Dear MNH,

Probably the same time mormon.org changes.

-Sunday Night Vague

Dear person,

I'm hopeful that it will be tacojcolds.org.

-Sheebs

Dear friend, 

Just as importantly*, who is James the Mormon? What about him??? How shall he fare through this existential crisis?????

Cheers, 

Guesthouse

*obviously this is sarcastic

Dear you,

For a sappy, nostalgic answer, "Do you want to go to a park with me?”

Love,

Luciana

Dear you,

When people ask me why I believe the things I do. It's not a specific question and it's been asked multiple times about multiple things, but I love being able to share how I've come to a conclusion and then get feedback on my views.

And I hate being sappy so I'm not putting "will you marry me?" though in reality that's probably my number one favorite question. Well, along with the questioner. If I got that question from anyone else I would be extremely disturbed.

-guppy of doom

Dear Questioner,

One time my dad came home from work and while we were eating dinner as a family he said "On the radio they posed the question: If the United States of America was a person and you had to describe them using only 3 adjectives, which adjectives would you choose and why?" I think we spent a solid 30 to 45 minutes throwing out loads of different adjectives and combinations of adjectives to try and describe the essence of America. We ended up having an amazing conversation that included topics like personal rights, foreign policy, and history (my dad taught American Heritage at BYUI so that's the kind of thing that we'd talk about at dinner sometimes).

What I really liked about that question was trying to describe something using a limited number of adjectives. After we had that discussion I spent a lot of time thinking about what 3-5 adjectives describe my personality? If I could choose 5 adjectives for people to describe me, which ones would I want to describe me? Which 5 adjectives do I think make someone a good friend?

You can really apply this type of question to anything. What are the 3 best qualities of a good pizza? If you only had 3 adjectives to describe the music style of your favorite band how could you best describe it? The list goes on and on. I think these questions make for great discussion and allow you to think deeply about the essence of things and what makes them unique.

Peace,

Tipperary

Dear you,

Guess how much I love you?

~Anathema

Dear In Search Of,

Probs whenever a cute girl asks me how my abs got to be so good.

-Provo Guys

Dear Questioning, 

My favorite question is "Why?" 

I don't mean when a nagging 4-year old asks this question 100 times in rapid-fire succession. I mean when I state my opinion or thought process and my grandpa, my boyfriend, my dad, my professors... anyone, asks "why?" Why do I think that? Why do I feel this way? Why would I do that? Why do I want that? etc. It can be applied to essentially any situation, and it forces me to think deeper, find research, read more, support my thinking, and take stock of my feelings. Any and all changes in perspective I have encountered have come about from being asked: "Why?". This question has formed my political stances, my choice in major, my spiritual beliefs... the whole 9 yards. 

Cheers, 

Guesthouse

Dear Malcolm,

"What is wrong with Millennials?"

-Baby Boomers

Dear you,

"What are you learning over here?"

I was slowing the group examining a juniper on a hike in Capitol Reef. 

And also "Where do you need to go to feel like you've been gone?"

Babalugats

mad hatter,

Beautiful question. Just beautiful. 

Short answers:

• no
• 587170 mN/m
• depends on your definition of "possible", "liquid", and how exclusively it needs to be caused by surface tension.

Explanation:

The potential in your first question r e a l l y depends on the ant, and I wouldn't call it "walking." Ants have a lot of different sizes and a lot of different instincts. Black kitchen ants in the western US are much smaller than the mammoths back home in Maryland.  But there aren't any species I know of that can really "walk" on water. Even bugs who are designed to travel on the surface aren't so much picking up their legs and walking, as they are pushing through the surface layer.

Maintaining surface tension is not strictly about mass. It's about weight distribution and the pressure placed on individual bonds between water molecules. Think of a needle laying on top of fabric vs the needle being stabbed through the fabric. Singular ants are often small enough not to break the surface tension of water. Their exoskeletons are hydrophobic which helps a lot. But after a few minutes the ant will sink. Their tiny legs break the surface tension because of the pressure applied at the point of the leg without being distributed. Water skeeters (or the Gerridae family) on the other hand, distribute that pressure with tiny hairs all along their legs that allow them to push through the surface layer of the water without breaking it. 

Red ants (Solenopsis invicta) have a rafting instinct to save the colony in the event of flooding. They lock their mandibles together, forming tight pockets of air between them. The air bubbles help distribute the weight to prevent the specified pressure on the water bonds. The colony can float for weeks while they wait for floodwaters to subside. So, yeah they can sit atop the surface layer but that's about it. Too much motion or release of the air pockets could penetrate the surface tension and, depending on the density of the ant, it would sink or at least get waterlogged. 

Technically, maintaining surface tension is a different phenomenon than floatation.  Floatation is a relationship between density, buoyancy, and maybe viscosity. You can get wet with water and still float. But if you get wet you've broken the surface tension. 

Basically, water skeeting(riding the surface tension) requires a certain relationship between the weight, the perimeter(or area) of the contact point, and the angle of the contact point. Human feet have many angles and contact points so it would require a liquid with enough surface tension (exerted force when stretched) to constantly out compete your weight/foot area/contact angles relationships. 

