Thales

It wasn't too bad, however my friend whose read the books sent me this picture...

Have you seen the movie? He clearly states they left before the commercial airlines were in operation. He never states it to be ON 9/11. My suspision leads me to believe you have not seen the movie. Why would you? You've obviously already decided who's telling the truth.

When you say 'light' you mean the whole electromagnetic spectrum I assume?!?

I am new here, so I don't wish to get under anyone's skin but I believe such an arguement is best left to the philosophy forum?? In physics time exists, you can argue till the cows come home about it being an abstraction, but its an absraction that allows us to understand and manipulate the world around us. Does mass exist? Of course it does because without it their would be nothing, no conciousness to answer the question. Does time exist, yes because out it there is no mechanism by which thought can arise. See Anthropic Prinicple

Stars usually form in 'stable' clusters. It appears that binary star systems are as numerous, if not more so, than lone stars. That being the case, Jupiter can be looked at as a 'failed' star in the sense it is a large accumulation of hydrogen and helium(collapsing under its own gravity), which as stated above is not sufficiently dense to trigger fusion and thus, shine under its own light. Whats quite interesting on the Jupiter front of late is they have now done detailed studies of Juipter and Saturns core and found these two jovian 'twins' are not as alike as we would like to think. The study found that Jupiters core is much less solid and much smaller than Saturns. Which throws a futher spanner in the works of planetary formation theories. My take on the situation, goes along with the idea of a supernovae close to the solar system while it was still an accretion disk phase. The shockwave and heavy elements deposited perturb the distribution and density of the accretion sick sufficiently such that density fluctiations soon start the slow proccess of collapsing under gravity into the various spheres and oblongs that inhabit our little corner of the universe. The chaos unleased by a supernovae, the 'amplification' of core structure imperfections released outward would mark the beginning of the solar system, our nine great spheres and associated companions results of another example of interplanetary pot luck

Being an 'international' science forum I was wondering what people's lives as scientists(or at least overly inquistive at times) have been like. Is science and technology highly valued in your community/country? To what extent would you consider your govt/communities to be overall a help or hinderance? I'm curious because down here and oz we are not exactly admonished and it does not pay well to give your life to the pursuit of knowledge. Pursuing dollars is much more profitable but I fear it 'dumbs' society down to be so materialitic. Do other people occasionally have their talent slandered upon because people are afraid of what they don't understand. IMO it has a alot to do with money. Failure is not an option, people are so afraid of failing they focus so narrowly on filling some 'niech' in society that their potential is limited by the linearity of their lives, the lack of new challenges. With so many people (and many more on the way) isn't it about time we started valueing science more like in times gone by. Instead of acting like a huge 'parallel' processor, more people should add to the wealth of knowledge not just our ability to crunch the numbers of the known. [/Rant]

And try to remember just because the man say it ain't so, doesn't mean it ain't so.

Just a quick question, if the cosmics rays are coming down at rates much faster than the particle accelerators, and they're flux is dictated somewhat by the earths magnetic field, can we somehow better study high energy particle physics with a satellite? I'm sure it would be no small engineering feat, but seeing as particle accelerators have limits based on their overall path length and these cosmic rays, are a bit father along the road, wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run?

I believe the latest is that they have been able to generate as much power as they sink of late and the next ITER Tokamak is supposed to be able to be a function generator (30% output I think). Still not enough to make it economical(goodness I hate that word) but a generator no less. I believe one of the major problems of the tokamak is the high neurton flux which would make the walls of the housing of the generator slowly become radioactive. Much improvement in materials science may still be required. As, the generator will be powerful while in full swing, but shutting such a high temperature system off and replacing these radioactive walls (regularly) with new one's would consume more energy than the plant could generate over a time possibly in large proprtion to the system downtime(crude estimate) this would futher complicate the economics(dammit!)

Without wishing to offend......where can I get what you've been taking

mmmmm.....breakbeats.

