Newsgroup sci.physics 214673

Directory

"Robert Imrie, DVM"  wrote:
>Bob Casanova wrote:
>> rudiak@garnet.berkeley.edu wrote:
> 
>> >  [In response to Robert Imrie, DVM, Word Warrior wrote:]
>> >>> >>WW  People properly nourished in clean surroundings won't
>> >>> >>WW  get cancer at all.
>> >>> >RI  I sincerely hope this is a joke, because there's not the tiniest bit of
>> >>> >RI  evidence to suggest it is true.
>> >>>WW  That's not quite the case.
>> >>RI  Actually, it is the case -- but don't take my word for it.
>Mr. Rudiak jumped in with:
>> >RU  We won't, because you are obviously a crackpot "scientist."  Even if you
>> >RU  isolated animals and fed them nourishing, "clean" pesticide-free food in an
>> >RU  attempt to isolate them from cancer-causing viruses and chemicals, at best all
>> >RU  you will do is reduce the cancer rate.
>To which Bob Casanova responded:
> 
>>BC  Er, that's what he (Imrie) said.
Yes, that is what he said, and my sincere apologies to Mr. Imrie.  I was
responding to his second post, in which it sounded as if he was agreeing with
WW's claims.  (All the >>>>s make it hard to figure out who said what.)  I then
posted my response, and 5 minutes later updated the posts on Free Agent.    To
my shock, there was a post from the day before from Mr. Imrie, which hadn't
arrived on my server until then.  It was quite obvious from this post that Imrie
was disagreeing with WW.  We are both in agreement (a first on anything) that
nourishing food and a clean environment will not eliminate cancer.
I then immediately sent a cancel post to my server, and I thought it had been
deleted.  But apparently it had already leaked out into Cyberspace.
And that's really what happened, believe it or not.   

David E. Weldon, Ph.D. wrote:
> 
> David Sepkoski  wrote:
> 
> }Trish wrote:
> }> >
> }> > And when they do that they have to support it to their involuntary
> }> > audience's  satisfaction.
> }> >
> }>
> }> There is a problem when certain school districts in the midwest
> }> (Tennessee in particular) do not allow the children to be taught basic
> }> (and proven) theories of evolution .. preferring instead, religious
> }> doctrine.  Freedom of religion is everywhere.  Unfortunately, science is
> }> not always welcome.
> }>
> }> Trish
> }This may be a bit of a trivial point, but Tennessee is most assuredly
> }NOT in the midwest.  It is the south.  People in the midwest may be
> }religious, but generally are not opponents of evolution in the schools.
> 
> I'm really surprised at you people.  Where is your skepticism.  "...basic
> (and proven) theories of evolution..."  My, My!  Your education is really
> shortchanged.  I suggest you read some of the more recent research from
> information theory.  Indeed, I suggest you read "Darwin on Trial" and
> "Darwin's Black Box."  Both are at your local bookstore...Read those and
> you'll really be a skeptic.
My education may be shortchanged, but the basis of the statement is not.
Let's keep to the point (children being denied education in evolution in
preference of religion) rather than picking apart details in order to
inflate your own ego.  Perhaps, if this information had been available
earlier on .. my statement would have been up to your standard.
My apologies to those in the midwest I may have offended.
Trish

