npts2020

Can you name even one significant contributor to the field of physics that was not also a very good mathematician?

Why is it that the only time unpopular decisions are made is when it involves going to war? If Democrats in America had an ounce of intestinal fortitude, health care reform should have been a "slam dunk" compared to going to war in Iraq. Unfortunately we are unlikely to ever see anything like this inquiry in the U.S.

In my opinion a large part of the problem is the notion that every activity involving commerce has to be done for a monetary profit and anything else is "socialism", which of course every American knows is a bad thing. It seems that universal health care is only a good thing if we can make enough money off of it and seemingly enough people on both sides of our one-party system agree with this. I don't know or really care too much what kind of horse trading has gone on to water down a mediocre bill to something so odious that even many supporters of changing the system cannot support it but here we are with a health care system that is ranked below countries like San Marino and Costa Rica. Maybe a solution would be to not allow any kind of negotiation outside of public scrutiny? Kind of reminds me of certain negotiations that went on prior to crafting an energy bill a couple of years ago.

You guys are just confirming what I have been saying for years about the Democrats and Republicans being the same party. How is it that a supposedly "liberal" party has members that are even more conservative than the "conservative" party? Fact of the matter is that it is all show to keep things basically the same, neither party has any principles that can be called their own. For all of the voters supposed anger at congress, the political process, etc. how many districts do you think will actually "throw the bums out" and elect somebody who has not been part of this process of putting on a show? Which party has proposed bold new solutions to any of our problems?

Or rather misused all of the above.

The cutting tool and gear are synchronized through gears in the lathe. As the gear being cut slows down so does the cutting tool by the same amount (probably a proportional amount). No matter what speed the chuck (part holding the piece being lathed) moves, the cutting tool speeds up or slows down by the same amount. It works the same for doing threading on a lathe.

Well this radical leftist only had tepid support for the house version. Once they stripped out everything I could support about it, I became convinced that it was better off dead. I will say that forcing everyone to buy health insurance is fair when they also pass laws so that everyone also is not allowed to smoke, consume alcohol, and eat bad foods. Everyone should also have to exercise every day. Otherwise I am paying for their bad habits.

Pangloss & Bascule; I would tend to agree with both of you. The fact that our elected representatives haven't been representing us is the point I was trying to make. Both sides have been appointing corporate friendly Justices and I would go so far as to state, that has been the main criterion for their appointment.

In the end it is expected the rules will apply to candidates for office at any level of government. This is the result of what the real criterion for appointing Supreme Court justices has been, their friendliness to corporate interests. The debates about abortion, gun control, etc were merely distractions to keep away from this main goal of appointing corporate friendly justices. I am with Bascule when it comes to granting corporations personhood on par (or above) with that of citizens. This is a large step in that direction IMO.

Pangloss; The last sentence of what you highlighted says it overturns limits for all corporate donations profit and non-profit. Personally I don't think it will have much effect anyway since the process already hinges almost entirely on raising the most money. Seems to me like they are just legitimizing the buying of candidates that already goes on.

I still fail to see how electing Mr. Brown is "throwing the bums out". He is still part of the same Business Party that runs the country so long as democrats and republicans are elected. IMO if it wasn't the democrats proposing the current brand of health care "reform" the republicans would be doing the same thing for their corporate sponsors. Basically the democrats allowed the republicans to water down the bill to the benefit of corporate interests, then didn't even get their support. It is no wonder people dislike and distrust their elected representatives in congress.

Well any solution to having to limit speed of travel because of mixed use (in this case trains and kangaroos) is going to cost money. The real question is whether it is worth it to do so. While it is true that an occasional animal might get into the system and that you will have to incorporate animal bridges and/or tunnels into the design, it would still be an improvement over current design. The alternatives are to do nothing (most probable) or do something else that will likely be even more expensive in order to be as effective.

I misunderstood the first question. They start out by telling you there are three options for answering then only give you two on the very first question.

Compressed air cars have limited range because of the storage limitations of compressed air, i.e. the materials used for the storage tanks will only take so much pressure before rupturing which means you are taking up lots of space just for storage. Secondly, you still have to compress the air. That inevitably means you get less energy from the compressed air than you use in compressing it.

1) AFAIK temperatures have no (or at most miniscule) effect on half life of a radioactive material. Am not sure what kinds of experiments on this have been done at extreme temperatures. 2) Not sure. Somebody else here can answer this with more authority than I. 3) Yes but it would not likely be measurable without extremely sensitive instruments. It also depends on the type of radiation. 4) You have to remember there is more than one kind of radiation. Alpha particles will not travel as far through a typical medium as beta particles which are usually less penetrating than gammas, neutrons are a different matter. Enough air (or any medium) will stop any kind of radiation but it may not be practical to use light-years thickness of air as shielding. 5) I don't know much about this.

Well, it seems to me that Buddhists are the ones most likely to change their views in light of new information. I think this is why many "seekers" end up following Buddhism.

The problem of kangaroos mixing with trains can be solved by enclosing the rail system. I think the best (cheapest effective) way would be to make a cage with something like chain link fencing.

Currently, "they" are working on growing nanotubes in a unidirectional manner on a nonconductive substrate for use as computer chips to replace silicon ones. I know Scientific American has had articles about this but don't have a URL reference off the top of my head.

nicke; I for one would be very interested in the aspects of design that are not apparent in the exploded view or video. I had always thought that the purpose of showing an exploded view was to make the entire mechanism visible.

I don't think it is true. For example maple syrup is more viscous than water but I have never seen it freeze, even at sub-zero F temperatures (the sap freezes at near 32F though).

Nobody knows for sure whether the universe is infinite or not because nobody knows what is outside the range of our observations. What is certain is that it is really, really big in comparison to humans thus far in our history.

Environmentalism is not like religion. Unlike religion, tenets of environmentalism can be proved or disproved by science.

Wind turbines do not kill nearly as much wildlife as roadways, urbanization, or a host of other human activities and IMO is simply a scam by energy producers to see that generation remains highly centralized. Furthermore, it seems to me that the "fix" for it would be much simpler than trying to implement unproven technology.

In translation some of the meaning is changed. What the statement is really telling children is that they are smart enough to figure out their own truths and don't need somebody else to tell them what it is. I very much doubt Galileo would have said that his truth was immutable.

I completely disagree with this statement. From the crusades and inquisitions to modern day abortion clinic assassins and Oklahoma City bombers I am sure we could come up with examples all day long. If the reputation for violence is less than Muslims, it is because of the mass media and not any relevancy of facts.