Greg H.

I'd argue that in a lot of ways it already has. And if the designer baby crowd have their way, you won't be limited by the DNA of your ancestors.

I don't think it matters as long as the weight is distributed evenly across both sides of the center line to prevent listing. Though I will add that you want to make sure the batteries don't add so much weight that the boat swamps when you launch it.

To point 1, this is why it's philosophy and not science. Anything that can't be experimentally verified is most likely either philosophy or religion. Answering the why questions is usually a matter of subtle interpretations of meaning and intent rather than cold hard numbers. To point 2, there are some portions of, for instance, language that are sciences (though they aren't "hard" sciences like physics or chemistry). Studying how languages evolve and words change over time would be more of a scientific bent to linguistics, whereas studying why certain words or phrases have the meanings they do would be more of a philosophical angle. You can even study the philosophy of science which is more concerned with how science is done than in doing the actual science. Philosophy is useful in answering those questions that science has a hard time tackling - why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be moral? Questions that do not yield to empirical quantification are, more often than not, going to be philosophical in nature.

In my experience, science tends to focus on the what or the how. How things work, what happens when certain conditions are met. Philosophy tends to deal more with they why, which is something science doesn't handle very well: Why are we here? Why does the strength of gravity vary inversely to the square of the distance?

I stopped being amazed by the depths of human stupidity long ago. Now I'm amazed when we do something smart.

Hundreds of years of physics experiments indicates that it is not Newton that's incorrect. But feel free to explain your reasoning.

I'm going to concur with the consensus - most likely what you observed was a satellite or some other man made orbital object.

That's odd. I'd try re-seating the Ram, but aside from that, I'm not sure what the issue is - a steady beep isn't any code I recognize.

The beeping is the key. It's the POST trying to tell you something - unfortunately, understanding POST beep codes is one of those esoteric skills no one really develops anymore. Jot down the beep code (like morse code there can be long and short beeps). For example, 1 long, 3 short, 1 long, is some kind of memory issue. Just get the beep code and then google it. post it here too, and we may be able to offer more advice/assistance.

I will need 10 million dollars to properly evaluate all factors, including building a vacuum chamber in which to test. And a new truck to haul the test materials. The vacuum chamber will be mounted on a 26' pontoon boat for safety reasons. On second thought, I'll just test on the boat. Scrap the vacuum chamber.

Technically neither one orbits the other; they both orbit the barycenter of the system. This is why stars wobble when they have a solar system (or a companion star) attached to them. It is, in fact, possible for the barycenter of the solar system as a whole to exist above the surface of the sun, given the proper planetary alignments: So if you really wanted to be technical about it, it's also wrong to say the Earth orbits the Sun. Barycentric Coordinates (Astronomy) - Wikipedia

Generally my favorite part of these discussions is asking them to provide the math to back up their claims and watching them stumble all over themselves trying to explain that math doesn't matter.

Actually I have found that you can get exactly the same effects from a common cardboard box.

Actually the ability to cut square holes isn't that amazing. I can do it in a block of wood with a power drill and an odd little drill bit built around a Reuleaux triangle. As the bit cuts, it forms a square hole in the material.

Here's an interesting observation that is (I think) on topic: Imagine the following conversation: Al: How far is it to there from here? Bob: Oh, bout half an hour by car. I hear this all the time. (I've even said it myself - maybe it's a Southern thing). And we, or at least most of the people I know, accept that as a valid answer even though it's clearly not a response in distance.

I can only offer advice at this point, not specific recommendations without knowing what kind of PC your friend has but: Direct X 11 compatible. At least 1 GB of RAM. 2 or more would be better, Multiple outputs (obviously). I prefer the NVidia chipsets, but that's personal preference. I've used them for years, and they're normally very solid. As Ed stated, I recommend reading reviews of any cards you plan to buy. Some of the cheaper ones can have significant cooling issues, and some of the high end cards can take up A LOT of room inside the case. Some examples (without any particular recommendations) of multi output NVidia cards can be found here. Newegg

You do realize that aside from chimps, there are other mammals that are extensive tool users. Otters, for example, use rocks to bash open mollusk shells. Bottlenose dolphins have been observed using tools to hunt prey. Your example, chimps, have been known to make stone hammers and spears. Orangutans make whistles to scare off predators. I would say that the fecal matter has indeed struck the rotary air impeller. Try not to get any on you.

I have to agree with Bignose. Making a testable prediction puts you far ahead of the normal crowd in speculations. It would be more helpful to show some math that demonstrates how you arrive at the prediction, but it's definitely a much better start than most.

That makes sense. I'll have to give this some more thought.

I tend to describe both in terms of separations. Distance is the separation between two discrete sets of physical coordinates. Time is the separation of two discrete events. It's probably not the best description, but it helps.

Thanks for the input. I think I am going to stick with the "straight-down" approach for now, as that may be the simplest for me. I'll probably come back and revisit the horizontal impact later. So kinetic energy before impact can be found by [math]KE=\frac{1}{2}mv^2[/math] Substituting our known values we get: [math]KE = \frac{1}{2} \times 2,430,000,000 kg \times (994.89 m/s)^2[/math] [math]KE = 1,202,614,426,201,500\;joules[/math] If my math is right, this is roughly equivalent to about 280 kilotons of TNT, according to Wikipedia. In comparison, the bombing of Hiroshima was done with a 16 kiloton weapon.

Yeah, this is why I posted the thread. Orbital mechanics and I are not good friends. From what I understand of the lore from the event, the ship was crashed into the planet semi deliberately (through a combination of battle damage and bad luck). It left a city sized crater in the surface and a good majority of the ship can be seen sticking up over the city. My guess is they simply didn't let physics get in the way of a good story - they wanted the end result, so they "magicked" it in. Let's remove the atmosphere for a minute. Assuming you pointed this thing at the planet with 0 orbital velocity and just let it free fall in under gravity alone, is there a way to calculate the final impact velocity? Edit to add the following: Actually, it looks like there is - from our good friend conservation of energy. [math]gmh = \frac{1}{2}mv^2[/math] where: [math]g = acceleration\; due\; to\; gravity\; (-9.8 m/s^2)[/math] [math]h = height[/math] Solving for v we get [math]v = \sqrt{2gh}[/math] So the velocity just prior to impact would be [math]v^2 = 2\times 9.8 m/s^2 \times 101,000 m[/math] [math]v^2 = 989,798 m^2/s^2[/math] [math]v = 994.89 m/s [/math] or just under Mach 3.

You asked if the effect of local gravity on grandfather clocks was a fatal flaw for GR. It's not. In fact, it's expected behavior, and can be compensated for in the construction of the clock. I think I understood the point just fine.

Gravity run grandfather clocks can be adjusted for changes in local gravity. But that's really beside the point. For a gravity run grandfather clock, any kind of acceleration is enough to throw off the swing of the pendulum, affecting the time keeping. Additionally, they are affected by changes in temperature which affect the length of the pendulum through expansion and contraction. They are not what you'd call scientifically precise instruments. So no, this is not a problem for GR. It's a problem with using the wrong tool. See Pendulum Clock on Wikipedia for more information.

That was sort of my point. The idea of assigning fine tuning to prove the existence of our universe is sort of silly because, frankly, we don't have anywhere near enough information to make that kind of claim, much less assign a probability that another universe would form under the exact same conditions. Our universe exists - that's really all we can say at this point. We don't know enough about how universes form to even begin to assign a probability to the chance of another universe forming at all, much less one just like ours.