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The dumb questions thread

 
 
 
I've been listening to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Great book, but one that prompts lots of dumb questions in my mind:

So he explains how each and every cell have umpety-million proteins in it, each one twisted and snarled like an angry hot mess of coat hangers ('protein folding' is far too mild a term for what these proteins do).

Question: Do these 'proteins' have anything to do with the 'protein' I injest when I eat meat or beans?
 
James Brown said:
I've been listening to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Great book, but one that prompts lots of dumb questions in my mind:

So he explains how each and every cell have umpety-million proteins in it, each one twisted and snarled like an angry hot mess of coat hangers ('protein folding' is far too mild a term for what these proteins do).

Question: Do these 'proteins' have anything to do with the 'protein' I injest when I eat meat or beans?
Click to expand...

Yup. You are eating the proteins in the animal/plant. These are then broken down by your digestive system into their constituent amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), and then the amino acids are mixed and matched to be rebuilt into the proteins you need in your cells.
 
Wouldn't it be quicker to just eat the amino acids? Or are they hard to come by?

I would ask if it would be even quicker to just eat the right kind of proteins that we need in our cells, but I have a suspicion the answer to that would be cannibalism...
 
Emily Lake said:
Wouldn't it be quicker to just eat the amino acids? Or are they hard to come by?

I would ask if it would be even quicker to just eat the right kind of proteins that we need in our cells, but I have a suspicion the answer to that would be cannibalism...
Click to expand...

There's an entire amino acid supplement industry catering to just that thought. A main use of protein in the body is muscle, so bodybuilders are really into that because they need a lot of protein and want to restrict other macronutrients in their diet.

As for cannibalism, that isn't something I've looked into...
 
Before we developed ways to synthesise amino acids industrially, they were scarce outside proteins, because bacteria are everywhere - and bacteria like amino acids too.

Basically bacteria are nano-machines, scouring the planetary surface for raw materials to make more of themselves. They are very good at it, and any source of amino acids - including plants and animals - only lasts as long as it can defend against the bacterial onslaught.

But the bacteria always win in the end.

Ashes to bacteria; Dust to bugs. In the sure and certain hope of eternal life, via being recycled into bacteria. Our corrupt bodies being joined with their corrupting bodies, to live on at their pseudopods for ever and ever...
 
Emily Lake said:
Wouldn't it be quicker to just eat the amino acids? Or are they hard to come by?

I would ask if it would be even quicker to just eat the right kind of proteins that we need in our cells, but I have a suspicion the answer to that would be cannibalism...
Click to expand...

You can. They come from the lab, though--a steak is a lot cheaper than the amino acids it contains.
 
bilby said:
Before we developed ways to synthesise amino acids industrially, they were scarce outside proteins, because bacteria are everywhere - and bacteria like amino acids too.

Basically bacteria are nano-machines, scouring the planetary surface for raw materials to make more of themselves. They are very good at it, and any source of amino acids - including plants and animals - only lasts as long as it can defend against the bacterial onslaught.

But the bacteria always win in the end.

Ashes to bacteria; Dust to bugs. In the sure and certain hope of eternal life, via being recycled into bacteria. Our corrupt bodies being joined with their corrupting bodies, to live on at their pseudopods for ever and ever...
Click to expand...
Sure would be convenient if the bacteria were edible... but that usually lands one in the hospital requiring antibiotics...

- - - Updated - - -

Loren Pechtel said:
You can. They come from the lab, though--a steak is a lot cheaper than the amino acids it contains.
Click to expand...

Also probably tastier
 
Emily Lake said:
Sure would be convenient if the bacteria were edible... but that usually lands one in the hospital requiring antibiotics...
Click to expand...

Many are - what did you think yogurt was made of?

We eat huge numbers of bacteria. Many survive the experience, and enjoy living in our intestines; a goodly fraction of those are vital to our health - which is why broad spectrum antibiotics often cause diarrhoea and abdominal pain as side effects.

A healthy human being contains more bacterial cells than human ones.
 
:o I feel silly. I forgot all about yogurt and cheese. Which is especially funny since ai was eating yogurt when I posted that! Delicious Raspberry Noosa. I would not have guessed more bacterial than human cells though. That kind of makes me want to take a shower.

I haven't had antibiotics in... mmm... 3.5 years. And that was a single high dose prior to surgery. I haven't taken antibiotics for an illness in probably a decade, maybe longer. I've got a good relationship with my gut flora, and I ate a lot of dirt as a kid.
 
NobleSavage said:
ELI5 (explain like I'm 5) Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
Click to expand...

I don't know if I can do 5, but here's a low level explanation:

Mathematicians take assumptions (axioms) and use logic to prove that true statements are true. A true statement that we can use our axioms and logic to prove to be true is called a theorem. Since we use our axioms to prove them, a theorem is only as good as the axioms on which it's based, so mathematicians are really interested in making sure they pick the best axioms to use.

There are two important questions to ask about sets of axioms:
  1. Is this set of axioms contradictory? That is, with these axioms, can I prove some theorem, and also prove a theorem that it contradicts? If we could do that then we would be in trouble, because our logic system depends on statements being either true or false, and not both. If a set of axioms can't prove a statement both true and false, we call its math consistent. Inconsistent axioms are worse than useless - if you let me assume contradictory theorems we could prove anything, including false statements.
  2. Can this set of axioms prove that every (sensible) statement is either true or false (i.e. getting rid of the 'can't be proved either way' case)? If we could do that, then we would be done (in theory :)) with the mathematics that deals with those axioms! We'd know that no matter what statement we were interested in, there is either a proof that the statement is true, or a proof that the statement is false. (Finding the proof is another matter - the important thing is that our axioms are strong enough to say definitively yes or no). If a set of axioms can prove any statement either true or false, we call its math complete. Incomplete axioms are unhelpful, but not the end of the world, it just means that you don't know enough to prove (literally) everything, and you may need to add some axioms down the road.

