TimeTraveler

On a more serious note I like this one:

As a member of society, you really ought to be more aware of what is going on around you. It affects everyone, and some of them are probably people you care for.

On a more humorous note I like this one:

Do you have a measuring device scaled in inches or centimetres? If so, can you report back to us with an indication of how far up your ass you have your head buried?

Lol. that is good stuff.

Yes' date=' yes, all very good, but what do the laws of entropy say about the fate of the universe (now that I know to distinguish between thermodynamic and structural entropy - thanks Les - I refer only to the structural type). Is the universe doomed to settle into a field of floating debri without much life to it at all, or is there hope that the universe could evolve into something greater from which it will never degrade, or at the very least continue forever in a state of equilibrium (with moderate fluctuations now and again). For instance, the idea that the universe will eventually collapse upon itself in a "Big Crunch", and then a "Big Band", and yet another "Big Crunch" after that, and so on, seems to me like a system that will never succumb to entropy. Or what about the Moon orbiting the Earth, or an electron orbiting a proton? Don't these represent systems in states of equilibrium such that the one body will continue to orbit the other indefinitely?

 

I'm not a physicist, so I'm not trying to strike a blow at the theory of entropy. Just asking 'cause I wanna know.[/quote']

 

I think entropy happens so slow on a universal level and the universe is so big it will be tens or hundreds of billions of years before it would pose any major effect. If there was to be a big crunch I think that would happen long before entropy effects were felt. But yes the universe is slowly decaying because of entropy (very slowly). The moon will not orbit the Earth indefinitely either will the Earth orbit the sun. Eventually they will succumb to gravity, I don't think entropy will play a role in that. I think the moon was estimated at about 50,000 years not sure about the Earth, 5 billion years maybe.

I don't think it is possible to get a firm answer, but a close estimate would be the year: 5,000,000,000

I was mostly confused by the "non-science major" comment.

Basically that means that the class can be taken as an elective for non- science major's. But for science major's the credits will not be applied to your degree.

Cops get a report of someone in the neighborhood growing marijuana, so they go to the guys house. He was an older gentleman probably in his 50's or 60's, long scraggly beard that reminded of ZZtop.

Anyways the cops ask him if he is a cultivator, he replies no sir, then the cops show their warrant and begin to search the house, the guy stands there looking confused, Anyways the cops search the house and find a room full of pot plants and proceed to arrest the guy. The cop askes, I thought you said you were not a cultivator, the guy replied, I am no cultivator I am a presbyterian!

Oh and another one, this one takes the cake. My wifes best friend is a dispatcher for our local police department so I hear some of the "most stupid" things ever. But this by far is the best:

The police chief for a town just outside the one I live in (small town population less than 10k) gets a call. When he answers it he nobody responds but he can hear in the background two voices, so he proceeds to listen to the conversation, this goes on for about 10 minutes then the two on the other end begin to talk about a drug deal.

So now the police chief relizes he is listening to a drug deal, but he has no idea where the people are, who they are or how to bust them. Then all of the sudden in the background he hears "Welcome to Mcdonalds may I take your order". Since there are Mcdonalds everywhere and he has no idea where this call is coming from, his only choice is to dispatch an officer to the only Mcdonalds in town and hope that this is where the call is coming from.

When the patrol car reaches the Mcdonalds there are many cars in line and he has no idea which one it is, the police chief tells him to pick one that looks "suspect" and follow it. As soon as the patrol car pulls behind the car he picks the police chief hears on the line the original call is on "Oh shit there is a cop behind me". The police chief knows instantly his deputy has the right car, they pull the guys over and bust them. While busting them the deputy tells him everything they know about the drug deal, the guy responds "how do you know all that" The deputy reaches into the suspects pocket and pulls out his cell phone and shows the suspect" The cop says, you have been talking to the police chief for the last 30 minutes about your plans!

So then a couple days later I find out that how that happened was the guy had called the police station earlier (not sure why) and when he put his phone back in his pocket the redial button must have been pushed.

Thank you for the help Severian.

I still do not quite get it, But I have enough information to know where to look to fill in the gaps.

Here is a link to help you out:

http://superstringtheory.com/

Another recommendation would be to contact a Principles to chem. instructor and ask him his take on it. He might be able to provide you with the best advice for what level of chem. knowledge you would need for his course.

Seems you are in a similar predicament as me. I am taking the introduction to Chemistry first, although it doesn't effect my degree, advisors are recommending I do. I would rather not take the chance of struggling or failing a class and have that blemish on my academic record (but it really depends on your circumstances and major). If you can afford to take the extra class to prepare and it's not going to have any major effect on your plans I say go for it and take the intro. Chemistry is very difficult, especially if you do not understand the basics properly, or so I am told.

Good luck! Hope this helps!

You know how we say a dog year is seven human years? Makes it seem nicer when your dog dies at nine, you can say he was 63 in human years. Well I figure that we would seem so much older if we started converted our ages into say, oak years, and every human year is seven oak years.

 

'It's not so bad, in human years he may have died at 39, but in oak years that's 273!'

Lol good idea!

As much as I would like to believe in an after-life I find it hard to do. Maybe our purpose is here and not somewhere else?

If we don't consider the possibility that anything can be conscious, how can we percieve that a dead human consciousness would live on past this life?

If the light that we are seeing hasn't changed to the present time yet, aren't we seeing another time?

Well, yes you are seeing another time, relative to you (the observer) I think we have seen all the way back to about 14 billion years with hubble. But yes, when you look at a star in the sky you are seeing it how it was in the past.

Not really sure I understand the rest of your question. Split time? What ever do you mean?

