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Section VII -- Dark Matter Once upon a time, in a land far far away, hidden in the vast emptiness of space with billions and billions of stars, billions and billions of stars, there lived a lawyer. His name, A. Square. He was a square. He lived in a land called Flatland*. He has a grandson who was a hexagon. A. Hexagon was a physicist. One day, a team of pentagons, out on field work, brought back strange stones. They had a curious property that one side of one would attract one side of another, but repel the opposite side. They decided to call these stones, magic rocks, and the force that pushes/pulls them, magic. As they have yet to discover white magic, there was no need to give this magic a special name. Now, as A. Hexagon was experimenting on these stones, he came to a startling realization that their whole circle planet was held together by this very force known as magic. Further experiments allowed the exact force between two magic stones to be calculated as a function of distance. They later realized that this magic force alone was too weak to be the only force holding their plane together. There were places where magic was detected, but no matter was present. They thought and thought, and finally decided to name this, dark matter. Actually, never mind that. This theory was already proposed, and thus, it is invalid. After some deliberation, it was found that the real cause of dark matter is something known as the Kirby particle. As we know, Kirby is a pink globular entity that inhales everything[4]. These Kirby particles are known to produce a strong force of attraction that accounts for the gravity thought to have been produced by dark matter. Now this leaves a few discrepancies. Most importantly, how did Kirby get here? Why is Kirby invisible instead of pink? Why are there so many Kirbys? First, the origin of the Kirby particles shall be addressed. There exists video evidence of Kirby's star exceeding light speed, as it was shown to be passing by light waves. There is also a possibility that Kirby got a hold of the dimensional cape. The most likely cause of kirby's being here is that Kirby inhaled a black hole. Its gravitational force compressed Kirby to a singularity, but at that moment Kirby digested it, gaining its powers. Kirby expanded the event horizon to try to become normal again, but it was no avail. After some time, a wormhole formed at te singularity, sending Kirby off to our dimension. Kirby lost the black hole's power so it is now capable of absorbing other things, thus creating the Kirby force. Due to spacetime warping from the wormhole, Kirby multiplied, creating a vast number of Kirby particles. This is how dark matter came to be. When a Kirby particle absorbs another Kirby particle, something magical happens. As the Kirbies try to absorb each other, they both compress to fit in the other Kirby's mouth, until their volume and distance plummet to 0, fusing, and creating a super kirby which has a halflife of 3.7485**... Planck time units. When it divides, it explodes with a great outwards force. This outwards force is responsible for universal expansion being accelerated instead of slowed down by gravity. * This Flatland, although sharing many similarities with Flatland, written by Edwin Abott, is a different Flatland situated on the plane z=5. The Flatland written about by Edwin Abott is located on plane z=0. ** 3.7485828585590952383606834812 etc. It is an irrational number. Section VIII -- Aliens A long time ago, Ptolemy suggested that the Earth is located at the center of the universe and doesn't move[9]. Later, Galileo and Copernicus disproved Ptolemy and convinced everyone that Earth's orbit is a circle[10]. Kepler realized it wasn't a circle and said it was an eclipse[11]. During Kepler's time, the earth's orbit really was an eclipse, but recently, in the 20th century the Earth's orbit slowly changed into a different shape. It consists of 4 angles of 90 degrees each and 4 congruent sides. For simplicity, we will give this shape a name, Georev (equilateral equiangular quadrangle is too long a name).What caused this change in earth's orbit? Well, its the same reason that ever since the Great War, the world's been plagued by ubiquitous fighting and war. Two groups of alien species, with cloaking technology, have recently set their sight on taking Earth and colonizing it. This means that they must pull earth away from its natural orbit and eradicate all life on Earth in order to take it. The way they tried to destroy the preeminent life on Earth was by brainwashing leaders into instigating war with other nations. They also released the HIV virus in attempt to make humans reluctant to reproduce. As well, this was the century of the influenza pandemic that cut the population down to size. Unfortunately, the death rate is no match for the exponential growth of the world's population, but doomsday will soon be among us.The alien races are also competing with each other to pull earth away using their white magic technology. The more dominant of the races, we'd have to gargle with liquid nitrogen to pronounce their names, but for the sake of argument, we'll call them the Lunas, have exceptional technology and are pulling Earth with great force. The other race has lesser but still significant technology and must use the sun's gravity to assist them in taking Earth. We call them the Helios. Both have starships in a formation and are trying to pull Earth their way. So far, the struggle has been balanced, but the Earth still moves in the shape of their formation. This shape is the georev.Why can't this shape be a circle? Isn't the circle the most practical of all shapes? Isn't the triangle the strongest shape? What's so special about this strange georev shape? Firstly, a circular formation just doesn't work. For the ships to stay in formation, they must emit a magnetic wave to connect each ship. If their shape was to be a circle, the angle 3 adjacent ships would be at would be nearly 180 degrees, but not exactly. The magnetic fields would resist each other a small bit, and their goal is to use as little energy as possible. Angles with multiples of 30 degrees are necessary to use. So why not one of those 60-60-60 triangles? The aliens also don't want us to know that they're here, and a erratic season changes would probably set off suspicions. Thus, they need a shape with 4 sides, equilateral, and equiangular, the georev. This allows them to conserve energy, prevent suspicions from being roused from season change, but the problem is how to now stop Earth when it gets to a corner.If the Earth were to travel at its average speed and just stop and change its direction, all life on earth would die and the atmosphere would be flung off. This is undesirable, as the aliens want only to destroy all humans. speed bumps had to be placed to slow Earth's speed near a corner. These had bad consequences though. Usually, Earth hits a speed bump head on and slows down. This is like two pool balls hitting each other straight on. Occasionally, since not even aliens are perfect, Earth's path is misjudged and it makes an oblique collision. The slowing then does not occur at Earth's center, but instead in the mantle or crust. The aliens foresaw the consequences, but felt we would not noticed as the Earth already experiences earthquakes. However, since the 1900's, we have noticed slight increases in magnitude and frequency of the earthquakes. A logical question to ask at this point would be how the speed bumps stop Earth or how the Earth reaccelerates. Now it is not quite known how this is done, but the speed bumps are constructed out of hypothetical particles (the same ones that cause Hawking radiation) and the aliens can control when they blink into existence. The blinking is timed so that it appears as close to Earth's core as possible. It adds mass to wherever it hits to slow Earth and then blinks out, Earth keeping the same speed. If it hits the mantle or crust, a small rotational force is created at that point, displacing Earth's axis and causing an earthquake. The aliens also have the technology to fire Kirby beams. When the Kirby beams collide, they meet to form a super Kirby. The super Kirby has a half life of just over 6 Planck time units, before it collapses unto itself. In this time however, it is able to exert a great force upon Earth and accelerate it towards its next corner. This is how the aliens are able to keep Earth moving in their pattern, while making it stop and re-accelerate at corners, thus deceiving all of humanity. The time to do something about this is now. The ancient Mayans had hypothesized that this would happen. They also predicted that the 2 alien races would give up on their battle for Earth and desert it. December 21 to be exact, a solstice. [12] Earth will be at a corner. When the battle ends and the aliens leave, there will be no more Kirby beams, meaning no more super Kirbys, so Earth is unable to re-accelerate. When this happens, the sun's gravity will be the only force acting on it, causing the great blue planet to hurdle towards the sun, spelling complete doom for everything on Earth. ---- Five extra points to anyone who finds whats special about 3.7485828585590952383606834812... It was not random. Sections I-V are here: http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/brains-broccoli-and-catfood Section VI was skipped as it may offend some Darwinists here. PM me if you want to read it. It involves evolution and unicellular cucumbers.

