Rasori

Not that it's helpful... but, so you know, I like to think of ALL important discoveries as 'freak accidents'. If they weren't, it makes you wonder how the idea of a suppository came about... *cringe*

I have to agree with YT about the books vs meat cleaver thing. YT, I don't think it's "learn to duck fast". I think it's "hope you already CAN duck fast". I wouldn't like to practice ducking under that meat cleaver... ouch!

Queen ants have wings UNTIL they become the mother of a colony, meaning that as soon as they become a bag of eggs they lose their wings (as they wouldn't be able to fly anyway). As for any other subject, I'm no help- I only read about ants (I had planned to do something with them for a science fair, but the science fair never happened...).

I say BRING ON THE INDEPENDENT STUDY PROJECTS... at least we get to CHOOSE what we want to do with those. My personal... peeve... is writing prompts. Yeah, someday we'll likely have to write what we don't want to, but we won't be required to do it in an hour and in some cases won't be required to at all. It's nowhere near a good judgement of how well we write- I recently had to make a portfolio for an advanced English course and I made sure I included my own work, not just stuff I was forced to do. If they hadn't left the option, I'd never make it in. At least now I have a chance. I think a school day should consist of a teacher telling us what we need to know (not in notes, but generally, such as how to do scientific notation or something) by the end of the day. After that, we should spend time on the computer (which, this is the computer age, we should USE them), or in the book, and research the subject. For homework, we then have to create a presentation for each class explaining what we've learned. It's more work, yes, but it allows us to work at our own pace (and it's really frustrating when you've finished the page and the rest of the class is on the first paragraph) and allows us more creativity- do we write an essay, and if so what way do we write it, expository, persuasive? Do we maybe write a story- science is learning about hurricanes, why not write a (realistic) story about a person stuck in a hurricane? Maybe make graphs for math in excel, make powerpoint presentations about a certain book. Dunno, just an idea.

Oh... I must need a psychiatrist then... oops

Well, then, I is a genious! 2+2=1302760265947245928663AasfYTasjaShgdkDSFHsdafdfhgdf

How about hiring a nobody to make a new language (characters included) and storing the decipher keys in nothing but his head. The government would look for the people who had the message or program, but the nobody wouldn't be in that group. And it's hard to find a nobody in a world with 6 Billion + nobodies. Then, of course, pay the nobody with cash (untraceable), and have him access the computer with the program/message on it through 50 different computers, starting at a different computer (public library, internet cafe, etc) each time. And by through 50 different computers, I mean to use that gotomypc thing, then access it on each computer until you finally get to the main computer itself. But, it requires a lot of money, a real important need, and a computer geek who has a REALLY good memory.

I'll add one, thanks. The chances that a species at our current level of development can avoid going extinct before becoming technologically mature is reasonably good AND almost no technologically mature civilisations are interested in running computer simulations of minds like ours. Honestly, I hate just knowing I have a semblance of a mind. I wouldn't want to pass off this sorry excuse of computing power to anyone or thing else, and I have no need to study it via simulation because never will AI be quite the same as a true human brain. So why create a simulation of a mind like ours if it still isn't going to be the same and will yield little or no scientific fruits? Oh, and someday I wish to earn 1,000 pseudoscience points in a single thread.

I have a constant ringing in my ear. It's not annoying, hell, it's almost silent, but it's there if I have nothing better to pay attention to. Never thought it was much of a problem, I hear fine with it, and it doesn't annoy me. It's just... there. Like that weird off-color dot I see. I try to focus on it, but then I chase it away (it's off-center). Usually though, it's not really there because I don't pay attention to it. Dunno, maybe I'm strange, but thought y'all would like to hear... yeah, right.

Beside the point. But the majority of it... or at least quite a bit of it, is a vacuum.

So it's just bouncing off the dust particles, basically? Have any major experiments been performed regarding lasers in a vacuum? Particularly the one we all lovingly call 'space' or some derivation thereof? Just curious on how the perform in extreme temperatures and extreme... uh... nothingness...

Wow... So a particle that acts like a wave... I'm just gonna stop there, because I get it but I still want to repeat it in disbelief. But you all wouldn't want to lie to me. Is there a reason why sometimes you can see the beam of the laser and other times you can't? I've had a laser pointer (granted, one of those like 5 dollar ones, but still a laser pointer) and you could always see the point that it makes. But sometimes, the line between the point and the emitter is invisible. Sometimes you can even see part of it and a little later you can't. Is it just the angle of it, or what? Or am I just imagining things? Otherwise, I think I understand what I first asked about.

Brief history of time? Hmm... sorry, sounds like an oxymoron, since time's been around for billions of years. Probably explains why I hadn't read it before. So it's both, but even in a vacuum it's still a wave, and not on its own particles... hmm. Or were we both misunderstood? I said: "Interesting, to say the least. So that means that if you somehow removed the photon that that wave of light would cease to exist? For example, if there was a laser in space and you were to remove the photons from it's beam, the laser would cease to continue onward? " But I meant more like: Interesting, to say the least. So that means that if you somehow removed the photon in a wave of light in space then that wave of light would cease to exist? For example, if there was a laser in space and you were to remove the photons from it's beam, the laser would cease to continue onward? Probably doesn't make a difference, but just wondering.

