of friends can lead people to your page too, some people visiting your page recently have also been to mine.

Well, I looked at imatfaal's second try and then went on from there, I will try to explain my method under the spoiler.

EDIT - This also seems to fit: EDIT 2 - Just noticed the rule: "none of the Xs are a 7", which invalidates my first option.

I think you should reconsider, if one event takes place is one frame then it should happen in all frames, it can not vanish from one view. From my limited understanding I think they can disagree on the time between events and their duration but their counts must be the same. If one twin can see the others clock and both twins counts how many times this clock ticks forward, can they really end up with different amounts of ticks for this particular clock when they reunite?

The Voyager spacecrafts have nuclear generators that convert heat from decaying plutonium to electric power. Shutting down instruments or equipment will not stop the plutonium from decaying. The RTGs are not expected to be able to supply enough power to operate any of its single instruments any further than to 2025. Current Deep Space Network will likely be able to pick up the weak signals until this happens.

We don't know if the Universe is finite or infinite, thus it's possible that there are infinite locations and infinite combinations. We don't know if there is a finite smallest length, thus it's possible that there are infinite different locations in a finite length. Possibilities could be limited and finite, but we don't know that for sure yet, it might as well turn out that variations are unlimited.

AFAIK SETI is looking because even if our signals haven't reached far yet, IF there exists another civilization then they could be much older and more advanced than us, thus their signals could be stronger and from much further far away. I care about life in other galaxies, while I agree that it would be much much more exciting to find sentient life close enough for us to communicate, an very very old but clearly intelligent signal from Andromeda would at least tell us that we are not alone. Also Earth like planets are what we currently want to colonise but aliens may not find them equally attractive. My point is that if we can be detectable, then certainly we can detect a very powerful signal from a more advanced civilization. In 1974 we sent a very powerful message to the stars as an demonstration of human technological achievement, the Arecibo Message, that was strong enough to be detectable by an advanced civilization anywhere in our galaxy. However by purpose we sent it towards the edge of Milky Way, at the globular star cluster Messier 13, which will not be there when the signal arrives 25 000 years from now. The broadcast was particularly powerful because it used Arecibo's megawatt transmitter attached to its 305 meter antenna. The latter concentrates the transmitter energy by beaming it into a very small patch of sky. The emission was equivalent to a 20 trillion watt omnidirectional broadcast, and would be detectable by a SETI experiment just about anywhere in the galaxy, assuming a receiving antenna similar in size to Arecibo's. http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/arecibo-message As per the OP they are not likely to find our regular radio and TV signals, as we will not likely find their domestic signals. But an advanced civilization might want to broadcast to others that they exists and therefore builds a powerful beacon that we and others can detect. Someone has to go first, maybe we are alone or first, but IF there are others then they can be older and already transmitting. Thus we don't have to wait for them to find us first, we are more likely to find an old signal addressed to anyone who can listen.

This is what the famous SETI guy Seth Shostak said about our signal strength, back in 2003: Radio was invented in the 19th century, and large-scale broadcasting began in the 1920s. Alas, these early broadcasts were of low power, and at low frequency. The difficulty with low frequency transmissions, such as AM radio, is that they are refracted by Earths ionosphere, and have difficulty making it into space. However, beginning in the 1950s, we started to construct high-power, high frequency transmitters for radar, for FM radio, and for television. These signals leaked off the planet, and headed for the stars. A modern TV transmitter can put out as much as a megawatt of power. Its not very tightly focused, so even though much of the broadcast energy spills into space, its fairly weak by the time it reaches another star system. Consider one of our early TV programs just washing over a planet thats 50 light-years away. To detect the "carrier" signal from this broadcast in a few minutes time would require about 3,000 acres of rooftop antennas connected to a sensitive receiver. Thats a lot of antennas, and an unsightly concept. But its not hard to build, and the aliens could conceivably do it. If the extraterrestrials were unwise enough to actually want to see the program, then theyd need an antenna about 30,000 times greater in area (roughly the size of Colorado). Ambitious, but possible. A rather easier task would be to detect our military radars. The bigger ones typically boast a megawatt of power, and are focused into beams that are a degree or two across. There are enough such radars that, at any given time, they cover a percent of the sky or so. The signal from the most powerful of these could be found at 50 light-years distance in a few minutes time with a receiving antenna 1,000 feet in diameter. Indeed, these military radars are the only signals routinely transmitted from Earth that are intense enough to be detectable at interstellar distances with setups equivalent to our own SETI experiments. Bottom line? With radio technology slightly more advanced than our own, Homo sapiens is detectable out to a distance of roughly 50 light-years. Within that distance are about 5,000 stars, all of which have had the enviable pleasure of receiving terrestrial television. And each day, a fresh stellar system is exposed to signals from Earth. http://archive.seti.org/news/features/can-aliens-find-us.php

