Recent content by consciousness

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    Insights How well do you know Albert Einstein? - Comments

    7 I read his biography by Isaacson last year, forgot a lot of stuff.
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    How do you all cope with the futility of life

    I really like this quote by Richard P. Feynman- "Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to...
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    Solve Enjoyable Enigmas with Mr.E's Challenge

    Correct.
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    Solve Enjoyable Enigmas with Mr.E's Challenge

    It is known that a quadratic equation has either 0, 1, or 2 unique real solutions. Well, look at this equation: $$\frac{(x-a)(x-b)}{(c-a)(c-b)}+\frac{(x-b)(x-c)}{(a-b)(a-c)}+\frac{(x-c)(x-a)}{(b-c)(b-a)}=1$$ Without loss of generality, assume a < b < c. Now note that x=a, x=b, and x=c are all...
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    Undergrad Probability of Having Two Boys - Riddle

    The result 13/27 is counter intuitive because we somehow assume that the information provided about one child won't effect the other. This assumption is valid only when we know whether the info applies to the older or younger child while in this problem the child can be either younger or older.
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    Solve Enjoyable Enigmas with Mr.E's Challenge

    Nice one
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    What do you need most in your life?

    Faith that I can get everything I need, when I need it.
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    At what time do the two balls hit each other?

    The acceleration of the rocket doesn't matter when collisions aren't assumed to happen. Just see one ball w.r.t. the other. Answer is 8 sec only. You can solve it from the rocket frame if you like, you will get the same answer.
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    At what time do the two balls hit each other?

    See there are two possibilities- i)Collisions between the ball and the rocket don't occur (the rocket is assumed to be very long or whatever) In this case the answer is found very easily to be 8 sec. (Just see the relative speeds of the balls and divide them by the distance between them)...
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    RIP arildno: Gone, but never forgotten

    :cry::frown: Even through my very limited interaction with him I was deeply impressed with his knowledge of chess and his general helpfulness. He was a big hearted person who was totally impartial in his views; in fact he was the first to congratulate Vishwanathan Anand and praise him even...
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    If you had to jump from very high, what would you use as a parachute?

    An RPG launcher. Fire it down and hopefully the recoil will save me if I time it properly :-p I might die from the blast though.
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    Understanding the Force on Current-Carrying Wires in Magnetic Fields

    Magnetic monopoles are not known to exist. Even in a bar magnet/solenoid, there are no monopoles. Your teacher is oversimplifying things. If you pick any good physics textbook then the derivation for magnetic field due to a bar magnet is done by considering it to be similar to a solenoid and...
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    Graduate Is Our Universe a Black Hole?

    When I was eleven my Mom got me the awesome book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. I was totally hooked and read it through in a matter of days. At one point the author wrote that the Earth is in at a very lucky distance from the sun. If it were even a little more nearer...
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    I've started tracing my ancestors

    Although this is the first time that I heard of Bharathiyar, he seems like an amazing person.
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    I've started tracing my ancestors

    We have a family tree. It contains the names of almost all of my male ancestors from the early 16th century. Akbar the Great used to rule most of India then. Crazy!