Reaper

Enjoy http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4467655342219448521

Yeah, but they have the Death Star and that can blow up a planet, never mind a wimpy ship.

Who do you think would kick ass if there was a battle between various science fiction universes? The six choices are Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Asimov's Foundation Universe, Gundam's, or Babylon 5? Personally, I would say that Star Wars would win because, though their weapons are a bit clumsy, they are varied and pack a lot of power. Also, they do have speed and good defensive capability.

Oh, BTW lucespa, personal experience is a pretty weak indicator of the existence of a deity, or the existence of anything for that matter. I have had personal experiences of flying in my dreams but that does not mean that I can fly. Anecdotes, as Callipygous pointed out, are not evidence. To have faith also means to utilize what is called inference to the best possible solution. To look at something and say "God did it" does not accomplish that.

According to scientists, this is what your PC could look like in the future:

No, your still misunderstanding me. Faith is not the equivalent of irrational thinking or wishful thinking. My earlier definition that I gave out applies to more things other than just the existence of God. For example, I have faith that my car will not be stolen tomorrow. I don't have sufficient evidence to prove that it won't be stolen, but I have reason to believe it won't. The thought does give me some positive emotional response, but the faith isn't based on emotion.

Well, not exactly, when people have faith, they usually have some reason to have it. Of course I am speaking in a philosophical context. What you are describing is wishful thinking.

Faith = Belief in something even though there may not be adequate evidence or grounds on which to base it on.

Its better than your soul simmering in burning sulfur:D. I like tomato sauce. So, lucespa, how do you propose we prove, or disprove, the existence of God? As far as I know that usually falls under the jurisdiction of philosophy. However there are attempts using science that can be used to falsify the existence of God. I don't quite buy the personal experience argument.

I don't think an atom could be a universe in itself. We already know what is inside the atom through particle accelerators and other experiments. As far as I am aware of, there are a few speculations for what could be outside of the universe, ranging from the idea that there is nothing outside to the idea that there are an infinite series of parallel universes, or even the idea that the universe is part of a multidimensional brane world. But none of these have any empirical or mathematical backing.

Apastafarian, one who denies the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Its easy to do that with a Bunsen Burner. One does not need to have thousands of gallons of fuel to accomplish this task. It seems to me that the pictures could have been modified because the original pictures don't display anything that looks like a person.

If ECT is voluntary then I don't see the problem with it. Also, there are cases that do warrant involuntary treatment because mental illness can impair rational judgment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosognosia --------------------------------------------------- The main ethical issues with it was abuse of psychiatry. However, this involves "treating" patients that have may not have any mental illness whatsoever and is used with the sole purpose of control. Over medication is also a major concern. This is still happening in various countries including the US and Great Britain. It is also a key argument in the ADHD controversy: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/356.lesser/adhd_controversies Though there are laws that aim to prevent this from happening, that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. -------------------------------------------------------- From personal experience, I have suffered from severe depression before and it is not fun. I never had to go through ECT though. Some treatments were involuntary during the worst of it. ECT still stands as an effective treatment for depression and schizophrenia. They are also investigating Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as an alternative because it has less side effects than ECT and it can be focused on certain parts of the brain:http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/MH00115 and http://groups.csail.mit.edu/vision/medical-vision/surgery/tms.html

Not quite. Manned spaceflights into near Earth orbit do much more than just flying around fixing satellites. Often they are funded to do science experiments not otherwise possible on Earth. The ISS is being built with the purpose of establishing a permanent space outpost for human beings to do a bunch of microgravity experiments, among other things. Its not just the government doing the funding; a huge number of corporations also fund the space programs to see if they can create products that can't be done on Earth. ------------------------------------- Most of the cynicism revolving around manned spaceflight usually comes directly out of the shuttle accidents and discouragement from the costs. Also, the Viking landings, while they did bring in a wealth of information about the Martian surface, proved a big disappointment to extraterrestrial life enthusiasts and to the popular media who expected "little green men". There is much discouragement from the moon landings because the moon landing were mostly done for political reasons, out of fear of that the Soviets were ahead in technology. After 1972, Vietnam, environment, politics, and other things were of bigger concern. There was a press conference in 1975 by NASA that stated that they would go back to the moon, but alas it never happened. From that time onward, there were promises that we would go back, and that we would go to Mars, but costs and accidents and government bureaucracy discouraged any such attempts, and imprinted the cynical view of manned space on the public mind. I would give it some time. Once the public starts to see that real progress is being made toward going back to the moon and beyond, there should be a surge of interest. The same holds for private interests in space, such as space tourism. -------------------------------------------- As I said before, there is a lot to do in space other than just resources or materials. Many experiments are done in space that cannot be done on Earth. Also, outer space gives us the ability to create exotic products for sale on Earth. link: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/16jan_sts107.htm -------------------------------------------- Eventually, we as a species are going to have to go into space and leave Earth because our world will not last forever. There is a 100% chance that we will be hit by an asteroid that can wipe us out some time in the future, and the sun will make the Earth uninhabitable in 1 billion years or so.

