mooeypoo

You can disagree for however many years you want, the theory of black body radiation WORKS, and is the key to quite a number of technological items you are using in your day to day life. the amount of time you spent believing your own mistaken notion is irrelevant. You *can* be wrong for a long time, and you seem to have your mind so strictly set-up on never ever even considering the possibility that you might be misunderstanding the concepts, that it seems you will never even recognize an error even if it stares you in the face. We're "experts" because unlike you, we had the humility to go learn the subject, its history and the origin of the formula before we claim we can do better. You're talking gibberish, and you don't understand how the physics works. This isn't an opinion; the moment you claimed to "disagree" with the above formula, you showed it to be a fact. Do you even know what h is? How does it have multiple values if it is a defined constant? Where are its units? What are its units, really, do you even know? Do you know where it came from and why it was defined the way it has? I'm starting to give up, and you, my dear friend, need to go over the rules of discussion. What's G? Do you know? Where did this constant come from? What is this "Da"? Do you mean the "Dalton" (Atomic mass unit) ? If so, why does it matter to G, when G is clearly not Kg, but rather [math]\frac{m^3}{kg s}[/math] - do you even understand what those units mean? Okay... Don't give me a hint, and don't be a smartass. We're spending time here listening to you and participating in the discussion -- there's really no need for you to be so disrespectful. You came to us and the responsibility to cooperate is yours. Start owning up to it. Solve the equation. You claim you can solve things better, and you beat around the bush. This is the definition of acting as an internet troll, and I, being the one that at first thought you could use some patience and guidance to get your passion in the right track, am starting to lose my patience. Also, here's a hint for you: You can write things really really big, and it still won't make you right. How is anything 'second' equal 'degree' ? Do you mean "minute of arc"??? http://en.wikipedia....i/Minute_of_arc That's about the only thing I can think of that MIGHT make that statement make even vaguely possible. Even then, btw, you would need to *transform* seconds to degrees, which mean (wooh) you would need to work with the units. Where did the percentage come from? How is -2.16... equal 10*10? I'm starting to think you're speaking gibberish on purpose. You've been getting our answers, and you've been uncooperative. I suggest you read the rules of this forum, my friend. You're not following the debate rules, and your insistence to repeat claims without proper explanation and misuse of math is trying our patience. We're giving you a chance... this won't be the case forever. Are you here to discuss science, or are you here to convince us reality is unreality and physics is unphysics? Choose. Now, for the sake of visitors who may read this thread and wonder what "Black Body" radiation *ACTUALLY* is, here's a great site to play around with the different aspects of it: http://phet.colorado...pectrum_en.html We also use it extensively in Astronomy, estimating the temperature of planets orbiting remote stars. (http://en.wikipedia....et_and_its_star)

This is how black body radiation is calculated: http://hyperphysics....se/mod6.html#c3 How in the name of all that is physics did you even start doing the above (SIMPLE) formula with the nubmers we gave you and your "throwing a number and multiplying with another number to get colorful numbers" method any similar to that? Not only do you not know math,you don't know physics either. If you really want to be taken seriously in any sort of scientific venue, you HAVE to stop claiming weird numbers mean stuff, take a few math and physics courses, and get back to your claim. We keep asking you for clarification and you give us back just a repeat of the method that is total gibberish. Repeating yourself won't make you right. It will just make us give up. You also seem to only read the parts of posts that you can "handle". Everyone in this thread tell you that your math is utter gibberish. Maybe there's something to this claim. Have *SOME* humility, and consider the idea that you might actually not do things properly. ~mooey

Hmm. I don't want to start a "war" between the fields, but these things confuse me a lot. He makes good points, but he's also a physicist. He seems to define astronomy not quite as astronomers define it. See, something like this, for instance: --Is confusing. It makes it sound like astronomers gather data, and astrophysicists work to understand it. That's not really what I see out in the "real world". And then you have sites that do astronomy that define astronomy: Source: http://www.noao.edu/...-astronomer.php So if I want to study exoplanets, I won't just need to "search for them", I will also need to observe stars and understand the behavior of exoplanets so I *can* detect them. Is this astronomy or astrophysics? What about the subjects that are "in between", like equipment design? Who works on designing telescopes, or things like Kepler mission -- astronomers (it gathers data) or astrophysicists (it examines stars so we can understand them better). Lastly, he makes the point that astrophysics is a subset of astronomy, but if that's the case, why is it that most Astrophysics programs are in the PHYSICS department of the school while astronomy is its own department? Is this a "status" thing? I'm so confused. That's a good point. Since my interest is for now still general, I wanted to try and get into a department that will give me the most chances of finding what I like in. In general, cosmology and the more 'theoretical' subjects don't quite interest me as much as the observational and experimental stuff. Radio astronomy, equipment design, exoplanets, supernovae, etc. But I don't have a specific subject I want to do just yet, so the point is to try and pick. And I'm getting very confused with all those distinctions. I get the feeling that there's a line between astronomy and physics (which actually makes me annoyed sometimes) as if astronomers are not physicists, even though all astronomy graduate departments require physics BS education. Maybe I'm just stuck on the irrelevant issues, though... I should keep researching.

