Greg H.

Well, let's look at the math. If we assume a four foot diameter fan, running at 2500 rpm (at the hub), that yields a prop tip speed of 357 mph. The same prop spinning at your 500k rpm reaches prop tip velocities of 71,400 miles per hour, or something like three times the escape velocity of the Earth. My guess is it would explode in a wonderous spray of shrapnel and kill everyone in the immediate vicinity. Calculations courtesy of http://www.hoverhawk.com/propspd.html

It could very well be. The CIT website's answer was devoid of much in the way of detail. According to the the article on wikipedia,

The argument "it's impossible by chance alone" is not new ammunition in the creationist quiver, and is most famously summed up in this pithy little statement by Fred Hoyle: It is used to attack both abiogenesis and macro-evolution (whatever that is), while supposedly leaving room for evolution on a micro scale. It's use shows that the speaker is either being deliberately disingenuous, or has no real idea how evolution works. As Delta so eloquently pointed out, it ignores the facts of how evolution works, and it makes assumptions about the math that are blatantly incorrect in the first place. It also ignores the fact that given enough castsof the die, the probability of any discrete event happening approaches 100%, assuming the event is possible to begin with. At it's most fundamental level, it's an apologist's argument from incredulity, a logical fallacy, and can be dismissed as such. Also, don't fall for the irreducible complexity2 argument either. 1: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado for more on the quote and the history behind it. 2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

I think I just figured out a wy to control the excess deer population. All I need are a pack of velocirators and an Abrams tank.

It's as wide as the planet is, since it covers (aside from some holes) the entire surface. If what you mean is how thick is it, the answer is not very - a few millimeters, according to the California Institute of Technology website. See http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/66-How-thick-is-Earth-s-ozone-layer-

And as I suspected, I agree with Swansont for the most part. It gets a bit muddier for me, though, and I wanted to bring this up for clarification. Let us take, for example, gravity. Is gravity real? Certainly the effects of gravity are very real - we feel those every moment of our lives, and they are, in fact, necessary for proper development of the human body. But does that make gravity itself a real thing, or an abstract concept that is used to provide a simpler description for those particular effects? I tend to believe it's the latter. Gravity itself is a concept - it's a way we describe a particular set of physical interactions between objects. The effects are real - they can be felt, measured, calculated, and compared. We talk about measuring gravity or gravitational attraction as if it were real, but what we're really measuring is the effect of that attraction - it's just a shorthand way of speaking, in my opinion.

I'm reserving comment until Swansont expands on his initial thought. I am pretty sure I know what he's getting at, and I'm relatively certain I agree with the thought process behind it, though.

I was reading an opinion piece on de-extinction1 and it started me thinking about the ethics of wildlife conservation and, in particular, the de-extinction of species. It seems that we are a lot futher along in our ability to create extant animals based on the DNA of extinct species2. But, as several of these commentators have asked, should we? Surely we have some obligation to repair damage to the eco-system that we, as an intelligent species have caused. To that end, it could be argued that we have some obligation to see species like the eastern elk and the passenger pigeon, both hunted to extinction by humans, largely for sport. But how far back do we go? Do we have some obligation to species that died out before the modern era (and who defines "modern")? As Sutter points out in his piece: But should we be doing this? Do we have any ethical obligation to these species that died out because they could no longer survive a changing climate? Where will they live? Would they even be able to fend for themselves in the modern world? Would they be taxonomically distinct enough from their surrogate parents to be considered separate species? 1: Sutter, J. D. (5 May 2014), Should scientists 'Jurassic-Park' extinct species back to life?, http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/02/opinion/sutter-jurassic-park-endangered/index.html?hpt=op_r1 2: Zimmer, C (April 2013). Bringing Them Back to Life. National Geographic Magazine. See http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/125-species-revival/zimmer-text

First off... Emphasis added. It wasn't magic, it was chemistry. RNA and DNA are just organic molecules, and organic molecules obey the laws of chemistry in their formation. And your entire argument is basically an argument from incredulity. Just because you can't imagine how it could happen, doesn't mean it did not (or cannot) happen. I can't imagine how tiny particles of oxidation on spinning disks can store petabytes of information, but they do.

