Scientific Waffle

I don't have any text in my sig, but if I ever do add it I'll shrink mine. I don't think mine is overboard at the moment however. Do tell me if I'm wrong on this.

First google result for "Scientific Waffle" is my Ordo forum account \o/ Images...

I like the classic for a variety of reasons, ranging from the pleasantly small header (relative to evolution), to the dark aesthetic of it. Classic could use a few minor tweaks (like the aforementioned URLs), but I much prefer it to the evolution theme.

To Aelus: I meant Ad hominid in the broader sense of the term meaning that you were advancing an argument by showing the virtues of the ones arguing it rather that the virtues of the argument itself. You did have a valid point, you were just edging on dangerous waters. And in terms of the "chicken and egg" argument Agares makes with thoughts and electrons... the way science works is that you prove things to be so, and need not prove things to not be so. We can see direct relationships between electro-chemical neural activity and thought, and there exists plausible hypotheses supported by evidence which explain the causual relationship between neural activity and thought, not the other way around. And yes, Tiridates is correct. Debate and discussion between individuals of all levels of expertise is a time tested tradition and learning process. To accept the word of a scientist or physicist blindly because society tells you he is an expert is no better than doing likewise with a holy man. In my eyes, it is better to arrive through one's own thought at the wrong conclusion than it is to be a correct sheep.

That's actually a really good ad.

Happy International Worker's Day, fellow proletariat!

Nethack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . @ d . . . . . . . .

Your idea that "meaning" is beyond physics is where we reach an impasse Tiridates, because I don't believe there is any actual overarching "meaning" to the universe. And as I've stated before, physics might not be flawed in its purest form, but humans always are in one way or another. Bias is an issue science must constantly grapple with. As for Aelus, it was not purely an explanation of a Gaussian distribution, it was also a link between probability in physics and the concept of chance, choice, and free will. And your point as to "greater men", it was invalid from an ad hominid perspective, but the core idea that experts in various fields of the science do generally find that such phenomena have physical roots is true.

The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. It's incredibly deep, rife with symbolism and meaning, and isn't purely and blindly ideological like Atlas Shrugged was. If you read it and only understand the plot, you've failed at reading this book. There's just so much meaning behind the characters and story.

Just as a note, the fact that more people die from flu each year does not make regular flu more deadly. The reason people are concerned about this strain of swine flu is that it does spread easily from person to person and there won't be a vaccine ready for distribution for another 6 months. The people actually at risk for death are usually vaccinated for regular flu, and the lack of vaccination is what causes this flu to cause legitimate concern. That being said, a healthy person can simply get any variety of flu medicines to be cured with little to no risk. This isn't just some overblown minor flu strain; the World Health Organization (WHO) has already classified it as a level 5 disease threat level (with 6 being full on world pandemic). There are many different types of swine flu, this is a particularly deadly strain largely due to its ease of transmission and recent spread. Assuming you have modern health care, however, you should not panic. The concern, however, is legitimate. We don't have a vaccine for those who need it (the very young and the elderly). This isn't just "Big Media" making something out of nothing. (edit: level is 5)

The reason there is such thing as "choice" from the perspective of physical reductionism is that at its most base level, particles become little more than what are called "waves of probability". This essentially means that in any given interaction between millions of particles and matter, there are trillions upon trillions of infinitesimal "coin tosses" which shift the way things react in the smallest of ways. One way to think of this is as a road. Let's say, for a moment, that this road has 50 million forks in the road, representing two paths the car can go down. This leads to 250 possible positions for any given car to end at the conclusion of this series of forks. What psychology and other similar studies generally do is they look at where the cars ended up if you send a large number of cars down this road (let's say, in our example, that 85% of all cars end up in the third of endpoints located most east). A field like psychology will then compare initial conditions at a macroscopic level (for example, that most cars drive at 30 mph and the roads are gravel roads), and turn this pattern of probability into a set of rules that generally predict the end result for any given car. The concept of choice with then manifest itself in the idea that any given car would "choose" its endpoint after all of these forks in the road. The approach physics would take, however, would be to look at every single individual turn and determine how the cars end up taking one turn over another. A the decision reached by a human mind would be like sending 20 million cars through this series of roads, with the end pattern created by the car being the decision made by the brain. The sets of rules established by psychology will predict what the pattern generally is; all drivers might generally prefer to make a right turn over a left. A non-Materialist analysis of the end result might conclude that there's some greater force causing the end pattern to occur. A Materialist viewpoint, however, would be to say that the end pattern is the result of every car navigating through this series of roads. The behavior of some cars at certain turns might be predetermined, a physical law being the equivalent of a one-way sign or a detour in the road forcing all cars at that point to take a certain turn. Other instances of turn choice might be entirely random, just as the behavior of quantum particles often simply does reduce to sheer probability. Thus, from the Materialist's perspective, "free will" in the end was just the manifestation of the very much random and unpredictable aspect of the events at a small scale. Materialism does not dictate that everything is predetermined; there is actual randomness in the system. However, what the materialist states is that the end pattern of cars was the result of millions of cars making exponential numbers of turns. I hope I didn't lose you in my extended metaphor, but the point I'm making is that it is human nature to judge incredibly complex interactions through a set of more macroscopic (and sometimes even nonexistent) factors. Physical reductionism does not deny choice or promote the idea of predetermination; what is does however identify is the nature of "free will" as a result of incredibly complex phenomena and probability. In my intellectual pursuits I have very much found that everything stems from tangible things; what we most commonly associate with being "beyond physics" is either macroscopic results of complex events or vague human mental associations conjured by our own minds to help us simplify and deal with the world around us.

