Anniversary of Hiroshima

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
101

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Somehow, I’m afraid your not going to be able to understand this.[/quote]

So, in other words, we can’t explain charge (which is a basic concept of electrical phenomenon) using e=mc2. And you didn’t say anything about mechanical processes using e=mc2. And here I was hoping you’d figured out that pesky grand unified theory problem.

E=mc2 cannot account for everything that you attribute it to. It’s a part of explaining stuff, not the end-all descriptor for stuff. But what do I know? I’m re-tardy.

102

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Anyway, in fusion, where do the excess neutrons come from? Wouldn’t most of them , and theoretically all of them end up in fusion products? And in a big enough tank of water, wouldn’t many of the neutrons end up just going back into hydrogen atoms?
[/quote]

It depends on what you use for fuel. The simplest kind of deuterium/tritium fusion processes generate bolshoi excess neutrons, which, having no charge unlike the rest of the plasma, are not affected by magnetic containment and promptly fly off and get captured by the structure of the fusion generator, which becomes radioactive as a result.

The cross section of a water molecule (i.e. Oxygen nucleus) for neutron capture is pretty tiny unless you are at fusion temperatures. Lithium makes a good absorber and you get some Tritium back. But larger nucleii will do much of the capturing.

There are “aneutronic” fusion fuels in prospect, but you are going up the energy/complexity curve a bunch, apparently.

103

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
So, if anybody out there want’s to contribute to US science scores not sucking so much, I am trying to write a melting point lab for chemistry, and I am looking for some fairly safe compounds, maybe organics, that melt in the 30-135 deg. C range. Any ideas?

Some old books used dichlorobenzene and napthalene which are somewhat of a health hazard.

[/quote]

If I may humbly submit an organic compound which lies neatly in the middle of the range you are looking for:

2,4,6-trinitrotoluene. It’s melting point is just over 80 degrees C. Should be fun and interesting for the students and teacher alike. And it’s cheap.

104

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
Somehow, I’m afraid your not going to be able to understand this.

So, in other words, we can’t explain charge (which is a basic concept of electrical phenomenon) using e=mc2. And you didn’t say anything about mechanical processes using e=mc2. And here I was hoping you’d figured out that pesky grand unified theory problem.

E=mc2 cannot account for everything that you attribute it to. It’s a part of explaining stuff, not the end-all descriptor for stuff. But what do I know? I’m re-tardy.[/quote]

I thought you got the mechanical part. Yes, if you change the position of a mass in a gravitational field, its mass will increase-and conventionally we call that GPE.

105

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I thought you got the mechanical part. Yes, if you change the position of a mass in a gravitational field, its mass will increase-and conventionally we call that GPE.
[/quote]

Cool. I’ll just move to Saturn, and then I’m hyooge. Who needs to lift weights and eat to gain mass? Just change planets! One more reason to privatize NASA…

“Sorry girls, back home I was the shit… now that we’re on the moon, I look like a little pussy estro-boy. Where did all my muscle go?” :slight_smile:

106

[quote]samsmarts wrote:

Yet you chose to bomb those civilians. Rahter than bombing a deserted location, a military base, a harbour or something.

Sometimes you should just admitt that your nation screwed up. Your nation has pulled out some great moves in the face of adversity and we respect that, but trying to defend killing tons and tons of civilians is pathetic.[/quote]

Well, I hate to say it, but it got our troops back home and saved countless American lives…I’ll say it again, it’s better them than us, and if there wasn’t a Pearl Harbor, there wouldn’t have been a Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our country didn’t screw up my man, we did what the fuck was right for US for a change; the hell with everyone else. RLTW

rangertab75

107

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
So, if anybody out there want’s to contribute to US science scores not sucking so much, I am trying to write a melting point lab for chemistry, and I am looking for some fairly safe compounds, maybe organics, that melt in the 30-135 deg. C range. Any ideas?

Some old books used dichlorobenzene and napthalene which are somewhat of a health hazard.

If I may humbly submit an organic compound which lies neatly in the middle of the range you are looking for:

2,4,6-trinitrotoluene. It’s melting point is just over 80 degrees C. Should be fun and interesting for the students and teacher alike. And it’s cheap.[/quote]

Interesting! Wasn’t that compound supposed to end all war forever?

108

OK, I admit it. I guess I am the king of the retards.

