MigL

Today I learned that @TheVat is unnaturally interested in sex as he considers all sorts of physical traits to be associated with sexual selection 😁 😄 .

In Canada we have inconsistent bans. Some pesticides/herbicides ( like concentrated RoundUp ) are banned for sale in one province, but legal to buy in another. And while I regularly deal with Organophosphorus compounds which have acute effects, I am apprehensive of those with chronic effects ( Organophosphates in particular due to naturally low Cholinesterase levels ). Also, I don't particularly like Monsanto's business practices and ethics, so I tend to not trust them. Veritasium has an excellent feature on Monsanto's development of RoundUp resistant GMO seeds, and the legal 'traps' for farmers using them.

There are two kinds of measurements in Physics. One is termed 'absolute' and temperature would be an example; there is a zero point and all measurements are all related only to that. The other is 'gauge' which is a relational measurement depending on how you measure; a bird on a 15000V line does not get electrocuted, as the bird itself would measure 0V. And you do have an interest in relativity and are quite familiar with it, so you are aware that time, distance and speeds are all relative, and interlinked by Galilean and Special Relativity. Time is 'kept' by measurement of repeating changes, so, to measure the accuracy of the 'repeating changes' of your clock, you need another standard which measures repeating changes, and you can set T=0 whenever you want.

But liability for consequences still has to establish a causal relation. And while it may be simple to establish cause in the case of a tiger mauling, or a flooded yard and basement from your neighbor's reservoir, it is much harder to link a specific cancer to your neighbor's pesticide use. So, does that neighbor have the right to prevent your use of a known carcinogen ?

Too binary, and nebulous at the same time. Let's try something a little more nuanced. You buy RoundUp at your local Walmart to spray the weeds on your interlocking brick driveway. Your neighbor tells you to stop as it is a known carcinogen. Who is infringing on who's rights? ( although your vaccine example works for me )

I was thinking hydraulic force multiplication, where applying a small force to a small area causes the pressure to exert a large force on a large area. I believe this is Pascal's Principle applied to master/slave cylinders.

As we are the only 'thinking' animal, it serves the convenient purpose of giving us a body part to 'cup' with our hand as we sit and think. I believe there is a statue illustrating this ...

This sounds like homework. Can you show some of your thoughts on deriving this ? I will provide some guidance. The mid-point between two numbers, even when those numbers represent distances on an axis, is given by the average of the two.

This sounds like homework. Can you show some of your thoughts on deriving this ? I will give you some guidance. Given that x and y axis are at right angles, you might want to apply Pythagoras' Theorem to the problem.

@xenog123 Donald ?!? ... Is that you?

C9 is heavenly ? Not according to L Cohen "Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor falls, the major lifts The baffled king composing Hallelujah"

Interesting. I always thought the baba' was an Italian dessert ( popular in the Naples region ) and one of my favorite.

Did I mention delusion ?

A pretty good explanation of the origins and predictions of IQ testing, including the 'corruption' and mis-use by Americans and NAZIs, Notice that all the 'predictors' that IQ tests provide are all correlations, not causes. I wonder how a stable and advantaged childhood and teen-age years, with good schooling, would correlate with the metrics of success ( education, income, wealth, etc. ) identified in the video. Maybe the most important correlation is how responsive caregiving and nutrition, nurturing interactions, and a stimulating educational environment affect IQ scores.

While I cannot discount a genetic racial or inherited component to intelligence, keep in mind that a newborn's brain doubles in size during the first year, and is 90% of adult size by age 5. "This rapid development is driven by the creation of billions of neural connections that are strengthened by positive experiences like responsive caregiving, nurturing interactions, and a stimulating environment. A healthy environment, good nutrition, and consistent routines are crucial for building a strong foundation for future learning, problem-solving, and emotional well-being" I would think this is the main cause of, or lack of, intelligence. This OP is not about race; stop trying to make it so.

Post your conversations on FB. This is a Science discussion forum.

This one also ...

That ship gas already sailed ...

Ooops! I didn't actually read the article, and provided it as general reference. I notice now that it starts getting very speculative about halfway through. My bad.

Zero point energy is directly related to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and as such, it is a global property of our universe. It is also directly related to the expansion of the universe, and the reason it cannot be infinite ( some original ideas ) or even the current calculated 120 orders of magnitude greater than the values derived from observations of 'flatness' and expansion rates of our universe. See here for history and details regarding vacuum energy Zero-point energy - Wikipedia As it is a global property of the vacuum, and gives the vacuum a 'mass/energy' allowing it to 'gravitate', any decrease in vacuum energy allows expansion to increase. This is the mechanism for the inflationary period of the universe, while it was still in a global causal contact. See here for inflation history and modelling Cosmic inflation - Wikipedia As the universe is no longer in causal contact, 'tapping into' vacuum energy has the effect of decreasing local vacuum energy, possibly causing localized inflation. Think of the prospect of using zero point energy to power your car, and creating a new universe in your driveway. It would be a long walk to get to your front door 😄 .

Yes it is. The only other person I know of, who tosses around IQ comparisons as if they mean something, is Donald Trump. Draw whatever conclusions you wish from that ...

A lot of scientists do some things that are detestable. @exchemist has already mentioned some, but R Feynman liked dating female undergrads, F Haber and W Heisenberg were staunch NAZI supporters, and @swansont has been accused of being an authoritarian moderator ( 😄😄 ). Accomplishments and character have little to do with each other. I can even admire B Mussolini for making the trains run on time, and A Hitler for rebuilding the German economy, while detesting the methods used to accomplish such things.

That's putting it nicely 🙂 . Sometimes it can be termed 'delusion' 😄 . ( Delusion - a false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, as a symptom of serious mental illness. )

The energy of empty space is actually very small; there just happens to be a HUGE amount of empty space. Unfortunately, that energy is unavailable, either for use, or in calculations ( 120 orders of magnitude discrepancy ). The 'empty' space of a Black Hole, however, is not the same 'empty' space. That space is defined by its Schwarzschild radius, and the resultant Event Horizon. Classically, the Event horizon conserves mass/energy, charge and angular momentum; there are various ways to extract energy from a massive, charged, spinning system. Semi-classically ( with some Thermodynamics and QM ) that space has a temperature, and depending on size, can radiate considerable amounts of radiative energy ( Romulan ships in the Star Trek universe employ a miniature BH as a power source as opposed to the matter/anti-matter process used by the Federation )

I don't see how we 'shape' our part of the universe, or 'create' the future. We interact with the only part of the universe that the speed of light/information allows us to. If that is what you are saying, then ... yeah; but it's no big revelation, it is a fundamental principle.