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https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/it-true-earths-magnetic-field-occasionally-reverses-its-polarity?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products We can see evidence of magnetic polarity reversals by examining the geologic record. When lavas or sediments solidify, they often preserve a signature of the ambient magnetic field at the time of deposition. You should stop digging

I was watching a BBC regualr programme This evening - Countryfile. This week they were visiting England's (and also one of Europe's) largest artificial forest - Kielder Forest. They had some interesting facts to offer. The forest was first planted in 1920 to make the UK independent of foreign timber sources, following the experience of the 1914 - 18 war. Timber currntly being harvested was planted in the 1950s. For every acre harvested they replant 2 acres. The recognise that, young or mature, most of their trees are unsuitable for biodiversity so they employ a specialist team to create alternatives within the forest, for instance nesting boxes for owls that normally nest in natural holes in trees, platforms for Ospreys (naturally returning after 250 years absence) insect, fungi etc being also catered for. Apparantly Kielder supplier 25% of the UK building timber. And they point out that building timber in fixes the carbon content for hundreds of years in roofing, flooring, etc. And then, termite activity is not restricted to old-growth forest; much of it is directly related to human habits and habitats. Surely oxidation of methane meand creating carbon dioxide instead ? Wherever the termites are located how is this better ?

Where America has Manifest Destiny, China has the Mandate of Heaven- they have a fundamentally different attitude to government than America, a more trusting one based on Confucian principles. Similar to evolved systems, neither is 'correct' but has benefits/risks. One more prone dictatorships, but also easier to harmonise to a purpose: if Covid 19 had been more virulent the benefits of the latter would be more clear. The Chinese people have been rebelling against governments at least a thousand years before the country that established America even existed, so I wouldn't worry about them being passive - as long as the government is fulfilling its end of the Mandate, the Chinese people are content, and why wouldn't they be? We might disagree with their position but we don't get to impose our view on them and to mistake it as docility is just to misunderstand their mindset. China's military aggression in and around the South China Sea needs to be understood in its historical context - China still remembers its utter humiliation by numerous Western powers and Japan. The Chinese people generally support their government in establishing a strong military presence around its territory to ensure that never happens again. If the West wants to limit China's influence they should stop bullying nations and start helping them. For instance, Australia has been harassing East Timor for decades in order to force access to oil fields, even pulling out of the UN convention on the Law of the Sea to avoid a binding ruling at the international court of justice. Now East Timor has invited China to help build up their infrastructure, giving China a presence right on Australia's coast. Taiwan has about a quarter of the semiconductor market. China would control over a third if it swallowed Taiwan.

Up to 90% of semiconductors used by tech companies like AMD, Apple, NVidia, Qualcomm, etc. rely on Taiwanese manufacturing.

The characterization is a bit strange as agricultural exports are barely a blip in Taiwan's economy, its largest exports have been electronics for a long while. The trade volume with the US is not huge, but still totaled 100 billion which is about 70-80 billion less compared to Germany or UK. This would still roughly place Taiwan among the top 10 US trading partners. I would also argue that especially due to its location Taiwan would be a strategic asset.

Our commitment to Taiwan, a smallish island that exports lychee nuts and which is snugged up next to China (Mike Phelps could probably swim out there), seems shaky at best. The loss would be more symbolic than strategic is my guess. Ukraine, with its central location, and having major NG and mineral resources, and being one of the planet's major grain exporters, and having received some serious commitments from the US and European allies, and being headed towards NATO membership, might be a more significant bone of contention, and maybe even rise above our domestic catnip issues. It will be ugly when it heats up. But I'm not scanning the real estate ads in Auckland yet. Maybe I should.

Exactly. This plus the increasing rise of authoritarian tendencies and simple minded support for narrow populist messages across the planet has me wondering what happens next and what a weakened US could even achieve. Another challenge is that people (John Q. Public) are so distracted and occupied by catnip social issues like anti mask and anti vax and abortion and inflation and related topics that they never even bother to engage with the actual big deal issues like hundreds of thousands of troops preparing to invade sovereign countries.