In article <5aeect$hij@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
>   Would Colin Douthwaite or someone please draw a ascii picture of the
> professor moving a bar magnet through loop and then loop through bar
> magnet. Sincere thanks
Subject:      [18] Anniversary
From:         cfbd@southern.co.nz (Colin Douthwaite)
Date:         1996/09/17
Message-Id:   <51mfb9$9un@orm.southern.co.nz>
Organization: Southern InterNet Services
Newsgroups:   alt.ascii-Art
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~
                                _
                               '  )        /)
                                -(   __  _(/
                             (__ )  / (_(_(_
              _____
             (, /  |            ,
               /---|  __  __      _ _   _  __  _   _   __
            ) /    |_ / (_/ (__(_ (/___(/_/ (_/_)_(_(_/ (_  (_/_
           (_/                                             .-/
                                      /)                  (_/
                               ___   //
                              (_)   /(_
                                   /)
                                  (/
               /)                        ,   ,
          _   //  _/_   __   _   _   _           __   _   __ _/_
         (_(_(/_  (__       (_(_/_)_(___(_ _(_       (_(_/ (_(__
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  ( 18 ) 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                  The Last Skit of NP2  ( ILLUSTRATED )
                        Text by Ludwig Plutonium
                  Pictures from just about everywhere.
                                                             30/6/94
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~
> Show a long sine wave curve.
     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.      
  --/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/-
         `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'  
> Show a man dressed up in a tuxedo inspecting this sine wave curve
> for fluctuations.
                                    ../ ~`~`~'~~'~ ``;; -
                                  '/~////~|\\\\\\~\\\\\~\\\~
                                ~////~//||||\\\\~\\\\\\~\\\\\~
                               ~//~//||||~||||\\\\\\~\\\\\~\\\~
                              ~///|||~||||~||||\\~\\\\\~\\\\\\\\~.
                             ~/<<<<<||<<<<<<\\\\<<<<<"|""\\\~\\\\\~
                            ;\\\\\\\\\~~\\\\\~\\\\\~/""" ""|\\\\""|\
                             |||/\\\\|\\\\~\\\\\\|/        "||"""||\~
                             ||/                           |"""""""" ~
                             |||                               """"""|
                            ==, ,,,,,,,      ,,,,,,,,,,   ,====""|"""~
                              \----------===-------------/   "|""""||~
                              |\  \\    /  \   \\       /    """''|""~
                              | \      //    \         /     ""/~ ||/
                              |  ~~~~~ /       ~~~~~~~       "/P  '~
                              \       |      ,                   |
                               \       \ ~~\_/                  "
                                \                   /       ,.""
                                 \  \............../       ,.
                                  \    \_______/         ,.
                                   \                  ,.'
                                    \              ,.'
                                     \          ,'~
                                   /  ~~~~~~~~~         \
                         _  _  _ /    ___    ____         \ _  _  _
                     /               !   \_/     !                  \
                  /                  !___/~\_____!                    \
    _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _
   \               _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  \  _  _  _  _  _
    \            /                                \             /|
     \         /  .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.      \          /  |
      \      / --/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/- \       /    /
       \   /          `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'    \    /    /
        \/                                            \ /    /
         |  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|   /
         |                                             | /
         |_  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  |/
> Show him pouting whenever a math person standing on the sidelines
> points out that there are no fluctuations in the sine curve.
                                    ../ ~`~`~'~~'~ ``;; -
                                  '/~////~|\\\\\\~\\\\\~\\\~
                                ~////~//||||\\\\~\\\\\\~\\\\\~
                               ~//~//||||~||||\\\\\\~\\\\\~\\\~
                              ~///|||~||||~||||\\~\\\\\~\\\\\\\\~.
                             ~/<<<<<||<<<<<<\\\\<<<<<"|""\\\~\\\\\~
                            ;\\\\\\\\\~~\\\\\~\\\\\~/""" ""|\\\\""|\
                             |||/\\\\|\\\\~\\\\\\|/        "||"""||\~
                             ||/   ---- _____ -- ___       |"""""""" ~
                             |||     ___        ____           """"""|
                            ==, ,,,,,,,      ,,,,,,,,,,   ,====""|"""~
                              \----------===-------------/   "|""""||~
                              |\  \\    /  \   \\       /    """''|""~
                              | \      //    \         /     ""/~ ||/
                              |  ~~~~~ /       ~~~~~~~       "/P  '~
                              \       |      ,                   |
                               \       \ ~~\_/                  "
                                \                            ,.""
                                 \       ______            ,.
                                  \     (_____ )         ,.
                                   \   (______)       ,.'
                                    \              ,.'
                                     \          ,'~
                                   /  ~~~~~~~~~         \
                         _  _  _ /    ___    ____         \ _  _  _
                     /               !   \_/     !                  \
                  /                  !___/~\_____!                    \
    _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _
   \               _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  \  _  _  _  _  _
    \            /                                \             /|
     \         /  .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.      \          /  |
      \      / --/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/- \       /    /
       \   /          `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'    \    /    /
        \/                                            \ /    /
         |  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|   /
         |                                             | /   -cfbd-
         |_  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  |/
                  //////
                  //////
                 (//////)
... ..  ..  ... . ////// . ... .())((() .. . . . .... . . . ..   . . .
             _____|____|_____  ((()(()))
            /                \ (((((((()
           |      -----       |()(()(())_
           |      MATH        |(((()()() |
           \        MAN       '\()))))(  |
            \     -----         \(((((  /
             \              .    \___. (
              \            / \    |:| ) \
              |            | |`------'   |
              \____________/  \_________/
                                               -mh-
........................................................................
> MWBR stands for the cosmic microwave background radiation. The
> cosmic MWBR is relentlessly uniform and it is QUANTUM BLACKBODY
> radiation. It is cavity radiation. So then the Atom Totality has
> no problems with explaining it. Inside an atom totality, MWBR is
> uniform and since it is an atom then it comes out measured as
> Quantum Blackbody. This also explains Olber's Paradox because an
> electron cavity is black, from blackbody.
> But to the present day science community who believe a different
> theory, a different paradigm, they believe in the Big Bang, then
> in order to continue with that fakery, the MWBR must be seen to
> fluctuate.  Since it is uniform  and the Big Bang theory is out
> the window, con artists in the physics community are set-up to
> find fluctuations by hook or crook.
> Show Smoot trying to measure the parameters of virus using a meter
> stick.
                        __
                        ||
                        ||
            ////////    ||
            |:---[.]    ||
            |(     _J   ||                                   _     _
            | ^ ( _|    ||           ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  \   /
           / \_____)    ||         / (  (  (  (  (  (  (  (  \( = =)
          /  _____   \  ||        <  (  (  (  (  (  (  (  (  / ( ^ )
         |  /     \   | ||         \ (__(__(__(__(__(__(__(__)   ~
         |  |     |   | ||           ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^
         \  /\   /\__ | ||                     -cfbd-
         |  |        \/---
         \   \            )
          |   >_____/_____)
          \__________/  ||
          /         \   ||
          |          |  ~~
          \          \\
           \          |\
            \         | \
             \         | |
              |        |  |
              |       |   |
             |        /   |
            |________/____|
            (_________)____)       -mh-
     ==============================
> Show him finding fluctuations in his measurement.
                               //////\\
                              /        \
                             _|  _   _ |_
                            |.|-(.)-(.)+.|
                             \|    J   |/
                              \   ---  /
--------------- UUUU --------- \      / --------- UUUU
-------------------
|                               "####"                                 
 |
|                                                                      
 |
|                                                                      
 |
|                     _     _               _     _                    
 |
|    ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  \   /                 \   /             -, ,-   
 |
|   /  (  (  (  (  (  \( u u)     ,,,,,,,,,, ( @ @)     ,,,,,,,(. .)   
 |
|   \__(__(__(__(__(__) ( ^ )    (__(__(__(_) ( ^ )    (__(__(__(^)    
 |
|      ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^   ~       ^ ^  ^  ^ ^   ~       ^ ^  ^  ^ ^    
 |
|  ____________________________________________________________________
 |
|
[_________|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|__]
|
|          20            40            60            80           100  
 |
                                                          -cfbd-
> Show a true scientist yell from the sidelines
> "Hey, Smoot or smut, don't you think that you have reached the
> limit of precision of your measuring devices?  That in 20 or 50
> years from now when they have even more precise measuring devices
> that MWBR will be seen uniform way below what your own
> measurements have recorded?"
    //\\\||///\\              ,------------------------------------,
   //|        |\\            (  Hey, Smoot or smut, don't you think )
  |[ | 
 | ]|          (   that you have reached the limit of   )
  ||||   .\.  ||||     o O (   precision of your measuring devices?   )
  |||<    _   >|||   o     (     That in 20 or 50 years from now      )
      \__(_)_/  o  o       (    when they have even more precise      )
   _____!___!_____         (   measuring devices that MWBR will be    )
  |  |  \   /  |  |         (    seen uniform way below what your    )
  |  | _ \./   |  |          (    own measurements have recorded?   )
  |  |[_] |    |  |           '------------------------------------'
  |  |    o    |  |
  |  |    |    |  |
  |  |    o    |  |
  |__|    |    |__|
   WW|    o    |WW
     |    |    |
     |    o    |
     |____|____|
      |   |   |
      |   |   |
      |   |   |   -cfbd-
      |___|___|
       \_/ \_/
> Show Smoot undaunted with his quest to impose his illogic unto the
> science community. Show Smoot looking at his measurement
> instruments bewildered by what was said to him.
                               .?.?.?.?
                              / ^^^^^^ \
                             _| -   -  |_
                            |.| (0^0)  |.|
                             \|   J    |/
                              \  (O)   /
--------------- UUUU --------- \      / --------- UUUU
-------------------
|                               "####"                                 
 |
|                                                                      
 |
|                                                                      
 |
|                __________/~|                  __                     
 |
|               / __     __  |                  ||                     
 |
|               |/  \___/  \_|                 ====                    
 |
|                    | |                       |  |__                  
 |
|                    | |                       |  |-.\                 
 |
|                    | |                       |__|  \\                
 |
|                    | |                        ||   ||                
 |
|                    | |                      ======__|                
 |
|                    | |                     ________||__              
 |
|                    |_|                    /____________\             
 |
|  ____________________________________________________________________
 |
|
[_________|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|__]
|
|          20            40            60            80           100  
 |
                                                          -cfbd-
> Show Smoot take his big bang blanket to bed with him just as Linus 
> in the Peanuts comic strip.  
 __                                            __
 ||____________________________________________||
 ||  _______________________________________   ||
 || {                                        } ||
 || {               //////\\                 } ||
 || {              /        \                } ||
 || {             _|  _   _ |_               } ||
 || {            |.|-(.)-(.)+.|              } ||
 || {             \|    J   |/               } ||
 || {              \   ---  /                } ||
 || --- UUUU ------ \      / ----- UUUU -------
 ||{                 "####"                     )
 ||{                                             \
 || .
 ||  .                                              \
 ||   .
 ||\   .                       .  '                     \
 ~~ \   .                       * >
     \   .                 ,__./                            \
      \   .               /    \
       \   .             | BOMB |                              \
        \   .             \____/
         \   .                                                    \
          \   .
           \   .                                                     \
            \   .
             \   .                                                     
\
              \  (                                                     
 )
               \
(_______________________________________________________)
                \ |                                                    
 |
\|______________________________________________________|
                    || |                                           || |
                    || |                        -cfbd-             || |
                     `~~                                            `~~
> Show Smoot with his thumb in his mouth.
Er....I'm afraid a picture of _that_ defeats me  :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~

>In article <19970107113200.GAA27225@ladder01.news.aol.com>, lbsys@aol.com writes:
> Im Artikel <1997Jan7.102309@alpha.ntu.ac.sg>, mfarrington@alpha.ntu.ac.sg
> schreibt:
> 
>> the first bloke then
>>began to turn slowly on the spot and then dropped one hand from
>>the axle.  he then waved this 30kg weight in slow circles over 
>>his head using one hand and no effort at all...  while he kept
>>the thing moving it was effectively weightless (or that's what
>>he said anyway!!).
> 
> Just tell him to drop the other hand too - and see the flywheel floating
> ;-)))))
i think this would be a bad thing :)  could you imagine the amount of
energy a 30kg flywheel doing 3000rpm has??  it would knock your house
down!!
> 
> In effect, he has to hold up the 30 kg just with one hand (the balancing
> is done by a vertical circular motion the flywheel wants to make he has to
> suppress with his arm) 
from what i could tell the guy suggested that if you swung the 
flywheel opposite to it's spin direction the thing would be
"weightless" but if you swung it in it's spin direction it 
would be "heavy".  it makes some sense, i'm sure i've felt
this effect trying to turn a spinning bicycle wheel, but i just
don't know for sure...
peter