I was just curious. This post is a response to a comment Strangequark made on the Saints or Colts post that I made. Eh hem.... MattyMath: Who's everyone taking? Saints or the Colts? Let's hear 'em. Strangequark: "None. Sports are a detriment to modern society and are the religion of the state. Down with them, and most especially with football which lets it's players leave with an average life expectancy of about 57 yrs. The whole world is a serious place." Ok, so here it goes. I consider myself an athlete. Growing up I ran, swam, played American football, played football proper, played baseball, wrestled, and bowled competitively. Since then I've ran marathons and competed in triathlons. Oh yeah, I'm also the Chess Club sponsor at the school that I teach at. I consider myself a "serious" person. I belief that I instill the "fire for learning" in our young individuals. I am in great shape. I have inspired others to live a healthy lifestyle through the realm of sports. The questions here are as follows: (1) Am I a representative of the establishment that Strangequark claims is the detriment of society? (2) What is the operating definition of a sport? I joke about being a mathlete with my kids. I consider Chess a sport. In Europe Chess Boxing has even bloomed (Disclaimer: It's pugilism, I know). Your thoughts. Thx, MM

I'm just curious on your guys' views of how murderers and criminals of that sort are punished. This goes into the death penalty and all, but I don't see how 10/20/etc. years in jail makes up for killing someone. I personally think eye for an eye is appropriate in these cases.

