MadScientist

yes' date=' i would want my kid to take that action. bullies are cowards. if he DOES get hurt, i'd get him enroled in martial arts classes.

 

anyway, standing up to a bully doesn't necessarily take violence.[/quote']

 

I've changed my mind and totally agree with you, instead of being soft and reporting the bullies to the adults I'd rather my kids risk becoming the target of cowardly retaliatory attacks like getting beaten half to death by the bully and his/her mates after school. Why should I care?? It's not me that'll be lying in a hospital bed and I can teach them martial arts if they ever do get stabbed anyway...

 

Wouldn't it be better to fix all the bullies so they behaved more appropriately??

I'm sure you don't mean to put words in my mouth' date=' because that rarely ends well.

[/quote']

Sorry...

 

Of course cost:benefit is relevant to the thread - it will determine if a shielding system is ever put into use.

If a shield system is too expensive to manufacture or maintain, that's as much of a reason for not considering it as "it doesn't work". You can't expect to ignore real world implementation problems in a thread that is dealing with real world physics.

 

The thread is about fantasising about what kind of shield systems we'll use in the future.

 

We don't know how much it will cost to make shield systems. So how can we even bring cost effectiveness into the equation??

The best explanation I ever read on this phenomena was that it's a remnant from our days as tree dwelling animals. There's still a very small fear preprogrammed into our sub consciousnesses that manifests itself by telling our conscious self that we're falling even though we aren't. So we wake up and make sure we're not falling.

Evolutionarily speaking it would be a very beneficial thing to inherit from your parents.

Now that we don't need it, it's slowly being evolved out of us.

There is another issue RE cost effectiveness.

I'm sure that what you meant to say was "Sounds like a good/bad idea but don't forget that it would cost a lot to implement and power." Which are both irrelevent anyway to this discussion. Because we're discussing what shield systems we could create, not which would be cost effective.

Ah right, that'll be why we fight wars with 50 gigaton mechs then.

Nope.

It's why we spend a ridiculous number of billions on creating the ultimate killing machines that have the best armour they can on them.

So we can kill the enemy before they have a chance to kill us.

If you simply can't create the ultimate shield systems because the knowledge isn't available yet, you have to create the ultimate weapons systems to destroy the enemies ultimate weapons systems.

Think of the USA's or UK's military forces, they aren't systems for offensively invading countries to expand empires they're active defences and not passive defences like shields would be.

And if we had the know how to create those ultimate shields we could save a significant number of those lost lives and an amount of money on building new weapons to replace the ones lost or outdated ones.

Think about when/if we start zooming from one star to another, we can either go out there as invaders (highly unlikely IMO) or we can put active defences or passive defences on our ships.

Using active defences means killing the enemy and starting war though but using passive defences lessens the chances of those happening. Shields give you a chance to ask the enemy why they're attacking, to find out whether they're just attacking out of fear of invasion. They also give you a better chance of surving in a war.

Cost effective??

Again:

 

Cost versus benefit.

I'm not sure about this one Sayonara.

It'll eventually come to telling the dead peoples relatives that they died because the research or manufacture of improved shield defences wasn't cost effective enough.

That's pretty bad but there's another more important benefit to having better shield defences.

If your ships aren't as well shielded as they could have been, like you only spent 50 billion instead of 250 billion and we lose the war because all our ships have these crap shields then you lose more than the 200 billion you saved anyway along with far more...

And, there's not much point in spending 500 billion on a single ship if it's going to be destroyed when it runs into the first AI controlled alien garbage scow that has a weak automated defence system because its owners are involved in a war with another alien species.

It would be better to just be over shielded against such weak attacks then you can decide to ignore the attack and find the owners of the garbage scow to see why their ship attacked or go and blindly start a war against them.

If that 13 billion figure is a result of observation by NASA then please comment on the fact that it musta taken trillions of years for those object at 13 billion light years to go there from center of the universe.

 

Now imagine how far the first light musta reached

Those objects didn't travel for trillions of years because they didn't have to.

