mooeypoo

I am not much of a biology person (I'm a physics girl, w00-- okay, okay, I'm a nerd. Fine.) but regardless, I find it much easier to remember when I do one of two things: 1. Make the 'lists' into fun/funny abbreviation words so it's amusing and I can remember them this way. or 2. Think of them visually, like a 'clip', a 'movie' or a comic strip - I tend to remember VISUAL stuff better than written data, so I try to have a picture in my head that has visual representations of the written data. Try it, it might help Good luck btw

Getting lost because they used your IDIOTIC theory is not just personal, it's reckless on your part. Avoiding dealing with the problems in your theory is COWARDLY on your part. I think "my myth is better than your myth" forum would suit you better. We don't work with cowards who are afraid of thinking. That's not science. ~moo

So you ignored my point because you can't answer it or because your statements are turned to be false by it?

Tell that to ancient sea men. When you use the stars to guide you, in the middle of the ocean, one of the WORST things you can have is a cloudy night. You have absolutely NO WAY of knowing where you are, where you're going, or if you're MOVING. The waves on the boat make it impossible to figure out if you're moving or if you're stationary, without the *reference* of the stars (or some land mass). So what you're essentially saying is that not only can you not substantiate anything you're saying, you're also incapable of dealing the simplest problems that current theories do handle. If pirates took your theory, they'd all be dead and lost. What do you think would happen to Astronauts anywhere outside our own solar system? ~moo

To anyone who's exploring *REALITY*. Okay, fine, let's roll with it, then. I am standing on top of a steady rock. What is the rock's velocity? What is my velocity? For that matter, if I stand in the middle of nowhere (in the middle of the universe, in between gelaxies, where I have no stars or stellar objects to give me reference, hence I can't see if or how much I am moving), how do I *measure* my speed? How do I prove I have speed? If you have a theory, and, let's say, that it's accepted, you will now have to show how it is *BENEFICIAL* in studying and understanding our universe. The current theories do a GREAT job helping us make sense of the universe, that's why they're accepted. You need to show that your theory can explain everything the current theories are EXCELLENT ALREADY in explaining, and why your theory is BETTER in helping us predict, understand and make sense of the universe. Can you?

What does that even mean? If something's standing still, there's no.. distance... or change in distance... or.. if you're standing inside something there's no distance between you and that something. I don't quite get what you're saying here.

Damn capitalists. This poll is fixed!

Gessh, No brainer. YT, COME TO AMERICA, MAN!

do you have the db already and you're building a system to handle the queries into it, or are you building a system from scratch to collect inputs from various sources (satellites, etc)? I found this: http://opensourcegis.org/ which has a few open source GIS systems in a few programming languages. Maybe it can help?

Seems like you will need to also find a disease that "nests" (gosh, I suck in biology, but I'm good with clues! for 45 days plus or minus (1 week in hospital + 10 days in american hospital + three weeks home). It might be transferable by blood or bodily fluids, and it seems to me that it should also be hard to identify until it breaks out. As far as I know, some diseases can be detected in the blood even before symptoms show - this doesn't appear to be the case here, since she was in 2 different hospitals since her accident (which is likely where she got sick) and none identified a problem. It might not be relevant, but.. Anyways, I'm curious, even just for general knowledge, do post your answer when you have one

We started some REALLY interesting stuff in our Classical Dynamics class - Keppler's laws (sp?). As an initial intro, our professor explained a bit about ellipses and the reason planets travel in an elliptical orbit around the sun. This was always a sort of a conceptual problem for me, tbh; I guess because i'm used to think of things in terms of simple Newtonian physics, but I always wondered about this. It seemed to me that the "most efficient" orbit is circular, because all the forces equal one another (no change in speeds, too), and I wondered why the planets are not moving that way. The professor did a good job explaining about this (let's see if I got this right) - He explained that if a planet has *exactly* the speed of that circular orbit of R radius from the sun, it would stay there, but planets usually don't have that speed - their speed is slightly higher, so they're "thrown out" to a bigger orbit (and create an ellipse) - but when they reach this orbit with a larger radius, their speed is not high enough to maintain this orbit, and they "resume" the lower orbit, and so on and so forth -- maintaining an elliptical orbit. I got this part (I think), but it got me thinking. If, theoretically, a planet is FORMED *already orbitting* its star, then shouldn't it already form in the "right" orbit for it? where its speed is perfectly fitting for a circular orbit? It sounds to me as if the planet was "trapped" by the sun (hence, the current orbit wasn't its original orbit) and therefore it wasn't in the 'correct' speed for that radius, and it keeps doing ellipses. I can understand this happening with comits and asteroids, but the "native" planets in our solar system.. it sounds like there's something more to it. The way I understand it, when a star is formed within a nebula, the gas cloud is rotating at different speeds (like rings), but at CIRCULAR 'orbits'; the star forms and the planets 'cear out' their paths from the debris and collect more matter to condense and become solid (or.. gaseus or.. whatever else). I know it's an oversimplification, but I am trying to explain my thoughts on this and why I am asking about the conclusion at the end. So, technically, the planets SHOULD have all orbitted at circular orbits, because they were formed within those 'rotating' rings of gas inside the nebula. but then, they're no longer circular, they're elliptical (which says that they don't have the 'speed' for their current orbit). Is it possible they "moved" (maybe as the Sun formed and got bigger? err) to a different orbit..? If I remember correctly, I've read that the planets and the Sun were formed realtively at the same time. So.. does the elliptical orbit of the planet mean that they weren't formed, initially, in their CURRENT orbit, but rather were pulled into a lower orbit after they already had an initial rotation speed (hence, after they were already blobs of matter..) I'm kinda guessing here, the information is still a bit new in my mind, and I hope I understood it correctly. I *think* that Neptune has a more elliptical orbit than the Earth (ours is barely 'noticeable', if i remember correctly), so is it logical to assume that Neptune was 'shifted' from its original orbit more than the Earth?

