Deja Vu

Not to be a nitpick, but so are a whole bunch of other organisms, ranging from lions to cockroaches. But it doesn't really help us understand how prevalent this is, or at what ages this can happen at, or even why this would happen. I actually do agree with you. But those stats are VERY hard to find if they exist, I'm still looking for them. If you find data related to this subject, let us know. Where? Those posts were very clear on what the OP wanted. I don't understand why you are angry with me, as you are the one who was derailing the thread. I pointed this out and you apparently didn't bother to reread the thread, or just ignored it altogether. And as I said before, if you want to talk about whether adolescents should have sex, then make another thread about it. If you also want to bash religion at the same time, then go to richarddawkins.net. I also post there too, and I might join you in that activity. If all you are going to do is preach, then there is no point in continuing this discussion with you. But please stay on topic. Do you have any statistics that the OP might want to look at? I can't find any at this moment, and I beginning to think that they don't exist. Actually, I do doubt that adolescents are maturing faster in our society. While their bodies certainly mature between the ages of 13 and 16 (as it has happened historically and for most of human existence), I'm not too certain that they are psychologically developed appropriately, especially given all the stress and the demands that pop-culture and other things in modern society places on them.

I don't think so. Just because it is simple, functional, and correct does not make it elegant. Saying that the expression 1+1 = 2 has elegance is like comparing a badly drawn stick figure to the Mona Lisa painting. Mathematical elegance is, in and of itself, a work of art. And it's something I take very seriously. It is for that, and other reasons that Euler's identity can be considered elegant, while -1+1=0 is not, even though [math] e^{\pi i} + 1 [/math] [math]\equiv -1+1[/math] = 0. Conclusion: there is nothing particularly elegant or special about 1+1=2. It is trivial, just like all the other expressions like it. I agree

The sun's orbit around the galactic core is mostly elliptical. And it does oscillate during it's orbit, it goes up and down relative to the galactic plane as it goes around the core.

Yes, he was asking when the adolescent was the aggressor, not so much as whether or not they should have sex in general. If you want to start your own thread on whether or not adolescents should be made to wait, then do so. Otherwise the OP wasn't asking for opinions on that issue.

We all hear you, it's just that it is irrelevant to a topic that is about sexual harassment, and nobody cares. Please don't derail the thread. Ironic that you would say that given that millions of years is a rather short amount of time . Humans as we know them have only existed for 2 million years. Besides which we don't have enough data on the lifestyle of early humans to say with certainty what cultural rituals they participated in. I haven't found anything yet on the number of adolescents who were offenders, unless it was between adolescents only. Even then, the vast majority of them were older than the person they were trying to solicit. I'll come back to this thread later to fulfill your other requests, I am short on time and am at work right now.

I wouldn't consider that expression mathematical elegance, rather it is a trivial one.

It's been going on for longer than a few centuries, more like a couple of thousand of years. The religions that place the most restrictions on sexual activities are certain sects of Christianity and Islam. But they weren't the only ones. In Greco-Roman tradition, there were women who were chosen to be "Vestal Virgins", priestesses who were NEVER allowed to have sex. Not really. For most of human existence there were always cultural restrictions, or rules, in some form on sexual activity and promiscuity, especially on women. Not only on how long they should wait, but also on the actual activity itself. This by the way is completely off topic. The OP was not asking about sexual restrictions. I don't know if there are any studies done on whether humans have matured faster than before. Reproductive age is the same now as it has been for most of our existence. However, certain groups of people are known to mature faster than others. One example would be that of girls, in that they tend to mature faster than boys on average. Here is an article that might interest you about this subject: http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV135.pdf I just quickly skimmed it, I don't know if there are any specific listing of how old the aggressors were. However, I'm pretty certain that adolescent aggressors can be more common than one expects.

No, that's all wrong. 1/∞ is a meaningless expression. It's true that the limit of 1/x as x approaches ∞ is equal to zero, but that doesn't really imply that expression 1/∞ = 0. In any case, the reason 0/0 is undefined is because of all the reasons listed above, you are basically trying to figure out how many times you can put nothing into nothing.

I don't see how that can be, especially since the energy consumption per human has increased dramatically and continues to do so. All of the activities you listed, such as having a large population, take a great deal of energy to maintain. What I'm wondering is whether or not the use, or the availability of, technology can be a direct cause of physical or physiological adaptations, or vice versa.