I am looking around for graduate programs to plan my Master's / PhD. My interest is space research, and I'm still getting my bearings in it. I'm thinking exoplanetary research is really interesting, but so is radio astronomy and/or instrument design. What I noticed, however, is that schools offer two types of degrees in general: Astronomy and Astrophysics. It seems to me that astrophysics is "categorized" under "Physics" while astronomy is its own category. When I asked some professors about the difference, it struck me that the answer depends on their orientation. Physicists tended to lower the value of the astronomy degree(s) and astronomers told me the difference is mostly about concentration. I can't believe astronomy is "simply" "collecting data". I know astronomers that do more than that. On the other hand, I can't believe the division is about "theoretical" and "experimental" since I saw a few graduate degrees that offer experimental astrophysics and others that have theoretical astronomy. The division, then, is different. Quite a lot of sites also divide them up either by departments ("Astronomy" and "Physics" are different departments, and astrophysics is under physics) or by categories. "Physics and Astronomy" sounded to me as repetitive at first, but apparently it's not.... So... what's the difference? How do I know which program to look for? Do I really "compromise" if I go for astronomy on the "expense" of physics? Do I stop being a physicist is I take "Astronomy" grad program (while I keep being a physicist if I take the 'astrophysics' one?) This is all very confusing... Thanks! ~mooey

We're going in circles. You were given the numbers, not in any-code but in plain math, without the units (which we claim is meaningless and you seem to insist you can produce something incredible from). Do it, please. So far, you don't seem to understand my initial post about coming to a culinary forum and explaining about tomato ladders. I must say, my friend, you're doing the same thing with a science forum. You make no sense. I'm sorry to be blunt, but this is really getting nowhere now. So, instead of arguing about unicode and whatever else, just take the numbers you were given (again) and show us the wonder of your (hidden) formula. Our answer, unfortunately, won't change. You do guesswork, you don't go with units, and your answers and math is meaningless. This thread is quickly transforming from "let's try really really hard to explain to this pleasantly passionate individual why we can't understand what she's saying" to "okay, that's just ridiculous". You're getting there. ~mooey

There's a difference between "I find nothingness" and "I find something that's meaningless". Just like the difference between "I don't see anything" and "I see there's nothing there". If you're driving at night, you better make sure the latter is what you do before a sharp turn. You're doing the former and claim it's big news. Look: OMG! 1.443256 * 224.2 / 11.2 = 28.891 !!! Is meaningless. 3 Balls in a box * 2 Boxes - 6 Balls that I throw out = 0 Balls left. Is nothing left. The problem isn't your answer, it's your method, and this won't change with fancy excuses on your part, it needs to be examined *mathematically*. You don't speak math, my friend. This is what we call a "WORD SALAD". It makes no sense. I emphasized terms I thought were particularly meaningless. Physics and math have well-defined terms. If you want to use them, you need to learn what they mean and use what they mean. You are trying to reinvent a wheel that works well by chopping it to pieces and insist it can still roll smoothly. I am not even sure how we can start answering your questions like this. We can't. Stop using fancy words to make yourself sound knowledgeable. I'm sorry for being blunt like this, but you are using these words in a way that none of us understands -- this alone should show you that you might be wrong in how you use them. Go take a calculus book from the library, sit down and go over it from end to end. Learn what everything means. What is an algorithm, what's a function, what are coordinate systems and why it's quite obvious YOU have none of them. For the sake of clarity, since I still believe your passion is worth my taking the time to try and explain it, you can't have "coordinates" or "place coordinates" in your algorithm without units. Coordinate systems represent x/y, or r/theta, or SOMETHING that actually represents something, yes? How can yours be in a coordinate system if they're coordinate-free!? How did you get this number, what is this factor, where is it to be used, and how is it that so far Relativity works WONDERFULLY WELL without anyone ever using your factor? That doesn't explain what the factor is, or any of my above questions. As bignose said, you're using a "Black Box" method -- "Give me a number" ===> "I give you a number" without having us see what you do with these numbers in between. So you tell me: How can we compare notes if you hide your notes from us? No. PLEASE answer my previous questions first. No. PLEASE answer my previous questions first. ~mooey

