HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: trivedi@yukawa.uchicago.edu (Anil Trivedi)
Subject: Re: Over the hill at 40?
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 12:53:55 GMT

matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes:

 > Some time ago I received a letter from the son of an old friend, seeking
 > advice as to whether he should endeavour to become a [theoretical]
 > physicist. He has just completed a BS in a respectable US university.
 > Among other penetrating remarks, he observes: "I noticed that
 > relatively few of the profs over the age of 40 were active in research,
 > even though they obviously knew their stuff. Why is that? What do I do
 > if I find myself in that situation?"
 > How should I reply? 

Let me assume that he is seriously interested in physics. Then, while
sociology/psychology/politics/economics of physics are undoubtedly
interesting---those are probably just a few of the things keeping his
professors very busy---their serious pursuit, even understanding, should
be left to others; advise him to focus on physics instead. 

He should also not confuse things like "knowing the stuff" "being active"
"being productive" and "being creative" etc.  Each has its place in a
fully lived life, but they are different.

He should strive to avoid using his mind like some trash-can: why gravity
has resisted being quantized is worth thinking about (along with many other
things); why Prof. A has stopped thinking but not publishing or why Prof. B
has stopped working but not conference-hopping etc. is rarely so.

Finally, he should learn from the best examples, rather than get depressed
thinking about the bad ones; with some luck and effort he can then become
one of the former. :-)

-----
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: FEYNMAN 10
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 03:48:15 GMT


Feynman 10
Gleick does a very good job defining the "Newest Physics" pp.70-4 for
ordinary people and young kids.  Just a teaser:
"The theory of the fast [special relativity] and the theory of the small
[quantum mechanics] ..[The classical limit] Most of human experience ...
neither fast nor small, where relativity and quantum mechanics seemed
unnecessary and unnatural, where rivers ran, clouds flowed, baseballs
soared and spun by classical means - but to young scientists [at MIT in
mid-thirties when Feynman was an undergraduate] classical physics had no
more to say ... They could not ignore the deliberately disorienting
rhetoric of the quantum mechanicians...

Later, [due, in no small measure to John Archibald Wheeler and, in the New
Age counter-culture, to David Bohm and to my catalytic role at Esalen, with
the help of Tim Leary and Robert Anton Wilson, in launching the pop books
SPACE-TIME AND BEYOND, TAO OF PHYSICS, DANCING WU LI MASTERS as chronicled
by Martin Gardner in SCIENCE,GOOD,BAD AND BOGUS and by Jeremy Bernstein]
quantum mechanics suffused into the lay culture as a mystical fog. It was
uncertainty, it was acausality, it was the Tao updated, it was the
century's richest fount of paradoxes, it was the permeable membrane between
the observer and the observed, it was the funny business sending shuddrs up
science's all-too-deterministic scaffolding. For now, however, it was
merely a necessary and useful contrivance for accurately describing the
behavior of nature at the tiny scales now accessible to experiments.

p.72 What happened to the electron 'between' orbits? One learned not to
ask.

These new kinds of lumpiness in the way science conceived of energy were
the essence of quantum mechanics. ..Classical intuitions had to be
abandoned. New meanings had to be assigned to the notions of probability
and cause. ...
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA Reply to: Steven Groom
Date: 12 Oct 92 14:37:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc8.mcirvin.718900660

G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:

>If time has inertia, and four dimensional spacetime is good model,
>then space must have inertia, must it not?

In a sense it does, according to GR-- gravitational waves can carry
energy and momentum, and they keep moving once you get them started,
which I suppose could be called inertia.  ("Inertia," as has been
pointed out earlier, has nothing to do with things requiring an
input of energy to keep moving-- that's closer to the medieval idea
of impetus, which was supposed to get used up by motion.) 

-- 
Matt McIrvin, posting nonsense again 
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Can Information Have Physical Units?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 16:36:15 GMT

In article <6OCT199214542437@csa2.lbl.gov> sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
>In article <1992Oct6.170513.25273@galois.mit.edu>, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes...
>
>>"bits".  If we use natural log, as Boltzmann did, this number is the
>>number of "nits".  Wasting energy arguing over small pieces of
>>information is therefore known as "nitpicking."
>
>You've got to be kidding.  I hope you were kidding.  A nit is the egg of a
>louse, or, sometimes, its young.  Nit picking was a normal grooming activity
>until quite recently....

