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Everything posted by Airbrush
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Do we know that the big bang created the SAME number of particles as anti-particles? From the Science Channel docs I've seen they don't mention any issue about that, only that for a given number of matter particles, there were fewer anti-particles created at the big bang. So when annihilation occurred, there remained no anti-particles but only matter particles.
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That is true, but many Americans feel they need a last resort in case they know someone is trying to get into their house, and they would have at least a fighting chance to defend themselves. I think arming school teachers is complicated and problematic, but if a veteran or x-cop is now a teacher, and he or she is expert with a gun, and passes some tests, let them keep it in school, but it should be on their body all day. What good will it do if it is locked up and it takes too much time to access it? The long-term solution is improve school security (as well as malls and other crowded places), guards, cameras, and restricted access to the campus (or mall). Raise the age for any gun ownership to 25, improve background checks, report crazies, and ban all weapons of war. I lived in a bad neighborhood and experienced an intruder trying to enter my bedroom window at night. Not a smart guy because he was entering my apartment just a few feet away from where I was sleeping. He had already removed the screen and I confronted him by saying in a loud, angry voice "What do you want?!!!" He dropped the screen and ran. I'm glad I didn't kill him. I called the police and an officer came over and took my report and advised me that I should have a gun. He said I should wait until he gets inside then "blow him up". I do have a shot gun hidden near my bed, and my wife and I don't have kids.
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What do you mean by "that isn't what it says"? What DOES the link say/mean? I don't know what you mean by it is like saying "Why couldn't 1 billion [antimatter particles] minus 1 billion and 1 [matter particles] equal zero? That question makes no sense to me. What point are you trying to make? You know a lot more about cosmology and other sciences than I do.
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The thing about guns (and bombs) is how they make killing people sanitary, compared to mass murder using knives, swords, or clubs. It is so much easier to shoot at people from a distance than to get up close and personal with a knife or baseball bat. Also in movies and video games the good guys usually solve problems by shooting bad guys with assault rifles, not using knives and baseball bats. Anyone know the percentage of mass shootings that are from shot guns? I've never heard of it, but maybe it is a thing. It seems to me that a shot gun is best for home defense. Home invasion is usually not many attackers. An assault rifle is designed to kill the maximum number of humans as possible, in the shortest amount of time. Why do you need an AR-15 for home defense, because you need to be ready to defend against a dozen or more attackers?
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Extract from the above link: "...A coin has a 50-50 chance of landing on its head or its tail, so if enough coins are spun in exactly the same way, half should land on heads and the other half on tails. In the same way, half of the oscillating particles in the early universe should have decayed as matter and the other half as antimatter." I don't understand why they suppose that EXACTLY half the spinning coins should end up heads and exactly half should end up tails. That is not how probability works. Is it so hard to imagine that a billion atoms of antimatter annihilate against one billion AND ONE matter atoms, leaving a tiny majority as matter? In that case the universe would be about one billionth of the amount of matter and antimatter that was originally created in the big bang.
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Does anyone know if the shooter was wearing body armor? The security guard who stayed outside probably heard the sound of an assault rifle with a muzzle velocity 3 times his 9mm pistol. What teacher, let alone a security guard, is going to attack a shooter with an assault rifle, using a pistol?
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Life on other planets; is water really the primary factor?
Airbrush replied to dstebbins's topic in Astronomy and Cosmology
You say "possibly react at the same speeds" as water-based life. What kind of probability do you think? My guess is a low probability, and for that reason water is really the primary factor when looking for ANY kind of life because of the higher probability. Astronomers say "follow the water." We may find some weird simple form of life on Titan in liquid methane, but scientists will be more busy looking for life inside of Mars, Europa, and Enceladus, and when it comes to exoplanets, they will focus attention first on planets within the habitable zone of liquid water. They have not even planned any mission for exploring the methane lakes of Titan. -
Anyone know easy it is for a non-student to get onto a school campus, such as the Parkland FL school? Why don't outsiders need to pass through a gate where an armed guard asks them what are they doing there if they are not a student? Also, any "soft" target, such as a school, or a large shopping mall, or any large group of people, there should be limited access and exits so that anyone suspicious can be stopped for questioning. There could be video cameras watching and recording the perimeter. One guard watches the monitors while an armed guard patrols the perimeter. Then after a few hours they trade places. I am in favor of banning all assault rifles, or any gun that fires too rapidly. For home defense or hunting you don't need an assault rifle.
