They Have Troubles, Too

Near-Death Experiences in India: They Have Tunnels Too

An advertisement in an Indian newspaper solicited accounts from people who had come close to death. Of 19 received, 7 reported no experiences, 4 reported dreamlike experiences, and 8 reported near-death experiences (NDEs). These NDEs were comparable to those reported by Raymond Moody, and included tunnels, dark spaces, and bright lights, contrary to previous reports of Indian cases. Many respon...

CDs Have Fingerprints Too

We introduce a new technique for extracting unique fingerprints from identical CDs. The proposed technique takes advantage of manufacturing variability found in the length of the CD lands and pits. Although the variability measured is on the order of 20 nm the technique does not require the use of microscopes or any advanced equipment. Instead, the electrical signal produced by the photodetecto...

too many students’ congresses, are they necessary and useful?

Correlations have fat tails, too

The investment community is, by now, familiar with the idea of fat tails. The concept moved beyond the domain of actuaries and quant geeks with Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book The Black Swan (2007). Taleb drove home the point that volatility does not tell the whole story of the uncertainty associated with asset returns. In particular, extreme outcomes occur more frequently (i.e., tails are fatter)...

Stars ’ - Have They Been Discovered ?

Recently there is a suggestion about the star RXJ1856.5−3754, being a possible candidate for quark star. While from the estimates of the radiation radius, given by the authors, it does not seem to fit with any of the known models for such stars, the mass radius diagram admits the possibility of this being a quark star of mass M ⊙ < M < 1.4M ⊙ , provided the radius mentioned is the actual radius...