Phi for All

! Moderator Note I can change the spelling in the title back, if you prefer. I was unaware of the multiple versions. Also, for everyone, let's focus on the arguments to keep the discussion from being personal.

! Moderator Note Winner of the Ironic Misspelling of the Week Award.

! Moderator Note Just a reminder to keep attacks focused on the argument and not the people involved, please.

Come on, as has been pointed out several times, there's a difference between not being enforced and being unenforceable. There's also a difference between abolishing the drinking age to set up a tots-for-tots situation and having laws in place that just don't get enforced when they don't cause a problem. Trust me, the laws do get enforced when suddenly one of these vulnerable vandals doesn't "seem to be coping" and ends up harming people or property. Promoting laws that lend flexibility to law enforcement is quite different from removing such laws in all cases. My first comment in this thread was a call for better education, and that's not always going to come from the home environment. I believe kids in the US who take drivers education courses are informed about the dangers of drink driving, and most kids get the drug talks in school as well, but I'm not sure they ever get the information about how alcohol affects them differently than an adult, and they really should. In addition to enforcement and support from home, of course. That's where it should have a firm grounding. But in case there is alcohol abuse in the home, and knowing misery loves company, another source of education seems appropriate. Except in this case the medical reasons for not allowing adolescents to drink alcohol are still as relevant as they've always been. And with modern technology, I think societal reasons for enforcing existing laws are making it more imperative to keep abuse to a minimum. I think you're distorting the position by pointing to normal, acceptable behavior while drinking and at the same time arguing against laws that try to prevent uncorrectable and often fatal mistakes by an inexperienced sector of the populace that are now eligible to drive vehicles that multiply their destructive capabilities by at least an order of magnitude. If you're not arguing for removing the laws as the OP suggests, then I apologize, but it seems like you're leaning that way. Or perhaps you've had a few and that's what's making you lean.

The OP is also from the UK, so I propose you do away with your legal drinking age, let anyone with money drink at the pubs, and let us know how that works out for all those vulnerable teen vandals. If it works out for you, maybe we'll start our own tots-for-tots program.

Let's assume you're a famous actor who makes US$20M per movie. Then the answer is... NO.

! Moderator Note Done.

You're moving the goalpost. The OP was clear about underage people getting drunk, not coping with it. If a bar in the US serves a minor who gets drunk and vandalizes property and gets caught, the bar loses it's liquor license. In most cases, that legal threat is enough to keep the bar owners from serving underage patrons.

I'd rather see some kind of education about the effects of alcohol offered in schools, because the real problem isn't drinking, it's getting drunk. I see no reason to change the laws just so the irresponsible ones can overindulge. Edit to add: I find it odd that you want to paint underage drinkers as vulnerable vandals. First, I don't think it's right to conflate underage drinking with black market drug trade, where people who just want a buzz have to deal with an organized criminal element. As you mention, the black market suppliers of alcohol are friends and family, the very people who should be supervising these young drinkers. Second, I have very little sympathy for anyone who would drink to the point where they felt it necessary or entertaining to destroy someone else's property. Alcohol and impaired judgement aside, the vandal mentality doesn't just spring to life when you've had a few too many.

Have you ever seen the Mythbuster episode where they're trying to break a beer bottle against a motorcycle helmet? They can't do it, because the helmet is designed to absorb the shock and spread the energy across itself so well that it won't even shatter glass. If you threw a beer bottle against that rigid, inch-thick steel body armor, it would easily break. For the bike rider, it would be all about collision and preventing as much shock as possible, spreading it more evenly across a wider surface. What you've got now is more like tank plating to stop bullets. To kill a properly armored hoverbike rider, who probably has some fire protection as well, you're going to need something that doesn't attack him where he's strong, especially when it needs to be hard to detect or trace. I'm starting to like the poison or electrocution angles. Something that's going to make him lose control and fall off that bike at his top speed. Physics does the rest.

As I understand it, your question is too broad to give you a meaningful answer. All explosions are not alike. Some are more sound and light, others throw shrapnel about, still others are more designed for concussive force. You've already got a LOT of energy involved in the speed your rider is at. Any explosion aimed back at the rider is going to be like hitting a wall as far as his internal organs are concerned (especially with that rigid armor, which I think is a mistake). You don't need him in bits and pieces to kill him from sudden deceleration. A charge big enough to instantly cut his speed in half is going to be like a sledge hammer on each of his internal organs.

