Recent content by Jim Lundquist

Thank you for your reply. I agree with your biological analogy (much more complex), but this is a thought problem in which the predictor has absolute knowledge of the components (hydrogen and oxygen), and absolutely NO knowledge of the system (water). The missing component would be the...

First, of course he wouldn't know it is called water. This is a simply worded hypothetical question. At STP, hydrogen and oxygen are gases while water is a liquid. Could that liquid property be predicted...prior to sophisticated software such as Cosmo? We know that mixing hydrogen and oxygen...

Hypothetically, if a chemist/physicist knew all the properties of hydrogen and all the properties of oxygen but knew nothing of water or its properties, would he be able to predict that combining 2 atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen would produce a substance called water and its properties?

Thank you again. I really meant the singularity of the black hole having infinite density, not mass. So, in the distant future of the universe, is it theoretically possible for the entire universe to be reduced to many black holes and then those black holes combining into fewer and fewer black...

Thank you, so please let me follow-up. Theoretically, if an atom of 56Fe were to fall into a black hole, would the atom be stripped of its fundamental particles, become super compressed, or something totally different as it approaches the singularity? If the mass is considered to be infinite...

Did hydrogen reach some maximum level in the early universe before fusion began creation of helium and thus decreasing the amount of hydrogen, or do fission reactions maintain some kind of balance? If the universe is constantly expanding, the density of remaining hydrogen would seem to decrease...

Thank you very much for your help...I am reading your link now. Jim

Thank you, but then let me ask this another way. Did the expansion of the universe propagate spherically as in the balloon metaphor?

This is the common illustration of the history of the universe, but it gives the impression that the universe burst forth from the Big Bang like a garden hose on the spray setting. Is this accurate or just a simplification? Would a more accurate be the second illustration (also a...

Please forgive me...I am not a mathematician, but I have a couple questions that have been puzzling me. In theory, can a circle be so large that connecting 3 points on that circle result in a degenerate triangle? If the length of a straight line drawn between two points on a circle is Planck...

I am thoroughly confused regarding the modeling and graphic depictions of gravitational wave propagation. These waves must propagate in three dimensions, not in the planar rubber sheet example that is often shown or the ripples on a pond example. Even the recently publicized example of the...

Thank you, Andrew. I couldn't have asked for a better explanation. It is precisely what I was looking for. It is interesting when you say "It's easy enough to colour in a square using a pencil with point-width 1mm, but much more difficult if the point-width is zero." Can the "width" of a...

Thank you...so the answer is no, a sphere cannot be mathematically described by any kind of 3D rotation. A sphere can only be described by a 2D circle rotating around a 1D diameter.

A.T., torques are equal on all three axes and continuous, as if the arrows shown in the OP were rocket engines. Andrew, if there are 8 possible directional combinations of force (torque) applied in the model, as shown in the chart below, and the “inverted” combinations cancel out the...

After pondering this discussion, I am still left with this one question: If each axis examined separately is initially attempting to rotate in its own described plane and counter to the other planes, why would there be a bias to establish the “new” rotational axis…for example why is an axis...