Seems like I haven't done it for ages... yes, I was kidding!  (I would
hate to be responsible for yet another folk etymology.)
From: matt@physics16.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: OQ (Open Question) on particles
Date: 13 Oct 92 10:48:24
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
	<phfrom.345@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>
	<1992Oct13.163540.27085@galois.mit.edu>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics16.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu's message of Tue, 13 Oct 92 16:35:40 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.163540.27085@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:

> Hmm.  My definition was only intended to allow one to say "in this
> theory there are the following elementary particles: electrons and
> protons" or some such thing.  As soon as one has a 2-particle state it
> is no longer an eigenvalue of the mass operator (since the relative
> velocities can vary continuously, essentially).

Actually, I've always thought that a decent definition of a particle
is that it's an irreducible representation of the Poincare group.
(With, again, the same caveat: unless you're talking about asymptotic
states, it's hard to figure out what really is and isn't a particle.)

Then there's my other definition: a particle is something that you can
see in a bubble chamber.
--
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!
From: ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: "The Universe of MOTION" (crackpot index)
Date: 15 Oct 92 09:16:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.EerORXa00gpIFeT2df
	<Oct.15.08.35.20.1992.24954@paul.rutgers.edu>
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics: 15-Oct-92 Re: "The Universe of
MOTION.. Thomas Marlowe@paul.rutg (1006)

> (5)	in fact, significant credit should be given for providing a
> 	reasonable bibliography, complete citations, etc., or for responding
> 	lucidly to criticism and corrections, for modifying claims in
> 	response to discussion, etc.

However, there should be penalty points for giving citations in
non-refereed journals. Doubled if the citation is for something the
crackpot wrote himself. (Regardless of where it was published. Heh, heh.)

Points for claiming that lots of people have agreed with or supported
him by email, but are unwilling to say so in public.

Points for repeating an earlier post or a section of an earlier post,
without correction or discussion. 

Points for claiming the ridicule of less-cracked-pots as some sort of
triumph or proof that he is ahead of *everybody*.

Twenty points for each suggestion for an addition to the Crackpot Index. :-)

By the way, you all of course remember the Omega class bionic man....

Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics: 7-Oct-92 QUANTUM GRAVITY 3 Jack
Sarfatti@well.sf.ca (4878)

> from THE NEW SPACETIME AND BEYOND
> "For the Unruh radiation, the energy required for the excitation of the
> detector is drawn from the acceeleration mechanism [e.g. Star Ship
> engines will have to increase their power or ship will slow down -JS] ,
for the Hawking radiation from the mass of the black hole.  
> The GOD(D) Drive of the most advanced Star Ships uses this
> psycho-geometric mode of propulsion - requiring an Omega class bionic
> man at the helm...

I found a copy of _Spacetime and Beyond_ (presumably an earlier edition
of the book), which includes a large appendix written by Sarfatti
himself. It's... a trip. Or the author was. IMHO, pure wacko-guru
pseudo-Oriental enlightenment stew, liberally spiced with a chopped-up
QM textbook. I'll dig up the full reference in a day or so.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: dooley@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Kevin Dooley)
Subject: Re: 1992 Nobel Prizes: a prediction
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 16:47:39 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.155709.7074@cbnews.cb.att.com> ran@cbnews.cb.att.com (Robert A. Neinast) writes:
>What I want to know is why Hawking hasn't won it, particularly since
>the Nobel is only awarded to living people, and every year he hangs
>on seems miraculous.
>
>Is there some general concensus that his work just isn't of Nobel
>caliber?
>
>Bob

It isn't the quality of Hawking's work which is preventing him from winning
the prize, it is the content.  Hawking will never win the prize because his
work is entirely on speculative matters which have not been proven 
experimentally.  The Nobel committee never awards the prize to such work.
Even Einstein's prize was for the photoelectric effect and not for relativity.
After all, the prize is for physics, not math.  Hawking's work is far too
controversial and has far too high of a chance of being utterly wrong.  That
is why he will never win the Nobel prize (unless he does something else which
will have immediate experimental consequences).

