Ask a science graduate anything...

phenom said:
if you were put in a teleportation device, and the switch turned to 'copy', instead of 'send', would you be both your self and the exact copy? if not then why would you not be the other, if you are the same? and why would the other not be you, or you both yourself and the other simultaneously?
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It wouldn't matter someone would steal the Telkom cables and your copy would be trapped inside and eventually sold to China as scrap. You would probably get a piece of your copy in your next motherboard.
 
porchrat said:
It wouldn't matter someone would steal the Telkom cables and your copy would be trapped inside and eventually sold to China as scrap. You would probably get a piece of your copy in your next motherboard.
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LOL talking about taking chinese KIRF to the next level :D
 
Re girls... On the (mostly unreasonable) assumption that psychology is a science, there are plenty of hot girls in science. Psychology majors tie with foreign languages for having the pretties ladies. (In my experience at UCT / UKZN at least).
 
How can we prove that Grisha Perelman's work on the Poincaré conjecture is wrong?
 
Devill said:
How can we prove that Grisha Perelman's work on the Poincaré conjecture is wrong?
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Was confirmed in 2006 so tough luck on that (unless of course you're deliberately substituting Grisha for Grigori:p)

The Philosopher said:
you mean blood?
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lol i see what you did there

phenom said:
if you were put in a teleportation device, and the switch turned to 'copy', instead of 'send', would you be both your self and the exact copy? if not then why would you not be the other, if you are the same? and why would the other not be you, or you both yourself and the other simultaneously?
Click to expand...

you would be yourself, the copy would be itself. Pretty sure your brain wouldn't be connected to it's body to perceive the world as it sees it. Same as if you had the ability to travel thru time. You can make an army of yourself, but each individual "you" would see the world exclusively as that "you" would see it.
 
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
And also how can you be absolutely sure you're the one watching the mirror and not merely the reflection imagining you're the real you?
 
Geriatrix said:
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
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As with all chucks, the answer is always a roundhouse kick to the face:p

Geriatrix said:
And also how can you be absolutely sure you're the one watching the mirror and not merely the reflection imagining you're the real you?
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Either you are the real you, or you are the reflection experiencing the reflection's life (the reflection of the reflection would then also be a reflection). If your reflection is the real "you", that "you" cannot experience your (the reflection's) life as a reflection, only you as a reflection can experience it. Thus, you are you irrespective of who you are, be it you or "your" reflection. Damn need a drink now!!!
 
Ancalagon said:
What is your position on dihydrogen monoxide? Should it be banned?
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Lethal stuff - i've heard they've found traces of that stuff in toxic sewers around the world.

It's not illegal at the moment, but after this bp oil leak i'm not sure, as they have literally found tons of the stuff near the opening of the leak.

if that stuff gets into your lungs, you will most certainly die in a few *minutes*
 
Geriatrix said:
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
And also how can you be absolutely sure you're the one watching the mirror and not merely the reflection imagining you're the real you?
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Even if a woodchuck could chuck wood and even if a woodchuck would chuck wood, should a woodchuck chuck wood?
 
phenom said:
Interesting, but why may i ask?

I(my sentient being, what i perceive) am me, and i am not my exact copy?

they are both different and exactly the same?
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Same as cloning yourself methinks. Just because something else's running around with the exact same DNA as you does not mean you'd see what they see, smell what they smell, etc.

Unless, of course, the brain is not the main vehicle for perception, but i highly doubt that
 
If gravity is the power that pulls down and gravity can be defined as a form of energy and energy come from negative or positive molecules, what is then required to neutralise these molecules, thus balancing gravity and creating weightlessness?

Logically, gravity should be the least the further you move away from the core of the earth. Then why do nasa not launch rockets from the top of the highest mountain in the world?
 