The threads would turn into a mess if your posts was deleted and people would respond to posts that no longer exists.

You can yourself erase all personal information on your profile page and then simply stop coming here. But your account and post must remain though to keep threads readable. I would advise you to keep your password safe so you can return later if you change your mind, lots of members take breaks and come back again after a few years, as long as you don't misbehave and get banned you are always welcome back again.

Nice try, but you can't fool me. Sorry for the off topic but I couldn't resist.

No need for an apology, new threads are continuously started on old topics already covered, sometimes the new thread can spark better discussion than the old one. But by searching you can find answers by simply browsing old threads on the subject, maybe the thread I linked contains what you seek? Only Staff can lock or merge threads, easiest is by pushing the report button on the starting post and request it. But I don't think it's necessary, as I said maybe the discussion here will be different and interesting.

We already have a thread on this topic: Stephen Hawking: 'There are no black holes'

Sorry, but I was only joking on the timestamps implying that you made an edit on a post before you even made it. An admin would have to investigate this issue and likely file an error report to get it fixed.

LOL - Please stop messing around with that time machine before you make a serious paradox that will break down the forums.

The xkcd comic picture in post #281 mentions +200m sea level rise at +9 degrees celsius.

Speed is not equal to acceleration, heavier objects doesn't accelerate more towards the center of the Earth and meteors don't get their high speed from being pulled by Earth's gravity - normally they orbit the Sun and crosses path/collide with Earth. Meteoroids travel around the Sun in a variety of orbits and at various velocities. The fastest ones move at about 42 kilometers per second through space in the vicinity of Earth's orbit. The Earth travels at about 29.6 kilometers per second. Thus, when meteoroids meet Earth's atmosphere head-on (which only occurs when meteors are in a retrograde orbit such as the Eta Aquarids, which are associated with the retrograde Halley's Comet), the combined speed may reach about 71 kilometers per second. Meteoroids moving through Earth's orbital space average about 20 km/s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#Meteoroids_in_the_Solar_System Nasa image of the orbit for 2008 TC3, in your article link: Orbit Diagram of Asteroid 2008 TC3 http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news159.html ---------- If we would bring another Earth sized planet to sea level then they would already be touching each other and no longer be in free fall. But if they are still slightly separated, then they would both accelerate towards their center of mass with 1/4 g. If we would bring a Black Hole with the mass of Earth to sea level then it would accelerate towards Earth's center with 1 g. However it would rip apart Earth since Earth's surface would acclerate towards the BH with 515 000 000 000 000 000 g.

While it is theoretically possible to transform mass to energy and emit that energy to a reciever where it can be converted to mass again, there is one serious limitation that prevents this kind of teleportation. According to current understanding it is not possible, even theoretically, to exactly measure and map out positions and velocities of particles inside the object. Thus without an exact map it's impossible to reconstruct an identical replica at the reciever station. If you want to send inanimate objects, then it's certainly possible that the differences between the original and the replica could be neglected. But if you want to send a person, then it would not be the same person that steps out at the other side, they would not be identical and the differences could very well be notable. Also even IF we could make an exact copy there would be losses of energy during both the transformation and whilst travelling. Extra energy would need to be added to compensate for losses, so would the copy still be you or only an identical twin? What if two or more reciever stations manage to pick up the signal and they all reconstruct a copy, which one should be considered you?