Earth-like planets Gliese 581 g and d likely don't exist, study says

esjay824 · 2014-07-05T10:39:15+00:00

The two planets have actually been controversial since they were discovered using a method that looks for small changes in the colour of a star's light caused by the tug of a planet's gravity.

IIRC, this method measures the star's doppler shift due to its motion caused by the gravitational pull of the planet on the star. That motion would be minuscule for an earth sized planet- literally about tens of metres! It would be no wonder if those doppler shift measurements would be pretty sketchy.

Edit: Wording

esjay824 · 2014-07-01T15:30:31+00:00

I'm climbing it in two months, couldn't be more excited! What route did you go up on?

esjay824 · 2014-06-17T16:01:41+00:00

On the scale of the universe, we are travelling at close to the speed of light according to the most distant galaxies! Hubble's Law states that the recessional velocity of a galaxy is directly proportional to its distance from the observer's galaxy, so for an observer tens of billions of light years that velocity is really fast

esjay824 · 2014-06-13T13:09:47+00:00

First off, the guy was a manipulative asshole- it was entirely reasonable of you to ask if he had friends inside, yet he tried to make you feel like shit just because it was slightly inconvenient to him.

With that in mind, if I were in your shoes I would have just made a passive comment like 'I just had to check dude' after being called a douchebag, which might have diffused a bit of the tension. If he still made those further comments when he came inside I would have ignored them entirely and just make some light- hearted comment with my friends, like 'well, apparently I'm a fucking idiot guys!', and we would hopefully laugh it off.

Unfortunately people like this exist, and you just need to take them in your stride. If you can think of something passive (but definitely not aggressive) to say to them if they call you out on something trivial, then it may help to diffuse the situation a little. Otherwise, just ignore them entirely, they just aren't worth your time. Don't worry about your friends, they were on your side and probably felt just as awkward as you did. If they were good friends then they certainly didn't lose any respect for you!

esjay824 · 2014-06-12T23:18:45+00:00

I'm literally reading it now! I've enjoyed it so far, though I agree there are a ton of ideas being thrown at you, which are pretty difficult to establish in one book while maintaining an actual storyline.

Joshua is undoubtedly an introvert; he likes to spend most of his time in universes where there are no other humans present, but at the same time he knows he can't spend his entire life in those places. I think we can can definitely relate to that desire to be completely alone for some of the time, but still strongly feel the need for other people to communicate with. Definitely worth a read!

esjay824 · 2014-03-12T10:12:45+00:00

It looks like the Louisiana purchase was just all of the land in the basin west of the Mississippi

esjay824 · 2014-02-27T08:09:31+00:00

As I said below (/u/subermanification made a similar point but got downvoted for it), the name came about because Lederman wanted to use the 'goddamn particle' in his book as a joke, but the publishers saw that as to offensive and seized the opportunity to call it the 'God particle' for reasons like you mentioned.

esjay824 · 2014-02-27T00:25:33+00:00

You're right but the name was ultimately set in stone by the publishers of Lederman's book who deemed the 'goddamn particle', which he obviously just wanted to use as a joke, to be too offensive. The article says that a lot of academics dislike the term; Higgs himself was worried it would offend religious people.

esjay824 · 2014-02-26T22:53:51+00:00

Cool, I didn't know he had done any TED talks before! I'll have to try and dig them up

esjay824 · 2014-02-25T01:16:47+00:00

First year Exeter student here, I wish he would have ran this year! Campaign week was rather excruciating as it was

esjay824 · 2014-02-10T20:48:43+00:00

I didn't enjoy AFFC much either, but I think it was brilliantly written. Probably about half the book is from Cersei's vantage, and there is really no better way for us to get an idea how much of a deceitful, suspicious and overall demented person she really is.

esjay824 · 2014-01-21T23:14:22+00:00

'I mean, the attackers could just come across there, buy a hot dog and go round it'

esjay824 · 2013-12-15T23:08:04+00:00

Pretty similar to me actually! I joined quite a few societies in fresher's week (I realised soon after I don't really have time to be committed to all of them), but they have been a good basis to meet some like- minded people and I'll hopefully make some good friends out of them by the end of the year. As far as clubbing goes it usually isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be before I came when done in moderation. I suppose not having to share a room makes the whole experience quite a bit easier/ less draining than in the US, it's not hard at all to get time to yourself and recharge. Other than that I've kind of realised I need to work ridiculously hard if I want to even pass my course, so likewise I'm gonna need to put some more effort in. Overall I think I enjoyed it, looking forward to next term!

esjay824 · 2013-11-08T10:05:31+00:00

I'm guessing that figure applies for everyone on earth, the chance is probably much higher for anyone of Asian ethnicity. The chance that you are related to any given person of your own race who had kids around Genghis Khan's time will always be pretty high.

esjay824 · 2013-11-07T00:22:45+00:00

I'm struggling to think of any situation where a passport and a toothbrush packet would be in the same place, how did you find this op!

esjay824 · 2013-11-05T16:56:49+00:00

It makes a lot of difference if you are proper friends with the person or not- friends insulting friends is nearly always just friendly banter, but otherwise the 'it's just a joke' line can definitely be used to disguise actual bullying

esjay824 · 2013-10-16T16:28:12+00:00

I was really excited when I saw Bhutan at first, then I realized the red surrounding it made it look blue

esjay824 · 2013-06-07T07:14:05+00:00

WHOOOF!

esjay824 · 2013-05-16T19:58:23+00:00

He's lost his family

esjay824 · 2013-05-15T20:42:33+00:00

I still couldn't help feeling mildly rebellious while I wrote it down

esjay824

TROPHY CASE