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Well, the main reason that people who claim evidence for extraterrestrial visits are considered crackpots is mainly to do with the fact that most of those people are either conspiracy theorists or unreliable witnesses. The story always seems to be the same: It takes place in some remote area to few, if any, witnesses. or Any pictures taken of such are always not very crisp and clear. All pictures or any other evidence is always rather obscure. It is quite possible that they are making it up, or are seeing illusions, or can be explained by natural phenomena. or The government or military is hiding it in Area 51, Yapustin Yar, etc. or They don't have any recollection of the abduction, unless they through hypnosis. I've heard of experiments that, when using some form of magnetic stimulation, people do see and feel things similar to that described by people who claim to be abducted. Also, hypnosis can be used to implant memories of events that never happened. IMO, I'm pretty sure that evidence for aliens visiting Earth would be quite obvious. For one, they would probably be transmitting back to their home planet, which can be detected. Any organisms that hitchhiked with the beings would more than likely inhabit and thrive on Earth and would probably have a profound impact on our ecosystem. We would know that they are alien because their DNA would probably not be traceable to any common ancestor on Earth, or if we find that they are not DNA based that would be an indicator. Also, history shows that when technologically advanced civilizations discover more primitive ones, the results can be quite disastrous for the more primitive one. There are many more I can list, but this is just what I think.

I just watched a show today on the science channel which was about the new spacecraft that is being designed by NASA. The spacecraft, called Orion, is intended to replace the shuttle by the next decade. The show was called Starship Orion. What they talked about here was about the design phase of the spacecraft and how they are progressing so far. They focused a lot on the reentry vehicle as that will be crucial for returning to Earth. I found the show pretty interesting. They talked about data that was collected while testing it in the vacuum chamber, wind tunnel, and even subjecting the material it will be built from to temperatures comparable to that of the surface of the sun (that is how hot reentry gets). Some interesting trivia from the show: -It will land on dry land somewhere in the desert, as opposed to the ocean as the Apollo modules did. They used some sort of thing that allows them to crash vehicles for tests by tethering them to cables and dropping them. It will be cushioned by airbags. They found that their design might be prone to tipping on reentry. -Its L/D ratio (Lift to drag ratio) for their current design is about 0.5 . This is crucial because it determines maneuverability of the spacecraft. It needed to be above 0.4 according to the documentary I was watching. They tested this in a wind tunnel using a scaled down design. -They also talked about ideas for a control panel and compared them to the ones used on Apollo. It will have far less buttons and will do much more given that our computers are far better than the ones on the Apollo module. For comparison, our basic calculators and car radios are more powerful and advanced than the computers on the Apollo spacecraft. Also, the Orion will use a bunch of touch screens and an intuitive OS. Additionally, they can be used to control the spacecraft itself and reentry. -The design is heavily based on the Apollo spacecraft, though it will have a lot more features and carry more people. Overall, they are making progress on the building of the spacecraft and once completed and tested for human use, it will be used to take humans to the Moon and beyond. I have always been intrigued by progress being made to take humans out of here, and overall I found the show quite interesting. For more information about the spacecraft you can visit the NASA website: http://search.nasa.gov/search/search?q=Orion+spacecraft&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=dateADALAd1&site=nasa_collection&ie=UTF-8&client=nasa_production&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=nasa_production So, what are your thoughts or research on the whole Project Constellation, the plan to replace the space shuttle, and progress being made?

