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I want to scientifically determine the validity of a certain "theory" some off-the-wall psuedoscientific site is putting out. I don't have the URL off hand, but its some gun you can "build" to break up clouds. Sounds pretty wack, right? Wait till you hear the explanation of why it works. The problem comes with the actual observations of the results. Basically I'll be observing the clouds to see what happens when this "gun" is pointed at them. So how should I measure this? My plan is to build the gun and randomly assign clouds to point the gun at. I'll also assign control clouds that are measured, but which the gun is not pointed at. Then I'll assign clouds to point the gun at, but not activate the mechanism that supposedly triggers the response in the clouds. This way I'll not only have assessed whether or not it works, but also the theory behind it. I just need to know how I should "measure" this.... no breakup, mild breakup, total breakup? Something like that? How can I put this into quantifiable data so someone could repeat the experiment... suggestions?

Will we make it to mars by the year 2010, as president Bush has suggested?

...to make this more user-friendly? We were thinking about merging forums, but how far should we take this? Should all physics forums be under just "physics"? And all mathematical forums just be under "math"? Or leave some seperate.. We were also going to change the main page. I was thinking about taking off the active topics and replacing it with links to the general forums (chem, math, physics, etc..). Active topics make it easy to follow a thread, but there are other ways. Also thinking about adding a philosophy forum, since a lot of posts would fit under this catagory. Give us your suggestions...

bump

The doctors who strike are only refusing to see new patients. They are still taking care of those they are already seeing. I think I can't say that I'm totally for this, but I can't say that I'm totally against it either. I don't know what other options there are. I know if lawyers had people dictating their job like insurance companies dictate a physicians practice, they'd be screaming bloody murder. The medical profession here in the US is in shambles. Doctors hardly make enough pay to cover malpractice, and malpractice suits are way out of hand. Insurance companies have also had their hand in ruining medicine. I'm not against the idea of medical coverage for everyone, but something is wrong when a 21-year old insurance rep making 25k a year tells a doctor who has spent many hard years studying and perfecting his art how much time he can spend with a patient, what tests he can and cannot order, what he can and cannot diagnose. Nurses are underpaid, understaffed, and overworked [plus they have to deal with grumpy doctors]. Note to all future doctors(including myself): Respect nurses. They work very hard, and get mistreated all the time for doing their job (calling the doctor when something is wrong).

great line.

I believe the criticism of cloning comes because we do not fully understand the processes with which we are dealing. Many of our cloned animals are turning out to have serious problems, why risk this with a human life? It may not sound that bad, but it could be horrific. Once we start enhancing people, we divide the race into genetic classes. Those who are enhanced, and those who are not. Hitler had this idea as well.

I don't know much about skywatchers, or even refractor telescopes. How much is it being offered for? I couldn't find anything about the 150 model that was in english. Do you specifically want a refractor? Have you looked into any reflector scopes? I have a meade 6" reflector scope that has served me quite well, it was reasonably affordable too. What do you plan on using the scope for? Casual observing? Astrophotography? [also, what does the expression "i'm very green" mean? help us non-european folks out ]

Yep The five carbons in deoxyribose are denoted 1' to 5'. Here's what my bio book has to say: "At one end, denoted the 3' end, a hydroxyl group is attached to the 3' carbon of the terminal deoxyribose. At the opposite end, the 5' end, the sugar-phosphate backbone terminates with the phosphate group attached to the 5' carbon of the last nucleotide." Basically, it helps one orient which side of the nucleic acid chain we're talking about. I'm not sure, I would assume it means Intron-4, Guanine substitutes thymine etc.... ------ Fafalone will be back saturday, he's really good with this stuff and will probably be able to provide more detailed answers.

