Deseoso

We were playing a game at New Years where you hold a wine glass from the bottom and you put it over a ping-pong ball on a table. Then by moving your hand in a circular motion you can cause the ball to roll around the inside of the glass. You can then lift the glass and transfer the ball to another glass and the ball doesn't fall out of the glass so long as you keep up the circular motion. My understanding is that this works because the middle of the glass is wider than the rim of the glass and thus, while held upside down and moved in a circular motion the ball will move to the widest part of the glass. THE ARGUMENT - The next day I saw my nephew trying the same trick with a perfectly straight tube but no matter how fast he spun it, the ball kept falling out. My father believes that my nephew is simply incapable of spinning the tube fast enough to keep the ball rolling around one continuous line inside the tube. I believe that the speed does not matter because the tube is perfectly straight meaning that gravity will always pull the ball off the line, towards the ground. Who is correct?

Well the book is set in the year 2072. The guy on the motorcycle has quite a few cybernetic enhancements so I am not that worried about the other side. He is going to crash into the desks and filing cabinets but he is pretty much built like a rhino.

Yeah that is what I see as well. Am I incorrect in my understanding of the north pole? I thought the actual north pole was in fact over water, not land. The snow that is there in the picture you posted is on Greenland and Svalbard. I thought the actual north pole was separate from them. Am I not correct?

I was looking at Google Earth the other day and, unless there is something very wrong with it, there does not appear to be any ice north of Svalbard or Greenland. Has the entire north pole melted now? Sadly I asked the same thing of one of the teachers in the school I work at the other day. He did not know the answer but we were overheard by a very concerned 8 year old girl who immediately asked me where Santa lives now if the north pole melted.

Okay, so I am writing a book that has elements of both fantasy and science fiction in it. The section I am writing at the moment involves a team of guys who are going to attempt a very high risk break in into a skyscraper but instead of going in via the floor or the roof they are going to do so in a slightly more far fetched yet fun to read way. What I need is someone with a knowledge of physics to give me some distances and speed of various elements so that I can write it in a way that makes it possible. Insanely crazy, but possible. The break in is going to occur with one guy on a high powered motorcycle racing along the floor of a still under construction building next door to the one they are trying to get into. He will then hit a slight ramp at the edge and will jump over to the skyscraper on his motorcycle. Someone on his team will have a high powered rifle and will shoot holes in the window that the guy will crash through on his bike. The bike will be trailing a wire that he can attach to the wall on the other side so that the rest of his team can zipline over to the building. This is not actually going to be attempted in real life so I do not need the angle of the ramp or anything that detailed. What I need to know is, at what speed would the bike have to travel to jump over two pavements and four lanes of traffic? How many floors below his original take off point would he land? And finally, how far apart can the buildings be before it becomes stupidly unrealistic?

I was using Google Earth the other day and I came across a startling discovery. I was looking at the enormity of Antarctica but then I went to look at the north pole and it simply isn't there. On Google Earth I could not find any ice north of Greenland. Is that even possible or is there something wrong with Google Earth. I know the poles are melting but have we actually lost the entirety of the north pole? No wonder Santa didn't show up last year!! lol

I know what you mean. I have had similar feelings but I think you will find that the reason your mind starts thinking about breathing is because you have slowed your breathing down to a level where you are not getting sufficient oxygen. Then once you start thinking about it you become consciously aware of the fact that your system requires more so your pace of breathing increases. You should try yoga or meditation to learn about breathing techniques. Mastering your breathing can be quite interesting for certain things. I only have a basic knowledge of breathing techniques but there are certain circumstances where they come in very useful. For example, if you are out on a night when it is chilly and you aren't dressed warmly enough, think about your breathing. I have found that if I'm cold then I focus on taking very long, slow and deep breaths. Within about 30 seconds to a minute I find that I feel warmer. Not sure if it is a figment of my imagination that I am convincing myself that I am warmer or if I am actually getting warmer but it works for me all the same.

I love seeing how a lot of scientific advancement is first seen in science fiction but later ends up as a reality. Just look at the iPhone. If you had an iPhone in the 80's people would have thought you just stepped off the USS Enterprise. One piece of science fiction that I have seen used in many films, books and computer games is the idea of creating artificial gills that can filter oxygen out of sea water. It would be great if you could use an artificial gill instead of an oxygen tank when diving but one has never been invented and it made me start to ask why? My thoughts are this, please tell me if you think it is wrong. Fish are cold blooded right? If my understanding is correct about the difference between cold blooded and warm blooded creatures, cold blooded creatures don't require the same amount of oxygen in their systems as warm blooded creatures. This being the case, even if we could create an artificial gill of the size that you would expect to find on a human sized fish, it would not be able to filter the amount of oxygen that we, as warm blooded creatures, require to breath. Any thoughts?

I think that in general men and women's brains work very differently with regards to physical attraction. I believe that man utilizes their sense of sight more than their other senses when it comes to attraction while women access the other senses more and visual stimuli is not as important for them. I realize that my next statement is a generalization but I have certainly noticed many more occurrences of unattractive to average men with beautiful girlfriends than I have seen unattractive to average women with very attractive men. I am 38 years old and I have been single for 36 of those years so I have seen my fair share of adult videos and I would have to say that lesbian videos would definitely be my preference but I've never had any particularly strong desire to be with multiple women. For me it is more just that watching a sexual act is more fulfilling when both of parties involved are physically attractive to me. I think that when god, mother earth, evolution or whatever you believe in chose to create the two genders they went for curves and grace and elegance when they built women. When it came to guys they went for, "the last chicken in the shop" look. Personally I am glad that women aren't as visual as guys because I cannot see what any woman would want from us.

Curiosity satisfied. Thank you. Now I can stop thinking of urine bottles and my brain can start thinking about the next totally impractical and pointless question that peaks my interest.

I have a silly question for which I have no practical application for the knowledge other than satisfying my own curiosity. I go camping a lot and sometimes if I am camping and it is very rainy outside I may opt to urinate into an empty Coca-Cola bottle (plastic NOT glass) rather than leave my tent and get wet. I will then close the lid tightly and put the bottle somewhere out of the way. A while later I tend to notice that the sides of the bottle have imploded a little as though some of the air from the bottle has been removed. Why is this? At first I thought that the heat from the urine would cause the air in the bottle to expand pushing some of the air out of the bottle but I seal the bottle a tightly as I can as I don't particularly want the contents coming out in my tent. Would the expanding air from the urine's heat be strong enough to squeeze out of the bottles seal or is there another explanation I haven't considered?