Royston

Certainly remember the rules of algebra, trig identities not so much, unless you're that way inclined, but the latter is much harder to remember (personally speaking) and you will always have a book as reference. It doesn't change the angle, but with a unit vector you're not looking for an angle, the magnitude and direction has already been verified, that's what you plug into the equation to establish a unit vector...it's a reference for somebody reading the equation, that's all. The problem with the equation you posted as a unit vector, is the term [math]cos\theta[/math], which means there's more information to grab out of the equation, we don't care about that, does that make sense ?

That's for finding the angle between two vectors, the unit vector is defined as [math]\hat{\bf v}=\frac{1}{\bf|v|}\bf v[/math] it looks similar, but has a different use.

C is invariant, there's a brake in symmetry when the travelling twin changes direction...cameron marica, if you want a full description of what that means, I'm more than happy to describe it layman terms. Just to add, it's not a paradox, it's only called as such, because it goes against common sense, i.e Galilean physics.

I forgot about Eddie Izzard, incidentally (we seem to be watching a lot of stand-up in our house recently) my housematess recently bought the Bill Bailey compilation. He's now reached the dizzy heights of Wembley, and rightly so, 'Tinselworm', if you havn't seen it.

Virtual particles, if you're really that interested (and akin to the Friedmann equations, and cosmology being an extension of fluid dynamics) as a starting point, look up bubble mechanics, and apply quantum theory, this is a very specialized field BTW. Way above my head, e.g relativistic fluid dynamics is uber hard in itself, i.e I simply wouldn't go there until I have a solid grounding in the subjects...i.e relativity, and fluid dynamics. There are string models of quantum foam, yes, if that's what you meant.

The title speaks for itself. So please share your favourite stand-up comedian / comedienne, and a few words (if you like) why they're your particular favourite. If available (which is an almost guarantee with youtube), share some clips. My all time favourite, is possibly the late Bill Hicks, mainly for his tenacity and opinions which define his act. I'm also a massive fan of Bill Bailey (being a musician myself) I love the amalgamation of music and comedy, as well as his style. However, my current favourite (probably more suitable to a British audience) is Michael McIntyre, who's delivery is amazing IMO, and for me, has rebranded observational comedy, and doesn't rely on sniping, like so many acts do these days. Here he his 'Live at the Apollo.'...it's in three parts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd--6cWBIVU&feature=related

Perhaps you'd like to explain how you can have one without the other in a physical sense, and please don't repeat your argument that 'empty space' exists outside the Universe (that goes against basic cosmology). Even treating space as purely mathematical e.g a metric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_space, it has properties there's something to work with. Please try not to make flat out statements, without backing them up.

I voted maths and physics, although I'm doing a degree in physics, I'm currently studying maths...and I keep leaning towards the mathematical side of physics, I seem to enjoy it more. I think this is due to physics, will get more exciting on more advanced topics, such as GR et.c I found quite a large chunk of my course last year, quite yawn inducing, but necessary all the same.

The thermal dynamics module I studied, stated the big bang is possibly an adiabat, how much truth there is in that statement, I don't know (I realise you stated energy, not heat) i.e I'm not sure what the concensus is at the moment. I googled it, and it threw up a lot of technical papers. As Mr Skeptic said, although on a slightly different subject 'we don't know.' I doubt if many big bang scenarios are considered isolated. Who said this, you need to cite your sources. That's more a philosophical question, and has already been discussed, as has the big bang...translation; please learn to use the search function.

Well, there is (arguably) a Wallace day...http://wallacefund.info/2008-events It's just one of those silly matters of circumstance, that one person gets all the fame outside of scientific circles. I'm positive more people have heard of Newton than Leibniz. Probably not the best comparison, as Newton is famous for more than calculus, but the principle's there.

That maybe so, but the purpose of the snowman was for the holiday season, which is long gone. This isn't the Alaska Science Forum afterall, someone please get rid of that thing...pretty please.

There were a number of good documentaries on the BBC leading up to the anniversary...I believe YT posted a link to 'Darwin and the Tree of Life.' A particularly good documentary was 'Darwin's struggle', which while being a retrospect on his life in general, picked out several flaws in the public perception of his work. For example, his time on the Galapagos is hugely overstated, and was just a small part of a very long process towards his theory. The true eureka moment, or the piece of the puzzle that convinced him of the adaptation process, was when he read the work of Malthus, on population dynamics. Perhaps most of you already knew this, but when I studied evolution, it was his time in the Galapagos, that took precedent. In any case, Happy Darwin Day \o/ EDIT: Unfortunately, 'Darwin's struggle' is no longer available on the BBC website.

