Airbrush

"What happens inside a black hole is unknown, but travelling faster than light is highly unlikely. The laws of physics don't end inside a black hole." I'm just relating exactly what I heard an astronomer say in an episode of "The Universe" or "How the Universe Works". I think they are experts. The laws of physics DO end inside a black hole.

1)mass - variable 2)volume - variable 3)speed - variable 3.5)temperature ?? 4)if something goes is black hole what will its speed - I heard that matter that enters a black hole is accelerated to BEYOND light speed. 5)formation - death of all very massive stars 6)destruction - no destruction, only evaporation or combination with other black holes 7)what is its role in universe - important 8)can we produce them - maybe tiny ones 9)how much it's powerful - incredibly powerful 10)can we damage black holes - no 11)is there any power in universe to destroy black holes - no 12)how much black holes are present in current universe - millions in our galaxy alone, every giant star that supernovas creates a new black hole 13)what is relation of black holes with time - time slows down near them

Economic decisions should be proposed by the best economists in the nation. Differences of opinion should be debated by ECONOMISTS, not dumb lawyer-congressmen-senators-governors who become president because they have a gift of gab. Presidents should be required to have an extensive economics education.

Thanks for the references about inflation. I scanned thru looking for "infinite rate" of expansion and the closest was "exponential" rate of expansion. Often I have heard of inflation as a moment, shortly after the big bang, when expansion exceeded light speed. Could you call our attention to the section that describes an "infinite rate" of expansion? That would be far beyond an exponential rate of expansion. "In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation or just inflation is the theorized extremely rapid exponential expansion of the early universe by a factor of at least 10^78 in volume, driven by a negative-pressure vacuum energy density.[1] The inflationary epoch comprises the first part of the electroweak epoch following the grand unification epoch. It lasted from 10^−36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10^−33 and 10^−32 seconds. Following the inflationary period, the universe continued to expand, but at a slower rate." No mention of infinite rate here. 10 to the 78th power is a large number, but not infinite.

This is a very interesting concept. This discussion is the first time I ever heard the term "infinite rate". I wonder why those programs about the Universe, even Hawkings "Inter the Universe" never uses that term. Can you show where you heard of "infinite rate"?

"The basic problem is that thirty years of government according to Reaganomics has fostered a degree of inequality in wealth and income that is creating (and if not corrected will continue to create) a second or even third world economy in the US. We have to figure out how to tax the rich." If we detected an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth, and we had enough time to build a defense system to save the world from annihilation, but the system cost Trillions of dollars, would the rich be willing to pay for it or any other natural mega-disaster?

"As Arch2008 wrote: "the possibility that the whole universe may have been infinite right from the beginning cannot yet be ruled out." although "infinite right from the beginning" is a very hard concept to grasp. That is not what i call simply a beginning, it is an apparition." What makes scientists so sure that the observable universe had to originate from a region with a size smaller than a proton? Why not suppose the universe originated from a region of indeterminable size? If 2 branes collide, in string theory, the branes would make contact over a substantial area, maybe Billions of light years across, maybe infinite.

Maybe UNIFIED economic sanctions on agressor nations. If global warming is as bad as some propose it may be, there should be a lot MORE reasons for nations to go to war. There could even be wars over limited drinking water! There should be some effective limits on population growth to limit shortages. There should be some effective mind control to keep people under control. There already is, it is called TV.

And we haven't even mentioned the effect that global warming is going to have on taxes. Imagine the cost, and imagine tens of millions of people migrating inland from coastal flooding, imagine more frequent and bigger storms. Imagine wars over drinkable water, etc. Who is going to pay for all that? The only people who can pay, the wealthy. But eventually wealthy will mean earning about $100,000/year. Social security and medicare cannot last much longer at the current payroll deductions and ever-increasing-inflation-adjusted monthly payouts to the increasing numbers of old people with expensive health problems. Even the middle class will take a tax hit. The poor will have Obamacare, but that will eventually evolve to just drugs to take away the pain while dying of conditions that CAN be cured, but too expensive to cure.

So do you believe that the observable universe began smaller than a proton?

"...the recent stock crash didn't hurt me as bad as others. It still hurt. I always considered housing to be disposable so I didn't get caught up in real estate boom. I don't remember acquiring wealth to be particularly difficult." Acquiring wealth was not difficult for you? That proves to me you are a genius, and your argument is bogus. Not ANYONE could have done what you did. Very few could do that, probably less than 2% of the population.

This has nothing to do with increased dependency. We are protecting the US standard of living. We are working at paying off a debt. The debt came from 2 wars plus a war on terror, Katrina, Sandy, and many other necessary evils, such as the Kepler Mission search for Earth-like planets. Pay off should be a combination of spending cuts that don't hurt the economy or weaken national security, and tax increases that don't hurt the economy. The poor cannot pay more, the middle class can but shouldnt, only the rich can pay more and take it in stride. Rich means earning about $250,000/year. Maybe the rich could go without a luxury. Oh heaven forbid!

waitforufo: "...why should I pay more? Particularly, why should I be forced to pay a higher percentage? In fact, I could easily argue that I have used these common resources less than most. That is why I have wealth. So why shouldn't I pay less?" You have more to lose in a fire or burglary than a poor person with few toys. When fire fighters and police are reduced, when we go over the fiscal cliff, you will be more at risk. The reason you should pay a greater percentage of taxes is because the poor certainly cannot pay more, and the middle class CAN pay more but in doing so will SPEND less, and then the whole economy, that you enjoy more than the less rich, will take a dive, even though you continue to spend the same as before. This is mostly a matter of beginning to pay for a couple of wars that Uncle Sam charged on his credit card.

