Loki

alt_f13 -- how do you really know that the human race is a "pile of trash"? After all, we have no other society to compar ours to. It may just be that our society is the most functional out of all of the "intelligent" life forms in the universe. Of course, we don't now, but isn't it a little pointless to accuse--or even praise--the human race when we have no idea where we actually stand in the universe?

How would you like to be an astronaut on that flight? Gotta be a little more stressful than normal.

For the record: Not one giant squid has been seen/found/recorded alive.

Anyone else find it... peculiar... that the scientist is Italian? :)

matter- hey, don't worry. your description of yourself sounds quite similar to me, really... I think I just got lucky or somethign navajo- I felt the same way about my girl. some times i was even intimidated by her because i saw so many great things about her that I didn't have. but she's still with me so that might just be a sign that i have poor self esteem or something... anyway, what do you see in her that is so great that you don't have? cause there were certain things about my g/f that i saw as superior, but later on found out that we were on the same level after all, it just appeared differently at the beginning...

Does YT always ramble on about relativity even if it has nothing to do w/ the original topic?

From Bill Bryson in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything "Today the particle count is well over 150, with a further 100 or so suspected, but unfortunately, in the words of Richard Feynman, 'it is very difficult to understand the relationships of all these particles, and what nature wants them for, or what the connections are from one to another.'" To my understanding, these 150-250 particles are the real building blocks of our universe. Without considering string theory, these particles--as far as we can tell--cannot be broken down into smaller particles (correct?). So what does all this mean? At first we thought there was only protons, neutrons, and electrons. Then we discovered quarks. And now the particle count is up to 150! It's probably best to take note of how many of these particles last not even a millionth of a second and may be completely irrelevant to nature and the universe. comments?

I've heard from more than one person that it is easy. So, how mathematical is the class? Is the math interesting like in Calculus? Or is the math boring and for the most part arbitrary like in economics?

but that doesn't mean that the underdog doesn't deserve any attention

With 3 billion girls to choose from, I know that there are many more "right" ones. But it obviously doesn't quite like that. I'm only 17, so I can't really part any wisdom. But my very wise physics teacher once told me that once you love someone, that person will ALWAYS be a part of you, even if you move on to different things. Right now my girlfriend is leaving for college, while I stay home and go to high school. Despite what any "superior" elder says, I am in love with her. And it feels so weird thinking about how we may have to move on eventually due to reasons beyond our control. The point is that if I find another girl one or two years from now she won't feel like the "right" one (no matter how perfect she may be) simply because my heart belongs to my currect girlfriend, and my current girlfriend will always be a part of who i am... and of course right now she feels like the only "right" one out there. My point is that my current girlfriend purely stole my heart first and it seems weird to let another girl down the road steal the title of "the right one"... haha, i dunno, i can't explain myself.. but of course we all know that time does wonders and can probably make the title of "the right girl" belong to a few girls in one's life. i dunno, i guess i'd say that the right girl does NOT come only once.

AP classes are basically what all the honor students take. Each AP class prepares you for an AP test, which is given during May. Most U.S. Colleges will give you college credit for passing scores on AP tests.... so AP classes are meant to earn you college credit

:phi: = 1.618... uh... something like that, i don't remember So what do you guys think about this number? It appears mysteriously in nature in the most unexpected places. The leaves on plants base their "spiral" arrangement up the stem on this number. also, any number in the Fibonacci sequence divided by the preceding number in the sequence will approximately equal :phi: Fibonacci Sequence: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89... 1/1 = 1.000 2/1 = 2.000 3/2 = 1.500 5/3 = 1.667 8/5 = 1.600 13/8 = 1.625 21/13 = 1.615 . . . 89/55 = 1.618 This converges to :phi: There's some more crazy characteristics to this number... :phi:^2 = 2.618... 1/:phi: = 0.618... I could elaborate, but I'll open it to discussion first.

quack, what school do you go to? (we both live in tx) looks like a pretty nice schedule to me I wish my high school had such great orginization... fitting bc calc, phys, eng, band, and chem all in the same year... that's unheard of at my school,

To back up your statement, Discover magazine recently said that it is unlikely that our brains have much more room to evolve. The brain--the source of our intellect--is a powerhog, and requires delicate evolution to reach a point where the intellectual power justifies the excessive amount of energy the brain uses. With that said, our brain size may have reached a limit--the peak of efficiency; the best intellect to energy required ratio. I read that somewhere.... I think

I'm going to ruin this thread by posting my HIGH SCHOOL schedule. 1- AP Statistics 2- H Anatomy/Physiology 3- AP English 4 4- Economics 5- Calculus III Both AP physics and Astronomy did not make this year! arg! So I had to settle for two considerably less cool courses (stat, anat/phys)

I almost bought that book. I've heard of mixed opinions, so I don't know if I'll ever read it. Just from flipping through the book I could easily see how the book would be a great read. I agree with clown. good pictures + physics = I understand!