Surface tension is the force F per unit length L exerted by a stretched liquid membrane. Think of stretching a rubberband and how much force is waiting to be released. It's like that, only recognizing that such force is already being applied on your finger, and can be measured in terms of F over L. So how much force is being exerted by water when it gets stretched? Usually about 73 millinewtons (mN) per meter (m). 

Mercury has the highest surface tension relationships of any known element usually at around 485 mN/m. Converting that to pound-force you get .11 lbs/m. So mercury can support .11 pounds for every meter of contact. So a 132 pound human (such as myself) would require 1200 meters (3937 feet) of contact to maintain surface tension on a pool of mercury. I would basically need to be flattened into a very thin sheet of mass. Without being flattened out like that I would sink and bob until I reached equilibrium. That would probably submerge me partially and then flip me to have the most surface area distribution a.k.a laying flat. 

The average adult foot is about 1 meter. For simplification we won't talk about contact points and angles of that foot, or those of a foot in motion. But since walking requires one foot at a time and it is a very convenient conversion factor, we're going to use it. You need a liquid that can support 132 pounds over only 1 meter. The force of that liquid would have to be 132 pounds. Or, for the sake of comparison with mercury's 485 mN/m, it would have surface tension of 587170 mN/m. That is a very active amount of energy stored in the surface of a liquid. Like a swimming pool that is also a trampoline that also isn't defined by viscosity.

That brings me to non-Newtonian fluids. If you don't know what those are you should check out this video. Non-Newtonian fluids are about non-static viscosity. Not surface tension. These things can behave as both a liquid and a solid depending on the force applied to them. So they get the "walking on liquid" job done quite nicely. Whereas a liquid with high surface tension holds things up by applying force, non-Newtonian fluids hold things up by having force applied and becoming more solid. If you could have a liquid that was both non-Newtonian and had a high enough surface tension, the force would be applied to itself and it would act as a solid. Which actually turns out to be pretty boring because now it's just a solid. So I guess that's how we get trampolines. 

There you have it! Bonus analysis: If Jesus altered surface tension to walk on water he would have had to make up for pretty much his entire body weight in exerted force on a 1 meter foot. Scholars estimate that he was probably about 5'1 and weighed about 110 pounds. He was probably pretty muscular based on his profession, maybe with some atrophy at the time of the miracle. So he might have weighed a little more. So we're looking at maybe like a spiritual pound-force of 120?

Some other videos for your imagination:

Mercury + non-Newtonian fluid

Non-Newtonian fluid + hydraulic press

Babalugats

Dear pedicel,

This reflects my current understanding of the situation. I'm not an official source of BYU knowledge, so keep that in mind.

Let's examine a Deseret News article from August 18, 2016, BYU adjusts honor code policies for students who leave LDS Church:

BYU adjusted its appeals process last fall for students facing expulsion after losing their required endorsement from an LDS ecclesiastical leader.

The adjustments to the school's honor code change the petition process for those students if they attempt to continue at the school, but the campus still has a disaffiliation rule that expels students who renounce their membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which operates BYU.

Meanwhile, the American Bar Association last month rejected a formal complaint against BYU's law school filed last fall by FreeBYU. The small organization of alumni claimed the university runs afoul of federal religious nondiscrimination laws when it expels students who violate the honor code by quitting the church or engaging in same-sex relationships.

Let's jump ahead a bit.

For one, the changes eliminated the requirement that a student who petitioned to stay at BYU after leaving the church had to sign a release that allowed university officials to communicate with the student’s ecclesiastical leader. Now, a student can choose whether or not to sign a waiver.

The update also added language to the honor code from a March 2015 change in the school's admission policy, which allows former Mormons to apply for an exception. Previously, former Mormons could not apply to enroll at the school.

The adjustments of the past 18 months don't change the basic intent of the rule, Jenkins said.

"BYU’s Honor Code explicitly states the principles students are expected to follow," Jenkins said. "For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this includes following the values and standards of their religion. Because of covenants and commitments members of the LDS Church have made, they can no longer remain in good Honor Code standing if they go through the formal process of removing their names from LDS Church records. The Honor Code states that students are required to be in good Honor Code standing to be admitted to, continue enrollment at and graduate from BYU."

The policy is explained in the “Withdrawn or Denied Ecclesiastical Endorsement” section of the honor code.

"Excommunication, disfellowshipment or disaffiliation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints automatically results in the withdrawal of the student's ecclesiastical endorsement and the loss of good Honor Code standing," the section states. "Disaffiliation is defined for purposes of this policy as removal of an individual's name from the official records of the church."

Exemptions are rare, Jenkins said. In such cases, the student pays the tuition of a non-LDS student, which is double that of an LDS student. Church tithing supports BYU, so all Mormons who tithe support the university. Tuition this year is $5,300 for LDS undergraduates and $10,600 for non-LDS students.

Jenkins said the disaffiliation policy does not apply to students who experience doubts, only those who resign their church membership.

As I understand that statement, your sibling and spouse would be expelled from the university only if they have taken the formal step of disafilliating, not just because they decide they don't believe in the Church, or pay tithing.

To clarify: I have two people close to me who don't consider themselves members of the Church and haven't attended in some time. One doesn't feel it necessary to remove their name, the other is planning to do so. If these two people were BYU students, the first could remain a student, the second would be expelled from BYU.

Does this answer your question? Let me know.

Suerte,

--Ardilla Feroz