Interesting Science Stuff Thread

[astronelson 339]

"Isolating" suggests it was in molecular form already and was merely removed from a mixture, which is not the case. The chlorine atoms must be removed from the salt, paired off, and chlorine gas formed. So while the chlorine atoms are not synthesised, the chlorine molecules are, and thus the chlorine gas is synthetic.

[Cobraroll 138]

Another country joins the space race...

I think this is quite interesting, actually. I guess it could classify as a Popcorn Event at the very least.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Another country joins the space race...

I think this is quite interesting, actually. I guess it could classify as a Popcorn Event at the very least.

NEVER count people like this out. They said it couldn't be done but two guys who had a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio showed that man could indeed achieve powered flight. We have run out of "smart" people in our civilization, probably due to the stifling education system. Who knows what may come out of Africa?

  Edited December 3, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Antarctic BEDMAP: One very interesting comment in the article is that is snows in the Antarctic. The Arctic is a desert that gets almost no new precipitation.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Stirring the pot. Since the relevant product has been discontinued and has stocked out, it is of some benefit for those who have one provided they can connect with the appropriate software group. I am sure an adroit web search will find them.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

All that gold ... All that gold ...

Gian Carlo Menotti in Amahl and the Night Visitors

Several billion Euros later and all they have to show for it is a particle made of quarks that have been to the beautician. I am getting heartily sick of these "advanced" physicists who think of corrupting the language with private jokes about particle name. Up, down and strage quarks were bad enough, but beauty quarts? Foo.

"Three quarks for muster mark."

James Joyce in Ulysses.

[Easy Bakes 253]

And only one Quark in Deep Space (9)

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Yes, but his rules of acquisition are clear.

[astronelson 339]

All that gold ... All that gold ...

Gian Carlo Menotti in Amahl and the Night Visitors

Several billion Euros later and all they have to show for it is a particle made of quarks that have been to the beautician. I am getting heartily sick of these "advanced" physicists who think of corrupting the language with private jokes about particle name. Up, down and strage quarks were bad enough, but beauty quarts? Foo.

"Three quarks for muster mark."

James Joyce in Ulysses.

The six flavours of quark are up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom. "Beauty" was suggested as a name, and there are still some who use it, but bottom is the more common name for that particular one.

And physicists coming up with small jokes?

That really is no threat to the English language. Let us have our fun.

But let's leave aside the comment on the name now, as getting angry over that is both petty and irrelevant. Let us deal with the several billion Euro question. First, yes, the total cost of the LHC over the course of its lifetime is about 4.6 billion Euros, or somewhere in the vicinity of $6.5 billion, or less than one Euro per person on Earth. Let's compare this with some other things, shall we? Say, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. They're about $1 billion each in today's money. The linked article from before is about 3 years old, so let's be generous with interest and say you'd get about seven on them. You can't really do much with stealth bombers except bomb things (stealthily). Having them doesn't teach you anything. I'd even go as far to say that using them sets us back slightly, prolonging the era where we settle disputes with indiscriminate violence. Now, compare this with the LHC, which is a peaceful international venture with the sole goal of expanding humanity's knowledge and understanding of the universe.

Some more comparisons: the Apollo program was roughly 30 times the cost of the LHC. Australia spends over five times the cost of the LHC on alcohol per year. The LHC costs about 70 times the total annual wage of the 535 members of Congress (not including congressional employees).

It may also be useful to point out that the money doesn't vanish down a particle-collision-created black hole. It is used to pay the people who work on it, the people who built it, electricity costs, and various other things. At the very least, the LHC has assisted the Swiss economy by a small amount. About 1% of their GDP.

"A billion here, a billion there, and soon enough you're talking real money"

Attributed to Everett Dirksen.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, I thought the quotes would be sufficient to distinguish my facetiousness. Maybe we need a special designator for sarcasm. My main objection to the "beauty" quark is that it is not in the main stream. The six identified particles do bother me though. In such a system, I would have expected eight. Even though they come in pairs, nature usually wants multiples of 2 or 5. There appears to be some undiscovered areas there, probably to do with dark energy/dark matter (yes, I know, same thing).

BTW, I think I did hit on the origin of the name 'quark'. It is from Ulysses is it not?

The people at CERN have to be ultra careful these days. They may find that some snarks are boojums. The last thing we need is for them to breed a non-quantum singularity.

[astronelson 339]

Well, I thought the quotes would be sufficient to distinguish my facetiousness. Maybe we need a special designator for sarcasm.

Sadly, sarcasm carries over poorly in textual form. As I am sure you are aware, various marks have been proposed but have never found widespread use.

My main objection to the "beauty" quark is that it is not in the main stream. The six identified particles do bother me though. In such a system, I would have expected eight. Even though they come in pairs, nature usually wants multiples of 2 or 5. There appears to be some undiscovered areas there, probably to do with dark energy/dark matter (yes, I know, same thing).

The Standard Model calls for only six of them for some reason or another (three generations of two), and we've found them where it says, so... multiples of 2 or 5 except when not, perhaps? There's only 6 leptons as well.

BTW, I think I did hit on the origin of the name 'quark'. It is from Ulysses is it not?

Close. It's from another of Joyce's works, Finnegan's Wake, although the pronunciation is different - "kwork" rather than "kwark".

The people at CERN have to be ultra careful these days. They may find that some snarks are boojums. The last thing we need is for them to breed a non-quantum singularity.

Reactions billions of times more powerful happen in the upper atmosphere all the time. We'd be happy to observe them, were it not for the facts that they're not controllable, there's a lot of interference, and we can't get detectors up there anyway.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

We do have a special designator for sarcasm, the Irony Mark also known as the Snark. It is represented by a backwards question mark. I uploaded it to Image Shack because Simtropolis does not support Unicode.

