Radical Edward

isn't this why we put fences round railway lines then? In order to protect the stupid from themselves.

I saw that too MrL, but they broke it didn't they?

I wonder how they would cram that into anti terrorism laws. It is not like you need a black box to demonstrate someone was flying too low.

well the lightning defence could work by virtue of the fact that the ends are pointed, whereas the satellite dishes are round.

Well the strong force is already incredibly strong. The thing is that it is a very short range force. The answer to this qustion is very much dependant on how strong you make it, or what range it has. The answer could vary from changing the stability of atoms, through to not allowing atoms (everything would just turn into neutron star matter) through to black holes and the destruction of everything (well, if anything could have existed in the first place). Essentially one would have to tinker with the variables in the semi empirical mass formula to see what happens.

the problem with things like pepper spray, is that if it doesn't hit them or whatever and they get you... they will probably spray it in your eyes and do something really nasty to you.

I would go for the superdense matter thing. Or even forget about it altogether like Cowboy Bebop or Total Recall do.... but then why not just have low G on mars?

4) A robot must sort marbles, except when sorting the marbles is in contradiction with the first three laws.

I prefer binary. 11110100001001000000 100110101100101000000000 1110100011010100101001010001000000000000 and so on. there is an interesting thing. Is there a formula relating to how many 0s there are at the end of that binary string, as we add zeros onto the decimal?

It seems to me that critics of the enquiry seem to have made prior judgement of the government and BBC, and only disagree wth the hutton report based purely on what they think that it should have said. The report hence was meaningless because everyone looked at it with fixed and preconcieved notions anyway.

the reason electrons stay around the atom, is because they have to - quantum mechanics.

lack of a spine as a result of being an evil demonic skull might have something to do with it.

microwaves heat things up because they resonate the water, whereas UV is absorbed directly by the DNA.

no, it definitely looks like he meant that most of the codons code for nothing at all - which is completely false.

I think a large scale dumping of carbon into the atmosphere is a fantastic plan, and I fully endorse it.

moving to pseudoscience.

surely the issue is that there is an acceleration on the water.

you might not like to change it, but the problem is that it is the established word. In order to avoid confustion you really do need to think of somthing else, or convince the establishment to change, sorry.

how is described as a poison question? my favourite is 2. it took me a while to get the answer to that one.

I just thought that I would post some puzzles. These are pretty easy ones, but they are nice to get the brain cells ticking for a few moments. If anyone else has any Puzzles, please post them in this thread, and then I will add them to this Opening Post. If the thread is popular enough, I will split it later into a "Puzzles" and a "solutions to puzzles" thread to make for easier reading. (1) You have in front of you a balance scale and 18 apparently indentical coins. One of these coins is a forgery although it looks exactly like the other 17 coins: the only difference is that the fake coin weighs less than the normal coins. Your task is to sift out the coin in the least number of turns. (2) You have in front of you a balance scale and 12 apparently indentical coins. One of these coins is a forgery although it looks exactly like the other 11 coins: Unlike the previous puzzle, the coin may be heavier or lighter. Your task is to sift out the coin in the least number of turns. (3) Using a balance scale again, what is the smallest number of weights which can be used to find the weight of objects of all integer weights between 0 and 121 grams? (i.e. weigh and object of 1 gram, 2,3,4 and so on) (4) A coin collector received 10 bags of rare coins. One of the bags, however, contains only fake coins. The genuine coins weigh 10 grams each, the counterfeit coins weigh 10.1 grams. Each bag contains 100 coins. The collector has a weighing scale which can weigh any number of coins and give an exact measurement. However, he can use it only once. He is allowed to take any number of coins from each of the bags. How can he determine which bag contains the counterfeit coins?

electrons can only exist within the atom in discrete energy levels. Remember that electrons have a particle and wave nature - the only levels that an electron can take are where the path around the electron is a whole number of waves. There are other quantum numbers that make this more complicated, but that is beyond the scope of this thread. The wavelength of an electron is related to it's distance from the proton, since there is an attractive force between the two of them due to the electric field (protons are positive, electrons negative) Again this is complicated in multi-electron atoms since the electrons interact with one another as well. This is a really basic description, things are actually alot more complex than this.

very much so. that is why animal rights groups put all those pictures on posters, and anti-abortion groups show pictures of miscarriages in order to upset people.

The "it's not natural" argument is meaningless, because we all do what it is in our nature to do. It is man's nature to converse, attempt to gein knowledge and wear clothes. It is the nature of some to love people of the same sex. What we then have to do is look at our naturel which is a largely memetic one and derive our morality from that. One of the major tenets of our morality is that of freedom, and in that we should allow people to love who they like, and be affectionate with who they like, so long as they are both (or all) consenting. Unless one is going to force people to have children, or ban people who cannot have children for whatever reason, then attempting to ban gay marriages and so on is blatant discrimination. In banning gey marriages and so on, one is making a statement like "those people cannot do that because they are X) where X is unjustified. One might as well say mixed race couples or elderly couples should be banned too.

Changing the definitions of words is bad, especially in science. It is like Clinton changing the definition of "is" and leads to huge confusion and stained dresses.

hey it could be a military coup! coolies.