CaptainPanic

Evolution does not contradict with thermodynamics. The problem with your argumentation is: - You regard the 2nd law of thermodynamics as a number of words, which can be interpreted. - You regard "complexity" only on a macroscopic level, not molecular. The 2nd law of thermodynamics is especially valid on a atomic/molecular level. - You take the earth as your system boundaries, and exclude the sun. After finding all these problems, I stopped reading. I have reported the post as religious nonsense, and I hope it is moved to another subforum, as it certainly does not belong in the Evolution subforum.

I am just anticipating standard procedures... with a little added sarcasm from my side. Of course, local ecosystems should be preserved, and studied (imagine how much we could learn!). But humanity has shown a remarkable ability to - pardon my language - fuck it up. In addition, life as found here on earth is incredibly contageous, and will infect the new planet anyway. Humans themselves carry hundreds of other life forms. We also intend to grow and eat another multitude of life forms, which each depend on again other life forms (ranging from gut bacteria to bees and fungus). If we would want to completely isolate ourselves from the new ecosystem in order to make sure we don't infect it, we don't need to travel that far. Mars would be far enough. All I suggested was that, if we are going to make a mess of it anyway, we might as well do it while we haven't even arrived yet. Perhaps not very ethical, but certainly pragmatic.

1) Big (bigger = better) ship 1a) Energy is the key to velocity, but also to life on board of the ship. While somewhere in between the stars, there is no solar power, and plants only grow with artificial light. So, acceleration doesn't matter as long as you can keep the crew alive. 1b) Modular design = excellent idea. Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. Every individual module can actually land itself somewhere. Also much easier for construction, maintenance and unavoidable and essential political unrest on board of the ship. (*) 1c) Why use a tether if the whole ship will land itself (because every module can land)? 2) Find a few die hard plant species and microorganisms to do a little terraforming. Send those ahead to the planet, so that the local flora and fauna is already dying and being replaced by earth-life when the colonists arrive. 2a) Multiple Noah's Arc modules on the ship (not just 2 of each animal and plant, but several on each module, and multiple modules. In other words: Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy) 3) Pre-built main heavy industry (smelters, metal works), including necessary back up systems and redundancy. 4) Very, very, very large database with all the earth's information. A single request for information may take multiple generations before you get an answer back from earth. With a back up 5) Always bring a towel. And another one. (*) In good earth custom, it's nice to have several political factions on board the ship, with the option to completely split the ship in two or more ships... then there is something to fight a war for on arrival. And the best motivation to make progress for mankind is war... so war is vital for the start of a new colony. [/sarcasm]

Curious that I never heard of this dwarf planet until now... It is quite near to ourselves, and it has a diameter of 950 km across (a LOT bigger than for example the two moons of Mars, which I heard of a long time ago already). Perhaps our education should somehow include a particle size distribution of the asteroid belt. Objects in the asteroid belt are really a lot larger than I thought. Thanks for the thread!

A democracy is based on the fact that voters have trustworthy information about the candidates they vote for, and any party that delibarately misguides voters therefore automatically undermines democracy and freedom itself. Your argument stands only when you assume that voters actually make the effort to look up all the information available in their free country. But voters actually behave like consumers of toothpaste. They will not make an objective analysis of the patents and publications of the manufacturer, or the list of ingredients and their proven effect on the health of their teeth on the long term. They will base their decision on the advertisements, and the packaging and presentation in the shop... despite the availability of the information. So, my point is that information is actually limited - not because of unavailability, but because of an overload of information. We can no longer process all available information... but parties are able to flood practically all the media with their nonsense. And we all help them by copying, changing, adapting and manipulating all the crap they say... flooding the internet's politics forums. Note that this issue is worldwide, and certainly not limited only to the USA. ---------------- I applaud your suggestion, but I think it is in vain, and possibly even counterproductive: If it is not allowed to call a right wing racist scumbag a right wing racist scumbag... If I must motivate my choice of words every time that I address the issue of politics with an elaborate and objective reasoning, and the right wing can undermine my argument by simply typing "Socialist left wing crap to get all our money!!", then - believe it or not - the right wing wins some votes. My argument is boring, too long, and perhaps too complicated. Their argument sounds powerful, simple. Some people like to hang out with the cool kids rather than with the nerds - despite the fact that it's better for their future to hang out with the nerds. ... and this forum is just another place where people form an opinion. And therefore, we must realize that by posting here we also influence the readers and posters. By posting here, you (and I) are campaigning.

