Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
SenorToenails and topal63 are two of my most missed posters.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England
I would very much like to read his research. C'est la vie
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
+2,973|6602|949

Spark wrote:

SenorToenails and topal63 are two of my most missed posters.
Thomas (topal) was one of the most rational human beings I've had the pleasure of talking to. His contributions to this forum should be canonized for all eternity. Shame he doesn't post anymore.
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
Walking encylopaedia he was. Top poster.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
FEOS
Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate
+1,182|6381|'Murka

Jay wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Since when do toilets need power?
Converts waste into fuel.
So it's not a solar powered toilet then. It's a solar powered biofuel generator.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England
The premise behind the competition was to rethink the toilet. Reimagining it as a biofuel generator fits the bill.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Trotskygrad
бля
+354|5969|Vortex Ring State
have many people been following curiosity (the new mars rover?)
Cheeky_Ninja06
Member
+52|6702|Cambridge, England

Trotskygrad wrote:

have many people been following curiosity (the new mars rover?)
Been following it lots, find it fascinating.
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
http://news.yahoo.com/mathematician-cla … 37044.html

The ABC conjecture, proposed independently by the mathematicians David Masser and Joseph Oesterle in 1985 but not proven by them, involves the concept of square-free numbers, or numbers that cannot be divided by the square of any number. (A square number is the product of some integer with itself). According to the mathematics writer Ivars Peterson in an article for the Mathematical Association of America, the square-free part of a number n, denoted by sqp(n), is the largest square-free number that can be obtained by multiplying the distinct prime factors of n. Prime numbers are numbers that can only be evenly divided by 1 and themselves, such as 5 and 17.

The ABC conjecture makes a statement about pairs of numbers that have no prime factors in common, Peterson explained. If A and B are two such numbers and C is their sum, the ABC conjecture holds that the square-free part of the product A x B x C, denoted by sqp(ABC), divided by C is always greater than 0. Meanwhile, sqp(ABC) raised to any power greater than 1 and divided by C is always greater than 1. [What Makes Pi So Special?]

This conjecture may seem esoteric, but for mathematicians, it's deep and ubiquitous. "The ABC conjecture is amazingly simple compared to the deep questions in number theory," Andrew Granville of the University of Georgia in Athens was quoted as saying in the MAA article. "This strange conjecture turns out to be equivalent to all the main problems. It's at the center of everything that's been going on."

The conjecture has also been described as a sort of grand unified theory of whole numbers, in that the proofs of many other important theorems follow immediately from it. For example, Fermat's famous Last Theorem (which states that a^n+b^n=c^n has no integer solutions if n>2) follows as a direct consequence of the ABC conjecture.
so i think a big chunk of number theory might have just run into an unexpected conclusion
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
AussieReaper
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
+5,761|6123|what

What Makes Pi So Special?]
https://i.imgur.com/maVpUMN.png
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England
Love you spark, but if that is what passes for excitement among mathematicians im glad im an engineer
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
i'm just more interested in the potential for number theorists across the world to go "well fuck. now what"

i like number theory, it's kind of cool, but it's definitely not something i'd ever pursue at any more than a vague-interest sort of level.

it actually happens fairly often in maths, people discovering things that put a rather abrupt and awkward halt to other people's studies. including one well-known example of someone who wrote an phd entire thesis on the fascinating properties of the anti-metric space. unfortunately, at the viva, it was pointed out to him that the only examples of an anti-metric space are (1) the empty set (so completely stupid) and (2) the set with one point (so also completely stupid).

luckily for him, it was the supervisor who got the bollocking.

there are a few more of those stories lying around. lot of examples in maths of people suddenly finding they've completely wasted their time.

Last edited by Spark (2012-09-12 06:07:14)

The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
+2,973|6602|949

Somewhere some religious fundamentalist is preparing for the war between good and evil
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

That video would've been so much cooler if it had started raining frogs.
Trotskygrad
бля
+354|5969|Vortex Ring State
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19652591

not really science but news?

US is finally making body armor for females.
Jaekus
I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose
+957|5148|Sydney
https://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/601448_10151446350044988_1902399779_n.jpg

The retired space shuttle Endeavour is carried on the back of a NASA jumbo jet over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, on September 21. Thanks to Julius Tanseco for the photo.

I'm equally amazed it was a clear day in Fog City
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
That's a hell of a photo.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
M.O.A.B
'Light 'em up!'
+1,220|6193|Escea

Spark wrote:

That's a hell of a photo.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

RWF about plane sex.
Spark
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
+874|6644|Canberra, AUS
this really should have been posted by now
http://techland.time.com/2012/09/19/nas … arp-drive/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/ … plausible/

White, who just shared his latest ideas at the 100 Year Starship 2012 Public Symposium, says that if you adjust the shape of the ring surrounding the object, from something that looks like a flat halo into something thicker and curvier, you could power Alcubierre’s warp drive with a mass roughly the size of NASA’s Voyager 1 probe.

In other words: reduction in energy requirements from a planet with a mass equivalent to over 300 Earths, down to an object that weighs just under 1,600 pounds.

What’s more, if you oscillate the space warp, White claims you could reduce the energy load even further.

“The findings I presented today change [Alcubierre's warp drive] from impractical to plausible and worth further investigation,” White told SPACE.com. “The additional energy reduction realized by oscillating the bubble intensity is an interesting conjecture that we will enjoy looking at in the lab.”

That’s right, an actual lab experiment, whereby White says he plans to simulate the tweaked Alcubierre drive in miniature, using lasers “to perturb space-time by one part in 10 million.”

And if it works? Don’t expect to go Alpha Centauri-hopping any time soon, but the idea well down the road, according to a presentation delivered by White on the subject last year, would involve a spacecraft leaving Earth, traveling a given distance using conventional propulsion, stopping (relative to the Earth), enabling its “warp field,” then traveling to a point near its interstellar destination, where it would then disable the field and continue on its way using conventional propulsion methods once more.

Star Trek meets Contact, in other words.

Instead of taking “decades or centuries,” White says this would allow us to visit a spot like Alpha Centauri — a little over four light years from us — in as little as “weeks or months."
i think the "paper" is here
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
FatherTed
xD
+3,936|6470|so randum
Small hourglass island
Always raining and foggy
Use an umbrella
Jaekus
I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose
+957|5148|Sydney
F1 engines on their own are very loud but with the rocket also in full throat, the din produced in the shelter was predicted to exceed 180 decibels - many times the sound intensity of the Tornado fighters that used to occupy the building on the edge of the Newquay runway.
180dB is nuts. Every 10 dB increase is a perceived doubling of sound, so it sounds about 5x louder than a shotgun at point blank or 747 taking off at close range (both those sounds are around the 140+dB mark, which is instant temporary or permanent hearin damage).
PrivateVendetta
I DEMAND XMAS THEME
+704|6161|Roma
I'm more interested in the 47,000lbs of thrust. On a 6.5 tonne car..
https://static.bf2s.com/files/user/29388/stopped%20scrolling%21.png
Jaekus
I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose
+957|5148|Sydney
That's what she said.

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