mezarashi

Please explain to me how you understand a firewall works. Maybe I can be of more help then.

The answer lies in the understanding of the quantum model of the atom which is by far the most accurate to date. The classical model of the electron orbiting around the nucleus like the Earth does around the sun is an incorrect view. You can read about this at How Stuff Works or this question has been asked before. http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10263 http://science.howstuffworks.com/atom8.htm

Man, that is just indescribably disgusting. It's unbelievable and thus I didn't believe it. I present my own research before the folklore does more damage ^^;; http://www.wordorigins.org/wordort.htm http://takeourword.com/Issue056.html http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:iIT8pJF0WawJ:www.got01.dial.pipex.com/etymology%2520one+origin+of+the+word+testify&hl=en&client=firefox-a

I think we may be a long way from using our nanotechnology for that. It *is* nanotechnology. These structures would be in kilometers if not millions of kilometers. I think what is preventing us from building such structures is the logical usefulness of these structures as well as the economics rather than our incompetence in materials engineering. We can make plenty of strong steel/carbon alloys. Even if we could build it using silicon oxide (the most common element on the Earth's crust), the sheer size of these structures means that we'll have to probably borrow material from other planets. The transportation costs would not be justifiable. The carbon chains we have been creating are nonetheless amazing. The intermolecular forces can be very very strong. All we need is just the correct arangement. Diamond is just carbon after all isn't it?

The wave function Ψ is "simply" a solution to the Schroedinger equation. If you've seen it, you know how formidable it is. When you plug the wave function back into the differential equation, satisfies it. To be honest however, the equation has only been solved exactly (analytically) for the case of hydrogen. Perturbation theory is needed for more complex structures and even then it seems impossible-ish. The importance? Schroedinger's equation is the one of the most fundamental mathematical formulae in QM. The fact that the solutions are of wave functions shows the wave nature of matter.

Most of the stars you can see in the night sky with your naked eye are probably within our galaxy. Our galaxy has a diameter of only less than a million light years if I'm not mistaken. It is true that when you look at the stars, you are looking into the past. What you see now is not how they are right now. They might have burned out or exploded in a supernova, but we can only know this at the speed of light. Other note: Since most of the stars we see are within our own galaxy, they move together so there may not be much of a displacement. Even if there is a displacement. If you do a little trigonometry you will see that they may need to be displaced by billions of kilometers for us to observe a change in the order of seconds (1/3600 degrees).

Although, there are other fallacies in the IC claim, the "random" part isn't what it's about. It's not about something too complicated for your little brain to handle either. Irreducibly complex structures are structures that work only and only if ALL parts of the system are present. If just one part is removed, the system becomes broken. Take roughly the human body, if you didn't have a heart, or lungs, or your eyes, you would be "broken" if not dead. The problem is that evolution cannot build irreducibly complex structures (this is the brunt of the issue). Because evolution works in steps. Suppose evolution was working to develop my heart, how am I suppose to be alive without one while I wait for evolution? Does it make any sense here? How is it then that we observe "irreducibly complex" structures in nature even down to the bio-molecular level.

The question is what again? Given a function, you want to derive that function. Or do you mean differentiation using first principles? What have you tried so far. Show what you've done to get your answer.

Shall I represent the underrepresented then?

I agree with Kedas. What are you trying to accomplish? Conventional capacitors as we have it consists of two conducting surfaces separated by some kind of dielectric. While the Hall effect produces a separation of charge and thus some sort of capacitance, it really has nothing to do with why we would want to use a capacitor o.O

Your welcome shinbits. I'd like to believe that you would also want to believe in science, given that you are so impressed by it. We've been able to venture into outer space, produce nanoscopic structures, and clone living mammals! Isn't that all an amazing feat? All of this because of science, and so when it comes to the topic of evolution, there is no reason why you should back out. If you would like to believe that God created the world today through evolution, then you may, as that statement is impossible to disprove and well, not part of the debate at all. Evolution isn't a theory here to TAKE DOWN creationism. It's based on the evidence gathered over the years. It is the process in which living things change. If you keep that in mind, I think things will be easier on you. The unfortunate truth is that for every link to a creationism website, 5 links to an evolutionist website can be made. As I've noted earlier, the major problem here is that creationism believers and evolution believers are being exposed to contradicting literature and contradicting facts. This game is difficult to end

Irrelevant rhetorics answered by irrelevant rhetorics. That's the way to go. bascule, that site there is awesome. I'm starting to understand why creationists believe so strongly. In addition to the ubiquitous fallacies present in their presentation (like the False Dilemma you just mentioned), creationism sites tend to present contradicting facts! Now, it's really hard to tell who's right and who's wrong. Fallacies are one thing and can easily be rebuted, but incorrect facts are rather difficult to resolve. A game of who can source more sources? This is a fact that most of us on this side of the house think is false. There is fossil evidence, except just not enough to make some people happy. Another element I find used throughout the presentation is a strong rousing of emotions although the point itself may be only a weak argument or no argument at all. Senteces like: use many language devices to appeal to the audience. The kind of stuff I'm learning in my Speech and Presentation class. While it is important, it has limited use if you're in the debate club. Also, there is alot of material that will really impress you, making you forget to even think logically while reading it. Most of this impressive stuff is not directly relevant to the argument of course. Lastly I just love how they quote the opinions of famous people, particularly of "evolutionists". If science was based entirely on quotes from famous people, my would it be an easy subject. I'll just become famous and start dictating the laws of the universe. Using opinions of others doesn't substantiate anything at all. This adds to the impressive stuff element.

