Gilded

We should send in the Space Yeast to make some Space Ethanol.

That would be very rude, considering that after possible and local abiogenesis some of the very first lifeforms might be drunk off their asses.

I think the Wikipedia article is quite adequate, considering the theoretical nature of wormholes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

Where as quantum mechanics and relativity have been tested extensively and have had dozens of "layman guides" made about them, wormholes per se are, although seemingly possible in the current physical framework, just hypothetical features of spacetime that haven't been observed yet.

Nay. At the Curie point it loses its ferromagnetism. Iron melts at 1811 K and its Curie point is at 1041 K.

First of all, they are virtual photons so it's not as simple as that. But it's a good question. Perhaps the photons differ in polarization?

indeed there are, and it`s got NOTHING at all to do with magnetism, electro or otherwise!

They are very much linked. It's called the electromagnetic force for a reason.

My best moment today (or yesterday, my sleep rhytm is a bit weird) was eating some cheeseburgers and actually finishing another song that I had been working on for a month or two. It's somewhat weird, doomy ambient, so it's not for everyone, but here's the link anyway.

That's just so wrong. During the past year I've read quite a bit of news about people getting trampled in temples in religious gatherings and whatnot, but I guess some people are just as zealous about shopping.

(Black humor: In Soviet Russia, capitalism gets crushed by you!)

Between the time when the Internet was created, and the rise of 4chan, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Blike, destined to wear the jeweled crown of SFN upon a troubled brow. It is I, SFN's chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!

By the way something that actually works is water forming liquid spheres (probably up to something like 2mm in diameter) on the surface of "hairy" hydrophobic materials. It looks quite awesome.

About the proton thing, there will be 4 gamma photons to count, just like there would be a certain mass to measure even if you grind the 4 stones into rubble. There's always something to count or measure, no matter where in the universe you might live.

Here's the Wikipedia article about how mathematics came to be:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics

While mathematics has stemmed from observations of reality like everything else really, I'd say it's extraordinarily context free, seeing how certain cultures independently came up with concepts like infinity and zero. Obviously, there are different base numbers and numeric systems in general, but mathematics is a study and measurement of reality in perhaps its purest form, and is certainly a concept any successful and developed species is likely to discover.

Then again, on the topic of context, there is theoretical mathematics which is just batsh!t insane and has nothing to do with anything else.

Did the news say whether it did any damage? I'm not sure if I've ever heard of a ball lightning that just passed through objects without disturbing them. If I had to guess what a ball lightning is I'd go with some sort of plasma as well, some theories propose it's silicon vapor. But a substantial amount of very hot plasma isn't going to just pass through objects discreetly.

i think neutrons do have charge; they're composed of 2 down quarks and an up quark, each of which have charge. it's true the neutron has no NET charge, ie, it's neutral

There are quite a bit of fundamental particles without electrical charge though. Neutrinos, photons...

As noted by swansont, electrical charge is just a property of particles. To ask what you're asking is somewhat akin to asking whether you can isolate reflectivity out of a mirror's surface, and just have reflectivity by itself. I'd say that both reflectivity and charge are by themselves abstract concepts that describe how something behaves.

Fantastic! Post it to ME! (Two free Bounty bars in one week! - Result!)

I'll think about sending it around Christmas, in a huge gift package shaped like a widescreen TV.

Anyway, my best moment today was when I finished a song I had been working on for quite some time.

First of all, while electrons are fundamental particles, a proton's charge stems from it's "building blocks"; two up quarks (+2/3e each) and one down quark (-1/3e).

Anyway, there are particles that have a net electrical charge, and there are those that don't. That's just the way it is, I suppose. There's a lot more to particles than their electrical charge though, like mass and spin.

Seriously, all this nut and especially coconut business is starting to freak me out! I think they're allied with the pine tables...

Speaking of Bounty, the evil, eldritch biomass that is in essense the culmination of the most sinister, cosmically horrible misuse of chocolate ever, I think there's still one in the cupboard because no-one in my family wants to eat it.

the bacteria on mars may or may not relate to the alien conspiricy... but that was not a fact i was stating, it was a belief

THE alien conspiracy? That's somewhat ambiguous as there are at least five.

I'm fairly sure that there's life in the universe...

Here's a NASA article on the subject:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/25feb_greenhouses.htm

That's over four years old, but I'm pretty sure there's still lot of research to be done regarding how to make plants adapt to low pressure. And even then the 8.5mbar you mentioned is far too low.

Anyway, while the atmospheric conditions aren't that hostile I wouldn't say that Mars per se is a nice place for plants as the soil is basically barren.

A black hole will appear as a black, light bending sphere in three dimensional space due to it's event horizon (the region past which light can't escape):

I'd imagine the "hole" refers to how it looks when the spacetime bending effect is visualized like this:

http://wyp.dep.anl.gov/Story13-16/Husain_files/image004.jpg

Or I suppose it could just mean those cavity kind of holes like there are in Swiss cheese.

As to whether it has a "compartment" behind it, or what actually happens at the singularity, isn't known yet as understanding it requires a solid theory of quantum gravity.

A lot more info about black holes can be found at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

Yes, that's about right, and is obviously quite evident at even smaller scales. For example if the Sun exploded, we would be completely unaware of it for the ~8 minutes it takes light from the Sun to reach us.

Conclusion: object B won't collapse into a star because of its mass, even though its units of mass are identical to that of object A. Is that correct?

Yes. As I've understood it an observer will measure the (relativistic) masses as being identical. But for something to collapse due to gravity it would obviously need to have enough mass in its own frame of reference. This is why I haven't been crushed by my own gravity just because high-energy cosmic rays might think I should've.

I've handled small amounts with bare hands a couple of times, it's quite fun but especially prolonged handling stains your skin quite a bit, like graphite from pencils does but a bit more persistently. Obviously, quite a bit of impurities from your skin stick to the metal making it look tarnished, so using gloves is recommended even if you don't care about possible skin mutations and a slow, painful death.

But is it a virtual mass gain? In other words, is it a mass gain only in the sense that it gains weight (and/or it's needed to make related physics calculations valid), but visually you wouldn't see the gain?

How can you "visually see" how much mass something has? Anyway, it's a relative gain and in this case happens as noted by swansont, and can be observed. I don't know what your definition of virtual is but I'd say there's a relativistic truckload of evidence to support the fact that relativity is in fact very real.

I was kind of confused when I was reading some more simplified pop science reports of this last night (with main focus on "E=mc^2 finally corroborated!"), but now it makes a bit more sense. Nifty stuff!

As noted above, you don't need mass to have momentum, just energy. Photons can bounce off things somewhat like a ping pong ball bounces off a table, and impart momentum. As for the more exact "how" IIRC all momentum arises pretty much in the same way in QM, but I won't go there.