Genius comment on /.

As part of a psychological experiment, two single men, a physicist and mathematician, were placed in an otherwise empty room with a beautiful naked women at the far end.

They were instructed that they'd be allowed to close half the distance to the women every 10 minutes. Disgusted at the obvious subterfuge, the mathematician walked away in disgust. But the physicist stayed behind, occasionally glancing at his watch.

The experimenters looked puzzled, then asked the physicist, "You do realize, of course, that mathematically speaking, you can never actually reach the woman?"

"Naturally", replied the physician, looking up. "But I can sure get close enough for all practical purposes!"

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Wed., March 28, 7 p.m.

It comes down to this: Are all things in nature actually super-tiny bits of strings that are vibrating strands of energy? If so, string theory would merge general relativity and quantum mechanics, and would explain the origin of space, time, and the universe itself. Or is the theory, as some critics claim, just extraordinarily complex mathematics which may have nothing to do with physics and a theory of nothing, not everything? If so, physicists are back to the drawing board in their quest for the Holy Grail of physics'an ultimate theory of everything.

Lawrence Krauss and Brian Greene, two world-renowned physicists, square off in a spirited debate and discussion moderated by noted cosmologist Michael Turner. Greene's research focuses on superstring theory, which proposes a quantum theory of gravity as well as a unified theory of all forces and matter. This requires that the universe have 10 or 11 dimensions, not just the 4 we're aware of.

Krauss works at the boundary of particle physics and astrophysics, cosmology, and general relativity. His research deals with black holes, the very early universe, the future of the universe, dark matter, and dark energy. He is sceptical about string theory because it has yet to make a prediction that can be verified by experiment and has not solved any major physical puzzles about nature, including why the expansion of the universe is speeding up, the most profound question of our time.

Greene is a professor of physics and professor of mathematics at Columbia University; Krauss is Ambrose Swasey professor of physics and a professor of astronomy at Case Western Reserve University; and Turner is the Rauner Distinguished Service professor in the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago.

The Dept. of Energy's Office of Science (www.science.doe.gov) is the United States' largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences.

I took the audio from HoodedHawk (thanks!), merged, polished and uploaded to the archive.

sick by ~xp-FELi

That's it. I'm sick. Again. But this time is different. I'm sick of it all.

I'm sick of being ill all the time, of this constant and unbearable pollution that surrounds me.

I'm sick of all the cars, trucks, motorbikes, and moped that grind around, the stench is suffocating, the noise is ear-crushing.

I'm sick of the incinerators, the cement plants, the industries, the nuclear waste, the destruction of biodiversity, the depletion of the soil, I'm sick of Monsanto, Coca Cola, Dupont, and all the sick criminals that run them.

I'm sick of all the lies.

I'm sick of bureaucracy, of wasting days in useless procedures that don't bring me anywhere. I'm sick of signing papers, making photos, sending applications forms, go to the civic hall and find it closed when it's supposed to be opened.

I'm sick of this rotten food that we buy, of all the supermarkets that eat you up and choke you.

I'm sick of living with people I don't know or I don't like.

I'm sick of not being able to speak about these things, because they are depressing, and we should always pretend, pretend to be happy, don't spoil the party, don't be such an asshole, why so serious?

But most of all, I'm sick of all the people that don't see these things, all the idiots that play this this death game of monopoly, they don't give a shit about the billions of people starving to death, of those who drink filthy water and die of diarrhoea, of those who vomit blood since the day they were born because of the pollution of their rivers and their soil, of which we are responsible.

I'm sick of all the people who defend this sick society, who don't realise the symbiotic relationship that we have with our planet.

I'm sick of all the people who look away, who think that "our" kids are more important than "their" kids.

I'm sick of this false moralists, of the meaningless superstitions, religions, pseudoscience, and ignorance that permeates our subculture.

I'm sick of television.

That's it, I'm leaving this place. I'll move out from all these cars and trucks, a new house, where I live with somebody I trust and I like, where I can see the trees and the changing of the seasons not by looking at the forecast, but by looking at the leaves falling.

For now. And if that's not enough, I'll move out from this country. And if that's not enough, I'll move in a freaking ecovillage in the middle of a forest.

So long, my friends.

On this day, one of the greatest man of the history of mankind was born. It was December 25th, 1642,, when sir Isaac Newton came to this Earth.

Newton was a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian and one of the most influential men in human history. His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, is considered to be the most influential book in the history of science. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering.

Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.

In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he built the first “practical” reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.

In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called “Newton’s method” for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.

Newton’s stature among scientists remains at the very top rank, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of scientists in Britain’s Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed much more influential than Albert Einstein.

A truly great man, let us remember him, on this day of secular jubilee.