HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: "What's New" July-24-1992
Summary: hypocracy
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 03:28:24 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.030615.5926@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.024403.5319@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
>crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes: 

>#     The position of the APS is that the space station is not 'science'
>#     and should not be funded as such.   I would just expect them to pursue 
>#     other 'science purity' issues with the same vigour.
>
>They do pursue such purity with all such multi-billion dollar projects
>in the budget. Oh, what's that? Astrology isn't funded by the US
>government? Damn, there goes your arguement. 

     Do they?  I'm glad to hear that they will now oppose SSC
     on the grounds that it is mostly engineering.
     
>#     So it is competition for dollars with other programs of more
>#     direct interest to APS rather than the 'science-thing'?  I'm 
>#     shocked.
>
>Well, you created this strawman, so it isn't suprizing that you are
>shocked by it. However, since I never claimed it was solely the
>competition for dollars, you lose. Judging the bang per buck of a
>project certainly is a valid thing to do for the APS.

     At least be consistent.  Is it the 'science-thing' or is it
     the money?  Or is it both, in which case they should vehemently
     oppose astrology AND the SSC.

>#     Agreed.  However, it is disingenuous to say that it is any different
>#     for SSC.  By the way, the hypocracy of the APS with regard to 
>#     SSF and SSC was the original subject.  It still exists.
>
>Oh, the fact that the APS and you draw different conclusions about the
>scientific merit of the SSC makes them hypocrites?
>
>The APS has reached the conclusion that the scientific gains of the
>SSC are large, and it has a good ratio of science to cost, so they
>support it.

     Or maybe there are a large number of members employed in that 
     business.

     I don't see the AMA opposing SSC on the grounds that it will
     not be a boon to cancer cures as claimed.  I don't see  
     AIAA or civil engineering societies opposing the SSC on 
     the grounds that it is too expensive to be justified by
     great advances in engineering, as has been claimed.

     And yet the APS seems to object to the SSF on the grounds that
     there is 'not enough science' to justify the project.  One can
     only think that this is because they are worried about their
     parochial funding.

     As an APS member, I call that hypocritical.

                                   dale bass
--
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Blue Food (Re: Blue Sky)
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 22:29:22 GMT

In article <BrzH7H.DJw@acsu.buffalo.edu> kriman@acsu.buffalo.edu (Alfred M. Kriman) writes:

>P.S.  Why does everybody forget blueberries when talking about blue
foods?

It's worth noting that blueberry pies are purple.  It's true that the
skins of blueberries are sort of blue.  But I would never say that they
are close to the center of "blue" on the color solid.   They're sort of
a dark greyish-purplish blue.

Is there any bluer common food?  Carlin mentioned that he occaisionally
got some "bad-ass blue jello" in school, but this is clearly one of the
wonders of modern technology.

Followups to alt.blue.






Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Solar Concentration limit ?
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 25 Jul 92 12:44:23

I doubt that it would be useful, but there are much higher temperatures
in the solar corona than at the solar surface.  Imaging that at the
right wave lengths could produce a higher temperature entirely in
accordance with the Second Law.  The problem is that the energy
flux might be too low to be of interest.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: "What's New" July-24-1992
Date: 26 Jul 92 22:39:15
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
Distribution: na
	<24909@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <JMC.92Jul26124213@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics2.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU's message of 26 Jul 92 12:42:13

In article <JMC.92Jul26124213@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

> Did I misread, or did the physicists oppose the Space Station, rather
> than just say that, considered as science, it wasn't worth the money?

My impression is that physicists are essentially unanimous in thinking
that the space station is worthless when considered as a scientific
project.  There is no such consensus on whether or not it should be
built, however---that depends on the individual's political views, and
on whether he or she thinks that there are some valid reasons, other
than science, for building it.

Please be aware, of course, that my opinion may well be mistaken; the
physics community is large and diverse, and I do not pretend to be
able to speak for everyone.
--
Matthew Austern              I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band of
(510) 644-2618               of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
matt@physics.berkeley.edu    taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
austern@theorm.lbl.gov       multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
austern@lbl.bitnet	     me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.
From: sgr@ae-sun05 (Stan Ryckman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Structure of Time (SUMMARY)
Date: 22 Jul 92 16:43:31 GMT
Reply-To: sgr@alden.UUCP
Followup-To: sci.physics
Organization: Alden Electronics, Westboro, MA

In article <1992Jul20.225813.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi> hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>
> Structure of Time, (Summary)
[...]
> Three existing neutrinos have two colours: green and violet. These colours
> are the two types of electricity in anti-world. There exist voltage in
> neutrinos that originates from anti-world.
[...]
>     *One about three neutrinos of different sizes and two different colours
>      (largest is green, next is violet and smallest (related to electron) is
>       green).
[...]

