How many numbers a & b exist such that a^b = b^a? How many rational numbers? Integers? Or is there a way to prove that there is an infinite amount? | AskScience Blog

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Monday, October 31, 2016

How many numbers a & b exist such that a^b = b^a? How many rational numbers? Integers? Or is there a way to prove that there is an infinite amount?

How many numbers a & b exist such that a^b = b^a? How many rational numbers? Integers? Or is there a way to prove that there is an infinite amount?


How many numbers a & b exist such that a^b = b^a? How many rational numbers? Integers? Or is there a way to prove that there is an infinite amount?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 11:10 AM PDT

ab = ba

I'd assume there are a infinite amount of numbers and maybe even rational numbers. I'm more interested in integers.

From what I've seen, it works when b = a (aka aa = aa), but that's a trivial solution. The only non trivial solution I found was 24 = 42.

submitted by /u/StormStooper
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If the Alps were created 50 million years ago from Africa and Southern Europe colliding, and raising what used to be a sea bed between them. Couldnt we search mountains for fossils earlier than the majority we find ?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 08:21 PM PDT

The title explains it all could we search mountains for amazingly ancient fossils given the nature of their creation?

Thank you in advance

submitted by /u/LambentGoku
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Has anyone computed the number of unique length "n" string of numbers in the "m"th decimal approximation of pi?

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 07:36 AM PDT

It is not known whether it is possible to find an arbitrary sequence within the decimal expansion of pi, or for that matter, some other transcendental answer (where the answer isn't trivially "no" like the Liouville constant).

However, have people done any work to see if all strings below a certain length are present, and how the percentage of these strings that are present increases as you increase the number of digits in the decimal expansion of pi?

I noticed in this site: http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery that has pi calculation to 200 million places and the probability a string of length "n" is present seems to drop by about a factor of 10 each time, essentially consistent with sampling from a random string. Essentially I want to know what work has been done, either analytically or numerically, to see if the expansion of pi behaves the same as a random string for the purposes of sampling.

submitted by /u/somedave
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How are rates of mountain growth calculated?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 08:33 PM PDT

After working as a dishwasher for a couple of weeks, my hands could handle a lot more / hotter water. How does the human body adapt to direct contact with heat?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 03:15 AM PDT

Genetics: During genetic drift, as alleles are lost, which increases? Homozygosity or Heterozygosity?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 07:38 PM PDT

I'm analyzing a paper for a piece of university coursework and one of the questions is asking me to identify an "important typographical error" in the main text of the introduction.

My friends are struggling, but one of them things they have found it. But I'm not so sure. The sentence reads as follows:

"As alleles are lost, homozygosity necessarily increases"

Is this correct? Or is 'heterozygosity' meant to be in place of 'homozygosity? Or perhaps 'decreases' in place of 'increases'?

Any ideas?

Link to paper: http://www.d.umn.edu/~jetterso/Ecological%20Genetics/documents/NewmanandPilson1997Effectivepopulationsize.pdf

Sentence can be found at the top of the second column, first page of introductory text.

EDIT: Solved, Thanks

submitted by /u/ZaneT_
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Why does the iron in our food not react with acid and form hydrogen gas? If it does , how does it affect the body ?

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 03:08 AM PDT

Are satellites engineered differently for specific planetary orbits?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 04:38 AM PDT

I'm currently doing an assignment on Mars colonisation and launching a GPS satellite system there. Would we have to engineer these satellites differently to make them orbit Mars in a way that could be used for GPS?

I'm having trouble on finding any information about making different satellites for different planets, maybe I'm just bad at google, but if someone could provide some information (and hopefully sources?) it'd be greatly appreciated.

submitted by /u/J3ST_eR
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What is the oldest known case of Bi Polar Disorder, specifically manic episodes?

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 12:24 AM PDT

How did people finally realize that it was a mental disorder and not (witchcraft or demons), and, what would happen to a person with an untreated manic episode in the wild. Is there any documentation in history of people following someone with it in history. Also, would it reverse, or get worse, or death if untreated?

submitted by /u/Aguy00
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How does General Relativity predict specifically the existence of Gravitational Waves?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 12:23 PM PDT

All I can find is the simple claim that GR shows gravity propagating at finite speed, like any wave.

I can't find any descriptive information beyond that. How do these waves form exactly? I've been browsing some of the LIGO recaps and seen claims that the system ejected 3 solar masses in the form of GW radiation. How does the theory of GR predict such radiation?

