Leader Bee

I'm curious, If wormholes do indeed exist then how would one go about entering one? It's my understanding they appear in 3D space as a 2D object, You'd have to travel absolutely perpendicular to the wormhole surely?

not necessarily, The big bang wasn't an explosion as such and more of an expansion of space, from what i've learned recently anyway. This thread and many others on SFN explain this to some degree: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=47888&page=4

I'm really suprised the water costs less than the food given it's weight and the fact the food can be freeze dried, also amount of water needed to sustain life. Is this due to being able to recycle it once you're there? Water has been proven to exist on the moon now anyway so perhaps those costs could be reduced substantially providing we find an efficient way to extract it. I suppose I thought the food and water cost figures would have been the other way around but I must be missing something.

Pedophilia is just your sexual orientation and people seem to be having a difficulty seperating this term from child abuser. The words are not synonymous.

You're assuming that all peadophiles cannot restrain their urges and the only ones that exist are the ones that have been caught. Of course some are aware of the consequences of their actions and decide never to act upon them because of the fear of lynch mobs. It has nothing at all to do with manipulating a child to consent. There is a difference between pedophilia which is litterally translated as "Child" & "love" from Greek which denotes the sexual preference of the individual and then there is child abuse which is taking action on those urges. I realise this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people but I find it ridiculous that people from a scientific community cannot look past the emotion of the subject and view this topic from a logical point of view rather than a moral one. It should also be noted that here in Britain we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1543596/Sharp-rise-in-under-16-pregnancy-rates.html While the telegraph is hardly a 100% accurate source I would imagine that few of those pregnancies under the age of consent were all attributed to peadophiles and rape. This says to me that women and young girls are perfectly capable of concenting to sex whether they are aware of the consequences or not. While in the eyes of the law someone under the age of consent is deemed unable to make this kind of decision, this in practise is not the case and it depends on the individual and their mental state. I am not saying that it doesnt happen [coercing children into sexual acts] but the fact that people will produce a biased view of the facts before researching the topic they are speaking about because of either media demonisation or the moral pressure of society is very saddening. I don't agree that the ones who do act on their urges are a tragic lot who will cry out about being oppressed because of their sexual orientation should be exempt, sexual assult is still a crime be it with a minor or not. What I find irritating is peoples belief they can be cured. Yes you're right it is a problem of the mind, but a social problem not a sickness. EDIT: MR Skeptic. Perhaps it would surprise you that sexuality is largely based on hormones? Especially the hormones secreted by the testes and ovaries. Why do you think that people neuter or castrate their pets? It's not just about reproduction in case you were wondering -- it also affects their behavior. Makes them uninterested in sex, and much less aggressive. I am not at all suprised that sexuality is based largely on hormones. I was well aware of this fact when I posted. The reason I did not mention this was because I was unsure of the effectiveness of this and I was on the understanding that castration would only lower the sex drive and not reduce it to zero - I felt I was unqualified to comment on something I dont understand entirely. Thank you for pointing this out however. Wouldn't the fact that people are willing to undertake this procedure voluntarily point to a certain level of self control in an individual, in relation to a previous posters argument that pedophilia = uncontrolable child rapist.

How on earth would castration be any form of prevention? You are mistaken if you think this means that the entire penis is removed so I fail to see how this would be any kind of physical preventative measure. Sexual abuse is also more than just penetration as well and would do nothing to stop other means being used for gratification. By the way, women couldn't be castrated either and the above post just goes to show what image we have of peadophiles. Let me guess: sweaty old men in their 40's right? Lest me remind you of the recent case in UK news of a childrens worker/nursery nurse in her early 30's that was arrested for holding indecent images of children. The only difference we have here between Homosexuals and people who have an interest in pre-pubecents is that society views it as wrong. It isn't a sickness otherwise we would be pidgeon holing every other fetish into immorality and you cant cure something that isnt a sickness. Locking someone away for their sexual preferences will not "cure" them either, would somone be any less gay had they spent 10 years in prison? The only thing we can really do is to convict anyone who manages to act on their urges and while this isn't exactly ideal "after the fact" we dont want to end up in a minority report type world either. After all rapists, bank thieves and many other types of criminal cant be arrested just for thinking about it can they?

It was my understanding that Superconductors were required to be at or very close to absolute zero to exhibit these properties. Is this not the case? I had excluded their use as a levitation mechanism due to the logistical properties of keeping a train line for example extremely cold.

There is levitation involved with superconductors also. My understanding is that the application for this leans more towards...well... conducting electricity more than any kind of movement/ reduction in friction due tot he levitating properties of it.

This is a common misconception within the general populace that I see. Space was never expanding into something. Space is just expanding as there is "Nothing" for it to expand into and there will not be left over space when it begins or if it begins to decay; it cannot receed from something that isn't there. As for the BB, my understanding is that it always was there, the universe was compacted into an infinitely small singularity. It was never created by the BB, just expanded by it. Keeping in line with conservation of energy I don't see how this could just dissapear and believe it would just return to a singularity if the big crunch has any validity.

