Lord Antares

I understand what you mean, but doesn't his statement still not make sense? If you are within that train, you are still bound by its velocity. No matter what he meant the motion be relative to, the planets still make identical revolutions around the sun and their average distances from the sun throughout the year are still the same (as evidenced by the length and ratio of days and nights, seasons, etc.), so no laws need to be altered.

I understand this. It's just a bit strange. Infinity doesn't follow the rules of numbers in probability at all. Like, for example, if we get a billion heads in a row, we are still guaranteed to reach zero even though there is only a 50% chance of going in the direction of zero for a single flip. So there is nothing stopping infinity from not fluctuating between two given numbers. I understand why this is so (because we are dealing with an infinite number of flips), but it is just a bit strange. True. Yes. Yes. Bear in mind that I know almost nothing about mathematics and any conclusions I derive are from my own attempt at understanding it. I am somehow very drawn to probability and odds and I often try to calculate them for some situations where it would be useful. So any educated comments about why I'm wrong or right are helpful to me. I also have many questions. Are you referring to the fact that the more steps there are, the higher the probability that it reaches zero? So for infinite steps, the probability is 1? Or do you mean something else? Thanks for replying. Not many members seem to be interested in probability.

That is to get an advantage for their team. It's called simulation, it's dirty and it sometimes scores goals. It doesn't mean they are pussies if that's what you're getting at. I'd rather watch that than 90% of the game being taken up by breaks.

About the football/soccer dispute, two things: 1) Soccer was invented first and it was called association football. The term soccer was introduced only after there was American football. I always used to call American football rugby. 2) The reason why non-American countries still call it soccer is to avoid confusion. When there is something international, it usually refers to it as football. The others usually call it football amongst themselves. But whatever, this is just a pet peeve, nothing to analyze in depth.

This makes no sense. It implies that people develop looks based on the name they are given. If they were given a different name, they would have developed different looks. Clearly, this isn't true. Also, that statistic doesn't prove anything. If we really could guess someone's name based on their looks, then we wouldn't need a choice of 4 names, but we could guess it on our own with a higher-than-expected accuracy. They could have simply given some choices of rare or unsuitable names, which would explain 30% accuracy. To me, this research doesn't mean anything.

Speaking of Americans, when they don't use the metric system. Ugh. Or when they call football soccer

Yes, obviously but it doesn't change the calculation. He seems to be implying that the sun is constantly speeding away from the earth in such a manner that Kepler's laws of planetary motion don't apply anymore, which is wrong. It doesn't matter if both the sun and the earth are standing still or if they are speeding through space. That motion is relative and does not change any part of the calculations.

I think what he doesn't understand is that even though the sun is moving through space with a great speed, so are the planets, so no laws need to be revised at all. This is elementary. But wait: What? How can you even say that? Do you understand that we would have moved out of the sun's orbit by now if that was the case? If the sun was moving faster than the earth, the earth-sun revolution wouldn't last for 365 days. In fact, we wouldn't have an earth-sun revolution at all. If something is revolving around something else that is going at a great speed, it must be going at the same speed. (how else would it catch up and rotate around it?) So, in fact, you are claiming that the earth doesn't rotate around the sun, right?

Yes, exactly. So it differs a bit. But that just increases the probability of it going back to 0 than having an infinite ruler, because there is a limit for how far you can go away from 0, right? It is a bit weird to think about. If you try to pick a number of coin flips, however high that number is, there will always be a chance that it will fluctuate between two non-end numbers. But if that number is inifnity, the chance is 0. This both does and doesn't make sense to me. Hm. I'm thinking that this scenario is different from the Shakespear monkey one. I may be wrong, but here's why I think so: The Shakespear monkey process can reset. So, the monkey types drivel until it randomly types out Hamlet. So it would be more like pulling out an infinite pool of lotto numbers. Eventually, all numbers will be pulled out, but there is no extra dimension of moving along the ruler. Saying that zero on the ruler must eventually be reached means that it is certain that there will eventually be more tails than heads! There must always eventually be 1 more tails than heads for it to reach zero. I'm not sure how this impacts the answer. EDIT: of course there would be fluctuation between a higher number of tails and higher number of heads, but consider starting at 500 meters. It would have to be guaranteed that you would, at some point, have 500 more tails than heads. Absolutely agreed. I thought I covered that in the OP. I took a shot at how to calculate the porbabilities for finite flips. No one yet told me if it is wrong or not. I know nothing about programming, so this is beyond me.

