Intelligent Holograms

Elegarth, you've got to tell us what you thought of the new Doctor! Don't know when it airs where everyone is so I'll hold back on the spoilers.

There's Tweedy's "Alternative" map: http://www.westpacific.org/forums/index.php?/topic/110-the-alternative-west-pacific-map/?p=1423

The embassy for the Global Right Alliance is hereby opened! Date and Time: Monday 10th March 23:29 GMT

The embassy for the region Madrigal is hereby opened! Date and time: Monday, 10th March 23:28 GMT

*Descends in a manner that could only be described as holy* Apologies, Ambassador, for my tardiness in addressing your request. I hereby declare the Embassy for the GRA open!

Thank you, ambassador, for your posting of your embassy link. Now that you have fulfilled our requirements, I do hereby open your embassy with the Sacred Order of the West Pacific Imperium. Commander Arch has inadvertently raised an interesting point, an embassy with TWP is a privilege, not a right. This embassy and all others are opened on the proviso that the other region maintains appropriate standards of conduct in the wider NS world, this includes but is not limited to official posts made in NSGP and proposals submitted to either of the houses of the World Assembly.

It was pretty different as sigs go and, given the fact I was probably present when it was said, I can confirm and clarify it wasn't used as an insult at the time.

*Adds complimentary nibbles to accompany the complimentary bar and the complimentary drink*

This is the embassy thread for all things Malicious, namely the Brotherhood of Malice! Welcome and feel free to help yourself to the complimentary drink. Opened: Sunday 2nd March 2014.

Hallelujah, in a way that can only be described as holy, I declare the application of the Brotherhood of Malice approved! Madrigal, I'm afraid I must put your application on hold until such a time as you have a functioning forum, this is because the embassies on our forum are exchanges - as you have no forum, I cannot sanction the opening of this embassy. Please do inform me when you have a functioning forum and I will approve your application.

I'm not too informed on the machinations of the WA, but it's sad to see a career end in such a way.

Welcome to TWP! I'm out of awe but I can offer you these complimentary TWP stickers.

Welcome, Liberillia, to TWP! *Dancers start dancing and singers start singing*

Love Glenda. Be careful of those Knights, though, they're going to liberate GP!

Those Eternal Knights people are hilarious.

Wintermoot is clearly a region all by himself.

I don't see what function that would serve, everybody who used to reside there has been forced to evacuate and none of them would return under Imperialist rule, I'd imagine. In its current state, at least, it can serve as a emotion fuelled battle ground between the FRA and Imperialism.

Better than the alternative.

This problem is fascinating for a number of reasons and I'll admit that I can't answer your question as it deals with some very complicated topics surrounding the nature of infinity and what this means when applied to something like the Universe. In Mathematics, infinity is an elementary component of some calculations - even in normal graph work, we say that parabolic curves tend towards infinity when the function of the graph depicts it as never actually touching a point; take the graph 'y=1/x', in this graph the 'line' will never touch either the x or y-axis, no matter how low or high the value of x you assign, thus the graph tends towards infinity with decreasing and increasing values of x. Graph of y=1/x So in Pure Mathematics (Mathematics that don't necessarily apply to the real world), infinity is a concept that is often used. When we move to apply infinity to the real world, though, we run into problems, so much so that Philosophers claim that an actual infinity (one that can be applied to the real world) is impossible. To prove this, we must look to some examples; there are some excellent examples out there on the topic of infinity, like Zeno's paradox and William Lane Craig's (a philosopher/theologian) Infinite Coin Problem. Zeno's Paradox about the arrow moving through the air is described (I'm going to immensely paraphrase this) as that if you divide the arrow into and infinite number of 'instances' where a bouts the arrow is stationary, the arrow does not move at all and is in its totality motionless. Naturally, this is impossible in the real world, when was the last time anybody fired an arrow only for it to not move at all due to the infinite number of 'instances' between the archer and the target? In William Lane Craig's (WLC) Coin Problem, WLC makes the point that if he had an infinite number of coins and he subtracted an infinite number of coins from the original pile, he would have still have an infinity - infact, if he took any fraction of the coins away from the infinite pile, he would not only still have an infinite pile, he would also have an infinite in the pile that he had just taken away. Using these logic problems (entirely in the mind), we can state that an actual infinite is impossible. This conclusion raises interesting questions when applied to the universe as we've apparently rendered infinity impossible, so where does the Universe end? Some would argue that the Universe doesn't end by virtue of it being all that is, to argue that there is an ending to all that is/was/ever will be is ludicrous to these people as there can be nothing where not even 'nothing' exists (poorly worded but I can't think of anything better). Then we encounter the multiverse, being that 'outside' of our universe there is a universe of universes, then if this is also finite, what's beyond it? The more I try and follow this train of thought, the more confusing it becomes to myself and probably to whoever's reading this due to the fact that we cannot answer this question. Then if we look on the other side of the coin, if we call the universe infinite, we live in the knowledge that there is an infinite number of you doing exactly the same as what you are doing now, with everything else exactly the same. Both of these positions are untenable to me, probably because I cannot get my head around either of them. Personally, I find the idea of the Universe being actually infinite (so that there are is an infinite number of IH's) unpalatable.

It is not true. Astronomical black holes require the collapse of a mass much greater than the size of our own sun into a relatively small space under the force of gravity - there is nothing at the LHC that has anything close to the amount of mass required for this. Microscopic black holes will also not occur due to the fact than any particle capable of forming one decays at a rate that would render the formation of black hole impossible.

Under the current train of thought, there wouldn't be enough antimatter to account for all of the Dark Matter in the universe. During the Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter came into existence, now the Universe is around 4% normal matter and over 20% Dark Matter - such an imbalance could not occur from the same amounts of both. This was the most intriguing for me, essentially, Hawking has changed the definition of what a black hole is to battle the arguments around what happens around the Event Horizon, now he says that there is no such thing as the Event Horizon and things may escape from the area of space beyond what we would have called the Event Horizon so long as they wait long enough. This, to me, is not a Black Hole. Also, the bridge between classical physics and quantum mechanics has been present in Black Hole Theory for a while now, Stephen Hawking postulated using quantum mechanics that black holes evaporate over time and that they give off Hawking Radiation in the process. Sorry for derailing your thread, BBD.

Most interested to see who wins the Meltdown Award. I'm guessing Osiris.

Welcome to TWP! TWPers cannot forget to be awesome by virtue of them being TWPers. To be a TWPer, one must be awesome.

I can jump in on those, I believe. Planetary systems are being discovered at an ever increasing rate due to the activities of the Kepler Satellite and the legion of volunteers that donate time to seeking patterns (namely dips in luminosity in the spectra from distant stars. The list of discovered planets and the planets that they orbit is listed here: http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/ The pursuit of Dark Matter has yet to progress past the theoretical stage - by virtue of the fact that it is theorised to not interact with light, there is little that we can do to actively research it experimentally. When it turns back on later this year, CMS in CERN has a primary goal of looking for the particles that may constitute what we call Dark Matter. So far, though, all experiments that have set out to look for evidence of Dark Matter have failed - Physicists continue to look for Dark Matter, though, as it is the most probable answer to some of the most challenging unanswered questions in physics, like why the Universe is expanding rather than contracting and why galaxies spin at faster rates than what they should given the amount of mass we see them having. Theoretically, yes, Dark Matter does account for the missing mass in the Universe, it's just proving to be extraordinarily difficult to pin down. More information here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/lux-dark-matter/

Pleasure to meet you, NeeNee.