Mark Ian

I think this is a terrific question. The universe seems to strive for efficiency. Phospholipids in solution will seek to form spherical vesicles, and so does water in space (doesn't form vesicles but a sphere). Heat will strive to disperse uniformly in a enclosed system. Life strives for survival... but does a particle of the microscopic universe strive to get from point A to B? In the example hat swansont gives does not work too well with electrons and photons. Your perplection is shared, for what is there to wave.

the solution is now neutral, it was basic so it has become less basic -> weaker base. The PH scale is logarithmic, base 10. the amount of Protons in the solution is 10^-7 moles per liter at a ph of 7 and 10^-10 at a ph of 10. The amount of protons has increased though, youll have (10^(-10))-(10^(-7)) protons

I've stumbled upon this quite interesting website (through google admittedly, but I find it nevertheless noteworthy; plus maybe you or someone else knows of similar sites to this one). The website is quite straightfoward, the code is in C and is roughly 3000 words long. http://kim.oyhus.no/QuantumMechanicsForProgrammers.html I am not quite sure as how to interpret the code, eventhough it is in code: float U[ 1000 ][ 1000 ]; ... for( t=0; t<1000; t++) for( x=0; x<1000; x++) U[ t+1 ][ x ] = - U[ t-1 ][ x ] + U[ t ][ x+1 ] + U[ t ][ x-1 ] ; so we have two while loops with a 2d matrix with time and x, looping a hundredthousand times. Does this return the y position at any given time and x position? and if the piece of code is to define all y positions how can we call a not yet computed y position? note: Im not familiar with C but all languages are quite similar, in my language a matrix is written as U[t,x] for example, but I understand matrices (I think) and use them frequently while programming.

the length of* a third point between A and B to A or B, AC (or BC) if you must. It isn't the length that I am looking for but the coordinates of C, I am in the wierd (or not so wierd while you are programming) position in which I know the length of AC but not the coordinates of C.

This isn't really homework, but it being basic math I thought Id post here. I have the following problem: say I have two points in a 3d space A & B and want to find a Point C that is on a line between A & B but has a specific length. The coordinates of A & B are given (x,y and z respectively). My brain handles trig fine in 2d, but for some reason I am making some sort of mistake in 3d. thanks a bundle, Mark

Hello guys, I modified my usb camera to work as a microscope yesterday evening. I was astounded at its magnification power and resolution. I used a cheap ~20$ camera with a resolution of 480x360 pixels. Nematodes are about an eigth of the width of the screen so about 60 pixels (equals about 6 cm) in length. If we assume a nematode is around 1.5 mm in length this would be a magnification of about 40x. I followed the instructions provided by the wiki entry of hackteria.org DIY_microscopy dissasembling the camera to its circuit board, flipping the lens for an even higher resolution, and mounting the modificated camera to a plastic frame. It is a fine apparatus which can be assembled quickly and at an extremly low cost. A must do for any biology lover (or of any science infact). Now that I have taste blood however, I crave to modify an even better usb camera with higher resolution and magnification. Additionally. I would like to modifiy the lense in such a way, that its altered focal distance allows a higher magnification. After I have done this I may add an extra stand for the prep glass for easier focusing (its a pain to do it by hand). If you have built such a device, your expertise desired. here are some questions to the expert: which camera do you suggest? can one modify thr focal distance of the lense? (Ive seen it done but I do not know which distances are reasonable)

I do not know how one would transfer the human conciousness into a machine because we have no way of accessing the vast amount of information in our brains (scientists estimate that the human brain can roughtly hold 2 petabytes of info), not to mention we do not know where it is. In the moment the techinques for scanning the brain are being refined and made smaller but we are no where near in being able to make a copy of our conciousness on a computer. The brain is much more complex than simply firing neurons. As for AI: I think we are pretty close (although scientists have said this during the 60s and 80s before) but the necessary computing power has not been reached yet. Using moores law however one can pretty accurately predict the processing power of computers to any given year. the amount of transistors is growing exponentially. (check out the wiki article on moores law) Well, in the moment the average cpu will have about 10^9 transistors and by 2020 around 32 times that amount. I do not think this will suffice, in 2030-2040 when computers are a hundred times faster than that of today's, then I think the hardware for AI is set. We probably will have a quantum computer revolution also during this period which would outperform the classical transistor based cpu by lightyears (this is independant to moores law tho, and therefore cannot be predicted as precisely). Eventhough we have this hardware barrier, constructing an intelligent brain like neural network in the form of software is a second obstacle to overcome.

