Ophiolite

As I have nothing useful to contribute to this thread I was going to say how pleased I was to see you guys taking a stand on this important issue. I decided not to, in case you thought that was below the belt.

Tell Jacques the geese fly at midnight.....

You mean you guys aren't already members of this global conspiracy? I'm shocked. Membership is simple. Send me a thousand page essay and a cheque for £1,500. If you're pushed for time you can forego the essay.

I just don't understand why that should be a problem. Example: [*]worker spends one hour performing task requiring no formal education and minimal IQ. (Please note this does not mean he does not have a Ph.D and membership in Mensa.) [*]worker spends one hour performing task that requires tertiary education' date=' above average intelligence and extensive, related experience. [/list']Which of these hours was more valuable? Were they of the same value? Which would you be prepared to pay more for? If you have thought about it you cannot answer that question until you know what goods and services are being provided by the labour expended in that hour. The hour itself has no intrinsic value. The goods or services are what have value. In the two examples above suppose (1) is somone sweeping your driveway clear of leaves, while (2) is a surgeon removing an ovarian cyst. Which is the more valuable goods or service? Or alternatively, (1) is a participant in a reality TV show, (2) is a marine biologist working on an obscure temperate water shrimp. Which is more valuable? The public at large seem to have voted, indirectly in favour of (1). To repeat, the value of time is determined by the goods and services that are generated in that time. These goods and services in turn derive value from how desirable they are thought to be by those with the wealth to acquire them. Can I say market forces without sparking a revolution? So, what does match up for you in all this?

I would think more than that: To demonstrate the telescope's power, true. To focus attention on the possibility of ETI, in order to make it a 'respectable' field, and potentially garner more funding. To make an optimistic statement, that humanity will still be around to hear a reply, if one is made. Sadly, if the latter was a hope, then the signal was singularily poorly directed. M13 is a globular cluster. Around 150 of these are known, concentrated around the bulge at the centre of our galaxy. They are densely packed groupings of stars of approximately the same age. It is extremely unlikey advanced life would be found in any globular cluster for two reasons: a) Life would not arise. b) Life could not survive The stars in each globular cluster are Population II stars. These are old stars.(Perversely, these are older than Population I stars like the sun.) They formed from primeval clouds of gas that were metal poor. (In astronomer-speak, if it's not hydrogen or helium, then it's a metal..) This means no material to build terrrestrial planets; no material to build organisms. Result: no life. Even if life could arise, the proximity to supernovae in such a densely packed cluster would produce frequent extinction potential events. (Not to mention increased risks of orbital instability.)

So, if Europe were to forego arms sales to China, can they expect, as a reciprocal gesture, that the US will stop throwing its weight around?

If all three occur at the same time you are probably in real trouble. A small correction here. The explosion occurred in this galaxy. Coquina and Swansont have both commented on this. There is not universal agreement that this was the cause. Some researchers, led by McClean, believe that the massive eruption of basalt lavas in India disastrously effected climate. It is probable, in my view, that both events are implicated. [it may also be the case that the impact triggered the eruptions.] Here is far more than you ever wanted to know, in McClean’s words, where he lambastes Alverez, the originator of the impact theory. If you ever thought the practice of science was dispassionate and objective read this and have your eyes opened. http://filebox.vt.edu/artsci/geology/mclean/1Dinosaur_Volcano_Extinction/pages/scienpol.html

I've voted 'cannot say'. Scientists have problems, as Kuhn demonstrated, of even contemplating the possibility of phenomena that do not fit there operational paradigms. There is no place for psychic phenomena in current science, so any evidence, buried as it would be in the mire of fraud and self delusion, will be invisible.

Strange as it seems I can confirm it is partially true. It was on a news broadcast in the UK this year. My recollections are imprecise, but a an orphaned hippo had been placed in the same enclosure as a very old giant tortoise. Hippos are social animals so this one was starved for company. It 'befriended' (horribly anthropocentric, but you get the idea) the tortoise and the two spend time together now.

Gamefreek. Please refer to the post before yours. When Swansont makes a statement relating to basic physics you can be pretty confident of its scientific accuracy. Nothing can go faster than light. Nothing. The speed of light, in a vacuum, is a constant. Its speed measured relative to each observer remains fixed, regardless of how fast those observers are moving relative to each other. A huge chunk of modern physics and much of cosmology is based on this simple fact.

Land ownership is varied, but at least in the UK the bulk of it is owned by a vanishingly small percentage of society. Labour is any human activity involved in the provision of goods and services for which recompense is made in money or kind. Where are you trying to go with this?

Which evidence?

Unfortunately, Syntax, it's a very shallow sea.

The basis of science, gamefreek, is that you start with some observations, based on which you construct a hypothesis, which you then test by experiment. If you don't have the experiment the hypothesis is not science, merely speculation.

I don't understand what you mean by 'eat up'. Please clarify.

Until shortly before you need it. This is a sub-axiom of Murphy's Law.

I'm nitpicking, but I think you meant: The area is one of two on the planet where magnetic north and true north coincide. If so, are you sure there are only two? If not, ??????

That seems a passable definition of a dimension to me. In one direction the clocks are moving with the Earth's rotation, in the other case against it.

It seems there are two definitions (I checked because, like YT, I thought it related to rare atmospheric conditions.) http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bluemoon1.html

I posted this in another thread: "I tried to find something on the internal structure of Titan, but found nothing quantitative. We know the density averages out to 1.88 g/cc. A reasonable model that will yield this is as follows: Core: Iron-nickel 100 km radius Mantle: Rock 1800 km radius 'Crust': Ice 2575 km radius That means 65% of the volume of Titan is ice, primarily water ice. So, if we move Titan to Earth's orbit we wind up after a 'short' time with a water planet, with a global ocean 650 kms deep. After a 'longer' time, as Titan fails to retain its volatiles, we get a rocky moon half the diameter of our own."

Rightly or wrongly it is going to come back to language. We judge people's intelligence' date=' to a great extent by their fluency with language. [Like man, heh, you dig me, OK, yeah. Right on.'] Until we can communicate at a more advanced level than "bring me the big object, the round one" , most will disparage claims for significant non-human intelligence, or will make indefensible claims in the opposite direction. What intrigues me is what this may say about our prospects of communicating with intelligent aliens should we ever encounter them. If we can't exchange the time of day with a creature who shares most of our DNA, what chance a star-traveller?

"During October, 1971, four cesium atomic beam clocks were flown on regularly scheduled commercial jet flights around the world twice, once eastward and once westward, to test Einstein's theory of relativity with macroscopic clocks. From the actual flight paths of each trip, the theory predicted that the flying clocks, compared with reference clocks at the U.S. Naval Observatory, should have lost 40+/-23 nanoseconds during the eastward trip and should have gained 275+/-21 nanoseconds during the westward trip ... Relative to the atomic time scale of the U.S. Naval Observatory, the flying clocks lost 59+/-10 nanoseconds during the eastward trip and gained 273+/-7 nanosecond during the westward trip, where the errors are the corresponding standard deviations. These results provide an unambiguous empirical resolution of the famous clock "paradox" with macroscopic clocks." J.C. Hafele and R. E. Keating, Science 177, 166 (1972) Source: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/airtim.html