imatfaal

We will always have an office lunch - lashing of wine and takeaway with mtv; this is not to welcome the new employee (although of course it is) but to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary or something even more contrived. It creates a social setting that allows people to get to know the newbie - WITHOUT the newbie being the centre of attention.

Ewmon - I really like your explanation and the idea of the need to translate from a word problem to a maths problem carefully. Marqq's example of a possible trip up point is also easily voided if one translates his deliberately bad maths back into words; the first ball must be a 1 OR a 2, AND, the second ball must be a 1 OR a 2 ... is clearly different, even in words, to the first ball MUST BE a 1, AND the second ball MUST BE a 1... OR the first ball MUST BE a 2, AND....

There have been a number of egregious examples recently of posters refusing to accept that claims of fact can be disputed until a good source is given (and sometimes even then). In religion it is more difficult to be strict on this - claims that the bible/koran/torah say "such and such" should be backed up; however you cannot rule out the possibility of apposite questions and logical positions with very little concrete factual base.

i keep trying to get it - but they want me to work for my money I worry that the damned industrious victorians might have pulled half of them down because they didn't fit with the neo-gothic phase they were in.

I have no idea if it will help you, but it helped me immensely to actually write down neatly the steps - even when I did the problem seamlessly from question to answer. On the off syllabus side; difficult.... if you are using leisure time to read about and around maths then no problem. if, however, it is eating into study time you have a problem. The pressure to study is terrible - I hated it at that age I thrive on it now - and the best way to ensure you study is to study well. That means not inventing reasons to be doing something else that is related to study but isnt the hard grind - reading outside the syllabus when you are meant to be studying falls into that category.

hmmmm - I was reading properties as "distinguishing properties" - distinguishing both between examples and within the single particle; your initial point clearly does not say that. However, a particle with no properties in the strict sense is not worth getting worried over; the question asked (I think) how can featureless particles that are not subdivideable have intrinsic and changeable properties (ie they do have properties). It was asked how multiplication of layers helps - I think the snooker ball analogy still stands in that context of the original question and that follow-up.

SonT's bingo card generator is out of order. Otherwise I reckon someone would be calling house soon.

This thread has moved from merely a poorly informed claim about immigration to a border-line racist rant. [sarcasm] Rather than the good upstanding anglos who would not dream of exploiting another human being!!! [/sarcasm] I would be flirting with Godwin's law if I expounded on what this reminds me of.

I am a little in awe of Oz - and had just assumed they were the brave new world down under; oops. As it is definitely criminal damage and possibly aggravated trespass I think I should make it clear I was talking hypothetically - I will answer any questions (from a hypothetical viewpoint) that you might have. The bigger the pattern, the more complicated, the better the organisation that is required; you only have a few hours, so preparation and planning are essential. You do not go drunk or without knowing exactly which pattern and at what location. It's a nerds pastime - ie it requires detail, planning, forethought, and a general lack of spontaneity. Because they were in a hurry to get back to Mexico before the Incas realised they were there. I think the Incas thought in a very similar way - if those blocks were square they would be an impressive but fairly boring wall. Irregular - but tooled to fit together almost perfectly (you cannot fit a postcard in the gaps) they bridge the gap between nature and technology. They look like a histologically prepared slide - they create continuity in a way that regular blocks cannot. damn I am waxing lyrical...

btw disinterest DNE uninterest. a "lack of disinterest" is a bias. SonT said he was uninterested. This does not imply a bias. On the frame-dragging - your quotes are interesting and I had read one of them before. But they do not entertain the notion that frame-dragging is a myth caused by the irregularity of the earth - they worry that the irregularity of the earth, poor experimental accuracy, and excess data manipulation have clouded/influenced the results. Scientists doubt things all the time - and positive results are gone through with the finest of fine tooth combs to check and double-check that the results really do confirm the theory. That is what the reputable sources you quoted are doing - they are saying - yeah the results fit but are they really clear enough; that is a world away from positing an alternative theory. For your guidance a reference request on a science board is normally looking for something other than a post on another science board (especially one from a banned member with 17 posts to their name)! http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=165052

Michel - I think I can see what you are getting at, how can something that is uniform, undifferentiated, and without internal sub-structure have recognizable and changeable properties. I have no formal training in non-classical physics - and I think that I am limited by that to a view that is classical; however I think this is the human condition and that any other view requires a deliberate suspension of our normal faculties One red snooker ball on the baize is indistinguishable from others - fifteen can be placed in arrangements that could be listed and distinguished. Whilst the properties of one are limited to xy position on the table (assuming the surface and internal make-up are homogeneous); the properties of a group of fifteen could include whether group is symmetrical, does the group enclose space, is the group continous, or does it space fill maximally.

Is there a critical radius greater than which you can assume both homogeneity and isotropy in the universe ( the i i radius?)

