mooeypoo

! Moderator Note lemur, you already know you should avoid going off topic. This is thread-hijacking, it's against the rules. Start new threads when you go off-topic. Apologizing for it while doing it is not solving the issue.

We don't just give answers here, we try and help you solve things for yourself. How do you think to start it theoretically? We can help, but we need a little bit more information - what language are you going to use / learned? Even if you don't start out directly from the programming itself, can you give us your plan for the program? What are the logical steps that you think you should build in this program?

You should read Descartes. You seem to agree with him on the basics. He, however, took it further to say that he should eliminate any belief that is doubtful and test his basic beliefs to see what he *can* be certain of. He reached the conclusion (among others, but this is one of the most important and notable ones) that the only truly known truth is that he is a thinking thing. ("I think therefore I am"). I personally have my qualms about some of his logic and process but he makes a good read, and your post reminded me of his meditations. You can read them for free here: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/meditations/meditations.html Specifically, read Meditation 1 and Meditation 2. ~mooey

I never quite got that logic, btw, no offense, but the way I see it, wouldn't the fact that we are unique in an otherwise unwelcoming universe - mean that our life is even MORE awe-inspiring? The reason to search for answers isn't to find our purpose as much as to find answers to our curiosity. Even if we have "a purpose", why search for it? Isn't it the same answer as why would we just search for how to universe works so we can understand it better and expand our knowledge and our existence in it? ~mooey

That's correct. Your question regarding the "bouncing" and "cutting" intercepts are x-intercepts, though. To find these, you set y=0 this time, which is a bit more complicated because it's a cubic function. Still, there are a few things you can do (algebra, not calculus ) to make it easier and find the points of intercepts. If you can try first, I can see how to help out more without giving you the answer outright. Don't let the cube power scare you.

Probably, unless you can provide some scientific explanations for your research proposal. ~moo

Why not? If you're looking for intercepts or if you're looking for how to graph this function, calculus is your method. This is why using proper definitions is crucial. We have no clue what you mean otherwise. You seem to be looking for the end-behavior (set limits of the graph to infinity and negative infinity and see if the graph goes to a certain number or out to infinity) and the intercepts ("cutting" through the axes). This is calculus. I don't understand this question. Are you looking to graph this function? How did you calculate? Show the calculation so we can help or see if there's a mistake in it. To get a y-intercept you set x=0. To get an x intercept you set y=0. Show your calculation from this point and see if you still don't get what Wolfram Alpha gets. ~mooey

! Moderator Note Rigney, you're not a new member here, you already know that this demeaning attitude is absolutely not accepted here. You can explain your opinions without being offensive. I have edited out the title of this thread, but since people already answered you, I didn't touch the actual text of your post. Don't do this again.

sysD do you have an actual question? It's hard to tell within all this pseudospiritual text. Just ask. Also, could you please mark all your text as size 1? It's hard to read.

I'm not sure about the engineering aspects of it (as in "is it powerful enough" or "accurate enough" to achieve this) but theoretically speaking, yes, it's absolutely possible. The concept this is going after is the fact that sound "rattles" the air, and also rattles windows as a result. In fact, the window's glass will amplify the sound of the air, so theoretically speaking, if you could get the vibration of the glass and translate it to audio, you could "listen in" on others. the main problem I can see with something like this is that it can't really cancel out noise. There is a lot going on in a room not just people talking - air conditioning, for example, will likely shake a bit of the glass as well, and it probably will vibrate it much stronger than people's voices will, so you will end up getting the noise of the AC rather than people's actual conversation. If noises are constant, there are computerized algorithms that can eliminate them (that's what "noise cancelling" devices) do. That's likely quite expensive.. but I'm not sure. As I said, I'm less knowledgeable about the engineering of this device. Hope that helped. ~mooey

Actually, that's not true. It was ASSUMED men with down syndrome are sterile. That's not the case. Read here: http://www.ds-health.com/issues.htm Excerpt: Table 5 in that site (right under that excerpt) has the information the OP was looking for.

the images we posted were simplified. If you truly want to know the more advanced principles, you need to do some reading. The links we both supplied should give you a good start. Then, you can get into the physics of specific phenomena you're interested in within those subjects. Here's another interesting resource to go over:http://atoc.colorado.edu/~dcn/ATOC1060/Members/Lectures/06_Greenhouse.pdf

