• Science

    Physicists Calculate Exact Number of Alternate Universes

    By Stuart Fox Posted on 10.16.2009 32 Comments

    For some time, physicists have theorized about the existence of alternate universes. In fact, some models of physics require multiple universes, to explain some rarely observed phenomena. But, other than obvious ones like The Man In The High Castle Universe where the Nazis won WWII, the Earth-295 Age of Apocalypse Universe, and the Terran Empire "Mirror Mirror" Universe, just how many alternate universes are there? Well, some Stanford University physicists have answered that question, and the magic number is: 10^10^16 other realities.

    10.26.2009 at 01:28pm - Comment by ProfQuill

    OK, my tiny mind is confused; why is it possible to 'perceive' a number like 10 ^ (one with 16 zeroes after it) and not the number 10 ^ (one with 10 million zeroes after it)? OK, so the national debt is getting a lot closer to the former than the latter, yet I feel pretty embiggened by it all.

  • DIY

    How to Make Convincing Fake-Gold Bars

    By Posted on 3.14.2008 18 Comments

    On Wednesday, the BBC reported that millions of dollars in gold at the central bank of Ethiopia has turned out to be fake: What were supposed to be bars of solid gold turned out to be nothing more than gold-plated steel. They tried to sell the stuff to South Africa and it was sent back when the South Africans noticed this little problem.

    11.14.2008 at 04:03pm - Comment by ProfQuill

    "The first exception is depleted uranium, which is cheap if you're a government, but hard for individuals to get. It's also radioactive, which could be a bit of an issue." Actually, the radioactivity may not much of an issue, DU is only weakly radioactive, perhaps detectable with instruments if one is checking for fraud, but not really a biohazard. Source, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/ I don't doubt that it's kind of hard to find at the local Home Depot, but because it is used in such things as counterweights in aircraft (same source), it might not be as difficult to get as, say, unobtainium.



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