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Ok, so I'd like to start by saying that I feel pretty honored to actually be allowed to be with a group such as this. From what I've seen and read the members of this group are very thoughtful...well...thinkers. It may seem that I was prying with the last post that I made which was where we all stood with our beliefs about the nature of the universe. In all honesty I feel actually very comfortable in asking such questions here. So I've decided to load us up with another question if our Admin's will allow it and the rest of you won't stone me to death for asking such questions (or possibly flay me as was alleged to have happened to Hypatia). Talking with my significant other a few years ago (me being an Atheist, her being a Lutheran) we stumbled upon the question of electing leaders to office with beliefs about the universe different than the status quo. (Disclaimer: I'm well aware that not all of us are from the USA. For this question however I am going to set the modus operandi as electing a President in the USA and others in the group can apply an analogous situation to their political situation(s). Also involved in this question we will assume that the primary religion in the USA is Christianity. Again, those of us from different situations can apply the status quo religion for their particular lives). I, of course said that I would be willing to elect a President that is an Athiest, Christian, Muslim,...hell, even a Scientologist, so long as they were able to govern my land justly and within the parameters that I deem worthy of office. My significant other however said that she could within her own conscious only elect a leader with the same cosmological beliefs as herself. The idea of democracy in a republic is rule of the people through proper representation. Who do you want representing you? People who believe the same way you do! (Disclaimer: Sorry to any Scientologists [not really]). I have approaching zero (very little) respect for Scientologist in terms of how they understand the universe. In other words, I would be lying if I said that a person's beliefs about the nature of the universe were not important to me / my significant other / us / whoever when being asked to dictate how "my" particular country is asked to behave. (Example: For me personally I ask if Religious instituions should receive tax exempt status). I do however have a question that has been burning in the back of my mind. Assuming that you are in the USA (others apply analogous situations), could you elect a President (or anyone to any major office), (once again others apply analogous situations), that accepted a different belief system than your own? Follow up question: (Y) If yes, then are there any different belief systems that a leader might hold that you feel you could not accept/tolerate (I know that there's a difference between acceptance and tolerance, but 'tis a fine line) in a major office such as the President of the USA? (N) Else, why do you feel such an election would be unreasonable?

Let's turn up the heat.Do you think that UFOs are real or you think that they serve as deception and they are some kind of top secret experiments done by the government of the US??????Give reasons!

Does anybody know why we can't get any mass to the speed of light by adding velocities? For example if a ship is going 40 Miles per hour and the water is going 10miles per hour in the same direction, the ship will be going 50miles per hour. Well.. if we can get inside something that moves 4/5 the speed of light and move 1/5 the speed of light in that moving object, can't we reach the speed of light? Or does the relation with time mess stuff up?

Does anyone here have any experience using BackTrack with VMWare?

If I didn't know better, I would think this was from a scifi movie. But in fact it is a fish that lives at about 1km down on the ocean floor and is apparently threatened by indiscriminate fishing. How could anyone not be sympathetic?

Interesting hint that things may not be quite as simple as some thought (and maybe some support for supersymmetry?). Hints of multiple Higgs bosons

For the sake of amusement, I thought we could generate some funny incidents on these lines. Not to stereotype all undegrads, of course. But if you have any funny stories I'd to hear them. Common fountains of amusement include: -stupid lab mishaps -dumb or blatant cheating -interesting excuses -goofing off during workstudy -begging I hope I don't sound sadistic, but anyways if you have any particular amusing experiences I would be interested.

There is a theorem that if a natural number n is a sum of two squares of rational numbers, then n is also a sum of two squares of integers. A proof could involve Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares, but the proof of that theorem in itself is quite lengthy, so that the whole proof will be quite lengthy if you don't just take Fermat's theorem for granted. Does anyone know if a short(er) proof exists that if n is the sum of two rational squares, it's also the sum of two integral squares? Thanks.

I recall a documentary from the 1990s about an archaelogical investigation of something that looked like an ancient boat high up a mountain (you can guess the inference). It was intriguing but I don't recall being convinced, and external factors (a little military conflict, etc.) left key questions unresolved, if I recall. It seems to be back in the news again, with some extraordinary claims being made by people who sound like they would prefer certain conclusions (not that this means they will be wrong). Noah's ark found My opinion - absolute nonsense. Other archaelogical evidence shows there certainly was no 12,000 feet high flood at that time. [Caveat - the researchers say there is 0.1% chance that what they have found is not Noah's ark. Amazing that they can identify it with a person so accurately from entirely anonymous organic residues!]

I am wondering if we have any other teammates here who use Google Earth frequently. It's a mild interest to me, and I like to find interesting applications for it when I can. I found the following to be interesting: 1. Live 3d air traffic updates from Winterthur and Zurich airports 2. CIA worldfactbook entries for each country 3. 3d buildings in general 4. Google Sky tours made by various astronomers that I got from galaxyzoo 5. Google Mars 6. Odd and censored locations Does anyone else know anything interesting to do on Google Earth?

I'm having trouble copying and pasting various movie files that I want to put on my camera to view. I've converted them to the supported type, which is .MOV for quicktime player. I've looked at the properties comparing the new files to movies I've taken with my camera and they're still the same, but the new converted ones won't show up on my camera. Help?