Seeing the digression in the judgement thread to law, it made me curious to see how people believe the Adversary System should sentence criminals. There are four basic sentencing principles: 1. Retribution-To put it simply, and eye for an eye. If a criminal harms you in some way, then the criminal will be harmed the same way. 2. Deterrence-Making an example of a criminal by imposing the worst possible punishment for the crime. The idea is to deter future criminals by the threat of a heavy punishment. This has been upheld in the majority of courts in the U.S. as the main objective of the criminal court system. 3. Rehabiliation-The idea of reforming criminals to be reintegrated into society. Many criminals who do their time end up back in jail after a short time. In practice though, this method has only proven effective in a small number of cases. In addition, this is the most expensive sentencing with the rehabilitation centers and different programs. 4. Incapacitation-The idea of preventing repeat offenses of a criminal, and to protect society by the removal of the criminal. To put it simply, criminals are incarcerated.

I guess it depends really which side of the fence you sit on with astral projection. You either believe or you don't!! But before you say "I am completely 100% on the side of it does not exist" ask yourself: Have you ever been in a situation where you were thinking REALLY hard of someone and that person either rings you or texts you saying "I was thinking of you so thought I would say hi!" That is a form of astral projection where you transfer your thoughts to that said person!! I have been meditating for many years now as a form of relaxation that DOES work and to get to the stage where you are capable of A.P. you need to go above and beyond just normal meditation. You have to achieve something called "Focus 10- mind awake body asleep" This is a state where your whole body is in a natural state of sleep but your mind is awake. http://www.crystalinks.com/astral.html

I would like to invite you to a new, no holds barred tournament. You can bring out whatever you can find to help you in this tournament, be it chess engines, grandmaster friends, entire chess schools... anything! Fritz Friendly! - II

Hello everyone, Sorry I have not been around in a while- I have a qualifying exam in 2 weeks that I have been cramming for. To say the least, I have been dreaming about cosets and quotent groups. I wanted to let everyone know that I am starting a new website dedicated to Math. The specific purpose of the site is to make abstract forms of math more approachable to non-mathematicians, possibly attract High Schoolers and Community College Students to pursue Mathematics in College, and to provide a resource for University students to develope intuition about abstract mathematical concepts. (I plan to use a lot of pictures and animations to accomplish this). Since this website will be in the service of the community, I was wondering what types of features you would like to see in such a site. How would such material be best represented to you? For now, I do plan to focus on Topology and Abstract Algebra (and perhaps a sprinkling of Combinatorics), but would like to incorporate other disciplines in as well if I can get the nessasary support from friends. Any ideas, requests?

Much has been made of best responses during openings and such. However, what do you look for as weaknesses in your opponent's moves/positions? How do you assess your opponent's ability as you progress through the game, aside from rating?

I had two idle curiosities: Does any one else here enjoy the Darwin Awards ( have you seen http://www.darwinawards.com/)? Does any one know how to convert a movie into many individual still frames?

Okay here is a crazy concept. Let us assume for a moment that wormholes exist naturally. Here is an interesting concept. What would happen to a wormhole when it is nearby a black hole? Would gravity permeate through the wormhole? Would the wormhole reach the singularity and what would happen then?

What do you think about ghosts and anything related to "them"? I don't really believe in this stuff but stories about them are everywhere, even on Discovery Channel (A Haunting), I'm watching the series for two years and I'm thinking that if something appears on Discovery it means that it has to be real or they were just in shortage of programs?Any oppinions,explanations,etc...?

