Bender

I help people all the time, and I'm not religious. He might have done it because he was religious, but he might also have done it because deep down he was simply a good person. I'm sure there are plenty of religious people that would not have helped you out. No difference, it is the saving part that counts.

Only that it uses the largely same code.

The reason why there is pie on the seat is because the women, who lack aiming facilities, hover above it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with sitting down on a toilet seat, unless you are somehow touching your food with the same body parts that touched the toiled seat. In fact, hovering above the seat is less healthy, as it can cause bladder infection. The door handle of the toilet is likely to carry much more bacteria anyway.

The patent is something that can be shown to work. It even has a couple of references. It is also in a completely different field than the assertions you made in this thread, as are your bachelor degrees (is that honestly something that is supposed to impress me?). What would I care about your good fame and reputation, if I don't even know you, and have no idea about your reputation? In fact, I said nothing about you, only about your assertions. If Albert Einstein made up a story like yours, I still wouldn't take his word for it.

I can't suddenly start speaking Chinese either, because I don't have the right "program code" in my brain. If you want, I can program my computer to make random errors.

you have to put (math)(/math) around your formula's, but with square brackets

That is typical for inertial drives or perpetual motion devices: the actual calculations can be quite complex. Luckily, we can use conservation of momentum for the former and conservation of energy for the latter to demonstrate neither can ever work. It breaks down at the point where momentum is also conserved in relativistic systems. Not that that is relevant since your system is in no way relativistic. I won't bother with the actual calculations for the reasons stated above. Rest assured that if you do them correctly, the net force will be zero at all times.

Probably because it does not work. Conservation of Momentum. If you want to screw over something as fundamental as that, at least back it up with a theory that is not based on the same laws it wants to break, and preferably some experimental evidence. The EM-drive is a better attempt. I guess this could go to the speculation section.

Out of curiosity, is it a problem with all toilets, including the elongated ones, or only the round ones (congrats btw, you made me google pictures of toilet bowls...). Women can be quite persuasive.

There is no "loss in frequency" to "boost", whatever you mean by that. I'm afraid that your idea makes no sense. I find it difficult to even start replying to it. Luckily, loss of energy over 1 km is nowhere near 30%. Are you aware of the fact that the rod between the magnets is a battery, and that the "train" is nothing but a very simple and inefficient linear motor?

You can switch to Octave-Forge, which is free and has these toolboxes available, but I have no experience with those. Octave uses mostly the same code as Matlab.

No. The video has nothing to do with superconductors. It is a mystery to me why it has that title. What do you mean with a "current of 60 Hz/s"? Do you want to increase the frequency by 60 Hz each second? Why? Increasing the frequency means more losses.

It doesn't take much for a tool to be misplaced and forgotten.

Entropy is a concept from thermodynamics, which doesn't study the behaviour of individual particles, but (very) large quantities, hence "statistical" mechanics. Examples of statistical properties are pressure and temperature, but also entropy and its complement: enthalpy. In short: the useful energy in a gas can be split in two parts: entropy and enthalpy. Simply put: - enthalpy is useful energy, which can e.g. be converted to electricity in a turbine - entropy is the waste heat that cannot be recovered The relation between entropy and disorder becomes clear in the second law of thermodynamics: [math]\frac{dS}{dt} \geqslant 0[/math] with S the entropy. In words it says: the entropy of a closed system can only increase over time. The typical example is a vase that falls from the table and shatters, while the shards will never accidentally become a complete vase again. Another example is two containers with air at different pressure: there is useful energy in them, because the pressure difference can be used for mechanical work. When they are connected, the gas will mix and the result will be two containers on the same pressure. While the total energy content did not change (conservation of energy), the result is useless. Something similar will happen with different temperatures and mixtures of fluids: when there is a difference (order), this can be used to produce work, when it is all homogeneous (disorder), it cannot be converted to work. The transition from order to disorder happens naturally (e.g. objects in contact will evolve to the same temperature; or milk will spread through coffee), the transition from disorder to order can only happen through outside influence (and requires energy). EDIT: a consequence of this is that a combustion engine has a maximum possible efficiency, generally about 40% (Carnot efficiency). This is not a practical limit of how we make engines, but a theoretical limit dictated by thermodynamics.

Trade, or tourism.

As long as we don't know what dark matter is, it is hard to tell.

They could have left waste objects. e.g if we find metal or plastic objects that cannot be formed naturally and predate human technology to make them. An ancient spacecraft would be quite compelling evidence. It is not impossible that they left an encoded message in the junk DNA of some species. We might find Slartibartfast's autograph embedded in the fjords of Norway.

There is a whole wikipedia article about it, summarised below:

This is not a philosophy forum, but a science forum. Thinking up new hypotheses is nice, but as long as none of it is backed by experimental evidence, it is not particularly interesting. Moreover, your hypotheses seem to be pulled out of thin air rather than based on existing knowledge. You are partially right about the second part: I participate on this forum as a means to learn. I cannot learn much from random, isolated musings, hence my need for references to be able to judge the validity of the claims made.

We cannot see individual stars at that distance because the photons are spread out to much. In my rough estimate, a one square meter space telescope would receive only 10^-27 W of radiation from a star like the sun at that distance, but a photon in the visible spectrum has an energy of 10^-19 J, so the telescope would only be able to catch one photon every couple of years. (calculation of fraction of solar luminosity of 3.8e26 W based on Taylor expansion of cos: 1/(2*13e9*300e6*3600*24*365)^2 in [math]\Omega = 2\pi\left(1 - \cos\theta\right)\,\mathrm{sr}[/math]) Perhaps with a gravitational lens? A supernova has a luminosity billions of times larger, so several photons each second.

If that is not what you are looking for, could you explain why not and what you want instead?

Of course Matlab can do that. There is even a Finite Element toolbox, or you can compose the matrices yourself.

I could write a program that gives computers seemingly random fear responses based on the information found in their log files. e.g. if the program encounters a certain amount of forced reboots in the logs, it starts the "fear for crash" algorithm. Where do human fears come from if not from past experiences? Of course, if you do not like that hypothesis, I can adapt my program to whatever you suggest instead.

A friend once told me I saved him from suicidal thoughts by being cheerful. Does that count? Otherwise I admit to have little experience in the field. I do know, however, that suicide is strongly correlated with perceived burdensomeness. I think it is reasonable to assume that a person who is willing to commit suicide to be less of a burden to others might not want those same people to be murdered. I admit I might have pulled the comment out of context, as I do not think nothing good can come out of religion. However, I maintain my view that religion "saving" people from "suicide" can be bad if it is religious folk oppressing their view to extend the suffering of those who suffer unbearable pains.

Do you have any references? I have no time now for reading such a long comment right now, but one thing I noticed is the complete lack of references. Why would I accept any of it?