Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2008 February 23

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February 23

moon in past

bsm. Is it correct that the moon at least one time taked part (tow parts) and then joined? if that is correct, when and how many?(10-12)

Ideas for prosthetic communication devices for 'locked in' syndrome

I recently saw the 'true story' movie "Diving Bell and the Butterfly" about Frenchman Jo-Dominique Bauby, who suffers a devastating stroke which leaves him with the use only of one eye. This is ‘locked-in’ syndrome, as he cannot move, eat or talk, but can feel and think as before. The film concerns itself largely with his and his speech therapists’ efforts to provide him with the means to communicate once again with the outside world. This involves the speech therapist reciting the alphabet (arranged in order of most-frequently used letters), with Jean-Do blinking when the desired letter is reached, and then repeating the procedure ad infinitum. At an excruciatingly snail-like pace, Jean-Do spells out words, then sentences. As last he writes the eponymous book of his ordeal, and then dies-of pneumonia. Surprisingly, the film is often humorous, although the end-credits blooper reel was nowhere to be seen.

Now perhaps I’ve got that new-fangled Asparagus Syndrome, or my nasty male left brain is working overtime, but while the rest of the theatre were blubbing, I was thinking ‘Is reading the alphabet REALLY the best and only way they could get poor old Jo to talk? And this is in France, a world leader in medicine and medical technology. True, the events of the film are from 1995, but this laborious method of communication could just as readily have been utilized in 1700 rather than 1995!

Stephen Hawking is similarly afflicted, now having even less bodily control than Jean-Do did, and he can just about sing ‘I did it my way!’ I was thinking of fairly low-tech prosthetic to the problem, and I came up with this.

The film shows him as having perfect control over his right eyeball, yet there is no attempt to utilize this fine motor control for communication. How about fitting a contact lens for this eye in which might be embedded a small reflective disk? Now shine a soft light on this eye, and it should reflect a beam. Jean-Do could aim that beam at a display board on which are arranged letters and common words. When that beam had clearly settled on a letter, the system would beep, and that would be Jean-Do’s cue to blink, thus entering the letter to a string being built up. For more feedback, speech production software could read aloud the words as Jean-Do is creating them and provide anticipatory options, to be selected by choosing ‘Yes’ from the board.

I could hardly credit that the rest of this poor man’s life was spent listening to nurses sprouting the alphabet again and again and again. Sure, it was an excuse to perv down their cleavage, and they were hot, but this is ridiculous.

Anyone can throw a ray of light on this? After all, Jean-Do could be any of us—he is, ironically, our everyman, John Doe. Myles325a (talk) 00:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

There's been a lot of work towards creating a brain-computer interface to help people in this situation. See the work by Michael Black from Brown University... especially his work on neuromotor prothesis development. Sancho 01:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't remember any details, but at a computer/medical show about 15 years ago, I saw just such a contraption. The person would be wearing a sort of cap with a device that shined a IR beam at the eye and "looked" at the reflection. This information was sent to a computer, and the monitor has the representation of a keyboard on it, with a blinking cross showing where the person was looking. So s/he would just move the cross to the letter and then blink. The blink would "enter" the letter. There were also some editing functions available. Bunthorne (talk) 19:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Ariel, that’s pretty much the sort of thing I was thinking of. I’ve just now rewritten the Dasher article for clarity and to put some stress on the possibility of it being used for prosthetic purposes. In my speculation above, a contact lens was used, but of course, there would be probably no need to do even this. Myles325a (talk) 05:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

How Composite Quantum System Relates to Tensor Product?

Consider two noninteracting systems $A$ and $B$, with respective Hilbert spaces $H_{A}$ and $H_{B}$. The Hilbert space of the composite system is the tensor product

$H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$

(8)

My question is why the composite Hilbert space of the two noninteracting systems is their tensor product as (8)?

It always be true the tensor product is accounted for the concept of composite quantum systems, quantum entanglement especially. As well, it is a big deal with respect to quantum computation. The massive Hilbert space of the composite system dramatically boosts the power of quantum computers. According to postulate of quantum mechanics, the Hilbert space of a composite system is the Hilbert space tensor product of the state spaces associated with the subsystems. But it's rare to see any article which can point out where such a postulate comes from. Is the postulate due to the overwhelming, experimental evidence? Is it a derivational consequence from fundamental quantum theory?

It's difficult to convince me of the ability and the power of quantum computation if no one can tell how the composite quantum system relates to the tensor product. Hopefully, the postulate came from the derivational consequence of quantum theory rather than just from the experimental evidence. After reviewed the original EPR paper, I came up with an idea. So I tried to explain it myself. Although the explanation is very likely to be wrong and even seems naive and optimistic, I would like to put it here to see if anyone could give some advice or correction to my faults. For simplicity, the following assumes all relevant state spaces are finite dimensional.

For a composite system of two particles $A$ and $B$, the wave function is

$\Psi (x_{1},x_{2})$

(1)

where $x_{1}$ and $x_{2}$ are respective positions of $A$ and $B$. Similar to the idea of Separation of variables for solving PDE discovered by Leibniz, if the wave function can be separated into multiplication of two functions such that

$\Psi (x_{1},x_{2})=U(x_{1})V(x_{2})$

(2)

As a result, the functions $U(x_{1})$ and $V(x_{2})$ can be viewed as wave functions for $A$ and $B$, respectively. Furthermore, $U(x_{1})$ and $V(x_{2})$ are in Hilbert spaces $H_{A}$ and $H_{B}$, respectively. Therefore, the two functions can be expanded by their related basis such that

$U(x_{1})=\sum _{i}a_{i}|i\rangle _{A}$

(3)

