JamesNBarnes

Ah i see, i didnt know that measuring would have broken the entanglement. Also, to be fair to the book, it was probably me who was in error. I read it some while ago, and my memory is shaky at the best of times. It may have been a case of reading about entanglement and then extrapolating (wrongly) that this might be possible. Thanks for filling me in though.

Oh i see ok, ill see what i can dig up in that area. Any info on the incompressible rod?

Is this a purely theoretical question, or do you have a goal in mind? If you state the goal, you might get a more helpful answer.

I think the real question you should be asking yourself is what do you enjoy doing? If you want to make good money, then you have to be good at what you do. Being good is not just being competent. You can be the most talented programmer in the world, but with out the drive and motivation to work you will never get anything meaningful done. Choosing something that you have a passion for makes the motivation much easier to come by. So pick something that excites you Also, remember that even these two alone aren't always enough for success, people skills are also very important, and often overlooked. In most cases, being able to be a good member of a team is invaluable. A mediocre coder that is an excellent team player (by which i mean is able to leverage his skills and the skills of his coworkers most efficiently) is often more valuable to a company than a coding prodigy who is prickly and stubborn. Just common sense really, but important i think. I chose to study computer science, with a focus on AI, because the future of the discipline is endlessly fascinating to me. Time will tell if that was a wise decision! I think your plan to diversify is a fantastic idea, diversity stops you from stagnating, literally anything that you choose to study in detail can help you in solving problems, after all, thats what programming is - creative problem solving. Best of luck!

Just want clarification on a point of interest for me. Is it possible for the soul to travel faster than light? I kid, but thats not a million miles from my intended question. Ive read that two "objects" can exist in a "quantum entangled" state, in the same book it was theorised that this could provide faster than light communication. In a nutshell, if one of our quantum maguffins where on earth, and one was 30million light years away, a change to our earthbound maguffin results in an instant change to our distant maguffin, from which the state of the earth bound maguffin can be extrapolated. Voila faster than light internet! However, i also remember reading that information cannot travel faster than light, with, if i remember correctly, the idea of an incompressible rod, stretching a huge distance, with poking of one end of the rod, being transmitted instantly to the other. This was refuted. So is faster than light communication possible? That brings me onto my next question, im neither a mathematician or a physicist, so my understanding of dimensions is limited, with this in mind, how do we measure "speed"? Its problematic, because we need a reference point, so say for example, we poked a hole in "space" in one place, our starting point, then poked another hole in space at our intended destination, then using my cosmic sewing kit we stitched these holes together. In my limited understanding, i suppose this could be called a worm hole. Essentially we have an extradimensional shortcut from point a to point b. An observer at point A would see our craft entering the the wormhole at point a, and exiting at point b. To him it would appear that the craft had reached there in less time than it would have taken light to make the journey through normal space. So whereas the people aboard the craft may have seemed to travel a short distance, lets say an arbitrarily short distance from a through the wormhole to b, at a speed significantly less than light. So we have 2 different observers, with two different speeds. From my basic familiarity with relativity, i know enough to suspect that its all well explained, but could any one clarify? Thanks

Hello, I was a member of -some- science forum a while back... it may have been this one, i forget! Regardless, I have made my way back, not too sure why, but not sure why i left either. I like the atmosphere here though, there's a reasonable chance of getting a sensible and well constructed answer from a question here I have been working on my perpetual motion machine for a few years now, i managed to crack that particular nut in a weekend. After being started (you can start it by hand with practice) it will continue to accelerate at a fairly linear rate for a few hours until it reaches its maximum speed. At this point it is generating about 2200W. My research in this area has led me to form a new and profound theroy of the universe, its too complex for me to state here, but i think there is a driving force behind life that is beyond anything considered up to this point! What has led me to this conclusion? Well... My perpetual motion engine works flawlessly... except on Thursdays. As soon as midnight passes, the machine starts to slow down and then stops, and it refuses to start again until Friday morning. I never did get the hang of Thursdays.

If you are wanting to try Java or Python then Codingbat is excellent. Personally i think Java is a great place to start. People will always disagree when discussing what languages are preferable, but i do think Java is great, it has a huge selection of high quality libraries, which helps you start writing powerful programs very quickly indeed. The flip side of the coin however, is that because it has so many (excellent) pre written libraries, its easy to stay abstracted from the workings of them, which can leave you at a disadvantage. Just remember, a language is a tool, as such, there is no "best" only "best suited to a job". The more languages you familiarise yourself with, the easier you will find picking your tool

Its never fun when someone says "dont do that", but i recommend you dont do it, yet. Start off with some basic electronics, the internet of full of great tutorials. When you have a basic grasp of everything you can start with more ambitious projects. You CAN just follow schematics, but without a full understanding of what you are doing, you are more prone to accidents. Accidents in electronics can be both expensive and life limiting. Plus if you really understand what you are doing, you will have much more fun in the long run, because you will be able to make bespoke modifications of your new toys! If your using electrolytic capacitors, especially old ones, please be extra careful. Use eyewear when charging them until you know what you are doing. Lastly, having the proper tools always helps! I suggest http://www.dealextreme.com for the basics. You can get yourself set up with multitesters, bread boards, basic components, test hooks etc for very little money.

