Recent content by Point_Particle

Dayle Record, I agree when you say "Even trying to be rational, springs from a decision based on emotion". But I don't fully agree on where you go with this assertion. You say "Most super-rational people are that because they feel unsure in the emotional arena...". Correct me if I'm...

Your question really gets to the crux of my original inquiry. Since all of the Na atoms are moving at different speeds, they would see the light red shifted by different amounts, correct? Because of resonant absorption and energy quantization, they would each absorb the light that they see as...

Perhaps the dichotomy between rational and emotional modes of thought is another one of those obfuscating categorical blunders which are generally so appealing because of their simplicity and ease of formulation (much like the left vs. right brain, nature vs. nurture false dichotomies). We say...

I think the distinction between "justice" and "revenge" lies in their respective boundary conditions. Quantitatively (since this a discussion about semantics, the following should be regarded loosely), I think that justice requires a "zero action sum". That is, the reciprocation must be equal...

Indeed, although my professor discussed the latter contextually, with the H atom.

I think perhaps you are taking the wrong approach to the interpretation of calculations in physics. It is rare that in modern physics, (which often involves very messy and difficult to solve differential equations) approximations aren't involved in the development of a model. For example...

I disagree that there is no contention surrounding the organization of information processing subunits in the human brain. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides (1992) talk extensively about the faults of the Standard Social Science Model, a model of behavior which holds wide spread popularity and...

zoobyshoe, all I meant was that I think rigidly quantifying the difference between short and long term memory might be premature. In all likelihood, the discrepancy is far more subtle. I've heard about the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Also I've read about a man who was in a motorcycle...

"In a world without fences, who needs Gates?" - I don't know where this came from.

loseyourname, I agree that mathematical axioms "have a good basis". In fact, I would categorically assert that mathematical operations, if performed consistently, will always be true. However, this is not because of some intrinsic property of the structure of the universe, this is because we...

What I mean is this: Say we have an observer and a light source separated by some distance, with a cool, diffuse gas spanning that distance. If the diffuse gas cloud and the source were in relative motion, would the absorption spectra seen by the stationary observer be different from that seen...

Unfortunately, all belief systems ultimately boil down to a question of faith. Either you believe that the speed of light is finite and equal to c or you don't (that's why it's called a postulate). However, the difference between science and religion is that for science, faith is only the...

The Doppler effect corresponds to a percieved change in the wavelength of impinging light, correct? Does this mean that the Absorption spectra we would see for bodies in relative motion to light sources should be the same independent of the type of motion between the body/source (assuming that...

"genetically superior"? You mean in a Darwinian/adaptationist sense? One of the major prerequisites for evolution by natural selection is a "selection pressure". There has to be something about a group of reproductively isolated population's milieu which inhibits the reproduction of members...

My current physics professor often calls attention to the fact that every floor of the science building at my community college has a different definition of room temperature. On the first floor, the physics floor, room temperature is twenty degrees Celsius. On the second floor, the chemistry...