Recent content by Astudious

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    A Blue-Eye Paradox: Solution Not Unique

    But I believe that the bbb case where all 3 islanders are b allows an extension to a very large number of cases. To be precise, as I see it, we only need 3 or more islanders with b for the prophet's pronouncement to be useless. In that case, there is no new relevant common knowledge and they...
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    I Summation for extended binomial coefficients

    Is there a way of writing summation(s) to obtain the extended binomial coefficients? i.e., Considering the expansion of (1+x+x^2+x^3+...+x^N)^M can we write expressions (presumably involving summation and/or product notation) for the coefficients (on x^j in the expansion of the above, for each...
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    Complexity of Go: Calculating the Game Tree Estimate

    I have found various Internet sources claiming words to the following effect, regarding the board-game Go: "It is commonly said that no game has ever been played twice. This may be true: On a 19×19 board, there are about 3^361×0.012 = 2.1×10^170 possible positions, most of which are the end...
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    What Does Molecular Orbital Theory Say About the Overlap of Atomic Orbitals?

    Hmmm. I don't find that to be a very reasonable answer to the question. Overlap of two atomic orbitals in general always produces one "bonding" molecular orbital and one "anti-bonding" orbital. They do not need to be s-orbitals. I would have been confident of writing "sigma and sigma* MOs" as...
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    NASA: We'll find signs of alien life by 2025

    I had a look at Post 46. Doesn't convince (read on). Sure. If by "Great Filter" you mean to include potentially, abiogenesis itself. I have - please read the last sentence of post #46. Unfortunately giving some number of "Earth-sizedplanets orbiting in the habitable zonesof Sun-like stars...
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    NASA: We'll find signs of alien life by 2025

    I agree: this falls under, I suppose, the category "if we find traces of several civilizations as complex as ours" in my post, which must be extended to "if we find traces of several biological entities that would be foreseen by the standard procedure of evolution as we know it to proceed to the...
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    Errors & Consistency: Finding Agreement

    I thought that the error from a set of data (for variable x) was to be estimated as (1/2)(xmax-xmin) where xmax is the largest value of x and xmin the smallest value of x in the set? The experimental value here was actually ##1.15\pm0.06## units. Hence why I put in exact values (##1.150259067...
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    NASA: We'll find signs of alien life by 2025

    Interesting. Population growth could cause serious problems at that point, and it doesn't seem as far off into the future necessarily as being able to travel to and easily colonize other solar systems. May this will be the end of the human race?! Somehow, I find it unconvincing that other...
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    NASA: We'll find signs of alien life by 2025

    Clever argument but the flaw, as I see it, is that humanity has almost certainly passed this barrier way behind. If the fruition of life is common (or at least reasonably probable) then we can suppose it likely that the emergence of complex and (ultimately) intelligent and advanced life is...
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    Homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures

    The idea is that in A and B, there is no overall uniformity/repeating pattern that applies consistently everywhere in the flask, whereas in C there is - therefore the mixture in C is homogeneous. Your mileage may vary regarding the question set-up. I understand what C is trying to convey but I...
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    Could we eat an alien life form?

    Hmmm... the molecules themselves, sure. But biology does not build up from molecular biochemistry neatly at all.
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    Could we eat an alien life form?

    Not sure about your grammar but if I understood the gist of this right, the answer is "probably not" but also "we don't know". Look up "abiogenesis" along with "emergence".
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    Errors & Consistency: Finding Agreement

    The inspiration for this thread is the following question: "Without further calculation, say whether the observations are consistent with the set of values [1.215; 1.216; 1.209; 1.212] independently reported for c." I had previously found that c = 1.150259067 = 1.15 (3sf) and from error...
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    NASA: We'll find signs of alien life by 2025

    But how many such locations in the solar system could have sustained life, had microbes from Earth ended up on them? As for independent emergence of life, we cannot really speculate as to how improbable it is because life is a currently an unexplained emergent phenomenon to us... it could well...
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    How Do Kinetic Energies Vary for Decay Products in Different Frames?

    I see. Then, the first part makes sense (as initial kinetic energy is 0 in the zero-momentum frame, as it moves along with the particle). Ah I see. So the problem is in the line: "the ZMF kinetic energies of the two particles after the decay can be converted into ZMF velocities". The kinetic...
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