DrP

I don't think he's getting riled over it... he's just pointing out that the man is lacking in smarts. That's not an autocorrect mistake - it looks like he over rid the auto correct to enforce his version of the spelling on it. He is delusional... like many of the old people in this country that blame the worlds problems on immigration and foreigners rather than taking some responsibility themselves. I think he made a good speech yesterday... if you believe foreigners are to blame for all your problems and you don't care about the environment.

Thanks America!

You know this is a science site right?

You would probably know more than I about that as an ex physics teacher. I 'think' you can just think of it as an attraction between their centres of masses for the purpose of calculation (or maybe from surfaces, I can't remember - COM would make more sense to me). i.e. when the centre of mass of the earth is directly below the fulcrum in my kettle it will be balanced (except the slushing water will unbalance it and set it off). In reality I would assume an actual physical attraction of each atom to every other atom based on the know equations relating masses and distances and constants to the force experienced. I assume this averages out enough for us being to be able to use c of m of objects for purposes of distance measurements between them and stuff when calculating the attraction or turning moments.

When one says the universe is in motion.... don't they mean that the galaxies are all rotating and flying about around and through each other? That we can see by looking at the night sky with a telescope and the patience to watch and plot the movement of the stars and galaxies in the sky, no? But if you mean the WHOLE universe as an item... then, how could you possibly know seeing as we can't even see the edge of it? And as swansont said - moving relative to what?

yep - I hear you... I knew a girl that saw an article in the local paper about a 'ghost' that moved a sugar bag off a shelf... there was a link to a video on you tube. She, and the shop owner, were claiming it as absolute proof of the supernatural and that ghosts exist. I was laughed at when I suggested a list of reasons why it could have fallen off the shelf.... but when I looked at the vid it did seem to hover out into the middle of the shop floor before falling... I said it was probably a hoax, which did not please her at all. Two weeks later there was an article in the same paper where the shop owner had come out to admit publically that it had been a publicity stunt to promote his shop and he admitted to faking the vid. Even when shown this article the woman was STILL convinced that the shop owner must have lied about the video being a fake to cover up the truth... he'd been paid off apparently.

QUOTE "related to the shut down of the nuclear reactor" Which nuclear reactor? I would assume, with all the many different designs, that they all have different shutdown procedures. Which one are you talking about that uses compressed air in that sequence? As has been said before - it probably drives some mechanical part somewhere in the sequence. I would imagine they have many uses for it, the same way they have many uses for water, screws and levers.

I think the fish are very different... as you pointed out they have a swarm mentality and instinct drives them to be both predictable yet unpredictable. The Euler's disk, the see saw, a pendulum are all the same. It is predictable to the very last oscillation if you know the parameters of the set up. We can set a pendulum in motion and know that with a frictionless system we would have it running forever... with friction and air resistance the thing just swings for a long time before it's potential energy is slowly converted to heat, sound and kinetic energy of the air molecules around it until the systems come to rest... which it always will. If the systems starts vibrating again then it has received some external input of more energy from a vibration though the surface or something like that. It isn't a scientific mystery. The mystery is how gravity actually works - we do not know that yet as far as I can tell. What we do know though is that the effects are measurable and reliably repeatable.

I'd have to agree... Chasing after Clinton with accusation after accusation THAT DID NOT STICK is a witch hunt imo because the allegations were false (not proven true). Chasing after people that have actually been know to have broken the law and covered it up is not a witch hunt... it is just bringing the guilty to justice.

You joke about the rope trick - but there are people that would believe him if he done it and said he used the power of his mind. I can do a rope trick (but it needs a bicycle chain hidden in the rope). You hold it out one way and it is floppy... you stroke it lovingly and it goes hard and rigid and sticks up in the air. (In reality you turn the bicycle chain hidden in the rope through 90 degrees and it then looks like the rope is magically hovering in the air). If I performed that trick and told people I was using my mind power to hold the rope vertically there would be some poor fool that would believe it somewhere.

