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In article <32e020e8.8007239@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
Con Dowler  wrote:
>Maybe somone can help me settle an argument.
>An average sized man wearing a kevlar vest is standing twenty feet
>from his assailant, who shoots him with a Minie-ball firing,
>breech-loading Springfield.  The shot hits him square in the chest.
>
>What's the damage?  Death, broken bones or just bruises?
Minie-ball, that's one of those lead balls like they use in
muzzle-loaders, right? Then the lead would probably smush out and not go
through the vest.  But it could definitely break bones, depending on
where it hits. The impact will be transmitted straight through the vest
and to the body.  It would be like stopping a club with winter clothes; it
will give you some padding but not keep you from harm.  It could kill,
depending on things like where it hits and the physical condition of the
target.  But then, people have survived shots to unprotected midsections,
so that one is hard to predict.
-- 
"Good things come in small packages.  But big things can't, unless they're
inflatable or require some assembly." - The Tick

Brian J Flanagan wrote:
> >
> > But I'd never heard that soldiers on a bridge were expected to randomize
> > their steps.  Can anybody who has been to boot camp verify that?
> > --
Good Question!
I've heard the "break step" answer in many TV progams, but never from a
reputable source.  Are there any History buffs around that can settle
this?

         Entropy??--The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics--
   The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics may be stated as:Natural processes tend to
  move toward a state of greater disorder or an increase in Entropy.One ex
  ample being if you put a layer of salt in a jar and cover it with a layer
  of pepper,when you shake it you'll get a thorough mixture no matter how
  long you shake it you will not get it to seperate again into two layers.
   This is not correct and I take issue with it.The falacy lies with our
  concept of how we define Order and Disorder.In regard to the example gi
  ven above(let's assume for starters that the grains of salt and pepper
  are the same size and density{I don't like playing with loaded dice}),
  when you shake the jar the probability of any paticular grain of salt or
  pepper occupying it's former position in the jar are just as astronomic
  al than if they returned to their original positions.There is nothing
  special about the first configuration of the particles!!!.Let me clarify
  this a little further.My desk is what some people(especially my wife),
  would call a complete mess or state of disorder.Now I know right where
  to lay my hands on everything,but my wife is appaled at the mess,so when
  I go out she tidies it up and puts everything "in order".When I get home
  I'm the one who's furious because I can't find a damm thing.To me NOW 
  everything is in a total mess or state of disorder.
   Perhaps a better example is as the following---Consider four people sit
  ting at a table with a deck of cards(playing Bridge{if you don't know the
  game it dosen't matter,you'll get the point i'm making here}).The cards
  are given a good shuffel and 13 cards are dealt to each person one card
  at a time.To their amazement when they look at their cards each person has
  a complete suit,not only that but there all "in order",the spade ace being
  the first card followed by the spade king and so on down to the spade two.
  The same happens to the other three with the three remaining suits.They l
  eave the game claiming that the dealer rigged the deck for the odds of th
  ocurring would be as astronomical as it would be for my spelling to be co
  rrect.But in fact there is nothing unique about this distrabution of cards
  for if the cards were reshuffeled and this time each person received a so
  called "random distrabution" of cards,the probability on any other redeal
  of receiving this identical "random" hand are just as high against the od
  ds!.We are the ones who place a unique state of order to the first deal of
  cards,because it's us who're RIGGING the rules(or laws if you like).Mother
  Nature assigns no special uniqueness to that first deal.We are instintivly
  preprogrammed to look for patterns in nature in order to survive as a spe
  cies,but the cosmos is completly indifferent to this so called increase in
  entropy,it has no meaning for her.
   Therefore while to most of us the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics may seem valid
  on a grander scale it is meaningless!!!.
                            George Penney

Con Dowler wrote:
> 
> Maybe somone can help me settle an argument.
> An average sized man wearing a kevlar vest is standing twenty feet
> from his assailant, who shoots him with a Minie-ball firing,
> breech-loading Springfield.  The shot hits him square in the chest.
> 
> What's the damage?  Death, broken bones or just bruises?
> 
   Ballistic armor, for the most part, is designed to stop bullets
ejected by handguns, not rifles.  If by Springfield, you mean 30-06,
then no "body armor" will stop a bullet shot from said weapon.  Yes, a
flak jacket might, but no one, not even cops, wear flak jackets.
   The wearer of body armor shot at close range by a 30-06 will be quite
dead, ball ammo or not.
-- 
                                 Bill
 ------------------------------------
| If everything is possible,         |
| nothing is knowable.  Be skeptical.|
 ------------------------------------

Jason Kodish wrote:
> Ok, folks, here's the nub of the question. Is the effect of the twin
> paradox really due to accelleration at all?
> Well, the answer I suspect is, yes and no......
It's not due to acceleration per se, but instead a change of inertial
frames (that is, a boost).
-- 
        Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE; / email:  max@alcyone.com
                      Alcyone Systems /   web:  http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 San Jose, California, United States /  icbm:  37 20 07 N  121 53 38 W
                                    \
           "Gods are born and die, / but the atom endures."
                                  / (Alexander Chase)

In article <32ddf066.1015272@news.hkstar.com> Alex Tsui,
alextsui@hkstar.com writes:
>I was just wondering, suppose two persons were 10 light years away
>from each other, and they were strong enough to hold a 10 light years
>long rod that could not be stretched nor be contracted.  if 1 of the
>person pulls or pushes the rod, will the person 10 light year years
>away immediately sense the change?  IF he was able to do that, then
>wouldn't that be regarded as FTL comm?
A ³rod² 10 LY long would most likly have more mass then any 2 planets.
safe bet they would move first

pcp2g@karma.astro.Virginia.EDU (Twisted STISter) writes:
>HOWEVER, the effect is the opposite of what you want-- it compresses
>the disk of the Moon (or the Sun) vertically, making the Moon look
>squashed. The horizontal component remains the same. So refraction by
>air not only cannot be the cause of the illusion, but actually acts
>to negate it somewhat!
Not only that, but the moon at the horizon is further away than the
moon at the zenith by an amount equal to the radius of the earth.
Hence the visual angle is actually smaller at the horizon. The
difference is a little under 2 percent.
The moon illusion is explained by a mechanism called "constancy",
which is described in many books on vision, including Perception,
by Irving Rock, Scientific American Library, ISBN 0716750015.
-- 
Ed Taft     
Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, California USA

Brent Hetherwick wrote:
>If'n you don't think that atonal music be exist'n, what's all th' >bitchin' for, honky?  And hows come I don' see you bellyachin' 'bout >all th' goddamn racket made by cars and construction an' shit like that >when they ain't gots no "fancy pants John Cage" scores in front of 'em?
> Y'know, th' cool thing 'bout noise is that it makes limp-wrists like
> y'self get the'r panties all in a bunch.
Brent Hetherwick: I competely agree. However, "honky," I don't see the
point in talking (writing) like a fool.

