Interesting Science Stuff Thread

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The Tokamak fusion project is alive and well and living in France. More interesting is the idea that they might be able to isolate some anti-matter using the LHC. 1 gm of anti-matter + 1 gm of matter would produce 2 x c³ ergs or 2x10⁹⁴Joules (5.5555556E+87 Kwh). I hate big numbers, but there you are. My only assumption is that there would be total conversion. I am also playing fast and loose with the dimensional analysis, but you get the idea. That is enough energy to probably vaporize the planet.

There is an old physics joke: Out of the woods came the cry of the dyne-centimeter ...

Erg!

  Edited August 6, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[astronelson 339]

It'll take about 2.24*10³² Joules to overcome the gravitational binding energy of every atom on earth. I'm only getting 1.8*10¹⁴ Joules from a reaction between 1 gram of matter and 1 gram of antimatter (E = mc², m = 0.002 kg, c = 300,000,000 m/s). I have absolutely no idea where you're getting 2*10⁹⁴ Joules from.

1 erg is 10^-7 Joules. It might be a conversion error, 2*c³ is nowhere near big enough for that.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, I realized that I have an order of magnitude error in my calculation when I woke up this morning. Must have been the heat. I missed the speed of light by a factor of 3, which means my c factor should have been 9e20., and then to compound the error, I goofed in my arithmetic. I guess I shouldn't do calculations like this in the middle of a very hot and humid afternoon. Sorry about that.

My poor old noggin gets off-base when it is really hot and wet. So the base figure in ergs should have been 18e20 ergs. I was working in the cgs system, then converted upwards with my convert all program. So going to Joules would take us to 18e13 or 18e10 KJ.

  Edited August 7, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Jamesrules90 133]

Making Antimatter in the LHC to generate energy won't happen, it doesn't generate nearly enough. Tokamak is good but more countries should be working on it as well. Since they have just discovered this (read it while you can) it might be possible to make (enough) energy from antimatter. If the LHC could make a Gram of antimatter I would be more worried about terrorists getting their hands on it like in (the scientifically incorrect) Angels and Demons, at least militaries would be careful with it.

Sorry if it doesn't make much sense as I just had a 500 ml energy drink at 32mg/100ml of caffeine.

[Duke87 1,070]

A bit of perspective.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

An anti-proton ring? Must generate a lot of gamma when the particles annihilate on encountering positive protons or other matter for that matter.

[Jamesrules90 133]

That chart always makes me feel so small and unimportant.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

That chart always makes me feel so small and unimportant.

In the grand scheme of the universe, we should consider ourselves lucky to be insignificant. If were were important, something would try to smash us.

[Jamesrules90 133]

An anti-proton ring? Must generate a lot of gamma when the particles annihilate on encountering positive protons or other matter for that matter.

The Magnetic field stops it from being too destructive and its so high up most of it wears off by the time it reaches the earth.

That chart always makes me feel so small and unimportant.

In the grand scheme of the universe, we should consider ourselves lucky to be insignificant. If were were important, something would try to smash us.

If I was an Alien I would try and smash us anyway before we got significant enough to present a problem to them. If they did try and smash us I doubt we would have much of a chance hopefully they would just smash something into us at about 20-50% of the speed of light so it would be quick and painless.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

An anti-proton ring? Must generate a lot of gamma when the particles annihilate on encountering positive protons or other matter for that matter.

The Magnetic field stops it from being too destructive and its so high up most of it wears off by the time it reaches the earth.

Naturally. There are enough free protons in space to kill them off anyway.

As for hostile aliens, all it would take would be a game of caroms in the asteroid belt to send us a rock the right size for a Planet Makeover. They would probably want the planet, but not the slime on it.

And speaking of cosmic billiards, what about dropping enough asteroids on Mars to make it large enough to keep an atmosphere?

[Jamesrules90 133]

Mars can't hold much of an atmosphere anyway as its magnetic field is far too weak. It would be hard getting all the asteroids together to smash into mars to make it much larger with them so spread about, its not like on the films. Anyway we would have to do it before anybody colonizes it as soon as people start living there it will be near-impossible to persuade everybody to leave so it can be made larger. And you would need a lot of asteroids to make a difference, we're much better off just looking for a planet in another planetary system with a large enough mass to hold and atmosphere.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Yes, truly, it is too late for poor Mars.

Now, how do you propose to go to another star? Life ships? How big would a life ship have to be? Even if you could accelerate half way there at, say 1g then flip over, how long would it take to get to the nearest Goldilocks planet? And do we know enough about one of these planets that it would make a more than 50/50 chance of being habitable and uninhabited? What kind of society do you thnk would evolve in such a ship?

