Actually, finding a cloud containing only Radon gas would basically indicate alien intelligence or some completely new nuclear process since there isn't a process that would purify to only Radon... Even isotopes that decay into radon would need to be purified....

Finding a giant isolated stellar gas cloud that contains no other elements again either implies that they were purified by some process, or that it has been there alone since before there were other gases (eg Oxygen, Nitrogen) to mix with. It would (thermodynamically) ove to form ammonia (NH3) and water (H2O) to get to a lower stable energy state).

They have proposed the least unlikely answer (interstellar alien intelligence is a big leap).
Please pursue further education.

There was new data this year indicating subsurface water ice from two synthetic radars (SHARAD and MARSIS at different frequencies on two different landers).
They have estimates for the volume and placement of the ice as well.
http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/feats/2010/mars_glaciers.html

An original finding from 2002 based on a single Gamma Ray Spectrometer instrument showed excess Hydrogen...
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/28may_marsice/

And now even more extensive results from long term surface studies... I find the recent subsurface radar measurements most compelling.

I call BS on that post by Baldrson.

I was a physics student at Caltech at the time. We had pre-prints of the papers from both Utah organizations on cold fusion on the day that P&F released their paper (Early March around spring break) as well as the less well known Jones paper. We went to the university lab stores and bought all of the Palladium available. Professors in actual labs that wanted to study the effect were pissed (and actually bought the Palladium back at a profit and with the inclusion of the students). Several of the same students made large sums in the Futures market (on the way up and down). There was no significant work on-going at Caltech when ColdFusion was announced, but we were all very hopeful and involved in the weeks that followed. New calculations, research, and science was done based on the results. I am saddened that further CF research is so polarized from regular science (mostly due to governmental funding and politics), because this isolation prevents peer-review and publication of good experiments, but allows crack-pots to flourish in the vacuum. We all hope there is something there, but the chances of finding it get more remote with every fraud- its like figuring out what happened to JFK.

I also know one of Fleischmann's collaborators from just before this event- he describes him as both an excellent scientist, but also obsessed with secrecy and getting credit for work that was well outside of his primary field of expertise- Electrochemistry. That combination of obsession, intelligence, and renown has always been detrimental to our understanding of the universe... see Linus Pauling on Vitamin C or the work of the latest Nobel.

I trust my own memory, and that of my direct personal contacts more than I trust you.
You just seem tragically misinformed.

The scientific community has done a pretty good job dealing with the aftermath of some very bad actions both by scientists, the media, and politicians. Conspiracy theorists don't help us actually come to grips with the complexity of the world around us, they grasp for the "simple but wrong" answers instead.

Great idea! Creating a public app has it's own pitfalls, but if groupon (and other coupon writers) can create negative externalities on normal buyers to make their money... then we can create market pressure on their customers to make them stop... "free" markets only work when they are transparent and reciprocal (among other requirements).

Ohh... I did find class notes for 236. I assume that the prof will be happy you're learning too so here's a link:
http://www.pma.caltech.edu/~ph236/yr2010/index.html [caltech.edu]

by the way... learn to use google, and Amazon... Slashdot is full of old hosers, and now even Cmdr Taco has left!

I agree with almost everything you said, except about using Gravitation to learn General Rel...
Do you have any other recommendations for rigorous explanations, that are more motivating, and less dense and obscure?
The book is (and the authors are) impressive, but I couldn't recommend it.

oops this wasn't post I was following up on... and comes off as harsh, but looking at the class notes is still worth a try...

Ohh... I did find class notes for 236. I assume that the prof will be happy you're learning too so here's a link:
http://www.pma.caltech.edu/~ph236/yr2010/index.html

by the way... learn to use google, and Amazon... Slashdot is full of old hosers, and now even Cmdr Taco has left!

Yes... there is a lot of math. That is almost all I remember from my attempt to learn it in PH236 at a small technical school in southern cal. Memories of Christoffel symbols, Riemann Curvature, and covariant derivatives dance in my head. I find learning the math pretty dry without some physics behind it. There are on-line class notes which might be helpful and studying with friends (if you can find someone that shares your illness).

http://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Physics-Charles-W-Misner/dp/0716703440/
Bleah! Read the reviews of MTW and see what you think...

