Strange

But intelligent, kind and good looking people can say things that are stupid, or just wrong. Pointing out that their statement is incorrect (or even stupid) does not mean that you don't think that they are intelligent, kind, etc. If someone says that your guitar playing is terrible, or tells you that you can't spell, or that you have misunderstood physics they are not criticising you they are criticising your work. These are separate things.

Polar jets? These are created outside the black hole from matter falling in (the accretion disk). http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/milky-way-black-hole-jet/

OK. I've read that. Are you trying to make the point that computers are deterministic therefore they can't exhibit intelligence? If so, the obvious question is, in what way is the brain not deterministic?

I'm not sure I see the relevance of that. Conditional statements are required for a programming language to be Turing complete, but so what? Are you trying to make the point that computers are deterministic therefore they can't exhibit intelligence? If so, the obvious question is, in what way is the brain not deterministic?

I think you just have to accept that sometimes teachers are wrong. If they wont accept it, then all you can do is ignore it and move on.

Pretty much. But what is the difference between space and the coordinate system? There isn't some "absolute space" that we apply our coordinates to. There is just our coordinates; i.e. the method we use to measure the spatial separation of objects. That changes over time. We describe this as space expanding (for simplicity). There are reasons why modelling the recession of distant galaxies as proper motion doesn't work. For example, the fact that we can see galaxies that are moving faster than light. But, more importantly, the evidence overwhelmingly supports a model of the universe based on GR. Therefore that is the one that is chosen.

Huh? Planets aren't electrons and aren't even charged...

That is very cool. But note that you need a comma between 10 and ... It recognised the Fibonacci series from just the first four terms: 1,1,2,3,...

Space isn't "stuff" so it can't surround anything. It is just the physical (as opposed to temporal) distance or separation between objects and events.

That is all it means. Expanding space is just analogy for the changing metric. Space is just the distance between things and therefore part of the geometry of spacetime; it isn't "stuff" which gets bigger. This might help: http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0380 (it gets quite mathematical but the beginning is easy to follow).

A quick translation of part the text

Down's and Klinefelter are both due to an extra copy of a chromosome (aneuploidy). Turner's is caused by a missing chromosome. I can't see any context in which the word "sticky" makes sense. What is her first language?

And:

The paper "Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?" by M V Berry, N Brunner, S Popescu and P Shukla has the abstract:

One hypothesis suggest that fundamental particles can be modelled as strings. Not quite the same thing. It is hard enough trying to understand/model the mind as the action of neurons and neurotransmitters, without getting down the the level of electrons. Trying to understand in terms of string theory (even if it is correct) seems unnecessarily complicated. The best way of modelling complex systems seems to be to abstract away from the low level details. This rarely leads to a loss of accuracy. DNA only partly accounts for personality, by controlling the development of the brain. But external influences during development are equally significant.

Given the title, I thought you were going to suggest that technology development is common but almost inevitably brings about the collapse of the societies that develop it. Given the rate of progress in detecting exo-planets, I wonder how long it will be before we can detect the (artificial) satellites orbiting some of these planets. (Only partly tongue in cheek.)

The Earth is about 4 billion years old. Which is not the same as requiring 4 billion years for it to be formed. I believe that there is a quite bit of uncertainty about exactly how galaxies form. It was, apparently, a bit surprising to find galaxies quite so early. But it certainly doesn't conflict with the bag bang theory.

That implies everything has a cause, which may not be true.

As far as I know, yes. That is the definition of interact. Don't get misled by that "quantum woo" about conscious observers.

When the particle is "measured" (detected) or otherwise interacts with something.

No theory is ever "perfect". Whatever new theories that are developed, even if they modify or replace the current big bang model, will still have unknowns and open questions.

You cannot get a patent on mathematics, only on a mechanism that uses it. I'm not sure about the status of copyright and mathematics. I think it would have to be a substantial mathematical proof or derivation before you could claim copyright on it.

Because a story does not have to have any basis in reality. Harry Potter does not exist. There is no such thing as magic. etc. However, a scientific theory or model is a representation if reality. That doesn't mean that the things in the theory (e.g. the electric field") are real. But then it isn't clear what "real" means. If the model works, then we might as well treat it as if it were real. Exactly, without the math, you cannot make testable predictions and therefore confirm (or refute) the theory. Math is different from scientific theory because it is provable. You can prove things to be true or false in math (which you can't do in science). So, for example, the "number 1" that you mention is not just an arbitrary invention someone made up; the properties of the natural numbers can be formally derived and proved in mathematics. (This leads on to an even more difficult question about whether math exists outside of us and we discover it, or if it is a human invention. Most mathematicians seem to think we discover it. Many philosophers say that we invent it. Doesn't really matter.) The frequency information isn't made up. It is an observation; something we measure. The electric field is part of the model that explains how things work.

These don't contradict it, but they are (currently) unanswered questions.

The hottest it could be is 100°C (the boiling point of water). You may have (coincidentally) caught a cold, or your symptoms may be psychosomatic because you are worried (unnecessarily).