Sayonara

No, it's not just the heat. The atmosphere is thick CO2 with clouds of powerful sulphuric acid. The temperature on a good day is 450°C, and the atmospheric pressure is about 0.65 tons per square inch - crushingly high compared to atmospheric pressure on Earth (calculated at sea level) which is equal to 14.7 pounds per square inch. The very surface of the planet emits powerful microwave radiation. There's also some evidence of electrical storms in the atmosphere and volcanic violence. Every lander that has arrived on Venus has been destroyed almost immediately. Most survive a few seconds, the longest-lived lasted just 127 minutes before falling apart.

Oh god why will you not give us closure?

Even if we had the technology to safely visit, it would still be a spectacularly bad plan.

From the manufacturer's site as posted by Skye. Hmmm.

Going to Venus would be a spectacularly bad plan.

Just because you've never seen them with a lady, doesn't mean you can jump to wild conclusions.

http://a5.zencatalog.com/Group55/Catandog.html Well? Answer me now!

Ahem...

Isn't it the tides that are lunarly locked? It made me laugh.

I'M NORMAL I'M NORMAL

Then again, you haven't seen it so you have no idea how mind-numbingly boring it can be if you're not in the right mood (or don't like strings).

Science of mind is what brings that which cannot be named, because structure hinders the studier from comprehending the mind in it's true state, as opposed to a bag of satsumas.5 kilos and assorted nuts and bolts which only hinders Anna Kournikova from showing her true fiendish, but perfectly shaped flask containing Ethyl Alcohol. Therefore, the only reason Weetabix

You're a hippy, you don't count.

It's a fantastic movie; the cinematography was (and remains) astonishing in its scope. I can't watch it more than twice in one decade though or it gets monotonous

I understrand what you're saying and there is definitely a very real appeal to the idea that no idea can be discounted as impossible. Buty the universe is not infinite insofar as we measure it by the matter and/or the energy that it contains. Perhaps there are other universes where those possibilities that do not exist in our own can be fulfilled, but in all likelihood we will never know of them and in practical terms they therefore do not exist to us As far as the differences in biology go, I have to stress again the difference in the way biologists describe life, and the way other people describe life: The biologist says "these organisms are similar". The lay-person laughs because these odd creatures don't look anything like each other, but that's not what the biologist meant. He was describing the processes that governed the organisms, not their appearance. Nobody claimed that "aliens live or act by the same basic principles of the earthly known biology". What I suggested is that the limits imposed by all the varied chemical reactions that are possible directly impose constraints on what can and can't occur, and by the very nature of life will try to take the path of least resistance. This makes the majority of biological processes predictable. It is a mistake to suggest that theoretical biology is any less methodical than theoretical maths or physics. I liked "Sphere", despite the criticism it gets. It was an intriguing approach to the ecological aspects of both communication and predator evasion. Michael Crichton is going downhill though :-S

Look out, he's been at the medicine cabinet again. (Mew, lol).

Indeed I do agree that we are getting nowhere. Having the same argument that's been done to death elsewhere and bashing our skulls together when that gets boring is a bit of a drag

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Science of mind is what brings that which cannot be named, because structure hinders the studier from comprehending the mind in it's true state, as opposed to a bag of satsumas.5 kilos and assorted nuts and bolts which only hinder Anna Kournikova from showing her true fiendish

I'm pretty sure there wasn't a resolution that read "if Iraq doesn't comply with their wishes, the USA and UK can invade them", so you'll have to be a touch more specific. The UN has quite a few resolutions. Yes, which makes the attack a breach of international law. Which bit of that is hard to understand? I disagree with both points. In the first case, you are reaping what you sow. Your history is catalogued in some detail in the forums' administration area. In the second case, you are unilaterally ruling out the possibility of a user responding to a specific post but discussing a general subject. In the example of my post, where I stated "I can't argue against that so I will just ignore it is getting old too", this was meant to be commentary on the general attitude of people on the "pro war side" - just as I interpreted your "I really don't wish to discuss the illegal speak anymore its really getting old" to be commentary on the "anti war side". Why you would think that I accused you of ignoring something you had just posted about is something of a mystery to me. Damn, I'm so devious that even I don't notice my evil plans.