$V(x_{2})=\sum _{j}b_{j}|j\rangle _{B}$

(4)

where $\{|i\rangle _{A}\}$ and $\{|j\rangle _{B}\}$ are respective sets of basis for $H_{A}$ and $H_{B}$. Substitute (3) and (4) into (2), we have

$\Psi (x_{1},x_{2})=\left(\sum _{i}a_{i}|i\rangle _{A}\right)\left(\sum _{j}b_{j}|j\rangle _{B}\right)$

$=\left(a_{1}|1\rangle _{A}+a_{2}|2\rangle _{A}+...+a_{m}|m\rangle _{A}\right)\left(b_{1}|1\rangle _{B}+b_{2}|2\rangle _{B}+...+b_{n}|n\rangle _{B}\right)$

$=\sum _{i,j}a_{i}b_{j}|i\rangle _{A}|j\rangle _{B}$

(5)

Since $|i\rangle _{A}$ and $|j\rangle _{B}$ are in different Hilber spaces, their multiplication is equivalent to their tensor product. Thus

$|i\rangle _{A}|j\rangle _{B}=|i\rangle _{A}\otimes |j\rangle _{B}$

(6)

Substitute (6) into (5), we have

$\Psi (x_{1},x_{2})=\sum _{i,j}a_{i}b_{j}\left(|i\rangle _{A}\otimes |j\rangle _{B}\right)=\sum _{i,j}a_{i}b_{j}|ij\rangle _{AB}$

(7)

That (7) is a state or vector in Hilber space $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$. And (7) can be generalized to systems that involve more than two particles or subsystems. However, it is problematic such as

1. The method of the separation of variables can not guarantees to be the solution for every class of PDE. Likewise, not all wave function of form (1) can be separated into multiplication of two functions of form (2).
2. Even if the wave function (1) could be separated to the form of (2) "mathematically", but does it make physical sense to say that the functions $U(x_{1})$ and $V(x_{2})$ are two "wave functions" which are the component systems of $\Psi (x_{1},x_{2})$?

Well, I am neither a mathematician nor a physicist. I don't mean to offend or mislead someone with my words. I am just hoping to get more clue about answering the question "How Composite Quantum System Relates to Tensor Product?" with this discussion. Thanks! - Justin545 (talk) 00:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Truth is a very difficult concept (with apologies to Alan Clarke MP (deceased))

All of your math looks right. As you say, some states of the composite system can be written in this way and some can't; those that can are called separable. It's correct to refer to U and V as wave functions, and in fact all wave functions are like that. You can't describe the whole universe with a wave function, only separable parts of it.

There's nothing quantum mechanical about the idea of phase space or separability or combining systems by taking the tensor product. For a classical analogy, take a system of three classical bits. This system has 2³ = 8 states, which can be written $|000\rangle$, $|001\rangle$, and so on. An example of a computational step on these bits might be "flip the third bit if at least one of the first two is set", which can be written with the transition matrix

$\scriptstyle \left({\begin{array}{cccccccc}1&&&&&&&\\&1&&&&&&\\&&&1&&&&\\&&1&&&&&\\&&&&&1&&\\&&&&1&&&\\&&&&&&&1\\&&&&&&1&\end{array}}\right)$

(all other entries zero). You can think of this matrix as acting (by left-multiplication) on a state vector, which is an 8-component column vector that has a 1 at the index corresponding to the state of the system and zeroes everywhere else. (So $|000\rangle$ is (1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0)^t, $|001\rangle$ is (0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0)^t, and so on.) Or, more generally, you can think of it as acting on a probability distribution over possible states of the computer, for example ${\frac {1}{3}}|001\rangle +{\frac {2}{3}}|011\rangle =(0,{\frac {1}{3}},0,{\frac {2}{3}},0,0,0,0)^{t}$. The probabilities all have to be between 0 and 1 and they must sum to 1. If you only allow reversible computations, then the only matrices that preserve that property are the permutation matrices.

If you have two of these computers, you can describe them as a single system using the 64-dimensional tensor product of the individual 8-dimensional phase spaces, for which the natural basis is $|000\rangle |000\rangle ,|000\rangle |001\rangle ,\ldots ,|000\rangle |111\rangle ,|001\rangle |000\rangle ,\ldots$. As long as the two subsystems don't interact, the composite state can be written as a tensor product of the states of the subsystems (as you did above), and the transitions can be written as the matrix tensor product of the transitions of the subsystems. If the subsystems do interact (e.g. a bit in one is flipped or not flipped depending on a bit in the other), then the subsystems may become correlated, in which case they can't be written this way any more.

To get quantum computing from this, all you do is replace the classical probabilities which sum to 1 with complex numbers whose squared absolute values sum to 1. Because the square norm is much more symmetric (the space of valid vectors is a sphere instead of a simplex), there are a lot more reversible computations you can do; in fact, any unitary matrix is a valid computation. Permutation matrices are unitary matrices, so classical computations are a subset of quantum computations. The quantum states that would be called "correlated" classically are called "entangled" instead. I do think a new name is justified because there is something new in the quantum case, namely violation of Bell's inequality, but the mathematics is the same.

