SCIENCE/SPACE/TIME - a meeting of the minds!

[Hazard]

Hey guys,

I want ot keep this thread ALL ABOUT science..... space and space travel..... astrology...... quantum physics...... and time and/or time travel. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE..... leave god and religion out of this..... there are other threads for them..... this is not one of them.

I'll kick it off with a few things i've learned.....

Scientists have found "anti-matter"..... it's the opposite of everything you see right now. they have actually manufactured an "anti-matter" machine. the problem with "anti-matter" is that when it touches "matter" it explodes..... When they create anti-matter they have to surround it in pure energy. If they put it in a glass bottle..... it would explode the second it hit the wall of the bottle. This new technology is fueling more reasearch into possible "fuels" for us to cruise through space. The cost of creating anti-matter is INSANELY expensive tho. I believe i read that creating something like a teaspoon of anti-matter would bankrupt any country on earth.

Here's another thing..... Once we "fuse" two atoms..... we will be able to power a whole city for roughly 10 years on one tanker full of lithium ion fuel. In order to "fuse" an atom.... you need to create a heat that 7 times hotter than the surface of the sun. Ironically..... thats not the hard part. The hard part USED TO BE how they would contain the heat..... they've figured that out. They wrapped the heat in "pure energy". Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Now i say that the "containing the heat" WAS the hard part..... the newest challenge they face is keeping the two atoms steady. It's almost like they are repelling eachother like same pole magnets. They have successfully gotten a reaction and produced energy but havn't perfected it yet. It currently costs more to operate than what they are getting out of it..... over time tho..... the process will be refined..... and hopefully.... we can leave fossil fuels long in our dust.

Guys..... this stuff interests me to no friggin end..... gimmie all you got LOL!
~Haz~

[Matt]

God made everything, hahahahaha, god, god, god.....

[Ernst]

God was invented in Britain in 1972. Fact.

[Hazard]

you guys suck...... LOL

~Haz~

[jfalco]

Hazard, could you site your source for the anti matter statement. As I understand it anti-matter the existance of has recently be proven, but I have never heard of an attempt to create anti-matter or to use anti-matter as fuel.

Fusion has been possible for a long time. First example of fusion technology happened in hiroshima about 70 years ago.

To be clear, when you say controlled fusion "costs" it is not an economic cost but an energy cost, unlike other alternative energy sources for which the preventitive costs are purely economic.

[Pocketbattleship2B]

Once we "fuse" two atoms..... we will be able to power a whole city for roughly 10 years on one tanker full of lithium ion fuel.

The problem with this is that it requires so much heat energy that the only practical source of the heat needed for atomic fussion is the heat created by a fission bomb,unless we find a way of creating ridiculous amounts of heat without it.

[jfalco]

God was invented in Britain in 1972. Fact.

I thought clapton was older than that.

[Matt]

No, Hazard its all very interesting and this thread should make for a good read lol...

I too have some interesting facts which i shall share latter...

[MuscleScience]

Hey guys,

I want ot keep this thread ALL ABOUT science..... space and space travel..... astrology...... quantum physics...... and time and/or time travel. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE..... leave god and religion out of this..... there are other threads for them..... this is not one of them.

I'll kick it off with a few things i've learned.....

Scientists have found "anti-matter"..... it's the opposite of everything you see right now. they have actually manufactured an "anti-matter" machine. the problem with "anti-matter" is that when it touches "matter" it explodes..... When they create anti-matter they have to surround it in pure energy. If they put it in a glass bottle..... it would explode the second it hit the wall of the bottle. This new technology is fueling more reasearch into possible "fuels" for us to cruise through space. The cost of creating anti-matter is INSANELY expensive tho. I believe i read that creating something like a teaspoon of anti-matter would bankrupt any country on earth.

Here's another thing..... Once we "fuse" two atoms..... we will be able to power a whole city for roughly 10 years on one tanker full of lithium ion fuel. In order to "fuse" an atom.... you need to create a heat that 7 times hotter than the surface of the sun. Ironically..... thats not the hard part. The hard part USED TO BE how they would contain the heat..... they've figured that out. They wrapped the heat in "pure energy". Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Now i say that the "containing the heat" WAS the hard part..... the newest challenge they face is keeping the two atoms steady. It's almost like they are repelling eachother like same pole magnets. They have successfully gotten a reaction and produced energy but havn't perfected it yet. It currently costs more to operate than what they are getting out of it..... over time tho..... the process will be refined..... and hopefully.... we can leave fossil fuels long in our dust.

