"A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."
- Ken Morley
from Bookmarklet
"Dr. Nielsen and Dr. Ninomiya have proposed a kind of test: that CERN engage in a game of chance, a “card-drawing” exercise using perhaps a random-number generator, in order to discern bad luck from the future. If the outcome was sufficiently unlikely, say drawing the one spade in a deck with 100 million hearts, the machine would either not run at all, or only at low energies unlikely to find the Higgs."
- Ken Morley
"This week in the Mojave Desert, three teams of engineers are competing for $2 million offered up by NASA for anyone who can build a prototype of an elevator able to crawl up a kilometer-high tether while hauling a heavy payload. "We haven't had any winners yet, but we truly do expect to have at least one winner, probably more [this year]," said Ted Semon, spokesman for The Spaceward Foundation, which has run the competition for the past several years."
- Ken Morley
from Bookmarklet
"Britain's oldest dinosaur that has been entombed in rock for more than 210 million years will finally be excavated, researchers announced today. Thecondontosaurus antiquus is the oldest known dinosaur in Britain and one of the oldest in the world. A rock specimen, discovered at Tytherington Quarry in South Gloucestershire in the 1970s, contains the fossilised remains of the so-called "Bristol Dinosaur"
- Ken Morley
from Bookmarklet
"It's easy for a gear-head to be discouraged about the state of the world, especially in times of Carpocalypse and Cash for Clunkers. But occasionally, a bright light of awesome renews the spirit. Road-legal bumper cars do just that. Yes, you read that right; these little beasties are street legal. Either Kawasaki or Honda motorcycle engines for power, and retired vintage bumper car bodies - transformed into the most awesome form of mini-car we've ever seen. There's seven of these little monsters floating around California , and they're all the creation of one man, Tom Wright, a gyro-gear loose builder on the outskirts of San Diego who figured the leftovers of the Long Beach Pike amusement park needed a more dignified end than the trash heap. They were originally powered by Harley engines but rattled like heck and Tom replace them with Honda or Kawasaki 750's... and a couple have been 'measured' [not run at] theoretically as capable of 160 MPH which is terrifyingly fast in machines...
more...
- Ken Morley
Much rather have one of these than the other Eco friendly micro-cars.
- Eric Logan
"Electronic devices can use lots of different methods to detect a person's input on a touch-screen. Most of them use sensors and circuitry to monitor changes in a particular state. Many, including the iPhone, monitor changes in electrical current. Others monitor changes in the reflection of waves. These can be sound waves or beams of near-infrared light. A few systems use transducers to measure changes in vibration caused when your finger hits the screen's surface or cameras to monitor changes in light and shadow."
- Ken Morley
from Bookmarklet
"String theory describes 10^500 universes, but that just counts different vacuum states, which are like the blank canvases upon which universes are painted. The features of each canvas determine what the overall painting will look like - such as the laws of physics in that universe - but not the details."
- Ken Morley
from Bookmarklet
"According to quantum physics, observers affect the systems they measure. If observers are an integral part of the cosmic formula, then it may not matter how many universes exist - just how many a single observer can tell apart. If the observer is a person, that depends on how many bits of information the brain can process. "Based on the number of synapses in a typical brain, a human...
more...
- Ken Morley
"String theory describes 10^500 universes..." Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.
- Eivind
"A rocket designed to replace the aging space shuttle is set for its first test-flight, despite questions over the future of the programme."
- Ken Morley
from Bookmarklet
"Apparently a bear attacked his plane while parked in a remote field in AK. He had not cleaned out the inside after a long fishing trip and the bear smelled it. He had 2 new tires, 3 cases of Duct Tape and several rolls of cellophane delivered. Then went about repairing the plane so he could fly it home. Gutsy to say the least."
- Ken Morley
Gutsy ? That's potentially suicide and borderline insane. There is no way he could know in advance what would happen under stress. He was lucky.
- Eric Logan
It's possible he didn't make it as these pictures appear to be pre-flight.
- Ken Morley
... but then they're a different breed in Alaska... not like us weenies in the lower 48 :o)
- Ken Morley