It's unfortunately true that a lot of introductions to quantum computing don't explain the connection to classical computing and often attribute the extra power of quantum computers to the exponential size of the phase space or to entanglement. Neither explanation makesThis explanation doesn't make much sense given that both of these properties arethis property is inherited from the classical case. (Edit: I think it was a mistake to mention entanglement here since there are different notions of entanglement, and it's reasonable to relate quantum computing to entanglement in some senses.) The real nature of the extra power of quantum computers isn't well understood. There seems to be a class of problems in between P and NP which is efficiently solvable on quantum but not classical computers. It includes interesting number-theoretic problems like factoring and discrete logarithm, and it may be related to public-key cryptography somehow. To my knowledge the only interesting quantum algorithm outside that class is Grover's algorithm, which is often described as "database search" but is actually a SAT solver. It's faster (in the worst case) than the best known classical algorithm, but still very slow. No one has found an efficient quantum algorithm for any NP-complete problem, and it seems likely that there aren't any. In other words, a quantum computer's power seems to be very limited compared to the naive idea of a parallel-universe computer that does exponentially many calculations in parallel, since such a computer could solve NP-complete problems efficiently (basically by the definition of NP).

If you don't like the Hilbert space and the tensor products and the exponential size, you can look at the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. It coexists with the Hilbert space approach because a lot of problems are much easier to solve in one than the other. You might also be interested in this paper. -- BenRG (talk) 19:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Your answer is pretty clear and understandable, especially when you are explaining the transition matrix of the 3-bit computer. My understanding of your answer is that interacted=entangled=correlated and non-interacted=separable. But some new problems appear after reading:

1. Consider the two paricles $A$ and $B$ in my qestion above. When they are entangled, or non-separable, the wave function $\psi (x_{1},x_{2})$ can NOT be written as separated wave functions multiplication $U(x_{1})V(x_{2})$. Therefore, we may NOT write

$\Psi (x_{1},x_{2})=\sum _{i,j}a_{i}b_{j}\left(|i\rangle _{A}\otimes |j\rangle _{B}\right)$

Does that mean the entangled state space of the composite system is NOT in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$? However, we can still see several examples of entanglement that the state of the composite system is written in term of the basis of $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$ such as the following entangled state:

$|\Psi \rangle ={1 \over {\sqrt {2}}}{\bigg (}|0\rangle _{A}\otimes |1\rangle _{B}-|1\rangle _{A}\otimes |0\rangle _{B}{\bigg )}$

It seems contradictory...

2. How to determine two particles whether they are conposite or non-composite? Can we say the two particles is two non-composite systems when they are distanced far away, and they are one composite system when they are very closed to each other like the electron and the proton in a hydrogen atom?

Well, I am not quite understand the quantum computing. I think the quantum computer can only solve decision problems such as SAT, but not problems which is sort of like programming that needs many step of calculations. There seems to be many problem useful but belong to NP-complete which is not likely to be solved by quantum computer. It sounds somewhat disappointing. We don't know if the quantum computer is an useful and universal machine even if we can really make a 500-bit (or more then 500-bit) of quntum computer. - Justin545 (talk) 03:51, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Apologies for neglecting this thread. On your first point, the state space IS $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$, but you can't write arbitrary elements of that space as a sum of products of elements of the subspaces weighted by a_ib_j. You can write arbitrary elements with arbitrary weights c_ij. There are no $a_{0},a_{1},b_{0},b_{1}\in \mathbb {C}$ such that $a_{0}b_{1}=-a_{1}b_{0}=1/{\sqrt {2}}$ and $a_{0}b_{0}=a_{1}b_{1}=0\,\!$, but there are $c_{00},c_{01},c_{10},c_{11}\in \mathbb {C}$ such that $c_{01}=-c_{10}=1/{\sqrt {2}}$ and $c_{00}=c_{11}=0\,\!$. On the second point, particles that are causally interacting like the electron and proton need to be treated together, and particles that aren't causally interacting can usually be treated separately even if they're nonclassically entangled. The only case where the entanglement of noninteracting particles matters is if you do measurements on both particles and later compare the results; then you can get nonclassical correlations. If you're only doing measurements on one particle then you can always describe it without reference to the other. If the two particles are unentangled then your particle can be represented by a state vector; otherwise it has to be represented by a density matrix. Measuring a property of your particle destroys its entanglement with the other particle (in that property), so once you've measured all the properties that the density matrix says you're classically uncertain about, you can again represent your particle by a state vector. Incidentally, I shouldn't have said that entanglement is just the quantum name for correlation, since it's often used to mean just the nonclassical part of the correlation (the part that violates Bell's inequality).

Quantum computers are universal; they can solve the same problems as classical computers with the same efficiency as classical computers, in terms of big-O notation. But there's not much point using a quantum computer to run a classical algorithm, especially because the constant factor will probably be enormously higher. There are some specific problems for which specifically quantum algorithms are known, but, as you say, they mostly don't seem very useful. There's a big exception that I forgot to mention, which is simulation of quantum systems. I don't know anything about this, but I think that quantum computers could potentially revolutionize fields like lattice QCD. Also, a large quantum computer is a great test of the principles of quantum mechanics; successful factorization of the RSA challenge numbers would be a dramatic confirmation of quantum mechanics and would definitively falsify a large class of hidden variable theories, and for that reason alone I think it's an experiment worth doing. -- BenRG (talk) 16:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, you have done a pretty good job to prove why the entangled state below

$|\Psi \rangle ={1 \over {\sqrt {2}}}{\bigg (}|0\rangle _{A}\otimes |1\rangle _{B}-|1\rangle _{A}\otimes |0\rangle _{B}{\bigg )}$

(9)

is not separable i.e. the state can not be writter in the form of (7). Since you have proven there are no numbers $a_{0},a_{1},b_{0},b_{1}\in \mathbb {C}$ which can satisfy the conditions you listed above. It it understandable and clear. I apologize for obscuring my question last time. I attempt to clarify my question again.

We have proven the state of a composite system is in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$ if the state is separable. That's because when the state of a composite system is separable, the corresponding wave function can be written in the form of (2) which also implies (7) is true and therefore we can say the state of the composite system is in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$. Moreover, we have also proven a separable state has $m*n$ basis, which is just a basic property of tensor product, when $H_{A}$ has $m$ basis and $H_{B}$ has $n$ basis.

