Radical Edward

discounting these: 2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false. 3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous. 4. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent. 5. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction. zarkov gets something in the region of 210 points.

3) Electromagnetism would disagree with you there, and since electromagnetism is a fundamentel tenet of your theory you have a problem. 4) where are these particles in the vacuum? there is no evidence for them 5) Does not logically follow from three and four. 6) the whole point of a neutron is that it is chargeless. magnetic fields are generated when moving through an electric field. since neutrons do not have an electric field you have a problem. furthermore, neutrons are not fundamental, and magnetic fields can be experienced without them, namely as an effect of electrons which are fundamental. 7) you need to illustrate this statement more clearly "This force is a consequence of modified neutron to proton interaction." what is this interaction? what is the modification? furthermore, what about quarks?

1) you are dead wrong here. the theories are fine as they are, what there isn't is an analytical expression, which is impossible to achieve for any multi body problem. 2) also wrong, there is evidence, for example neutrino oscillations. 3) Gravity waves are not the same as Gravitons. Gravity waves are an effect that are predicted by general relativity, and Gravitons are a possible forge carrier in a Quanum Gravity which has not been devised yet.

you're being far too general. while metal, and particularly heavy metals, are the cause of some ailments due to their effect on enzymes and proteins, they are not a major issue throughout the population. If you think they are, I want to see proper evidence of this, including abundances of metals in target problem areas, their effect on enzymes, protiens and ion transport channels etc and a proper discounting of other causes, such as genetics, physical damage and the effects of dehydration.

I guessed so... anyway, I can't see what the private sector would want with it.

they would be terrible WMD. besides, it's only the fanatics and dictators that really need getting rid of. all WMD would do is upset people. anyway, I'm not discussing war...

the whole idea of a silicon based life form is rather odd... it is not likely that it would be a solid computer like thing, although one cannot really speculate, since generally speaking, life requires an ability to be able to transport various substances around it's body, this requires solvents, and the most common solvent is water. now there are alot of carbon based molecules that will dissolve easily in water, but so far as I know, this is not the case for silicon. also when one considers the strength of the chemical bonds between carbon, there are far preferable to silicon, which would be far less stable. at any rate, a silicon based life form would still have to be cellular, as we are, since that would be the simplest form of life around, and have to evolve from that. there are also other chemical reasons why carbon based life forms are more likely. Granted it would be very unlike us - no crossing food/wind pipes, probably not bipedal, five fingers toes etc, it is possible that whatever passed for it's DNA would be radically different from ours, at the very least in it's chromosomal structure, however it would still suffer pretty much the same physical limitations as we do in terms of intellectual ability. the only advantage they may really have had is that they have been round longer, and with more advanced computer technology, have developed sentient machines and computers. now these have the ability to far outstrip organic life in terms of speed, efficiency and strength, and indeed I feel that this is the path that evolution will follow. of course this is entirely conjecture.....

the actual speed of a signal along the nerves depends on amongst other things, the diameter of the axon, and whether or not the axon is myelinated. (ours are) It is extremely useful for some species to have extremely rapid nerve responses, usually as part of a reflex escape mechanism, such as in the squid giant axon (which is up to a millimetre across) in humans though it is not practical to have axons of this diameter, and also evolution (or design, I leave that up to other people) has come up with a better way of transmitting high velocity signals, namely by coating the axons with a myelin sheet (a type of fat) however there are limits again to the speed of the signal along the axon depending on the diameter of the myalinated axon, and the relative diameters of the myelin sheathe and the axon itself. now sentience is reliant mostly on the complexity and surface area of the brain (particularly the cortex), which in humans is very much folded up, and of the region of 5x the surface area of your whole head. this complexity effectively limits the speed at which a complex sentient brain such as ours can operate, granted you could improve it by increasing the diameters, and making the brain volume as a whole bigger, but it would have to be ALOT bigger to have any significant effect, and the practicalities of evolution would nullify this effect, so, while species such as some shrimp, squid etc may react and I guess, think, alot faster than us, their thought processes are vastly simpler, and even given a suitably stressful environment, it is unlikely that this extra speed would follow on in their path to sentience, as they would have to be absolutely huge if they were to achieve a level of sentience anywhere near our own. I don't recall the formulae at the moment unfortunately, but I guess I could try and work it out, calculating the increase in volume of the axon itself, and assuming that this would necessitate a brain size increased by the same multiplier. I hope I haven't been overly technical aah, I found a site stating that the diameter of the squid giant axon is about 100x that of a mammalian axon http://www.mbl.edu/publications/Loligo/squid/neuro1.html that would make the area of an axon about 2500x that of a mammal (pi*radius^2) which would mean at the very least the brain needed to operate at the speed of a giant squid's reflex response would need to be 2500x the size, not taking into account other issues such as the extra distance involved, and the coordination and sychronisation of the brain over such a large area.

