Recent content by gendou2

Nugatory and Fightfish, thanks for your help reverse engineering this claim! This was just what I was looking for. I feel vindicated, thank you so much. Yes, DrewD, I am happy to hear you came to the same conclusion as I did! Your explanation makes a lot of sense, thanks for adding some...

Thanks for helping me be more precise with my terms! What is the amount of information stored in a superposition of |0> and |1>? Many sources claim this amount is infinite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit_field_theory http://www.qudev.ethz.ch/phys4/PHYS4_lecture22v1_2page.pdf...

I'm skeptical of something Neil Turok said, having to do with quantum information. http://thetyee.ca/Books/2012/10/13/Neil-Turok-Universe-Within/ From what I understand, a qubit can store an infinite amount of information. So, where does he get the number 300 from? Why not just one? Also...

I sincerely doubt it will be brighter than the moon. What is it's albedo, size, and closest approach to the Earth?

A particle's mass parameter is set by its interaction-strength with the Higgs. Why particles have different interaction-strengths is an open question. It is sometimes called the "flavor problem"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_90 Wolfram Rule 90 is a type of cellular automata. Each cell's value is computed as the XOR of its two neighbors in the predecessors generation. Rule 90 cannot be reversed, because a given configuration has 4 possible predecessor configurations. However, I've...

http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/hanny2.jpg Voorwerpers Finally, you notice us. How special. How clever. You, privileged ones, enveloped in loving arms. Cushioned by rotation, safely locked in your milky home. Have you mistaken our fleet of suns for a galactic fluke...

Tree of Knowledge Ignorance is a dank prison of crumbled rock, birthplace to us all, grave of too many. Flakes of disused epidermis twinkle in transit through a single, narrow shaft of sunlight. Trace this light ray to its source and discover a crack in the cage of mind! Lithe taproots slither...

Thanks for your helpful comments, JustAnyone! Right, all objects, including rain drops, will move anti-spinward as they fall. A good detail to add to my description of the environment. There may even be plants that have started to adapt to this feature of rainfall. Now, what about the air...

I am writing a science fiction story, and would like some help from the PH community. Details: There is a cylindrical spaceship which is rotating to create artificial gravity. The cylinder has a circular radius of 10km and a length of 30km. The rotational period is 3 minutes and 20...

If you want to measure the passage of time, you can use a clock. So far as I know, a clock must be a physical entity made of matter. If you assume no matter, there can be no clocks, so no way to measure the passage of time. I cannot think of a way to make a clock out of photons alone...

I have nothing against string theory. Didn't you get my joke? Theory tells us what we can observe, and we observe the masses of the 24 fermions. These different properties come from nature, in the context of the Standard Model. I worry you won't be satisfied until you have a theory with zero...

Oops, yes! Algebra.

Not at all! The structure of matter is very well understood. Read up on Quantum Electrodynamics. You've gone down another philosophically dangerous road by asking about a "final level". A smart scientist will not get married to one theory, till death do they part. There is no "final" theory, no...

Not likely. I mention Helium-3 only as an interesting curiosity, as did you. A compact nuclear power plant, like the ones used on submarines, would be a good backup power supply.