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The Science Thread
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I think we should have a thread on science news
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1108/110802-first-test-of-multiverse
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I love cosmology, but have taken like 1 astronomy class. Looked at wiki to try and understand what the heck they're studying to prove this, and how the theory even works, but I don't get it.
As far as I can tell, the existence of pocket universes would circumvent the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, but not disprove them?
And part of this has to do with theories about the creation of the universe re: universal inflation?
Anyone here an astrophysicist? -
From my understanding (I may be wrong) this is based on the theory that universes are basically bubbles or pockets, and there are many different bubbles floating around. If this is true then at some point we may have had a collision with another bubble, and if so they may be able to find the effects of it in the CMB radiation. What they are trying to do is distinguish between things just so happen to look like a collision, and an actually collision, and it seems they do this by narrowing the parameters on what qualifies as a possible collision.
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Here is something that blew my mind :D
http://www.jouleunlimited.com/ -
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110919.html
Does this mean the killer is still on the loose? -
This is probably kinda important.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/neutrinos-may-have-traveled-faster-than-the-speed-of-light/2011/09/23/gIQAo04HqK_blog.html
But before we all go burn our physics books...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/24/einstein-e-equals-mc2
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Heard about that. I'll believe it when someone does that same experiment with different instruments in a different place and gets the same result. (One thing I've learned, both from my own experience and from talking to others, is that measuring the same thing with two different sensors can give you two completely different results.)
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Always remember to calibrate.
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Phil Plait lays out a good set of reasons to take this with a grain of salt until it's replicated elsewhere: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/22/faster-than-light-travel-discovered-slow-down-folks/
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I also find it ridiculous that this is being taken as fact when it's currently in its peer review stage. The scientists who did the experiment couldn't find a problem with their calculations and experiment in general, so they released it to the scientific public to find errors. They're probably hoping for errors.
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NthDegree256 said:
Phil Plait lays out a good set of reasons to take this with a grain of salt until it's replicated elsewhere: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/22/faster-than-light-travel-discovered-slow-down-folks/
The thought experiment he cites is pretty sound: if neutrinos travel faster than light, then supernovae we've seen would have been forecast by bursts of neutrinos, but in reality, they've coincided with them.
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As with all empirical analysis, the proof is in replication. Until then, it is merely a cute notion.
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I love science. Always making the impossible possible. Now with stealth magnets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017479 -
This could be used to trick metal detectors, apparently.
So, if this becomes available sometime in the near future, what fucking ridiculous shit is TSA going to do to combat it? Must walk through metal detectors naked? -
They will probably utilize the amazing facial lie detector.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14900800 -
I stopped reading after "successfully discriminates... in two-thirds of cases." That's an incredibly poor performance. It's only relatively more reliable than a lie detector with those numbers.
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True, but there's always room for improvement and refinement of techniques and technology. As I recall, the 2/3 was not due to some fundamental limit, so much as a difficulty telling the flush from a lie apart from the fear of "oh god this guy might think I'm lying". I'm sure that's something they'll overcome by the time the stealth magnets become commercially viable.
Besides, a lie detector test requires you to be strapped in to a machine. With this technology, all they'd need is a few discretely placed special cameras that can see someone's face while they are asked some questions. -
This still doesn't account for the problem that, while most people tend to have certain queues for lying, some don't share those. Lie detectors draw on certainly much worse criteria, but I can't help but wonder if something like this is ever used, what happens to someone who shows several signs of lying but isn't lying? The application of this sort of technology is limited.
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a Science question: if the digestive system of say a Human is open at both ends and would be described as a "tube within a tube" does that mean that the digestive tract is actually external to the body itself?
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Disease that affects the skin can actually affect the linings of the throat, the stomach, and the intestines.
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If a stab wound can penetrate a portion of it it's internal to the body. That question is more semantic than scientific.
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BrokenMagnum said:
a Science question: if the digestive system of say a Human is open at both ends and would be described as a "tube within a tube" does that mean that the digestive tract is actually external to the body itself?