Eric Flesch (ericf@central.co.nz) wrote:
: All of the "Yes" answers notwithstanding, it must be noted that the
: gravitation of energy has never been observed.  General Relativity,
: which posits such a energy-gravity link, is only a theory.  A theory
: which will in time be superseded by another theory.
Actually, it has been observed.  More precisely, it is known
from observation that 
1) energy contributes to inertial mass; and
2) inertial and gravitational mass remain equal no matter what
   proportion of the inertial mass comes from energy.
For example, the proportion of inertial mass due to electrostatic
binding energy varies from element to element.  But the acceleration
due to gravity does not vary.  Experimentally, electrostatic
binding energy in nuclei gravitates the same as the equivalent
mass to an accuracy of one part in 10^3 or so; magnetostatic energy
gravitates the same as the equivalent mass to an accuracy of one
part in 10^7; the electromagnetic energy in hyperfine interactions
gravitates the same as the equivalent mass to an accuracy of one
part in 10^6 or thereabouts; and weak interaction energy gravitates
the same as the equivalent mass to an accuracy of one part in 10^2.
Furthermore, observations of the Lunar orbit show that the Moon's
gravitational binding energy gravitates the same as the equivalent
mass to an accuracy of about one part in 10^11.  See Will's book
_Theory and experiment in gravitational physics_.
You might also want to look at the _Feynman lectures on gravitation_,
which have just been published by Addison-Wesley.  See in particular
chapters 5 and 6.  In chapter 5, Feynman discusses linearized general
relativity, and shows that it gives the wrong result for the precession
of Mercury's perihelion.  In chapter 6, he adds in the gravitational
field due to the energy of the Sun's gravitational field, and shows
that this gives the correct result.  So it is because of the gravity
of gravitational energy that general relativity succeeds.
Steve Carlip
carlip@dirac.ucdavis.edu

In article <5bohpq$qel@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>,
odessey2@ix.netcom.com (Allen Meisner) quotes my comment
|> >The "length" between two points (events associated with a time and a
|> >spatial location) on such a curve is interpreted as the time interval between
|> >these events as measured by a clock carried with the body during its motion.
and asks
|>     Do you mean that the worldline of a body preexists in some sense
|> and that it is only because our cognition of reality is temporally
|> limited by our senses that the illusion of motion arises?
I'm trying to avoid any discussion of the genuine and nontrivial
philosophical problems posed by relativity (if you're interested
in those see the very enjoyable book
Author:       Sklar, Lawrence.
Title:        Space, time, and spacetime.
Pub. Info.:   Berkeley, University of California [1974].
LC Subject:   Space-and-time.
which come to think of it has a remarkably clear explanation for the
nonmathematician of both STR and GTR; I haven't seen his more recent book
Author:       Sklar, Lawrence.
Title:        Philosophy and spacetime physics / Lawrence Sklar.
Pub. Info.:   Berkeley : University of California Press, c1985.
LC Subject:   Space-and-time.
              Philosophy-and-science.
but if it's as good as the first it is very good!); I am only trying
to explain that the GEOMETRICAL INTERPRETATION of STR introduced by Hermann
Minkowski is quite simple and completely clarifies (IMHO) nonparadoxes
like the "twin paradox" and its kin.  Indeed, Minkowski's picture
is no more complicated, really, than ordinary trigonometry and solid
geometry.  In broad outline (not in the mathematical details) even the
picture of curved spacetime later introduced by Einstein himself
is not much more complicated.
Thus, I would take the mathematics of Lorentz transformations for
granted.  Then the geometric interpretation introduced by Minkowski is
an inevitable consequence.  The point I have been trying to make
is that there is nothing internally inconsistent in the MATHEMATICS
of relativity; in particular, the geometric picture is just as
self consistent as euclidean geometry (just less familiar).
Under these ground rules I would avoid phrases like "pre-exists"
and "illusion of motion".  I would say that the world line associated
with a "body" is a mathematical idealization in the same way that the
"point mass" is an idealization.  It is the curve you obtain by
imagining the "moving point" to be replaced by a curve representing
the entire history throughout time of the body.  The neccesary
connection with Newtonian physics comes about by placing the quadratic
form
   t^2 - x^2 - y^2 - z^2
on the spacetime in the same way that one places the quadratic form
   x^2 + y^2 + z^2 on ordinary space.
Then unit tangent vectors along the world line (one must assume these
to all be "timelike" according to the classification described in
a previous post)  will decompose into two orthogonal components,
one an ordinary three dimensional vector interpreted as the ordinary
velocity of the body (at a particular time) as measured by a particular
inertial observer, and the other a scalar interpreted as the time
dilation factor of a clock carried by the body, as measured with respect
to the same inertial observer.
The well illustrated book
Author:       Taylor, Edwin F.
Title:        Spacetime physics [by] Edwin F. Taylor [and] John Archibald
              Wheeler.
Pub. Info.:   San Francisco, W. H. Freeman [1966].
LC Subject:   Relativity-Physics.
              Space-and-time.
MeSH Subject: Physics.
gives an exceptionally readable account of all this, by the way, so
I would really urge anyone trying to follow this discussion to go
out and read this book.  It is not long.
|> If we could
|> be present throughout time, we would see a continous picture of the
|> body stretching from the infinite past to the infinite future?
Under the ground rules stated above, I would avoid phrases like
"present throughout time".  Again, the world line is only a mathematical
idealization.  If spacetime is taken to be R^4 with the above mentioned
quadratic form (as is usual in special relativity) then world lines would
be generally infinite in the simplest possible version of the theory.
(For simplicity we should avoid considering collisions, fission, 
Feynman diagrams, etc.)
|> another idea. Time dilation or length contraction, whichever you
|> prefer, creates a gap in space which stresses or stretches space. The
|> body is contrained to move in order to reduce the gap and therefore the
|> stretching and stressing of space. Is this a plausible expalnation?
Not to me.  I have no idea what you might even mean by "a gap in space
which stresses or stretches space", whereas--- this is the primary
point I've been trying to make--- whatever one's initial impression
may be, upon closer study the geometrical interpretation of relativity
turns out to be clear, consistent, and unambiguous.
|> I
|> admit that it is highly speculative, but it is simple and elegant. 
Not to me.  I have been trying to explain that, quite apart from the
question of whether it is a "correct" physical theory, STR (and GTR)
are each associated with beautiful, elegant, and self consistent
geometrical interpretations--- just as Newtonian physics (while regarded
today as only an "approximate" physical theory) is beautiful and elegant,
in fact the very model of a mathematical model.  It is true that none
of these theories even attempt to answer the question (which may not
really make much sense anyway) of what motion or gravitation "IS".  They
simply attempt to provide a way to think about these things which is
not only conceptually clear but which also enables one to compute
quantitative predictions which hold up well against experiment.
Chris Hillman

>Keith Stein  writes:
>
>>This could get expensive if it gets to court,but i do think that this
>>current computer i'm using, with it's Bloody Windows, Bloody '95 is
the
>>worst Bloody computer it has ever been my displeasure to use !
Why don't you go back to your Sinclair?
Tom Potter       http://pobox.com

HeikoFy wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> What current is necessary to heat a filament with a specific electrical
> resistance; diameter and length (full length, not as a helix) are given
> (e.g.
> in a tube) ?
> 
Once again off the top of my head, check the "Handbook of Chemistry and
Physics".  It generally contains any piece of information which has ever
been found usefull by anyone (mine's at work).  It usually takes some
effort to tranfer the units in which they give the information into
something specific to your problem, though.

