HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt)
Subject: Re: Reluctant call for moderation of sci.physics
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:07:08 GMT

In article <BzDGJ2.5tM@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
>
>Someone posted under this thread the syntax for a line to be put
>into a kill file for the purpose of killing every article with
>Abian in the header.
>
>I, on the other hand, read this group only for fun, and all you
>outdated neanderthalian physicists seeking security by attempting
>to ignore Abian's A1 - A4 really bore me.  How could anyone want to
>talk about QM and all that sort of rot, when revolutionary lunacy
>is afoot?
>
>Is there a way that I (using rn) can kill everything EXCEPT the
>'TIME HAS INERTIA' stuff from Abian and his interlocutors?

That would be like removing the gardening tips from Lady Chatterley's
Lover.
-- 
Vaughan Pratt				There's safety in certain numbers.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)
Subject: Re: Materials for simple static electricity expts.
Organization: Simon Fraser University
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 23:49:28 GMT

In article <Dec.16.20.40.12.1992.9610@ruhets.rutgers.edu>
bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
>When I ran an electrostatics lab session we obtained opposite charges by 
>rubbing:
>1. plastic (bakelite?) rods with fur or possibly wool
>2. glass rods with silk, or maybe even nylon.
>
>I don't think anyone's mentioned #2.  I remember that it was always
>a little harder to charge the glass rods.  Of course it should
>be done on a very dry day.

Many decades ago, the first time I taught a course with elementary demon-
strations, I simply asked the technician to provide hard rubber, ex-kitty
cat, pith balls, silk, and glass for the lecture. He said that all the
requested materials were available and I figured "How hard can it be to
do these demos? I'll do 'em cold."

All went well, even with the electroscope which I had neglected to ask
for but gratefully used, until I got to the glass rod and silk. I looked
at the rod provided and noticed that one half the rod was etched. I said
to myself "Oh, good. That must be to make it easier to charge." So I
took my silk cloth and rubbed the etched end - and then rubbed it faster
- and then harder - and then scratched my head in panic, 'cause this 
official Central Scientific Certified best-in-the-world electrostatic
glass rod wouldn't budge the electroscope!

To this day I do not know why one end of that rod was etched, but I do
know that I was rubbing the wrong end! My best guess is that the end is
etched so that the *knowledgeable* physicist will always pick it up by
that end, so as not to soil and render less effective the *other* end,
which, as you've probably guessed, electrifies like gangbusters when
clean and rubbed with the silk cloth.

I now practice demonstrations (even ones I've done many times before)
in advance of presenting them in public. I gave an invited presentation
on physics demonstrations at the summer 1991 AAPT meeting where every-
thing went flawlessly. The poor fellow who followed me, usually a very
successful demonstrator, had almost every demo fail, some for reasons I
couldn't explain. He had set up faster than I (it's always nice to be
up first in a situation like that) and suffered for it. Practice may
not make perfect, but it sure helps the self-confidence.

Leigh
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Crackpot update, New Scientist
Date: 15 Dec 92 05:09:11 GMT
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory

In article <Dec.14.18.39.47.1992.8473@ruhets.rutgers.edu> bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
>I tracked down the New Scientist squib on sci.physics, T**E H*S I*****A,
>and the crackpot index ... it's in "Feedback," a gossipy page at the 
>back of the magazine (p.80, 5 Dec 1992).  Reprinted without
>permission ... all errors are theirs and theirs alone.
.....>   

>   Naturally, someone took the time to write a program to mark messages
>   automatically.  Due to the difficulty of getting a computer to
>   understand the concept of "favourably", the programme gives you points
>   just for mentioning Newton, Darwin, Velikovsky, or the Bermuda
>   Triangle.

>....  And does anyone know why New Scientist use both "program"
>and "programme"?

Interesting question.  I myself have the following bug, and I wonder
if any of you have it too: I write 'program' for a computer program
but write 'programme' for a policy or propsed plan of action.  I write
'color' for things like red or blue, but write 'tone colour' -- and so
on.  I seem to use the American spellings for technical or literal
things, and the English spellings for more literary or metaphorical
items.  I think this might be because a lot of my earliest reading was 
British literature.  Anyway, I find it useful, but I have to edit it
out of things I write.