.... I just see it as a see saw Mike being honest - that's all it is I think, just a see saw with low vertical displacement for the oscillations and good transference of the momentum after the impacts due to the surfaces of the work top and the kettle being hard.

Asking "do they use an air compressor in a nuclear power plant" is like asking Do they use 10mm spanners? or Do they use tap water? Or Do they use a fork lift truck? It is a standard piece of industrial equipment, so they probably use them for something as power plants are huge industrial places. "what is the function of a 2 mm screw in a n'power plant"?

I'm not even talking about terrorism though Dim... it is in their most up to date and CURRENT set of laws written in their holy book which can't be questioned that you slice of the hand of a thief. You stone an adulterer. You kill an apostate. This isn't terrorism... this isn't an OLD testament that had been superceeded by a message of love, forgiveness and repentance in a new book. This is the current law as written for them which cannot be questioned or criticised. It used to sadden me deeply.... it used to anger me... but being honest... since we came from dust a few billion years ago I suppose we haven't actually done that bad as a species - it is amazing. I can take a lot of joy from witnessing the world... I can only hope the madness ends with better education and sharing of ideals globally.... we can ditch the barbarism and progress in love.

ZAP: The Old Testament is a history book. There is no death to infidels in the New Testament - I have read the OT 2 or 3 times and it is superceded by the NEW Testament which has no such thing in it. It preaches love, forgiveness and mercy. It has some shit in it - but all based around making your self feel bad for following your sexual desires and stuff. You know which book I am talking about - the one which promotes the killing of me for saying that it is bullshit. DIM: 'they' might be.... at least a percentage. The book however is no such thing. It is very much old testament style punishments and worse (cutting off hands and stoning etc..) and it is current. Where is the talk of love, peace, grace, mercy and forgiveness? Even if you can show me where that is their book it is alongside the atrocities of capitol punishment for next to nothing and the severing of limbs. Totally barbaric nonsense and I'd be killed for saying it publically. You know this... I'm fed up with people making excuses for it. It is NOTHING like Christianity (as written in their books). I don't deny there are some nice people who do not follow the rules in the book that promote disgusting violence... but if you took the book literally - which many do - then there is trouble. The NT maybe crap - but if taken literally won't get you killing people, ever.

Depends on the text Dim - it says it in the book, it isn't an excuse they make up. I can't point to the exact verse and chapter but I was under the opinion that this is not text that is twisted by political leaders...;. the text itself has this shit in it. If it isn't then I apologise, but all this Jihad and death penalty stuff comes straight from the scripture I think. I've seen some of it. I can't be assed to go through another massive tomb of bollox, I've read through the other one 2 or 3 times and then studied it extensively. Seriously - it's not all love and doves like the New Testament.... it's cut off their hands and heads stuff of the old testament and it is thier most modern CURRENT text they use for governing.

Problem with pointing out that their religion is a joke is that they get offended so badly that they want to kill you... in fact they are ordered to kill you for it by the religious texts that guides them.

That may be true in some cases, but it does sound like huge generalisation to me. I learnt that there is a Blackbird nesting in one of our storage buildings that doesn't seem too frightened of me as I walk through it.

Euler's Kettle. I was reminded of this thread yesterday when I made a cup of coffee... I put the kettle down somewhere I do not usually put it with a hard surface. It must have caught on the edge of nadir in the plastic or something as it started oscillating very fast from one side to the other. It took a while to settle down too. I did wonder if the simmering water inside was turbulent and unstablising the system further, as I haven't seen it doing that before and it did sustain, seemingly for a long time.

