Curious layman

For me, lately the purpose of life is to find purpose. Sometimes life feels overwhelming. But it's always the small things that lift me. People saying hello, helping me out when they have no reason to, being nice, small things like that. So I guess my purpose would be to remember you only have to do small things to really help someone. And try to be less of a socially awkward dick too, that would help.

Sorry I can't contribute to the post but seriously.....Holy s#-t, there's some serious math in this post my poor old iPad took at least 5 mins just to load it all up. That doesn't even happen on math forums I go to. I'm seriously envious of people who can do math/physics at this level. If you can understand this thread, I hope your ugly...

Tailorbird nest building

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAANAAcxNDkRUMlE4SlMyNUdaSlk3VE5SRzZaTjkyQUdaNS4u

Loved The Expanse, Altered Carbon was good too. The effects were much better than the storyline. Hopefully the next series will be better. Cant get enough of Narcos etc.. always with subs though, dubbing ruins it I think.

The Road by Cormack McCarthy. Post-Apocalyptic, Not too long, simply written, absolutely brilliant.

Seven Brief Lessons On Physics - Carlo Rovelli very thin, only 79 pages, but seems good overview for understanding the basics. Unmasking Europa. - Richard Greenberg

There's a film called Grave of the Fireflies I really need to watch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies.

Today I learned that the Molecular motor is a truly wonderful beautiful thing. Amazing. And loads about DNA.

News post practice: Skylon space plane. The Skylon space plane is a British single stage to orbit space plane currently being developed within Europe between several countries. t's key features are it's 2 SABRE (supersonic air breathing rocket engine) engines, Hydrogen fuelled these engines take the plane to a speed of Mach 5.4 at an altitude of 85000 feet (16mi/26km) before switching the engines to rockets to reach an altitude of between 2000km (LEO) and 42 164km (GEO) depending on cargo (between 7.3-17 tonnes). It's ceramic composite skin is hoped to give the Skylon space plane at least 200 orbital flights per plane. It is hoped this will bring down the cost of payload to LEO to £650/kg with costs falling when initial expenditure is recouped. The total cost of the program is expected to be around $12bn. The SABRE engines will hopefully be running unmanned tests by 2025. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft) What do you think? Any good?

Just can't gat enough of this guy.

Today I learned 2 things dont mess with sfn women, they bite. It's not just science you learn here (English, Music, History, Literature, Jokes) you name it....

diff comp I hope it doesn't merge again It did

Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West. By Cormack McCarthy A Western about scalp hunters. cant recommend this enough Also try The Road by the same author.

I just learnt a new word. ...while listening to psithurism.

You leave Tina alone, and there's nothing wrong with the way she dances either... thanx will do. Same to you. Please don't reply either, every time it loads my iPad nearly melts with all the pages

They offered me abit of help instead which I wasn't expecting, after pavarotti I'm listening to Simply the Best by Tina Turner, because despite the above my job sucks major ass..

Nessun dorma by Pavarotti, i thought I was going to get fired from work today and didn't.

Some more.... how the universe works (live docs) Khan academy/Medicine (educational) International Center for Theoretical Sciences (lectures) World Science festival (debates, lectures, videos- the brain, robotics, everything really) Numberphile (numbers) Ones above are abit for the layman, these are a lot more informative.

Maybe better to put a link to spec savers instead! Not sure if I still count as new but- Asteron x ( a bit far fetched though I think! ) Curious Droid John Michael Godier PBS space time/eons Web of stories-life stories of remarkable people ( Gell-Mann, Teller, Dyson), I find the history of science just as important and fascinating. and about a million more, I found my favourite ones by accident.

Just a layman! There's a lot of thought gone into this for a layman. I'm impressed.

Easier to hit the sun than a black hole!! Well that's even more interesting, but does make sense. Cheers

Ok good, thanx for that, I get it now, it would fly into the sun eventually, and it could orbit around a black hole, it depends on its trajectory. Those links were really great too. Zapatos really nailed it for me though.

I thought if you fired off a probe towards the sun it wouldn't just into to it, it wouldn't get anywhere near it, but if you fired a probe into a black hole obviously it would go straight into it, why the difference?