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Attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. My biology teacher asked me to see if I could figure out how to say it in Latin. My attempt at translation was "solum mutatio stat". How is that? Can someone suggest a better translation? Is there a Latin translation of Heraclitus's Ancient Greek text?

I am having much difficulty in finding any material online regarding the theory of DC to DC converters that is suitable for a high school physics student. I don't know the symbol that one would place in a schematic diagram, and I have only guessed at how it works. Here is what I thought sounded logical: Like the AC transformer, it connects together two loops. Through the primary loop flows a current i at voltage V1, exiting at voltage V2. The "missing" power, i(V2-V1), is transferred into the other loop.

Is this correct?

A friend of mine asked whether or not it would be safe to sleep in a filled bathtub.

First I considered drowning - but quickly realized that one will wake immediately after accidental inhalation of water, so drowning does not pose a serious risk of accidental death.

He then pointed out hypothermia however. I have read some anecdotes concerning both this scenario and death by hyperthermia in a hot tub. The latter however seems far more likely as there is a continuous source of heat, whereas in the former case the water would merely cool to room temperature. Furthermore, I reason that prolonged exposure to air at typical hot tub temperatures would also cause heatstroke (although it would presumably take longer for it to set in), whereas prolonged exposure to air at room temperature (even with no clothes on) does not pose a serious risk to a healthy individual. However, being uncertain, I decided to post this question here.

In and around my house, apparently there are bee/hornet nests in places which are not easily accessible. For example, there's a small staircase leading up to my front door, and there might be a nest underneath one of the steps - since the staircase is a single piece of concrete it would not be very easy to get underneath it. How would I tackle the problem of getting rid of these insects?

A friend introduced to me quite an interesting game. Similarly to Petals around the Rose, the game requires a "quizmaster", somebody who knows the game's secret. He/she then repeatedly says "If A is <something>, B is <something>, and C is <something>", what is D? For example, "If A is Canada, B is the United States, and C is Europe, what is D?" The other players are then invited to guess what D is, and the quizmaster will tell them whether or not each guess is right. If none of the guesses are right, the quizmaster reveals what D is (e.g. "D is Europe.") The other players believe that they have to find out how D is related to A, B, and C. They can also suggest their own sets of A, B, and C, and the quizmaster may tell them what D is for each set.

Usually they think it has something to do with the locations of A, B, and C. (We didn't do it with any abstract nouns like "if A is love, B is peace, and C is harmony, what is D?" I am a highly logical-mathematical person and originally thought it was the closest object to the circumcircle of A, B, and C.)

However, in actual fact there is no pattern; the quizmaster arbitrarily decides what D is. Hence, for example, if there are additional people around who know how the game works, they may be called upon to provide the answer to "what is D?" but people who know the secret will never agree to simultaneously reveal what D is (the chance of both giving the same answer is very low), or do anything else that reveals the arbitrariness of the decision.

Since the human brain expects to see patterns, it may take quite a long time (on the order of 15 minutes to a few hours, I suppose) for a player to realize what is going on. That is, the possibility that there is no pattern at all is discarded by some part of our brains and we never consider it at first. (I felt quite disappointed about having been outsmarted... because I never figured it out but had to be told.)

Now, she claims that she learned the game from somebody else, but failed to provide a name for it. I couldn't find any references to the game online, undoubtedly because it's difficult to think of a good search phrase (just think about how many hits one gets on "A, B, C, and D".) Does anybody know the name of this game?

y''(t) = k/y(t)^2

This arose when I was trying to compute the trajectory of a small mass falling towards a much greater one under the influence of gravity: we have y(t) = distance between centers at time t, y''(t) = acceleration, and y(t)^2 = square of distance, with k = GM (G = gravitational constant, M = mass of large body.)

Mathematica can't seem to solve it. Can anybody help? (This has got to be a well-known problem, anyway.)

Extrapolating from a forum post I read, it would be "j'ai beaucoup de quoi être fier". Later I read some other forum post suggesting that the construction "de quoi" + infinitive is nonstandard. Can somebody clarify? And, does this work with other prepositions (e.g. "j'ai beaucoup à quoi penser")?

I am confused because I don't know what verb tense is to be used in the second half of this sentence; is it perhaps the second imperative, or the present/future indicative/subjunctive... Can somebody help?

