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Topic: Late night sciency think tank thingy
Jargum
Doughnut
posted 12-21-2003 01:31:12 AM
Ok people, I have two questions of mass and minimal (respectively) proportions.

1) Do they exist/What is a wormhole and how does it relate to other stuff?

2) What's to stop some bored farmer from creating some horribly disfigured man-sheep abomination? School never filled in why a species was only able to reproduce among itself, only that it could only reproduce among itself.


Having asked those questions (and hopefully soon getting an answer to one or the other) I doze off for awhile.

[ 12-21-2003: Message edited by: Jargum ]

Razor
posted 12-21-2003 01:36:48 AM
quote:
How.... Jargum.... uughhhhhh:
1) Do they exist/What is a wormhole and how does it relate to other stuff?

Persoanlly I think they do exsist, but only on the quantum scale, mainly in the quantum foam.

quote:
How.... Jargum.... uughhhhhh:
2) What's to stop some bored farmer from creating some horribly disfigured man-sheep abomination? School never filled in why a species was only able to reproduce among itself, only that it could only reproduce among itself.

Genetics my friend, we do not have matching pairs of chromosones. plus there is the constant problem of them having either more or less than us humans. we have 26 pairs IIRC. Flys have I think 12 or 13 pairs, maybe less. and some animals IIRC have 36-40 pairs.

Astronomy is a passion...
Engineering is a love...
My job isn't a job, it's my career, and I love every minute of it: Observatory Superintendent
Gunslinger Moogle
No longer a gimmick
posted 12-21-2003 01:39:55 AM
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Jargum said:
Ok people, I have two questions of mass and minimal (respectively) proportions.

1) Do they exist/What is a wormhole and how does it relate to other stuff?

2) What's to stop some bored farmer from creating some horribly disfigured man-sheep abomination? School never filled in why a species was only able to reproduce among itself, only that it could only reproduce among itself.


Having asked those questions (and hopefully soon getting an answer to one or the other) I doze off for awhile.


A wormhole is basically where space folds in on itself. It's like this: hold one end of a piece of paper in each hand. What's the shortest path between your hands? A straight line you say? No, the answer is 0! Fold the paper up then poke a hole through it.

In that exercise you folded over a 2D surface in the 3rd dimension. That's what a wormhole is, 3D space folded over and penetrated in the 4th (spatial) dimension. I don't know if they really exist or not.

As for the second question...I guess human sperm just can't penetrate a sheep egg.




moogle is the 3241727861th binary digit of pi

Disclaimer: I'm just kidding, I love all living things.
The fastest draw in the Crest.
"The Internet is MY critical thinking course." -Maradon
"Gambling for the husband, an abortion for the wife and fireworks for the kids they chose to keep? Fuck you, Disneyland. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is the happiest place on Earth." -JooJooFlop

Palador ChibiDragon
Dismembered
posted 12-21-2003 02:24:20 AM
quote:
Jargum was listening to Cher while typing:
2) What's to stop some bored farmer from creating some horribly disfigured man-sheep abomination? School never filled in why a species was only able to reproduce among itself, only that it could only reproduce among itself.

Like programing a computer, you need a viable code to get anything to come out. A mix of most so dissimilar genetic codes doesn't create a working "program".

I believe in the existance of magic, not because I have seen proof of its existance, but because I refuse to live in a world where it does not exist.
Ace in the Spade
Pancake
posted 12-21-2003 06:05:31 AM
quote:
Gunslinger Moogle had this to say about Robocop:
A wormhole is basically where space folds in on itself. It's like this: hold one end of a piece of paper in each hand. What's the shortest path between your hands? A straight line you say? No, the answer is 0! Fold the paper up then poke a hole through it.

In that exercise you folded over a 2D surface in the 3rd dimension. That's what a wormhole is, 3D space folded over and penetrated in the 4th (spatial) dimension. I don't know if they really exist or not.

As for the second question...I guess human sperm just can't penetrate a sheep egg.


I thought the fourth dimension was the temporal one.

Wormholes are the product of stars that have imploded. This is due to them making heavier and heavier elements at their cores, basically they keep fusing elements together up to iron before they go supernova, and the resulting explosion's shockwave condenses the star's core so much that a dense neutron star is formed. This forces the star to get really tiny and due to its super massive density it turns into a black hole. Black holes are gigantic gravity wells, they bend spacetime so much that they form a singularity at their ends.

A wormhole would be a blackhole that you go into in order to pop out else where, assuming you can survive the gravity, they theorize you'd pop out someplace new. Also some people think their are white holes, which would be the reverse of the all conusming black holes, these bodies would spew out all the mater and light that comes through the blackholes on the other end. (research if need be but this is a basic description, some errors might have occured but overall picture is pretty close.)

