John Cuthber

Well, the simple answer first You can use any set of units and, with the right ones you would get an answer in horsepopwer. The number you get from E=MC2 depends on the units you use. If you use feet per second and (I think) a rather odd unit of mass called the slug then you get the answer in foot pounds per second. A horsepower is 550 foot pounds per second, so you divide by 550 to get the answer in horsepower. Normally we use the SI units in science. We measure distance in metres, mass in kilograms and time in seconds. The speed of light is about 300,000,000 metres per second and so the square of that is about 90,000,000,000,000,000 metres squared per second squared (a very odd unit, but never mind) For your lump of stuff weighing 3.2 Kg the energy comes out at 288,000,000,000,000,000 kilogram metres squared per second. The nice thing about the SI set of units is that they are "consistent". That means that the answer automatically comes out in the right units. (without having to use weird units like the slug and then dividing by 550) The SI unit of energy is the Joule so the energy is 288,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. A joule of energy is roughly equal to the energy released by dropping a baseball of a table. The answer to the question why do we square the speed of light is a bit trickier. The simple answer is that it takes more energy to get a car from 10 MPH to 20 than it does to get it from 0 to 10 even though the change in speed is the same. So energy is not simply proportional to the speed, it increases faster than the speed. It turns out that the energy increases as the square of the speed. This might help explain it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy Anyway, it turns out that energy is related to the square of the speed and the same happens with E=MC2 You might want to get hold of a copy of the book called "Why does E=MC2?"

At the risk of being sued, I think the common consensus is that they are a weird cult. Here's an example of their belief. "According to Scientology, when a person dies — or, in Scientology terms, when a thetan abandons its physical body — they go to a "landing station" on the planet Venus, where the thetan is re-implanted and told lies about its past life and its next life. The Venusians take the thetan, "capsule" it, and send it back to Earth to be dumped into the ocean off the coast of California. " from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thetan

I foresee a different problem. A hydrogen escape that met a tuft of platinised glass wool ( which is what the stuff is really made from) would explode. Initially the reaction would take place on the surface of the Pt, but that reaction generates a lot of heat. The Pt would get hotter until it ignited the gas. This was used many years ago ( before they had reliable matches) as a fire lighter.

As far as I can see, the titre of the the sample should be less than the blank. I think there's an error in the method.

The effects of chronic fluoride toxicity are well documented. (Mottled teeth etc.) For what it's worth, I have an aunt who grew up in an area where the natural fluoride levels are high enough to induce those symptoms. You might want to argue with her about "creativity", but I wouldn't. So, we know from common experience that these ideas put forward by the conspiracy nutters are simply wrong. Why do they keep on about it? Perhaps they lack the creativity to come up with a better idea.

Ask Mrs T http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War

"My girlfriend keeps yelling at me to shut up about the sun." Did it occur to you that she might be right?

I do. However, perhaps you would like to come up with a better test. Alternatively you might want to accept that your assertion, being untestable, is probably unscientific and shouldn't be here.

"Is it safe to assume that eating an unhealthy animal is bad for you? " I don't know. All the ones I have eaten have been unhealthy to the point of being dead.

"the box is filled with a transparent material that emits light where two lasers overlap" For example...?

Interestingly, this "Evolutionary processes interacted with changing weapons technology initially to make people taller, since ergonomically you can fight more effectively with your bare hands if you are shorter and more stable on the ground" is reasonably testable. Are Sumo wrestlers generally taller or shorter than the population from which they are chosen? My hunch, based entirely on prejudice, is that the wrestlers are tall and so the idea is false.

ghijk, Have you seen what has happened in Somalia? That's pretty close to an anarchist country; and it's not a nice place to be.

arc tan means the inverse of tangent. So, tan (45 degree) = 1. Arctan (1) =45 degrees. It's a particularly stupid bit of nomenclature

All that shows is that mice will not be constructed in the same way as elephants. So what? Evolution isn't stupid. If there's some reason why tall people have more children then the race will, on average, become taller. However if these tall people can't do a lot because their backs are not strong enough then they won't have so may kids and the average height will fall. Actually it will just never get to the point where being tall is a significant problem. So the answer to te question "does this suggest that humans will become very weak and when born perhaps collapse under their own weight within a few hundred years? " is no.

"So when all-optical CPUs are the norm, 400 nm is the sweet spot between high speed and human safety. " 400 nm isn't a sensible cut-off. If you were to use 180 nM then, if any did escape from the processor it would be absorbed by oxygen in the air - so it would never reach any people. Of course, this would still only happen if the chip failed big style. A better solution would be to choose the wavelength on the basis of whatever you can get to work. Then put the chip in a box.

A bit of steel mesh will meet the requirement of passing isobutylene. What do you want it to hold back? Anyway, I'd try a membrane made form polyisobutylene since it should be easy to get and rubbery materials are often gas permeable, (though butyl rubber is less permeable than many).

"For the equation I came up with: Ni2(SO4)3 + 6H20 → 2Ni + 6OH + 6H + 3SO4 Is this this correct?" No, and it's not just the charges that matter though they would probably help you see what's going on..

For chemical processes (and in principle nuclear ones too) the rate of reaction is temperature dependent, so even if every molecule had a half life, it would depend on the environment. Incidentally, by this time tomorrow there's every chance that the enzymes in my liver that are responsible for the oxidation of alcohol will be saturated and so the rate of loss of alcohol from me will be roughly zero order, rather than the first order decay that is characterised by a (single) half life. On the other hand, the caffeine in the cola I had earlier is a diuretic and since the kidneys are (largely) responsible for excretion of caffeine, the more caffeine there is the faster they produce urine and get rid of the caffeine. So the loss of caffeine is a bit faster than first order and, again, that's not characterised by a simple half- life. Biology is, in general, very complicated.

"You could always carry a wild rage-bearing cat with you and throw it in his face when he attacks you. I swear to god cats like this are suffering embodied." Once again, I'm amused by the lack of respect for the law (about animal cruelty). Anyway, it reminded me of this http://www.xkcd.com/325/

"cr++? What are you talking about? Chromium? Hexavalent chromium salts are already regulated but chrmium is an element. It's kinda hard to ban an element. " Banning the chromous ion (Cr++) would be roughly as stupid as trying to ban chromium. I wonder what he really meant.

They would probably ask to see the risk assessment for the process.

It's quite possible to have a suspension of, for example, sugar in a saturated solution of sugar. The odd thing is that the sugar is soluble. If you play the same game with radiolabeled sugar you can prove it. The important difference is, as Captain pointed out Solution: no solid particles. All material is dissolved. Suspension: solid particles present. Not all material dissolved.

"Apartheid They initiated apartheid in South Africa. Thankfully apartheid is not a problem now because of Nelson Mandela. " I think that, had the English initiated this they would have called it something like "Separateness" or "segregation" . The reason it's known by an Afrikaans name is that it's not actually English. Anyway, as for the reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtx3ezwDyO0&feature=related

Just a thought, but the plunger seals in cheap syringes are made from rubber and balloons are made from rubber; so anything that will destroy a balloon...

I can , in principle, calculate the solubility of tungsten in liquid helium. It won't be big, but it will not be zero. So, since everything is at least slightly soluble, according to Dan_Ny's definition, no suspension exists. Perhaps you would like another try?