However, it is not enough to say "all" of states of composite systems are in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$. We have only proven that all of "separable" states are in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$ (like what I did from step (1) to (7)), but we "have not" proven all of "non-separable" (entangled) states are in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$. Since any state of a composite is either separable or non-separable (entangled), we can not say "all" of states are in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$ until we can prove "both" separable and non-separable (entangled) states are in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$.

Then my question last time was "How to prove all of non-separable (entangled) states of any composite system are also in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$?". For example, if we take a look at the non-separable (entangled) state (9), we can find the state is in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$ since its basis $|0\rangle _{A}\otimes |1\rangle _{B}$ and $|1\rangle _{A}\otimes |0\rangle _{B}$ are in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$. But I have no idea where the two basis $|0\rangle _{A}\otimes |1\rangle _{B}$ and $|1\rangle _{A}\otimes |0\rangle _{B}$ come from. The state (9) is denoted in bra-ket notation, but I have no idea how does its corresponding wave function look like. Can we use the similar way (like what I did from step (1) to (7)) to prove all of non-separable (entangled) states of any composite system are also in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$? If we can prove it, we will be able to say "all" of states of composite systems are in $H_{A}\otimes H_{B}$ and we can also explain how a wave function for a separable or non-separable state relates to its bra-ket notation. - Justin545 (talk) 01:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Turing has proven that Turing machine is universal. If we can simulate a Turing machine on a quantum computer, we may prove quantum computer has the ability as strong as Turing machine and therefore it is universal. However, as you said, there's not much point using a quantum computer to run a classical algorithm, it would be required to combine quantum computer with classical computer to achieve similar function of Turing machine.

I agree with you it's an experiment worth doing. But I am afraid that quantum computers are not scalable (well, I'm not sure). Although D-Wave has announced a working prototype of 16-qubit (or even more qubits later) quantum computer, there seems to be some coupling problem with the prototype. It sounds like D-Wave simply put four quantum computers, each of which is 4-qubit, together. I can not see any significant advances when we are talking about if quantum computers are scalable. On the other hand, keeping the system entangled is also difficult, especially when more quanta are involved. Which would limit the time to do quantum operation and therefore limit the complexity of the problems it can solve. Some experts predicted useful quantum computers would appear after one or two decades. Is it just a matter of time? Well, I am not so sure. By contrast, DNA computers are more stable than quantum computers. But DNA computing does not provide any new capabilities from the standpoint of computational complexity theory. It seems only quantum computers have such potential. Other than quantum computers and DNA computers, aren't there any other natural analogies to quantum computers but also stable enough? That question drives me to study why quantum computers are so powerful from mathematical point of view. - Justin545 (talk) 08:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

worst animals

What are the most poorly evolved species? My example would be that the panda is pretty crap; it only eats one thing, has vast territories but lives alone and is barely fertile because of its nutrient-lacking diet. Are any other species (or am I wrong about the panda?) that are poorly developed for survival? 81.96.160.6 (talk) 01:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If an organism was so poorly adapted/designed for survival, it would be quickly weeded out as there would be no way to pass on its advantageous genotypes to progeny and future generations. I think you might be oversimplifying the Panda's survival and adaptability. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 01:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought the deal with pandas is that they don't usually 'do well' when raised/looked after by humans? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 02:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but what does that tell you? One should infer that artificial care disturbs the ability of the Panda to thrive, not that the animals are ill suited for survival. Biological evolution is clear in that it is not a linear hierarchal ladder of lower/inferior life forms running all the way up to humans. Evolution is not progression. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 05:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

That was kinda the point I was trying to (badly, late at night) make. That it doesn't do well when looked after by humans is not an indication that it's a poorly evolved species. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 12:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah ok then, yes your point is valid then : ) Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 16:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The cranefly has a *very* crappy 'design' - the worst I can think of. Large, slow, defenceless, fragile, docile, a weak flyer *and* (apparently) good eating. They do have sheer weight of numbers behind them, however. So the species survives. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 02:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The dodo was a pretty good case-study of a "poorly evolved" species. Due to its isolation from predators, it never evolved a fight-or-flight response and was easy pickings for the human settlers. -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

None of those are good answers, I feel. The Dodo was not poorly evolved to its environment, it did well until humans and cats were added. The Panda was not poorly evolved to its environment, it did well until the bamboo forests started to get decimated. South American marsupials were doing nicely thankyou - until North America joined up and added superior predators. They all suffered because their environment changed, so of course they are poorly adapted to the environment they now find themselves in, that is not the same as poorly evolved. You would probably not do too well if you were to be suddenly dumped out of your comfort zone into, say, the bottom of the Marianas trench or Low Earth Orbit.

Which is why I put "poorly evolved" in quotes. Like someone said further up, if a species was truly poorly evolved, it would just die off quickly in its own environment. Evolution/natural selection wouldn't work if poorly evolved species managed to live (the exact opposite of what natural selection means). With the dodo example, one could just as easily say humans are poorly evolved because we wouldn't survive nuclear annihilation. -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

A better choice for poorly evolved is certain species of tree kangaroo. These have only recently evolved from regular kangaroos and some species are exceptionally bad climbers, presumably because their evolution is still a work in progress. SpinningSpark 15:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

