Official "Science News" Thread

[flagrantflowers]

Originally Posted by xilman

In my experience, it's either the hips or the skull.

That makes me feel incredibly claustrophobic. I have only experienced that in really tight squeezes at the thought 'what if I get stuck'. Clenches all the muscles real tight like…

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by flagrantflowers

That makes me feel incredibly claustrophobic. I have only experienced that in really tight squeezes at the thought 'what if I get stuck'. Clenches all the muscles real tight like…

Don't watch this then.
http://i.imgur.com/ZxA5cHH.gif

[flagrantflowers]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Don't watch this then. ...

I'm fine with that, it seems like the tight spot is right at the entrance. It's the idea of being completely enclosed in rock with one way out, backwards, or the hope of a way to turn around. I've never caved, just crawled 1-2 meters in tight limestone.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Or perhaps more inane skipping about and tra-la-la-la-ing by Tom frickin-Bombadil and his g/f?

Tom Bombadil in Tolkien's books is an important part of the gradual change from a story fit for children into more serious work, something which the films do not echo (simply presenting evil pictures from the start). It is his storytelling to the hobbits which begins to effect the change:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Suddenly Tom's talk left the woods and went leaping up the young stream, over bubbling waterfalls, over pebbles and worn rocks, and among small flowers in close grass and wet crannies, wandering at last up on to the Downs. They heard of the Great Barrows, and the green mounds, and the stone-rings upon the hills and in the hollows among the hills. Sheep were bleating in flocks. Green walls and white walls rose. There were fortresses on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all. Sheep walked for a while, biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again. A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers, and gold chains in the wind. Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight.

We encountered some of the names on a hike in North Devon.

[Nick]

Possibly interesting:

Experimental loophole-free violation of a Bell inequality using entangled electron spins separated by 1.3 km

Provisional version of paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05949

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Nick

Tom Bombadil in Tolkien's books is an important part of the gradual change from a story fit for children into more serious work, something which the films do not echo (simply presenting evil pictures from the start). It is his storytelling to the hobbits which begins to effect the change:

We encountered some of the names on a hike in North Devon.

If one gets deeper into the background, as in The Silmarillion, the question arises as to just what Bombadil is. It seems plain that he is of a similar order of immortals as the wizards. It is at the end of Return of the King that Gandalf says of Bombadil, "He is a moss-gatherer, and I have been a stone doomed to rolling." I won't go all Tolkien-theological on you, but I agree that Tom Bombadil is more than a buffoon with his stream-of-consciousness babble. The last word is not pejorative, in this case, as brooks are also said to babble. Bombadil is some kind of animating (or regulating) spirit of nature, so fractals in his speech should not be surprising.

EDIT: I note with chagrin that the creator of the graphic misspelled the name of the book.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Don't watch this then.
http://i.imgur.com/ZxA5cHH.gif

I think this is one instance where me repeating the name of the Lord ISN'T swearing.

That was scarier than the vast majority of horror movies I've seen.

My worst nightmares have always involved tight spaces and things chasing me. And horror movies where somebody has to experience that always make me involuntarily vocalize. Not scream, mind you, sounds more like muffled pain imo.

[jasong]

http://phys.org/news/2015-09-greater-precision.html
They've confirmed the speed of light is consistent ten times more precisely than ever before. And I think they're going for even more precision with the same experiment.

Makes me wonder how close they are to the theoretical limit of precision. Is Planck time and Planck length related when it comes to the speed of light?

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by jasong

Is Planck time and Planck length related when it comes to the speed of light?

yep:

Originally Posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time

It is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length.[1]

[jasong]

Originally Posted by science_man_88

yep:

Ahhh, nice.

I guess that's related to their precision numbers. I'll have to read the article again, see if I can figure out how close they are to the theoretical limit of precision.

The article said they have precision down t o 18 digits, a billionth of a billionth. And they're trying to make things even more precise.

It seems to be that technology breakthroughs are based on finding small exceptions to physics rules and exploiting them. Even if the speed of light is the same under normal conditions, maybe now is the time to start attempting ways to break the rules and make things happen that wouldn't normally happen.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by jasong

Is Planck time and Planck length related when it comes to the speed of light?

Originally Posted by science_man_88

yep:

The meter should be defined by the Planck length, not by light. This would be a better foundation.

BTW: Jason, I personal have been stuck in a pipe before. I had previously gone through it and had grown too large.