I have discovered an EXCELLENT scholarship opportunity while cruising
around on the WWW.  This scholarship is a contest where 3 students
team up and design a web page(s) that is entertaining yet
educationally enlightening...  And if they do a good job they get BIG
money (there are lots of prizes being given out - the total amount for
all scholarships is around $1,000,000!).  Unfortunately everyone that
goes to my school (except myself, of course ;) seems to be a complete
knucklehead when it comes to internet technology and hard science  =)
Also, the contest stresses "Collaboration".  You are even scored on
collaboration.  How do you score high in this area?  Get students from
all around the country and even the world to work on a project
together.  
I am a sixteen year old HS junior, and am very science/math/computer
technology oriented.  If you match this bio (not necessarily 16 or a
junior, but 18 or under and in high school) PLEASE contact me and I'll
give you the URLs to more information and we can possibly get a team
organized.  The prizes are so fantastic that any dynamic, intelligent
high schooler ought to enter (universities are SO expensive now...).  
We have plenty of time until the completed files are do, but we should
get the registration filled out within the next couple weeks.  Thanks
a lot.
	- sean baxter
	spectrum@mad.scientist.com 
		or
	baxters@eburg.com
P.S.	That's $25,000 PER student.  Plus that there are two $20,000
prizes PER student in the group, five $15,000prizes  PER student in
the group, five $12,000 per student in the group, five $12,000 per
student, five $9,000 per student... etc.  I doubt it would be possible
for us to enter and walk away empty handed.  
P.P.S.	The foundation that sponsors this are allowing 3 "coaches" -
teachers or mentors who are over the age limit and don't want another
college eduction - to be involved.  So those of you who work with me
on this could each choose a favorite teacher to help with the
information and check everything for validity.  
I believe I have some EXCELLENT ideas (plus I am pretty smooth with
the ol' HTML editor ;) that could possibly put us in the winner's
circle.  
So email me if you are interested and please include your location of
residence (City, State, Country will be fine), your interests, your
computer abilities (i..e programming or HTML or 3D graphics or CGI or
photoshop or whatever) and ideas with this contest that could help us
fund an education to CalTech ;)

Referring to your comments:
Try considering the photon as a cause, and the disturbance in the
gravitational matrix as the effect; this simplifies the particle/wave
dichotomy enormously.  It is accepted that gravity affects light; it is
equally true that light affects gravity.
(Stop spinning, Sir Isaac.) 
As to the warping or curving of space: this implies structure.  (Warping
can be defined as a change in structural relationships.) If you accept
that the force matrix is the structure, then it is easily visualized as a
network of force origins of varying size, from stars to individual atoms
or even dark-matter particles, each with its individual contribution to
the matrix.  Put a new source (a planet, for instance) into the matrix and
it becomes "warped" as new relationships of force form.
jlknapp@tenet.edu

Ilja Schmelzer (schmelze@fermi.wias-berlin.de) wrote:
: : I don't think we have any significant disagreement. I chose to emphasize
: : the geometric aspects of GR to draw a clear distinction between gravity and
: : other forces.
: The other forces also have a geometrical interpretation - gauge
: theory.  Thus, to emphasize geometrical aspects of GR doesn't allow to
: draw such a distinction.
The other forces can be modeled as boson-mediated effects using currently 
standard techniques.  Attempting to apply these to gravity (at least as 
it is now understood) does not result in a useful quantum model.  That is 
a significant difference.
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron,   |  "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,|   But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion,       +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down!          |  "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut 
down all the laws?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message may not be carried on any server which places restrictions 
on content.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doug Craigen (dcc@cyberspc.mb.ca) wrote:
: Brian J Flanagan wrote:
: > BJ: Wonderful question! I would bet big $ that a gravitational lense can
: > produce chromatic aberrations. For the sake of simplicity, take a constant
: > G: Blue light, having more energy than red light, and thus more mass, will
: > be deflected more strongly.
: More mass????
More equivalent mass would be correct.  However, if you had a beam of 
light of several colours traveling through space, it would be the 
distribution of that energy in spacetime that would affect the deflection 
due to gravitational lensing.  Different beams sent sequentially with 
different energy densities would deflect slightly differently, but the 
geodesic for any given beam with a constant energy density would be 
constant, so no chromatic aberation would occur in any single beam.
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron,   |  "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,|   But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion,       +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down!          |  "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut 
down all the laws?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message may not be carried on any server which places restrictions 
on content.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

C'mon, Greg, just give up and admit, Yanni is God!
:-)
Seriously, a comment on just one tiny fragment out of the great things
the esteemed amanuensis-meister Greg Taylor wrote:
>Of course, our own experience tells us that we can really enjoy or be
>moved by all kinds of thing which are *way* outside of our cultural
>frame of reference - work which, if we're pretty suspicious, might
>actually have nothing to do with the same criteria for quality that a
>"native" listener might "hear."
I love executing a personal mode of "listening for all the wrong
things" when I listen to music. Maybe it comes from being a bass
player, who couldn't give a rat's ass about that stupid out-of-tune
lead vocalist/guitarist wailing away out front :-) :-)
And I did play in, and help arrange for, an Indian Hindi/Tamil/Bengali
pop band ("Anamika") for two whole years, where I ferociously,
painfully loved the music, even though I didn't understand a single
word of the lyrics any of the songs being sung (OK I learned that
"Janeman" means "lover" in Hindi, since that showed up in every Hindi
song at least once :-) :-)....
There was a thread here about "surrealism" and I made some comments
about "strangeness" and "randomness". I find that often music of other
cultures attracts me because of what I initially perceive as
"strangeness" or "randomness" in it. Of course this is nothing like
what the "native listeners hear". Nor is it like what I end up
hearing, after I too become more familiar with the music.
But that initial thrill, of discovering something new and "strange"
and "random" in a new music from wherever, is hard to beat....
And perhaps you can accuse me of a particular individual bias, in my
own search for that "strangeness/randomness thrill" buzz. But I am
still hoping to formalize this concept somehow, in the next couple of
years.
--------------------
Chris Koenigsberg: ckk@pobox.com

Boycott Internet Spam! 

[snip] very large discussion of cultural differnces
Regarless of cultural/personal/etc. differences to me the most important
vis a vis music recently has been, using brain scans, that children
who have been involved early in music have different structures
in their brains. This is the first activity that has been shown to 
modify the physical structure of the brain. There is speculation as
to why this is so but that it is so is not. Perhaps this is why
music is so wide spread in human cultures. Observation that folks
deprived of music did not function the same as those who had it may have
prompted folks to value it. Perhaps this is true of the other arts but
I'm not aware of any reports on that. I have long felt that for our
culture to not regard the arts in schools is counter-productive. 
There are manys ways to stimulate the brains of children that do not
follow some linear path. Feyman surely took his own path and perhaps 
that has something to do with his genius. SOmeday folks will begin
to realize what the old greeks knew.
Donn

In article <5avb0d$na@orm.southern.co.nz>, bsandle@southern.co.nz (Brian
Sandle) wrote:
> I did ask because it was new to me. Do you deny changes in radio 
> transmission between night and day! Wouldn't that give some sort of 
> electromagnetic hiccup? As the ionosphere changes is there any current 
> which would effect the magnetic field?
EM transmissions of certain wavelengths are known to be transmitted though the 
ionosphere over much greater distances at night than during the day, but the
change is gradual and not sudden. The difference is in the ionosphere, which 
is waaaaaay up there. Right here, other than with better reception of
certain EM 
transmissions, you can't tell it happened. And earthquakes happen down there, 
underground. 
> : How do you know the whales don't just greet the sun or something? They 
> : have got eyes, you know.
> 
> I think that the program was about magnetic sensing of whales. There is 
> some about that on the web. They do know the `magnetoscape'. It is 
> possible to glean information from fewer dimensions, then more may be 
> confusing if one is temporarily confusing. Think of the hard of hearing 
> person who lip reads then is shown a language dubbed film.
Certain migratory birds also get lost when you strap magnets to their
heads. So some
animals can sense the direction (and presumably the strength) of magnetic
fields. 
But I'm not aware of any measurable change in the Earth's magnetic field at the 
terminator. 
Besides all of which, you haven't made any connection between the Earth's 
magnetic field and earthquakes.
-- 
Michael Roeder
Here's the Deal: You send me junk mail and you pay me $1500. Okay? 

