J.C.MacSwell

For "perpetual motion" I tend to think in the same context as yourself and Swansont when it regards machine design especially, or physics generally, but the term is also used in the context Studiot describes. Wiki, for example, seems to look at it as Studiot does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion Just my (overpriced no doubt), $0.02

+1 for the first honest perpetual motion claimer ever!

How about the idea that the present Laws of Physics don't allow it?

From what I've seen of many a successful perpetual motion machine, a little misunderstanding always helps. Cycling of seemingly insignificant errors until they add up to something special seems to be the key, and if all else fails when making a prototype, just cheat a little, put it on You Tube and by all means ask for money...you are after all saving the World at the expense of greedy oil and power companies...

If you want to get a bit of the flavour of string theory without the math Brian Greene's Ted Talk on the subject is interesting: https://www.ted.com/talks/brian_greene_on_string_theory#t-4218

Yeah. No magic involved. There has to be sufficient water in the air, and the collecting surface needs to be maintained below the dew point. Tough to do that in very dry conditions.

Looks like it was quite effective: Note that it was pretty much as Studiot described and used the Sun to heat the very damp soil. It did not rely on night time cooling.

It doesn't with the plastic, no. But it generally does for the most part where the cooled surface is exposed to the air. I was picturing a dehumidifier when I initially wrote that before remarking on MigL's suggestion.

What I meant by surrounding air was the air immediately surrounding the cool surface...so probably a bad choice of wording. And as you suggest raising the humidity of that air can also help, especially in dry air conditions. What MigL described is typically done overnight, taking advantage of the warmth remaining in the soil and the cooler exposed plastic. You are describing something closer to a solar still. It can be quite productive if there is a lot of moisture in the soil, even with the plastic likely to be above the ambient temperature. In this case it is best if the plastic is sealed around the perimeter. At some point we are crossing a line of getting the water from "thin air" if that is the goal.

The trick is to get something cooler than the dew point of the surrounding air so that moisture in the air condenses on the surface in a manner that it can then be collected. MigL's suggestion does all that (it can be as simple as a piece of plastic stretched between, say, four rocks weighted down by four more with a small pebble sitting in the middle to get a bit of slope, and a cup underneath the lowest point to catch the accumulating water.

True. So if "time lost" is elapsed time it reads correctly. But generally speaking time gained or lost on a clock due to relative effects is the discrepancy.

Right, but less time lost on a clock should equate to more time elapsed.

Are you sure that is what you meant to say?

Pretty much every or any Law is wrong if you give the words meanings that were not intended.

I would say that the inspirational one seems false, though there may be some contexts where it might fit to varying degrees.

Stated from a different reference frame to give you a different perspective: So you are saying a blackhole could not possibly enter a larger mass, and exit without absorbing the whole mass? (underlying assumption is that the relative velocities are very high, and the distant parts of the larger mass never get inside the event horizon) Or are you saying something else?

Assuming the larger mass is not a black hole but large enough, it could ingest the blackhole followed by the black hole ingesting it from inside, with parts of the larger mass possibly breaking off and escaping or orbiting depending on their relative momentum and of course never getting inside the increasing event horizon.

An absence of a push would be a pull?

Pleasant fellow.

They vary in direction with respect to the centre of mass, with the net forces small enough and close enough toward it to allow it to spin seemingly freely at times, and at other times applying enough torque to shift it to the next spinning mode. I hope that makes some sense.

Someone who knows for certain can correct me, but I think it is at least in part to isolate it from the science threads. Since scientific methodology is required in those (almost all others including Speculations) threads, it would be inappropriate to have faith based discussions in them.

It depends on what is meant. I would say that if you considered an object in the reference frame in which it is initially at rest, it would "become" shorter as it is accelerated.

It is shorter in any inertial reference frame that it is moving, along the direction of travel. In it's own reference frame it's not contracted.

I absolutely agree. I'm just surmising what the line of thought was.

Velocity and composition are factors but so is mass and shape. If it is big enough, it will have more mass for it's drag. It will have more mass to burn up and more mass to absorb the heat.