Light from stars does not go through any medium when the "redshift" is observed. It's not the same phenomenon at all. I posted some links that give you those answers. Swansont posted a link with the actual answer to these questions in them visually. Swansont answered that question already and posted a link that answered it further. ~mooey

For the sake of fairness, here are a few links as to *WHY* all of us on the forum are so cynical when it comes to this question. We've all dealt with that ridiculously unscientific movie at least 5 or 6 times directly, and about a dozen times indirectly. It's pure bunk coming of a person who has no idea how geology works, how our planet behaves, or how to do proper scientific inquiry. So, if you're interested in what REALLY goes on inside the Earth and why this "expanding earth" "theory" is just scientifically silly, check these out, do your own concluding: Histoy of plate tectonics (and the theories before it, including the expanding earth) and why all other theories were found much less plausible: http://www.geologynet.com/tectonics1.htm Plate tectonics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics How do planets form: http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoveries/discovering_planets_beyond/how-do-planets-form The Earth's internal structure: http://geology.com/nsta/earth-internal-structure.shtml ~mooey

The sun emits EM radiation in all spectrum, that later interacts with the atmosphere. Some is refracted, some reflected and absorbed. The resulting visible light we see on Earth is the result of all three of those. I would not call it "redshift" at all, since that phenomenon is completely different, has a different cause and does not result in the same effect. I repost my earlier link to this site: http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/radiation/index.html It has a lot of explanations on how the sun's radiation interacts and affects the Earth's atmosphere and climate. Also, this page: http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/radiation/heat_xfer.html Which explains a bit of the energy concepts regarding electromagnetic radiation from the sun that interact with the atmosphere on the Earth. As swansont said, this isn't universal. The atmosphere isn't equally distributed and the effect is not 1:1 everywhere. Interaction with areas with less or more of particular chemicals in the atmosphere will produce different absorption reactions. That's part of the reason we have much more adverse effects on the ground above the "holes" in the Ozone layer. Also, light that reaches the surface can (and is) reflected BACK towards the atmosphere, where it AGAIN either reflects back to the ground ("greenhouse effect", somewhat) or is absorbed. There are areas where light is reflected more out from the ground like swansont's link showed above, mainly the poles (where the ground is mostly snow/ice). That creates complicated reactions that affect what we eventually get on the surface as "visible light" too. ~mooey

Light both refracts, reflects *and* is absorbed in the atmosphere. This is a good resource image, actually: Source: http://amazing-space...on/basics/g17b/ You can see not only how much of the EM radiation is absorbed into the atmosphere, but approximately how high up it takes to to get absorbed. Also, the energy from the absorbed particles is transfered to the particles in the atmosphere, which helps in various phenomena we witness on the surface (and in the air). Here's a good collection of answers to what happens to the X-ray and gamma-ray EM waves when they hit the earth's atmosphere: http://www.newton.de...05/phy05042.htm Excerpt:

You need to be a bit more specific as to how deep you want an explanation for it... The electromagnetic spectrum is a division of electromagnetic waves to sections according to frequencies and function. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum Visible light is only a little part of it, and it explains what the main differences are between high-frequency and low-frequency EM waves. Here's a helpful picture: As to the effects of EM waves on the atmosphere, it's a bit more complicated than that. The *general* idea is that EM waves carry energy with them, and they bounce off (reflect) and interact with (refract) the atmosphere. These supply heat and affect the colors we see in the skies among other things. It is also involved in the greenhouse effect. I found this list of general facts from what APPEARS to be a similar course to yours. It might help: http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/radiation/index.html This seems helpful too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight Hope it helps... ~mooey

I actually thought of something similar when the Japan earthquake happened. The earthquake shifted the crust a little, and as far as I understand, there were talks where it might have "pushed" the earth slightly out of orbit. Even if that's not true, it made me wonder what would happen if the Earth *was* nudged off. If the earth was "nudged" off its orbit, the result would be perturbations on that orbit. That is, the Earth would "wobble" between slightly higher to slightly lower orbit. I am not sure about this, but I think that this also might happen in this case. I think it might have to do with how "fast" we increase the mass of the Earth.. if it's done through a large span of time, we would probably shift to a higher orbit like Fuzz said, but if we increase the mass quickly, that should result in a perturbation. I hope a more experienced physicist will be able to pitch in, though, while I try to find stuff from my mechanics books.

