Royston

I was watching BBC breakfast this morning, where a Dad and his daughter who suffers from Down Syndrome were in the studio. The topic, was these new 'Down Syndrome Dolls' see the official website below. I'll be perfectly honest, I can't put into words what to make of this, my first thoughts were it was some twisted joke, and although I love dark humour, the fact that the sentiment behind making these dolls is maybe sincere, it seems terribly misguided, and well, a bit wrong. The Dad and the daughter on the show, were equally bewildered, and just couldn't see the benefit. Thoughts...is this some rather bizarre joke ? For example, can you honestly imagine a child with severe Psoriasis playing with a doll whose skin flakes off at the touch of a button. I can think of many other examples, but I'm interested what people make of this...not, who can think of the poorest taste in children’s toys. http://www.downsyndromedolls.com/

Umm, what I meant was, people that take interest in the activities of celebrities, should get a life. Famous rich person takes drugs...hold the front page. EDIT: Well I guess the Queen is rich and famous, which would hold newsworthiness.

They should stick with 'caught with possession' and leave it at that, although I do think the drug laws need a massive overhaul i.e they're rubbish, but that's a different debate, and would be veering even further off topic. Trying to enforce this particular tactic, is just going to fail, and obviously it would have to apply to the public as well. Personally I couldn't care less what a celebrity gets up to in a pub toilet, people that concern themselves with such affairs, really need to get a life.

Slightly off-topic, although this would concern Miss Winehouse, is that in the UK, they're thinking of new powers of arrest against celebrities who have photographic evidence of them indulging in illicit substances. Not entirely sure how that'll work, as surely said celebrity could just claim it was artificial sweetener up their nose...sounds daft, I know. I think people are generally miffed that celebrities can be caught (on camera) blatantly in the act, and getting away with it.

Because you didn't use paragraphs, I gave up after the first few sentences, but a space elevator is being planned (see the link) http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html

The concept would be banter. Clearly the joke failed, and now to confound that failure even further, you've put me in the position of having to explain the joke, which as I'm sure you're aware, will make it even less funny, despite you didn't find it funny to start with, which is quite a feat i.e anti-funny. Could be interpreted as, my life is far more important than anybody else's on here, so you can all go without the Arcade, because I could do without this distraction. To which I say, 'it's all about you, isn't it ecoli.' It's the way I tell 'em. Back on topic, personally I'm not too into gaming, I get bored very quickly, and find most games just time killers, and rather pointless. So I'm not bothered if the Arcade is brought back or not.

Rereading, yes, I see what Lucaspa was getting at. Ah, ok, I'll leave it Lucaspa to respond, but I don't see any point in debating a subject where somebody will refuse to budge. Not to be interpreted as, 'I'm right, and you're wrong', just the discussion will not go anywhere.

It's all about you, isn't it ecoli

News to me, what large scale events (motion) do we apply QM to ? You seem to be stating this as fact, just because there's a discrepancy between macroscopic and microscopic events, i.e deterministic and indeterministic, that's hardly grounds to infer that we have freewill, infact that's a massive leap to come to that conclusion. EDIT: Sorry if this is slightly off topic

My housemate, who happens to work for a games developer (tester) hasn't stopped playing this since he bought it. His verdict, over the top Japanese craziness (especially the dialogue), highly polished, but expect to sit through massive cut scenes. It looks awesome graphically, and a game that's quite fun to watch, even when you're not playing...which I've been doing whilst having breaks from my current assignment.

You could always try a UK tabloid newspaper, or specifically The Daily Mail, who's collective staff IQ is about 15...they'll publish any unsubstantiated crap. (Not saying your stuff would be crap DividebyZero.) But, if you really do have something, (I know this is a hypothetical question) then go through the correct channels i.e peer review.

