imatfaal

Needless and wanton consumption basically. Its there for visual effect and to illustrate that the purchaser has money to burn

It's getting silly now - I positive rep'd after ydoaps post a few months ago, but it seems to be getting worse. Might I suggest a post limit for negative reputation reporting - or remove reputation marks from all but the substantive science sub-fora

I kinda agree with you and the blog quote - one possible reason to keep genetic information in the hands of Doctors only is the legal implications. Doctor patient confidentiality is fairly strong and reasonably well-respected and the Doctor should be able to be relied upon to be an honest intermediary. Without that confidentiality and honest broker I can envisage a new bred of sequence-chasers who persuade any poorly-educated person with a sequence that "this" indicates a propensity for "that" - and I can sell you a nice preventive "medicinal compound". I am not claiming Doctors are immune from this form of behaviour, but I do think it might make a sensible safety net. But like any safety-net, it should be one you can opt out of, once proper advice has been received.

Personally - I would define the above as realizations based upon a particular perspective of consciousness. It seems to posit a firm barrier between man and bodily-machine; but on what basis do you make this assertion?

To be a bit more explicit. 1. The volume of any standard right prism is area of base x height. Thus the volume of a triangular prism is area of triangle x height 2. I am presuming that you know how to calculate the area of the triangle that the base is formed from Calculate this area in units2 3. The volume of a slant prism needs some thinking about Imagine a right prism that has edges and faces that at are right-angles to the plane upon which the base is formed Make small slices parallel to the plane (imagine a packet of biscuits for a cyclindrical prism) Push each slice a little to the side compared to the one below - and what have you got? Now you should be able to guess what your third element must be and how to calculate it from the vector 4. Wack em all together

Eric - there were many great philosophers and scientists, so much so that a study of their history would preclude a study of the science that they were the progenitors of. I wouldn't recognize Galileo, Maxwell, or Gell-Mann - and I only know Newton and Darwin cos they are/were on our currency. In my opinion it's what they say rather than who said it first and when.

Just found out that if you ever buy super expensive chocolates in Europe you might see the E-number E-175 on the ingredients. Got to be one of the simplest constituents you will find - Au. That's right, it is the e-number for pure gold. Gold leaf is so thin that you can wrap chocolates in it and just eat it!

Mutual admiration society??? They fight like cats in a bag. The whole scientific kit-and-caboodle is about constantly testing and challenging current ideas and responding by explanation and enlargement to other's criticisms of one's own ideas. To depict science as a homogeneous grouping that merely accepts the status quo is completely incorrect. Every accepted scientific theory is only still accepted because no ambitious and aggressive young scientist has been able to provide a better alternative. It's survival of the fittest out there; if a theory cannot stand up to all the tests thrown at it then it does not survive. You will find great reluctance to accept a new theory that is heuristic and prosaic rather than mathematical and predictive - but if it is good enough people will fill in the gaps. However, if your theory is free from rigour, maths, predictions and logic, yet it contradicts a well-established theory that does have these attributes, then expect it to be given very short shrift. Is it only not foolhardy to challenge man-made global warming from two standpoints. Firstly, scientific perspective; if you are a climate scientist then feel free to challenge, in fact it is your job to research and test. Secondly, political perspective; if you have been elected on the basis that you will defend the right to burn fossil fuels and increase CO2 emissions rather than take a long-term global view then morally you should keep this view or resign your seat. Otherwise its just bleating and moaning like a two year old for whom 'I want...' is the beginning and end of every argument.

Jill - I think the cool professor knew that well and devised a project that would not only expand your knowledge of chemical structures but would also allow you to connect those abstract formulae to the real world and what you were eating, consuming and relying upon. And in a tribute to good chemistry teachers - Mr Zablocki, you were, and probably still are, a great and inspiring teacher

I think there is a very laudable and pronounced didactic streak in many of the knowledgeable experts here and this fosters those posters who are not experienced at correspondence on a forum, nor very learned in science. I agree it can be annoying - but the forum would lose a great deal if they were discouraged too much. The mods are quite quick enough in clamping down if a thread is better suited to speculations or to trash. just my two cents

Something like a nasty ready-made meal might be very good pickings - you will get water(very easy); salt (easy); sucrose, glucose and other sugars (again wikieasy) , what we would call E numbers in Europe (ie artificial flavouring and preservatives (more complicated to explain but still traceable on net); if any protein source you can have a stab at explaining what is likely to be there, the same with fat source. I reckon any reasonably unhealthy pre-prepared meal will get you to ten in no time Sounds like a good task to me

Further to Spyman - I would say that we might be more interested if you actually ask a question rather than merely inviting the forum to explain a complex, poorly understood, and not generally-accepted philosophical interpretation of QM.

