MaxCathedral

While I find Schrödinger cat fascinating...in short, we can't tell if his cat is dead or alive until we open the bag and observe it, or even if the cat exists at all! Schrodinger years later said he wish he hadn't met the cat....lol. Back back to the twirling world of quantum mechanics. Lets point the finger away from the cat and at ourselves. Could one posit that at the sub atomic level, we are already breaking down...dying. Therefore we are both alive and dead at the same time. Like the cat, who is dying a blurred picture in comparison to a sharp picture, in neither state. Okay so I have entered the area of quantum mysticism....the nature of reality. Zen, St. Thomas Aquanis and followers of Doaism might all find my musing interesting...but what say ye, oh followers of Quantum Mechanics.

Ed84C... thank you for that wonderful formula....KE=1/2mv^2. I was reminded of the Law of Energy Conservation: Energy can not be created or destroyed. It can change form as well as change from potential (at rest or static energy) to KE or kinetic energy (energy in motion). However, I am completely stumped with Newton's first Law... 1. An object at rest tend to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion at a constant speed. This seems patently false. If I take my marble as used above in a former post...and push it, according to Newton's law the marble should roll forever, and at a constant speed. But clearly it doesn't, and slows down and stops. What stops it...Newton's third Law?

C.P. Thanks..I think that did it... Well done examples..anyone could understand.. I have a book on Basic Phyics..that makes it so hard to understand those two basic concepts, I thought I better come here and ask the physic boys/girls to give me the short version.

What exactly is Kinetic Energy? What is Static Energy? If possible give brief down to earth examples

Evolution is the study of.......... Chaos Theory is the study of......... Geography is the study of........... Physics is the study of .......... Bio genetics is the study of..... I have delibrately chose fields which are not so easily defined by any one person. For instance I could have written Biology is the study of... and the answer would be simple. Life. The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful. Aristotle from his Metaphysica

Thales, Thank you...concise and wonderful answers...

This is to be a true and false exam. The Moon... a mars like object crashed into us...and finally became the moon. Not only does the moon orbit us...be WE orbit it? The Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn may have all been instrumental in allowing complex life to exist, by warding off astroieds, meteorites? Passing Comets may have created our oceans? The Rare Earth theory is viable...cause we haven't found any complex life anywhere...yet? Are we the first? There is the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt..are they the same thing..and where are they located? While the might Zep has lots of passion, they aint got nothing on the Lad from Liverpool...the Beatles, because....oh, wrong board? The student patiently awaits corrections.

"My ambition is to live to see all of physics reduced to a formula so elegant and simple that it will fit easily on the front of a T-shirt." physicist Leon Lederman Wow, thats a tall order...The theory of everything on a back of T-shirt. what is the universe, how does it work....before there was even a universe, and nothing but physics held everything together, what were the laws of that primoridial physics.........oh man..I am out there tonight, baby, touching the face of God. In the beginning there was physics...from Planck, to Einstein...to Aristotle... from the String theory to photons bouncing off each other.... The Theory of Everything..... weigh in...

Chariots of the Gods, man, Chariots of the Gods...its all there man.... Let me cut to the chase...do you believe that UFO's exist? and that alien abduction has happened? And exactly what is going on in Area 51, anyway?

What is life? Is it that which reproduces? That which converts energy? That which moves. Why is a tree life, but a rock not? Dying to hear the different definitions. Max

