God bless you?
This isn’t really scientific, but whenever someone pulls out a shotgun (TV and cartoons mostly), they have to pump it. Schingk- schink.
And it’s always double barreled!
Has there ever been a double barreled pump action shotgun?
Anyone who washes there hands more than twice a day after going to the bathroom or tries to clean their desk once a week or keeps pencils seperate from pens has OCD.
In general, the use of terms from the DSM to describe ordinary, if quirky behavior.
but we would fall down, right?
I thnk a lot of people talk about the dark side of the moon.
I’ve heard Bush even thinks we could land safely on the dark side of the sun 
Schitzophrenia is not the same thing as multiple personality disorder.
Computers are not “intelligent” in any meaningful sense.
We’d fall East at about a thousand miles per hour.
There is no gravity in space yet the moon is tied to the earth by gravity and moon gravity causes tides.
Referring to any potential alien life forms as “Martians.” I can’t help it, it sounds too funny.
Doh. I clearly got mixed up with the speed at which the earth spins around the sun.
Oh well. I Think my ability to function as a human being may have a chance of surviving this little fault in my knowledge.
Very true. But it should also be kept in mind that the flow of charge is not necessarily comprised of electrons.
Right, it can also be a flow of “holes”, carriers of positive electric charge, as in semiconductors. Or did you mean something else entirely?
The charge that flows through a battery is primarily made up of ions. Same when a person gets electrocuted… it is primarily ions that flow through the person’s body, not electrons.
Of course! :smack:
>Electricity is the propagation of the electric field surrounding the conductors.
Still don’t get you. Sounds like you are talking about electromagnetic radiation, not electricity. By “electricity”, I suppose most usually mean the phenomenon of current flowing along a wire or in a circuit, don’t they?. Of course, when there’s electricity, there’s a field, and it propagates. But that’s not the same thing, it’s just an associated phenomenon.
What erat demonstrated here?
“I slept like a baby.”
Yeah? You mean you woke up screaming every half-hour?
It is logical that many aliens COULD be funny-looking humans.
There IS a tendency for evolution to follow certain paths or directions dictated by the laws of heredity, physics, etc.
I will admit, the following example occurs on the same planet, not different planets . But stop and consider the “parallel” evolution of marsupial mammals and placental mammals. Starting from a common ancestor, marsupials and placentals branched out and yet INDEPENDENTLY, on different continents, evolved versions of the bear, the wolf, big cats, etc. The marsupial “wolf” was not identical to the placental wolf we know, but he seems to have filled the same niche and played a similar role.
Consider also that sabre-toothed cats evolved not once but three times, independently, in the evolutionary history of cats. It would seem there ar certain factors directing evolutionary possibilities.
Now what about other planets? Well, if the planet was Earth-like (and we are now pretty certain that there are many, many Earth-like planets in the Universe) and if the life was carbon-based, then there are certain “rules” that would apply to the evolution of an intelligent species.
In order to have human-like brains, they would have to be somewhere in our size range. If they were the size of mice or even ducks, they would not have enough brain matter to be intelligent.
If they are too big that would not work either (an elephant has a larger brain than a human).
Having four limbs works for most creatures, giving them stability, speed, etc. But an intelligent species would likely have two of those limbs which evolved from locomotive to manipulative appendages. Not much point in being intelligent if you can’t hold anything better than a cat or a dog.
It would make the most sense for the “arms” to be the two nearest the head. It also makes sense for the eyes and mouth to be near or on the head.
So if you are talking about an intelligent, spacefaring species, they might not look a lot like us, but there are certain common factors that shaped our species and theirs, so that they would not be totally different.
On the other hand, if you are not talking about an intellgent alien species, but just an alien spcies, then look at how little we resemble our fellow-mammal the blue whale!
If the planet were a different size the physical laws would be different yes ?
Could force evolution down a different path.
I could show you some pictures… actually, never mind. They’re not nice.
But it isn’t. As has been posted already, the drift velocity of electrons in a conductor is on the order of a few inches per hour. Yes, per hour. As in sixty minutes. But when you make a phone call across the country through regular old UTP cable, the signal gets there almost instantaneously. Why would this be if it’s the electrons that are carrying the energy which makes up the signal?
On the other hand, consider the econiche of a grazer in mixed grass/scrubland that has to be able to flee rapidly from predators and jump over obstacles while doing so. In Africa it’s filled by the springbok, and in Australia by the kangaroo.
65,000 mph, or 1,000 mph - not a big deal on our small level, but nice to see it corrected. We’re going around the galatic center at about ~500,000 mph. The question now is, how fast is our galaxy traveling? Maybe a touch of over 1,000,000 mph. Maybe more, maybe less depending on how you measure it and what you’re comparing it to.
Yes, but how many football fields is that?