If _anything_ has a color, it does one or more of:
   a) emit optical photons;
   b) reflect optical photons;
   c) absorb optical photons; or
   d) refract optical photons.

No neutrino ever has been hypothesized by any physicist to interact
with photons in any such way.  If so, they'd be easy to detect.

Nor do they have charge or voltage ("electricity").  Hence the name.

Whatever you're inventing here, it's _not_ a neutrino.
--
In memoriam - my dog Gunther (July 1977-July 12, 1992); I miss you.
    Stan Ryckman   sgr@alden.UUCP
From: bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Renormalization Group
Date: 31 Jul 92 19:51:45 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

The book Scott was referring to is:
   AUTHOR Toulouse, Gerard. * Pfeuty, Pierre, joint author.
    TITLE Introduction to the renormalization group and to critical phenomena
PUBLISHER London ; New York : Wiley, c1977.

A nice toy introduction to the renormalization group and its use for
doing phase transition calculations is given by Kadanoff and Maris in an
article in the AJP (Am J Phys 46, 652) - they consider 1-D and 2-D Ising
models.  This article is comprehensible by anyone with a little bit
of statistical physics knowledge.

Ben Weiner
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: knapp@spot.Colorado.EDU (David Knapp)
Subject: *Serious* individual air play. The cause of excessive traffic?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 17:07:58 GMT

I find it interesting how much traffic is generated by just one or
two individuals.  Here's one example:

Looking for articles to kill...

/dale bass/hk:j
18951   Junked
18952   Junked
18953   Junked
18954   Junked
18963   Junked
18976   Junked
18977   Junked
18978   Junked
18983   Junked

[Type space to continue]

This from just a couple days worth of traffic, and it is not an anomaly.

And it is certainly not just Dale, either. There are those out there who seem
to think it is their personal responsibility to comment on *all* subjects
*all* the time. Sorta takes away from the concept of a 'group' discussion.

Something to think about...

-- 
David Knapp                                      University of Colorado, Boulder
Highly Opinionated, Aging  and                      knapp@spot.colorado.edu
Perpetual Student of Chemistry and Physics.
            Write me for an argument on your favorite subject.
From: alexa@hpnmdla.sr.hp.com (Alexander Anger)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 02:14:39 GMT
Subject: Re: The Future of Physics
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Rosa, CA
Newsgroups: sci.physics

Response to response 11 to response 9 to basenote "Future of Physics":

In sci.physics, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:

>>    I find your otherwise laudable response to be marred by grumpy remarks
>>    about the use of math in theoretical physics.  Of course I would,
>>    wouldn't I, since I'm a mathematical physicist.  But you simply weaken
>>    your case by introducing the suggestion that you dislike particle
>>    physicist because of traumatic experiences with branch cuts at an early
>>    age.  As Galileo said (roughly), the laws of physics are written in the
>>    language of mathematics.  Many of the best theoretical physicists (let
>>    me list Archimedes, Newton, Laplace, Gibbs for a start) were
>>    forced to develop new branches of mathematics to describe the laws of
>>    nature, and this mathematics has ALWAYS seemed complicated and difficult
>>    at the time.  It is more sensible to argue that particle physics is a
>>    problematic use of government money, not because it uses yucky math, but
>>    because it costs a lot of money and seems unlikely to produce
>>    significant practical technological breakthroughs in the near future --
>>    as you pointed out. 

Thanks for the gentle reminder to not be grumpy.  I actually find theoretical
physicists and mathematicians rather charming - as long as they don't make
fun of the meaning of $8 billion in hard currency.  I don't mind paying
taxes for individual research that stretches beyond the limits of 
practicality, but our society can only afford so much play. . . .  

I did, of course, not mean to imply that particle physics is bad because of
my personal dislike of advanced mathematics, simply that the underlying
physics does not warrant such big budgets.  (I was just kidding about
branch cuts.  Every cut branch leaves a residue. . . . Not!!!)

Have fun thinking.
 