Here's a new take. It is already a thing of the past and obsolete. Full stop. When I was a believer I tried to be fervent, I considered my self a fundamentalist and had a very personal relationship with my deity... I found very few others that took their faith as seriously as I. Even the real extremists that done nothing but preach I felt lacked understanding of the love that talked about (not all them, but only a very small number seemed to have that 'enlightened' state of love and compassion for all). What I am trying to say is - hardly anyone in their right mind believes in god as it is defined in the bible (I say in there right mind... I understand how a sane person comes to believe such obvious rubbish, I was there, but eventually if you are true to yourself then it is pretty darn obvious). In this modern world where we have free access to the sum of human knowledge in libraries and on the net it is clear that the god of any of these modern religions is a story and a myth like all of the ones before them in the Greek, Egyptian, African and Roman myths. I think we are still going through a change in the global zeitgeist towards dropping the idea of an invisible 'person' in the sky that oversees all. Thus - I say that it is already obsolete and has been replaced with education and social responsibility. The ones that will find it hardest to drop the BS are the those in the Middle East in countries where religion is still totally compulsory. The rest of the world just needs to be patient in waiting for them to catch up and ditch their ancient superstitious ways. This could indeed take decades or even centuries. It is a depressing thought, but you have to hope that the whole world will see the light eventually and be at peace.

Yea - so as we discussed before - spinning devices are a VERY poor way to demonstrate telekinesis due the fact that spinning things spin on their own anyway due to many external forces such as air currents, heat and even light. As we discussed before - a better demonstration of telekinesis would be to move a very light feather on across a low friction surface in side of a transparent, sealed box.

Someone told me last year that you can now get attachments for your mobile phone that adds a scope onto the camera lens and works with an app to give microscopic picture. I just looked them up - there are attachments from about a fiver. I do not know if they are any good or not though. I like this little Chinese one I have, but as I said - similar ones start from about £135.00. This one was £260.00. The phone attachment would be a cheap way of getting something at least.

I think the initial impact would give us more to worry about than a sea level rise. If it was that big then it would be a catastrophic event anyway. I am not sure any one would be left to witness the ensuing sea level rise.

I worried about pains when younger.. the doc said it was wind and or constipation. Very painful though... I still get pain 30 years on and I just shrug it off and get on with it - the doc said these excruciating pains were just normal. Never had an appendectomy. Wind can be very painful apparently. The stich is due to lack of oxygen getting to the muscles (or so I thought - but wiki now says the cause is unclear).. one thing I do know that gives strength to this is that when I used to run, if I got stich a lot I would do sit ups every day for a few weeks... this totally stopped the stich coming in my belly... but it moved to my shoulder in stead. My coach said that this was normal and because I had worked my abs then they were fitter and the oxygen could get there quicker and so we then worked on shoulder and back strength and then no more stich there.... I'd get way out of breath or my legs would give before stich... so I done cardio work and leg work and then... back to stick in the belly. I remember that it could be very painful though.

Depends on your budget... It wasn't so long ago that they were thousands of pounds for a decent one. I bought one last year for our lab - don't use it much and being honest... it isn't very big, it has it's instructions in Chinese and looks a bit toy like.... that said - it has a digital camera on it and works well. It was only about £260.00. The make and model was a 'Bresser LCD micro' Just typed that into google and there are similar things... some as low as £135.00. I am NOT saying I would recommend it as a work horse for a professional outlet... but it does give 50x mag and lets you take pics to an SD card or usb them to a PC. Hope that helps.

There were loads of vids and articles debunking the other ones... Any suggestion to firming up the experiment to eliminate drafts caused by breathing or warming by the hands were met with 'can't do that - the barrier blocks my mental energy' or some other BS. I did see some art installations in a gallery where there were tiny foil spinners totally sealed into light bulb shaped glasses... These little foil spinners were spinning due to their own accord. I guess it was either internal currents in the bulb caused by warming of the glass in the shop window; a draft let in through a very small hidden hole; or the artist sitting in the corner using his mind power to keep his artwork turning. It was also shown how easy it is to fake a controlled test with a bowl even (draft through gap in table slats for example, or a powered spindle). So - with that in mind - even if you take me to a you -tube vid that HAS taken into account all of the criticisms of the experiment into account... I would still be sceptical until I (or some one trusted, like Randy) examined the test to make sure it wasn't a cheat.