imatfaal

Is dark matter necessarily super dense? I didn't think we even had that amount of info - all we have is a rough idea of mass per cubic volume, and that could be a few clumps of very dense or a sea of small and light. there is definitely a huge amount of it - but then it is in a very large volume . Gravity works on the product of masses not on the density; the density could affect how close the centres of mass could be, but on cosmological scales in this matter this wouldn't be important.

But to construct an ethos based on extreme hypotheticals is mis-guided. We avoid using hard cases in the law - hard cases make bad law and we shouldn't make ethical judgments based upon a fictitious scenario that only really avails itself of one solution. I prefer to act and think of myself as someone who does not reduce others to numbers within a benthamite calculus - the search must be for eudaimonia not for felix BTW: I am a graduate of gower street and owe a lot to Bentham and his cohorts (and enemies) in re-creating London as a city with universities - but I cannot stand some of his work. I will give him a nod on your behalf next week if I pass through UCL .

Mark - check out Walter Lewin's first year physics lectures. His entire Physics 101 at MIT from a few years back is online. You can get it through iTunes or youtube. He is a superb and engaging lecturer. An enthusiastic amateur should be able to follow the course with a little help from wikipedia.

Know the feeling. Here's a house point.

Apart from the mathematical problem that Mr S pointed out above - that form of calculus can be used to justify practically any heinous act. The use of ethical committees in areas like this is to avoid sweeping generalizations and the reduction of humans to a book-keeping exercise. For the record I have no problem with organ donation and find myself on the "permissive side" of most arguments that crop up in similar areas; however I would take issue with statements such as this It's not "real" nor "concrete" (it's your (ie the judges) opinion, it's definitely not "measureable" (as it is all based on a supposition that we can measure our own or another's happiness) , and it's not experienced (it's a possible future gain) - thus I beg to disagree with your modern modest proposal

Appreciate that clarification. I always liked the idea that glass was flowing unbelievably slowly and causing the distortions on old glass; such a shame it isn't true.

Dragon I am sure that others who actively teach would echo this point, you need to be rigorous and careful in your maths! The first question in this post had a potential problem - and this one is just plain wrong. There is no x component in the numerator! Maths is subtle and abstract, it can require a strange sort of weirdness in the brain; but it also requires boring exactness and strict book-keeping. Will repeat - learn to use laTex - or be obsessive with your brackets and double checking

Dunno if the news of lost dvd-roms made it across the atlantic; over the past few years a number of data-disc with unencrypted/insufficiently encrypted data regarding health/pension/tax matters have been lost in the UK. I seem to remember that the people who found the first few that came to light handed them to newspapers - and the subsequent publicity brought to light other losses; at one point it seemed endemic. Can you imagine the liability if a data-store of this list of STD infections was lost? One would hope no one would be stupid enough to store the data in a manner that could be lost and encryption was mandatory - but all it takes is one sloppy transfer...

"Contrary to myth, glass does not seem to flow" - Mr S - are you referring to the seeming thickening and distortion towards the bottom of panes of old glass, cos (although I won't assert a reason) lots of old glass does have a noticeable change. I work on a road with buildings that are all 300+ years old and listed - most of the glass is original and does seem to vary quite considerably down the pane (small panels around 8-12 inches wide by 15-18 inches high). It is possible this lack of uniformity was part of the manufacturing process 300 years ago and the panes were glazed in a manner to put the distortions at the bottom; but this anecdotal evidence would alternatively seem to be able to lend credence to the myth that you say is disproved.

Dragonstar and Mooeypoo Just to set my mind to rest - there are two different questions represented in Mooey's post. The first after "Also, just to make sure, this is the exercise?" treats 3y^4 as the exponent of 3x^3 [math]\big( \frac{3x^{3y^{4}}}{2xy^2} \big)^3[/math] The second after "You start from.." treats y^4 as a multiplicand of 3x^3 [math] \big(\frac{3x^3y^4}{2xy^2} \big)^3[/math] You did say you had removed some brackets - so I am not sure which question was the correct one. everyone has answered the second one; perversely when I read your question I had assumed the first was the question (it's got a bit more meat to it). Shows the benefit of being dull and putting in all the brackets - or using laTex. There are some really easy to use generators on the web if you cannot remember the codes.

