Newsgroup sci.physics 217304

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Tani Akio Hosokawa wrote:
>  Logic is something that
> either must work or must not work...
Well, I think you should look more closely at your assumption.
Logic may be described as an algebra, (one of a set of relations
that permit mapping operations on members of a set). Attempt to apply 
simple back yard logic to the position of an electron. If it is in
slot one it cannot be in slot two. Logical but completly wrong. The
reason is that specific forms of logic apply only to specific situations.
It is not logic that is on trial but our ability to establish the
right form of the problem such that the algebra that we have will work. 
Some of the more obscure issues may completly disguise our failure to 
correctly propose the problem. Imagine the absurdity of trying to locate
a photon particle in the middle of a wave diffraction process. If you 
should be able to force a solution it must be wrong because it was improperly
posited. Similarly, if you ask logic to deal with situations that are not 
properly proposed in theology, you get nonsense, but very sophisticated and
logical nonsense.

Chuck Tomlinson (tomlinsc@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
Sounds like you did a good analysis and we can put this to rest.  One 
question:  (see below)
: 
: In the hope of settling this issue, I crunched some numbers today and 
: discovered a few things:
: 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.  
I don't understand what you mean by "has closed the gap to the Porsche" 
since they are obviously tied at the 12.3 second mark and the Viper is 
accelerating faster at this point (as is evidenced by its advantage going 
from -0.3 sec at 60 to +0.2 sec at 100 to +1.4 sec at 130 to +2.6 sec at 
150).

A lot of very interesting information about nuclear weapons physics and
design (including a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages
of the different isotopes regarding bomb making) can be found at :
	http://www.envirolink.org/issues/nuketesting/hew/
At this URL you can find Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons FAQ, which is
just great. Reading this FAQ will avoid a lot a people to write stupid
things about nuclear bombs... and much more nuclear related topics.
Regards, Thierry
================================================================================
 Thierry SENGSTAG
 Paul Scherrer Institut            Ecole Polytechnique Federale de
Lausanne
 OVGA/326                          Institut de Genie Atomique - Dept.
Physique
 CH-5232 Villigen                  CH-1015 Lausanne
 +41-56-310.45.12                  +41-21-693.33.77  (Fax:
+41-21-693.44.70)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"La vie n'est qu'un cas particulier de tous les problemes possibles."
A.Hirt
================================================================================

Miller Group wrote:
> Start up a new moderated group called 'sci.physics.people.who.apparently.
> know.what.they're.talking.about' with a selected group of non-fruitcakes
> who are willing to globally killfile (can this be done?) proven wasters
> of time.
You can't global killfile people, but you can retromoderate.
Not that I'm suggesting it's a good idea.
-- 
        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)

CC: Drake, because I've joined this thread quite late.
rdadams@access1.digex.net (Dick Adams) writes:
>Macarthur Drake  wrote:
>> This messege is to provoke a serious scientific debate.
>> I am an engineer, no biologist, astronomer or statictician or anything,
>> but something puzzles me. I am sure you are aware of the Late Dr. 
>> Sagan's quote  " extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof "
>> with regards to extraterrestrial life, UFOs etc.  I have also heard
>> people say that the discovery of life on another world would be the 
>> greatest discovery in human history.
>> I beg to differ with both of these ridiculus statments.
>> [snip]
>> I would appriciate any math or stats expert to comment on the 
>> chances that we are alone in the entire universe. I bet that s/he'd 
>> say that it is statistically impossible for us to be alone, so what's 
>> the big deal we know that life is there, just a matter of time 'til
>> we find it....or them us!
"Statistically impossible" is either a redundancy or an oxymoron 
and needs to be defined carefully before it can be commented on.  
As a mathematician with a wife who worked eight years in biochemistry, 
I would add that we just know too little about the probability of 
life having arisen spontaneously on earth to be able to
estimate the chances that we are alone in the universe.
your question.  Nobel Laureate Francis Crick has written at length
of the dearth of hard data along these lines in _Life Itself_.
Check it out--you will be fascinated and intrigued by his theory
of directed panspermy.
Richard Dawkins has written at length about the odds and how little
we know about them in _The Blind Watchmaker_, but he is a far
less logical person than Crick and suffers a disastrous lapse
in logic when he claims that if life arose only once in the
universe, it had to be on earth.  Had he said "intelligent life" 
instead of just "life" he would have been on firmer ground,
but as it is he seems blissfully unaware of Crick's book or
theory.
>> [snp - again]
>Extraordinary claims DO REQUIRE extraordinary proof. 
What makes the two claims above extraordinary is their specificity.
Most scientists would not call the following claim extraordinary:
>Life elsewhere in the universe is probable;
Only a claim as unequivocal as the ones listed by Sagan
is extraordinary.  Drake's claim above falls into that category.
> finding it may well
>be the greatest discovery ever made up to that time.
Now THAT's a non-extraordinary claim!  ;-)
Peter Nyikos                      -- standard disclaimer --   
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Columbia,  SC  29208