[ 12-21-2003: Message edited by: Ace in the Spade ]

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael
I posted in a title changing thread.
posted 12-21-2003 06:11:54 AM
He did say the fourth spatial dimension. A lot of layman physicists refer to the fifth dimension as being the "4th spatial dimension". The 4th dimension IS time (length, height, depth, and duration), and we exist in all four. Broadly speaking, though, the "fourth spatial dimension" is technically the 5th dimension, or one of the "tesseract" locations you find inside the other dimensions.

At least that's how I understand it.

Lyinar's sweetie and don't you forget it!*
"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. -Roy Batty
*Also Lyinar's attack panda

sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me

Ace in the Spade
Pancake
posted 12-21-2003 06:13:51 AM
quote:
"tesseract"[/QB]

This is a word wiser than I.

OED says a four-dimensional hypercube. Whats a hypercube?

OED says a hyper cube is this: an analogue in four or more dimensions of a cube in three dimensions.

Explain that.

[ 12-21-2003: Message edited by: Ace in the Spade ]

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael
I posted in a title changing thread.
posted 12-21-2003 06:33:36 AM
I'm getting exceedingly further in over my head, but mathematics have "proven" that if you allow for a certain folding of space, you find extra dimensions within the existing dimensions. For instance, your table has hidden dimensions in it, hidden amongst it's four traditional dimensions.

...Which isn't really that difficult a concept to wrap your head around if you understand holographs. With those, you're essentially encoding 3-dimensional information into a 2-dimensional media.

There's even a variant of science theory that hypothesizes that what we call reality is just a four-dimensional "shadow" of something with more dimensions.

Lyinar's sweetie and don't you forget it!*
"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. -Roy Batty
*Also Lyinar's attack panda

sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me

Ace in the Spade
Pancake
posted 12-21-2003 06:40:08 AM
So a hypercube is a folded cube that lets its goods pop out and dazzle the admirers of multidimensional polyhedrons?
Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.
Pvednes
Lynched
posted 12-21-2003 07:02:02 AM
quote:
Ace in the Spade's account was hax0red to write:
This is a word wiser than I.

OED says a four-dimensional hypercube. Whats a hypercube?

OED says a hyper cube is this: an analogue in four or more dimensions of a cube in three dimensions.

Explain that.


Tesseract.

Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael
I posted in a title changing thread.
posted 12-21-2003 07:04:45 AM
Pved's picture is a pretty decent graphical representation, if you know what you're looking at.
Lyinar's sweetie and don't you forget it!*
"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. -Roy Batty
*Also Lyinar's attack panda

sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me

Ace in the Spade
Pancake
posted 12-21-2003 07:06:48 AM
quote:
Verily, Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael doth proclaim:
Pved's picture is a pretty decent graphical representation, if you know what you're looking at.

I do NOT know what I'm looking at.

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.
Pvednes
Lynched
posted 12-21-2003 07:11:38 AM
quote:
Ace in the Spade had this to say about John Romero:
I do NOT know what I'm looking at.

Okay. Imagine if you will, a cube popping into existence. This cube stays for as much time as the sides are long, and then ceases to exist.

That's a reasonable metaphor, I think.

Pvednes
Lynched
posted 12-21-2003 08:08:01 AM
As for the second question, reproductive isolation is the hallmark of seperate species. In fact, the very definition of species is "a group of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations that is reproductively isolated from other such groups." Reproductive isolation completely prevents the dilution effect of gene flow into the pool from other populations.

There are a number of factors which facilitate or contribute to reproductive isolation, and they split into two main groups. Prezygotic isolating mechanisms and postzygotic isolating mechanisms.

These are a few prezygotic isolating mechanisms:
Spacial: Geographical. Includes physical barriers such as mountains, rivers, altitude, oceans, isthmuses, deserts, ice sheets, etc. For example over here in Australia some closely related species became isolated by deserts, or other dry habitats, and mountain ranges. In the Galapagos, Charlie Darwin's "living laboratory," the many species of iguana are now quite distinct from the south american populations from which they arose.

Temporal: Timing of mating activity for an organism may prevent contact with closely related species: nocturnal, diurnal, spring, summer, autumn, spring tide, whatever. Plants flower at different times of the year, say, or even at different times during the day. Closely related animals may have very different breeding seasons.

Ecological: Closely related species may occupy different habitats even when they live in the same general area. This includes small scale differences, say, ground or tree dwelling, and broad differences; forests, grasslands, deserts, freshwater, marine, subterranean, marshes, whatever.

