So I can look through a telescope and spot one of the most distant galaxies from us around 14 billion light years away. Then an observer in that galaxy could be doing the same as me but looking in the exact opposite direction to my galaxy, and they would also spot a distant galaxy around 14 billion light years away (one that I can not see at all). And there could be an observer in this 3rd galaxy doing the same, but looking at a galaxy in the opposite direction (that neither me or observer 2 can see).... and so on, and so on.
So how many times can this repeat? I read somewhere that the universe might be closed or finite in size, and that we are analogous to 2D people living on a 3D sphere, so how many times can the scenario above repeat until you reach an observer who spots our Milky Way from the other side? Or does this just repeat infinitely? And how do/did we figure this out?
We figure this out by taking accurate measurements of the curvature of spacetime with large interferometers in space. We just need to build them first.
All current data suggests the universe is flat and therefore infinite.
>>7753187
>All current data suggests the universe is flat and therefore infinite
>>7753187
Does this mean theories about other universes existing outside our own are essentially dead?
What do people around the world think about the french system of "classe préparatoire" preparing for the big engeenering, research and business schools of France? Do you think it better or worse than more traditional universities? If you don't know about the system, feel free to ask.
>>7753099
They don't give a shit about it, they don't even know it exist.
preparing for engineering is not doing engineering
you can't just ask to people "what do you think about this class that don't give me any diploma ?" and wait for any relevant answer
It is more relevant to ask "what does people around the world think about french system of engineering school ?"
I like the French engineering system because an engineer there is not limited to mechanical, electrical, chemical. Engineers coming out of places like Ecole Polytechnique could go on to do anything from math to physics to finance to politics.
>>7753099
I heard it's badass. However your education systems often has an image of something so bureaucratic that it's impossible to navigate in unless you were born in it. I think most students know mathematical education in France is second to none in the world, but they don't go for it because there's not enough PR about it. That's the only thing I'd change, and I think it is really necessary to attract talents from abroad.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/heres-might-just-possible-escape-7092807
what do you fa/sci/sts think of this?
>it stays the same
>>7753024
In general a given volume of water at room temperature will increase in volume by about 9% when frozen. And in general about 7% of an ice cube sticks out of the water. So the water level will fall a bit i think.
Do we assume that this ice is frozen water?
What's the point of it?
>>7752930
More logical
Eliminates the need for parentheses.
>>7752950
/thread
How fucking rad is this
https://youtube.com/watch?v=kyuY7F3cvNU
Pretty fucking rad if you ask me. What does the increasing um counter mean?
Neat but how is this any better than the stuff Lichtman's lab is doing? What I'd like to see is real-time imaging in vivo so we can capture the dynamics of neuronal networks as they're functioning, not more of this structural/connectomics stuff.
cellular automata is real motherfucker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE
Would you say that education in the US at the university level is worse or better than in countries like France, Germany, or the UK?
Assuming you are at a top public school like Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, etc. what is better or worse?
For example, engineers in France take a lot more math than engineers in the US. Also medicine is an undergraduate degree in UK which seems not to have the dreaded O-chem?
If you are working with people educated in other countries do you feel US students are better or worse prepared?
Keep in mind that this thread is inherently biased
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
It depends man. Theres two ukrainian guys in my physics department who went to some university in kyiv. Crushing the average, by far the most brilliant guys I know, and as far as I know ukraine isn't really known for their university program.
I'd say on average though (talking about physics only because I don't know any other fields), most people who went to an american university for an undergrad tend to do worse at the grad level. As far as I know its probably because american universities push a lot more general education classes for stem majors than european universities.
Swiss Poly >= German Elite Unis > US Elite Unis > Chinese Elite Unis > Russian Elite Unis > French Elite Unis > German > Swiss > US > French
What the fuck is wrong with the weather? some people talk about global warming, I just read an article about El niño.
anyway, this is one strange winter.
Rainbow isn't a fucking type of weather.
Every fucking year people say there's something strange about the winter.
>hurr durr this winter is so cold it's the coldest one since 2005
>hurr durr this winter is so warm it's the warmest winter since 2008
>>7752856
dude, I picked a random imagen from google.
Turns out the party's over, you can no longer download 10 year old books from springer. What did you get in your haul /sci/?
Don't care everything they have is on libgen anyway. That said I recommend pic related
>>7752693
A 10+ year old book on Quantum Computing? Wouldn't this be horribly outdated?
>>7752701
The maths and physics is still the same. But if you've got a better more recent alternative I'm all ears.
Oi /sci/. Why the hell is a black hole so mysterious? Isn't it composed of 3D matter that piled up so densely that it even sucks in light. I know that gravity is still mysterious. But is it only mysterious because people don't see what's inside?
>>7752606
I don't think its really "Mysterious" yeah, you can't see inside it because light can't escape. What seems odd to me is this:
Lets say a star with a mass 100x the sun collapses into a black hole. It still has that same amount of mass, any planets orbiting that star should still orbit it normally, yet light can't escape? How could the light escape when the star was still a star? I might be missing something or not taking into account something
>>7752659
The radius of the star was too big
>>7752659
Since all that mass is concentrated into a singularity, rather than spread out over the size of a ball with a radius 92 times that of our sun.
