Dekan

It seems to me, that all the mods are here, to obtain self-gratification, They don't need money.

Can the primes really be random? If they were, wouldn't it mean you could pick any number at random, then claim it might be prime? But that obviously isn't true. For example, suppose you picked a number at random, such as 131,477,689,776,554,223,107,885. Then claimed it was prime. Your claim could be instantly dismissed. Without calculating through all the possible divisors of that number. Because there's a rule - any number which ends in 5, is divisible by 5, and therefore is not prime. This rule is plain and straightforward. It does not involve any random element. And it might show, that rules for determining prime numbers, can be devised, without resorting to "randomness".

Melvyn Bragg's weekly UK radio programme "In Our Time", is worth listening to. It sometimes gives valuable insights.

Well, that's the point Mig. I've seen the M31 galaxy with my naked eye. But haven't seen any others, without using artificial optical aid, such as binoculars or a telescope. These optical aids prove, that our natural human eyes are too small, to see the sky properly. Our eyes have a maximum diameter of only 7 or 8 millimeters, in the light- gathering pupil, or lens. With a lens so small, it's surprising we can see so well as we do. The eye is greatly inferior to, for example, a pair of 7 X 50 binoculars. These have lenses which gather 50 times as much light! But they don't show the night sky as anything other than black. Therefore I'm persuaded that Swansont, ACG and you are correct. The Universe does look black. At least as far as our present human eyes are concerned. However, suppose we evolved bigger eyes. With a lens, perhaps 100 miles in diameter. Such a gargantuan eye, could gather even weak streams of photons from the remote regions of the Universe. Then, wouldn't we see space, not as black, but gently glowing, in a true red colour?

Arete,, I know my own rep is very bad. That used to hurt me so much, that I didn't even want to look at the site any more. But I've got accustomed to it, and can bear it better now. To get back to the thread, I thought it was just about Rep points. But actually it's more than that. Unity's OP refers to using information to do a "massive search of anything relating to that user". Doesn't that sound sinister.

Such beautiful mathematical orthography, by both posters, well deserves the admiration it was intended to gain.

Members seem to be fighting each other about "Rep". Was that what it was really about all along? Not Science, but "Rep". I always suspected it.

Suppose the Universe is a Brain, like depicted in donsimon's OP. Then won't it work very slowly. I mean, the Universe is at least 26 billion light-years across. This huge distance must make thought processes within the Brain, take billions of years to complete. Which will make the Brain very slow to respond to events. Could that explain why it doesn't intervene in current human affairs - because they happen too fast for the Brain to keep up with?

I hope Ophiolite will reconsider, and come back again.

Just thinking about patterns in prime numbers - obviously they all have a terminal digit which is 1, 3, 7, or 9. Have any studies been made, as to whether these terminal digits are evenly distributed among the prime numbers. Or do the prime numbers favour certain digits, eg, are there are more primes ending with a "1", than a "9"?

Thanks Swansont and ACG52 for your posts. After studying these, and the links, I realise that my suggestion that the sky should be red, was probably wrong.

These days we've got 3-D Printers, which use sprays of atoms to build up solid objects. Admittedly, the objects made by present-day printers are quite simple. Usually geometrical shapes. And made of plastic, or some metal powder mixed with glue. But in the future, mightn't printers be improved. So they could use carbon atoms, and make more complex objects? Such as human brains, or complete human bodies After all, your brain and body are only made of atoms, arranged in a particular pattern. When this pattern has been programmed into a suitable 3-D printer, it could print you out again.

It seems to me, that Science is - or should be - a constant process of simplification. Scientists look at apparent complexity, then find an underlying simplicity to explain it. For example, consider the complex movements of the planets in the sky. The planets aren't like the "fixed stars". They don't stay in the same position like stars. The planets wander around the sky. How can we explain such wanderings? The explanations went through three stages of development: 1. The Classical Greeks invented the idea of "epicycles". This involved every individual planet going round in its own unique set of complicated circles, 2. Then, in the early 17th century, Kepler greatly simplified things. He reduced the Greeks' complex, arbitrary epicycles - to just three laws of planetary motion - which applied uniformly to all the planets. 3. Finally, in the late 17th century, Newton achieved a kind of ultimate simplification - by reducing Kepler's three laws to just a single law - the law of Universal Gravitation. Thus we see a constant process of simplification. Which is highly satisfying and gratifying to the scientific mind. Of course since then, Einstein has come along, and disturbed our minds with his theories. The Nuclear Physicists have been even worse. With their endless stream of complicated and increasingly implausible "particles". And "Forces" Yet, the Physicists show our human yearning for a basic simplicity. Which we all intuitively feel, must be at the heart of the Universe. That's why they keep trying to "Unify" the Forces. And to reduce the embarrassing prolixity of particles, by classifying them all into combinations of simple "Quarks", or "Strings" or whatever The Physicists might claim, that in doing this, they're only trying to find a "Theory Of Everything" - the TOE. But could they actually, perhaps subconsciously, be looking for GOD? With the aim of finally identifying that powerful Entity. Pinning it down. Getting It by the throat. Finding out Its source of power, learning all Its secrets. Subjugating It. Bending It to our Human will. Forcing It to confess. And finally - smashing It! So we finally get our own back for all the misery It's caused us. Then, when It's been disposed of, we humans will take over the Universe. And run things properly. Is this the ultimate aim of Science? I really hope so!