Depending on where Mars and the Earth are in their orbits, light from Earth can take anywhere from about 3 minutes to 22 minutes to get to Mars.

Did the saboteur want to remain undetected even after the "accident"? If so, an explosion on a maglev bike seems suspicious. What's the power source? What could explode? Perhaps whatever holds him on the bike could malfunction, like a rigged safety harness. If his belt opens on a turn and his center of gravity pulls the bike over too far, physics takes over and he corkscrews into the ground at 200+mph.

Is it supposed to be a total accident, ignoring how on earth his crew let him ride a bike that was about to explode, or was his bike tampered with to make it explode? Or did this experienced racer just push his bike too far? Are we supposed to be sad that he dies or just shrug it off to incompetence? Since it's the main character's father, how does the manner of his death affect the story? Btw, old slim people have heart attacks, too.

Next time, you only need to dye them at most overnight. Five months is too long.

Have it land on his back, where the idiot forgot to wear any armor.

*sigh* It was moved from a mainstream section because it was reported that you weren't listening to anyone's reasons why your procedure lacked rigor. You used terminology that was inconsistent, you seemed to purposely misunderstand repeated explanations, and after seven pages everyone had given up trying to help you see the point. I should have moved it to Speculations after the second page where it became clear you were conflating theory and law, and kept insisting there is some sort of mass conspiracy amongst scientists to ignore new evidence in favor of confirmed bias for existing theory, which was demonstrated to you to be false. That is inconsistent with the purpose of mainstream topics. And you continue in this vein here as well. You show nothing new and simply harp on things you refuse to understand. I normally welcome critique on our policies, and would happily try anything to make the site more fun, but not at the expense of the intellectual honesty of the rest of the membership or proven scientific methodology.

As others have said, any kind of armor that provides a rigid shell might protect against the rider skidding along the ground or having small projectiles fired at him, but for the force of rapid deceleration or explosion it's worthless since it does nothing to reduce acceleration at a rate his body can withstand. Your skull protects your brain from blows, but if you run headfirst into a brick wall, even if your skull doesn't crack, your brain is going to slosh against the skull pretty hard. That's why helmets are designed the way they are. You'd be better off protecting the body that way instead of any amount of rigid, thick steel. It might make a dramatic image if the bike explosion was engineered in such a way that the force of it exactly negated the forward acceleration (as you say, emanating from the dashboard straight backwards at him), dropping his crushed body straight down to the road.

I must have misunderstood the question. I didn't see where there was an impact before the explosion. I assumed the bike exploded first, since that's all we were told. Certainly, if he survived the explosion, body armor (especially armor protecting only his legs and chest) wouldn't do anything to help him survive the deceleration. Why would a bike racer only protect his chest and legs? Your speeds allow us to assume the race is on a pretty flat, fairly straight surface. Even if we assume he wears a helmet, if the armor is supposed to help him survive a slide if he falls off the bike, aren't the back and arms extremely vulnerable in that situation?

How does the hoverbike work, is it suspended on an air cushion or do you have some sort of maglev action going on? Could someone have tampered with the bike's magnetic field so it ended up crushing him like a deep sea diver whose air fails? Most of his body would end up in his helmet.

I've never denied that faith is important, or useful, or comforts many people. As far as changing the mental world, I don't think it's nearly as strong as trust when it comes to the things worthy of our belief. While faith might comfort some mentally in certain special situations, trust in reality does more to promote a healthy mental respect for what actually happens in this universe, in my opinion. Faith shouldn't be considered stronger than trust in reality, but it often is, and sometimes people die because it is. Mental world affects the physical and sometimes people forget that.

Faith is NOT stronger than medicine: Second Child Dies After Parents Use Prayer, No Medicine.

Sort of like, "I, personally, have never seen my opponent's lips move when he reads, nor do I put any stock in the rumors that he counts on his fingers under the table when asked how many beers he has for breakfast."

I don't know about that. If you become known for using logical fallacies, it can bring your entire argument into question, even when it's good. You can poison your own well, so to speak.

I think it's like a boxing match. If you think you can get away with putting a horseshoe in your glove, it will definitely help you win, but if you get caught, the rest of your hard work is all for nothing.