This is true as long as the number of coin flips are ifinite, right? Yes, I think you could equate this to my question. Getting to 0 on the ruler would equate to the gambler losing all his money. Positive infinity is the bank, so we would have to use my infinite ruler example. Is this right? So if these cases are equivalent and the probability for the gambler case is 1, then it must be 1 for my example as well. But this means that the money neccesarilly needs to tip in the bank's favor, right? So, if we, by a stroke of luck, start at 1 dollar and end up at 335. From then on, we continue to flip into infinity. You are saying, that it the flips would always eventually lead you to 0 dollars for the gambler. It is not possible that the money will fluctuate between, say, 76 and 645? This is just an issue with using infinity as the number of flips, right? Is there any intuitive explanation how this leads to that conclusion. I would have assumed that flipping a coin an infinite amount of times will neccessarily lead you to be at 50%. Unfortunately, you will find that my math knowledge is feeble. I am just trying to use logic to see where it can lead me, but if the problem is as complicated as you say, I'm afraid you would have to waste a substantial amount of time for me to understand it. I didn't know the problem is a complicated one.

Let us say you have a ruler laid out on the floor, with the spacings arranged such that 1 increment = 1 meter. You are standing at 0. You start flipping a coin an infinite number of times. When you get heads, you move 1 meter forwards (positively) on the ruler. When you get tails, you move 1 meter backwards. If you flip tails at 0, you stay at zero. Let's say that you flipped the coin once and it landed on heads, so you are now standing at 1 meter. With a potentially infinite number of coin tosses, what are the odds of eventually arriving at 0? How different would it be if the ruler was infinite as opposed to finite? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some of my thoughts on this: We can immediately recognize that the odds of that will always be above 50% and progressively get higher because, you already have a 50% chance of getting tails on the first toss when it would be ''game over'', but if you get heads, you still have a chance for it to overturn in the opposite direction. Now, I think I have discovered how to calculate this for a finite number of throws. I've counted them manually for the first several coin tosses and the odds are (in increasing number of coin tosses) 1/2 2/4 5/8 10/16 22/32, so I think you always multiply the denominator by 2, and for the numerator, you do this: n x 2, n x 2 + 1, n x 2, n x 2 + 2, n x 2, n x 2 + 3 etc. I don't know how to express this mathematically, but I hope someone can tell if this is correct. How I would calculate this for an infinite number of flips is beyond me. Also, the odds have to be slightly higher for a finite ruler. Let's say that the ruler is 700 meters long. In an unlikely event that we flip 699 more heads than tails (without flipping more tails in a row, of course, because it would be game over then), we would find ourselves at 700 meters. Now, if we flip any more heads, we will not be able to go further, whereas in an infinite ruler, we could go farther than 700, when it would be more unlikely that we would return back to 0 than if we were at 700. I think it would also be easier to calculate this for an infinite ruler because I would assume it follows a linear rule, whereas the finite one doesn't. Is this problem more complicated than I think? If it isn't, I would appreciate if you would try to explain what you are doing in your calculations because I am a big layman.

Yes, that's why I said it is more beneficial to learn than to play, although both are needed. When you learn, you incorporate new strategies and concepts in your games. When you play, you learn to apply these nuances and get experience in playing them. However, I would say that, on average, a day of learning will improve your game more than a day of playing. When was that tournament and how did you score?

Sorry, that was a typo. I meant to write ''microscopic scale''.

Yes, but I didn't mention solids on purpose because some previous posters said that the exact size of particles doesn't exist (for example the wave functions of electrons etc), and therefore it cannot be stated that there are more gaps in solids than there is matter. Alright, so, theoretically, what could be done with a real, macroscopic vacuum? In what way would it be interesting, primarily from the perspective of knowledge and science?