ben  wrote:
>Hi people,
>	My name is Ben, and I have a friend in elementary school who 
>needs some help for a science project. Using materials available around 
>the home, she must keep a single regular-sized ice-cube from melting for 
>5 hours. Nothing commercial such as igloo ice packs, or iceboxes are 
>permitted.
>	She's tried stuff like saran wrap, styrofoam bowls and wood 
>chips, but the cube is completely melted by the end of the 5 hours.
>	If anyone has any tips or suggestions, they would be greatly 
>appreciated.
She could first wrap the cube in aluminum foil so the water doesn't drip out.
then suround with lots of dry fluffy cotton-batt and vapor seal that in more
aluminum foil with double folded seems (like an evelope) to keep moister out.
Put the whole thing in a zip-lock bag.
The aluminum foil will reduce the passage of radiant heat , and a good vapor
seal is needed to stop humidity -- reducing the heat of condensation.
Duncan
>									
>Thanks in advance   :)
>bensayo@ibm.net

meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
> 
> In article <32E02184.6115@erols.com>, Dennis Nelson  writes:
> >meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <32DE8A53.1D18@spam.com>, Greg Chaudion  writes:
> >> >Jim Carr wrote:
> >> >
> >> >{Cut}
> >> >
> >> >>  The attitude of the US military towards weapons testing was that
> >> >>  of a nation still at war with a dangerous enemy.  They did not
> >> >>  test when winds were blowing the wrong way, but they did not delay
> >> >>  tests when conditions were uncertain.  Compared to other effects
> >> >>  of government policies, the risk was not that bad and the exposures
> >> >>  of downwinders cannot be compared to what Slotin got -- or what a
> >> >>  person being treated for cancer gets, for that matter.
> >> >
> >> >So, you are justifying the deaths of civilians because the big bad wolf
> >> >was at the door.
> >>
> >> Yes.  Do you realize how many civilians did die in various countries
> >> due to a lack of preparadness for war.
> >
> >And how many died due to thorough preparations for war?  Bogus argument.
> 
> Nothing bogus.  Check numbers and compare.  Consider that it was the
> lack of preparadness of western democracies for war that convinced
> Hitler that in spite of WWI experiences his conquest plans stand a
> chance.
> 
> >> >Was not a similar defense used during the war crime trials after WWII.
> >>
> >> No.  Else the whole top brass of the Allied military would've to stand
> >> trial too.  It was well understood that civilians may get hurt in the
> >> course of military operations.  What was considered a crime (though
> >> even this only selectively so) was intentional targeting of civilians,
> >> not compelled by any military rationale.
> >
> >Exactly.  Both sides losts their minds along with their morality during the
> >second world war.
> 
> Really? Well, yes, lots of it could've been prevented by an outright
> surrender to Hitler, right?
Absolutely not!  That does not change the fact that most of the civilian 
casualties of war happened after Hitler was already militarily defeated
and the Luftwaffe had been decimated.  The waves of fire bombing, saturation
bombing, carpet bombing and nuclear bombing of civilian targets took place
in 1945 after the Germans and Japanese were already defeated militarily and
were unable to defend against air attacks.  These attacks had no other goal
than revenge, they violated the wartime rule against attacking non-combattants,
and were immoral and evil.
Dennis Nelson

Dan Evens includes:
     Not all that incredible.  If it is plutonium oxide, it is
     roughly as chemically poisonous as caffeine. You don't see
     too many terrorists hijacking coffee shipments and
     threatening to blow them up.
Plutonium oxide is hardly poisonous at all.  
Professor Bernard Cohen of the University of Pittsburgh, and an expert
on radiological hazards, offered to eat a gram of plutonium oxide or
breathe a liter of air contaminated with whatever plutonium oxide
particles would stay in suspension for one minute.  He calculated that
because of the chemical inertness of plutonium oxide the added
radiation exposure would be equivalent to his taking a six month
sabbatical in Denver.  At 5,000 feet, Denver has more cosmic rays than
Pittsburgh.
He did not offer to eat methylated plutonium.  That is absorbable by
the human body and would have given him heavy metal poisoning.
(Apparently all heavy metals, e.g. lead, are poisonous if ingested in
form that lets the stomach absorb them.)
I don't know if methylated plutonium is a lot more poisonous than the
corresponding chemical form of lead.  If it is anywhere close, 80
grams wouldn't make much of a weapon, no matter what the chemical
form.
Of course, if you could get each of your enemies to step up and eat
the exact lethal dose for him of plutonium cyanide, you could stretch
your 80 grams into killing quite a few.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Bruce C. Fielder (bfielder@quadrant.net) wrote:
: Religion is based on "faith", science is based on "observation".
: These are not mutually exclusive.
	Good point.  Along the way to making the case for the 
possibility of a God, you seem to be making a lot of assumptions 
about what God would have to be like.
: For example, consider a world is which any sinwas Imediately punished
: -say, by pain.  How many people would brave the pain to 'sin' when the
: punishment was imediately there?
: Of course, this eliminates the proposition of 'free will'.  After all,
: if you are imediately punished, "free will" can hardy be said to apply.
	How do you know there is free will or that a God would grant 
it to us?
: At best, god would be selecting the stupid.
	Why should God care?  Maybe the Creator is an apathetic Deity.
Maybe It got bored with the Universe.
: By extension, ANY type of proof for the existence of god is infringement
: upon our free will.  (If YOU had proof of god's existance, how stupid
: would you have to be to knowingly choose hell?)  
	How do you know there's a Hell?  Maybe God doesn't 
punish sinners.
: And, if proof was
: available, but only to those who had studied science (or theology), god
: would obviously be favouring those who were rich enough to study -
: clearly contradicted by anyone's version of the scriptures.
	I'd like to believe that, too, but how do know that *any* 
scriptures are correct?  (BTW, there *are* scriptures that don't 
include the Western idea of a God.)
: Therefore, if god exists, s/he cannot be proved or disproved by anything
: we may discover in science.  
: Logic cannot prove or disprove God; but it can prove that no matter what
: we learn about the world, it has no bearing upom whether God exists.
	And whether God exists has no bearing on whether It grants us free
will, or cares about humanity, or has a Hell. 
-- 
Bob Teeter (rteeter@netcom.com)	|	"Write me a few of your lines"
http://www.wco.com/~rteeter/	|	-- Mississippi Fred McDowell
"You might say that, but I couldn't possibly comment." -- Francis Urquhart
		"Only connect" -- E. M. Forster

On 17 Jan 1997 00:58:55 GMT, "Peter Diehr" wrote:
>Eric Flesch  wrote in article
>> Light is composed of photon particles which move in
>>probability-based  wave-like patterns.  The photons themselves
>>have no wave-like properties, they are just particles.
>
>This is a very inaccurate description of a photon.  The state
>vector (or wave function, if you prefer to go to that notation), contains
>all information; the photon number operator tells you how many
>photons are present.  You can also determine the probability of an
>interaction from the state vector.   Interference effects enter via the
>state vector. Wave and particle are aspects of the state vector.
> You cannot truly dispense with either aspect.
The question, Peter, is what a photon IS, not what it DOES.  I suppose
that if someone asked you about cars, you would describe roads.
Wave functions, state vectors, etc., all describe what a photon does.
As for what the photon is, it's just a particle.  Ask Feynman.  (well,
anyway, read Feynman  :-)
Eric

On Thu, 16 Jan 1997 10:05:23 GMT, Ray Tomes wrote:
>What is the distance between quarks in a nucleon?
>Is there some experimental or theoretical value for this?
I would think it unlikely that quarks occupy space exclusive of
eachother in a neoclassical way.  Just my opinion.
Eric

Anthony Potts  wrote :
>On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, Iain Jameson wrote:
>> 
>> But we pay you to do that. The rest of us drink expensive French
>> champaigne,
>> even thought the Australian stuff is better, and eat caviar, and go to
>There is no such thing as Australian Champagne.
True, but only because the French are afraid to let us
call it that.
snip
>> 
>> That's when we aren't on the slopes or in the spa with the countess'
>> daughters,
>> or sons if that's your preference
>> 
>I don't actualy understand what your post is getting at. If it's about
>skiing, yes, I like to ski. Fortunately CERN is close enough to the Jura
>that one can ski in the morning, and still put in a good two hour day in
>the afternoon.
Um, It was a joke son. 
I really should add smiley faces in future.
>Anthony Potts
>CERN, Geneva
Iain
Adelaide, South Australia.