As for the New Scientist, I suspect they have this problem, too --
although I think Turing himself used the 'programme' spelling for program.

Sorry I can't comment on T**E H*S I*****A, etc., because it has been
in my kill file for a long time now.  I'd like to remove it but there
appears to be no sign of the the usual topic-decay curve.  I forget
whether John Baez included this anomaly in his list: "abnormal
prolongation of newsgroup topic persistence"

.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: radford@cs.toronto.edu (Radford Neal)
Subject: Re: Special relativity is SOOO irritating!
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Distribution: sci
Date: 16 Dec 92 19:14:00 GMT

In article <D91ANDIV.92Dec15234743@astmatix.IDA.LiU.SE> d91andiv@IDA.LiU.SE (Anders Ivner) writes:

>Consider a staff, one meter long. Now, given the speed v it 'shrinks'
>to half a meter. We then have a wall, and an easily controllable
>hatch placed .75 meters from the wall. The staff passes through the 
>hatch, and we close the hatch behind it (BEFORE it hits the wall!)
>The staff hits the wall, without being deformed (somewhat unrealistic!),
>and since its speed now changes to 0 it is now fully 1 meters long.
>What the **** happens????

I'll take a crack at this... No guarantees, amateur physics only here :-)

The actual dynamics of the staff hitting the wall is presumably not of
interest (who knows what would really happen :-). Let's assume instead
that the staff is equiped with a rocket motor, which it uses to
rapidly deccelerate just before it would have hit the wall. In fact, I
presume that we also don't want to worry about how rapidly the force
from the rocket motor propagates through the staff, so lets assume that
the staff is equiped with *many* rocket motors, distributed along its
length, which all fire simultaneously, in the rest frame of the the staff.
It's then not necessary for the rod to be enourmously rigid.

The answer to the problem then seems to me to be pretty simple. In the
rest frame of the wall, these rocket motors *do not* fire simultaneously.
The ones toward the tail of the staff fire first. The observer at rest
with the wall is then hardly surprised that the staff gets stretched out
to a full meter. In fact, if my space-time diagrams don't lie, this
happens before the tail passes through the hatch, so we never get to
close it at all.

   Radford Neal
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: mw@irfu.se (Mattias Waldenvik)
Subject: Re: Materials for simple static electricity expts.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 12:24:51 GMT
Organization: Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala, Sweden

In article <Dec.16.20.40.12.1992.9610@ruhets.rutgers.edu> bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
>When I ran an electrostatics lab session we obtained opposite charges by 
>rubbing:
>1. plastic (bakelite?) rods with fur or possibly wool
>2. glass rods with silk, or maybe even nylon.
>
>I don't think anyone's mentioned #2.  I remember that it was always
>a little harder to charge the glass rods.  Of course it should
>be done on a very dry day.

	By rubbing a balloon aginst your hair it is possible to
	make the balloon stick to the ceiling for example. (This
	will relly confuse your kids). Another neat electrostatic
	demonstration is the bending of running water using a
	comb you just pulled through your hair.

					Cheers, Mattias
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: bharss@Physik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Boris Harss)
Subject: Looking for a nuclide chart...
Organization: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum, Muenchen (Germany)
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 13:32:09 GMT

Hello!

