imatfaal

trying to answer airbrush's question;it is that visible universe is usually thought of as that portion of the universe which could be observed using EMR-detection - and we can detect/observe nothing during or before the universal opacity of the era of last scattering which finished around 380-400k years after BB. There is clearly a part of the universe that is within our past light cone earlier than 380000 years post big bang - otherwise where did we come from - and that part of the universe will never be visible using EMR-detection. The observable universe is time-limited because of the era of last scattering - the past light cone is not. When/if we can use neutrinos or gravitational waves to probe the very ancient universe (ie detection methods that are not blocked by the opaqueness of the universe then) the observable universe will increase in magnitude

I think its just badly phrased. A child cannot have more than one genetic father in the normal run of events - the figures given can be broken down as follows 20 percent of women who are a mother in US have more than one child AND have children with different genetic fathers. 28 percent of mothers with more than one child have children with different genetic fathers. In the first phrase the population group is large (women who are a mother) - and has two conditions (more than one child) AND (more than one father) In the second phrase the population group is smaller (women who have two+ children) - but it only has one condition (more than one father) As the size of the group that meets the condition(s) is the same for both phrases - and the population size is smaller in the second then the second percentage must be bigger. I hope I havent made the confusion worse

I am in danger of sounding like a big business apologist, but: If an industry must take into account (either through insurance or increased costs) the potential and subjectively, individually-judged social consequences of any known hazard then nothing will ever pass a cost-benefit analysis. Industry does need to be able to limit liability and to avoid the need to include the social cost of taking certain risks within its calculations. I think it needs to be accepted that a corporation can take into account potential lawsuit for future unforeseen negligent acts, but that no corporation should see litigation costs as an alternative to solving a current problem. And perhaps the system desired by Price Anderson is exactly that less objective/more subjective system that you call for. As the damage would be community wide, and would threaten entire social make-up, then the risks can only be covered by community/government based schemes. Normal tortious litigation would not have either the facility or scope to compensate a community that suffered in this manner.

I don't claim to be an expert on Price-Anderson - but laws insisting upon minimum insurance levels, mutual contingency funds, a multiple tiered payout plan, no blame litigation etc in return for limitations of liability, and an ultimate governmental funding tier is not restricted to the nuclear industry. the oil and shipping industry have similar set ups. To an extent you are correct, but more importantly they demonstrate that a huge potential hazard exists - and that to facilitate the forward movement of that industry, a risk will be taken jointly by all participants of the industry and the government. The hazard is enormous - but the risk is acceptable.

Fun and kinda scary ain't it?

Swanzontee has mentioned comparative risk analysis looking at a dollar spent in one area with perceived hazard or another area where danger is actual - there is also the more accountancy based cost per unit of production analysis. Every penny spent on a piece of infrastructure has to be added to the cost of the product. Who initally pays this extra marginal cost is a matter of policy (it could be subsidy, it could be reduced commercial profit, or higher retail bills); but in reality when all accounting is done it is the taxpayer/end-user who pays. The capital costs of building a nuclear power station have to be defrayed eventually one way or another - and in evaluating the project these costs are placed on the price per giga/terawatthour. At a certain price per unit energy we decide that the capital project is not worth continuing with. The same accountancy applies to the production of gasoline at filling stations from crude oil; we could make the transportation, production, distribution etc safer for the workers involved and lower risks of environmental damage - but this will put up the price at the pump. In the end we make the decision that we can put up with hundreds/thousands of deaths per year and major spills every few years as long as the price of gallon stays down; it's a nasty calculus, and one we don't tend to make consciously or overtly.

Agree with Ophiolite - it's a confusion. If you google circularity system but not circulatory you only get a handful (well 1400) answers and first page results all seem to be confusing the two terms. OTOH circulatory system is a very important concept, especially the double circulatory system

Apparently I have become an admin as well! I think I might close some threads for the hell of it - I just have a feeling it might not work that way. I also have a pretty good idea what is going on and it is nothing to worry about

Can I get to meet Tom Cruise?

I think the opponents of cloning and other "human-technologies" rely on the discredited and illogical slippery slope argument. It is arbitrary line-drawing with post-hoc rationalisation and moral justification

Cap'n - once the conspiracy theories come out to play the obvious objections are quashed. The only time that Libyan oil ceased to flow was during the last revolution and now - and as you point out that does not tally with this being solely about the oil.

Well the dark side clearly does get heated by the light side as the darkside has a temperature of 100K - which is considerably higher than the space that surrounds it. It is clearly wrong to suggest that the sunnyside would be the same temperature as the darkside - and it seems that the equilibrium is that the side with no sunlight gets to around 100k before its emission balance out the conducted heat from the sunnyside

Great site CaptainP - from a look at some of the photos - winners had over half a tonne supported by less than a kilo of spaghetti

Not silly at all . I think it carries on throughout an engineering education - I have certainly seen undergraduate level engineers being asked to do this same task. This was in a competition that was set to schoolchildren from 8-18 yrs and students at two local universities (using spaghetti, super glue, and mars bars) a group of 16 years olds beat all competition! There are real architects on this site and hopefully at least one will respond - but I guess the first thing I would want to think about is the strengths of my materials: under tension, compression, shear, twist etc. Secondly what is the weakness of my joints? What sort of anchor on the sides is allowed?