Im Artikel <32E05618.7CD8@well.com>, Jack Sarfatti 
schreibt:
>The concept of ‘acceleration relative to space’ then
>loses all meaning and with it the principle of inertia
>along with the paradox of Mach.
Anyone willing to elaborate on Mach's paradox? Or is it in the FAQ
somewhere? Is it the same as the often named 'Mach's principle' And/or
what's that?
The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly deformed.
Lichtenberg, Sudelbuecher
__________________________________
Lorenz Borsche
Per the FCA: this eMail adress is not to 
be added to any commercial mailing list.
Uncalled for eMail maybe treated as public.

Alison Brooks  wrote:
> Rich Rostrom  writes
> >Alison Brooks  wrote:
> >
> >The main difference was that there was no land border with a Communist
> >state a few miles away. The Communist guerrillas in Malaya were forced
> >to operate entirely on their own resources. The Viet Cong were supported
> >by hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese troops and lavish quantities
> >of arms.
> >
> 
> Mind you, the US and other forces deployed a fair number of troops and
> used quite a lot of arms.
And the Communist forces lost every battle. Which didn't matter. Because
they had a secure base area nearby, and could keep the war going as long
as they wanted to. The Viet Cong insurgency was, basically, defeated.
But it is all but impossible to defuse an insurgency while battalions
and regiments of heavily armed troops continually invade the country,
disrupting the government, providing the guerrillas with tons of arms,
and helping them coerce cooperation from the population.
Eventually the US became confused and disgusted and gave up; pulled
out all troops and cut off all aid. Then the Communists, with their 
_continued_ superpower backing, crushed their opposition with a massive
conventional attack.
> Britain, on the other hand, had rather
> restricted resources to play with. My understanding is that, in Borneo,
> on average, 1 British soldier had 2 miles of border to keep track of.
> Numbers of helicopters deployed by Britain was very low.
> 
> Lots vs lots on the one hand, and little vs little on the other.
As Joe Askew points out, you're conflating the Chinese-Malayan
Communist insurgency with the Indonesian Konfrontasi against Sarawak.
> And this is one of the key points: the infiltrators had relatively
> little local support. The British forces went to some considerable
> trouble to win the "hearts and minds" of the local inhabitants.
They had 120 years and conplete ruling authority to do so. Sarawak
was a British colony (or unofficial protectorate, in the days of
Rajah Brooke) from 1840.  Brooke and his successors were effective
rulers in the best British colonlal tradition, and the loyalty they
earned was passed on to the British authorities.
The US came into Viet Nam late, and after about 80 years of French
colonial misrule. The US had no legal authority in Vietnam, and had
to do everything through the Republic of Vietnam government.
Britain, in Malaya and in Borneo, was in charge. 
> As a  result, they and not the insurgents received the local support.
The problem in Vietnam was that even when the populace preferred the
Repbulic to the Viet Cong, it was dangerous for any of them to say
so - because the threat of retaliation (a stock in trade of insurgents
and guerrillas) was backed up by powerful military forces.
It's really hard to build up the fabric of a nation when the country
is being trashed by major invasions.
-- 
Rich Rostrom  | You could have hit him over the head with it and he
              | wouldn't have minded. He never did mind being hit
R-Rostrom@    | with small things like guns and axe handles.
bgu.edu       | - Ellis Parker Butler, "That Pup of Murchison's"

Peter Berdeklis (peter@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca) wrote:
: On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, Ken wrote:
: > Doug Jones said:
: > >In ice, protons and negative holes are mobile.
: > 
: > Please tell me where you got this interesting tidbit.  Any ice, or
: > just water ice?  Why does it behave in a manner different from 
: > other solids?  If the protons are in motion, what supports the
: > crystal lattice?  Why is a proton, which is 2000 times more massive
: > than an electron, moving instead of the electron?
: This is true of water ice definitely.  I don't know about other forms.
:
: Remember that water is H2O, and in the molecule the electrons of the 
: hydrogens fill the outer shells of the oxygen molecule (this causes the 
: dipole of H2O).  Therefore the electrons are tightly bound to the oxygen 
: and are not free to move as charge carriers as they are in metals.
: As to why the hydrogen ions (protons) move as charge carriers, that is 
: still a matter of some debate.  From Hobbs, _Ice Physics_:
        Perhaps that is part of the reason I have trouble
trying to push voltage through water.   I run steam vaporizers
as humidifiers when the temperature is below freezing outside,
I have sensitive mucous membranes and get head colds and sore
throat if the air indoors dries allowing airborne bacteria
to migrate from carpets and furniture into the air.
        If I use pure water, 120 volts will not cross 5 mm
at sufficient current to boil any significant amount of
water in a given time.
        Since my vaporizers are all plastic with carbon
electrodes I can use table salt to ionize the water so
that I can boil the water at a fast enough rate to hold
50 percent relative humidity at 75 degrees F.
        As I understand it, water ice can have no salt in
it, so it should be a poor conducter, maybe even pure
water ice will be a very poor conducter (charge carrier).
Ken Fischer 

In article <32E07DAE.73B9@erols.com>, Dennis Nelson  writes:
>meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
>> 
	... snip ...
>> 
>> Really? Well, yes, lots of it could've been prevented by an outright
>> surrender to Hitler, right?
>
>Absolutely not!  That does not change the fact that most of the civilian 
>casualties of war happened after Hitler was already militarily defeated
>and the Luftwaffe had been decimated.  The waves of fire bombing, saturation
>bombing, carpet bombing and nuclear bombing of civilian targets took place
>in 1945 after the Germans and Japanese were already defeated militarily and
>were unable to defend against air attacks.  These attacks had no other goal
>than revenge, they violated the wartime rule against attacking non-combattants,
>and were immoral and evil.
A nation is defeated when it accepts that it is defeated.  War is not 
a game where you take score and award victory to one of the sides.
By any sensible measure Germany was defeated by summer of 1944.  Yet 
it kept fighting.  By any sensible measure the Soviet Union was also 
defeated by summer of 1942.  Yet, it kept fighting (and won).  So it 
is not that simple.
Having said this, I'll agree that some of the attacks in WWII (like 
the bombing of Dresden) served absolutely no purpose.  Some other, 
did.
Mati Meron			| "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu		|  chances are he is doing just the same"

Christopher Hvid wrote:
> 
> Who needs the sun. Life obviously began in hot vents in the ocean. All you
> need is liquid water, some microporous cracks to set up a self-replicating
> local chemical process on the surface of those cracks, and a bunch of
> minerals.
Or so one current theory goes. We are far, far from really knowing
whether this is really true, so let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Wil Milan

Steve Carlip (carlip@dirac.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
: Eric Flesch (ericf@central.co.nz) wrote:
: : All of the "Yes" answers notwithstanding, it must be noted that the
: : gravitation of energy has never been observed.  General Relativity,
: : which posits such a energy-gravity link, is only a theory.  A theory
: : which will in time be superseded by another theory.
: Actually, it has been observed.  More precisely, it is known
: from observation that 
: 1) energy contributes to inertial mass; and
: 2) inertial and gravitational mass remain equal no matter what
:    proportion of the inertial mass comes from energy.
         No a big surprise, since centers of mass of
objects in inertial motion remain in inertial motion,
essentially not moving by virtue of the gravitational 
"field".
         Unless you are talking about Newtonian gravitation,
"gravitational mass" is just another term for inertial mass,
they are made identical by General Relativity, and do not
exist as separate entities in nature.
Ken Fischer 