I've since discovered that our book, Gravitation (while a great demonstration of the weight of the topic), is not the best book to learn from... at best it is a reference. A more basic book by Hartle is probably better for beginners. I picked it up at a friends house and felt I understood more GR reading it for an hour than I did studying Gravitation for 8 weeks (yes I dropped the class!). Mathematica was just coming out at the time, and I wish that we had used it, since it seems that much of the "algebraic" manipulation would have been easier... I don't know that the concepts would have been.

http://www.amazon.com/Gravity-Introduction-Einsteins-General-Relativity/dp/0805386629/
Please don't just read one of the pop-science books and feel like you know the material... "Everything is relative, dude" is just stupid.

I'm pretty surprised that General Relativity was part of a basic physics sequence... I think you mean Special Relativity, which is basically (linear) algebra and is a small departure from classical physics.... I too studied Special Rel in a freshman class at a small school in Pasadena... Then I sat in on Ph236 where I tried to grasp part of General Rel as taught by Kip Thorne (who helped write Gravitation, a book which demonstrates it's weighty topic)... Mostly I learned math, and my final understanding today is very limited.

Perhaps Special Relativity is what the poster means too, but it doesn't seem like it based on his concern, and it's not what he said. As others have mentioned General Relativity is a much bigger an more difficult topic involving Tensors and Differential Geometry.

Look at the two topics in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

Basically, Special Rel deals with the special case of inertial reference frames (eg those that are not accelerating or rotating). It explains Doppler RADAR, and is basically completely accepted by the scientific community. Special Relativistic Quantum mechanics (Dirac's Equation) is part of the Standard Model and necessary for some quantum chemistry and Fine Structure of the atom.

Complexly, General Rel deals with the more general case of all reference frames (eg including gravitation, acceleration, and rotation). It explains gravitational lensing and a portion of Mercury's orbital precession, but is still not completely accepted, because it's not known how to combine its concepts with Quantum Mechanics. String Theory is the most popular attempt... (also not really accepted),

I consider Quantum Electrodynamics QED and Quantum Chromdynamics QCD to be much more commonly understood and comprehensible. They are still hard (like math), but not absurd.

Dude-

Appreciate the sentiment, but careful what you offer... someone will take you up on it :P

Almost certainly an effort to get people interested, though it appears that the original patents (for Ni not Al) just expired a few years ago (1990-2009).
The original purpose has always been about batteries, and I can't imagine that it hasn't been tested.... that it's not ubiquitous either means that it's not that good, or that whatever innovation actually makes it good hasn't been popularized.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=ydwfAAAAEBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=4957543&hl=en&ei=yU0jTvrfMMPWiAKE0Mm9Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA

I can't imagine that everyone in the field of battery electrodes hasn't heard of this technique.

It is patently absurd to think that an omniscient omnipotent creator could just 'evolve'.
Obviously, it was created by a multi-threaded Flying Spaghetti Monster... and the hypothesis in Null.
Only Null Pointers to the uninitialized FSM can be safely de-referenced, all others are void hypotheses .

Oh, wait... you meant hairless monkeys?
Most of them aren't intelligent enough to realize a self-inconsistent tautology when they see it.

The US is no longer the center of innovation. It will happen somewhere else, and I predict Korea or China first.
They both have huge traffic congestion problems, and heavily state (or Chaebol) controlled economies.
In Korea Samsung and Hyundai control over a third of the economy, including car manufacturing, road construction, gas distribution, aerospace, navigation, cell phones, LCDs, CPUs (ARM based), Flash, RAM... insurance, home appliances, happiness, food, water, air, dreaming... Ok I'm kidding about the last 4... or maybe dreaming is largely controlled by the Chaebol as well. They are competent and think long term, something you can not say about our government or most of our business leadership.

The efficiency of car trains and automated parking could be huge... The taxi concession isn't going to like it, and they do prevent most mass transit from going airports for that reason. There are huge vested interests as well as an irrational public (and dysfunctional media). I heard a great description of what a journalist is supposed to do, "to make important things interesting, not to make titillating things important".

If an Asian government decides that automated driving is better and more efficient, they will start to develop them, implement them, enable them, distribute them, and eventually enforce them. We will end up buying them from someone else after we are considered more insane that the drivers of Rome and Naples.

I once told Larry that I thought he needed to solve a political/emotional problem to make driverless cars happen... I no longer think so after spending a lot of time in Asia over the last few years. He could make a good friend in Korea and make his dream come true at the same time. (probably the same in China, but Google isn't as well received there...)