What age is class 10? At age 14ish my maths was suffering and a new teacher turned it round - he was actually the games master, and whilst he could not have done a'level teaching (ages17-18) he was great at spotting weaknesses and a superb teacher (h/t to Mick Marmion). he realised that messiness and sloppiness were my achilles heal - i didnt not understand that good presentation and layout not only made it easier for teachers to give me marks, it improved my methodology by forcing me to consider each step and the logical progression between them. My earlier scrawl also stopped me scanning quickly to spot any mistakes, practically ensured that I would get no marks for method if my final answer had an arithmetic error, but most importantly stopped me being able to understand the process on a mechanical step-by-step level (I understood on a purely intuitive method). Just my two-pennyworth.

seems a little too much like homework to me.

I like that Iggy - but surely that only works when you can assume isotropy and homogeneity. Of course on a small scale this is not a valid assumption and one cannot use shell theorem and others to simplify matters. The large sphere that fits between andromeda and the milky way may well have a calculated critical density far greater than the measured mass/volume - but it ain't gonna expand because of the milky way and andromeda

John - where are those sculptures? I love outdoor sculpture on a massive scale - but I guess they are probably a few continents away. And if I had the resources I would create drawings the size of the Nazca lines - so far the biggest I have done were crop circles about 100m across; people interpreted those as religious/alien as well

i believe your postulate fails - no need to continue. If the supposed facts that you base an argument upon are incorrect - no matter how good the logic - the conclusion is worthless. no - that's not true either. they are relative figures - so the absolute size of the nation is removed from consideration, by dealing in a figure per thousand of the population. again with the imputation of an ulterior motive. I have nothing against the norse and do nothing to them. ok - a rational test of a hypothesis starts with the question - do I agree with the factual basis of this hypothesis. I do not. Because a) in relative terms you are wrong to make the statement you did; or b) Using absolute figures is a nonsense as CaptP demonstrated brilliantly.

if you are going to impute motives to me you could at least use my name. in fact I posted those figures because your argument struck me as entirely fallacious, from its premises to its conclusion. rather than argue the conclusion - I put up a link that showed that I felt your initial postulate was false. frankly the idea that absolute rather than relative migration is better yardstick shows to me that you are determined to have your conclusion whether the facts back it up or not.

Word to the wise - in some jurisdictions the sale and purchase of meteorites above a certain size is restricted. you may wish to check out your local laws before broadcasting

Pan - ah, yes; if (and it's a big if which I do not think will come to pass) we observe galaxies redshifted by a greater amount than the cmbr then the whole model collapses

whole post ripped from the other thread on reasoning and logic - you were right it was getting confusing. Your models are difficult to understand - and you must still take on board the idea of dimensional analysis when creating a model force DOES NOT EQUAL GM/r^2 - as becomes clear when you stick the units in (G image from wikipedia page) acceleration = -GMr^-2 force = Gm1m2r^-2 An object or environment travelling at 30 f/s cannot exert an accelerational force on an object travelling at the same speed. Yes if you can exert a continuous force it will accelerate - but look at a boat in a current, that boat will speed up till it approximate the current speed; it will not outrun the current unless it switches its motor on

Greg - could you explain how your assertions about net migration fit with this table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate - before we start to discuss any correlated data

Tony. Whilst your anecdote describes an experience that is not uncommon, and it should be noted the opposite can occur when everything is a blur and one is unsure of any of one's thought processes, the original topic of this thread - deja vu - shows that our conscious perception of the unlying working of the brain can be easily fooled. I think an explanation (aside from the well documented adrenal fight or flight reaction) that is just as likely is that due to the stress and importance of the situation both your perception and memory of your normally unconscious/subconscious decision-making process were altered/improved. The unusualness of the situation allowed a glance into a normally hidden autonomic process. Additionally, in a normal situation you would not immediately reflect and self-analyse the last few moments of thought and action in depth, nor would your system be drenched in fight or flight (or landing in your case!) hormones whilst doing this.

Pan - I am not sure what you mean by "no such observations have been seen at the presently most distant observable parts of the universe"? We observe the CMBR - anything more distant or older than that cannot be observed through the use of any wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. Before the surface of last scattering - when the CMBR was emitted - the universe was ionised, hot, light-emitting, and opaque; there just is no radiation for us to observe from before the epoch that gave rise to the CMB. Any probing of the universe before this will have to be done by inference from the anisotropy and imperfections in the CMB - or at a much later date when we can use something that the <300,000 year universe was not opaque for, ie gravitational waves or neutrino.

Sorry Khaled - but can you enlarge on this please? I find it very hard to believe that a human being, outside of a hollywood special effects unit, can dodge a bullet. some people will act, perceive their environment, and react to danger quicker than others - but physical realities still hold.