J'Dona

Hmm, maybe we'd better sort it out amongst ourselves first and just give a "presentation" about our conslusions after, or people might get worried about solidarity. I think the main problem in sorting this out all lies in the fundamental properties of infinity, and what happens when you divide by it. At first glance one would say that 0.999 is certainly less than 1. But if it's less than 1, what is the difference? I'd say it's 0.0001, as that's all that makes sense (although a number after an unending number of zeroes doesn't). Since any number divided by any other number, no matter how large, always leaves a vanishingly small part, it can't be zero. But that only applies to finite numbers. Infinity intrinsically defies normal rules of maths, as in you can't actually multiply by it (or at least in my level of maths that's the dogma we've been fed). But you can divide by it, and when you divide by it you get zero. Since 0.0001 is an infinitely small number, it would be zero, right? Otherwise the infinite series formula would not work, and something like Zeno's paradox would be true, in which case movement would be impossible. DISCLAIMER: I may be wrong.

I remember that infinite series form of the proof... I accidentally came up with it one lunch and probably annoyed my friend because we were meant to be starting a game of chess. But I wondered whether it counted as I've heard that the formula for the sum of an infinite series (if it's finite) was only an approximation, though I don't see how. There's another form of the proof that's a bit less mathematical but hopefully understandable by most people. Say that x = 0.999. In that case, 1 - x = 0.0001. There's an infinite number of zeroes before the 1. But infinity can be defined as a number with no endpoint, so you never get to the 1 and therefore 0.0001 = 0.000 = 0, and 0.999 = 1. Ah, yes they are mostly similar dave. It's just that most people online don't understand the majority of mathematical proofs (at least on the forums where this is argued over) and so a lot of different versions are needed before one might see one that they understand. Mostly it's due to people having only done maths at a level where every number follows the same mathematical rules but who are interested in terms like infinity, hence they assume things like 1/0 = infinity, and don't know what undefined answers are. So they think that you can do things like multiply by infinity and divide by zero (unless you really can and I'm just the wrong one... I've heard that 0/0 = 0 but that's another thing altogether)

In case anyone here hasn't noticed, there have been a lot of debates on this online between people on other forums, some with a good grasp of mathematics and some without. The debate is over whether 0.999 does or does not equal 1. There are many different proofs to prove that it does, but because some people understand some proofs better than others, and some not at all the debates still go on. I've personally been involved in these sort of debates and I can think up at least five different proofs, all based on different sorts of logic, that show that they are equal. The more forms we can find, the better the chances are that someone will understand it. I thought that perhaps we could do a service to the internet and try and sort this out once and for all, by compiling the most comprehensive list of proofs on the internet. There are already some sites like this, but they only cover one or two forms of the proof and many are based on questionable things (like 0.333 = 1/3 even though it's just an approximation). If this thread eventually appears high enough up on Google, people might find it for themselves and we can stop arguments caused by a poor knowledge of maths across the globe. Anyone think that this is a worthy goal?

Ewww, that's sick. There might be something left. Make them eat the C4 and get the job done properly! (Joking, of course. Yes.) How about dying in your sleep? That's a pretty peaceful way to go.

But, but... C4 is more fun then a shot to the head!

Good point about the gravestone dave. I'll put away the bunsen burners now... How about jumping out of an aircraft without a parachute? You've be able to fly and die instantly as a bonus. By the way, I noticed the Sayonara 5000th post thread. Sayonara has to respond first. Bring on the speeches! This is my 50th post (1% Sayonara's...) so if you'll excuse me I'm going to try out those arcade games... EDIT: Hmm, were the arcades removed? I can't find them :/

That made me laugh Great idea though! I hear you can make homemade C4 as well if it's properly labelled, with household materials. Why wait till you're old? Seriously though, maybe one of the most peaceful ways to die would be from a carbon monoxide leak. You'd just fall asleep...

True, it's a bit "Charge of the Light Brigade". After one's whole life you deserve a peaceful death, but personally I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory. Not that that sort of thing happens much if you're a scientist. :/

Maybe a good death would be like the guy in "The Long Watch" by Robart A. Heinlein. He's a bomb technician on a military base on the moon who's base commander decides to go Hitler with the nukes they have there. The technician locks himself in the bomb room and manually smashes apart the bombs so that he can't, and dies from the plutonium before the Earth military gets there. Maybe not the best way to die, but hey, imagine going with the knowledge that you'd saved pretty much the whole human race.

Welcome to the forums (shouldn't be saying this as I'm new myself, but anyway) Silicon dioxide is pretty inert and a hard chemical to split... you could react chlorine gas with it to liberate the oxygen, but you'd end up with liquid silicon tetrachloride (which explodes in water), and you'd have to find some way to deal with that. However, there are a lot of different oxides on Mars from which the oxides might be more easily removed. Maybe one of them would be the answer to your problem.

