Bubba

Here's a write up of the above mentioned experiment http://science.krishna.org/Articles/2000/07/00059.html

basic experiments have shown that the molecular precursors to life can be formed by simply putting the corresponding elements in a solution and sparking an electric current through them. this experiment was done to show that with the aid of a little lightning the building blocks for earth can form in a wet enviromrnt. (sorry i cant remember who did this first, and google has let me down )

Thomas Kirby you raise some very good points. I especially like the implicate reference that your president is of the same calibre as CSI . I have to raise a note of disagreement with regards to "free exploitations of fantasies" surely you can't think that censorship should be completely done away with. Guidance is essential to human development, for example an act of sexual intercourse is different for a person in the throws of puberty when compared to an experienced adult who understands the physical and emotional fallout attached to such acts.

r u?

Since Yt2095 is going to point out that the above is just my opinion. Here is an example of why i hold this opinion (yes it is only an opinion i don't claim it to be more). I once saw a video of a guy falling of a skateboard and breaking his leg is spectacular fashion. It made me cringe but i still watched it a quite a few times. Why? Because besides looking brutally painful it was also kind of amusing (anyone who watches "funniest home vidoes" will also know that seeing people hurt themselves is a form of entertainment). However i have wittnessed people being hit by cars, breaking bones, heard tendons snap, and when i am actually present at the event it is NEVER funny. The one thing that never comes across the screen is the rush of adrenalin and the rising of bile in the back of your throat.

It is for exactly this reason that the internet can be potentially very dangerous. When we see events, or actions on the screen we only get a small section of the spectrum of senses and emotions that are experienced by the people involved. This can lead to misrepresentation of what is actually happening due to the detachment from reality that this medium provides.

This is a perfect examples of where to use l'Hopitals rule, if you'v learnt it yet, otherwise i can't help sorry.

Thank you all for you helpful replies. YT2095 that seems like a very reasonable hypothesis and I can see no immediate problem with it. Notice I said 'hypothesis' and not 'opinion'. It's a hypothesis because you'v used facts we know about (pore shape, sebaceous oil) to explain an observed event (the sticking coin), hence showing an excellent scientific process. Now we just need to do some experiments, test different pore size and shape against different currencies and we could publish a paper. Had you simply said “the pores on your face act as suction caps” then no self respecting journal would publish us.

this question was recently posed to me: "If i take a coin (or bottle top, paper clip etc.) and press it hard to my cheek/forehead then when i take my hand away the coin sticks to my face for a bit before falling off. why?" i suspect this is a chemistry question (Van Der Vaals forces???) but i really have no idea. Can anyone else give a good explaination for this phenomenon? ps. theres no need to make jokes about washing, it still works after you'v just washed.

I think that your trying to over complicate the problem. Mars looks brighter in opposition because it is closer to earth. The brightness of an object is proportional to 1/r^2, where r is the distance to that object. Draw a plot of y= 1/x^2 and look at how there is a steep increase in y for a small decrese in x (at small x values), hence as mars comes a little closer it becomes much brighter. I think "retrograde" and "epicycle" are probably inapropriate terms to be thinking of here.

Thats not fair, now your introducing a variable, the "uneven die". I suppose I should have specified the dice as all being equal and unweighted.

This is an interesting feature of relativity. If the sun dissapeared right now we wouldn't know about it for 8 min, so for 8min the earth would be orbiting nothing!!

Always a pleasure

Dr. Finlay, the key difference is that for 1.1, the 'above' rectangles, the height (or altitude as they call it) is measured at the right hand side of the rectangle, where as for the 'below' rectangles we measure from the left. This means that the very first below rectangle has a height measured at zero. Hence the height of the first 'below' rectangle is 0 and dose not count to the total, with this rectangle missing we are left with n-1 rectangles that contribute to the total.

shenzhou, thanks for the input, very interesting study. the point i was trying to make is you can't use the "if gays don't have kids how can they pass it on?" argument .When you think about this it seems obvious that any genetic contribution to male homosexuality would have to come from the mothers side.