I'm looking for a nice tiny database of all nuclides, e.g. the 
"Karlsruher nuclide chart"
in any format, which means:
as an ASCII-File
as a database-File (dBase or what ever..)
as (which I`d prefer!) a DOS-Application

Thank you for your help,



Boris
From: matt@physics.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,news.groups
Subject: Re: Reluctant call for moderation of sci.physics
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:22:10
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
	<MATT.92Dec15140220@physics.berkeley.edu>
	<BCR.92Dec16000355@hfl3sn02.cern.ch>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: bcr@cernapo.cern.ch's message of Tue, 15 Dec 1992 23:03:55 GMT

In article <BCR.92Dec16000355@hfl3sn02.cern.ch> bcr@cernapo.cern.ch (Bill Riemers) writes:

> Here! Here! I'll second this even with the name as-is.  I for one
> normally am not subscribe to sci.physics, because it is too long and
> redundant.  I Only read this group when I have work I'm really
> trying to aviod doing.  I'm sure most of us are two busy to garentee
> to read through 50+ some articles posted here a day to see what
> passes the moderation policy criteria.  However, if we can figure
> out a way to split that equally amoung 4-5 people I'd be happy to be
> one of them.

The newsgroup soc.feminism is moderated by a panel of several people;
articles are randomly sent to one of the moderator.  Perhaps we could
do that here.  I'm sure the soc.feminism moderators would be happy to
help us set up the same sort of system that they have.

Incidentally, I might not have stressed this enough in my original
posting: we can't have a moderated newsgroup without a moderator.  It
is important that we get some volunteers for that position if we want
anything to happen.
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: kpearce@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (BULLDAWG)
Subject: Re: ABIAN HAS INERTIA
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 03:12:32 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.022749.20345@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> mkagalen@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (michael kagalenko) writes:
>I believe my subject is interesting idea. Let someone else to write
>(A1) & (A2)
>
>


I have a formula that PROVES THAT ABIAN HAS INERTIA.  But I can only show you
part of it because, yes MY LIFE HAS BEEN THREATENED.

First off, send me all your money.

Second off, I KNOW that you have at least a quarter in your pocket. SEND IT TOO!

ABIAN HAS INERTIA BECAUSE HIS ARTICLES KEEP GOING AND GOING AND GOING....
feel free to kill this article at any time.

}:)

Still trying to figure out how to kill those suckers...
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jarleb@athena.uio.no (Jarle Brinchmann)
Subject: Re: Exam suggestions :-)
Keywords: (Could be funny)
Reply-To: jarleb@athena.uio.no (Jarle Brinchmann)
Organization: Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 12:35:13 GMT


Since everybody complains about me forgetting :-)

1. The easy way to simplify diff-equations:

a) Change to t and r as independent variables.
b) Note that ddt was banned in the sixties (In Norway at least)
   and  that ddr has ceased to exist.



	Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody.
		           Jarle.


      ---------------------------------------
       Internet: jarleb@medusa.uio.no         
       or        Jarle.Brinchmann@astro.uio.no
      ---------------------------------------

Xref: sparky sci.physics:21473 sci.math:17218
From: hoconnel@iti.org (Heath O'Connell)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: How does Superman create thrust? (WAS Re: The Batman Light: How does it work?)
Date: 11 Dec 1992 23:42:08 GMT
Organization: The University of Adelaide
NNTP-Posting-Host: adelphi.itd.adelaide.edu.au

dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:

>In article <1fomgtINN3hb@hp-col.col.hp.com> dag@col.hp.com (David Geiser) writes:
>>Seriously, it's his diet.

>Diet of beans?

>Neutrinos?

We all ingest neutrinos, whether we want to or not. However, they go through
you fairly quickly.


--
		hoconnel@adelphi.physics.adelaide.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: mkohlhaa@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (mike)
Subject: Curved space?
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 02:08:52 GMT

I've heard "the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily
a straight line."  I'm not as knowledgable about physics as most of you
probably are, and would like a explanation to this interesting
statement. 

Thanks,



-- 
					-- Mike
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| If the above information is incorrect, then I don't even speak for myself.  |
|      mkohlhaa@silver.ucs.indiana.edu | mkohlhaa@amber.ucs.indiana.edu       |
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)
Subject: Graduate programs in atmospheric science
Organization: Simon Fraser University
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 00:17:23 GMT

Our best undergraduate has just informed me that he wants to do graduate work
in atmospheric science. He asked me to write letters for him to Cal and
Cornell, both of which have programs in atmospheric science. Are there some
good programs he is missing? Is there, for example, a program at Boulder with
NCAR?