my experiments are unbound to the macro and microscopic world as they do not directly replicate any natural phenomenon known to me. Nevertheless I think that the fields and spirals and waves and diffractionpatterns that come forth from these simluations reflect something deeply embedded in the logic of the universe. It is fun to go exploring in the jungle, blind folded, with an ak-47. I've tried searching the web quite extensively, but people seem to be more interested in simulating nbodies, fluids and newtonian gravity.

I agree with jp255, during chormosomal recombination the ratio between the two is not always 50% , but around 50%. For example this means that you can have 23% of your grandpas and 27% of your grandmas genese on your mothers side, due to the recombination of the chromosome in your mother. You still will always recieve 50% of the chromosomes from your mother (23%+27%=50% ehhhh math)

Just a thought, but an animals behaviour, especially in insects, can be substantially altered by parasites. The bahviour alteration can be directed by the parasite in such a fashion that promotes the spread of the parasite, usually through a larger host. A theory for explaining this behaviour could be as follows: the ant picks up the parasite though the feces or corpse of the main host. The parasite hijacks the horomone system of the ant, making it prone to move towards light and move in an eye-catching pattern making it easier for the main host to find and eat the ant. When the main host eats the parasite filled ant the cycle is complete.

to lesolee: My reasoning behind not giving full details / only including the image is this: The code needed for the simulation is quite simple. If you are a programmer and have fooled around with particle simulations chances are you have stumbled across this 'pattern'. Posting source code leads to ctrl+c/v which is what I wanted to avoid. The identification of the field is not the main purpose of the thread, contrary to what I claimed in the first post. I'm trying to find people who have coded similar things and would want to talk about it. These simulations are a hobby of mine. I blame my curiosity. I also am into theoretical neuroscience and video game programming. I didn't run this particular simulation for months. What I meant is that I try to figure out why the particles behave the way they do, if I can force the particles in behaving a praticular way, If I can de/stabilize the orbits of the particles, if I can create specific geometirical shapes by manipulating the code... the list really just keeps on going. I use the same program that I use to code my games in game maker studio. The language is comparable to delphi mixed with java phyton and C++, one can import libarays from C++ and export in 5 different file formats so that It can run on windows, mac and various phones. It is compiled in C++ on the windows. if choose(1,2)=1 { pt_dist=point_distance(x,y,argument0.x,argument0.y); pt_dir=point_direction(x,y,argument1.x,argument1.y); x+=lengthdir_x(pt_dist,pt_dir) y+=lengthdir_y(pt_dist,pt_dir) }else{ pt_dist=point_distance(x,y,argument1.x,argument1.y); pt_dir=point_direction(x,y,argument0.x,argument0.y); x+=lengthdir_x(pt_dist,pt_dir) y+=lengthdir_y(pt_dist,pt_dir) } I was going to explain what is doing what but Im sure you'll figure this out quickly. its a deviation of coulombs law ( I knew this before I started the thread :.p ). to dog: thanks. Phenomenal deduction skills.

According to the website below, that what would make the speed of light not constant is if a photon would have mass. We assume that photons are massless but we are unable to experimentally prove this. math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html

Surely identification does not require one to fully understand it, though it does require one to have seen it or something similar. But I will explain what I have programmed: On a 2d platform I create n particles and a reference point. Both particles and reference point have x,y coordinates on the plane. The particles move relative to the distance and direction to the reference point (very much similar to coulombs law). The particles are drawn onto a surface each step. This loops indefinitely until I end the program.

well I thought I also attached the image to the post itself. I just reattached the image to this post so hopefullz that worked. Basicallz I have a reference point and particles which have a direction and velocity. the distance the particle travels is proportional to the distance to the reference point. 50b27bed1b9b4.bmp

http://ctrlv.in/139005 Hi, Ive been running these particle simulations the last few months, and I dont know what exactly these fields are. If you know, or you know someone that could know... thatd be great! It would be nice to know the mathematical formulas for these things