KJW

He probably got it from a chemical supplier, and he knows it's silver nitrate probably because that's what it says on the label of the bottle it came in. My point is that modern day chemists do not start from scratch. They (to use a well-known quote) stand on the shoulders of giants. It should be noted that knowledge of chemistry developed over time and in parallel with knowledge of physics. I think that the scope of your questions is too large for anyone here to provide you with genuine help, as much as they may try. I recommend that you study a chemistry textbook aimed at school children. However, you may find this Wikipedia article interesting (though I haven't fully read it myself): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry

Ooh, don't tell the Americans that... they'll accuse you of being a communist. That's one thing I'll never understand about Americans... the way they fiercely defend their right to be exploited by the rich.

... would it be a red state or a blue state? I've also heard Trump say that Mexico should become a US state. Maybe Claudia Sheinbaum should take him up on that offer. Then Trump would have to open the border with Mexico and allow Mexicans free reign of the US. Wouldn't THAT piss off his MAGA supporters?

And that's just ONE billion dollars. For 400 billion dollars, it would take almost 12800 years. So, to accumulate 400 billion dollars in almost 12.8 years would require a THOUSAND dollars every second. Can you imagine what that would look like in coins?

This is a discussion forum, not a proofreading service.

Viruses are not sufficiently alive to be considered successful abiogenesis. One hypothesis I have seen is the RNA hypothesis, where RNA molecules act as both replication templates and catalysts, thus fulfilling the necessary requirements of life. However, it still seems like an enormous hurdle to go from that to having proteins as catalysts and therefore requiring the implementation of a genetic code.

But even if one has all the ingredients in place, there still has to be that final step where it all comes together to become a living cell. It's all well and good to be able form a primordial organic soup from simple compounds over millions of years by energetic processes such as lightning, etc., but even if all the molecules that make up life have somehow been made and are present at the same place at the same time, there is still the hurdle of it all becoming organised as a living cell.

No, as in abiogenesis, but with all the components present at the same place and time. If one had something like a bacteria "smoothie", could this self-organise into live bacteria, and has this ever been observed? I'm guessing it hasn't, but thought I'd ask anyway.

I have a question: Has life ever (re)emerged from a complete set of cellular components?

Before the ride starts, the people opposite me are at the same height above the ground as I am. During the ride, this doesn't change as the rotation axis of the ride is fixed. But due to the vector addition of the centrifugal acceleration and the earth's gravitational field, my perception of the vertical is no longer the same as the "true" vertical. The people opposite me appear to be well above me even though they remain the same height above the ground as I am. Because the centrifugal acceleration of the ride is about 3g, the perceived vertical direction is about 20° above the horizontal. Yes, all frames of reference are equally valid in general relativity.

The Equivalence Principle basically says that over distances that are sufficiently small for the tidal effect to be negligible, being in a gravitational field is indistinguishable from being in an accelerated frame of reference. This is illustrated by the following diagram: However, over larger distances, the gravitational field does differ from being in an accelerated frame of reference due to the tidal effect, which is a manifestation of spacetime curvature that is absence from being in an accelerated frame of reference in flat spacetime. What I said about perception of the vertical direction was not about skewing reality, but a consequence of the equivalence principle. I personally discovered the perception of the vertical direction when I was a teenager in an amusement park ride called the "Rotor". I noticed that the people directly opposite me before the start of the ride were very much above me during the ride. I immediately realised that what we regard as up or down is actually a perception that we don't normally notice unless we are in an environment that challenges the notion of up or down.

Note that when you are standing on the ground, you are being accelerated upward. Also, if you are in an accelerated rocket, you are being accelerated upward. And it is always upward due to perception of the vertical direction in response to acceleration by the vestibular system of the inner ear. If you are on the fifth floor of a ten-storey building, a clock on the ground floor would tick slower relative to your clock, and a clock on the tenth floor would tick faster relative to your clock. It is important to note that the clocks themselves are not actually affected, and all are ticking at the same intrinsic rate of "one second per second".

The relativistic effects of being in an accelerated frame of reference can be derived from special relativity. That is, acceleration doesn't produce relativistic effects separate from that of velocity. However, the relativistic effects of an accelerated frame of reference are nevertheless different from that of relative velocity. Specifically, clocks that are below you are slower, and clocks that are above you are faster, with the amount by which the clocks are slower or faster depending on the distance of the clock from your location in your accelerated frame of reference.

You would. No. You would record time slowing down for them, just as they would record time slowing down for you.

Perhaps, but the point I was making was that even people who know much better than most people how bad cats are to the environment have cats as pets.