I was thinking of my favorite sci films....Planet of the Apes, Fantastic Voyage, The Andromeda Strain, Silent Running and of course that all time knock out Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I remember seeing it for the first time, and what a mind blower. The symbolism is rampant and as Kubrick himself said open to many interperations. Among some of the symbolic interpertations. 1. Homer's Odyssey parallel. The Computer HAL is the one eyed cyclops. 2. The Monolith is touched first by the naked hand of the ape, then the gloved hand of Heywood and finally by the mind of Bowman at the end of the film. 3. Hal only has one red eye (sees things in only one way), while Bowman on his journey into the Infinite has closeups of his eye changing into myraid colors (man is able to see things on many different levels). 4. Bowman knocks over a red wine glass and breaks it. Stares at it for sometime. Meaning: Even if humans were put in the perfect enviroment, we would cause damage. Obscure Symbolism: The phone charge is 1.71 and Bowman's final abode has paintings from the 17th/18th Century. Even the furniture hints at this time period. Meaning: Man took a terrible wrong turn at the birth of the Indurstrial Revolution. Leopard reclines on dead Zebra. Meaning: The beast in man has prevented him from racial unity. In the sixities the point was a hot one. The Monolith: What is it? God, or an alien marker? Certainly Clarke's interpation is Alien Marker. But Kubrick starts and ends the film with music of Thus Spake Zarathursta which is the title of Frederic Nietzsche's famous book, in which its lead character utters the famous line, "God is dead." In short saying that man must get beyod God to become a Star Child. Not my personal view, but to each his own. Thats the great thing about 2001, a myriad on interpertations again and again as you watch. Comments or other symbolism welcome...

With two ice caps and nothing in between one wonders what happened to the rest of the water. Presumedly asteroids and other factors destroyed the atompshere on Mars reducing it to what it is today. But was there teeming life on Mars at one time? Enquiring minds what to know.

HAL: I honestly think you ought to calm down; take a stress pill and think things over. Dave: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL? HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you. Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave : What's the problem? HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I HAL : I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. I used to see it at least once a year. I must have seen the thing at Least 10 times. The concepts, symbolism, sets, visuals are still wild,and trippy. Kubrick's best...just maybe.

Okay, so what makes us so different...to go so far from the jungle... Bipedalism, language, opposable thumb...okay, what else. What allowed us to go out of Africa?

In Science News (September 13th issue)a 90 light year away star, called the HD 70642, may have the first similiar solar system as ours. Specifically the twice as large Jupiter like planet which orbits the HD 70642, does so in a circular path. This allows smaller (Earth Like) planets to survive zooming, crashing metorites and astroids, etc. Personally, I don't think we will find life in our meager street of the universe. As for life on our "block" (the Milky Way), there has got to be...just got to be. As for our "city", our superclusters of Galaxies.....in the Virgo Group...got to be, got to be...

Fafalone, I am impressed. I have read several books on the subject which run pages and pages....and finally I forget what the question was in the first place. My God, you did it in two sentences.

Skipping the mathematics....explain Chaos and it relation to the real world.

At first there was nothing. No time, no space (time and space are connected dont'cha know).... and then bang... can someone, anyone describe the first minutes (within reason).

Max: I just picked up Six Easy Pieces....and read half the first chapter standing up at Barnes. Thank you. Feynman is the man. So lets see, that leavs Sagan for Astronomy, Feynman for physics, Dawkins for Biology....but who shall speak for Genetics.

I have heard of this book...often. I must go out and buy it.

Are you kidding...? I get a rush just thinking about it.

What or who are you fav. Scicence books or authors. Is it Hawking or Sagan? The Origin of Species or The Big Splat by Dana McKenzie about how the Moon came into existence. List your favorite or most influential books....so the rest of us can buy them.

The SETI group now feels that life on Earth may have started when passing comet seeded our planet with life giving microbes. Fred Adams in his book Origins of Existence says that life began underneath the Earth. I mean how else could live exist on a planet being bombarded with space debris. Classical evolutionists point to the see and say Cradle of Life. Theists point to the ultimate underlying power and say...God. (For you math buffs that would be God = unknown Variable.) So when and how did life first begin on mother life. Did our beginnings rise on Earth on or off and briefly...how?

Yes, yes..its time to think about our own species. Are we destined for the big check out soon? Will an asteroid do us in, like one did for the dinos. (Whispers:) They say the big one is coming in 2014. Or will some super Virus, like Captain Trips in King's The Stand, do us all in or a super Alien Invasion for our precious metals or maybe just water be our demise? Will one day we be nothing more than a gigantic archelogical dig for some aliens?