markkino@inforamp.net wrote:
>folsomman@aol.com (FolsomMan) wrote:
>>I would be a little leery of DISCOVER since they print hoaxes without
>>retractions (i.e. a small burrowing creature in Antarctica with a very
hot
>Sure they do. Every April issue -- and the next issue always tell you
>what the hoax was. 
No, they don't.  In the specific instance I cited, I looked for a
retraction and saw none.  I even read an article (I think it was in the
Skeptical Inquirer) where people at DISCOVER were interviewed about that
very hoax and they said that they felt no obligation to explain---that
people would know.  Well, I did know but I had a hard time convincing my
young son that it wasn't true.  Most kids don't have an engineer or a
scientist in the house and many teachers (even most science teachers don't
know much about science or anything thermodynamics) and don't have any way
to gauge whether a pretent critter is absurd or just unusual.  A science
magazine by arrogant hoaxers is something that most of us don't need. 
Scientific American has printed hoaxes and then followed quickly with easy
to find explanations.
>Read the letters to the editor...
Looking for what?  Letters to the editor about an issue are never
published in the next issue, it's always too late.
Mark Folsom, P.E.
Consulting Mechanical Engineer

On Sun, 05 Jan 1997 23:34:05 -0800, timberwoof@themall.net
(timberwoof)  laid this particular bit of profound wisdom and wit in
my face:
>In article <5apofh$ofb@orm.southern.co.nz>, bsandle@southern.co.nz (Brian
>Sandle) wrote:
>
>> In article <5adqdm$nfb@cnn.nas.nasa.gov> you wrote:
>
>> A few years ago I telephoned the Japanese embassy to say that I wondered 
>> whether whale strandings might happen a few days before a quake.
(snort!)  It's very simple; plain as the nose on your face;
The whales simply want their MTV is all!
(snik snik)

In article <32D14A81.5850@earthlink.net>, dsepkosk@earthlink.net says...
> Trish wrote:
> 
> > Just the idea, that man alone, is created in God's image .. that man is
> > the center of God's ideals .. that man is "special" ... is enough to
> > destroy the world.
> > 
> > Look around, it already is.  We're in the middle of the 6th great
> > extinction .. thanks to the idea that man is special, and the world was
> > created for us.
> > 
Odd. Did the other 5 great extinctions, which life survived rather 
nicely, also get caused by man thinking he was special?

The way you did it, the units of Hubble's constant are
moles/atom/second. Oops.
This is called "numerology". One can take a pile of
constants and combine them to equal almost any desired
value.

mlerma@math.utexas.edu (Miguel Lerma) wrote:
>Rebecca Harris (rebecca@tharris.demon.co.uk) wrote:
[...]
>> What is was the point in writing all that "stuff" about god???
>> I am an athieist(probably wrong spelling)But I believe that everyone is
>> allowed their own opinion......So why preach about "the wonderful and
>> powerful god"?
>I can see that you are posting from UK. I have spent three years 
>in the USA (I am from Spain) and never imagined before the level 
>of religious fanatism I would find here. This is something that 
>a normal citizen of a typical western country would never suspect 
>before arriving to the paradise of religious nonsense. The problem 
>is that these people is supporting such a deal of nonsense that 
>they cannot get ride of their obsession to get some kind of support 
>that help them to overcome their contradictions. But people just 
>plagued by their own contradictions are the nicest ones. You should 
>see those who overcome their obsession by engaging themselves in a 
>restless persecution of "heretics" and unbelievers. The only thing 
>that saves this country from more witch hunts is its diversity and 
>the First Admendment that arises from it. Now more than ever I am sure 
>that the First Admendment does not survive because American people are 
>high in tolerance, but because they are diverse and do not wish to be 
>victims of other's intolerance. 
You are very perceptive.  This country has a lot of religious nut cases. 
However, judging by your address, you're in a part of the country that
some of us call the bible belt.  You would probably find Florida,
California and the Northeast a little more relaxed and less fanatical.  
Mark Folsom
"Gospel truth" is an oxymoron.

meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: >
: I've also seen you stating that they used bad data.  Now, to my 
: knowledge (though I may be mistaken) they relied on the whole existing 
: database of IQ results, not picked just a part they liked.  So, are 
: you claiming that all existing data is bad.  It may be so, mind you, 
: but then some basis for the claim should've been provided.
: 
: Let me ask the following question?  Do you claim that when all the 
: existing data is taken and the proper statistical methods are applied 
: to it, there are no statistically significant differences between 
: nationalities and ethnic groups?  If so, do you've some references for 
: this?
I have never read "The Bell Curve", so I can't specifically comment on the
quality of the research in that book.  I can make general comments about
the proper analysis of data, however.  Basically, there is data, and there
is data.  What I mean is that some data is good quality, and some data is
bad quality.  Using all available data - when some of it is bad - is
definitely worse than using only the good data.  Let me give you one
example. 
When I was working on my master's I had to combine my data with data
acquired by previous researchers.  The old data was taken with either of
two methods - one of which is far more precise and accurate than the
other.  When I used all the available data indiscriminately my error bars
were more than ten times larger than when I used only the high quality
data.  It would have been nearly impossible for me to do any real science
with the mixed data set, and my results would have been extremely
unreliable.  For all subsequent analysis I used only the high quality
data.  To do otherwise would have been bad science. 
If the authors of "The Bell Curve" indiscriminately mixed data from very
poorly executed studies into their analysis, then it is possible that
their results are worse than useless.  Once again, I have no way of
knowing if this is the case.  I am only pointing out the possibility. 
-- 
 Jim Walters          
 jwalters@clark.net      "Putting the DOH! in Aikido"                     

pondman wrote:
> 
> Martin Fouts wrote:
> >
> > well see, according to quantum chromodynamics...
> 
> > Seriously, the question you are addressing is known as
> > wave/particle duality. There is a simple experiment...
> >
> > A complication is this: A particle doesn't "exist" in the macroscopic
> > sense. Rather, it is represented by a probability density function...
> 
> > This is getting way off topic for misc.writing...
> 
> Possibly, Marty, the way you put it.  But my question was more a
> challenge to explain the concept for the most fundamentally irreducible
> "thing" (restoring the intended level).  A simple idea, but
> philosphically challenging.  So, can it be explained to the world; the
> world that imagines a particle to be a small bubble, like in the old
> text books; the world that imagines bigger things to be made from
> smaller things; the world that understands things that can be seen and
> held;  the world that looks in the dictionary for particle and doesn't
> see anything about wave/particle duality, existence, or quantum
> chromodynamics?  Yes, this question belongs in this group.  The
> challange is to make the answer belong.  Einstein might but in and say:
> I don't understand it unless I can see it.  That's the challenge of the
> writer.  I watch the bubbles float to the top of my mug of beer.  They
> all get there at a different time, bursting and disappearing as they hit
> the surface.  The surface always has one bubble on it at any given time,
> but as soon as you find it, it's somewhere else. -pondman
I'll crosspost this to physics so you might get a few more answers to
this, but I'll try to describe what's going on in the simplest way
possible.  I'ts been found since the turn of the century that light will
interact with matter in steps or packets that depend on the frequency of
light.  Light will send extremely great jumps of energy to an atom when
it is high in frequency (like clicks on a geiger counter).  Light will
tend to send energy to matter in smaller increments when the frequency
is lower.  The reason why UV light, X-rays, or Gamma rays will cause
cancer is that at the frequency of UV light or greater, those packets
have a high enough energy to break the carbon-carbon bonds that bind
together organic molecules, like the ones that make up DNA.  Each
increment does not have that energy at lower frequencies, however.  If
you have a greater intensity of light, you will have more of these
increments sent to the matter that the light is interacting with.  You
should remember that light still has the properties of constructive and
destructive interference.  If you have two light waves interfere, there
will be nodes of destructive interference where both waves will cancel
out to produce the effect of no light hitting a surface.  If you are
dealing with X-rays, or light at a very low intensity, one interesting
thing that is also observed is that even if you have only one photon, or
increment of light, hitting a screen at a time, you will still see an
aggregate of photons that will show those nodes when they are counted
throughout time.  If you just saw some points or spheres boucing this
way or that without the wavelike properties, you would not see these
wavelike properties that even show up when you observe a screen where
there is only one or so photons being sent at a time.  Conversely, if
you have energy sent to an atom over short periods of time, it is
equivalent to having done so over a small wavelength or high frequency. 
There is a statistical probability that you will have recieved a great
or nonexistant energy jump.  You have much finer detail (smaller jumps)
of the energy you would get if it were over greater distances (lower
frequency).  These wave properties also exist in electrons in atoms, and
that is how all the properties of bonding are formulated in chemistry. 
With regard to bosons and fermions it was formulated in the 1930s or so
that there were two basic ways in which aggregates of particles would
behave.  One would obey what was known as Bose-Einstein statistics, have
what is known as a 'spin' of an integer number, and would consist of
things that would add together indefinately, to produce what we would
regularly think of as 'waves' or 'fields' in more everyday terms. 
Photons of light are Bosons (obey B-E stats).  Other types of particles
would have non-integer 'spins', and curl in on themselves, and obey what
is known as Fermi-Dirac statistics.  Fermions will have only one or two
fermions at a particular physical location.  They will take up space and
regularly be referred to by what we would call 'matter'.  Electrons,
protons, and neutrons are all bosons, as well as a vast array of other
particles that are somewhat like them that are gotten from atom
smashers.  There are supposed to be four 'forces' in the universe. 
Electro-magnetism and Gravity are well known.  The weak force will
convert Neutrons into Protons+electrons+neutrinos or vica versa.  If
there were no weak force around all the Protons in the nucleus could
convert into Neutrons and positrons and the positrons could fly out the
nucleus leaving a neutral nucleus in the atom.  Since all the protons
have a positive charge they would naturally oppose each other because of
electrostatic repulsion (electromagnetic force).  If the positive charge
could get out through interconversion it would do so, and the weak force
opposes that.  The 'strong' force will bind all those protons to each
other in the nucleus, and to the other neutrons as well.  A balance of
'strong' and 'electromagnetic' forces are what will build a stable
nucleus.  The nucleus has 'energy levels' that are in some ways like the
energy levels of electrons in an atom, that are slightly more complex. 
As a rule of thumb, however, a nucleus with an even number of protons,
neutrons, and/or protons+neutrons will be more stable than a nucleus
deficient in any of those categories.  The strong force is thought to be
made up of 'quarks' which have been used as a theoretical way to
describe how protons and neutrons can be built up from these units of
the strong force.  That's QM for the very short of it.  If you could add
a Himalayas worth of mountains of math applied to the subject and a few
others, you could get a PhD in physics.

