John Cuthber

Are you really saying that the fact that roughly twice as big a fraction American babies die young as do in Iceland is trivial? That's odd. Infant mortality is widely used as a measure of the general health of a nation. Given the large numbers of people involved (even with Iceland's small population) I think it's fair to assume that the difference between about 3 per mil and about 6 per mil is significant. I can probably estimate the error margins if you want.

Pins 1 and 5 allow you to offset the chip's null and pin 8 lets you strobe the chip. What research did you do before asking that question here?

Without any real data on the incidence of these speech impediments (any of which may be referred to colloquially as a lisp) there is nothing but guesswork and bias here. So, lets test what looks like the only really testable claim here. Marat's assertion that "If you watch BBC World News you will hear more than a few news presenters with very strong lisps, " Those newscasts are on-line. Please list a few of these lisping presenters, with web addresses. Incidentally, even if it's true that we have lots of them (there are certainly some) that just means we are more tolerant of variety. The same goes with our observation that you don't need "perfect" teeth to be a productive member of society. Incidentally, Re. "It is difficult to prove my assertion that it is much more common in England than in America, but there is a phrase, "the English lisp," though I know of no comparable phrase such as "the Australian lisp" or "the American lisp." " There is the so called "Chinese" lisp (OK, technically, its rhotacism rather than a lisp but that's what it's called) Are you going to psychoanalyse one of the largest groups on the planet on the basis of one speech trait? The reverse of the "English lisp" is common among French speakers trying to learn English. They pronounce th as either s or z. Are you going to speculate wildly that they all want to be geriatrics? God alone knows what he would have made of this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_lisp Can I also point out the irony of a criticism of what is essentially lazy pronunciation from a representative of the country that turned "How do you do, you all?" into "Howdy yall"? On a lighter note

By far the most likely explanation for the "phenomenon" is that it's a product of Marat's imagination. He also ignores other bits of reality " How many American politicians have you ever seen with a strong lisp? None, because they would be laughed out of their business." Well, Rudy for one. "Notably the former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, has this type of lisp." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(speech) I have an alternative explanation or two. England has a lot of regional accents, some of these are quite difficult to understand. Marat has come here and, through a lack of familliarity, has failed to understand them. Rather than accept his own failure, he has imagined an epidemic of lisping so he can blame someone else. It is certainly possible that the "public school" accent is common in the groups he has encountered and he has mistaken a class distinction shibboleth for a lisp.

The pronunciation of r as w is also a class thing. It's commoner in those who are, or wish to be seen as being, upper class.

The area of the earth is about 5 E 14 m^2 The volume is about 0.0005 m^3 so the thickness if spread out over the whole world would be 9.8 E -19 metres A water molecule is about 1E-10 metres so , assuming that human waste is mainly water you would need something like ten billion stools to cover the earth one molecule thick. That's roughly one each.

I'd love to be able to supply a reason, but I can't; my guess is that it's rather complicated but the infant mortality in the US is twice as high as the leaders'. Twice as much chance of a child dying isn't something I would describe as "almost trivial".

"after living for 13 years in England I would have to say that about 10% of the people there speak with a lisp, often in such an extreme form that they are nearly incompwehensiboo." I have lived in England a lot longer than that and I doubt that there are anything like that many people with a lisp. Do you actually think a society could get by if one in 10 couldn't make themselves understood? Before launching off into some explanation of this "observation" I think you need to show some sort of evidence that it's plausible never mind true.

The photon will do exactly as it pleases no matter whether I take it as a particle, a wave or an ice-cream cone. The question stands. Does that interaction change the direction of the photon? If it does then the photon won't reach us.

Why, will it help? Is it, for example, actual evidence, or is it just a big pretty coloured table? Apart from anything else, nuclear stability isn't anything to do with the periodic table so, if that post is relevant to my question then it's off topic.

OK, not 33rd on this list would be a start http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate A better place in this one might be better too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_death_rate Also if you could do it without spending a lot more than anybody else (as a % of GDP) that would be good too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care#Health_care_by_country I think the developed world roughly corresponds to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OECD

"My contention is that we are not looking in the right place for a stable high Z nucleus." Based on what? The evidence so far shows that I am right.

I can't see how such an interaction would fail to change the direction of the original photon. Anyway the OP was talking about interactions with matter.

The idea that "i think boiled water has no impurities" is speculative to the point of being plainly wrong. Anything based on that idea is also speculative. The fact that water can generally be supercooled a bit isn't speculative, it's just an observation. The given reason is pure speculation. anyway there are two questions in the OP "can boiled water be supercooled?" to which the answer is yes and "i think it can because i think boiled water has no impurities and that it can be supercooled, do you ?" to which the answer is (from most people's point of view), no.

ProcuratorIncendia, Imagine a single photon travelling through empty space. If it "loses energy" as you say then what does it transfer that energy to? If there is no transfer of energy to something else, but the photon loses energy then that is a clear break in the law of conservation of energy. Why do you think something needs to expend energy just to keep moving? Even worse, imaging I look at a rock as I walk past. From my point of view it is moving. If you are right then, in order to be moving it has to expend energy. The problem is that, in the same way, when I go for a walk every object in the universe has to expend energy to move (from my point of view) How can that happen?

It won't work. There will always be some energy losses from the system (for example, the lamps will get warm). The solar panels will never generate enough power to keep the batteries charged.

"as a result of the interaction, it will have less energy" Why? There are a limited number of ways photons interact with mater. They may be absorbed, they might be reflected and they might be scattered with, or without a shift in wavelength. Any of those processes would mean that the photon wouldn't reach us. The photons that get here didn't interact with anything on the way. That's how they got this far.

It belongs in speculations because of this bit " i think it can because i think boiled water has no impurities " If I take some water and add sugar then boil it, the sugar is still there. Boiling water doesn't generally remove impurities.

Can it live in a shoebox with a light? That would make things a bit easier.

It works with ammonium chloride on a hot plate too.

No, it could just be a fluke. That's the difference between climate and weather.

Not sure if the post is gibberish or just written by someone whose English isn't very clear. Are you asking How big is a typical stool? and How many would you need to cover the surface of the earth?

In principle, it's a very simple experiment. Take a flash photograph of a fast moving object as it goes past a ruler. In practice it's more tricky that that. Getting any object to move fast enough for the effect to be measurable is hard enough. The problem with your original idea is, as uncool says, you have assumed that SR is false and the used that to show that SR is false. Logically, that is nonsense.

That reaction won't happen. The reverse reaction would be rather vigorous.

I can see a couple of problems, part of the oxygen used up is replaced by an equal volume of CO2, so the change in volume won't be as big as you expect. Also I wonder if, like termites and people (among others) mealworms produce methane. Also, of course, without a perfect seal, this simply won't work.