wow. Neat. Is that because of the mountains/vallies of the surface of the Earth (like, does it go this deep in terms of accuracy)? So, if I got this right, this distribution is a function of time, too? (again, I'm reeeeeeeeally simplifying things, I'm sure, but just conceptually it's really interesting). And.. if we're on the subject - are those tides oscillating in some frequency (in relation to how close we are to the Sun, or our positions with the other planets) or is it completely varied due to the complexity of all the planets orbits compared to ours and the Sun's mass? This is really interesting, if there are any mods awake, I'd appreciate cutting this part under a new thread

wow. Neat. Is that because of the mountains/vallies of the surface of the Earth (like, does it go this deep in terms of accuracy)? So, if I got this right, this distribution is a function of time, too? (again, I'm reeeeeeeeally simplifying things, I'm sure, but just conceptually it's really interesting). And.. if we're on the subject - are those tides oscillating in some frequency (in relation to how close we are to the Sun, or our positions with the other planets) or is it completely varied due to the complexity of all the planets orbits compared to ours and the Sun's mass? This is really interesting, if there are any mods awake, I'd appreciate cutting this part under a new thread

BTW, D H, I know I'm a puny undergrad, but this is really interesting; we just learned in class something about distribution of mass (and charge, they seem to have the same general concept). The professor didn't get into it too much but he did say that dipole moment (quadruple moment, etc) define the general shape and 'distortion' of the mass. Is that what you are talking about (simply, of course, I'm sure its a lot more complicated than that) ? btw.. hairy mathematics or hairy mathematicians? .. both can.. be.. uh.. challenging.

BTW, D H, I know I'm a puny undergrad, but this is really interesting; we just learned in class something about distribution of mass (and charge, they seem to have the same general concept). The professor didn't get into it too much but he did say that dipole moment (quadruple moment, etc) define the general shape and 'distortion' of the mass. Is that what you are talking about (simply, of course, I'm sure its a lot more complicated than that) ? btw.. hairy mathematics or hairy mathematicians? .. both can.. be.. uh.. challenging.

roflmao, "You got me at 'hello'": Pearls, Gilded. Pearls. ...and 2 seconds later: I propose a new user award for next year: The Gilded Award for pwning your own words on IRC.

The fact that we have different conventions for different tests shows that those limits are our own invention. The Sun is a good example, again. When we calculate the motion of the planets around it, we tend to treat it as a round sphere. Like Edtharan pointed out, this is purely for convenience. In such examinations the 'layering' of the sun doesn't quite matter, just its total mass. However, when we test things like the neutrino emissions of the Sun, or its 'sun spots', we *cannot* treat it as a homogenous sphere, we have to take into account the layers, and the gaseous "atmosphere" (over-simplification) of the Sun. It would obviously be more convinient to take the Sun as a sphere in this case too, but it the innacuracy would be too great to "settle with" (unlike the first instance, where the "innacuracy" is so tiny, it's negligible). So we can't settle for convinience, and we have to take the complexities of the structure of the Sun. And we do. So these things are not "black and white" as you tend to present them, traveler. We don't do just one thing all the time. We vary, and those variations depend on what we look for and how much error margin it will produce. Up to highschool kids are taught that Newton's laws are F=ma and such, even though that's *not quite* Newton's law. Newton's law in the "better" form (or rather, the original, more accurate form) is more like [math]F=m\frac{d^2x}{dt^2}[/math] (and even that's not quite it, the actual one, if I remember correctly, came from momentum. Physics expert, correct me if I wrong). But highschool/elementary-school kids are not in a high-enough level to handle Newton's laws in its true form, so for simplicity, they're being taught the simplified *inaccurate* form. We CONSCIOUSLY chose to over-simplify things - on the expense of accuracy! - for children and teens, because we prefer they understand the general concept first, and then, later, in college/university/advanced courses deal with the much more complex (but accurate) representation of that law. It's all about what you want to check, and what is the convenient way of getting it. ~moo

I so don't. I have no clue.. I'm staring at the book at both Taylor Expansion and something called "Fourier Trick"... I heard of the Fourier trick and I've learned, about 2 semester ago, about Taylor series (I need to review), but it was in the context of a series, and just something about how to construct it (i sucked btw) and so far, I haven't figured out how to *use* them in here. Can you give me an example so I can see steps/method? If you feel uncomfortable "solving my hw question" then just use whatever other parameters, or a generalized version, but I would REALLY appreciate an example or some explanation, I am *SOOO* lost in this, I have no idea how to even start!