I'm confused by a statement in Feynman's  _The Character
of Physical Law_.  If someone could clear this up, I'd 
appreciate it.
On p. 57, where he is discussing the conservation of charge,
and local versus nonlocal charge conservation:
"Now comes an interesting question. Is it sufficient to say
only that charge is conserved, or do we have to say more?
If charge were conserved because it was a real particle which
moved around it would have a very special property.  The total
amount of charge in a box might stay the same in two ways.
It may be that charge moves from one place to another within
the box.  But another possibility is that the charge in one
place disappears, and simultaneously arises in another place,
instantaneously related, and in such a manner that the total
charge is never changing.  This second possibility for the
conservation is of a different kind from the first, in which
if a charge disappears in one place and turns up in another
something has to travel through the space in between.  This
second form of charge conservation is called local charge
conservation, and is far more detailed than the simple remark
that the total charge does not change."
My problem is with the word "local" in the last sentence.
Should it be "nonlocal" or am I just very confused.
Thanks,
Derek Owens

--- most of text from THE MECHANICAL UNIVERSE ---
There are two possibilities. One of them  is this. The 
loop is held stationary,  not moving, and I take the magnet and I move
the magnet into the loop. 
 Show a bar magnet moving through the loop.
     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.      
  --/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/-
         `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'  
            ////////   
            |    [.]    
            |(     _J        
            | ^ ( _|          
           / \_____)        
          /  _____   \       
         |  /     \   |            
         |  |     |   |           
         \  /\   /\__ |              
         |  |        \/---
         \   \            )    .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.
          |   >_____/_____) --/---\---/---\---/---\---/- 
          \___                     `-'     `-'     `-'    
          /         \   
          |          |  
          \          \\
           \          |\
            \         | \
             \         | |
              |        |  |
              |       |   |
             |        /   |
            |________/____|
            (_________)____)      
     =====Princeton Univ doormat ===
That causes the current to flow. Now that
case the charges in the loop were not themselves in motion, so it
can't have been the magnetic field of the bar magnet  that made them
move but since they did move
There therefore was an electric field and so we conclude that 
a changing magnetic field, moving the bar magnet, created an electric
field. And that of course was Faraday's great discovery of
Electromagnetic Induction in the 19th century.
                                    ../ ~`~`~'~~'~ ``;; -
                                  '/~////~|\\\\\\~\\\\\~\\\~
                                ~////~//||||\\\\~\\\\\\~\\\\\~
                               ~//~//||||~||||\\\\\\~\\\\\~\\\~
                              ~///|||~||||~||||\\~\\\\\~\\\\\\\\~.
                             ~/<<<<<||<<<<<<\\\\<<<<<"|""\\\~\\\\\~
                            ;\\\\\\\\\~~\\\\\~\\\\\~/""" ""|\\\\""|\
                             |||/\\\\|\\\\~\\\\\\|/        "||"""||\~
                             ||/                           |"""""""" ~
                             |||                               """"""|
                              = ,,,,,,,      ,,,,,,,,,,   ,====""|"""~
                                                            "|""""||~
                              |   \\    /  \   \\            """''|""~
                              |        //    \               ""/~ ||/
                              |        /                     "/P  '~
                              \       |      ,                   |
                               \       \ ~~\_/                  "
                                \                   /       ,.""
                                 \  \............../       ,.
                                  \    \_______/         ,.
                                   \                  ,.'
                                    \              ,.'
                                     \          ,'~
                                   /  ~~~~~~~~~         \
                         _  _  _ /    ___    ____         \ _  _  _
                     /               !   \_/     !                  \
                  /                  !___/~\_____!                    \
                       .-.     .-.     .-.     .-.    
                    --/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/-
                           `-'     `-'     `-'     `-'
And that is one explanation of that experiment.
Now there is another completely different, independent explanation and
that goes this way.  Suppose instead I hold the bar magnet stationary
and I move the loop.  Now of course exactly the same thing happens. But
in this case we have no moving magnet,    no changing magnetic field ,
but instead, the charges in the loop are moving because I am moving the
whole loop.  They have the velocity v and this velocity crossed into
the magnetic field of the bar magnet gives us a force  which causes the
current to flow and that also describes perfectly well  the experiment
that we just saw.   So those two different phenomenon that is to say
this, loop stationary and magnet moving and this,      
magnet stationary and loop moving are actually two completely distinct
independent phenomenon that have completely different  explanations.
When Albert Einstein saw that he said look guys, you just got to be
kidding any yoyo can see that those two things are the same thing.  
    //\\\||///\\              ,------------------------------------
   //|        |\\            ( Look guys, you got to be kidding, any )
  |[ | 
 | ]|          (   yoyo can see that those two things   )
  ||||   .\.  ||||     o O  (   are the same thing.                 )
  |||<    _   >|||   o       '------------------------------------'
      \__(_)_/  o  o       
   _____!___!_____       
  |  |  \   /  |  |       
  |  | _ \./   |  |          
  |  |[_] |    |  |           
  |  |    o    |  |
  |  |    |    |  |
  |  |    o    |  |
  |__|    |    |__|
   WW|    o    |WW
     |    |    |
     |    o    |
     |____|____|
      |   |   |
      |   |   |
      |   |   | 
      |___|___|
       \_/ \_/ art readapted from C. Douthwaite
So it was this simple little experiment that was really the starting
point
of the theory of relativity,  not the Michelson-Morley experiment. Not
some exotic  experiment to detect the motion of the Earth through the 
ether. But this simple little phenomenon that of course everybody knew
about, but which disturbed nobody else , except , Albert Einstein.  And
what disturbed Einstein was not that we had difficulty explaining this
phenomenon this equation explains them perfectly in every case. What
disturbed Albert Einstein was the lack of inner perfection of the
theory and what he did in response was to produce a theory the Special
Theory of Relativity which had just that kind of inner perfection.
--- text quoted from THE MECHANICAL UNIVERSE ---
  The inner perfection
How many people can see that the Successor Axiom of the Peano Axiom
System
  is the same identical Series 
as the Series of the definition of what a P-adic, (an Infinite Integer)
is.
What does this mean? It means that Naturals are the P-adics and that
the old mathematics of Finite Integers was a imprecise, a foggy,
unclear concept. Just as Newtonian Mechanics was wrong and a fake, so
also is the Naturals = Finite Integers a fakery. Quantum Mechanics
replaced Newtonian Mechanics as the true physics. So also, will
Naturals = P-adics replace the fakery that is Finite Integers.
But this simple little phenomenon that of course everybody knew
about, but which disturbed nobody else , except ,Archimedes Plutonium. 
And
what disturbed AP was not that we had difficulty proving simple math
problems as ancient as the ancient Greeks this
phenomenon this identicalness of the Series of the Successor Axiom ,
identical to the Series of p-adic definition explains them perfectly in
every case. What
disturbed AP was the lack of inner perfection of the
theory and what he did in response was to produce a theory the Naturals
= P-adics = Infinite Integers which had just that kind of inner
perfection.