I've only got a few NES roms on my computer... Kirby's Adventure, A few Megaman ones and Final Fantasy 1. Other than that I play NES games on our real NES here at home. (I considered buying a real NES FF1 cartride but they're all in the USA and I can't be bothered to wait) Anyone else remember Battletoads for NES? Still haven't gotten past the 4th level, after more than 10 years on and off. :/

So that's why I didn't notice it... it didn't look like a skull at all.

I can't actually find that picture anywhere on your site, nor on Google, which is suspicious if it is supposed to be a public NASA image, (an idea which contradicts what you blatantly suggest as a cover-up by your pictures). I don't believe that you're faking anything (aside from your credentials), but I do believe that every picture you have shown so far or on your site has been grossly misinterpreted, though most are certainly real. There is not a single picture which is not subject to personal interpretation, which means that they do not constitute evidence. If that is a real skull in your image, why is it fuzzy around the edges? Why is the image not perfectly clear? It's not as if there's much air in the way on Mars. Also, you still have not explain the editing underneath the jaw.

Considering the file name is 1p063-1P133786177-dead-bat-5.jpg, I guess you don't know what it is either. EDIT: Just noticed that Sayonara also pointed this out, and that you ignored it. Can you prove that it came from Mars? Or is a medical scan of a human (with obvious editing along the edges... look at the lines, man, along the edge of the jaw) supposed to be evidence enough? How did they take an x-ray picture of a Martian with a rover that is 20 light minutes away from Earth? It's not like they could just quickly press the instant-medical-x-ray-camera-on-a-rover-on-a-barren-planet button and get the photo. So it can't be from Mars, in which case it's fake. I would have thought someone with an alleged Masters degree in Physics would know about something called the speed of light...

Never let human psychology step in front of your assumptions. I have made assumptions, based on the best information currently available to science. You haven't. In fact, your assumptions directly contradict them. Do you know what a hypocrite is?

I'm sorry, I don't agree with that explanation. You have assumed that Mars once had an atmosphere just like that on Earth, without any reasonable evidence, and are now drawing your explanations off of that assumption, which goes "against the scientific approach of analysis and sythesis". I think I wrote this before, but I'll do it again anyway. Let's assume that Mars even had the same atmosphere and temperature as the Earth (though its lower gravity and further distance from the sun maks this highly unlikely, but let us assume it is possible). The gravity will still be lower, and thus plants will be able to grow very tall to monopolize more sunlight, which will be necessary as it is scarcer on Mars than on Earth. If plants are taller, animals will grow taller (also de to lower gravity and less weight). Thus these lambs would be quite tall, with longer necks and legs, and so the statue could not be an accurate represantation because lambs on Mars would not look like that. However, this is assuming that the atmosphere on Mars was once like that on Earth. Let's say that this is also the case. There would have been oxygen in the air at least up until the point that the rock was carved. But we can tell by the way light changes as it passed through the atmosphere of Mars (from a star, for example) what elements and compounds are in its atmosphere. That is how people have determined that Mars has lower atmospheric pressure and different elements in its atmosphere (if it wasn't very close to what they had determined in real life, then the rovers they sent to Mars would have crashed to to unexpected variances in the atmosphere). So some time very recently - if artifacts from this Civilization still exist on Mars - there would have been some cataclysmic event wiping out 99% of the atmosphere and all the oxygen and virtually all other elements. Something this devastating would leave at least one trace of its occurence, don't you think? I don't even know what could cause something like this. After that, the biology of the planet would have absolutely no chance of surviving afterward, every species having grown dependant on that atmosphere. Microbial life might survive, but certainly not living kittens, Brontosauruses or mushrooms. EDIT: Back, but I don't know what to add to this anyway, so I'll end it here.