Since the Kepler Mission search for other earth-like planets is such an efficient method, why not send up more? Technology is always improving. Within a few more years a more powerful Kepler-style telescope can detect even smaller planets. "Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. The spacecraft, named in honor of the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler, was launched on 7 March 2009, and has been active for 3 years, 9 months and 20 days as of December 27, 2012. "The Kepler mission is "specifically designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover dozens of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets."Kepler's only instrument is a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by extrasolar planets that cross in front of their host star. Kepler is part of NASA's Discovery Program of relatively low-cost, focused primary science missions." Here is my questions about Kepler. Of the 145,000 stars in Kepler's field of vision, how far away are they? Are they all roughly the same distance from us, or are they a wide range of distances from us? If they are a wide range of distances from us, how far away are the nearest and most distant? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_mission

For every millionaire who was successful because they worked extra hard at it, there are many who struggled just as hard and yet in vain because of limited number of economic opportunities. For every great and famous athlete, there are many unknowns who were just as talented and driven, and willing to work hard at it, but could not occupy a limited number of teams. The fortunate few enjoy more of the infrastructure. Everyone who created wealth because they worked extra hard at it thinks anyone else could accomplish the same with similar effort. That is a fallacy. Besides effort you need opportunity and opportunities are limited. So the few lucky ones think they are superior, but many others could do the job just as well.

As usual you are correct Sir. Boehner has to deal with a BUNCH of jerks. There has to be some economic theory that the Republicans are clinging to, and yet nobody can say what it is. Any Republicans out there that want to explain the economic theory behind no tax increases on the rich? Yes, I would like to hear from the "Taxed Enough Already" Tea party.

How could anyone in AQ know that he was dead? Maybe he was captured alive. Who were the witnesses of his killing? I think only the SEAL team. Certainly everyone at the Abadabad military base, that were aware Bin Laden was staying there, realized OBL was killed or captured, and sensitive records taken for careful analysis. But because AQ has become very decentralized, it is possible many AQ cells didn't learn about what happened for a long while. For security reasons, info is transmitted by courier which is slow (the courier was worried he was being followed). Maybe the leadership of Al Aaeda thought the news of the raid would demoralize the troops and they had no reason to spread the news down the chain of command, to anyone that didn't need to know. Maybe many AQ cells would never have heard about the raid until it was announced in the news by Obama. _________________________ "Hillary Clinton Admits the U.S. Government Created al-Qaeda" It is common knowledge that the US supported Jihadi groups fighting the Soviets in Afgahnistan. Those Stinger missiles and other military aid were later used by AQ. So, indirectly, the US, if not created, enabled AQ. The US "created a monster."

Good explanations iNow and Overtone. That is the kind of economic info I was looking for. Then why the hell doesn't Obama bring that up every time the media is listening to him? This makes it look like Obama was bending over backwards to please Boner when he agreed to $400,000/year annual incomes as the cutoff. But Boner didn't think that was high enough. What a jerk!

Thanks for all the info above about the economic theories behind tax increases. That is very interesting stuff. How about raise taxes on everyone who earns over $150,000 per year? My wife and I work hard at our jobs and our combined income is less than $150,000/year. If consumer spending is not so directly and inversely related to tax increases, maybe a lot more tax money can be raised without putting the breaks on the economy.

At least reputable economists can back up their assertions with valid, proven, economic theory. I have not heard ANY economic theory to support either the Democrats or Republicans. As far as I know, the results of raising taxes on everyone who earns over $250,000/year is the great unknown. I have heard one argument against the Republicans, but I cannot repeat it here in detail. I have not heard ANY argument supporting the Republicans.

The key word here is "observable universe" which is huge but finite. Maybe the "experts" that I hear on popular science programs, when they say "universe" they really mean "observable universe"?

Thanks for your reply Uncool. This can be done in any number of different ways, but let's have the expert economists for each side argue this issue. That is the scientific way to solve the fiscal cliff. Not by politicians repeating themselves over and over again, with nothing of substance to back up their claims.

The Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on a fiscal plan. One of the main issues is this. What will happen when you put a higher tax on everyone who earns over $250,000 a year? It will bring in a lot more money, but will it stiffle the economy? Boner says that people earning over $250,000 will stop hiring people because the extra tax will be too much for them. They won't be able to afford to hire anyone new. This will slow the economy and even less taxes will be collected in 2013. Do the best economists agree with this? But what about the tax plan of rich getting tax credits AFTER they hire someone? Also, is the kind of economic activity that rich people stimulate also benefit the nonrich equally? If the rich can't afford to buy a new luxury item, does it matter all that much to the nonrich? This should be decided by economists, not politicians. Why don't they have a debate between their best economists? The only way to solve this scientifically is to have a plan approved by experts in economics. Whatever compromise the best economists agree on, or the winner of a great debate between economists on both sides of this argument, is what we should do.

Thanks for the answers to my question above. So basically, the reasons Barak Obama announced the killing of Bin Laden was because the operation was messy, we invaded Pakistani territory without telling them, and we assumed that the info would get out rapidly anyhow.

Here is a question I never heard asked. What good was it to immediately announce Osama Bin Laden's death? Why not keep it a secret and use the info gathered at his compound to track down and kill or capture other Al Qaeda leaders BEFORE they could find out by looking at the newpaper headlines "Bin Laden Killed"? Then they all scattered and we missed a golden opportunity.