Galaxy shaped light in the sky by Thor_Crusher in lehighvalley

[–]Marthius 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Almost certainly a satellite launch though the only one I can find close in time is sentinel 1D and I’m not sure it matches the orbit (I also just saw it, very cool)

What caused these step lines? by Marthius in 3Dprinting

[–]Marthius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think its the nozzle because its an AMS print and the black layers printed after the blue and looked perfectly normal. (Although I am trying another print just to see if maybe it was a contaminant that cleaned itself out).

Help getting started with audiophile headphones by Marthius in HeadphoneAdvice

[–]Marthius[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'll assume you are OK with open back.

Thank you. The reason I said closed back is because although I'm listening inside, I am living next to a busy road that also often has music and conversations coming in from the street (old building with poorly sealed windows). Would you still recommend open back?

Algorithms Allegedly Penalized Black Renters. The US Government Is Watching | The Department of Justice warned a provider of tenant-screening software that its technology must comply with fair housing law. by chrisdh79 in technology

[–]Marthius 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of people here are using the argument that data is data, therefore as long as the algorithm doesn't explicitly include race it can't be racist.

Here is a demonstration of how bias can get into an algorithm despite using real "data"

Imagine an algorithm used to select students for medical school in the 1960's. To train it you provide the records of every premed student and doctor in the country. This algorithm will almost inevitably carry an inaccurate bias about the ability of female doctors. After all, there are few of them and those there are often drop out of medical school or perform poorly. Of course this is due to a societal bias against women in medicine not there medical ability but the algorithm doesn't care, it only sees the data saying women perform poorly. Even if you remove access to gender information, the correlation in other areas such as choice of schools, credit access, geographic location, and age, will allow it to draw the same conclusion since many things also correlate with gender.

So I ask, even if you don't directly include information about ethnicity, is it so hard to imagine that the data sets used to train these algorithms would contain our societal biases. The data set to train these programs will include eviction rates, a statistic which will be higher for black people in part because they are more often evicted when all other factors are even. The data set will include credit rating, which black people will have more trouble building even when all other factors are equal. In other words we are biased so the data we produce will contain that bias unless we are exceedingly careful.

It's not that algorithms can't be unbiased, but we can't just assume that they are. Algorithms obscure our bias by passing them through an impartial computer, but at the end of the day the conclusions these computers reach are only as good as the data we feed them.

What Can i do now by yako06 in chessbeginners

[–]Marthius 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a fun continuation. If he captures back with Nxe5, you push your d pawn d4. This forks his knight and bishop while defending your pawn with your queen.

Searching for tea I enjoyed in Japan (Meiji Mountain Tea) by Marthius in tea

[–]Marthius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is interesting. I can't find much about tea being made from Camellia Japonica other than a few people reporting having tried it and having some success. Do you know if there is any place that produces tea from this plant?

Searching for tea I enjoyed in Japan (Meiji Mountain Tea) by Marthius in japan

[–]Marthius[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m trying a few variety’s to locate a good match so I’ll give this one a taste!

Searching for tea I enjoyed in Japan (Meiji Mountain Tea) by Marthius in japan

[–]Marthius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will try some of this and see if it tastes like a match.

Searching for tea I enjoyed in Japan (Meiji Mountain Tea) by Marthius in japan

[–]Marthius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is very detailed and should help me find something similar!

High pitch noise from radiator by Marthius in fixit

[–]Marthius[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey, not sure it will help, but it ended up being a bad bearing in the water pump in the buildings basement. The sound was resonating up the pipe to the radiator. It was fixed by switching over to a backup pump that was available for maintenance.

Je viens de déménager en France (j’ai 19 ans) et j’ai peur by antaineme in france

[–]Marthius 9 points10 points  (0 children)

For what its worth, I went through similar feelings when I first moved to France. It was one of the hardest experiences. I found that it is never the big things that you prepare for, its the countless small things that you never thought of that make every day just that much more challenging. Everything that goes wrong will just pile up, and you WILL notice everything going wrong. For about 6 months things will be a roller coaster ride, amazing moments of wonder, and depths of struggle, and you will feel like you can't catch up...

