The h Bar

Arnav Tripathy

2:31 AM

you know what sucks

parity violation

I mean seriously

what the hell

user54412

2:53 AM

^ agreed... I guess...

user54412

lest this chat actually begin discussing physics... here's an English language question

user54412

Anyone have an opinion on whether a phrasal adjective that normally is hyphenated remains so when preceded by (not containing) an adverb?

ManishEarth

@tpg select count(*) from posts where posttypeid=5 group by owneruserid or something. Pick the tag wiki (NOT excerpt) posttyeid

user54412

ex.: extremely low-velocity region of parameter space to hyphenate or not to hyphenate?

ManishEarth

well, extremely modifies low

user54412

2:56 AM

@ManishEarth or does it modify low-velocity? :P

ManishEarth

So I would say either two hyphens (ick, though I use that all the time on the internet)

Or none

user54412

after 20 minutes of internet searching I concluded that the internet has no opinion on this matter (imagine - the internet, without an opinion!)

ManishEarth

Hmm, possibly

No opinion or very-mixed-opinion?

user54412

none - everyone stops short of addressing that case

ManishEarth

Ah

To English Language & Usage!!

user54412

2:58 AM

they all get hung up on "omit the hyphen if the phrasal adjective is of the form adverb+adjective"

user54412

they don't have an answer

ManishEarth

Ask!

user54412

and in fact you'll see that they close all hyphenation questions as duplicates of one question that doesn't answer anything

ManishEarth

Mention why it isn't a dupe

If you want, I'll do it

(on mobile now though)

user54412

meh - I'm too lazy myself - do it if you want

ManishEarth

3:00 AM

Kk

user54412

I should actually go back to proofreading the paper that prompted this question

ManishEarth

@tpg btw , the badge is for wikis, NOT for excerpts meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/67397/…

Ah

@chris as a 10k user you will be forever plagued by the suggested edit counter (and the flag counter if 10k flags>5, but you narrowly missed the change that made that no longer likely on Phy.SE. In the past, flag to close was 10k-handleable out of the queues, now they aren't flags)

As a mod I see both an edit and (all) flag counter. And a review queue counter, but that's a userscript

user54412

@ManishEarth but why does the edit counter not kick in at 2000 (edit Qs and As) or at most 5000 (edit wikis)? nothing new happened at 10k wrt edits, right?

ManishEarth

it does, iirc when the edit queue is >5 at 5000. Not sure, though, with the reduction of the privilege to 2000 things may have changed

10k users have a lot more visibility everywhere

Check /tools, especially the close section. And the flag queue, if there's anything in it

I guess the site trusts you more than 2k and doesn't want to nag 2ks (who may not yet be good reviewers) about edits

But in general, the 10k bunch gets a lot more visibility in community moderation, this is probably a part of that

@chris oh, also, did you check out the edit tags button?

(on questions, hover your mouse near the end of the tags)

user54412

3:15 AM

@ManishEarth wow! I couldn't find it before even knowing it existed - talk about hidden features

user54412

that still bumps the question, presumably?

ManishEarth

Yep.

Fwiw, it's listed in the privilege page; I added it there myself

But it's quite convenient

If it didn't bump things, you'd only see QMechanic half as many times on the main page :p

ManishEarth

3:48 AM

I wonder how coconuts can get so pressurized. The one I just poked open squirted me in my eye. And this is something which happens quite often -_-

David Zaslavsky

4:32 AM

@ChrisWhite my decidedly non-expert understanding of English is that you keep the hyphen

because "extremely low velocity" is a noun phrase

user54412

@DavidZaslavsky lol - I just removed it :P

David Zaslavsky

meh, like I said, not an expert. It would take a really pedantic reader to pick up on that anyway.

user54412

more fun to proofread this than actual content

David Zaslavsky

oh, indeed.

user54412

actually, I think I'm just toggling however the hyphenation is done in the draft - I just added a hyphen to make "one would expect to find more clearly-defined features..."

user54412

4:35 AM

there it makes a difference - clearly-defined features, more of them, vs. features that are even more clearly defined

user54412

but I don't really know which meaning I meant

user54412

more ambiguous statement -> harder to disprove ;)

user54412

in other nitpicky news - some combination of natbib and aastex (the document class for astronomers) suffer from this:

user54412

10

Q: Space after et al. too big

I have a document as \documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage{natbib} \bibpunct{(}{)}{,}{a}{}{;} \makeatletter \renewcommand*{\NAT@nmfmt}[1]{\textsc{#1}} \makeatother \begin{document} According to \citeauthor{test01} space is important. According to \citeauthor{test01}\ space is important. \...

