Cap'n Refsmmat

This is, in my opinion, the key point of the entire post. Anyway, thread closed.

That explains the whole unicorn problem in one shot, I think.

And you assumed that his number is "incredible" given that sea levels are rising slowly right now, even though his account likely takes into account numerous other factors that would change the rate of rise. In other words, I find your incredulousity not credible.

Of course, his estimate probably took into account far more important details than your back-of-the-envelope calculation.

What sort of margin of error did he put on his claim? The media might report it as "the sea will rise by 5 metres! We're all going to die" but he may have stated it as "the sea will rise by five metres, plus or minus two." Margin of error is key when using predicted numbers like that.

You mean "If I were to understand the subjunctive, I'd be perfect"?

I'm fairly certain that He already broke the rules when He did stuff like the seven plagues of Egypt. Breaking His own laws isn't a problem here.

You don't really "break" the atoms. You essentially either steal an electron (or two) from the atom or give it some extra electrons. That's how you get an ion.

Not really. You can use the Preview Post feature and try it as many times as you'd like though.

Depends on how big it is. A solar sail would have to be enormous, and it would only have a very slight effect -- you'd have to plant it on the asteroid with years of warning. If you want to organize an asteroid-blasting mission in just a week you'll need the technology ready to go. If we were to detect an asteroid now, there'd be nothing we could do unless it was years away. We just don't have the systems built.

I recall reading somewhere that the diversity of certain alleles could not arise over such a short time from limited genetic diversity, but I can't find the article right now. I'll see if I can dig that up.

I propose we hereby outlaw men. They've always been trouble anyways. Errr, wait...

The Earth is capable of producing its own heat -- the immense pressure at the center of the Earth is enough to liquefy rock and keep things warm. You'd have to wait for the Earth to "go out."

It's five billion years, actually. The answers to your questions: About eight minutes. It is pretty much impossible for anything to cool to 0 Kelvin. Take a look at the Wikipedia article on it.

I don't think you'd shoot yourself unless you really "meant" it. Perhaps a better explanation would be that drug overdoses just don't tend to be very lethal -- modern medical care can treat an overdose, but you can't treat a bullet to the head.

Yeah, at this point learning a new language for me has become a matter of learning the specific syntax and a few basic bits and then calling it good. The rest carries over from other languages.

No, the sum of the forces applied is not zero. Otherwise they'd be moving in a straight line tangential to their orbit. Astronauts in orbit are being constantly accelerated because they're traveling in a circle. They're not just floating there with no forces being applied on them.

Standard missiles can engage an airborne target over 100 miles away. You can provide air defense support to a carrier battle group (which can be miles across) with just a few cruisers. As for cruise missiles, yes, you have to be in closer, but the easy defense is to shoot down the attack aircraft before they can launch them. Of course, if F-14s were still operational it would just be a matter of running a combat air patrol of F-14s loaded with Phoenix missiles -- Phoenixes have a range of 100 miles and can engage cruise missile targets.

You installed the two drives on the same cable, I take it?

Why do you have to stop it?

Why is there no such thing?

I don't mind approximating a bit. The errors introduced, supposing you are correct, are too small to be measured.

How can you have a single discrete point on a totally continuous graph? Answer: we can, and we do it all the time. Mathematics, and especially calculus, helps us take care of these problems. The counterexample to your claims is that physics actually works and provides accurate answers.

Sure. In any case, the change in g is so miniscule over small distances that we can safely ignore it.