Newsgroup sci.physics 217224

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I think the problem here is "What's a proof?"
As long as you are on the level
Hypothesis: All primes are odd
Experiment: 2
no problem occurs.
But just take Wileys Fermat proof. On a certain level
of complexity, you are in trouble. Reduce the proof
to formal symbol manipulation with the computer?
No good, can you say "Windows 95"?
So I suggest the following 
ACME Definition of Absolute Truth:
A statement has A.T. if Edward Green, Matthew Wiener
and Archimedes Plutonium agree on its truth ;-)
-- 
Hauke Reddmann <:-EX8 
fc3a501@math.uni-hamburg.de              PRIVATE EMAIL 
fc3a501@rzaixsrv1.rrz.uni-hamburg.de     BACKUP 
reddmann@chemie.uni-hamburg.de           SCIENCE ONLY

In article <32D4B8DB.8FE@satech.net.au> heritag@satech.net.au writes:
>
>Please don't argue with creationists. 
 It is sometimes necessary to argue with them in the United States 
 if you wish to have a public school system that teaches science 
 rather than pseudo-science.  
>Don't you know that they ALWAYS
>win! Their ultimate answer, to beat all arguments, is that their god can
>do anything! 
 To the contrary, IMHO the objective of any supporter of science in 
 a debate with a creationist is to get them to say exactly that. 
 If you get a creationist to say that some observation is explained 
 by "because God made it that way", you have won because you will 
 have exposed their so-called science for what it is, religion. 
>Theirs is NOT a science...it's pure dogma. 
 You may know that, but does the person sitting on your school board 
 know that?  A typical school board member knows very little about 
 science and will very easily buy into the "see, scientists disagree 
 about that detail, so you should teach this alternative also" story. 
 Posting from au, you may not realize the degree of autonomy the 
 elected local school boards have in the US system.  
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon. 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW. 

In article <32E53D4D.5337@ultranet.com> chucksz@scientist.com writes:
>Lawrence R. Mead wrote:
>> 
>> Dettol (mikeh@gold.chem.hawaii.edu) wrote:
>[snip]
In following this mainly American thread, I see that no one has hit upon 
the uniquely British solution incorporated in the 1988 Education Act by 
the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher.
Tenure for all new employment contracts was abolished so that academics
could be dismissed for 'good cause' (I won't go into details, but imagine
the lengthy and difficult process of setting up tribunals, appeals,
etc--there have been very few dismissals for this reason) or for reasons
of 'financial redundancy', e.g., if one's university was no longer going
to have a department or group teaching and researching one's subject.  The
latter provision has been the subject of some abuse by administrations,
according to the university staff unions. 
The Education Act specifically has protections of free speech written 
into it to counter the claim that tenure is required in order to protect 
freedom to advocate unpopular or unusual ideas.  I'm not sure how well 
this works in practice.
What is bizarre, of course, is that being promoted in effect changes 
one's contract, so that ***those who earn promotion*** (mainly through 
research excellence, though teaching also counts) lose tenure, but those 
who are unpromotable (or, at least, unpromoted--even if deserving) retain 
tenure if their contract was dated before 1988.
I understand that in the USA one receives tenure upon promotion.
-- 
Mike Dworetsky, Department of Physics  | Bismarck's law: The less people
& Astronomy, University College London | know about how sausages and laws
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT  UK      | are made, the better they'll
   email: mmd@star.ucl.ac.uk           | sleep at night.

> > That's why I think, the difference between animals and us
> > (in terms of soul) is just as gradual as the brain mass, or the
> > ability to pass certain tests (tool use etc.).
> > 
> > Volker
>         So where does it say dogs DON'T have a soul? i don't believe all
> animals are little soulless robots, do you? 
> 
>                                 All dogs go to heaven
>                                 Jim
Jim (and others)
I hate to see you staying up late at night agonizing!  Don't you need a
firm statement from the manufacturer (of the dog) that they do?  That
failing, then, they don't.  See how easy it is?
-- 
Karl

Followup-To: alt.atheism,talk.atheism,talk.origins,sci.skeptic,sci.misc,alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,talk.philosophy.humanism,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.catastrophism,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.geo.geology,rec.a
r
References: <5buevr$agd@whitecliff.sierra.net> 
Distribution: inet
ksjj (ksjj@fast.net) wrote:
: In article <5buevr$agd@whitecliff.sierra.net>, mccoy@sierra.net (John
: McCoy) wrote:
: > ts.books,rec.arts.poems
: > Followup-To: alt.atheist.lies,alt.humanist.religion,sci.skeptic.hypocrites
: > Distribution: inet
: > 
: > crs (chucksz@ultranet.com) wrote:
: > : R. Alan Squire wrote:
: > : > 
: > : > Peter Besenbruch wrote:
: > : > 
: > : > > While I think your idea regarding the need for a little faith when
: > : > > practicing science has merit, I think your definition of religion is a
: > : > > tad narrow. Granted, it resembles the the Random House definition
: > : > > closely, but to say it is "no more" than that is reductionistic.
: > 
: > : Perhaps it is the capacity to suspend (not sacrifice) judgement that is
: > : at work here.  Many scientists use final results of derivations or
: > : reasoning without going through the original work step-by-step but that
: > : isn't the same as faith.
: > 
: > If you want to read a definition of religion, read the humanist manifesto 
: > I. It gives a pretty good definition and they say that humanism and 
: > evolution are religious views. 
: But, then again we all know evolutionism is psuedo-science. 
: The fossils don't line up, the dating techniques are flawed, they can't
: explain how a puddle of GUE sprang forth life, They can't explain how a
: scale turned into a feather, the missing link is still missing, Behe has
: got them baffled,  and you, me and (T)ed don't exist.
Yeah,  but the evolutionists and the atheists on this ng refuse to answer 
your question about how the puddle of gue sprang forth life. I've been 
watching this Karl and they refuse to answer it.
: The scary part? They teach this religist psuedo-science as fact in our
: schools. Kinda sends chills down your spine. 
The scary part is the intolerance. They think that everyone should 
believe in evolution and so they censor competeing viewpoints. 
: Your uncle was a monkey
: ate green bananas
: and swung from a tree......uhh uhh ahh ahh.
Unk ook.
: -- 
: see ya,
: karl 
: *********************************************
: CREATION, is the scientific truth,
: as well as the revelation of GOD

