Severian

Theories don't need mathematics. Mathematics is just a language. The logical implications embedded within mathematics are very very useful in using physical theories to make predictions. You would really struggle to make these predictions without mathematics, but in principle it could be done. You would really handicap yourself without using mathematics though.

Oh yes you can. I even know well respected scientists who have been refused entry and given no explanation of why.

I think the entire approach is wrong. If their behaviour is undesirable, it should be criminalised, and if they do it they should be arrested and deported.

Why is the indent a different colour from the quote while in "New SFN Style" but the same colour in "Avatar on the Left"? Is this intentional?

That statement is the flaw in your reasoning. The universe was not created at a point, so things can have large separations right from the start.

You know full well that it is not the same thing. You really shouldn't troll.

Its a simple case of money. If you increased the eductaion budget by a factor of 10, you would see no real noticable difference in the state's finances, but would increase the prestige of being a teacher tremendously. Once being a teacher is regarded as a worthwhile life choice again, standards would improve.

No - you are arguing that someone who voices a contrary opinion to your accepted doctrine should be forbidden from winning a beauty contest. (Sorry for going on-topic.)

So what? Get over it. If you are gay, then large segments of society do hate you. The sooner you come to terms with that the better. And although I think the people that hate in this way are wrong, and should be encouraged not to hate, I will still die to protect their right to their opinion (as long as it doesn't move beyond an opinion). Besides, GutZ was not advocating that there be marriage for hetrosexuals and civil unions for homosexuals. He was advocating civil unions for both, separating the religious union from the civil one. I would go further and not even have 'civil unions' at all - make them draw up a legal contract (amending laws to make this possible if it isn't already) and let the market sort it out.

I think I would agree with that.

I would reconfigure the universe and encode my message in the digits of [math]\pi[/math].

If I remember correctly, in his Principia, Newton first postulates a constant speed of light and then later sets it to infinity (by observation).

So you could never accept the position of a scientist who said they would never accept something?

I am sure if you take a closer look, you will see that they are not identical.

Well, if we are going to argue semantics, lets examine yours. So if it is the relationship that is important, why does it need legal recognition? Surely by your definition, gay couples in long term relationships are already "married". But I do partly conceed your point. I will be more careful to use quotation marks when refering to gay "marriage" in future. Promise.

Then it is your legal system you need to change, not marriage. I would expect the first two of these things to be rights that can be assigned to any close friend (irrespective of sexual orientation) as desired. The last one shouldn't be allowed for anyone.

I was actually referring to the gay couples themselves. I take it you aren't married. No they aren't - or at least they shouldn't be (I am not very au fait with US laws, so I may be mistaking your legal context). Any rights they have to one another can be drawn up by a simple legal contract. Which makes your other comment interesting: It is actually only the word "marriage" which is the stumbling block here, not the legal rights themselves. The gay couples are offended that people would not hold their relationship in the same regard a dual-sex marriages. If they have a right to be offended, so do I (actually, I am not, but I still have a right to be).

Why would cancer or an accident make any difference? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged The "suffering of others"? Surely by advocating gay marriage you are the one encouraging the "suffering of others".

That's a matter of opinion. One should never be ashamed of opinion.

The red supergiant star Antares is so big, that you could fit half a million copies of our Sun into its vloume.

We can put it a little more mathematically for you if you like. It is not the energy that is conserved in an eleastic collision, but the total energy. The total energy is [math]E = \frac{1}{2} m_1 v_1^2 + \frac{1}{2} m_2 v_2^2[/math]. The total momentum on the other hand (sticking to one dimesnion for simplicity) is [math]p = m_1 v_1 +m_2 v_2[/math]. Now, in an inelastic collision although [math]p[/math] stays the same, [math]v_1[/math] and [math]v_2[/math] can individually change. Since the energy is the sum of the squares, it can change too.

I might not like breast implants myself, but I wouldn't judge anyone for having them, and wouldn't call them 'unnatural'. Are they any more unnatural than dental veneers, peirced ears or shaving her armpits? I think this is particularly ironic. Her answer was rather nicely put I thought, and showed that she was able of holding an opinion of her own and, more importantly, not bowing to the temptation to lie just to win the competition. I suspect she is brighter and more principled than the judge who made that comment. And for the record, I am also opposed to gay "marriage". Does that make me a "dumb bitch" too?

I still don't understand what criterion you are using to identify "legitimate" stimulus spending. Surely all spending creates stimulus (even if you had a parade in New York where you threw cash to the crowds), and all stimulus spending could have been labelled as spending under an appropriate non-stimulus heading.

Go read up on the Bernoulli Effect or the Magnus Effect and think what might happen if the bullet is spinning (the Magnus Effect article even has a section on spinning bullets).

Considering "loose" and "lose" are pronounced and spelled differently, I would imagine they are fairly hard to get mixed up. Just as "their" and "there" are pronounced and spelled differently, so hard to get mixed up.