Kevin
From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: "THE UNIVERSE OF *MOTION*" (book review)
Date: 14 Oct 92 02:25:51 GMT
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <1992Oct6.174041.1576@cnsvax.uwec.edu> mcelwre@cnsvax.uwec.edu writes:
>               "THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION" contains FINAL SOLUTIONS to 
>          most ALL astrophysical mysteries. 

O.K. then, tell me under what conditions shock waves in supernova are
stable, and what that ring around SN1987A is.  You might save me a lot
of work that way.
Xref: sparky sci.physics:16664 sci.space:14536
From: lnd@csd.bu.edu (Levin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.space
Subject: volumes of convex bodies
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:10:14 GMT
Reply-To: Lnd@cs.bu.edu
Followup-To: sci.physics

In <1992Oct14.064426.11604@news.cs.brandeis.edu> (Tahsin I. Alam) writes:
>Is there any algorithm or any research paper on calculating volumes of
>n-dimensional convex polyhedra? Any info would help.

Ask Ravi Kannan @theory.cs.cmu.edu . He has found fast algorithms.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jon@alex.com (Jonathan Heitler)
Subject: Re: Stephen W. Hawking?
Organization: Alex Technolgies Ltd
Apparently-To: mail2news@news.demon.co.uk
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 16:37:59 +0000

In article <1992Oct15.174200.2276@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:

|>     'Dancing Wu-Li Masters' is a horrible thing to be visited upon
|>     defenseless non-science majors.

Oh. If that is so, what advice, concerning what to read, would you give to those of
us who know enough to know that we are interested, but don't know enough to know that
we are being mislead? (Preferably a book that doesn't use words longer than 2.5
syllables).

	With interest, Jonathan.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)
Subject: Re: VERY fundamental question
Organization: Simon Fraser University
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:49:59 GMT

In article <1992Oct14.084233.6403@dde.dk> ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering) writes:

>First, an apology: I realize that this is very likely an extremely
>fundamental question, one that might not belong in this group.  Or it
>may be a frequently asked question; I don't read this newsgroup regularly,
>so I don't know. In any case apologies if I'm being stupid.

[followed by dialog in which there is an earnest attempt made to find a
*true* answer to a question about magnetic attraction]

No apology is necessary. Your question is frequently asked and answered
badly in this group. Physics is a science which seeks to model the
universe with a mathematically consistent construct which is isomorphic
to it. In building this model physicists give names to elements of the
construct which are well understood in their interactions with other
elements of the model. Sometimes physicists unconsciously attribute to 
these elements with names a reality of their own, and whether they do
so or not, *they speak among themselves as though the elements (like
"the magnetic field") are real*. To believe, for example, that the
magnetic field is "real" is to commit a cognitive error called 
"reification". That is a particularly good example of reification
since physicists know that in a relativistic formalism the magnetic
field is not an element of the universe. "Reality" should not depend
upon one's frame of reference!

Physics can only provide answers of the sort you were exemplifying in
your dialog, though they might be a bit better than those specific
answers. If you wish deeper knowledge you may try joining an ashram;
you won't find it in physics. We physicists love the construct which
has been built by our predecessors and which we continue to build, if 
slowly, even today. We find it beautiful and are even evangelical in
our zeal to share it with others. To see physics the way we see it
you must start with much simpler questions than the one you raised.
One must start from the beginning on the road to enlightenment.

Leigh
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: terry@aslws01.asl.dl.nec.com (Terry Bollinger)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix (?)
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:37:12 GMT
Organization: NEC America, Inc Irving TX

In article <COLUMBUS.92Oct16131550@strident.think.com> columbus@strident.think.com (Michael Weiss) writes:
> In article <1992Oct15.141620.11197@asl.dl.nec.com>
> terry@aslws01.asl.dl.nec.com (Terry Bollinger) writes: 
>
> | If I recall the mathematician correctly, I believe it was Lagrange who
> | was so intrigued by his own results that he used them as an argument
> | for the existence of God.
>
> This an old myth about Euler...