ManishEarth

5:56 AM

> Should this question be closed as: too broad or primarily opinion-based or duplicate or unclear what you're asking?

physics.stackexchange.com/review/close/19419

ManishEarth

Why is it that there are 3 engineering questions in the close queue? That's abnormal, and it's like it's teasing us for not yet activating the 3rd close reason.

Arnav Tripathy

whoa guys guys is this not the coolest thing

ManishEarth

There are two posts in the close queue. One is this. Any idea what the other is?

Arnav Tripathy

There is no reason at all to believe that the fermions that have been discovered experimentally are all of those which exist. Very probably there are many, perhaps even infinitely many, fermions with masses of order one, that is, of order M_{Planck}.

ManishEarth

You mean elementary fermions?

We can always stick particles together and make bigger fermions

Arnav Tripathy

6:11 AM

yeah elementary

ManishEarth

Apartfrom the 6 in the SM? Intriguing.

You're saying that the SM does not prohibit >planck scale fermions?

Arnav Tripathy

well that is what this paper says at least

ManishEarth

Linky link?

Arnav Tripathy

mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1986.1/Main/icm1986.1.0267.0306.ocr.pdf page 276 or something

ManishEarth

Or are you saying that there may be more particles prohibited by SM and/or not yet discovered. That seems reasonable, for all we know some cosmic banana particle may exist at the planck scale

I think over there he's just stating a fundamental fact of physics -- you can't be 100% sure of what's there in places you've never looked at.

Arnav Tripathy

6:17 AM

uh well they're not in the standard model because nobody put them in

but you can put them in if you want to

ManishEarth

Ah. That's more interesting :)

I think I've heard of that, and theories which tweak the groups to accomodate 4 families. O.o

@arnav i know, I'm saying that $\exists$ theories which do that

"I never thought of that but yeah that makes sense thanks for pointing it out" -- nice way of puttng it, that's the same way I felt. A lot of physics is obvious in retrospect.

David Zaslavsky

6:41 AM

@ManishEarth I only see one now. Anyway if there are questions that need to be closed with it now, I can go ahead and put the engineering close reason in the list.

ManishEarth

@david already closed as trolley car (they had a couple of close votes and a trolley car comment already)
There were 2 for me when logged out, one when logged in.

Well, on when logged in. But by going through y skips I found one

David Zaslavsky

Ah, well, I didn't think we'd have any engineering closures for a few days at least.

Whatever, it's been two days, that should be enough time, and there haven't been any comments on it in a while. I'll go ahead and activate it.

ManishEarth

Alrighty.

David Zaslavsky

OK, done

user54412

ooo look at the pretty new close reasons

ManishEarth

6:54 AM

@chris two of them were activated yesterday

Does it make sense to status-completed a discussion?

(Either way, applying red tags is fun)

David Zaslavsky

@ManishEarth yeah, it it was good enough to be status-planned, it's good enough to be status-completed when it's done

which I meant to do

user54412

oh look: cosmological expansion, take 437 - i'll let someone else write an answer or find a dupe

user54412

good night

ManishEarth

'night

We probably should just close the whole [space-expansion] tag as a dupe of itself :p

Awesome, new community team member

David Zaslavsky

7:22 AM

@ManishEarth I thought that fate was reserved for the [recursion] tag ;-)

ManishEarth

Lol

Crazy Buddy

8:10 AM

@ManishEarth: I just can't understand what these things are...

ManishEarth

Autodeletion roomba wasn't working

Those are edits on old closed downvoted posts

Crazy Buddy

@ManishEarth WTH is that?

So, they're all my suggested edits..?

And, those questions were removed simultaneously..?

ManishEarth

Yeah

They were supposed to go a few weeks ago, but they didn't because the roomba was off

Crazy Buddy

@ManishEarth: Cool... I'd have agreed with a bunch of downvotes (as they'll be reversed anyway :P), but my hard-earned 12 rep. score is gone :D

Booo hooo.... ;-)

Physics Meta

0

Q: About the long comment list

Here an other post with a huge amount of comments below each post. I'm feeling annoyed by this: or I have to clic to let them appear if I want to read them all, or I have to scroll a lot for nothing if I do not care about the comments. Is there a way to overcome this issue ? I propose some ways...

feature-request comments

Physics Meta

8:59 AM

0

Q: Deleted comment

My comment got deleted in the topic "Aspiring scientist". It got deleted - fine. But i don't see who did it? Is it normal here, is it norm? I would like to be aware of moderators who do that without leaving a comment.

bug

Dilaton

10:34 AM

@ArnavTripathy yep there are BSM theories a whole zoo of specific models (points in parameter space ) that predict new particles at different scales ...