There are quite a lot of historical assumptions about where the biblical laws come from (Specially the "Kashrut" laws about what is and isn't Kosher). Your assumptions sound to me as good as any, though I personally lean towards the cultural aspects. If you think about it, there aren't really many sea food creatures to eat in the middle east where the israelites were. I recently heard a theory that pigs were banned out of necessity in the desert; other animals like goats and sheep are herds that can move far distances in the desert, so the tribes could move with their herds. But pigs can't move that fast, so to make travel easier, the tribal leaders banned pigs. I don't know if it's totally plausible to me, but I guess that works too. That's absolutely right. The actual text in the (multiple versions) of the ten commandments says "murder" ('TirtzaH') and not killing. Also, the Israelites do quite a lot of killing that is sanctioned in the eyes of God. However, sex is defined rather straight forward in the biblical laws. While Johnathan/David story seems to talk about love, David is still punished for it, and God speaks not very kindly about their love (neither does Saul). So personal interpretation aside (and I have my own view of these, myself), we can't really ignore the fact that many of the larger groups of vocal religious folk use these to claim that homosexuality and other "non conventional" sex acts are sinful. These are used to change laws of state. I wish we could be all free to live in our own interpretations, but that is a bit unrealistic when laws that limit people's lives (like, say, mine) are created out of THEIR personal interpretation of the biblical texts. ~mooey

I didn't say anything about your beliefs, lemur, I said that when we talk about how religion affects POLITICS (which we are) then it's no longer about individual interpretations and more about the interpretation of the leading vocal religious groups. Other than that, and ignoring the slight snipiness in your initial comment, I did not come up with those citations myself; I checked my notebook for them. After 12 years of studying the bible in hebrew/aramaic, stuff stick with you, and you have a lot of notes. I don't use my "Jewishness" to claim I know better. I merely pointed out that while you seem to claim there's no basis in the bible for anti-homosexual sentiments, you are, in fact, mistaken. Here are the anti homosexual sentiments. I agree that some (most, probably) of these could be interpreted differently. In fact, the bible also has some very POSITIVE stories about homosexuality like Ruth and Naomi and David and Johnathan. But we were talking about how the vocal religious groups that affect politics takes advantage of THEIR view of the biblical texts to influence politics and laws --- I posted what *they* use. The fact you disagree with it doesn't mean they disagree with it. They are using those and more to claim homosexuality is a sin just like murder and rape and hence should be punished and banned by law. If you don't believe me that this is what they do, I suggest you go on some googling of your own and check out their websites. Start with the republican congressmen/women and their view on homosexuality. Surprising how it should be "secular" and yet each and every single one of them claim God in their excuses for denying gay marriage. ~mooey

I don't quite understand the question. There are conventions in math and conventions in computer languages that display/use math. If you're working with a computer system like mathematica or matlab, you have a syntax you must use whether it's confusing or not. Mathematica uses Sin[x] (including the capital letter), for instance. I don't think this should confuse anyone who knows that the function is sin(x). 1 and 2 are the same. 3 and 4 are the same. I personally try to show my tutoring students to use parenthesis at least until they get used to more advanced notation. So I personally prefer, for low-level at least, number 6. As for 7 and 8, they're NOT accepted notation. If I had seen them in a math equation, I'd assume the exercise is actually [math]\sin{e x}[/math] rather than "sin(x)". So as far as I'm concerned, it should be completely out of the question. Number 9 is equally irrelevant; it's not a function, it's a particular result. Also, just a suggestion, hal, you know you can write math nicer in the forum by using 'math' tags? http://www.sciencefo...latex-tutorial/ Click on any of the math images and you can see the code used. Click on this one for instance: [math]\left( \frac{\sin{x^2}}{x^\frac{2}{3}+\cos(x^2)} \right)^2[/math] It produces a clean math presentation that is much clearer than the simple text-usage. ~mooey

