Ophiolite

Once I recalled there is something called joined up writing it fell into place.

When it is buried so deeply in behavioural patterns that nobody has noticed it before' date=' or been able to characterise it with precision, then it is groundbreaking. Many of the great ideas of science are simple and obvious once a genius has pointed them out. Dead men don't wear plaid.....or play chess. So it should be a walkover.

Let me place my ignorance on display. I envisaged a traditional scifi space station shaped as a torus. Our astronaut is floating a few feet above the 'floor', or what will become the floor once roatation is initiated. Balanced rockets are fired to initiate the spin. The 'floor' begins to rotate past the floating astronaut, who remains fixed in the same position relative to external points. Now, since I have designed the station with safety high on my list of performance characteristics, it has a number of cross bulkheads oriented radially. It is one of these that will impact our astronaut. Where did I get it wrong?

I sense that you were quite upset by this episode (otherwise why even bother going to the trouble of posting it). This sort of experience is quite normal. It tells you a lot more about your neighbour than it does about your ability to make a contribution to science. What he was more than likely saying was "You look like you are going to be successful. That gets up my nose because I've always been afraid to try." Look around you, you will see people who are genuinely pleased when others enjoy success, then those who somehow believe that success diminishes their own stature. Avoid the former, associate with the latter. On the other hand, you did say your neighbour was drunk. So you might give him the benefit of the doubt when you next meet him sober.

Source?

My A-level studies have given me a strong foundation on the basics of chemistry and biology. That reads wrong. I think it should be: My A-level studies have given me a strong foundation in the basics of chemistry and biology. Good luck.

Sorry YT I don't quite follow you. Could you make that a little clearer please. Sayonara - thank you for opening with the less/fewer item. I have even heard this error from a BBC newsreader!

If you would just care to multiply that last figure by thirty (30) please. Civilisation alone is older than 6000 years.

No. The best thing about Mexico, apart from some of the people, is the volcanoes. Active, dormant, extinct. Snow capped. Big. Lovely. (The volcanoes, not the people. People are rarely snow capped.)

aguy2 I have no problem with life exisitng in the Oort Cloud. Many of Hoyle's early predictions about organic molecules in interstellar dust, and the carbon covering of comets, have been borne out. Sure, he got carried away trying to match the spectral signature of the dust to microbial spores. But anything out there, in the Oort or Kuiper zones, is a)simple b) inert/hibernating. That was why I was so dismissive of the little grey men. I remain a committed panspermiaist for the reasons set out in post #10.

I am not sure that is strictly true. This is a detail, but it is my understanding that Hong Kong island and Kowloon were granted to the British for ever, or for 999 years. It was the rest of Hong Kong which was on the shorter lease, ending in 1999. Britain returned both, because it would not have been practical to do otherwise. (And perhaps in recognition of the fact that the original agreement was signed under duress.)

Remarkable. I've been looking at this thread for two days and it's changed from a discussion on quantum mechanics to one on cognitive psychology. I'm a believer.

I formed the impression, from a myriad of small remarks, that there was a time when some, perhaps many, doctors and midwifes would quietly end the life (sorry, Aardvark - would deliberately kill) of a badly deformed child and report to the parents it had died stillborn. I suspect this practice is still followed in 'primitive' cultures today. If you are a hunter-gatherer living a subsistence lifestyle you become a pragmatist. Can anyone comment on the veracity of these notions.

Gigantism seems to me to be the norm for a proportion of any fauna existing at any time. Amphibians and reptiles all had many large representatives. Size brings the advantage of temperature stability noted above and the 'can't mess with me because I am bigger than you' stance. The only time we don't have large fauna is after an Extinction Level Event, when the big guys all get it. It then takes a few million years for the little chaps to grow up. We are in the midst of an ELE right now, courtesy of homo sapiens, and once again the big guys got it first. Consequently we view elephants and blue whales as strange exceptions. They are not, and their large size is simply a consequence of the advantages noted above.

I think it is a definition difference again. To me a decade or two is the near future. As with most technical problems the solution time is dictated by the quantity and quality of resources thrown at it. The quality of current resources is probably very high, the quantity is certainly very low. If this was addressed there is a good chance we could start building the elevator within ten years. That puts it on the same timescale as the objectives of the lunar landings in the 1960s - it might call for a similar commitment, but we would gain affordable access to space. (Given definition problems earlier - affordable - I don't mean we can all dash up the beanstalk for $150 coach, I mean costs drop by one or two orders of magnitude.)

I think you may be refering to quantum teleportation with entangled particles. It was first done by some Austrians. http://www.its.caltech.edu/~qoptics/teleport.html

I like it. Nice layout. Nice content. I'll be back.

I guess we have different definitions of hopeless. When the concept began to gain some noteriety through Clarke's science fiction novel Fountains of Paradise, the detractors were saying it looked hopeless because there weren't any materials that were strong enough and light enough. Now we have such a material with the prospect of being able to manufacture it to the required extent within a decade or so. In my vocabulary that isn't hopeless, that is hopeful. The problem just requires some technology development. It is achievable.

A group in the states having been doing something akin to this with wild dolphins. They are trying to create an environment with 'interesting things' to play and interact with, including language symbols. Cynics might feel this is just evidence of intelligence on the part of the animal behaviourists who have secured extended field time 'working' in the waters and on the beaches of the Bahamas.Source: I saw it on a documentary a year ago. [i hate it when people say that, but it really is all I have.]

I have a fantasy in which, following a question such as yours, forty eight thousand physicists around the world raise their hands to their chins and say "Shit! I never thought of that." Is the explanation not that space is curved in the vicinity of the black hole. The light still moves in straight lines - its just the straight lines are curved! The same is true around any mass, but especially so for black holes, where space curves in on itself? But what do I know. Simple minded geologist. Still, if dropped from a tall building I would fall at the same speed as Newton or Einstein, so in that sense I am their equal.

"If I have seen further it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants," said Sir Isaac Newton.* I believe that scientists love the excitement and uncertainty of probing the edges of understanding, where knowledge and ignorance meet. They like to do so, however, with their feet firmly planted upon a solid foundation. Suggestions that their foundation is not solid are typically greeted with very unscientific responses, couched in scientific terms. It appears that Allais's effect has been largely ignored because it threatened the solidity of at least a portion of the foundation. It is good to see it being given some serious attention. [*I know the context was not as I am employing it here.]

If you are a conspiracy buff you know its true. If you are a normal person you know it isn't.