studiot

Well thank you, I'm flattered as I don't deserve such special reatment. Anyway, You too have a good holiday but above all, Stay Safe. Too many in the UK are currently putting their 'right to a good hioliday' above the safety of themselves. This is their choice and perhaps their right but the trouble is that all rights come with responsibilities and they are also affecting the safety of other people by doing this.

Most of us here (myself included) thought your subject was a windup attack on Science and scientists, sprinkled with something totally unconnected and apparantly scientific. That usually acerbic Scotsman has been unusually kind to you and three times has simply addressed the scientific part of your post with a typically scientific answer. Each time you have brushed it off and returned to the attack on scientists. I still consider this a wind up as an example of the establish technique of making a statment about two unconnected subjects and using an argument in one to support a weak argument in the other, so diverting attention from its weaknesses. +1 to John Cuthber and Bufofrog for trying.

As I see it, this lengthy argument about the meaning of 'potential and subsequently 'latent' comes down to the fact that both have a range of meanings. Problems arise when someone wants to transfer one of these meanings from the circumstances it meant in to another where that meaning might be inappropriate. The pile of bricks is a good example to consider so using this let us examine it further. First distinction is the most obvious distinction that a pile of bricks cannot spontaneously become a house by itself. That process requires external intervention. We all know that sadly and to our cost a virus can indeed accomplish the feat of becoming something else by itself. Back to our pile of bricks. Does the clay the bricks are made of have the potential to become a house because it can be made into bricks ? What about London clay v fletton clay ? Fletton clay contains enough primitive organic matter that, once heated, the firing process will continue and it will spontaneously trun into brick material London clay does not, it requires external firing material. Back to our bricks again. Again with the help of an agent they can display an 'emergent' phenomenon. They can be arranged into an arch, which has capability of being self supporting. They can even self organise themselves into an arch if thrown into the air and allowed to fall back randomly, although the probability of this particular configuration resulting is very very small. Yet again back to our bricks, now built somehow into a house. The building may have a defect (not inherent in the bricks themselves, but in the external building process) where the cavity is badly bridged by mortar droppings. This is called a latent defect since it only becomes apparent after years of deterioration resulting from the damp transmission in the mortar bridges.

Your experience is not suprising or unusual. The chemical reactions that provide the electricity don't stop completely, they just get slower and slower and slower.... Eventually they get to a state that they can't provide the necessary current to drive the clock continuously so it goes in fits and starts, the time between the starts gradually lengthening until it is stopped more than it is going. It probably 'started' (and stoped) several times when you were not there. Does this help ?

I believe this answers your question, at least with the Pfizer vaccine. Thanks +1 Firstly there is a difference between the first and second doses for at least some of the vaccines, notably the Sputnik and Astra - Zeneca 'Oxford' vaccine. Secondly the mistake made with the Oxford study confirms that the vaccine is less effective if you get the wrong dose on the second shot, let alone the the logistic issue of what would happen if you got the second shot from the wrong vaccine. Thirdly there have been no studies to my knowledge of possible interactions between different vaccines. The rule in the UK is that you cannnot have a covid vaccination within 3 weeks of the annual flu jab.

I am sorry ladies and gentlemen, but none of this addresses my query. Perhaps I did not make myself properly clear. If you are one of the thousands who have taken part in the vaccine trial. 1) On what basis should you decide whether to have another shot ? 2) Would any of the available vaccines be licenced for someone who has already had a shot ? 3) Would it be advisable to have have the same vaccine or a different one ? 4) Would it be safe to have another shot whether or not you actually reveived the trial vaccine ? These questions should be considered in the light of the fact that roughly half the trialists had a placebo and were not actually vaccinated but do not know if they received the vaccine or the placebo. These are serious questions I had not thought of before, but arose because I know someone who took part in one of the covid trials and now needs to know whether to have another vaccine. Of course this would apply to any new vaccine reaches further than Covid. Thre must be a procedure, though I have not thought about it before so I am asking the question.