clida02@mail.idt.net (David & Deborah Cliffe) wrote:
>fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew H. Fields) wrote:
>>Actually I hear more praise for 19-tone equal temperment than
>>for 16 or 24.  31, 55, and 108 also have their fans.  One of the
>>Javanese scales uses 5 of the 7 notes in 7-tone equal temperment,
>>more or less....
>(Perhaps this belongs in another thread)
>How are the pitches generated in some of these microtonal works for
>tones greater than 24?  (i.e., What medium is most often employed -
>traditional instruments?  Computers?)  I've always been fascinated by
>the concept, but often wonder if its value lessens (aurally) as the
>number of tones greatens...What are we able to perceive, and how?
Ehm... I don't know actually. But if you wanted to explore non 12-tone
equally tempered scales you could try a program called World Music
Menu, which allows you to use more than a hundred of ethnic, ancient,
etc. scales.
You can get more infos at:
http://www.freeplay.com/wmm.htm

kremlin@Russia.com (Dark Dante) wrote:
>On Sat, 11 Jan 1997 02:06:37 GMT, casanova@crosslink.net (Bob
>Casanova) found a Biro and scribbled:
>>On Fri, 10 Jan 1997 18:41:20 GMT, in sci.skeptic,
>>=eat-me@designated-mealtimes.com= (     >>>--->Word Warrior<---<<<
>>) wrote:
>>>Sunlight is the source of all life on the planet.
>>Yes, it is 
>No it isn't!
>What about those organisms that live by feeding off sulphur plumes at
>the bottom of the sea?
Would they live if the sea froze solid?
_____________________________________________________________________________
|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.*|
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Jerry Hedden (hedden@unix2.netaxs.com) wrote:
: The open universe case possesses negative curvature.  The great burning
: question in my mind is:  Is there an isotropic, finite, simply-connected
: three-dimensional space solution for the open universe case?
No.  A closed three-manifold of constant negative curvature cannot
be simply connected.  ("Closed" is the mathematical term for what 
you mean by "finite"---it means "compact and without boundary."
The physics terminology is somewhat confusing; negative curvature
FRW universes were called "open" because the simply connected ones
are open, i.e., not closed, and at the time physicists weren't
thinking about more complicated topologies.)
: If the answer to this question is no, then I do not see how we can seriously
: consider the prospect of an open universe.
Well, I personally like the idea of a spatially compact universe
with negative curvature.  It's true that such a universe, while
locally homogeneous, is not isotropic, but whether that disagrees
with observation depends on the scale of the topology.  There is
currently some research going on concerning observational implications
of multiple connectedness; the observational limits, as it turns out,
are fairly weak.
As to how the nontrivial topology could have come about, there is a
plausible (though certainly unproven) approach to quantum cosmology
in which the topology of the early universe undergoes quantum
fluctuations.  If this happens, one would expect a random topology
to be "frozen in" shortly after the big bang.  It might be possible
to compute probability distributions for topologies, though as far
as I know, very little work has been done in this area.
Steve Carlip
carlip@dirac.ucdavis.edu

Hi Sheila, 
Please stop posting this thread to sci.astro.amateur.
Thanks,
Rich

Ross wrote:
> 
> Next full moon get out your caliper and go outside at moonrise. Arm
> extended full length, or with a device to make sure your eye and the
> caliper are the same distance apart, "measure" the moon. At full rise
> do the same.
> 
> I could see little or no difference.
> 
You can get up a pretty good bar bet on this, on a night with a full
moon. Pose the question: If you shut one eye and hold a quarter in front
of the other, then move it in or out until it barely covers the moon,
how far will it be from your eye? It turns out to be a bit over nine
feet.    rj

lparker@curly.cc.emory.edu (Lloyd R. Parker) wrote:
> You've also assumed the Viper's acceleration gets cut in half
>as it goes from 129 mph to 131 mph.  
No, I specifically re-calculated using a higher rate to prove to
you the difference was insignificant.  You might try reading my
post before you fire off an assinine response.
>: You calculated 146 feet.
>: Quite a discrepency there, doncha' think?  How about you post your calculations,
>: big guy?  Or don't you beleive in backing up your answers with explanations?
>
>I DID post my calculation.  It used the formula you cite below, assuming 
>linear acceleration.

>That's the formula I used, but starting from 0.  
Starting at zero??????  Using a constant rate of accleration
from zero to 130mph?????
>That may not be a valid assumption, 
"May not be valid"?  It's completely inane.
>but neither was your assumption that as the Viper crosses 
>130, its acceleration gets cut in half.  
Did you bother to *READ* what I wrote about using a different acceleration rate
for the Viper after it reaches 130mph?????  Does the number 5.23 (ft/sec^2)
ring a bell?  Is that half of 6.5 (ft/sec^2)??
>Your assumption has the Viper accelerating slower than the Porsche at that 
>point, yet since the Viper 
Backup and read my post slowly.  I re-calculated using an accleration rate
of 5.23 (ft/sec^2) - a rate *HIGHER* than the Porsche's.  It made a difference
of a whopping 1.4 feet - what part of that don't you understand? 