Word Warrior (=green@pipeline.com=) wrote:
: 
: Nowhere in such literature does anyone attempt to
: claim that pollution can't be at least among the
: causes of such disease processes, much less
: actually offer evidence of such.
Excuse me, but this has absolutely nothing to do with your original claim.
Your claim was that if you remove pollution there would be no cancer
whatsoever.  That is pure bullshit.  Several other people have already
pointed out many other things which cause cancer, including 100% pure and
natural sunlight.  Your statement was flat wrong.
Now you are trying to pretend that other people argued that it is
absolutely impossible for pollution to cause cancer.  No one did. 
Pollution can and does cause cancer, but it is not - as you claimed - the
only cause.  You are just raising a smoke screen to hide your own glaring
error, and to pretend that you were right all along.  Why can't you just
admit your mistake? 
-- 
 Jim Walters          
 jwalters@clark.net      "Putting the DOH! in Aikido"                     

Guy Nussbaum wrote:
> 
> is there any work being done trying to determine if our big bang
> is not actually the first, but one of many?
> It is almost impossible to prove something like this, but I think it might
> be possible,
> and if possible can also be explained as a phenomena of other theories and
> forces,
> but first I would like to know if this is even being thought of
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Guy Nussbaum
I think one of the Popes asked S. Hawking not to look any further back
than our Big Bang, so another conspiracy was born.
John

Arthur P Blair wrote:
> 
> I know about AP, but there are alot more wackos that just
> feel obligated to share their Theoy of Everything with
> every damn newsgroup. Has anyone compiled something
> like a wack FAQ? Just a list we can paste into our kill
> files.
> Thanx,
> Art.
Have you seen http://www.alcyone.com/max/links/cranks/ ?
From Erik Max Francis
-- 
D.
mentock@mindspring.com
http://www.mindspring.com/~mentock/index.htm

In article <32D4C8D4.70AA@magna.com.au>,
Mountain Man   wrote:
>In nature, there is ...
>
>* No such thing as a purely analytical solution.
>* No such thing as a contained or closed system.
>* No such thing as an intellectual theory of the All.
>* No such thing as an inertial system.
>* No such thing as an ideal vaccuum.
>* No such thing as a linear relationship.
>* No such thing as an homogenous space/time continuum.
>
>And yet of such ideal things is the basis 
>of the traditional scientific belief.
>
>Why is it so?
Because the problems science is interested in are intractable unless we make
certain simplifying assumptions.
Because we study ideal systems that we can understand that, we hope,
approximate some repeatable phenomena in the real world--approximate them
well enough to be useful.
Because experience (namely, the success of modern science-based technology)
shows us that, in many interesting cases, the approximation is indeed good
enough to be useful.
Because we have yet to come up with a better way to systematically study
the physical universe.
Because if we tried to tackle every problem at once, including every
nonlinearity, nonideality, relativistic modification, etc. we'd never
get off the ground.
Most scientists are well aware that are theories are only models of reality,
incomplete pictures of various phenomena that are reasonably easy to produce
in relative isolation.  It's easy to occasionally mistake the model for the
reality, but paradigms tend to get rearranged often enough in the history
of science that this error is usually surmountable.
Experimentalists acknowledge that the things they neglected or failed to
control will introduce "random error," and that this is inevitable, since
otherwise we'd have to go to an infinite amount of trouble just to do a
simple measurement.  The art of experimental science is to get these random
errors small enough that the phenomenon of interest can be studied without
worrying about them too much.  Every experimental result is only true
"within error," whether it's stated explicitly or not.  On the other hand,
every theoretical result is only true to some level of approximation and
within a certain range of parameters.
You've asked a good question, and I think every now and then we complacent
science-types need to be kicked in the head, and reminded that we're
always talking about models of the world.  The real world itself in totality
is far beyond any imaginable scientific knowledge.  Our models are pictures
of small corners of reality, and no more.
Have fun,
breed

In article <5b0vj3$n04$2@news.be.innet.net>,
Operator  wrote:
>In article <32D3A7C3.6A9D@psi.ch>,
>	Ralph Muench  writes:
>>Hi. I would like to ask a question on the theory of error calculations.
>>
>>Situation:
>>
>>When adding two variables 
>>x1 and x2 with systematic errors dx1 and dx2,
>>the error of the result is the arithmetic sum of dx1 and dx2:
>>dx1 + dx2
>>
>>When adding two variables 
>>y1 and y2 with statistical errors sy1 and sy2,
>>the error of the result is the geometric sum of sy1 and sy2:
>>SQRT( SQR( sy1 ) + SQR( sy2 ) )
>>
>>Question:
>>
>>How do the errors add up if x1 were to be added to y1 ?
>>As far as I know there is nothing in between the arithmetic
>>and the geometric sum.
>
>Ha, interesting issue.  I've had numerous discussions with collegues,
>professors, supervisors etc... on this theme.
>My professor for example was "shocked" to see me find it not all
>that evident that systematic and statistical errors should be added
>in quadrature.
. . .
You're right.
A "pure" systematic error is, just as you said in the part I edited out,
simply a precisely known difference between the number your apparatus gave
you and the number it would have given if it were perfectly calibrated or
adjusted to take into account some subtle phenomenon or something like
that.
Of course, every real number you measure will have some statistical error
in it as well.
So suppose you had x with systematic error dx1 and statistical error dx2.
Similarly you have y, dy1, and dy2.
The situation described in the first post is essentially:
dy1 << dy2 (so the calibration of the y-measurement is close enough that
	random error overwhelms it)
dx2 <~ dx1 (adjusting x for calibration error is worth while)
dx2 << dy2 (essentially all of the random error is in the y measurement).
I would give the result for x + y as:
x + dx1 + y + dy1 +/- sqrt( dx2^2 + dy2^2 ),
which in this case is approximately
x + dx1 + y + dy2.  (Assuming the random errors in x and y are independent.)
A systematic error is not a +/-.  Generally every value you measure will
have both systematic and random error in it, and the two are applied
independently.  What I do is just correct every calibration correction I 
know of, and THEN start applying statistics.
The reason statistical errors add up to less than the simple sum of the
components is that sometimes, randomly, they'll cancel each other out
(at least partially).  Systematic errors don't vary randomly and aren't
subject to that kind of thing.
Have fun,
breed

In nature, there is ...
* No such thing as a purely analytical solution.
* No such thing as a contained or closed system.
* No such thing as an intellectual theory of the All.
* No such thing as an inertial system.
* No such thing as an ideal vaccuum.
* No such thing as a linear relationship.
* No such thing as an homogenous space/time continuum.
And yet of such ideal things is the basis 
of the traditional scientific belief.
Why is it so?
Pete Brown
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 BoomerangOutPost:       Mountain Man Graphics, Newport Beach, {OZ}
 Thematic Threading:     Publications of Peace and Of Great Souls
 Webulous Coordinates:   http://magna.com.au/~prfbrown/welcome.html
 QuoteForTheDay:        " Still round the corner there may wait
                          A new road or a secret gate, 
                          And though I oft have passed them by,
                          A day will come at last when I 
                          Shall take the hidden paths that run 
                          West of the Moon, East of the Sun."
                          - JRR Tolkien (from 'The Hobbit')
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Christopher R Volpe wrote:
> In C, the expression "2^(1/2)" yields the value "2". The reason why is
> left as an exercise for the reader.
Heh; when I said this, no one heard.  :-)
-- 
                             Erik Max Francis | max@alcyone.com
                              Alcyone Systems | http://www.alcyone.com/max/
                         San Jose, California | 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
                                 &tSftDotIotE; | R^4: the 4th R is respect
     "You must surely know if man made heaven | Then man made hell"

In article 
Gary Hampson  writes:
> In article <5ap3jf$1u53@b.stat.purdue.edu>, Herman Rubin
>  writes
> >In article <5abh5j$l3h@news.fsu.edu>, Jim Carr  wrote:
> >>davk@netcom.com (David Kaufman) writes:
> >
> >>>       Should We Have A National Math And Science TV Network?
> >
> >> We already have one.  Public TV was created as "educational TV" 
> >> and used as such when I was a kid.
> >
> >Unless there is a specific course, TV is not a means of learning a
> >subject.  At best it is a means of getting a low-level popularized
> >version of it.
> 
> In the UK we have the Beeb (BBC) of course, in particular BBC2. Channel
> 4 also does a load of educational stuff. Also in this centre of
> civilisation [ ;) ] we have the Open University which basically allows
> degree study at home with the help of tv programs and course books. The
> programs are often transmitted at the most obnoxious times, but if you
> can programme a video recorder you can still get a nights sleep (unless
> youre paranoid of course). It usually takes 5-7 years to study for a
> first degree using this method. I guess they may have a web page.
> -- 
> Gary Hampson
In China we have similar programs on TV.  One channel is exclusively
used for teaching high-school and college level courses ranging from
math to botany to foreign languages and people do get their degrees
this way. 
I don't think this will work well for high school students, but should
be excellent for adults who really want to learn.

