Challenge One
1. What is the most used argument by people to not place windmills for clean energy?
That would depend very much on where the windmills were.
Here in NZ there are a group of common arguements against them:
They look ugly;
They make too much noise;
They kill too many birds.
2. Why does frequent buying on credit not attribute to the economy over a longer period of time?
One reason is that it adds to the price (typically by 20%), thus reducing the “efficiency” of the system.
3. Which form of energy production produces the highest radiation output when seen over a period of 2000 years?
Depends what form of radiation one is talking about.
If one includes Ifra Red radiation, then it is probably Solar.
If one includes only “hard” radiation, capable of causing genetic abnormalities, then it is probably coal, with the amount of radon and other substances released during the mining and leaching from the mines over time. Though natural gas could be a contender also. Again, it would depend a great deal on the particular source one is looking at, geology is highly variable.
4. Where does the moon come from?
It seems that the moon is the result of a collision between the early earth and another Mars sized planet, and the moon condensed from the material that splashed into orbit.
Interesting to note that the tides on the earth have been gradually dragging the moon further away (by an inch or so every year – with reflectors on the moon we can actually measure that movement away with earth based LASERs), but over the last 4 billion years that has moved it a long way. When it formed it was about one 16th the distance away that it is now, meaning that the tides on the early earth would have been over 300ft high, every 3 hours, and the day length on earth would have been about 6 hours.
5. Why do some 1st world countries have so significant more teenage pregnancies then others?
A mix of factors including culture and diet.
6. What is the simplest argument (and also one of the most scary in my opinion) why oil is NOT a fossilized fuel?
It is not thermodynamically possible to form saturated hyrdocarbons from unsaturated ones at the sorts of temperatures and pressures found in the top 5 km of the planet surface. Work by Russian chemists has shown that it is possible to form hydrocarbons at about 15km depth. At the temperatures and pressures found there it forms from limestones, so it is still a fossil fuel (as limestones have biological origin) but not in the normally accepted sense.
Once formed these substances can percolate to the surface and get trapped under impervious structures.
7. What is the main reason rainforests are being logged to this date?
The lack of land rights of the current inhabitants meaning that logging companies can get cheap access, and with the resulting profits buy political support.
8. What is the main argument generally accepted why there are no intelligent extraterrestrial life forms found to this date?
I don’t know about generally accepted.
To me there seem to be two classes of argument that seem possible, and there is no evidence currentlly to distinguish between them.
One set of hypotheses is that the origin of life is so difficult, and requires such special conditions, and so much chance, that it happens very rarely, and technologically capable life is even more rare.
Getting a collision big enough to form a moon, and start plate tectonics, seems to be rare (we have not observed plate tectonics on any other world as yet).
Getting life to form, and to sequester the CO2 from the atmosphere into limestone before runaway greenhouse effects evaporate all water seems to be the next major barrier.
A world without plate tectonics would become a world devoid of land, and hence unlikely to develop technology – it being very difficult to light a fire in water, and very difficult to do chemistry without fire.
The other class of suppositions is basically along the general theme that we are not yet sufficiently intelligent to be admitted to galactic society, and we live in what is essentially a galactic “nature reserve”; and galactic law does not allow outside interference in our affairs.
These are not mutually exclusive arguments – both or either or neither may be true.
9. Often people say that you can be at several places at the same time. Or that you can steer these effects with your thoughts. Why is this not true?
As yet we do not seem to be capable of doing anything with our thoughts other than influencing our bodies and the technology attached. Technology is improving, and we may be able to maintain awareness in multiple places in the future.
10. What are the three assumptions you need to make in order to proof the existence of god?
There is only one – that god exists.
It does not appear to be logically possible to either prove or disprove the existence of god with absolute certainty.
It does seem possible to say that it is highly unlikely that there is a god – and to accept such a matter as being beyond reasonable doubt – but not proved in any absolute sense.
A knowledge of biocehmistry makes it difficult to imagine any sort of intelligent design in life – there is simply so much evidence of random genetic drift over billions of years.