When I read this (link to BBC news), my first reaction was: WTF??? To which the UK replied by pointing at all the other European countries in an attempt to seem safer than the rest: I mean, it has little to do with actual safety. For example, according to the BBC, up to 25,000 tourists die in road accidents worldwide every year. Al-Qaeda terrorists might bomb a number of tourist sites, but they will never achieve to kill a number of tourists that is anywhere near significant when compared to the road kill... An American website conveniently lists all the tourist deaths in 2006-2008, placing terrorism on an insignificant 6th place, after Vehicle Accidents (677), Homicides (580), Suicides (289), Drowning (265) and Air Accidents 66. Terrorism in that period killed 54 American citizens (including some deaths in Iraq, which makes me wonder what a "tourist" is). Terrorism accounts for less than 3% of the non-natural deaths worldwide, including conflict areas... and much less when food poisoning and other diseases are included. I also completely fail to see the purpose of scaremongering in this particular case. When citizens are scared, they might vote differently, but typical tourists have no right to vote in the country they visit for a holiday... so this has nothing to do with a shift of power in elections (or does it?). Is it just an attempt to keep some dollars and pounds within the borders of the USA and the UK? Has the Economic Crisis driven us to a point where we just attempt to destroy each other's tourist sector in an ordinary economic fight? Anyway, my main question is: What the hell is wrong with those departments and foreign offices? How dare they advise against visiting my neighboring countries, and my part of the world? It's one of the safest areas of the world! If Europe is not safe anymore, then where the hell are tourists supposed to go?

I do not understand how the IQ is related to the penalty that someone receives. Aren't all people equal to the law?

You should change your name from "Newbies_Kid" into "Stubborn_Kid". Energy ≠ Force The pressure in the ocean can exert a force (in the form of pressure). But you cannot get energy from it.

It's not easy, because you're trying to get the potential (height) energy from a very small stream of water that falls down only a few centimeters. It's not exactly the Hoover Dam. Note that the earth itself is a similar system as your design: water evaporates at the low level (sea level), it rises up in the air, condenses (forms clouds), falls down (rain) and becomes a river to run down. Then humans can place a turbine on the river (hydropower) to get energy. You can double the height, which should (nearly) double the efficiency... but you only go up from almost nothing to twice almost nothing. You can apply more heating (evaporate more water) to get a higher flow. You can improve the cooling on the top (condense more water) to get a higher flow.

Now we're getting somewhere You're absolutely right that the sea at such a depth can exert a force. But, in order to use a force to do work (to make energy), it must cover a certain distance. It is this distanc which is missing all the time... since (on a longer timescale) there is no flow, and the components remain on teh same place (although they seem to move up and down a bit).

Old wise men should be acting like old wise men... meaning they shouldn't try to pretend they know something about modern gadgets. I didn't pretend I understood much about ethics or philosophy when I was 12 years old either.

I believe that biochemists traditionally deal with microorganisms, while nutrition the way you seem to suggest it is the topic of dietitians. Because every person is different, and different diets have different goals, the science behind it is structured differently. I hope this post will lead you to new (and helpful) keywords.

Eehm... You want information about all renewable energy, or renewable resources? You don't specify which type, which category, and you don't even specify what kind of information (economic, technical, sociological, environmental)??? I would expect such a question from a 14 year old doing a first science project... but not from a PHD student who should have lots of experience digging through information. And it's unlikely that the websites you posted are the first thing you come across...

That's yet another factor why a one on one comparison isn't valid. At the end of my previous post, I pointed out some reasons why a comparison is problematic. Obviously, the size of a country, its population density, geology, tax system, popularity of types of transportation all affect the way investments are made for infrastructure... and all those factors complicate any comparison.

These bomb-propulsion systems seem quite hard to control, and maintenance might be a nightmare on that space ship. But it will work (after all, it's only an external nuclear space version of the good old combustion engine). But with nuclear materials, shouldn't it be possible to do this in a more controlled and continuous way? If you allow a regular nuclear reaction to detonate, a large number of particles will push onto some sail or pusher plate. But if you just have a controlled reaction in open space behind a spacecraft, particles will radiate in all directions (like in a blast), but this will be continuous, rather than pulsed. Seems a more relaxing way of space travel, and much less stress on the craft. Is it just a matter of being able to burn up more nuclear material in a shorter period of time with this bomb-propulsion systems??

It will work. as far as I understand, you want to concentrate the sun's power in one spot, and evaporate it. Then in the tube, it condenses, and falls down. Then a turbine uses the water that falls down to generate some energy? It will work because there is a temperature difference between the place where you evaporate and where you condense the water. But, it will have a really (really!) low efficiency. Solar boilers (a solar steam engine) will be much more efficient - and also more complicated to build.

No. It won't. I cannot explain it any better than I already have. Water at great depth in the ocean cannot provide any energy. You can replace whatever with whatever in your contraption, it won't change the principle. Just look up the Bernoulli equation for incompressible fluids here, will you please? Notice that the equation includes a term for the height. For a machine like yours, it is absolutely vital that you understand this equation. Also, it will show that there is no energy to be gained from this machine.

