Which leader has best quotes?

[dacole]

Gaians by all means they are the first to realise the planet is alive and what that might mean their quotes along this line are awesome. Also I'm biased to there way of life, I mean come on Yang may have "deep" thoughts but would any of us want to live in the world they create..?

[dacole]

I have to say though the datalink quotes, being the collection of quotes from some of the highest thinkers the species has ever produced are good as well!

[MattyBoy]

However, for me the best single quote is the one for the Habitation Dome.
I think it is a beautiful statement.

I agree. It's sensational:

Habitation Dome
I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe or laugh or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment.
Anonymous, Datalinks Dome

[MattyBoy]

So what came first, this quote or the movie "The Matrix" ?

Bioenhancement Center
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467; TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

[The Vagabond]

1) Yang
2) Morgan (some of his quotes are plain silly, but still funny)
3) Miriam

[Andemagne]

Spartans, of course! those Niitze quotes are also Great!

[Hippi]

It seems that Yang is winning with ½ of the votes. So we don't need a second voting round

unless zak or someone else starts getting votes fast :P

go Chairman!

[Main_Brain]

"Resources exist to be consumed" is a classic one :=)

[sammy1339]

Oh, come on, how can you say that Zakharov has deep quotes? He says such stupid things sometimes. For example:
Superstring Theory:
"A brave little theory, and quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions. If only we lived in one."
Does he not know whether the theory works with five or seven dimensions? Did he just forget at that moment? Actually string theory requires no fewer than ten dimensions. And what does that mean - "If only we lived in one."? We live in FOUR - or five or seven if you accept whatever crazy theory this is. Apparently he doesn't get the concept of a dimension.
How about the Nonlinear Mathematics quote? Tell me that is not cheesy as hell. Even real academicians hardly ever say things that pretentious.
Overall, there's no question Yang has the best quotes among the faction leaders, and I am in favor of recycling people but I would still rather live in Gaia than the Hive. However, how can you compete with Aristotle and Nietzche? Sheng-Ji Yang can't compare to the Weisenheimer of the Datalinks.

P.S. Mattboy, SMAC came before The Matrix, and neither of them was remotely the first to come up with the idea of an illusory reality being created by an outside force. Philosophers have been hung up on that for at least 500 years.

[swillwater]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by sammy1339
>Oh, come on, how can you say that Zakharov has deep quotes? He says such stupid things sometimes.

Some of his quotes are fairly deep, e.g. presentient algorithms, but certainly they are not cosistently deep .

>For example:
Superstring Theory:
"A brave little theory, and quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions. If only we lived in one."
Does he not know whether the theory works with five or seven dimensions?

I think you've missed the point of the 'or' in '5 or 7 dimensions'. For a generic theory, it could be both. For example, the Poincare conjecture although now believed to be true for all finite dimensions has vastly different approaches for 2,3, 4 and higher dimensions (i.e. there are 4 different approaches). The theory of the n-dimensional wave equation depends on whether n is even or n is odd.

>Did he just forget at that moment? Actually string theory requires no fewer than ten dimensions. And what does that mean - "If only we lived in one."?

If only lived in one- i.e if only we lived in a system of 5 or 7 dimensions. The 'one' refers to the system, not the number of dimensions.

>We live in FOUR - or five or seven if you accept whatever crazy theory this is. Apparently he doesn't get the concept of a dimension.

I don't know much about string theory so I won't comment on why 5 or 7 comes in.

>How about the Nonlinear Mathematics quote? Tell me that is not cheesy as hell. Even real academicians hardly ever say things that pretentious.

The mathematicians that I know (including myself) are often pretentious. We have a tendency to be unthinkingly arrogant,and I see a caricature of us in Zharkhov. A lot of his quotes reflect his arrogance more than his intellegence, which is why I agree with your overall assesment that his quotes are not the deepest or best of the faction leaders.

[MattyBoy]

P.S. Mattboy, SMAC came before The Matrix, and neither of them was remotely the first to come up with the idea of an illusory reality being created by an outside force. Philosophers have been hung up on that for at least 500 years.

Thanks.