I guess I need to get myself a copy before I can make a proper critique. This thread sure is financially demanding

As Tetrahedrite just said. The sliding you get in graphite is sliding between sheets of it rather than the sliding of individual molecules. But most importantly, graphite's ability to conduct comes from its pi-bonding rather than its ability for its crystal sheets to slide past one another. A transition temperature range does not exist for graphite as there is a clear distinction between liquid graphite and its solid crystalline form.

Now THAT's one interesting question indeed. Yggdrasil must be disheartened to know that his post was done to little avail

Well you see, nearly to say, by definition, a blackhole is an entity in which nothing can escape from. We don't know what happens behind the event horizon and whether our known laws of physics apply. Quantum sizes + relativistic masses = a headache. Secondly, the blackhole doesn't really care about the mechanism in which you are trying to accelerate matter from it. Whether you want to pull it using electromagnetics or use a rocket. The whole point is that even IF you could accelerate a particle below the event horizon to the speed of light, it would not have enough energy to escape. And obviously nothing can go faster than the speed of light. Thus any attempt is futile.

This confusion is from the techniques used to model and solve problems involving gravity on objects in circular motion. It doesn't have to do with how gravity works or the causes of gravity. You have to understand that there is no such thing as the centrifugal force. It is a virtual force created purely to aid us in modeling the system. I've seen multiple threads discussing "centripetal versus centrifugal forces" in the context of gravity in more detail.

To say that glass is a solid or fluid is probably incorrect. Glasses and other polymers of its kind have a very unusual molecular arrangement upon "freezing". I was quite surprised myself when I first learnt this, but there is no cut-off temperature for glass becoming "solid". Instead, there is a temperature range called the glass transition temperature (search google for this term for more info). Above this temperature glass acts like a rubbery material. Below this temperature range, it acts like a brittle material. It is important to know the characterization of solid and liquid as described by material scientists. For most materials, the molecules will crystallize (form an ordered arrangement, FCC, BCC, Zinc-Blend, etc.) when the substance falls below the freezing temperature and releases energy in the form of heats of fusion. Glass doesn't do this. The molecules just get stuck. At the transition temperature some molecules may still be able move past one another until the temperature is lowered enough until close to none will be able to. It is believed that this state of class is metastable meaning that it should over time crystallize, but I think its stability is still a hot topic in academia. Another interesting note: when glass is at its transition temperature, molecules may slide past one another. There are no discontinuities like in substances like H2O where 0 degrees marks the distinction between water and ice. So you will find that if you are using glass-like polymers in machines that get slightly heated up. Over a prolonged enough exposure you may get the glass melting and forming a new shape! It's a very slow process of course maybe over the course of a week.

Why you are probably thinking of the same problems physicists after Newton thought about. Newton created the concept of gravity and his principles of mechanics made use of gravity. He says it exists but he never explained why and or the mechanism on which it works. If you think about your question carefully, it can be extended. Why does mass exert and is subjected to gravity? Why does charge exist? Why are there exactly TWO types of charges, positive and negative? Why do they attract and repel? Why are there gravitational fields? Why are there electromagnetic fields? The simple answer is that these are the fundamental properties of our physical universe. These are the rules of the game. It exists, we know it exists and we know how they work. Why they are there as such is very philosophical. There is alot of theoretical research into theories that will actually explain/be able to derive these forces. Einstein's general relativity is such a case with gravity resulting from the warping of the space-time continuum due to matter.

I think this depends on your overall academic and/or career goals. What is your major in college and what do you plan to achieve in college? I would choose first/second year courses based on whether they will provide me with the proper fundamentals to pursue the more advanced topics in my final years.

This is like asking in arithmetic, when do I use multiplication and when do I use division. You use each when it it appropriate. When it makes sense to do so you do it. In a mathematics course, you will be busy solving problem after problem simply to get you accustomed to the operation (the same way elementary school children practice subtraction and division again and again). Applications come later. I can bring up many many more examples if you would like. I've used the Lorentz force example earlier. matt's example was also a good exercise in seeing the usefulness the dot product. Just to note, but I'm sure you already know, there's a difference between vector dot and cross products and vector multiplication. Also, there is as far as I know (I've read in another thread that there actual may be) and as far as most applications are concerned, no vector or matrix division. You can cross two vectors to form a third vector. But with this third vector and one of the original vectors, you cannot determine the other original vector. There are infinite possibilities.

I suppose you mean the photoelectric effect of light striking a metal surface? Well, I'm not referring to that experiment, rather a real life case with what we see as electromagnetic interference with our electronic equipment. This "electromagnetic" seems to be limited to electromagnetic waves of the radio frequency. My question is why so.