In article , depreej@lincoln.ac.nz (Depree, Jonathan A) writes:
>In article  meron@cars3.uchicago.edu writes:
>>From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
>>Subject: Re: Mars Rock Crock!
>>Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 04:00:17 GMT
>
>>In article , depreej@lincoln.ac.nz (Depree, Jonathan A) writes:
>>>The point about "PC Scientists" is well taken, but remember that as well as 
>>>"PC" we each carry around our own form of political correctness. There is a 
>>>constant danger that the work you do and the data you report is colored by 
>>>what you want to find. 
>
>>Definitely.  Can hardly be avoided, given human nature.  That's why, 
>>when analyzing any work, there are two separate questions one should 
>>ask:
>
>>1)  Is the data itself collected and reported honestly (mind you, that 
>>even if it is, that still doesn't mean that it is meaningful).
>
>>2)  Does the data support the conclusions.
>
>You should ask yourself these questions too, while doing the work. I try to 
>make it a habit of mistrusting experiments that tell me what I want to hear.
I make it a habit of mistrusting any experiments, including my own.
>
>>In the case of "The Bell Curve" I would say that the answer to (1) is 
>>yes.  As for (2) an honest answer is "not enough information for a 
>>reliable conclusion".  However, the thesis brought in the book cannot 
>>be dismissed as a posible hypothesis.
>
>Well maybe. Despite your (and my) hate of 'politically correct science' we 
>should remember that scientific papers don't dissapear into a vacuum (well, 
>not always). If you've got a white coat and the right set of letters after 
>your name, people tend to take you seriously, especially if they don't really 
>understand what your saying, but don't want to look dumb by asking questions.
> 
I know what you mean, but that goes beyond the original issue of 
the scientific validity of "The Bell Curve".  Basically you say that 
when dealing with socially or politically sensitive issues a special 
care must be exercised, regarding what should or shouldn't be 
published, how and where.  Which cannot be dismissed out of hand but 
it opens a new (possibly bigger) can of worms.
>You wouldn't tell a pregant woman that her foetus had a serious genetic 
>abnormality unless you were very sure of your data. Public policy based on 
>incorrect science can screw up thousands of lives, particularly when that 
>science tells a lot of people what they want to hear -like don't bother 
>spending tax-payer's money on the poor 'cause it won't help them. If you are 
>going to say something like that and write off ten percent of the population 
>then you must be absolutely sure of your ground. This is a case where 
>hypothesis just isn't enough.
The problem is that there is no such thing as "absolutely sure" in 
science.  At most "sure beyond a reasonable doubt".  So, it is a 
judgement call.  Now, who should exercise this judgement, the 
individual researcher or some official "body".  And if it is the 
second, how you prevent it from becoming censorship of science.
But, as I said before, that's a separate issue.  In any case, even if 
we think that somebody is guilty of poor judgement in publishing some 
results, we should just say this and not invent bogus "scientific 
arguments" to dismiss his writings.  The goal doesn't justify the 
means.
Mati Meron			| "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu		|  chances are he is doing just the same"

I'm sorry about the late notice but I need a response by 1/9/97 so I can
finish my project in time.  Here's my question....
I'm doing a project on how you can take a almost full glass of water and
put some change in it at a restaurant, and then place a napkin over the top
of the glass, and then flip it upside-down rather quickly with little or no
water spilling out.  Then when the waiter or waitress comes by to clean up
or collect their tip, they have to overturn a full glass of water, thus
creating a big mess.
My problem is that I don't know why, putting the napkin over the glass
keeps the water in.  Does it have to do with air pressure, or surface
tension or something else?  If you know why or even think you know why
please e-mail asap.
Thanks in advance,
Ryan Vacca
daves@ccinet.net
P.S. Please don't e-mail to tell me this is a mean joke to play.  It's just
for a physics project.

Wil Milan   wrote:
: jenner wrote:
: > 
: > I'll let his TV series, his published works, and his
: > Pulitzer speak for him.
: I don't doubt Sagan was a bright guy, but bear in mind that TV ratings
: and Pulitzer prizes are determined by people who are largely ignorant of
: science. Thus Sagan's Pulitzer for _Dragons of Eden_ may be considered
: praise of his writing style, but not the accuracy of the material, which
: was sometimes questionable and at times flat-out wrong.
I must honestly claim ignorance of that particular work.
Was it offered as a scientific fact, or fiction?
Please, though, don't let me stop anyone from dancing on the
grave of somene who explained science so well in his book,
_The Demon Haunted World_, especially people with such
impressive credentials.  :)
        -- jenner 
        Web page peek: http://shell.idt.net/~jenner29

On 8 Jan 1997 12:32:10 GMT, fc3a501@AMRISC02.math.uni-hamburg.de (Hauke
Reddmann) wrote:
:Absolute Zero (abz@gnn.com) wrote:
:: 
:: Black holes are "black" because they can suck in light.
:: How can light be sucked in if it moves at a constant speed????  The black hole
:: must have "slowed it down".  On its way back down to the black hole, does light
:: or anything else travel faster than the speed of light?
:: 
:: On more thing, if anyone knows anything about Einsteins' acceleration frame
:: stuff..please explain!!!!
:: 
:Yes, your knowledge of SR/GR is absolute zero, indeed :-)
:
:The light path DEFINES the metric! Remember the famous
:"light bend" solar eclipse experiment? The path ISN'T
:bend! It is straight BY DEFINITION. Your everyday
:experience of space and time is completely useless in
:the vicinity of a black hole.
:Read some GR texts. Come back in 10 years :-)
Sheesh, I'm only in high school...never heard of general relativity until
recently...on the internet...not from the school...
I am taking AP Physics and we're still on mechanics...
-Aboslute Zer0

Tim Tasto  wrote:
>Jeff,
>	I'll take a stab at this one. My understanding is that
>the Reimann tensor is both non-covariant *and* divergent. 
>This is a "bad" thing. Hence, it is contracted to form the Ricci
>tensor, which *is* covariant, but still divergent).
>(The tensors must all be *covariant* in order to be combined with
>the Stress-Energy-Momentum tensor (T(u_v) in the field equations). 
>	Now, however, the Ricci tensor remains divergent (it will not
>conserve energy). So another term "R" was introduced by a great
>intuitive leap by Einstein. The application of "R" results in
>a tensor that non-divergent, the Einstein tensor:
>	G(u_v) = R(u_v) - 0.5 g(u_v) R
>	Finally, then, is the Field Equation itself:
>	R(u_v) - 0.5 g(u_v) R = -8 (pi) G T(u_v)
>One must be careful, though, because the Ricci tensor can yield a
>zero curvature while the Reimann tensor can yield a non-zero
>curvature. 
   So does the Ricci tensor then actually throw away some of the
information contained in the Riemann curvature tensor?  I guess I need
to figure out how many truly independent components are in the Riemann
tensor in four dimensions, and whether there are fewer than that in
the Ricci (contracted Reimann) tensor.  Also I'm wondering whether
going through a simple example in three dimensions (say a sphere)
would shed much intuituve light on the meaning of the Ricci
contractions.
   Thanks to all who have replied, your responses have been very
helpful.  In particular, going back to my notes makes me realize that
the need for divergencelessness... is an obvious necessity (is there a
simple way to see Lorentz covariance in the Einstein tensor?).  And
Nathan, I definitely plan to go to that web site, as soon as I get
time.
    jmc