Since all matter existed in the point sized universe it expanded outwards with the space but space was expanding faster than the matter could or can ever keep up with.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't matter is being dragged along by the expansion of space, imagine a car being blown along by the wind, that wind would need to be blowing damned hard to move the car and because of friction, aerodynamics and a few other things the car will never move as fast as the wind is. And the wind can't be destroyed, it's energy, so it has to go somewhere so it behaves like space but space has to create somewhere new for it to expand to.

It didn't take trillions of years because of inflation theory but you're right that electromagnetic energy (it's not just light AFAIKnow) will have expanded much further outwards than any matter could have.

That, my dear YT, is exactly why we're talking about having at least three layers of shielding--anti-projectile, anti-laser, and the hull (however little it may end up helping).

Just to prove the point of why weapons used against us is important, if the other side had discovered matter teleportation they could teleport a virus or a raiding party on board our ship. So we need a layer of defence against transporter signals too, some for of teleportation signal disruption energy field.

Then what if they're psychic and have some level of telekenisis or other esoteric forms of attack??

So what is the speed of this so called expantion ?

 

Does that have anything to do with age of the universe ?

 

And what if I travell faster that than towards the edge of the universe ?

The big bang unleashed a vast amount of electromagnetic energy and hydrogen, which formed a soup that held the EM energy inside. After gravity did its work the EM energy could escape and start to expand the universe. EM energy travels at the speed of light, so the universe has been expanding for 13.7 billion years at the speed of light.

You could never reach the edge of the universe, unless you could outrun the speed of light and after 13 billion years of light speed it'll take some catching up.

That's the way I understand things anyway, correct me if I'm wrong.

Whats wrong with this paradox:

 

An arrow in flight is really at rest. For at every point in its flight' date=' the arrow must occupy a length of space exactly equal to its own length. After all, it cannot occupy a greater length, nor a lesser one. But the arrow cannot move within this length it occupies. It would need extra space in which to move, and it of course has none. So at every point in its flight, the arrow is at rest. And if it is at rest at every moment in its flight, then it follows that it is at rest during the entire flight.[/quote']

 

For that to be true it would have to be everything else in the universe moving while the arrow remained stationary.

Did I?

 

IANAP

I meant in a post in here and not in any educational institution.

We were talking about WMAP and someone, I'm pretty certain it was you, explained to me properly how the universe expanded.. I think my analogy was correct anyway.

Allow me to expand on what Sayonara taught me.

Prior to the big bang the universe and all the matter in the universe was held in a small amount of space, after the big bang space expanded and everything moved outwards with space...

Try this for a rough analogy.

Think of water held in a balloon, pump in a few impurities and keep pumping in water until the balloon explodes and the water flies everywhere, the impurities held in the water don't stay in the confines of the space that the balloon provided, they get carried out with the water all around the room, don't they??

and it DOES work most of the time' date=' it`s not a nice way to have to survive, always wondering is "He/They" are around the next corner that you`re obliged to walk around, it really sucks! but many bullies are that brain dead and wrapped up in their own ways, that unless you accident stumble across Him/They, they most certainly will never come Looking for you!

 

not only that, but spending lunch and break time in the Computer room or the Lab or Chess club in the library, you get to meet fellow "Geeks/Nerds" that have the same problems as you do![/quote']

 

One of the main snags with this strategy is that it's too easy to carry that behavour on into adulthood, I'm 36 and until fairly recently I was still dodging those bullies...

They were no longer people who picked on me for fun but people who controlled my life in other ways.

As one example the tobacco companies didn't find it too difficult to program me into being a smoker and I picked up other similar behavour patterns that fell into negative submissive behaviour. I became an overweight, smoking robotic hermit but I woke up a few years ago and took that control back that the bullies took off me. If any of you are suffering similar symptoms I highly recommend you read some material on Neuro Linguistic Programming, it will change your life!!

 

Enough about me and my past problems though..

