Sisyphus

Remember, the trolley’s momentum is its own mass times its velocity. It looks like you were using the rock’s mass.

This is exactly right. Some science fiction takes place entirely in the realm of the scientifically possible (Arthur C. Clarke wrote some cool stories using nothing more than orbital mechanics as a plot device), but a lot of involves changing very specific rules about how the world (our world) works, and looking at the consequences of those changes from an otherwise scientific perspective. Like for example, somehow (insert magic device) faster than light travel becomes possible, but everything else is the same. You don’t have to say how it works (because in real life it doesn’t), but you should know what rules it follows, and those rules and their consequences should be consistent. This is pretty much the kind of thing you need to do if you want a story about time travel, since there isn’t really any plausible method that it could work in our universe, at least not as far as we know. Of course, if the time travel is just a plot device to get some modern characters in prehistoric times, then might I suggest a simulation of some kind (that perhaps the characters don’t realize is a simulation)? That way you stay it in good science, and you don’t have to worry about paradoxes or anything. If the paradoxes are important to the story, never mind.

Honestly, the most important factor that will affect how the forum as a whole and the moderators in particular will react to your ideas is the attitude with which you present them. If you say “I figured it all out, modern science is a sham, you are all fools,” it’s not going to be well received. If, on the other hand, you say “I have this idea, and I was wondering what you guys think,” things will go more smoothly. The “support with testable evidence” thing is really about arguing that you are right. If, however, you ask “why is this wrong,” you can suggest ideas that are as far out as you want. If they have nothing to do with science, someone will say so, and that will be the end of it.

It would focus the beam (and therefore make it more intense but in a smaller area) right by the eyepiece, but it would spread out after that. It would no longer be a "beam," just like a regular flashlight the color of the laser.

Two events can happen simultaneously in your reference frame, but in different reference frames they wouldn't be simultaneous. That's not the whole story, though. It's important to remember that the situation is symmetrical. In other words, time slows down for him from our perspective, but from his perspective, we (the Earth) are the ones moving at nearly the speed of light, and we're the ones whose time has slowed.

Clearly. It even works if you specify chicken egg. The line designating the first animal that could be genetically called a "chicken" as opposed to its almost-chicken ancestors is going to be arbitrary, but wherever you put it, that animal was an egg before it was a full grown chicken. Really, it's only paradoxical if you don't know about evolution.

See post #5. It works with sticking two bar magnets together because the field lines have somewhere to go. Specifically, they emanate from the ends and curve back towards the middle. This is easy to see with iron filings. If you made it into a 3D shape, however, it wouldn't work. Yes, I'm sure that would work.

That’s a good point, actually. I bet Al Qaeda wants Obama to fail, too! Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist!!!!!111!!

That is what he's saying, and he's correct. It might help if you don't think of L2 as real at all. The photon that first leaves point A ceases to exist when it is first absorbed by an atom. A tiny amount of time later, that atom then emits a different photon in the opposite direction, also moving at C, which is then absorbed by a second atom, which then absorbs a third photon, and so on. An analogy would be if you threw me a baseball at 60 mph from 50 yards away, which I catch. I then burn that baseball for warmth. Feeling guilty about this, I go about making a replacement baseball, which it takes me about a month to complete (hey, I’m working from scratch in the middle of a field, give me a break). I then throw this baseball in the same direction that you did originally, farther down the field another 50 yards to someone else, again at 60mph. Now, would it be fair to say that you throw baseballs at a speed of 100 yards per month? What photon? Photons are created when they are emitted.

I don't think so. I'm guessing the edges would all end up being north, while the centers of the faces would stay south. The way I think about it (because it's the way Farraday thought about it) is that magnetic field lines are all just continuous loops, which are partially embedded in what we call the "magnet." Every loop must come back and meet the other end. So in that case the lines would be emanating from each side and then curving back towards wherever they can squeeze through. And if there's no space, they'll make one, and parts of the magnets will reverse polarity.

Yes. Yes they do. "Cloning" sounds "mad sciencey," which scares people off both because of sci fi silliness (Attack of the Clones!!!!!!) and because of notions that it's somehow wrong to "play god" and "devalue our humanity." I've heard Leon Kass (Bush's bioethics advisor) speak a number of times, and it seriously doesn't go much deeper than that.

It also causes a lot of eye-rolling among those of us who take our coffee strong, black, bitter, and cheap (like our souls and/or women).

(Just to pile on, I have also read the Bible from cover to cover, although never as a believer. It was in an academic setting, in the context of a study of the history of philosophy.)

Not necessarily. To use an easier to visualize example, look at the Earth-Moon system. This system does have a single center of mass, which is somewhere in the Earth's mantle. From an arbitrarily large distance away and assuming there are no other masses in the universe, gravitational vectors will point towards this one point. However, that is not the point towards which any gravitational vectors point from nearby (like standing on the surface of either body), except incidentally. In fact, if you were to stand at that point, gravity would be pulling you away from it, towards the center of the Earth. The Earth taken by itself is pretty much analogous in that it's not perfectly uniform or spherical, so all lines will not meet at a single point. Like the Earth-Moon system, it too has one center of mass, but it would likely have more than one point at which net gravity is zero. (Unlike the Earth-Moon system, however, all such points would likely be very close to the center of mass.) It would not be "a smaller object," but rather a set of distinct points. And from each of these points, plumblines would point nowhere. So, just out of curiousity, did you have anything in particular in mind as a consequence of your hypothesis?