Followup-To: alt.atheism,talk.atheism,talk.origins,sci.skeptic,sci.misc,alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,talk.philosophy.humanism,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.catastrophism,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.geo.geology,rec.a
r
References: <5c00jj$h9e@dip.geo>
Distribution: inet
Brandon M. Gorte (bmgorte@mtu.edu) wrote:
: Followup-To: alt.atheism,talk.atheism,talk.origins,sci.skeptic,sci.misc,alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,talk.philosophy.humanism,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.catastrophism,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.geo.geology,rec
.a
: r
: References: <5buevr$agd@whitecliff.sierra.net> 
: Distribution: inet
: ksjj (ksjj@fast.net) wrote:
: : In article <5buevr$agd@whitecliff.sierra.net>, mccoy@sierra.net (John
: : McCoy) wrote:
:    [No complaints w/ what McCoy wrote]
: : 
: : But, then again we all know evolutionism is psuedo-science. 
: : The fossils don't line up, the dating techniques are flawed, they can't
: : explain how a puddle of GUE sprang forth life, They can't explain how a
: : scale turned into a feather, the missing link is still missing, Behe has
: : got them baffled,  and you, me and (T)ed don't exist.
: Somehow I think you are starting to fall apart, ksjj.  You are not a kook,
: but you're definitely closed-minded.
Karl, it looks as if this guy can't answer your question about the gue 
and so he  is attacking you personally. 
: Creationism doesn't explain a damned thing about why life is like it is.
: In addition, it has no explanation of geological features.  If you're
: hypothesis is true, ksjj, then why can we find so many examples against it.
: You don't even know the first thing about mountain building, which I have
: painstakingly pointed out to you time and time again.
What do you know, he changes the topic and starts talking about 
creationism rather than explaning  how life sprang from the gue. 
: : The scary part? They teach this religist psuedo-science as fact in our
: : schools. Kinda sends chills down your spine. 
: No, the scary part is people like you tyring to teach psuedo-science in our
: schools.  Thank goodness most people know better.
Hey, Karl, did they teach pseudo-science in school. They did in mine. 
They said that all life sprang from a puddle of gue.: : 
: : Your uncle was a monkey
: : ate green bananas
: : and swung from a tree......uhh uhh ahh ahh.
: Actually, I'm pretty proud to come from such a distinguished lineage of
: ape-like creatures.  They learned.  Their competitors didn't.
I wonder if he looks like an ape. 
Onk ook. 
: : -- 
: : see ya,
: : karl 
: : *********************************************
: : CREATION, is the scientific truth,
: : as well as the revelation of GOD
: EVOLUTION, scientific fact supported by evidence and revelation of God to
: theists.
: Brandon Gorte

Lance Olkovick wrote:
> 
> stooge1@aol.com (Larry) writes:
> > stooge2@ohyeah?y.i.oughtta.com (Moe) responds:
> >> stooge3@nyuk.nyuk.ca (Curly) sez:
> 
> >>> My science teacher said that glass is a supercooled liquid that
> >>> flows over time.
> 
> >> Glass is an amorphous solid; it does not flow measurably over
> >> historical time scales.
> 
> > I've seen distorted window panes in older houses, and old stained
> > glass windows that are thicker at the bottom than at the top.
> > Obviously, given enough time, glass will flow.
> 
> After reading many hundreds of posts of a similar nature, I hereby
> propose the following theory:
> 
> LANCE'S GENETIC-BASIS-FOR-GLASS-FLOW THEORY (c)
> 
> By now, it must be obvious to almost everyone on saa, afu, and
> sci.physics that humans have a strong disposition to believe that
> glass flows. We've observed over and over again that much of the
> 'evidence' of glass flow is accepted without a second thought by those
> who have not been disabused by the cold light of science and reason.
> It is my contention that this acceptance is instinctive. We need only
> explain the source of this instinct, and we will have explained the
> widespread and intractable tendency toward erroneous ideas concerning
> the ultimate nature of glass.
(Snip)
> 
> Even though our language is perfectly adequate to define a solid,
> language is a relative newcomer to the evolutionary scene, and our
> primitive instincts seem to drag our discussions about glass down into
> a semiotic swamp; though materials science tells us that glass is
> about as solid as a solid can be, modern physics cannot compete
> with--and is often co-opted by--the intuitive physics of our
> primordial mind.
> 
> So the next time you get the urge to say that glass flows, just
> remember that it's great2x10^8-grandpa Skink who's making you say it.
> 
Ok. If you believe that glass is a solid, what is it's heat of fusion?
The state change from solid to liquid has a heat of fusion for all
substances. Just as there is a heat of vaporization for all substances.
A super cooled liquid (maskerading as a solid) would have no heat of
fusion as it is already a liquid and does not need extra energy to
change states (as it really doesn't change state).
As for glass not flowing. I have seen bottles, recovered in Wyoming from
the days of westward migration of the pioneers, that have collasped,
without breaking mind you, and have become almost flat. Shaped by the
rocks that they were laying upon. The bottles merely deformed as would
any liquid.
-- 
"If wisdom were money, I would be destitute."
Dane Anderson.

