swansont

I don't think anybody with any competence inthe subject contends that evolution is random. Natural selection is decidedly non-random. "Use it or loose it", "Use it alot and get better" apply, but not in response to the mere use - that's Lamarckism. Use it a lot, and and those genes and any that pop up making it better will tend to be passed along.

Neutrinoless double beta decay does indeed involve physics beyond the standard model. Google on 'majorana neutrino' and you'll probably find more.

A miner wanders into the old west town after spending a year in wilderness pulling gold out of his mine. After cashing in his year's work, he heads to the nearest saloon and orders a bottle of whiskey. After several drinks he motions the bartender over to him. "Hey bartender, you got any women here?" he says. "Nope" says the bartender. "All we got is Ol' Charley out back" "I don't go for that," says the miner and storms out of the bar in a huff. A year passes by and the miner comes back into town, cashes in his gold, and heads back to the same saloon and orders a bottle of whiskey. As he drinks it he says to the bartender "Hey, did you ever get any women in here" "Nope" says the bartender, "but we've still got Ol' Charley out back" "I don't go for that," says the miner and storms out of the bar. Another year passes. "Hey, you got any women in here yet?" "Nope" says the bartender, "but we've still got Ol' Charley out back" "I don’t go for that," says the miner and starts to leave but stops in his tracks and turns back to the bartender. Pondering his three year lack of intimacy, the miner says "Now, if I went out back with Ol' Charley, who's going to know about it?" The bartender scratches his head and thinks for a moment. "Well there'd be you, me, Ol' Charley of course, and them two other fellers." "What two other fellers?" asks the miner. The bartender replies "The two fellers holding down Ol' Charley. He don't go for that neither"

What makes you think that randomness isn't allowed in physics? QM is probablistic in nature. If I have a collection of unstable nuclei, I know that a certain fraction of them will decay in a period of time, but I can't identify which ones beforehand. I can shine a bunch of X-rays on a lead plate and know that some fraction will make it through without interacting, but again I can't tell which ones ahead of time. The universe is weird. Haven't you been paying attention?

Well, he works at NIST, and his discovery has been noted in a press release, so I'd hesitate to call him a crackpot. Also, a Google on RM Waterstrat got about 275 hits.

Physics, chemistry and biology follow certain laws. That gives rise to structure.

The compressibility of water is only about 45 parts per million per atmosphere. It will expand, but not by much. This is why you use water for testing pressure vessels. If you spring a leak, the water will return to atmospheric pressure without expanding much.

Mutations are only part of the process. You have selection as well. Think about it as a feedback loop.

The concentration evening out is due to diffusion. (Fick's law) Osmosis will occur with an appropriate semi-permeable barrier in place. Osmosis is a reversible process, but diffusion is not.

a. I fail to see how I have "fallen into the trap" b. FTL is not theoretical. There is no theory that allows FTL travel of matter or information. There is, however, hypothesis, conjecture and wishful thinking, and, of course, science fiction.

Isotopes are elements with a differing number of neutrons. No "imbalance" necessary. Most stable isotopes with Z>20 have more neutrons than protons. Nuclei with Z=N are isotopes, too.

Yes, they will ionize things. But the original nucleus the emitted the particle has a different charge as well, so overall the charge remains constant.

The Hydrogen 2S to 1S transition occurs, which has zero change in angular momentum, the other possibility that prohibits a single photon transition. The lifetime is 0.12 seconds. There is no real intermediate state.

Yes. e.g. if the transition has a change of 2 units of angular momentum (like a D to S state transition), the transition cannot happen with a single photon. Such a transition would have a long lifetime, and the atom would preferentially decay via another channel, if a more direct one is available.

Won't last long but the force is large. For a small hole, it lasts longer but the force is small. You have to solve for F(t) and integrate over the duration to see which has a larger effect.

Avogadro's number is BIG! 6.02 x 1023 atoms per mole, and a mole each of the reactant is 5 grams.

1 trillion fusions is about 8 picograms of material. I'd say 3 Joules is a lot, rather than a little.

The initial pressure differential is fixed, regardless of area The force is pressure * area A larger hole gives you a larger initial force, but it won't last as long

The impulse is force * time. A larger hole gives a larger initial force but for a shorter period of time. So it will depend on how long it takes to "exhale" and you need to integrate the force over the whole time to see the total change in momentum. But that's not what I was responding to. You said that a small hole will depressurize more violently, and that's not right. The mass flow rate should depend on the are of the hole and the pressure differential. The flow rate, and force, should initially be smaller for the smaller hole. It should also take longer to depressurize for the smaller hole (longer time constant for the smaller hole - I suspect both will give an exponential decay, which implies infinite time to completely depressurize. But one would use the "five time constants" approximation)