Interesting, but nope, the case I'm thinking of is much more real, specific,
and quite sincere. Had to do with the principle of least action, as best
as I can recall.  Anyone?  (I'll try to look it up this weekend.)

				Cheers,
				Terry
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: trivedi@yukawa.uchicago.edu (Anil Trivedi)
Subject: Preprint Bulletin Boards ( was Re: Quantum gravity ftp site?)
Organization: Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 11:16:32 GMT

Mitchell.Porter@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Mitchell Porter) writes:

 > I read a column by N David Mermin in an issue of `Physics Today' earlier
 > this year in which he mentioned that researchers in quantum gravity,
 > string theory, 2D quantum field theory etc are communicating primarily
 > electronically now- eg preprints being circulated by email etc. He hinted
 > that there might be an ftp site somewhere storing these preprints -
 > do any sci.physics readers know of something like this?

You can in fact receive daily abstracts, as articles are submitted by the
authors. Then, if an abstract seems interesting, there is a procedure to
request the full paper. They are usually in TeX or LaTeX. Most macros that
people tend to use are also available by e-mail.

I am aware of the following "bulletin-boards":

  alg-geom@publications.math.duke.edu (algebraic geometry)
  astro-ph@babbage.sissa.it           (astrophysics)
  cond-mat@babbage.sissa.it           (condensed matter)
  funct-an@babbage.sissa.it           (functional analysis)
  hep-lat@ftp.scri.fsu.edu            (computational and lattice physics)
* gr-qc@xxx.lanl.gov		      (general relativity/quantum cosmology)
  gr-qc@babbage.sissa.it		...duplicates above in Europe...
  hep-ph@xxx.lanl.gov                 (high energy physics phenomenological)
  hep-ph@babbage.sissa.it		...duplicates above in Europe...
* hep-th@xxx.lanl.gov                 (high energy physics theoretical)
  hep-th@babbage.sissa.it		...duplicates above in Europe...
  lc-om@alcom-p.cwru.edu              (liquid crystals, optical materials)

(*Your stated ineterests will probably be best served by these.)

To subscribe (i.e., to start receiving abstracts), send e-mail to
the appropriate bulletin-board with the SUBJECT line set as

	Subject: subscribe Mitchell Porter

Needless to say, someone else reading this should use his/her name,
not yours. :-)

If you just want information for now, use 	Subject: help

Either way, what you say in the body of the letter does not matter.

Good Luck.

-----
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sawyer@utahep.uta.edu (Lee Sawyer)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: This years Nobel (we all missed it...)
Date: 14 Oct 92 15:16:00 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at Arlington High Energy Physics Group
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


  Well I don't see it up yet, so I might as well mention that this year's
Nobel prize in physics went to Georges Charpak, the developer of numerous 
detectors and imaging systems for high energy particles, in particular 
the wire chamber.

  Though the announcement surprised me a bit, I certainly feel the man is
well deserving. He continues to work on novel detection techniques, and
wire chambers/drift chambers are now as ubiquitous as coincidence counting
(which also won a Nobel in the early fifties). Charpak is charming gentleman
who I heard at a seminar at CERN, when he retired a couple of years ago. 
Anyone interested in his work should look at his article "Principles of
Operation of Multiwire Proportional and Drift Chambers", Charpak and Sauli,
which appears in _Experimental Techniques in High Energy Physics_, ed. Tom
Ferbel. This is the definitive article on the care and feeding of wire chambers.

  One last comment : though Charpak work is obstensibly in HEP, he has been
quite active in applying this detection techniques to other fields, 
particularly medical imaging. He has a longstanding joint project with
one of the Geneva hospitals (l'Hopital Cantonale ?) to develop new wire-
chamber based PET detectors and similar devices. To a large extent, this
may be viewed as the first Nobel for medical physics.

       ================                           
         Lee Sawyer                                  

         Dept of Physics                          
         Univ. of Texas                            
               at Arlington                        
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: VERY fundamental question
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 12:05:37 GMT

In article <1992Oct14.084233.6403@dde.dk> ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering) writes:

>A: So, how does the magnet make the needle move?!

Seriously, though, I think this is the downside of Newton's legacy.
He taught us to think in terms of differential equations (all right,
fluxions), and hence in terms of motion and forces.  So, if the
needle moves, its motion is described by an equation, and one of
the terms in that equation will be some kind of force.