@ArnavTripathy I am still waiting for some nice questions from you ... ;-)

Mostafa

11:47 AM

Which flag should be used for questions like this? In Flagging>Closing>Off-Topic>Migration there isn't a choice for migration to scicomp.SE .

Crazy Buddy

@Mostafa Just write out a custom flag...

(Scicomp isn't available yet...)

Mostafa

@CrazyBuddy You mean : it needs ♦ moderator attention>other?

Crazy Buddy

@Mostafa Yeah...

ManishEarth

1:13 PM

@ChrisWhite As our astro-person-thing in residence, is this on topic by the extended scope of Physics.SE (as in "non physics astro questions allowed")? It seems a bit localized and speculative imo

Rajesh D

1:27 PM

Hi I have a quick question

hey @ManishEarth

ManishEarth

hey

ask

Rajesh D

@ManishEarth do u know about atomic spectra?

ManishEarth

yeah

Rajesh D

how are they measured, is it like they capture a signal and take its spectrum (Fourier Transform)?

ManishEarth

Uh, no, just shine light through a sample and put a prism in front of it

Well, not through

iirc they measure emission spectra

So you can heat it

or shine intense light on it

For absorption spectra, you shine through. I think

Rajesh D

1:46 PM

the emission spectrum, how is it captured? I mean what device they use, some kind of a photographic plate or is it acquired by a digital data acquisition system like for example recording a signal?

ManishEarth

@RajeshD they used to use plates, not sure about now

Spectrometer

A spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify materials. The variable measured is most often the light's intensity but could also, for instance, be the polarization state. The independent variable is usually the wavelength of the light or a unit directly proportional to the photon energy, such as wavenumber or electron volts, which has a reciprocal relationship to wavelength. A spectrometer is used in spectr...

Rajesh D

@ManishEarth : I am interested in capturing the spectral line continuously, I mean imagine there is a chemical reaction happening and I want to capture the time variations of the spectral lines, for eaxample they may be shifting etc.

ManishEarth

@RajeshD Photographic plate iirc

Rajesh D

ok

tpg2114

@ManishEarth Too bad the excerpts don't count for the badge... It takes a long time to edit 50 anything.

ManishEarth

1:58 PM

@tpg2114 lol

I managed to write up a query for it, and for some reason your name isn't showing up anywhere, even in the excerpts. I probably messed up a JOIN somewhere

tpg2114

I wonder if the credit goes to who approved it

Rather than who edited it since it was just a suggested edit

If @ChrisWhite has like 40 of them, that might be it :)

ManishEarth

@tpg2114 no, i included suggested edits

That wasn't the case either.

When was your first tagwiki edit?

tpg2114

2 days ago is when I did the bulk of it

I'm sure I had one or two before then though

ManishEarth

hm

ah

that's it

data.se updates every week

tpg2114

I know I wrote at least one a long time ago though...

At least I think I did

It all kind of blurs together...

I did knock out excerpts for almost all of the ones that had nothing and I could do without looking up what they were

So I think I'm done on excerpts for awhile...

ManishEarth

2:02 PM

@tpg2114 exactly one

Crazy Buddy

2:50 PM

Duh... Slept 5 hrs. and now, I see a question getting ready to heat up ;-)

@ManishEarth: Nice hat :D

ManishEarth

:)

I already had it on MSO

@DavidZaslavsky Aarthi-cast tomorrow. You may want to attend :)

ManishEarth

3:14 PM

Right before the engineering tag was burninated, I kept a note of all the OT questions there (surprisingly few)

I have now initiated close reason #3 with 10-odd closes

user54412

@ManishEarth space exploration \neq astronomy/astrophysics - i have no expert opinion

tpg2114

OT meaning on topic or off-topic?

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite kk

@tpg2114 off

tpg2114

There were only a few off topic ones? I thought I saw a lot when I posted the meta

But I don't remember now

I don't keep things in memory long any more

ManishEarth

@tpg2114 well, fewer than I thought

Around 15 out of 90

tpg2114

3:17 PM

Oh, yeah, okay. That's probably right then

ManishEarth

There were many not-so-good-but-on-topic ones

tpg2114

And the on topic ones didn't need the tag at all

ManishEarth

Yeah

tpg2114

Holy cow... I'm always amazed when I actually get the right answer in my research work!

