Mr Skeptic

All species are similar to humans, some more than others. This is why we can apply, say, studies of yeast to humans. Mice are more similar to humans than many animals, since we share a fairly recent common ancestor, the mammals.

From the description it sounds like it would be slightly better than laser propulsion, and would push you away from the object you're pulling toward you.

Well aren't we feeling self-important today. As if most of us educated people wouldn't have heard of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, or that some attempt to implement the anthropic principle, and the various other interpretations. http://en.wikipedia....es_the_collapse

Yeah, especially if we then have to worry about edited quotes.

! Moderator Note Just one thread is enough. No need for the other six threads you started. If you made a mistake in your post you briefly have the ability to edit posts to correct any mistakes.

See how easy it is to make a convincing argument without incorrectly referring to those deaths as murder? Just a hint: anyone who would not accept "murder" as an accurate description of that would be less convinced by your argument due to that, whereas anyone who would accept the word "murder" as an accurate description would likewise not be convinced by your argument because they were already convinced before you made the argument. That is a very legitimate point. Having noted some of the death tolls, it makes me wonder just how serious any of them are about what they are doing. I'd say 1 in 6000 is a rather low death rate for a civil war, though I understand it hasn't quite come to that with both sides being somewhat reluctant to shoot at each other. However, I seriously doubt an election would have told you what you seem to imply it would: This happens in a lot of countries all the time. What you are missing, is that there is 1) usually no clear leader with greater support, and 2) the people usually accept the current leader for a while and wait for the next scheduled revolution rather than demand their immediate withdrawal. But remember that almost all countries consider the government to serve at the pleasure of its people (see: elections). Insurrections are to be put down on behalf of the people, not because the current ruler wants to stay in power against the will of the people.

It seemed like a pleasant enough place. I've heard claims both that Adam had to work a bit to get his food (take care of the garden at least), and also that there was just plentiful food there for the taking and he didn't have to work. Nothing about there being no change, nor no challenges, nor no stimulation, nor not being allowed to question things or try things. Those you just made up to try to make some point. The only suggestion that it might have been sub-par was that Adam was lonely, but then god yanked a rib out of him and made him a girl and then everything was great. However, I must say that Adam and Eve were seriously lacking in moral character. Specifically, they were completely amoral and wouldn't know good or evil if it bit them in the arse. In fact, the Bible is very clear that people should do good and avoid evil, but Adam and Eve were incapable of doing so. I don't think I'd even qualify them as human -- even animals know about morality. Also, the whole thing about having a lying totalitarian tyrant must have been a big turn-off (compare Genesis 3:22 to what god said earlier about the fruit). Anesthesia and egalitarianism. In your face, god. Tractors and herbicides. In your face, god. Next up, we're making a bit of progress toward a cure for aging.

And people who would not submit to an omnipotent god would submit to some random bureaucracy why? Isn't god described as being incapable of sin? This of course is why some people want to hold him as a moral standard, but if he were capable of sin they'd have to admit a moral standard beyond god and they cannot accept that idea. Yet if god is incapable of choosing to sin, does he really have free will?

It might help if for the water pipe analogy you consider the difference in potential energy rather than in pressure. For example with water pipes you could use a high pressure to pump a higher volume at a lower pressure (like a transformer), and then you realize that what you should be keeping track of is potential energy and not the force or pressure. Whole atoms can and do move around, for example in an ionic solution, which is also how batteries and electrolysis work. In a metal, charge moves as a sea of electrons, like water in a ginormously huge pipe. In a vacuum, the electrons can get emitted by a filament and then move around through space as free particles. In air, charge moves as a plasma with atoms getting stripped of their electrons. In semiconductors the material can be doped to have free electrons or missing electrons (aka "holes") and I'm not too sure of the details but charge flows very much better from the direction of free electrons to the area of lacking electrons. In the gap between the two plates of a capacitor, the flow of electricity doesn't involve the movement of charge carriers past the gap at all, but rather the current is a change in the electric field. In a Van der Graff generator, there are charges being carried along on macroscopic strips of metal (though it also involves more standard electrical flow), and I think that is similar to how the currents powering earth's magnetic field work. I think that if you make an electric field strong enough you'll get a flow of new particle/antiparticle pairs in opposite directions. Anyhow, I hope that clears it up for you.

