npts2020

Possibly because water vapor reaches equilibrium for a given temperature? You may certainly have locally thicker clouds but for the entire earth the average water vapor remains fairly constant, only increasing as much as temperature increases.

Jack Chalker in "Midnight at the Well of Souls" describes three legged creatures that tip themselves hoizontally then rotate their entire bodies. Supposedly thus spinning they were able to achieve higher speeds of locomotion.

great thread, this is mind boggling. My question is who or what started it all meaning our infinite universe

If the universe is infinite it has no beginning by definition.

If you can make it work, will it be cheaper, easier, or more reliable than other methods (ultrasound, x-ray, magnetic resonance, etc.) of doing the same thing?

One point and one question. Question first, what is the purpose of having limits on immigration to begin with when anyone who is not native American is an immigrant or directly related to one anyway? A point, nearly everyone who lives in America pays taxes even if the IRS cant keep track of them, eg. I defy you to buy a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. without paying any federal or state taxes on it.

What about it? In that case the potential is electric rather than gravitational. Energy differences in electron configurations and so forth.

Well, from the discussion above one could be led into believing gravity was the only force involved in potential energy. It is not true.

If one really wanted to keep less educated and unskilled laborers from immigrating the rules could be constructed in such a way that they stay illegally if they are here at all. What I am wondering is at what point would an influx significantly effect the economy and would it be positive or negative, thus my speculation about the effect on real estate at the beginning of the thread.

BTW I believe the increasing of minimum wages has something to do with a "war on poverty" begun in the 1960's.

I remember my 8th grade science teacher demonstrating manufacture of hydrogen and capturing a test tube full to explode on a bunson burner. Usually it just makes a loud pop with a flash of light but that time the test tube exploded with enough force to send pieces to every corner of the room. Fortunately everyone was wearing lab coats and safety goggles and she was the only one to recieve a small cut on the cheek. You really need something hot like a flame to cause an explosion though.

Since this thread was originally about the number of legs, three to be exact, how about six legs? Might result in a centaur like being. What could bring this about? Higher gravity?

John Carter meet Tars Tarkus........I think it has been fairly conclusively shown there is no Barsoom on Mars tho.

I doubt it, but it might have some anti-glare sheen on it. that tends to reflect green images.

I dont. Even glass well over 100 years old has a greenish tint.

What about chemical potential energy? Unexploded ordinance for example.

I'll take Bernanke (expert on the Great Depression) over Paul (expert on the self) any day.

 

Stepping back to look at the gravity of the situation, it's a bit more eye-openning than what had been gradually working on me. The stock market has actually dropped from 14,000 to 9,000, compared to an 80% drop in the Great Depression. Losing 3/4 million jobs in less than a year is not something to take lightly, compared to the 25% unemployment in the Great Depression. The number of bank failings does not quite compare because these days, megabanks are the rule, primarily due to new regulation. There are even plenty of parallels in the housing bubble/bust. All of this is detailed in john's link. (Thanks for the insight.)

 

In light of all of these parallels, I would say, screw Ron Paul, intervention is needed. Nobody wants another actual Great Depression.

The market was not nearly as diversified in 1929 so I would think the same shock now would not be as noticible or sudden.

big314mp...the idea would be for those asking for citizenship have a job lined up i.e. working in their cousins dry cleaning business, opening a widget making plant, professorship at M.I.T. etc. This should displace few jobs.

ecoli...part of being "eligible" could be to collect nothing for at least some period of time say 25 years just for sake of putting a number on it

Pangloss...it is a limit with each country assigned so many spots as Jackson33 describes (thank you Jackson33). I am sure if you google and go to the Immigration and Naturalization Sevice website you can find out what the limit for each country is. No country that I am aware of has fewer applications than slots allotted.

What I meant by "recently exhibited xenophobia" was the behavior covered in the mass media over immigration reform and the apparent victory of xenophobia over logical reform and in no way is meant as a commentary on the midset of any majority (imo few people even think about it much anyway). As you yourself point out, the vast majority in this country has a recent forefather from outside of the Americas. This gives me hope that those xenophobic tendencies can be overcome, at least enough to give a subject like this rational discussion.

Your last sentence actually gave me a pretty good laugh. Which partisan side are you talking about? I only gave what I thought would be the effect and asked what others thought the outcome would be. BTW I failed to note what you thought the effect would be.

I like paper only because I am more adept at using it. If there was such thing as personal computers or cell phones when I was growing up or in school I am sure those would be my choice.

JohnB: So you are saying that even though more energy "is trapped and reradiated" (quibbling over words imo) by greenhouse gases, more energy is not put into the lower atmosphere thus causing warming? Where exactly does all that energy go? If we could replace our atmosphere with methane the surface temperature would stay the same or not change significantly? Or are we only talking degree?

Pioneer: I think your objection about being too fast is not valid. it may have easily taken millions or more years for the relatively ideal conditions of the lab to occur in nature. Furthermore, it could have started, got wiped out by a volcano, solar flare, meteorite, etc. many times before successful propogation ever occurred.

Hydroelectric power is usually from a dam with a turbine that is turned by water falling from the top to the bottom. This converts the potential energy of the water (at rest on top) to kinetic energy (water falling) to mechanical energy (turning the turbine which turns a generator) to electrical energy (output of the generator). I believe that is about as simple as I can state it.

No, the object with the largest weight to drag ratio will hit the ground first. Try dropping a piece of newspaper and a lead ball that is lighter than the newspaper. The lead ball will land first. Or better, dropping an inflated balloon and an uninflated balloon. The inflated balloon weighs more but will fall slower.

Yes but then the objects are no longer identical except for mass. Pradeep has it correct now.

America has long been idealized as a place where oppressed people could go to begin a new life in freedom, recently exhibited xenophobia notwithstanding. The recent problems, if economists can be trusted, are in no small part related to real estate values falling. If America was to not have any numerical limit but were to allow any qualified individual to become a citizen, what would be the economic effect? IMO it would not take long to both increase real estate values and raise tax revenue to a level closer to what we are spending.

Pangloss: "and pretty soon you're talking about some real money."

I think that's the biggest part of the problem, the money isn't real until you have to give it back. The prevailing attitude seems to be that so long as I can get mine now it doesn't matter who has to pay it back in the future.

I don't see what difference it makes anyway, the gap can't be much even if it exists. The only relevant question is whether the individual involved is "intelligent" enough.

I think the more important underlying question is:

"Do particles like protons, neutrons, electrons have an outer shell (like an egg)?"

 

I always understood (read: I'm not sure!) that the particles actually don't have a hard shell, but in stead have a density distribution with a peak in the center of the particle.

 

The density approaches zero asymptotically as you move away from the center of the particle, meaning that it's never completely zero. Therefore, there is no "between the particles".

I would like to see you explain that to a first grader;)

lucaspa:

"You don't have to "think" and throw out an off-hand opinion. Darwin's notebooks have been published and you can go look to see where the ideas came from. He wrote it all down."

I am not sure what you mean by this. It has been about 25 years since reading nearly the body of Charles Darwin's work, so I could be wrong. Are you telling me that he didn't arrive at the conclusion his ideas were correct from observation of moths and finches (at least in part) or that you would just rather I didn't take part in the discussion?

Both managed to pretty much avoid sustantively answering the questions asked. What little was said seemed pretty similar from both, my opponent is a rascal and only I can fix what is wrong. These candidates are the extremes of the two parties? If I didn't have the tv to tell me differently, I would think they were both from the same party.

They can probably get the $5 billion from the U.S. government since they are such good "allies in our war on terror".