ManishEarth

@tpg2114 What did you discover now?

Explosions are dangerous? :P

tpg2114

3:21 PM

Well, I matched experimental and theoretical results with my simulations, so now I can start filling in the gaps in data

But even cooler -- I took a fluid dynamics code and just changed the EOS

And now it runs condensed phase explosives

Yay for 2nd order PDE's ruling the world

Joe Stavitsky

so, in here rane.com/pdf/ranenotes/… (p3 after eq1) is he really saying that dof is rational?

fractional, in other words

ManishEarth

Fractional? What the...

Joe Stavitsky

@tpg2114 what did you use for simulation

@ManishEarth, exactly :/

@ManishEarth, am I reading it wrong?

ManishEarth

@JoeStavitsky Not sure; bit busy

Joe Stavitsky

3:40 PM

@ManishEarth, n/m he phrased it funky. why is dof related to heat capacity ratio?

ManishEarth

ah

Equipartition law

Basically, each DOF contributes 1/2k to the heat capacity

because

heat is equally distributed as K.E. amongst the DOFs

Joe Stavitsky

ah ok so they are equall likely to be moving in any direction so the more directions they have the more ways heat is distributed

right?

ManishEarth

Non-Reproducible Science, a Survey

@JoeStavitsky yeah

Basically, if you have a box of gas, a fraction of the energy will be for KE in x direction (etc etc), then for vibrational motion along various vibrational DOFs, the same goes for rotation, etc

Joe Stavitsky

@ManishEarth, entropy basically

ManishEarth

@JoeStavitsky Not sure of that

I don't see why entropy would force the average $\frac12 mv_x^2$ to be equal to the average rotational energy along a given axis

Joe Stavitsky

3:50 PM

@ManishEarth, but youre saying that the kinetic energy (heat) is evenly distributed which I thought was the definition of entropy

ManishEarth

@JoeStavitsky Not just KE as in translational energy

KE total

This includes rotation and vibration

For a helium gas, yes, you can just talk about Translational E, and it comes from entropy

Hydrogen gas has 2 rotation axes and one vibration

Joe Stavitsky

@ManishEarth so why does translational come from entropy and not vibrational - and how do you know hydrogen has 2 rotations and one vibration anyway?

ManishEarth

@JoeStavitsky No, I mean that while entropy forces the hydrogen translational energies to be the same, it doesn't say that the vibrational energy needs to be the same too.

@JoeStavitsky Draw an H2 molecule, you'll get it :)

Joe Stavitsky

right, H=H

ManishEarth

So, H=H can only vibrate along the bond

and it can't rotate in the x direction

Well, it can, but it's much much smaller there

(the mass is concentrated in a very tiny point relative to the bond -- so the moment of inertia is pretty much zero)

Joe Stavitsky

3:58 PM

Which is the correct wiki article for this?

ManishEarth

@JoeStavitsky Law of Equipartition?

The stuff about Hydrogen and all can be found in most introductory physics textbooks with thermodynamics

Joe Stavitsky

yea right its all there

OK I will read more ty

ManishEarth

yw

tpg2114

@JoeStavitsky It's a code called LESLIE, it's a large eddy combustion code developed at my lab, the Computational Combustion Lab at Georgia Tech

Joe Stavitsky

@tpg2114, I thought computational compustion was what happened when your case fans fail =P

@tpg2114 do you need special hardware, or a cluster, or jus a workstation?

tpg2114

4:11 PM

Way back in the day... mid 90's I think... I put a CPU in the socket rotated 90 degrees cause it didn't have a square pin or corner cut off like they do now so you know how it shoudl go in

Whole motherboard started to glow then melted and flamed up

It will run anywhere from 1 processor to 10's of thousands

Joe Stavitsky

@tpg2114; ooo, fully scalable, nice

tpg2114

These runs were on a cluster just so it wouldn't take long. I could do it on my workstation and it would take about an hour (12 processors), I did it with our in-house cluster and 32 processors in 3 minutes

Joe Stavitsky

@tpg2114, gtcher hot computers here

tpg2114

Then I had some runs on really big machines for the 3D case, 100 million cells

Joe Stavitsky

jeeez 12 core workstations, you ppl are spoiled

tpg2114

4:13 PM

Yeah, you don't want to know the specs...