I suppose it was only a matter of time after seeing this nerf gun on the market...

D: but Intus, we're given them what they want and going into a philosophical discussion, with the bonus being that it centers around physics in relation to truth and reality! ;_; Agares, I'm not arguing determinism. The name of the phenomenon you're referring to it Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which does indeed state that at the most basic of levels, physics cannot perfectly predict the future. My viewpoint is that the "intangibles" you refer to, human choice, emotion, etc, are macroscopic manifestations of incredibly complex systems of events described in physics. However, that does not mean that every choice you make is predetermined; physics itself dictates probability and uncertainty. However, when events happen and choice are made, these actions are all the results of physics that happens. We tend to reject that something such as the decision to eat cake or vote for a candidate is something transcendent of physical phenomena; in my view it's just so staggeringly complex that what is in reality seemingly infinite logical events seems to manifest itself in a seemingly (but not truly) illogical reaction. In the end, human choice is not always rational, but what causes humans to choose so is.

I'd tend to disagree; the need for models of human nature are due to the limitations of men rather than physics in my opinion. The reason sociology and human interaction is not described through physics is due to the staggeringly complex nature of it. All of it has its basis in physics; each decision we make was a neuron firing due to patterns of electro-chemical stimuli resulting in a chemical signal being sent out to cause us to respond in a hard-wired nature. The issue is not that physics equations and concepts can't explain it; they can. It's moreover the fact that it happens on such a large and complex scale that we as a species favor models and patterns that we deem simpler and useful as opposed to the trillions of cause-and-effect reactions that produce a decision. Essentially, what I am saying is that I personally enjoy physics because it is at its very root the examination of reality. While I'm not saying sociology and the humanities isn't interesting or valid, physics interests me because it not only tells me what will happen, but also what is actually causing this to happen. Physics isn't just a model for what happens, it is what happens. I'm not saying I'm about to crunch numbers into an equation and tell you why a thief robbed a store, but I am saying that the physics is there, it's just staggeringly complex. To me, physics is as pure as knowledge gets. There is nothing that exists which cannot trace itself back to physics (and as an extension, mathematics and pure logic) because in the end, physics is the science of existence. And if it's a philosophical discussion you want, it's one you've got because what I've just argued is in essence Physicalism/Materialism.

It says something about a group when a policy as visible as this one has no one to authoritatively represent it or explain it. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt until this is solved, however.

He asked for the equation in the original post, not a numerical answer. And Agares, physics is not plug and chug memorization, it's analyzing how the universe works. You can't just memorize equations to solve something like this, there's a lot of analysis and interpretation for physics like this. I analyzed what physical phenomena the described setup produced, and then synthesized multiple equations together based upon an approximation I had to come up with on my own. There's a difference between rote math problems and physics, Agares.

Hello, welcome to Ordo! ^_^

I plan on getting one as soon as they allow third party (ala Songbird) music software. Zune HD looks awesome.

Terra has waffles. Debate won.

Gee, maybe if you had some coffee you might react quicker, and then you could get organized. I'm sure the extra energy would help! :P

If you sent in a notecard a while ago and did not recieve your merits or are missing one, please wait for me to be on to send me an IM (IMs might be capped due to notecards).

Your years of dealing with furries will serve you well!

In case you missed it, the new merits and collar have been rolled out! To receive the new merits please send me a notecard with the following format... <--------------------------------------------------------------------> Merit Update Form NAME: RANK: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Name of Merit] [Name of Merit] [Name of Merit] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Send this in notecard form to me, and I will get you your merits as soon as possible. Please, do not just IM. Send via notecard. If you are discovered to have listed merits you have not earned, you will be punished. Thank you ^_^

I don't expect to get it first time around, but here's my first shot... small numbers will be written as x(a) where a is the subscript. large coil = coil 1 small coil = coil 2 1: B = μ0 * n1 * I1 1: B = μ0 * n1 * I0 * sin(ω * t) 1: dB/dt = μ0 * n1 * dI/dt 1: I = I0 * sin(w * t) 1: dI/dt = I0 * ω * cos(ω * t) 1: dB/dt = μ0 * n1 * I0 * ω * cos(ω * t) dB/dt is the changing magnetic field through the center of both loops. Because the small loop is very small relative to the large loop (and due to the concentration of the magnetic vectors of low deviation (from the central axis of the wires) that are resultant from the large coil), we can use this dB/dt for the magnetic field going through the entire area of the small loop as a useful approximation. 2: Φ = A2 * B2 2: dΦ/dt = A2 * dB/dt 2: dΦ/dt = A2 * μ0 * n1 * I0 * ω * cos(ω * t) 2: εind = -N * dΦ/dt 2: εind = -N2 * A2 * μ0 * n1 * I0 * ω * cos(ω * t) 2: A = π * r2 2: A2 = π * (r2)2 Our solution is (within the approximation previously stated) ... εind = -N2 * π * (r2)2 * μ0 * n1 * I0 * ω * cos(ω * t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may have a different equation if you did not use the same approximation route I chose, or if you did not ignore relativistic effects. Or I could be completely wrong :P Also note, π is pi.