My vote goes to the Bread-and-Butterfly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Milkbreath (talk • contribs) 17:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "poorly evolved." There are, however, times in which an organism is not "fit" for a given environment. As environments change, that possibility becomes very great. Most endangered species today are quite fit for the environment in which they evolved, but have been unable to cope with new invasive species (human beings) who change that environment. If you are asking "what species today are the least adaptive to the present world," well, look at the endangered species list. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 17:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I always tell my kids that pandas are poorly evolved too, so you're not alone. Probably when an organism exploits an ecological niche, the first 1000 generations are ecologically fragile. Then some mutation occurs which would have been harmless or harmful in the original niche, but is beneficial in the new niche. Delmlsfan (talk) 17:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

How frequently do you tell this to your kids? :) ----Seans Potato Business 20:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys, your answers have been great. I would have thought more animals would have some inherent flaws, though. thanks! 81.96.160.6 (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You might look at inefficiencies in design as a measure of "flaws" in which case humans would qualify. I recall Flock of Dodos had a bit about rabbits having to process food through their digestive system twice to get the nutrients. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

This whole "poorly evolved" concept seems to be part of the mistaken "evolution as progress" metaphor that the late Stephen Jay Gould tried hard to combat in his books. As has been pointed out, there is no absolute poroly evolved/well evolved scale - organisms evolve to fit a particular environment, so goodness of fit is relative. If the environment changes rapidly (on a geologic timescale) then a species may find themselves in a environment to which they are no longer adapted. The environment, of course, includes other orgnaisms. So you could argue that the dodo was very well fitted to an environment with no ground-based predators - why waste energy flying if you don't need to ? The penguin followed a similar evolutionary path, but had the additional requirement of having to find its food in the sea. Humans are very poorly adapted to the environment around a hydrothermal vent - in that environment, we are "poorly eveolved", but other organisms, commonly thought of as occupying a much lower rung on the "evolutionary ladder", are very well adapted. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it take a lot less energy to keep a tiny little bird airborne than for a 40 pound bird to run around? :D\=< (talk) 12:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Humans ,as we're doing a darn good job of destroying our own habitat and each other.^{(Hypnosadist)} 17:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand that evolution isn't progress. I just thought that surely some unfavourable traits survive in the enormous variety of species that exist. I would have thought there'd be a few leftovers that maybe aren't that great. Poorly evolved was a bad way of putting it, I guess. 81.96.160.6 (talk) 18:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

There are definitely a lot of traits that are generally considered 'unfavourable' in most environments. The design of the eye is an ofcited exampled [1], usually in response to ID proponents since it's a flawed design (although this doesn't rule out an imperfect designer). Even the peacock tail could be said to be an unfavourable trait of sorts. It's only purpose appear to be to attract a mate (although why is uncertain see [2]) and the peacock pays a heavy price for it. There are surely much better ways to carry out it's function. However these traits are not enough of a problem that they prevent the organisms which have them from surviving so the species as a whole can't be said to be 'poorly evolved'. They have simply evolve how they have evolve and have traits are what they are. From a design point of view, there is surely a better way to do things, but it doesn't matter since the evolve traits work however they work well enough Nil Einne (talk) 09:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Built-in Radio

Speculatively speaking, if you embedded a radio transceiver in somebody's body, it would be surrounded by (mildly) conductive material. Would it need an additional antenna? If you were to attach a long, slender piece of metal, like an antenna, to an appropriately shaped bone (like a femur, or maybe a clavicle), would it work better? Or would it be inhibited by the skin and such around it? Disclaimer: This is purely hypothetical; I am not planning on building a cyborg. Faithfully, Deltopia (talk) 02:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Even a hypothetical answer would need some more details on the application to give an accurate answer. First of all, the size of antenna is primarily determined by the radio wavelength the device is using. There are many different types of antenna, but most often the elements of an antenna are close to one quarter of the wavelength. For a device operating in the UHF or SHF bands this would be of the order of centimetres or millimetres and could probably be incorporated in the device itself. You start to get more of a problem as you come down the spectrum to lower VHF and MW but you still might be able to avoid a messy insertion into a leg bone by using fine guage copper wire wound on a ferrite core.

You say transceiver, so presumably you need to get information out as well as telecontrol. In that case transmission (Tx) power is also an issue. Certainly, you are right that the conductivity of the body will absorb some of the radio power through joule heating, but if you are only trying to get as far as the surface of the skin there should not be any insuperable problems. To transmit any distance, the Tx power will have to be increased, and you will reach a point where the radiation is damaging to the human body. The article Mobile phone radiation and health has a good discussion of the issues here. It is also possible to keep the power down by use of a directional antenna (Yagi for instance) but then you have the difficulty of keeping the subject facing the right direction.

Disclaimer: ask a professional surgeon to help before trying this on any member of your family. SpinningSpark 14:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

See Capsule endoscopy. A cell phone works when you wrap yourself around it. A wire in the body could probably be made to work, but a rubber-ducky-style antenna works just fine for most things and could be inside the device. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see Radio-frequency identification#Human implants. MrRedact (talk) 16:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