Joe Stavitsky

no, i really dont

tpg2114

It's really only 6 cores with hyperthreading, if that makes you feel any better :)

Joe Stavitsky

speaking of computers i was in liberty science center the other day and they were demoing a computer vision system by bell labs

tpg2114

Where is that?

Joe Stavitsky

north jersey, its a kids science museum

tpg2114

4:17 PM

Ah, okay. I used to go to the Franklin Institute in Philly all the time growing up

Joe Stavitsky

and they marketed it as a security movement trcking system, and they showed some stupid image filter to try and make me believe that it was anonymizable

and then I went home and found that they had done no writeup whatsoever, the assholes'

Worse, they actally installed a working system in the facility and told nobody wtf it was

Not even senior staff

fucking telecoms =P

tpg2114

6:03 PM

Anybody really good at finding journal papers online? I'm usually good at it but I can't find data I need

ManishEarth

@tpg2114 I can de-paywall but otherwise I suck

Try Google Scholar

user54412

@tpg2114 not unless it's an astro paper

tpg2114

I've been using scholar

I can't find a paper that has the data I need in it :(

Getting frustrated

ManishEarth

@tpg2114 Data? Make data

tpg2114

I need the Arrhenius reaction rate(s) for PETN reactions

I can't just make those up :)

ManishEarth

6:06 PM

Yes you can

Believe in yourself

user54412

"The thermal decomposition kinetics of PETN has been studied by many researchers in the past, though there is no general agreement about the decomposition mechanism or values of its Arrhenius parameters." Stability Studies on Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate

tpg2114

I'd settle for 1 mechanism, even if others don't agree... :)

But I'll check that one out, thanks

I hadn't found it

I found one paper that puts A = kT/h which is bizarre, I've never seen the preexponential parameter defined by Boltzmann's and Planck's constants before

I can only imagine all the red flags I set off by searching the internet all day, every day, for explosives

ManishEarth

@tpg2114 Look at it this way: If you ever need something, the President's listening.

tpg2114

6:27 PM

Thanks @ChrisWhite, that actually was exactly what I needed and new explosions are being simulated :)

ManishEarth

BOOM BOOM

I wish I still had that BOOM button on posts. Maybe I'll put it back. But it's too dangerous :S

One mis-click and we get a meta post "My post was delete and I lost 100 rep!!111"

Gugg

Serious physics: Does anybody vehemently agree that first base umpires in the MLB almost always favor the fielding side?

@ManishEarth You know that BOOM BOOM is a cricket bat brand?

ManishEarth

O.o nope

Gugg

boomboomcricket.com

@ManishEarth When I buy clothing or shoes or stuff like that, why is it never from India (according to the labels)?

ManishEarth

@Gugg No clue o.O

Gugg

6:41 PM

You're there, aren't you?

ManishEarth

yeah

also not

by not I mean "on different window"

(if you ping me I get an immediate notification, so I can ignore you faster :P)

Gugg

@ManishEarth I meant "there" as in "in India".

ManishEarth

Yeah

Gugg

So, no clothing produced for export in India that you know of?

ManishEarth

nope

probably exists

but not that I know of

user54412

6:52 PM

@Gugg agreed about the umpires - my understanding is that they do it because they don't really want the 1st baseman to be on base when the runner comes in

ManishEarth

We ought to edit the room description now that we have regulars

Gugg

@ChrisWhite I don't quite follow. I was thinking about the timing of the catch by the first baseman, whereas you are thinking about the first baseman's foot not touching the bag?

user54412

yes - but I roll it all together - I figure if they're not gonna be picky about where the foot is, they're not gonna be picky about where the ball is either

Gugg

@ChrisWhite There are no complaints from the public, say, that they want a video-umpire or something like that?

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite Alternatively, it could be that first base makes it look like the runner reached when he really didn't

Gugg

6:59 PM

@ChrisWhite A review like in tennis and cricket?

user54412

@Gugg meh - people are more concerned about the delineation of the strike zone

Gugg

When I look on YouTube for, say, best plays MLB 2012, over half of them I'm thinking "that's safe." But I never see any discussion about it.

user54412

I think they played around with video cameras a while back, before deciding it was a bad idea - turns out there are a lot of calls that go the wrong way, and people don't want the status quo to change

Gugg

@ChrisWhite So, who is "people" here?

user54412

---
random question: what does "+ BQ" mean? like in the title of [this question](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/70732/)
---

user54412

7:04 PM

@Gugg umpires, but fans too to some extent

user54412

i think people enjoy complaining about bad calls against their team more than they dislike having calls made against them

Gugg

@ChrisWhite Bonus question = BQ

user54412

ohhhhhhhh

Gugg

I think

ManishEarth

ohhhhh

Gugg

7:08 PM

@ChrisWhite I think it's stupid, because video-reviews make great TV.

