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Comment Learn Fortran (Score 1) 997

Start with Fortran. After all, you can write bad Fortran code in any language!

The GNU compiler suite includes a compiler (gfortran) that supports F90/F95 as well as the older F77 that everyone loves to hate (even though most everyone who screams about it has never actually strong used it, and F90 is far nicer and more modern language than F66. Computed GOTO's are still fun though...). Furthermore, with the OpenMP extensions that gfortran includes, you'll be running parallel code in no time, and OpenMP actually works now with multi-core CPU's, unlike those functional-language evangelists' favorite languages...

-JS

Comment Re:so i see talk of ipv6 more and more.... (Score 1) 241

The advantage is you get rid of your NAT. You can for example use it to access your computer remotly with ssh or file sharing, or get IP telephone provided separately from your ISP.

It's a bit tougher when your NAT and your cable modem are the same physical device (thanks Bell Canada!).

-JS

Comment Book Suggestion (Score 1) 418

I know you said you don't want an undergraduate text, but as a physicist (BS+PhD), trust me, you do want an undergraduate text. The textbooks used in introductory classes (100-series, or equivalent) won't go beyond basic Calculus, because the students haven't had time to learn anything more, and even the intermediate classes (200-series) won't go past ordinary differential equations. Also, looking at the topics you mentioned (heat equation, wave equation, etc), I think what you want is not just a physics textbook, but specifically a mechanics textbook, since that's where these topics are normally covered.

So why do I say you want an intro text? Because you already know the mathematics; what you're trying to learn are the basic concepts of classical mechanics. These are what you'll find in an introductory textbook. More advanced book, on the other hand, will assume you already the difference between a force, an energy, and a momentum, and therefore they don't bother explaining it; they'll instead move on to more sophisticated treatments of the subject building on the student's previous exposure (variational methods, field theory, and the like).

My advice, then, is to go to the university library and check out a random introductory textbook. "Halliday and Resnick" [those are authors, not the title] was the standard intro text when I was a student, and it's a good choice. "Marion" and "Webster" are even older (and a bit more advanced) but they would also be good choices. Anything with the title "Intro to Mechanics" is probably a second-year book, but you might luck out and find something you like there too. "Landau and Lifschitz" is good too, but the series is probably too advanced to just pick up and read. Also, I would avoid the Feynman lectures at all costs -- they're great after you know the subject but piss-poor if you're trying to actually learn physics from them.

If you're bound and determined to use a graduate level text, then Goldstein's Classical Mechanics and Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics would be the standard graduate-level textbooks and will find plenty of partial differential equations in either one.

-JS

Comment Re:Problem (Score 1) 307

Science and religion are not incompatible, but science and faith are

That applies only to religions that insist that their mythical stories be taken as fact. Not all religions do that.

Most Christians, for example, do not insist on a literal 6-day creation either.

-JS

Privacy

ACLU Creates Map of US "Constitution-Free Zone" 979

trackpick points out a recent ACLU initiative to publicize a recent expansion of authority claimed by the Border Patrol to stop and search individuals up to 100 miles from any US border. They have created a map of what they call the US Constitution-Free Zone. "Using data provided by the US Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This 'Constitution-Free Zone' includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.'"
Books

Submission + - Geeks and God (catholicnews.com)

Jonathan Stott writes: If you're a long-time slashdot reader, you know by now that any time the subject of God comes up, a crowd of Richard Dawkins wanna-be's kicks in because, as everyone knows, "science and religion are incompatable." Guy Conolmagno SJ, an astronomer with a PhD in planetary science from MIT, has written a new book God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion in which he talks to his fellow scientists and engineers and discovers that while "techies look at religion differently than most folks," most scientists were either believers or agnostics looking for answers. So what do you believe in?

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