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        
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dennis Nelson  writes:
>
>What war?  What dangerous enemy?  I think the comment by Pogo is
>appropriate "We have met the enemy and he is us."
 Despite the lack of any formal declaration of war, the US was 
 in a defacto war with the Soviet Union that included military
 actions directed at the other but kept secret from the American 
 people.  There were two times when we were as close to a nuclear 
 war as anyone can possibly imagine.  
 If you don't think Stalin was dangerous, you probably thought 
 Hitler would make a nice neighbor.  Talk to some survivors. 
|  test when winds were blowing the wrong way, but they did not delay  
             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>What is hell does this mean, "the wrong way?"  What is the right way?
>The wind was always blowing the wrong way, i.e. easterly, across the
>continent.  
 Perhaps you need to do a geography check and look at the jet stream. 
 There are directions from the Nevada Test Site where localized 
 fallout (as distinct from the fallout still falling from before 
 1963 that was very widely dispersed) did not encounter populated areas.  
 Winds do not blow the same direction all of the time. 
>True, it didn't kill the downwinders in two weeks like Slotin but it killed
>many of them over the next 40 years.
 How many?  I know of (non-fatal) thyroid cancers, but how many 
 deaths were directly attributed to fallout?  I have never found a 
 definitive study on that, perhaps because of the politics and lawyers 
 involved.  All the stuff on the OpenNet is about studies with lab 
 or contractor employees. 
Greg Chaudion wrote:
}  
}  Sorry, this has not place in a "science" group, but neither does
}  a lack of morality have a place anywhere.
>Science without moral boundaries is a frightening.  It is worse than worthless,
>it is downright dangerous.
 Little if any of what we are talking about involved science.  The 
 decisions were political and military, and all the important ones 
 were made by our elected representatives.  For example, no nuclear 
 test could be done without presidential approval.  In some cases 
 the bio-med information was of limited quality, and one should not 
 criticize yesterday's decisions based on today's knowledge. 
 One can, and should, criticize how long it took Washington to heed 
 the warnings of the scientists about the risks of atmospheric tests. 
 Read the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists from those early days. 
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon. 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW. 

Praise the gods! Archimedes Palladium proved that 2^2=5 for sufficiently 
large values of 2.
|\    \ \ \ \ \ \ \      __
|  \    \ \ \ \ \ \ \   | O~-_ Archimedes Palladium
|   >----|-|-|-|-|-|-|--|  __/
|  /    / / / / / / /   |__\
|/     / / / / / / /

OX-11  wrote:
>Okay, here is your assignment, due immediately: Tell in your own words, 
>what you would do if you actually did invent a FTL communicator. How 
I'd share it
>would you release the design? Would you only care about making money? 
Don't have one.
>What if all your friends started laughing and ridiculing you, and no one
Maybe in this case one would shut up and sell it secretly to AT&T; for a number
of years after which it would revert to public domain. (caveat) 
>believed you did it? Do you just turn over your hard won idea to the 
>government and go back to your job of inspecting underwear? 
>Use complete sentences, and be thoughtful. Everyone gets an 'A'.
So I've heard, but am not sure, that some particle like to travel in pairs, like
photons. Now if you distroy one particle the other disapears.
Is there a situation in which this is correct.
Send one beam of half pairs  to station A and the other half pairs to station B
 Station A encodes by reflecting or distoying photons ( or what ever). Station
B looks to see if the partener photons got reflected or if they disapeared.
I am uncertain this will work due to uncertainty.
Of course I could just be pulling your leg, and you'ld be silly to think this
could actually work :)   But maybe it will get something going.
Duncan

On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Alex Tsui wrote:
> 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?
> 
The problem is that such a rod is not possible in our universe. You can't
get anything which behaves like that.
Basically, if such a rod existed, relativity would not be a correct
definition of physical reality.
Anthony Potts
CERN, Geneva

pmj@netcom.ca(Peter Michael Jack) wrote:
>Now 64 is the first cubeSquare ( don't feel like going into the 
>extended details right now but this is connected to the Egyptian
>Eye of Horus measure. Note SAINT = 19+1+9+14+20 = 63 so that
>SAINT:PETER = 63:64    which is the Heqat with the 1/64 fraction
>missing said to be supplied by the wisdom of Toth. )
Their is an ancient Chinese book of hexidiagrams ( trans=64 ) the explains the
creation of the universe or at least the Chinese numerlogical fokelor of such.
Starting with 8 major construct of 3 member base 2 symbals aranged in a circle.
Pairing these in two's creats 64 elements of the system.
This book is probably as old as the pyrimids themself.
Oh, it is probably still available in reprinted biligual edition.
Duncan

Brian J Flanagan  enunciated:
>"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
Well... this thread ought to start heating up now. Quoting scripture?
>"If you can't take the heat, stay out of Hiroshima."
One man's unsusual is another man's customary.
lkh
Lee Kent Hempfling...................|lkh@cei.net
chairman, ceo........................|http://www.aston.ac.uk/~batong/Neutronics/
Neutronics Technologies Corporation..|West Midlands, UK; Arkansas, USA.