yes, I was talking to you... you're not an anime fan then :/

a good diet, funnily enough works wonders, and plenty of water. that way you can get down to about 5.5 - 6 hours of sleep a night no worries.

well it all comes down to evidence, If I see it, then I am more likely to believe. I'll have to keep my eye out for this book though, it could be rather interesting when one takes the sphinx into account, noting that the sphinx has been eroded somewhat by water (graham hancocks books are a good source of information on this) .... which is rather interesting since the whole area has been arid for thousands of years.

well I read a few that I have access to, like Science nature Scientific American and New Scientist. plus I pull up alot of journal articles throught the internet when I see something interesting - one of the benefits of being at university is that they often have access to all the online Journals, wheras normally you would have to pay for each article or a subscription...

heh, only one in physics, but I do alot of reading, so I have a fairly broad knowledge of stuff generally. I couldn't tell you any fine details on alot of this stuff though, as alas, free time is only finite.

google knows all. It's a modern day oracle of sorts.

oh actually turn it into someone elses, sorry I missed that bit (I was rushing with the reply - remind me to pay more attention!)... hmm... I doubt it. it would be immensely complicated, and would probably have all sorts of side effects...... in a limited way people are trying to do this, in ways I have suggested, though usually it is just to trick the body into doing something new or not doing something it normally does - for example in transplant patients, there is a real effort being made into tricking the host body into thinking that the transplanted organ is actually a natural part of that body, and hence, hopefully, removing the need to remain on a course of immunosupressants for the rest of their life. I doubt the entire body could be changed totally though, and once the structures such as bone are there, I doubt that there would be any major changes took place. Perhaps in terms of chemicals and so on, and responde to chemicals, as these things occur on a cellular level, but bone structure wouldn't change and the only differences in terms of appearance would be the differences the various chemicals and hormones and such imposed, along with the different sensitivities to these said chemicals.

it is already being attempted I believe, with some success, in the case of cystic fibrosis, haemophilia and so on. It is still primitive technology though, and not available beyond the score of research I think. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/visualize0502.asp

look at those links I posted.

I find Dupont's suggestion more feasible, considering the volume of water you can actually stick into the basement, compared to the amount that is usually present in air. granted there may be a certain amount of dehumidification occuring from the air, but not alot. and it would be best to humidify it in the first place, as this method suggests.

any maths?

that seems to contradict all the info I can find.... I can't find anything about the pyramids dehumidifying water directly from the air in the manner you describe.

animation? know where I get my nick from then?

not the one you describe, which is particles pushing one another round in a circle.

the water is boiled off, and then condensed higher up from what I gather, none of the impurities are carried up there. It is in effect a glorified desalination plant. http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/04/11/27547.html

what about momentum conservation then?

there is still alot of behaviour of the various particles to find as yet, although ultimately these constructions are no more than huge scientific facilities - you couldn't boil a cup of tea with them for example. So in that sense they are useless. on the flip side though, there has been alot of research into detection devices, superconductors and so on that has commercial applications that provide benefits beyond merely those of the discovery of new stuff. Furthermore, the theories and such that are spawned from these may have implications further down the line, as Quantum mechanics does. 50-60 years ago, I'm sure people asked the same about QM, but look now, Quantum computers, entanglement, computer technology, Quantum Well and Semiconductor lasers etc... all impossible without QM.