"Dane R. Anderson"  writes:
>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. 
I'll take you at your word that you've seen deformed bottles.
What evidence do you (or could you possibly) have that the
deformation was caused by "collapse" into the shape of
"rocks that they were laying upon"?  Were you there watching
the whole hundred-odd years?
It's astounding how many posters to sci.* groups seem to have
no concept whatever of _evidence_, at least when this subject
comes up.
Lee Rudolph

Dettol (mikeh@gold.chem.hawaii.edu) wrote:
: 
: BTW I think you're skating on thin ice citing Japan.  Because of the job for life thing in
: Japan, it has an underlying (ie.true) rate of unemployment far in excess of the official rate.
: Effectively this means that there are large numbers of very well paid welfare recipients which
: must drain the economy in someway.  The Japanese economy has been stagnating since about 1991
: and the stock market has nearly halved in that time.  The japanese economy is in need of reform
: but there seems to be a lack of political will at the moment.
The current economic troubles in Japan are mostly due to the collapse of 
the real estate market.  Real estate values in Japan, and especially 
Tokyo, had been run up out of sight.  The real estate in Tokyo was worth 
more than all the real estate in the US!  Banks loaned millions to buy 
tiny pieces of land.  It all had to collapse someday, and it has.  Banks 
that made these loans are in trouble, as are the companies that took them 
out, and this is dragging down the economy.
: Firstly, I think it would be fair to say that the numbers of Nobel prizes won is probably more
: an indication of the commitment of the country to fund science and secondly having a sizeable
: population of scientists to do the research.  The number of Nobel prizes won says nothing about
: whether research is carried out efficiently, whether academics are accountable and whether
: fraud, or if your prefer, parafraud or unethical behaviour, is widespread.
But fraud has nothing to do with tenure; neither does unethical 
behavior.  Reading the Chronicle of Higher Education will show that.
The fact is, we turn out scientists in this country that dominate science 
world-wide.  Our academic scientists, most of them tenured Ph.D.s, win 
Nobels at a rate exceeding the rest of the world combined.  And one of 
the reasons is their job is not subject to the whim of a regent or a trustee.
Do you like Rowland would have had the guts to proclaim CFCs were the 
cause of ozone layer destruction if he hadn't had tenure and a U Cal 
trustee had decided that was liberal nonsense?

On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, John Murphy wrote:
> Paul Budnik wrote:
> 
> 
> This means that EPR tests do not disprove a hidden variable scheme
> unless you can show that hidden variables must always produce bivalent
> maximal valuations.
BJ: Last I heard, local HV theories were thought to be ruled out.

In article <5c55sp$cji@panix2.panix.com>, Edward Green  wrote:
>Michael Weiss   wrote:
>
>>erg@panix.com (Edward Green) writes:
>>
>>     Elitist?  You bet.  Any suggestions how to change things?
>>
>>We need a good topic.  Something at just the right level, not too
>>basic, nor thesis fodder, where the initiates can dispense
>>insight without snowing us with pages of computation.
>
>Much of the core of graduate physics remains a tabula rasa to me.  Any
>topic on a physics senior - first year grad level would be about right
>for this sinner.
Wasn't there some talk about this as the GR tutorial was winding down?
 I know one suggestion was a QFT tutorial.  There were probably other
suggestions that I don't remember at the moment.  Of course we'd need
someone to run the thing.  John did a wonderful job before, but I
don't know if he's got the time for someting like this again.  Any
volunteers out there?
-- 
======================================================================
Kevin Scaldeferri				University of Maryland
"The trouble is, each of them is plausible without being instinctive"

Im Artikel <5c0s0r$rfj$2@mark.ucdavis.edu>, carlip@dirac.ucdavis.edu
(Steve Carlip) schreibt:
[on gravitation of gravitanal energy]
>: That sounds like compound interest... is it calculated that way?
>
>Yes, roughly---that's a good analogy, though it's a little too
>simple.
[...]
> One of the interesting results of the early '60's is that
> this "compounding" procedure is almost unique.  That
> is, if you start with a linear theory---a theory in which
> gravitational energy does not gravitate, but other forms
> of energy do---and then "compound" the result iteratively
> ---the equivalent of continuous compounding of interest---
> the result is the field equations of general relativity.  Now, 
> Einstein had written down these field equations some 40
> years earlier, using a completely different set of arguments
> based on Riemannian geometry and the principle of
> equivalence.  It's fascinating that two so completely 
> different approaches lead to the same theory.
What a beautiful example of how a simple, innocent question answered by a
pro gives an intriguing result and something to wonder and ponder upon. 
[Maybe Michael Weiss should rethink his 'Lost Golden Age' argument. For a
layman like me, there's still lots to learn in sci.physics, and I'm sure
not every professional knew, what Steve Carlip laid out so nicely above].
Do I understand this right, that we might take the existance of two
completely different approaches leading to the same result as one being
the confirmation of the other? If so: what was Einsteins approach - her
certainly didn't just pulled (i.e. "wrote down") the equations from his
sleeve? (Well you said he used a different set of arguments (equivalence /
Riemannian Geometry) - care to elaborate just a wee bit further? Thanks in
advance and no problem, if not :-)
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.