Which is why we don't define objects as points. Ever heard of integrals? Integrations in general? We *don't* define objects as 'points' (unless they're REAAAAAAAAAAAALLY tiny compared to the distance we measure from, and then it's done for simplicity, because the difference between a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaally faraway tinytiny object and a point-object is negligible) we look at objects as per their complexity. Of course, if your life view is that everything is simplistic and uncomplicated, then you would ignore that, too, I imagine. Despite what you decide to do, though, scientists don't ignore that complexity. Again. If you look at spheres, then yes, the "border" is a distance away. If you look at non homogeneous objects, then that "border" is calculated differently. It all depends what you want to calculate, and what that object IS. If we're talking about a spherical rock flying through space, it would probably be easiest to treat it as a sphere, measure its "borders" as distances from its center, etc. But what if we talk about other shapes, or, even, things that 'fall apart' and 'change shape' as they go. Like comets. As it approaches the sun, a comet heats up and parts of it melt; it disintegrates, leaving a trail behind it. So: where does the comit end? In the "bulk" of it or in the tail? do you includwe the tail or not? Do you include PARTS of the tail? what about the surface? it's not easy to separate between the tail and the surface - where do you draw the line? The answer isn't simple, and it depends, most of the time, on what you're checking. huh? What.. what point definition? why half? what are you talking about? There are definitions and conventions; that's how you define things, otherwise you speak philosophy and not science, and you cannot be understood by anyone. Riiiiight... welcome back, traveler. ~moo

Because that's what you define as an *OBJECT*. So when you measure the object (which you have defined), you measure by your own definition. Because you are the one who defined it. The sun, for instance, is harder to measure because it is gas - its "surface" is less defined. So how do you measure the "size" of the sun? You *DEFINE* the edges. You DEFINE what those edges are, so you can measure the object *YOU DEFINE*. Has nothing to do with coincedence or universe or systems... or.. anything really. Definitions.

Welcome back, traveler.

Hey guys. Okay, hehe, funniest story ever - I am having a few time issues with my 2 advanced phys classes, I had to end up choosing which one I put my time in and which I am just cruising through, getting my expected F (probably) and doing again (we have an "F Drop" policy, where if u do it again your F is replaced). In any case, we had an exam on the class I "gave up" on. Among other things, I'm having difficulties with the math (I'm just now studying the beginning of it in the math course), so I REALLY didn't expect to do well. As it turns out, no one did very well. I have no idea what my grade is (probly bad) but from my talk with other people in class, I did fairly well compared to some of them. Weird, huh? anyhoo, I have the exam + my answers, and I got seriously stuck in 2 parts of a question, which I am hoping you can help me out with. The point of this entire long intro, other than amusing you, is to put a notice that I might not be too well versed in the math, so, uhm, if I start asking questions that sound amateurish, it's because I *am* an amateur. I have no clue what the professor's doing (math wise) half the time. I'm reading the book by myself and trying to figure things out. Please bear with me here. Okay, first question I got stuck with: Okay, so what I thought was that since V is with only 1 variable, the equation is [math]F= - \frac{dv}{dx}[/math] And then I just take F=0 So, hopefully my calculations were right, i got x=3a when F=0, which is the equilibrium point. (and x=0) (b) I didn't even know how to start. I know about the equation (how do you do x-dot and x-doubledot in LaTeX? I'll just write this as 'primes' of X, but I mean xdot and xdoubledot, that is the dx/dt and its second derivative) [math]x'' + w_{0}^{2} = 0[/math] but.. x'=0 and so is x''=0 so.. uhh.. I have no clue what to do. In my frustration, I tried putting in [math]x=3a+\epsilon[/math] (epsilon being a tiny number) but then that doesn't work either. What.. how.. who.. where.. how do I approach this? Okay, expect another question in a nother thread (probably tomorrow when I'm after some sleep Thanks! ~moo

omg omg omg that's what I ..though of.. and.. geesh, that's not what I wrote. Meh. Sorry, you're absolutely right, I now walk on to hide in the corner of my room.

You do notice you keep linking religious into this, right? Just saying, this is why it's in Pseudoscience/Speculations and not anywhere else. In any case, it SHOULD work Mars, but... physics experts? help here? I am not sure. As for the moon.. well the moon completes a rotation cycle every 24 hours (that's why it's always "facing" us) and it's also much smaller than the Earth. So I would guess that the pendulum would move much less, but .. I am not sure. I'm also not sure how to check this. Anyone?

Or between the "Pseudo" and "Science".