Keep in mind that the models usually project several different scenarios based on current data. The predictions we make assume that our CO2 emissions, solar irradiance, etc remain constant, and that there isn't anything that would significantly change the variables involved, such as volcanic eruptions. We change them every now and again because the variables involved in making the predictions are not constant. As has been pointed out, we really don't know how CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions will change in the future. But at the same time our models clearly show that anthropogenic global warming is happening, and is backed strongly by observations. On clouds: Those are usually driven by oceanic currents and evaporation, and the precipitation falls out in high altitude mountains and areas. This is why the Atacama Desert, for sake of example, is the driest desert in the world, because it is surrounded by both the Andes and the coastal mountains, which effectively prevent any precipitation from getting through. There is virtually no cloud cover over the Atacama Desert. Though it may help play a significant role in the local climate of a particular area, it is not clear how significant a role they play in determining average temperature and global warming, albeit not very significant. At very high altitudes, clouds contribute to warming. Greenhouse gases are the ones primarily responsible for retaining heat. The types of "clouds" currently under scrutiny are ones that have sulfates, such as sulfur dioxide, in them since they act as aerosols. These are largely due to pollution though. link: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/koch_02/

This was pretty much what I was talking about. I also remember reading on a Time magazine that stated that the bureaucracy is making the publication of science articles in general much more cumbersome. I don't mean outright censorship but the fact that they do attack the science (such as what fundamentalists do with evolution) is well known, and what surprised me was that there are reports of suppressing or interfering health and medical related publications. Yeah, no kidding. I still remember the veto George Bush gave out in regards to diverting more funds to stem cell research based on "moral" obligations. I also find that journalists and major news networks will talk about some quack if they think they can get a lot of publicity or boost their ratings. Even though it might not be true or validated, they figure that by putting it out there they can gain a lot of publicity so to speak. I find that they always portray two sides because it is more "interesting" that way and therefore would rack in more viewers, rather than actually portraying the issue at hand. Just think back to the 2004 elections, where they were basically acting as if this was some sort of wrestling match between Bush and Kerry. BTW, I will check out this "Republican Attack on Science" soon! Thanks for the resource.

Not exactly. Some models regarding the shape of the Universe predict an edge. If the universe is negatively curved or is flat, then an edge is a possibility. Current data from the COBE, WMAP and other observations strongly indicate that the Universe is flat because the temperature fluctuations are uniform and differ by very tiny amounts. link: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2000/05/09_maxima.html Well, dark matter is part of the Universe itself, so I don't see how it can expand into it. We really don't know what is outside the Universe. I don't think we really have enough data to say what is happening at the edge (if there is one) because all observations take place within the observable universe. My speculation is that even if it does have an edge, it shouldn't make a difference because if the Universe is flat, all the matter would probably not collapse to a central point. It should be densely populated by stars even at its edge.

This is assuming that the Universe has an edge. There is the possibility that it may not have one. In the edge of the galaxy, there are not a lot of stars out there, if this is what you mean. Most stars are either in the center of the galaxy or in the arms.

I don't know much about mood swings, but they are symptom of several psychological disorders, such as depression. However, a lot of what you are describing seems to me that you may some form of Bipolar Disorder, such as Cyclothymia. Here is a DSM criteria for it: http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/cyclothymic_disorder.htm and http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/bipolar.cfm Seeing that I am not a qualified psychologist, you should see a real one about it.

But you do need a good AI for the projectile to make the appropriate adjustments to hit the target, which is very difficult to program. Directing it involves a lot of variables including mass of the projectile, velocity, weather conditions, geographical location, etc. Our current military smart weapons have an 80% accuracy, meaning that they will hit their targets 80% of the time. So even our latest military hardware is not perfect. If you want to make a guided projectile, you are much better off making a remote controlled one. Or if you are looking to drop it from a remote controlled plane, why don't you "carpet bomb" it? This way you wouldn't have to worry about guiding it.

This would probably help you with the electrolysis of water: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/electrol.html The negative end will form hydrogen bubbles, while at the positive end will form oxygen bubbles. The water completes the circuit, and you have a charge going through it. Size of the water container is not terribly important, but the energy that your battery supplies does. The site also has good info on electro-chemistry, so check it out. All the potential really is is the minimum amount of energy needed for electrolysis to take place. The same applies to specific heat of materials too. Also, you need an electrolyte in order for it to work because that is what will deliver the energy necessary. Sulfuric Acid and Sodium hydroxide are commonly used as electrolytes.

1) We probably haven't checked enough stars. 2) Speed of light barrier. Meaning that if they are spreading out, it would be impossible to establish an empire as portrayed in Star Wars. 3) Machine intelligence, though very speculatory at this point. Oh, by the way, even if it is truly impossible to get around the light speed barrier, any civilization could theoretically colonize the galaxy in a few million years. Of course, they would be cut off from their home world and so would develop a radically different civilization and evolve independently, both biologically and technologically.