Martin

Mink = weasel Diesel

the topic of time is of special current interest because 18 July (in around a week from now) there is the GR17 conference in dublin and Stephen Hawking recently made a surprise announcement that he would be coming to the conference to present a resolution of the black hole information paradox. the BH info puzzle is closely bound up with the notion of time and resolving the paradox will probably require people to clarify how time should be understood in a quantum context the GR17 conf. is the 17th triennial conference on General Relativity and Gravity (the big world conf on GR that they have every 3 years, last time was in Rio Brazil 2001) since gravity = geometry quantum gravity has to be a quantum theory of spacetime---and in particular a quantum theory of time the info paradox can be interpreted as being about the apparent decay of information over (typically) very long intervals of time------suppose info falls into a BH which then gradually evaporates by thermal hawking radiation----finally the BH has evaporated, where did the information go? one solution is proposed by Gambini Porto and Pullin recently, that there is a fundamental rate that time becomes uncertain and a fundamental rate that non-unitariness grows and quantum states change from pure to mixed---so information itself "evaporates" with the passage of time it may decay faster for one reason or another but it decays at a rate which is at least the Gambini-Porto-Pullin rate. At GR17 hawking will propose yet another resolution of the info paradox based on his own "Path Integral" model of quantum gravity many issues of quantum nature of spacetime seem to be coming to a head now what the person starting this thread said about time = invention broaches an interesting subject what is time (in particular physical models) and which physical model gives the time concept that is the best approx of nature's "real" time if that actually exists BTW Gambini Porto and Pullin's paper, that came out at end of last month (28 June) is just 3 pages and I think it is a gem: http://arxiv.org/hep-th/0406260 it uses general-purpose reasoning----kind of thought experiment-type arguments----rather than a lot of formulas times are expressed in terms of the Planck unit of time tP but otherwise not a lot of arcane notation. the paper's title is "Realistic clocks, universal decoherence, and the black hole information paradox" it will be interesting to see what Hawking says at GR17, in contrast to this paper

It is certainly reasonable to consider any one concept of time as a human invention different fields of science (and even different fields within physics) use rigorously different concepts of time----and the psychological time we experience is arguably different from the time defined in any branch of physics this year (supposedly in October 2004) Cambridge University Press is bringing out a major book by Carlo Rovelli, called "Quantum Gravity" The draft version is already available---it has an interesting discussion of time including "Ten kinds of time" the draft of the book is free for download at Rovelli's homepage at the University of Marseille institute of theoretical physics rovelli himself says the book is, to a large extent, about time (the idea of time, and how time evolution is handled, is central in quantum gravity, which is about the evolution of the geometry of space----since gravity = geometry) A non-technical discussion of time is around page 50-52 in the draft If you go to Google and say Carlo Rovelli you immediately get his homepage with the link for downloading the PDF draft of the book. It is a fascinating book with a lot of non-technical sections and discussion as well as a lot of highly technical stuff intended for people interested in getting into Q.G. research. rovelli is one of a halfdozen top experts in his field worldwide (to be precise, this is background independent, non-stringy, Quantum Gravity) and this year in May there was the biggest so-far Quantum Gravity conference, which he and two other people organized, at Marseille Q.G. is likely, I think, to have a large impact on the concept of time before choosing to assume that there exists in physics one unique, dominant, all-prevailing notion of time is might be good to have a look at that short section of Rovelli's book around page 50 in the draft version there are also writings by Chris Isham and others on this, but Rovelli's discussion is more for general audience---shorter and less technical

King Lear = he and the Fool go crazy in a storm above the norm

arrogance and occasional dishonest style of argument---looks to me like a strawman was used (they werent talking about the StarTrek teleporter room but about something one might try to get to happen in a physics lab) the aim of discussing doesnt seem to be to arrive at truth or get interesting facts out in the open but to achieve successful personal attack I would not be interested in discussing anything (however interesting the topic) with such a person----I guess, maybe I would but I dont think so.