[sammy1339]

Originally posted by swillwater

>For example:
Superstring Theory:
"A brave little theory, and quite coherent for a system of five or seven dimensions. If only we lived in one."
Does he not know whether the theory works with five or seven dimensions?

I think you've missed the point of the 'or' in '5 or 7 dimensions'. For a generic theory, it could be both. For example, the Poincare conjecture although now believed to be true for all finite dimensions has vastly different approaches for 2,3, 4 and higher dimensions (i.e. there are 4 different approaches). The theory of the n-dimensional wave equation depends on whether n is even or n is odd.

>Did he just forget at that moment? Actually string theory requires no fewer than ten dimensions. And what does that mean - "If only we lived in one."?

If only lived in one- i.e if only we lived in a system of 5 or 7 dimensions. The 'one' refers to the system, not the number of dimensions.

Thanks, I didn't quite get that, I guess. However I still think that the part about "5 or 7 dimensions" doesn't make sense. It is fine for the Poincare conjecture because obviously you can talk about topology in however many dimensions you want, since it has (almost) nothing to do with reality. Even Schroedinger's Equation has that property, but to the best of my knowledge if you want to apply Schroedinger's Equation you can't just pick an arbitrary number of dimensions to work with - the number has to correspond to your physical system. In general a physicist had better know how many dimensions he is working with if he doesn't want to get conflicting results. I have never heard of a theory where people didn't know how many dimensions it used. Even Newton's Laws work, as a mathematical model, in n dimensions, but everybody who uses Newton's Laws understands that he is not supposed to apply them to a 16-dimensional system because it would have no connection to reality. So I really can't imagine a theory that works in either five or seven dimensions. Maybe I'm wrong.

[swillwater]

Originally posted by sammy1339


Thanks, I didn't quite get that, I guess. However I still think that the part about "5 or 7 dimensions" doesn't make sense. It is fine for the Poincare conjecture because obviously you can talk about topology in however many dimensions you want, since it has (almost) nothing to do with reality. Even Schroedinger's Equation has that property, but to the best of my knowledge if you want to apply Schroedinger's Equation you can't just pick an arbitrary number of dimensions to work with - the number has to correspond to your physical system. In general a physicist had better know how many dimensions he is working with if he doesn't want to get conflicting results. I have never heard of a theory where people didn't know how many dimensions it used. Even Newton's Laws work, as a mathematical model, in n dimensions, but everybody who uses Newton's Laws understands that he is not supposed to apply them to a 16-dimensional system because it would have no connection to reality. So I really can't imagine a theory that works in either five or seven dimensions. Maybe I'm wrong.

I'm no physicist, so I cannot directly disagree with you.
The (possibly nonexistent) parallel with the wave equation comes up again:
in even dimensions you have phenomena like ripples after the initial wave (think ripples on a pond after a stone has been thrown into it).
In odd dimensions (except for n=1) this cannot happen (eg sound waves happen once and there is no direct echo from the source).
Conceivably for string theory to apply, we need to be in an odd number of dimensions, so Zak picks 5 or 7 as the 2 closest to what we know; the point being of course that as far as we know we live in 4. This is a wild guess, and I should probably look up some papers on string theory before I say anything more.

Seperately, are you a mathematician? Not many people have heard of the Poincare conjecture, let alone know that it is a topological question.

[Gluegun]

Morgan. Hands down!

"Get off my land you Peacekeeping sonuva--!"

[sammy1339]

Well, I'm no physicist either, but I'm pretty sure that the wave equation can't be applied in any dimensions for a particular kind of wave. For example, you can't arbitrarily say that sound waves propagate in four directions instead of three - if you said that you would get results that had nothing to do with sound.

I'm not a mathematician either, just an undergraduate student, and I really don't know what the Poincare Conjecture is. I am pretty sure it is a condition that should distinguish between 3-spheres and the other 3-manifolds, and when you said it had different approaches for 2,3,4, and higher dimensions I assumed you were talking about distinguishing between 2-,3-,4-, and n-manifolds and 2-,3-,4-, and n-spheres. I didn't ask if that was right because I don't even know what the condition is to begin with and it really had nothing to do with Zakharov's quote anyhow. :-)