What evidence do you have that any of the things you say are possible, are possible?

Just to make things interesting, has anyone heard of Resource Curse? It seems lots of oil-rich countries like Libya suffer from that. When you lie you can say anything, even that very horrible made up stories things are true. When it is obvious that you are lying, all that does is weaken your argument. Equating perfectly legal apathy to illegal murder is stupid and annoying, and whenever anyone does so I feel the need to slap some sense into them. Probably at the point where his people reject him as ruler and request our help to fight off this insurrection (which Gaddafi forces would be once no longer the legitimate government). Note that multiple cities have defected and no longer consider Gaddafi their leader, as have multiple government officials and military leaders. Gaddafi has had to hire foreign mercenaries to suppress the Libyan people. Why your presumption that Gaddafi is still the legitimate leader? Note that many of the people do not want our military assistance, especially not in the form of troops on the ground. I think it is important as a matter of national pride, and also as an example to future leaders and current leaders elsewhere, that the people throw off their rejected leader on their own when they chose to do so. However, I think the offer to provide military assistance is probably appreciated and perhaps also of significant value. Why is it ridiculous that a government is considered to derive its right to govern from the consent of the people? And why is it ridiculous for other nations to assist a fellow nation Libya to fight off an insurrection by illegitimate ex-leader Gaddafi?

Is that any different than how in most systems of geometry points are never defined and yet they are used throughout? (not only are points not defined but they explicitly say they won't bother to define them) I probably misunderstood~ No, I defined distance in terms of time. This definition is essentially defining time as the stuff measured by using the cesium 133 atom as a clock. On the other hand, Einstein I believe defined time as distance/c by using light-clocks for his time measures. I've previously made a list of things that you will be able to understand if you know what distance is: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/26568-stuff-explained/

In case you're wondering, -10 degrees F is a positive temperature.

Our formal definition for distance is the length traveled by light in a given time: The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1⁄299 792 458 of a second. This gives us an exact speed of light. As for time, I think it is basically "the stuff measured by clocks".

Be careful not to confuse force and energy. If you move things that attract each other farther apart, as a general rule the force between them decreases and the potential energy increases. But consider what happens if you drop the objects, so that they fall together. Then, work can be done by allowing them to move closer together, and they get closer together. Thus the potential energy at a distance is the the sum of the energy released when bringing them closer plus the potential energy they have at the nearer distance. Even though the force gets stronger, the potential energy decreases, as the objects move closer together. But again, for a lot of electrical stuff worrying about force and distance will just confuse you and you'd be better off just worrying about the voltage difference. (incidentally, voltage is always a difference, just like potential energy. There is no one absolute voltage, though the voltage difference to a grounded cable comes close.) I'd say no. There's no reason you can't have your charge carriers carry two charges each, eg magnesium ions. Better measure your charges in coulombs or in multiples of e. But charge is conserved, so if you take a given amount of charge from an item it will be lacking that much charge. As for the (maximum) field strength, it depends on the charge density, much like a dense planet will have a stronger surface gravity than a less dense planet (if you prefer, you can think of that as being able to get closer).

Oh really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution There's a big difference between having a law on the books and actually using it.

I wonder if they're abusing the idea that "all press is good press"? The controversy will ensure this issue gets revived often, until it gets proved one way or the other.

I've long considered affirmative action for black people to be somewhat justified due to historical considerations -- despite it being racism. However, it recently occurred to me that historical considerations, at least financial ones, could be accounted for far more accurately by considering historical records of a person's ancestors. One could automatically do a bunch of calculations based on a person's ancestors income tax returns, for example, to calculate a specific person's historical financial disadvantage. The same could be done with the neighborhoods lived in, to account for nasty effects of gang culture or whatever. Doing it this way would have the disadvantage of being more complicated, but the advantage of being based on actual reality instead of racism. As for a whites-only scholarship, I'd find it distasteful but certainly fair given that we do allow racial discrimination for scholarships.