Yes, at least that's what my high school bio teacher said. Disclaimer: I suck at bio. -
BrokenMagnum said:
a Science question: if the digestive system of say a Human is open at both ends and would be described as a "tube within a tube" does that mean that the digestive tract is actually external to the body itself?
Not really, the cells that form the digestive track are completely different than the ones from out skin, due to evolution they differentiated at some point, like every other chordate in the world.
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There's plenty of explanations going around, but no confirmations. We're still playing the waiting game on it.
If anyone is actually properly curious about something scientific, http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience is the place to be. Questions on all layman levels simplified to try and become intuitive. And they do whip out the brute mathmatics if needed ,like if you were to ask what the deal is with massed particles approaching the speed of light.
There are a lot of great (and terrible!) questions asked. I'd even give the terrible questions a look see. I read a thread about whether an Adam and Eve could ever actually recreate the human race (you get a few of these from time to time) and it turns out some animals (cheetahs) have had populations as low as 6 in history. Quite a few species have been in the 20's. -
I'm really loving the stuff coming out of Microsoft Research.
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The guys who made the BigDog robot have decided that wasn't horrifyingly sci-fi enough.
Also, this is one buzz saw blade away from a manhack. -
Neat!
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I thought so, too. Also, I read that the faster-than-light neutrino test was reformulated and still bore the same results. So that's pretty interesting.
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As is my usual way with such things, I immediately went to see what Phil Plait had to say on the matter. https://plus.google.com/u/0/108952536790629690817/posts/1itSmkf6pK3#108952536790629690817/posts/1itSmkf6pK3
Short version: the re-test is still using the same timing mechanism as the original test, which was one of the culprits for the problem. So it's still not definite. -
Nope, not definite. They just corrected the most important potential problem with the test. They admitted they have a list of other tweaks to run through, too.
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http://www.codecademy.com/
thread resurrerection? yas pls also learn to write some code for free -
It's interesting. I've managed to freeze my browser a couple of times by running an infinite loop, but I'm learning.
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Doing fun things like creating infinite loops is a success when learning a language. All failures lead to a greater understanding of how the language(s) work(s).
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exagenous said:
http://www.codecademy.com/
thread resurrerection? yas pls also learn to write some code for free
Why can't I type on the site?
Is that the first test or something? -
It's like Mao. If you can't figure out how to type then they don't want you using the site.
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The show 'How the Earth was Made' (amazing show that everyone should watch) has gotten me interested in geology. Anyone know any good geology podcasts? Also paleontology podcasts.
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Don't know any podcasts, but James McPhee is your friend.
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Somehow I'm just now hearing about Kepler-22b, which I think makes two planets discovered that are in the habitable zone of there star.
http://www.leadertelegram.com/local_news/briefs/article_650425ed-6f56-59fe-871c-57ee2f70ce38.html
Also Dr. Michio Kaku talking a little about it. I generally like Dr. Kaku from his interviews on the history channel show 'The Universe' but I haven't read any of his books.
http://bigthink.com/ideas/42000 -
Geology is boring, take it from a geophysicist. Seismic data is the most boring thing you can look at.
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There is some cool shit you can learn from geology. I love to watch shit like geologists talking about the Martian landscape or the evolution of mountain ranges or how Loch Ness use to be part of the US (You owe us Scotland!).
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Yeah, those are not the bread and butter geos. They don't do what I call "real" work, you know the practical stuff. Book smarts and Street smarts.
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Jaw-dropping real-time HD footage of the northern lights.
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That was worth the wait.
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So cool!
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Size of objects in the universe are both amazing and humbling. My Astro teacher showed us a similar video from the 70's like that.
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Read this today and found it interesting. Largely I agree with the authors views, If we are going to have radians be the standard way to measure angles, then really should have Pi as the ratio of C/r instead of C/d. Anyone else have a strong opinion on the subjects of mathematical constants?
http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html & http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.pdf