Mathematicians have historically been careful about consistency, and around 200 years ago they became aware of the need to understand completeness. Finding a useful set of axioms that generates math that is both consistent and complete became a major goal in the century before Gödel. That would mean we would know that our mathematics was on solid foundations (consistent) but also powerful (complete).

Gödel came along and messed up that dream when he proved two 'incompleteness theorems'. The first meant that for any collection of axioms, math could rest on solid foundations, or be completely powerful - but not both at the same time. He then added that any sufficiently powerful set of axioms would be so incomplete, they wouldn't even be usable to prove their own consistency.

  1. The first incompleteness theorem says that for any reasonable* set of axioms, the math based on those axioms cannot be both consistent and complete. The proof of this theorem is based on thinking about how to prove the statement "This statement is false." is true, or prove that it is not true. Since neither ends up being possible, the math cannot be complete.
  2. The second incompleteness theorem says that for any reasonable** set of axioms, there is no theorem using those axioms that says the math based on those axioms is consistent.

Both of these statements are really cool, but also suck in the sense that we will never be done adding ever more complicated axioms. The first says that no matter what, you cannot have math that is both well-founded and completely powerful. Since we need consistency, we are stuck with incomplete axioms. This means that no matter how many things you've assumed so far, there will still be things that are true, but you cannot prove (even in theory). The second shows that you can't even prove consistency of a set of axioms without assuming even more axioms, and then you can't prove the consistency of the new set of axioms without more axioms, and then you can't prove the consistency of the new new set of axioms without more axioms, and then...

*,** For varying definitions of reasonable. Details swept firmly under the rug....
 
Thanks beero1000. I had to read it twice, but I think I got it. I'd like to replace what is on Wikipedia whit what you wrote.
 
We need a "Wikipedia for Readability" version of well, most everything. I get tired of wanting to look up a particular butterfly, and learn about that butterfly and what makes it distinct from other butterflies... but needing a degree in entomology to decypher the Wikipedia entry. Same goes for any other technical(ish) entry.
 
Emily Lake said:
We need a "Wikipedia for Readability" version of well, most everything. I get tired of wanting to look up a particular butterfly, and learn about that butterfly and what makes it distinct from other butterflies... but needing a degree in entomology to decypher the Wikipedia entry. Same goes for any other technical(ish) entry.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know what you mean.

A couple of days ago I found myself looking to avoid reinventing a wheel--I knew there were answers, Google easily pointed me to the algorithm I needed. I look it up on Wikipedia--it's basically my own field but it was expressed in mathematical terms rather than programming terms and I found it rather cryptic. I track down some code and it was like they were in a major ink drought--good formatting but it was written with as few characters as possible and very hard to read. Idiots, any decent compiler will produce the same code from a clearer version of it and you certainly don't need to use one character names throughout!

(And Microsoft, why is there no Math.Min(<arbitrary list of parameters>)??? You really think it's that rare that we need the min of more than two numbers??)
 
If only someone could figure out a way to change content on Wikipedia to make it more readable. That would be useful. :D
 
Understanding the Incompleteness Theorem is not difficult.

A consistent rules-axiomatic based system simply means no matter how you apply the rules you always get the same answer.

Given a problem to solve no matter how you apply algebra you will get the same answer.

The concern was whether or not buried in the foundations of mathematics there lurked an ambiguity that could bring it all down.

Today algorithm and software are synonymous, mathematicians were were worried about potential hidden bugs in the software so to speak that might pop up.

At a conference Hilbert posed a question, does an algorithm exist that can prove all true mathematical propositions. An algorithm being a series of steps analogous to a piece of software.

The Turing Machine in part was a response to the question. It was Turing’s concept of a general purpose symbolic processor. Your computer processor is a Turing Machine minus the infinite memory in Turing’s concept.

Related to the question of being able to prove all mathematical things that are true, what Godel said that in any rule based consistent system there are unprovable truths.

Truth in this context does not mean truth as In a sense of physical sense of existence.

An example is Euclidean Geometry. In plane geometry a point is infinitely small and massless ,a line is comprised of an infinite number of points, a line has no width and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

Geometry is consistent and there are truths within the system that can not be proven in the system.

http://gonitsora.com/hilberts-axioms-of-geometry/


What the theorem says as a generality is that any logically consistent rule based algorithmic system will have assumption/truhs not expressible in the system.

It has real world implications.

Write a simple C program.

Int a, b, c;

main(){

a = 1;
b = 2;
c = a + b;

}

Within C there is no way to code a second program that algorithmically proves the first program works properly. You then have to prove the second program and intuitively see it results in infinite regression.

Likewise you have a set of axioms in a system and you add axioms to prove the initial rules...and so on. You end up with a self referential system, IOW bootstrapping.

Using axiom A I can prove axiom B which can be used to prove the be used to prove axiom A.
 
Calling people who understand rocks

album.php


There is an image above this, I can't make it show up. It is also in my album under "stuff" if you are feeling like having a look.

I am living in a red soil area.

These rocks are clearly trucked in from somewhere else to make the surfaces more driveable.

A lot of it is purple, a lot of it is white. Where the two colours are together, the purple appears to be contained within the white, like a purple block with a white shell.

They seem to be the same kind of rock, though I could be wrong about that.

Can anyone tell me what it is and how it was formed?
 
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