JaKiri

What?

Frankly, the only likely space warfare will be with some sort of autonomous drone/minefield. Having stationary, AI controlled, defenses removes all the problems.

Why are you making this into some kind of a challenge? In my opinion, 'getting' it is fairly trivial as well. It's all fairly playground.

I also disagree with the whole premise of the thread. You can't vote on something definite. It's like having a vote on what the value of pi is. You CAN have a vote on what people think is the most used theorem in the sciences, however.

There aren't any physics or chemistry theorems, by definition.

Post counts are granted by the administration, and the administration can take them away at will. Freedoms likewise.

It's already been mentioned that it's not a theorem, so I'll leave that be, however that doesn't change the fact that it's not exactly in great use in anything but evolutionary theory (including evolutionary circuits).

Nostradamus predicted a lot of things.

It's a measure of rotation, as is the degree. They're used because they make some triganometric calculations infinitely easier.

Pythagoras's Theorem. And this is almost certainly the winner.

...Not really. You can understand what they are perfectly well without knowing that it is possible for them to be the square root of something. [-b +- SQRT(b^2-4ac)] /2a Screw latex!

Also prog rock.

Base 10 is a lot more useful than base 7.5; not only is 7.5 non-integral, but it's also nonintegral and just above a prime number. 10 is not prime. Base 12's pretty good, binary and base 4 are fairly useful (for the decimal [yes, I know that is technically incorrect] end of the thing, you really need a base towards the upper limit of what is easy to calculate, something between 8 and 16, say.) The only legitimate reason to change it is that our computers don't run in base 10, and we need to interact with them; but it's much simpler to change a computer (as has been shown repeatedly) than it is to change all of human society; we'd have to change our time structure, all our units, our currencies...

Conjecture If you don't know how to test it, then the conjecture is worthless. Furethermore, we know where static somes from. Static is just the background E-M radiation, and if you're saying that light can transmit energy, then whoopdidoo. If gravitons existed, they could do that too (you'd need a different method of capturing them, obviously, as only EM particles work for the photo-electric effect).

Without defining 'move', it's a fairly useless question.

If the other side had discovered teleportation and we hadn't, then it would nigh on impossible to design something to stop it.

That could just be bad wording from the paper, or the fellow giving evidence.

