Recent content by B.E.M

I don't see brainless meat as cruelty, but I do have a concern that finding a substitute for animals could mean just less room for animals in a human dominated world. Put it another way, what if we demanded the meat of endangered animals, grown free range, in our burgers. Would we be making...

I guess the ISS must have cost about that much by now and part of the point of the OP is to criticize this. There was probably a lot of waste in the ISS, unfortunately that is probably true whenever the government tries to spend a lot of money on something that its citizens can not easily...

I also came up with a similar idea. suppose as a thought experiment you define a virtual universe by a small computer algorithm which uses pi as random seed to place the atoms, then anyone with a sufficiently powerful machine could run this simulation forwards and see what happens in this...

As far as I know, there is no need for this concept within physics. I understand there are rules ordering cause and effect etc, but these are true of all points in history, not just true at one point that we call the present for example. I don't think the B theory excludes such notions as one...

Going from you 'nutshell' definition, I definitely go with 'B'. Actually I am surprised to find it currently lagging behind A on a physics forum, though only a handful of votes are in I suppose. I don't see the need of a present to explain anything within physics. Also, physicists tend not to...

or is it oscillating with exactly the natural frequency and an amplitude of zero? To which the only sensible response is.. "whatever..". :-p

I guess we want a 'wow' signal of oxygen. Who cares about fiddly trace contents. we have found those in this solar system anyway and are still debating them even after landing probes. People focus on finding any success at any level. I think it would also be interesting if we found one clear...

I remember it seeming strange to me that so many objects turn out to oscillate at a constant frequency. I think there are two facts contributing to this. (1) One specific example, a simple oscillator, has this property. A simple oscillator is defined by a simple linear relationship: f=-k(x-x0)...

Ok, just thought of an improvement. The above is an approximation. What would be better is a reliable under-estimate. Consider the example where you want to build your bubble 2km under the ice on mars, and you want a diameter of one 1km (i.e. radius of 500m). A reliable under estimate...

Ah.. rats. I think that site has a misprint. In equation (2.51) it starts talking about cylinders and an area of 2∏rL where I guess L is the length of the cylinder. I think they have pasted in the formula for a cylinder instead of a sphere? (edit).. still very helpful. Just knowing that I...

Hi, thanks for that link in your other message. Looks excellent! I don't think my analysis is wrong, but I will certainly look into it. Im not integrating over the surface of a sphere but over a set of thin-walled spherical shells with width dr nested within each other. I believe this let's...

Hi again. Im really aiming this question to someone willing to check my integration. :)

Hi Vanadiam, (fixed typo 1mw to be 1 megawatt.) Remember I am talking about power, not energy. I am talking about the equilibrium that would be reached eventually. I am not considering how long it takes to reach that equilibrium. For example, if we were considering the 1-d version of this...

The motivation: Hi, I am a bit of a space freak and I have been enthusiastic about this question for a while because there are lots of bodies in the solar system that are a few or many kilometers deep in ice. It occurred to me that if you landed your powerplant on this ice it could sink to some...

But that's the best time to try this type of experiment! Use two full beercans and a length of string. You can tie it to their tabs. See how close you can get them to spinning horisontally before the g forces open the tabs :)