During WWII a professor of Maths was imprisoned by the Nazis and spent his time developing a methd to do eactly this because he had no paper, computer etc. https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=Y2jLX5fWM4qaUsOmrYgD&q=trachtenberg+method&oq=trachtenberg&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgIIADICCAAyAgguMgIIADICCAAyAgguMgIILjICCAAyAggAMgIIADoICAAQsQMQgwE6CAguELEDEIMBOgsILhCxAxDHARCjAjoFCAAQsQM6DgguELEDEIMBEMcBEK8BOhAIABCxAxCDARCxAxCxAxAKOgUIABDJAzoFCAAQkgM6CggAELEDEIMBEAo6BQguELEDUCZYtCdg3kNoAXAAeAGAAaYFiAHIK5IBCTItMS40LjIuNZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab The Trachtenberg system is weird but not difficult to learn and really does work.

For each of the vaccines being developed some tens of thousands of volunteers have received the vaccine. From what I understand about 50% received a placebo. As some of the vaccines are now being licenced and in production, What happens to those who had the trial version and what happens to those who had the placebo but did not contract the virus ?

Tomorrow (Dec 5th) is World Soil Day https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/why-soil-is-one-of-the-most-amazing-things-on-eart/p090cf64

I think they were better than that. Here is a babylonian maths question, translated from cuneiform which uses the formula [math]ab = \frac{{{{\left( {a + b} \right)}^2} - {{\left( {a - b} \right)}^2}}}{4}[/math] In fact they invented the quarter squares multiplication tables which were in use until the mid 20th century.

Was she any relation of Pat Moss-Carlson?

This is a windup right ? How can we dispense with axes and power tools and watches and sundials and well foor, air and water ? Modern Science has determined that matter is held together by electricity. Ask any Pharmacist for some pills for this condition. Oh dear sorry you can't as she is held together by electricity. But then so are you. What a mean old world it is.

Thank you. Thank you also for providing an accurate statement of the setup in Scotland we can all agree. So can I ask you to consider the value of accuracy in discussion ? Rather than going over old ground any more can we also discuss your title question ? Only the first line provides a discussion topic, I would rather not comment on the rest except to ask you to you consider if this is a good way to address people and open a conversation you hope to have an adult discussion with. So did you wish to discuss barriers to equal opportunity in 'education'. - as you state in the title or barriers to equal opportunity in 'academia' - as you state in your opening post ? I hope you are not conflating the two. They are not the same. In any event we need an agreed working definition of 'education' and 'academia' before progress can be made.

One point at a time. Initially I granted you the opportunity to expand on your statement in my short reply You replied And I offered this which is true. And you replied specifically zero costs, repeating your earlier contention. Currently the cost of a single Pharmacy textbook is in the range £35 - £75. A Pharmacy student wanting to have their own BNF (renewable every year) could fork out £400 A suitable laptop would cost in the range £500 - £600 Then of course there are living costs. And travel costs Not counting the opportunity cost of cost earned income during the time of studying. Now do you still maintain the zero cost option ?

Well if you must come here and promote complete and utter falsehoods, You introduced Scottish education, and I haven't yet finished discussing it with you or the falsehood you promoted about it. I tried to discuss the French, German, Dutch and Belgian systems but received no response whatsoever. First time I think perhaps I put too many points into one post so I have tried to cut it down to one point at a time. And you respond with a slap with a wet fish. I can't respond to these as I don't know what they are.

Your response here indicates that I did not manage to communicate my point. Sorry. I am not saying it is an either - or situation. I am saying that there is a scale between opportunity and result and the question of where a particular activity or situation falls on that scale is a question of ethics that can be discussed scientifically, particularly in the context of education, as required in this thread. Here are some examples from real life. Consider a runing race. 1) If everyone has the opportunity to run then they will not all reach the finish line at the same time, because they do not all possess the same ability or luck. 'Affirmative action' has lead some educationalists to ban races in some schools and try to ban exams. Where do you draw the line here and why ? 2) I have zero or even less than zero talent fo music, no matter how much musical education I am offered or receive. There are a limited number of stradivarius (and similar) violins in this world. Should I therfore be offered the opportunity to play such an instrument, therby depriving another player the opportunity or maybe breaking one ? Should I waste the time of the few people in this world capable of teaching the high standard necessary to obtain the best from such an instrument ? 3) Would you get into a taxi driven by a blind taxi driver, or should taxi drivers be drawn only from the ranks of well sighted persons? If so how well sighted ?

