One of my students is over there.
He is a 2nd lt, light infantry, platoon leader, currently on tour in Iraq, near Baghdad.
He lost his platoon sergeant last month.
More like this
PSU and xPSU folks:
FYI - heard from Joe P. last night.
He is ok, his platoon took some casualties though.
Did you see Oliver Stone pop his head up in the audience on Saturday Night Live last nigh?
A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Daniel Zwerdling of NPR: Aftershock: The Blast That Shook Psycho Platoon
Physics is a reductionist science. The string is hypothesized to be the smallest particle of which everything is made. The goal of reductionist physics is to find a few simple principles that underlie complex phenomena. The string theorists invent astonishing physical and mathematical complexity as the end point of reductionism. Well, quite obviously, the end point of reductionism is a theory as Einstein stated that we can teach to the kids and quite obviously not a theory that nobody can understand. When the end point of reductionism is the greatest complexity imaginable it is just plain absurd.
In 2000 an independent scientist working alone sent a copy of his book, The N-particle Model, to all the physics graduate students at Berkeley. Now he�s back and on the Reference Frame. He claims the universe is made of a single elementary particle that he now names the � particle and that particle is neither created nor destroyed. He claims its energy is 2.68138x10^-54 J. He claims the small size of the � particle is the reason electric, magnetic, photon and gravity fields appear continuous.
There is the question about lemmings when they get to the edge of the cliff. Do they choose to jump off or are they responding only to herd instinct or maybe aerodynamically drafted. It looks to me like the theorists are right on the edge.
Those people make me want to vomit.