Ophiolite

The OPs source is a journalist's hyped up interpretation of their reading of the research paper. Are you seriously contending we should take a popular account over the original document? The abstract in the original is quite clear. I present it here in full, since you seem to have ignored the link. I have emphasised the relevant words. All planetary materials sampled thus far vary in their relative abundance of the major isotope of oxygen, 16O, such that it has not been possible to define a primordial solar system composition. We measured the oxygen isotopic composition of solar wind captured and returned to Earth by NASA’s Genesis mission. Our results demonstrate that the Sun is highly enriched in 16O relative to the Earth, Moon, Mars, and bulk meteorites. Because the solar photosphere preserves the average isotopic composition of the solar system for elements heavier than lithium, we conclude that essentially all rocky materials in the inner solar system were enriched in 17O and 18O, relative to 16O, by ~7%, probably via non–mass-dependent chemistry before accretion of the first planetesimals. Source: McKeegan, K.D. et al "The Oxygen Isotopic Composition of the Sun Inferred from Captured Solar Wind." Science 24 June 2011: Vol. 332

Unfortunately your sentence makes no sense. If I take the part in bold, that is simply wrong. This is what the scientists concluded: "...we conclude that essentially all rocky materials in the inner solar system were enriched in 17O and 18O, relative to 16O, by ~7%, probably via non–mass-dependent chemistry before accretion of the first planetesimals." Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6037/1528.abstract There is nothing in that statement that suggests they thought the planets were formed from a different nebula.

The article, in typical journalistic style, overemphasises the significance of the finding. A difference in isotope ratios between the sun and debris will likely be readily accounted for by interesting, but not fundamentally different, detailed mechanisms influencing the accretion disc.

Cell phone use while driving should definnitely be outlawed. Regular offenders should be offered a Darwin Award Special Deal.

I had vertical thinking as a throwaway line in my draft post, but discarded it to give an opportunity to others: that worked.

Lhasa is the highest University on the planet, therefore the staff there must be clearly be at the top. (Lateral thinking is a useful skill set.)

Therefore creating an implosion with antimatter would be of the same difficulty as creating an atomic explosion, apart from the technical issues of keeping the antimatter isolated until the desired moment.

mark, if I have understood correctly, the bulk of the words in your OP are your thoughts as inspired by the book and film. My point is that they are, frankly, sufficiently trite, banal and disjointed as to turn most people away from exploring Jonathon more closely. I have fond memories of reading the book when it was first published and discussing it with groups of friends, in which I was -typically - the only one not as high as a kite on grass. Seriously, your comments, without establishing proper context, or offering explanatory commentary, really do a disservice to one of the Great Gulls.

Nevertheless, your incredulity, as expressed several times, is of the kind "I can't believe that's true", for no other reason than "I can't believe that's true". That approach might, by luck, lead you to a correct answer, but it would be by a flawed, illogical methodology. This obsession with simplicity seems a natural extension of incredulity at complex explanations. There is no known 'universal law' that states the universe need be simple (or complex). You have made an arbritary choice in favour of simple. That's not scientific. 1. Please stop calling it a theory when it is at best a speculation. 2. Since you have developed this 'theory' please post the mathematics describing it. Since it is a simple 'theory' I am optimistic that my maths will be good enough to make sense of it. Sage advice. At this point I am not sure you have followed it.

I think you have done Jonathon a disservice.

There has been some reasonably plausible research that relates the deja vu experience to a slight timing error in processing of sensory informationfrom each side of the body. A google search may turn up references. Equally I am sure I have read of other plausible, but unproven explanations - related to neurology/psychology. I think there are many more likely alternatives before we imagine portals in space time. I recall an especially powerful deja vu I experienced on Orchard Road, in Singapore, many years ago. Now Orchard Road is a bustling city street, with tall buildings, and angular, artificial shapes. Yet I was able, by chance, to trace this memory to a stream bed in Ayrshire, where the configuration of cliff walls and the light pattern, matched the particular corner there on Orchard Road. On the basis of that experience I am convinced that at least some deja vu exeperiences arise out of a match of certain general characteristics of a place, or event with a prior one, but with the absence of specific characteristics.