@ManishEarth You knew that.

user54412

who titles posts like that? Next it will be "Discrepancy in the Lense-Thirring effect? And a random statement afterward"

Gugg

Who? mikhailcazi.

ManishEarth

@Gugg i didn't

Gugg

Maybe I should have given you 3 more seconds.

@ChrisWhite Are you in the US? If so, how come the game is played not according to the rules and not being criticised for it?

user54412

I thought that's how all US sports work

user54412

7:13 PM

football and especially basketball are much worse

user54412

basically, dribbling in the NBA violates every single rule i learned as a kid about how not to handle the ball

Gugg

@ChrisWhite Also, I was surprised that many/most US people lose interest in the world series as soon as "their" team is out.

And then this:

Racewalking

Racewalking, or race walking, is a long-distance athletic event. Although it is a foot race, it is different from running in that one foot must appear to be in contact with the ground at all times. Stride length is reduced, so to achieve competitive speeds, racewalkers must attain cadence rates comparable to those achieved by Olympic 800-meter runners—and they must do so for hours at a time since the Olympic events are the 20 km (12.4 mi) race walk (men and women) and 50 km (31 mi) race walk (men only), and 50 mile (80.5 km) events are also held. Rules Men's 20-km walk dur...

After studying video they noticed that basically nobody sticks to the rules.

user54412

^ what's with the thumbnail?

Gugg

Uh? Thumbnail?

Oh!

???

@ManishEarth That's one for you.

ManishEarth

no clue

Gugg

7:23 PM

Off-day, eh?

user54412

huh?

user54412

speaking of non sequiturs, @ManishEarth I like the cap

Gugg

About racewalking, what I understand, is that it practically is an impossible sport. Sort of.

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite It's a real thing. Just not gotten it yet (could take a while, I hear they've not been manufactured yet)

@Gugg Define "contact".

Gugg

What?

ManishEarth

7:26 PM

How close do to atoms need to be to be in contact?

user54412

btw, wtf is happening with our latest #1 hot question? physics.stackexchange.com/questions/70839/…

user54412

the answers cover the full spectrum of physics <-> ridiculous

ManishEarth

@Gugg Scraping your foot along the ground can be thought of as contact

Gugg

Yes, of course, but they are airborne at every step.

Between every two steps.

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite yeah. Since I answered that I didn't apply mod magic anywhere (not that I can't, just that it's usually good manners not to), but I guess one of the other mods may delete the ridiculous

@Gugg No, not if you shimmie

user54412

7:29 PM

@Gugg well, in fencing the point-weapons have spring-loaded tips that are calibrated to only make electrical contact at (500 grams)(g) force

user54412

so maybe racewalking needs that in shoes - set some minimum force to define "contact"

Gugg

If you watch the racewalking videos, you can see them flying.

And the umpire, right next to it, doesn't notice.

Or referee, whatever.

Anyways, about head transplants. The article I mentioned in a comment was worldwide big news. But I glanced at it and it didn't even look scientific.

I'd like to see a poll about homeopathy among 1) physicists, 2) chemists, 3) medical doctors.

user54412

@Gugg that article is also... disturbing... in a foreshadowing sort of way

Gugg

7:45 PM

@ChrisWhite I don't think so, yet. Why?

user54412

50 years from now, when the last of the inferior natural-heads has been killed off (for refusing to surrender his body to the head to whom it had been assigned on a medical basis), some inquisitive transplant-head will wonder if ancient people thought they possessed not just the heads but the bodies they were born with

user54412

maybe I should switch from academia to dystopian sci-fi author

ManishEarth

@ChrisWhite Make sure you write about visible-light!!

Gugg

@ChrisWhite Why not take a lower body from somebody who just got his head crushed to get rid of your own "infested" with cancer or something else.?

user54412

@Gugg well, it will start that way. But the prequel to my novel will take place 20 years from now, when one unsuspecting insurance company actuary realizes there has been a disproportionately large number of convenient fatal "accidents" to people's heads

user54412

7:54 PM

I'm thinking that installment can be set in a nondescript, economically downsliding city in eastern europe

Gugg

I was thinking Philippines, but OK.

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