I don’t have a source for it, but I recall hearing that yes, their eyes work at a different speed than ours, and that’s part of why cats and dogs are generally not so interested in TV. Unfortunately I don’t know what search terms might be useful here since I don’t know if this has a technical name, but something like “refresh rate” or “fps” might help in the search.
Sometimes my cats will be interested in TV, especially if there are really interesting birds. One cat in particular was very interested in Felix the Cat cartoons.
Seldon develops psychohistory, an algorithmic science that allows him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. On the basis of his psychohistory he is able to predict the eventual fall of the Galactic Empire and to develop a means to shorten the millennia of chaos to follow. The significance of his discoveries lies behind his nickname “Raven” Seldon.
Our [particle physicists’] problems and the way we approach them are quite different from some other fields of science, especially social science. As one example, I think I recall reading that you do not mind adding a parameter to your model, whereas adding (certain) parameters to our models means adding a new force of nature (!) and a Nobel Prize if true. As another example, a number of statistics papers talk about how silly it is to claim a 10^{⁻4} departure from 0.5 for a binomial parameter (ESP examples, etc), using it as a classic example of the difference between nominal (probably mismeasured) statistical significance and practical significance. In contrast, when I was a grad student, a famous experiment in our field measured a 10^{⁻4} departure from 0.5 with an uncertainty of 10% of itself, i.e., with an uncertainty of 10^{⁻5}. (Yes, the order or 10^10 Bernoulli trials—counting electrons being scattered left or right.) This led quickly to a Nobel Prize for Steven Weinberg et al., whose model (now “Standard”) had predicted the effect.
I replied:
This interests me in part because I am a former physicist myself. I have done work in physics and in statistics, and I think the principles of statistics that I have applied to social science, also apply to physical sciences. Regarding the discussion of Bem’s experiment, what I said was not that an effect of 0.0001 is unimportant, but rather that if you were to really believe Bem’s claims, there could be effects of +0.0001 in some settings, -0.002 in others, etc. If this is interesting, fine: I’m not a psychologist. One of the key mistakes of Bem and others like him is to suppose that, even if they happen to have discovered an effect in some scenario, there is no reason to suppose this represents some sort of universal truth. Humans differ from each other in a way that elementary particles to not.
And Cousins replied:
Indeed in the binomial experiment I mentioned, controlling unknown systematic effects to the level of 10^{-5}, so that what they were measuring (a constant of nature called the Weinberg angle, now called the weak mixing angle) was what they intended to measure, was a heroic effort by the experimentalists.
I think gravity and light work the same on psych majors as it does physics and engineering students…
I kid.
So in biology I know e the Euler number is important. It is used in growth equations (from finance to physics as well).
Statistics is fucking huge in every field. That is how you measure uncertainty. Bell curves and the Five Numbers and all that stuff is how you analysis thousands of widgets coming off an assembly line, or measurements in the social sciences field.
I believe you mean social sciences. They do that by indicating statistical significance or deviation.
Humanities, like philosophy, languages and arts don’t use formulas all that much to describe their work, but it could probably be done using a similar statistical approach for some things.
E = mc^2 is not an equation relating to gravity in the way you imply, that’d be the Einstein Field Equation [1], which still depend on G. And as far as we know, c is also a constant.
Then I’d guess a bunch of statistical constants probably show up in the humanities all the time. Is that what you are looking for, or some closed form expression with the constant?
Coal and lime probably don’t have a high enough inductance to be heated by induction. Induction furnaces are limited to metals as far as I know. Also, the temperature required for this process is almost 4000°F, which is difficult to obtain by combustion. Thus, electric arc is about the only way to go.
But the process does just require heat, right? So if you had a magical furnace that could reach that temperature, it would work as well? Or does the electric arc itself do anything to the chemistry?
Yes, you could probably use a laser furnace if it was cost-effective at those power levels. But it’s not even close. Arcs are and very practical in almost every sense and ridiculously cheap besides the power they consume. And a laser would consume more.
You’d be talking about replicating the triple-alpha process in a fusion reactor, and it’s a process that takes places at much higher temperatures and pressures than other stellar nucleosynthetic reactions. Assuming you could get the conditions right it may be theoretically possible, but it’s probably much further off than even viable deuterium-tritium fusion.
David Sinclair is an interesting person. I’ve seen him present his research in a professional setting and he does some really interesting science. He is also very enthusiastic at selling his story.
There’s likely no amount of supplement and drug cocktails that will undo the damage of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. Best case scenario is this research could be on to something that significantly augments a healthy lifestyle, or worse case it could be wasting a lot of money on something that potentially ends up being harmful a few decades from now.
I’ve looked at the list of supplements and drugs Dr. Sinclair takes and there is mechanistic rationale from cell culture and animal experiments behind the ones I’m most familiar with. But it is a big leap to go from cell culture and animal models to human health on a much longer time span. The clinical trials needed to really demonstrate a lot of these claims are incredibly expensive and would take decades. Drug companies in the anti-aging field tend to focus on older patients to start with and earlier endpoints like lower cancer, Alzheimer’s, or heart disease incidence. They also tend to be funded by silicon valley tech executives.
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