Fundamental Constant Possibly Inconsistent
Fundamental Constant Possibly Inconsistent: "Re:Intelligent Design? (O/T)
(Score:5, Insightful)
by iamlucky13 (795185) Alter Relationship on Friday April 21, @02:28PM (#15176229)
First of all, to stay a little bit on topic, the theoretically observed change in mu is extremely small. Physicists don't know why mu should be about 1836 instead of about 1836.5 or 3 or 11,296,428. My understanding is (and I am not an expert on this), that really small change in mu like we're talking about here wouldn't significantly affect the universe and it would still look largely like it does, but somewhat small change in mu, like an order of magnitude would, a lot. This bugs physicists because they don't know why it is what it is. Why do we have the universe we have instead of something drastically different like one that collapsed or blew apart 10 minutes after the Big Bang? The only answer they can offer is the anthropic principle: It is the way it is because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.
The existence of God does not hinge on the constancy of mu. This doesn't even disprove intelligent design, which is as bad from a theological perspective as it is from a scientific perspective, being vain in both schools. Several prominent Catholic theologians have stated as much. The perplexing question of why fundamental particles are the way they are and therefore allow us to exist does not constitute a proof of God's existence, but they are rather suggestive.
For the record, I think a brief discussion of creation concepts would be appropriate in social studies (as part of a survey of religions) or in philosophy classes (the study of being) in public schools, but not in science. I want to point out that if God created the phenomena which allows and upon which we base our science, it's unlikely that we would be able to prove or disprove His existence directly through science.
The concept of "Faith" was a magnificant and powerful creation--a tool that can allow a few people to control millions--and I'd like to meet the amazingly talented P/R man who figured out how to tag such a horrid, evil concept as "Good".
Question Everything
I wasn't going to reply, but it seemed worthwhile to Question this statement. Who is controlled here? The billions of faithful who find meaning in life? In what way are we controlled? By adherence to principles that are conducive to the betterment of mankind like "love your neighbor as yourself" and "Thou shalt not kill?" What is the gain for these scheming, evil leaders and their P/R man? You don't exactly see a lot of priests pimping it up with 22" rims on their Lincolns and an escort on each arm. Celibacy, the difficulties of working with a faith-community, itchy robes, and a badly off-key choir...now there's a good reason to cook up a religion. I'm willing to guarantee you the overwhelming majority of religious leaders really do believe in the faith they profess. Yes there is a large degree of misdirection and a few unscrupulous groups that are nothing more than pyramid schemes or printing companies, but the basic precepts of most religions out there are founded, promoted, and executed with good intent.
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But a change in the ratio of their masses might shed some light on exactly what mass is to begin with. Yes, it's the ability to curve space, and also the resistance to being accelerated. But never mind the p/e ratio being fixed, no one really understands why the individual values are what they are to begin with.
For example, something that always gets me is the muon. Identical to the electron in virtually every way (charge, apparent point-like non-structure, lepton) except is has a mass roughly 207 times as great. Why? What does it have 207 times more of than the electron does to make it 207 times more efficient at curving space? What kind of goo is there that makes it 207 times more resistant to acceleration? And if it's truly a fundamental particle, as we suspect for leptons, why 207-point-something?
It nags at me.
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RTFA, please. Or at least my summary here.
(Score:5, Informative)
<pmk AT cray DOT com> on Friday April 21, @03:03PM (#15176540) (http://klausler.com/)
Basic explanation: Suppose that a program is doing a lot of output to a file or socket. The program can generate data faster
than the kernel can consume it, say. So what should the kernel do with the buffer it receives from the user on each write()?
There are three options.
1) Copy its content immediately elsewhere, so that on return to User Mode, the buffer remains writable and writes are safe.
2) Change the access rights of the page containing the buffer, so that no copy need be made unless User Mode attempts
to modify its content before the kernel has completed the write(). If the user attempts to write, it either gets
permission to do so (because the kernel is done) or it gets a writable copy.
3) Let User Mode promise to not modify the buffer's content until told that it's safe to do so, leaving it writable in
the meantime.
The default behavior is (1); BSD's zero copy socket feature is (2), and the point of Torvalds' complaint; vmsplice() is (3).
Skill shows through where genius wears thin. -Wittgenstein
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Re:Linus is turning into a dictator
(Score:5, Insightful)the BSD guys have their reasoning and if you read more info about this it is not a shot in the dark that Linus is taking but he is frustrated that after many discussions nobody cares as much as he does on the performance issues.
Go back and read what Linus did back in the early days, it's no different today than what it was in 1990, he will call a duck a duck.
Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. In either case you let yourself be defined by what they tell you to do.
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posted by USSSlavebation @ 4/23/2006 02:16:00 pm
0 comments
What is mass?
(Score:5, Insightful)