The Reference FrameThe most important events in our and your superstringy Universe as seen from a conservative physicist's viewpointTwo new Mersenne primes & Mersenne's 420th birthday- September 8, 2008 Marin Mersenne was born on September 8th, 1588, which is exactly 420 years ago. Exactly one week ago, on September 1st, we also celebrated the 360th anniversary of his death (lung abscess). Together with the two new numbers (two new largest known primes) announced below, we have a quadruple opportunity to talk about Mersenne.After two years, the GIMPS project found two new Mersenne primes (of the form 2p - 1) almost simultaneously. Only 46 such numbers are known and only 44 of them are known to.http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/09/m42801739-or-m42760397.html A funny Czech political blackmail case- September 7, 2008 In today's edition of Questions from Mr Vclav Moravec, a political weekly on the main public TV channel (T1), there have been three interesting guests.First, Mikhail Saakashvilli, the president of Georgia, showed that he has been trained to be likable on TV. What he said (in English, translated to Czech) about his innocence and the evil plans of current Russia didn't make much sense if you think about it carefully but his answers were optimized from a P.R. viewpoint for those Czech spectators...http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/09/funny-czech-political-blackmail-case.html IPCC boss: meat-free Sundays- September 7, 2008 The Nobel prize winners at the United Nations began to appreciate thatfarm animals emit 15 of greenhouse gases.Meat production is an important part of the sin that, in fact, exceeds transportation. The transportation industry could have felt discriminated against but these days are over.Similar pictures will soon belong to history textbooks (chapters about wars and destruction)."Dr" (no, sorry, I won't recognize his degrees) Rajendra Pachauri, who is already a vegetarian, now requests that...http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/09/ipcc-boss-meat-free-sundays.html RICS: Solar panels pay back in 100 years- September 6, 2008 Ivar Giaever, a Nobel prize winner, argued that it takes a decade for a solar roof panel to return the energy that was needed to produce it. He was attacked by a few alarmists who didn't have any arguments or better numbers but who just found Giaever's observation inconvenient.Was he rightWell, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), a top institution training and regulating landlords in much of the British Commonwealth (Wiki), asked a similar question: how much time does it take to..http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/09/rics-solar-panels-pay-back-in-100-years.html John Dalton: birthday- September 6, 2008 John Dalton was born to a family of a weaver (and Quakers, independent Christians dissatisfied with the existing denominations) in Northwest England on September 6th, 1766.He is known for insights on color blindness (Daltonism), atomic theory (that we will discuss in detail), chemistry, and meteorology (the Dalton minimum of solar activity is named after him, too). He also wrote a book on English grammar in 1801. ;-)He died in 1844 after his third stroke.As a kid, he was already helping his...http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/09/john-dalton-birthday.html |