With Jeffs permission I'll post his educational answer to my stupid
question about spin and quantum weirdness:
From:	candy@mildred.ph.utexas.edu (Jeff Candy)
This is in response to your questions regarding spin.
>In my view it has a spin like a tennis ball with a clearcut direction 
>(plane) which could be expressed in degrees, if only we could measure 
>it that precise.
The mathematics of spin-statistics (or more precisely, angular 
momentum statistics) depends on what sort of object you're talking 
about (eg. spin-1/2, spin-1, spin-3/2, and so on).  The simplest 
of all is a spin-1/2 system.  Unlike a tennis ball, which can be 
rotated about the z-axis using the real 3x3 rotation matrix
                   / cos t  -sin t   0 \
            R(t) = | sin t   cos t   0  | ,
                   \  0        0     1 /
a spin-1/2 system has rotations defined in terms of complex 
2x2 matrices (the Pauli spin matrices).  Thus it is clear that 
electron "spin" is nothing like the spin of a classical rigid body.
For example, using the z-axis as the quantization axis, the two 
spin "eigenstates" are 
        |+> = / 1 \     |-> = / 0 \
              \ 0 /           \ 1 /
which correspond to the S_z spin operator:
          Sz = / 1  0 \
               \ 0 -1 /
Clearly, Sz |+> = |+>   (eigenvalue = 1)
         Sz |-> = - |-> (eigenvalue = -1)
To rotate a spin vector by angle t about the z-axis, 
we use:
        Rz = exp[-i Sz t/2] = / exp[-it/2]     0    \
                              \     0     exp[it/2] /
Note the curious result Rz(2 pi) |a> = -|a> for any state 
vector |a>.  You _cannot_ use physical intuition to imagine 
what "spin" is.  You need to do the algebra.   
When you measure the electron spin along a particular spin 
axis -- say an arbitrary w-axis -- you will always find either 
up or down only (that is, you will PROJECT ONE of the TWO 
eigenstates of the w-axis spin matrix).  The probabilities 
for each measurement outcome depend on what the state vector 
of the system is beforehand. 
In the EPR problem, the electrons are known to be in the 
so-called spin singlet state:
                      |+-> - |-+>
        |s=0,m=0>  =  -----------
                        Sqrt(2)
s is the total momentum.  m is the z component.  There 
are 3 other possible spin eigenstates states (to make a 
total of 4, since we consider the product of two 2-D systems):
       |s=1,m=1> = |++>
       |s=1,m=0> = (|+-> + |-+>)/Sqrt(2)
       |s=1,m=-1> = |-->
For more complicated multi-particle systems the addition of 
angular momenta is a linear algebra nightmare. 
[end quote Jeff Candys eMail]
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.

To an additional question on the subject, Jeff Candy writes:
From:	candy@mildred.ph.utexas.edu (Jeff Candy)
Finally, you asked:
   Would our experiments in principle allow anything else 
   than these strictly discrete values? 
This is a _fundamental_ question.  Although the quantum theory 
of measurement is a somewhat controversial topic, a famous 
quote by Dirac suffices:
   A measurement always causes the system to jump into an 
   eigenstate of the dynamical variable being measured
An "observable" (energy, momentum, spin, etc) is always 
associated with an operator; for example, a matrix A.  
Measurement of the "observable" can only yield an eigenstate 
of A.  It is normally said that the measurement "throws" the 
system in to an eigenstate of A.  The number of different 
eigenstates can never be more than the dimension of A.   
[end quote Jeff Candy]
May I thus reformulate the EPR / Bell paradox to make it understandable
for simple minds like me? Here goes:
      HEADS or TAILS?
Ever thrown a coin? Now when it comes down, it's either head or tails,
although it was tumbling around all the while, right? 
Let's assume, you catch it with a tablet. You might then be able to
influence the result, if you give the tablet an angle other then
horizontally flat, ok? But alas, it's still only heads or tails.
Now imagine you toss two coins exactly parallel. On the floor or parallel
tablets they should come out both heads or both tails, and that's exactly
what they'll do. 
Now you might be intrigued to find out, what their _real_ angle was, when
they hit the tablet - and not only heads or tails. And so that's what you
do: you give one tablet this angle, and the other one that. 
You may think that now at certain angles one coin would drop heads whereas
the other drop tails and recalculating from your catch angles you could
precisely say, which angle the coins _really_ had.
But quantum weirdness won't let you do that. The results are against what
you calculated and very confusing: you _cannot_ recalculate anything else
then what your first catch told you - its either head or tails for both.
But actually it's much worse: you know that if you set your tablet at 45
degrees left to right, you'll get head or tails and you may get a
different result, when you turn the tablet so that the slope is looking
towards you instead of left/right. 
You also know, that the two results have no connection whatsoever, as any
combination is possible just regarding the state of tumbling that the coin
is in, when hitting the tablet. 
Ha, you say, but now I can use my double coin throw, setting one tablet to
measure left/right and the other to/fro, and from the results I can at
least decide which corner of the coin was upmost, when it hit the tablet.
And here comes the really strange thing: with both tablets set to
left/right you measure e.g. both coins heads. Both tablets set to to/fro
you measure e.g. both coins tails. And the tablets set to different
directions, you'll measure.... - strange, strange: BOTH heads - or BOTH
tails - but never any mixed state. It seems as if one coin tells the
other: look I'm falling tails, don't leave me alone.... And it does so
quicker than you can shine a light on it. Go figure....
BTW: As any analogy limps: corrections/enhancements very welcome :-)
Cheerio
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.

