Silent

A surprising number of people here on Yahoo!Answers seem to think that Earth's gravity comes from its rotation, as seen in several of the answers to this question: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Anbms...

Where do people get this bizarre idea? Do they actually teach this in schools somewhere? Is it a religious thing?

I vaguely remember hearing somewhere — probably here on Yahoo!Answers — that satellites in polar orbits cannot travel directly over the poles. Their orbits must be inclined slightly.

Is this true? If so, why? If not, where would someone get that idea?

I'm trying to imagine what life would be like on a hypothetical planet orbiting a star close to or in the "bulge" at the center of the galaxy.

It's my understanding that the stars are much more densely packed in that area. Would the night sky then be significantly brighter? Would you be able to see any other stars in the daytime?

Obviously all of this is pretty vague and hypothetical, but any ideas would be welcome.

Can anyone tell me the etymology of "roscoe" as slang for a pistol or revolver?

Where can I find data on the relative commonality of different types of stars?

I'm looking for something that will tell me what percentage of stars are red dwarfs, what percentage are ridiculously hot blue supergiants, etc. Or, to put it another way, a way to find out what the probability is that a randomly selected star would be of a certain type.

In the Christian creation myth in the book of Genesis, the biblical god has Abram change his name to Abraham, and his wife Sarai's name to Sarah. What is the reason for this? Is there some difference in meaning in these names?

In "Star Wars", the planet Tatooine is depicted as being in a star system with two G-type stars similar to the Sun.

Ignoring all considerations of what is probable, is it possible for a planet in such a system to be continuously habitable? What kind of orbital configuration would be needed to make this work?

Note that I'm not asking if life could develop naturally on such a planet; I'm more interested in whether life evolving somewhere else could make use of it.

I just saw a car with a bumper sticker reading "I'm a scientist by default, a Christian by God's choice."

I thought it was interesting, given the way some (not all) Christians tend to distrust science.

So, Christians, what do you think of this statement? What does it mean to you? What is meant by "a Christian by God's choice"? What would you think of a person who displayed this slogan proudly on his car?

It seems one can hardly look at the Astronomy & Space section without seeing a dozen questions about it. Where did all these rumors come from? Who started all this, and why are so many non-scientists willing to trust rumor over expert opinions?

I often hear aircraft in movies identified by their flight number followed by the word "heavy", e.g. "This is United 101 Heavy."

What does "heavy" mean in this context?

Bahá'í doctrine says that "all religions are one", that is, that all religions are sent by the same god, and that they are all really just different aspects of the same thing.

How, then, do you reconcile this with the fact that there are many religions that flatly contradict each other, and many that flatly contradict the Bahá'í Faith itself?

For instance, any atheistic or polytheistic religion disagrees with one of the most fundamental of Bahá'í beliefs — that there is one omniscient, omnipotent god. The Bahá'í disagrees with its own ancestors (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc.) on many theological points as well.

How can all religions be different aspects of the same thing, when they are so incompatible?

I was just watching a TV show in which a Catholic priest said:

"Louise asked me if one person could be held responsible for another's loss of faith. I told her sure, if that one person is the Devil."

Is this a common belief among Catholics, or Christians of other stripes — that when someone loses faith in the Christian god, that the Devil is responsible?

If you believe this — do you believe the Devil is responsible for every loss of faith, or can other factors be involved as well?

There's a Latin phrase, "carpe diem", that's usually translated into English as "seize the day".

How would a Russian say this? Note that I'm not looking for a literal, direct translation of "seize the day", but rather how a native Russian speaker would express the same idea.

Alaska became a state in January of 1959, Hawaii in August of the same year. With such a short period between them, did anyone start making and distributing flags with 49 stars? Or was Hawaii's impending statehood known far enough in advance that people didn't bother?

Picture X fair dice, each of which has Y sides, labeled from 1 to Y. How likely is it that when the dice are rolled, the sum of the showing sides will equal Z, for some Z between X and X * Y?

Of course, one could figure this out by generating all the possible combinations of the X dice and then seeing which ones add up to Z, but in a universe that has given such wonders as penicillin, space travel, and Lucy Pinder, I have to believe there's a smarter way to do it.