Interestingly if you type your question into Google you get two things. 1) Google corrects your spelling. 2) You get the following answer. https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/40463364?hl=en

Education structures in Scotland have never been the same as in England. Holyrood was established on 12 May 1999. So it has been barely two decades. It is all too easy to expand and generalise to support a view, but this is Science site and we are supposed to discuss the subject in a scientific manner, not an expansive one. I am not clear if you are saying you attended school in Scotland, but surely you would know that it is disingenuous to suggest that degrees of any sort incur zero cost in Scotland. Some folks (mostly Scots) have their fees paid. This also used to be the case in England until greedy bursers and governments made them amongst the most expensive in the world. FYI, the structures in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, are hugely different, both from each other and from those in the UK. Edit I think you are asking the wrong question here. Consider this Which do you prefer equality of opportunity or equality of result ? You cannot have both, but you can make some adjustment to the balance between them. How to achieve a fair balance is the ethical dimemma.

Reading through this thread it seems to me to be a discussion between North Americans about the system in the US. I can't see the relevence of this comment about Scotland, which is so short as to be misleading about Scottish education. What exactly did you mean please ?

This is a much better question than the wooly one you originally posted. +1 Now go back and read Einstein's train example again, armed with the following: The point of the example is that the lightning bolts strike and marks permanently both the train and the platform together, although they 'are in different frames', since the train is travelling and the platform is not. Because the marks are permanent it is then possible to stand the train next to the platform, in the same frame (ie at rest) and compare the distances between the marks on the platform and the train. Thus distance measured in a moving and rest frame may be directly compared.

[irony] Thank you teacher for marking my homework correct [/irony] I didn't say any of that. That is all your conjecture. Further I have no idea whether you understood what I said. In particular note the examples you have provided in the other threads are 2 dimensional, in which case the physical dimension reduces to the reciprocal of length. This is a far cry from volume, and is usually called wave number when dealing with waves. By the way this jumping about between threads discussing essentially the same subject is very wearing. If you wish to communicate (your ideas) with physicists it would be a good idea to learn some of the basics of the subject and language. It has taken a lot of great minds over many thousands of year to reach the stage of technology we now enjoy. During that process many ideas have been proposed and worried over doglike with a bone. quite a few of these, at firts promising, were finally rejected as unworkable or not in conformity with observation. So it is pointless and futile to try to invent all your own Physics by yourself. Start with what is already known, tried and tested, and move outwards and onwards from there. A simple observation, but so true in this case and such a good example of what I mean by my advice. It also provides a reminder to me to be more specific and accurate. Thanks, swansont. +1

Well the short answer is yes and no. I assume you are asking about quantum wave functions and not particles? ? Like all wave functions they have variable physical units depending upon whether we are considering one two or three dimensions. In which cases the 'dimensions' are [math]\sqrt {\frac{1}{L}} [/math] ; [math]\sqrt {\frac{1}{{{L^2}}}} [/math] ; [math]\sqrt {\frac{1}{{{L^3}}}} [/math] respectively. These can be related to a dimension called V alone, but conventionally we use length as shown.

I have removed the beginning and end square brackets to show the coding. math]\sum\limits_{n = a}^{n = b} {{n^2}} [/math [math]\sum\limits_{n = a}^{n = b} {{n^2}} [/math] math]\sum\nolimits_{n = a}^{n = b} {{n^2}} [/math [math]\sum\nolimits_{n = a}^{n = b} {{n^2}} [/math]

Space has 3 dimensions. Can you explain why we expect to observe 3 dimensions in space and do in fact observe 3, rather than 2 or 4 ?