Things are much simpler if you take the older approach, and look
for invariants and minima.  The answer is then, surely, that the
configuration with the needle closer has lower energy than the
configuration with the needle further, and the system adopts the
minimum energy configuration.
From: bwallet@apssgi.nswc.navy.mil (Brad Wallet)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: CRACKED!
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:40:41 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Naval Surface Warfare Center

In article <HAGERMAN.92Oct14233802@rx7.ece.cmu.edu>, hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) writes:
|> SO once again we have so-called INTILECTUAL SCIENTISTS attempting to
|> paint the rest of us NORMAL PEOPLE as INFERIOR.  I see, for example,
|> that the "CRACKPOT INDEX" makes NO MENTION of SPELLING, which is, of
|> course, due to the fact that INTILECTUALS CANT SPELL.  Besides their
|> attempt to SUPRESS important FACTS about ALTERNATIVE REALITIES which
|> will ultimately SAVE THE EARTH, such as FREE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES and
|> PSYCHO-ENERGY HAIRCUT devices, they completely spurn truly IMPORTANT
|> issues such as JUSTIFYING their paragraphs.  May their KARMAS drift.
|> 
|> As was CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY stated by GAUSS (and further demonstrated
|> by DARWIN), there is NO SUCH THING as OBJECTIVE REALITY.  Therefore,
|> ANY FOOL can conclude that only ALTERNATE REALITIES are of importance.
|> Such REALITIES have been shown to be the FINAL ANSWER to all IMPORTANT
|> QUESTIONS.  Such as, WHAT'S FOR LUNCH?  As such, the ALTERED REALITIES
|> UNEQUIVICOUBLY show that QUANTUM MECANICS (QM) is UNFOUNDED and FALSE.
|> This is CLEAR from the statement in HIGHER-ORDER LOGIC that P => ~P
|> (where P is the PROBABILITY that QM will FAIL at time T).  At least,
|> it is clear to those of us who, through SELF-EDUCATION, like EINSTEIN
|> Himself, have TRANSCENDED REALITY to achieve an ALTERNATING RESONANCE
|> such as that used by TESLA to communicate with BEING FROM VENUS.  In
|> his famous COLORADO EXPERIMENTS (the results of which were SUPRESSED
|> by the NSF), TESLA demonstrated that RADIO ENERGY generated by SUPER
|> ALTERNATOR actually travels FASTER than the SPEED OF LIGHT; this fact,
|> also DENIGHED by "scientists" (even though used by EINSTEIN in his
|> infamous PHILADELPHIA STORY EXPERIMENTS), clearly shows that NEWTON,
|> while almost as well educated as me, was FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG about his
|> CALCULUS OF MOTION.  Any reader of LARRY NIVEN will tell you this.
|> 
|> In spite of CONTINUED SUPRESSION, I will continue to SPREAD THE WORD
|> concerning the SOLUTION offered by ALTERED STATES.
|> 
|> 								johno

We have a winner!  Please hold your Crackpot of the Year entries.
From: rschmidt@reed.edu (Rod Schmidt)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: QM implies non-c photons
Date: 12 Oct 92 04:12:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Oct12.041239.1590
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR


   In Feynman's book QED, he describes diffraction gratings:
"Wonderful! You take a part of the mirror where you didn't
expect any reflection, scrape away part of it, and it reflects!"
   Later he says that photons can go faster or slower than c.
Near c, they reinforce each other, the same way that photons
near the middle of the mirror reinforce each other; far from c,
they cancel each other, the same way that photons far from the
middle of the mirror cancel each other -- spiral of Cornu describes
both systems.
   But he doesn't go on to make the obvious analogy -- take a speed
regime where you didn't expect any photon propagation, interrupt part
of it, and you should get photons.
   This implies that you can get measurable amounts of photons going
faster than c. This of course is equivalent to going backward in time.
The grandfather paradox is likely to be a non-problem --
you have an amplitude to go back in time and screw yourself up, and that
simply gets added to all the other amplitudes to determine what actually
happens.
   Comments?
Newsgroups: sci.physics