Absolutely. The entire point is that in experiments like these you need to create proper controls to make sure that you test correctly. By not having sterile swabs and by using your hands, you had no proper controls. For instance, it's possible that between the application of bacteria to the "no gel" sample and the "with gel" sample one of you accidentally touched a piece of equipment that had more bacteria on it, or wiped their face, or sneezed, or, even, breathed on the sample and contaminated it. To test this properly, you have to use controls. I'm surprised your school didn't give you any, honestly, but if you have to write your results, you should point out the fact that the lack of sterility makes the results somewhat void, becuse of the possible alternative effects rather than just the gel. ~mooey

If you want to talk about mathematics, you need to make sense. This sentence makes no sense. I will give you an example showing what you just did, not out of disrespect, but out of an attempt to demonstrate what the above sentence looks to anyone who studied math. Say I wanted to talk about food, and I went to a culinary forum and posted that "A tomato is a ladder in the fruitiness of the fructose." I would be laughed out of the forum. We're being nice, "I think outside of the box". Let me give you a piece of advice here. You should think outside of the box -- we all should -- but you should also beware that you don't think so much outside the box that your brain falls out. Your numbers make no sense, and you choose to speak math without knowing what the terms (and methodology means). You leave us the choice of either trying really really hard to explain why your meaningless sentences are meaningless (think tomato ladder fruitiness) or to laugh at you. Luckily, the forum rules prevent members from ridiculing others, but you really need to start playing science here, seeing as you are the one who chose to come to us -- a science forum -- and post about science. The entire point was that he gave you just random weird numbers that were undefined (no units). You spent 4 paragraphs and more explaining what the numbers are and what you did with them, and only AFTER that, you asked what they mean? Really, friend, that sounds like a good methodology to you? What if those numbers really were meaningless? You just spent time telling us what they mean... for nothing? Thnk about it. You can only work in a team that speaks the same language. What you seem to be doing is post random numbers which you multiply even more randomly, picking and choosing funky numerals in the results and claiming they mean something. Thats not speaking science, and it won't be possible to work in a team this way. You sound like a passionate guy with a lot of ideas. Here's a recommendation for you: Spend time learning a bit of mathematics -- not just addition and subtraction and multiplication -- the essence of math, calculus and theory. Learn how the methodology goes, so you can use it for your ideas. Right now, you're not using math, you're abusing it. Tomato ladders make no sense. ~mooey

Wait, I'm confused -- you mean "doesn't" ? If not (and sorry for the confusion) then I'd love to see the quote that says something about the Big Bang. I studied the OT quite extensively, I've never seen anything remotely close to it. True, the biblical account of creation does not state how long each day was, that much is true, and could have also taken 10,000,000 of what we consider "years" now. This would make the theory that the universe is 14 billion years old actually plausible, by the way, wouldn't it? That said, the problems I have with the creation story isn't about the time, it's about the details: I would expect a God that invents the laws of physics to get the details straight. Of course he COULD have changed the rules right after he invented them, and then change them back, but you have to admit that's quite a trick for a God that you claim really really wants us to believe he exists. Here are two examples: Creation of Day and Night in the first day. And yet, the creation of the Sun, moon and stars is on Day 4. How do you have day and night without the sun? Follow up on the same principle, God creates the Earth, seas and Plants before the sun. First, no plants without the sun (and if each day is a lot longer than a few hours, the plants would die without sun light). Second, planet Earth would go whoooooshing through space without the gravity from the Sun. No orbit. And guess what? No tides, either, without the Moon, which was also created a day later. Either god's TRYING to confuse us on purpose (and then why complain when we fall for it? he's a lot stronger!) or that's not the way things happened. A rather nice lay out of some of the problems can be found in this page: http://www.vexen.co....html#Chronology "I don't know" is much better for a discussion than "I don't care what you say, I'll stick to X". Don't you agree?

