EdEarl

BTW, lightening is evidence of charge between two points (e.g., earth to cloud) discharging, which means lightening has already converted electrical potential into heat and light, and there is little or no energy remaining. To effectively use that energy, you would have to prevent lightning by capturing the charges before lightning occurs.

It seems wrong for a corporation (I may partly own as stock) has more political power than I have, and is directed to use that power by a CEO, who probably does not share my needs, agendas, and beliefs.

I like this thought and the signature.

seems misleading. The provided link seems to be more about: There is not A Scientific Method, rather doing science is an art with many methods and pitfalls.

Wall? How high and where will they be? Fairly small tornadoes do significant damage to high-rise buildings. What will these walls be made of, and how much will they cost? Would you extend walls further than tornado alley, because tornadoes can strike anywhere in the world, AFAIK. I'd guess that making buildings tornado proof would be less expensive than criss-crossing either the world or tornado alley with walls to affect tornado occurrence.

UnKNOWN PUNster said, "Never take God for granite."

There are conversion equations for one kind of energy into another, but the subject is too vast to put in this thread. If you take university classes, you would need to study physics and mathematics, which might take you through a PhD. As an overview, think of the Sun, which is a thermonuclear explosion converting matter into energy, E=mc2. Where, E is mainly photons of light which strike the earth heating its surface, making wind. Some of these photons strike leaves and are converted into chemical enery by photosynthesis. Some strike PV panels and convert directly into electricity. Some of the biomass is burned with its heat making steam to turn a turbine that generates electricity. And, the wind turns windmills to make electricity. Electricity can be converted into mechanical energy by an electric motor. Etc. There are equations for all of these processes.

The history of bandwidth is of interest in this discussion. The first spark gap transmitters used much bandwidth, but inefficiently. Tuned bandwidths cam next, but long wave because antennas were easy to make and long distance communication was possible to many people. Longwaves are used mostly by AM radio and HAM operators. There are still a few open channel AM radio stations that crank up their power at night, when conditions are good for long distance communications, and they transmit up to 0.5 MW of power on that channel. Additional bandwidths are opened by the FCC as technology improves, and the frequency of radio equipment extends to additional frequencies, in particular higher frequencies as FM, television, cell phones, and other radio frequency devices. All these bandwidths continue to be used, and there are no plans for discontinuing use of a frequency domain AFAIK. I would expect a similar experience by any technological society.

I'd say the probability is high that it is a dangerous Universe. However, Your implication seems to be it is better to be stealthy than loud, because someone is listening and might invade us, which IMO seems unlikely. For one thing, the Universe is dangerous and not well suited for biological organisms. Secondly, the Universe is large, and resources are everyone; there is no reason to fly thousands of light years, through an environment that can kill you, to steal resources. It is much easier to mine asteroids or planets in your own system.

I don't know the technical details, but SETI seems to think they can receive signals from an alien civilization.

I agree that distance and the speed of light will limit manned travel. On the other hand, I think there are several, perhaps many, things that limit our ability to travel and communicate with other civilizations. And, if technological civilizations were common, we would have heard one by now.

Perhaps technology development by intelligent life is an exceptionally rare event.

Health care can be divided into realms of personal and technical. The personal side of health care will continue to provide jobs for people, almost indefinitely because people need the touch of a human hand, a hug, or a smile. On the other hand, the technical side of health care can be done by robots. Already, robots help doctors with some tasks, including remote surgery and remote patient visits. Such robots will become more sophisticated and capable. Eventually one's cell phone may contain enough sensors to eliminate some patient visits to doctors. This technology would continue the trend of doctors being responsible for more patients with less of their personal time involved. For example, suppose a cell phone existed that could take a patients vitals and perform sonic scans of the patients interior with 0.1 mm precision. In addition, programming in the phone would analyze the data and provide ones doctor with a wellness and exception report. Based on these reports a doctor may schedule an appointment with a person, to perform additional tests and personally evaluate the patient. This kind of technology will reduce the need for doctors, because each doctor will be able to care for more patients. In addition, similar technology can perform many tasks now done by medical technicians; thus, it will reduce the cost of health care. In addition, the personal touch can be satisfied by warm bodies, either volunteers or minimum wage medical assistants. IMO these trends are already occurring, and will accelerate as time goes by.

Math and algorithms are fundamental in nature.

Whereas computers can only follow an algorithm, people are have a variety of problems following algorithms, including misunderstanding, boredom and mistakes. Nonetheless, people are taught algorithms, with varying results. For example, the scientific method is mistrusted and misunderstood by some. Moreover, some people like to be creative, and algorithms do not permit creativity. Finally, people usually work on issues and problems that defy algorithmic solution; thus, education is designed to give people the tools to work on things that defy algorithmic solution.

I think the oragnisms around hydrothermal vents exists on chemical energy.

Considering the 1 acre farm that grows 1M pounds of food, including fish, is there an advantage to a vegetarian diet over a Mediterranean type diet that includes eating fish? Since tilapia eat algae, and algae grow very fast, given the proper nutrients, this system might be extremely efficient.

You seem to be saying that a vegetarian life style causes spin-offs; however, it is also possible that people who are more health conscious tend to not smoke, exercise, and become vegetarian. In fact, the latter seems more likely. Thus, the question remains open, "Is an increase in vegetarian population an improvement?"

What law when broken will cause foreskin to regrow?

Our society could use some sociological improvements, as any system can be improved. But, is an increase in vegetarian population an improvement?

Cubs saved. 2 min video