I know about AP, but there are alot more wackos that just
feel obligated to share their Theoy of Everything with
every damn newsgroup. Has anyone compiled something
like a wack FAQ? Just a list we can paste into our kill
files.
Thanx,
Art.

i'm a senior in high school, and in my physics class, we are having a 
tincan derby (ie rolling a tincan down an incline).  The rules are that 
(a) it must contain something edible and (b) it must not be modified, 
although i'm sure i could get away with subtle things.  Anyways... could 
someone please take a minute and give me a briefing on rotational inertia 
and rotational velocity, so i know what characteristics i would like to 
look for in my can.  prizes will be awarded for both fastest and slowest 
can.
Thanks in advance,
J.P. McClain
JPMcClain@colint.com
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
      http://www.dejanews.com/     Search, Read, Post to Usenet

In article <01bbfd86$b1a8df20$0100007f@rec> "Johan Fredrik �hman"  writes:
>   > There was a case of two people being permanently blinded at such
>   > an event some years ago.
>   BY A LASERPONTER ???????  You mean a regular diode-laserpointer
>   powered by a 1.5 v battery ?
A powerful gas laser at a rock concert or something - it was in the missing
text :-(.
--- sam : Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ: http://www.paranoia.com/~filipg/REPAIR/

> >       A couple days ago I asked my friend the following question:
> >       If you were at the equator and wanted to use an airplane to travel
> >all the way across the planet to the other side from where you are (the great
> >circle distance), which way would be better to go: east or west?
> >       She said it didn't matter as long as you're in the earth's atmosphere. I
> >was thinking that it would be faster if you went the opposite direction that the
> >earth is rotating--go west. That way, the earth would rotate under your airplane
> >and make your destination come to you earlier. If you go east, you'd have to play
> >"catch up" with the destination. But this is what I thought.
> >       Could somebody shed some light for me? Does it really not matter if you're
> >in earth's atmosphere?
> >
> >       Note: If it is true that going west is faster, then I would have no choice
> >but to acknowledge the corrolary that if a vehicle is  floating is the air, then
> >after a while, the people on board would notice that the earth had rotated without
> >them! This leads me to believe that going east or west makes little difference.
> >       Am I right?
> 
> Reference:  "Around the World in 80 Days," Jules Verne.  You can cut a
> full day of travel off your time, at least, by going in the proper
> direction.  In fact, compared to going around the other way, you save two
> days.
> 
> If you go a bit north or south of the equator, the trade winds will make
> a big difference.
   I don't see this at all.  Any craft you're going to be taking off in
will have the same initial velocity relative to the ground, and if we
assume the air at the equator moves with the earth, then that craft has
some value that is its maximum airspeed.  Doesn't matter if it's
traveling east or west.  Air speed is still the same, and the speed of
the air is zero relative to the ground, so either way the craft has the
same maximum velocity to the ground in both directions.
   Now, if the earth somehow rotated underneath a stationary atmosphere,
then sure, flying in a direction opposite the earth's rotation would get
you there faster.  You'd gain better than 1,000 mph going in the right
direction.
-- 
                                 Bill
 ------------------------------------
| If everything is possible,         |
| nothing is knowable.  Be skeptical.|
 ------------------------------------

I found your comments on the speed of light colors to be interesting.  I
have worked up a model which predicts that the speed  of "C" is a
variable.  It changes the currently accepted model by treating light as
any other wave; that is, it has a source (the photon) and an effect (the
emr wave); the medium is the matrix of gravitational force which fills the
universe.  A part of this is the prediction that light will display
gravitational diffraction as well as the (demonstrated) refraction; this
would be caused by the slight difference in velocity through a field of
varying intensity.
I would like to discuss this with anyone interested in theoretical
modeling.
jlknapp@tenet.edu

>Pardon me for jumping in, but I don't think it can be argued that Sagan
>did sometimes lead people astray in the sense that he sometimes played
>fast and loose with the facts.
    No pardon required; this is an open forum.
    I don't think your "leading people astray" has quite the same
scope as the other fellow's.  But in any case, I do not claim that
Sagan was perfect.  I know of two errors in "Dragons of Eden", and
though it's been years since I read it, I also seem to remember some
points I disagreed with.  Also, former astronaut Frank Borman relates
a story that paints him as a rude idealogue.  No doubt there are other
lapses as well.  It would take something much worse to convince me
that Sagan's contribution was mostly a positive one.
>He often put on the airs of having much more expertise than he did,
>particularly in areas outside astronomy, sometimes committing blunders
>such as calling a fish an invertebrate (as he did in _Dragons of Eden_,
>as someone noted earlier). Sagan also seemed prone to glossing over 
>inconvenient" facts or alternative viewpoints so as to leave the impression
>that his view of a matter was the only logical position, and that too
>"leading people astray," I think.
    Except for the "fish foulup", this is pretty vague.  Care to give
me some specifics?
>Sagan had many good qualities, I think, but his ego sometimes overcame
>his intellectual honesty, and in my mind that is a very bad thing. No
>matter how many good things he wrote, whenever I read Sagan my B.S.
>detector is on full alert, as it is with any author whom I've caught
>bending or glossing the truth on multiple occasions. When I caught him
>doing that in areas in which I know something, it made me very leery of
>trusting what he said in areas about which I know less. That, to me, is
>a big black mark against any author or self-proclaimed expert.
    No argument there.  B.S. is bad no matter what the source.  But
again, how about some specifics?
>In a more cynical moment I once mentioned to a friend of mine (a real
>Sagan fanatic) that Carl Sagan's greatest gift was sounding
>knowledgeable to the unknowing. That's a big component of what made him
>such a media celebrity; to audiences like the _Tonight_ show and _Good
>Morning America_ he always presented himself as The Voice of Scientific
>Authority when it was often his philosophical prejudices and preferences
>talking. 
    Always?  A very sweeping statement.
>Of course everyone has preferences and prejudices. But much too often
>Sagan cloaked *his* bents and prejudices behind the mantle of science,
>and thus left many (including many of his most devoted followers, it
>seems) with the impression that they'd heard the voice of science when
>in fact they'd only heard Carl Sagan. In my mind that does amount to
>leading people astray, and it's not something that should be glossed
>over in eulogizing him.
    I think it's OK in a eulogy to gloss over a whole host of sins.
This is, after all, customary respect for the newly dead and kindness
to their loved ones.  The balanced assessments can come later.
    When they do (I'm sure someone is working on a biography of Sagan,
though I haven't yet heard of any), I think you will find that he
comes off pretty well.

To summarize:
Einstein attacks the classical action at a distance that Wheeler and
Feynman embraced.
Einstein: Field? Yes! Instantaneous action-at-a-distance? No!
Wheeler and Feynman: Field? No! Delayed action-at-a-distance from the
future? Yes!
�I would also like to mention , as one internal asymmetry of this
[Newtonian] theory, that the inertial mass that occurs in the law of
motion also appears in the law of gravitational force, but not in the
expressions for the other forces.�
Einstein also says that �the division of energy into two essentially
different parts, kinetic and potential energy, must be felt to be
unnatural.� What does he mean by that? Why does he use the word
�unnatural�? �H. Hertz felt this to be so disturbing that, in his very
last work, he attempted to free mechanics from the concept of potential
energy (i.e., from the concept of force).
Einstein did abolish gravitational force in general relativity. He
replaced Newton�s instantaneous classical action at a distance force by
local curved 4D spacetime geometry. The test mass simply rolls along a
slower than light locally straightest path in spacetime called the
�timelike geodesic�. This geodesic while as straight as it can be in
curved 4D spacetime, corresponds, counterintuitively, to the motion of a
point particle on a closed precessing ellipse when viewed in seemingly
flat 3D space.  The modern fiber bundle theory of gauge forces partially
attempts to do with the electroweak and strong forces what Einstein did
with the gravity force. These forces are curvatures in the connection
among tiny extra-dimensional hyperspheres attached to each spacetime
event. This is still classical. All of the gauge forces  are
intensity-dependent and form-independent rocklike i.e.,  material
things. They must be combined with the intensity-independent and
form-dependent thoughtlike nonmaterial, but still physical, quantum
superpotential to get the modern theory of relativistic quantum fields
that create and destroy quanta and their anti-quanta.