		       GR---Equivalence Problem
   When Einstein put forth his Equivalence Principal using the elevator thought
 experiment,he reasoned that a beam of light entering the elevator through a w
 indow,(let's say located 1/4 distance from the top),would curve downward and
 strike the opposite wall at a lower point than where it entered if the elevat
 or were accelerating upward.He concluded that light would also bend in the vi
 cinity of a Gravitational Field produced by Mass,saying there was no way to
 determine if the elevator had accelerated or entered a Gravitational Field.
   Let's carry this to the limit!!.If we increase the acceleration,the radius
  of curvature will become smaller,thus the beam will hit the opposite wall fu
  rther down.If we keep on increasing the acceleration the beam will eventually
  almost hit the floor,then go to the left,then upward,then to the right again,
  finally going in an endless circle.
   No:1 What will be the acceleration of the elevator(in m/s^2),to produce this
   No:2 What will be the dia of the circle of light?What would be the limit as
	to how small the dia could be?(if you wish and if need be assign your
	own dimensions to the elevator).
   When I first posted this article on the sci.physics NG,as GR problem,some of
  the responses ranged from---this is totaly incorrect to maximum deflection
  would make the beam just hit the opposite floor to the only circle was in my
  head.
   Oooo.K.I'll do some adjustments here as I don't think you seen what I was
  getting at.(no one ever did give the value of acceleration for max curvature)
  NOW----Suppose as the beam was starting to bend I accelerate the elevator to
  the Right,then Down,then to the Left,then Up----What Now??.The elevator would
  be accelerating in a circular manner,but to the observer inside he would obse-  rve the light to be going in a circle!!.
   The important thing to note here is the relationship between accelleration
  and MASS!!,for if the acceleration is changed it affects the lightbeam as wo
  uld be the case if we were talking about light in the vincinity of mass,if
  we were to increase or decrease the mass it would vary the curvature of the
  light.
   With this in mind,what would be the right amount of mass to cause a lightbe
  am to orbit it?(i'll take a few punches on this I expect).If you say light
  has no mass so it would not go into orbit the way a body of mass would,(as
  for example a planet around a star),it must follow the curvature of space
  determined by the mass and if the mass is large enough it must confirm to the
  elevator analogy.---What difference would it make if the large mass were rot
  ating at i'ts maximum and draging spacetime around with it?
   Finally what would the elevator equivalent of light going into a Black Hole?
  (in terms of the elevator's acceleration).Don't reply that it would enter the
  elevator and not come back out,because in the original problem it would not
  go back out through the window it entered.And I forbid you to put a window
  at some location on the opposite side(or anywhere else).No such trickery,as
  this is my modified thought experiment,so lets stick to the conditions I've
  set.
			  George Penney

In article <32E030A0.75CC@quadrant.net>,
"Bruce C. Fielder"  writes:
|> Thank you, it did help, but not really in my original question.  I do
|> not question that a particle approaching a black hole experiences
|> nothing unusual; your explanation makes this even more clear.
Great!
|> My question has more to do with the "exponentially" - as I understand
|> the concept, the particle won't get there until time=infinity - from our
|> frame of reference.  Since we are in "our frame of reference", do black
|> holes exist (admittedly, somewhat of an existential concept), or all
|> they all still forming?
For simplicity lets assume (as a mathematical idealization, be it 
understood) that we using our rocket ship engines or whatever to
"hover" well above the surface of a collapsing body in the process
of form a Schwarzchild hole.  Then our world line will form a line
of constant radius and angular coordinates in the Schwarzchild
coordinates, and we will recieve signals from photons traveling
radially outwards from the surface of the collapsing star.  In
this situation, it is true that we would never recieve any signals
from the surface after it passes through the (imaginary) event
horizon.  It is also true that the INTENSITY of the signals we
do recieve would decrease exponentially rapidly as the surface
nears the event horizon, so that the hole becomes "essentially
black" in finite time as measured by our clock.  Of course for
simplicity we are avoiding any discussion of accretion disks,
Hawking radiation, etc.--- we are just trying to understand
the geometry of the simplest possible model of a point mass
in GTR.
On the other hand, according to the same model, if we stopped
hovering and allowed ourselves to fall radially into the hole,
we would pass through the horizon without noticing anything
particular and quickly find the gravitational forces (radially
expansive and tangentially compressive) increasing without limit,
and in finite time what was left of our corporeal remains would
impact the singularity.  If we tried to avoid this fate after
passing through the horizon, we could only DECREASE the time
until our deaths (since by not resisting the fall, we follow
a geodesic, the path of longest "length", whereas by accellerating
away from this geodesic we are following a SHORTER world line
which cannot avoid eventually striking the singularity.
So in this sense, if black holes really exist (as seems likely),
singularities should exist in the sense that if we were willing
to sacrifice all for science we could verify their existence
by experiment--- we just couldn't write about our experience for
Newsweek afterwards.  :)
I stress again that this is very idealized model.  In particular,
although I am not au courant in the current state-of-the-art I do
recall seeing something some years ago to the effect that some
numerical studies of collapsing stars indicate that the Schwarzchild
model is quite good as a first approximation for the regions
outside the event horizon, but that inside things should be
expected to look even stranger than this model predicts.  There
is also a solid theoretical reason for expecting this--- the
Schwarzchild model assumes spherical symmetry and time translation
symmetry (time referring to the clock of a hovering observer as
described above), but Marsden and a generation of his students
have shown that any "symmetrical" solution to Einstein's equation
must be unstable in a certain technical sense which I'd
rather not get into so soon after stating in another post that
nothing moves in spacetime ;)  So in a sense concentrating on
simple solutions in GTR is the same as confining yourself to
study what are physically the least representative situations!
However, the existence of singularities IS thought to be "generic"
in the sense that they exist for all solutions obtained by perturbing
the Schwarzchild solution.  Maybe an expert who has kept up to date
could comment on this point?
Chris Hillman

On Fri, 17 Jan 1997 22:06:27 GMT, Matt McIrvin wrote:
>James Harford wrote:
>>would (a ping pong ball with a speed such that its relativistic
>> mass is the same as the rest mass of the planet Jupiter) have
>> any effect on earth's orbit?
>
>Yes, but it would be different from the effect of an object whose
>rest mass was Jupiter-sized.
How so, Matt?  And what about the gravitational effect of the Earth as
seen by the approaching ping-pong ball -- that would be truly
enormous, would it not?  I suppose that too would be "different".  How
different, Matt?  What kind of epicycles has GR concocted to eat its
cake and have it too?
I recently posted this:
-- begin excerpt ---------------
Imagine a star "at rest".  It is approached (not head-on) by two
identical asteroids, one after the other, with identical approaching
trajectories.  The first one approaches with speed .99999c, the second
one with speed .99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999c.
OK so far?  Note that the speed difference cannot easily be discerned.
The first asteroid's inertial mass is increased, but is minute
compared with the star.  It bypasses the star along, essentially, a
null geodesic.  The star is not perturbed by its passing.
The second asteroid's inertial mass is increased to be much larger
than that of the star.  Presuming that the gravitational mass has
increased accordingly, what will happen is that the star will be
thrown wildly out of its position and sent screaming into the wild
black yonder while the asteroid is not much perturbed in its path.  OK
so far?
The contradiction comes when you examine this scenario from the
asteroids' perspectives.  To them, it is the star which approaches
with the above-given speeds.  The first asteroid sees a flattened star
with large gravitation, and follows a flattened hyperbolic path about
it (sort of a relativistically-flattened null geodesic).  OK so far.
The second asteroid, however, sees a paper-thin star with incredibly
large gravitational mass.  Assuming it does not fall into the star, it
follows a verrrry flat hyperbolic path and goes screaming out into the
wild black yonder.
Note the problem:  the star sees itself as being laterally thrown out
of position by the incredibly-massive approaching asteroid, and the
asteroid sees itself as being the thrown-out body.  These views cannot
be relativistically reconciled, as they take place along the lateral
axis which is not affected by the relativistic motion.  Indeed, an
observer stationed at a distance along the perpendicular of this event
would see only a single outcome.
The problem with these irreconcilable versions is the notion that
gravitational mass increases along with inertial mass.  If you instead
posit that gravitational mass is invariate then there is no further
contradiction, and all observers will agree on the outcome.
It's clear  -- Inertial mass increases with relativistic motion, but
gravitational mass does not.
-- end excerpt ------------
Eric