LottaFun said:
If gravity is the power that pulls down and gravity can be defined as a form of energy and energy come from negative or positive molecules, what is then required to neutralise these molecules, thus balancing gravity and creating weightlessness?
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easy. If object A is the only mass which has gravitational effect on you and you want to be weightless, simply place an object B of the same mass as A co-linearly to you and object A with the distance from you to B the same as the distance from A to you (actually dependent on f=kM/r something or other) thereby neutralising object A's gravitational effect on you:D But ja, physicists are working on this problem

LottaFun said:
Logically, gravity should be the least the further you move away from the core of the earth. Then why do nasa not launch rockets from the top of the highest mountain in the world?
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Because having a launchpad on Mount Everest defeats the purpose of making a launch easier. Having a launchpad on a flat elevated area with easy access to ciivilisation and as close to the equator as possible is easier, and the angular velocity of Earth (which is most at the equator) adds to your initial velocity thereby cutting (slightly) down on the energy needed to reach escape velocity (beggars can't be choosers!).

Something you may be interested in. There are these 3 locations in orbit between the moon and earth which experiences absolutely no gravitational forces (earth-moon-sun system cancels out forces), they're called Laplace spaces if memory serves. They are earmarked as the most viable location for a space settlement. Any launches in those positions do not need extra energy to overcome gravity. Better yet, we'll be able to use the earth and moon to slingshot crafts to any position we'd like (unless of course if the trajectory in a straight line to said location is perpendicular to the imaginary line from the center of earth to the center of the moon, but at least no gravity's holding us back:))
 
LottaFun said:
If gravity is the power that pulls down and gravity can be defined as a form of energy and energy come from negative or positive molecules, what is then required to neutralise these molecules, thus balancing gravity and creating weightlessness?

Logically, gravity should be the least the further you move away from the core of the earth. Then why do nasa not launch rockets from the top of the highest mountain in the world?
Click to expand...

Logically, you are correct, but considering that the Earth's radius is approximately 6500km, and Everest is approximately 9km high, the gravity at the top of Everest will only be ~0.3% less than what it is at sea-level. It hardly seems worth the trouble.
 
Anyone know an easy way to remember derivatives and antiderivatives in Calculus? Apart from the obvious memorising. Sometimes deriving the "formula" is just that much too time consuming but its the only way I know...

Tricks of the trade from those who have succeeded in this subject would be most welcome!
 
Practise:p
Deriving is best for me. Means i don't need to remember unnecessary things, but to each his own hey?
Which specifically are you referring to? trig type derivatives and integrals?
 
more when finding the integral of trig functions: all goes well for the easy stuff but those multi-step with tan cubed and sec cubed start getting hairy... Also how does one spot by inspection when to use a u-substition, partial fraction technique, integration by parts etc: I tend to spend too much time going in circles by using the wrong technique... if you know the answer or can direct me to a web page, that'll be great!

And lets not get started with matrices: points in r3 space: if someone can tell me where i can apply it, maybe that'll motivate me to learn it thoroughly...?

Thanks for any reply
 
battletoad said:
easy. If object A is the only mass which has gravitational effect on you and you want to be weightless, simply place an object B of the same mass as A co-linearly to you and object A with the distance from you to B the same as the distance from A to you (actually dependent on f=kM/r something or other) thereby neutralising object A's gravitational effect on you:D But ja, physicists are working on this problem



Because having a launchpad on Mount Everest defeats the purpose of making a launch easier. Having a launchpad on a flat elevated area with easy access to ciivilisation and as close to the equator as possible is easier, and the angular velocity of Earth (which is most at the equator) adds to your initial velocity thereby cutting (slightly) down on the energy needed to reach escape velocity (beggars can't be choosers!).

Something you may be interested in. There are these 3 locations in orbit between the moon and earth which experiences absolutely no gravitational forces (earth-moon-sun system cancels out forces), they're called Laplace spaces if memory serves. They are earmarked as the most viable location for a space settlement. Any launches in those positions do not need extra energy to overcome gravity. Better yet, we'll be able to use the earth and moon to slingshot crafts to any position we'd like (unless of course if the trajectory in a straight line to said location is perpendicular to the imaginary line from the center of earth to the center of the moon, but at least no gravity's holding us back:))
Click to expand...

It seems that if we could cancel gravity, we would not need those big rocket engines and we could then travel a lot further with the fuel that we need just to blow out of earths gravity. But, nice answers and respect to science.
 
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