KJW

I have a question: Has life ever (re)emerged from a complete set of cellular components?

Before the ride starts, the people opposite me are at the same height above the ground as I am. During the ride, this doesn't change as the rotation axis of the ride is fixed. But due to the vector addition of the centrifugal acceleration and the earth's gravitational field, my perception of the vertical is no longer the same as the "true" vertical. The people opposite me appear to be well above me even though they remain the same height above the ground as I am. Because the centrifugal acceleration of the ride is about 3g, the perceived vertical direction is about 20° above the horizontal. Yes, all frames of reference are equally valid in general relativity.

The Equivalence Principle basically says that over distances that are sufficiently small for the tidal effect to be negligible, being in a gravitational field is indistinguishable from being in an accelerated frame of reference. This is illustrated by the following diagram: However, over larger distances, the gravitational field does differ from being in an accelerated frame of reference due to the tidal effect, which is a manifestation of spacetime curvature that is absence from being in an accelerated frame of reference in flat spacetime. What I said about perception of the vertical direction was not about skewing reality, but a consequence of the equivalence principle. I personally discovered the perception of the vertical direction when I was a teenager in an amusement park ride called the "Rotor". I noticed that the people directly opposite me before the start of the ride were very much above me during the ride. I immediately realised that what we regard as up or down is actually a perception that we don't normally notice unless we are in an environment that challenges the notion of up or down.

Note that when you are standing on the ground, you are being accelerated upward. Also, if you are in an accelerated rocket, you are being accelerated upward. And it is always upward due to perception of the vertical direction in response to acceleration by the vestibular system of the inner ear. If you are on the fifth floor of a ten-storey building, a clock on the ground floor would tick slower relative to your clock, and a clock on the tenth floor would tick faster relative to your clock. It is important to note that the clocks themselves are not actually affected, and all are ticking at the same intrinsic rate of "one second per second".

The relativistic effects of being in an accelerated frame of reference can be derived from special relativity. That is, acceleration doesn't produce relativistic effects separate from that of velocity. However, the relativistic effects of an accelerated frame of reference are nevertheless different from that of relative velocity. Specifically, clocks that are below you are slower, and clocks that are above you are faster, with the amount by which the clocks are slower or faster depending on the distance of the clock from your location in your accelerated frame of reference.

You would. No. You would record time slowing down for them, just as they would record time slowing down for you.

Perhaps, but the point I was making was that even people who know much better than most people how bad cats are to the environment have cats as pets.

For the proud hardcore bigot, that's no doubt true. But for those less inclined to reveal their bigotry, the relative obscurity of meaning provided by the initialism does provide some cover to those who express their dislike of DEI, bearing in mind that the meaning of "DEI" can be distorted to a strawman much more effectively than the meaning of "diversity, equity, and inclusion".

Yeah, it even sounded ridiculous when I heard Trump say it. On an episode of "Planet America" (which I've mentioned before), a person who was interviewed pointed out that although the US government does spend money on condoms for HIV prevention, the number of condoms that could be bought for $100 million being sent to Hamas makes it so obvious that what Trump said was a lie. The problem with Trump isn't just that he lies, all politicians lie, but that he is so blatant at it. It is an example of the belief that he can do whatever he wants with impunity... and that is dangerous.

I recently read a suggestion from someone that instead of "DEI", people should be forced to use the full term "diversity, equity, and inclusion" so that when they say they are against diversity, equity, and inclusion, they are making it quite clear that they are an arsehole.

Do you mean for example the $100 million worth of condoms being sent to Hamas? Not if there is less tax money to begin with because of tax cuts to the wealthy.

It's funny you should ask that. There is a series currently being broadcasted on Australian TV called "Eat the Invaders" based on the premise that Australians should consider eating species that for whatever reason have invaded the Australian continent and have become a major problem. Each episode deals with a particular invasive species. Last week's episode was about feral cats, a major killer of Australian native species in accordance with the prey naïveté hypothesis. And indeed, even pet cats kill lots of creatures if they are allowed to roam the neighbourhood. Anyway, during the episode was an interview with a researcher of the cat problem. But during the interview, she admitted to having a pet cat, and even that some of her colleagues also have pet cats. She said they were house cats, but nevertheless there did seem to be some surprise over the revelation.