Not sure if any of you have seen this, but for any questions that prompt a 'for goodness sake, Google it', here's the solution for anyone who raises such a question... For example... Hey everyone, so what is dark matter ? http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=what+is+dark+matter+%3F I hope a wiki version will be available soon.

Thanks Thanks, I'll bear that in mind (the Linux advice), plus I'm sure Gmail could more than cope with a lot of data to my E-mail address. The important stuff i.e music (especially what I've produced) is already backed up on other devices, just the wavs, the cubase files aren't important, which is kinda irrelevant ATM. I was actually going to (well a friend was going to set it up) split one of the hard drives into two partitions for back up, but I decided against it at the time, due to lack of storage...my pc is old, quite literally every MB counts on my hard drives. This whole episode has prompted a new pc purchase i.e I'm going to buy another rackmount dedicated to math applications, games et.c, and strip down my current one to just the OS, cubase and a sound editing suite, so it should run very quick indeed. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedProblem resolved. A friend came over, and merged a file in my registry via a fix.

I wasn't aware of that, I thought they both boiled down to the same thing. Can you expand on that a little please ?

I can assure you the fate of the Universe is still unclear, I very much doubt a static model is being anymore seriously considered, over a scenario such as the Big Rip (but I'm not sure of the current consensus on this...somebody correct me, if so), where the observable Universe becomes so small, that atoms get ripped apart...in the last few dying seconds. It's still an open book, and links that are over two years old, and empty wiki links don't bolster this. From current observation, I doubt if equilibrium will be achieved...but that's just an educated guess.

Maths, followed by machine code

Which was exactly the point I raised, the problem legally, is treating such problems on a case by case basis, and the consequences that has on future cases. I.E, so and so had the plug pulled, and how can you ascertain whether that is the right decision if certainty is an issue. A. Like I said before, the line is blurred (despite, personally to me is a silly argument), even though I think such things should be dealt on a case by case basis. B. It only takes one case where there is a recovery, be it partial, to throw the whole thing into disarray...i.e an extreme case. If there's any evidence for the latter, therefore expounding my hypothetical argument, again, what then ?

It's not clear from the article whether any of the above was considered. In any case, the law trumps and euthanasia is banned, it's not right in many cases (i.e it should be allowed), and I'm sure the argument 'where do you draw the line' is flaunted around in such instances. But Mokele does raise an interesting point... This can be extended to extreme cases, because an extreme case where somebody survives could be just around the corner...*so what then ? *Hypothetically speaking.

Odd, same problem, this was through DVI output, the path is now showing twice for some reason. I'll have a hunt around, IIRC there's a dedicated forum at my Uni for LaTex, I'll send a link to this thread, and see if I get any feedback. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedAnnoyingly simple, here's the code... \documentclass[12pt]{article} \pagestyle{empty} \usepackage{graphicx} \begin{document} \begin{figure}[h!] \includegraphics[width=0.80\textwidth]{"C:/Documents and Settings/Snail/My Documents/My Pictures/Snail".jpg} \end{figure} \end{document} Quote tags around the path, but not the extension.

No problem at all, and I really appreciate the help. I'll try a different file format to see if I get the same result.

Like I said I was at work, and I posted on the off chance. That aside, here's the Tex-code. \begin{figure}[h] \centering \includegraphics[width=0.80\textwidth]{C:/Documents and Settings/Snail/My Documents/My Pictures/Example.jpg} \label{Here's an example} \end{figure} Ok, thanks, I've fiddled around with my example, but to no avail...it's still showing the path at the top of the image.

Another question, which I'm struggling to find an answer to. This might be TeXnic specific, but when I embed a jpeg into a document, it displays the path of the image on top, and it looks ugly. I'm not sure if Mathcad supports postscript for images, so that might be one solution. However the former method is very convenient, click on an icon, import image and it gives you a few options like size et.c I'm at work at the moment, but I'll supply the code if needed.

Oh, it appears I got my wires crossed, when I heard about space fish then... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23277685/

There's no such thing as a true void, i.e what isn't permeated by an EM or gravitational field. So called 'voids' have been observed, but they're still effected, even by an infinitesimal amount by EM fields, let alone gravitational and expansion. Absolute zero, would imply all sorts of horrible things, that have been experimentally verified as not existing. You simply can't have one rule of physics applied to one patch of the Universe, and not to another. It begs the question, how can we model extreme conditions in the Universe, but this one patch breaks down all the laws of physics as we know it. Or, these voids, are subject to the same laws as we've observed and predicted, it's just we're overlooking a small detail. Surely it's the latter ? With the assumption that a true void has been possibly viewed, as you stated.