I feel terribly unqualified to advise this student in this area, and it's
getting late! He will write the GRE tomorrow, and we'll be in the reference
business very soon. What other schools should he get his grades sent to? Where
are the best programs?

Please reply by direct e-mail since I don't often read news at home.

Thanks for the help,

Leigh Palmer
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: kim@Lise.Unit.NO (Kim Gunnar St|vring \yhus)
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA.
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 17:04:33 GMT

Warning to new readers of Abians postings concerning his principle.

If you post something about his principle, no matter how polite you
formulate it, the usual thing for Abian is to either answer rudely and with
no real content, or ignore you.

It has been proved that his principle is informationless, unusable, and not
science, but he still lingers on in this newsgroup.

Abian feeds on replies. Please don't feed him.

Kim0
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Matt McIrvin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: QM non-causal?
Date: 11 Dec 92 22:46:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc8.mcirvin.724113994

mkagalen@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (michael kagalenko) writes:

>In article <431@mtnmath.UUCP> paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes:
>>
>>I have never looked into Everett's work. I have no opinion on its merits.
>>However the many worlds interpretation based on his work lacks
>>scientific interest. This is because one can prove anything if one is
>>allowed to create a new universe made to order at the drop of a hat. This
>>is not to say that it is incorrect. I certainly think that it is false, but
>>I could never provide evidence for or against this idea by either experiment
>>or mathematical arguments. That is precisely why this idea lacks scientific
>>interest and content.

>And originality as well. I've read the story (by Marquez, I believe), 
>where this idea was presented in an interesting way.

Jorge Luis Borges, perhaps?  I think it was called "The Garden of 
Forking Paths."

Olaf Stapledon describes a similar idea quite casually near the end
of "Star Maker."

It cannot be stated too many times, however, that people who use
Everett's formalism to "prove anything" with "a new universe made
to order at the drop of a hat" are seriously misusing Everett's work.
Unfortunately, there are many of them running about, particularly
in the popular literature.
-- 
Matt McIrvin
From: reese@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: TIME HAS INERTIA - LUNCHTIME DOUBLY SO
Date: 20 Dec 92 16:00:43 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620



Well, I'm just about sick of this Abian rubbish and now the press is
getting involved too.  Perhaps he should go in my killfile, but I 
(and it seems most other people on sci.physics) suffer from that
form of complacency which insists on correcting other people's
misconceptions.  This occurs even when, time and time again,
the people you're trying to set straight are shown to be crazy.

Let's all just stop indulging in Abian's megalomaniacal fantasies of
scientific superiority and insight.  He'll go away eventually. If we
all just spend our time pointing out where he's wrong, he'll just use
that as "validation" for his wild ideas.  Starve him of the oxygen of
publicity, and then we can all go back to discussing real physics.

As a matter of interest, what happens to these people when they
eventually drop out of sight?  Does anyone know what Hannu and his
space potatoes are doing now?

Jason

P.S. Better add Penrose and Hawking to the crackpot index of scientists
these guys compare themselves to.  Abian has mentioned both.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)
Subject: Re: QM non-causal?
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:38:57 GMT

In article <92346.083019MRG3@psuvm.psu.edu>, <MRG3@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:

|> The relative state formulation, as given by Everett, is not complete. There
|> is a  lot of work being done in this area (particularly Gell-Mann and Hartle).
|> One of the problems which was recognized early on was the so called
|> Basis Problem:  what determines the appropriateness of a particular
|> set of states to be an "apparatus" basis?  If the answer is subjective
|> ("this set of states corresponds to different appartus pointer states
|> because I said so", or "any *classical* system can be an apparatus")
|> then the interpretation is no more satisfying than Copenhagen mysticism,
|> and leaves at least as many questions unanswered.
|> 
|> Partial solutions have been formed in terms
|> a way of identyfying systems as  "approximately classical", via
|> the effective decoherence in quantum open systems.
|> This idea had one of its earliest solid formulations in
|> Zurek's "Environment Induced Superselection" (superselsction in this case
|> was a poor choice of temionology).  Gell-Mann and Hartle are currently
|> spending considerable efforts on their program of
|> aproximate classicality through coarse graining.

