Sisyphus

Apparently their algorithm needs tweaking.

In addition to gravity holding local structures together, remember that the rate at which things are getting farther away is proportional to their distance from us, hence the greater redshift for more distant objects. If you add an inch per second to every foot, something one foot away only moves away at 1 inch per second, something a mile away moves at 1/12th mile per second (300mph), something 12 light years away moves at the speed of light, etc.

For the record, Sasquatch is blurry, not invisible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity Apparently, the escape velocity of the Milky Way Galaxy at about the radius of our sun is about 1000km/s. The location is important, since escape velocity is just when an object already has enough kinetic energy to escape the gravity well, which obviously if you're already "higher up" would be less. You wouldn't ever have to actually reach that velocity if you were going to leave, just add the equivalent amount of kinetic energy over all. You can do that all at once, like with being fired out of a cannon (at which point the muzzle velocity would have to be at least escape velocity), or slowly "climbing" out with continuous thrust, which you can do at any speed. Since the galaxy's gravitational gradient is so low, you could probably do that with only a very small amount of thrust over a very long long period of time.

So by "superior" you meant the top of the food chain? That also seems arbitrary, and I don't see what it has to do with the rate of evolution.

The photons which make up light do not accelerate. They come into existence moving at C, which is the only speed they ever move at. They do not have mass, but they do have momentum proportional to the frequency of the light. Anything with mass moving at C would have infinite kinetic energy, which is one reason it is impossible for matter to move at the speed of light.

Indeed, it seems you are under the impression that the Big Bang and the expansion of space are like an explosion moving away from a central point. This is not the case. The universe has neither a center nor edges. Its origin is everywhere at once, and its expansion is not movement, but an increase in the amount of space itself. These are difficult and counterintuitive concepts, and it takes a while to get used to them. It might help to simply ignore the "space is expanding" part at first. Just imagine that the universe, all of it, just came into existence all at once and as spread out as it is now, at the event we call the Big Bang. Suppose, again, that it is infinitely large. Looking in any direction, then, will show you the same thing, like looking back in time. The light you see from 1 billion light years away in any direction is from 1 billion years ago, etc. The farthest you can see in any direction, then, is going to be with light from the very beginning of the universe, or at least from the very beginning of when there was light to see. Because the universe is infinite in size, you will never stop seeing that early light - instead, it will just be from further and further away, and the bubble of "stuff we can see" gets larger and larger, its radius expanding at the speed of light. Now, that's an oversimplification, because space is expanding, just in a different way then you're imagining. But that isn't necessary to understand to answer your initial question, I don't think.

It is impossible to observe your own death, but that doesn't make you immortal. "Quantum suicide" is totally bogus, IMO. To be "observed" when talking about quantum states doesn't mean come to the attention of a conscious being, it means interact with something. Bullet-brain interactions are very real, I assure you. So while it's true that under the many world's hypothesis, some version of you would survive every time, that doesn't mean that you personally can keep pulling the trigger and expect the miraculous.

And what way might that be? If you're going by "able to survive longest as a species with the least change," then horseshoe crabs, who have been more or less the same for ~450 million years, are far superior to anything we're closely related to. But then, that seems like kind of an arbitrary criterion.

You know, I just read this whole thread, and I really couldn't say what the topic is supposed to be. Is it just the umpteenth gay marriage thread? Presumably it's not just about breast implants, since that's not really "politics," per se. Does the answer a beauty pageant contestant gave really deserve the scrutiny it's (sort of) being given here? So, anyone: Is there a good reason for this topic to remain open?

I think of simultaneous as being observer dependent but taking into account travel time. As in, if light reaches me that has been travelling for ten years (as measured in my own reference frame, i.e. the distance it has travelled in my reference frame divided by C), I consider what I'm seeing to be simultaneous to events that occured at my location ten years ago in my current reference frame. It's the only way I can do it that feels intuitive, although I realize there are various reasons it falls apart.

No. However, if you bear in mind that regular siblings often look very similar to one another, and the fact that fraternal twins are exactly the same age on top of that, it shouldn't be all that surprising that some look spookily similar without being identical, even if they are different sexes.

A constant C doesn't necessitate the principle of relativity, no. It could indeed by constant only with respect to an aether medium, or with respect to its source. There were at one time theories holding both views. The Michelson-Morley experiments, though not conclusive in themselves, were AFAIK the first to suggest something like relativity. Though even then there were alternative explanations put forth, like "aether-dragging" around massive bodies and so forth. More and more precise experiments continued to suggest a principle of relativity, however, which is why Einstein had something to try (and, it turns out, largely succeed) to make sense of. Even then, it wasn't fully accepted until significantly after that. It was controversial enough that Einstein's Nobel Prize in 1921 makes no mention of relativity, but only his discovery of the photoelectric effect.

Well, gross.

The moon is entirely geologically stabile and there would be almost zero normal weathering, but it's also totally unprotected from meteors of all sizes. It's also against the stated rules, but I guess if wrote a message big enough to be read on Earth with the naked eye, that might be a loophole (depending on the reasons for the rules), inasmuch as the recipients don't need to leave Earth or possess any particular technology.

