Messages

1336

Off Topic / Faster than light

« on: March 04, 2005, 01:09:18 PM »

PY, I found a web-site that explains special thoery of relativity in very simple terms: http://www.phys.vt.edu/~takeuchi/relativity/notes/

You should check it out.  The question that you posed is a variant of the old "twin paradox" and it is explained right here: http://www.phys.vt.edu/~takeuchi/relativit.../section15.html

1337

Off Topic / Faster than light

« on: March 04, 2005, 09:49:34 AM »

Makes perfect sense to me.  I guess the question I have here is how these two guys know which one is moving and which one is sitting still?  It might as well be that the ship is stationary and the asteroid is passing by :)
Also, on the practical side of things: these two dudes seem to observe and measure the speed of light without any special equipment.  In real life they'd be somewhat distanced from the beam of light in question and will use some physical phenomena to a) measure the distance the light travels and B) measure the time.  These measurements would introduce another level of calculations and make the problem really complicated!  I'm glad I'm not a physicist to figure all this stuff out :)

1338

Off Topic / Ecumenopolis

« on: March 04, 2005, 12:26:08 AM »

Yep, "Carthage must be destroyed!"

Throughout the ages it was common practice to completely eliminate your enemy - slaughtering everyone, including women and children.  That is why in many societies women often fought alongside men during seiges - it was all or nothing war.  In Russia, Mogol hordes killed all men and boys, reasoning that if there are no men around, then there is no one to fight and revenge later.

Only with time people invented more sophisticated ways to keep enemies suppressed (Romans invented slavery).

1339

Off Topic / Faster than light

« on: March 03, 2005, 04:47:20 PM »

PY, you have no clue about the relativity theory, don't you :)
Sorry, but it is obvious :)
Without going into details, think about it this way: don't you think that tens of thousands of scientists would not think about the example of two ships going towards each other with speeds over 1/2 of light speed?  :)  

I would recommend reading some very basic book about theory of relativity (just pick one in a library) - the basics are very elegant and easy to understand.  And most books do consider these fun cases that seem to "disprove" the theory :)

1340

Off Topic / I found some pictures of Shvarz

« on: March 03, 2005, 04:40:42 PM »

Yeah, I'm the older one.  The pics are there to suit my needs to illustrate my mood at the time of writing.  This particular set is not too good for that, the previous one was much better, but I had to get rid of it for some personal reasons.  Never got to replacing it with a better one.
 :bigginangel:

1341

Off Topic / Genesis, 2001, and Darwin

« on: March 03, 2005, 04:12:23 PM »

Hmm, hate to spoil your fun Nums...  but if you need some logical derivations to believe in God, then you don't beleive in him anyway (and will not be saved).  Because logical arguments can be disputed.  Real faith defies logic and arguments.  It is just there (or not)  :pokey:

1342

Off Topic / I found some pictures of Shvarz

« on: March 03, 2005, 04:08:57 PM »

Yeah, I've been promoting DBs to my russian friends.  Many of them are biologists-programmers, so they should be interested.  I'll run another post as soon as v.3.0 comes out.

From the three pics there, I am only in one and it is several years old :)  The kid is not me :)

1343

Off Topic / I found some pictures of Shvarz

« on: March 03, 2005, 02:42:19 PM »

Nice detective job, PY!

How did you spot these?

Anyway, I don't care that much about my privacy.  What can you do with these pic that would bother me?  :)

As for "teenager" comment...  I'll just take it as a compliment  :D

1344

Off Topic / Hmmm

« on: February 22, 2005, 01:14:35 AM »

Yesterday I was told that the guy with whom we were drinking vodka last summer near Mt. Rainer was Alexei Pazhitnov.  THE Alexei Pazhitnov (link for dumb people: http://absolutist.com/tetris/tetris.html

I feel like Forrest Gump :)

BTW, don't bother to reply - I am off to Hawaii for 10 days.  Talk to you later, guys!