I tend to think that the compounds for life have always been on Earth, I am sure there were many conditrions in early Earth that prevented life from taking off earlier (impacts, temperture variations, mixtures finding each other, ect), but eventually it all came together and formed. I believe Mars and Venus were both similar to Earth in the early part of the formation, but due to temperature, life was never able to form on venus and its water was evaporated into space, and mars well it had flowing water at one point, but it seems that we have found some very interesting things about the tilt of Mars' axis that may explain what happened there. Needless to say it was very cold and did not come together (at least not for any long period, long enough to progress the evolution beyond the basic stages.

Things do not have to come together exactly like our solar systems but a terrestrial planet would need similar conditions I think to form and evolve life. I would think Jupiter played a role in attracting debri that may have hindered the development also.

I have found some info in one of my reference books on Titan if anyones interseted I'll relay the info about ganymede,callisto,& titan,

Feel free to share, I am very interested in these three moons.

Lol - only the second sentence is partially true.

I'm only in my first year of physics, anything I have learned about QM I have taught myself, and obviously I shouldn't take up teaching as a career choice.

Sentence 1: QM decribes only a one-particle state. The extension to many particles is Quantum Field Theory.

Ah yes, I forgot about QFT, I will research this. (as you can see I am not the best self-learner any additional information on how this works would be helpful, I do best when able to ask questions about the parts I do not understand.)

Sentence 2: QM or QFT describes the physics at very small distances, while relativity describes physics at very high speeds. Since very small objects can move very fast, you are correct that they are connected. This is done in relativistic quantum field theory. The problem is how to combine general relativity (ie. gravity) with QFT.

What about subatomic particles popping in and out of existance?

Sentance 3: Sub-atomic particles do not transmit information instantaneously. As you point out this would break relativity.

How exactly does this work? I thought there was a connection between particles and other particles on the other side of the universe?

Sorry about that, I fixed it now.

For those of you interested in Saturn's rings you might find the new news interesting.

Here is a link to the animation: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/102072main_pia06144_half_movie.gif

And here is a link to the article: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-120304.html

I am willing to bet this will give us more insight into Moon formation as well.

Scientists will use what they learn about Prometheus' interaction with the F ring to understand the gravitational exchanges between moons and rings

I am writing a philosophy paper about the essence of the universe and the possibility of multiple universes, I need some help with QM. I do not know any of the maths behind Quantum Mechanics or the physics but I sorta understand the "ideas" it proposes, can someone with more knowledge help me out ?

Here is a paragraph from my paper and I feel it is flawed but I do not know how to explain it better, remember this is for philosophy.

Quantum mechanics is a set of laws that determines the actions of sub-atomic particles. One thing that is interesting is that relativity and quantum mechanics are both laws of physics that explain two separate levels of our universe, however they are connected, should the laws not be the same? Sub-atomic particles have an ability to transmit information instantaneous across the universe, this seems to break the laws of relativity hinting that either, these laws do not conform completely to the essence of nature, or there is a separation in the essence of nature. If the former is true then these laws may provide us with near accurate information but are indeed flawed somewhere. If the latter is true, could this separation in nature be considered as different universes?

If I messed it up and offended Quantum Mechanics don't hate me, teach me.

the Asteroid belt (Van Halen or Allan, LOL) Could potentialy make another Planet (if the circumstances were right), it`s thought that it could originaly have been a planet once?

I'm not sure if that is a question or a comment but since you have a question mark I will assume that is not a typo

From my understanding it is thought by some that the asteroid belt was in fact a planet at one time that has been broken apart by unknown causes (some theories point to the gravitational tug of war between Jupiter and the Sun) This is thought because if you measure the distance between the planets there is a reletive pattern which suggests a planet should have formed between Mars and Jupiter, the search for this planet is what actually was the discovery of the asteroid belt.

Have seen the movies lately?

 

I like CSI' date=' through, but [i']Without a Trace[/i] is better. Did you see the radiation eposide of CSI:Miami? Scared the hell out of me!

I actually don't watch CSI:Miami, just the regular CSI, but I did watch without a trace the other night after CSI, it was the episode about the boy who went missing from school, it was really good.

Im no career counselor but I will offer my advice anyways,

The way I went about it is to find out what interests you, and make a list. Then make a list of what you think is important in life. Cross anything off the list that doesn't fit with what you think is important in life. The figure out how much money you need to make to manage your living style. Don't pick something just because the money is good, do what you want because you want to.

With the remaining list spend a week or so thinking over it, research the careers available in said fields and determine what is right for you. Block society out of this picture it is too easy to pick something because you think that is what society needs when in fact it is probably not what you want. Don't fall for the advertisements at your campus that say, <job title here> needed, make X amount in your first year!! Work with the best! Blah blah blah! Find out how easy it is!

Do what is meant for you and you alone, it's your life, you only live it once, make it count.

Hope it helps.

Never!

I just was trying to think of the most rediculous shows on TV. I try to avoid TV programming at all costs (movies are great though), CSI gets me almost everytime though.

If you are talking about the internet offer, all I got was 20 surveys to fill out and a crap load of spam, I did not finish it to find out I was too pissed, lesson learned.

Yes Titan is huge, 2nd largets moon in our solar system.

Something to move on here, do you think that size has anything to do with atmospheric formation? Ganymede and Callisto our roughly the same mass and have nearly the same properties but they did not form an atmosphere.

Thinking of a 21 day day, reminds me of my trip to Alaska

What about structured bases on titan, think they could be built and humans could survive inside them without terraforming titan? Would there be a way to keep them heated enough and oxygenated enough using the atmosphere?