dimreepr

Indeed, most appealing, yet a lot of what’s considered beautiful is asymmetric. This for instance...

And yet no war was declared on Pakistan.

As I understand it he was killed in an operation led by the Central Intelligence Agency; they didn’t just march an army through Pakistan.

You can’t fight a terrorist with an army you fight them with intelligence OBL is testament to that.

Using bullets instead of bread only ensures you have more enemies in the next generation as well as the few you have in this one.

It’s certainly a promising line of inquiry (interesting read +1) and without doubt facial symmetry in attractiveness has been well established and is probably innate in a number of higher life forms. A caveat, though, does it explain all that we find beautiful? There are many famous examples of asymmetric art also landscapes and music. Does this further appreciation stem purely from our culture or language and can this also be found in our furry friends?

For energy transmission lasers are a possibility, as for the space tube idea; how heavy do you think the pressurised tube would be? A space elevator is far more likely I think. Edit http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/solarpower/7060015/Lasers-to-beam-energy-to-Earth-from-space.html

I think this by N K Humphries in his lecture ‘The illusion of beauty’ goes someway to answer that point. The more I find to read about human perception of aesthetics the more I find it inextricably linked to our cultural influences, driven in part by the critics. This leads me to wonder if this appreciation is part of natural human sociability, then maybe it’s even more inextricably linked to language. Possibly the complexity of the language is tied to the strength of the phenomena?

Beauty has always been recognised as a subjective experience and that subjectivity is determined through circumstance, both external and internal, and has always been examined. But that’s not really the question here; it’s more, do animals share our aesthetic appreciation? http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9YPAeCcbkVcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA21&dq=animal+studies+of+aesthetic+appreciation&ots=57sPpOptE8&sig=pmivHs4bSIzW5HQVvwNVa6PKvso#v=onepage&q&f=false This suggests it’s not an obvious question.

Yup my bad, externet’s post only exaggerates my mistake, and subsequent irrelevant arguments, apologies Abhay.K.

This, for me, gives rise to a fundamental question; are we the only species that can appreciate the beauty of the world around us? Does the appreciation of art/aesthetics stem from intelligence or is it innate in higher life forms?

The most extreme weather events, Tropical cyclones/hurricanes are heat driven not wind driven. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huricane http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/hurricanes/

I don’t have any direct experience but essentially all you need to create a rainbow is a light source and droplets of water. As for using flames, as a light source, it would depend on what you’re burning, I think the rainbow would skew towards the predominant wavelengths of the material being burnt. The lecture is worth a good look though, it goes into great depth and details all the conditions and types of rainbow, I have recognised aspects of, and different types of, rainbows which I mostly missed prior to watching.

This is very informative on the subject.

The real question, is not are we part of a computer simulation, is more why bother to make a simulation that has the potential to discover such a simulation?

My lineage is far more difficult to trace, though no doubt, given my dark complexion, has a link to an Iberian ancestry that has nothing to do with what I think of as my English roots. How much of what I think of as my ancestry is truly English? What can any of us say, has a truly ethnic origin?

Agreed, graphite = graphene is as semantic as saying graphite = diamond, but as you say, makes slightly more sense; it was nevertheless a very bad start to this thread. Even so it doesn’t change the potential of graphene.

In suggesting that this technology has very exciting potential is not hyperbole, given that my links are to Manchester University; the home of graphene and a Nobel Prize, in its research, for Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov. I think it’s perhaps you that’s suggesting litotes as to its potential. Also please extend me the same courtesy that I did you and answer me directly, rather than a mixed answer that neither fully answers me or ‘Mr Monkeybat’ appropriately.

Graphite is not graphene but graphene is graphite “Graphite, the well known 3-dimensional carbon allotrope found in our pencils, is nothing more than a stack of several graphene planes.” I have no links with its research; I have, though, seen significant current through graphite. In the spark erosion machines I once sold, up to 400 amps were used through anodes made of graphite. This technology is very much in its infancy, however the following, “Already, Manchester scientists have demonstrated flexible graphene touch-screens, graphene-based composite materials, graphene smart-windows, ultra-fast graphene transistors, etc...” Is why I suggested it had very exciting potential.

Think again http://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/story/properties/ "Firstly, graphene is great conductor; electrons are able to flow through graphene more easily than through even copper. The electrons travel through the graphene sheet as if they carry no mass, as fast as just one hundredth that of the speed of light."

In terms of the OP I have to agree ‘forget it’ drawing a circuit board with a pencil, given the complexity of today’s technology and what you've outlined, it's a non-starter; however, the potential of graphene is very exciting.

Graphite in the form of graphene has lots of potential in this area.

I charge thee ‘(insert name) the troll’ with a quest, go forth and search the world both real and virtual, find one other soul who actually gives a (insert expletive).

The notes aren’t backed by the masons, whatever symbolism is on the currency.

The promise is implicit; it may not be spelled out, as in the British notes but the promise to pay the bearer the face value of the note is given by the authority of the incumbent government. This may be changed by said gov but you will have notice.