Interesting Science Stuff Thread

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Here's a howdy-do.

 

Nature prefers some quarks and kaons?  Hmmmm...Abhors a vacuum, too.  Confusing, but I'd rather be here than not.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Hot, hot, hot!

 

Crystalline iron at the same temperature as the surface as the sun.  If the other earth-like planets discovered in the universe have the same structure, this might turn out to be a paradigm for planets with life.  Magnetic field needed?

 

Also of note that when iron appears in the core of a star it is the death knell.  Perhaps iron is a very much more key element than some might think.

[JWL 52]

Interact-able Scale of the Entire Universe

 

If you've never felt like an inconsiderable speck on the windshield of the universe, you will after clicking this link.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Big Blue does it again.

 

IBM engages in very advanced physics and its people gather Nobel Prizes.  Is there another outfit in the world that sponsors such work outside of academia and government?

[Bdub01 201]

Interact-able Scale of the Entire Universe

 

If you've never felt like an inconsiderable speck on the windshield of the universe, you will after clicking this link.

Dude that was so awesome, I have never seen the whole known universe, large and small, quite like that before.  However, as it was going throught the stars, and then suddenly it said the "average human hieght" kin of threw me off, otherwise that was cool!

[JWL 52]

 

Interact-able Scale of the Entire Universe

 

If you've never felt like an inconsiderable speck on the windshield of the universe, you will after clicking this link.

Dude that was so awesome, I have never seen the whole known universe, large and small, quite like that before.  However, as it was going throught the stars, and then suddenly it said the "average human hieght" kin of threw me off, otherwise that was cool!

 

 

Pretty sure that was the combined height of all 7 billion living humans.

[timmie 988]

Somewhat appropriate in this thread

[VanGioRobNelli 29]

 

Interact-able Scale of the Entire Universe

 

If you've never felt like an inconsiderable speck on the windshield of the universe, you will after clicking this link.

Dude that was so awesome, I have never seen the whole known universe, large and small, quite like that before.  However, as it was going throught the stars, and then suddenly it said the "average human hieght" kin of threw me off, otherwise that was cool!

 

Hahahaha, the best part of this whole thing is when you scroll out to the larger items, they have listed the Minecraft world.  Really puts it into perspective.

[Bdub01 201]

Okay all you science geeks (I use that term in the best way possible ) why supposedly can nothing go faster than the speed of light. Just because light is the fastest thing that we know of, or is it tachyons, I don't see why something could go faster. In the scheme of the whole universe 186,000 miles per second is pretty slow it seems like to me. So what's the deal?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is a book by George Gamow and Albert Einstein which explains special relativity in pretty understandable terms.  It all comes down to e = mc².  If you get up to the speed of light, you become energy pure and simple.

 

Tachyons are strictly theoretical.  How would be detect one?  It would have arrived before it left.

[Joe 90 358]

Okay all you science geeks (I use that term in the best way possible ) why supposedly can nothing go faster than the speed of light. Just because light is the fastest thing that we know of, or is it tachyons, I don't see why something could go faster. In the scheme of the whole universe 186,000 miles per second is pretty slow it seems like to me. So what's the deal?

Very simply, its because of the amount of energy needed to accelerate an object to a higher velocity. As speeds increase, a small acceleration requires an ever increasing amount of energy up until the point where you need infinite energy to accelerate at all. That is the speed of light.

[astronelson 339]

 

Okay all you science geeks (I use that term in the best way possible ) why supposedly can nothing go faster than the speed of light. Just because light is the fastest thing that we know of, or is it tachyons, I don't see why something could go faster. In the scheme of the whole universe 186,000 miles per second is pretty slow it seems like to me. So what's the deal?

Quick, more-or-less accurate explanation:

 

It all comes down to the principle of relativity, which, in layman's terms, is that there is absolutely no way to tell if you are moving along smoothly with everything else standing still or if you are standing still with everything else moving along smoothly. If you measure a physical constant, it stays constant.

 

One of these constants is the speed of light, 186,282 miles per second, or 299,792 kilometres per second.

 

Let's choose some point in space to be "stationary". Simultaneously, from that point, a beam of light is sent off (at 186,282 miles per second) and you go off in the same direction at 186,281 miles per second. From the perspective of someone at that point, you're going one mile per second slower than light. In your perspective, the light is going at 186,282 miles per second away from you, and the point you left is going at 186,281 miles per second away from you in the opposite direction.

 

You both agree that the light went off when you left the point, and it was moving at 186,282 miles per hour away from you. Everything is fine so far.

