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![[Orbit Region Showdown, Round 2]](http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/upload/2007/03/physbracket2.jpg)
We've got four contests this time, with competition fierce and passions running high. Speak for which science concepts deserve to go to the next round! Get your votes in by 10PM Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 20. Results will be posted shortly after that.
The contests:
- Newton's Second Law vs. High-Speed Internet: are the basic mechanics of the real world, or the substrate of cyberspace, more important?
- Euler Angles vs. Particle: is the basic particle description of matter, or the Euler Angles as a parameterization of rotations, more important to science?
- General Relativity vs. Descriptive Statistics: Einstein's theory of gravity as curved spacetime heads off against the statistics of data.
- Bosons vs. Ordinary Matter: In one corner, we have integer spin particles whose quantum mechanical statistics are described by the Bose-Einstein distribution; in the other corner, we have the matter that is neither Dark Matter nor Dark Energy, but actual baryonic matter.
Who will advance to the next round? You decide!
Comments
High speed internet is going down. In flames.
=D
Posted by: Leni | March 18, 2007 3:24 PM
Is that a vote?
Posted by: Rob Knop | March 18, 2007 4:02 PM
No dude. That was a promise.
LOL. I dunno. I meant to go see if there was a Round 1 thread to see how to vote, but then I got distracted by that f'ing religious post.
Posted by: Leni | March 18, 2007 5:14 PM
Wait, I'm confused. Why is this here instead of there?
But I can still vote!
* Newton's Second Law vs. High-Speed Internet:
Without Newton's Second Law, would there be high-speed internet?? Newton's Second Law all the way.
* Euler Angles vs. Particle:
I'm completely torn, but I'm being told that "particles are a totally nonexistent phenomenon," so I'll have to go with Euler Angles, "because Euler's the man." And, "Euler Angles? But I just met her!" is one of the best raunchy jokes of our time.
* General Relativity vs. Descriptive Statistics:
General relativity, no questions asked.
* Bosons vs. Ordinary Matter:
Clearly, ordinary matter. Is there any contest?
Posted by: mollishka | March 18, 2007 7:56 PM
Round 1 was over on Chad's blog.
Round 2 is here.
We do this for maximum confusion all the way around!
Molishka demonstrated the voting procedure....
-Rob
Posted by: Rob Knop | March 18, 2007 8:57 PM
* Newton's Second Law
* Particles
* General Relativity
* Bosons
Posted by: Mary | March 18, 2007 9:20 PM
The internet is a deranged figment of Al Gore's mind. Newton all the way!
I'd have to agree with Molishka on the next one: Euler is the man.
Personally, I find anything stats related tedious and general relativity is a kick (usually in the cerebrum..it's hard to think in that many dimensions!), so I'll go with GR.
Ordinary matter is so...ordinary. Let's give the bosons a vote, just for fun.
Posted by: David Williamson | March 18, 2007 11:02 PM
* Newton II, but you have to write it as a=F/m (for all my high school students out there)
* Particle man, particle man, does everything a particle can!
* General Relativity is "too beautiful to be false"; stats are just stats
* Bosons! Baryons = boring!
Posted by: Kevin Fairchild | March 18, 2007 11:37 PM
* Newton's Second Law vs. High-Speed Internet:
Newton's Second Law
* Euler Angles vs. Particle:
Particle
* General Relativity vs. Descriptive Statistics:
General relativity
* Bosons vs. Ordinary Matter:
Ordinary matter
Posted by: Chris' Wills | March 19, 2007 10:38 AM
Ugh, how did Euler Angles beat out Quaternions? I realize they are harder to wrap your brain around, but come on - Euler Angles can suffer from gimble lock ;)
Posted by: Brando | March 19, 2007 1:33 PM
F=ma, particle, descriptive statistics, ordinary matter. Why? The heart has its reasons that Reason does not know.
Posted by: Zuska | March 19, 2007 2:03 PM
F=ma, particle, General Relativity, bosons
Posted by: R J-C | March 19, 2007 6:10 PM
f=ma! general relativity! (still in shock over wave getting knocked out. any chance of a disqualification in this one, since the rest of particle's team failed to show up?!)
Posted by: lisa | March 19, 2007 6:13 PM
There's some bad sentiment for "Descriptive Statistic" in these comments, and so I'd like to vote against the masses, and say that DS has what it takes to maybe even win this entire region. Why? Not sure really, except to say that the term just sounds sexy (you know what I mean?) I'd name my rock band "Descriptive Statistics" anyway.
Posted by: jenjen | March 19, 2007 6:24 PM
since the rest of particle's team failed to show up?!)
I thought wave was the rest of particle's team.
Re: Descriptive Statistics, it sound real boring to me :) That being said, as an observer, I am fully aware that Error Bars Are All.
I still haven't figured out if I get a vote in this round....
-Rob
Posted by: Rob Knop | March 19, 2007 6:26 PM
I think you get the tie-breaking vote, Rob.
Posted by: mollishka | March 19, 2007 10:51 PM
Newton's Second Law vs. High-Speed Internet:
Newton's Second Law
* Euler Angles vs. Particle:
Particle
* General Relativity vs. Descriptive Statistics:
General relativity
* Bosons vs. Ordinary Matter:
Bosons of course! (Common people! what're you thinking!)
Posted by: Matthew Weippert | March 19, 2007 10:53 PM
High speed internet needs to progress. Can you imagine what would happen if they get ticked off and leave the building. We'd still be waiting for the bracket image to load. Of course, it's also hard to fathom what would happen if Newton's second law left the building (that would be pretty cool actually).
Posted by: CamSortie | March 20, 2007 10:52 AM
OK, here goes:
Without the internet we wouldn't be doing this right now... but, as mentioned before, without F=ma there wouldn't be an internet. I vote for Newton's second.
Particle vs Euler angles... hm. Well, what's a particle without a wave anyway? Let's go with Euler.
General Relativity vs Descriptive Statistics. I guess I'd rather call my rock band General Relativity. :-)
Bosons vs ordinary matter - well, I'm glad I don't have to choose between fermions and ordinary matter, that would be *hard*! I actually like ordinary matter, but... hmm... I'll go with Bosons.
Quite a lot of hmm's there... and ellipses :-)
Anyway, I like this Showdown-thingie, looking forward to rest of it!
Posted by: Florine | March 20, 2007 12:11 PM
Newton
Euler
General Rel.
Bosons - tough to exclude them when they don't obey the exclusion principle.
I'm looking forward to the possibility of a clash of the titans in the region final - Newton v. Einstein
over the internet.
Posted by: t.e | March 20, 2007 3:23 PM
Hope this is in time:
Second Law
Particle
Descriptive Statistics
Ordinary Matter
What can I say? I'm old school.
Posted by: Dr. Free-Ride | March 20, 2007 9:59 PM
Hey, my picks are the same as Zuska's! They must be right! (I picked first before looking at what others had picked.)
Posted by: Dr. Free-Ride | March 20, 2007 10:01 PM
Ok. That's easy enough voting for me!
Newton
Euler
Stats
Bosons
Newton...obvious. No newton no nothing.
Euler.. sounds better. But also because of the Euler equation. Which also happens to be very pretty. But that wasn't my deciding factor. It was about talent. Plus I'm guessing Maxwell gets lumped in here somewhere??
Stats have been pretty successful. As has GR, yeah... but I think stats is just way more practially applicable. You know. Heat and materials and cancer drugs and all that boring crap.
Posted by: Leni | March 21, 2007 11:59 PM