I thought the big bang is impossible.... Also, that's not what they say in the bible, is it. The bible has 2 creation stories, each slightly different. Even if you can't account for the science, I would start by accounting for the inconsistencies in those stories. Double standard. You want us to prove the big bang, but you aren't willing to prove the alternative you propose. If your idea of "proof" is "it's written in an ancient book", then we have a problem, seeing as you'd have to believe in quite a number of chinese beliefs (many were older than the OT) and african myths found on ancient scrolls. You came to us with a preset belief that you are not willing to even consider improving. You said so yourself. By definition, then, you are unwilling to conduct a debate. What are you here for, then? Preach? You won't convince scientific people with unsupported stories from an ancient book. You will convince us with proper evidence, experiment results, peer reviewed papers. Also, sorry to tell you, but "God the creator" idea is unfalsifiable, which automatically makes it irrelevant for science. Either give up and go to a theology forum to preach to the choir, or re-assess the way you discuss science with people who follow its methodology. ~mooey

Then find some that do say something. You can't expect us to guess the evidence. Do the work and present actual evidence, stop beating around the bush.

Seems I'm not the only one, seeing as everyone asks you about them. If you read them, what is it that you still didn't get an answer on? They answered all of your points and show you exactly what the facts ACTUALLY are, rather than the misrepresentations you get through the video you posted.

I think you should be very careful against preaching, sinc ethat would be against our rules. njaohnt. You gave us a single source, and we tell you we want others. I personally posted 2 links for you to read, and iNow posted 2 more. Are you really expecting that only WE read your sources, and you not read ours? Is that what you consider a fair respectful debate? the links iNow shared answer 100% of your claims. As I explained in an earlier post, we seem to be talking quite a different language, and the continuing of this debate depends on YOUR willingness to participate, seeing as *you* are the one who came to *us* and not the other way around. Fair. ~mooey

The bible is no proof, and "think" is no evidence.

Tell you what, we have quite a lot of topics about this subject in the religion forum. Feel free to contribute to this question there, since it's out of the topic we want to discuss here. I'll participate if you open a new thread about this (in religion, of course), and you can also look at the other similar topics that we have already. Let's stick to the topic of the big bang.

You claimed the comic is offensive to a list of cultures. It seemed that, by that, you were the one claiming they hold this calendar sacred. But please, let's move on from this, please. An explanation was given to you, and mistakes happen both by misreading and, yes, grammar. Let it go. Focus on your argument. Calm down please. You complained, and we dealt with it in a way that resulted in YOU getting an APOLOGY. Do you want us to ban everyone because of a mistake? You got an apology, we are moving on with the argument now. Also, I personally went over your claims and analyzed them. Would you give me the same respect and answer directly? ~mooey

I don't know why he didn't, but the fact that tons of other people did, perhaps (just a suggestion here) perhaps perhaps he is biased. Or perhaps his methodology was flawed. Or perhaps he's not telling you the whole truth. That's what happens in biased movies that try to convince you of an opinion rather than follow evidence. Anyone cn produce a movie that says anything. Movies are not evidence. It's quite easy to watch one (or two or three) biased films that take all their iformation from biased scientists and make a biased conclusion. njaohnt, take a look at that movie again: All scientists are from the Discovery Institute - a Creationist organization (self professed, at times). In science, we demand diverse evidence from mulitple sources. We require that more than one institution show repeatable results, and that no other evidence disprove it. The movie is clearly biased, and relying on evidence from it is insufficient. Here's your argument's problem: You want to argue scientifically but you don't want to use scientific sources. We're open for a discussion, but if you choose to debate scientifically, you need to go by scientific debate rules. Bring us evidence that are peer reviewed, repeatable, falsifiable, experimented and properly tested. We can talk about them then. There are quite a lot of movies out there (in and out of youtube) that explain very clearly how chupacabra exists alongside UFO abductions. They, too, discuss things with "doctors" and "professors". Would you be convinced by them? I would hope not. Just like we require better evidence to your argument, you would (hopefully) demand better argument to theirs. Even if this is true, it shows of quite a cruel god that leads scientists (who go by evidence) one way and then punishes them. We're not bad people who chose to denounce a god on spite. We go by what the interpretation of the evidence show us. Is your god that cruel that he would punish us with boiling fire for all eternity? To be quite honest, my friend, if your god is that cruel, I would rather not be on his side.