	I read Zurek's article in Physics Today last year, and at the time 
it seemed to make sense to me.  Since this fact could be considered a strike 
against his work (I'm a rather dim-witted experimentalist, after all), 
could someone tell me how seriously this approach is taken by people who 
are in the know about such things?

-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.
From: haddadi@sipi.usc.edu (Navid Haddadi)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Upper limit of Velocity?
Date: 15 Dec 1992 05:31:04 -0800
Organization: USC, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: sipi.usc.edu

Again, day-dreaming I came up with another question which may have
a simple answer. Does Big Bang imply that matter at one time traveled
faster than the speed of light? If yes, how is that possible.
(The answer is obviously yes, if we take the singularity to have been
a single point since the rate of expansion must be infinite; however,
lets consider the case at some time t=t0>0).
If not, does that mean that the entire universe has been observable
(at least in theory) from any single point eversince t0?

Navid.
Physics is the best detective story of all time.
haddadi@sipi.usc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Crackpot update, New Scientist
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 01:09:38 GMT

In article <Dec.14.18.39.47.1992.8473@ruhets.rutgers.edu> bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
>   The result?  A bundle of spoof messages aiming for maximum score.
>   And the index's author himself ranked number 6 in the crackpot league
>   table.

>Well, John Baez may be thankful his name wasn't mentioned, anyway.

Hey, I need all the notoriety I can can get, so I'm going to write them
a letter to the editor.  After all, the crackpot index may be my most practical
contribution to science so far (sad to say).  Moh got his name on that silly
hardness scale for rocks, and we all remember him for that, even though
he probably did some more substantial work that nobody remembers.

I am not sure whether I should write the letter in green ink, though.

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to type that article in!
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: Science Fair Project
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:04:37 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.061927.170448@zeus.calpoly.edu> mhorning@zeus.calpoly.edu (Mark E. Horning (Captain Neutrino)) writes:
>crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) states
>>In article <BCR.92Dec8002924@hfl3sn02.cern.ch> bcr@cernapo.cern.ch (Bill Riemers) writes:
>>>
>>>I used to have a ball suspended above my office desks with magnets.
>>>
>>...
>>>
>>>The other problem you will have is that your car will feel a tremendous force
>>>trying to flip it over.  However, a really simple solution is simply to use
>>>strings to keep the car stable.  If you connect it to the ceiling, it will
>>>look like the strings are holding the car up, so hook the string up to the
>>>floor!  Then if anyone asks you can tell them the strings are to keep the car
>>>from floating away!  (With my ball I only need one string, but in this case
>>>you'll probably need at least three.)
>>
>>     No offense intended, but this is the kind of horrible idea that
>>     gives the free energy nuts fodder for their insanity.
>>
>>     Since you cannot with ordinary permanent magnets produce a 
>>     stable six degree-of-freedom levitating system, you are misleading
>>     at least the audience, and probably the kid by saying the strings
>>     are being used to 'keep the car from floating away'.  Actually, you
>>     are taking away at least one degree of freedom, so you can have
>>     a stable system.  If it weren't there, it would flop over or
>>     fly pretty quickly away (depending on configuration).
>>
>>     The interesting and scientific part is that six DOF levitating
>>     permanent (nonsuperconducting) magnetic systems are not possible,
>>     and that you must restrict the degrees of freedom to allow stability,
>>     or use superconducting magnets, or actively control the magnets.
>>     Please don't advise someone hide the physics for the sake of
>>     a trick.
>>
>	Can't you use gravity to remove one of the degrees of freedom?
>Put lead weights in the bottom of the train for ballast. Or am i missing
>something obvious?

     I'm game.  Can you use gravity to remove one of the degrees of freedom?
     If so, how?

     Think about it this way, if you can use weights to 'balance' it,
     why can't you simply do it in appropriate circumstances with the 
     innate original weight?

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