Thank you Martin, for providing the articles . It will take a while to read through them, as I don't always have the time, but they all seem interesting. The one that caught my eye in particular is the article on Reproductive Cosmology (does it have any connection whatsoever to biological reproduction?). I'll dive into them when I get the chance. Sort of. The many worlds interpretation mostly applies to quantum mechanics, in that it is proposed that for every possible quantum state or phenomenon or path, there is a parallel world/universe in which each and every one of those histories play out. Either branching off of this universe, or they exist separately. Personally, I'm not a fan of this interpretation, but that's for another thread. A multiverse, on the other hand, refers to the existence of multiple universes in general, not always having to be related or connected to each other, or have the same physical laws as our own. I don't see how this would follow from the previous statements.

Hi, this is my second thread on this site. There was a thought that just came across while I was reading about the evolution of human beings, could there be a link between genetic mutations and technological development of human beings? Such as, does the development of technologies cause humans to evolve in or adapt in environments, or even change the physiology of humans, in ways that would otherwise be impossible. I do know one instance of this, the Inuit tribes for example, in that they can survive in weather much colder than we can to the point where their bodies are even adapted to the climate (much shorter and wider than most of us). Also, I read that the last significant change in human evolution occurred 10000 years ago, which also coincides with the development of agriculture. Could there be a link between that and the genetic mutations that occurred throughout human evolution, or is this just wild speculation?

I would appreciate it if you posted links to technical papers please, so that I can see the details and the mathematics behind it.

I've read of very small universes being created from black holes. Baby universes, to use Hawking's words, but they are much, much smaller than our own. And presumably, they can merge right back into our own. As for black holes creating universes like ours, I don't think so. A black hole doesn't emit much of anything though. If anything falls into it, the material will emit high energy radiation as it falls into the black hole. But the hole itself doesn't. Black holes are theorized to explode, but not in the manner that you are describing. Black holes, even though they absorb any and all radiation (because it's escape velocity is greater than that of the speed of light), still have an entropy. Overtime, they shrink, until when they are small enough they will explode, releasing high energy gamma radiation. But that takes a very long time. Certainly much longer than the lifetime of the universe.

Foodchain, Before we can help you, it would help if we knew what exactly it is you want to model. There are many physical phenomenon that could be modeled using probabilities and fractals. And, ZPE and absolute zero are two different things (although, ZPE implies that you can't possibly have a temperature that is equal to absolute zero). As for the math, you might want to read into probability theory if that is what you are looking for. Try reading this, introduction into probability: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=14oq4uWGCkwC&dq=Probability&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=LP1-x5rRvi&sig=DiTL58u_tpcYLTMiDNXfKiqmKTw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPP1,M1 That might hold something useful there. Also, try reading into Bifurcation Theory. The link gives you a simple description. And, you can also read a little bit into quantum mechanics right over here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/HFrame.html

Here is a decent simulation on how galaxies collide: Also, there is free software you can use in order to simulate galaxy collisions of any size, type, and shape: http://www.mars3d.com/PWGravity3D.htm

Directive therapy basically means to direct, or guide someone, according to the counselor's and/or the group's own value system or experience. It is particularly useful for people who have very low self-esteem or people who are not able to recognize or solve their own problems (mental or otherwise) by themselves. It can be quite limiting though, and even dangerous if overused as they might be more susceptible to dogma.

An average between what though? That's why I asked you how the data was stratified. True, but this doesn't answer my question. I don't think so. If the person really wasn't serious about suicide, they would most likely threaten to jump off a high place. Or jump into the water, rather than concrete. Most of the people who "fail" to commit suicide using a gun survive only because they happen to "miss". I thought it has already been demonstrated that states and nations with tighter gun control also happen to have higher suicide rates. That is, there is no correlation between gun control and lower suicide rates. I understand that you want to save people, but sometimes some people are just simply beyond our help. And for all intents and purposes, it isn't the government's job to save people from themselves.

How were the statistics collected among jumping off high places? Were they stratified between those that were jumping into water as opposed to concrete? Jumping from the 2nd floor vs jumping off the 5th floor? You can't just simply take the statistics at face value. Large pointy sticks can also be made to have the sole purpose of killing humans too, should we also ban them? And I don't know about having a zero negative impact, I remember reading that the less gun control there is, the lower the crime rate. And if we banned guns, it would be harder to enforce the law, lower crime, and for people to defend themselves. And it probably wouldn't lower suicide rates. Only the outlaws would have guns, which I'm sure is the case in countries with strict gun control laws.

I elect that we ban people from using bridges, since people who jump off bridges to commit suicide have a high rate of success.

What were these comments? I bet I already know what they are, but maybe by taking the time to review them, you might find that you'll learn something from them. You are the one making the claim, and so you bear the responsibility of providing proof or evidence, not these "idiots" you speak of. No one has complained about your spelling or typing skills. But, we are complaining about the complete lack of coherence in your topics, as all of what you posted doesn't seem to make any sense. Do you mind being a little more consistent and rigorous and more clear with your proofs? It would make this discussion a lot more productive if you did so. How so? In order for us to trust you, you first have to give a rigorous explanation on how you came to this conclusion. Let's see some math, physical evidence, etc. Hearsay isn't enough.

