petrushka.googol

What determines the theoretical maximum height of a tree ? Some trees are tall but there appears to be a cap on this. How does mass distribution and gravity play a role in this ? Please advise.

Really...can't tell...

My feeling is that the autonomic nervous system governed life in early man but the central nervous system "evolved" rapidly, in fact so rapidly, that our course of life came to be determined by the latter more than the former? My query is whether this is a continuing process or is it subject to limitations governed by evolutionary constructs ? Please advise.

In financial jargon bears and bulls are used to signify the down-trend and up-trend of the stock indices. Does this have a basis in reality? Is this tied to the metabolic (anabolic / catabolic) differences that exist among species? Please advise.

What are the odds of a chess game being solved using classic AI algorithms like alpha beta pruning? Is this an infeasible solution?

What about v~c (say 0.99999 c). At this velocity is it simplistic to assume that an object distorting space (by translation) would also warp time as a collateral? What my question is in essence is, is that at velocities approximately equal to c does time dimension get simultaneously warped and is a two dimensional model as described in the problem statement too simplistic and unrealistic. Could time be thought of as an extensible and deformable dimension of a 4-dimensional space-time where time is not just 1-dimensional but an attribute of a 4-dimensional co-ordinate axis. (x,y,z,t).

At velocity equal to c (if we visualize movement through space as the X axis and movement through time as the Y axis), time stands still. But how? After all the time dimension cannot be decoupled from the space dimension and some ripples of gravitational waves could produce effects on the time dimension, as a collateral. Altough the first postulate seems correct (and is thought to be) the latter seems intuitive. Could anyone please shed light on this issue?

Humans (and other mammals) have a four-chambered heart that beats more than 2 billion times during the average lifespan. Could this organ have been more efficient ? And what if we had a 3 chambered heart ? Please advise.

Does the cosmic microwave background interact with a person's biomagnetic field? Does this have a perceptible effect on the human aura and can we perceive it (through measurements)?

Does music stimulate the production of alpha-waves in the brain? From regular beta how does the brain wave pattern change under the influence of music? And does this have curative properties?

What makes music music? Why is it that regular audio (as in speech) can never quality as music? How close to music can regular speech get? And is an instrumental accompaniment a requirement for music to be defined as such?

Religions in my opinion should adapt to the times. For the uninitiated there even exists a Jedi religion (which i believe endorses telekinesis, the dark side etc.). Religion may have been the outward pretext for many wars but the underlying causes were squabbling over natural resources, linguistic and cultural differences, desire for dominating others i.e. adrenaline driven personalities etc. They still exist and possibly will continue to do so for an appreciable time to come. Religious texts have a variety of interpretations including those of the founders. If I personally were a spokesman of some religion I would definitely have to admit that the views that I am expressing are not really my own (and actually I would stand to get nothing by promoting them.). God and magic are not really synonymous. Magic as the driving force for religion is the view expressed by charlatans and constitutes only their viewpoint. Religion currently is misinterpreted by evil people for their own ends. The end product is diabolical. That this was the view of the respective religions founders is debatable.

I was pondering on what benefits religion could offer the professed atheist. I came up with the following bullet points - - It permits time regression - Religions are rooted in the past and more often than not reflect the mores and customs of some pristine society. Read some religious text and the imagery is very vivid, vestures now archaic, social standards now defunct, but yet these very things bring in a nostalgia for those grandiose statements of the human condition. - it promotes sociological bonding - meeting in a common forum has unquestionable social benefits - it develops the habit of reading - ancient texts have a unique ability to train the mind and may even appeal to readers of Shakespeare, for example, as both are usually adapted to poetry - it promotes equanimity if read in the right spirit - it cuts across age groups and is cross demographic - religious texts are read by a wide range of the population with basic reading skills. It does not require specific skills, say scientific or actuarial, to grasp the basic ideas Just my opinion. Please reflect on the same.

You seem to be of the opinion that thought is reactive i.e. downing of a plane triggers a neuro-psychiatric response. You seem to have omitted thought that is active. i.e. ideation arising out of innovation. (remember Archimedes - what a potent physical reaction he had when a thought occurred to him.)

That does not explain why some cultures still practice witchcraft, sorcery and other forms of necromancy which border on the paranormal. eg) voodoo etc.

As is well known diamond which is an allotrope of carbon has been engineered in the lab. Has this been achieved in the lab with other allotropes of carbon like graphite and charcoal? Does nanotechnology or molecular engineering offer any solutions?

I thought sincerely on your thoughts and found that I was not being very thoughtful....

In modern parlance Karma could be thought of as a precursor or derivative of Murphy's Law, which states that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. In karma for something to be righted it's antipodal event should have first transpired. Just a kind of natural entropic balance. (we can treat this as the conservation of the space-time-energy trinity). I view karma as a kind of space-time signature. Karma is neither good nor bad but exists as an "entangled state", which is subjective according to when it is viewed and who is viewing it.

Let us assume that Karma has a basis in science. (assumption). - (I) What then would be an idealized topology of the Universe to back this up ? - Planar -> This would extend in a straight line, every event would be the driver of the next and each event would act as the agent to expand the dimension of space - time contributing to Universal expansion. Karma could act but there would be no pattern in the events, only linear progression - Open loop -> This would not support the karmic model. At some point events would cease and karma would thereby "end". Not self-propagating and event driven, - Closed loop -> Here events would drive the next ad - infinitum and they would be self-propagating. Event A (cause) would cause Event B (effect) which would again cause Event C. (Event B would now be the cause). This brings forth an interesting corollary, that eventually after some very large finite time, displacement would be zero and the system would arrive at some initial state (t=0) and events could, in theory, repeat themselves iteratively. Is there then, some scientific rational for Karma given the postulate expressed in (I). Please feel free to share your views. (This is just my random musing and is free for debate).

Are we alluding to the Chaos effect ?

Traditional Biblical wisdom says "offer the other cheek...". Or am I being tongue-in-cheek (pun intended)

i'm trying to query about higher frequency radiations - microwave frequencies and above....

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. - Gandhi

Does Maslow's theory of need hierarchy have as it's base evolutionary constructs? Does the peak of the Maslow pyramid represent the attribute of a "evolved" mind? (self - actualization)

We are all too conversant with the attributes of lightning discharges - - ionisation field - EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) Is radiation (not infra-red / therrmal) also a concommitant of lightning discharges? What are the latest insights on the subject?