Black holes exists, its what happens inside them that is in contention. As for learning enough to make statements like that 'facts' is with rigourous mathematical proof. While theorising about black holes is interesting to say the least, a firm understanding of the in's and out's of general relativiy are advised. As for spagettification, it depends on the overall size, tiny black holes produce huge tidal forces that would stretch you out, but larger black holes have a smoother gravity 'gradient'. What are peoples opinions on ring 'singulaities', at the centre possibly of Kerr(rotating) black holes? Is it possible that the centre of such a singularity, would tear a hole in space time? In some bizarre way provide the power outlet to quasars in the most distant part of the universe? Merely conjecture obviously but a possibilty no less??

Michael Moore's film may have presented an unashamadly bias opinion on the Bush saga, but most of what he said was true. Sure he used emotive language and impassioned pleas, but if you examine the quality and take on the situation provided by the worlds media(particularly those of the US, Australia and UK) he was merely providing a voice for the counter arguement that had been largely ignored by the conservative networks. Let's put it this way, if the news reports were more objective their wouldn't have been a need for a film like Moore's. People who judge this movie before they see it are naive. Its a harsh comment but if you fear information because it will contradict what you believe in then it is very hard to 'grow' as a person.

http://www.space.com

??? Please Explian?

But gravity varies at a rate of [math]1/r^2[/math] so doesn't that mean if r is effectively shrunk to zero and there is still a mass contained inside that radius don't you create an infinite curvature of space-time?

http://www.whfreeman.com/astronomy/ good place for science books... Their Starry Night program is quite simple but would at least helps you through the aprrehensive feeling of not knowing what your look at. It also updates off the web the daily coordinates of several interesting objects each night, for locations all over the globe. http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Good place for WMAP data. http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Forms/search.html Trove of stuff on relativity, it helps if you know roughly what you are looking for, and keep in mind that reading it on the web sometimes mean it has not been peer reviewed. Some of the ideas in here(^that link^) are misleading, but its still a very good challenge trying to grip some of the concepts layed out. http://academics.hamilton.edu/physics/smajor/resources.html While at first a ghaslty sight to look at the links in the light green are a good place to start surfing to try and skim som knowledge off the information superhighway! Have fun! ps-> Alucard, I really approve of the forum software and color scheme...

Yes and no, harsh. We can create an atom from protons by smashing them together at high speeds and pressures. The process of fusion. Because two protons together weigh less than their individual masses, the difference is converted into energy. Thats what makes the stars shine. We are within grasp of being able to replicate the conditions in the core of the sun here on earth, hot fusion. But we still require the protons themselves, the process of creating them would consume more energy than it generates because a protons constituants don't live very long when you have them by themselves.

But does inertial mass change enough to be taken into consideration? Particularly when trying to account for the orbitals 'chaotic' motion. Would it also effect the whole gravity of the situation? When something accelerates and gains mass, does it also have a greater gravitational infleunce? If an electrons position around the atom is so disordered how do we measure it? What if its velocity is so high it 'looks' like its going slow(think about chopper blades at certain speeds)?

Cheers Swansont, I'm slipping in my old age

The fact electrons have mass dictates they have radius, be it very very small. Keebs is correct. A dimensionless particle with a mass would create a singularity. The particles position however is what, to me, is more undefined. Even if it is moving at speed c or close too then it would increase its mass, meaning its rest mass may be much much smaller than we interpret it. Is it possible that the electron is more 'smeared' across the atom than in a stable 'orbit'. The idea of the majority of an atom being empty space still doesn't sit well with me, even after years of physics.

You can theoretically creat wormholes, that is if you have the ability to manipulte space it these extra dimensions...no small feat. The main problem however is their lack of stability, unless you fed some kind of false vacuum into the hole, when someone entered it the presence of matter would cause it to collapse.

Technically speaking the universe is a blackhole, in that light can never escape from it. IMO Gravity curls space back in on itself so light never escapes on the macroscopic level, analogous (but not the same as) to what happens on more localised scales with 'traditional' black holes. The idea of things repeating themselves on differing scales (ie a universe in an atom OR our universe is but a fundamental particle of a larger universe) is as old as the ages. However it looks doomed to the realm of metaphysics and philosophy, the different relative sizes rule out the ability to ever observe the universe above or below you, even if they existed, which they more than likely don't.