People often talk about "free will" without a clear idea in their minds what it is they are talking about, but only what it isn't. For example, saying that free will can't be deterministic. But if you ask them if "free will" just means the choices they make are totally random (i.e., not deterministic), they usually say no to that, also. But deterministic and random are the only two options, meaning their "free will" is just a totally nonsensical idea. Me, I sidestep the question entirely, and just define free will as a subjective experience of conscious minds. It doesn't matter what physical processes that consciousness emerges from - its existence, as with all experiences, is self-evident. Just as an aside, there are non-deterministic aspects to the universe - not coin-flipping, really, which you correctly point out is predictable, but stuff on the scale of quantum mechanics. These things are random but obey laws of probability, which when added together into things on the everyday scale yield basically deterministic outcomes most of the time. If you flip a coin once (assuming it's random, bla bla), you have a 50/50 chance of either outcome. If you flip a coin 10 trillion times, you're basically guaranteed to have almost exactly half heads and half tails, even though there is a very small but finite chance you'll get heads 10 trillion times. Similarly, there is a finite probability that all the electrons in the matter of the floor underneath you will randomly be somewhere else at the exact same moment, and you'll fall right through. But the probability is so small that we can say with great confidence that that will never happen over the history of the universe, and we can safely act as if it's deterministic. Anyway, how big of a role randomness plays in the brain is not something that's entirely settled, AFAIK. bascule will say that it basically plays no role at all, and as far as I'm concerned he's probably right, but it doesn't really matter as far as "free will" is concerned, even though there are plenty of people who will pretend that it does, and try to wedge "free will" into quantum mechanics. But those people are behaving foolishly.

No, it's still just a circle, centered at the point where the source was at T=0. Remember, you're not moving in your own frame of reference. What you observe is the source moving, and at some point (T=0), it emits a flash of light, which expands at C in a sphere that is also at rest. The source continues moving as before, past the center of the sphere but always within it, since obviously it is moving at less than C. Because of this, it should be noted that even if it continues to emit light, continuously or in one or more subsequent flashes, the light that it emits at T>0 will still be behind the T=0 sphere in every direction, because, the source being inside the initial sphere, these new wavefronts will never catch the initial one.

Possibly, but yeah, that would hugely increase drag, I'm thinking. Water, obviously, is a lot denser than air, and drag has a much bigger effect (which is why the keel can keep it moving straight in the first place, despite being much smaller than the sails). Even steering, on racing vessels, is accomplished as much as possible by shifting weight and trimming sails, because turning the rudder is like putting on the brakes. They keep level (or as level as possible, to get the most power from their sails) by redistributing weight above decks, and that works just fine. On some racing boats you'll see the whole crew out on scaffolding off the windward side. [/sisyphus reveals that he knows about sailing]

So it's a circle at both times, centered where the source was at T=0. What velocities are there to add?

Why are you adding velocities? The velocity of light is C, period.

I don't know about that. It depends on what you mean by "accept." Nobody has enough of a background to fully understand every field of science, yet there's all sorts of things we accept anyway, because we recognize that the process works, or, more accurately, that there isn't a better answer, so rationally we should act as if it were true, with reserve in proportion to the uncertainty in the consensus. Doubt about the basic premise of evolution is essentially nonexistent in science. If I thought it didn't make sense (as was once the case) and I cared enough to be curious, I would try and figure it out for myself and ask questions, but I would still provisionally accept it, because it would be irrational to think that I know better before I even bother to learn.

Please don't confuse "philosophy" with "anything claiming to be philosophy." I don't judge science by the pseudoscientific rants about how wrong Einstein is.

I'm not saying it's going to happen, I'm not criticizing Obama, and I certainly wouldn't complain if he did pick a woman, since there would be no way to tell if her ovary-having was a factor unless he explicitly said so. And if he did explicitly say so, I wouldn't hold it against her, only him. She could easily be the best pick anyway, after all. What I am doing is arguing against those who want him to do that, which I think is valid, especially inasmuch as at the very least our resident giant atomic reptile is one of them, and I'm guessing he's not alone. I don't think I'm really getting "worked up," though. When you're imagining my voice saying these things, just think Barry White.

That's not a very good description of the court's job, though. Their job is to interpret the law. They serve the people, yes, but "representing their interests" is the job of legislators. The court can't throw out a law because it is unfair to a minority, only because it violates the Constitution. (Much of the Constitution is indeed designed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority.) Anyway, I resent the implication that my Y chromosome makes me inherently less qualified to do that job. That's sexist, by definition. Furthermore, everyone is a "minority" in some qualities, and I certainly don't believe we should be encouraging distinctions by gender and ethnic background over other differences - that's what we as a society should be trying to get past. And finally, women are in fact not a minority: there are more of them!

The universe doesn't care what you think. Listen five times as much as you talk. If you can't think of anything important to you that you've changed your mind about, you're doing it wrong. Good and bad are what you allow them to be. Chances are, you're not even asking the right questions. Yes, it is funny. Pithy sayings are usually worthless. Learn to cook.