Moontanman

As we currently understand the laws of physics, no. But do we understand the Universe well enough to be certain?

I would have to vote probably not on that one, but I would be amazed to find out we are wrong. If you postulate a civilization a 1000 years in advance of us or 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 years in advance of us it would be foolish to try and say what they could and could not do.

...

 

Pushing.

 

I need to find that resource again, but I think that you're wrong about this (not sure though ) -- I think that one of the relatively early feats of humanity was using animals for stuff, be it riding on it or using it for lifting. You can also put lots of stuff on their backs.. it's not THAT hard to figure out how to get an animal to pull (or push!) something; it's just hard to get that animal to do it in a manner that we consider humane. I think that what 'evolved' later on was the ethical thinking part -- getting animals not to die while working.

 

I will try to find out more about this, not sure, but I heard somewhere that humanity has used animals for a very very very long time.

 

I mean.. seriously, haven't you seen Xena: Warrior Princess ?!

 

hehe jk, let me find more about this.

There were animals on Xena, Warrior princess?

Flares fired from military aircraft. Happens all of the time. Catch-all explanation for practically everything that happens at night.

That's a very simplistic and disingenuous conclusion, There are plenty of UFO reports that do not consist of lights in the sky at night. many of them are quite detailed by people whose testimony could put you in the electric chair and are inexplicable to say the least.

Doing the math on what we do know, the amount of planets with life in our galaxy is maybe, being generous, 10,000 out of 500 billion stars. The amount with intelligent life is maybe, being generous, 100 out of 500 billion stars, all most likely at least 1,000 light years away.

There is no such thing as faster than light speed travel, no wormhole travel, etc.

There doesn't have to be FTL for their to be aliens here, with slower than light technology not much more advanced than what we already have we could occupy the entire Galaxy in a few hundred thousand years. When you are talking about technology hundreds or even hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than ours it's a fools errand to predict what they could or could not do.

Aliens did not help us do anything. It's called ingenuity (it takes a long time) and massive manpower. Aliens did not help us build this:

 

Enlarge it and read the caption. I like the part about the 15 feet tall, iron-plated wheels.

 

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6814&d=1127659359

On the other hand I have to agree, humans did not need nor did they have any help from aliens, gods, or anyone else. They used their own native intelligence, trial and error and their own powers of observation and cooperation to accomplish these things, no alien intelligence required!

Damn, I sit here wondering how to pay my rent and these guys are selling universes. I knew being honest would be a bummer eventually.

Salt matters to fish. Sea fish cannot survive in sweet water, and sweet water fish cannot survive in the sea.

What do you mean by this? No one was suggesting dedicated marine fish can live in freshwater or that dedicated freshwater fish can live in the ocean. All surface water on the earth contains some salts, some more than others and fish can and do live in waters of varying salinity. Freshwater fish are probably more tolerant than marine fish to variations in salt content.

However, I think that the NaOH is much more dangerous to fish... so if the NaOH spill is so small that the fish survived so far, then the little salt will do no harm I think.

Sodium hydroxide is a powerful base, high pH is usually not well tolerated by freshwater fish, fish exposed to a high pH would be vulnerable to a rise in ammonia at the very least. The key here is to lower the pH slowly, most fish cannot tolerate a rapid change in pH. Salt is not the issue, pH is the issue. Combining HCl with NaOH will not result in a large amount of salt, if that much of either chemical was present the fish would be long dead.

What he means is that a pH swing is far more dangerous than a slight increase in salt content. When I collect fish i often add salt to the collection buckets to protect teh fish from injury even though the fish are coming from soft acidic water. If I added an alkaline substance to the water it would be more likely to kill the fish. At the very least ammonia is far more poisonous at high pH than it is at low pH. pH is more important to fish than dissolved solid content.

what color eyes is it possible for a human to have? I've seen blue, green, gray, (mine are blue/gray) and brown. Anything I've left out for people other than shades of the ones I listed?

I've seen people who had the whites of their eyes tattooed a blue color.

Is triploidy what you guys are talking about? Most normal cells/organisms are dipliod. but triploidy does occur.

Interestingly, the studies I've read suggest that animals which fornicate more frequently tend to get it over quickly. Mount, thrust, finish, all within just a few seconds. Whatever gets the job done, I suppose.

Oh now are you are going to say you can make love more than one time a night, braggart! Sex lasting for a few seconds, everyone knows it's just a half second or so

Interesting point. I was thinking about this more as an emergent phenomenon from existing functionality, but you're right about evolution "hijacking" other systems. As one of the articles I shared in the OP discusses, homosexuality is 3 to 4 orders of magnitude more common than other genetic issues described as "diseases" like Huntington's. It obviously has served a meaningful purpose for it to have survived and prospered as a trait for so long, and for it to be as common as it is.