What do you expect "change the rules" to mean in practical terms? Nobody is going to click on your link. If you want there to be any discussion, it is up to you to post something to discuss on this forum. Otherwise, it is no skin off our noses if there is no discussion because you didn't post anything to discuss.

In what way is any of this contrary to the notion of abiogenesis put forward by science?

No, the "agenda" of most here is science. Bear in mind that this is an international website with people here from countries other than the USA. For example, I am an Australian. I'm guessing that most scientists tend to lean towards the left, perhaps because they see the policies of right-wing political parties as tending towards evil. Here's an example from my own country: The previous government (the right-wing major party) trialled a policy whereby 80% of a person's social security payment would be placed into a cashless card account that was operated by a particular private company. There were tight restrictions on what this money could be used for as no cash could be obtained from the account. The message was that the people on social security payments were unable to manage their own money (often referred to as "taxpayer's money") and needed to have their spending restricted by the government (via a private company). Although the government intended to have this policy extended to most if not all people on social security payments, the trials took place in locations with largely indigenous populations.

Yeah, I did consider this, which is why I placed "primordial soup" in quotes.

Given that the building blocks of life are molecules, it seems reasonable to assume that life arose from molecules in a "primordial soup". What viable alternative possibilities are there, and also, how does science explore such possibilities? It's all well and good to offer up exotic possibilities, but unless you also offer up a way to explore such possibilities, you haven't really said anything useful.

The two [math]x[/math]-values of the intersections are: [math]1 - x^2 = y^2 \\ \sigma^2 (5 - x)^2 = 25 \sigma^2 - 10 \sigma^2 x + \sigma^2 x^2 = y^2 \\ (25 \sigma^2 - 1) - 10 \sigma^2 x + (\sigma^2 + 1) x^2 = 0 \\ x = \dfrac{10 \sigma^2 \pm \sqrt{100 \sigma^4 - 4 (\sigma^2 + 1) (25 \sigma^2 - 1)}}{2 (\sigma^2 + 1)} \\ = \dfrac{10 \sigma^2 \pm \sqrt{4 - 96 \sigma^2}}{2 (\sigma^2 + 1)} \\ = \dfrac{5 \sigma^2 \pm \sqrt{1 - 24 \sigma^2}}{\sigma^2 + 1}[/math] where [math]\sigma = \tan\theta[/math], and [math]\theta[/math] is the angle between the surface of the cone and the central axis of the cone.

I often say to people "nobody knows chemistry". This hyperbole comes from my observation that quiz show contestants who seem to know about physics, mathematics, biology, astronomy, geography, history, literature, etc seem to not know about chemistry, passing or getting wrong rather easy questions. It seems to be the one subject that very few contestants know about.

Of course it is possible, but how likely it is I cannot say. However, prior to my first post, I did look at the link to check if this question was indeed part of a maths test rather than simply a textbook exercise, and could find no indication of which it is. I checked because I wanted to know the cost to the student of getting the question wrong, and therefore the importance of having been given the definition prior to the question.

I don't know why it would matter, unless they were taught something wrong. It matters because the student was expected to know the correct answer and therefore should have been taught how to correctly answer the question. As I see it, answering the question is simply a matter of knowing a definition, and therefore marking the student wrong if the definition was never taught is wrong. How many people know that a circle is just the perimeter and doesn't include the area inside? Or that a sphere is just the surface and does not include the volume inside? It seems like a subtle point to require the student to know unless it had been explicitly taught. And if the student was taught this, then the student should have correctly answered the question. But here we are debating the answer to the question (which is simply based on a definition) without the context of what the student was taught.

Deleted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_of_revolution

One thing that was not mentioned was what the student was taught prior to being given this question.

Presumably, this means that sodium hydroxide should be added to the tartaric acid first, then potassium hydroxide. I've never seen the dissolution of sodium hydroxide in water be violent, although it does get quite hot. Perhaps adding water to powdered sodium hydroxide is violent, but who uses powdered sodium hydroxide (it's normally in pellet form). Perhaps the KOH (and NaOH) should be assayed by titration.