My recommendation would probably be an "inverted F" antenna rather than rubber ducky as it can be printed on the device pcb and therefore entirely contained within the device (no medical sealing problems). But as I said, the feasibility depends a lot on the application. Deltopia, please tell us what you are thinking of doing - we are forbidden to give medical and legal advice but dangerous and immoral advice is not specifically excluded anywhere (I think). SpinningSpark 16:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I probably should have been more clear from the start. I was going to write a short story about a person who was in constant radio contact with someone else, set in modern or near-modern times. I am beginning to think that using Tom Cruise's eyeglasses from the first Mission: Impossible will be more pragmatic than implants (and a lot easier to remove at the end of their usefulness), but I wanted to explore the possibility. I always hate reading a book and thinking, That would never work! The machine gun would kick too strongly, or the barrel would melt, or you'd run out of oxygen! So I don't want people to think that while reading my work. Thanks for the help! Faithfully, Deltopia (talk) 23:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No reason it should not work in principle. Presumably your issue is to hide the comms from prying eyes. If you use cellular technology, you will get the same coverage as you would with mobile phones (so no working in tunnels, in the middle of the moors etc). Your hero might have a problem with security on a public network though (don't know your story so don't know if this is an issue). In the UK the emergency services have a cellular network called Tetra and this WILL work in some tunnels at least. Don't know that there is an equivelant in the States (I think thats where you are), my understanding is that emergency service comms are patchy in the US, not covering the whole country and not even being the same system everwhere. It depends how far your hero is going to travel what is feasible. If your hero is working for a government security service you can just invent a system - who's to say they don't actually have it. You would also need to invent a way for him/her to control the device, if it is not on all the time. Don't forget also that he will need to hear the audio (I didn't know we were talking about voice comms before - your comment about cyborgs threw me) so you will need a cochlea implant or similar. To avoid running wires through the body from the ear to wherever you decide to put the transceiver, use something like Bluetooth technology to link them. SpinningSpark 01:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

To address your concern about conductivity: Yes, it would be a problem, if you want to work at the high frequencies (short wavelengths) where the antenna issue is easy. The UHF and SHF bands mentioned above correspond to frequencies around 1 GHz and 10 GHz respectively. At 10 GHz, the absorption length of even pure water is about 1 mm, so very little of your signal would make it through several cm of tissue. At 1 GHz, the absorption length of pure water is about 10 cm (much better!), but that of sea water is still less than 1 cm (Ref: Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics.), and that of tissue will be intermediate between these two. A quarter-wave antenna at 1 GHz is 75 mm long, which is a bit inconvenient but not impossible if positioned along a bone, as you suggested. --mglg_(talk) 17:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

How did water form?

I am curious about how water originaly formed. If you filled a room with hydrogen and oxygen, would water form? What process gave us water? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.213.217 (talk) 04:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You can have hydrogen and oxygen in the same atmosphere in stable molecules without them becoming water. The process by which the two elements would combine into water molecules is fire. The dirigible Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen; when it leaked, sparks possibly from static electricity began the process of combining that hydrogen with oxygen in the air. Humanity ensued. Helium is generally used in dirigibles now for this reason. Faithfully, Deltopia (talk) 04:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If you filled a room with hydrogen and oxygen, it would form water, but it would take a really long time (until someone sets it off). The original water probably formed from its base elements hydrogen and oxygen, the former being found naturally after the big bang, and the latter being naturally formed in stars. Someguy1221 (talk) 10:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean there could be water in the stars? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.213.217 (talk) 18:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

its important to note that atomic H and O are far more reactive then H2 gas and O2 gas. H2O can be split into H and O (see Water_splitting, which immediately form H2 and O2 gas. They don't form H2O again because of physical separation. H2 and O2 in a room under ambient conditions won't ever proceed to form H2O, its not thermodynamically viable. Presumably then H2O formed way back when stars were exploding and that sort of thing, around the same time all the other compounds found in the atmosphere and in the earths crust formed. 131.111.236.124 (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The reaction doesn't proceed because it's not kinetically viable (it is too slow). Thus the need for a spark. And there is no requirement for free H and O to immediately form their diatomic gasses. Remember that these would have been randomly distributed in stellar and interstellar gasses until they cool down enough to sustain a bond to another atom, and at that state they would happily react with just about any atoms they bump into. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

There's some water on the sun, but not the way you might think. 'Cool' areas in and above sunspots – 'cool' being 3200 kelvin – have been shown to contain some water vapour: [3]. On the rest of the sun, the atmosphere is too hot for water molecules to remain intact; they would dissociate into their constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:20, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Water on our planet came from volcanoes. Volcanoes produce tremendous amounts of steam. Steam is of course, water in gas form. 64.236.121.129 (talk) 17:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

No, most of the water still on Earth today was probably brought by comets and other impactors. See: Origin of water on Earth. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Solving scrodinger equation for particle in a potential well

A particle in spherical shell which is chopped off from top to form a bowl like structure.potential outside the shell is infinite and inside is 0.

i.e. V=0 for     Rin<r<Rout    and      (some angle less then pi/2) < theta <pi
     V=infinity everywhere else .

Is the analytic solution for the above problem known? If yes then what is it? If no how to approach solving such a problem computationally? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.68.145.230 (talk) 17:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It's well known. See Particle_in_a_spherically_symmetric_potential#Sphere_with_infinite_square_potential. JohnAspinall (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't read your question carefully enough the first time. The angular limits make it non-spherically symmetric. Since you still have cylindrical symmetry, I would take a first crack at separation_of_variables to get the angular part out. (Note, the cylindrical angle is not your theta.) Then you have 2 dimensional problem in R and theta, or you could go back to R and Z. That funny shaped potential looks like a job for numerical computation. See the Dongarra reference at the end of the Eigenvalue_%28quantum_mechanics%29 article. JohnAspinall (talk) 20:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Strange sun halo