The force exerted by light is F = P/c (where P is the power) for absorption, and 2P/c for perfect reflection. You need P = mgc/2 which, for just 1 kg, is a little less than 1.5 Gigawatts. At the distance of the earth, sun intensity is around 1.3-1.4 kW/m^2, so you need around a million square meters. And you’ll likely fry the solar sail, because you don’t have perfect reflection.

I'm not getting my point across then. What I'm saying is that new cars are designed for new car buyers. Those people on average keep a new car for six years. The components are designed to outlast six years of average mileage. So the new car buyers are not really influenced by the redundancy designed into them. The only way that they are affected is in the devaluation when trading in, or selling their car. People tend to just accept that as a fact of life, as most brands are affected equally. So long as the manufacturer produces a car that lasts until the first owner trades it in, they won't damage their reputation. New car owners also tend to use the manufacturer's main dealers for servicing as well. So designing the requirement for special tools into the car doesn't really affect that market. It's an ongoing process. Year on year, the cars are becoming more specialised so that only main dealers have the ability to service them.

The attachement from the international libraries association is self explanatory. Although not specifically for scientific matters I thought it was particularly well presented and a good candidate as a sticky on this site.

Coincidentally, my total praying time = amount of time I talk to my mother when I'm in trouble.

They are now. Before they were invented, nobody complained. Once a new thing - gizmo, convenience, extra little perk - becomes available, the people willing and able to do so pay extra for them. Then the manufacturers, hoping to charge more for all their products, spend a fortune of advertising that links these perks to the perception of success, and the people (usually staring with youngish middle-management) who want to be successful and try very hard to appear successful, buy whatever pricey product a celebrity is endorsing. When enough people buy it, the manufacturers can lower the price (still above the previous price, but not beyond to average buyer's credit limit) and in a few more years, make some of the desirable features standard - so the buyer no longer gets the option of not having it. For the next model, then, they have to come up with a new 'extra' for the elite wannabes, until that becomes standard.... The consumer is so used to having his gimme buttons pushed, he doesn't even notice.

No computer chips are necessary, for any kind of car. Electric cars went just fine before there was such a thing as a microchip. And so did gasoline and steam-powered cars. And they lasted longer. We're making everything overly complex. And, of course, the more components something has, the more things break down. Design it so that no mechnic can get at the defective component without throwing away three still functioning components, and the consumer discovers that it's cheaper to replace the whole car [printer, washing machine, coffee maker, whatever] than try to fix the old one. Especially if the manufacturer doesn't make a quiet model available. And that provokes a question: Are the manufacturers responding to customer demand when they add yet another frill, wrinkle or convenience (with a corresponding price increase)(plus tax, shipping fees and insurance premium) or is the customer trained, through constant, intensive exposure, to expect all those complicated extras? This crisis in chip supply is a grand opportunity for a maverick car-maker to produce a pared-down, economical model, so we can see if it's competitive.

I guess bells and whistles is what sells.

1) Accelerate the implementation of "The Great Green Wall" This has already been shown to be successful. https://www.greatgreenwall.org/about-great-green-wall 2) Look for other areas of the planet where similar schemes might be implemented eg The Gobi, Australia.

The countries that hold globally-critical resources need to be 'levelled up' with support that means they don't rely on those critical resources. That means we rich countries will have to start taking responsibility for what the have-nots don't have. When they are living largely hand-to-mouth, what can we expect them to do alone?