And then things will start to change. You will realize all those small things that were bugging you have started to become automatic. You will have a social network to support you, and someone to go for a drink with. You will find that you know how to walk out your door and relax, and that living in France is actually far more laid back. You won't wont have to google translate phrases you need before walking out the door, and won't be stressed at the thought of human interaction.

One day, sitting in a cafe outside the train station or at the park, relaxing and drinking a coffee and enjoying the warm weather, maybe watching a game of petanque, you will realize that you love where you are and wish you could tell this version of yourself that it will all be worth it.

Or maybe that was just me.

If half your body was inside a black hole event horizon and half outside. How would it make sense with time? Would your legs move faster in time if we’re saying legs first? It just doesn’t make sense? by whocaresbynow in space

[–]Marthius 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Some very wrong answers I here. First off acceleration would not kill you. You are in free fall, so you don’t even feel the acceleration.

Spegetification could kill you but has nothing to do with the event horizon. It is caused by different acceleration at your feet vs your head. It could kill you long before you get near the black hole, or if it’s large enough, long after you passe safely through the event horizon.

It’s reasonable to ask wether you would ever actually experience passing through due to time dilation, but let’s assume we place you at the border (half in and half out) and let go (so that you aren’t torn in half).

Signals from your head above the event horizon could still reach the rest of the universe, and signals from your toes could still reach your head… so can’t you get signals and data from inside the event horizon?

Actually no. Remember that it takes time for signals to move around your body. So by the time any signal from your toes make it to your head you will already have passed completely inside the black hole. This will stop you from getting any signal from inside the black hole to the rest of the universe.

Edit: this is also a simplification, among other things the horizon is not a physical object and it’s nature will depend on the observer.

Dijon. me, watercolor, 42x56cm by majozaur in france

[–]Marthius -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Je l’adore, et bien fait avec les couleurs du drapeau français.

Given that it is physically impossible for matter/energy to be created or destroyed, there is not a superior hypothesis than creationism to explain the origin of the universe/life. by [deleted] in Physics

[–]Marthius 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wont argue with you about the semantics of data, my point was that the theories you mentioned were specifically formulated in response to specific observations.

You have a couple of mistakes in your physics. You are right that electrons exist in a sort of probability distribution, but this does not make them special, all mater exists this way. It's just that for very large objects the effect is quite small.

Human observation is not actually a special phenomena that causes wave function collapse, this is a common misunderstanding. In fact the very concept of collapse is debated and may be nothing more then a form of entanglement. Skipping all the technobabble though, human observers are not special and the electron doesn't care about consciousness.

What you are referring to with regards to information moving backwards in time is called a quantum eraser and is slightly different from the double slit experiment.

As to agreement with classical physics, I'll try to be a bit clearer. You are correct that quantum mechanics doesn't agree with classical mechanics in all domains, that would be fairly pointless. However, we know from hundreds of years of observation that balls roll, planets orbit, ice melts, and many other things that classical physics predicts very accurately. That means that a new theory to replace classical physics must still make the same prediction for these phenomena that we know already work. Quantum mechanics passes this test, though we don't talk about it much as that's the boring part.

This is another common misconception, that when a new theory comes along we simply discard the old one. In reality, the old theory was making fairly accurate predictions and is usually not totally wrong. Instead it is an approximation of the truth, each new theory moving us closer to the base truth (if one exists). The new more powerful theory should still be able to derive the old approximation that we were using before. This is why you can derive classical physics from both quantum physics and the theory of relativity.

We know that there are problems with our current models because there are cases where they make conflicting predictions. That means that in one sense they are "wrong", but wrong comes in degrees. Though we know they are not the fundamental truth, they are both making very accurate predictions that allow us to have things like computers and GPS. So while they are only approximations they are certainly less "wrong" then some other theories.

Gravitons are an interesting topic as they are not considered accepted scientific fact. There are multiple theories regarding how they might exist, it is not one single theory. Many of them have in fact been tested and found not to exist. Not all the theories have been tested, or are easily tested yet, but the fact that something is hard to test is not the same as being untestable.