Hmm... So it's a wave on its own particles... Interesting, to say the least. So that means that if you somehow removed the photon that that wave of light would cease to exist? For example, if there was a laser in space and you were to remove the photons from it's beam, the laser would cease to continue onward?

I heard it said somewhere that light is both a particle and a wave. Yeah, okay. I'm in eighth grade, this tells me very little So, light is a particle, because it has to be otherwise it can't travel through space. So then, why does it have wave properties? Why can't it just be a particle? (I'm sure this is probably something obvious- it needs to cover too much area for a few particles to work on it, or something.) Also, when it hits something that isn't a vaccuum, like our atmosphere, does the particle dissipate, or what? I'm assuming that's the point when it switches to waves, but why and how? Now onto the other topic- lasers. Lasers are still light, so it still consists of particles and waves. The main difference: the light stays in a straight line. Other than this, what are the other major differences? I'm sure that I, being the uneducated fool that I am, will come up with more stupid questions, but this should be enough for now.

Pretty sure this is the right forum for this. Say you have something cone-shaped. The large end of the cone has some sort of propeller in it that causes it to pull air into the cone. This also means that the air will be pushed out the back as new air is pulled into the cone. Now, let's just throw some figures out. Say the large opening is a circle with a 10-inch diameter. The propeller is producing 10 pounds of thrust. The small opening in the cone is a circle with a 1-inch diameter. Am I correct in assuming that the air coming out of the cone is at 100 pounds of thrust? Now, that makes it seem very easy to make a lot of power. Knowing what I do know, there must be a cap to the amount of power created before the air can't be compressed to create that much thrust. So, what would the limit likely be? Also, what other factors affect the amount of power? Would things like the length (or technically height, but it's horizontal in this scenario) affect it? Thanks for whatever you might tell me.

You know about the unicorns too? LOL I'm obviously not experienced enough to carry on a full blown argument, so I'll just end it with that.

Is MORE common than we think, but there still is a percentage of 'coincidences' that COULD be more. From what I've been taught, you don't dismiss a concept until there's something that disproves it entirely. On the other hand, you don't completely accept a theory until you have sufficient evidence to support it, but the idea stands that you should at least accept the POSSIBILITY of these things.

My favorite view on life was mentioned in the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. "Life is its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life as possible." As such, to me, immortality isn't of any use. For one thing, you'd get bored quickly. Second of all, using the above as my reasoning of life, assuming my view on the qualities of evolution, the human body would lose the capacity to reproduce should we all be immortal. Hence life cannot be the propagation of more life. To put it simply, maybe an extended life, but not immortality.

Rockstar, well put. Back in post 60, YT said: For one thing, it is a person's desire to be "accepted." There are millions of people out there who won't share things about themselves for a fear of being 'exiled'. I've noticed that among nearly all Americans, there are two things that no one cares about when someone abuses another for it. First and foremost, it's homosexuality. At a near second is fatness and/or obesity (whichever you prefer to call it). You'll notice that there's just a select few people who will step in for someone being attacked, verbally or physically, for one of those reasons. It is common in both adult and child, and is, to me, unacceptable. On a side note, a few posts early on mentioned how more and more people are admitting to homosexuality. They said that it was because it was an option. 10% of all humans are homosexual, as was mentioned before. More come out nowadays because 10% of six billion is a larger number than 10% of 5 billion, 4 billion, 3 billion, 2 billion, etc. As such, more and more people will come out because there are more and more people constituting that 10%. It is simple mathematics.

I didn't say (or rather, didn't mean to say, sorry) premonition. I just think that there's the POSSIBILITY of something more than coincidence as opposed to some people here (including yourself) outruling it outright. I always thought part of being a scientist was keeping your mind open...

Coincedence may be common, but a coincedence that is starkingly real (the same exact conditions) as opposed to a coincedence like, "Whoa, I had a hotdog with mustard and relish like that too!" has to be more than just a coincedence.

Following some links there, I found this: If we could ever teleport a virus, wouldn't that be like the cure for a lot of things? You find all the virus cells in someone's body and just poof them away. No more common colds or flus or anything. Plus, couldn't you then like adapt it to teleport cells (like... say, cancer cells) out of one's body? Possibilities, if we can get as far as some thing, are nearly endless.

Different orbit, different schmorbit. Just pick it up with a Canadarm and pull it, sheez

A bunch of non-believers, the lot of ya. I had a dream once that I was running away from a giant rubber band ball (dunno why, but what the hey?) I was tripping and falling over the stuff in my room and started pounding on the door cause it was 'locked' (doors in my house lock from the inside...) I woke up like that. So that's sleepwalking and off topic (thought you'd wanna hear the rubber band ball story). As for on topic, I had a dream once of a video game (I'm a geek, I admit) on a certain level, in a certain spot, in a certain car. Game was Vigilante 8 or something like that. Level was the snowy one, car was the dump truck, spot was the slaloms. I woke up afraid, for whatever reason, with that dream on my mind. Walk into the living room and, of course, my brother was playing same game, same level, same car, same spot. Needless to say, it scared me. So yeah, it could be coincidence, but I don't think so. NOTE: If you didn't realize, I'm parenthesis crazy today!