I have long suspected the idea of Homosexuality or Heterosexuality as opposed to simply sexuality is a human construct that is meaningless everywhere but with humans. I would guess that in a totally natural state human sexuality comes much closer to what we see in Benobo chimps than what we see in Geese or even gorillas. In Benobo chimps even the children are included in sex play, I would guess that human desire to limit and or control sex play is part of the desire to control others. Controlling others by limiting pleasurable behavior would seem to be the first step in consolidating power. Limiting sex to those people who have agreed to allow others to control their behavior would seem to be a powerful way to influence the group and the social evolution of that group. Power and control takes many forms but control of sex would seem to be pretty basic.

Mine has, when I was young it was 160 now it's 145 by the time I'm 100 years old I'll be a complete moron so I had better get my thinking in now before it's too late

Everyone could ignore the psuedoscience section of the forum but I personally rather enjoy it even if it doesn't seem to advance my scientific knowledge much.

There is probably more knowledge gained in the pseudoscience section than any other. when you correct someone thinking about something they were sure was true it can lead to a better way of thinking. And it's fun to debunk BS too....

How do they store information on audio cassettes? How is it read and translated into sound?

An sound pick up, phonograph needle, or microphone turns sound into fluctuating electricity, this is turned into a fluctuating magnetic field. This fluctuating magnetic field makes patterns of magnetism in the iron impregnated tape. When the tape is replayed a magnetic field picks up these fluctuations and converts them back into sound.

I decided to revive this thread so that some people who think they know what they are talking about can get some apparently much-needed insight.

You are the one who needs some insight, see this thread if you really want to discuss this.

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=449541#post449541

All I have to say is hooray for sex! I also find it odd that the religions of the God of Abraham, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, condemn sex out side of marriage or even for any reason other than procreation. It almost seems like God doesn't want anyone to have sex for any reason other than procreation and especially sex other than good old fashioned "man on top get it over with quick!" So sad, how much more popular would religion be if if Sunday go to meeting meant an orgy of pleasure!

January 23 of 2009 I will celebrate the 37th anniversary of my 17th birthday. ROCK ON!

but most things unlikely happen, dont they? i mean it was unlikely that isacc newton was in the right place at the right time to think of gravity(wether it was an apple or not) but it still happened. And what about einstein? it was a spur of the moment thing and his theories changed the world. most of the time people laugh at you but in the end the things that are most funny & unlikely are the most useful...

Issac Newton and the apple is a popular tale, neither Newton or Einstien had anything to do with likely or unlikely, they worked out the theory's themselves using math, education and intellegence. They weren't just some guys who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

they have found fossilized bacteria on mars, but it probably died out from lack of food...

Oh yeah? When and where were these bacteria found on mars?

because of einstein's theory then we humans could not achieve faster than light travel, but what if we didn't use speed? what if we could pause time or body oxidization and allow time to pass wihout our knowledge? Could we also use inter-dimentional/inter-universal travel? in one universe the time could go quicker, slower or stop all together, or the area we travel might be less so if the distance on earth is 1km for instance then in this parallel dimension/universe then it could be 10 cm, m, km, lightyears even!

Anything might be possible, it's just that somethings are more likely than others. I suggest you google Faster than light travel and see what pops up, the things you mention are bits and peices of several unlikely posibilities.

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

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

No. The existence of the universe is itself unscientific because it came into being though the appearance of incomprehensible amounts of energy and matter from nothing and nowhere. According to science matter must come from something – it cannot simply suddenly appear. If even a small amount of matter should likewise appear today science would be unable to explain it and it would be considered a miracle. The principles and laws of science cannot explain how matter can be created from nothing. But still science does not consider existence of the universe a miracle. The laws of physics that scientists believe in rule out the universe’s existence. Scientists believe in a system of thought that denies the very existence of the world they live in.

Wow, way to cut us to the quick dude, Science isn't able to explain the origin of the universe at this time but there are people working on theories that do indeed explain where it came from and where it is going. Just because science cannot currently explain something doesn't mean it's a miracle. Gravity isn't very well explained but you don't shout miracle every time you fall down do you? Science doesn't make claims that it cannot back up with some kind of evidence. If there is no real evidence to explain something then it remains simply unexplained not miraculous. Science is a work in progress, it will always be a work in progress, that is why science doesn't do miracles, they simply look for evidence. Science has never said it has all the answers now, just that is working on them. The new LHC will be looking into at least part of the problem of where the universe came from. Brane theory also has a few things to say about it but until real evidence shows up science will not make claims about things it has no evidence for.

