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🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Physics

A topological quantum computer is a theoretical quantum computer that employs two-dimensional quasiparticles called anyons, whose world lines pass around one another to form braids in a three-dimensional spacetime (i.e., one temporal plus two spatial dimensions). These braids form the logic gates that make up the computer. The advantage of a quantum computer based on quantum braids over using trapped quantum particles is that the former is much more stable. Small, cumulative perturbations can cause quantum states to decohere and introduce errors in the computation, but such small perturbations do not change the braids' topological properties. This is like the effort required to cut a string and reattach the ends to form a different braid, as opposed to a ball (representing an ordinary quantum particle in four-dimensional spacetime) bumping into a wall. Alexei Kitaev proposed topological quantum computation in 1997. While the elements of a topological quantum computer originate in a purely mathematical realm, experiments in fractional quantum Hall systems indicate these elements may be created in the real world using semiconductors made of gallium arsenide at a temperature of near absolute zero and subjected to strong magnetic fields.

🔗 Climate change 🔗 Environment 🔗 Books 🔗 Systems 🔗 Futures studies 🔗 Energy

The Limits to Growth (often abbreviated LTG) is a 1972 report that discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simulate the consequence of interactions between the Earth and human systems. The model was based on the work of Jay Forrester of MIT,^: 21 as described in his book World Dynamics.

Commissioned by the Club of Rome, the study saw its findings first presented at international gatherings in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1971.^: 186 The report's authors are Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, representing a team of 17 researchers.^: 8

The report's findings suggest that, in the absence of significant alterations in resource utilization, it is highly likely that there will be an abrupt and unmanageable decrease in both population and industrial capacity. Despite the report's facing severe criticism and scrutiny upon its release, subsequent research consistently finds that the global use of natural resources has been inadequately reformed since to alter its basic predictions.

Since its publication, some 30 million copies of the book in 30 languages have been purchased. It continues to generate debate and has been the subject of several subsequent publications.

Beyond the Limits and The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update were published in 1992 and 2004 respectively; in 2012, a 40-year forecast from Jørgen Randers, one of the book's original authors, was published as 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years; and in 2022 two of the original Limits to Growth authors, Dennis Meadows and Jørgen Randers, joined 19 other contributors to produce Limits and Beyond.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military science, technology, and theory 🔗 Military history/Weaponry 🔗 Medicine 🔗 Chemicals 🔗 Occupational Safety and Health 🔗 Military history/World War I 🔗 Medicine/Toxicology

Chloropicrin, also known as PS and nitrochloroform, is a chemical compound currently used as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial, fungicide, herbicide, insecticide, and nematicide. It was used as a poison gas in World War I. Its chemical structural formula is Cl₃CNO₂.

🔗 Mathematics

In geometry, circle packing is the study of the arrangement of circles (of equal or varying sizes) on a given surface such that no overlapping occurs and so that no circle can be enlarged without creating an overlap. The associated packing density, η, of an arrangement is the proportion of the surface covered by the circles. Generalisations can be made to higher dimensions – this is called sphere packing, which usually deals only with identical spheres.

While the circle has a relatively low maximum packing density of 0.9069 on the Euclidean plane, it does not have the lowest possible. The "worst" shape to pack onto a plane is not known, but the smoothed octagon has a packing density of about 0.902414, which is the lowest maximum packing density known of any centrally-symmetric convex shape. Packing densities of concave shapes such as star polygons can be arbitrarily small.

The branch of mathematics generally known as "circle packing" is concerned with the geometry and combinatorics of packings of arbitrarily-sized circles: these give rise to discrete analogs of conformal mapping, Riemann surfaces and the like.

🔗 Politics 🔗 Politics/American politics 🔗 Ohio

The Ohio nuclear bribery scandal is a 2020 political scandal in Ohio involving allegations that FirstEnergy paid roughly $60 million to Generation Now, a 501(c)(4) organization purportedly controlled by Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives Larry Householder, in exchange for passing a $1.3 billion bailout for the struggling nuclear power operator. It was described as "likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio" by U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers, who charged Householder and four others with racketeering on July 21. According to prosecutors, FirstEnergy poured millions into the campaigns of 21 candidates during the 2018 Ohio House of Representatives election, which ultimately helped Householder replace Ryan Smith as Republican House speaker.

According to DeVillers in late July 2020, the investigation is far from over. "There are a lot of federal agents knocking on a lot of doors."

🔗 Film 🔗 Television 🔗 Novels 🔗 Screenwriters

In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for film, adopted by Alfred Hitchcock, and later extended to a similar device in other fiction.

The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It can reappear at the climax of the story but may actually be forgotten by the end of the story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of religion

"Turtles all the way down" is an expression of the problem of infinite regress. The saying alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle that supports the earth on its back. It suggests that this turtle rests on the back of an even larger turtle, which itself is part of a column of increasingly large world turtles that continues indefinitely (i.e., "turtles all the way down").

The exact origin of the phrase is uncertain. In the form "rocks all the way down", the saying appears as early as 1838. References to the saying's mythological antecedents, the World Turtle and its counterpart the World Elephant, were made by a number of authors in the 17th and 18th centuries. This mythology is frequently assumed to have originated in ancient India and other Hinduist beliefs.

The expression has been used to illustrate problems such as the regress argument in epistemology.

🔗 Role-playing games

A role-playing game theory is the ludology of role-playing games (RPGs) where they are studied as a social or artistic phenomenon. RPG theories seek to understand what role-playing games are, how they function, and how the process can be refined in order to improve the gaming experience and produce more useful game products.

🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Russia 🔗 Disaster management 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Russia/science and education in Russia 🔗 Geology 🔗 Russia/physical geography of Russia 🔗 Russia/history of Russia 🔗 Paranormal

The Tunguska event was a massive ~12 megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of June 30, 1908. The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km² (830 sq mi) of forest, and eyewitness reports suggest that at least three people may have died in the event. The explosion is generally attributed to the air burst of a stony meteoroid about 50–60 metres (160–200 feet) in size.^{: p. 178} The meteoroid approached from the east-southeast, and likely with a relatively high speed of about 27 km/s. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than to have hit the surface of the Earth.

The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, though much larger impacts have occurred in prehistoric times. An explosion of this magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area. It has been mentioned numerous times in popular culture, and has also inspired real-world discussion of asteroid impact avoidance.

🔗 California 🔗 California/Los Angeles area

Skid Row is a neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles. The area is also known as Central City East.

As of a 2019 count, the population of the district was 4,757. Skid Row contains one of the largest stable populations (about 2,783) of homeless people in the United States and has been known for its condensed homeless population since the 1930s. Its long history of police raids, targeted city initiatives, and homelessness advocacy make it one of the most notable districts in Los Angeles.

Covering fifty city blocks (2.71 sq mi) immediately east of downtown Los Angeles, Skid Row is bordered by Third Street to the north, Seventh Street to the south, Alameda Street to the east, and Main Street to the west.