This is dramatically oversimplified. It only works for mechanical engineering.
Category Archives: Mathematics
Ocean Heat
The relentless increase:
Lubos Motl has done the arithmetic in this post Ocean heat content: relentless but negligible. This is a good post, check it out. The punchline of his calculations: the heating in the layer 0-2000 m translates to 0.065 C +/- 20%. His calculations are essentially confirmed from this ARGO page where they confirm that since the 1960s, the warming of that layer was 0.06 °C.
So, can anyone figure out why 0.06C is a big deal for the climate? Or how all that heat that is apparently well mixed in the ocean could somehow get into the atmosphere and influence weather/temperatures/rainfall on the land? Or is sequestering heat in the ocean a fortuitous ‘solution’ to the global (surface) warming problem?
It’s “relentless” in the same (and harmless) sense that a glacial advance is.
Linux On Gateway
OK, so I purchased a new laptop, a Gateway NE522 series. It came with Windows 8 installed. After doing a full Windows update, and making a recovery disk, I tried to install Federa 19 on it from a USB drive (it doesn’t have an optical drive). It wouldn’t boot, instead barfing out the following (after the jump) I’ll probably submit it to the Fedora Project for a bug report, but I’d be interested in opinions:
[Update late evening]
OK, I tried with Ubuntu as well. Same result. Dumped into a shell. I’m guessing that it’s the problem described in comments, but not sure I’ll do that experiment until tomorrow.
The Noble, Objective Scientist
…exists primarily in mythology:
There is deeply ingrained in American culture — particularly nowadays on the Left — the stereotype of the scientist as pure in intent and action, caring only for the Truth, let the chips fall where they may. The scientist works readily with other scientists (except when s/he is working alone, late into the night, thinking deep thoughts), accepts — nay, encourages — challenges to her/his theories and findings, welcomes new information and hypotheses, and is always willing to change his/her mind based on better data, models, and/or reasoning.
It is, to quote the late Douglas Adams, a load of dingos’ kidneys. A very large, steaming, rotting load of dingos’ kidneys.
Particularly when it comes to a politicized field like climate “science.”
Cascade Effects
Some discomfiting thoughts on their implications for foreign policy and hapless presidents.
Speaking of cascade effects, there seems to be a preference cascade developing on the lack of both hap and feck with this president. It’s apparently becoming socially acceptable, even at the New York Times, to point out what a disaster he is.
Climate Change
…is causing climate models to fail.
Is there anything it can’t do?
The Pioneer Anomaly
Is gravity not quite inverse R squared? That would be a pretty amazing result if it’s true.
The Climate Models
…have been falsified.
I’m not surprised. They don’t know WTF they’re doing. As I’ve said before, climate modeling is an interesting exercise, but it’s insane to base policy on it.
Locked-In Syndrome
A new technique for communication. The good thing is that you probably don’t even have to be good at math. Just the attempt to solve the problem would create the desired response. Being in this state is one of my nightmares. Hard to know if it would be preferable to death, but this technique may allow us to find out for some individuals.
[Via Geek Press]
StratoLaunch
Here’s an article at the WaPo about it. This isn’t correct, though:
It is always desirable to launch to the east to capitalize on the direction of the Earth’s spin. The Earth travels about 1,000 mph west to east at the equator; you need to reach a speed of 17,000 mph to get to low-Earth orbit, so there’s no point in penalizing yourself 1,000 mph by heading in the wrong direction.
No, not “always.” Only for low-inclination orbits. For very high inclination, or retrograde, it’s actually preferable to launch from a high latitude (ideally, for a retrograde orbit, you’d like to launch from a pole, to eliminate any earth rotation, because it’s rotating in the wrong direction).