Peter Berdeklis  writes:
>On Tue, 21 Jan 1997 yarvin-norman@CS.YALE.EDU wrote:
>
>> Uh, no.  Just because something is at a high potential does not mean it
>> has extra charge.  It can be at a high potential because there is a lot
>> of extra charge somewhere nearby.  The corners of the Faraday cage (if
>> it has corners) will be at the same potential as the sides of the cage,
>> but will have more charge on them.  The interior of the cage will be at
>> the same potential, but will have no excess charge at all.
>> 
>> Thus the quarter will not spark when it hits the ground, unless it
>> picks up some charge on its way out.  (Which would involve another
>> spark.)
>
>I know that there is no extra charge inside the Faraday cage.  That's the 
>whole point of the question.
>
>Electric potential is not just a number - in physics nothing is.  When the
>potential inside the cage increases along with the rest of the cage that
>potential must manifest itself as an increase in the potential energy of
>the objects inside the cage.
The potential energy of an object is equal to the electric potential on
it, times the charge of the object.  Thus an uncharged object can be at
a high electric potential without having any potential energy.  This is
the case for the quarter in the thought experiment.  It is inside the
cage, and uncharged.  It is then thrown out, and does not experience
any forces (at least not of the electrostatic variety), since it is
uncharged.  It then hits the ground, still uncharged, so it makes no
spark.
They may not be numbers, but they sure act like them.  :-)
--
Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu

On 21 Jan 1997 09:49:42 GMT, Steve Gilham 
wrote:
>Organization: Graphic Data Systems Ltd, Cambridge, UK
>Distribution: World
>  Embedding these geometries in
>our familiar perception of space may however be trickier.
"Embedding these geometries" without space being a medium is not only
trickier but impossible. For example why and how does matter  always
follows a geodesic path in this non-medium call space? Why does it
never  follow a non-geodesic path?
>
>Spacetime is not a medium, it is the set of all (places and
>times).  This set has certain metric and topological properties.
But if you connect all these point you will have trace out a geodesic
path. Why and how? Why does the set has certain metric and topological
properties?
>
>Curvature of the 4-dimensional manifold is required 
Seems like that  every time you are resorting to abstractions such as
the non-existing time axis, 4-dimensional manifold and apparent
duration of a second to answer all difficult questions.
>>Every point on earth will have only *one* path of absolute motion in
>
>Given an absolute standard of rest, this follows
An absolute standard of rest frame does exist. However to locate this
frame you will need to first determine the absolute speed of light and
then find that frame that has the measured speed of light equal to the
absolute speed of light.
>But that cannot be so  - if the relative velocity is not aligned
>with the absolute motion, then simple vector addition of velocity
>means that the two objects in relative motion cannot have parallel
>absolute motions.
What two bodies? I thought we were talking about the earth labs.
Certainly the experimental apparatuses are not in relative motion.
>Well, that makes a change from Bjon, who says the exact opposite, I
>suppose.
You have to talk to him about it. What I said stands.
Ken Seto

Im Artikel <5c4g6s$cdu@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>, Bill Wines
 schreibt:
> The fact that most
> people seem to take it for granted that there "must"
> be intelligent life elsewhere seems to me to be based
> on an unreasoning awe at the sheer immensity of
> space and the numbers of galaxies, plus a bit of 
> "cosmic loneliness."  
It even worse than that: "intelligent life" is something else then just
life. *What else, most people ask and would like to know the dividing
line. Well, of course we know of apes 'washing' their potatos. Also of
apes 'lying'. Thus that's not enough. IMO there's two criteria: the first
one is, that an intelligent species willingly shapes the landscape to its
needs (and even destroys part of its environment). A second one, which is
just a follow-up on that is, that an intelligent species is able to
'create' an environment to its needs artificially. On earth no other
species is able to stay and move in the five given environments: in the
earth, in water, upon the surface (earth and water), in the air and in
space. The independence of a given environment (and sole dependence on
energy flow) is something only an intelligent species can develop.
Now after 4 million years, just one out of millions of species developed
an intelligence fulfilling the above criteria. And it's not that the
others had no chance. If life had a certain necessity to develop (Jaques
Monod), intelligence certainly hadn't, otherwise my dog would speak to me
:-). Thus the chance to ever meet aliens having been faster than us in
developing FLT is quite meagre :-(
Cheerio
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.

Joel Mannion wrote:
>  
> Mass and energy are almost equivalent--except for the small issue of a
> factor of c^2.
Sorry. Now I really don't get the point. The C^2 factor is a units 
conversion factor. Convert the units of both mass and energy into either 
grams or electron volts and the equation becoms E=M.