Guys..... this stuff interests me to no friggin end..... gimmie all you got LOL!
~Haz~

I think you mean astronomy?

I am game for an all science thread, Just have to keep the post whores out and the British since they invented everything including Humility....

[Ernst]

However black holes are even stranger than that. As you get closer to a black hole, the flow of time slows down, compared to flow of time far from the hole. (According to Einstein's theory, any massive body, including the Earth, produces this effect. Earth's gravity is so weak that the slowing of time is not noticeable, but the effect has been confirmed using sensitive instruments. For example, at sea level you age one-billionth of a second less every year than you would if you lived on top of Mt. Everest.) Near a black hole, the slowing of time is extreme. From the viewpoint of an observer outside the black hole, time stops. For example, an object falling into the hole would appear frozen in time at the edge of the hole.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bh_whatare.htm

[Hazard]

Hazard, could you site your source for the anti matter statement. As I understand it anti-matter the existance of has recently be proven, but I have never heard of an attempt to create anti-matter or to use anti-matter as fuel. Dr. Michio Kaku - Physics of the impossible - i don't have the chapter or page available right now but if you want me to i can try to find it and type it word for word.
Fusion has been possible for a long time. First example of fusion technology happened in hiroshima about 70 years ago.

To be clear, when you say controlled fusion "costs" it is not an economic cost but an energy cost, unlike other alternative energy sources for which the preventitive costs are purely economic. You are correct..... it's costing more energy currently to do "controlled fusion" than we are receiving from the partially successful fusions

In bold

~Haz~

[Hazard]

The problem with this is that it requires so much heat energy that the only practical source of the heat needed for atomic fussion is the heat created by a fission bomb,unless we find a way of creating ridiculous amounts of heat without it.

We have created that heat without the bomb - i will try and research on how we did it tho LOL

~Haz~

[Hazard]

I think you mean astronomy?

I am game for an all science thread, Just have to keep the post whores out and the British since they invented everything including Humility....

thats what i meant....

~Haz~

[Hazard]

However black holes are even stranger than that. As you get closer to a black hole, the flow of time slows down, compared to flow of time far from the hole. (According to Einstein's theory, any massive body, including the Earth, produces this effect. Earth's gravity is so weak that the slowing of time is not noticeable, but the effect has been confirmed using sensitive instruments. For example, at sea level you age one-billionth of a second less every year than you would if you lived on top of Mt. Everest.) Near a black hole, the slowing of time is extreme. From the viewpoint of an observer outside the black hole, time stops. For example, an object falling into the hole would appear frozen in time at the edge of the hole.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bh_whatare.htm

YUP! I have heard this..... also cited in "physics of the impossible" is an experiment that was done where scientists shot a beam out to the sun. This beam wouldn't hit the sun..... but pass through it's field..... it's on such an angle that it would enter the suns field and then exit without actually hitting the sun. They found that the beam had slowed down inside the suns field.... and somehow correlated that with time slowing down LOL - this sh*t is awesome but hard to follow sometimes.

Another thing i remember learning was that if we sent an astronaut out into space at the speed of light...... he would effectively "time travel" - by the time he could get back to earth we would have been long gone and he will have successfully traveled into the furture.

~Haz~

[MuscleScience]

We have created that heat without the bomb - i will try and research on how we did it tho LOL

~Haz~

This should help you out.

http://www.iter.org/

[Hazard]

This should help you out.

http://www.iter.org/

YEAH! there it is LOL..... thats the machine.... i actually saw a program on the science channel on that thing..... it was friggin awesome.

~Haz~

[Flagg]

Hazzard great minds think alike, I was sitting here not 5 minutes ago thinking about a Science thread and hey presto here we go! Good job

It's a shame Johan doesn't visit this board anymore. I dont know if you remember him Hazzard, he was the Nuclear Physicist.

On the subject of Lithium, I posted an article in the news thread about possible break throughs in batteries powering cars. The technology was based on being able to charge a phone within seconds and cars within minutes. The only downside is the batteries would have to be huge, for example just to charge your mobile/cell you would need a battery the size of the grey power supply adaptor that the XBOX 360 has, so imagine what you'd need for a car? Then the topic was discussed further and there's the other problem of not having enough lithium available on the planet for every car there is.

