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Comment Re:Most cities really need this (Score 1) 107

You really need to drive here.

Like most of the US, the population density simply isn't enough for mass transit to be practical.

Buses run every 15-30 minutes on the main grid streets, nominally a mile apart. Most aren't particularly full, and there aren't enough transit police to enforce basic civility, such as the blaring music from multiple speakerphones.

A planned light rail has been replaced with an expansion of the bus line on Maryland parkway.

There are more bike lanes with spacing than there used to be, but there is *no* way I am going back on to the roads with the drivers around here.

Underground tunnels with regular small automated cars would seem to be a possibility, but only if monitored well enough. I have no idea whether it would be financially viable, though.

Comment Re:Most cities really need this (Score 1) 107

oh, no.

It doesn't even *compare* to the uselessness of the Las Vegas monorail and its multiple bankruptcy.

It goes to something like five resorts and the convention center.

Due to the juice that the taxi companies used to have, it was blocked from going anywhere useful, such as the airport.

And the fair for those short hops is something like $9, although only a dollar for locals.

I haven't heard of any extensions of the boring loop in at least a couple of years, though. It will *supposedly* reach the airport and downtown, but I'll believe it when I see it.

And I'm not sure that there's any point in the current form in which it needs drivers in passenger cars. But next to the monorail, it's downright brilliant! [insert eyeball here]

Comment Re: milliseconds matter. (Score 1) 45

Even then, the x ms faster on day... is a calculated expectation, we can take that calculation and adjust for the entire year and the overall change in earths rotational speed is much much smaller. Individual variations are much higher and even then barely noticeable without excessive measurement that has almost zero value outside of intent to be overly precise.

It's like calculating pi to the millionth digit, it has effectively no meaning outside of the ability to calculate pi. Absolutely no engineering task is improved by calculating pi out to 2 million digits vs 1 million.

Comment Re:Well, test the interpretations. (Score 1) 111

You are correct. That's precisely how MWI is thought to work.

The premise of the argument is that, to conserve superposition information, you would necessarily need to prove that it would be grouped with information QM requires to be conserved, when viewed in a space that permitted it to be conserved. If it isn't, then there's no mechanism to preserve it, so no MWI.

Comment Re:Well, test the interpretations. (Score 1) 111

Not strictly correct. You would be correct for all consequences over any statistically significant timeframe, but (a) I've purposefully included things that aren't actually outcomes, and (b) over extremely short timeframes (femtoseconds and attoseconds), differences would emerge very briefly, because different mechanisms take different routes.

Remember, the maths only concerns itself with outcomes, not the path taken, so identical maths will be inevitable for non-identical paths.

Comment Well, test the interpretations. (Score 1) 111

I would contend that it should be possible to find an implication of each interpretation that only exists in that interpretation. If, for example, Many Worlds is true, then it necessitates that any sort of information cannot be destroyed and vice versa, when considering the system as a whole. If Many Worlds is false, then superposition information is lost when superposition collapses, you cannot recover from the collapsed wave a complete set of all superposition states that existed. I'm sure that someone will point out that superposition isn't information in some specific sense, but that is the whole point. Many Worlds is impossible if you can show that superposition ISN'T the sort of information that IS conserved, because Many Worlds requires, by its very nature, that it is.

This gives us a test that does not require us to look into other universes and can be done purely by theoreticians. If you regard the system as a 5D system, then is that information conserved or not? Yes or no. If yes, then that does not "prove" Many Worlds, but it does mean that only interpretations that preserve that information in some form are viable. If no, then Many Worlds, and all other interpretations that preserve that information in some form, are ergo impossible. Instead of filling out questionaires on what you think is likely, try to prove that it can't be possible and see if you succeed.

I would also argue that physicists thought that the Lorenz contraction was a neat bit of maths by mathematicians that had nothing to do with reality, until Einstein cottoned onto the fact that it actually did. You cannot trust physicists who have an innate dislike of mathematics. This doesn't mean that maths always represents reality, but it does mean that it does so unreasonably often and unreasonably well.

Comment Re:Somehow... (Score 1) 45

I disagree. First, the bands used for astronomy are regularly used by others, which is one reason why radio telescopes have radio silence zones. Second, astronomy certainly trumps the need for cat videos or porn. Thirdly, you really really don't need all the frequencies that are currently being used for domestic purposes, because they're being used very inefficiently. You can stack multiple streams onto far fewer lanes and use multiplexing. Fourthly, whingers lost any sympathy they might have got from me by voting in twits who keep cutting the science budget. If we had space radio telescopes, you could do what the F you wanted on Earth, but because of the current lunatic situation, you're not only grabbing what scientists need, you're stopping them from alternative solutions as well.

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