This is incorrect. Because of ionisation the number of electrons can vary. It is the number of protons in the nucleus, the atomic number, that determines the elements place in the periodic table. Then, as you say, isotopes of that element vary with the number of neutrons.

Marqq, you seem to have based your ideas on incredulity at alternative explanations. Do you think that is wise?

These are guesses: 1) Safety. 2) The reaction may still be proceeding. 3) You have misinterpreted the instructions.

I don't believe it was early last century. I can recall our chemistry teacher at secondary school telling the class that a compound had been formed with an inert gas. Checking on wikipedia I see a date of 1962, which is consistent with my recollection. 1962 may be early last century to you, but its yesterday afternoon to me. Edited to delete double, combined post.

As a geologist my natural approach would be to hit it with a hammer.

Or the Universe was designed by a committee and an incompetent one at that. There really is no a priori reason to presume an omnipotent, omniscient designer. This is illogical. Our intelligence has emerged, one supposes, naturally - with no intelligent intervention. So we accept the possibility that intelligence can arise in this way. This does not, however, establish that this is the only way it can arise. Therefore, it is possible that an earlier intelligence arose 'naturally' and then had a hand in creating subsequent intelligences. Your argument does not eliminate this possibility. No. Incorrect. As I have previously noted we have elected, at present, to go down the route of methodological naturalism. It is not a requirement of science, it is a convenience of science. Useless? Many current explanations for phenomena were ignored because the scientists of that time could not, or would not see the data. If we deliberately close off certain possibilities we impose unnecessary and unhelpfull restrictions.

Remember, I described it as a story. I have not got satisfactory confirmation that it is true. (But it should be!) You should stay in more. They did miss out on one or two things.

You are correct that there is a maximum height. This may be determined, as you suggest, by the strength of the rock from which it is made. A second factor is isostasy. As the mass of the mountain increases its roots get pushed further into the mantle, so that it tends to sink. I don't know what the limit is from either of these mechanisms, but I believe I have read it is of the order of 50,000', certainly not much more. It is extremely difficult to assess the height of past mountain ranges. One possible way of estimating may lie in looking at mountain roots that have subsequently been exhumated. Their mineralogical composition can tell us what pressure and temperature regimes they experienced and thus how deep they must have been and thus how high was the rock pile above them. I do not know of any published work on this. There would certainly be large error bars on numbers that were determined this way.

Work to pay their tuition fees.

Since the nuclear charge is equal to the number of protons in the nucleus, and inert gases most definitely have protons in their nuclei, then the answer is a definitive yes. What they also have is perfectly filled outer electron shells, which makes them disinclined to chemical reaction. Didn't we start calling them Noble Gases about five decades ago since they are not fully inert?

Well Dekan, I thought I had made quite a good post, but it wasn't good enough to duplicate. Did you want to make a comment?

In regard to your original question, I can see no harm in maintaining a dream diary as long as a) You do not become obsessive about it b) You do not start investing your dreams with magical significance c) You don't bore people at cocktail parties with accounts of your dreams I kept one for a period of times in my early teens, after reading Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. (By the way, don't waste your time reading it - here is the executive summary: if you spend your time analysing sexually frustrated Viennese women, you may erroneously form the opinion that all humans are sexually frustrated.) The tape recorder is a good idea since, as you know, the dream memory fades rapidly. There is a story that Winston Churchill kept a notepad at his bedside for jotting down any thoughts that had occured to him during the night. On one occassion he had a dream in which the meaning of everything became abundantly clear. He woke from the dream, wrote down the answer, then returned to sleep. Awakening in the morning he remembered that the dream had occured, but not its specific content. He turned with a sense of excitement and anticipation to his note pad where he found writtne the words: Brussel Sprouts.

The difficulty, Monsters from the ID, is that science adopted a methodology of naturalism as a convenience, but most scientists adhere to it as dogma. I have long made the distinction between ID, a cynical attempt to dress the rabid chihuahua of creationism in a wooly jumper with pretty patterns, and intelligent design (lower case), an unlikely possibility that there are hitherto unidentified teleological elements in the universe that we shall not readily see if we deny them in advance.

Yes, this is a nice demonstration, as the narrator says, of a Hadley cell. That was part of what I was including in my more general comment on global circulation patterns. Wikipedia has an introductory piece on this, with further links. But this is only part of the story about the banding. We have much more to learn.