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Some people who are talented with math often have interesting sensory blends. That is to say, a few people always see numbers or letters as appearing a certain color, etc. Taste is also mixed. Numbers do seem to taste different. It's not always easy to describe. For example, irrational numbers often taste gritty. Other numbers taste smoother. Prime numbers may taste spicy. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia Any personal experiences on this subject?

This is the funniest video I have watched for a long time. Stick with it, it gets better and better. (there may be a short ad at the start to ignore) http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/motivational-board-break-gone-wrong/1j4m7t46u As this is on MSN UK, please do tell me if it is accessible to non-UK people. I am not sure if it is or isn't.

The cosmic junkyard

I've forgotten what S(-infinity to +infinity) e^(-ax^2) dx is. Help please?

After a brief hiatus, my next addition to my little writing series. I know I said after Socks and Precipitaion I would write about antimatter, but I got writers block, started a new project explaining pokemon biology, and then found a pokemon that required more science, so I wrote this article. I've no idea when my next science piece will be written due to school starting an a week, but I'll eventually have more. Older articles: http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/socks-and-precipitation http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/earths-rotation-magnetic-field-and-volcanoes http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/dark-matter-kirby-aliens-quakes-and-doomsday http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/brains-broccoli-and-catfood http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/alternate-science-society Alternatively, everything is here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dg9x686s_42gn89nzg5 Section XI -- The Divine Molecule The 5 elements. Air, water, earth, fire, and aether. Aether? What exactly is aether? This section is devoted entirely to unveiling the mysteries behind this mysterious element. First, the composition of ether. Aether is the embodiment of everything and all that ever will be, the unification of the other 4 elements. Thus, it is composed of every element. One molecule of aether thus will be HHeLiBeBCNO... A valid objection could be raised about the noble gases being in this molecule. Another about the clashing oxidation states. Yet another about the instability of this huge molecule. First we address the presence of noble gases. It is true that they rarely form bonds with other elements. This is due to a nameless 5th fundamental force. When consecutive elements starting from hydrogen are in the same molecule, this force increases in power exponentially proportional to the number of elements in the molecule. This also answers the 3rd problem, as the force increases exponentially whereas the mass of the molecule increases only quadratically. This leaves merely the problem of the oxidation states, but this is also easily answered. Atoms are held together in a molecule due to the electromagnetic force, but the 5th force acts very differently. The 5th force holds the group together tightly, but forces between individual atoms are very weak. In fact, this need not be considered a molecule at all, rather a collection of atoms. The force holding them together is not dependent on charges, so oxidation states are irrelevant. The nature of this force is unknown, but only specific isotopes of atoms react to this force. Also, there seems to be an infinite number of atoms in this molecule, which are stored in an infinity of dimensions. It is because the molecule spans higher dimensions that aether is undetectable. However, it is possible for aether to interact with non-aether materials if they are close together. Suppose a molecule of water is next to a di-aether molecule (A di-aether molecule is two aether molecules combined i.e. H2He2Li2Be2B2C2 etc.) The 5th force causes the water molecule to want to be a di-aether molecule. It tries to steal the necessary atoms to do so from the original di-aether molecules. They begin to "fight" over these atoms, but because they are in a higher dimension, they appear invisible to us. The two hydrogens and one oxygen atom in the original di-aether molecule get pulled into our dimension, thus we see two water molecules and the other atoms are undetectable. If there are more di-aether molecules in a chain, we will see a chain of water molecules. When the first water molecule is removed, there is no more conflict over atoms and the di-aethers return to their original form. It takes a great deal of energy to form these aether molecules, but it may be possible to do so with alien technology. In fact, it has already been done, as collections of aether molecules in a ring shape have been found in multiple places. Some animals that can coil are able to touch the entire inside of the aether rings and thus project their molecules through the entire ring and use it as protection. The rings seem impossible to move, and their quantity is currently unknown, as only these animals are able to "see" them. It is also unknown as to how these animals are able to detect the rings. It is possible that the Lunas or Solos put the rings here long ago as a biology experiment, and upon finding that animals could adapt to detect the rings, they felt a need to capture the planet for further experiments. The most common misconception about aether is that it fills all space and allows light to move without a medium. This is not true. Aether is very rare and extremely difficult to create, in fact it is unnatural. It also seems to override the weak force and prevent big atoms from disintegrating as long as they are part of the aether molecule. It does not exert any gravity unless it is turned into a different molecule. Aether is the divine molecule; it can be made from the other 4 elements, but nothing can be made out of it. The 5th force that holds the aether molecule together is stronger than all of the other 4 forces.

