Large Hardon Collider

[Mizango]

That's great lol.

[Eliseos]

Except us engineers would have a bigger laser than you. We'd also have space elevators and you wouldn't.

[Max™]

*makes a note to get Woozie to accidentally take out Eliseos for suggesting that anyone will ever have a space elevator*

[Kaylia]

Except us engineers would have a bigger laser than you. We'd also have space elevators and you wouldn't.

40 years after us! Very scary.

[Woozie]

Every time I go to the SciAm website on a computer from school I get a pop up which is a little poll asking different questions about how we should approach clean or renewable energy. First of all, how is someone who knows little about these things going to know what the best solution is? Of course, people who visit SciAm are probably more educated on these type of issues than the average American. But, if you think about it, our policies in our government are largely based on public opinion and the opinion of politicians. It's kind of scary if you think about it. We really need to start electing scientists to congress.

Of course, if we did that, then everything in the world that isn't science would immediately fall apart. I just wish people who knew more about a particular subject had much more say in how things are done in this subject than laypersons.

Edit: That reminds me of this

http://www.cracked.com/article_18416...-are-news.html

Very first thing on the list.

[Mizango]

lmao, that Gary Busey photo sold it. Id believe anything that man says. But yeah, its remarkable how absolutely that has a real impact on life and our future gets little to no air time, yet we all get updates on who was kicked off dancing with the stars last night! and how long Lindsey Lohan is in jail for!

Its sad really.

[Mizango]

I mean its really to the point where being smart and being in the all encompassing gripping love of science puts you on the fringes of society. Before long we will all be on house arrest in true Galileoian fashion and forced to communicate with each other via messenger pigeons.

Just wait and see.

[Eliseos]

I mean its really to the point where being smart and being in the all encompassing gripping love of science puts you on the fringes of society.

Yep. I don't even tell people what I go to school for anymore, when I meet new people at say the bar or some other social event. There had been quite the look of horror on people's faces when I say "majoring in physics and computer science, minoring in electrical engineering." I can't even talk to my friends about what I'm learning or what I'm trying to do in my labs since they either don't care or don't have a good scientific basis to be able to understand what's going on. It's going to be even worse for the kids growing up now, they don't really have any inspiration to get into the sciences.

[Mizango]

You're absolutely right man, I feel your pain on not telling people what you do haha. I think I got tired of the disbelief and the "lol whatever man", because im black lol. Woozie knows about that im sure. But you're right, kids these days have no drive to get into science whatsoever, which sadly begins at home more times than not. My daughter is in 5th grade and is actually taking engineering electives and a basic physics "for kids" program at her school. They build rockets, learn the intricacies of motion and all that. There aren't even many kids enrolled and its a FREE program, that takes then to observatories, planetariums and air fields.

Math and Science is where its at, with those 2 things in your hip pocket man there is nothing you cant do. I go to school with people majoring in Physical ed., Lib Arts and Kinesiology >.>

[Max™]

>.<

[Mizango]

Yeah the figured the fact that the LHC ring is a vacuum would hurt you much more than the actual collision. I like the mosquito analogy though, I didn't know that. The later part of that video reminds me of when Woozie and I were chatting about the possibilities of Anti-Woozie and Anti-Miz's lol. String theory and multiverses are fun to imagine.

I will admit though, the supernova and "what would happen to the Earth" was a bit stupid. I mean Duh? I wouldn't even have entertained that question and moved on to the next one from the bag. Although any mention of Betelgeuse is a definite plus

[Max™]

Once I saw the anti-matter galaxy question pop up... I made this face.

http://otakurevolution.com/storyimgs...Scribble03.jpg


Oh, the vacuum directly wouldn't be as damaging as you might think, most of the damage to exposed tissue in outer space is either boiling from sunlight, or freezing in the shade. You'd get a depressurization effect like the bends, but I'd imagine the proton beam impact would hurt more.

[Mizango]

lol

[Max™]

Btw, what's your favorite symbol, fun question!

I gotta go with π because I've been learning it due to that damn song.

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 105820974944...

All I know atm, but I'm well into the "you're a dick" range.

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/0...o-you-know.gif

[Woozie]

I'm well beyond the "you're a dick range", but the only reason I learned it is because I got extra credit for it in high school. Our teacher didn't put a cap on the amount of extra credit we could receive by memorizing pi, so a bunch of us memorized enough digits to the point where we had enough bonus points to never have to do homework again (which required like 70 digits). I also made a rap about pie, which gave me even more extra credit.

I only remember up to like 40 now though.

Edit: Also, 3.14159 isn't really enough, at least not for computational physics. However many digits of accuracy our computer allows us to carry is the amount of places we want pi accurate to, so that's typically going to be at least 16.

Then again, we don't need to have it memorized for any reason. I just define pi in terms of the arctan function at the beginning of my code. I don't even need to know the very first digit.

[Kaylia]

It's going to be even worse for the kids growing up now, they don't really have any inspiration to get into the sciences.

Our physics department only had 3 new students this year. Three... We had more student starting a master degree than student beginning their major. It's sad

dit: Also, 3.14159 isn't really enough, at least not for computational physics. However many digits of accuracy our computer allows us to carry is the amount of places we want pi accurate to, so that's typically going to be at least 16.

Yeah, but fuck typing it, you just call the Pi.math when you're on a pc


I personally never had to use more than 3.1416 for manual input.

[Woozie]

Wait, what's pi.math? Is that something I could use in fortran? It looks like java or something to me.

I can't remember the last time I had to manually use the numbers of pi. On paper it's just the symbol, and my calculator has the symbol. And like I said, on a computer pi is either already built in, or you can define the variable "pi" at the beginning of your code in terms of a trig function and then just use "pi" from then on. There's really no reason anyone needs to know it beyond 3.14 (and the only reason we know 3.14 is because we had to use it in high school).

But then again, I guess I'm a little biased against using numbers. I can't remember any of the physics constants that I should know because I always leave them in symbolic form. If I'm doing some computational stuff, I redefine my units so that all fundamental constants drop out. So there are no h-bars, k's, c's, etc in any of my code.

[BoomStick]

If you're an astronomer you can just approximate pi to 1 .

[Mizango]

BOOM! HERE COMES THE BOOM! BOOM! HERE COMES THE BOOM! Is all I hear when you post brah, not cool at all

[Kaylia]

Well, I don't know about fortran I just import it from math.h in C++ (16 digit precision), that's what I meant. I'm never defining it manually in my program


And yeah, I don't use anything but symbol and dimensionless variable in physics.