calbiterol

I think this is appropriate in QM and not CM, since it deals with atoms and waves. Can someone please explain to me how resonant frequencies work in atoms, and what happens when atoms encounter their resonant frequency? Thanks.

Does the edit help clear things up?

That isn't what I said. I said communism is basically Marxism. Marxism is defined as the beliefs of Karl Marx, who believed that the only way to create a successful Marxist/Communist government would be through violent and bloody revolution. The term "Communism" arises from Marx's The Communist Manifesto, which detailed his views - including the violent and bloody revolution part. Marx created the term communism by fusing the stems/roots commune- and -ism. True Socialism, also known as French Utopian Socialism (Utopian comes from Thomas More's Utopia), came first. There are some very fine differences between Marxism and Socialism, but the biggie is that French Utopian Socialism (F.U.S.) does NOT require the "violent and bloody revolution." Instead, F.U.S. believes that the change can be brought about within self-sustaining communities isolated from the outside world. Marx thought that this was too isolationist and too slow, among other things, and started writing The Communist Manifesto. Chronologically, it was F.U.S., then Marxism, then Communism (the name changed, but most everything else stayed the same in Communism as it was in Marxism). Sorry if I wasn't clear the first time around.

Here's a not so quick-to-answer question. What are the bare minimum requirements for a society/nation to survive? In other words, food, water, etc. What do you guys think? [Edit: Sorry if that's too vague. I don't quite know how else to pose the question. It might be a little less vague if I said, "what are the top ten most important things for a government to supplu its nation and its people," but I'm not necessarily looking for ten, and I'm not necessarily looking for government. What I mean is, throughout history, what are the things that a society/nation (as a whole) could not live without? Not just physical needs, like food, water, and shelter, but also psychological needs, like entertainment and order, and other things too - like law, domestic defense, etc. Hopefully, that helped clear things up.]

Here's one way things might unfold: All the people with IQ's of less than 2 (in other words, half of America) start to think that they don't have to work. All of those people become couch potatoes. Then they get really, really overweight. Then, they all die due to complications. There goes half of America. Oh, darn. Suddenly, the remaining Americans start to realize that natural selection is good. The extremely stupid people in America suddenly "dissapear." The population of America is reduced to about 700. The world becomes a better place. The 700 remaining people in America realize that they need jobs to survive. Jobs return. Just kidding! To be honest, I think that it won't really have much effect. It won't happen overnight, so people will gradually transition into those jobs that simply cannot be automated. More emphasis would be placed on education because the remaining jobs will require knowledge. Like I said, I don't really think it would. Energy costs to keep the automation process running would be a big issue, and prices wouldn't go down all that much. Plus, people would still want the "next new thing" -- and when it comes to technology, a lot of times it is extremely difficult to fully automate the production, packaging, shipping, and sale of brand new items. We would probably see an increase in obiesity because of increased laziness, but this seems unavoidable. Why is it that people are so lazy? *growls and shakes fist* But other than that, I think they'd just find other jobs. A lot of people wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they no longer had a job. Nope. Think of maintenance costs, the cost to procure the raw materials to make things, and energy costs. Prices wouldn't ever get that low. Nah. That would kill capitalism. Then where would we be? The corporations wouldn't allow it. People in power never want to give it up. Money gives people power. Giving people free money makes it harder to get power. You do the math. You know, I've pondered how a true, working communist utopia would work. A better term to use would be socialism. Communism is basically Marxism, which requires violent and bloody revolution to create a working system. I'm not joking in the least about that. However, I doubt that French Utopian Socialism, or any other form of socialism or communism, would ever take hold. There's too much fear and resentment about it, especially in America. Although they're great in theory,these forms of government are inherently bad when put to practice. I don't really think the problem here is economic. The problem is that people always find a way to abuse the system to get power. That wouldn't change any with a "jobless society." Without major renovations and a new name, communism and socialism will never actually work. There's just too much animosity and too much hunger for power.

Ai'ight. That's where SFN comes in.

Plus... Think about it. The basic technology behind the solar stuff I mentioned above was using a stirling cycle motor to drive a generator. What if you made the sides of a house and/or the roof a part of the gas expansion (heating) chanmber in a stirling cycle engine? If you could put a thin layer of sealed gas and it could readily absorb solar heat, then wouldn't it serve the same purpose in the end? You wouldn't get quite the efficiency of the mirror dish, but I would think it'd still be more efficient than normal solar power. Just a thought.

That's a very good point. Unfortunately, not all types of solar power are wall-mountable...

Can you explain these chemicals? Do you have any other ideas?

It's all about general and special relativity... Like, if you've ever ready any of the books from the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card, you'd remember that time passes slowly for bodies of mass that approach the speed of light, while everything outside of that body of mass remains at its norm. It's the same principle with the satellites, and the moon. The faster an opject is travelling, the greater the effect of time dilation, and the slower time passes for that object. It's just to a much smaller degree. The clocks in the satellites are very, very precise, as they need to be. So in order to be (nearly) perfectly in sync, they must synchronize. I believe gravity has a similar effect on time through a process called frame dragging. If you want some more detailed information, look up NASA's Gravity Probe B.