An interesting post (and I really like the signature ). I have some thoughts... We intercept at least four dimensions, since time is generally considered to be dimensional in nature. To be fair the question of what we can and cannot comprehend does rather depend on which part of the human race you are referring to, since there are plenty of physicists who can understand 16 separate conceptual dimensions. Are you sure about that? Certainly it is possible to consider a problem one does not understand, and to imagine possible solutions which may or may not bear any relation to the reality of the situation. Is this not thinking? No, not because we "can't" imagine something more elaborate, but because the most likely physical, biochemical and physiological processes are known. You have paraphrased the discussion from the other thread so much that it sounds ridiculous - it actually was not that simply declared and that was not the intended message. http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1520 For those who wish to read the thread. The pertinent part is here: "... although I said that there would be "similar organisms", do not take this to mean that you would find tigers, dolphins and men on your alien planet. It is true that there are certain attributes that provide an advantage, such as camoflauge stripes, a streamlined body or an opposable thumb. However, these can be expressed in innumerable combination and with such vastly wide-ranging properties that two animals sharing the same basic principle in an adaptation can be fantastically different beasts. I do have to question "The answer to your comments on evolution being similiar on another planet is absolutely not", because if we are talking about life on other worlds we have to assume some small degree of convergence at some point purely due to the numbers involved. Most of population biology and ecology is maths. Yes, evolution is a lot more likely to take a disimilar path than a similar one, but there's a good chance (due to carbon chemistry and the 'limits of reasonable adaptivity') that the distribution of adaptations and life form compositions across the galaxy fall along a curve, and we don't yet know where we appear on that curve. Who knows - maybe we are the freakiest mutazoids in the universe?" The vast majority of life will probably fall into some category that we would find familiar. This is based on the narrow range of conditions in which life has been found so far, and the slim range of chemical configurations that might possibly allow life processes to be carried out. Life is not a simple matter of just "being there", there is a system of chemical reactions driving it all and the rules of this system are fixed. The fact is that alien life does not have to be as bizarre and different as it can be. Evolutionary processes may reinvent the wheel a few times but this does not mean that every time an attribute arises the universe decides to try a whole new way of doing things. The functional purpose of life is to (i) route energy in an efficient way and (ii) continue. There are only so many ways to effectively accomplish both at the same time, and by the very nature of life itself Occam's Razor applies to biology far more viciously than in most other areas. The idea of strange beings made of energy or metal is an attractive one, but there are limits to what can actually happen so far as we understand the universe. Take the "metal life forms" thread for example: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=769 The advocates of metal life forms don't have enough knowledge of chemistry or physics to understand why their ideas are flawed. HOWEVER there is a very slim chance that the physics and chemistry applied in the thread is wrong, and the Aluminoids are in fact a species living happily on Neptune. Since there is so much evidence however that our knowledge of the basic physics and chemistry principles is sound, and no evidence whatsoever that any metallic lifeform exists anywhere, there's no reason to assume that such an outside chance needs to be considered. Calling this chance "impossible" is merely a euphemism for "it's so unlikely that most of physics and chemistry is wrong that I will not waste time trying to prove metal life exists. I'll worry about it when the Aluminoid ships start landing". That is simply not true - there is virtually no difference in physiology. The differences are mainly limited to attributes such as average height and melanocyte activity/distribution. The only real anatomical adaptations we see in humans are the thick adipose layer and distinctive shape of races who live the entire year in frozen wastelands, and this is due to a truly extreme difference in both environment and diet. The fact that there is superficial variation in a species does not alter the fact that there are finite ways to get around certain problems, such as cellular respiration and what have you. All of the processes that occur in an organism are the result of an energy trade-off of some kind, and these trade-offs can be predicted to account for the majority of cases. Agreed. But try to understand that arguing life elsewhere is likely to be similar to life on Earth, in form or function, does not mean that one has to rule out any other type of life. It's more the case that in biology, you mainly say what you see. As you imply, it is a very big universe, so making absolute statements can be a very bad idea depending on how much thought goes into them. If they're sentient, most likely they will have figured out the mathematical process. If Qangor has 3 rocks, and Xlaxxop gives him 5 more, he'll have 8 rocks in total. It doesn't matter what planet the exchange takes place on - the result will always be the same. 8, 5 and 3 themselves are simply symbols in a language. The grammar of that language is what's important. This is something that all scientists would do well to bear in mind. But consider that it is precisely because of this progress that we are able to make more accurate predictions today. The fact is that now we have a keen understanding of exotic subatomic processes. We can travel into space. We have observation facilities in orbit, and we are voyaging to other worlds - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3297651.stm The more we learn, the less likely it becomes that all of it is incorrect. The suggestion that someone came from nowhere and smashed a universally accepted truth on a whim is ridiculous. Clearly there has always been room for disagreement - that is how science has progressed for the better part of 500 years. You may want to dispute this, but before doing so I'd suggest that as an example case study you research the periodicals and journals that were around for, say, the 10 years before subatomic particles were discovered. There's nothing like a bit of research to demonstrate the necessity of research Those are worthy aims, but it is not practical to claim that nothing is impossible. There are some things we can predict with absolute certainty. Like the cores of stars not being made of ice cream, for example.

Science of mind is what brings that which cannot be named, because structure hinders the studier from comprehending the mind in it's true state, as opposed to a bag of satsumas.5 kilos and assorted nuts and bolts which only hinder Anna Kournikova

Yes, we've been through all this before. The UN charter basically says that unless the Security Council specifically identifies a threat and forms a resolution authorising the use of force, or a member country is directly attacked, a member CANNOT invade another country. Read this thread newbie. It's extremely long but very interesting http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=770 UN Resolutions List: http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1991/scres91.htm

OK, so your main argument is that this short entry to the UN web-site by Kofi Annan - the Secretary-General of the United Nations - fails to point the finger of blame? Some thoughts on that: - Pointing the finger is not the intention of the article. It is aimed at salving the many angry throngs worldwide who want assurances that the UN will put its house in order. - What is he meant to say exactly? "By the way folks, we wanted to stop the US but they vetoed all our sanctions against them. This is just like being back at school. Mock me. Lose any faith you ever had in our organisation." - The UN is as responsible in whole for the USA's actions as the USA is on its own. Admitting that the US not only broke the rules of the Security Council, but also got away with it, is very very bad for the reputation and the authority of the entire organisation. Labelling it as an internal problem is a lot less emabrassing. Read between the lines. - Finally, Kofi Annan fails to mention Egypt in the article. By your logic Egypt does not, therefore, have to exist.

I did not accuse you of taking any such stance. Do not make the mistake of assuming that anything I say in reply to your posts is directly aimed at you. Incidentally I find it ironic that you are so affronted at the idea of having words put in your mouth, yet so quick to do it to somebody else. Reading it now Taking into account your - shall we say - problematic history on this forum, I am amazed you consider I have any credibility to diminish. On the other hand, since giving and taking credibility from up on high is not something one does in response to being linked to an article as an aside (especially when one agrees that the article was, as stated, amusing), I think I'll just chalk that one up to you being bloody minded.