Dekan

These subjects always make people claw and spit at each other. Does it show we are big-brained parrots, or drunk?

Hoola, you're asking questions that no-one can answer. Even the mods don't know.

The above posts show that "Philosophy" always ends up by making people want to kick each other. Just like "Religion" and "Politics" Why are these subjects even on a Science Forum. Is it to liven things up?

Looking at this scientifically, "Love" is a bonding force. It can bond man to woman, in the straight scenario. It can also bond man to man, and woman to woman, in the far more interesting gay variant. And aren't such variants also embodied in the Universal building blocks, the atoms. Atoms contain protons(positive charge), electrons(negative charge),and neutrons(neutral charge) Mighn't these particles be better thought of, not in terms of "charge", but of sexuality. Thus protons are male, forming the dominant king nucleus. Electrons are female, like a cloud of wives swirling dutifully round the king. And the neutrons are the intimate bisexual favourites of the king. Like in Richard II, where intimate male friend led to the splitting of the dynasty, and the subsequent Wars of the Roses. Just as a neutron can lead to the splitting of the atom, and subsequent Nuclear Wars. The parallel seems exact. It hasn't happened yet, but surely it must come soon?

Perhaps Java and Python have this advantage - they're hard to understand. So they give anyone who can program in them an aura of superiority, of mystique. Just like traditional mystiques, such as medical handwriting and legal phraseology. Which are designed to baffle the layman. And so preserve an elite status for professionals. As a layman, I think BASIC is easily the best programming language. It's simple and logical. Aided by REM statements, a well-structured BASIC program makes clear at each stage what it's doing, and why. Whereas, don't programs written in other languages, somewhat resemble Egyptian hieroglyphics?

Anyone stupid enough to eat junk food deserves to be eliminated from the gene-pool. It's Natural Selection in action - the weak go to the Wal(mart)

I suppose Evolution makes sense, up to a certain point. You can see that hydrogen atoms might combine with atoms of other elements, to make molecules of simple chemicals. And these simple chemicals might then interact with each other, and "evolve" into more complex chemicals. But,how far can this process go? StringJunky says in #61 that it can lead to "life". That seems a leap of faith. No-one has yet proved how life started, and where. Was it in small warm ponds, arctic ice, clay replicators, panspermic comets? There are many theories. But they lack any scientific proof. In the absence of such proof, why shouldn't someone say life was started by a God. Isn't that as good a provisional hypothesis as any other?

Thanks iNow. But aren't your economic rationalisations a desperate attempt to deny the obvious - mass immigration means the end of America. By 2100 you'll all be speaking Spanish. The USA will be just a third-world Greater Mexico. You gave away the store. Reminds one of the Charleton Heston movie, where he finds the fallen Statue of Liberty on the beach.

My point is that maths makes a distinction between "0" and 1". This makes normal computers work - each "bit" is either 0 or 1. So we know what numbers the bits represent.. And can do mathematical calculations accordingly. That's clear, but it doesn't seem to apply to computers which supposedly operate by QT. In these computers, apparently the bits are "0" and "1" at the same time. And that's what puzzles me - how do we know what numbers the bits are representing? I'd appreciate your guidance.

I can't accept that hydrogen atoms can spontaneously generate a powerful intelligence such as yourself. Isn't it reminiscent of the old ideas that mud and wool could spontaneously generate frogs and mice? I mean really!!!

Thanks iNow for you kind reply. I've studied your post, but doesn't it seem, even to you, a bit unconvincing. Could plain hydrogen atoms do it all (including your post) without an outside influence?

Mulling over the above posts, I wonder why all our internal combustion engines don't run on diesel. Consider the advantage of the diesel engine - the fuel doesn't need electric sparks to ignite it. It goes off by itself, by mechanical compression. So there's no need for spark plugs, with their associated complex, and likely to malfunction, electrical circuitry. Why don't we use diesel engines more - is there something against them?

Atlantis and Mu get posts into Speculations

"The Universe inflated faster than the speed of light" . Wouldn't the electrons get left behind?

Mass immigration.

Does that apply to Quantum Theory?

Could hydrogen atoms, just interacting with each other, evolve into a sock puppet?

21st Century America issues food-stamps, we all know why, but who dares speak?

Aristotle lived in a primitive Iron-Age agricultural community. He had no idea of modern Science. He thought the Sun went round the Earth! So why should we bother with anything he said - isn't It just pre-scientific rubbish?

What is "Life"?

It's hard to imagine a trillion dollars

Hoola, are you a computer program?

The spent fuel rods would be encased in strong lead cylinders, like torpedoes. So when they struck the bottom, they would penetrate many metres down into the silt, and be securely buried for thousands of years. Anyway, even if a bit of radiation did eventually leak out into the water, it'd only encourage some interesting mutations in fish. Actually, when one looks at pictures of some present-day deep-sea fish, they do seem unnaturally bizarre. Perhaps they're the product of previous nuclear waste-disposal, by Atlantis, or Mu?

As regards the greenhouse effect, that would be no problem. We'd scrap all the CO2-producing coal and gas powered plants, and switch over completely to CO2-clean atomic power stations. The radioactive waste products from these stations, would be safely disposed of in the Pacific Ocean. Specifically, by being dropped into the Challenger Deep. This has 7 miles of seawater over it, which should provide more than adequate shielding.

What does "poverty" really mean? Doesn't it boil down to this - not having enough to eat. If so, it's basically a problem of food-shortage. And this problem could be solved by building more factories, and atomic power stations The stations would provide the energy to dig mines, bring up ores, and smelt them into metals, which would go to big atomic-powered factories. Here the metals are shaped into a huge armada of machines - tractors, combine-harvesters, motor-trucks - designed to go out and work the Earth's farms, to produce the needed food. And the farms would be ready all over the Earth - especially in South America, where the primitive rain-forest would be bulldozed and cleared for usable modern arable and grazing land. Also in Australia, where atomic-powered desalination plants would pump water from the coast to irrigate the interior and make it agriculturally productive. With bold scientific steps like these, we could feed everyone, and get rid of poverty within a few decades. What's stopping us doing it?