The gravity gradient becomes so steep that the spacetime curvature becomes infinite.
>smart but lazy
was there ever a truer meme?
>>7752391
>truer
Lol sure. Keep being that delusional. I thought I was the same until I got IQ tested at 95 and realized I was actually dumb and lazy.
Smart people generally aren't lazy.
I unironically believe I'm smart but lazy, knowing I could better but I don't care makes me feel better about my failures.
Why does the sum of all natural numbers equal -1/12?
From what I've read is that it is a 'reduced version' of the actual answer, which is infinity.
The reduced version is apparently useful in physics e.g. string theory. I know approximations must be made when doing science but this one gets me uneasy. Maybe the expression should be changed to '≈ -1/12' or am I being autistic about this?
>>7752334
'=' denotes any equivalence relation. people don't use weird squiggly symbols generally. it's no approximation, but "analytic continuation" of a function. It's like saying the geometric series is equal to 1/(1-x) and then continuating it so that the geometric series at 2 is equal to -1 (where it is, in reality, infinity)
The 'natural' answer is that it approaches infinity. More specifically infinity to the second power. So lets say you have 1 + 2 + 3 ... + x. When you have really large values in x, the sum is approximately x^2. There's some series that you can expand it into, don't know if I have the picture, but when you do it you'll get x^2 - 1/12 + something/x + something else/x^2 ...
So, when people say that -1/12 is the answer, where they get that from is ignoring not just the infinitely small parts, but also the infinitely large parts, and only looking at that one constant, -1/12.
The most concise way to put it is -1/12 is the acceptable answer in higher levels of mathmatics. You can do more if you can reduce infinite series into constants than you can if you can only say things like 'yep, that's infinity'
>>7752339
Shut the fuck up, nothing you said is correct
Why bother pretending that you can contribute anything to science or mathematics when people like Terence Tao exist, who can do your life's work in a few weeks? To pretend otherwise is extreme narcissism. I put my recycling in the correct bins but to pretend that have any meaningful effect on the environment when the USA and China smog the place up would be deluded.
Also take in to account three factors: Smart people breeding with each other, increasing world population, and increasing parts of the world that have access to higher education. The number of Terence Taos (or number of them with access to higher education) will increase by a shitload in the coming years. In 40 years there will probably be tens of Terence Taos contributing to all sorts of fields.
Yes, but there will be one Tao better than the rest of the Tao's.
And that will be me : )
Why not just learn to enjoy being ordinary?
>that feel when low IQ
Does a bigger head size make you smarter, /sci/ ?
Recently I stumbled onto this article and I wonder.
http://gnosticwarrior.com/head-size-matters.html
How does head size effect the way you think, your intelligence, emotions etc..
your head size just tells you you didn't take enough boobie nutrients when you where a kid
Q.E.D :/
Skull size/shape is correlated with hormone levels (gh, testosterone, etc.).
The way your brain is wired makes a bigger difference according to that one thing I heard 5 years ago.
What are the downsides to a career in Astronomy?
Loneliness.
Jobs are a bit harder to get, that's about it.
I highly recommend it, though. Just do outstandingly well in it, do a lot of internships for free, make a good resume. You probably won't earn as much, but if you're interested in it, that doesn't matter. I'd strive for a job at some observatory on Antarctica, Scandinavia or Chile
>>7752081
Astrology is great.
/sci/ I think I might be stupid. I've had the thought lingering in my mind for a long time. How can I know if I'm stupid? I have a problem with speaking that gives me a strong suspicion that it's true. I have difficulty with communicating complex ideas. I have to take it one idea at a time. All my concentration is going toward one idea and my mind is just completely consumed with how to articulate it. All my mental functions are basically just focused on one thing which is articulation. When I see other people speak it seems they can hold multiple ideas in their head simultaneously and are processing what they'll say next while they're speaking.
I can give an example. A normal person is asked a series of questions, say four questions, each question on different subjects. That normal person retains all of those questions and goes over them and seamlessly to the next subject, one after another and draws on relations between the answers. They might forget one question out of the four.
Now if that happens to me and I get asked four questions. I'll be so consumed by the first question that I forget the rest of them much less be able to process the relations between each question.
Thinking before speaking is not stupidity.
>seems they can hold multiple ideas in their head simultaneously and are processing what they'll say next while they're speaking.
They can't and they aren't. They may have a vague notion of whatever it may be they are talking about floating in their mind, but you can be sure that they are not structuring their answer in any way.
I just took an online IQ test here
http://iqtest.dk/main.swf
Here's my results
>>7752038
Smoke weed or take psychedelic drugs but in huge quantities - you will face your inner fears and if you face them directly - you'll get rid of them forever. Just don't believe anything else you think you understand while high because they're delusions.