StringJunky

You are thinking about it the wrong way. If a material was rock hard it could still transmit the vibrational or impact energy to the wearer of the armour and kill him. What you need is armour that absorbs or dissipates the energy away from him but won't let the projectile penetrate right through. Believe it or not gels are the way forward in protecting against projectiles. http://ajitjagan.blogspot.com/2009/03/bullet-proof-vests-made-of-gels.html

Gotcha...wouldn't be chemistry otherwise would it?

Wouldn't it be easier to buy?...it's $16 for 5g on this site. I don't do this sort of thing so forgive me if I've missed the point of the exercise. http://elementsales.com/pl_element.htm#nd

Explain how Einstein Rings occur if space is not warped by mass. This is a Double Einstein Ring: This is an image of gravitational lens system SDSSJ0946+1006 as photographed by Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The gravitational field of an elliptical galaxy warps the light of two galaxies exactly behind it. The massive foreground galaxy is almost perfectly aligned in the sky with two background galaxies at different distances. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away, the inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 and approximately 11 billion light-years. The odds of seeing such a special alignment are estimated to be 1 in 10,000. The right panel is a zoom onto the lens showing two concentric partial ring-like structures after subtracting the glare of the central, foreground galaxy. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/exotic/gravitational%20lens/2008/04/image/a/

That was the lesson you was trying to impart from Mermin's article wasn't it? Owl needs to get to grips with the concept of abstraction and that it is a consensually agreed and essentially mathematical method to describe things that can't be described in a classically verbal way.

If you mean astronomical bodies...no. They don't move because space is created between them. Apparently, the rate of increase in distance between bodies is not bound by any speed limit like moving massive objects are.

The cosmological expansion is an increase in space or distance between non-gravitationally bound objects ie between superclusters. The superclusters are stationary relative to the expansion...they experience no acceleration caused by it. You need to gen up on the balloon model. This animation shows an expanding universe model with yellow blobs for galaxies and moving, redshifting photons. The animation starts at a redshift of 3 when the Universe was 4 times smaller than it is now, and finishes at the present. Taken literally, the ratio of the radius of the "balloon" to the Hubble distance c/Ho implies an Omega = 2 currently and Omega = 1.14 at z = 3. Note that the galaxies do not expand: bound systems are not affected by the expansion of the Universe. Also note that the speed of light relative to the nearby galaxies is a constant - if your browser is properly using the duration values in the animated GIF file. http://astro.ucla.edu/~wright/balloon0.html

Very nice...I can see the parallel. Obviously struck a chord in you. That's the way it is I think but the wind wins more times than the sail in real life.

Damn...was I beaten to that one?

You are in a sailing yacht (freewill) in the middle of the ocean in a gale force wind (determinism). I think that's the analogous level of influence between the two standpoints imo and it's not really a dichotomy as your poll suggests.

Glad you found it useful Anikumar...I did too...kudos to seansont It's important to get a grip on what abstract constructs are because scientists, especially physicists, use them alot and spacetime is one of them. They are not intended to be an exact mirror of the world around us in visual terms but is a mental construct that conveys the information that like-minded people can have dialogue about and have mutually agreed what it means. If we amateurs wish to understand what they conceive the onus is on us to learn their language. As you will note in the article, even some qualified scientists fall into the trap of reifying abstract concepts as though they were real entities so it's clearly not an easy path to follow...take some comfort from that when you struggle to understand! Greg, that's how I understand the necessity of abstract models due to the limits of our perception.

This might give a bit of insight, that Swansont mentioned in another thread, that's relevant here I think.

Here's a A LINK to "What's Bad About This Habit" Swansont referred to earlier if anyone's interested. Owl, you should read this.

That's better.

No, that's an unequivocal declaration of self-imposed intransigence. Future discourse with you on this matter is futile if that's your position. Impasse.

Yes!...wow!...let's all say "hello" to the reincarnation of Hitler. "Mein Fuhrer!". Now, where did I put my copy of "Mein Kampf"?

That's the end of the thread then.

To my way of thinking, if science doesn't know what a thing is, like space, then philosophy certainly doesn't.

What event or events do you see causing our extinction in that time...our population is quite viral all over the planet even now so it would have to take something all-encompassing globally to completely wipe out that many people imo.

Why that soon?

Thanks...that makes sense.

That which is considered to be a genetic abnormality today maybe a precursor to an advantageous genetic characteristic in the future ie it could mutate still further to be desirable in some unknown future environment. Randomness and diversity has sustained the existence of life for over 3 billion years...it's clearly a strength and not a weakness. An "abnormaility" is but one ingredient in the melting pot of possibilities that helps Life to insure itself against adversity and possible extinction.

Your input does not compute...can you elaborate please.

Proactively tampering with genetic characteristics in a species, through eugenics, to favour one over another could reduce its long-term survivability by reducing the diversity of progeny it can produce ie it's not possible to predict what characteristics maybe required for a species to survive some novel and adverse future circumstance.

So, shall we start with you then...? A society requires a broad range of intelligence available to fullfill the all tasks required for it to function properly...it takes all sorts to make a world.