I heard that if one could make a rope out of buckey tubes it would be 400 to 500
time stronger than steal cable.
So if one was to use this rope as a sky hook how long could one make the rope
before it would snap from it's own weight. 
Any takers ?
Duncan

steve perryman wrote:
}  
}      Who's defending evil? What's the death of a few civilians compared to
}  all life on the planet? It may sound cruel, but given the choice I would
}  sacrifice a few (yes, even myself) if I was absolutely sure that it would
}  preserve more life than it would destroy.
Greg Chaudion  writes:
>
>I had hoped that people were moral enough not to fall for the same
>sort of crap that criped Europe in the 30's, but I guess I was wrong.
 I am puzzled.  The crap that gripped Europe in the 30s was the 
 belief that you could appease a madman by satisfying his request 
 of the month.  Was it moral for the leaders of one country to 
 endorse the enslavement of the peoples in another in exchange for 
 a promise of peace for themselves? 
 Further, there is a difference between asking your own soldiers to 
 do something risky (I assume you are aware of the death rate among 
 pilots landing on aircraft carriers) and doing experiments on 
 prisoners -- or some of the without-informed-consent experiments 
 that have been done by the US medical establishment. 
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon. 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW. 

fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew H. Fields) writes:
>
>Speaking of bridge resonance, most mechanics 101 classes these days
>show that wonderful film of the bridge that began resonating torsionally
>with the wind, and collapsed about 4 minutes later...  Isn't resonance
>wonderful?
 First, it is important to note that the 'resonance' was only 
 indirectly related to the windspeed; Galloping Gertie went into 
 action whenever the wind exceeded some threshold that I don't 
 recall, not at a specific wind speed.  The 'resonance' involved 
 a coupling of forces produced by vortex shedding with each 
 oscillation.  The reason there is film (in the pre-video era) 
 is that folks went out to cross it for fun when the wind was 
 right.  It took quite a while to collapse, if you note the time 
 stamps on the film. 
 Any of you composer types who are still reading this might 
 recognize vortex shedding as the mechanism that drives a 
 flute or a whiskey-bottle resonator. 
>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?
 This is what soldiers are told; I learned it as a Scout.  However, 
 there are claims that the risk to the bridge is an urban legend, at 
 least for a 'real' bridge.  We did it anyway once, on a steel and 
 concrete footbridge, and it made a heck of a lot of noise and did 
 make the bridge feel like it was bouncing from our efforts. 
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon. 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW. 

Dettol (mikeh@gold.chem.hawaii.edu) wrote:
: DOES ACADEMIC TENURE HAVE ANY PLACE IN THE MODERN WORLD?
: What is so special about academics that they deserve privileged
: treatment?  The idea of a job for  life has been tried in the broader
: community and has failed.  The reasons for the failure are generally
: given as lack of incentive, lack of competition, lack of efficiency and
: productivity and so on.
What is special about academics is that they do fundamental research,
they need freedom to pursue avenues that others find unrewarding or
unconventional.  Therefore to encourage and enable the greatest success
they _need_ to be above criticism for their research activities, even
where their academic integrity is impuned.
If researchers find, for example, anomolous phenomena in the cold
electrochemistry of isotopes of hydrogen to be a field where seemingly
inexplicable results are observed they need the freedom to pursue and 
discover and prove whether there is some new fundamental discovery of
science waiting to be made or not.  
And of course these academics are not above criticism for non-academic
aspects of their lives. Naturally to earn this enormous privilege it
is essential that tenure candidates be seen to be utterly devoted to
their field (and expert in it), otherwise the purpose of tenure is
defeated. Perhaps here lies the seat of your anger and discontent.
Remember the words of the man to which humanity possibly owes more than
anyone else that lived in the twentieth century (Leo Szilard) - "There
are three phases to belief, first they say 'it can't possibly be so',
then they say 'it may be so, but it certainly isn't important',
finally they say 'we knew it all along'"
: Isn't it time we abandoned failed socialist ideas of a job for life?
non-sequiteur twaddle.

ags@seaman.cc.purdue.edu (Dave Seaman) wrote:
>In article <32DD16E9.1BE1@cnas.smsu.edu>,
>Shyang Hwang   wrote:
>>Dave Seaman wrote:
>>> I have read that the original purpose of BASIC was to teach beginning
>>> programming students about concepts of assembly language, hence the
>>> line numbers, the global namespace, and the lack of structured
>>> programming concepts.
> 
>>Are you sure?  I don't see how the concepts of assembly language can
>>ever be taught by teaching BASIC.  Rather, I think BASIC was developed
>>so that people did not have to learn the concepts of assembly language
>>and still be able to program a computer by using an English-like
>>language.
>If that were the intent, it could have been met by teaching people
>Fortran and forgetting about BASIC.
>BASIC was not originally intended to be a language for developing
>applications.  Its intent was to introduce some programming concepts
>(such as the notion of a "program counter" = statement number) in an
>interactive environment.  Students were then expected to move on to
>other languages as they became more familiar with the ideas.
>-- 
>Dave Seaman			dseaman@purdue.edu
>      ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
>    ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
>++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++
Kemeney and Kurtz (?) invented BASIC to make some computer power
available to non-CS students at Dartmouth. There were no programmable
calculators in those days. Iteration with a four-function calculator
was a royal PITA. On the other hand, they realized that if the only
way to use computers required that a student learn something like LISP
(with all those parentheses) or suffer the tedious code-compile-test-
recode-recompile-retest-etc. cycle, few non-CS students would use
them.
So BASIC was invented as an interpreted language with a fairly simple
syntax. Users could type in a few lines and RUN them, make a little
change and RUN again, trial-and-error, until an acceptable result was
achieved. No long waits while the operator (remember?) fed your
punch-cards in, compiled, and handed you a stack of output (possibly
including a core dump).
Coding was via line-editors, often on teletype or glass-TTY terminals.
The reason for line numbers was so that one could add a line of code
between two lines (the line number told the interpreter where they new
line should be inserted). Without full-screen editors, the only other
way to insert a line was to retype all one's code. FORTRAN and COBOL
users could keypunch a new card and insert it into their card-decks,
but BASIC programmers were to be spared the hassles of keypunching and
card decks.
--
Gerry LaValley
John Abbott College
Quebec, Canada

