Dekan

When you say, "He signs a peace treaty with Israel", do you mean the Anti-Christ meets with the Israeli Prime Minister, and they jointly sign a document? What view would the US Senate take of such an act. Granted, the US is generally supportive of Israel. But wouldn't an Israeli-Anti-Christ Pact, put a severe strain on diplomatic relations with the US?

We've been speculating about God for at least 30,000 years and it hasn't got us very far. Not even as far as deciding whether there's such a thing as God in the first place! This startling lack of progress, strongly suggests that the whole issue cannot be resolved without further data. Which evidently isn't yet available on Earth. We might obtain more data, if we could contact other intelligences in the Universe. The only way to contact these intelligences (if they exist), is by using our Science. To build things like radio-telescopes. And perhaps, in the future, we'll develop more advanced communication devices. Using "Q-Rays", or some other yet-to-be discovered technology. Or maybe future Science will give us the data even without the putative ET's. So I think we should concentrate on developing our Science, and put speculation on hold for the present.

That could be the point. Isolated here on Earth, we humans lack the evidence. We're trying to discuss a problem with, at present, insufficient data. But more data could become available in the future - if we eventually succeed in contacting intelligent aliens elsewhere in the Galaxy, and the Universe. These aliens could tell us of their own thoughts, and experiences. Has He, ie God, given them a "Gospel"? How does it compare with the one He's given us? "Doubtless, we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear." - Alice Meynell Then we might, together, arrive at a conclusion. So pending future contact with ETs - shouldn't we just put the whole issue on hold? If we did, would that have bad results?

That's a very perceptive and valuable observation. It will stay in my mind. Much obliged.

A "Conservation of Energy" Law, if true, implies the Universe only has a limited amount of energy - which has to be "conserved". However, is there really such a Law? Who says there is one? We humans do - because we observe things locally on Earth which seem to support it. But looking outside the Earth, we see galaxies flying apart at an accelerating rate. This puzzles us, because we can't account for where the energy comes from, to make them accelerate. So we invent concepts like "Dark Energy". Which is a kind of 21st Century equivalent of the 18th Century "Caloric Fluid", or "Phlogiston". Why can't there just be an endless supply of energy, which doesn't have to be conserved?

The Earth is swarming with all kinds of animals. Most of these don't seem to help human survival. Why do we want them hanging around? Recently I found a leaflet in my weekly Science magazine. The leaflet was about the Siberian tiger, or some kind of tiger. These tigers are apparently getting scarce. Only 700 left, or something like that. The leaflet exhorted me to pay some money to "sponsor" one of these things, so they wouldn't die out. Well, frankly I don't really care whether they die out or not. They don't seem to be contributing anything to my life. Or human life in general. Who'd miss them? The only animals we'd miss, are the ones we eat. Like cows, pigs and chickens. If these died out, our diet would suffer. To ensure this doesn't happen, we keep plenty of them on our farms. But most animals outside our farms, are irrelevant to our needs. I wonder then, why some people have this obsession with preserving useless animals. Of course, these people call it "Protecting the Environment", or "Preserving Ecological Diversity", or some similar buzz-phrase. But isn't it a bit irrational really?

Back in the 1950's/60's, atomic power seemed to make anything possible. Project Orion envisaged atomic spaceships weighing 8,000,000 tons. These ships would cruise the solar system: the motto was - "Saturn by 1970". "Give me a room full of theoretical physicists and I'll conquer the world", said an executive of a certain US company. Alas, all this came to naught. I wonder why......

Thanks Ophiolite. I like your story about Winston Churchill's dream. An uncanny insight into the future burgeoning of the EU: "Brussels sprouts". Freud was probably right you know - most humans are sexually frustrated. Why else, all the porn on the Internet? I don't think I'll bother with the dream diary - if it was really any use to the mind, wouldn't the Greeks and Romans have found out about it long ago. They came up with some useful mind ideas, like the "Memory Palace" thing.

Thanks Brainteaser for the link - I didn't know about Chimborazo. But measuring things from the Earth's centre, seems a bit weasely, if you'll forgive me for saying so! We've no direct experience of where the Earth's centre is. Our only experience is of the land, or the sea-bottom, so we should make measurements from these. If we measure from these, how high can a mountain get? Presumably there's a maximum height it can reach. Before it starts crumbling under its own weight. For instance, could an Earth mountain reach 50,000 feet above sea-level, or 70,000 feet. Was there such a mountain in past geological times, and have geologists found one?

Thanks DrmDoc - that seems an excellent explanation of the memory-loss associated with dreams. Suppose a caveman was actually attacked by a sabretoothed tiger. The caveman would suffer physical injuries. Caused by the biting and slashing of the tiger. If despite these injuries, the caveman survived the attack, it would be very advantageous for him to retain a permanent memory of it. So as to warn him against any future repetition. His memory, backed up by the physical experience of the attack , would be under strong pressure to record the event as: "Real physical danger! Survival threat! Don't forget!" Whereas, suppose the caveman only dreamed of being attacked by a tiger. As a kind of hypothetical possibility. The dream wouldn't be backed by any physical experience. So there'd be no pressure, or even mechanism, to remember the dream. Have I got that right, or am I being too simplistic?

I often wake up, with the memory of a dream very strong in my mind. However, within a few minutes, the memory slips away, and I can't remember what the dream was about. This is worrying, because the dream seemed, at the time, to be very striking and significant. But now it's lost. To avoid this loss, I could keep a notepad and pen by the bedside. Then on waking up, quickly write down details of the dream. Would that be a good thing to do though? If dreams quickly disappear from memory, perhaps that's because they're meant to. So keeping them in memory, by writing them down in a "dream diary", might not be good for mental health. Do any posters on these boards keep a dream diary? If so, what effect has it had, and would you recommend the practice?