Come and chat with me about the psychological benefits of idle chatter

Does anyone know of a good dictionary that contains entries for precomputed salted hashes?

www.gigapedia.org is a website where you can download books for free...check it out (you have to register first and you must have a google account to do it...that's all)

The Road to Reality. For applied mathematics, I originally was going to complement the above with Hawking’s “On the Shoulder of Giants” which has many of the original works of Physics. This would have kept the price under $50. Physics does not age as well as Mathematics, though, so I have substituted “The Road to Reality”. Penrose’s book provides a modern and accessible introduction to modern physics and applied mathematics. Reading this book, one feels like a graduate student in Oxford listening to Penrose give a lecture on an English afternoon. It is beautifully illustrated and the mathematics used in modern physics is carefully and intuitively laid out. It can be purchased for $14.72 used on Amazon. Roger Penrose - The Road to Reality Roger Penrose: The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, Pub: Jonathon Cape, 29 July 2004 (UK)/Knopf, Feb 2005 (US), 1094 pages Buy paperback at: Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com "Professional scientists cannot accuse Mr. Penrose of dumbing-down the science, and the author's prose is so lucid the reader can grasp his point even when the mathematics fly overhead." - Michael Shermer, NY Sun review The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose is 1094 pages long, and provides a comprehensive account of our present understanding of the physical universe, and its underlying mathematical theory. This page aims to be a comprehensive resource. Bookmark it, and check back for the latest interviews, reviews, comments, and threads. Claim to Fame Roger Penrose has worked in many areas of mathematical physics and cosmology, but is perhaps most famous for his collaboration with Stephen Hawking. Together, they proved that, in the mathematical model of general relativity, our universe was originally contained within a sphere of zero radius. That is, all space and matter was contained within a point called a singularity. They also proved that space, time and matter had a beginning in what is called the big bang. Penrose holds the most respected chair in mathematics at Oxford, just as Hawking holds the most respected chair at Cambridge. Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell introduced mathematical physics without using equations, and kept things simple. If you want equations, and more depth, then The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose is a must buy. Mathematics This book provides the mathematical background needed for understanding physical theories through the same equations that theoretical physicists use in their everyday work. The aim is to convey a detailed overall understanding - a feeling for the deep beauty and philosophical connotations of the subject, as well as of its intricate logical interconnections. It's a challenging read, but there is enough descriptive material to carry the less mathematically inclined reader through, as well as some 450-500, mostly hand-drawn, figures. The book provides a feeling for all the key issues and deep current controversies, and counters the common complaint that the details of cutting-edge science are fundamentally inaccessible. The topics covered include: the roles of different kinds of numbers and geometry in physics; the ideas - and magic - of calculus; notions of infinity; the physics and mathematics of relativity theory; the foundations and controversies of quantum mechanics; the standard model of particle physics; cosmology; the big bang; black holes; the profound challenge of the second law of thermodynamics; string and M theory; loop quantum gravity; twistors; fashions in science; and new directions. Escher's Circle Limit 1 represents the conformal hyperbolic plane, and is used by Roger Penrose to illustrate his favourite mathematical model of the universe. It's just one of 450-500 pictures in the book. Quote from the book Knowing where to find things is as important as knowing things. Here's a quote on this idea worth the price of the book: "There is one major breakthrough in 20th century physics that I have yet to touch upon, but which is nevertheless among the most important of them all! This is the introduction of arXiv.org, an online repository where physicists and mathematicians, biologists and computer scientists can publish preprints (or 'e-prints') of their work before (or even instead of!) submitting to journals." Quote from the Scotsman review "Is [The Road to Reality] the most important science book of the century? We had better wait until 2099 to find out - but I am sure Roger Penrose would be the first to say no. His greatest hope is that there is some young person out there...who will do for our century what Einstein did for the last, and who will clear up the mysteries that Penrose, Hawking, Witten and so many others have been unable to solve. The Road To Reality ends with such a vision; and if it comes to fruition then this book will one day seem little more than a historical curiosity. In that case it will have succeeded - so let’s hope it goes on library shelves everywhere and finds its way into the hands of the next Einstein, wherever he or she may be." - Andrew Crumey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUQsRPJ1dYw

Hi!There is a new non-competitive group called Videochess Club, which will hopefully serve as a resource centre/library/archive for all chess players who wish to see games/videos/facts of current and past matches between world champions and other greats.I encourage you to join this group and,if possible, help add some content.Don't forget that it is a non-competitive group so there will be no team matches or vote chess. http://www.chess.com/groups/home/videochess-club

I am trying to run NFS factoring using msieve and I am encountering some problems with my command prompt. I am using instructions from http://gilchrist.ca/jeff/factoring/nfs_beginners_guide.html. I am able to acces the following from my command prompt: cd C:\ggnfs\example\factMsieve.py but I cannot get the following result to work despite that I have all of the files and folders needed in the required places: "Windows users can start the factoring process with the factMsieve.py python script using this command in a Command Prompt from your working directory:..\factMsieve.py exampleUNIX users can start the factoring process using this command in a shell from your working directory:../factMsieve.py exampleThis will call the msieve or pol51 tools to select a polynomial for the number in example.n. The output should look something like:" All command prompt says is that the system cannot find the path specified. Did I miss something obvious or skip a step? Any help would be appreciated.

http://www.chess.com/votechess/game.html?id=7623 we never knowing his name & he challenged all of us for vote chess game & he insisted that he ill never loose...but he loose & his account has been closed forever...Enjoy...

This is invitation for every member here to post his lovely game which he or she still remember it till now & feeling that's the best one he played till now.. Here's my lovely one... http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=30286829