An Analytic Method of Interpretation of Electron Diffraction Photographs of Gases

An analytic procedure to be used in the interpretation of electron diffraction photographs for gases is developed. The experimentally determined positions of the maxima and minima are employed to solve directly for the interatomic distances through successive approximations. The method is then generalized so as to be applicable to molecules in which rotations or large oscillations about a bond are permitted. As a test, three sets of data which have already been published are recalculated yielding somewhat altered values for the molecular parameters. New diffraction photographs of propane are analyzed. It is pointed out that the number of theoretical intensity curves which must be computed to obtain the correct structure is thereby greatly reduced

Hydrogen ions

Hydrogen ion production and distribution in upper atmospher

The cosmological constant and the relaxed universe

We study the role of the cosmological constant (CC) as a component of dark energy (DE). It is argued that the cosmological term is in general unavoidable and it should not be ignored even when dynamical DE sources are considered. From the theoretical point of view quantum zero-point energy and phase transitions suggest a CC of large magnitude in contrast to its tiny observed value. Simply relieving this disaccord with a counterterm requires extreme fine-tuning which is referred to as the old CC problem. To avoid it, we discuss some recent approaches for neutralising a large CC dynamically without adding a fine-tuned counterterm. This can be realised by an effective DE component which relaxes the cosmic expansion by counteracting the effect of the large CC. Alternatively, a CC filter is constructed by modifying gravity to make it insensitive to vacuum energy.Comment: 6 pages, no figures, based on a talk presented at PASCOS 201

Solar-wind control of the extent of planetary ionospheres

In our solar system there are at least four magnetic planets: Earth, Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars; while at least one planet, Venus, appears to be essentially nonmagnetic. The ionospheres of the magnetic planets are imbedded in their magnetosphere and thus shielded from the solar wind, whereas the ionosphere of Venus, at least, interacts directly with the solar wind. However, the solar wind interaction with the planetary environment, in both cases, affects the behavior of their ionospheres. The role the solar wind interaction plays in limiting the extent of the ionospheres of both magnetic and nonmagnetic planets is discussed

Repeatability of evolution on epistatic landscapes

Evolution is a dynamic process. The two classical forces of evolution are mutation and selection. Assuming small mutation rates, evolution can be predicted based solely on the fitness differences between phenotypes. Predicting an evolutionary process under varying mutation rates as well as varying fitness is still an open question. Experimental procedures, however, do include these complexities along with fluctuating population sizes and stochastic events such as extinctions. We investigate the mutational path probabilities of systems having epistatic effects on both fitness and mutation rates using a theoretical and computational framework. In contrast to previous models, we do not limit ourselves to the typical strong selection, weak mutation (SSWM)-regime or to fixed population sizes. Rather we allow epistatic interactions to also affect mutation rates. This can lead to qualitatively non-trivial dynamics. Pathways, that are negligible in the SSWM-regime, can overcome fitness valleys and become accessible. This finding has the potential to extend the traditional predictions based on the SSWM foundation and bring us closer to what is observed in experimental systems

Spruce Budworm Weight and Fecundity: Means, Frequency Distributions, and Correlations for Two Populations (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)

Pupal weights and fecundities of spruce budworm from Minnesota had different means, coefficients of variation, and frequency distributions than spruce budworm from New Hampshire. The two variables were correlated in one of the populations but not the other

On the Weak Computability of Continuous Real Functions

In computable analysis, sequences of rational numbers which effectively converge to a real number x are used as the (rho-) names of x. A real number x is computable if it has a computable name, and a real function f is computable if there is a Turing machine M which computes f in the sense that, M accepts any rho-name of x as input and outputs a rho-name of f(x) for any x in the domain of f. By weakening the effectiveness requirement of the convergence and classifying the converging speeds of rational sequences, several interesting classes of real numbers of weak computability have been introduced in literature, e.g., in addition to the class of computable real numbers (EC), we have the classes of semi-computable (SC), weakly computable (WC), divergence bounded computable (DBC) and computably approximable real numbers (CA). In this paper, we are interested in the weak computability of continuous real functions and try to introduce an analogous classification of weakly computable real functions. We present definitions of these functions by Turing machines as well as by sequences of rational polygons and prove these two definitions are not equivalent. Furthermore, we explore the properties of these functions, and among others, show their closure properties under arithmetic operations and composition