No company would dare sell one. In case the buyer fell off it, or crashed into something - then engaged a lawyer, who'd sue the company to beggary. For a similar reason, we can't have "flying wing" airliners. Even though they'd be much more efficient. A "flying wing" would be a radical design change. This change would be blamed, by the lawyers, for causing any subsequent crash. So the aircraft companies keep on making the existing crude design: a tube body, with two wings stuck on it. Which is no advance from the Boeing-707 of the late 1950's. Further progress in civil aviation, would require the suppression of the lawyers, but aren't they too powerful, especially in America?

The highest mountain in the world today, is of course Mt. Everest. This is a bit over 29,000 feet. I wonder whether in past ages, there were even higher mountains, and how high they were. The shape of continents which existed in the past, can be found out, and described to us, by modern geologists. Can geologists also ascertain what height mountains were in the past? Were there any "super-Everests"?

I'd like to thank StringJunky for post#51, pointing me to Martin's "Cosmo Basics" thread. I've had a go at reading it, but it's above my head. The thing that struck me about it, was the mention of "wriggling photons". These seem reminiscent of the "swerving atoms" that Lucretius envisaged in his "On the Nature of the Universe", written some 2,000 years ago. Plus ca change.... and all that!

Sorry, but I don't understand. If the universe is expanding, doesn't that mean the edge of it, is moving. How can it move, unless there's some space for it to move in?

Well if there isn't any space outside, what is the universe expanding into?

When an animal or plant dies, its dead body rots and smells bad. Humans get rid of the bad smell by burying the corpses. What happens to the corpse of a bacterium when it dies? There are so many bacteria on humans. And the bacteria have such short lives. They must be dying all the time, and leaving trillions of corpses all over us. Where do the bacterial corpses go, do they just fall off us, or do they stay stuck on? Can they be smelled?

But there must be some outside space - to give the universe room to expand into. Otherwise, the universe would have a fixed boundary. And always stay the same size. It couldn't expand. Doesn't that show, that the universe isn't the whole enchilada?

Aren't "nations" just different groups of people, who share a common language and culture, and live in their own area of land. Just as different families live in their own houses. As long as they're left to themselves, they're quite happy. I get on with my next-door neighbours. I suppose you do with yours. But suppose you were told that a marvellous new policy was being introduced: "Domicile Freedom and Migration". Under which, your neighbours could move into your spare bedroom, if they wanted to. And come in to use your bathroom and kitchen. Or start digging up your garden, if they felt you hadn't got the right flowers growing in it. Would you approve the new policy? Or resist it strongly?

This is a a thought-provoking question. In pre-industrial times, people who lived in warm southern climes had it easy. They basked in the ever-present sunshine, plucked abundant fruit, and generally lazed about. Whereas the people who lived the cold north, had a harder time. They had to get through long winters. During these winters, they needed fires to keep them warm. The fires required fuel. And the only fuel available was wood. The wood was in trees. So the trees had to be chopped down. And all this chopping was hard work. The people thought: "Beggar this!" So they invented internal-combustion engines, electric motors, chain-saws, ships, submarines, cars, trains, aeroplanes,spacecraft,satellites, tractors, combine harvesters, artificial fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, x-rays, anaesthetics, dentures, prosthetic limbs, transplant surgery, radio, television, computers, telescopes, microscopes, reading, writing, printed books, glass windows, locks, keys, toilet paper, soap, washing powder, matches, sheets, blankets, mattresses, armchairs, wine, beer, microwave ovens, dishwashers, bicycles, compasses, prisms, rulers, atomic power-stations, and a lot of other things. This made the northern people very happy, but the southern people were unhappy, because it showed they were incompetent. This caused the northern people to feel guilty, so as a symbolic act, they decided to get rid of their atomic power stations, and build thousands of giant windmills instead. The windmills required a lot of labor to build, and did beggar all, but they took the heat off the northern people.

Thanks to everyone for your kind replies. These have provided the answer: Birds don't need a a vertical tail-fin, because they have an on-board computer (the avian brain). This brain rapidly actuates horizontal control surfaces, and so confers stability without the fin. In the same way that the computer brain on a B-2 bomber confers stability, even though the B-2 hasn't got a fin. (The B-2 pilots' brains don't do anything except decide whether that's the right target underneath, then pull the bomb-release lever). Sorted! Thanks again.

The United States of America, should have been the supreme realisation of Science and Civilisation. The "Shining City on a Hill". It came close to being that in the 1950's and 1960's. Ever since then, it's gone downhill. (We all know why, but none dare name the reason) If the US had been allowed to fulfil its historic role, it would have united the world under American leadership. Then there would have been no need for "wars" against Islam and the Muslim peoples. These peoples deserve respect for their great cultural and scientific achievements, and there is absolutely no reason why the US should be "at war" with them. Except for the one reason, which can't be mentioned.

Why use the word "hate"? This loaded word implies a violent, irrational emotion. And sounds nasty. That's why the word "hate" is a favourite of politically-correct people. They want to make anyone who disagrees with their ludicrous beliefs, sound nasty.

Thanks Swansont, you made me smile about the electrostatic energy! Touching a charged sphere of a van de Graaff generator, does indeed give a shock. I can testify to that. But electrostatic energy isn't really just potential energy, is it? It's actual energy, residing in all the extra electrons which have been stored in the charged sphere. These extra electrons make an electrostatically charged sphere, physically different from an uncharged one - the charged one contains more electrons. However a sphere charged with gravitational potential energy, doesn't seem physically different in any way from an uncharged one. Or does it contain more gravitons?