Cap'n Refsmmat

As often happens when an airplane crashes into your central support columns, as well. I'd suggest reading the NIST report if you want an explanation of the official case. We're not structural engineers. It's really quite readable.

This is basically my understanding of NIST's conclusions, although they add that the inner column is connected to the outer perimeter with floor beams, which would yank the outer columns over as the inner column collapsed, rendering the outer perimeter columns useless. But NIST has explained this in great detail in their report, so I suggest we defer to them.

Here you go: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/29-speculations/

I apologize. It seems I wasn't clear. I'm asking about the meaning of this sentence: ...rather than any other sentence which you have not, to my awareness, posted in this thread.

My point is primarily about insults, not sarcasm. The sarcasm was simply too tempting to resist. Are you suggesting that you'll continue insulting members, without regard for the counterproductive impact it has on their beliefs and the detrimental effects it has on this forum? You're essentially saying, "Yes, I get angry about people who disagree with my well-tested beliefs, and I take actions to help entrench their disagreement, but I'd really rather not stop."

I recommend you read the NIST report. I can't really repeat their analysis here.

It's fairly clear you haven't read NIST's report on the subject, since they address this issue quite extensively. In fact, they specifically discount the "pancaking" theory: http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/faqs_wtctowers.cfm In short, the collapsing floors yanked the vertical columns inwards as they fell, so the vertical columns did not have to break for the collapse to continue.

I wholly agree.

This research demonstrates how people "discount both the source and the content of a challenging message in an effort to protect their existing beliefs" due to a "concern over self-regard", suggesting that attacking their self-worth would only strengthen their attempts to protect their beliefs. This paper explains that "such defensive tendencies are driven, in large part, by a fundamental motivation to protect the perceived worth and integrity of the self" and "that people respond to information in a less defensive and more open-minded manner when their self-worth is buttressed by an affirmation of an alternative source of identity". They go so far as to say: As an example, they present this research: One can see how insult would be counterproductive, particularly against people you believe are already exhibiting confirmation bias. Of course, if you respond by criticizing the studies, I'll just take that as proving the point.

I truly do find sarcasm refreshing. It gives me such a wonderful opportunity to return fire. There's some fascinating recent research on this subject, actually. They've discovered a new alternative to personal attacks and biting sarcasm; apparently, the study showed that insulting people just annoys them, and they end up trying to find ways to prove you wrong instead of listening. Their years of empirical data demonstrated that insults just solicited more logical fallacies, rather than convincing anyone. But in a fascinating twist, they found that it's possible to point out flaws in an argument without being a jerk. Apparently you can just say "here's a link to our previous discussion where we discussed this topic, and to some helpful information on why this isn't right" and people go off and follow the links. You can actually tell people they're wrong without telling them they wasted four years on a degree that clearly didn't do any good for whatever mashed potatoes they have for brains. Absolutely fascinating. It's new research, though, so I didn't feel quite safe in using the technique here. I'm used to sarcasm, so I'd rather piss people off than change how I post.

Can you propose an experiment to test this hypothesis?

Looks like you're on the right track. Here's a simple example: [math]\frac{d}{dx} ((x^5)^4)^3 = 3((x^5)^4)^2 \cdot \frac{d}{dx} (x^5)^4 = 3((x^5)^4)^2 \cdot 4 (x^5)^3 \cdot \frac{d}{dx} x^5[/math]

I spent some time trying to find an addon or extension that would add this feature (since it seems like it would be popularly requested), but I can't seem to find one. There's just not an option to view all posts in a single topic, for some reason. I'll do a bit of digging.

I was going to answer A, but then I did a bit of searching and read that beans come from the fertilization of haploid gametes by pollen, which implies that the answer could be anything, depending on what kind of plant the pollen comes from. But I'm a physics major, so I probably don't know much more than the 6th graders.

Try using var_dump to print information about the variable, to see what might be wrong. For example: var_dump($_POST['selection']); That'll print out the type and structure of the variable, letting you see how you should access it.

14CD:59 seems to be the location of a specific bit of memory, rather than a number, judging by the layout of that picture. It'd be the last two digits in the row starting 14CD:0050.

It's just asking for you to convert those hexadecimal bytes into decimal numbers, as far as I can tell. Do you know how to convert between those?

I was referring to Newton's first law of motion, not gravitation. Can you present evidence for the claim that objects in motion require a constant force to stay in motion? Your equations do not even have the units of force. How can you call them forces when they are, mathematically, velocities or accelerations or other things?

What does it mean for a force to be faster than something? Force is measured in units of force, not speed. Why must there be a force to keep the Earth in constant rotation? Surely Newton's First Law means that the Earth will just keep rotating, without a force.

A large number of IPB features are based on DHTML, such as the spoiler button, the WYSIWYG text editor, the MultiQuote system, the LaTeX popups, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. Using PHP for those would require your browser to send a request to the server just to un-hide a spoiler, which would be a bit wasteful. Fancier forum software only uses JavaScript more, since it lets you do cool things directly in the browser. Really, you just need some JavaScript to dynamically change the visibility of an HTML element. Here's the code for one: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24586 Just replace {param} in the code with the text you want to hide.

We're paid a modest amount for this, since the program was originally funded from a NSF grant that gave stipends to the students. We're nt going to replace any professors, since our goal is to assist the person who would already be teaching the course anyway. It's certainly possible to argue that inexperienced teachers are better, if they're used well: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6031/862.short Quite a few of the threads I posted in when I first joined. I was rather annoying.

I doubt you'll find such a thing, since even high-school physics is nowhere close to the variety and breadth of physics you can study in university. Any exam would tell you that you're good at whatever it is you've learned in high school, while that's only the first semester or two of a university physics degree.

Yes. If it helps, you can rewrite it this way: [math](\sin (x^3))^4[/math]

Will this be graded? I don't spend a lot of time on other science forum sites, so I can't judge in depth. My impression is that PhysicsForums has had some success in attracting experts and scientists to contribute, so its discussions are considerably more technically involved. They've developed a useful strategy for homework help (with experts tagged as homework helpers, so users know they're getting good advice), and they get loads of activity. I'm not a fan of the color scheme, however. SciForums seems less technically focused, but still very active. I haven't browsed it much. Hypography attracts my ire because they decided to switch to using scienceforums.com as their domain name, which they had owned but not used for some time. They don't seem to have many science experts, but their community is fairly active -- about the size of SFN's, although with fewer posts, it seems. There's a number of smaller sites, like TheScienceForum (.com or .org, take your pick), Science Chat Forum, and quite a few others. I don't have much experience with any.

The requirement is good grades in physics courses and a recommendation or two from faculty who know your teaching ability. I don't know how applications are judged, though. Our course has fairly good learning assistants, if I may judge.