Bonus question: Who was more honest? Darth Vader or Obi Wan Kenobi? Wait, what are we talking about, again?

I have a thought that it might help to go back to a more fundamental question, which is why is murder (defined as "wrongful killing") wrong? (And "because human life is sacred" is not an answer - why is it "sacred?") If you can answer that clearly, it might help decide at what point in development it becomes "wrong" to intentionally abort. What harm is done by condoning murder, and when does condoning abortion cause that same harm? Or something along those lines. For myself, I'm pretty much resigned to letting it be a permanent grey area (which is, I guess, itself a moral stance). It isn't something that can be "figured out," because there is no inherently correct answer. (There is no such thing as a "natural right," except in the sense that human beings naturally demand rights for themselves.) And, in my opinion, there's no non-arbitrary point at which the "human being" begins, since life is a continuous, messy, and indistinct process. Not even conception, as I have a hard time seeing a zygote the moment after fertilization as somehow morally distinct from a separate sperm and egg the moment before. If that is the all or nothing that makes a human being, then being a human being doesn't mean much of anything. Personally, I think we're better than that.

But that could be greatly mitigated by salary caps for businesses receiving bailout money. Until they pay the money back, they get paid like humans. The incentive obviously isn't quite as strong as if they were simply allowed to self-destruct, but on the plus side the company still exists, and a lot of people stay employed and productive, and the management is highly motivated to give those big checks back.

Well again, at least in theory, if it wasn't, it should be self-correcting. The companies that pay their CEOs reasonable salaries should be more profitable than the ones that pay them ridiculous amounts. I don't know whether this works in practice, but I don't see why it wouldn't. What's left, then, is that it is supply and demand. Like with professional athletes, there are an abundance of people who want the jobs, but only very few who are the absolute best at it, and everybody wants those very few, since it make a huge difference in how much money they take in.

Well, if the market were limited to Europe, you'd probably be taking in more money. Unfortunately for you (but good overall for both Europe and the places being outsourced to) it isn't. Wages are increasingly determined by global supply and global demand. I work with a lot of Russian, Indian, and Middle Eastern engineers, myself, because their skills are more in demand here. The more globalization occurs, the more trade is made free, and the easier outsourcing becomes, the more global wages become equal for equal work. That means we in the richest countries will start having to work for less, but cheaper labor also means cheaper goods and services. I don't know. Demand is high because everyone uses money. Businesses run on credit. Most individuals don't know much about finance, and are easy to basically take advantage of. Supply is low because... dunno. The bankers in question would probably say that there's a very elite talent pool. It's also stereotypically a very insular community (the best way to get a job on Wall Street is to meet the right people at Princeton), and from what I hear there's a lot of truth to that, which would explain the lack of "imports." And there's probably some institutional hindrances to competition, otherwise institutions with fairer hiring practices should theoretically be able to outcompete the good old boys, though I don't know enough to say what they are. And, finally, there are relatively few people who have the necessary natural talent pursuing it. If you're an engineer you probably have good math skills, but you didn't try to go into finance. Why not? There's your answer. I don't think you're going to find much disagreement there. If they want to be paid like risk-takers, they should be taking actual risks. I assume you're talking taxpayer supported bailouts and not direct fees. If you are literally personally a bank to keep your money, I'd suggest shopping around!

Also, what does this have to do with "energy conservation?"

How's what working out so far? ecoli, I can't see what you posted because I'm behind a filter and/or because IE is terrible, but I'm assuming it's a certain persuasive musical number, yes?

Well, the real answer to "why are X paid Y" questions is almost always just "supply and demand." It's a balance between what people are willing to pay for the labor and what people are willing to work for. As demand for that kind of labor increases, workers can charge more for their services. If supply increases, employers can offer less pay and still get all the talent they need. With bankers, it is perhaps a little bit different, if only because the people collecting the paychecks have much more informations and are a few steps removed from the people footing the bill, so they can more easily manipulate the system. The same overall principle still applies, though. With the bailouts, on the other hand, compensation seems to have become disconnected from the market entirely, and the answer as far as bankers is concerned is "because they can get away with it."

Actually, we didn't really have free markets even in the 19th century. We had various trade laws from the very beginning (like tariffs), although not really any consumer protection or labor laws.

There's quite a bit of evidence that Bobby Jindal, at least, is not stupid. (For, example, he was a Rhodes Scholar.) He gave one bafflingly stupid speech. But I suspect we'll be seeing more of him, if for no other reason than any powerful Republican who is not a white guy is automatically in the running for pretty much anything.

Meh, you're probably right. The mainstream might be annoyed enough with the religious right not to let them push the rest of us around, but the GOP apparently still can't win without them. Hence their current problems. Yeah, I pretty much call B.S. on that "admiration." He'd probably say he admires James Madison, too, but that doesn't mean he's even read the Federalist Papers. If you claim to represent "freedom," you try to co-opt anything associated with it, even if your specific positions directly contradict that. I also think you've got that hypothetical backwards: if Ron Paul ever won the nomination, you really think Rush would not lobby for the Republican? (But then, I obviously give the guy a lot less credit than you do.)