Hox gene Updated 2025-07-16
Particle creation and annihilation Updated 2025-07-16
Predicted by the Dirac equation.
We've likely known since forever that photons are created: just turn on a light and see gazillion of them come out!
Photon creation is easy because photons are massless, so there is not minimum energy to create them.
The creation of other particles is much rarer however, and took longer to be discovered, one notable milestone being the discovery of the positron.
In the case of the electron, we need to start with at least enough energy for the mass of the electron positron pair. This requires a photon with wavelength in the picometer range, which is not common in the thermal radiation of daily life.
Latin phrase Updated 2025-07-16
Primitive recursive function Updated 2025-07-16
In intuitive terms it consists of all integer functions, possibly with multiple input arguments, that can be written only with a sequence of:
for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
and such that n does not change inside the loop body, i.e. no while loops with arbitrary conditions.
n does not have to be a constant, it may come from previous calculations. But it must not change inside the loop body.
Primitive recursive functions basically include every integer function that comes up in practice. Primitive recursive functions can have huge complexity, and it strictly contains EXPTIME. As such, they mostly only come up in foundation of mathematics contexts.
The cool thing about primitive recursive functions is that the number of iterations is always bound, so we are certain that they terminate and are therefore computable.
This also means that there are necessarily functions which are not primitive recursive, as we know that there must exist uncomputable functions, e.g. the busy beaver function.
Adding unbounded while loops of course enables us to simulate arbitrary Turing machines, and therefore increases the complexity class.
More finely, there are non-primitive total recursive functions, e.g. most famously the Ackermann function.
Canada Updated 2025-07-16
Magic: The Gathering is addictive Updated 2025-07-16
Paraprasing a friend of Ciro Santilli:
Magic: The Gathering is like cocaine in card form.
Luckily, early teens Ciro Santilli was partly protected from this by Ciro Santilli's cheapness.
But Ciro distinctly remembers one day in his early teens that he couldn't sleep very well, and he got up, and the was decided that he would become the greatest Magic: The Gathering player who ever lived. Can you imagine the incredible loss that this would have been to humankind? And talk about the incredible lack of development opportunity present in poor countries, related:
Magnetic confinement fusion Updated 2025-09-09
Once again, relies on superconductivity to reach insane magnetic fields. Superconductivity is just so important.
Ciro Santilli saw a good presentation about it once circa 2020, it seems that the main difficulty of the time was turbulence messing things up. They have some nice simulations with cross section pictures e.g. at: www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/937941.
Double cover Updated 2025-07-16
Hamburg Updated 2025-07-16
Learn in public Updated 2025-07-16
This is the most extreme and final form of peer tutoring, it's natural final consequence given the Internet Age.
Axon Updated 2025-07-16
EPR paradox Updated 2025-07-16

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