Tim Harwood wrote:
> Bruce Cathie checked the figure of 5.9 feet, and has found that the
> length of 5.914441183 exactly fits his harmonic equations. Therefore,
> very high frequency energy can be tapped from as good as thin air. All
> that is needed is some form of converter to turn the very high frequency
> energy into something more useful, like Tesla has already done.
Hmmmm...  So, what size oscillations will thermal vibrations induce in
an object roughly 6 feet long?  What are the limits on manufacturing
tolerance of metal? (In machine shop in high school we did 10^-4 inches,
but surface roughness on most of our machining tools was probably at
least this big.)  Then there's things like sound outdoors vibrating
the antenna, changes with temperature, etc. etc.  I just don't believe
10 significant digits in a length manufacturing tolerance.
Reminds me of an annecdote about road construction.  This architect
was all excited that his drainage ditch had to be exactly 12 feet
deep.  The foreman of the project looks tired and tries to explain
that this is silly. The architect persists that everything
will fail if the ditch is not exactly 12 feet deep.  So the foreman
calls to one of his workers.  "Hey Joe. How deep is the hole?"
Joe leans over and looks down the hole. "Twelve, twelve-an-a-half."
The architect went away.
Say, is that number a phone number?  Maybe somebody is playing a
big joke on us by publishing his girlfriend's phone number as some
kind of physical constant.
> although without reading some of the supporting evidence, I can
> appreciate it might seem a bit far-out and odd.
Yup.
-- 
Standard disclaimers apply.
I don't buy from people who advertise by e-mail.
I don't buy from their ISPs.
Dan Evens

EDS PHI Account Team wrote:
> 
> I noticed in these posts nobody mentioned a tonic.  All "tonal" music is
> based on a tonic or keynote.  Basically, the composer establishes the
> tonic, move from the tonic, and then resolves the piece back to the tonic.
> Simple melodies start on the tonic and then finish on the tonic.  This is
> a very simplified explanation of tonal music.  The tonic is something you
> have to feel or identify at the beginning of the piece.  It is the base or
> key note of the music.  When you move the tonic, this modulates the music
> to another key note or key.
> 
> This will either make sense or seem incomprehensible.  This is because the
> tonic is something that is preceived.
It goes great with some gin and a little lime, too.
-- 
Don Patterson 
"The President's Own"
United States Marine Band
The views expressed are my own and in no way reflect 
those of the U.S. Marine Band or the Marine Corps.

[Note followups.  Physics this ain't.]
In article <32E5B100.308E@uchastings.edu> Mark Hardie  writes:
> 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.
What do you mean by "emotive response"?  Isn't this just another name
for pleasure, or enjoying the piece?  If so, I don't see what your
claim achieves -- you appear to be urging that music should be good.
On the other hand, if you have something more specific in mind (that
music should "express" emotions like sadness, happiness), then I think
you're wrong.  Certainly *I* derive strong musical pleasure from
some music that is impossible to label in this way.  (Example: Steve
Lacy playing Monk's "Reflections" on the OJC album of the same name.)
And as Phil Cope points out, any number of techniques can make music
work (achieve emotional response, whatever): the big category he left
out is rhythm.
	Vance

Hello,
  I'm looking for a large piece of PZT (100mm x 100mm x 25mm)
(Or another ceramic with piezoelectric properties)
in order to make a demonstration of piezoelectric effect.
Where can I find such a piece ? I have asked all my professors 
and they don't know...If someone could help me...
					Laurent LE GUILLOU
  					Licence de Physique
					Universite du Maine, France

Is chaos still a hot field in physics?  

Bruce Cathie is an internationally know resarcher into the wrold energy 
grid. His latest book is - The Harmonic Conquest of Space ISBN 0 646 
21679 1. If you want to follow his working, evidence, and research 
to-date, obviously you need to buy the book.
I just want to dwell on some of the contents in chapter 14.
Nikola Tesla was aware of the world grid, he used it to run a converted 
Pierce Arrow car in 1931. It was powered by what he called an energy 
reciever, or gravitational energy converter. The antenna was 5.9 feet 
long, and the car did up to 90 m.p.h. and 1,800 revs per minute. 
Obviously moden electric engines, being more efficient would do a lot 
better than this.
Bruce Cathie checked the figure of 5.9 feet, and has found that the 
length of 5.914441183 exactly fits his harmonic equations. Therefore, 
very high frequency energy can be tapped from as good as thin air. All 
that is needed is some form of converter to turn the very high frequency 
energy into something more useful, like Tesla has already done.
I'd love to test this, since there does seem to be plenty on evidence to 
confirm Bruces's theories, but I lack the electrical expertise to test 
this 5.9 stuff, and I don't have the time needed to learn some 
electronics. 
I haven't found this 5.9 stuff stated anywhere on the net, so I thought 
I'd post it. Again, if you want to know more, you need to get hold of 
Bruce's book.
In the meantime, a file on Bruce's work is available here:
--
http://www.livelinks.com/sumeria/tech/cathie.html
although without reading some of the supporting evidence, I can 
appreciate it might seem a bit far-out and odd. 
Tim.

On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Julien DUBREUILLE wrote:
> Any help on the topic of long distance measure via laser ?
> Thanks !
> 
The apollo astronauts left reflective surfaces on the moon, so a laser
pulse fired at them which is reflected back and detected gives a time
delay.  If the speed of light is known then the earth moon distance can be
worked out.
The speed of light in a vacuum is known and constant.  The speed of light
when passing through a medium changes however, so for a true measurement
of the Earth Moon distance the speed of light through the atmosphere has
to be taken into account.
The reflected LASER light can also give information about the radial
velocity of the Moon by the doppler shift in the light sent and that
recieved, so it's possible to see if the Moon is moving closer to or away
from the Earth as it orbits.
Dave.