Good morning!

 

Over coffee, I came up with the following.

 

I believe that Mars is quite a nice place for plants. The atmosphere is nearly pure CO2, which must sound like heaven for a plant if it had ears.

 

The pressure is 750 Pa (7.5 mbar). That means that the CO2 pressure is a lot higher than on earth (where we have merely 35 Pa CO2 pressure).

 

How difficult would it be to grow plants in the Martian atmosphere?

 

I know that the temperature is too low. Water, if available at all, is solid. But those two points can be solved with a simple solution: a greenhouse.

 

The point I'm trying to make is: a greenhouse could be really simple and low-tech. Just a plastic foil to create an insulation and raise the temperature to a little above zero Celsius.

 

Also, the additional vapor pressure from water would be no problem (at 5 deg C, we are talking about 6.5 mmHg (or, 8.5 mbar). That overpressure is perfect for keeping the greenhouse inflated.

 

The only high-tech piece of equipment you could need is a way to remove oxygen from the "air" inside the greenhouse. Venting it to the outside atmosphere would also cause the greenhouse to lose water.

 

Any thoughts?

Actually the main problem would be that water cannot be a liquid at the atmospheric pressure of Mars. It sublimes like frozen CO2 does on the earth.

I'd put money down that there is currently no life on mars.

I'll take that bet, I'd be amazed if there is no life on Mars, deep under ground their is almost certainly bacteria. Bacteria are found in the earth miles deep in places and under conditions that make Mars look like Paradise. Deep with in Mars there similar if not identical conditions. The real question is will we live long enough to collect on the bet one way or another?

The same way you can determine that a mountain has greater mass than an apple.

Size and mass are not interchangeable. It is possible for a object the size of an apple to be more massive than the mountain.

Refer to the parts in bold from my opening question, quoted below.

 

 

What I mean by virtual, is not a real mass gain per se, such as how we understand objects with greater and greater mass have more of a gravity pull, weight and size, eventually becoming a star and then a black hole.

It's my understanding that the mass increase is quite real.

So by virtual, I mean an object is treated as having the extra mass, but it doesn't have the associated gravity pull, size, or collapsing into nuclear fusion problems. Maybe it does have the weight though.

The object does have the extra mass, it come from the energy you put into accelerating the object to near light speed. The only visual effect would be the object or space craft being shortened along the axis of acceleration.

Will people who should know better stop speaking about a molten mantle. The mantle is not molten, except in small isolated pockets. This kind of inaccurate statement just plays into the hands of the pseudoscience extremists.

Ok you are correct, from the stand point of human time frames the mantle is not molten. It is like a very dense putty or hot plastic but in the time frame of geology it does indeed act as though it were molten and the continents do float on top of the denser mantel.

explain.

No problem, at one time all the land area of the earth was on Continent. A hot spot formed under this land mass caused by eh insulating properties of this land mass. all the animals at this time could walk anywhere (in theory) and mix with each other.

As the hot spot spread the continents apart these animals lost contact with each other but still show signs of being related. Also land bridges do occasionally come up to connect continents, like central America connecting north and south America and the land bride that existed from Siberia to North America at one time. The is no reason what so ever to propose an expanding earth to explain animals all around the world being related.

There is one thing that I can also address and that is the world wide ridge where the earth's crust spreads apart. On the coast of the Atlantic the continents are being spread away from the ridge at the center of the Atlantic. on the west coast the crust that was formed in the middle of the Pacific is being subducted under the north and south American plates.

The Rocky Mountains and the Andes Mountains are evidence of this. As this oceanic crust is subducted some of the continental crust is folded up and the subducted Pacific ocean crust also comes up through active volcanoes. Eventually either the Pacific plate will reverse the motion of the north and south American plates or those plates will be pushed into Asia.

The plates move because what we see as solid rock actually acts more like very stiff putty over the eons of times these plates need to move around. A good place to see this effect on a solid surface is arctic pack ice, this ice while solid to the touch acts like a thick putty over large areas in real time.

This particular movement of the plates from all jammed up into one Continent into several is the second or maybe even third time this has happened. the one before Pangaea was called Gondwanaland. It preceded the current land mass by more than 300 million years or so.

To appeal to the people who want some evidence for an expanding earth I am going to put down what I have found.

 

As you read through this I want you to take the evidences and try to see the big picture. Most of the things I have found don't prove anything on their own but as evidences are added a clear picture begins to come into view. I realize that many of the evidences I will point out will have alternate explications, but I want you to look at the big picture.