Supposedly this is the answer to the question "which elements are diatomic". These are the only elements that have diatomic molecules as their standard states - but this isn't the last word on the issue.

I'm really bored, and the questions in this section have been rather dull and unintersting lately, so I have a challenge for you: Can somebody elaborate further? Under what conditions do other elements assume diatomic molecules? 10 points to the first person that correctly answers this question.

Would I be able to read the scientific reports published by the physicists (if so, how) or would I have to wait for the information to enter the mainstream media?

This one for example:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=As8jE...

As a devoted follower of "real" science, I have a very low tolerance for this sort of thing.

Do you think these things are actually happening, or do people make these things up - either because they're bored, or because they're trying to make us believe that such things _do_ happen?

e.g. I lent him 5 dollars *so that* he could buy a chocolate bar.

e.g. I lent him 5 dollars *so that* he could buy a chocolate bar.

I'm sure there are a lot of programming hobbyists and professional developers on this site, and that you have considerable experience in developing applications. But how well do you know your algorithms?

Problem: You are given a two-dimensional grid of squares with M rows and N columns, where M and N may each be as high as 1000. You are also given the coordinates of certain squares, each of which contains an apple. The other squares do not contain apples. You start from the bottom-left corner, denoted (0,0) and can move only up or right (increasing row or increasing column), eventually reaching (M-1,N-1). Whenever you move into a square containing an apple, you collect the apple. What is the greatest number of apples you will be able to collect? Your program must give the answer within a reasonable length of time.

I was going to say "lo quitate", but that translates to "take it off". What is desired is "and take THAT off before you go out", emphasizing a not-entirely-appropriate article of clothing. So I would think "quitate eso" is the way to say this; is this right?

Some people with poor understanding of "netiquette" like to type in ALL CAPS, for different reasons (e.g. to draw attention to their question/answer, or simply to be rude.) The question is, if there were no Caps Lock, would you be too lazy to type in ALL CAPS, or are you so determined to be discourteous that you'd do it anyways? Would there be perhaps programs written to translate lowercase letters to uppercase letters? (And, uniquely, if you think I'm an ignorant bigot, I actually want you to tell me.)

You can recover from the psychological trauma of being molested, it takes a lot of counselling but you can get your life back on track. On the other hand, you can't "recover" from death.

I think the reason is that most people can only think about how disgusting child molestation is, rather than how morally wrong it is. On the other hand, murder, while morally wrong, does not carry nearly the same shock value (unless it is brought about in a particularly shocking way or something like that.)

Some people (whose opinions I read on this site) seem to think that the worst punishments should be reserved for pedophiles. Why?

Please don't give an answer like "well how would u feel if ur daughter was molested". That's a logical fallacy (and I find it hard to take seriously those of you who can't type "you" and "your").

The character is on the next line:



It should look something like the picture here:

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/f8f7/...

(If it doesn't, then you're not really "seeing" the character.)

I have a font on my computer (called Code2000) which renders this character - i.e. I can paste this into Microsoft Word, set the font to Code2000, and then see the character properly. But when this character is part of a webpage, I can't see it.

By the way, if you didn't understand the question, don't bother to answer. I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but every time so far that I've asked a question in Computers & Internet, I have gotten correct solutions to the wrong problems.

They must have used a computer or some device containing a microprocessor in order to post their questions. You can see why this is hypocrisy - those who argue that science is useless, should not be finding any use for science, but yet they are!

But this is a serious question. Directed especially to people who think that the LHC is a huge waste of time and money. The cathode ray tube (CRT) was the first particle accelerator (the LHC is the most recent and most powerful). J. J. Thomson discovered the electron by experiements with the CRT. Without an understanding of atomic theory, so many things would be lacking from our world... of all artificial materials, only the most primitive, such as concrete, would exist.

I am eagerly awaiting replies.

One of the most common arguments against the Theory of Evolution is that it predicts the existence of transitional fossils, but that none have ever been found.

However, doing a Google search reveals many sources which say that transitional fossils do indeed exist. Here is one of them (which has a large list of creationist claims and the corresponding rebuttals):

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

So - to all you people who claim that transitional fossils do not exist, I want to know: Do you believe that whoever claims that they do exist is simply lying - fabricating evidence - or do you believe that they don't know what they're talking about, or something else like that?