Alex
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: mind-numbing gedankenexperiment
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Date: 24 Jul 92 23:16:57 GMT

bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:

>mitsu@nic.cerf.net (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) writes:

>> [Sarfatti quote] the transmitter photon retarded wave arrives at T and is
>> detected. Information on the setting of the transmitter at event T is
>> sent backwards-in-time by an advanced transmitter photon wave. The
>> advanced wave arrives at S just as the photon pair is being emitted.
>> This is what Fred Hoyle calls a "loop in time" between events S and T.

>This is meaningless.  What is an "advanced photon wave"?  I think 
>Sarfatti is trying to talk about advanced and retarded in the sense
>of potentials in electrodynamics. 

I think that what Sarfatti is talking about is a garbled version
of the "transactional interpretation" of quantum mechanics, in
which making a measurement in the present causes information to be
transmitted backwards in time via the time-evolution operator 
(simply using the post-measurement wave function as final-value data
rather than initial-value data) and subsequently (if that is the right
word) transmitted forward to all distant places where something
is correlated with the observable being measured.  This interpretation
is really equivalent to the Copenhagen one in the sense of what it
predicts.  You shouldn't be able to use it to justify superluminal
communication via "Feynman zig-zag" any more than you could using
instantaneous collapse.

-- 
Matt McIrvin   mcirvin@husc.harvard.edu   Long live short .sigs
From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: "What's New" July-24-1992
Date: 28 Jul 92 11:18:26 EDT

gt3716a@prism.gatech.EDU (Josh 'I'd MUCH rather be diving' Freeman) writes:
>I would like Nasa to work with the Russian space agency and possibly merge
>Mir (which means "peace" in Russian ) to freedom.

Considering the difference in orbit inclinations which are essentially mandated
by the physics involved in two widely-separated (in latitude) launch locations,
merging Mir with Freedom would result in a large number of extremely small
fragments.......

This gets discussed over and over in sci.space.  Cape Canaveral cannot put much
mass into Mir's orbit, and the CIS launch site cannot put much mass into
typical US orbits.

There is, however, a lot of work they have done that NASA could benefit from,
and at current launch rates the CIS can put smaller payloads into the more 
equitorial orbits used by the US at a favorable price.
From: caer@iear.arts.rpi.edu (Charlie Figura)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Notation...  (Was: Why is the letter Q used for electrical charge ?)
Date: 29 Jul 92 16:02:31 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

In article <1992Jul29.132857.10808@prl.philips.nl> schiller@prl.philips.nl (schiller c) asks:
>Why is the letter Q used for electrical charge ?

they ran out of other letters?   :-)

way back when I took e&m I (or was it II?) our prof had to go to some
meeting or another, and left the class (about 6 people) one problem to
do, busy work.  I dont remember what the quantity was we were supposed
to find/solve for, but we decided to work it together, on the board.
The hardest part of the problem (to us, anyways) was trying to find
a letter (english, greek, script, sanskrit... :-) that we could use to
identify the quantity... we ended up using a smiley face.

he never gave us busy work again....


------------------------------------------------------------
Charlie Figura	--  (cholly figura-Daemon) | "Can you sing?"
caer@iear.arts.rpi.edu  |  Y-Flyer  Y-1931 | "A little....
 "So *WHAT* if I'm a physics major??!?!?"  | ..I can dance."
------------------------------------------------------------
   	What is a question that contains the word
     	'canteloupe' for no apparent reason?
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Church of Hanna-Maria
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 02:16:35 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

Cosmic potatoe say: Listen! Hear! The child speaks truth. Big Bang not
caused by expansion. Caused instead by crayon drawings of Finland child,
Hanna-Maria.

Important you listen. Einstein combined with Dr. Bronner's peppermint
soaps slogans is True Answer. 

Church meetings to study theories of Hanna-Maria. Will replace stigmata
as popular attraction.

Remember this: child speaks truth on physics!

Coming soon: Hanna-Maria explains deconstruction!


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | RSA MailSafe Public Key: by arrangement
From: ryba@ll.mit.edu (Marty Ryba)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Date: 23 Jul 92 17:14:06 GMT
Reply-To: ryba@ll.mit.edu (Marty Ryba)
Organization: Group 101, MIT Lincoln Lab.
Originator: ryba@ll.mit.edu (Marty Ryba)


  Almost proof positive of the *huge* subsidies for highway transport is the
ability of long-haul trucking to beat freight railroads for many shipping
tasks.  Granted, the railroads are partly to blame for bad service, etc.,
but considering all the disadvantages of trucking that should lead to higher
costs, the difference should be overwhelming.  Freight railroads receive
paltry-to-none Federal or local assistance.  Even ConRail pays for itself,
including all roadbed and track maintenance.  Trucking is being subsidized
by cars, plus any locally-provided highway funding.

