Recent content by Mayhem

This can be true. Some people won't thrive in academia as a whole for the same reason I wouldn't thrive in pure maths research. There are levels to cognitive abilities, and we have no trouble recognizing the top and bottom, but there is hesitation to acknowledge nuances in intrinsic skill in the...

It is not a question what side the dice landed on, it is a question of why dice were thrown in the first place. It is not a mystery why biology must stereospecific, it is a mystery what circumstances allowed stereospecificity in the first place. Soai's work demonstrates that a chiral compounds...

The key is finding the initial asymmetry. Maybe something with polarized light. Who knows.

I have pondered if heterogenous reactions could be a potential lead for the question. Soai's work demonstrates how homochirality can be self-amplifying, rendering the single-origin of chiral biomolecules plausible. Since the primordial soup existed in the primordial cauldron of the ancient...

Arrival got it right, although they still did the floaty rock thing.

Floaty rock spaceship design. The aliens are just humans with a twist.

Chemist.

Spectroscopy equipment is notoriously expensive and there's probably a reason beyond profit. At best you would be able to say "this is impure" and when someone asks "with what?" just shrugging and smiling would be the best answer. And street narcotics will without be impure. Chemists...

Since math is a neverending problem, the question is whether a similar theorem exists / can be proven for a non-cyclic quadrilateral.

No, but certainly a need for an intelligent "creator" in this instance. :wink:

I'm not aware of the scope of Soai's work, i.e. how many instances of the Soai reaction have been discovered, but the molecules studied seem highly specific, especially the presented "tert-butyl alkyne" derivative.

Oh would you look at that. This is a solved problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_quadrilateral#Parameshvara's_circumradius_formula

Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the world entire world, discovers the ancient concept of mysticism. This seems antithetical to an intellectual institution. What's next, the Peace Corp looking into thermonuclear weapons?

Well, for starters, ##|n - 0| = n##, whereas ##|n - \infty|## is not a conceptually valid operation.

I'm trying but it's not an easy problem.