What I don't understand, really, is how a person can say this with such smugness and then claim non-believers are the ones that lack ethics. You don't find this statement cruel, njaohnt, even if it's true?

njaohnt, we would really like to debate and learn from one another, but in order for this to happen, we need to make sure we speak the same language. You came to a science forum, and we have certain rules of argument here. We are not theologians or apologetics. We don't go by "what makes sense to me" but what "follows the evidence". I understand your confusion, but what you're saying shows a basic misunderstanding of what our modern physics says, what the big bang is, and what "evidence" means. "The dude that said X" is no evidence, don't you agree? It also doesn't help us understand you. Take the time to find what duded you're talking about, post us a link to whatever he said or found so we can relate to the claim. I picked that in particular because it was the most extreme, but your post has no actual evidence, just your interpretation of what you think science says. The main problem here is that you are asking a question about a complex subject that usually takes people quite a number of pre-requisite courses to study and a number of years. I'm not saying you can't understand it, not at all, but what I am saying is that you can't expect us to summarize it neatly in a forum post. Here's a good resource for you to start with, it answers all your questions about the big bang (and more) and gives quite a lot of evidence for its existence - observations, experiments and reality-based arguments. http://www.talkorigi...my/bigbang.html I think it's only fair that you at least go over it before we continue to discuss the points you're raising. You will see that it answers them better than what we can put it in a forum post, and if you have questions about this page, feel free to post them. Please remember, you're the one who chose to sign up to this forum and so you need to go by our rules. If you want to debate with us, you really need to follow those rules you agreed to -- and the instructions of the staff, so you can stay in the forum and make your point. When we told you to stop mixing your personal interpretation with mainstream threads, we meant it. If your goal is to stay and convince us of your truth, you should at least follow the rules. ~mooey

We generally would stop someone from actively insulting people (say, calling them names or ridiculing them directly) but in general, criticism over belief systems (especially ones that don't go along with scientific evidence such as this "end of world" claim) are more than acceptable. I'm sorry if this offends you, the goal wasn't to attack the belief, it was to show a possible alternative to the claim that there's an actual meaning to the end of the calendar. As far as I've read, there is none, and the calendar ends not because of "end of world" but because of 'end of cycle', hence it was supposed to consider to be restarting itself after 2012. That would make this comic somewhat accurate. That said, let's avoid comics and stick to the topic at hand. Namely, scientific claims. "scientists" also "dug up" the ancient chinese tablets that speak of dragons. No one uses those tablets as scientific proof of the existence of dragons. The mere discovery of ancient myth does not constitute proof that the myth is true. It's not against the rules to ask questions, and I think we would all do much better if we don't compare a user's post repertoire in order to deal with a particular post. Stick to the topic, guys, don't go to personal attacks or evidence of behavior in other posts. Claims were made in this thread, we have enough to talk about. ~mooey Phase how? What are those dates? You say you used birth dates.. whose? Why is that at all relevant to precession and why not use any other dates or years? I'm really not sure what this all means, it seems completely random. Not sure what you mean when you say precession. I assume you mean perihelion precession of the planets. If that's the case, the way to calculate it is known. Here's an example. I don't see any of the numbers you're using in your examples, though. Again, why would that date be important and not, say, Sep 12, 1356 ? What is this date? What birth do you mean? Do you mean the equinox? Dec 21 and June 21? Please elaborate, I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "birth" date. Behind what? I'm sorry to say this, but so far your claim is so vague and unclear, it's more of a word salad than actual science. Oh, seriously now. The link you gave us is a mock calculator to switch "dates" between planets, considering each planet has a longer period of rotation around the sun (hence, longer years) and longer or shorter days. It's a mock comparison. It has zero meaning other than to translate this for entertainment purposes. here's the explanation from the bottom of that page: You're using numbers from there, and they are meaningless. The reason you get gaps between worlds is because different planets have different intervals for days and years. What does it have to do with 2012?! Light year is a distance. What does it have to do with julian dates and time? You measure it with duration regarldess of location, hence "julian" and "dates" don't quite matter. I don't understand what these mean. Why is it important, what are you doing, and what the heck does it have to do with anything? I skipped the rest of the numbers, since they're completely meaningless, and I go straight to your answer. You claimed in the beginning that you used calculus to get precession. The above isn't calculus, it's random number adding. Also, whose precession? Earths? Uranus? Neptune's? Venus'? What? 12-13=-1, no +. Also, I think what you MEAN is -12-13 (look at the signs) which is -25. Math, please. You can share things with science world but no one will be convinced or take you seriously if you take random numbers, pass them through a mock entertainment converter (without reading the explanation, apparently) and produce weird addition and calculation full of selection-bias to produce exactly what you WANTED to find. That's not the way science works. If you want to talk about precession, start with the articles I posted in the links above. Here they are again for your convenience: http://en.wikipedia....lion_precession http://farside.ph.ut...on/node115.html We can start talking from the math in the second example, seeing as that actually takes perihelion precession SCIENTIFICALLY and properly and not by guesswork and random numbers. And I still don't get how anything has to do with Mayans. ~mooey