Hi. I see sun and moon halos all the time, but this one I found rather unusual. As a cirocumulus-cirrostratus cloud was moving in front of the sun, there was a patch of colour in the cloud, about 10 degrees away from the sun. Now, the patch extended from my hand which was covering the sun to the edge of the cloud, about 5 degrees. At first I noticed teal and pink, and then some purple, orange, and blue. Each patch was a few degrees wide. What is this type of phenomenon called? What about when the sun causes a nearby cloud about 10 deg to turn red, orange, or yellow? Oh! There it is again. A cirrostratus-cirrocumulus clouds moved near the sun. About ten degrees from the sun is reddish-orange, about 15-35 deg from the sun is pink and teal, pink patches about 8 deg wide and teal about 3 deg wide. There are also some dark creases in the cloud, 45 deg long. The orange-red part is oranger near the sun and redder farther away, orange about 3 deg wide, red about 5 deg wide.Well, the cloud is moving away. That's weird, instead of a vertical crease now there is a horizontal crease, 25 deg long, and a vertical crease nearby, about 35 deg long. Now the red-orange portion is about 7 deg wide, with a hint of yellow nearest the sun. Going farther away from the sun, the red is followed by magenta, purple, teal, and pink. Now the edges of the cloud appear with some green and pink patches, but also some purple-magenta-pink patches, about 35 deg from the sun. Too bad I don't have my camera, but even if I did, it might not be able to photograph such bright objects, or pick up colour that well. Now the colours only extend faintly about 40 deg from the sun. The orange portion dominates the 10 deg from the sun, is much brighter than the others. Going from the sun, alternating yellow, orange, red, purple. teal, orange-pink, teal-green, magenta-purple, now ends about 30 deg from sun. Teal more common at the outside, pink-magenta more common in the inside of the thin cloud. The halo-like portion of orange lies about 8 deg from sun. Now I see a complete halo, going from the sun: yellow, orange, magenta, purple, blue, teal, green, yellow, orange, red-magenta, starting at the sun and ending about 15 deg from it. The patches look like fish scales! After that 15 deg, there is some alternating pink-magenta and teal extending some 20 deg from sun. The sun itelf is surrounded by a beautiful halo in the cirrostratus-cirrocumulus cloud. There is now some faint purple in the creases, extending about 30 deg from sun. Around 10 deg of the sun, there is now some blue and purple joining the teal and pink. The pink and teal around 10 deg of the sun is now more prominent than the orange. In fact, the pink and teal seems to form a broken halo, 10 deg from sun. It is about 2 deg wide, individual patches about half a deg wide, and some orange joining the mix. The colours are gading, the cloud turning more cirrostratus-like, and a stratocumulus lies nearby. There are still remnants of the orange-red-yellow halo returning, a mere 5 deg from the sun extending to 15 deg. Well, have you any ideas what this phenomenon might be? I'm not going to describe anymore for now, but the cirrocumulus is returning, and the initial orange-red halo I described is returning, from the sun itelf to about 15 deg. The teal-pink patches are fading, and the colours extend no more than 20 deg from the sun. As the thinner cirrocumulus comes by, the teal-pink is almost invisible, and the original thick halo I described earlier is back, now green-yellow-orange-red-magenta-blue-teal-orange-red, going from the sun, each colour less than a degree wide. Any ideas what all these are? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 17:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Now some updates. A cirrus cloud has moved in nearby. About 35 deg from the sun, a rainbow-like arc has formed, about 3 deg wide and long. Some blue and purple, as well as the earlier fish scales, are joining the halo near the sun. The rainbow arc, which was red closer to the sun and blue farther from the sun, is dissapearing as cirrocumulus replace cirrus in the reigon. Near the edge of a large cirrocumulus-cirrostratus cloud near the sun, there is red and orange, as well as some teal, about 3 deg wide. Earlier the cirrus coupled with cirrostratus near the sun resulted in some purple. Now there is yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, teal, and orange, going out from the sun, from the sun to about 15 deg. Earlier there was also a large gap where cirrostratus was changing to cirrocumulus, the gap ovular and 70 deg wide, with cirrus on one edge of the gap and cirrocumulus on either side. Any ideas what these phenomena are? I'm rather familiar with the rainbow-like arc, but all these were so beautiful! Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

See sun dog.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The sun dog explains what I saw in the cirrus, but not what I saw in the cirrostratus and cirrocumulus. Is the halo nearest the sun an 8deg halo? What about the teal-pink "fish scales"? Should I paraphrase my earlier posts? Now there is still a halo 8deg from sun, and in the blue-teal reigon there are "fish scales", and farther out there is pink. A blue-purple reigon touches the orange reigon farther inside. Is it known as an 8deg halo, and is there an article about the irredescence in the clouds? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No pictures? Sancho 06:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I didn't have my camera :-( . Is it possible to visualise it from my descriptions? The rarity of this is that it actually occured as I was typing originally to ask about a previous similar phenomenon. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

are silicone implants safe?

are they? . --Cosmic girl (talk) 17:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Consult with your doctor; every surgery is associated with some sort of risk. You may also wish to read Breast_implant#Claims_of_Systemic_illness_and_disease and Breast_implant#Complications.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 18:01, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Also consider the aesthetic difference between a cleavage and a Silicon Valley. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Can glasses induce oil secretions?

I've been wearing glasses for about two years now. I've noticed that every time I put them on, my nose and forehead become very, very, oily in about an hour or two. When I take them off, wash my face, and don't put them on for another hour, the oil stops coming.

