Ophiolite

Aliens who miraculously all speak english. The choreography of space battles - assuming space craft will engage like WWII fighter pilots. Astronauts walking with normal gaits on low gravity bodies.

It is very interesting. I would want to read the full articles in Nature before reaching even a provisional conclusion. The boundary conditions and assumptions that go into setting up the simulations can have a marked effect on the outcome. I should like to know what expectations the researchers had before they ran the simulations, and how many changes they made to their assumptions after the first run(s). Also, as noted in the link provided by Spyman, "Douglas Lin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, worried that the inner solar system could be disrupted by the wildly eccentric movements of the giant planets." What I am sure of is that this type of simulation, combined with the detailed observations of other planetary systems that will be available once Kepler is aloft and operational, will provide the means by which we come to understand the details of planetary formation.

1) The hunter gatherers almost certainly saw their world as an integrated, mutually referential, patchwork.2)Just because we classify things does not mean we are ignoring, or relegating, the heirarchy of inter-relationships that exist between the classified entities.

You have definitely entered the area where science, philosophy and religion overlap.

Bascule has beaten me to it with the key words 'peer review'. It would seem logical that having identified matching sets of galaxies the next step would be examine their neighbours. If there were matches here also the thesis would be much more convincing. I am perplexed (and consequently skeptical) that they have not done this, or discussed doing it. (I only scanned the document, so they may have buried it in a single sentence.) On balance I find it interesting, but unconvincing.

The figures are debated in the fine detail, also I'm quoting from memory, but the rough figure of a 20x times increase was intended to include the sputtering effort at fusion practiced by Brown Dwarfs. Right. After some quick checking, here we go (Data from Chapter 10, Worlds Without End, by John S. Lewis, Helix Books, ISBN: 0-7382-0170-7) The sun (G2 main sequence) Mass: Sun 1 Jupiter 1300 Red dwarf (M8 main sequence) Mass: Sun 0.07 Jupiter 90 Anything smaller and less massive cannot sustain hydrogen fusion Brown dwarf Mass: Sun 0.01 to 0.07 Jupiter 13 to 90 These can generate a little heat via deuterium fusion. There may be metallic hydrogen at the core, or it may be a rocky mass similar in size to the Earth. This depends upon how it formed, and is the subject of much current debate.

Your teacher may well be right. It looks as if planet formation is a wholly natural and commonplace process. We know that there is a lot of dust and gas left around stars once they have formed. We also know it tends to gather together, quite rapidly, into lumps, then rubble, then asteroids (and comets) and planetesimals, and proto-planets, then planets. Proxima Centauri probably fits this picture too, but we don't know. We shall before long.

There is no debate. Jupiter is insufficiently massive by a factor of about twenty. That's not a little growth. Sorry to disappoint, it would make for great sunsets.

The key data on Epsilon Eridani: epsilon Eridani b 0.86 MassJupiter, orbit 3.3 AU year 2502.1 ± 20.1 d epsilon Eridani c?? 0.1 MassJupiter??, orbit 40 AU??, year 280 yr.?? [existence uncertain] Nothing has yet been found for Tau Ceti. C3H5... what is your source for Proxima Centauri planetary system? It is a runt of a star and thus far thought to be devoid of planets. This is the 'bible' for all extra-solar planets: http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/encycl.html

Aha.. The aquatic origin for humans. The problem was she was not an anthropologist - she had acquired her knowledge by independent study. The establishment employed Method II to deal with her upstart theories: they ignored them. (For Method I, google Velikovsky.)

Geometry (shape and thickness), as well as where and how heat is applied will have an influence.

Good description Martin. That's the hypothesis. I don't know whether it is fact: I'm not sure how one could test it. However, it is plausible, and it seems to me a more effective explanation than any other I have read (in this thread, or anywhere). I'll subscribe to it until either it is disproven, or a better one turns up. (And, in passing, my (male) nipples are quite functional as erogenous items: during power failures or hard drive crashes this can be a great comfort.)