Poetic justice at its best. Ohh, the irony. I'd try and think about the rest of what you just said, but I'm not really in any condition to *think* about anything... All I can say is, my brain is tired... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (goes to get pillow)

Sorry, I've been a little jumpy lately. Yes, but the issue there is twofold - I have my own set of unique parameters, one, and two, how exactly would I about finding such an experiment?

That's not the point. I'm sure someone has done it before. The point is, I want to do it. Just cause I'm not even in college doesn't mean I'm capable. That never stops me - no matter what it has to do with. If I apply myself, it won't matter how many complications there are, I'll get it done. Point being, I want to do it myself to see exactly what will happen under the circumstances that I create. I don't want to sound like a young and naive kid who is in way over his head and doesn't know it, but I want to do it myself.

Is there any way to determine how much the virtual image would be distorted? (Is this the index of refraction that I remember hearing about somewhere?) Better yet, is there any way to bend it back? Or to prevent refraction?

Even if it did, the more important question is, would you know that it was faster? Conscience is a weird thing... If there was less time in 24 hours on the moon than here on Earth, would you be sped along with it? Not that I even pretend to know anything about relativity or gravity's effects on time. Just an interesting question.

The interface being the surface of the liquid?

The first of my two questions regarding lasers and the like is relatively straightforward. Is there any way to make a system in which two lasers with frequencies in the non-visible range intersect to produce visible light at their point of intersection? The only way I would think this would be possible would be by having one laser in the infrared range and another in the ultraviolet, and somehow getting them to combine in a way that produces a point of visible light... I'm not that knowledgeable in physics, so I don't know how absurd that sounds (hence the question), but any answers, whether affirmative or not, would be helpful. Along the same lines, given the following situation: A contained liquid or gas which is excitable, and emits visible light when excited What would be the best way to produce excitation using two lasers in a gid-like system? In other words, is there any way to use two lasers (or another means of excitation, like two electron beams) to excite the atoms at only the point of intersection, and not at any other point along the two laser (or other means of excitation) beams? My only ideas on this have involved something along the lines of using a specific frequency to excite the atom (perhaps its resonant frequency?) and tuning each laser to half of that frequency, so that at their intersection, the full frequency would be reached, and excitation will occur. I've thought of numerous problems with this method, though, and I am wondering if there is any other way to produce this effect. I have been pointed in the general direction of two-photon transitions, but I don't know exactly what these are (I have a very vague idea) or when/how they occur. Any and all answers are helpful.

Alright, assuming that a liquid will not distort or bend the light produced too badly, can anyone give me specific names of liquids that will fluoresce like this? I would prefer a colorless liquid... It would be grea if it's excitable by infrared or ultraviolet lasers, but I won't know specifics about that until I ask and recieve an answer in the physics forum about ways of using multiple sources to excite a single point (the whole two-laser deal). By the way, thanks for all the help! [Edit: sorry about posting twice in a row - I couldn't see the other posts in the edit window, and I needed to see the other posts to write my question.]

Aha! That explains a lot. Just one more thing that little old me had absolutely no knowledge of... I guess if I would have thought about it, that might have come to mind. It's a very shallow parabola, anyways. True. But an idea just occurred to me: we can ignore the whole daylight issue, because the chart is sunlight energy for the whole day... So, from the chart, the best case scenario is 7.5 kWh of sunlight per day. We know from our specs that the dish is pegged at 25 kWh. So, take the aperature area of the dish - about 105 meters squared - and divide it by 25 kWh. The result is 4.2 kWh per meter on the dish. 4.2 kWh divided by 7.5 kWh equals an efficiency of 56%. Unless I'm messing up my math somewhere (or my logic), this figure should be about correct. Thanks!

Given the following situation: A clear, colorless liquid is contained within a double-parabolic mirror that is constructed in such a way that anything placed inside will be reproduced as a virtual image above the two parabolic mirrors, AND the liquid is excited by an ultraviolet laser and, as a result, fluoresces... Will the virtual image be distorted because of the liquid? In other words, will the liquid bend the light emitted by the excited particles?

That made absolutely no sense - especially since all protons have a positive charge. And yet' date=' you state both that no positive particles (well, you say "particals") attract to each other. You also state that [i']"the strong force atracts the protons with another protons in the atomic nucles"[/i] which I decipher as "the strong nuclear force causes the protons in the nucleus to attract to each other." That's a little self-contradictory, isn't it?

The dish I was talking about is made by Stiling Energy Systems. The 38-foot-diameter dish powers a 25-kilowatt generator, and the entire assembly (1 dish) costs about $250,000. It does not use conventional solar cells!!! It uses heat from cencentrated sunlight to drive a stirling cycle engine. More info can be found at: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,20967,1018934,00.html http://www.stirlingenergy.com/solar_overview.htm