Have any of you taken this class in high school? I'm currently enrolled in it right now and I want to know what I'm in for. Unfortunately, only 7 people (including myself) signed up for the class, and the only AP stat teacher had to double up his classes. I'm basically stuck in an Algebra 2 class, and the teacher will have to divide his attention to two groups. It sucks, but I might survive. Given enough guidance, I can usually teach myself anything. So hopefully we'll get good textbooks.

So... I'm taking computer programming next semester... and apparently I'm learning Java... hehe, sounds like I'm going to waste my time. Oh well, at least it's something to introduce me to the scene!

Hehe, oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I also have an interest in Norse Mythology Thanks for the advice. I have to admit that I'm completely in the dark when it comes to majors/careers and what they have to offer. I didn't know that astrophysics was so promising. To me--and this is simply a naive notion, really--it seems as if the field of astrophysics is so abstract that all astrophysics degree holders end up in a career barely relavant. But I may be wrong. I'll look into it

fafalone--true. I guess in my class TI-89s were harmful because we couldn't use calculators on certain tests. So all the TI-89 users used their 89s on homework, but bombed the tests. I still say go with a TI-83 for calc 1 & 2, because it's a little cheaper and will do everything you need. It will even give you the area beneath curves, but cannot do indefinite integrels.

Yeah, I plan on going to graduate school. As far as what part of astronomy I enjoy--my passion is too broad and undevoloped right now to say. EVERYTHING about astronomy interests me. If I had the choice, I would probably pick Astronomy as a major over Astrophysics. But I still don't know. I WANT to pursue my interest, but I have to know how "dangerous" this career path is. After all, I have interests in physics, chemistry, and engineering, and I'd be happy to go down one of those paths if it means a safer career...

I didn't know whether to put this under Relativity or Quantum mechanics... so hopefully it fits here... I was reading The Elegant Universe just now and one sentence stated that the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be correct. I have heard this from many other sources too. What I want to know is why. In Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything I read how some scientists sent two particles 6 miles apart from each other. After making one spin, the other spun in the opposite direction accordingly and instantaniously. This is how I understand this situation: The "data" (or spin) from the first particle was "sent" to the other particle to tell it to spin in the opposite direction. This mysterious "data" traveled instantaneously--faster than the speed of light, which leaves us with a paradox between two fundamentally sound theories. This is my understanding of the situation and I was wondering if I'm "right on" or "off-target." Also, this is the only condradiction I've heard of between the two theories, wouldn't there be more contradictions if all these sources claim that "they cannot both be correct?" I'm pretty uneducated in this field, so feel free to bash my argument to pieces =D

I say that the definitions of life are arbitrary anyway, and may only apply to here on planet Earth. I wouldn't be surprised if scientists find definite life that doesn't follow one or two of the "functions of life." As for right now, life seems to be anything that follows functions such as-- reproduces, maintains homeostasis, etc...

After reading Hyperspace and The Elegant Universe you'd think I'd be able to contribute to this discussion, but it's so hard to retain information from two 300-page books. I just know that to test String Theory we'd need to harness much more energy than we could imagine. So do you think that we'll ever be able to test theories such as this? If we can't, then is it still science?

NSX, I took Calc 1 and 2 in high school last year. I used a TI-83+ and I was fine. The TI-89 calculators can do a WHOLE lot of neat calculus tricks. They can differentiate and integrate for you! But guess what, you're supposed to know how to do that anyway. So I would stick with the TI-83+, it can do everything you need it to, from parametric graphic to radian graphing (which you'll use in calc 2 a lot). You won't have access to any of those cheap TI-89 tricks, but at least you'll actually KNOW how to integrate, unlike those TI-89 cheapos. Oh, and what university are you going to? I'm a senior in high school, so I have to start college applications and all that soon. =\