On a side note, any of you guys that like Science, any and all science should check out a lil book im reading called "The Canon" by Natalie Angier. It's about a science writer that interviews Scientists in every field you can name from Biology to Chemistry to Physics to Geology and beyond and just talks about the subjects in a wisecracking but interesting way.

[Flagg]

However black holes are even stranger than that. As you get closer to a black hole, the flow of time slows down, compared to flow of time far from the hole. (According to Einstein's theory, any massive body, including the Earth, produces this effect. Earth's gravity is so weak that the slowing of time is not noticeable, but the effect has been confirmed using sensitive instruments. For example, at sea level you age one-billionth of a second less every year than you would if you lived on top of Mt. Everest.) Near a black hole, the slowing of time is extreme. From the viewpoint of an observer outside the black hole, time stops. For example, an object falling into the hole would appear frozen in time at the edge of the hole.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bh_whatare.htm

I've always tried to wrap my head around how that works, Event Horizons but physics is no way my strong point. It's interesting stuff though.

[jfalco]

In bold

~Haz~

Thanks. Should be an interesting read. If your interested in that sort of stuff you might like The Tao of Physics, by Fritjof Capra. Not as current, but an interesting read.

[D7M]

On a side note, any of you guys that like Science, any and all science should check out a lil book im reading called "The Canon" by Natalie Angier. It's about a science writer that interviews Scientists in every field you can name from Biology to Chemistry to Physics to Geology and beyond and just talks about the subjects in a wisecracking but interesting way.

That was a good read, Flagg.

If you liked that you should definitely pick up Bill Bryson's "A Brief History of Everything"

It's pretty lengthy, but he covers everything in it, while retaining his characteristic wit.

[Flagg]

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/20...s/mueller-text

This is stuff I find really interesting. A nearly completely preserved mumified speciman of a baby Mammoth. Roughly 40,000 years old.

Interesting article on whether Scientists should/could replicate another Mammoth from the DNA of this specimen and impregnating a female elephant, what caused their massive decline, was it just climate change or man as well? Naturally some Mammoths managed to successfully over-come obstacles from Man and retreating Ice sheets and reach the African continent where they evolved into the Elephants of today.

[Bio-boosted]

Did you know that antimatter is the most expensive stuff in the world, ever? A whopping $60+ trillion per gram!

[Flagg]

That was a good read, Flagg.

If you liked that you should definitely pick up Bill Bryson's "A Brief History of Everything"

It's pretty lengthy, but he covers everything in it, while retaining his characteristic wit.

I've got a book on my shelf called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bryson, is it the same book as you mentioned? I've only ever read bits and pieces of it in the past but im trying to change that with my book reading these days so I can get proper stuck in from start to finish. He's a good writer (Bryson) and i've read his Down Under book as well.

[Flagg]

Did you know that antimatter is the most expensive stuff in the world, ever? A whopping $60+ trillion per gram!

Now you know what to get me for Christmas.

[D7M]

I've got a book on my shelf called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bryson, is it the same book as you mentioned? I've only ever read bits and pieces of it in the past but im trying to change that with my book reading these days so I can get proper stuck in from start to finish. He's a good writer (Bryson) and i've read his Down Under book as well.

Yep. that's the one. with the blue cover.

His other stuff was good, too. Light and funny, but interesting info. Good late at night reading.

[Bio-boosted]

I love all that outer space stuff. How the boffins work out what the planets and stars would look like if sliced open, really astounds me.
I wanna go to Mars with the first colony, but i'm such an old twat now..

[Tock]

One of my customers is involved in an effort to create a logic system that gets around the paradox of a "set of all sets." Another way of stating the problem would be "putting the universe in a bag," where the bag would have to be part of the universe, which would mean the universe would still not be in a container.

It's a paradox, and he's a high-powered math/physics type involved with a $$$ effort to figure some way around the problem. In a brief conversation, we resolved that (strictly speaking) in this universe, there are no straight lines. If you take the straight edge of a ruler and extend it indefinitely in both directions, you'll find that both ends eventually meet, because space is curved. It's sorta like painting a line on the surface of planet Earth; you can start a line anywhere, and it will curve around and around a few times, and it will eventually meet. An equatorial line is about the only line that won't travel the sphere's surface more than one time . . .

