masterplan79th

Surely anyone who accepts a prescribed religion can only be told the meaning of life according to that viewpoint, and will be blind to any real truth.

seriously ...

Is it a language difference (US/Aus/Can/Scot english) or some functional difference?

for example, the statement "The ball is red"

what property must the ball have in order to be called red.

How does this work for colour filters(i.e. lenses), can they be said to be coloured if they do not reflect light, but only permit certain frequencies to pass through it?

The main problem with concetrated photovoltaic cells currently is that the lenses used heat up the target cells, normally this heat requires energy in order to be moved, reducing the efficiency of the system as a whole.

sources:

http://physorg.com/news130086323.html

If this heat were put to work using a Stirling engine instead of being transferred using traditional cooling technology (currently cooling from 1600 degrees centigrade down to 85) how much more efficient (currently 70/230 - 30.4%) would the overall system be?

source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

or can it be between any 2 non-insulating materials in a vacuum?

Consider this thought experiment of a rotating stellar mass black hole.

The overall gravitational effect on space-time depends on the curvature caused by mass bearing particles, in the case of a black hole, this curvature, a horn in 4D space-time, causes a spheroid of 3D space to be inescapable to light, the event horizon.

Now place another large mass (but not another black hole) near the black hole, in a degrading orbit around it.

As this object approaches the black hole, the curvature of space-time between the two objects will be flattened out.

Now, will this cause light from where previously it was unable to escape, due to the presence of a large mass in close proximity, to now be able to follow a route in space-time that takes it out of this region, past the large companion and out into space, thus putting a dent in the event horizon?

Further thinking, how would this potential change in shape of the event horizon (change in surface area), affect the Hawking Radiation emission?

Whenever i've not got enough sleep, my eyelids feel like they are scratching my cornea. How come?

Personally I believe I am an Agnostic Theist, I believe from my extensive studies of the universe from scientific perspectives that the current model of HOW the universe works is pretty damn good, however i struggle when i get to the big bang, I long for a concept of before this, and neither can I accept that there has simply always been something. The simplest and more likely explaination in my own mind is that there was at one point, if you go back far enough(yes, way way way beyond the Big Bang), nothing, which something(God?) created.

However i wholeheartedly reject any concept that this creator has ever interacted directly with humanity, all religious scriptures I can see with a firm purpose of trying to get the common people to adhere to a set of laws, in a time where law was a rare thing, or in the case of mormonism, because the creator had more ambition than sense, Jesus in america, native americans from israel .. I mean ... come on.

I realise these are created via selective breeding, but surely farmers must at some point plant the vines that grow them, so how do they do it?

I started my first job out of university in january and given that i TRIED to claim jobseekers allowance during the period i was looking for a job, i ticked the second box on the P46 when i started work that indicated that i had claimed benefits in the past year. As a result i was put onto tax code 522L and for the last 3 months i've been taxed at full rate (thankfully not emergency).

However I have not earned my £5220 for the year(March 31st statement indicates £5099 gross TD), and expected to get my tax refunded in my March wage. This has not occurred, and as a result i am over £750 out of pocket.

When should i expect my P60 for the 2007-2008 tax year?

What is the best way to reclaim the tax back?

Is there a website that i can visit with some automated process, or is ringing/mailing them the best solution?

I get really irritated by the responses to questions where people put some ridiculous garbage barely related to the topic of the question, some of the responses are downright wrong, and the answerer is simply guessing.

I know i can makr these down, but i'd love some tool to be able to report people giving stupid (not humorous, just downright boneheaded) answers.

I fear that people who read some of these answers may be tempted to self-harm in order to escape the mental anguish it causes them to realise how stupid some people can be.

In the interests of public safety, can we please keep stupid people off the internet.

Simple question, for services like insurance, do we pay VAT?

It occurs to me that given the properties of the universe and the relationship of space and time, there should be a method of defining what time itself is based on these properties.

The current definition of the SI second as '9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom' seems independant of the effect of time modifiers such as gravity or velocity.

Since velocity can be affected by gravity but not vice versa and gravity can affect time but not vice versa, surely this means that we need a better definition of what time is in terms of the fundamental structure of the universe we live in.

There must be some property of space-time that causes forces to act on all 4 dimensions, so surely, in its purest form, time must be able to be defined as a property of the universe rather than as a unit of a product of itself?

I'm trying in vain to think of the correct word to desribe where an object gains possession of a thing or concept by gaining possession of an object that contains or possesses it.

An example being:

Many apples are stored in many crates, these crates are placed into a truck. By gaining possession of the truck you gain possession of the crates and by <word missing here>, gain possession of the apples.

I'm almost certain there is a word that describes this accurately, i feel as if its on the tip of my tongue.