timo

Perhaps you said something different there or he understood something you didn't explicitly state. If you are not familiar with Relativity then you easily omit potentially important information, e.g.: If one assumes (I did) that all numbers are given in the same frame of reference (there is no reason to believe otherwise, I think) then the numbers are fine. If on the other board you somehow used these numbers in a different frame of reference or mixed the frames without noticing then what you said there was probably wrong. Effectively, you have (till the point where you wrote above quote; I have not followed the thread any further) not said much. Only set up a scenario with a few numbers that, assuming they are all meant in some fixed frame and taking the kind of special definition of average speed you used, do not violate any constraints set by nature (v<c). It is well possible that the magic word "merlon" ... errr ... "twins" made people believe you had said something that you haven't said (namely having spoken about eigentimes).

Of course no one except the person who wrote it can tell you how he/she arrived at this number. Here's a little pseudo-code for conversion: float f = number<16. vector<int> digits. while (you haven't got enough) { int i = integer_part(f). digits.append(i). f -> (f-i)*16. } It't quite the same as if you were scanning for the decimals of a number except that you replace base 10 with base 16.

I think we agree that Einstein is dead. So in most belief systems he will not agree - I assume you are not asking for someone who can contact the spirits of dead people. Speaking of different systems: You made up some numbers in some frame of reference. Ignoring the unhealthy amount of acceleration the numbers are physically fine (i.e. v<c). Taking out the time where v=0 when averaging velocity over time might or might not lead to problems with further statements but is quite okay so far. There's not much more than can be said about the numbers.

Interesting reply. Made me actually read the thread. So what is your question or your statement (assuming we have agreed that Prof. Einstein is not going to post here)?

I wrote him an email but he hasn't responded so far.

The two key points are: 1) The controlled conditions. You know what stuff collides at which position at a known energy. And you can build huge detectors around that few cubic centimeters. 2) The extremely large amount of events (collision processes) you get. Often you hear that LHC opens new frontiers in energy scales but the increase in number of events (-> better statistics if you can handle the data) is just as important (only it sounds way less cool). As a minor point 3 perhaps: We have a lot of experience with collider experiments. Analyzing cosmic radiation is a relatively new (but increasingly popular) field compared to experiments with artificially accelerated stuff.

You could only falsify susy-models that cast a suitable upper bound on the masses of the superpartners (note that this is a necessary not a sufficient condition) or the Higgs-boson. I don't know strings but I doubt that they do. With "different string theories" are you refering to different values of the free parameters or to really different theories?

1:42. Happy hollidays.

Not sure if you are referring to perception inside or outside the US. I don't think that points fit the perception outside the US (e.g. note that the foreign minister -I think the US title for that position is "secretary of state"- is the 2nd most percieved US representative).

Who's behind the conspiracy this time?

My school of though is [math]\lim_{x\to 0} \frac{42x}{x} = 42 \Rightarrow \frac{0}{0}=42[/math].

For clarification: [math] \lim_{x\to +0} \, c/x = \left\{ \begin{array}{rcl} \infty & : & c>0 \\ 0& : &c=0 \\ -\infty & : & c<0 \end{array} \right.[/math] [math] \lim_{x\to -0} \, c/x = \left\{ \begin{array}{rcl} -\infty &:& c>0 \\ 0&:&c=0 \\ \infty &:& c<0 \end{array} \right.[/math] => [math] \lim_{x \to 0} \, c/x = \left\{\begin{array}{rcl} 0&:&c=0 \\ \text{non-existant} &:& c \neq 0 \end{array} \right.[/math] But imho limits have little to nothing to do with the question at hand which I consider purely algebraic, not analytic.

- Grand unified theories are usually not understood as saying anything about gravity. The terminology usually refers to an encapsulation of the three gauge groups (the things that later lead to the observed interactions for elementary particles) of the Standard Model into a single gauge group. - Coming up with a theory for something usually is not really a problem. - The problem is that the theory should reflect nature. Taking the simplemost case of Newtonian Gravity, there is absolutely no problem to get gravity repulsive: Just use negative masses. The problem is that there does not seem to be negative masses in nature. I think I understand what you meant, namely that having a good theory for something might help predicting and developing techniques and applications that were not thought of before. But since I have the feeling that theories are often way overranked in an inappropriate manner I at least wanted to point out that if you consider your statement from the other side you could as well completely dismiss it by (imho quite reasonably) assuming that nature cares nothing about man-made theories about nature. EDIT: For completeness: The term "theory" in above refers to "theory of nature" of "physical theory". I certainly do not claim that every theory of any field of science has to relate to nature.

Then perhaps your inherent assumption that every number can be divided by itself and then equals one is wrong.

For the math courses: - Attend the lectures (mandatory in many countries, anyways). - Make notes during the class and look them over some time after the class (same evening or a day after) and possibly rewrite them in a more readable form for later usage. - Try doing all the homework; the questions are not given because the teachers wouldn't know the answers themselves but because the teachers know that it takes some practical experience to learn what is being said. Contrary to school the "learning by doing"-effect is really big in university-level mathematics.

I can quote you, no problem:

Approaching zero lets the force term rise towards infinity, hence my idea that IA mixed that up.

In the naive form of taking the total masses of the objects, the law applies to cases where the distance of the two objects is large compared to their size (and some important special cases). If the distance is not significantly larger than the size of the objects, then you have to use a slightly more sophisticated version than the one I assume you have in mind (the one where you only plug in the total masses of the objects): Basically, you divide the objects into smaller pieces (small enough so that they are small compared to the distance), calculate the forces on these smaller pieces and -if appropriate- add those forces up in a suitable manner to get the total forces on the two objects. That should always be the case. Did you possibly mean zero?

In short: You have to save that information to the disk. @Graphics: What kind of graphics? The best way is to download a package that offers you the functionality you need.

We all hope that the mail from the african who just came into a lot of money and offers you 10% of it if you help him to get his money from <place where you are> is not a scam. Yet, we all know that it almost certainly is.

I fail to understand what you are trying to say. It's supposedly well acknowledged by almost everyone that having a theoretical background in some field is not sufficient for practically constructing or measuring something. I don't understand what the English language has to do with that. Generally, knowing English is not necessary for studying science. For many jobs it is a necessity to work in the field but that's due to the working environment not due to science. Similarly, it is not necessary to speak English to technically fly a plane but you still need it because communication with the towers is in English. Seeing you are from or at least in India I suppose that universities in India teach in English and that not everyone in India speaks English well by default?

I think handling insults via tags just the same as insults via posts is a better plan.

The question whether a pocket calculator can handle a number is completely irrelevant for nature.

Yes and no. For getting waves you'd add some term like exp[i(kx-wt)] as a factor to the polarisation vector. That factor does not play any role here. For getting particles you'd additionally restrict each addend to initially have a polarisation vector of a definite magnitude (where bigger magnitudes are then achieved by just having more of those addends) and call those addends particles. Restriction of the polarisation vector to some length is not necessary here, either. So I'd say it's neither particle nor wave nature that plays the crucial role. You can of course add either phenomenon (i.e. seperately or both) and still get the same result just with a few additional complications.

Yep, as far as I understand it the 1/2 has to be taken into account but hasn't.