Easy Questions?

[Swatopluk]

I'd vote for option 2 (force exerted by or on the spine).

Concerning the North direction. I mean you can watch the sky and it is clear. The sun would be in my opinion pretty useless (and there could be more than one) because you have no prior knowledge about the tilt of the planet's axis (though you can get it by observing something else) or the calendar, daylength etc. And you have no clock available.

I will grant you an assistant that can do things while you do observations (that makes it easier but is not strictly necessary).

[Bluenose]

Actually, the sun is the go.  Place a stick in the ground as near to vertical as you can manage, preferably in a sandy spot or one where you can mark the ground somehow.  Make a mark in the ground for the tip of the shadow of the stick.  Do this every so often.  Note which direction the sun appears to be moving, to give you a general East/West alignment (the sun appears to move generally from East to West.)  When the shadow is at it's shortest, the sun is either due North or South (of course, the shodow points the opposite direction.)  To determin which, stand aligned and facing the North/South line (from the shadow) so that East is on your right (as determined earlier), North is the direction of the shadow (or the reverse as the case may be), heading away from you.

An alternative is to look at the night sky and draw a map of the brighter stars.  Repeat this every hour or so during the night.  By comparing the maps, you should be able to find the point in the sky (there may or may not be a star there, that would be just luck) around which all the others appear to be roatating.  That point it the nearest celestial pole (you don't know yet whether North or South).  The only exception to this case is if you are on the equator in which case the sky would appear to revolve around two opposite points of the horizon, one being the North celestial pole, the other the South.  Resolve the ambiguity by observing which "side" the stars appear to rise from, this direction is East, place that on your right and the celestial pole in front of you is North.

[Swatopluk]

The sun method could fail in a double star system, I think. I had the night method in mind.
The trick is to mark the East/West extremes of a few stars from a fixed observation point and then to find the middle point between those extremes. The line from the observation point to the marked middle point is the direction towards the next geographical pole. The North/South extremes (and then simply using a plumb line) are far less precise.
Btw, the Egyptians used that method to "North" their pyramids. The markings can still be found on the plateau.

Next question please .

[Griffin NoName]

Why do I keep finding ways of avoiding writing my essay?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The same reasons I find to avoid doing my work I guess

[Griffin NoName]

This question concerns disolving a soluble tablet (the sort that fizzes as it disolves) in water in a glass. Trying to drink from the glass whilst the tablet is still disolving would appear to be possible by turning the glass so that the fizzing tablet will not enter the mouth. However, turning the glass always results in the tablet maintaining the property of being at the point nearest the mouth, even when the glass is held upright and not tipped towards the mouth. Why?

[Swatopluk]

Have you tried the same with a rectangular glass instead of a cylindrical one?
Turning the glass not necessarily also turns the contents, especially with a liquid of low viscosity as water (the gas may even reduce it further).
Drinking will likely cause a bit of suction that would affect the tablet too. Has using a straw the same effect?

[Griffin NoName]

I have a hexagonal glass which I could test. 

[Griffin NoName]

I assume this is an easy question. Actually it's two questions. No, it's three questions.

I've been watching science for the masses on TV again.

They start with speed of light stuff. Seeing into the past. Lots of this light from this star started out 150 years ago bla bla. Hubble, seeing almost to the edge of the visible universe.

How can we be sure it's the past? Couldn't our mindsets be fixed in a way that actually means we are seeing into the future and the end of the universe? (like the way the retina captures images upside down and the brain turns them the right way up).

Sceond question. In the beginning there was nothing. Flashes of many scientists repeating this. Just a second before the Big Bang, de nada. Good popular science.

What's the proof there was nothing? Experimental data?

Third question. Should I stop watching popular science and stick to the text books?

[Swatopluk]

If the first were true then a mirror deposited far enough away could be used for long term weather prediction (or the results of horse races).

The "in the beginning there was nothing" is anything but undisputed. One should keep the campus gun free for the sole reason of preventing duels bewteeen rivalling cosmologists.

TV for living nature, books for dead Long live David Attenborough!

[beagle]

Just a second before the Big Bang, de nada. Good popular science.

What's the proof there was nothing? Experimental data?

Always tricky when singularities are involved, but I guess one way of looking at it is having a "before" in advance of having a spacetime is a bit like having a horse race before you've evolved the horse.

Anyway, my limited understanding is that the very big brains currently think universes get created due to the collision of very big branes. Hope that's cleared things up.

[Sibling Chatty]

So, we're back to the gigantic Cozmic Zombies lurching around, mumbling "Branes, branes"?

Sounds about right.

[Aggie]

I assume this is an easy question. Actually it's two questions. No, it's three questions.

I've been watching science for the masses on TV again.

They start with speed of light stuff. Seeing into the past. Lots of this light from this star started out 150 years ago bla bla. Hubble, seeing almost to the edge of the visible universe.

How can we be sure it's the past? Couldn't our mindsets be fixed in a way that actually means we are seeing into the future and the end of the universe? (like the way the retina captures images upside down and the brain turns them the right way up).

Sort of tied into this.  I think.  I don't think it's a stretch for most people (well, most people here ) to imagine the possibility of a universe that starts at a singularity and goes on forever (with equilibrium possibly reached at some point).  So why does it seem completely counterintuitive to imagine the opposite - a universe that goes on forever into the past, and ending at a singularity sometime in the future?

I personally find the idea a bit discombobulating in itself, like waking up on the ceiling.

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Sort of tied into this.  I think.  I don't think it's a stretch for most people (well, most people here ) to imagine the possibility of a universe that starts at a singularity and goes on forever (with equilibrium possibly reached at some point).  So why does it seem completely counterintuitive to imagine the opposite - a universe that goes on forever into the past, and ending at a singularity sometime in the future?

Probably because of the way most people think of time and causality: things happened because of the things before them.  If things stretch forever into the past, then there is no beginning, no "first cause" (to borrow the expression from those trying to prove God)... and ergo no "us".

Streching off into the future is okay, since we don't "need" it in order to have our here-and-now.

I personally find the idea a bit discombobulating in itself, like waking up on the ceiling.

One of my friends told me a story (probably untrue) about a rich man who made up one of the rooms of his mansion to be exactly like one of his main rooms, except it was built completely upside-down.  Supposedly, when people passed out drunk at his parties, he'd put them in there and, for his own amusement, videotape them waking up. 

[Aggie]

One of my friends told me a story (probably untrue) about a rich man who made up one of the rooms of his mansion to be exactly like one of his main rooms, except it was built completely upside-down.  Supposedly, when people passed out drunk at his parties, he'd put them in there and, for his own amusement, videotape them waking up. 

This is one of the reasons I should never be trusted with large sums of money.
(have always wanted a few rooms like that, and a host of other oddities....  theremin-circuit based 'sound sculpture' rooms that change according to your proximity to pillars, mirror arrays that allow the viewer to see the back of their own head, indoor lakeshore rooms).