Ah, I understand. That clears it up. So, it doesn't make sense to talk about vacuum at a macroscopic scale. However, at a microscopic scale, there are lots of gaps between particles, especially in deep space where matter is, on average, really rare. There is more empty space everywhere than matter. But this is just space, not vacuum as it is usually defined, right?

Can you expand on that a bit? If I'm understanding you correctly, the vacuum would have to be there consistently, without moving around with the particles? But then you would have to quantify an ''appreciable length of time'', would you not? There would need to be some mathematics behind what would be considered a vacuum. And this was the issue that I had even when posting the OP. What ''size'' of vacuum qualifies as a proper one? How would you quantify it? Why can it not be considered for my very small spaces between particles, but it can be considered for, say, a meter cubed of space? The logic is the same, but the sizes are different, so how does this impact the definition? This is my primary question.

There is not pic so I will assume it's what Phi posted. No, the stick would actually move at the speed of sound, much slower than c. It was covered pretty well in this thread: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/103327-pushing-a-light-year-long-stick/#entry973284 So no, it isn't instantaneous.

I want to get back to my first post on this forum a bit. Do fields populate all of space? Is it because the wave functions, as John said, extend thoughout all of space? But does this really explain it? A field (or a wave) doesn't really occupy space in a way that matter does. Does it then make sense to say that no vacuum exists because fields populate everything to an extent?

Eh, I don't want to scare you, but it might help you as well, so it might be worth saying it. Monsters inside me is a show about people who were bitten by insects which have laid eggs or otherwise infested the human body. These people typicially lived with the insects inside them for years because it was hard to detect due to it not being a real disease and there not being anything wrong with the organs per se. I'm not an expert on this, so take it with a large grain of salt, but your symptoms do correspond a lot with what I have watched people say about their experiences. Almost invriably, they are really tired and fatigued, they lack energy, they experience varying degrees of pain throughout their body. They also sometimes feel ''moving sensations'' in the body part they were bitten, something you reminded me of by mentioning the moving water sensation. They typically start with a walk through the woords or a trip to a foreign country followed by an insect bite as well. Again, I'm not an expert so I would hate to give you any false alarms, but these things are typically hard to detect as they are one of the last things the doctors would expect. Can you go again to someone who is an expert and express your concerns? Even if I'm dead wrong, it shouldn't be right that you are experiencing pain and other symptoms YEARS after a mere insect bite.

Hey Nancy, you didn't mention visiting the doctor at any time. Did you do that? Also, none of you mentioned a parasite which may have laid eggs. I know it's unlikely, but those are usually the symptoms that persist. I've watched some ''monsters inside me'' and your symptoms roughly match up with the ones the others were experiencing. Can you go check that?

Not sure what exactly you are asking. The universe is made up of different elements from the periodic table. The most basic element is hydrogen. Its atom is the simplest and is comprised of 1 electron and 1 proton. It is said that ''Atomic hydrogen constitutes about 75% of the elemental (baryonic) mass of the universe.'' There are smaller particles covered by quantum mechanics but that's a long read. Maybe you're asking what it's made of where there is no visible matter. There is some discussion about it here: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/89395-what-is-space-made-of/#entry869949 The other question isn't clear either. I guess our DNA makes us human. Could you expand a bit?

I thought the last rule change was about stalemate. I think it went through being a win for the person giving stalemate, to a loss and now to a draw. I think it was changed in the early 19th century but you can look that up if you want.

It does make sense to say that. I think she meant it as in ''how did it go from the big bang to living organisms?'' It's a viable question but impossibly difficult to answer.

No one knows, obviously. We have found what may be the first life forms on earth. They are called stromatolites and are about 3.7-3.8 billion years old. We have also found something that might have been a living organism and it dates back to 4.1 billion years, but we are not clear on that. Here is a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life Also, check this short article: http://www.livescience.com/1804-greatest-mysteries-life-arise-earth.html But no one knows how exactly these organisms came to be living. That is an incredibly complicated question you're asking there.

Well, if you imagine that the center of mass between two masses is 1/10 d, then I meant 9/10 d to be the reversed center of mass. I would intuitively think that this would the point where the gravity of the two objects would be nullified.