PaulS1950

Thank you very much for the help. I downloaded the registry backup program and the Ccleaner software. I will run backup first and then the cleaner. I am curious why it is not as important to run the cleaner program with Windows 7?

There is a video somewhere of a vehicle that uses two Archimedes screws built onto floats that goes anywhere - over water, snow, ice, grasslands and mud without a problem - it was built in the 1920s or 1930s on a tractor but the designer also had a way to convert a car to the drive system easily and back again. The invention of tracks made it obsolete for most of its uses but it would be a lot better on water than tracks.

building and maintaining a base that has to withstand the pressures of five miles of water on top of it is more expensive, more difficult and much harder than building and maintaining an environment that only has to withstand 14.7 psi. Food, water and air are reasonably accessible even on the moon. Power is free, water is there, that gives you oxygen to breathe and the ability to grow food. Reclaiming the air through the "gardens" and water through the gardens and treatment plants means that it is possible to virtually eliminate the maintenance costs. Using the native rocks for permanent structures eliminates the largest expense of transporting materials from the earth. Initial costs would be higher but over a 50 year period the price would be about the same. The difference is that on the moon you could actually offset the costs by exporting minerals and ore from the moon to the earth using something similar to rail guns to get product back to earth. On the other hand we could just as easily mine sea water for minerals too - but we don't need a manned base to do that and it isn't as glamourous as mining on the moon.

Are there a lot of evergreen trees around you? If the wind blows them it can interfere with some radio signals.

Antenna buffeting? Are you using broadcast antenna, sattelite or cable?

I tried to find a chkdsk in windows 7 but have had no luck - even the search was ineffective. the other thing I am wondering about cleaning the registry. Is there any good freeware that will do that automatically? You see I am 60 years old, learned on a TRS-80, then switched to DOS and when I had to I switched to Windoze... I don't like the way the registry just runs away getting bigger and bigger and I would like to keep it as small as I can without hurting the operating system. My system uses an Intel dual core i5 processor running at 2.67GHz with 6Gb of ram. The OS is Windows 7 64 bit. This old man thanks you for your help. Paul

Thanks guys, I think we use POP mail serers so emailing is not a great Idea. We do have the first of many back-ups made so that is good. I really thank you. Paul

Pardon me for butting in here - new old man on the block. You want a 5 - 10 foot radius, do you want it to be a sphere of that radius? or a shell at that radius? How strong do you want the field to be? Does it need to be freely suspended or embedded in the ground with half of it above? Does anyone else feel the need for more information?

Ok, I think we are dancing differently to the same music. All evidence says that the mass of a photon is zero. Right? No evidence has ever been available that produces a mass greater than zero. Right? My use of language seems less accute than you prefer but I think I have the understanding that the mass of a photon is never >0. (all evidence considered) That would be as close to an absolute fact as there is. (I resist absolutes under normal conditions but this seems to be as close to an absolute as there is) Photons are massless. Got it.

I sure am glad the internet wasn't around when I was in school. I get to learn so much more now!

The trick would be generating a physical wave in a resonant frequency of the em wave in whatever media you were using.

You know there is a guy in Alaska that is using a low temperature differential turbine to generate power. The pressure is generated by using a refridgerant pumped into the ground as a liquid where it is vaporized (somewhere below the perma-frost but still at very low temps) and returned to the turbine where it spins the blades then into a condenser and back to the pump. This would be harder to do with a moving vehicle but the Japanese had a "working" car using a Sterling engine. It wasn't fast or efficient but it would move under its own power. If you want to re-invent the steam engine why not make use of an environmentally friendly refridgerant in a closed loop system?

Yes, I believe I do. It means that it would be impossible for the mass to be higher than that, period. That the "actual" mass would be well below that point. Essentially it is a small enough value, even at the upper limit, that the actual "evidentury" mass is zero. Thank you for being sure.

I always forget that 1/2. The spreadsheet converts weight in pounds to mass and does the division in one step: W / g / 2 where W is weight in pounds and g = acceleration of gravity You are right, of course, and I should have worded it that the reactions within atoms occur at the speed of light. I understand the principal even if I can't describe it perfectly. A lot of things in my world are OK when they are "close enough".

OK, I think I have an understanding now. The math says that the mass of a photon has to be zero. We can be sure that it is, at most, very close to zero, at less than .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000005 grams or .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000005 Kg That is something I can agree with being very near zero at most and in computations it is likely to be close enough to call it zero. Thank you both - it really helps.

Mr Skeptic, Thank you for that very precise answer. It really doesn't tell me anything other than what I assume to know. I believe your answer means that for all "real world" uses photons are assumed to have zero mass. (its easier than writing all those zeros anyway) Is mass measured in units of grams? (continuing to wrap my head around this)

So, at least as far as science is concerned the mass of a photon is exactly zero? I just seemed to suggest that the mass was very low, on the order of .000000000000000000000003 unit(s) as compared to zero. What units are we supposed to use for mass? I am sorry to ask so many questions but I am a 60 year old newbee and it takes all that I have to get some of these principals. Paul

I do a little work with kinetic energy in external ballistics of small projectiles and the formula for the energy of a projectile is the same. E = MV^2 It is just that mass has to be accelerated to the speed of light to convert all its mass to energy (something to do with the velocity required to break apart the atom?). I just assumed that the speed of light was the probable reaction velocity. so instead of V^2 it is C^2. It is still velocity squared but the velocity is a constant instead of a variable. Does that make sense to anyone but me?