A highly clarifying post on the subject, Chris.  I hope you keep hanging 
out here because you make a lot of sense.  Which is more than can be said 
for a certain troll-like poster you to whom you refer.
Robert Davidson

George Penney (gpenney@thezone.net) wrote:
:       Unified Field Theory!!---What Four Forces???
:
:    Why the waste of time trying to unite the "four" forces of nature.
:    1:The Nuclear Strong
:    2:The Nuclear Weak
:    3:The Electromagnetic
:    4:Gravity???
         Because they all arise from some component of the
Electromagnetic interaction.
:   Although the Newtonian concept of gravity being a force as given by the
:  the equation F=Gxm1m2/r^2 is accurate to a degree,Einstein replaced this
:  deplorable Action at a Distance notion(which even Newton was not comfor
:  table with) by GR.His theory shows us that matter does not attract beca
:  use of some mysterious force but rather because mass warps the spacetime
:  it occupies causing it's geometry to be Non-Euclidean.Using the geometry
:  of Bernhard Riemann and Nikotai Lobachevsky he came up with his equatio
:  ns which describe the metric of space in the vicinity of matter.
:   Thus Gravity is NOT a force but a property of the GEOMETRY of space.
        Gravity is a process, which is a property of MATTER,
which determines the geometry of space.
:  We
:  like to think of it as a force when it suits our needs as in the case of
:  The Unified Field Theory(and I must addmit,it has a great deal of attra
:  ction{no pun intended}) to talk of unifying the four above mentioned ph
:  enomena as a manifistation of one central concept,it's wrong in doing 
:  this.The first three are unified but Gravity just don't fit here.
         On the contrary, I think it fits better than 
anyone ever dreamed.
:   In short we can't have our cake and eat it too.We must give up the noti
:  on of Gravity as a force or redefine the other three in terms of a disto
:  rtion of space or drop GR as it now stands.
:                                  George Penney
        I have already given up the kinematics and geometry
of gravity as a "force", the only time there is a force is
when objects come into contact interactions. 
        I would like to read your articles George, but Usenet is
an 80 column format, and words don't wrap properly when you make
the lines so long, hit the Return key at 70 characters please,
and make some paragraphs to break the article into rational
communicative phrases, thanks.
Kenneth Edmund Fischer - Inventor of Stealth Shapes - U.S. Pat. 5,488,372 
Divergent Matter GUT of Gravitation http://www.iglou.com/members/kfischer 

    A Solution to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox in 4D-Space
   This is a solution to the EPR Paradox utilizing 4 Spatial Dimensions.I will
  began by using 2D and 3D Space to help explain it in a better manner.
   If a flatlander lived in his 2D universe which consisted of a flat plane and
  we intersected it with a circular ring,which we could make larger or smaller
  at will,if we lay the ring flat on his plane he would see a circle.If we now
  lift the ring out of his 2D-Space so that it is inclined 90 degrees to his 2D
  plane,he would see two points seperated by the dia of the ring.We then rotate
  it(say clockwise),perpendicular to his plane.He would observe two points mov
  ing in unsion in his space but not connected together.He would conclude after
  a long period of observation that they obayed some law(such as a force betwe
  en them that caused them to move in perfect unsion).He then positions himself
  on one of the points(lets say one is blue and the other red,he's on the blue)
  He can't visualize how they move in unsion as he is confined to his 2D-Space.
  We then make the dia of the ring larger so that the points are further apart,
  he still can see both and the fact that they are rotating in unsion(everytime
  the blue dot moves so dose the red dot).Now we slowly increase the dia untill
  it=3x10^12M(the speed of light in his universe is 3x10^8m/s).We now reverse
  the rotation of the ring CCW and although he can't observe both points at the
  same time due to their vast seperation in distance,he just knows that the red
  dot has reversed it's direction to match the change in direction of his blue
  dot.But he reasons how can this be since information between the two points
  can't exceed the velocity of light!!.The flatlander now has a paradoxical sit
  uation the same as our EPR paradox in 3D-Space.Two pairs are communicating
  information(as QM would predict),faster than the speed of light.Of course the
  flatlander dosen't know that the pairs are connected together in 3D Space.If
  he did he could conclude that Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are not in vi
  olation of each other.Thus he has a resolution of his apparent paradox.The
  same would apply if we had this paradox in our 3D-Space and concluded that
  the pairs are connected together in 4D-Space!!.Weather you agree with this or
  not bear with me as the best is yet to come...
   In working out this solution I noticed a perculiar property of partical spin
  in 4 or higher dimensional Spaces.It goes as follows:----First let's discuss
  some aspects of an N-Dimensional object intersecting an N-1 Dimensional Space.  I'll do this by going back to the flatlander.
   In the flatlander's universe his circle is the same to him as our sphere is
  to us in 3D-Space,in that he can't enter his circle without breaking it's Ci
  rcumference(lets assume that his circle is not solid inside like we would
  have if we shaded the circle inside,also that our sphere is hollow).Keep this
  equivalence of his circle and our sphere in mind as it's VERRY IMPORTANT!.We
  in our 3D Space can step inside his circle without breaking it's circumfere
  nce because we have access to 1 more dimension than he has.We wouldn't enter
  our 3D sphere without breaking it's surface first however,but it could easily
  be done from 4D-Space because in 4D-Space our 3D sphere would be equivalent
  to their 4D-Space circle(in other words they would see our sphere as a circl
  e).Now if we intersect the flatlander's circle with our sphere,perpendicular
  to and into the center of his circle passing it down through the plane of the
  circle,if he were inside his circle he would first see a point appear out of
  nowhere,then it would become a small circle which would grow larger and larg
  er until it became concentric with his circle(let the dia of our sphere = the
  dia of his circle),then it would start to become a smaller and smaller circle
  until it was a point again then dissapearing as it passed out of his universe
  or plane.This would seem very odd to him as all he would see would be cross
  sectional pieces of our sphere at any one instant in time.It would be the sa
  me as if we in our 3-Space saw an object suddenly appear out of nowhere,cont
  inually change shape and then dissapear completly!!.(It's not my intention to
  make a case for UFO's here but if one were so inclined they could do so).We
  will get even stranger effects if we intersect irregular shaped(and/or rotat
  ing),geometric objects from higher dimensional spaces into lower dimensional
  spaces.Of course the flatlander can't visualize our sphere due to his restri
  ction of being confined to his 2D-Space,however he can construct the laws of
  3D-Space geometry based on the cross sections of our 3D-Space objects.In the
  same way we can construct the laws of 4D-Space and N-Dimensional Space Geom
  erties.
   Keeping this in mind let's finaly get to rotational or spin properties of
  2D and 3D space objects and then apply this to higher spaces.If we rotate
  the flatlander's circle or HE rotates what he considers to be his SPHERE,it
  can only rotate in TWO directions(CW or CCW),or if you like it can spin one
  way or the other(for the terms CW and CCW are interchangable depending on
  where you view the rotation from in space).Now if we in 3D-Space take the
  flatlander's circle(---HIS SPHERE---),we can spin it around it's center in
  the plane of his universe(as he can do also) OR WE CAN SPIN IT ARROUND IT'S
  DIAMETER DOWNWARD THROUGH HIS PLANE(which he can't do),ONE WAY OR THE OTHER!
  Thus the circle(---HIS SPHERE---),has TWO extra modes of spin(FOUR in all),
  when it has access to 1 more dimension than his own.Again he can't concieve
  of this for to him it can only rotate in TWO directions in his 2D-Space.
   From this it follows that a sphere in our 3D-Space which has only TWO ways
  to spin would have MORE than two ways to spin in 4D-Space and even more mod
  es in higher dimensional spaces!!!!.Like the flatlander this goes against
  our common sense(common sense being that layer of predudice layed down prior
  to the age of 16---I couldn't resist getting that in).
   Like our friend the flatlander it's impossible for us to mentaly visualize
  this.(Unless we were Charles Hinton,who claimed he could visualize 4D obje
  cts such as Hypercubes and so on).
                              George Penney

