CommentsDisplaying Physicist_In_Training's 10 most recent comments.

• ‘Hatfields and the McCoys’: Cops Arrest Ron Paul Backers in Missouri Caucus Chaos

  March 19, 2012 at 5:47pm

  In reply to SpeckledPup.

  All you guys talking about Robert‘s Rules of Order obviously didn’t participate in your caucuses this year…the GOP decided to do away with Robert’s Rules this year and write a much shorter and more clear list of rules by which to govern the caucuses. (At least, this was so in my state, and my understanding was that it was nationwide.) Nowhere on that new list, by the way, does it state that recording equipment cannot be used during the meeting.

  This is happening all over the place; in my precinct the chair definitely used unfair tactics to keep the Ron Paul supporters or young conservatives from having a voice. Given how much the older conservative generation bemoans the state of the youth, I, as a very conservative young woman, found that very frustrating. I would not use so strong a term as to say that the election was “rigged” but it was definitely biased in such a way that the nominations and voting process were unfair.

• Too ‘Provocative?’ See the Outfit One BYU Student Got So Upset About He Wrote a Letter

  February 18, 2012 at 5:02pm

  In reply to cyclops.

  @ JohanneGalt, FreedomPurveyor –

  Sorry but you have no evidence whatsoever, only unsupported speculation, that the letter writer was referring to this young woman’s usual attire.

  As to her “risque” high school cheerleading uniform….you should do a google search for “BYU Cheerleaders” and see what comes up. See how much those uniforms jibe with the school honor code, eh?

• ‘There Is No Truth Except Allah’: Colorado Student Quits High School Choir Over Islamic Song

  February 16, 2012 at 10:37am

  In reply to capitalismrocks.

  We sung “Battle Hymn of the Republic” pretty frequently at my school in choir (probably at least every other year). It was a public school, by the way.

  We also sung songs like “Don’t look over your shoulder (That’s what the Devil said),“ ”Oh come oh come Emmanuel,“ ”Silent Night,“ ”Mary Had a Baby,“ ”Manger Child,“ ”Oh Shennendoa,“ ”Messiah chorus,” plenty songs in Latin that were just repeating one proverb/psalm or another, and those are only the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

  I don’t think offering one Muslim song in this repertoire is really inappropriate at all, especially considering how sensitive the teacher was about it. He DID offer students the opportunity to back out without any penalty to their grade. That’s pretty darn accommodating.

• ‘There Is No Truth Except Allah’: Colorado Student Quits High School Choir Over Islamic Song

  February 16, 2012 at 10:33am

  Yawn. I did choir through all the years of middle school and highschool, and almost every single performance had a Christian themed song in it. With the Christmas performance, it was almost exclusively so. We even had to participate in “The Forgotten Carols” one year, which is an LDS performance, and I was raised non-denominational Christian. My Muslim friend in choir certainly never threw a fit over all the Christian songs she was asked to sing, either.

  The choir professor at this school even was sensitive enough to instruct students to make the decision with their parents whether to sing this song, and gave them the option to back out, penalty free, if they didn’t want to sing it. This kid way overreacted, as are many here leaving comments. I personally think it would be fun to sing a song of Indian origin — since almost all the songs in choir are sung in the Western musical scale (8 notes), it would be a fun change to get to sing something in the chromatic scale (12 notes).

  And besides, “Allah” just means “God” anyway, so if you are a deeply religious Christian you could simply reinterpret the song in your own mind to be an act of praise and worship toward your own God.

• Why Did Obama Shoot a Marshmallow Gun Inside The White House?

  February 8, 2012 at 4:17pm

  Who wrote this article? *gag*

• Dem Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper: I Wouldn‘t Have Voted for Obamacare If I’d Known About Birth Control Mandate

  February 8, 2012 at 4:14pm

  Huh…maybe she‘ll think twice next time before she’ll vote with the party that claims “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”

• ‘Best Yet’: Another Potentially Habitable, Earth-Like Planet Discovered

  February 6, 2012 at 9:41pm

  In reply to RightPolitically.

  The acceleration due to gravity on a planet actually depends both on mass and size. The exact equation is:

  g = -GM/(r^2)

  where G is a constant, M is the mass of the planet, and r is its radius. So, as you can see, the size of the planet (how big its radius is) actually matters a lot more than how much mass it has, since mass is linear in that equation, but radius is squared. If you quadruple the mass but keep the radius the same, then gravity quadruples; but if you quadruple the radius and keep the mass the same, the gravity is 1/16 what it was before! So whether the planet has “crushing gravity” cannot be determined from the information given in the article.

  And no, it has nothing to do with rotational speed, atmospheric pressure, etc. The only variables are mass and size.

• ‘Best Yet’: Another Potentially Habitable, Earth-Like Planet Discovered

  February 6, 2012 at 9:32pm

  In reply to DisasterFamilyDotCom.

  @Disaster,

  You’re right about time dilation. I don‘t know that it’s accurate to say that, relative to an observer on a ship traveling at relativistic speeds, that you could make the trip in “a couple weeks;” that seems a bit extreme to me, but then I haven’t actually worked out the calculation. So in theory, yes, if we can accelerate a ship to near light speeds, then those aboard could make the trip within their relative lifespans.

  …However, special relativity, at the same time as fixing one problem by introducing time dilation, poses a new problem due to length contraction. If you were traveling at relativistic speeds, then length contraction would cause you to experience the ordinarily harmless cosmic microwave background radiation that permeates the universe as harmful, DNA frying gamma rays!

  So, unfortunately, special relativity introduces a problem that is just as bad as the one it solves. But it’s fun to imagine anyway ^_^

• ‘Best Yet’: Another Potentially Habitable, Earth-Like Planet Discovered

  February 6, 2012 at 9:25pm

  In reply to shogun459.

  @ Shogun, Kevin, TwoByFour, and UrbanCombatSurivor:

  The formula for the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of a spherical planet (or any mass which can be approximated as a point mass) is:

  -GM/(r^2)

  where G is a universal constant, M is the mass of the planet, and r is its radius. So, as you can see from the formula, both mass and size contribute to gravity; in fact, size actually contributes more, since in the equation it is squared, whereas mass is not.

  This ought to make sense if you think about it a bit. The strength of gravity on a planet is not uniform in space; obviously it gets weaker as you get further away. If you are, say, standing on the moon, you will feel the tug of the earth‘s gravity much less than you do if you’re standing on earth’s surface. So, if a planet is larger, then you are farther away from its center of mass than you are if it is smaller, thus causing you to feel the gravity less.

• College Student Now Charged With Felony for Pouring Boiling Water on Dog

  January 30, 2012 at 8:06pm

  In reply to CFL Tea Party.

  …you, sir or madame, are a repugnant individual.

  Obviously you don’t like dogs, which is fine…don’t get one then (PLEASE don’t get one). But to brush off the actions of a person who inflicts physical pain on a level that I think would not be badly described as “torture” upon a creature that is exclusively reliant on him for food, shelter, and well-being, is just sick.