Very well, I'll correct my list: a) possibly Christianity related goat/lamb statue, b) moving Earth creatures on Mars today, c) a space faring civilisation on Mars today, d) glass (from the bottle) which would have had to be produced with SiO2 and CaO in the crust in a blast furnace, requiring oxygen, of which there is none on Mars and cannot be refined from oxides in the crust because of, again, a lack of oxygen for the reactions e) pure liquid water As for your other points, you obviously believe at least one to be true, and yet every single one brings up one or more of the points I've mentioned above. You cannot prove that a single one is true, however, and to do so would involve going against the entire scientific community and billions of dollars worth of research into Mars, all based on pseudoscientific conclusions of yours drawn from blurry photos. You say that "even one statue on Mars enough to prove that there was a civilization on Mars", and yet you haven't provided even one that can be confirmed true, or even unexplained by natural phenomena. Every name or interpretation you provide on your site is highly subjective and/or false or demonstrates a lack of scientific knowledge. For example, on http://mywebpages.comcast.net/extrasense/more3.html, as you give "The Final, Absolute Proof of Animal Life on Mars", you say that the "heads" have moved. But they haven't; the colors in the area have partially inverted for some reason, so that the previously dark area below them is now light and the light area is now dark. This can be seen simply by checking the positions of the heads from the rocks below the rim, instead of the just rim. They haven't moved. And even if they had, the rover could have been moving. That's what rovers do, see? I've already explained why, if there was life on Mars now, how it couldn't be anything even remotely like on Earth. In that case, then almost every picture you show can't possibly be true. Kittens can't evolve on Mars, nor survive there if they were taken from Earth and put there. Quite tragically, the kitten's lungs would implode and every cell in its body would explode. It's a good thing, then, that all kittens are safe on Earth. The same goes for every other plant or animal you show in those pictures. They can't be Martian equivalents to those Earth creatures either, because as I said things wouldn't eveolve like that on Mars. However, all this doesn't dispute that there may be Martian life now (rather, it only removes your entire basis of comparison). There may indeed be microbial life on Mars now, but as for a civilisation... Finally, I'd like to repost this, which you never answered despite Sayonara pointing that out twice : P.S. Please don't call me "Dona", that's like referring to me by my last name. :/ P.P.S. Sorry about the very long post. I just get going and forget to stop. It's past midnight here and I've got college tomorrow, so I'd better go now... P.P.P.S. Oh, just asking the forum regulars as I haven't posted much here... are there some etiquette rules I'm breaking by posting nasty responses like this? (I read through it and I consider it nasty; I don't talk like this in real life but on the Internet everything is a bit more of a free for all, since we can't actually see the people we're abusing )

How could an animal that you say is so similar to a lamb on Earth that it IS a lamb, possibly evolve on a planet with an atmosphere which has 1% the pressure of that on Earth, and is 95% CO2, without any organic food sources or water and less than half the gravity? If there was a "lamb" on Mars adapted to survive on it, it wouldn't look anything even remotely like any animal found on Earth. Thus this statue would have been the result of Martians visiting Earth, and so there would be traces of civilisation left on Mars, but there are none. How do you explain all this?

I'd really appreciate it if you didn't put smilies before and after every sentence... it makes you look incredibly smug. I'd also appreciate it if you didn't CHANGE my quotes, and use real quoting instead of double chevrons. On another note, I don't know how I misspelled "natural" as "nutarl", but anyway. :S Despite the image I showed, I wasn't contesting that your image was faked (and your link is proof, of course). It doesn't show any signed of clipping, or fuzziness, or whatever. I don't think that it's anything other than a natural rock, however. You've suggested that these Martians knew about Christianity on Earth (don't know that even came into it). If that were the case, then these Martians would have had to have space travel. Now, this "goat" statue has clearly eroded a little. But it can't have been there very long, as in the order of only a few thousand years at the most, given the massive planet-wide dust storms on Mars and so forth eroding it. Thus there would be some traces of Martian civilization on Mars today, in the form of metal alloys or technology (given that they had space travel), which would not have been wiped out by these dust storms in that time if a rock statue hasn't. But there is no such evidence of technology or metal alloys on Mars. You might suggest a massive, world-wide coverup of this civilisation, but that's a different subject completely.

The one on the top-left looks like a goat or lamb... with a boulder potruding from its neck. But we'll forget that, shall we? The important thing is that part of it looks like a goat. It's half-buried in sand for no particular reason as well, but we'll forget that as well because, hey, the idea of a goat of such similar evolution to that on Earth on a planet that that goat couldn't breathe on and would actually explode on, with no available food sources or water is all just so much more attractive than the alternative; it's a rock.

That second shell is a top-down image with a static background. I thought it was a reference picture with a real shell on Earth. Regardless, dust isn't that perfect on Mars (as evidenced by every other picture on your site), with perfectly preserved fossils in it. I don't think these rovers are even capable of taking a picture that faces straight down.

It looks like an ordinary rock... Where's the spiral?

So true. Every word of it. Star Trek died when they discovered in Voyager that models boost ratings (hence a model in Enterprise). TOS was ok... when it was made. And not only was Jar Jar Binks actively ludicrous in Episode 1, he unwittingly helped Palpatine to take power in Episode 2. One wishes that Padme hadn't noticed that his hand was stuck in the pod racer intake before they turned it on. By the way, in Star Trek 1, how did the Enterprise ever manage to create a 3D Tron-style graphics wormhole (with an asteroid in it) just by turning on the warp drive, and why wasn't Kirk court-martialed when his impatience got someone turned inside out in the transporter room?