      Unified Field Theory!!---What Four Forces???
   Why the waste of time trying to unite the "four" forces of nature.
   1:The Nuclear Strong
   2:The Nuclear Weak
   3:The Electromagnetic
   4:Gravity???
  Although the Newtonian concept of gravity being a force as given by the
 the equation F=Gxm1m2/r^2 is accurate to a degree,Einstein replaced this
 deplorable Action at a Distance notion(which even Newton was not comfor
 table with) by GR.His theory shows us that matter does not attract beca
 use of some mysterious force but rather because mass warps the spacetime
 it occupies causing it's geometry to be Non-Euclidean.Using the geometry
 of Bernhard Riemann and Nikotai Lobachevsky he came up with his equatio
 ns which describe the metric of space in the vicinity of matter.
  Thus Gravity is NOT a force but a property of the GEOMETRY of space.We
 like to think of it as a force when it suits our needs as in the case of
 The Unified Field Theory(and I must addmit,it has a great deal of attra
 ction{no pun intended}) to talk of unifying the four above mentioned ph
 enomena as a manifistation of one central concept,it's wrong in doing 
 this.The first three are unified but Gravity just don't fit here.
  In short we can't have our cake and eat it too.We must give up the noti
 on of Gravity as a force or redefine the other three in terms of a disto
 rtion of space or drop GR as it now stands.
                                 George Penney

		       GR---Equivalence Problem
   When Einstein put forth his Equivalence Principal using the elevator thought
 experiment,he reasoned that a beam of light entering the elevator through a w
 indow,(let's say located 1/4 distance from the top),would curve downward and
 strike the opposite wall at a lower point than where it entered if the elevat
 or were accelerating upward.He concluded that light would also bend in the vi
 cinity of a Gravitational Field produced by Mass,saying there was no way to
 determine if the elevator had accelerated or entered a Gravitational Field.
   Let's carry this to the limit!!.If we increase the acceleration,the radius
  of curvature will become smaller,thus the beam will hit the opposite wall fu
  rther down.If we keep on increasing the acceleration the beam will eventually
  almost hit the floor,then go to the left,then upward,then to the right again,
  finally going in an endless circle.
   No:1 What will be the acceleration of the elevator(in m/s^2),to produce this
   No:2 What will be the dia of the circle of light?What would be the limit as
	to how small the dia could be?(if you wish and if need be assign your
	own dimensions to the elevator).
   When I first posted this article on the sci.physics NG,as GR problem,some of
  the responses ranged from---this is totaly incorrect to maximum deflection
  would make the beam just hit the opposite floor to the only circle was in my
  head.
   Oooo.K.I'll do some adjustments here as I don't think you seen what I was
  getting at.(no one ever did give the value of acceleration for max curvature)
  NOW----Suppose as the beam was starting to bend I accelerate the elevator to
  the Right,then Down,then to the Left,then Up----What Now??.The elevator would
  be accelerating in a circular manner,but to the observer inside he would obse-  rve the light to be going in a circle!!.
   The important thing to note here is the relationship between accelleration
  and MASS!!,for if the acceleration is changed it affects the lightbeam as wo
  uld be the case if we were talking about light in the vincinity of mass,if
  we were to increase or decrease the mass it would vary the curvature of the
  light.
   With this in mind,what would be the right amount of mass to cause a lightbe
  am to orbit it?(i'll take a few punches on this I expect).If you say light
  has no mass so it would not go into orbit the way a body of mass would,(as
  for example a planet around a star),it must follow the curvature of space
  determined by the mass and if the mass is large enough it must confirm to the
  elevator analogy.---What difference would it make if the large mass were rot
  ating at i'ts maximum and draging spacetime around with it?
   Finally what would the elevator equivalent of light going into a Black Hole?
  (in terms of the elevator's acceleration).Don't reply that it would enter the
  elevator and not come back out,because in the original problem it would not
  go back out through the window it entered.And I forbid you to put a window
  at some location on the opposite side(or anywhere else).No such trickery,as
  this is my modified thought experiment,so lets stick to the conditions I've
  set.
			  George Penney

In article <5bgkn7$liv@web3.tcd.ie>, Dave Barry
 writes
[snip]
>
>While I would be the first to argue that there are serious problems with
>what passes for a democratic system of government in the US, I would have
>to point out that while it is true that the entire government in the UK
>changes on a fairly regular basis, much of the UK's foriegn policy is
>dictated by career diplomats. Unlike the US system where, as I understand
>it, the President can appoint anybody to be an ambassador, all diplomats 
>in the UK are
>civil servants, who have actually received training for the job that they
>do. Ambassadors especially would have had many years of experience before
>reaching their posts. Although the government has some influence in who
>gets promoted and who doesn't, there are no such things as political 
>appointees. John Major (or Tony Blair if you are reading this a week or
>two from now ;)  ) cannot say that he wants X random person from outside
>the service to be ambassador to Mongolia. He can choose one person from a
>list of suitable people, but thats about it.
The Prime Minister can appoint anyone he or she likes as an ambassador.
In the late 70's Prime Minister James Callaghan appointed his journalist
son-in-law Peter Jay as Ambassador to the U.S. - because he was 'the
most able man of his generation'.
But this is definitely the exception, normally ambassadors have spent a
lifetime crawling slowly up the F.O. ladder, big jobs in little
countries, little jobs in big countries...., so that when a plum job
like Paris becomes vacant, the candidate is pretty obvious (and recently
one senior diplomat resigned precisely because the expected job went to
someone else), and there is certainly no wholesale change of ambassadors
after every election.
Choosing one person from a list is how Anglican Bishops are appointed
by the PM (technically 'recommended to the Monarch').
[snip]
John

Matthew H. Fields wrote:
> 
> OK, here's another thought experiment.
> If a listener perceives nothing but noise in any of the works of Schoenberg,
> what are the chances that this listener is 1) Tone-deaf, 2) arbitrarily
> dismissive, 3) shining us all on and has never heard any of the music
> of Schoenberg?
> 
> --
> Matt Fields  URL:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields
1). 1/10 I would say. 2). another 10% or probably less. 3). Most likely at least 80%. 
These are people who are like cjclark, ignorent, and have a strong anti-atonal belief. 
They have this belief because they have no *understanding* of the music. the ironic 
thing is that the people such as cjclark, who seems to hate atonal music- seem to *love* 
my music (which is atonal), including kids at my school who have never even been exposed 
to atonal music. Maybe someday, cjclark, you will ahve an anagnorisis, and only be 
listening to Crumb, Babbit, and David Diamond, who knows? you sure won't unless you 
really give them an honest, unbiased, open-minded try.
J. Mark Inman