When light is travelling trough water or glass, it's speed is not c
(that's at least what I've read somewhere).
How come that after it is 'back' in vacuum, it's speed is c again?
Herbert

Does anyone know how the "U" thermometer works ? Why, in a "U" 
thermometer, the mercury goes down on one side and up on the other, 
instead of growing on both of the sides, while the temperature
increases ? WHY !?!?!!?
Thanks a lot,
-- 
Alessio Gordini  - CS student at Milan University, Italy
sissio@zerocity.it           ag419178@silab.dsi.unimi.it

Mark Hardie wrote:
> 
> Isn't the real issue whether a particular tone produces an emotive
> response from the listener?  In other words, there is nothing inherently
> correct or incorrect about a particular tone as it relates to classical
> music.  It is only important that the tone produce an emotive response
> from the audience.
I would suggest that a tone is incabable of producing an emotive
response,
even in someone with perfect pitch. It is only the combination of two or
more tones, either sequentially (melody) or concurrently (harmony) that
produces an emotive response.   
>      What makes Sibelius' Finlandia great is not an objective tonality
> standard; rather it is great because of the emotiveness produced by the
> tonality.
Emotiveness is not usually caused by tonality. Dissonance and the
nature of its resolution and orchestration are two common methods
by which emotional suggestion may be imparted; there are, I'm sure,
other techniques  which I've forgotten.
>  Since classical music is an art rather than a science, is it
> not pointless to look for some quasi-scientific measure of the music's
> tonality.
No one, I believe, was ever trying to define a measure of tonality,
they were trying to define it so that we all knew what everyone else
was talking about ! Its not clear to me that you are using
the term in its commonly accepted meaning.
>  It seems to me that this thread is importing science into
> the realm of art.
> 
>      Let the tone move our hearts.
Try "Let the tones move our hearts"
Phil Cope
-- 
All opinions expressed in this message are purely personal and do not 
reflect the opinions or policies of Smallworldwide

Barry Adams (badams@magus.co.uk) wrote:
>»Word Warrior« wrote:
>> 
>> Carcinogenic pollutants are a reality should
>> you decide to familiarize yourself with some
>> serious science on the subject.
[snip true statements about carcinogens]
>For someone called `word warrior` you don`t tend to use many
>words at a time. Short of ammunation are we?
No, short on logic. I'm afraid you are wasting your time. It's impossible
to argue rationally with someone who believes that "A implies B" is
equivalent to "not-A implies not-B".  (In this case,  A is "there are 
carcinogenic pollutants in the environment" and B is "organisms in that 
environment get cancer".) Mix that with repeated attempts to shift the
burden of proof, dismissal of anything you post which has significant
content as inappropriate or invalid, and quotes reformatted into an
unreadable mass of single-spaced lines, and you have this thread.
Whether it's a human troll or a robot I don't know, but it's not
worth wasting your time arguing with it.
-- 
Richard Herring      |  richard.herring@gecm.com | Speaking for myself
GEC-Marconi Research Centre                      | 

Doug Craigen (dcc@cyberspc.mb.ca) wrote:
: height:baselength ratio, or the angle of the walls etc)?  Therefore... 
: how many quantities could have been coded into the size of a pyramid?  
: (hint, the number is less than three)?  What does this tell you about any 
: numerologist whose calculations from the Great Pyramid give the distance 
: from the earth to the sun, the diameter of the earth, and ten other 
: things as well?
: 
The distance from the earth to the sun, the diameter of earth and
ten other things as well are related by the ACME Superduper
Grand Unified Theory of the Universe? ;-)
-- 
Hauke Reddmann <:-EX8 
fc3a501@math.uni-hamburg.de              PRIVATE EMAIL 
fc3a501@rzaixsrv1.rrz.uni-hamburg.de     BACKUP 
reddmann@chemie.uni-hamburg.de           SCIENCE ONLY

John McCoy posted the following to alt.atheism,
>I hope he answers the question on how life sprang from some gue.
I really love you John. I love you with all my heart and soul and I think
it's time we made our homosexual love for each other public. I dream of
your naked body close to mine, cuddling and expressing our deepest love for
eachother, but there's just one thing. If you really loved me you'd swallow
that mouthful of gue.
 see ya,
 karl 
 *********************************************
 CREATION, is the scientific truth,
 as well as the revelation of GOD