To DL This is a cooling star - so it has a long way to go to zero kelvin (notleast that it cannot get there per ajb above). The article which I have linked in my first post says the surface temperature is estimated at 2 million kelvin. It is however displaying behaviour that we more normally associate with very cold matter in our laboratory conditions - but in this case it seems to be more todo with the enormous pressure and exotic nature of the stars matter. To AJB I never thought to try wikipedia - thanks will read up.

Of Course! Damn - I missed that. Mr Skeptik - " Let S be all the points around the box that are, at most, 1 unit away from the box." I think the question precludes just a surface - a point half a unit away from the original box is definitely within the question.

Not sure if DocRoc is right there - I agree with you Trip that the corners would have to be curved (the outside corner is sqrt3 away from inside corner). I would say that you have a collection of shapes 2 @ W*H*1 2 @ W*D*1 2 @ H*W*1 4 @ H*1*1 4 @ W*1*1 4 @ D*1*1* 8 @ unit demi-demi-demi-spheres - ie an eight corner of a sphere - you could then add these groups together together to get 1 w*h*2 1 h*d*2 1 w*d*2 1 h*1*4 1 w*1*4 1 d*1*4 1 unit sphere I don't think you can simplify any more Matthew

Tongue firmly in cheek as well ... but if you include British Antarctic Territories and Queen Maude Land (Norway) then we get another 4.2 mill - putting us back in front. Love the ads - trouble is if we made ads like that in the UK people would think they were serious

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geon_(physics) the closing bracket was missing from link

Damn - we could do with some of that in the musty old 'mother of parliaments'

In non-scientific papers one can easily do without any references / citations of old work by the choice of subject or perspective, but avoiding modern work is very dangerous because it lays the paper open for criticism in terms of usefulness to today's academic community (as ajb said above) and perhaps betrays a poor literature review and understanding of current thinking

Hate to rain on both your parades about which is bigger - but according to wikipedia the fount of all knowledge the areas are as follows: 1. Europe 10.18*10^6 km^2 2. America 9.83*10^6 km^2 3. Australia 8.47*1-0^6 km^2 In population terms 1. Europe 731*10^6 2. America 308*10^6 3. Australia 32*10^6 Frankly those figures are a bit screwy as well cos they include bits in Europe that don't feel very European (and North America as a continent is huge) Back on the point (before Dragon calls me a jerk again!) - those broad brush strokes you talk about are indeed dangerous, but they are hard to avoid when the images we are fed of other countries are selected by their extreme nature. We regularly read/hear news stories about school boards in the States acting in a reactionary manner - but of course, we never hear about the vast majority who are rational and progressive. When I worked in New York the minor news stories I read about Europe painted a picture that I didn't recognize at all - and I sure that the same applies in reverse. That said, it still seems whilst Australia, 'old Europe', and many other countries are moving away from religious involvement in education and government in general; that America, the accession States of the EU, and much of the Islamic world is moving towards greater cohesion between state and religion.

Skitt's law strikes again!

Poww - glad to help. Once I saw 1.414 (square root of two jumps out at you) and 14.14 (ie ten times the sqrt2) then the route to the answer was pretty clear. And I guess you have already sent me praise (many thanks) by hitting the green plus badge at the bottom right hand corner of my posts.

Hello Poww - no you have it the wrong way around. What I said was take the square of each of number - so for x=4 y =4 you would take 5.656854 (or whatever number of decimals you have) and square it to give 32. Now try and figure a connection between 4, 4 and 32 - now see if this connection will work for another cell. BTW we normally call x the variable that goes across the page and y the vertical one.