 

Here is a simple picture I put together illustrating what a perfectly rigid continent would look like on an expanded earth.

 

Please note two things. One thing is that the edges of the continent are lower then the center of the continents. Look at any continent and you will find that the centers of the continents are higher than the edges. The other is the angle formed between the continent edge and the ocean floor. Notice how the angle formed could be mistaken for a subduction zone.

 

Another thing about the curve, becuase continents cannot hold that shape becuase of the forces of gravity, the curve will collapse with the expansion of the earth. This is what forms mountains. For one thing it is a consistent explanation for every mountain range. This explanation for mountain forming is also very consistent with what can be observed with actual mountains. It is consistent with the fact that the Himalayas and the Rockies are roughly the same age. It is consistent with the fact that larger continents tend to yield larger mountain ranges.

 

Age of the seafloor

 

This is the age of the seafloor around the world. Please note the continuous ridge that circles the globe. Notice how the ridge matches with the outlines of nearby coastlines. Look at the ridge to the west of South America. Notice how well it follows the coastline of South America.

 

Also notice how the age range of the Pacific matches that of the Atlantic as well as every other ocean in the world. There is nothing on the ocean floor that is older than 180 million years old. The oldest of the crust is near the continental crust and new crust is being formed at the ridges everywhere on the globe. This data is a perfect match for an expanding earth. This data was discovered after the proposal of an expanding earth.

 

Look at the indent on the east side of South America then look at the outdent in Australia. Notice how they fit together. Just like South America and Africa fit together. Another thing about South America and Africa. If you try to piece them together, there is a spread. If you like up the top, but bottom doesn't connect. If you like up the bottom, the top doesn't. If they are curved to a smaller globe, they fit on the top and the bottom.

 

Take a look at this paper.

The trans-Pacific zipper effect.

It goes into matching outlines but it also addresses the fact that there are fossils that are found on either side of the pacific and nowhere else in the world.

 

Just like fossil evidence, matching outlines, and seafloor age data provides evidence for a closed Atlantic. This same evidence applies to the Pacific. 180 millions years ago the Pacific was closes, just like the Atlantic. Pangaea existed, it just wrapped around the entire earth when it was smaller.

 

Another insight fossil evidence offers is the larger size of creatures that existed millions of years ago. While most of them where not massive, the average size of creatures was larger than that of the average size today. Dragonflies, elephants, and crocodiles among other animals all have ancestors that are larger than their descendants today.

 

Another interesting thing to note is that Ganymede (Another Picture) and Mars both show signs of expansion. With Ganymede, just look at the edges of the dark areas and how they match up. Even better than the image of Ganymede is the one of Mars. The image I linked to show the elevation of mars. Notice how the higher crust has more craters. More craters means older crust. This means that the higher crust is older, just like earth.

 

All these small details all coherently fit together under the assumption that the earth is expanding. I don't need you to start telling me alternate explanations to what I outlined. Just read over this a few times and try to get the big picture.

Your little picture is cute but it doesn't even come close to describing reality. The continents are more like Ice floating in the ocean. Most of the continent is below with just a small amount of the lighter continental crust showing. Like an ice berg the continents are much thicker in the middle than they are at the edges.

The continents are light rocks floating in an ocean of denser rock. the Earths crust is very thin compared to the molten mantle the continents float on. As the crust spreads and is subducted the lighter parts of the molten mantle that come up and spread from the mid ocean ridges are separated out as they are subducted.

So in a very real way the Continental crust is getting larger and the oceanic crust is not really going any where any more than a rotating belt is going any where even though it's surface moves. the continental crust is moving on the belts of mantle material , they move and run into each other and get bigger as they collect lighter rocks from the mantle.

At one time almost all if not all of the earth was covered by ocean but the process of lighter rock coming to the surface of the heavier mantle has slowly produced continents. Over the last 4.5 billion years the continents have grown. No expanding Earth, just a moving active dynamic crust floating on a sea of molten mantle.

Try this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_locomotion#Rolling

 

I think it must have been the caterpillar I read about.

Thanks, i wasn't aware of rolling in those contexts. I knew about the snake that supposedly turns it's self into a hoop and rolls but that is just a myth with no truth to it.

I grew up living in houses that used coal fire places. We would adjust the damper in the chimney to keep the fire from burning too fast and throw more heat into the room. I do miss a fire place, we cooked on a wood stove as well, always burned sycamore wood in the cook stove, it burns the cleanest. Oh yeah, we also had fire places that were made of thick blocks of stone, the stone would get hot and radiate heat all night long, way after the fire had gone out.