How could I not? I had just admitted that for three years I had been only thinking --- and thinking only --- of this dissertation I had to deliver. (In this regard, writing is like excrement. And, e.g., I told them of my remark.) Thinking loud that during those three years, I had discovered that thought in philosophy equals excrement in biology. Not by reading some obscure biological finding, but by, as I have already said, thinking the thing. You could call it a moment of zen, or zillions of other things. As I just there sat at toilet seat, reflecting, future anterior, my eyes fell on cat lying partly hidden behind shower curtains of same colour. It was staring at something. I oriented my eyes --- how could I not? --- and saw his shit, built up monumental. In front of feet. Cat knew I was seeing it, and that I had that thought. Cat remained; I perplexed. At that moment I myself shit. Cat just like before, staring at his own shit. I stood up ready to wash hands when a sudden command had me clean cat’s leftovers just outside the main door of its own cat toilet. I replenished my own clean and neat toilet, plucked cat shit throwing it in it. My idea was then to check the condition of cat toilet, its hygienic conditions so to speak. Surprised I noticed that as cat toilet was perfectly usable, cat itself raced away. It had told me something. We do communicate with animals. The “animal” left the “human.” “Why?” is therefore the question --- for us. And: “Did I wash my hands?” “If so, at what point in the story?” And: “Why is the thing so properly comparable to shit?” (Humans are feceocratic beings.) Humans signal excess of excrement. Such could be one working hypothesis. Not only financial interest is right there. : Submitted by a somewhat drunk rubenshein thinking it complied to the criteria of being the emperors new mind. (But in the end, who would know and who would decide who is emperor?, this question translating itself into that of a certain communism.)

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0819/moon-shrinking-slowly/ I guess when cheese ages, it does start to crumble and get smaller...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11030889 I think that means heat death, but it may also mean Big Rip, any thoughts?

Apparently the biggest ice island for 48 years has broken off from Greenland and is slowly heading south.

What the heck happened? Where is the missing blade? ITN News report

Amazing news video

Source: www.chessgames.com

Full article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100107103621.htm "The research showed that the genomes of humans and other mammals contain DNA derived from the insertion of bornaviruses, RNA viruses whose replication and transcription takes place in the nucleus. Feschotte wrote on recent research led by Professor Keizo Tomonaga at Osaka University in Japan. Feschotte said this virally transmitted DNA may be a cause of mutation and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and mood disorders."

Full article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100802110815.htm "ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2010) — Like an ice cube on a warm day, most materials melt -- that is, change from a solid to a liquid state -- as they get warmer. But a few oddball materials do the reverse: They melt as they get cooler. Now a team of researchers at MIT has found that silicon, the most widely used material for computer chips and solar cells, can exhibit this strange property of "retrograde melting" when it contains high concentrations of certain metals dissolved in it."

Full article here:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100721154236.htm "In particular, physicists have suggested that entanglement (the quantum interconnection of two or more objects like photons, electrons, or atoms that are separated in physical space) could be occurring in the photosynthetic complexes of plants, particularly in the pigment molecules, or chromophores. The quantum effects may explain why the structures are so efficient at converting light into energy -- doing so at 95 percent or more." Different article:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100203131356.htm

One of the key weirdnesses of quantum mechanics is the collapse of the wave function at the event of measurement. I have always thought of this effect as being boolean in nature, but according to an article I found after reading the one Ripper89 drew our attention to in another post, it is possible to do a sort of incomplete measurement which partially collapses the wave function, and then you can do a sort of unmeasurement to put the wave function back to where it started. Curiouser and curiouser, in the words of the Reverend Charles Dodgson. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080806140128.htm

Full article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100726123934.htm "ScienceDaily (July 26, 2010) — New constraints on the elusive Higgs particle are more stringent than ever before. Scientists of the CDF and DZero collider experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermilab revealed their latest Higgs search results at the International Conference on High Energy Physics, held in Paris from July 22-28. Their results rule out a significant fraction of the allowed mass range established by earlier experiments."

Full article found here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100613212708.htm "Graduate student Utane Sawangwit and Professor Tom Shanks looked at observations from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite to study the remnant heat from the Big Bang. The two scientists find evidence that the errors in its data may be much larger than previously thought, which in turn makes the standard model of the Universe open to question. The team publish their results in a letter to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society."