Nuclear and conventional weapons are pretty fucking different, (that is to say not really the same), not in any reasonable context. I knew what I was thinking. No actually I’m not even sure what I was thinking when I wrote that. Maybe something like “To me, it doesn’t matter whether we dropped 1 big atom bomb, or 1,000 little very different conventional bombs, or shot 100,000 people at close range.”

E=mc^2 does explain chemical energy, but who the hell cares-at least on a thread about the anniversary of Hiroshima? I mean if I were writing on some theoretical physics discussion board, or even a thread here that was started by people interested in theoretical physics, it might be interesting to people. I guess that the people who died in Hiroshima didn’t say-
“Hey look at that big bomb, I wonder if it gets its energy from E=mc^2.”
“Stupid! even conventional bombs get ALL of their energy from E=mc^2”
“What, that’t not what they taught in highschool…”

All nuclear weapons produce significant radioactive fallout. Honestly, I had no fucking idea about the specifics of how nuclear weapons worked. Its not specifically part of the curriculum of any class I’ve taught or taken (although they don’t get to it in physics 101 either, or in any college physics class that I’ve taken or sat in on). I bet I could ask one of my mentor professors who specializes in small particle physics how an atomic bomb works, and he wouldn’t really know any more than I did. I actually saw on an episode of the Outer Limits maybe 6-7 years ago that cold fusion, unlike fission, released only EM energy. Well, its good to learn this in the summer. Nuclear fusion and fission, and decay ARE part of the chemistry class that I teach, and although I got the facts straight on those in the past, and knew how they worked in terms of physics, I had no understanding of what really happens (and I mean really) in various atomic bombs.

And as for the A-bombs dropped on Japan, I’ve read some stuff over the years, but I don’t know or have a real opinion of whether they saved lives in the long run. I do think that’s an interesting question though.

So, who learned something this week?

109

Wazup gizzas? Got the word some jasper’s dissin the LP over this way.

110

mert,

just because the thread didn’t intend this discussion doesn’t mean the discussion is without merit or shouldn’t exist. if the original topic was popular enough we would still see it going, it’s not, so there’s no problem discussing something derived from the original topic.

as little i know about theoretical physics i still find it fascinating. i found it enjoyable to watch you, pook, loth, veg, gamer, etc. go at it even though i could barely follow.

i would say i learned something specific about theoretical physics, but, for me, this is like putting a mathematics lover who recently graduated from arithmetic into a calculus classroom.

i do find it thoroughly fascinating that nobody agrees with you, yet you persist. that’s for one of three reasons im sure. reason 1) you’re dead wrong, 2) you’re right and you’re like the guy who gets ridiculed about his laughable theory, or 3) a little bit of both.

111

[quote]lightpower wrote:
Wazup gizzas? Got the word some jasper’s dissin the LP over this way.[/quote]

go post some pics, make us laugh.

112

[quote]wufwugy wrote:
mert,

just because the thread didn’t intend this discussion doesn’t mean the discussion is without merit or shouldn’t exist. if the original topic was popular enough we would still see it going, it’s not, so there’s no problem discussing something derived from the original topic.

as little i know about theoretical physics i still find it fascinating. i found it enjoyable to watch you, pook, loth, veg, gamer, etc. go at it even though i could barely follow.

i would say i learned something specific about theoretical physics, but, for me, this is like putting a mathematics lover who recently graduated from arithmetic into a calculus classroom.

i do find it thoroughly fascinating that nobody agrees with you, yet you persist. that’s for one of three reasons im sure. reason 1) you’re dead wrong, 2) you’re right and you’re like the guy who gets ridiculed about his laughable theory, or 3) a little bit of both.[/quote]

Thanks bro. I just know as a teacher that sometimes (often) you’ve got to forget about your pride and leave the scene with everybody having learned a little.

Nobody’s arguing the physics details I gave about the theory modern theories, (well actually endgamer711 is asking some good hypothetical questions) and I know some people can understand the theoretical details, and learned something (whether they think its important or not). And I made a big mistake of thinking I knew something about details of atomic weapons, and nuclear fallout. Somebody who knew about them called me on it, and if a kid does that in a highschool chem or physics class, it can seriously damage your ability to teach.

Thanks again. And check out the sites I posted together-not the first sucky posts, but the 7 or so later. There are some that I bet you’d find interesting.