Severian

Since mankind is the most beautiful thing on Earth, if man (and presumably woman) became extinct, the Earth would be an infinitely less beautiful place.

No. You can solve [math]\frac{df}{dx}=f[/math] and you get the solution [math]f=Ce^x[/math] where C is a constant, so there are no other possibilities. ie. [math]\frac{df}{dx}=f \Rightarrow \int \frac{df}{f}= \int dx = x + \log C \Rightarrow \log f = x + \log C \Rightarrow f= C e^x[/math]

They were rather specific questions. Let me give you an example (I am paraphrasing and I may be remembering wrongly since I didn't write it down and it was last week): Imagine an interferometer examining a distortion of space-time which was spherically symmetric, so would effect both arms of the interferometer in the same way. Would the interferometer be able to measure the distortion? The physicist said yes; you only need one arm of the interferometer in principle to measure distortions, since you can just time the light pulse. But since you have the same thing happening to both arms, you will not generate an interference pattern, and must time the light separately (which you don't need to do in a normal interferometer). Typically the time difference will be too short to measure, so this would be very difficult. Collins answered no: the interferometer has two arms in order to set up an interference pattern when the distances travelled by the light in each arm is different. In this case, the distance is the same, so no interference pattern. He claimed the panel marked him correct and the physicist wrong, because they were expecting the answer 'no'. I think this is a bit crap (and said so in his talk) because the physicist was completely right - it just comes down to the definition of 'interferometer'. (I think I phrased the question more clearly than they did - I think they may even have said LIGO rather than 'an interferometer', but I can't remember.)

To be honest, it was rather the opposite point of view which led me to post this. At the time of posting we had been fooded by lots of people telling us that the Standard Model is wrong and that they have a revolutionary idea to replace it. This would be wonderful if it were true, but it is naive to think that scientists will just believe your model is right because you say it is (I am using 'you' in the general sense - I don't actually mean you). You have to provide evidence in support of your model, and that evidence needs to be better than the evidence for the Standard Model before anyone will prefer yours. That means that you have to do as well as the Standard Model in predictions like the anomalous magnetic moments, which (as you can see in the OP) are very well predicted. This is not actually as hard as it sounds - there are quite a lot of "Standad Model-like" theories out there that do this quite well. But if you want people to believe your theory, you need to do the legwork and make sure it gets these things right! I was hoping that the post would encourage people to think through their arguments more thoroughly.

This guy gave a talk to my department the other day (which has a big gravitational waves group). He showed us his seven questions and both answers, and to be honest I would have just been guessing to tell which was which. That is not to say that he got all the answers right - he didn't, and I could see that myself (I actually objected in the talk) but does one really expect a gravitational wave physicist to get all the questions right? The answers from the 'real' physicist looked a bit evasive, with hindsight probably because he didn't want to make a silly mistake, and Collins admitted that this was probably the reason why the 'experts' like his answers better. His answers seemed more confident, even though some were wrong (though not way-out wrong). The questions were very experiment orientated, about interferometers, so were very unmathematical. He admitted that he could not have done the same thing with a theoretical particle physicist. However, his main point in the talk (and I think the main point of this exercise) was to show that one can make a contribution to physics (eg. in a management role) without having any grasp of the mathematics. Only the actual research physicists need the maths, but this is a rather small proportion of people who do physics degrees. Therefore, he said, we leave out the maths when teaching physics and just teach the words. I argued rather strongly against this during the question session at the end. After all, 99% of English literature students will not need a knowledge of Shakespeare's plays in their final workplace, but that does not mean we should stop teaching Shakespeare.

Not to be picky, but you do realise that everything so far, up to the 'desert' has been complete speculation?

I quite like the QED lagrangian: [math]{\cal L} = \bar \psi (x) \left( i \gamma^{\mu} \partial_{\mu} - m - e \gamma^{\mu} A_{\mu} \right) \psi (x) - \frac{1}{4} F^{\mu \nu} F_{\mu \nu}[/math]

Thanks for the info abskebabs. I can use any ammo I can get.

I'll give a hint. It doesn't work unless you are speaking English (and even then it may not work if you don't call 0 'zero').

Mind you,... ...doesn't sound terribly lurid. I hope they can do better than that.

The three generations are identical copies of one another except for their masses. No-one knows why there are 3, although certain effects (like CP violation) would be absent with only one. The heavier generations just decay into lighter ones because they are heavier, e.g. [math]\mu^- \to W^- \nu_\mu[/math] (where the W- is virtual) followed by [math]W^- \to e^- \bar \nu_e[/math].

There was an interesting experiment on Fifth Gear (a motoring TV show) where one of the presenters put vegitable oil in his diesel car with absolutely no modifications. He then drove 200 miles with no problems!

My advisor's advisor was also the Brian Greene's advisor's advisor (so we are academic cousins). Also my advisor's advisor's advisor's advisor was the advisor of Paul Dirac.