Doubtful. You wouldn't know what you were missing out on. That is, of course, the nasty thing about ignorance -- that you don't know about it. In fact, ignorance would probably make you feel more confident about the fullness of your knowledge: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/10626367

Incidentally, that formula is very important. It is the formula for distance if you know the x and y offsets, or if you prefer for the hypotenuse of a right triangle (which is the best kind of triangle).

Would it be intuitive if the charges were replaced with planet-sized masses? The same masses at different distances would have different gravitational potential (greater for larger distance). Or, if you arrange to keep the force nearly constant, if the distance changes? Raise an object 1 m against gravity, and it has some potential energy, raise it 2 m against gravity and it has twice the potential energy, despite being the same mass. When you have charges there's a slight difference because you have to account for whether the charge is positive or negative which changes the direction "up" (against the field) would be. But distance only counts when it's along or against a field, which gets complicated if charges are moving. If you have moving charges you probably want to ignore what portion of the voltage is due to distance and what portion due to field strength, and just think of it as potential energy difference between two places, per unit charge. In metals, you probably want to consider electron flow like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_velocity#Numerical_example

Consider if you had a giant capacitor as big as your car, and one as small as your finger. If you put the same amount of charge difference in each, the potential difference will be much smaller in the larger capacitor since the charges aren't as "crammed together". Or consider if you had a set of negative charges and a set of positive charges, one cm from each other or ten cm from each other. The ones with the larger separation have more energy per unit charge, and in fact you could get energy by moving them together from the 10 cm point to the 1 cm point. More generally, integrate the force as you move a charge against an electric field and you get the energy that charge can release when it is allowed to return. A stronger electric field over a longer distance will give you more energy per unit charge. Move charges against the electric field, and you increase the potential energy. If you move a significant number of charges against the field you also make the field stronger, and so increase the energy per unit charge (voltage) as well. --- In particle physics, it is convenient to measure energy as electron-volts, the amount of energy you get by dropping an electron across 1 volt differential. Joules too relate to electricity, E = Volts * Coulombs, And watts (Joule/s) too can be related to electricity: In terms of electromagnetism, one watt is the rate at which work is done when one ampere (A) of current flows through an electrical potential difference of one volt (V). Two additional unit conversions for watt can be found using the above equation and Ohm's Law.Where ohm (Ω) is the SI derived unit of electrical resistance.

So, any luck getting your car out?

OK, most of my cycling through red lights takes place in the city. What if there is a car 100 m away? Then, at 30 mph it will take over 7 seconds to reach the intersection. Maybe he's crazy and going at 60 mph? It'll still take 3.7 seconds, plenty enough time to cross the street even going at 10 mph. But I wouldn't do this in a 60 mph zone. A bike is more maneuverable and has far greater visibility (and hearing too, but you can't trust that). The bike is smaller too. Safety-wise, on a bike you're not endangering the lives of other people, at least not compared to how much you're endangering your own life. This helps encourage responsible behavior. As for rain, it makes cyclists uncomfortable and less maneuverable and lowers visibility all around. But it is likely to encourage any biker who likes waiting at intersections for a light to turn on an empty street question why they're doing so. Oh, and I think similar things go for pedestrians. I think pedestrians are supposed to only cross at intersections, and possibly wait for the light to turn besides. I also largely ignore this one, and in fact quite frequently following those rules increases the danger involved (since sometimes cars turn at intersections). Oh, and for extra fun, if you're walking your bike that makes you a pedestrian. Are you allowed to get off your bike and walk it across the street where a pedestrian would be allowed to do so but a vehicle would not?

Consciousness is how we manufacture our own reality. Not everything that we see happening actually does (or did), but we reconstruct things into a sensible narrative to fill in any gaps in what we know. As for what we are, I'd say it would be best described as a combination of information and processing power. We are built from a biological body but there is no reason I can see why we couldn't trade for a silicon one. We're not just information because otherwise we'd be frozen in time.