 

Now let's reset, except now you're going at 186,283 miles per hour, one mile per hour faster than light. The light beam goes off when you leave the point. From the perspective of someone at the point, you're ahead of the light, gaining distance at one mile per hour. But the principle of relativity must hold, so you have to see the light travelling at 186,282 miles per hour ahead of you.

 

So the light has to be both in front of and behind you, and you have to be going both faster and slower than it.

 

Which can't happen.

 

So you can't go faster than light.

 

There's math and stuff that makes it more accurate and shows you can't actually even reach the speed of light, but this is the general gist of it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One of the better ways of putting it.  You see c is not a finagle factor.  It actually appears to be a constant.

[Bdub01 201]

Wow I learn so much on this forum

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Is there a holodeck in your future?

 

A stand-alone (projected) 3D image?  It seems to be in its infancy, but technology marches even faster these days.

[Duke87 1,070]

From the bottom of a mineshaft: water that's been sitting down there for over a billion years. And it's got stuff living in it!

[Bdub01 201]

^ My question is how can "they" know the water is a billion years old. It's not like they can do C-14 dating on it, can they?

[Duke87 1,070]

^ My question is how can "they" know the water is a billion years old. It's not like they can do C-14 dating on it, can they?

 

Protip: read the article before asking questions about it.

 

Enter a team of British scientists who had developed a way of telling the age of water by measuring how many isotopes of noble gases had built up in it over time.

Using this technique, they concluded that the water is 1 billion to 2.6 billion years old.

 

[Easy Bakes 253]

^ My question is how can "they" know the water is a billion years old. It's not like they can do C-14 dating on it, can they?

there was sell by date on the bottle.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ My question is how can "they" know the water is a billion years old. It's not like they can do C-14 dating on it, can they?

Oxygen isotope dating.  Carbon dating only applies to the slime on the surface.

[Bdub01 201]

I think this is so cool. I love science...

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/28/amazing-first-ever-photograph-inside-hydrogen-atom/

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Close encounter but not too close.

 

A binary asteroid with its own satellite.  The video is worth a watch.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

WiSee

 

They've got a long way to go with this one.  Having a low power FM system in your house is not necessarily a good thing.  I note that their password system requires four repeats of the sequence, but what stops anyone from interfering with this after the validation?  Perhaps something using a more positive wave system, like sound which can carry more information including voice recognition, would be more useful.

 

Yes, I can see that for certain physically challenged people this might be the best solution, but I'd rather use a series of grunts than hand waving.  An originating sound is better than Doppler interference with invisible waves.

 

All it takes is a tiny microphone in each room, and you'll be able to give commands like "Shower on.  36.5 degrees" from anywhere.  If you have more than one shower, then an address can precede the command -- "Master bath, shower on, 37 degrees".  For completeness the system needs a speaker system to acknowledge the commands or feed back errors.  If I am going to have a computer controlled domicile, I want to be able to talk to it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Antarctic revealed without the glaciers.

 

Several simulations suggest themselves starting with what happens if the ice is removed?  How do the tectonic plate(s) rebound relieved of all that mass?

 

If all the antarctic and arctic ice sheets melted, what would happen to the oceans?  Depth?  Currents?  Floor due to added mass?  Continents?  Salinity?  Ocean life and ecology?

[Easy Bakes 253]

Antarctic revealed without the glaciers.

 

Several simulations suggest themselves starting with what happens if the ice is removed?  How do the tectonic plate(s) rebound relieved of all that mass?

 

If all the antarctic and arctic ice sheets melted, what would happen to the oceans?  Depth?  Currents?  Floor due to added mass?  Continents?  Salinity?  Ocean life and ecology?

At least there will be mountians no one has climbed yet

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The Martian Odyssey Continues.

 

This robot is well past its best-before date.  After nine years, it still brings home the bacon.

[Easy Bakes 253]

The Martian Odyssey Continues.

 

This robot is well past its best-before date.  After nine years, it still brings home the bacon.

they sure got thier monies worth out of that one

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I think the progressive tense would be more appropriate, eh?  "They are sure getting ..."

[Joe 90 358]

On the subject of longevity, both Voyagers are still working, nearly 36 years after launch. Voyager 1 is now something like 125 AU away (2½ times as far away as Pluto) and on the outer edges of the Solar System.

[Bipin 3,402]

Hey, we need some more biology-centric topics in here. We can't forget to discuss one third of the major science disciplines! For starters, did you know that what you exhale is actually, quite largely, the food you eat? The carbon ingested (often as sugars) in your food undergoes glycloysis and the subsequent Krebs and oxidative phosphorylation stages (with the former also known as the citric cycle). By this point carbon dioxide is a waste product that is excreted via exhalation. Thus, you are technically exhaling parts of your food.