I don't think it is just an issue of forgiveness - it is also an issue of trust. While I think (hope) I would be able to forgive for something like this, I am not sure I would ever be able to trust her again. The fact that she did it in the first place makes a statement about her attitudes and beliefs, and what she thinks of you - and I don't think that is a very positive statement. If you keep her, she is probably going to do it again. I take this attitude partly because of how I look at being faithful myself. I find lots of women attractive, and I would love to have sex with them. In fact, I my mind it would have no impact on me in my relationship with my wife, because I believe I am mentally stable enough to be able to separate sex and love. However, I made a vow to my wife that I would be faithful to her - she expects me to keep that vow, and if I break it I will have no respect for myself and expect no respect from her. I love my wife very much and could never do that to her. This is why I am faithful.

How does one have a 3 person orgy 'by accident'? Seriously, I would like to know...

You are wrong: this is his position, and he has stated it publicly in interviews. Just because I can't find a direct quotation where he says just that doesn't make it false. Indeed I have provided several other quotations very much in the same vien. However, since I can't find the direct quote (though I have seen it before) I am willing to withdraw my claim that he said it, and focus on his other comments instead. For example, "I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate." This sentiment is calling for the eradication of faith as one would try to eradicate smallpox. Don't you see why this is an unreasonable position? Or alternatively, "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." This is such a bigotted statement, because he does not engage with those who hold this view - he just dismisses them. My wife does not believe in evolution but has a PhD in physics - she is definitely not stupid, ignorant, insane or wicked. But Dawkins chooses to claim she is, thus making him a bigot. Merriam-Webster defines bigot as "a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices". What more can I say? Indeed, his statement is even badly defined - is he criticising people for not believing in evolution generally, or is he criticising people for not believing in evolution by Natural Selection? Is he criticising people who say that most species on Earth are not the result of an evolutionary process, or is he criticising people who say that an evolutionary process could not produce advanced forms of life in principle? I am not sure he understands the difference.

Let me think... UK (obviously), France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey, Tunisia, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Dubai, India and the US (athough only California, Colorado, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusets and New York). Probably missed a few.

The Richard Dawkins 'charitable foundation' is even running a story on its web site right now entiled "The real reasons to hate the Pope". Make of that what you will.

Snail hits it pretty much on the head I think. I have no complaint with Dawkins holding whatever misguided opinion he likes. What I don't like is that he uses his reputation as a scientist to lend authority to his opinions, when his scientific knowledge (such as it is) has no bearing on the statements he makes. And it is clear that lots of people fall for it (see gcol's comments). To me, that is unethical, and doing this makes him dishonest. I called him a bigot because he makes generalizations about people he knows nothing about, e.g. that anyone who is a Christian is stupid. Clearly this is a false statement, but it is one he makes nevertheless. Statements like, "As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect", demonstrate that he either does not understand science, does not understand religion (or both), or that he is being intellectually dishonest.

Which bit of my post do you regard as an ad hominem? That I called Dawkins a zealot? He undeniably is - he writes books about his religious beliefs and pontificates about them in public! Do you object to me calling him a religious bigot? He has very clearly expressed his view that he thinks all Christians are idiots, which very clearly shows bigotry. My statement 'I think his behaviour is deplorable' is my personal opinion, so hardly an ad hominem. Perhaps you object to me comparing him to a "midwest US 'Christian' fundamentalist", but that is a simple comparison, not an ad hominem.

That is not true. X is not fixed. X will grow as quickly (possibly more quickly due to disappative effects) than ((N-1)*Y) as you add more magnets. This is because turning X now means you have to do a lot more work to fight against the pull of all the other magnets.

Dawkins is a zealot - a religious bigot. He is the atheist equivalent of the midwest US 'Christian' fundamentalist shouting that all atheists will burn in hell for eternity. I think his behaviour is deplorable (and I hope that most atheists do too) but I don't think he is representative of atheists in general.

There have to be limits. Do you think someone should be accepted to university to study English Literature if they can't read or write?

The guy teaching dynamics to our first year undergrads can into my office for a rant today. He was giving his first lecture to the new intake and was going over all the stuff they should know. He mentioned the velocity was obtained by differentiating the position vector with respect to time, and someone put up their hand to ask 'what is differentiation?' He was rather stunned, so conducted a straw poll asking who doesn't know what differentiation is. Out of a class of about 170, 19 people stuck up their hand. On later investigation it was claimed that differention is no longer in the A-level sylibus (I am in the UK) unless you take further maths. I was a bit shocked by this. Since we have a few people here who took A levels this year, could you tell me if you met differention, and where. In maths, further maths or physics? (I am slightly surprised, because the government keeps telling us that improving A-level results are due to better teaching - not taking things out of the course.)

You need to write down the most general expression which could give the last term, and then work out the coefficients. For example, for (a) write down a polynomial in x and t up to four powers (in x or t) with arbitrary coefficients. Stick it in and solve for the coefficients. That gives you one solution, but then you can add anything to that solution which satisfies [math]u_{xx}=c^2u_{tt}[/math] and it will still be a solution. So you also need to find the solution to that inhomogenous equation and add it in.