I wash my face twice a day. What is it that causes the oil to keep coming only when I wear glasses? --~~MusicalConnoisseur~~ Got Classical? 20:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I suppose some type of irritation could have that effect, but I'd guess it's more likely you just notice the oil more when it collects under the nose pieces of the glasses. One hint, if you reduce your consumption of fats, your skin will be less greasy. This can also lead to a healthier diet. The rate at which the skin can produce oil is dependent upon it's supply of constituents, such as lipids and fatty acids, via the bloodstream, after digestion, to the sebaceous glands. I don't suggest a fat-free diet in general, but you might want to try it for one week just to see the effect is has on your skin. Then you can go back to a low-fat (but not fat-free) diet. StuRat (talk) 21:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, washing your face excessively might exasperate the problem. Try taking it easier on your skin (especially if you're washing with plain old soap) and see if it improves. You may also want to try an impromptu experiment on yourself - every time your face gets greasy, go wash your face. Toss a coin, and if it's heads (H), put your glasses back on after you wash your face. If it's tails (T), don't. Wait an hour (or two hours or some other predefined interval) and in either case, note whether you have had another grease outbreak (Y,N). If Y divided by H is much greater than Y divided by T, your glasses are to blame. Sockatume (talk) 02:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Psychosomatic effects? :D\=< (talk) 14:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't believe I actually have an idea here. Maybe you unconsciously wipe your forehead when your glasses are not there in the way. --Milkbreath (talk) 17:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You might also subconsciously do so (when you are awake). :-) StuRat (talk) 02:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

See this. --Milkbreath (talk) 17:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It's evolutionary. When ancient man wore glasses, he put forehead oil on the lenses so they would shed water. He also used nose grease to get rid of the head of foam on his beer. Neither of these were very practical later on, so they phased out - along with stopping a car with one's feet. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

tissue

what is c tissue and its purpose —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pearson 25 (talk • contribs) 21:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could give us some context? (EhJJ)^TALK 01:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Monday's homework assignment, question 3, "What is C tissue and its purpose?". ;) Sockatume (talk) 02:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Connective tissue? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

A kind of gambling machine

There's a kind of gambling machine which is composed of:

• A glass box;
• With a small table inside;
• When you drop a coin, the coin goes into the pile of coins on the table;
• A mechanical arm sweeps the table surface over and over;
• Once in a while, some coins fall off the edge and;
• A lucky guy gets rich.

What is the name of this gambling machine?

If the casino owner keeps the machine untouched, in the very long run, the expected value of the game shall be 1. You drop 1 coin in and you get 1 coin back. The only way a casino owner makes money is to harvest some coins periodically.

Then, can a casino owner harvest money as frequently as possible to increase his profit?

In most countries that allows gambling, gambling is still highly regulated. Then how does the government regulate this kind of gambling? You know the house's advantages for most gamblings. However, this kind of gambling really cannnot be regulated because the owner can harvest coins hourly.

How could a sucker play it if he sees the owner open the box and take some coins out?

Then how does the owner make money without making these suckers unhappy? -- Toytoy (talk) 21:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but would speculate that there is a hole somewhere which allows some of the coins/tokens/chips to drop into a collection basket for the owner. In the long term you could calculate the percentage take this will generate, which could, of course, be manipulated by the size and location of the hole(s). StuRat (talk) 21:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The machine is called a "Penny Pusher" or "Penny Cascade" or possibly "Penny Fountain" (although this last term is also applied to other machines as well). The operator never harvests the coins on the table. The house cut comes from a percentage of coins falling through small holes at the side of the table. They hope you won't notice these of course. SpinningSpark 22:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Small nitpick: if the probability of earning money is equal to the probability of losing the same amount of money, the expected value is 0, not 1. --Bowlhover (talk) 04:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

"Penny Falls" is another name for it. --Heron (talk) 16:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes it eats your money without letting it drop to the moving shelf. You could harvest after closing time (assuming it's not a 24-hour casino, otherwise harvest when it's quiet). Sometimes the shelf has extra prizes on top (like a note or bag of coins), so it's obvious the machines aren't left to themselves. (Disclaimer: this is all OR or speculation) AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Grapefruit seeds

I've noticed something odd about grapefruit seeds, at least for Ruby Reds (I avoid those bitter white grapefruit): they have two distinct seed sizes within each grapefruit. There are many tiny seeds, and just a few large seeds (often less than one per section), but never any medium-sized seeds. So, why is this ? My own guess is that the large seeds are fertilized and the small ones are not, which causes their growth to stop early on. StuRat (talk) 21:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

One possible reason is it is triploid. For example, if there are three chromosomes AAA,BBB,CCC after meiosis the gametes (pollen or egg) can have either one or two of each chromosome. Rarely an A,B,C or AA,BB,CC pollen grain will fertilise an A,B,C or AA,BB,CC egg. Thus a seed will be produced as the chromosomes are balanced (a diploid, triploid or tetraploid seed are produced). Usually the chromosomes are unbalanced and those seed are infertile. This is the basis for most seedless varieties. Note that as the number of chromosmes increases there is less chance of a seed. The best I could find in wikipedia is at Seedless fruit, but it does not really address the genetics yet. Something for a to-do-list. David D. (Talk) 04:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. So it looks like I was correct in thinking it was related to whether the seed is fertile or not. StuRat (talk) 05:51, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Sorry, the above was the long winded answer that is plausible, but note it is speculation. I don't know if the grapefruit you are talking about is triploid or not. David D. (Talk) 18:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Might have something to do with whether the seed was from self-fertilized flowers or crossed ones. With mandarins grown with one variety per paddock, the trees close to the edge have the fruit with lots of seeds; whereas the trees in the middle of the paddock have few or no seeds. Haven't checked the seed sizes though. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 07:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Why would the seed size vary depending on whether self-fertilized or cross-fertilized ? In this case the two different size seeds occur within the same grapefruit, which I believe comes from a single flower. It is possible for one flower to be both self-fertilized and cross-fertilized by others, though, I suppose. StuRat (talk) 13:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Since you are interested, here is more detail. I did a search with keywords citrus fertilization grapefruit.

It turns out that polyembryony occurs, with some seeds formed from fertilization (the usual process) and some seeds formed from the mother trees tissue in the fruit. Those seeds are clones of the mother tree. I remember reading that this process (embryogenesis) can be encouraged in plant tissue culture to get seedlings that are clones; used to get healthy copies of trees which are hard to take cuttings from.Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 21:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)