Just my $0.02 - take it for what it's worth

-- 
Dr. Marty Ryba             |	Generation X:
Group 101 - Radars 'R Us   |
MIT Lincoln Laboratory     |  Too young to be cynical,
ryba@ll.mit.edu            |		too old to be optimistic.
Xref: sparky sci.physics:11530 sci.comp-aided:144
From: che358w@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.comp-aided
Subject: MS Windows Vibrations Program Available.
Date: 24 Jul 92 13:54:54 +1000
Organization: Computer Centre, Monash University, Australia

Hi,
  If anyone is interested I have written a MS windows program that displays
and animates normal modes of vibrations. It can extract the data it needs
from a Gaussian 90 log file or read it in from a text file. The vibrations can
be displayed as arrows from the centres of the atoms and these pictures can
be printed, saved as bitmap or copied to the clipboard. I hope people will
find it interesting and useful. Its shareware and available on archive.umich.edu
under msdos/mswindows/educational or on wuarchive.wustl.edu under
mirrors3/archive.umich.edu/msdos/mswindows/edicational. Its called winvibes.zip.

Samantha Lane
CHE358W@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: 25 Jul 92 17:48:36 GMT
Organization: Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia

In article <1992Jul25.171557.4574@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:

>     Only two big problems.  1) It is not economical to do so,
>     2)  Hydrogen go boom.

Gee, Dale, I've seen both of these arguments addressed in recent
Scientific American articles. I'm glad that you're an expert on the
topic of hydrogen fuel, just like you're an expert on electrical power
generation, but could you be bothered to support your arguments
instead of just spouting them? Also, could you pick a better
newsgroup? Thank you.
From: nicho@VNET.IBM.COM
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 21 Jul 92 09:26:59 GMT
Reply-To: nicho@vnet.ibm.com

In <1992Jul20.041225.4055@nmt.edu> Paul Houle writes:
> -- a fairly good description of the nuclear power cycle deleted --
 Can I redirect the question slightly. If we take it as read that we
need to produce X amount of power. How about arguing which of the
currently feasible methods produces the _least_ environmental damage ..
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com or nicho@cix.compulink.co.uk
                  voice/fax: 44-794-516038
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Radionuclide Half-Lives
Summary: inventions
Date: 21 Jul 92 20:45:45 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <24761@dog.ee.lbl.gov> sichase@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.172715.3167@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes...
>>In article <92203.121247CCB104@psuvm.psu.edu> <CCB104@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>>For want of a sponsor or potential "licensee," an official "Invention
>>>Disclosure" outlining an unconventional method of forcibly changing
>> 
>>    What would be the 'conventional method'?  Acceleration to high
>>    energy?
>
>As you know, that would not change the decay rate in the nucleus' rest
>frame.  There is however a way to modify some decay rates, though most
>people don't realize it because they are incorrectly taught that nothing
>environmental can affect the decay rate of a radioactive nucleus.
>
>For nuclei which decay by K capture, the decay rate is sensitive to the
>electronic structure of the atom.  This is obvious, because any capture
>matrix element will have to include the electron's wave function.  So if
>you take such an atom and bind it in a molecule so that it's electronic
>orbitals are perturbed, you affect the decay rate of the nucleus.
>
>You can look up the details in Segre's book _Nuclei and Particles_.  The
>effect has been experimentally verified.  Although I don't know if it has
>ever been done, you can easily imagine that very high pressures will also
>change the decay rate of a solid lump of such an element, for the same 
>reasons.

     Absolutely, and good point.  Another of my thoughts was that an
     appropriate sample placed in a stream of neutrons has altered activity.
     This all underscores the importance of the poster telling
     us exactly what he is talking about in order to arouse some
     real interest.

>I can also imagine that putting a nucleus which is gamma unstable between
>two plates, ala Casimir, would affect the decay rate by changing the 
>allowed photon spectrum in the gap.  But because of the very high frequency
>the plates would have to be much closer than is typical for the kind
>of cavity experiments you read about nowadays.

     I hadn't thought of this.  Perhaps you should apply for
     a patent and issue a 'disclosure' ...

                              dale bass


--
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926