Royston

Deleted

andrewr5, for a start you'll need to define what you think constitutes a 'great' nation, I'm sure there are plenty of people that will beg to differ on what you feel is 'great'. You can apply the reasoning that war is 'good' to a number of arguments e.g call me a monster, but I think cancer is good, because it helps towards population problems, it sounds daft, but the reasoning is the same. So completely overlooking the fact that there are other answers to population problems rather than relying on disease et.c, which extends to there are other means of progress, you 'don't' need a war to incite progress. Which it seems you're eluding to. So I'm not convinced conflict on large scales is necessary for creating 'great' nations. The Tree, the independence of Switzerland in WWII is a popular misconception, despite their political stance at the time, economically they prevailed, in part, due to this 'so called' independence, i.e the profit on Nazi gold, and held Jewish bank accounts is hardly independent of WWII, in fact Switzerland played a key role in the economics of WWII.

I had to share this with you guys (sorry if you've already seen it), I'm in disturbed bewilderment...this will certainly give the 'star wars kid' a run for his money. Prepare to be erm, well just watch it, and you'll see what I mean... (by the way, there's swearing in the comments below the video)

Well, thanks for trying...I'm sure I'll cope until you or someone else can figure out what's causing this.

Oh, sorry about that, here's a link...http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?...r+Exper iment EDIT: Err, doesn't appear to be on google video anymore. I hope Severian doesn't mind, but he states the flaws a lot better than I could.

Sorry for being a pain, but how long does that take...because it's still the same.

Thanks Sayo

No that didn't work...has this ever happened before ?

Odd, I definitely see 241 still.

Exactly You never know, if it's successful journalists may even visit the website so they can get a second opinion...if they know what's good for them.

I guess the short answer is carbon is an incredibly versatile element, silicon isn't.

I'm planning on setting up a 'bad scientific journalism' website...I'll try and think of a catchier name than that. The idea is to post an article from a mainstream source such as the BBC, and sift the facts from the crap. I'll then forward the contributions to the guilty party, and hopefully they'll issue a statement on the errors in said article. I'll obviously need some experts involved et.c but do you think it's a good idea...is such a thing needed, or are there already plenty of action groups that deal with this. Any ideas or input to my project would be very much appreciated.

Regarding the recent Horizon documentary concerning the LHC, I was wondering if sensationalizing a topic really does have detrimental effects i.e. will physics just carry on running its course even if the general public is disillusioned by massive claims, or will it really damage the field of physics ? Does anyone have any examples where a report has sensationalized a topic and it has had clear and damaging effects to a certain field e.g. (off the top of my head) the topic of cloning.

Surely it's rather pointless speculating whether the internet will become alive...I mean wouldn't we be the ones that would give it the functionality to 'stand alone', and what possible reason is there, to want the internet to think for itself, which isn't even a requirement for life. How can (solely) the passing of information manifest into something that's self-replicating, has a respiratory system, struggles to survive et.c et.c I'm at a loss to how that can possibly come about.

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but the number of 'views' on a thread appears to be stuck, for instance the sfn user awards thread has had 241 views for the last week...is that an error, or is it just the same people viewing it ?

My God I was trashed when I wrote that...it's kinda right, but very poorly expressed. Last night wasn't all in vain though, I managed to convince a friend I could stamp on my own face...which is pretty good for a 30 year old, sorry for being hideously off topic.

Quite, but I get asked what defines reality, and I have to shrug. I think you get those general questions when you're a scientist, and they are general questions and people want a short answer. Unfortunately, it's hard...and there's no short answer to whatever discipline you care to adopt.

7 hours left...so there's still time

IIRC, they're thinking of banning the use of incandescant lights in some countries, but I'll have to double check that.

The only incandescant bulbs we have are in the two garages behind our garden (one of which we never use...has a mates car in it, which he's been meaning to service for the last 6 months) and the excuse for the other...well there isn't one, this thread has reminded me we need to get one for our other garage

Ummm, I think applying for child benefit would be more realistic They could tamper with the frequency range of their ears, and be immune to '*chav busters' however these have sadly been banned in my local city. *Alarms that can only be heard by young people.

Two days left...if you havn't yet nominated DO IT NOW !!! Or Floppsy, here he is \ / >"< _()_ is going to find his way into my food blender after having an argument with Mr Clawhammer, do you really want that on your conscience, well do you ? I know 'a fluffy animal getting it' isn't too original, but I'm running out of ideas to bump this thread .

That's a fair comment...but I think you're missing the point. The claim that the LHC will provide an answer to 'everything' is wrong. What the programme should of concentrated on, is that the LHC may provide an answer to the mechanism of mass, but that's still uncertain...and that's hardly a theory of 'everything'. They mentioned the 'deep field' Hubble experiment, but again, this was many years ago, and this was predicted way before that, the observations agree with a theory...but particle physics and cosmology are far from being unified. In short, the documentary is completely flawed in saying we're anywhere near to a theory of everything, which was the general theme of the programme...and made worse that the LHC was key to this theory, it's just 'part of', like any other successful contributions...if such a theory is possible.

gcol, there's a world of difference between misinformation, and uncertainty...and at no point did I say you, or anyone else is too dumb to understand. If you put work into a subject then you will be able to decipher fact from crap, why you think there's some elitist secrets going on is baffling...if you want to learn physics then study the subject, don't rely on a BBC documentary.

Or don't expect incredibly hard subjects handed to you on a plate...it has nothing to do with physicists maintaining some superiority which is what you're pertaining. The documentary is filled with misinformation, and huge claims. I'll quite happily quote examples, but cross check these claims, that 'isn't' hard. All due respect Blike, but I watched this programme the other night, and spent a good couple of hours explaining to my friends the flaws in this documentary.