I found a couple of non-technical articles, neither give much detail, but string theory does appear to be heading towards experimental scrutiny...I'll try and dig up something more recent. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070124175443.htm http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/WhyLHC-en.html

Please excuse the crappy diagram, but this is just to illustrate to some of the responses on this thread, what is meant by redshift when the space between objects is expanding, and just to add, dark energy is a weaker force than gravity...otherwise there wouldn't be local effects, such as the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda reducing... The purple lines (I'm hopelessly colourblind BTW) signify the expansion between the observer and the object, (so imagine the circle's diameter increasing over time) whereas the red lines signify red shift. Whichever point I care to pick on the circle, to observe the central object in the diagram, it will display redshift. This is a massive simplification, (e.g all objects are in motion, and the central object is assumed at rest) but for the case with distant objects, this has been observed. Needless to say this expansion is accelerating.

The only significance 2012 will have, is that people will stop starting these annoying threads.

Deleted

Is hijacking threads a hobby of yours ? As I said in the previous thread, prove your hypothesis, diagrams are a guide you use to visualize the math you're using. However they're useless, unless you can explain how one quantity relates to another...therefore you need to come up with an equation. Not only that, and with all due respect, but you don't seem to know what you're talking about.

Physics is applied math, observation and experiment. If you miss out any of these facets, it's not physics. I'm not sure about physics isn't biology, they may seem distinct fields, but as with most scientific fields there's always cross overs, use of logistic and quadratic maps for example are used both in physics and biology, and this is nothing new. Biology is a completely different beast from the days of Darwin. You have a very strange idea of what a hypothesis is, judging by that statement. I've read the book twice, A appeal to authority, B it's one mans opinion, it's a good book, but don't take it as gospel. You, and neither do I understand string theory enough to formulate an opinion on the subject. Diagrams, just don't cut it, unless you're willing to put the work in, and base your hypothesis on already established math that has held up to experiment and observation, you're not doing physics...like it or not.

Perhaps you should review Newtons laws specifically the third law, but essentially you're right as gravity is per unit mass, and obviously you have (or I should hope) more mass than an atom It wouldn't be, for obvious reasons, just as if I was on Andromeda I'd see the Milky Way, and vice versa. However when you view distant objects, and I mean distant, this is where the universe displays it's isotropic nature, as Klaynos stated. The further you look out, the faster the objects you're viewing are moving away from your frame of reference. This holds for any part of the universe you're viewing. Also you're looking back in time, when the universe was more dense, and you'll observe galaxy formation et.c the field of view, appears the same, but you'll happen upon the same objects. Note: The last bit, isn't a particularly good explanation, hopefully an expert <cough>Martin<cough> will give a better summary.

You're slipping up, because you're considering space as a medium in which objects 'sit in.' Which isn't correct, objects, define space, they don't displace it. A medium like water, and space aren't synonymous in their properties. I'm not far enough into my education to run through the technical details, but there are people on here that will probably give you a more robust explanation.

Space curves towards the celestial body i.e gravity, it doesn't displace outwards, you can't use the Archimedes principle with celestial bodies.

GTA IV, though I've had very little time to play it, but the level of detail in that game is bordering on lunacy, and Everybody's Golf is a favourite in our house.

Tee hee

Did you mean to say 'can' ? Yes, considering they've been tested via experiment, and hold up to the predictions of vector equations. I could use vectors to describe the electrostatic force, and ignore gravity, because it's effects are negligible if that's what you mean. There's no such thing as a gravity free environment, A. because it's range (not it's potential) is infinite, B. gravity (according to GR) is the geometry, or shape of space, how can space be free of shape. So we should drop all the advancements in measuring phenomena, that have refined our understanding of nature, and resort to dropping apples on our head ? I can't make much sense of the rest of your post, no offense. Also, you've hijacked a thread that was specifically about dark matter. There's a sub-forum for speculations. EDIT: meh IA has faster typing skills

I'm currently listening to the new Tipper album, Tertiary Noise, which is very good indeed...though he is my favourite artist. This is my rather odd project called 'Flaps' http://www.myspace.com/funflaps, I posted my other music project in another, very similar thread. I'm playing in Brighton tonight for a friends birthday, and I'm 'Snail' on the flyer, so I may start yet another project under that pseudonym. I realise this is for artists you like, but have a listen to 'fingers', the first track, I hope people find it suitably disturbing.