Dear sir,
I'm looking for some reference books for my firned writing thesis. I
want the following book. There are :
1.P. Paroli //Thin Solid Films, Vol 114
2.K.Kurosawa, Proceeding of the 7th international co optical Fiber
Optical Sensors, 1990
3.A.H. Eshenfelder, Magnetic bubble technology, Soringer 1981
If you know any resources of this kind of information, please advice to
me at samak@bday.net
Thanks for you time,
Samak Sunanchai
samak@bday.net

Chris Koenigsberg wrote:
}  
}  As far as I know, "Resonance" is a behavior of a harmonic system ...
Naigeon Alain  writes:
>
>Resonance is certainly a property of an harmonic system, however I
>wouldn't take this as a definition, because an harmonic system is
>just a special case of a vibrating system. 
 Exactly.  The magic word missing in this discussion is "response". 
 The "response" of a system, like a violin or whiskey bottle, is 
 a graph of the amplitude of its vibration when exposed to a range 
 of frequencies.  A simple harmonic oscillator is the ideal case; 
 it has an infinite response at one frequency and zero for all others. 
 Any real oscillator, like a kid on a swing, has some damping so 
 the response is broader in frequency -- it will respond even if 
 you don't push it quite right.  Stuff you make instruments out 
 of, like strings and pipes, also respond at frequencies other 
 than the fundamental.  The process of analyzing a complex system 
 in terms of simple oscillators (Fourier analysis) is the way 
 synthesizers originated. 
 ... lots of good stuff snipped ...
} , or
} "filter", which produces an output waveform, driven by a input
} waveform.
>Well, for any system you can talk of "input" and "output". The behaviour
>of the "black box" in between will make the difference. 
 Which is where the language of "response functions" is most useful. 
 A bandpass filter and an organ pipe and a concert hall and a circus 
 tent have characteristic responses to different input frequencies 
 that make them useful for different purposes. 
} Thus a "Helmholtz resonator" is a filter[...]
} it will "resonate", for ALL frequencies
>If you intend to talk of physics or maths, I'm afraid that "resonating for
>ALL frequencies" has no meaning ! 
 Better to say it responds fairly well at the resonant frequency, 
 weakly at one or two others, and very little at the rest.  
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon. 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW. 

"Michael D. Painter"  writes:
>
>I've held for some time that our culture does not put much importance on
>education. Bake sales are for bands or soccer, never books or science. 
 That is why I try to encourage kids who ask science-fair type 
 questions, without doing the work for them.  The reason there are 
 those bake sales is that parents support those efforts; one must 
 assume that kids who ask here do not have a parent at home who is 
 capable of providing the help other kids get.  
>A teacher gives a class an assignment designed to make them think, to learn
>to solve problems.
>Rather than do this the student asks someone for the answer and the people
>here do it for them.
 It is better to provide hints and encouragement than to do a kid's 
 homework, but remember that some kids have two parents at home who 
 help with homework and some have just one who could care less or 
 have no idea how to help with science projects. 
 I know I don't like the "I need a topic" questions; I often e-mail 
 a request for info about what the kid is interested in, and if I 
 get an answer it is usually easy to suggest some good questions 
 they might ask about that interest (sports, music, whatever) that 
 is essentially a physics project.  Usually that is enough. 
>How to keep an ice cube frozen for 5 hours is the latest.
 In that case, it was clear the kid had already done a lot of work 
 on the problem.  Several experiments were described, some of which 
 were clearly moving in the right direction.  I think that should 
 be encouraged with a few suggestions.  Quite different from the  
 "I have to do this by tomorrow, what should I do" request.  
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon. 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW. 

Stephen La Joie (lajoie@eskimo.com) wrote:
: Gregory Loren Hansen wrote:
: > 
: > In article <32DEBA14.4EF25F9F@alcyone.com>,
: > Erik Max Francis   wrote:
: > >Jonny wrote:
: > >
: > >> Hey guys, this is a physics site! If you want religious clap-trap
: > >> go to those pages.
: > >
: > >No, this is a physics _newsgroup_.  Please learn the difference between
: > >Usenet and the World Wide Web.
: > 
: > I can't believe anyone would be so pissy about something as trivial as
: > this.  Anyway, the world wide web has _pages_.  "Site" is a completely
: > generic term for "location", and John's useage was appropriate.
: A site is the host computer that has the "pages" (files) for the web.
: yahoo.com is a site. http://www.yahoo.com/ is a page.
: The usenet has no site. There are newsservers connected into one big
: network.
You argue like a Creationist, and it's probably just as
useless to argue with you.
-- Wetboy

On 21 Jan 1997, Peter wrote:
> Hi there:
> I am a recent physics graduate, I'm wondering if anyone could help me find 
> work relating to physics.  Where do you look, on the web, newsgroups, 
> newspapers?
> Any suggestions would really help me out, please email me at 
> peter@web-spinn.com with any suggestions.
> Thanks
> Pete
In my experience, you will not do very well looking on the web or in
newspapers.
If you have a university near you, I would suggest that you see if you can
make use of the careers service there. They have a lot more information
that exists in papers. Many employers, for example, don't ever advertise
their jobs in the press, they just inform the careers services about them.
Also, if you go in, you can find out about lots of careers even if there
is not a vacancy in the market at present. This will allow you to target
firms who may have a place for you, but who haven't advertised it yet.
Alterbatively, just ring the recruitment department of any firms that you
might want to work for, and ask what is available. That is the way I went
about it.
Good luck,
Anthony Potts
CERN, Geneva