Non mainstream arguments are off topic in the mainstream science forums, which is why this thread wasn't deleted, it was moved to its proper place. Your argument has no scientific arguments, which you are more than welcome to post right here in the current thread. Further, the argument you post is not the acceptable view in mainstream science, hence it does not belong as an answer to a mainstream-science question. This is a non-debatable rule. We don't dismiss non-mainstream (or religious) claims off hand, we just don't use these in the mainstream science threads, because they're not mainstream science. Hence, the thread was moved to religion, since you are using religious arguments. If you manage to prove your theory under the scientific method and have it accepted by mainstream science, I promise we will move the thread back to the mainstream science thread. Please don't argue over moderation notes; this was an explanation courtesy to you, and we welcome the discussion -- under the rules that exist in this forum, rules that you agreed to when you signed up. Also, feel free to call an administrator via our contact form. Be aware, however, that moderators do not act in a vacuum; we discuss actions and follow the rules. We might be willing to consider moving this thread to speculations rather than religion, if you post actual speculative arguments (those must contain actual evidence, and not just claims or 'logic' arguments), as even speculations should follow the scientific method. Do that, and we will certainly consider moving it there. It will not move back to mainstream science, though. ! Moderator Note Let me make this clear: Argument with moderation notes derails threads to off topic conversations, and that's unacceptable. You can debate the issue (and the merit/placement of your thread) HERE in your own thread. We will move and start deleting posts you make in the other thread, and view it as thread hijacking. Please follow our rules, we don't delete your opinions, but we do have a place for them. Feel free to use the "report" button and make your case to the staff. Don't hijack threads started by other people.

! Moderator Note If it wasn't clear, here's a clarification: moderation notes should not be argued upon publically. You have a "report" button if you wish to make your case. Arguing about moderation notes derails the thread to OFF TOPIC conversation and that's not acceptable. Please stick to topic, answer mainstream science answer to a mainstream science question.

! Moderator Note njaohnt, we are a science forum, and we don't allow non-science arguments in our mainstream science threads. In other words, do not answer scientific questions with religious (and non-mainstream scientific) answers in the mainstream science threads. I moved your post to its own thread in the religious/philosophy forum where people can debate the merits of your points. Please go over our rules, and keep the discussion here.

! Moderator Note This is a mainstream science thread that requires mainstream accepted scientific reasoning and evidence-based posts. Religious arguments do not belong here. njaohnt's post was split to its own thread and moved to the Religion forum in case anyone is up for a debate on its merits. Don't post religious and non-scientific arguments in the mainstream science sub forums again, please.

Hi guys, So, I graduated with a physics degree and research honors. In my research I was heavily involved with modelling, particularly with mathematica and matlab. I am also a relatively proficient php/mysql programmer and I have a good grasp in jQuery, AJAX and developing CMS extensions. I have a few small projects under my belt, most are small jquery and relatively small CMS extensions. I program for fun, and I have been doing that since around 6th grade. I'm starting out in Perl now, and its a pretty smooth ride so far. I also took a C++ course in college (waste of time though.. very veeeery basic) Problem? I have no official programming education. I want to try and get a job with some programming in it, since I do know it well, but I'm not sure I can get anywhere without some sort of proof of knowledge. Also, my experience is halfassed. I program alone to get a resul, so I am less familiar with the core workings, security standards or standards in general, other than what I am reading as I go along. Now that i've graduated, I have time to take extra courses, or study for a certificate. I was thinking about the Zend PHP5 one, but from my research, many claim its useless. Should I go for a particular certificate? What should I have in my resume to get the attention of programming oriented companies? My physics degree is a strong proof for math, algorithms and modelling, does it help? Thanks ~mooey