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Gyroscopes resist changes in angular momentum, not linear momentum. So it only has increased rotational intertia. If you were measuring the box's mass by trying to spin it rather than push it, then yes, it would appear more massive. But if you just pushed it in a straight line, then it would behave the same as if your gyroscopes were still.

On your second question, electrons and subatomic particles don't really spin, they have orbitals. Electron orbitals are the probability distribution of an electron in a atom or molecule. Take a look: http://www.orbitals.com/orb/ So it's not really like a gyroscope. But that is an interesting question, i.e. Do electron orbits effect the angular momentum of atoms? How would you measure that experimentally? Does Newtonian Physics operate on that level?

"It has been known for decades that electrons can only inhabit certain discrete shells of probability about the nucleolus of an atom. Similarly for the nucleolus, the protons and neutrons can only take up certain desirable configurations. We don't know all the details of how this comes to happen, but the laws of geometry and topology govern it, perhaps as a result of actions taking place in dimensions above the normal 3+1." Um, this is pure crap. Get out Griffths Intro to QM, read find the part where you calculate electron wavefunction psi around the NUCLEUS ( where you get the S, P, D, F, etc orbitals in chem, they get even more complicated - take a look http://www.orbitals.com/orb/orbtable.htm ) by seperation into spherical coordinates, and you see that topology and geometry have nothing to do with it. Furthermore, if you read some of Griffiths, you actually calculate that electorns spend approximate 1*10^-15 s *inside* the nucleus, you can prove Feynman's senior thesis, and other incredibly interesting stuff. Once you get into actual physics, its like tasting caviar coming from eating rice cakes, you'll never go back. So throw away A Brief History of Time and whatever Greene wrote, and read Einstein's highly accessable papers http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7328143/ or such instead, I highly recommend it.

This is a sister site to this project. It takes a little while to load, but the global map allows you to move your mouse over tiny thumbnails and then a small pop-up of the location, well, pops up.

I liked your retort, and thought this would help answer previous parent's comment that had asked "how is this project any more interesting..."

What's the boiling point of one molecule of water?

if not for the hydrogen bonds between adjacent H2O molecules, water would have a much lower boiling point than is observed. A single molecule of H2O would have no hydrogen bonding. Perhaps it's boiling point would be in line with the rest of the H2_ series (The BP of H2S is about -60C, for example). Thus, because it does not have all the physical properties, an H2O molecule is not the same as a water molecule. In fact, we don't get the behaviour of water until we take into account what comes into play when multiple H2O molecules collide. And that's just totally ignoring the whole issue about observers interacting with the systems they observe.

BUT, experimentally determining the boiling point of a single molecules of H2O (heating a fluorocarbon emulsion?) and determining that the boiling point of one molecule of H2O is -83C doesn't change the bulk properties of the water we all know and love. Likewise, determining under very specific experiental conditions that water gives the appearance of being H1.5O is just as uninteresting.

Oh, and for all the people scoffing at the image of half a proton... What, exactly, does a whole proton look like? Perhaps this will help give you some ideas.

I think a more accurate statement is the probability density of the location of the proton has an ovoid appearance. Just as only the s orbitals of electrons have a spherical distribution and the others take on some rather remarkable shapes.

An additional caveat is the electrons scattering was used to probe the proton. So the primary interaction was electromagnetic with a very small weak component. Protons may have a different "shape" when viewed by a neutrino since neutrinos do not couple with the electromagnetic field. This is a guess though and I am not qualified to make that statement more precise.

Finally, the obvious question is how do we define a "top" for a proton, ie, how do we know which direction the ovoid is oriented in? The answer is since a proton has a nonzero spin it assumes one of two diametrically opposed orientations in a magnetic field and we can use the axis formed by those directions to define "up". Finally, thinking about it that way, since quarks also couple to the electromagnetic field as well as interacting with each other through the strong force, it's not that surprising that a proton has a shape, it may be a result of the complicated interactions between the quarks. Then again, no one has done the calculation (which is fiendishly difficult and impossible to do analytically since it's a pretty general 3 body problem) so maybe it's a little unjust to call the result unsurprising.

And if you want to be really picky, the "shell" is just drawn for ease of perception at the 90% boundary. The orbital itself is closer to a blur mostly (90%) within the shell. Or are you talking about the various orbital groups that electrons can occupy at different energy levels as "shells"? If it's something you're interested in, there are many good websites dedicated to orbital vizualization.

Check out Confluence, which is another cool project involving digital images and geographic locations. Their goal is to take a photo at every confluence point - an intersection of integer longitude and latitude points. Very fun, very cool.

This is a cool map, showing where they have photos, and is fully navigable.

You should definately check out Confluence.org. Here's one of their great pictures : world map.