Mr Skeptic

In other news, no one dies of old age in the US anymore. It is no longer considered a valid cause of death. Why? Its a lazy answer.

That's generally how it works. Inflammation takes a while to build up. Just be glad that the doctors did stuff to prevent an infection.

Seems to me that a large portion of people who don't understand differential equations find electromagnetism magical.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics says it won't work. I've always found it to be the case, however, that other laws of physics also say such things won't work.

Eh, try shooting some indestructible styrofoam. Also, indestructible materials would likely be too expensive to use as a disposable projectile. I'd agree about the railing for the Gauss gun though.

Make a star then. It is possible to make stars; there's in fact trillions upon trillions of them. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged But that's not what I said. What about self-contradictory definitions for words? The only time those would make sense is for when they don't (ie, for humor). That there are self-contradictory statements is a necessity of any vaguely good language.

Currently enjoying my vacation.

Silliness. No reasonable person can define omnipotence as "the ability to do anything, even contradictions" without also rejecting the Principle of Non-Contradiction, in which case proof by contradiction is meaningless, and there is no problem. On the other hand, someone who adheres to the Principle of Non-Contradiction would define omnipotence as "the ability to do anything that is possible to do" in which case again there is no problem with an omnipotent being microwaving a burrito so hot even he can't eat it. The key is that no one uses meaningless words. Well, not if they want to say something.

Hm, good point. All the individual fundamental particles are more or less indestructible. Unless you happen to have an antiparticle to destroy it with. And if you were to somehow make a material with the properties of protons/neutrons (the binding energy is greater than the energy needed to create the particle) then you could have a multi-particle system that would be more or less indestructible.

In any case, there is no material that can't be destroyed, for example by heating it til it vaporizes.

Well yes, in case you are wondering, most people would ignore a 1 in 200 years event as too unlikely to worry about. Alternately, the could be a 95% certainty that the chance of the event happening is within a certain range of that 0.5% per year.

If there is an E. coli cell around, in about 12 minutes you can form a living thing (another E. coli cell). I'm sorry, but I don't think science books have an infinite list of variables. I think I know what you're getting at though. Any of the variables have to be in a certain very small range with uncountably infinite numbers in it, out of a much larger infinite range with just as many numbers in it. Now, if you assume that the numbers could be anywhere in an infinite range, then it is rather surprising that they happen to be in a particular, small range. But that requires the aforementioned assumption. Instead, it could turn out that the variables in fact have to be what they are, much like the speed of light has to be what it is given Maxwell's equations. Or, it could be that there are in fact an infinite number of universes with different variables. So, basically, the idea that a universe like ours is unlikely is nothing more than an assumption. The converse, that a universe like ours is expected, is also an assumption. Since at the moment either is an assumption, people pick the one that they prefer.

To survive, of course.

Source please. I would think that entropy is increasing on Earth, due to us burning more coal and oil than is being formed.

Some think that time in our universe is infinite (cyclic universe models). Others think that space is infinite (either multiple universes, or that our own universe is infinite). Either of these would work. And 12 minutes is all the time needed for life to form, under the right conditions. So no need to wonder whether 15 billion years was long enough. Personally, I call them rocks. Really, how would you tell whether something "tried" to live? Yeah? Well what are all these variables?

I think at least the most popular/safe drugs need to be legalized. I would not be opposed to legalization of all drugs, so long as there remains a ban on pushing/encouraging drug use.

If you go that route (rejecting the Principle of Non-Contradiction), then God would be able to eat it despite it being too hot for him to eat.

It is the brain, not any physical principle. If you've ever seen 3D stuff, it works by giving slightly different pictures to each eye, so your brain can construct a 3D merger of the two giving the perception of depth.

Well, if you know the amount of friction per unit of mechanical advantage, then knowing the total friction gives you the mechanical advantage. The mechanical advantage gives you the distance of the effort, since you know the distance of the resistance.

So how come the people are more supportive of the specific provisions of the law, than of the law overall? Weird.

These are only true of capital G God, ie the monotheistic variety. Polytheistic gods are far less powerful. So these attributes do not hold of gods in general.

From a classical perspective, the electron and proton have opposite electrical charges and so attract. It takes energy to separate them. The electron also orbits the nucleus, and making it go faster also takes energy (and momentum). The photon has energy and momentum, which are transferred to the electron to make it go faster and pull it a bit farther from the nucleus. In reality, the above description is faulty and the electron should really be thought of as being in a quantum mechanical orbital rather than a classical orbit.

Here's something you should try. Hold your index fingers horizontally, a few inches from your eye, and then move them together. Focus your eyes on something farther away even though the fingers are in the middle of your field of vision. What do you see?

So long as there is only one angle, then as the tree said, you just redefine your coordinate system so that the angle occurs in a plane, then it is just a multidimensional angle that looks no different than any 2D angle. Since you need 3 points to define an angle and 3 points define a plane, you will always be able to do this. Well, if your space is flat anyways.

I'm thinking a diamond-nanotube composite. Diamonds by themselves will shatter when hit, so that kind of nerfs their indestructibility.