Or he is merely not very good at observations, or a crackpot that manipulates their results, or a fool who doesn't understand how to make correct observations in the first place. There is the possibility of a paradigm breaking experiment - but nothing you have provided is even close to that.

Oh Lemur - but the barbarians are at the gate. Science is under attack - not merely in terms of funding, regulations flowing from extreme moral positions, and big business's casual attitude to publication of result, to name but a few - it is under attack from those who believe their opinion and anecdotes are a valid argument against empirical evidence. Here is just one link - that I believe shows an area in which science is losing out to pseudoscience http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html and the dangers associated with a lack of quantitative empirical testing

So you claimed Biretta aided your argument for the existence of observed and confirmed FTL speeds - I refuted your answer with text quoting Biretta; and that's not a good answer? I think I call troll. Oh yeah - and your browser is still screwed

So we can now be sure that you don't even read your own citations Please note this is from your claimed source of proof John Biretta - from the press release on the very page you cited Oh by the way - thanks for dismissing the time I spent trying to sort out your browser problems and labelling those who tried to help as troops (of what? the orthodoxy).

I an in the strange situation of agreeing in part with all three of the above posts. I cannot believe this administration or the next will be rushing to get involved in any way other than diplomatically. I would also recommend that you read the link in swansont's most recent post in the diplomatic cables of doom thread - it seems that US diplomat's comments about the tunisian regime might already have had effect

I use chrome for my non-work stuff such as SFN and others - and firefox for work related. I am sure there is a way of keeping everything totally separate with one browser but using two makes it very easy

What sort of home-brew browser are you using? I have just viewed my post (logged out) with chrome, firefox, safari, mobile safari, msie, and opera - and everyone provides a simple link that can be clicked on to goto "let me google that for you". Download chrome, firefox, or opera and use them - will make your browsing much easier. back to the post - just tell us which page you think is being censored. Cos I now think it's not censored - it's just your mad browser is doing something weird!

17 million results - give us a clue which one you mean!

Try posting this site that you claim SFN is censoring again - I am sure that if you do a simple copy and "insert link" (its the icon with a chain and a green/white plus sign is ten from the left above ) we will all be able to check it out. If that is not working - just type the url inthisformat(dot)com(slash)crackpot(slash)theory . I am not sure how you can be so certain that TON 202 is breaking so many boundaries of physics; but yet, not have a well researched article that, at the very least, explains the methodology used.

[math] E^2= \rho ^2c^2 + m^2c^4 [/math] setting mass equal to zero for the photon and rearranging [math] \rho = E/c [/math] A photon has momentum without having any mass - per the above equation - which can be experimentally measured .

numerical term, power of x term, derivative of x term you can also have a certain concept that generates one single and one three fold state from a set of four. I am vaguely remembering this happening with two particles' spin - but the exact circumstances escape me. SU(3) works on gluon/quark colours by reducing from 9 combinations to 8 because one of the superpositions is a seperate singlet state that does not exist - thus there are 8 gluons not the 9 which one might expect. I am sure there is a parallel ie a good example of a 4 output solution being reduced by one to make a triplet solution and a single solution.

Cellular memory is normally considered as way out on the fringes - a pseudo-science. If you have any links to serious academic work on it I would love to see it - from what I can read it is posited by non-scientists without a real knowledge of cell biology in the body.

For those that are interested the correct name to be put into the search engine for H&B's catalogue linked above is HB93 1425+267. For LHW8 - H&B were in this instance cataloguers and compilers as well as observers - I cannot tell how much credence they gave to the other's observations. And they provide no reference to the proper motion of the object in question.

Perhaps start by proving to yourself with simple 2x2 matrices; first with actual numbers and then with w,x,y,z. You should be able to do that without too much sweat, by simply working out both LHS and RHS and showing that they come to the same thing.