The best advice i can give is, firstly make sure you understand the problem in its entirety. If its in a test all you can do is make sure you follow the spec to the letter. If its in a more real world setting, ask questions, lots of them. Even the most basic questions can be important. As a general rule, if in doubt, ask. Any one who looks down on you for asking questions is a fool. Actually, i just reread that, i should be more specific... If you are asking "how do i compile this" then you need to go and work on your skills. If you are asked to write a method to compute something by your supervisor, ask questions like "what will it be used for?" and "how will it be used" etc etc. This helps eradicate any misunderstandings, its worth bearing in mind, that the person who has assigned you a task may not have any knowledge of how it will be used, if they cant answer, find someone who can. After you know exactly what you need to produce, break it down into a series of discrete and simple steps. Personally i scribble in a notebook with lots of arrows and such Once you have the structure of the program, you can implement it step by step. When you have it working, test it thouroughly (better yet, get a coworker to). Once you are happy with that, you can look into optimising it. Edit: Practice a lot. Sit down and think of some interesting programs to write, and start writing them! Anything, even if other programs already exist that do it, write one yourself. Challenge yourself though, don't start a project that you know you can finish easily. Try something that seems beyond your skills, you will often surprise yourself, and even if you cant finish it, you will be taking away valuable lessons. Practice will improve your intuition, and that cuts down on development time, and makes it easier to spot your mistakes. Lastly, and this may be controversial, if you don't enjoy it, perhaps programming isnt for you. Everybody gets frustrated and walks away from the keyboard from time to time, but if you find yourself running back 30 seconds later then you know you have the bug A lot of the time it takes determination to do it, and if you don't enjoy doing it, that determination can be hard to find. There are a lot of things one can do in computer science besides writing software. J

What a great idea, one of the hardest things about teaching programming is getting feedback that is quick and fun. Could be really great for non-programmers.

Absolute hot! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_hot

I've been re-watching Red Dwarf recently, and its got me thinking about the effects of time on every day objects. For those unfamiliar with the premise, theres a huge city sized ship, Red Dwarf, and due to a disaster (the specific effects of which we will have to ignore, because the description provided by the writers is riddled with flaws its self) the ship was essentially left untouched for 3 million years. One sole crew member was in "stasis" at the time of the accident, and was released from stasis 3 million years later. So with that in mind, we will assume that the atmosphere within the ship stayed exactly the same as the Earth's atmosphere for 3 million years. (Or if you know the specifics of the composition aboard modern space craft, run with that ) What specifically would happen to every day object under these circumstances? To make it a little easier to speculate we can pluck some of the variables out of the air We can assume that the lighting was turned off for the duration of the 3 million years. We can assume that the humidty remained at a constant of around 10 -20% (I got that figure from the average humidity of an aeroplane interior, gleaned from a quick google, please feel free to correct). So what would happen to every day objects left in these conditions for a period of 3 million years. Things to consider (taken from things i noticed in the show). - Paper - Blue Tack - Tinned Food/Dried food (both possibly irradiated for sterilisation) - Cosmetics - Clothing - Metallic Objects - Plastics - Composites of the above, eg Electronics Feel free to add your own terms ... the show aired in the 80s so you can imagine a ship built with technology from back then, modern technology or proto technology (it was set in the late 22nd century) Please note, im not trying to validate or lampoon any of the things shown in the program. Im well aware that the premise of the show is just a vehicle to set up a sitcom. However, i think it will make for an interesting discussion! I would appreciate answers with some in depth explaination for any of your speculation Lastly, if you havnt seen Red Dwarf and would like to, many of the episodes can be streamed from here. Thanks!

Ive been thinking, there's a few more points i can add that may help narrow it down... He mentions humboldt squid, and said he would rather swim with ravenous Piranha than humboldt squid in a feeding frenzy. Also, whilst i believe English was his first language, he did have an accent, no idea where he was from, but he may not have been american, he wasnt English though.

Hmm, Ive done a quick google for the name, O'Shea seems a bit too young, the chap i was talking about is older, and i think he has a beard.

This may be a long shot, but I remember seeing a documentary some while ago, it was about squid, specifically the search for giant squid but that may not have been its sole focus. Regardless, what I do remember is the "expert" was a white male, I'm pretty sure he was american, moreover he had a real passion for squid, a Feynmanesque joy of sharing his knowledge. My house mate studies Biology, and I think she would really enjoy watching it, as would I. Any ideas on what it was or where I can find it? J