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Life on other planets; is water really the primary factor?
Airbrush replied to dstebbins's topic in Astronomy and Cosmology
How can you say "react at reasonable speeds" at such extremely low temperatures? How does complex life evolve in such cold solutions? -
Life on other planets; is water really the primary factor?
Airbrush replied to dstebbins's topic in Astronomy and Cosmology
The other liquids (ammonia, methane, ethane, nitrogen, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen sulfide, silicon dioxide, etc.) are liquid at such low temperatures that any molecular motion is S L O W. Life would develop much slower, and complex life would be less likely, and intelligent life seems an absurd idea. Liquid water works faster and better. Look for the water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry -
Would such a sphere have a finite diameter? If it did then you can calculate a finite distance you would need to travel in a straight line before you return to your starting point. Then you would also be able to calculate the path you could take to not end up where you started from but rather tangent off the sphere at the necessary angle to leave the surface of the curved, finite everything.
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Don't you think the anti-Trump forces will have more voter turnout in 2020 than in 2016? When you add in "MeToo" and four, long, eventful years of Trump-created crises, it will exhaust more voters than in 2016. Trump will have done his job, to tear everything apart and reverse Obama. Then the GOP will choose someone inspiring who can govern.
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Where does gravity (most likely) come from?
Airbrush replied to dordle-loddle's topic in Astronomy and Cosmology
Where does gravity come from? It comes from matter and energy. -
"Everything" includes space. What about space beyond the finite-sized "everything"? We can't forget about that region. How can space not be infinite?
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My question is do you think the Big Bang is the universe? My opinion is that the universe is probably infinite in size because universe means everything, and the Big Bang may not be everything. "The Universe is all of space and time (spacetime) and its contents,[12] which includes planets, moons, stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space and all matter and energy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe
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Yes, it may be that Trump is the wrecking ball of the GOP. They are now careful to not criticize Trump, but only up to a tipping point. Maybe the tax cut is what they were mostly looking for, mission accomplished, and now ANY other GOP candidate can take the baton. Trump was a convenient idiot who they could manipulate by flattery, but he may have already served his purpose and may be disposed of. We don't know what Mueller knows and it may be that well in advance of the midterms Mueller will release enough to cripple Trump. Even though the Dems never get a majority in the House, nor a 2/3 majority in the Senate, there may be enough Republicans in congress that would vote to remove Trump from office after the midterms.
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Life on other planets; is water really the primary factor?
Airbrush replied to dstebbins's topic in Astronomy and Cosmology
Yes water is really a primary factor for life, as we know it. There are other liquids (e.g. ammonia) but water seems best for life, whether it be a planet in the habitable zone, or moon or planet that has an interior ocean heated by gravitational flexing. I'm not interested in stars that are over a thousand light years away. Those are way out of our reach, except as curiosities or as reference. How about planets with life, or Earth-like (or better) that are within a hundred light years? That is most interesting! Watch for the launch of TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) this year. In a few years we will have a much better idea of how common Earth-like planets are, or planets BETTER suited to life than Earth. TESS will look at the closest 1,000 red dwarf stars as well as 500,000 other stars. Then the James Webb will take a closer look at those. The next few years should be very interesting, stay tuned! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transiting_Exoplanet_Survey_Satellite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope -
Because of party loyalty, it seems obvious that republicans will never vote to impeach Trump. This has nothing to do with guarantees, only a higher probability is more accurate. Impeachment seems impossible unless Dems have at least a 2/3 majority in the Senate. A simple majority of Dems in the House after the midterms is likely. But to flip 20% of Senate seats from GOP to Democrat looks like a tall order, so get used to another 3 years of Trump, unless there is some miracle. What would it take for a Republican to vote for impeachment? Trump shooting someone on 5th Avenue? Maybe not.