This thread got me thinking about the possible engineering challenges that a Type II civilization would possibly face when building a Dyson sphere, so I took the time to do more calculations. I will gloss over the math and just post the solutions to save space. If you want to look over some of the math, just let me know. Maybe you can correct any errors you might find, if there are any. First there are stability issues. As I stated before you would need a great deal of energy to provide the thrust necessary. However, it is entirely possible to use gravity to help keep the sphere stable. Since the sphere will be enclosed around the sun there will be no net force between the sun and the sphere, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the sphere won't crash. What I've been thinking about though is using the gas giants to help keep it stable. I have not done any serious calculations on this since they tend to be messy and in some cases beyond what I can do, but I don't think it is unreasonable that, given proper planning and maintenance, you might be able to keep it stable for millions of years. This would eliminate the need for thrusters if this civilization found a way to use the gravitational force of the gas giants for stability. But that's where the good news ends I'm afraid, because everything else seems to make the possibility of living on one staggeringly improbable. For one, the gravitational pull of this object once it is built. As I said before, since the sphere encloses the star, there is no net force between the sphere and the star, and as such we can just treat them both as a single object. Since you guys proposed a distance of 1 AU from the shell to the sun, I used that as my guide. Standing on the surface of one at that distance, the acceleration due to gravity will be about .059 m/s^2. This is, of course, much lower than the force of gravity you would experience from standing on the Earth. It doesn't really get better from the orbit of Venus, or even the orbit of Mercury. For an acceleration of 1 m/s^2, the shell would have to be about 4.20x10^10 meters from the sun (about 42 million kilometers). For an acceleration due to gravity similar to Earth, it would need to be about 11 million kilometers away. Unfortunately, it would be at that point probably glowing red hot and not very suitable for living on it. For amusement, I wanted to see what would happen if I decided on keeping it 1 AU away from the sun and then trying to produce a significant centripetal force. In order to produce a gravitational pull similar to Earth, you would have to spin it. Really, really fast. It's velocity would have to be about 40 times faster than the velocity of the Earth itself while it moves around the sun. And that's only around it's "equator", never mind what happens elsewhere. It actually wouldn't matter how much mass you put into the dyson sphere, because it is very insignificant compared to the mass of the sun. So it's okay to assume the sun's gravitational pull. At a distance of 1 AU, I agree that you certainly would need genetically modified humans, probably to the point where they won't be humans in the recognizable sense! The gravitational pull would be much too low. Now, you would encounter less problems if you decided just to use it for power generation. But to live on a Dyson sphere would bring up a great many more problems to solve. The problems listed above aren't even the tip of the iceberg, such as how strong the sphere itself would have to be in order to stay intact, etc. etc.

Do you mind being at least a little bit more consistent and rigorous with your proofs the next time you post? I didn't really get past the first paragraph before I skimmed the rest. None of what you posted seems to support your assertions.

For an asteroid to slip unexpectedly like that, there would have to be an object, with a large mass of it's own, to perturb it's orbit. Related to this topic, there is a hypothesis out there that speculates that we have an unknown stellar companion called Nemesis that comes by once every 26 million years or so, and perturbs the Oort Cloud, thereby sending some of the massive objects our way. As a direct consequence, some of those objects come close enough to NEO's to perturb their orbits and send one crashing down to Earth. Or, they themselves end up colliding with the Earth. Presumably, between now and 800 years into the future, there is no object that will come close enough to 1950 DA to perturb it and end up sending it on a premature collision course.

Yes, it's always so much easier when God just simply does everything for us, isn't it? What strikes me as interesting about this belief is the fact that the creationists are unwilling to just let God do all the damning of the unbelievers for them too

Really? I always thought that this is precisely what is meant by light speed. Nothing can move?! If nothing ever moves, then how am I typing on a computer, or how does my room stay at 20 C ? How so? Light is made out of photons, which are massless particles, so I'm not seeing how you come to this conclusion. I think this is more correctly termed a faith or an opinion. The behavior of the rest of the universe does not seem to confirm your speculations. Exactly. The problem with detecting tachyons is that they move faster than light, and will move even faster when they lose energy, so you have a very small window of time before their velocity becomes infinite. Do you mind elaborating more on this? Or, make a new thread on it as I believe this is very much off topic. This is my first time on this site too . Welcome aboard! From what I am finding, there is lots to learn on this site, and plenty of people to talk to who are very knowledgeable on various subjects. I hope you enjoy this site.