         Entropy??--The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics--
   The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics may be stated as:Natural processes tend to
  move toward a state of greater disorder or an increase in Entropy.One ex
  ample being if you put a layer of salt in a jar and cover it with a layer
  of pepper,when you shake it you'll get a thorough mixture no matter how
  long you shake it you will not get it to seperate again into two layers.
   This is not correct and I take issue with it.The falacy lies with our
  concept of how we define Order and Disorder.In regard to the example gi
  ven above(let's assume for starters that the grains of salt and pepper
  are the same size and density{I don't like playing with loaded dice}),
  when you shake the jar the probability of any paticular grain of salt or
  pepper occupying it's former position in the jar are just as astronomic
  al than if they returned to their original positions.There is nothing
  special about the first configuration of the particles!!!.Let me clarify
  this a little further.My desk is what some people(especially my wife),
  would call a complete mess or state of disorder.Now I know right where
  to lay my hands on everything,but my wife is appaled at the mess,so when
  I go out she tidies it up and puts everything "in order".When I get home
  I'm the one who's furious because I can't find a damm thing.To me NOW 
  everything is in a total mess or state of disorder.
   Perhaps a better example is as the following---Consider four people sit
  ting at a table with a deck of cards(playing Bridge{if you don't know the
  game it dosen't matter,you'll get the point i'm making here}).The cards
  are given a good shuffel and 13 cards are dealt to each person one card
  at a time.To their amazement when they look at their cards each person has
  a complete suit,not only that but there all "in order",the spade ace being
  the first card followed by the spade king and so on down to the spade two.
  The same happens to the other three with the three remaining suits.They l
  eave the game claiming that the dealer rigged the deck for the odds of th
  ocurring would be as astronomical as it would be for my spelling to be co
  rrect.But in fact there is nothing unique about this distrabution of cards
  for if the cards were reshuffeled and this time each person received a so
  called "random distrabution" of cards,the probability on any other redeal
  of receiving this identical "random" hand are just as high against the od
  ds!.We are the ones who place a unique state of order to the first deal of
  cards,because it's us who're RIGGING the rules(or laws if you like).Mother
  Nature assigns no special uniqueness to that first deal.We are instintivly
  preprogrammed to look for patterns in nature in order to survive as a spe
  cies,but the cosmos is completly indifferent to this so called increase in
  entropy,it has no meaning for her.
   Therefore while to most of us the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics may seem valid
  on a grander scale it is meaningless!!!.
                            George Penney

                    The Speed of Light!!
   When ask why the speed of Light is what it is,Einstien said,"Because it
  simply is".Hardly an answer.Well I can tell you why Light has the Velocity
  it has.
   When the universe was a singularity and then the big bang,it's expansion
  must have been C=3x10^8m/s.Thus how could anything go faster than this!!.
  Thus the INITIAL expansion rate of the universe must have dictated the ve
  locity of light.In all fairness to Albert,at the time he said this his Fi
  eld Equations had a solution that predicted an expanding universe,but bec
  ause at the time it was generaly accepted that the cosmos was Static and
  Infinite with no boundries.So he doctored his equations and introduced the
  infamous Cosmological Constant to get arround this.(He later admitted this
  was the biggest mistake he ever made).Later when Hubble observed the red
  shift which indicated that the universe was expanding(at the speed of light)
  as far as I can ascertain Einstien never did explanin why C has the velocity
  it has.Whether he pondered on this later I don't know.
   It's interesting to note that if other universes exist disconected from our
  own,their initial expansion rate may be >or< C.Whether this is an empirical
  fact or law of nature(for other universes,if they exist),we dont know.
   Note I'm talking about the Hubble Limit here,as should be implicit in the
  above,"Initial expansion rate"(for those who like to nitpick),as it is evid
  ent that the rate of expansion is different at other points in spacetime.
  Also,depending on the amount of mass contained in the universe,it's expansi
  on will slow down and stop,then reverse to give us the Big Crunch or an osc
  illating universe maybe.
   Now as to what caused the initial rate of expansion,(aren't we having fun
  now),I say that was in turn determined by the Mass-Energy contained within
  the singularity,which is the sum total of the Mass-Energy we have at this
  time.This could be calulated by using E=MC^2 to convert all to Energy or
  M=E/C^2 to convert all to Mass,(if we knew the total amount of matter in the
  universe at present).
   We can thus conclude from this also,that other universes whose initial Mass
  -Energy contained within it's singularity was >or< our own,would expand from
  it's singularity at a different rate,setting it's value of C >or< our own!!.
   I hope I've finaly layed this issue to rest with my theory of why C has the
  velocity it has,and not some other value.
                              George Penney

         Entropy??--The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics--
   The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics may be stated as:Natural processes tend to
  move toward a state of greater disorder or an increase in Entropy.One ex
  ample being if you put a layer of salt in a jar and cover it with a layer
  of pepper,when you shake it you'll get a thorough mixture no matter how
  long you shake it you will not get it to seperate again into two layers.
   This is not correct and I take issue with it.The falacy lies with our
  concept of how we define Order and Disorder.In regard to the example gi
  ven above(let's assume for starters that the grains of salt and pepper
  are the same size and density{I don't like playing with loaded dice}),
  when you shake the jar the probability of any paticular grain of salt or
  pepper occupying it's former position in the jar are just as astronomic
  al than if they returned to their original positions.There is nothing
  special about the first configuration of the particles!!!.Let me clarify
  this a little further.My desk is what some people(especially my wife),
  would call a complete mess or state of disorder.Now I know right where
  to lay my hands on everything,but my wife is appaled at the mess,so when
  I go out she tidies it up and puts everything "in order".When I get home
  I'm the one who's furious because I can't find a damm thing.To me NOW 
  everything is in a total mess or state of disorder.
   Perhaps a better example is as the following---Consider four people sit
  ting at a table with a deck of cards(playing Bridge{if you don't know the
  game it dosen't matter,you'll get the point i'm making here}).The cards
  are given a good shuffel and 13 cards are dealt to each person one card
  at a time.To their amazement when they look at their cards each person has
  a complete suit,not only that but there all "in order",the spade ace being
  the first card followed by the spade king and so on down to the spade two.
  The same happens to the other three with the three remaining suits.They l
  eave the game claiming that the dealer rigged the deck for the odds of th
  ocurring would be as astronomical as it would be for my spelling to be co
  rrect.But in fact there is nothing unique about this distrabution of cards
  for if the cards were reshuffeled and this time each person received a so
  called "random distrabution" of cards,the probability on any other redeal
  of receiving this identical "random" hand are just as high against the od
  ds!.We are the ones who place a unique state of order to the first deal of
  cards,because it's us who're RIGGING the rules(or laws if you like).Mother
  Nature assigns no special uniqueness to that first deal.We are instintivly
  preprogrammed to look for patterns in nature in order to survive as a spe
  cies,but the cosmos is completly indifferent to this so called increase in
  entropy,it has no meaning for her.
   Therefore while to most of us the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics may seem valid
  on a grander scale it is meaningless!!!.
                            George Penney

	Hello!
Has enybosy ever heard of Trevellyan effect. I read about it in a book on
acoustics published in 1964. And that is the only source I have found.
The effect was studyed in 1829 by Trevellyan. The effect was noticed when
a hot metal plate was put on cold planar surface. The plate starts
swinging and producing loud sound. The tone is pure when the plate is put
on two blades.
Does anybody know anything about this phenomenon? 
	Bye, Mike...
 - Miha Tomsic Mike -- C. na postajo 55 -- 1351 Brezovica pri Lj. -- SLOVENIA -
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