Yep. I just noticed that your picture and ajb's both show a face at exactly the same angle/aspect and both with teeth showing - admittedly Tom Baker is slightly less scary than the bear - you're not two avatars of the same crazy mixed-up hyper-mathematician are you?

A force in the direction opposing your acceleration would just make you accelerate less quickly. You accelerate in the direction of the net force. We feel a force from gravity - that is counteracted by the normal force from the ground in the opposite direction, the net force is zero and whilst we are in contact with the ground we don't accelerate. F=ma is a hard task-master and there is not a simple way to get around it.

Aristotle is saying that we can envisage a line - we see that it is lacking (is defective), we can expand upon (go beyond) the line by adding another dimension to envisage a plane; in turn we can go beyond the plane by utilising the dimension it lacks to create a body. He is saying that every object can be completely determined with these three spatial dimensions; I don't believe there was a speculative higher form he was arguing against, rather he was confirming that the progression from1, to 2, to 3 dimensions stopped at three. It is the lack of breadth that allows a line to be expanded to a surface, and the lack of height which allows a surface to be expanded to a body; there is no other lack/ no defect with the generalised body that allows it to be expanded to a higher dimension, it also implies that the movement from 1-d to 2-d is similar to the movement from 2-d to 3-d, which is not obvious. Bear in mind this was written prior Euclid's Elements; the basic rules of maths were still in their infancy

"rather than just a Fermi" - by any reasonable usage of those words that phrase is nonsense.

Latest Chrome iteration is very annoying - Flash plugin just seems to die. Using Chrome Canary Build as I type this - works nicely and Flash implementation is good.

pneumonic/mnemonic ? I think I need to watch the video to understand the difference - but my flash plugin keeps dying on SFN - could you post a link to the video as well? Or tell me how to get to the underlying link.

Lemur - could you elaborate on the definition you are using are using for authoritarianism? I think some concrete examples might help. My internal working definition of authoritarianism does not include "softly-spoken" kindly and persuasive societies. I would characterise authoritarian states as those that exist through the arbitrary exercise of power by an unelected elite with an active suppression of free speech both openly through propaganda and through violence (with a varying amount of secrecy). I do not consider the UK to be an authoritarian state (although of course it has its moments which might be becoming more frequent)nor any of the states of EU12/15. I do consider the rule that Britain exercised in India and other colonies as authoritarian - and I would also include such countries as Vietnam, Kuwait, at present

For someone working before Euclid it's pretty amazing actually. It still correctly identifies the human innate understanding of dimensions - that there is nowhere else to put another dimension. I think his use and the translators of complete and defective refer to physical solidity and its lack rather than some value judgement of quality. We can go beyond the surface because it lacks height/depth ie it is defective; we cannot go beyond the body because it does not lack a dimension. He goes on to say that objects in 3d space must be themselves 3 dimensional. How is this nonsense?

Your argument relies on the fact that dissent is constant and varies only due to level and method of repression; I think this position is difficult to justify and would be harder to prove. The fact that ideology can be used to constrain thought and thus limit even the thought of dissent does not preclude the fact that some societal structures will engender less cause for dissent. Not all contentment is founded in ignorance maintained by the machinations of a hegemonic ideology - I would go as far as to say that within the societies I have lived in, the vast majority of "acceptance of one's lot" and happiness is based in awareness and knowledge.

Jackson - do you seriously believe that we should judge the entire Muslim world as one homogeneous entity? And moreover, that those in Africa and the Middle East only care or desire the bare minimum essential of life? And finally, that the continent/area that gave the world much of its learning, culture, religion, and science has been in wallowing for 2000 years in a blissful ignorance of everything apart from that necessary to survive? I can see no alternative but to infer from your postings that you don't think that Africans and Arabs have the right or the will to be anything but oppressed.

This presupposes that those in "overwhelmingly popular" regimes have as many and as deeply held grievances as those in despised regimes; and yet they refrain from voicing these injustices due to fear of community opprobrium. Without firm facts to the contrary I would prefer to believe that the reason many people are happy to stay silent within the modern democracy is that they accept that their situation is not that bad. Within repressive regimes those who express dissent are punished, ostracised, and perhaps even murdered. Thus it is quite possible that the net result in terms of complaints of both an advanced, benevolent, and widely progressive democracy and a hugely repressive fascist state might approximate each other; mostly silence, but one rooted in contentment and the other in fear.