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For the History Chanel, sometimes.

Here's a paper about the psychology/ethics of internet trolls.

I'm not seeing how the conclusion "star older than the universe" follows from the data. The date ranges overlap.

Or it means the prophecy was *GASP* wrong.

Mathematics is the language of science. You can't avoid it. Physics is the most mathematical branch there is, so if you don't feel like you would ever feel comfortable doing multivariable calculus and more abstract math, then it's not for you. What maths do you already know? Your best bet is to take a class in every field that interests you during your undergrad before you even start thinking about grad school.

The mathematical part *is* the conceptual part. The popsci versions of physics are like the Wishbone versions of literature. The one exception to the rule that I know of is "The Theoretical Minimum" by Susskind, but it doesn't delve into QM; that's his next volume.

Hopefully, there will be future volumes based on his lectures on QM and Relativity (which are also available on iTunesU and YouTube).

This is, quite frankly, the single best popsci book I've ever read. Most books introducing science to the public talk in analogies, so they're often simplified to the point of being useless and/or wrong. This book, however, doesn't do that. It doesn't shy away from the math. In fact, aside from the first chapter, there's at least one equation on just about every page. Susskind doesn't assume that you know any math, though, so he walks the reader through the math. He teaches the reader how to follow (and if you're a quick study, do) basic derivatives, integrals, and multivariable derivatives/integrals. He makes the actual physics accessible (without being condescending) rather than just giving you the Cliffnotes version. If you only know algebra, and have always wanted to be able to understand classical physics, this is definitely the book to pick up. If there were a freely available pdf version, I'd email it to every crackpot that graces the the site with their presence. While the subtitle is inaccurate (it should be "what you need to know to start following physics" rather than "what you need to know to start doing physics"), this really is the single best popsci book introducing the lay person to physics.

You have 52 cards for the first card. How many for the second? How many for the third, forth, and fifth?. Multiplying those will give you the correct (I). For (ii) you'll need to figure out P(A1vA2v...vA5) then multiply by the total number of hands. From that number, (iii) should be easy. The last ones are similar reasoning.

While the band is obviously a metaphor for space, given the details of the problem, it cannot be modeled as such. A bug moving on a stretched band is accelerating.

Definitions are assumptions. Anything specific you want me to look at in those texts? As someone who works in both philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, I can tell you that it most certainly is not "pretty obvious that such a solution is required". I'm not the only one who thinks this, btw, as almost 60% of philosophers are physicalists and another 12% or so answer "other" given the question.

So, they wrote that it is inconclusive that it is consistent with extraterrestrial origin? That sums up to a result of a whopping nothing. Since we don't have any examples of extraterrestrial tech, we can't say what their tech is like, so anything is consistent with it. Likewise, any material is consistent with extraterrestrial material. Note that the report wasn't "It is possible, but not conclusively proven, that both the RR3 and 007KT samples show some isotopic ratios inconsistent with a terrestrial origin". That's better, but still not anything to write home about, since it explicitly says the results are inconclusive. So, what you want is a report that says "It is conclusively proven that both the RR3 and 007KT samples show some isotopic ratios inconsistent with a terrestrial origin". Once you get that, let us know. Actually, once you get that, make sure the person publishes their report so they can collect their Nobel prize. As has been said above, your reading of that is incredibly overblown. I've also seen strange lights in the sky. Like swansont, I live in an area where any aliens monitoring us would be interested in observing. I am at one of the better research facilities in the world (we were recently part of a team of facilities which created the smallest physically possible transitor). A few months back, I saw a huge orange light (about the apparent size of half of a dime held out at arm's reach) spontaneously appear in the sky as though it popped out of a hyperspace window or some other sci-fi spacetime "jump". This huge bright light moved silently for a bit and then broke up into several smaller bright lights which moved silently and then disappeared as suddenly as the initial light appeared. Now, meteors that big make a lot of noise. In fact, on the night of the meteor explosion above Russia, one flew over my area and was so loud that inside with my headphones on it was as loud as a jet engine at fairly close range. So, what was the bright like I saw? Most likely a meteor that broke up. BUT IT WAS SILENT, you say. Well, that just means it was probably farther away than it appeared (meaning it was even more impressively large and moving even more impressively quickly). Going from "oooh, look at that light in the sky" to "IT MUST BE ALIENS" without any further evidence is never a warranted jump.

That the times of impact are equal isn't useless information. Think impulse.

So, the new pope neither chose the name Peter, nor is he Roman. Implications?

Not assuming any deities exist is not the same as assuming no deities exist. Physics makes no such assumption. This needs a giant "[citation needed]" superscript.

! Moderator Note This thread is closed for two reasons: 1) The tone of the OP is not conducive to open discussion. 2) There is already a topic about the psychology of belief and whether or not religious believers are 'broken'.

There's no such thing as recall "on their own". They aren't isolated from their culture. In a different time and place, they'd probably be recalling their abduction by fairies (the American version of fairies is nowhere near as cool as the actual mythology-which, incidentally, has had the same type of "evidence" as alien abductions) instead. Human memory is horrible. Every time a memory is recalled, it is possible to be changed. And that's without external factors. How do they know the things pulled from the bodies are "alien implants"? Have the been tested for unknown alloys and technology? What do the "implants" do? How do we know? My money is that they're things like calcification or metal splinters.

Assuming uniform expansion of the band (it's stretching everywhere at once), I'd say yes, but I can't be bothered to Faf about with the math atm. Otherwise, probably not.

How, exactly, does your quote disagree with me? It says, in a more verbose way, exactly that an Unidentified Flying Object is a flying object that is as of yet unidentified. So, yeah, UFOs are lights in the sky. The jump from "I wonder what that is" to "DESPITE THE OVERWHELMING IMPROBABILITY OF THIS HYPOTHESIS, IT MUST BE ALIENS" is more massive than the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

That's not the party line-that's the definition.

Can we add that to the rules? We should put this to a staff vote.

Neil on UFOs:

You're not going to get a reply; immortal is on a perminent vacation.

If you ever get that wing thing figured out, you could make quite a bit of money in show business.

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