Cap'n Refsmmat

No, not in a Newtonian world. Consider two masses, m1 and m2, a distance r apart. They are gravitationally attracted to each other with corresponding forces: [math]F_1 = G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}[/math] [math]F_2 = G \frac{m_2 m_1}{r^2}[/math] Now, we know that [imath]F=ma[/imath]: [math]F_1 = m_1 a_1 = G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}[/math] [math]F_2 = m_2 a_2 = G \frac{m_2 m_1}{r^2}[/math] Cancelling... [math]a_1 = G \frac{m_2}{r^2}[/math] [math]a_2 = G \frac{m_1}{r^2}[/math] Their accelerations are independent of their own masses, depending only on the mass of the other object. So if I drop two objects of different masses, their acceleration in Earth's gravity will be identical. Now, it's true that the Earth moves as well as the dropped object, but it is not true that the objects fall any faster or slower.

What does he want? Also, terrorism implies the actions are designed to create fear and panic among the populace. That is not Assange. He didn't leak the documents himself. He received them. He broke no barriers in doing so. Whoever leaked them did. What company? Also, http://www.wikileaks...ia/support.html And it's bad that this is revealed? Alternately, you could reveal what's going on in an attempt to limit the corruption and greed. Your argument is predicated on the idea that corruption and greed are inevitable, and it is not only futile to fight them, but immoral. Is that what you seriously believe? That government is bad, but trying to make it better is worse? And if governments are as corrupt and dishonest as you claim, what trust is there to be destroyed? If every cynical government is manipulating every other cynical government, which trusting relationships are being ruined? I invite you to read the following articles: http://www.miamihera...s-releases.html http://blogs.wsj.com...t-game-changer/ and to also read more Wikileaks coverage in general, because it is apparent you significantly overestimate the leaks and the dealings revealed within.

Ah, I see. It's not even true that the documents are yet public; Wikileaks has only published 0.12% of the cables so far, which gives some sense of the scale of the disclosure so far. Some of today's news: UK agrees to "protect US interests" in its Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, although no context is given to explain just what this means UK politicians don't like each other very much Everyone's worried about Pakistan's nukes, while the US frets about Pakistani support of the Taliban, extrajudicial killings and political instability US isn't fond of the current Turkish government, saying it lacks depth and is often incompetent Blackwater Security goes pirate hunting Not many surprises, apart from the sheer volume of material -- this could go on for months at this rate. The Pakistani and Turkish revelations could damage relations with those countries, however -- the diplomatic distaste for Turkish politicians is very clear -- and the Chilcot inquiry claim will at least inspire some cover-up conspiracy theories. The Guardian still says we ain't seen nothin' yet, so keep watching. I hope the future revelations will be more substantial, though, because at the moment the leak only has its sheer size going for it.

There's some pretty nasty commentary about Bush's memoirs in today's Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/29/AR2010112903248.html

New York Times v. United States means the government has to pass a very high burden of proof to legally prevent the disclosure of already-leaked classified documents. Is there precedent to suggest the media can be punished?

According to a Democracy Now interview with a Guardian editor, there's more to come: http://www.democracy...en_anything_yet The pressure on Assange and the US government is only going to mount in the coming days.

Manning was arrested in May of this year, so either Wikileaks has held on to the material for months or someone else leaked it. Until Manning is charged and convicted, I guess we won't know which. I very much agree. Once the material is leaked, I don't think there are many legal means to stop it. The First Amendment goes a long way.

To get around to answering your question: Snell's law is the easiest method I am familiar with. Snell's law says: [math]n_1 \sin \theta_1 = n_2 \sin \theta_2[/math] n1 and n2 are the refractive indices of two media -- we have a light ray traveling from one medium into another. For example, suppose we have light going from air into a block of glass. The angle the light ray makes normal to the glass is the angle of incidence, [math]\theta_1[/math]. The angle the light makes normal to the surface when it's inside the block is [math]\theta_2[/math]. Given that the index of refraction of air is 1, we can solve for the refractive index of glass. Snell's law can be derived several ways. You can use wave optics to derive it, or you can use the simple principle that light travels the path that takes the least time. Either will allow you to derive the law. Another straightforward way would be to directly measure the speed of light in the medium, but that is more difficult.

Once the documents are leaked, I'm not sure what the government can do, so long as the documents end up in the hands of someone smart. Taking down the website won't work -- they'll just make a new website. Hacking their server won't work -- they have second copies of the data. Killing Julian Assange won't work -- there are others with the data. Short of finding everyone who has a copy of the data simultaneously, and capturing all of them and their computer equipment and servers in datacenters in remote countries with backup copies, there's no way to stop them.

Speaking of which, here's a Forbes front-page about him: http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-wikileaks-business-media-assange_lander.html Apparently the next big leak (for the beginning of 2011) will be a large American bank's documents. Could be interesting.

360 degrees is exactly [math]2\pi[/math] radians, so we simply do: [math]\frac{2\pi \mbox{ radians}}{5 \mbox{ seconds}} = \frac{2 \pi}{5}\, \mbox{rad/sec}[/math] You can convert degrees to radians with Google, just by typing "360 degrees in radians." You can also use Google to find the decimal value of [imath]\frac{2\pi}{5}[/imath].

There isn't one general direction. The galaxies move away from each other uniformly; space itself is expanding, rather than galaxies rushing away from a center point.