Ok, I understand. But with a hydraulic jack, the thing eventually lifts the car up into the air because you push (high pressure, like the deep sea), then you stop pushing, and you even lift the handle (very low pressure - does not happen in the deep sea), and then you push again, lift again, push, lift, etc. So, if you open the valve, then indeed, the seawater will push on the oil. Depending on the weight of the oil, the piston and the weight, something might move. But then it stops... and nothing else happens.

I don't really see the difference with the previous thing, except that you have oil in the pipe now, which will not change anything. As far as I can see, it still contains the same basic flaw: You cannot get energy from the high pressure of the water at great depth. If you push a pipe (open at both ends) into the depths of the ocean, to 1000 meter or more, then nothing happens. Water doesn't suddenly go up through the pipe. If the water at great depth (and great pressure) would have any desire to go to parts where the pressure is less (like the surface), it would not require a contraption such as this. It would go up through the layers of the ocean all by itself. But, the matter of fact is: the water which is at great depth is quite happy there and has no desire to move up in any way... there is no driving force. The water has no motivation whatsoever to go up. The only thing that generates some energy is the wing. The rest of the contraption will do nothing at all.

It's a lot of money. I'll continue my new hobby, which is to compare US government expenses to the Dutch expenses... just to illustrate how another country works... I hope it's interesting. Today, I looked up the Dutch annual budget (2011 numbers) for national infrastructure and public transportation. It's 11.6 billion euro. We have 16 million people. Scaled up to the size of the USA (300 million plus), that would be 217.5 billion euro (289 billion US $) for 2011. This money is already allocated, although it's probably going to be debated on a more detailed level. The 2009 budget was 10.1 billion (scaled up to USA, that's 189 billion euro). Mind you, the 11.6 billion are divided over a number of categories: 5 billion euro for the railroads and public transportation (so: trains, bus, trams, metro, etc., and necessary infrastructure) - probably including subsidies for the transportation companies, and not just construction and maintenance 3 billion euro for roads, bridges and tunnels (trains not included) 1.5 billion euro for coastal protection and dikes (also on rivers) 1 billion euro for waterways (canals, rivers, possibly harbors too) 1 billion euro for the "knowledge infrastructure". Not sure what that means actually. I guess phone lines and other data cables? source (in Dutch): http://www.prinsjesdag2010.nl/miljoenennota/huishoudboekje_van_nederland I've been trying to find the numbers of the local governments (municipalities), because I am pretty certain that they have their own budgets for all roads within the city limits... but I cannot find it. It's necessary to point out that the Dutch pay more tax (link to another thread). Therefore, it is expected that this tax money is also spent on something. In addition, the money for public transportation isn't a fair comparison in this case, since the popularity of public transportation is not comparable.

Yeah... sad, isn't it? Almost all former colonies wanted independence. All we gave them was some dude on a throne. But financially, they are all still colonies, paying to their Western lords.

I votes "YES" for a practical reason: I doubt I will know that I eat it. I generally read the text on the packaging of products that I eat... but if one producer suddenly switches from non-GE to GE, I may never find out until after I already had it... It may be written in very tiny letters on the packaging, but since there are already so many warnings and legal print on any packaging, I cannot be bothered to read it every time. Same goes for logos - most products have a brand logo, a EU logo, a quality logo, a price reduction logo, a general picture, a logo for biological this-and-that (there are many different ones), a logo for helping out the 3rd world in some way... etc, etc, etc. If a GE logo is added to it (and the lobbyists manage to keep it small and insignificant), then I will probably miss it. Aside from that, I am more worried about the other chemicals in my food (antibiotics for example) than the exact sequence of a genome in the animal I eat.

Low earth orbitrequires a velocity of about 7,000 m/s, and an altitude of about 200,000 m. Comparing the kinetic energy and the potential (height) energy, for a theoretical object of 1 kg: Kinetic energy = 0.5*m*v2 = 0.5*1*7000^2 = 24.5 MJ Potential energy = m*g*h = 1*9.81*200000 = 1.96 MJ In other words: the kinetic energy is more than 10 times more than the potential energy... therefore it's rather pointless to lift that rocket a little higher just to give it that 1% extra energy. The atmosphere will give the rockets a little more drag (friction)... but if rockets accelerate straight up for the first few kilometers, then this is hardly an issue. But if you can find any articles that suggest that rockets (or the space shuttle) significantly heat up during take off in the atmosphere (not: landing), then I may reconsider my point.

Turbulent flow causes a lot of internal "friction" inside the fluid (shear stress is a better word though), which means that a lot of energy is lost in creating heat. Logically, that energy has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the greater pressure drop and thus the greater energy needed to push the fluid through the pipe.

The useful pressure that you can use to generate electricity is the pressure differential after you subtract the hydrostatis pressure.