Gamete mortality: This one is why New Zealanders aren't covered head to foot in wool. Sperm and egg fail to unite. Even if the kiwi fucks zee sheep, the gametes won't unite. The sperm of one species may not be able to survive in the reproductive tract of the other. Gamete recognition may be based on species specific polypeptides on the egg, or the egg may not release the correct chemical attractants for sperm of the other species.

Behavioral: Animals attract mates with calls, rituals, dances, body language, money, etc. Complex displays such as the flashes of fireflies, or the opening of a wallet, are quite specific. In animals, behavioral responses are a major isolating factor, preserving the integrity of mating within species.

Structural: Shape of the genitals, appearance, colouration, pheremones, etc. Insects have a lock-and-key arrangement for their genitals. Pheremone chemical attractants, which may travel many kilometres with the aid of the wind, are very specific, attracting only members of the same species.

Postzygotic isolating mechanisms:
Hybrid sterility: Even if two species mate and produce hybrid offspring that are vigourous, the species are still reproductively isolated if the hybrids are sterile. Such cases are commin amoung the horse family; hence mules. One cause of this sterility is the failure of meiosis to produce normal gametes in the hybrid. This can occur if the chromosomes of the two parents are different in number or structure; for example the "zebronkey." (The zebra has a diploid number of 44, and the donkey has a diploid number of 62, giving the zebronkey a diploid number of 53: 22 from the zebra gamete, 31 from the donkey gamete, which is unbalanced.)

Hybrid inviability: Mating between individuals of two different species may sometimes produce a zygote. In such cases the genetic incompatibility between the two species may stop development of the fertilized egg at some embryonic stage. Fertilized eggs often fail to divide because of unmatched chromosome numbers from each gamete; a kind of aneuploidy between species. Very occaisionally, the hybrid zygote will complete embryonic development, but will not survive for long.

Hybrid breakdown: First generation (F1) are fertile, but the second generation (F2) are infertile or inviable. Conflict between the genes of two different species sometimes manifests itself in the second generation.

Questions?

[edit: fixed typo]

[ 12-21-2003: Message edited by: Pvednes ]

diadem
eet bugz
posted 12-21-2003 08:43:50 AM
quote:
Jargum's account was hax0red to write:
Ok people, I have two questions of mass and minimal (respectively) proportions.

1) Do they exist/What is a wormhole and how does it relate to other stuff?

2) What's to stop some bored farmer from creating some horribly disfigured man-sheep abomination? School never filled in why a species was only able to reproduce among itself, only that it could only reproduce among itself.


Having asked those questions (and hopefully soon getting an answer to one or the other) I doze off for awhile.



Fact. Long ago zues got drunk. He created matter that was infinitely condescend and was cut off from the rest of the universe except for the fact it had enough mass to pull anything into it. He then used this as a ball to play pool with the universe, using blackholes as the little holes the balls are supposed to go in and a lot of real sturdy tinfoil for the edges of the tables. The black holes got caught on the tin foil, two of the black holes collided, and a gravity wave that distorted time and space was created from the accident.

Close by in the heavens, a man was herding his sheep, but the gravity waves forced the man and sheep to occupy the same space for a time. Instead of letting the man die, Zues used his magic to save the man's life, but he became a hideous half man half sheep hybrid.

I didn’t say it was a very entertaining story.

[ 12-21-2003: Message edited by: diadem ]

play da best song in da world or me eet your soul
Gunslinger Moogle
No longer a gimmick
posted 12-21-2003 04:34:39 PM
quote:
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael had this to say about Tron:
He did say the fourth spatial dimension. A lot of layman physicists refer to the fifth dimension as being the "4th spatial dimension". The 4th dimension IS time (length, height, depth, and duration), and we exist in all four. Broadly speaking, though, the "fourth spatial dimension" is technically the 5th dimension, or one of the "tesseract" locations you find inside the other dimensions.

At least that's how I understand it.


As I understand it, whenever you're talking about anything in terms of n spatial dimensions you relegate time to the n+1th dimension.

I'm not sure which one of us is right but I like your way better, it's less awkward than saying 'fourth spatial dimension'.




moogle is the 3241727861th binary digit of pi

Disclaimer: I'm just kidding, I love all living things.
The fastest draw in the Crest.
"The Internet is MY critical thinking course." -Maradon
"Gambling for the husband, an abortion for the wife and fireworks for the kids they chose to keep? Fuck you, Disneyland. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is the happiest place on Earth." -JooJooFlop

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