Modular Robotics - Self Assembly Included

Self assembling robot pieces...

The Modular Robotics Laboratory (ModLab) at the University of Pennsylvania

The God Equation

I came across this on PZ Myers' blog "pharyngula". Read more on PZ's take on this The God Equation?  
So now we have the God equation (again).

This one is

• Hl is the radio frequency of the hydrogen fine transition in space
•  π (pi) we all know from high school math is the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle
•  Ω is the number 0.0123456789; it represents all the characters of the base 10 number system
• C is the speed of light in a vacuum - approximately 300,000 km/sec
  

In addition to the points that Mr. Myers brings up, I would like to know what are we solving for? An equation has a variable for which we are to solve. If everything is defined, where is God? Is He the culmination of light speed, a decimal carried out to 10 places, the frequency of an element in space, and pi?
That's silly.

Additional possible equations:

• From the The Church of Yahweh the sufficient condition for the self existent being to be able to generate a universe I + WILL = EXISTENCE.
• X is God according to ( a + bn )/n = x There is a story that has made the rounds in mathematical history books about the well-known mathematician Euler embarrassing the philosopher Diderot. This quote is from http://scidiv.bellevuecollege.edu/Math/Euler.html which was Condensed from Men of Mathematics by E.T. Bell (1937, Simon and Schuster), and An Introduction to the History of Mathematics , 4th ed., by Howard Eves (1976, Holt, Rinehart and Winston):
  

  Diderot had been invited to the court by Catherine the Great, but then annoyed her by trying to convert everyone to atheism. Catherine asked Euler for help, and he informed Diderot, who was ignorant of mathematics, that he would present in court an algebraic proof of the existence of God, if Diderot wanted to hear it. Diderot was interested, and, according to De Morgan, Euler advanced toward Diderot, and said gravely, and in a tone of perfect conviction: "Sir, ( a + bn )/n = x , hence God exists; reply! " Diderot had no reply, and the court broke into laughter. Diderot immediately returned to France.
  

  However, this is apparently a fabrication. Read of the debunking on http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/euler.html explained by Dirk J. Struik, from his book A Concise History of Mathematics, Third Revised Edition, Dover, 1967, p. 129:
  

  This is a good example of a bad historical anecdote, since the value of an anecdote about an historical person lies in its faculty to illustrate certain aspects of his character; this particular anecdote serves to obscure both the character of Diderot and of Euler, Diderot knew his mathematics and had written on involutes and probability, and no reason exists to think that the thoughtful Euler would have behaved in the asinine way indicated. The story seems to have been made up by the English mathematician De Morgan (1806-1871). See L. G. Krakeur and R. L. Krueger, Isis, Vol. 31 (1940), pp. 431-32; also Vol. 33 (1941), pp. 219-31.
  

Too bad that story was a hoax; I liked it. Stupid philosophers, they should get some comeuppance!
Anyway, let's wrap all of this up with an enlightened quote from a Nobel Prize winning Physicist Steven Weinberg, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

So be good for goodness sake!

Patterns Made by Sound

Okay, you artsy people get on this one. I'll expect something like an animated short made by sand and sound soon. [God, I love alliteration]




I found this on NPR Science Friday hosted by Ira Flatow.
The video was made by Wake Forest University Department of Physics,
http://www.wfu.edu/physics
Sam Eisenberg and Peter Scherpelz/HMC 08,
Hendrik Orem/HMC 09,
Hyung Joo Park/HMC 08,
Patricia Sparks/ HMC Physics,
Jon Jacobsen/HMC Math,
NPR story produced by Flora Lichtman.

Faster than Light Speed Travel?

Okay. Really?
"It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!"
(Never mind that parsecs are units of distance and not time - oh well, George still made a great movie.)

I know we all want it to be possible. The 'real' theory (not talking Star Trek/Wars here!) is based on an idea by Michael Alcubierre. The propulsion system doesn't really propel the space ship; it would expand space behind the ship and shrink space in front of the ship. The ship would then 'surf' the bubble as it zips through space. It was coined as the "Alcubierre drive."

This idea has been reworked a little (add a sprinkling of dark energy to control the manipulation of spacetime) by Baylor University physicists Gerald Cleaver and graduate student Richard Obousy.

It's an interesting thought experiment. It does seem to escape the problem of Einstein's theory of relativity. The ship is not actually 'moving through space,' but riding the bubble of stationary space. So then no infinite speed requiring an infinite amount of fuel mass.

I'm curious about time. Assuming that this will come to pass as real technology at some point. How will a bubble of space affect the passage of time in and around it?

The idea that space can move faster than light comes from data generated by the WMAP that space expanded faster than the speed of light for a short time after the Big Bang.

Sadly, we won't be able to enjoy the fruits of this theory, unless someone cracks the problem of the human life span. That's a story for another day.

Whole story at Discover.com
Warp Drive Engine Would Travel Faster Than Light
by Eric Bland

Story with more detail about how dark energy fits into the picture at SPACE.com
Spaceship Could Fly Faster Than Light
by Jeremy Hsu

Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity

I have always wanted to be an astrophysicists but could never cut the math.

Watch in a bigger format at Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity on Hulu.com