If we imagine the curvature caused by gravity (in a 3D sense) as the skin of a balloon stretching then this brings up a very interesting topic of space stretching - as evidenced by interstellar objects appearing to move away from us faster than the speed of light. This is of course not movement in the usual sense as we know nothing is faster than light but rather a creation of distance due to the stretching of something; in this case "Space-time". If Space-Time is not an entity of some description that cannot bend or be manipulated then how do we account for the apparent increase in distance between interstellar objects? I will admit that the thread was mostly beyond my understanding on a mathematical level but I understood the concept, there is a topic somewhere on this board detailing that space-time does indeed expand. I believe it may be applicable here to go some way into explaining how bending space works. I will attempt to find the thread and link to it at some point. The expanding balloon analogy was used to great effect in its discussion. -- Ok, found the link to the topic detailing expanding space: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=42499

Ignoring the strange trajectory of the sattellite and the absence of the moon I don't see how? I've seen the warping of space due to gravity depicted like this in many Discovery Science documentaries. I did imagine that a 3D representation of this would involve spheres within spheres but needed clarification of that. I still find it difficult to imagine how it looks with the web of gravitational bodies in the solar system interacting though as "folding space" to create a wormhole seems a lot more difficult when it involves for lack of a better word an object or entity that occupies space in 3 dimensions rather than a 2d plane that can easily be folded. Folding a piece of paper is easier than folding a brick and makes me wonder if creating "fold space" could tear spacetime somehow with the stress placed on the fulcrum.

Not quite what I was looking for, but thanks. That is just a 2 dimensional plane that has been folded as with the below picture. How I understand space-time is that it works in 4 dimensions so am struggling to see how it bends around an object in 3 dimensions. rather than creating just an impression under a gravitational object I suppose what I am asking is if there are any representations of the below that show spacetime in 3D instead of on one plane.

I have always been somewhat confused by this representation of gravity folding/bending space. I can see why it is commonly represented as such because it is simpler to visualise but the problem I have with it is that Space-Time has length, width and depth. If this is the case it would not be as simple as a depression appearing in sheet, rather the sheet of space-time would be wrapped around gravity and I have a hard time visualising a volume bending rather than an area. Does anyone have any links with pictures or can explain how this works so I may understand it in a 3d sense rather than the more common 2 dimensional plane?

Ahh, Apologies. I figured they'd already started construction on DEMO based on results from ITER. I knew Iter had produced breakeven for miliseconds but mentioned it hadn't been achieved in reference of it never being achieved in a useful manner. Perhaps I should have been a little more clear in my wording. Seems a little strange they would have two very similar experiments running at the same time. What is their reasoning behind already planning DEMO before they have quantifiable results from ITER then? Couldn't there be a possibility this will be an expensive mistake if ITER proves fruitless?

If you'd been following it closer you'd know it has been superceded by DEMO ( i'm sure there's still experiments going on with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor but even demo still isn't quite making break even afaik) So there's no fusion reactor that can break even nevermind a miniaturised version that puts out worthwhile energy for the effort.

I didn't read every single post but i'd like to point out it is possible to drink too much water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

The only thing that I can think of that comes close to what you need is a farnsworth Fusor, it uses deuterium as it's fuel source but I doubt it will output enough energy to be of any use other than as a viability demonstration. The components are apparently relatively easy to come by for civilians but I have never attempted construction myself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor#Hobbyists

I've been playing EVE Online for around 6 months but the latest expansion "Dominion" has just been deployed. They've made changes to how sovereignty works and played around with some ship fittings so my 2/2 railgun/missile Hookbill is now 3 missiles only. It's a shame my missiles skills are so poor. I really shouldn't enjoy this game as much as I do, i've never liked numbers and spreadsheets but there's more to it than just playing the market and there's something addicting about training your character up to lvl 5 in as many skills as possible then directing a huge Fleet into battle or entirely raizing an asteroid belt ( if you're a miner and prefer to do that ) Waiting for Aliens vs Predator 3 in February and hopefully there'll be some further news on Mechwarrior 5

So in reality, as the nuclear fuel was physically placed within the system by somone or something and the fuel has energy within its binding it is not creation of energy but a way of converting one form of energy into another?

I was browsing wikipidia today on the subject of Magnetic and Internal confinement reaction in nuclear plants because I feel nuclear energy is the way forward when it comes to alternative energy sources and it interests me. However I came accross the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inertial_confinement_fusion.svg "Schematic of the stages of inertial confinement fusion using lasers. The blue arrows represent radiation; orange is blowoff; purple is inwardly transported thermal energy. 2. Fuel is compressed by the rocket-like blowoff of the hot surface material. 3. During the final part of the capsule implosion, the fuel core reaches 20 times the density of lead and ignites at 100,000,000 ˚C. 4. Thermonuclear burn spreads rapidly through the compressed fuel, yielding many times the input energy" Points 1 - 3 make sense but point 4 kinda threw me a bit. Is it just poorly worded or are they suggesting that internal confinement fusion defies the laws of the conservation of energy?

How would I go about cultivating the bacteria for it, just do my business in a bucket and leave it in a cupboard for a month? what about adding sugars to promote bacterial growth?

I know my wee wee contains ammonia and i'm sure this is a volatile substance when mixed with nitrogen. Would it be possible to boil down to collect the raw material? How plausable is it to make a small incendiary device/firecracker utilising "organic" methods?

Out of curiosity and possibly moving the topic off its intended route... How would superconductivity affect a "perpetual motion device"? I don't beleive that PM is obtainable but something that could run for a VERY long time could be. If we were to supercool the transmission medium of an electrical circuit so that it has zero resistance ( Perhaps I am wrong in my belief but superconductors have no electrical resistance?) wouldn't all the energy we put in to a device be dedicated to powering the device rather than creating waste heat and thus increasing the efficiency of the device? Ignoring friction of course and gravity and all those other forces we take for granted. I assume the method for sustaining such a temperature would take a tremendous amount of energy anyway so I assume this would be a waste of time too?

There is actually an electronic scoring method for fencing in the olympics. While not actually delivering a shock to the opponent it will detect a hit. Perhaps this website for a patent will point you down an appropriate route: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3920242.html