Perhaps the US Government is planning to attack North Korea, and wants a justification for the attack. And also, wants a partner in the attack. So as to form a "Coalition". That always looks better in the UN. Not unilateral aggression - a "Coalition" The most likely partner for such a Coalition, is Japan. The Japanese traditionally don't like Koreans. Especially when they blatantly insult a famous Japanese company such as Sony, by scheming to ban one of its pictures. That must cause a big loss of face. So, doesn't it seem clear which way things are heading?

It shouldn't suddenly appear from nothing. That's true. But existing light ought to get more red. The redness, being caused by the expansion of the Universe. As the Universe expands, everything in it gets further away, so its light gets redshifted. From our viewpoint. OK, I know there are local exceptions, for example blueshifts in gravitationally-bound neighbouring galaxies like M31. But very remote galaxies, at the edge of the observable Universe, should all look red. I mean, can we see any blue stars in remote galaxies?

Thanks Ten oz, for your extremely interesting post. It's restored my faith in human nature, that US citizens feel no shame, in viewing on TV, the glorious sight of humanity's triumph over the animals. For hundreds of thousands of years, we had to fear animals such as lions, wolves, crocodiles and bears. Now we can just shoot them. That's true progress, and I hope we all appreciate it.

The Model-T's body was admittedly small. But - the car's engine was far from small. It was a massive 2.9 litre job! Yet, this incredibly huge engine only managed to yield a top speed of 42-45 mph for the Model-T. So it was clearly very inefficient. Such inefficiency must've caused it to emit a lot of fumes from its exhaust pipe, in the form of wastefully unburned petroleum vapour, and CO2 gas. Therefore the old Model-T is perhaps, not a good example to choose, from a modern Green anti-CO2 viewpoint.

I think the most intelligent humans are the ones who come on Science Forums.net. The level of intelligence here is very high.

Thanks imatfaal. I just feel an instinctive doubt about any "proof" of a simple proposition - if the proof takes several hundred pages of esoteric maths. The maths might contain an error somewhere. Probably at the beginning, in accordance with Sod's Law!

If the observable Universe is 46 billion light-years in radius, shouldn't it soon be giving us a red background to the sky at night? I mean, all the trillions and trillions of stars in the Universe are constantly getting further away. They're increasing in velocity. Relative to us. They're getting increasingly red-shifted. Will that red-shift become apparent in our night sky. When will we see our sky turning from black to red?

Andrew Wiles's proof, does seem too monstrously long to be satisfactory. Fermat claimed to have a simpler proof. Even if it couldn't be written in the margin. Has any one here, even the best mathematicians on the board, fully read through all the hundreds of pages of the Wiles proof Probably not. The proof has been accepted, as an act of faith.

I agree that " brain surgery" should be considered strictly as a last option. This because no-one really understands how the human brain works. Least of all the surgeon who's doing the op on your brain. Surgeons have been taught a basic idea. Which is this - you cut the bad bits out with a scalpel. That's an excellent general principle. It works well with most bodily parts, such as arms, legs, stomachs, and so on. These parts are well understood by medical science. So you can trust your surgeon to do a good job, when cutting such bits out. However, when it comes to cutting into the Brain, I don't think the surgeons are quite sure what they're doing. That's not to disparage them at all. They do their best for us.

Yes, but they're "documentaries". They're just recording factual events. Surely, nowadays, no director could make a fictional movie, which celebrated the killing of animals. This might seem to be contradicted by Prometheus's post #69, which cites the example of the movie "War Horse". I haven't seen it. But it seems to involve talking horses. So it clearly belongs to the realm of fantasy, and can be safely dismissed. What I'm getting at, is this. Back in the 1930's, a film director could make a fictional movie, which had as its hero, a Big Game Hunter. Who goes to to Africa and shoots lots of elephants and rhinos. And after he's shot them, he has their heads stuffed, and mounted on his wall, above the mantelpiece, as trophies. To show how he got the better of them, with his rifle. This all seems highly satisfactory, from an evolutionary viewpoint. It rightly celebrates the power of modern scientific man, to kill antiquated lumbering animals like elephants. However, such a movie couldn't be made today. Wouldn't a 2015 version have a Greenly-motivated hero, battling to preserve the elephants' tusks from ivory-poachers?

I used to serve in a statistical department of the UK Civil Service. The statistics we were required to produce, were to put it mildly, not always entirely scientifically based.

But, Physica, why is it acceptable to show war films of humans killing each other, like in World War 2. But it's not acceptable to show films of humans killing animals. I mean, suppose a film director made a movie, which showed humans shooting large numbers of animals, such as lions, or elephants. Obviously, it would be banned. Whereas, if the movie showed humans shooting each other, it could get good reviews, and be quite OK. I can't quite see the rationale of the distinction. Is it a Green issue?