[Easy Bakes 253]

our chances of teraforming would be better spent on the larger satalites of jupter.

Eurpoa would be my choice.

[blade2k5 1,523]

our chances of teraforming would be better spent on the larger satalites of jupter.

Eurpoa would be my choice.

Yeah, if you want to become a popsickle. Oh, there's this thing about Europa, it's too small to hold onto an atmosphere and probably doesn't have a magnetic field.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Link

Maybe before we go charging off to some other celestial body we should clean up our act. NEO is starting to look like the oceans.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Link

Maybe before we go charging off to some other celestial body we should clean up our act. NEO is starting to look like the oceans.

I have always wondered why satellite's were not equipped with a built on booster that was only turned on when it reached its useful life span.

this is a good idea for the biger peices but the plan collection of the small 10cm peices is going to be a chore.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I have always wondered why satellite's were not equipped with a built on booster that was only turned on when it reached its useful life span.

Increased payload cost for one. General thoughtlessness for another. Space is infinite, right? R-i-i-ght. Man is a messy animal. Any alien race would probably avoid us because of all our garbage.

  Edited August 9, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Jamesrules90 133]

In the future we will have a lot of museum pieces floating around earth.

Humanity will probably never find a way way out of the solar system without a serious change to physics. If not we will die here, the bigger thing should be trying to find FTL space travel by going around the barriers instead of through them, it may be impossible but they are saying that there is problems with our current physics.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

In the future we will have a lot of museum pieces floating around earth.

Humanity will probably never find a way way out of the solar system without a serious change to physics. If not we will die here, the bigger thing should be trying to find FTL space travel by going around the barriers instead of through them, it may be impossible but they are saying that there is problems with our current physics.

No question about that. Einstein and Schroedinger did not say the last words in fundamental understanding. The string theory boys seem to be on a new track, and some preliminary results from the LHC have popped out a fundamental particle that they are calling gravitons that just seem to vanish into another dimension. This seems to have to do with understanding gravity. Look what Newton started, eh?

"Tenser said the tensor

"Tenser said the tensor

"Trouble, apprehension and dissension have begun."

Alfred Bester in The Demolished Man

[blade2k5 1,523]

Here's a new exo-planet discovery, but this one is very unique compared to the hundreds of others that have been discovered outside our solar system.

http://news.yahoo.com/coal-black-alien-planet-darkest-ever-seen-220601419.html

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Here's a new exo-planet discovery, but this one is very unique compared to the hundreds of others that have been discovered outside our solar system.

http://news.yahoo.co...-220601419.html

Interesting that it may have light-absorbing atmospherics. It is very close to its primary, so is also very hot. The possibilities of heavy elements doing the light-absorbing indicates it is an accretion planet that has absorbed a lot of star dust. I wonder if it is big enough to have started life as a sort-of star that fizzled and never made it to the main sequence.

[Jamesrules90 133]

I think I read somewhere that if Jupiter had have been a bit bigger it would actually have been a star. Oh well we will probably never reach the new planet especially if it is 750 light years away.

[astronelson 339]

The lower bound of what defines a star (purely down to whether it can fuse hydrogen-1 in its core) is 75 times the mass of Jupiter. Brown dwarves are between 13 and 75 times the mass of Jupiter. These can fuse deuterium (hydrogen-2), but are not technically stars.

Jupiter is about as close to being a brown dwarf as Texas is to being the entire US. For a star, replace Texas with Louisiana.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Astro, I take it you really didn't believe the end of the 2011 series of space oddities.

[astronelson 339]

While Sir Arthur's science was generally excellent (it was he who came up geostationary orbit), he was permitted some artistic licence. What happened to Jupiter in that series is most certainly this.

Of course, sufficiently advanced technology and all that.

I assume you mean the series 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two (2010: The Year We Make Contact in the film adaptation), 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: The Final Odyssey.

[Jamesrules90 133]

What actually happened in that series with regard to Jupiter as I have never read them.

[Jelendria 3]

Me either.

[astronelson 339]

What actually happened in that series with regard to Jupiter as I have never read them.

The monoliths cause Jupiter's density to increase until it becomes a star, and thus a primitive civilisation develops on Europa by the year 20,001.

[Jamesrules90 133]

Oh right, aren't the Monoliths the ones that started intelligence on Earth.

I wasn't saying that Jupiter would become a star I'm saying that it might have been had it had a bit more matter.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The whole thing started with an 800 word short story published by Sir Arthur a very long time ago. I think it was in Analog or the predecessor title. While Sir Arthur was involved in the motion picture scripts, I don't think there were parallel novels. If you want to 'read' the series, I think you have to watch the movies, is that not right, HAL?