Mr Skeptic

I meant him as an example of someone who is perfectly aware of god's existence and power, yet chose to reject Him. But for what reason? Surely he knew that he has no chance against an omnipotent god, so he couldn't have been acting in his own self-interest? (I don't think hell would have the social structure necessary for someone to rule it, whatever that would mean, nor that the honor of ruling it would be granted to the bad guy in chief.) And it was not just Lucifer that rejected God, but 1/3 of the angels as well. But why?

Oh, you mean like Lucifer? I don't think I have enough integrity/altruism/whatever to face the wrath of an omnipotent god.

Ah, capillary action. It still won't work. You just add that force to the magnetic force when considering the potential energy of your fluid. Your fluid will move to the point of least potential and then stay there. Yes, capillary action is a force like any other and yes, gravity can overcome it just fine. Otherwise, a capillary tube would fill up completely, yet all the capillary tubes I've observed only fill up partially. They can be filled up more than normal by immersing them deep in the liquid, and kept there against gravity by putting a finger over the top (so that air pressure helps hold it up against gravity), but then if released will drip down until it is at the same level it would be if it had just been stuck barely touching the liquid.

All drugs will kill you in large enough doses. You should check out the drugs used for lethal injection, the government believes those are the most humane drugs to kill someone with. Though I'm sure shooting yourself full of morphine would work fine, I mean what pain are you going to feel?

I decided to use facebook. Mostly now I won't forget about all my friends, won't lose touch with them and not know where they live nor how to contact them anymore. I use facebook because of how unsocial I am. Which reminds me, I haven't logged on in months. I should go see if any more of my old friends found me.

Same reason I don't believe in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, leprechauns, unicorns, Thor, etc... there's no evidence for their existence, and so I assume they are irrelevant, which means they can be treated as non-existent. I can't prove they don't exist, sure, but believing in their existence provides no benefits, no predictive power, nothing. I used to believe in the Bible, used to be a Young Earth Creationist even. Then, I realized that that was a bunch of lies. Although I could have switched to considering the entire creation account metaphorical, I felt that this would make the whole Bible entirely worthless, especially considering that things like genealogies are not supposed to be metaphorical. Since then I've also come to believe that the God of the Bible is immoral and unworthy of worship even if he did exist. Even I could do a better job morally, and also if I had enough time from an engineering standpoint. So then I take it that you believe in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, the Greek Pantheon, and all the other religions too, just in case they are right? Do you also believe that you have some very rich relative that you don't know about and that you'll inherit millions of dollars from him when he dies, because just think how cool that would be? Of course not! It makes no sense to believe things because it would be cool if it were true, and in any case most of those gods wouldn't accept you worshiping other gods so you're from a statistical standpoint almost certainly worshiping the wrong one. As for the silly idea that there is nothing to lose by believing in any particular god if they don't exist, that is blatantly false. For one thing, many of the gods require some kind of worship or sacrifice or that you live your life a certain way. Some of the followers of the enemy of Christianity, Paul, believe that simple belief is enough for salvation, but this is repeatedly contradicted by the words of Jesus and the other apostles. Even if it were not, actually believing in that sort of thing entails certain actions, just like believing cars can kill you entails looking before crossing the street, wearing a seatbelt, etc... ask yourself, do you truly believe as Jesus said that giving even a glass of water to someone entails a reward in heaven? Because if you really believed that sort of thing, would you not give away all your stuff to help the poor, like Jesus asked a certain young man to do? Oh, and for extra amusement, I'm an atheist that is going to heaven. The sect of Christianity that I used to believe in was that all that was required for salvation is believing and accepting Jesus Christ as my savior, which I did, and also that once saved you cannot lose your salvation. So I am a saved, born-again atheist who is going to a heaven I no longer believe in. As for you, if you really believed the argument you just made, you should convert to Hinduism, that way you can worship the most gods without fear of going to hell in case you are wrong, to maximize your chances. Why stick with just one of the many gods, think of the risk you're taking! And as for your so-called belief, it is quite clear to anyone who's paying attention to your actions, and in particular to God, that you don't really believe. Think carefully about what your beliefs entail, and then consider -- your actions don't match those so-called beliefs you claim to have.

Sure, it will move to where the field is strongest. And then stop. And the direction it moves depends on where you placed the moving part. To get continuous motion you need to continuously change where the field is strongest, like in an electric motor. Are you suggesting that in your device, the ferrofluid will move to where the field is strongest, and then away from it, and all of this in a specific direction?

lemur, why is saying "I don't know but such and such might know" authoritarian? --- I don't think things can be axioms and testable at the same time. And some of the stuff is definitions, which are true by virtue of that we said they are such. F=ma I take as the Newtonian definition of force, rather than as specifying some relation between m*a and whatever it is that force is, and as such isn't really testable.