Yes and I wish they wouldn't do that as it is a bad analogy. Yes the Earth appears sitting on the fabric pulling it down as if it were a heavy ball on a trampoline. That is the trouble, a heavy ball on a trampoline pulls the fabric down into what ? Space where there is no 'fabric' whatever that is supposed to mean. Where did that space come from ? And the pulling it down - well a heavy ball only pulls down the trampoline because the earth is 'underneath it' pulling on the ball with gravity. And the lines on the fabric are stretched and distorted. But distorted from what ? Aren't they supposed to be the correct gridlines of the fabric ? How can they be distorted ? +1 for recognising it. Here is a better one, soor no pretty dagram at the moment. Say you are a road runner that can only travel along the road. Now say you are standing at 5 West Street on a grid pattern of roads where the sides are completely built up with buildings. And say you want to get to 5 North street. Well you can't cut through the corner of the buildings, you have to go first along West street to the intersection of North Street and West Street. And then you have to go up North Street until you reach number 5. These are the 'rules' of this grid pattern of points. Furthermore this route is the shortest possible route for a road runner. This is an example in 2D, that works without invoking the 3rd dimension at all. Now suppose we scale this up to 3D. Again we have an arrangement of point, just now in 3D. And we have rules either of travel between these points or equivalently the way these points are laid out. This time there is no need to invoke a 4th dimension (ignoring time for this). The (mathematical) rules are pretty complicated, but that basically how General Relativity works.

I can help you with an answer but firstly I need to know some answers . 1)Is China intending to invade Taiwan on moral grounds ? 2)Is Russia intending to invade the Ukraine on moral grounds ? Please state reasons why China and Russia are planning to take control of these countries ?

I was right then. I thought you were trying to troll me. Whatever's bugging you, I hope you get over it. Bye.

Your opinion is incorrect , all heat can be observed using thermal observation equipment , heat energy is light and has density . The denser the light , the darker in observation it becomes . Observable black light is when light is at its densest form . Have you heard the term spectral transitions before ? It is natural for any high energy state to disperse energy to lower energy states . The gravitational transition force is responsible for all natural motion in the universe , I am aware you are not familiar with this term but I assure you that a body in motion that temporal conserves energy , conserves momentum . Bodies orbit because they are attracted to the space ahead which is a lesser energy state than the body , the body conserves energy that makes the transition with the body . Light is attracted to any region or point of space that is in a state of less energy . I don't see your link sorry but light slows down passing through glass because of the permitivity and permeability of the glass . It travels through the glass because it is been pulled through the glass by beyond the glass which has less energy in the space than the glass .

I didn't say that. I said I had not expected to have to back up with external corroboration something I offered as an observation from my own perspective. Referring to the weather events to which we had been accustomed. To which I then added: And that was the point: What we've been used to, what we had been able to predict and prepare for, no longer holds true, so we'll need to change our attitudes, expectations and habits. This, too, is a mere unsupported opinion. Only this time, following upon expert advice, I expect it to be discounted.

It would be helpful to engage in a meaningful way if you would quit making things up and instead discussed things that were not pulled out of your lower orifice.

The world leaders may like to point out to China that their economy is over if they go hurting innocent civilians in war games . Their economy will be restricted to their own economy with no export of anything . Don't ask a question then if you don't want answers .

I died in diapers, and don't want to learn to think like normal humans. Thank you. Remember... vote up/down, don't teach hubristic patterns to students by snipping personalities. Is that a spot on your tux?

Neither , I am discussing my thoughts on the physics the internet has learnt me and asking for help to produce The Theory Of All Theories . I want a share in that nobel prize and if you help me we can all put this theory together . I have proofs , models and dark energy being lights density fits nice , a+b=1/t a singularity that is expanding and pushing galaxies away .

Is a Neutron required in reality ? If a+b=1 and 0 net charge why is the Neutron required ? To be honest though what happen within the interior of a Higgs field is different physics to an exterior of a HIggs field . A Higgs field can contain mono-pole particles such as free electrons but the exterior has no containment. A free electron will simply transform into radiant energy outside of a HIggs field and disperse to a density of 0 . Charge bottling is a natural process of the assumed Higgs field , a+b required to bottle a+b . Sorry , another new term you hopefully you can understand , Newtons law , every action has an opposite and equal reaction .