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Thomas Klimpel

12:11 AM

mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/ms/optslides.pdf

15 hours later…

Qmechanic

3:35 PM

Reading about second harmonic generation on Wikipedia: Famously, when published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the copy editor mistook the dim spot (at 347 nm) on the photographic paper as a speck of dirt and removed it from the publication.

Emilio Pisanty

Yeah, that's a classic anecdote

I'm never sure how true it actually is, though.

Emilio Pisanty

3:56 PM

Though, to be sure, the paper in PRL doesn't have anything there

1 hour later…

Emilio Pisanty

5:24 PM

Just got this email:

Dear Emilio Pisanty,

I am sending you this email to reach out to see whether there is any interest from you or one of your colleagues on my crowd-funded project to build a permanent scientific lab underground. The project is being designed to test the theories of relativity and my theory (http://vixra.org/abs/not-keen-on-actually-linking-here) on how consciousness affects space-time. If this project successfully raises the $250 million, we can add options to the facility for your own experiments or your colleagues’ projects. I invite you to take a look and give me your feedback.

anyone interested?

Jim

awesome url addresses, lol

What do you suppose is so specific about his theory that he needs to build a separate facility to test it? Would that money not be better spent buying time at another facility? And what do you suppose will happen to such a specific facility should his theory not pan out?

Assuming all of this is real, of course

Kyle Kanos

5:49 PM

@Jim Obviously it's a scam

Jim

Obviously, but where's the fun in that?

David Z

@EmilioPisanty yeah, I got that too, and I think I heard from a few other people who also did

Danu

I kind of want that link... :P

Kyle Kanos

6:05 PM

@Jim Collecting $250M? That sounds like fun to me

Completely immoral, of course

Anyone else feel like today is a really slow day?

ACuriousMind

Yeah. It's Monday.

Emilio Pisanty

@Danu Other people have posted the full text online, but the vixra id is 1401.0220. As always with vixra (unfortunately), enter at your peril.

Kyle Kanos

6:22 PM

While bored waiting for a test case to run, I came up with two answers over at CodeGolf that I thought were really good, but haven't gotten any attention. I'm so sad now

David Z

6:46 PM

@KyleKanos spending $250M sounds fun... collecting it, not so much.

Kyle Kanos

@DavidZ That's the aspect I meant.

Glen The Udderboat

7:02 PM

Why does it need to be underground? Does consciousness not penetrate matter?

ACuriousMind

@Glen: It needs to be underground so it can double as an evil villain lair, obviously

Glen The Udderboat

@ACuriousMind That reminds me of some Austin Powers movie where the villain demands a global ransom of ... ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

►

Jim

@Glen I believe that is true about all of the Austin Powers movies

Kyle Kanos

7:26 PM

Man that's old

Austin Powers came out in 1997

Glen The Udderboat

7:37 PM

@KyleKanos Looking at everything that came out in 1997, it looks like a pretty good movie year. Surprisingly, I think Austin Powers is the least dated of them all.

Kyle Kanos

@GlenTheUdderboat My guess as to why: for those that appreciate them, sex jokes don't get old.

Kyle Kanos

8:20 PM

Someone appears to be going for Strunk & White

ACuriousMind

Am I correct in assuming that editing a more than a year old post for the spelling of one name is the textbook example of a "too minor" edit?

Since others don't seem to think so, judging from the acceptance of the edits...

Kyle Kanos

I'm not too worried about it.

user54412

8:57 PM

@ACuriousMind I tend to reject such minor edits, but I think I'm in the minority.

Kyle

9:12 PM

I think we should come up with The Physics.SE drinking game. First item: one shot every time you come across the term "pure energy".

ACuriousMind

Good idea :D Second item: One shot for every mention of the twin paradox

Kyle

9:29 PM

Third item: one shot for every new post laden with equations without mathjax.

Kyle

10:07 PM

@ACuriousMind I tend to approve them. If there are really a lot coming in at once it can clutter the front page, but otherwise there's really no harm in correcting things, it's still an improvement, however minor shrug

undergroundmonorail

This doesn't feel significant enough to ask a question on the site, but it's something I'm curious about and I think it's a pretty simple question to answer if you actually know stuff about physics (I don't): Does relative velocity have an effect on the gravitational pull between two bodies? I know that moving fast enough screws up the way we imagine space and time. Would that effect cause a weaker/stronger gravitational pull if one of the bodies is moving or would it not change anything?

Kyle

@undergroundmonorail it does - the source for gravity in GR is energy density, motion = kinetic energy = increased gravitational pull

undergroundmonorail

@Kyle Cool, thank you. :)

Kyle

@undergroundmonorail you may be interested in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitoelectromagnetism - keep in mind that this is an analogy, valid only in certain special cases, not the whole picture, and so on, but gravitomagnetism still brings up some interesting effects

undergroundmonorail

So I guess that means that this (0:52-0:56) is, in the most literal sense, actually true?

Kyle

10:17 PM

@undergroundmonorail hah, I suppose so

undergroundmonorail

Kyle

and for what it's worth, as long as you check that you're not duplicating an existing question, I think that's a great question for the main site (with a bit of fleshing out)

undergroundmonorail

I'll keep that in mind for next time. Thanks :)

And thanks for the link, too. I forgot to say that :P

Kyle

@undergroundmonorail no worries, cheers :)

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