Hi Mike.  I whole heartledly agree. I would go one better, however, and 
modestly propose that we abolish academia.  Sort of put it out of
it's own misery.  In fact, it could abolish itself once the information
age helps expose such atavistic anachronisms of inefficency .
( I am not Pat Buchanan, Spiro Agnew's speach writer).  The universities are 
like an old line industry that has sunk it's capital into innefficient plant and 
equipment. They cannot change.  
Regards,
Marc Andelman

I just can't resist the urge to jump into this thread...
	While I'm not opposed to the general premise that many 
tenured profs are retired on active duty I've got to take issue with
the notion that I seem to be getting from some on this thread that
THE ONLY WORTHWHILE SCIENCE IS SCIENCE THAT "PRODUCES", and that IF
YOU DON'T PRODUCE, YOU'RE A LOOSER OF A SCIENTIST....
        If you measure production by publication or narrower yet, 
product development, I think you're ingnoring important parts of 
real science.  
	Many lines of investigation, if pursued by a competent 
practitioner, for a reasonable period of time, with reasonable 
resources will result in some sort of Least Publishable Unit, whether
or not the initial hypothesis of the investigator is correct or dead
wrong.
	BUT, there are many equally valid lines of research, that 
involve RISK.  Some lines of research can be followed with great 
skill and competence and immense resources and persistence can result
in SQUAT, in terms of a least publishable unit, not because of 
flawed premises but simply because of the nature of the research
and the inherent risks in a given approach (if you've gotta have 
specifics and are fluent in mobo and genetics I'll throw you some
in private).  On the other hand "SUCCESS" in this sort of research
 is often what it takes to fly a paper in the SCIENCE/NATURE/CELL
category (fill in your own list of journals of eminence).
	Grinding away at well-defined problems is an important 
component of research, and usually makes for publishable work.
Taking careful and well-considered risks is ALSO an important 
component of research, and will sometimes get you rich and famous
and will sometimes leave you high and dry.  But science without
gamblers is, to me, boring science indeed.
	Business folks tend to think of all research as "risky", 
but they don't realize that much research is VERY risk-averse.  If the 
only work you'll do is work you know will produce XX papers in YY
years, you're missing out on a hell of a lot of fun, and occaisonally
on some pretty cool science, and I honestly feal sorry for you.  
	But I'm not just a misty eyed pup, I know you've gotta produce
to survive (at least if you're a post-doc and not a tenure prof),
but my best guess is if all you're doing is making production,
and you're not ever taking chances, you're not gonna make it to 
the pearly gates anyway...
	All the best,
	Jonathan Lightner
	formerly bitter and twisted post doc,
	now bitter and twisted "real job" type dude.
In article <32E5B32D.1EB3@gold.chem.hawaii.edu>, Dettol  writes:
>Rebecca M. Chamberlin wrote:
>> 
>> Troy Shinbrot wrote:
>> >
>> > Let us imagine that you are a scientist, and you have an idea that
>> > requires more than 6 months to execute.  Into this category fits a great
>> > plurality, at least, of important work being carried out in any of the
>> > sciences.  How, without tenure, would you support yourself while this work
>> > is being done?  Would you tell your dean, please sir or madam, I know I
>> > have produced nothing for the past 6, 12, 18, 24 months, and I know I have
>> > used umpteen gazillion units of various resources, but believe me it will
>> > pay off in another few years?  I think not.
>> 
>> You've produced literally *nothing* for 2 years?   Not even a partially
>> completed experimental apparatus?  A failed test run?  Some theoretical
>> evidence that your grandiose experiment will work?  What on earth are
>> you reporting to your funding agency? (And why are they still sending
>> you money?)  Have you noticed your graduate students getting a little
>> testy?  Maybe even switching advisors?
>> 
>> If you've "produced nothing" and "used umpteen gazillion units of
>> various resources" for 2 years, you sure as hell ought to be fired.  Now
>> get to work!!!
>> 
>> Becky
>
>Ditto
>
>
>Mike

I thought this usenet newsgroup is for the discussion
	of physics. Why all the religion crap? People who want
	to argue drivel have their own holes to hide in on the
	.alt news groups
[\] Robert Wood   
The St. Lawrence river - fresh, warm, visible diving.
mailto:robert_wood@mitel.com

On 22 Jan 1997, Edward Green wrote:
> >
> >The quark theory is taking on the characteristics of fraud.
> 
> What does the quark theory explain about nucleons,  then?  There must
> be some reason it has been kept around so long?
> 
Perhaps it hangs around so well because we can actually see the individual
particles knocking around in the nucleons.
Just a thought.
Anthony Potts
CERN, Geneva

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Jason Kodish wrote:
> Not neccessarily, at least in the same manner. The EM force can be, but
> at the expense of adding another dimension to space.
> Strong,possibly..the Weak Interaction(not really a force as you'd think of
> forces...) probably not.
> 
I don't quite understand your point about the weak force not being a
force. It can still attract and repel just like all the other forces.
Anthony Potts
CERN, Geneva

ksjj wrote:
> 
> In article <5buevr$agd@whitecliff.sierra.net>, mccoy@sierra.net (John
> McCoy) wrote:
> 
> 
> The scary part? They teach this religist psuedo-science as fact in our
> schools. Kinda sends chills down your spine.
You're talking about creationism I suppose ?
> 
cheers,
Patrick.

