KeithS@121: I too read the Phelps particle with interest. I stood with my fellow residents of Lexington MA in facing off against the standard minivan of Phelps-oids about 10 days ago. After training to meet these "hatemongers" with trial runs of very personal, in-your-face invective, the actual event came as somewhat of an anticlimax. There was definitely a feeling of choreography about the way they (the Phelps-oids) went about it.
Bruce Cohen @ 46: I'll point out pedantically that Ginger refers to Iain Banks, and you list Iain M. Banks' books. Since the two are one and the same person, this is only nitpicking, but it is a notable piece of Banksiana that he publishes his sci-fic with his middle initial and his lit-fic without.
My favorite Iain M. Banks: The Algebraist.
My favorite Iain Banks: The Crow Road.
Matthew Brown @ 83:
One of the ironies of No Original Research being originally intended as 'this isn't a place to publish your crackpot physics theories', is that it is now used to protect crackpot physics theories from detailed debunking analysis.
Let us postulate that a crackpot theory has got its Wikipedia page by hook or by crook. I will concede that J. Random Reader may be better off hearing about this theory, but I will insist that J. Random Reader also be informed that "here's where this alternate theory parts ways with the science that built the modern world that you enjoy".
But no-one has published such analysis. In fact, such analysis is not publishable in the very same academic, peer reviewed, sources that Wikipedia would normally consider as the gold standard for physics references.
I think the crackpots snuck a big one past the gatekeepers here. (And, yes, I've got a specific case in mind, but I won't belabor the details.)
A rectangular cross-section groove, across one piece of wood, into which you slot another piece of wood (say shelves into the vertical side of a bookcase) is a dado.
xeger@302: s/strip/stripe/ will make the sense a little more clear.
If you found your way here: http://stripesnoop.sourceforge.net/ , for example, you might be reassured to know that there's a community of people who want to defensively read their own magnetic stripe info to find out what they're revealing when they let someone else "swipe" their driver's license.
In *my* day, you had to read popular science books to find the recipe for ammonium tri-iodide.
And then you had to try to bring a paper towel soaked in the still-drying stuff home on the school bus. And then you had to abandon said paper towel out the window of said school bus, when it was clear that little puffs of purple vapor from around the drying edges were only the beginning of something that probably shouldn't be happening in your lap.
Paula @76:
I think the region vs country thing is the key point. Region "The XYZ" becomes country "XYZ".
See e.g. a diary dating from 1905 for usage of "the Lebanon".
Bill Higgins @70: Usage point 1: all my life, we referred to "the Ukraine."
Similarly, though it disappeared half a generation earlier, "the Lebanon".
AJ @ #531: I will second Marith @ #550, but with a refinement. Find yourself a technology startup. Startups tend to be doing something that no-one has done before; it follows that some of their ideal candidate skill sets aren't yet embodied in real people. And then it follows that they may be willing to substitute "tenacity in acquiring and harnessing new stuff we just figured out", for the missing skill.
I speak from experience at a previous employer (now defunct, alas) where a friend of mine bootstrapped himself from the shipping dock to a engineering development position. It was only possible in an environment where there were always far more things it would be nice to do, than people with time to do them.
Why is the logo as shown in English? Shouldn't it be in Arabic and/or Japanese?
Unless, of course, it comes in several different language editions, and we are just seeing the version intended for the most important consumers of cuteness.
Dave @136: while you're learning about equivalences that you didn't previously know, it might help you to know that "frame of reference" can also be pronounced "spacetime coordinate system".
Clifton @133: With respect to minds breaking, I deliberately kept the causality description limited to flat spacetime. Some folks want a mind breaker? OK, here we go. I'll be listening for the "pop".
Closed timelike curve.
Thank you, Peter Erwin, for adding your assistance; I agree with everything you say.
Dave Luckett: you are wrestling, quite understandably, with the same conceptual difficulties that everyone faced a hundred years ago when Einstein's paper on special relativity first appeared.
In relativity, there is still an arrow of time. There is still causality, in fact you could argue that causality got "stricter" under relativity.
What there isn't, is a single time coordinate for everyone. So no, you can't "place all events in sequence by reference to a fixed point."
In classical mechanics, everyone can agree on the time coordinate of an event. In classical mechanics, time(A) < time(B) i.e. A happened before B, implies A might be a cause of B, but B can never be a cause of A.
In relativistic mechanics, there are many coordinate systems, each with their own 3 space-like coordinates and 1 time-like coordinate.
In relativistic mechanics, there are some events A and B where in all coordinate systems A happened before B. Just like in classical mechanics, we can say A might be a cause of B, but B can never be a cause of A.
But... there are also some events A and B where in some coordinate systems, A happened before B, and in some coordinate systems B happened before A. The only possible way to attach causality here is to say that A couldn't have caused B, and B couldn't have caused A. (And incidentally, this is basically the same statement as "you can't go faster than light".)
As far as the latitude metaphor goes, I'm happy that people find it useful, but beware of straying outside its bounds. The fact that our conventional latitude is centered on the "spin poles" doesn't make it necessary that all latitude systems be centered on the spin poles. We could easily invent another latitude system centered on the magnetic poles, or the Flatiron building and its antipode. All those systems would have the same property of lat = +91 being meaningless.
Terry Karney (#111): "The present model says there was a time when the universe wasn't."
This is most definitely NOT a description of the current model. In (#113), clew hints at this, but I'll beg your indulgence and say a little more. Time is a coordinate we humans put on the spacetime manifold. I'm going to compare it to a coordinate we put on the earth -- latitude.
The shape of the earth, more or less a sphere for purposes of this discussion, is an inherent property of the earth. It's "spheritude" does not require us to be present. Latitude, on the other hand, is one of many possible coordinates we humans use to describe things on the earth.
The north pole is at latitude = +90 degrees. Does that mean there is something "north of the north pole" at latitude = +91 degrees? Nope, it doesn't. Similarly, the time coordinate for the big bang is the earliest possible time coordinate. Does that mean there is something mystical lurking "before the big bang"? Same answer.
Re myself #133:
That was easy; not a permalink but currently here.
I can't find an online image yet, but this morning's Boston Globe editorial cartoon shows a Mayor Menino, rendered in LiteBrites, holding up a $2M check.
Re #27 Connie:
"... wouldn't it be elementary to wave a Geiger counter wand near the suspect device..."
Yes and no. Yes it should and would be a good move to test for radioactivity. But, as the saying goes, this is a situation where absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Consider the recent poisoning of Mr Litvinenko using Polonium 210 in London. The reason Po210 was so effective, is that it is easily shielded, being an almost pure alpha emitter. (Yes, the London authorities found traces after the fact, when they knew what look for. That doesn't invalidate the point.)
Re the "American Class System" particle, and Larry Brennan's comment #266,
You can find a PRIZM lookup here:
http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20
kid bitzer (#6): Your argument is well reasoned, and reeks of humanity and decency. Would that we could all live in that world.
I have a three word response, though: Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.
When the Republicans interpret every attempt at compromise as a sign of weakness, there is no channel of communication left open but the results of the previous iteration. Now we get to wait and see their behavior on the next iteration.
Re the Bear (#22 and #42): it's too bad that the Corner, like most right wing sites, doesn't want comments on their stuff (I guess they equate small-d democratic with large-D Democratic).
Given the imaginative talents around here I'm sure someone could come up with a comeback along bear-eats-bush, bear flies back to DC, no-one notices, lines.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
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| 2009 | 2 |
| 2008 | 1 |
| 2007 | 14 |
| 2006 | 13 |
| 2005 | 2 |
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