It's a math thing, more than a physics thing.

With Newtons law of gravity, there is a big, but seemingly solved problem that's been known for a long time: things must not touch. Potential energy is calculated by dividing a term by the distance of two objects. You can't devide by zero, so if the distance goes to zero, energy goes to infinity, which doesn't make sense. The solution is to prevent the centers of mass of things from touching. This isn't a problem, because in real life, masses aren't points, but solid objects and the centers of mass are in the middle, so they can't touch, because the outer parts collide first. And in simulations you can just make a rule that says no touching.

This kind of gap in a formula, where it stops being defined, is called a singularity in math. And to deal with them, you just have to know, when to expect them. For hundreds of years, people thought, collisions were the only singularities in Newtonian gravity. Easy to avoid, so not a problem. Now in this paper, they prove, that there are other, non-collission singularities and give an explicit example.

The arrangement in the picture has the middle mass going back and forth between the two binaries faster and faster and it reaches infinite speed in finite time. It basically leaves the universe, like a glitch in a video game. Also the reverse is allowed too: you just need the four masses from the two binary systems and there is nothing in Newtonian gravity that says a fifth mass can't randomly appear from out of nowhere with infinite speed, slow down and settle between the too binaries.

Since only five masses were necessary to create this problematic constellation, it's likely that there are many more possible.

Luckily, we have Einsteins theory of gravity now, so don't have to worry about Newton too much. However, this does have its own, completely different kind of singularity, where the curvature of spacetime goes to infinity. People initially thought, that would be a problematic, unphysical behavior, like Newtons singularities, but it turns out that's just a real thing that happens: black holes. Here the annoying singularities are mercifully shrouded in an event horizon, so at least we don't have to look at them. Unless... But there is a solution for that too.

Now just add a second binary star system and you get infinite energy and momentum in finite time*:

*if Newtonian physics were true and stars and planets were points and everything was perfectly aligned

Mostly illiterate is practically true already for the U.S. with most adults reading skills worse than those of sixth graders.

It helps to distinguish between personal belief and institutionalized religion.

Yes, have you heard of Paulo Freires Pedagogy of the Oppressed? Some central points: liberation must come from the oppressed and not be imposed externally, rejecting internalized oppression is necessary to reclaim our humanity, awareness of economical contradictions in order to become active to change them, praxis as the combination of reflection and action. Also much more.

It's what limits their size. If insects had lungs, they could get larger. 300 million years ago, when the oxygen content in the atmosphere was temporarily higher, there were huge dragonflies with 75 cm wingspan (2.5 ft).

I don't know about peaceful, but Giovanni Arrighi explains in The Long Twentieth Century , how and why during the history of capitalism, power passed from one Italian city state to another, then to the Dutch empire, to the British empire, to the American empire and is now in the process of passing to China.

There is a newer edition from 2010 and in it, Arrighi writes about China:

accommodating the upward mobility of a state that by itself accounts for about one-fifth of the world population is an altogether different matter. It implies a fundamental subversion of the very pyramidal structure of the hierarchy. Indeed, to the extent that recent research on world income inequality has detected a statistical trend towards declining inter-country inequality since 1980, this is due entirely to the rapid economic growth of China

we pointed out two major obstacles to a non-catastrophic transition to a more equitable world order. The first obstacle was US resistance to adjustment and accommodation. Paraphrasing David Calleo, (1987: 142) we noted that the Dutchand the British-centered world systems had broken down under the impact of two tendencies: the emergence of aggressive new powers, and the attempt of the declining hegemonic power to avoid adjustment and accommodation by cementing its slipping preeminence into an exploitative domination. Writing in 1999, we maintained: there are no credible aggressive new powers that can provoke the breakdown of the US-centered world system, but the United States has even greater capabilities than Britain did a century ago to convert its declining hegemony into an exploitative domination. If the system eventually breaks down, it will be primarily because of US resistance to adjustment and accommodation. And conversely, US adjustment and accommodation to the rising economic power of the East Asian region is an essential condition for a non-catastrophic transition to a new world order (Arrighi and Silver 1999: 288-9).

About the US response to the burst of the new economy bubble and the war on terror, Arrighi writes:

Indeed, to a far greater extent than in previous hegemonic transitions, the terminal crisis of US hegemony — if that is what we are observing, as I think we are — has been a case of great power “suicide”

Less immediate but equally important, however, is a second obstacle: the still unverified capacity of the agencies of the East Asian economic expansion to “open up a new path of development for themselves and for the world that departs radically from the one that is now at a dead-end.” This would require a fundamental departure from the socially and ecologically unsustainable path of Western development in which the costs for the reproduction of humans and nature have been largely “externalized” (see figure P1), in important measure by excluding the majority of the world’s population from the benefits of economic development. This is an imposing task whose trajectory will in large part be shaped by pressure from movements of protest and self-protection from below.

The growing economic weight of China in the global political economy does not in itself guarantee the emergence of an East Asia-centered world market society based on the mutual respect of the world’s cultures and civilizations. As noted above, such an outcome presupposes a radically different model of development that, among other things, is socially and ecologically sustainable and that provides the global South with a more equitable alternative to continuing Western domination. All previous hegemonic transitions were characterized by long periods of systemic chaos, and this remains a possible alternative outcome. Which of the alternative future scenarios set out in thee Long Twentieth Century materialize remains an open question whose answer will be determined by our collective human agency.

Seems like China, with belt and road, is on a good path for dealing with this second obstacle, so the task for leftists in the imperial core is to deal with the first one: contain the violent lashing out of the dying empire and focus our organizing efforts against war.

Yes, it would sound absolutely natural and fair, if a survivor talking about a concentration camp were to say:"The Germans did this to us". And it would sound totally ridiculous to correct them like:"That's racist! Not all Germans! You mean the Nazis did this!". And yet, I'm absolutely certain some people would say exactly this.

All these fears are completely unfounded and ridiculous, but you know what? If I had a button to press for trans liberation, but it actually somehow meant destroying every organized sports competition on the planet forever, I wouldn't hesitate for one microsecond to press it.

If the US went along with NATO

Sadly, NATO doing anything is other countries going along with the US empire. It has never been the other way around. Why should they turn against their own country sized military base?

These "right wing christians" are a militia that's responsible for the infamous massacre of Sabra and Shatila, supported by Israel. The so called "Lebanese Forces" fighters were mostly made up of the Kataeb party, which was founded, after their leader visited Nazi Germany and, deeply impressed, modeled the organization after the brwon shirts, with Nazi salut and everything.

So the US counting on literal fascists again for their regime change operation. No surprise, I guess.

I just checked, Polaris is about ten times younger than sharks. The other two stars of its ternary star system are older, but not visible to the naked eye, so early sharks would not have been able to use them for purposes of navigation.