Not sure what bible you're reading, but the "Old" testament has this to say on the matter: Leviticus 18:22 "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination." Leviticus 20:13 "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." Deutronomy 22:5 "A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whosoever doeth these things is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. {P}" Deutronomy 23:18-19 "There shall be no harlot of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a sodomite of the sons of Israel; Thou shalt not bring the hire of a harlot, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow; for even both these are an abomination unto the LORD thy God. {S}" (Sodomites are biblical names for homosexuals, according to most interpretations, both Jewish and Christian). Isaiah 3:9 "The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have wrought evil unto themselves." (not only have the sodomites existed, they were 'out in the open', God forbid). Daniel 11:37 [the chapter describes the "antichrist"]: "Neither shall he regard the gods of his fathers; and neither the desire of women, nor any god, shall he regard; for he shall magnify himself above all." It's worth noting that there are quite a few preachers who use this verse to state the antichrist is gay. Joel 4:3 "And they have cast lots for My people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, and have drunk." And of course, the story of Sodom and Gamorah, whose adults were wiped out of the face of the Earth for, among other things (but this one emphasized): - Gen 19 4,5: "But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; And they called unto Lot, and said unto him: 'Where are the men that came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.'" (the aramaic/hebrew word for knowledge - "Yada" - is sexual context, everywhere in the biblical texts). Source for biblical quotes: http://www.mechon-ma...rg/p/pt/pt0.htm (Chosen because it features both languages side by side). [There are more references, but I think the above list makes the point properly.] We can argue about the historical and tribal origin of these biblical laws, but there's very little doubt how the bible *treats* homosexual acts in terms of rules. These are also the references that are used by the vocal and politically influential religious christians (from varying denominations) and jews to claim that homosexuality should be banned by law. The secular view of the "unnatural" aspect of this came later. Secular societies are more prone to not really caring about homosexuality either way (north-western european states which are secular by nature are the most tolerant for gay marriage, for instance) and looking back historically at, say, the greeks, who despite having a polytheism worshipped the human body and built secular government ("Democracy" rather than theocracy), practiced and *celebrated* the sexual act of homosexuality and polygamy and many others. When we discuss why *countries* ban gay marriage and some ban gay acts as well (even some states in the USA still have actual laws against "sodomy" and sexual acts) we can't talk about PERSONAL interpretation, we need to talk about the accepted interpretation of the leading politically-influential religious bodies in this country. So, even if religious individuals find ways to interpret the biblical laws differently, that doesn't quite explain the laws of the state which absolutely are religious, historically speaking. Seems to me that you're putting forth your own feelings about what the bible says, which is fine, but that doesn't mean the bible is tolerant (even by treating it as not "a bad" sin) to homosexuality. The rule is to kill homosexuals. You might argue definitions here, but I don't think anyone would define the world "tolerance" anywhere close to that. Just a comment on this one - the bible is full of "the most important rules for God!" lists that are not ENTIRELY consistent. The "Ten Commandments" are *the* rules of God. These appear twice, in slightly varying order/meaning. Other than that, there are about 3 or 4 other lists of "most important laws" all throughout the old testament. It's one of the evidence secular readers pose to show the bible was written by people, as a cultural/historical manifesto and was completely affected by the time it was written. Just saying. Homosexuality is not just about sex, just like heterosexuality is not about sex. Homosexual couples stay together for love just like heterosexual couples do. The sex is a bonus. I don't quite see any difference between a homosexual couple or a lesbian couple that stay together for love and adopt a child to a heterosexual couple that either bears a child or adopts one. Truly, I fail to see the difference other than some imposed social stigmas that could (and I pose: should) be changed.

Great breakdown, thanks! I am wondering, by the way, about the incident in japan. In the case of actual nuclear weaponary, the explosion creates a "shower" of radioactive particles "fallout". In this case, however, there was no real explosion, but there is radiation. If I understand correctly, radiation will not usually create radioactive particles in the air (I might be wrong, I am not sure). My question is twofold, then: 1. Is there a risk for any sort of fallout in that area, or is the risk strictly localized, so when and if this nuclear core is sealed (I think they're beginning to seal it now with sand and cement) and the radiation leak is stopped, the radiation risk in general to the area is done completely? Or will this be a sort of "Chernobil" area again, where people cannot return to live there for a few decades? 2. Why is the news and experts that I read in media talk about the wind direction if we're not talking about particles? Radiation is electromagnetic waves, right? What effect does the wind have on any of this? I think this was posted before on the forum, but I thought it was a nice visual way to see a comparison of radiation doses (or rather dose density). Thanks, of course, to the brilliant XKCD. Click here to see it, it's worth it. ~mooey

Touché.