Mr Skeptic

Not for the US That does seem like a good idea. However, having a mostly car-free population could also have been done 20 years ago, or even farther back. But I doubt that you're going to get people back to waking. For myself, I'd be perfectly happy with public transport and a bit of walking/biking, so long as I'm not carrying too much. But others (eg my grandparents) would be quite unable to walk very far.

Same as with particle accelerators. I understand that some cosmic rays are more powerful than what we can produce in a particle accelerator, though that may no longer be true. A few of them go so fast that people expected them to interact with cosmic background radiation to produce particle pairs, and slow them down. But with a matter target, lots of cosmic rays would have the energy for pair production. I don't doubt it, but in theory, you could instead extract energy from decellerating the particles. It would, of course, involve a very large decellerator.

This kind of thing has a grand tradition in nature; for example with most species that have colorful males. While it may not be clever, it does show the ladies what else you've got. If you can get the lady's attention by doing something stupid, it may be evolutionarily worthwhile. -- Also, aren't you supposed to wear something when skydiving?

Haha, they're anonymous.

A good reason to include radians is that it removes ambiguity (eg with cycles or revolutions), and it improves your chances of spotting errors when doing dimensional analysis (the making sure units match). Oh, and don't worry about Klaynos, he's the most nagging member

I'm pretty sure that the actual particle accelerator's electrical bill is the most expensive thing. You could theoretically actually gain energy by decellerating the anti-particles. What if people used cosmic rays to produce antimatter? Then I'd imagine the collector would be the most expensive thing.

That, and a very bad case of radiation poisoning from the annihilation radiation.

For one antiparticle?

What about people who are really stupid around dogs and get bitten? People frequently play a large role in getting bitten by a dog, either by aggravating the dog in the first place, or doing something silly like running.

I would imagine that the US has also planned for the eventuality in which no one wants to give them oil. At least a large portion of the "leave the Alaskan oil alone" isn't because of ecological concerns. And, of course, there's always the military solution

I'm sure that's adjusted for. Isn't that what they usually do? Hit people really hard, sometimes break some bones, and sometimes knock them unconscious and maybe drown them.

How about the Milgram experiment? Not quite groupthink there, but it is also a very famous study.

What about acellular slime molds? They have but a single cell membrane for a humongous blob of nuclei. Stuff can go about its business without a membrane, but in a natural environment it would probably dissolve. However, I could imagine an oil-based lifeform that could probably do fairly well without a membrane.

Fair enough, but then you give up any hope to ever learn the cause (by assuming there is none, hence not looking). While I must admit that true randomness seems to be the case, I prefer to keep open the possibility that there is an explanation for it but we just don't know it. I guess I just have philosophical problems with a scientist accepting that something has no explanation.

Phosphorylation is one of them.

Exactly. Theists never have claimed an uncaused god that violates the laws of cause and effect. Eternal gods don't need (and in fact, can't have) causes. The non-eternal gods are usually born from other gods or nature things. The atheists lost their eternal universe with the big bang, which showed that the universe appears finite in time, hence had a start. Since the big bang is an effect, it requires a cause. (This is why the cyclical universe model had some popularity, as it allows for an eternal universe despite the big bang.) Perhaps. But I don't think any scientist is allowed to say things are uncaused, as it is effectively the same thing as saying god caused them (ie, we don't know and don't care). It would also require dropping the law of cause and effect. No, eternal God himself is easy to explain. If you want people to pull their hair out, you can ask what caused God to create the world (as that is an effect and requires a cause). I'm not sure if that kind of thing can even have an explanation (an infinite chain of effects that cause god to create the universe somewhere after infinite time). Perhaps god counted 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 ... every second until he got to 2, then created earth? Of course, this is where most would invoke free free will, which seems by necessity to also be metaphysical. And if I do? Do you dispute the law of cause and effect?

I think it would be fair to say that you can do operations on infinity so long as you know where you got the infinity from? But then arguably the operations are actually being done on the infinite series. An interesting concept.

Why don't you link to it and add your thoughts here? I don't know whether they can get un-archived.

Yes, but that alone doesn't explain why it sometimes decays and sometimes remains undecayed. The electroweak force is the mechanism, not the cause. For example, when I drop an object, it falls because of gravity. But the cause of it falling is the letting go, as the gravitational force was always acting on it even before it fell.

Well, when sharks go on a feeding frenzy, they're much less picky about what they chew on.

I thought that's what good politicians do.

Or was it [math]KE = \frac{1}{2}mv^2[/math]? I think you need to read up on Newton's third law. The law is about force (or change in momentum), not about energy. You may consider listening to the rocket scientist on this one.

Yes, it would be hilarious right up until traders figure out that lots of people will be selling stock, so they would be better off selling it first... Hence a massive drop in stock prices.

Perhaps you should just count your blessings and be glad that Pseudoscience is not separate from the Speculations forum? :eek:

Is that possible? No. X has critical development genes, and you can't do without. XYY is certainly possible though.