Perhaps that's because you don't understand science.I'll spell it out for you, step by step: 1. Our primate ancestors, as do the majority of mammals, mated with the female facing forwards and the male mounting from behind. 2. Most humans, most of the time adopt, preferentially a face to face position. 3. It is logical to assume (though not central to the argument) that the change was associated with the transition to an upright posture. 4. One of the triggers for male arousal was the condition of the female genetalia. 5. By association the sight of buttocks provided the same stimulus. 6. Now consider the move to frontal position: arousal is more likely to continue to the point of ejaculation if the male is presented with a continual arousal trigger. 7. Therefore females who have developed larger breasts through a genetic predisposition will tend to benefit from more succesfull matings and thus produce more offspring, which will include females with the same predisposition.. I do not know if this is how the preference evolved, but it is wholly plausible and reflective of the way evolution acts on small differences.

I understand a fault runs under the Brisbane River also. Are you prepared?

I take it your complaint is that you don't have to take advanced math, since you are unlikely to achieve anything in your designated fields without some pretty solid math behind you (in front of you, and on both sides).

Well, I've done many foolish things, but I'm not going to compound them by itemising them here.

But in this version the light does not come first, which is BH's postulate.

I do not believe there was any time when this was true. By the time it was understood that sound had a speed it was already recognised that light, for example, was faster.

Whereas, in the UK, the government is requiring the use of digital transmissions. Analog will have ceased to be, in the UK, by December 31, 2012.

Regretably not. Nobody seems to accuse me of anything. . I must be getting too old and set in my ways. Unlike yourdad.., jdurg and 5614 my reaction on seeing, and misinterpreting the significance of, the table was 'yes, I'm a radical again': followed by huge disappointment when I saw my zero points. I can't really be this nice, can I?

The Urey-Miller experiments were flawed in that they were based on a methane and ammonia rich atmosphere. We now believe that the early atmosphere was largely carbon dioxide and nitrogen.There cannot be anyone working in this field today who does not accept that a significant proportion of the pre-biotic organic material was delivered to the Earth as noted above.

Fortunately acceptance of the big bang rests on observation and systematic interpretation of observation' date=' not on what you think. A question that was answered in the affirmative a century ago. Since when did white equate to calm? Newton demonstrated that white light was made up of a mix of colours, so your opening contention 'pure white light' is fatally flawed. Nice imagination BH, but I believe you should have posted this in pseudoscience.

Isotopes can be created naturally in four ways: a) The initial creation of elements in the big bang. This produced 75% 1H, 25% 4He, .01% 2H, .001% 3He, and a tiny smattering of lithium. ["]http://www.phys.vt.edu/~jjb/BHU/brief.htm] b) Nucleosynthethis within stars. This accounts for the formation of all but a minor amount of all the other isotopes. ["]http://www-phys.llnl.gov/Research/RRSN/] c) Radioactive decay of unstable isotopes. The decay of Ur238 to Pb206 is an often cited example. There are many more, and several processes by which the decay occurs. ["]http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/classes/Geo656/656notes03/656%2003Lecture02.pdf] d) “Cosmogenic nuclides are formed by the interaction of cosmic rays …. with nuclei of atoms in the atmosphere or at the very surface of mineral grains exposed to atmosphere” from http://www.huxley.ic.ac.uk/Local/EarthSciUG/ESFirstYr/EarthMaterials/mrpalmer/EarthMaterials/Iso/module7/m7.html Countess, also please note that there are no dumb questions, though there can be dumb answers. Could you try prefacing your questions with something like "I realise this is not central to what we are discussing, but it interests me. Could you suggest something specific I could read to understand it better." If you continue to receive unhelpful responses, lodge a formal complaint with the school governers.

Pay attention budullewraagh. [And thanks for the advice on the testicle painting. That was a close one!]Back to the original topic, I suspect that the quality control on the amount of radiocative material applied to the dials of luminous watches was poor: consequently the radiation level being measured by ED could be at any point on quite a wide spectrum.