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The impeachment process requires a simple majority of House members to vote for impeachment of a president. That is not too difficult to attain in the next midterm elections. The hard part is getting 67 senators to vote against the president and that can only happen if there are at least that many democrat senators after the midterm elections. That means flipping about 20 senate seats from republican to democrat. Not an easy task, but is it possible? Looks like we are stuck with Trump until the 2020 elections. "At the federal level, the impeachment process is a two-step procedure. The House of Representatives must first pass, by a simple majority of those present and voting, articles of impeachment, which constitute the formal allegation or allegations. Upon passage, the defendant has been "impeached". Next, the Senate tries the accused. "To convict the accused, "the concurrence of two thirds of the [senate] members present" is required.[35] Conviction removes the defendant from office. Following conviction, the Senate may vote to further punish the individual by barring him or her from holding future federal office, elected or appointed." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment#Process
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Will adopting smaller nukes facilitate likelihood of nuclear conflict?
Airbrush replied to StringJunky's topic in Politics
The smaller a nuke is the more likely it would be used. Biggest threat would be a nuke to be smuggled into a country by a terrorist group. Then they extort the country they attacked by threatening another attack. You cannot figure out where the enemy is located. ICBMs can be detected and radar shows you who is attacking you. A loose nuke can pop up anywhere. -
"GN-z11 is a high-redshift galaxy found in the constellation Ursa Major. GN-z11 is currently the oldest and most distant known galaxy in the observable universe.[4] GN-z11 has a spectroscopic redshift of z = 11.09, which corresponds to a proper distance of approximately 32 billion light-years... "The object's name is derived from its location in the GOODS-North field of galaxies and its high cosmological redshift number (GN + z11).[6] GN-z11 is observed as it existed 13.4 billion years ago, just 400 million years after the Big Bang;[2][7][8] as a result, GN-z11's distance is inappropriately[9] reported as 13.4 billion light years, its light travel distance measurement.[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GN-z11
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"The radius of the observable universe is about 45 billion light years..." Yes and I think that means that the most distant galaxy visible is approx. 30 billion LY away, because the distance to the CMB is about 50% more distant than the most distant visible galaxy, right?
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Correct me if I am wrong, but I think Trump was not weighed in this exam. The doctor took Trump's weight at his word. Trump is obsessed with the fear of being considered obese, and would not hesitate to understate his weight when asked. Also, the answers to the 30-question "brain exam" is available online (what year it is, what day of the week, who is president, etc.), according to Michael Wolff.
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How can you make 4 cameras, 4 processors, 4 thrusters, battery, nav quip, and laser packed into one centimeter square and weigh only one gram? The 150mg atomic battery will take up 15% of the gram. Easy to direct the cameras. Just lock onto the target star and/or the planet and use them for reference. Once it nears the star could the laser sails soak up solar power? Although I must agree with most of your assertions, I was wondering if you could give us a few examples of Rare Earth Hypothesis being discounted. Rare Earth explains the Fermi Paradox.
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Maybe you don't need to use the laser for 20+ years because I suspect the author proposes that from Earth, a laser could push the Sprite to a speed of 0.2c, and maybe that speed can be reached in just a few years or even months from Earth? Within a decade we should have a long list of nearest Earth-like candidates, prospects for future flybys. How small is a Sprite? How capable of a payload? That is the trade off, better technology for imaging and sensors, which are heavier, and therefore more mass to accelerate. How much info can it send from a tiny transmitter? Eventually we can put Kepler-like, or TESS-like, satellites around nearby stars and therefore reveal other plants not currently visible from Earth.