On Tue, 21 Jan 1997 19:12:23 GMT
shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca (Jeffrey Shallit)
as message 
-- posted from: alt.atheism:
>|[newsgroups trimmed]
>|
>|In article <32E3CCC8.1999@lancnews.infi.net>,
>|John   wrote:
>|>Richard F. Hall wrote:
>|>> 
>|>>>snip
>|>> What you say is for all intensive purposes true. ....
>|>> snip
>|>Is there a name for "intensive puposes"? It is probably apt.
>|>John
>|
>|Malapropism.  My favorite malapropism is the fellow who
>|talked about his "bonified experiences", as if there were
>|a verb, "to bonify".
I "bonify" by girlfriend at least twice a week.  She loves it and asks for
more.  So maybe now you have a handle on what the fellow says about his
"bonified experiences".
>|Jeffrey Shallit, Computer Science, University of Waterloo,
>|Waterloo, Ontario  N2L 3G1 Canada shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca
>|URL = http://math.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/
>|
Erikc -- firewevr@insync.net
********************************************************
* Fundamentalism -- a disease whose symptoms include   *
* diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain. *
********************************************************
Luke 19:22 sez: "He said to him, 'I will condemn you out
of your own mouth, you wicked servant!'"  
********************************************************
http://www.christiangallery.com/    (home page)
http://www.christiangallery.com/sick1.html#bugger *sick*
/* Finest Christian porn on the 'Net */

On 22 Jan 1997 10:57:50 -0500, Lloyd R. Parker wrote...
>
>I don't understand what you mean by "has closed the gap to the Porsche" 
>since they are obviously tied at the 12.3 second mark and the Viper is 
>accelerating faster at this point (as is evidenced by its advantage 
>going from -0.3 sec at 60 to +0.2 sec at 100 to +1.4 sec at 130 to +2.6 
>sec at 150).
According to my curve-fits, the Porsche runs the QM in 12.26 and the 
Viper runs a 12.35, so the Viper is about a car-length behind the 
Porsche at the end of the QM.  When the Viper reaches 130 it has just 
nosed ahead of the Porsche.
Although the Viper is building speed relative to the Porsche, it is 
doing so very slowly.  Between the end of the QM and 130 mph, the 
Viper's speed advantage goes from a crawl to a brisk walking pace.  
Imagine yourself standing next to the rear bumper of a car and walking 
towards the front bumper.  That's the sort of speed difference (and 
time frame) involved here.
For better or worse, I decided to let the results of the curve-fits 
stand without "interpretation" or massaging.  IMHO, although the fits 
may not exactly match the published data, they appear to be well within 
the bounds of experimental error (not to mention car-to-car variation).
-- 
Chuck Tomlinson

Jason Kodish wrote:
...
> >This warped space notion of a force (or the effect of it) is getting
> >tiresome. The other three forces you mentioned above could also be
> >defined in terms of a warped space caused by the properties associated
> 
> Not neccessarily, at least in the same manner. The EM force can be, but
> at the expense of adding another dimension to space.
I don't see any need for another dimension. The effedcs EM force could
be modeled as warping space based on the ammount of charge, the same way
gravitational effects are modeled as warping space based on the amount
of mass.
...
-- 
Michael                   		Gaithersburg. Maryland
(michael658@worldnet.att.net)
(mike658@ibm.net)

Lawrence R. Mead wrote:

 :
> : Teaching an "incorrect idea" is no longer a real danger.  More likely
> : than not, a professor will be done in by an offhand remark.
> : "Homosexuality is not normal." or comparisons of a woman's body to Jello
> : were reasons that faculty members jobs were threatened.  The point is
> : not whether the ideas were incorrect (in fact, they involved value
> : judgements or just plain bad judgement) but whether faculty have the
> : right to say anything at all- no matter how silly (unless the prof
> : happens to be black and insults Jews).  Of course, in industry, what one
> : says in such an offhand remark can be grounds for dismissal.
> 
> I was not referring to political correctness, or just plain insults, rather
> actual statement of fact; eg., the moon has craters. This simple statement
> got a certain Italian astronomer in hot water. This, IMO is the major
> threat: that the administration/politicians/anyone else tell me *what*
> to think about or that a conclusion I have reached (however unpalatable
> to some) is factually incorrect. Only the process of science can
> determine that.
> 
It happens already in the tenured system.  I think its probably rare but I do know of one case where
a tenured faculty member was told by the university that he was not allowed to have graduate students
researching a particular area.
Once again, I think this is rare, this is the only case I'm aware of but it shows that a tenured
system does not guarantee the things you've mentioned if those above choose to interfere.
Mike