------------593734D86C590
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
There is a quite nice book about thermal conduction in semiconductors.
The theoretical background of thermal conduction caused by
lattice thermal conduction and electron thermal conduction is explained.
It contains furthermore many hints on other sources.
Thermal  Conduction in Semiconductors
C. M. Bhandari, D.M. Rowe
Wiley Eastern Linited, New Dehli, 1988
ISBN 81-224-0064-7
         C.Jung
--------------------------------------------------------
Christian Jung
Student of EE
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
Christian.A.Jung@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
--------------------------------------------------------
------------593734D86C590
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

There is a quite nice book about thermal conduction in semiconductors.
The theoretical background of thermal conduction caused by
lattice thermal conduction and electron thermal conduction is explained.
It contains furthermore many hints on other sources.
 
Thermal  Conduction in Semiconductors
C. M. Bhandari, D.M. Rowe
Wiley Eastern Linited, New Dehli, 1988
ISBN 81-224-0064-7
 
 
 
         C.Jung
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------
Christian Jung
Student of EE
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
Christian.A.Jung@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
--------------------------------------------------------
 


------------593734D86C590--

>>>>> "Keith" == Keith D Wilkins  writes:
    Keith> Dettol  wrote in article
    Keith> <32E44E4A.6BEF@gold.chem.hawaii.edu>...
    >> DOES ACADEMIC TENURE HAVE ANY PLACE IN THE MODERN WORLD?
    Keith> 
    Keith> General observations on the above note.
    Keith> 1.  I am sure academia has the whole spectrum of performers
    Keith> just like the rest of the professions on the world.  Some
    Keith> are top notch, some are average, some are bad.  I have seen
    Keith> a lot of job reductions over the last 6-7 years and it is
    Keith> not always the poor performers that are eliminated.  To
    Keith> blame any problems on tenure is rather simplistic if not
    Keith> wrong. ( I think I saw Uncle Al post that fully 50% of the
    Keith> population is below average)
 This is an excellent point. No matter what system you set up there
will be a non-zero percentage  of people who will find a way to abuse
the system or exploit it. Abolishing the whole system because of a
negligible number of deadwood is not going to solve anything and will
only punish the really deserving ones. 
Ragu
--
	************************************
	 ______| ______|    ______  ____|
	  /  \      0 o/ /  /  \  |    \  |
	 (____)   0_^_)__) (____) | o_^_)_)  
	            |
	************************************

Tani Akio Hosokawa wrote:
> 
> If you insist, I can give you a new scenario with a frame of reference
> that is understandable.  Can God create something more complex and
> powerful than He, himself?  If he can, then he cannot be omnipotent,
> because he would not be all-powerful with respect to that greater being.
> The existence of the potential of existence of that greater being is all
> that need exist to prove this, because omnipotence is just a concept as
> well...
If you propose that omnipotence must imply the ability to create that which cannot exist then you have defined 
it so that it cannot be a valid reference. By such means you may argue that God cannot be "omnipotent". Though 
the normal usage of this term is not affected. You have some experience with the term infinity, from 
mathmatics. If the creation of a single atom, law, or idea is mapped to a real integer, then an omnicient 
scientest might find that there were an infinite number of such created items to enumerate, though we ignorant 
savages certainly would find far fewer. Does an item, such as a more powerful god, belong to such a list? I 
really don't think so. If it did, would the enumeration of infinity be larger by one? Again I don't think so. 
Having not proved, but meerly postulated, the existance of a greater God, how does this imply that God is not 
omnipotent? Since we have claimed that God was not created it must be aparent that he could not create a 
similar god, by definition.

Jim Carr wrote:
> 
> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew H. Fields) writes:
> 
> >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?
> 
>  This is what soldiers are told; I learned it as a Scout.  However,
>  there are claims that the risk to the bridge is an urban legend, at
>  least for a 'real' bridge.  We did it anyway once, on a steel and
>  concrete footbridge, and it made a heck of a lot of noise and did
>  make the bridge feel like it was bouncing from our efforts.
> 
I've done it myself by jumping up and down on small foot bridges, except
I pursposfully tried to find the resonant frequency.  After these
experiments I have no doubt that randomized stepping is a practical
prevention of a real potential *disaster*, if ever the marching cadence
occurred at the resonant frequency.
-- 
David Olen Baird, Composer
Email: mailto:davbaird@fileshop.com
Home Page: http://www.tfs.net/~davbaird/

On Tue, 21 Jan 1997 03:49:03 GMT, in sci.skeptic,
=eat-me@regular-mealtimes.org= (»Word Warrior«) wrote:
>casanova@crosslink.net (Bob Casanova) wrote:
>
>>On 19 Jan 1997 18:16:09 GMT, in sci.skeptic, sjhogart@unity.ncsu.edu
>>(Susan Hogarth) wrote:
>>>*someone* wrote:
>>>* >>People properly nourished in clean surroundings won't
>>>* >>get cancer at all.
>>>Where does _this_ assertation come from?
>>It's an idea she has. She has provided no evidence in support.
>
>Inaccurate/inapplicable; fallacious regardless.
Oh, have you provided evidence for your claim? Sorry, I missed it.
Would you please post it again?
>
>>I
>>suspect it's a "New Age" thing.
>
>Irrelevant.
Yep.
>
>
>Carcinogenic pollutants are a reality should
>you decide to familiarize yourself with some
>serious science on the subject.
I have. No one in this thread (AFAIK) has claimed that there are no
carcinogenic pollutants. This in no way implies, however, that such
pollutants are the *only* cause of cancer, which was, I believe, your
initial claim. If you have evidence supporting this claim, please post
it, along with references. Thank you.
(BTW, I'm removing several inappropriate newsgroups.)
>_____________________________________________________________________________
>|Respectfully, Sheila          ~~~Word Warrior~~~         green@pipeline.com|
>|Obligatory tribute to the founding fathers of the United States of America:|
>| This is not to be read by anyone under 18 years of age, who should read up|
>| on history and the First Amendment to the Constitution, as an alternative.|
>| *Animals, including humans, fart, piss, shit, masturbate, fuck and abort.*|
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
"No one's life, liberty or property is safe while
 the legislature is in session." - Mark Twain

