Joatmon

When I was a lecturer this is how I convinced my students that the hole apparently moves in the opposite direction to the electron flow. I used to line up a few students as in the diagram leaving a space. The students were electrons and the space a hole. As the students shuffled to the left the class could see the "hole" moving to the right. Electrons have a negative charge and as the hole is attractive to electrons it has a positive charge.

Let me lower your resistance, take you "Ohm" and join you in some interesting parallel connections.

I agree your facts, to go further means opinion and even speculation. So here are some of my thoughts (for what they are worth ). It seems to me that once primitive life starts then at some stage we can expect evolution to kick in with a vengeance. Once a life form makes it way forward by intelligence then in evolutionary terms the ability to communicate and record rapidly will soon follow. Under this scenario if life exists throughout the universe it should become intelligent life and there is no reason to think we would be the most advanced or the most inquisitive. In other words some of "them" may have been looking for us for light years and as I understand it we have been looking for signals for a long time without result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence

I would say that the odds against life evolving by chance is very large. This is evidenced by the fact that so far we haven't found any except here on earth. However, since we are here the odds against life evolving by chance doesn't seem to be infinitely large.

I think there is a sort of middle course here that few would argue with. If a person is capable of work and work is available then surely we would all agree they should earn their living? Anyone in that position who avoids work and finds a way to live off benefits needs a kick up the ass because they are living off the sweat of others. However any person who for any reason cannot work, for instance too ill or too old, should be supported through a benefit system that allows them a decent standard of living. I had to retire with health problems at age 55 and the UK system of benefits was needed until my pensions kicked in. A particular hobby horse of mine concerns education. I believe the future strength of a nation rests on the level of education provided for those being educated. I personally think that children from about age 5 right up to young adults studying for degrees should be given that education free of charge (OK paid for out of taxation). If the education is of value many with degrees will earn more than the average and therefore contribute more than the average through income tax. This is sounding rather like "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Oh well, my father who died in 1949,was an unashamed Communist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_need

Sun driven steam turbines certainly are a practical proposition. http://cba.mit.edu/e....energy/sun.pdf

I'll just add to the above that if you somehow achieved the impossible and had motion that wasn't gradually being brought to a stop by various losses you would be unable to use it to do work. Making the motion do work (say run a generator) would result in even more slowing down and reduce the time taken to come to a stop.

I'd like you to change this to live as long as medical science can provide me with a decent quality of life. I say this as I have a decent quality of life supported by a stent in one of my heart's arteries and quite a collection of drugs to be taken every 12 hours! I believe my genes programmed me to die several years ago.

Of course you realise that it will take energy to lift water to a higher level. You therefore need a mechanism and a source of energy. The mechanism could be an Archimedes screw. If you are raising water from a running stream or river then the flow of water can provide the required energy via a submerged propeller or water wheel. I'm sure you can think of other ways of providing energy such as focussing the sun's rays onto a boiler to provide steam pressure to drive a turbine etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes'_screw

There seems to be evidence that there may be other universes that have bumped into our own universe on four occasions. This seems to me to suggest that they are separated from us and mobile. So what is between these universes (if they exist)? http://phys.org/news/2010-12-scientists-evidence-universes.html

My first thought was "find a blind person and ask them". Then I realised that if we can't really imagine what a blind person "sees" then a blind person will have great difficulty imagining what a person who is not blind sees. For both parties comparison is not really possible (IMO). I am thinking of people born blind. How, thinking of a different sense, might you be able to describe the taste of something to someone who had never had a sense of taste? Words like bitter, sour and sweet would hardly have meaning.

I don't know if it is different in the USA to the UK but we are going through a period where very rich people are found to be using various scams to avoid paying much of the taxes due from them. If the very rich paid their dues the country would be in a better financial state. "In an effort to get back on the political front foot over the budget, including its plans to impose a cap on tax reliefs, the Treasury also revealed that of the 200 taxpayers earning more than £10m a year, 12 are paying less than 10% in tax" .http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/15/treasury-reveals-super-rich-tax-rates

Change my mind, cancel my present experiment and start again.

I don't know whether to feel jealous or not lol. I see I'm almost a generation older than you and doubtless wasn't as attractive to the opposite sex anyway. Perhaps times and expectations were different. I was certainly not irresistible! I actually married the first, and only, girl that I have had full intercourse with! But I soon made up for lost time with her willing assistance.

There is a suggestion that men find breasts interesting because they resemble buttocks. I'm a "breast man" myself but often stroke my wife's buttocks when we give each other a hug! "Sexologist Alfred Kind suggested that the buttocks is the primary sexual presentation site in primates. Some anthropologists and sociobiologists believe that breast fetishism derives from the breasts' similarity to buttocks, but instead provide sexual attraction from the front of the body.[2]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_history_of_the_buttocks

Q22 You might also like to have another look at #8 and consider how V in your circuit compares with the cell terminal voltage.

I think this may work better for women than men. I have heard that women who are doing something they feel obliged to do but would rather not do have the ability to use their minds to convince themselves they are somewhere else doing something different with someone else. I didn't know they wrote notes about it afterwards. I don't think I'll ask my awesome wife if this is true! More seriously I can see the idea working because, it seems to me, to be a mild form of brain washing.

There was one man many English people thought was an American film star, but was probably English, who was seriously considered a communist risk by Americans. I remember his films well, but don't remember being threatened by him . I refer to Charlie Chaplin. "During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist. J. Edgar Hoover, who had instructed the FBI to keep extensive secret files on him, tried to end his United States residency. FBI pressure on Chaplin grew after his 1942 campaign for a second European front in the war " http://en.wikipedia....Charlie_Chaplin

I'm not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that a third person should not enter the discussion until the two having the discussion have come to an agreement? Edit: In answer to The Architekt.

Perhaps they will be missionaries trying to convert us to a religion based on a green skinned, one eyed god that looks just like them.

Perhaps the nearest a non-religious person can get to is conscience? "Commonly used metaphors for conscience include the "voice within" and the "inner light".[5] Conscience, as is detailed in sections below, is a concept in national and international law,[6] is increasingly conceived of as applying to the world as a whole,[7] has motivated numerous notable acts for the public good[8] and been the subject of many prominent examples of literature, music and film.[9]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience

It doesn't really apply but this thread does seem to be developing into a general discussion on UFO's so I hope the following isn't too far off topic. I was a young Airman in the 1960's manning an anti-aircraft missile system. One night we locked on to an unidentified aircraft which was flying higher than our fighters could reach, was not showing navigation lights and was flying with no flight plan. The first thought was that it was Russian (Cold War era). I don't know how it was finally identified but it turned out to be a US U2 Spy plane. Who knows but I suppose if it hadn't been identified................. http://www.britishpa...ched-at-woomera

Apparently the stealth bomber when it was under secret development was often mistaken for a UFO (an UFO?). There is quite a lot on this to be found with Google.