There's also some claims where they relate GW propagation to accelerating bodies, but I can't find further information at all. Also something about "chirps" in the LIGO data being somehow important, which I'm reading more about now.

Can anybody give some input to the relationship between GW's and the predictions of GR?

submitted by /u/The_Sodomeister
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When you light a propane torch, why does the fire not also ignite the gas inside the canister?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 03:18 AM PDT

Probably sounds like a stupid question to many but I'm struggling to imagine the science behind it.

If you had a watering can full of petrol and lit the sprinkles of petrol coming out of the nozzle, you'd rightfully expect to have the can explode in flames.

If you sealed the can, would that be any different? What about if you sealed the can and pressurised it?

Does the pressure have to be high enough that the speed of fuel coming out of the nozzle is higher than the speed that the fire can move towards the fuel source?

submitted by /u/randomusername1198
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How are we able to store data in diamonds?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 02:22 AM PDT

In reference to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/5a4u4w/its_well_known_that_diamonds_are_extremely/

This is not the first time I've read about this but I never looked into it. What is the scientific logic behind being able to store data in diamonds?

submitted by /u/ajs427
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Hoew much can we really tell about interbreeding of species just by looking at their DNA?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 03:58 AM PDT

Hi everyone,
I just read this article called "Aboriginal Australians, Pacific Islanders carry DNA of unknown human species, research analysis suggests" which popped up in r/all.
In this article they for example state: They found Europeans and Chinese people carry about 2.8 per cent of Neanderthal DNA.
My question is how come the percentage is so low? Neanderthales and homo sapiens evolved from a common ancestor. Shouldn't we carry around 98%+ of the same DNA?(We and chimps have around 99% of DNA in common)
Another question that popped up is whether having something genetically in common really means we did interbeed with the ancestor of this species. We can have proteins in common just because we evolutionary needed it to eveolve the same way(I have alcohol dehydrogenase in humans and fruitflies in mind).
So in general how much can we really tell about interbreeding of species just by looking at their DNA?
Thanks for all your answers in advance

submitted by /u/g0lmix
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Light Speed — Can we trust the measurements?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 08:10 AM PDT

I presume we use atomic clocks to time the speed of light, but how can we be certain that this is an accurate method of measurement if they themselves are make use of these "electromagnetic waves" to time periods of time. Doesn't that falls into a circular reasoning thing? Making use of something that travels at the speed of light to measure the speed of light?

submitted by /u/heedme
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Why do high temperatures denature enyzmes, but low temperatures do not?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 06:18 AM PDT

Why is the European Extremely Large Telescope projected to be operational for 10 years? Why even establish a limit before its even built?

Posted: 30 Oct 2016 02:35 AM PDT

So apparently the E-ELT will be operational from 2024 until 2034. Are they already planning on building a new one ready for 2034?

submitted by /u/launcher87
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Conceptually, how does quantized energy resolve the UV Catastrophe?

Posted: 29 Oct 2016 08:00 PM PDT

I understand the mathematics of why it works out like this, but can't wrap my head around it conceptually.

Rayleigh Jean's law implies that a black body will radiate infinitely intense light for arbitrarily small values of the wave length:

Intensity p(f) = (8πkTf2 )/c3 approaches infinity as wavelength approaches 0. This obviously isn't true because we aren't all getting burnt to a crisp.

And, as I mathematically understand it, introducing discrete energy values E = nhf results in the proper equation:

p(f) = (8πhf3 /c3 )(1/ehf/kt -1) so that intensity approaches 0 for smaller wavelengths, and peak intensity is at the center of the distribution just as observed in actual black bodies.

Physically, though, what is going on that causes this? What I'm thinking is that, because the energy values are discrete, it's a less common occurrence for the oscillators to emit shorter wavelength photons because that represents an electron's long fall from higher energy levels to lower ones, and it's just more common for it to fall through less energy levels.

Is this explanation anywhere close to what's going on?

And, let's for a second imagine that the UV Catastrophe was true, and the universe is classical in this regard. What is the inverse of my question? What causes there to be seemingly infinite energy in the black body lacking quantization despite not having an infinite temperature?

Also, how exactly did Planck derive the quantum intensity equation once he assumed quantized energy:

p(f) = (8πhf3 /c3 )(1/ehf/kt -1) ?

submitted by /u/cosekantphi
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