To deal with bullies effectively you need to change them so they're no longer bullies then everyone benefits. It's not always going to be easy, the world's spent a long time turning them into bullies but it can be done.

i went to the same school as kitty. for those that don't know' date=' it was a VERY poor school. no, it started poor, then someone jacked it's "or" and then it became po. it was a VERY corrupt school. the pricipal choked kids. that isn't relavent, exect it tells why i wasn't expelled.

 

in 3rd grade, this kid was bulliing be and i broke his nose. no one has ever bullied me since.[/quote']

 

Would you ever want your own kids to adopt that behaviour though, Knowing that a few days later you might get a phone call saying they found your child had been in an "incident" and come the worst off??

IOWords the bully he was standing up to got some of his bully friends and ganged up on your son to put him back in his place.

Wouldn't it be cool if a whole bunch of people carried a signaling device in their pockets that would send a vibrating signal to others in the group. Without any screams for help a bunch of folks suddenly come from nowhere and surround the bully' date=' and say, "Are you quite sure you want to continue this activity?"[/quote']

 

 

Okay, what happens when the bully turns to them and says "Yes, what are you going to do about it??" or "Okay I'll stop." then walk away only to pick the retaliators off one by one with his/her friends, because that's what a number of the bullies would do.

Those retaliators are going to have to try another strategy. These are kids we're talking about who don't know think about things like we do.

You'd end up with a generation coming into the world who think it's acceptable to seek revenge on anyone who's wronged them, the next time someone has an innocent accident with them some of them they'll resort to revenge because they know that strategy works in this scenarios where they've been wronged in some way.

Next time someone cuts them up as they're driving along they go into road rage mode instead of thinking "Idiots.." and leaving it at that.

 

I'm all for your strategy but only after thinking about it and refining it.

Instead of just the other kids rushing to the victims aid the teachers are involved to, let the bully know that his/her entire peer group won't tolerate his/her behaviour. The bully has to stop and think "Christ everyone hates me, I'd better change." because the other strategies they've got to fall back on are gone since they can't pick the teachers off one by one.. They have to create new strategies by looking at how their peers behave and model them.

 

Another benefit of having the teachers involved is that the other kids can't resort to violence to teach the bully a lesson.

Sooooo easy!. The answer is : "Swap camels"

Yup but I came up with this one too.

If the wiseman had said "Kill your camels, then the one whose camel dies first will win." Then they don't even have to go to the distant city, just head back home, without the loser murdering the victor of course.

That would be sweet but you're assuming that it is just one bully. Usually it's a whole group of savages that outnumber the victim 10 to 1. Sometimes even a gang. Luckily our school is small.

This isn't meant to be directed at Coquinas post, I realise you were talking about the show of force being enough to stop the bullies but I was thinking what happens if those retaliating escalated their behaviour against the bullies and used violence against them when they repeat offended a few days later??

Since these bullies are stupid enough to adopt the behaviour in the first place would they be clever enough to get the message the first time. How many times do we all have to be told to severely change our ways or else before it finally sinks in that we do have to change our ways??

IOWords, how easy would it be for the good kids to change into being bullies?? They wouldn't want to, just as the bullies wouldn't want to. Of those bullies there'll be a number of them who are used to be being beaten up by bigger bullies. So ganging up on them and enacting violent revenge will only serve to get those bullies to pick the retaliators off one by one in an even more violent way than before...

You'd fix some of them but probably not all of them.

You could try a two pronged attack and get the remaining bullies by using mental torture, find out their psychological weak spots and hit them there but that only leaves the same problem, some of those bullies will be used to that too. Then those pick off the retaliators again..

Now you've got to find the remaining bullies and why they're still bullies and a method of getting them to stop and if you don't get all the remaining bullies to stop you're in for a 3rd beating..

Then somewhere along the lines you risk the chance of ending up in a gang warfare situation. Because what happens when the bullies gang up on the retaliators and start picking them off when they're alone??

