Strange

Excellent post, Captain. There is a statistic going around about the number of Christians who are killed each year "because of their faith". This number is massively inflated (by a factor of 10, approximately, I think) by this one event. Which also highlights the other problem with the statistic: they were not killed "because they were Christian" but because of their ethnicity (well, that was the proximate cause, the true causes are deeper and more complex, of course).

Relative: congratulations for asking questions and not giving in to the temptation to say the sceince must be wrong because your intuition/imagination says something different! Keep it up. Why do clouds turn gray before it rains?http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-clouds-turn-gray-b/

It is easy-ish to understand at a very basic level. But it is an immensely complicated area of science. For example... Clouds do many things. They stop light reaching the Earth and reflect it back to space so they may cause cooling. They alos absorb some light so may get warmer. They reflect light and infra-red back down to Earth and so may cause warming. They change the heat capacity of the atmosphere. The amount of cloud might increase or decrease as the climate changes so they might accelerate or slow climate change. They might ... well, you get the picture. First, when people talk about "carbon" in this context it is shorthand for carbon-dioxide (and other carbon-based greenhouse gases, such as methane). They don't mean the black stuff that charcoal is made of. Second clouds are white or grey because of the scattering of light by the water droplets and ice crystals. I assume the colour depends on the size of the droplets, but I don't know for sure. tappetty-tappety-tap ... Oh, apparently it is because they are thicker.

Complex, rather than random.

Isn't it obvious that you are dreaming? Impossible things happen, you can stop and "rewind" and change how things happen, it "feels" like a dream, etc.

Or a linear motor? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_motor

Dark matter not only surronds the galaxy, it is spread through the galaxy as well. It is densest at the centre.

I suppose so. But "the atmosphere" means 1,000s of variables which change in every location, altitude and moment. Plus the input from the sun varies all the time.

Just: "the whole magnet". The magnet is solid. Any force on it will act on the whole magnet.

Charge is not energy.

I don't understand the question. If the atmosphere is hotter then the Earth, then no heat will leave the Earth, but will flow from the atmosphere to the Earth. But at the same time the atmosphere will radiate to space faster because it is warmer. But also, the atmosphere is not all at the same temperature, and the Earth is not all at the same temperature, and the seas are not all at the same temperature. And the amount of heat in the atmosphere varies with humidity and pressure. And all these temperatures change all the time as energy flows between different parts of the system and winds blow and sea currents move and ... That is why it is so hard to model exactly what happens.

Not sure why. Thermodynamics is about heat, not magnetism.

Because we are talking about radiated heat (infra-red) not convection.

There will be a maximum force of attraction between the ends of the magnets. There will be a little less force of attraction a little distance from the end. There will, I suppose, be zero force between their middles. But that is all irrelevant because the force acts on the whole solid magnet. So the whole of one magnet is attracted to the whole of the other magnet.

Atoms contain electrons (with negative charge) but they also contain an equal number of protons (with positive charge) Therefore the metal does not have an overall positive and negative charge. But when electrons are added to the plates in the electroscope, then it has an overall negative charge and so the two leaves repel each other.

OK. "Are the north pole and south pole of a single magnet attracted to each other?" I suppose they are. I have never thought about that before. Yes. Although I doubt there would be enough force to move the magnet. Unless the magnet was very light (or was balanced on a point). No.

Energy arrives from the sun in the form of visible light and ultraviolet radiation. This radiation passes through the atmosphere and warms the Earth. The Earth then radiates some of this heat as infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb some of this heat, then re-emit it in all directions - including back to the Earth's surface. Hence the Earth gets warmer. More: http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm

I agree with everything you say. Except ... Which, I think, should say: "The big bang model of the universe is popularly described as being based upon a universe emerging from a tiny point smaller than a proton." Or: "The big bang model of the universe is based upon the observable universe emerging from a tiny point smaller than a proton."

If there were planets? What an idea!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity#Table_of_specific_heat_capacities

Yes to both. It is approximately the same. If it weren't the Earth would get hotter or cooler. Currently it is absorbing slightly more energy than it loses. Hence: global warming. Depends what you mean by "significant". It is already heating rather too much for comfort. It is slightly more complicated than "can hold more". It is to do with how transparent the atmosphere is to infra red. Again, "maximum state" isn't very meaningful. But if they are at a constant temperature (any constant temperature) then the input energy will equal the output.

It took me a while to work it out! The ellipse marked pivot is the axle; the rectangle is rotating around it; the big arrow is the centrifugal force (arguably pointing in the wrong direction). So, Relative, the convention for torque is that it points into (or out of) the plane of your diagram. There is an animated diagram on the Wikipedia page.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are asking. There isn't really a "minus" and a "plus" magnet. There is just a magnet which has a north pole and a south pole. (If you cut it in half, you get two magnets both with a north and a south pole. If you put those end-to-end you get a single magnet again.)

The two bits of metal get charged and so repel each other.

Make an effort to understand the science and stop making up random nonsense, maybe?