I see there was a "discussion" of the possibility of teleportation a couple of years back, at SFN. Not sure what physicists mean when they refer to teleportation, these days---think its putting a particle over there in the same state as one over here: transfer of a quantum state. Was an article about it in the SFN news section. what concerns me is a question of style, which I've seen in other contexts. this is kind of a model

= what to do when you can't screw

with a diagonal matrix you just take ordinary exponential down the diagonal but more generally it is a power series you know how exponential is ordinarily defined: exp(x) = 1 + x/1 + x2/2! + x3/3! + ... well that extends to n x n matrices just by interpreting the first term 1 as the n x n identity I exp(A) = I + A/1 + A2/2! + A3/3! + ... btw cartman was a great idea (and the whole bubbles thing) I still like cartman best although zoidberg is also very fine

expanding on what matt grime just said, you know that so often with ordinary numbers x one wants to know the exponential: ex diagonalizing a matrix A makes it easy to find eA

this is part of a wider problem (I should say disaster or tragedy) of dying of coral reefs Large areas of beautiful coral reefs have been bleached white by simply the rise of a few degrees in ocean temperature with global warming. One time we went to French polynesia (e.g. Bora Bora near Tahiti) expecting to find wonderful colorful thriving reefs that we had been told about----it was all dead and bleached white. Later I read of efforts by French biologists to save the dying coral----there seem to be many reasons but the temperature rise is the most inexorable this article says that the local cause around Eilat is the excess nitrogen from fish farming---which is proved because on the Egyptian side around Aqaba there are no fishfarms and the coral is still vital. The article says that the extra nitrogen causes plankton that makes the water cloudy (notice also that to enjoy the beauty of the coral one should have clear water too, not clouded by plankton----the murk kills the coral and also makes it difficult to enjoy the little that remains) this is just one bad thing out of many bad things that can happen! I do not understand how a temperature rise can kill coral, but it does. (of course Bush is a monster for pulling the US out of Kyoto carbon treaty but that too is part of a larger problem)

of course I would be delighted if SFN had an official box somewhere showing most users ever online most members ever online most posts per day ever but it doesnt-----I didnt see Sayonara saying that the most he'd ever seen per day was the 648 on 29 June----and the most users ever box doesnt work until and if SFN has some kind of automatic gizmo then I want to use my own eyes and keep track----my personal numbers are necessarily lower because I probably miss some peak use periods. Maybe i will edit the sig to make that especially obvious when and if SFN has a keeper-tracker gizmo, I will use my sig space for something else or just have it blank

let's see if my figure of 405 matches the official one I saw total posts increase 405 from 63,195 to 63,600 yesterday which is the most I can report firsthand since I wasnt watching on 29 June when officially the count was 648.

Ones I know of which Sayonara has made available: bender cartman gir hitler homer jesus zim zoidberg Anyone know of others?

Zoidberg is extremely fine, I think Let's get through this so I cancontinue killing you with beer.

FIRM = hard face card

I believe it was homer who said (when confronted with some basic maths problem or the like) [speaking to his brain] "Face it, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me. Let's get through this, so I can continue killing you with beer." Let's get through this so I cancontinue killing you with beer.

Cap'n this has amazing possibilities. do you know the current list which Sayonara has made available? I can think of bender cartman hitler homer jesus zim do you know of others?

Love thy neighbor, dudes. Sieg Heilige Nacht! Sieg Heilige Nacht! just testing Love thy neighbor. Sieg Heilige Nacht! Sieg Heilige Nacht!

hysterical = hilarious nefarious [hide]definition: a nefarious person is a malevolent maker of mischief, villainy, and wickedness of all kinds, in short, a doer of nasty reprehensible evil deeds[/hide]

do you want to measure the geomagnetic field at your location? or would you rather just look up what it is, and not have to measure it? if you just want to look it up in a table, then what is your location or what is your latitude/longitude (there should be some table---I wouldnt mind knowing too)

jar = knock COCK

The chances of an alien life form being more intelligent than us is almost a dead certainty. They just won't be as good-looking.

Who the f*** is cartman? Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Mars = Ares fairies

fable=folktale female