I am new too but at 60 years old I can tell you that I have had some problems understanding the math and the theories. There is no way for me to tell the difference between the crack-pots and the scientists - and i have been accused of being a crack pot because of it. I think I have come to an aceptance (and partial understanding) of the expansion of space. I still have problems with why... or how but I stay close to these forums and ask lots of stupid questions - sometimes i get help - on other forums I get more accusations than help. Try not to make assumptions and word your questions as well as you can. Then ignore the crap and just try to follow those willing to help. good luck to us both! Paul

Spacial contraction is a result of the collapse of the matter into a black hole. As I understand the collapse of a star, the iron in the core can no longer maintain the reactions necessary to hold the mass away from the core - the gravity overcomes the mass of the star. As the star collapses the lighter, outer layers of lighter materials escape into space because of the forces generated by the implosion of the core. As the core collapses the matter slips into a very small area and that causes the "hole" (actually just a warping of the fabric of space/time). As matter is absorbed into the "hole" the mass continues to grow deepening the warp of the space/time fabric. What exists inside the black hole is unknown but I would think that the heat and pressure would change the matter by either fusing it into an extreme element or by reducing it to basic parts like individual quarks that could not join to make any elements. There is no room in a mass of that density for "orbital" particles - it would just all be pressed together in a form that is completely alien to our understanding of matter or energy. (much like what existed before the big bang) super compressed plasma comes to mind but it would have to be a near solid form of plasma. Just the ramblings of an uneducated 60 year old trying to understand

I read something about how lasers were being fired through a lower powered laser light of a different frequency to keep the beam more focused inside the atmosphere. Much like an ionizing tunnel or some such thing. Would this help outside the atmosphere or is it limited to atmospheric use?

Would it be possible to use a spiral shaped accelerator to feed a linear accelerator to gain the required acceleration and resulting energy levels?

To say a photon is zero mass disagrees? with this, from wikipedia. I do not trust wiki as an absolute reference but I would like to know what the experts think of this: Experimental checks on photon mass The photon is currently believed to be strictly massless, but this is an experimental question. If the photon is not a strictly massless particle, it would not move at the exact speed of light in vacuum, c. Its speed would be lower and depend on its frequency. Relativity would be unaffected by this; the so-called speed of light, c, would then not be the actual speed at which light moves, but a constant of nature which is the maximum speed that any object could theoretically attain in space-time.[18] Thus, it would still be the speed of space-time ripples (gravitational waves and gravitons), but it would not be the speed of photons. A massive photon would have other effects as well. Coulomb's law would be modified and the electromagnetic field would have an extra physical degree of freedom. These effects yield more sensitive experimental probes of the photon mass than the frequency dependence of the speed of light. If Coulomb's law is not exactly valid, then that would cause the presence of an electric field inside a hollow conductor when it is subjected to an external electric field. This thus allows one to test Coulomb's law to very high precision.[19] A null result of such an experiment has set a limit of eV.[20] Sharper upper limits have been obtained in experiments designed to detect effects caused by the Galactic vector potential. Although the galactic vector potential is very large because the galactic magnetic field exists on very long length scales, only the magnetic field is observable if the photon is massless. In case of a massive photon, the mass term would affect the galactic plasma. The fact that no such effects are seen implies an upper bound on the photon mass of eV.[21] The galactic vector potential can also be probed directly by measuring the torque exerted on a magnetized ring.[22]. Such methods were used to obtain the sharper upper limit of 10−18eV. given by the Particle Data Group[23] These sharp limits from the non-observation of the effects caused by the galactic vector potential have been shown to be model dependent.[24] If the photon mass is generated via the Higgs mechanism then the upper limit of eV from the test of Coulomb's law is valid. The formulas didn't copy - you can find them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon Does this mean that the mass of an electron can be above zero - if only quantifiable in the terms used?

The problem, as I understand it, for using nukes to "push" an asteroid is that they push too hard. If it breaks an asteroid up then you have multiple pieces each or all of which can continue on the same trajectory. Using a shock wave to try to move a rubble mass is just crazy - it separates and then reassembles. The other drawback with using nukes is that you have to be a LONG way from earth because in micro gravity the effects are more severe for us here on the earth. The alternatives are many and varied. The gravity tractor is a good idea if you have a few years to manipulate an asteroid abd the laser or solar "jet" is an effective and inexpensive way to handle asteroids of large volumes or closer to the earth. Attaching an impulse engine to an asteroid seems doomed to me but I suppose with the correct science it might be workable for some asteroids. Perhaps an orbital directed energy device - like a neutron gun - might work as a reaction engine to move large rocks at moderate ranges. It boils down to being able to identify the kind of asteroid that we are dealing with in time to actually do something about it. Then choosing the right device to handle that mass. I don't think there is any simple answers here.

Yeah, well at 60 and with a bad back (two bulged disks and a fractured vertabra), getting laid is a non-event. Maybe after the back heals...