So now you've got two gangs, granted one is on the side of justice but power corrupts, how long before they start picking on others?? First they start defending the younger kids by getting the younger bullies but they'll start adopting the attitude of "Let me past you in the lunch queue because I stick up for you!!" and then that becomes "Give me your dinner money because I've forgot mine and I do stick up for you!!" and then just "Give me your dinner money!!"

I know that's a bleak outlook but it's a plausible one.

Wouldn't it be safer for the adults to sort them out so the kids don't even have a chance of any of that happening??

It is about time bullying was taken more seriously.

Think about this!!

If you went into a school full of kids right now and watched their behaviour, don't you think you could spot the bullies and those who were being bullied??

I'm pretty damn certain I could pick out almost all the victims and then through watching them find out who's responsible for them being victims.

So why the f#%! didn't my teachers spot that I was a victim or the other kids that would also obviously be victims to me today?? Because back then it should have been blatently obvious to those teachers who were victims, right??

The fat kids or the shy kids, you'd spot those kids in a room straight away and wonder why they were like that and think "Hey!! Fat kids get picked on and I know shy kids must feel oppressed in some way so, I wonder if they're being bullied??"

I'm not saying teachers are bad for not enacting on what's blatently obviously a possible problem at least, but there's obviously something wrong with that behaviour if some kids are managing to get bullied so much it's obvious they've got psychological problems or even so much some are comitting suicide.

I just hope some teachers read this and if they're sitting there right now thinking "Christ, I know loads of kids like that, maybe I should do more to try and find out why they're like that??" that they do decide to start taking more action.

Unless they feel comfortable sitting there letting innocent kids having their lives ruined. Those guys must have a very negative perception of the children they're teaching if they can't care that much about them to help them out.. They must think of kids as cattle that pass through their farm for a while

Anyway, rant over.

took one out and tore it up, then the king had to show the other one, which of course says "death" so everyone assumes the young man had one that said "princess".

Yup, it would be better to eat it so they couldn't put it back together though.

The only gravity sensing device I can think of is a spring scale, stick a weight on the spring and see how much force it's pulled to the earth by.

Is that how we measure magnetic field strengths??

A gravity measuring device would have to be the same as a magnetic field measuring device, wouldn't it??

Obviously nothing like that could be used to detect the gravitational strengths of stars though..

Are dogs smarter than humans? question has no weight at all. those commands are for brain wash and conditioning and actually puppy dont understand those commands. it is as simple as the programming.

Speaking of programming, when a dog brings you its lead or sits by the door crying to go out, isn't that a case of the dog programming you?? The tail wagging the dog..

Any string theorists knocking about??

I have this crazy notion that weird things happen with the parts of strings that are in other dimensions. One of those things being that they can record their states throughout time, given that some of those extra dimensions could be incredibly huge only the tip of the iceberg might poke into our dimension.

And since all these fundamental particles that make up the universe right now have been here ever since the universe was first formed.

One for the crazy files or not??

If you are all willing to put in $3,000,000 each, I'm willing to go up in a Soyuz to the ISS and establish a definitive answer. I'll even buy the coke!

Wouldn't the Vomit Comet be just as effective and cheaper?

If not I'll donate a couple of quid.

A young man tried to elope with a princess, but the king found out and offered him a sporting chance. The king would put two slips of paper in a box, one marked 'DEATH', the other marked 'PRINCESS.' To decide his fate, the young man was to be blindfolded and choose one paper. The young man was told the king would mark both papers 'DEATH' by a friend and he couldn't accuse the king of cheating, but he managed to win the princess despite this. HOW did he do it?

An Arab sheik tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advice. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city. What does the wise man say?

LOL.

 

However' date=' we are talking about sci-fi shields. It's not a totally scientific discussion, because we're talking about theoretical technologies. And we're not explaining how to make these theoretical technologies work [/quote']

 

In that case has anyone thought of using anti gravity fields??

Or would those theoretically require far more energy than an EM field which could deflect even non metallic weapons?

 

I could never understand why, in the movies, they never just shoot the projectile apart using lasers. If the projectiles can shield themselves from lasers that means lasers would probably be useless against ships anyway.