We know that gravity is the curvature of spacetime caused by mass-energy but some scientists say that it has a particle (graviton) like all other interactions.No accelerator found this particle yet (I'm really curious to see what CERN will get).Other scientists say that it may come from some other dimension (or other univers) because it is so weak.What do you guys think about this? The other strange thing is dark matter.Scientists observed that the Univers is still expanding and this expansion accelerates (it should really decelerate now due to gravity because all the celestial bodies are pulling on each other so this should result in a deceleration).They concluded that there has to be something that we can't yet see or detect, called dark matter that casues this expansion and galaxy clustering. Some scientists believe that they have found hints that dark matter is real: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8508662.stm Any oppinions about this?

Hello, I was curious as to what my fellow team mates use in terms of mathematics programs: Have you used Maple? Have you used Mathematica? Have you seen Wolfram Alpha?

This is a stupid joke, but since this group is supposed to be for Math, Physics, and other nerds- what the heck- why not... A farmer wakes up one morning and goes outside to tend to his animals and crop. Upon walking outside, much to his chagrin, he quickly notices that his chickens are "a little off...". He really can't figure exactly what is wrong with his chickens but immediately calls in the experts to try to figure it out. An hour later, a Veterinarian, a Chemist, and a Physicist all arrive on the scene to try to diagnose the problem. The Veterinarian draws some blood, checks them for parasites, checks their weight, etc... He reports to the farmer that the chickens appear to be in good health. The Chemist decides to try her hand at the problem. She pulls out her test tubes, disolves a sample of their feathers in some weird liquids, tests the soil, does combustion tests on the feed, and ultimately also reports that everything seems fine. The Physicist then pulls out his calipers and spectrometer, takes a few measurments and then proceeds to sit down on a tree stump and crunch some numbers. A half hour later the Physicist returns to the farmer with excitement in his eye! "I have solved your problem and have found a solution to your chicken problem!! Unfortunately, it only works for spherical chickens traveling in a vaccum. "

Perfect answer, elzoido238. Thank you. New Question; A man pushes on a piano with mass 160 so that it slides at constant velocity down a ramp that is inclined at 10.4 above the horizontal floor. Neglect any friction acting on the piano. Calculate the magnitude of the force applied by the man if he pushes parallel to the floor.

1) integrate e^(-1/x^2) (I couldn't do this one) where e is the base of the natural logarithm 2) differentiate x^x (this is easier) 3)White to move, mate in two: 4)White to move, mate in two:

Who's everyone taking? Saints or the Colts? Let's hear 'em.

What is your preferred formulation of quantum mechanics and why do you prefer it over others?

Do you guys think telekinesis exists or doesn't?

Topology is a branch of Mathematics which generalizes many notions that we take for granted in geometry and calculus. Basic motivation here is that often times, when trying to solve a mathematical problem, it can be hard to see the forest for view of the trees (IE, when you consider too much information, a problem becomes overly complex and difficult to understand, ignoring some information that is irrelevate makes the problem easier). Lets consider a motivating example: Suppose you are a vaccum cleaner salesman and have to cross 7 distinct bridges to reach 14 distinct houses- how many ways can this be done? What information do you need to solve this problem? This problem asks nothing about efficiency, or optimization. So really the only information you need is relative placement of bridges and houses- you need to know nothing about relative distances. Topology can be viewed as Geometry without distance. We want to examine what properties of an object are preserved and maintained if we forget what distance is. For example, consider squares and circles: A Square is defined to be a 4 sided polygon such that each side has equal lengthA Circle is a simple closed curve such that each point on the curve is equidistanct from a common center.Both of these definitions involve a notion of distance, now if we forget momentarily what distance is and look at a circle and a square side by side- how do we tell the difference between them?To a Topologist(in general), there is no difference between a circle and a square, you can "deform" a circle into a square without breaking or cutting anything, so they are the same topologically (this is called being homeomorphic- the topological word for topologically identical). Now, lets consider the difference between a circle and a figure 8. Here, a topologist can see a difference. You do not need any idea of distance to see that a circle has 1 hole and a figure 8 has 2 holes. You cannot morph a circle into a figure 8 (not without cutting the circle first and then glueing it back together in the form of a figure 8). So to generalize, a topologist studies the types of properties which are preserved under these things called homeomorphisms. Basically this means, "can we deform this shape into some other shape without cutting it in some way" This is a very basic crash course into the basic ideas behind General Topology, the overall field is very rich with many subfields addressing many problems. Homework: 1) Visualize how to turn a coffee cup into a doughnut (classic topology problem), write step by step instructions on how to do this.