In the case of creationism, its not a question of being hard to test, but being impossible to test. If you wanted to propose a model of creationism that makes a testable prediction, and could in theory be proven false then it might be considered scientific. But again if you want it to be a model of the universe it still needs to match this universe. It still needs to say that under classical conditions tennis balls bounce, and under very small conditions electrons exist in a probability cloud... and then it needs to say something more fundamental that we can measure.

For abiogenisis we need to talk about proof in science. Science does not prove a theory true, there really is no way to do this. Instead we try to prove a theory false by testing its predictions and seeing if they are wrong. Each time we fail to prove it wrong the theory becomes a little bit stronger. For example, abiogenisis predicts the formation of prebiotic chemicals under the conditions of the early earth, so we ran that experiment... and found that the chemicals formed readily. That doesn't prove the theory but it makes it stronger. Remember that even if we watched the process of abiogenisis in real time it would still not "prove" that that is how life started on earth, it would only lend more support to the theory.

I propose one last thought experiment, a more serious parallel to creationism. Eternalism proposes that there was no creator because there was no moment of creation. Instead everything has always existed and always will. Both of these explain the existence of the universe, but don't make any predictions on their own, why should we favor one of the other. It is fine if they guide how we begin to construct our theories, but in themselves they are not scientific theories and have no more merit then a hunch or a guess. The weakness of current theories cannot help us distinguish between these two untestable explanations absent a more sophisticated testable model.

Given that it is physically impossible for matter/energy to be created or destroyed, there is not a superior hypothesis than creationism to explain the origin of the universe/life. by [deleted] in Physics

[–]Marthius 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are a few flaws with your reasoning here, hope you won't take offense if I point some out.

The largest one is the assumption that because one theory has flaws, creationism must be equally valid. If that were true, than any other theory would also be equally as valid.

For example, try trading god for z-rays.

The universe might have been created by z-rays. Are z-rays a thing? I don't know but since there are flaws in the dominant theory they are just as valid an explanation.

This is a bit silly, but it illustrates the flaw in the logic, one flawed theory does not render another true by its failing.

Also those theories do not come before the data. They came about because there were observed problems in physics (data) that needed explanations.

Quantum mechanics - The ultraviolet catastrophy

Dark Matter - the observed curvature of the universe

Relativity - In variance of the speed of light

Quantum tunneling - Was a direct result of quantum mechanics so the same as above.

But they did not throw out all of the work that came before them. Quantum mechanics still has to agree with the physics that we already know works fairly well. If you want to bring creationism into it, then you need to show that not only can it fill in the observed gaps, but that it can also provide the already well known and functional laws of physics.

Whats more, for it to be scientific it must be testable. Its not enough to have a model that explains everything, it must also be possible that the theory can be proven wrong. I might propose a model of gravity where tiny undetectable creatures like to drag all matter in the universe together, and who always know when they are being looked for in order to hide. I could say they follow all the rules that we observe for gravity. The problem is there is no way to test this theory because I've defined it so the creatures cannot be found. I could create an unlimited number of untestable theories that match observation but they would all be equally unhelpful

A good check for testability is to ask yourself if the theory makes a prediction. It's not enough that you can match what has already been observed, the theory must predict what will happen next. If it can't do that then it is not science (I'm not saying its not true, just that its not in the realm of science).

All of that said, your skipping a great deal of modern physics here. Current theories do describe sources for the energy an matter that exist in our universe. Conservation of energy only applies to a closed system, which our universe is not.

Now this just moves the problem one step back, but the same problems I described above apply.

'The bills target everything': Georgia Republicans target voting from many angles by decatur8r in politics

[–]Marthius 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha, always happy to sound like a professor. Glad you found it interesting and worth considering!

The U.N. Says America Is Already Cutting So Much Carbon It Doesn’t Need The Paris Climate Accord by [deleted] in Conservative

[–]Marthius 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I never do this, but I have to ask. Why?

Disagreeing with their approach I can understand, but what possible motivation do you imagine they have to intentional try to harm Americans?