A Guardian editor suggests that the news organizations involved have arranged a schedule for releasing the rest of the documents, focusing on a specific geographic region for each release: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/us-embassy-cables-rusbridger-wikileaks?showallcomments=true#comment-fold (in the comments) I have asked for a comment regarding the usual response to Wikileaks releases, "oh, that's nothing new," and asked whether the Guardian thinks there's shocking or revelatory material that has yet to be released. They haven't gotten around to answering me yet.

Real men weave baskets in space.

Is your formula for information entropy the same as the one given for information earlier, or is information entropy measured differently? It's important that I understand what you refer to before I answer. Also, what is the distinction between molecular entropy and thermal entropy? I was not aware of such a distinction, and I'll need your definitions to answer your question.

Is this a homework problem, or are you just curious?

What's interesting is that the Fox News articles I've seen so far emphasize the illegal nature of the leak, but also... http://www.guardian....es-live-updates Also, it's worth noting that Assange's ideology is independent of what was published yesterday: the newspapers were allowed to publish whatever they wished based on the documents, and the articles published yesterday were their choices, not Assange's. They picked the first documents to be released, and there'll be much more coming. Interesting. Fox apparently disapproves of the leaks, even though they're embarrassing to the Democratic government: http://www.foxnews.c...e-terror-group/

Agreed. I'd like to see Assange release some non-US-centric documents in the future, but he's at the mercy of the leakers. We'll find out, I suppose. Why do you insinuate that Assange has intent behind each and every document he leaks? There's 250,000. It's quite possible he barely knew of the allegations about Qadaffi, or that he doesn't care. But selectively withholding some of the documents because they're just gossip isn't his job -- he's supposed to release everything he can. Even if he is acting like a tabloid journalist, you don't have to retaliate by descending to his level. (Furthermore -- is Assange the only man in Wikileaks? I'm guessing there's others helping out.) Certainly. I'll refrain from calling him a hero until we see the real ramifications of this release, whether it truly reveals corruption and shady deals, and whether he'll release material from other nations and corporations in the future. I think we can only truly judge these leaks in retrospect, once their effects are made clear. This is only the beginning of the process.

Another interesting fact is that the US government refused to cooperate when Assange asked if they'd like to specify documents that should be redacted. http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/11/wikileaks-and-state-department-correspondence/ Assange took that to mean that the governments claims of massive damage are overstated, and they just want Assange to shut up to hide their unethical dealings. Not sure I buy the second half of that (unless the documents are more damning than they have been so far), but it is interesting. I suppose if the government helped in redacting, they'd be accused of cooperating in releasing their own secret information, so they're screwed either way. But if the diplomatic consequences are so grave, redacting would be the lesser of two evils...

Here's the Guardian's justification for publishing the documents: http://www.guardian....ables-wikileaks They point out that the State Department has been aware of the leak for several months, and that none of the documents are Top Secret -- half are not classified at all, and all were available through Siprnet to something like three million government employees and military officers. The article also hints that there's quite a few unpleasant things yet to be revealed, but I'll refrain from judging until it's all made public.

True enough. We want our diplomats to express themselves honestly in their memos, and to deal with others without worrying about what Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann will say if they hear about it. But it swings both ways; we want our government to be accountable to the people, so some level of "if the public finds out, they'll go bananas" is necessary. Well, that's why Wikileaks will eventually publish all the cables. You can read the numerous cables and see if there's a trend. I was reading the cables from Ankara earlier and I'm fairly certain additional context would not improve what they said about Erdogan. What the hell? This isn't just an ad hominem, this is poisoning the well with something blatantly false. In case you're not aware, there are no allegations that Assange molested any children or anyone under the age of consent. The dispute centers around him not using a condom with some women he met after a press conference, or something like that -- "molestation" in Sweden is much more broad than the American sense of fondling a kid's naughty bits. But bringing in those allegations, true or false, is poisoning the well, and is not relevant to our discussion about the merits of the release.

If the diplomats have many secrets that would cause other countries to distrust them, isn't any trust in those diplomats misplaced? In the name of intelligence sharing, apparently, because the government realized that attacks weren't prevented because agencies didn't know what other agencies were doing. Generally the definition of "terrorism" requires violence undertaken to instill fear in a population. Assange doesn't seem to meet either of these criteria. The existence of torture chambers is one thing I'd like Assange to blow open.

Why not?

Wikileaks would hardly be any fun if it only leaked US secrets, though the democracy argument doesn't stand if you're talking about non-democratic nations. But I hardly think it's surprising that the Saudis want Iran stopped.

It looks like it'll be an interesting week in foreign affairs. Wikileaks, along with its media partners, has begun releasing the first batch of classified diplomatic cables from US embassies and officials. Apparently, releases will be spread out through several months. It'll be fun to watch. So far, among the batch released this afternoon: Saudi Arabia privately urges the US to attack Iran's nuclear facilities Diplomats asked to spy on UN officials and other diplomats China's Politburo organized the large hacking attacks on Google and other companies earlier this year US ponders delivering bunker-busting bombs to Israel while staying out of Iranian attacks ...and much more, in 250,000 documents, though a Denial of Service attack on Wikileaks means they may not be released soon The documents were released to The Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais. Their analysis: http://www.guardian....-embassy-cables http://www.nytimes.c...secrets.html?hp http://www.spiegel.d...lomatic_cables/ (I couldn't find the rest, as they're not in English) Wikileaks has just put the first cables online on their own site, which is rather slow at the moment: http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/ Today's news coverage is just 219 cables out of the 251,287. I wonder what the next will contain... So. Does the potential for exposing corruption or shady dealings between governments outweigh the scandalous effects of revealing US secrets? And what do you think of the revelations made so far?