Anyway, for practical everyday purposes, we can measure out lines for roadbuilding and space navigation. But when ya get into universe-size scales, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a straight line.

All that etc etc etc got me to speculating (this isn't my primary field of expertise) that if the universe got its start from a "big bang" and light and matter are travelling away from the epicenter, then quite possibly instead of a line extending from a point in space to the outer edge and from there back into space from a corresponding point at the opposite outer edge at the other edge of space, I'm thinking that what actually happens is
space curves from the edge of the epicenter in a circle back upon itself.
Picture, if you will, a potato, where the outer skin was at the same location as its center. That is (maybe) the essence of our universe's shape. You could travel around the epicenter of the sphere, but if you went into it, you wouldn't notice, but you'd be traveling at a far end of the universe, just like nothing unusual ever happened . . .

It's a weird universe. If I had put everything together, it would have made a lot more sense, and AS would be free for everyone and would have no unpleasant effects.

[mho]

Hazard, could you site your source for the anti matter statement. As I understand it anti-matter the existance of has recently be proven, but I have never heard of an attempt to create anti-matter or to use anti-matter as fuel.

Fusion has been possible for a long time. First example of fusion technology happened in hiroshima about 70 years ago.

To be clear, when you say controlled fusion "costs" it is not an economic cost but an energy cost, unlike other alternative energy sources for which the preventitive costs are purely economic.

The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a fission bomb.

[mho]

I love all that outer space stuff. How the boffins work out what the planets and stars would look like if sliced open, really astounds me.
I wanna go to Mars with the first colony, but i'm such an old twat now..

Yeah space is pretty incedible. Time magazine came out with an article a few years back talking about how life on earth would not be possible without the existence of the horsehead nebula, and a whole bunch of other cool space stuff. Space is really omazing.

[DSM4Life]

[spywizard]

Once we "fuse" two atoms..... we will be able to power a whole city for roughly 10 years on one tanker full of lithium ion fuel.

The problem with this is that it requires so much heat energy that the only practical source of the heat needed for atomic fussion is the heat created by a fission bomb,unless we find a way of creating ridiculous amounts of heat without it.

we can just use wind or solar....

what the world needs is a good plague to thin the herd.. the demands of power will be reduced.. and no need to continue development on a new source of energy..

[mho]

we can just use wind or solar....

what the world needs is a good plague to thin the herd.. the demands of power will be reduced.. and no need to continue development on a new source of energy..

Zombies would be good.

[JAYROD]

i find this stuff very interesting and think about the vastness of the universe. my #1 question is is the universe infinite or not and will we ever find out? i don't think there is any question that if our universe is infinite than there is not only intelligent life elsewhere but alot of it.

[amcon]

God ...

[D7M]

It's a paradox, and he's a high-powered math/physics type involved with a $$$ effort to figure some way around the problem. In a brief conversation, we resolved that (strictly speaking) in this universe, there are no straight lines. If you take the straight edge of a ruler and extend it indefinitely in both directions, you'll find that both ends eventually meet, because space is curved. It's sorta like painting a line on the surface of planet Earth; you can start a line anywhere, and it will curve around and around a few times, and it will eventually meet. An equatorial line is about the only line that won't travel the sphere's surface more than one time . . .

Anyway, for practical everyday purposes, we can measure out lines for roadbuilding and space navigation. But when ya get into universe-size scales, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a straight line.

exactly.

and this is why I'm amazed that Euclidean geometry is still being taught in our schools! It's based on premises that don't even make sense anymore. But, hey, let's teach it to the kiddo's anyway.

[Bojangles69]

All I wanna know is if gene doping will ever make steroids obsolete and when.

[Bojangles69]

for anyone unfamiliar with it

[Bojangles69]

[Tock]

my #1 question is is the universe infinite or not and will we ever find out?

I don't think so. IMHO all the stuff in the universe curves and bends in on itself, and any attempt to get outside of the universe is futile because
our universe is the only place where there is energy, matter, mass, space, and time. Without these things, there isn't anything.

[MuscleScience]

for anyone unfamiliar with it

Yeah Why?