Phi for All

You have me there.

This is a very interesting and enjoyable way of putting it. You definitely ARE one of the most interesting and enjoyable members we have here. A single disease would be unlikely to kill off so many creatures. Some would develop an immunity.

This is the part where it breaks down for me. Assuming time travel is not as difficult as assuming it wouldn't be regulated a hundred times more stringently than nuclear weapons. Given that the plans for a homemade time machine won't be available on the "solar-system-wide web", a mad scientist getting one is a tremendous assumption.

So you say. I have scant evidence of your safety precautions and a great deal of evidence that tells me you are a young amateur who is reckless and seeks destructive information about chemistry. I worry that others will view your posts and copy your recklessness. I also worry, since you ignore advice from experts, that your next post may read something like, "OMG! You were right! It exploded, I'm typing one-handed and I'm coughing up BLOOD!" Perhaps it's your use of title case that suggests I'm going to read about you in the headlines of tomorrow's paper and that adds to my fears for your (and other's) safety, but I also have a duty to the owners of this site not to let dangerous information and behavior be negligently posted where impressionable and unskilled people can read it and regret it.

Some air conditioners sit in a window and bring outside air in. Some sit on pads outside and do the same thing. Central air units usually sit on top of your furnace and are located indoors. None of these residential units actually bring extra oxygen into the system.

You just made a very big mistake. You ignored warnings from Experts and now we can't trust you to act responsibly around chemicals. My recommendation is that you be barred from posting in Chemistry since others may follow your life-threatening example.

Besides removing heat, air conditioners have fans that circulate air within a system. Some have filters so they remove large impurities and clean the air. Evaporative coolers and air conditioners with humidifiers add moisture to the air they process (de-humidifiers are used in some locales to lower humidity).

I'm not up-to-date on dark matter theory. I apologize. Would this affect the OP's transfer of consciousness scenario?

That is one of the three main theories. The universe will either expand until it finally exhausts all it's energy and freezes (slowing as it goes), or it will reach a point where it can't expand any farther and it then begins to collapse into a Big Crunch, or it will continue to expand but it's rate will slow continually, never quite reaching a stopping point but never really dying out either. In any of these scenarios, the transfer of consciousness from one human to an exact "duplicate" human elsewhere in the universe is possible, but negligibly probable.

If our politicians appear to cater to the wealthy it's because the wealthy hire lobbyists to stay in the politician's faces every day. The voters could do the same thing more effectively if they showed the same interest. Politicians value votes that keep them in office doing their jobs more than the money the wealthy donate to their campaigns. Remember that the donations are to help sway the public vote. I don't know who you're listening to, but you really need to broaden your sources of news. You are robbing yourself of good judgement by only gleaning that which supports your pet thesis. You have become a magnet for the dark side, and it's blinding you to what is really working in the world today.

This is an assumption, albeit a somewhat common one. We have no way of determining if consciousness lives on after the death of the body. The observable universe is not infinite, it is constantly expanding and limited due to the speed of light. The complexity of the 100 trillion cells that make up your particular body would yield an infinitesimal probability of another exact you occurring somewhere else. While it remains infinitesimally possible, it is in no way probable. This is much longer than current theories place the life of the universe. If gravity acts as a brake on expansion, we may have another 50 billion years before a Big Crunch happens. If expansion is continual, then another 10 trillion years will see all exisitng stars burn out and the universe will go cold and dark.

I'd get the hybrid in a heartbeat if I needed a new vehicle. It's a great green choice and from what I've read they've got plenty of acceleration and responsiveness. I'll take that over top end speed any day. Which viable hydrogen car is this? The ones I've read about use a fuel cell that is still petroleum-based. And people and governments only fear change if it comes so fast they aren't prepared for it. Everyone would love to have a pollution-free alternative to oil but if it made your current vehicle obsolete overnight we'd all have plenty to fear, wouldn't we?

Trekforce from the UK recently added a building to their school and I'm sure they could use educational materials. It might be interesting to find out whether the residents intend to remain to expand the village, work at the Mayan ruins at Lamamai or move to some of Belize's bigger towns. I read where they also watch communal television at night via generator. It could be interesting to study what such a small village likes to watch on TV and whether they might supplement their educational approach with a DVD player and some really good discs.

1. Blow up and tie off the balloon. 2. Take a straw and cut it in half because you don't need it to be too long (this is the part that will ride along the fishing line). 3. Cut the top of the straw lengthwise with a sharp knife or small scissors (so it can be placed over the fishing line) 4. Glue the straw along the top of the balloon in the direction of travel (from the top of the balloon to the part you tied off) and let it dry overnight. 5. Slip the cut straw over the fishing line. 6. When it's time to travel, snip the nozzle end of the balloon (the part you tied off) to make it shoot down the wire.

Creamed corn wrestling is... an acquired taste. And nothing against you personally, but stiletto heels make you look effeminate.

Even for a well-off individual, the suit idea isn't the best. A suit would distribute buoyancy around the whole body more evenly and whether you want to float or just jump you would still want your feet oriented to the ground for re-entry. Suspension beneath some kind of balloon is best.

I've often wondered if there are other layers of the universe we can't sense because we lack the organs for it, or have them but favor the five we know instead. How would we know that things have a smell if we lacked the receptors to sense it? Perhaps having a new neurotransmitter that excited a dormant sense or inhibited something that blocked that sense might give us heightened access to power over the physical laws that we previously lacked.

Scotch tape 3-4 paper clips in a chain to the underside of the balloon. Not enough weight to slow it down much but enough to keep it from rotating. And still relatively free!

After checking out the online stuff, my $2 idea is more like $6-$7. Personally, I like Anjruu's idea of the straw glued to the balloon. Use a wood glue like Elmer's since a superglue may eat a hole in the latex. You'd need to cut a slot along the SIDE of the straw so it can be attached to the fishing line. Use scissors to dramatically snip the tied end of the balloon to get you going. Here's the kicker: go have a burger and soda at Red Robin or some other place that gives balloons to the kids. You talk them out of an unfilled balloon, make sure to grab the straw from your soda and you tell the teacher your vehicle cost you nada, zip, bupkis. And your vehicle will have a sponsor's name on the side.

If you're in the East Coast of the US, Walgreens or Hobby Lobby may have them, or any specialty kite shop. Turnertoys.com and magiccabin.com sell them online. If you're in Peru or Columbia I have no idea of any shops where you can find them.

Buy a $2 rubberband powered balsa-wood airplane. Attach the landing gear assembly upside down, snip off the wheels and bend the end of the gear wire into a small circle (this is where the fishing line will run through). You could attach the other leg of the wire near the tail for stability with the same wire circle. Wind up the propeller and let it go. If it's stable enough on the wire you may not need the wings or tail either.

Is this for the OP's floating idea or for the ammended moon-jumping idea?

I figure if 45 weather balloons could rocket Larry and his Lawnchair to 16,000 feet, 4-6 weather balloons could probably make the average person bouyant enough to broad jump onto the roof of his own house. Think how much fun you could have in a park wearing a simple rock-climbing harness attached to some weather balloons, as long as you remembered that your mass would remain the same.

I tried looking up the world record and couldn't find it, but every reference I saw for lemon-eating contests were for a certain number of lemons in the shortest time (usually three lemons). Best play it safe.