It's an engineering/design issue, yes.

Neat game. I was able to eject the earth in less than 100 years.

I, for one, have completely lost track of the point davidivad is trying to make.

This is one of the aspects of the human psyche I have never understood. Maybe I'm just boring, but the chasing of the forbidden fruit has always seemed like a lot of wasted effort to me. I mean, once you've had it - then what?

See Ablation: Spaceflight on Wikipedia for current uses in a vacuum. Basically it's a controlled burn of solid materials to radiate excess heat away from the ship so that you don't cook the occupants, but we (AFAIK) don't call it vacuum ablation specifically. I disremember what context PH uses for it in the NDT, since it's been a couple years since I read it, so I don't know if this matches his supposed use or not.

Honeslty, I don't know if they need to - it is already "cheaper" in terms of non-monetary costs, such as getting busted for having it. Given the choice between an illegal product and an equivalent legal one, even at the same price, which are you more likely to choose?

I'm not sure what you're trying to describe, but gravity doesn't work that way. There is no cycle of balancing involved - one of three things will happen: 1. The lower mass object will fall into the larger mass, and eventualy collide. 2. The lower mass object will orbit the larger mass. 3. The lower mass will escape from the gravity of the higher mass. Note that the last two options require the lower mass object to have sufficient enegy in their motion to acheive the result specified.

I was going to do the same thing, but I realized you were only a year older than I am, so I decided to try my grandfather's year of birth, and add fifty more years of data. Overall the trend from the late 20's to the current year is upwards at 0.10 C per decade.

That's ok Phi, we never know what you're on about. Edit because I really cannot type today.

Phi, I think it's refered to as the Land of Blurt, and involves a direct connection between brain and mouth (or keyboard in this case), without a junk filter.to intervene.

Obviously not, or we wouldn't be here to tell you how wrong you are. I would start with some introductory texts on cosmology or astronomy. They should give you the basics behind the early universe as we understand it today. Or you could just try Google. Apparently, that's a thing now.

You can actually still buy refrigerators that run on LP or NG. This one at Ben's Supply runs on propane or 120v ac power. You're just trading one power source for another to run the compressor on the fridge. Propane based ones get used in off grid situations where electricity is either unavailable or considerably more expensive than other fuel types.

Back before rotary dumpers, rail cars of coal were unloaded between the ties into pits under the track where front end loaders could scoop the product into dump trucks for transit to the final customer. You might look for something like that near your destination. Alternatively, you can empty the car right onto the ground, and then use a portable coveyer and good old man power to shift the pile to the truck or off to one side for storage. Note that this might be complicated by local laws regarded the handling and storage of animal waste and runoff. If you truly need to move 40 million pounds, you're going to need a heck of a lot of rail car loads. Your typical hopper will carry 70-80 tons (capacity minus the tare weight, which is usually in the 20-30 ton range) and maxes out at roughly 3-5000 cubic feet, depending on the model. I don't know how many cubic feet 40,000,000 pounds of manure is, but I'm guessing it's quite a few.

Either nobody goes to hell, because it doesn't exist, or we're all screwed because Christianity isn't the only religion with a concept of eternal damnation for non-believers. If you really want to irritate a Christian, just remind them that they're heathens to someone too.

What is the melting point of wood I wonder? Edit: According to Yale Scientific magazine you can't melt wood, even in a vacuum, due to its composition, unless you can somehow reduce the melting point of carbon to something below 3500 degrees. http://www.yalescientific.org/2010/05/everyday-qa-can-you-melt-a-wooden-log/

The problem with people, and I think it may apply to other highly intelligent species, is that we don't long enough to go from "Can we do this?" to "Should we?"