Sisyphus

It's already been said in several different ways how it works, how magnetic fields are just electric fields in a different frame of reference. So why not show how the "absolute velocity" claim can't work? How about a simple thought experiment. Sione claims that charges generate magnetic fields when moving with respect to some absolute frame of reference. Ok, so where is this frame of reference? Presumably, the laboratory where the experiment takes place has to be "motionless," right? But the lab is on the Earth. The Earth is rotating, and different parts of its surface have relative velocities of hundreds of miles per hour. So in a reference frame in which the lab in New York has a velocity of zero, the lab in Sydney has a velocity of hundreds of miles an hour. So if what matters is velocity relative to a single, universal frame of reference, then the two labs should always see radically different results when performing the same experiment. And there would be different results when performing the same experiment in the same place at different times of day, or different times of year. Obviously that's not what happens, so the idea that it's not relativistic is proven wrong. Unless, I suppose, you want to make the claim that the Earth is actually motionless in the "true" reference frame, and that the entire rest of the universe whirls around it once per day, presumably generating unspeakably huge magnetic fields along the way, behaving less and less like Earth the farther away from it you go. So, anyway, I'll repeat my "stubborn opinion" one more time. The word "velocity" always means "relative velocity," because there is no other kind.

Why is that so shocking?

"She could have children." What?

No, temperature is a property of groups of particles.

You can already watch girls fart with infrared cameras. They're also good for spotting breast implants.

Whether or not it's "far worse" or whatever, would you say it's inaccurate to say that we are currently in a mass extinction? It might not be the same as previous ones because the mechanism is (presumably) different (ours being the result of the extremely rapid rise of a single out of control species that occupies and tends to radically change every ecosystem on Earth), but the effect would be comparable if trends continue, right? Was the rate of extinction 65mya faster than it is today?

Ok, read this: http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/rel_el_mag.html

You can't visit a void and have it still be a void.

I'm not sure either. They are responsible for them, which I guess necessarily includes a certain degree of authority over them. But really, that particular case doesn't need a law backing it up. They're not going to physically restrain the kid in detention and they probably couldn't legally do so (I'm guessing), but they can say that a kid who can't follow even that degree of authority gets failed or tossed out of school.

The point is a hypothetical "void" would not have a temperature of absolute zero, it would not have a temperature at all.

It's not a paradox. A magnetic field is an electrostatic field experienced in a reference frame in which the source has a nonzero velocity. In the reference frame in which that very same source has a velocity of zero, there is no magnetic field.

Another, simpler reason there could never be anything at absolute zero is that there is nowhere that is completely dark.

Well, that's pretty much what you're doing. A fuel cell car is an electric car, just one that uses a fuel cell instead of a battery to supply the current. The actual motor would be the same. The question is not electric vs. fuel cell, it's battery vs. fuel cell. Clearly there are pros and cons to each, and research seems to be progressing rapidly on both fronts.

So every decision of the boards of every corporate recipient of bailout money is going to be a national referendum? Well, that would certainly motivate them to pay it back quickly, but wouldn't it just be simpler/less likely to drive the businesses into the ground to put public representatives in place?

Sure, why not? You want a higher salary? Re-privatize your company by paying me back my tax dollars. Hell, they should be thankful. 500k is awfully high for a government salary...

That seems counterintuitive. Isn't it more impressive to be able to teach Mandarin to a pothead?

Yes, every meteorite that hits the moon accelerates by a tiny, tiny, tiny amount. Any force at all can move it. When you jump up in the air here on Earth, you're also pushing the entire rest of the Earth downwards by a tiny, tiny, tiny amount. And when gravity pulls you back towards it, you're also pulling it towards you with the same force. But since the Earth is so much bigger than you, the effect is too small to notice. And yes, that rocket sticking out of the moon would move it. But the moon is so large that it would take probably a billion years of thrust to make any noticeable change.

Wall Street: You collect 5% of the profit from stockholders who have entrusted you to purchase 100 million 1/millionth fractions of promises to deliver the profits from the milk sales from the third generation of descendents of a worldwide network of sick, "subprime" cows. You are on so much cocaine right now.

Well, in Phelps case, appearing to be a good role model is, I imagine, very lucrative. But aside from that, I think I would try to be a good role model in the extremely unlikely event that millions of kids were to look up to me, even if I didn't ask for it and it would be unreasonable to expect it of me. As for why people do make those kinds of demands of celebrities, you're absolutely right that it's not fair.

But my question is about why you would need a "hydrogen distribution system" at all. Did you read beyond the first paragraph?

In discussions about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, it's frequently said that "the infrastructure" would have to be in place before they could be practical, and the infrastructure itself wouldn't be profitable unless vehicles were widespread. Ok, so my question is: what infrastructure? I guess it boils down to me not really seeing why you couldn't treat a hydrogen fuel cell as a rechargeable battery. Instead of having water vapor as exhaust, why not keep the water in the system? Then plug in the car to supply electricity for separating it into hydrogen and oxygen. Keep the hydrogen, let the oxygen go. Sure, the car would get heavier as you go, but not by that much, and the only "infrastructure" you need is a power grid. Also, if for some reason that's infeasible (as I assume it is for some reason, since nobody talks about it), then still, wouldn't a "filling station" just need a supply of electricity and a supply of water in order to manufacture hydrogen on site, using only machinery a high school science class could build? Aren't those components of infrastructure that already exist everywhere? Couldn't existing gas stations pretty easily do this at relatively little cost (and thus need few customers to make it profitable)? No "hydrogen pipes" or tanker trucks necessary. Right?

Well they certainly throw that rhetoric around, that's for sure. Of course, it's complete bull. Republicans have proven they're just as willing to spend our money as Democrats. Tax cuts don't mean they're not spending our money, it just means they're doing it even less responsibly (and more hypocritically). Bread and circuses, etc.

I wouldn't think so. CMBR would necessarily be more or less the same everywhere in the universe, if current theories aren't totally wrong. It's not a local effect. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation Also, remember the "temperature" is a blackbody temperature, not temperature in the same sense as matter has temperature. And finally, even without CMBR, absolute zero is not even theoretically possible. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero

Care to elaborate?

"Allah" is just the Arabic word for "God." Muslims don't consider themselves to be worshipping a different god from Jews and Christians, they just think those groups have falsely rejected the prophet-hood of Mohammed and the Divine origin of his prophecy, as written in the Quran. Thus Jews and Christians are "People of the Book," a different category of unbeliever than straight-up heathens.