Assault, destruction of property... He should be glad we consider him sick.

Why would this have anything to do with fraud? Or did you think scientists never make any mistakes?

There's nothing in your setup that would make your fluid flow in any particular direction.

You can increase efficiency by hiring workers with a lower standard of living. If you don't need to pay your workers enough to buy two cars, TVs, computers, etc., you don't need to pay as much. In addition, workers with a lower standard of living use their more limited resources more efficiently.

The scale law means that if you want to make something bigger you will need to change its shape somewhat. Make a human 15 ft tall while keeping the same dimensions and if he was 5 ft and 150 lb, he'd become 15 ft and 4000 lbs. His bones wouldn't be able to support his weight, and even if they could, he'd break his bones if he ever fell (81 times the gravitational potential energy at standing height). A large land animal would have to be somewhat like an elephant, having very thick bones compared to its height. Note that if an elephant falls even a few feet it will break its bones. As for giants in the bible, perhaps they weren't all that big: http://en.wikipedia....2.80.99s_height We can do that: http://www.guinnessw...allest_man.aspx

If you want to know why Maxwell's equations are what they are, you should probably ponder why they are so similar to the equations of fluid mechanics.

It is based on an observation made hundreds (thousands?) of years ago, that the laws of physics are the same no matter how fast you are going, so that you can't tell how fast you are going if you are in a closed box, which was called the principle of relativity. The speed of light can be derived from Maxwell's equations. Also, we know that waves travel based on other factors than the speed of the emitter, so that you can't make sound go any faster by moving while you talk, same with waves in water. In those examples, the waves move within a medium at a speed dictated by the properties of the medium, and you can move faster relative to the waves if you are moving relative to the medium. People thought the same was true for light, calling the medium for light "luminiferous aether". However this idea was disproved by the Michaelson-Morley experiment.

So why aren't you complaining about the restrictions individuals make on private property? If I want to go sit on your couch and watch your TV, what gives you the right to tell me to get lost? Just because you own that stuff does that mean that you get to restrict my freedom? Why can't I wander around on the collectively owned property of a corporation, what gives them the right to restrict my freedom?

Golly what an astute observation!

Dunno. When you are planning the greatest terrorist attack ever, do you tell all your friends about it beforehand? People might tell on you or get a little nervous about hosting you.

So what? Individual ownership is also in conflict with individual ownership. If I own something then you don't. And are you also suggesting that corporations must allow anyone who wants to to wander on their property and do stuff there, since it is collectively owned? And you still haven't given a reason to justify why you should be allowed to demand how people use their property (by not allowing immigration). I don't need to give a reason for anything I do on my property, who the hell are you to tell me what to do?

Well, if nothing else this gives plenty more people a great opportunity to say things that are contradictory, "my team's speech doesn't rile people up but their side's does".

Yeah, I find a lot of coins. If you start looking for coins you will find more of them. If you practice something, you get better at it. And I do suspect your subconscious also helps out, without it you wouldn't be able to notice anything important with all the flood of data reaching your senses.

That's what you have to do to learn physics. It's not easy to comprehend it, and if you're just trying to memorize equations you are going to fail. See for example the paradoxes of relativity. There are no paradoxes in relativity. There's no paradoxes in quantum mechanics either.

Well if you want something to not decay, the best way is to keep it cold and dry. Dry means no life to decompose the body, no water to leach minerals from the bones, no water for hydrolysis reactions (well it would have to be absurdly dry for that last one). The cold slows down almost every chemical reaction. Now I think in Israel they have a tradition of burying people in caves. Even though caves are humid, to properly get rid of bones requires that the calcium be leached away, unlike most parts of the body that are just oxidized into gases calcium will not. But unless it was also dry I wouldn't expect any DNA.

As for the physics of the situation, it turns out iron gets soft when it is hot (same reason blacksmiths heat it up). It also turns out that airplanes have a lot of fuel in them, and fuel is flammable. Of course the structural support had some fireproofing to prevent just that problem, but it turns out having a giant airplane crash into the building can cause some damage to that. And while I'm sure buildings are very sturdy, dropping hundreds of tons on a building (ie, its upper half) from even one story high is probably not something they can withstand. On the other hand considering 9/11 was the greatest thing to ever happen for Bush, I think it is healthy to be a bit suspicious, if only so that no one would dare to try that sort of thing. However if he was involved I really doubt it would be any further than simply not preventing it. I just can't believe even a president could plan something like this without someone speaking up, if he wanted it done he'd have to outsource.

I don't think that decomposition would yield the same results as burning. Especially considering all the ways the body might not completely decompose. Also, cremation would produce dehydrated chemicals but decomposition would probably result in hydrated chemicals.