You're misinterpreting the post. What you're missing is that if we took our mathematical axioms to another universe with completely different physical rules, then the mathematics would be identical. Frankly, that's a decent counterargument to article as well. List of problems with article: 1. Certain theoretical physicists now openly state that the validity of their mathematical models does not depend upon empirical verification, but on the aesthetic qualities of their equations. Certain theoretical physicists? Who? 2. Confusion of mathematical modelling with mathematics. If a scientific equation is incorrect, it's not because of 'mathematics' causing simplification. It's due to that equation being correct to the limitations of our measuring capability. Of course, that's still irrelevent, as that's physics (et al), not mathematics. 3. Confusion of material derivation of certain axioms with independence from material derivation. For example, the base 10 counting system mentioned in the article. It makes not a jot to mathematics how we count; we could use base 93 and the mathematics would all be identical. 4. The misquoting of Aristotle to try to get across a point. The article says Aristotle: "The mathematician investigates abstractions. He eliminates all sensible qualities like weight, density, temperature, etc., leaving only the quantitative and continuous (in one, two or three dimensions) and its essential attributes." Aristotle said: As the mathematician investigates abstractions (for before beginning his investigation he strips off all the sensible qualities, e.g. weight and lightness, hardness and its contrary, and also heat and cold and the other sensible contrarieties (and so on for quite some time). The article's version implies that Aristotle thought that the mathematician removed everything sensible, whereas the actual quote implies that the mathematician removes everything that it is sensible to have removed. I can't actually find any basis for the second quote. If you find it, please tell me, because it goes against what philosophy of Aristotle I have read. 5. Strawman: The first It's not part of mathematical theory that counting systems (or other entities) were not derived from reality, merely that they are independent of it. Six paragraphs are devoted to this Strawman, so it should probably be counted as more than a mere single example. But, on we go. 6. Engels was not a mathematician, and had little more than a basic grounding in mathematics. In an appeal to authority, it seems irrational to choose an authority who has little grounding in the subject. If only the author of the piece had chosen one of the mathematicians who shared Engels's opinions! If only one existed! 7. Thus we have irrational numbers, imaginary numbers, transcendental numbers, transfinite numbers, all displaying strange and contradictory features Whilst some people may find some of the above strang, they are not contradictory. Another paragraph wasted! In fact, this is a whole wasted section, because it is spent entire on this flawed argument. 8. Making a logical problem out of Zeno's paradox. From the article: '"This paradox still perplexes even those who know that it is possible to find the sum of an infinite series of numbers forming a geometrical progression whose common ratio is less than 1, and whose terms consequently become smaller and smaller and thus ?converge? on some limiting value."' This just isn't true. I know many people who aren't perplexed by this explanation of it, and using qualitiative evidence in a mathematical discussion is fairly bad form. There are a multitude of other explanations for the 'paradox', as well. 9. Physics is not mathematics 'Modern physics accepts that the number of instants between two seconds is infinite, just as the number of instants in a span of time with neither beginning nor end.' This is incorrect. Modern mathematics says that, between any two given points, there are an infinite number of points. Modern physics has quanta of length and time. 10. Everything in the section on infinity is rubbish It really is. I was going to make another few points on this section alone, but it really isn't worth the bother, because they all make the same basic mistake: the article thinks that infinity causes a problem to modern mathematics. It doesn't. 11. Oh wait, one more from 'infinity' 'This immediately leads us into a logical contradiction. It contradicts the axiom that the whole is greater than any of its parts, inasmuch as not all the positive integers are perfect squares, and all the perfect squares form part of all the positive integers.' Hey guys! Inventing axioms is fun! Seriously, this article is absolute tosh. 12. The Calculus This isn't a problem per se, I'm just confused as to what the point of the entire section is. 13. Crisis In Mathematics I'm getting bored of the constant misrepresentation in this piece. I'm going to spend the rest of these comments quoting from popular Cartoons of the last 20 years. 14. Mathematics isn't physics: part II Bond... James Bond... I'll do it! 15. THAT ISN'T WHAT CHAOS IS YOU FOOLS! AAARGH YOU'VE MANAGED TO SOMEHOW COMPLETELY MISINTERPRET THE RESULTS OF LORENZ'S FINDINGS AND NOW I'M GOING TO HAVE TO FIT THE EXPLANATION OF WHY THIS IS INCORRECT INTO THE HEADER BECAUSE, BY MY OWN RULES, I CAN'T PUT IT IN THE FOLLOWING COMMENTARY! LORENZ DIDN'T FIND THAT, FROM THE SAME BEGINNINGS, YOU'D GET DIFFERENT RESULTS! HE FOUND THAT, FROM EVER SO SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT BEGINNINGS, YOU GOT RESULTS WHICH STARTED SIMILARLY THEN DECREASED IN SUCH OVER TIME DUE TO THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK EFFECT OF THE MATHEMATICAL SYSTEM HE WAS MODELLING! SWEET JESUS, HOW DID THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE COME UP WITH SUCH TRIPE? I am ZIM! 16. I actually stopped reading at this point. I'm on the verge of tears because of your stupid article. Not really. Do not cross me, I control your arms! Here's something which may come in useful... http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm

I don't see how the latter numbers are much more complicated than the former. Frankly, all systems of temperature measuring suck compared to Kelvin.

I want my legs sawed off! And replaced with legs of pure gold! And the power to fire lasers from my head!

Imaginary numbers are called imaginary numbers because they don't fit on the numberline infinity to negative infinity. They are defined as being multiples of the square root of -1, or, more generally, the square roots of negative numbers. For example: What is the square root of 4? Plus/minus (+/-) 2, obviously, because +2*+2 = 4 = -2*-2. What about -4? It must be some constant multiplied by 2, that much is clear, because 2^2 = 4. It can't be +/- 1, because that's been used. It needs to be something that, when squared, is equal to -1. Since that's impossible on our numberline, we define this number to be i. Therefore, the squareroot of -4 is +/- 2i; multiplying out... +2i*+2i = + 4 (-1) = -4 -2i*-2i = + 4 (-1) = -4. See? Complex numbers are numbers on an Argand plane (think of a graph, with the x axis being the 'real' number line and y being the 'imaginary' number line), generally defined as numbers which have both real and imaginary elements, written in the form 'a + bi'.

e is a number which is invariant in certain differal and integral calculus calculations. Int e^x dx = e^x, de^x/dx = e^x.