  Edited December 26, 2011 by OcramSeattle  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Life persists, even if our species won't.

[hym 358]

Life persists, even if our species won't.

Of course it will. We've even found life at the bottom of an oil well. (Which raises the question of whether oil is actually a renewable resource or not.)

[Easy Bakes 253]

Life persists, even if our species won't.

Of course it will. We've even found life at the bottom of an oil well. (Which raises the question of whether oil is actually a renewable resource or not.)

It it just take millions of years of decaying plant life crushed by layers of rock.

unless that theory is bogus now.

[hym 358]

Life persists, even if our species won't.

Of course it will. We've even found life at the bottom of an oil well. (Which raises the question of whether oil is actually a renewable resource or not.)

It it just take millions of years of decaying plant life crushed by layers of rock.

unless that theory is bogus now.

Researchers have also shown that petroleum is byproduct of bacterial digestion, which gives credence to the idea that we can synthesize petroleum with bacterial farms.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Life persists, even if our species won't.

Of course it will. We've even found life at the bottom of an oil well. (Which raises the question of whether oil is actually a renewable resource or not.)

It it just take millions of years of decaying plant life crushed by layers of rock.

unless that theory is bogus now.

Researchers have also shown that petroleum is byproduct of bacterial digestion, which gives credence to the idea that we can synthesize petroleum with bacterial farms.

faster to just ferment it and burn the alcohol

[hym 358]

faster to just ferment it and burn the alcohol

It may be faster to produce alcohol, but alcohol has a lower energy density than petroleum based fuels do, and this is important for fuel economy. Alcohol fuels offer a higher octane rating, which can mitigate the lower fuel economy offered by alcohol fuels versus petroleum fuels, but only if the engine is designed for it. Most modern engines are not designed for it, nor can they be retrofitted for it. As for designing new engines for alcohol fuels, that will require heavier engine constructions, which will sap fuel economy. In other words, alcohol based fuels aren't going to actually going to get you anywhere you want to go.

This is the value of synthetic petroleum. It solves all these problems.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

faster to just ferment it and burn the alcohol

It may be faster to produce alcohol, but alcohol has a lower energy density than petroleum based fuels do, and this is important for fuel economy. Alcohol fuels offer a higher octane rating, which can mitigate the lower fuel economy offered by alcohol fuels versus petroleum fuels, but only if the engine is designed for it. Most modern engines are not designed for it, nor can they be retrofitted for it. As for designing new engines for alcohol fuels, that will require heavier engine constructions, which will sap fuel economy. In other words, alcohol based fuels aren't going to actually going to get you anywhere you want to go.

This is the value of synthetic petroleum. It solves all these problems.

And how much greenhouse gas is emitted when this process runs? What do they do with all that methane?

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The synthetic petroleum would burn just like regular petroleum with similar fuel efficiency and pollution but producing it scrubs away carbon dioxide. In algae and bacteria farms, methane is easy to capture and could be burned to provide the heat and electricity for the complex.

[hym 358]

And how much greenhouse gas is emitted when this process runs? What do they do with all that methane?

No one knows. We've never done it on an industrial scale before.

Though, if we're able to synthesize petroleum, we might also be able to synthesize natural gas using a similar process. That could mean an effective form of synthetic helium production.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And how much greenhouse gas is emitted when this process runs? What do they do with all that methane?

No one knows. We've never done it on an industrial scale before.

Though, if we're able to synthesize petroleum, we might also be able to synthesize natural gas using a similar process. That could mean an effective form of synthetic helium production.

If you are synthesizing natural gas, which is mostly hydrogen, what does this have to do with Helium? Elucidate oh sage? I do understand that He is mixed with mined natural gas in small amounts, but synthetic Helium implied fusion.

[hym 358]

If you are synthesizing natural gas, which is mostly hydrogen, what does this have to do with Helium? Elucidate oh sage? I do understand that He is mixed with mined natural gas in small amounts, but synthetic Helium implied fusion.

My comment was a reference to the fact that most commercial helium production comes from natural gas wells. It was mostly just conjecture on my part.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

We already have special bacterial ponds fed by sewage that produce Natural Gas. There is absolutely no helium produced there. Our only option with getting more Helium when our reserves run out is to go through the arduous process of isolating it from the atmosphere. It would require several chemical reactions to remove everything except non-radioactive noble gasses.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

We already have special bacterial ponds fed by sewage that produce Natural Gas. There is absolutely no helium produced there. Our only option with getting more Helium when our reserves run out is to go through the arduous process of isolating it from the atmosphere. It would require several chemical reactions to remove everything except non-radioactive noble gases.

Unless you plan to do your atmosphere mining at very high altitude you won't find enough helium to be at all economic. Helium is light enough to actually escape, as is hydrogen. Best place to collect both of these is above the stratosphere or further out using magnetic collectors of some sort.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, it is a new year and there is still interesting things being reported.

One. The color of our home galaxy indicates we have reached the beginning of middle age.

Two. A tricorder would be of great use to veterinary medicine at least. Animals can't say where it hurts. If this prize incites some doctors and engineers to get together and actually win this prize before the 24th century, it will also be a boon to mankind.

[Easy Bakes 253]

AStar Trek gadget becomes reality.

The tricorder/ hand held imaging scanner made by GE

http://www.gereports.com/vscan-pocket-sized-ultra-smart-ultrasound-unveiled/

^^^ looks like they are almost there.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ saw that article some time ago. It even has a salt-shaker, but the connection is not wireless. However, imaging is not diagnosis.

[Duke87 1,070]

Remember all the sci-fi about aliens receiving old TV broadcasts? Well, we're receiving reflections of our own. Proof of concept, at least.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Well, that means that any intelligent extraterrestrial life within 80 or so light years from us could get a usable signal and study our culture.