In article <5c2m3r$fdi@horsey.netaxis.ca>,
Gerry LaValley  wrote:
>Kemeney and Kurtz (?) invented BASIC to make some computer power
>available to non-CS students at Dartmouth. There were no programmable
>calculators in those days. Iteration with a four-function calculator
>was a royal PITA. 
The only calculators that existed when BASIC was invented in the 60's
were the desktop variety.  I remember rooms full of mechanical
calculating machines that were kept under lock and key, much like
computer labs of today.  Handheld calculators, even the four-function
variety, did not appear until the 70's, and were fairly expensive.
-- 
Dave Seaman			dseaman@purdue.edu
      ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
    ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

tomlinsc@ix.netcom.com (Chuck Tomlinson) wrote:
>First, C&D; was wrong when they said the Viper would be ahead by more than 
>260 ft at 130 mph.  What they should have said is that the Viper reaches 
>130 mph in 260 ft less distance than the Porsche.  
Yes, I agree with this absolutely.  But let me reiterate (for Lloyd's sake)
that there is a *clear* distinction between reaching a speed in a certain 
distance and having an "x" foot gap between cars at a given point in time.
>My analysis (which I'll explain later) shows that the Porsche needs 2,186 ft 
>to reach 130 mph and the Viper needs 1,920 ft.  That's a difference of 266 
>ft in Viper's favor.
Mine showed 2,175 for the Porsche, 1,925 for the Viper - both reasonably close.
>
>Second, between the time that the Viper finishes the QM (12.3 sec) and 
>the time it reaches 130 mph (15.7 sec), it has closed the gap to the 
>Porsche by a not-so-spectacular 20 feet (in fact, the Viper is alongside 
>the Porsche). The Porsche is going 126 mph at this point.  
>
>By the time the Porsche reaches 130 mph (17.1 sec) the Viper is going 
>almost 135 mph, and has pulled out another 8 ft on the Porsche.
I calculated about 10 feet - again, very close
>Third, even allowing for some calculation error, the Viper and Porsche 
>are within horn-honking range (if not fender-tapping range) of each 
>other at 130 mph.
Yes!  This is what I've been trying to drill into Lloyd's head all along!
>** Method **
>
>Using Microsoft Excel's Solver add-in, 
Normally, I wouldn't trust any calculations produced by Microsoft software,
but in this case I'll agree :-)
>I fitted a curve to the speed vs 
>time plot for each car.  For the Viper, I used the curve from C&D; 9/96.  
>For the Porsche, I used the times from the 7/95 C&D;, filling in 
>intermediate speeds based on the curve from the 6/95 Motor Trend.  BTW, 
>the 20.5 sec 0-150 mph time in C&D; 7/95 is clearly wrong.  My curve-fit 
>suggests it should be 25.0 sec.
C/D posted a correction to the 0-150 time a while back.  It should have been
26.5 seconds for the Porsche.

>** Results **
>  
>For the Viper: 
>
>Speed(mph) = 430.86 t^0.71602 - 352.96 t^0.75 - 60.158 t^0.40
>and 0-1320' in 12.3 at 116 mph
Very close to C/D's numbers, 12.3 @ 115mph
>For the Porsche:
>
>Speed(mph) = 357.75 t^0.72183 - 303.66 t^0.75 - 29.962 t^0.40
>and 0-1320' in 12.3 sec at 113 mph
C/D posted 12.3 @ 114 for the Porsche
>I am confident that this method generates a fitted curve that is at 
>least as accurate as the published test data.  This method is readily 
>available to anyone with access to later versions of MS Excel.  And 
>IMHO, it's a helluva lot better than endless handwaving and questionable 
>assumptions.  Try it and see.
Chuck, I have no problem whatsoever with what you posted.  If you go back a
few days you can see the specific equations I used to calculate my numbers
in the "Re: Sports car Comparo..." thread.  I'm sure you will agree that
the "questionable assumptions" and "endless handwaving" are contributions
exclusively from Dr. Parker
Best Regards,
Gary.
gary.kercheck@adicon.com

On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Herbert Van Vliet wrote:
> When light is travelling trough water or glass, it's speed is not c
> (that's at least what I've read somewhere).
> How come that after it is 'back' in vacuum, it's speed is c again?
> 
Look at it like this. Treat the light like a series of dominoes falling.
If the dominoes get furter apart, the place where the action is will move
sower. If they come closer together again, this spot will start moving
faster.
This is pretty analagous to what happens with the photons when leaving
media. The EM fields can simply reach out and wiggle fields ahead of them
a bit easier in the vacuum.
Anthony Potts
CERN, Geneva