Hush, at least he's submitting news

Someone pointed out this paper to me, what are your thoughts on it? I've never taken any physics courses, so I can't really accurately assess his points...what do you guys think? "Why do photons from the Sun travel in directions that are not parallel to the direction of Earth's gravitational acceleration toward the Sun? Why do total eclipses of the Sun by the Moon reach maximum eclipse about 40 seconds before the Sun and Moon's gravitational forces align? How do binary pulsars anticipate each other's future position, velocity, and acceleration faster than the light time between them would allow? How can black holes have gravity when nothing can get out because escape speed is greater than the speed of light?" The Speed of Gravity - What the Experiments Say Abstract Standard experimental techniques exist to determine the propagation speed of forces. When we apply these techniques to gravity, they all yield propagation speeds too great to measure, substantially faster than lightspeed. This is because gravity, in contrast to light, has no detectable aberration or propagation delay for its action, even for cases (such as binary pulsars) where sources of gravity accelerate significantly during the light time from source to target By contrast, the finite propagation speed of light causes radiation pressure forces to have a non-radial component causing orbits to decay (the "Poynting-Robertson effect"); but gravity has no counterpart force proportional to v/c to first order. General relativity (GR) explains these features by suggesting that gravitation (unlike electromagnetic forces) is a pure geometric effect of curved space-time, not a force of nature that propagates. Gravitational radiation, which surely does propagate at lightspeed but is a fifth order effect in v/c, is too small to play a role in explaining this difference in behavior between gravity and ordinary forces of nature. Problems with the causality principle also exist for GR in this connection, such as explaining how the external fields between binary black holes manage to continually update without benefit of communication with the masses hidden behind event horizons. These causality problems would be solved without any change to the mathematical formalism of GR, but only to its interpretation, if gravity is once again taken to be a propagating force of nature in flat spacetime with the propagation speed indicated by observational evidence and experiments: not less than 2 x 1010 c. Such a change of perspective requires no change in the assumed character of gravitational radiation or its lightspeed propagation. Although faster-than-light force propagation speeds do violate Einstein special relativity (SR), they are in accord with Lorentzian relativity, which has never been experimentally distinguished from SR-at least, not if favor of SR. Indeed, far from upsetting much of current physics, the main changes induced by this new perspective are beneficial to areas where physics has been struggling, such as explaining experimental evidence for non-locality in quantum physics, the dark matter issue in cosmology, and the possible unification of forces. Recognition of a faster-than-lightspeed propagation of gravity, as indicated by all existing experimental evidence, may be the key to taking conventional physics to the next plateau.

Though I believe in God, "It's easier to believe in God" is one of the worst things that can be said by a theist

Should we add "history and philosophy of science"?

Hey, whatever you guys want...but what exactly would fit into that catagory?

Einstein wins again! http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993232 So what does all this mean for Taylor's work, etc?

bump. anyone?

1) Carbohydrates - long polymer of repeating units 2) Protien - globular shape 3) Lipids - not soluble in water 4) Nucleic acid has nitrogenous base. What adam said

CNN has an article on a new study that claims the Antarctic ice sheet may be gone in 7,000 years. Interestingly, the study notes the sheet began melting about 10,000 years ago and is still shrinking. "Stone said the study cannot prove or disprove any affect on the melting by global warming, a gradual increase in temperatures that some believe is accelerated by the burning of fossil fuels. Instead, he said, the researchers have measured what is apparently a natural cycle of ice buildup and melting that may have been going on periodically for millions of years. " If the sheet does completely melt, global sea levels could rise 16 feet, drowning islands and coasts.

NewScientist is reporting is reporting that Clonaid, the company that claims to have cloned the first human, now say a second one is on the way this Sunday. "The parents told me they are giving themselves another 48 hours to decide whether or not they will do the tests," she told the France 2 television station. She added that tests might instead be performed on the second child: "Perhaps the second child will be more accessible because it is in Europe and the country in which he or she will be born may be less sensitive." [lets hope it isn't a clone of her, one is enough, thank you]

PhysicsWeb has a summary of the Top 10 Physics Highlights of 2002. Among the highlights are oscillating neutrinos, defying the second law of thermodynamics, CERN anti-atoms, and more.

But isn't "maybe" just suspending decision? For example: Am I going to the mall today? Maybe. That just means I havn't decided yet, and I will have to make a decision [yes or no, (1 or 0)] later whether or not to go.

Ahmad, what year medical student are you?

I've just read both of those books within the past two months. Hawking's book was good, Plato's was slow. It was required reading for my philosophy course though. I ended up with a B- on the paper (but thats because my TA was a nazi)

I'm reading: "Web of Belief" (Quine) and "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe" (dunno author off top of my head).

How do we distinguish convergent evolution from common ancestry? hows that for short and sweet I'm on vacation right now, as is faf. We'll be back to normal when school kicks back up.