Leader Bee

Not quite what I was looking for, but thanks. That is just a 2 dimensional plane that has been folded as with the below picture. How I understand space-time is that it works in 4 dimensions so am struggling to see how it bends around an object in 3 dimensions. rather than creating just an impression under a gravitational object

I suppose what I am asking is if there are any representations of the below that show spacetime in 3D instead of on one plane.

the traditional representation of 3-d space and time and how it warps due to gravity is to envision a flat plane; gravity is symbolized by depressions in this plane; (for example, throw a ball onto a stretched sheet; the depression it makes will "attract" other items you place onto the sheet).

 

I have always been somewhat confused by this representation of gravity folding/bending space. I can see why it is commonly represented as such because it is simpler to visualise but the problem I have with it is that Space-Time has length, width and depth.

If this is the case it would not be as simple as a depression appearing in sheet, rather the sheet of space-time would be wrapped around gravity and I have a hard time visualising a volume bending rather than an area.

Does anyone have any links with pictures or can explain how this works so I may understand it in a 3d sense rather than the more common 2 dimensional plane?

Ahh, Apologies. I figured they'd already started construction on DEMO based on results from ITER. I knew Iter had produced breakeven for miliseconds but mentioned it hadn't been achieved in reference of it never being achieved in a useful manner. Perhaps I should have been a little more clear in my wording.

Seems a little strange they would have two very similar experiments running at the same time. What is their reasoning behind already planning DEMO before they have quantifiable results from ITER then? Couldn't there be a possibility this will be an expensive mistake if ITER proves fruitless?

i realize that with fusion reactors (been folowing it for a few years.. COMMON ITER!)

If you'd been following it closer you'd know it has been superceded by DEMO ( i'm sure there's still experiments going on with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor but even demo still isn't quite making break even afaik)

So there's no fusion reactor that can break even nevermind a miniaturised version that puts out worthwhile energy for the effort.

I didn't read every single post but i'd like to point out it is possible to drink too much water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

The only thing that I can think of that comes close to what you need is a farnsworth Fusor, it uses deuterium as it's fuel source but I doubt it will output enough energy to be of any use other than as a viability demonstration.

The components are apparently relatively easy to come by for civilians but I have never attempted construction myself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor#Hobbyists

I've been playing EVE Online for around 6 months but the latest expansion "Dominion" has just been deployed. They've made changes to how sovereignty works and played around with some ship fittings so my 2/2 railgun/missile Hookbill is now 3 missiles only.

It's a shame my missiles skills are so poor.

I really shouldn't enjoy this game as much as I do, i've never liked numbers and spreadsheets but there's more to it than just playing the market and there's something addicting about training your character up to lvl 5 in as many skills as possible then directing a huge Fleet into battle or entirely raizing an asteroid belt ( if you're a miner and prefer to do that )

Waiting for Aliens vs Predator 3 in February and hopefully there'll be some further news on Mechwarrior 5

So in reality, as the nuclear fuel was physically placed within the system by somone or something and the fuel has energy within its binding it is not creation of energy but a way of converting one form of energy into another?

I was browsing wikipidia today on the subject of Magnetic and Internal confinement reaction in nuclear plants because I feel nuclear energy is the way forward when it comes to alternative energy sources and it interests me.

However I came accross the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inertial_confinement_fusion.svg

"Schematic of the stages of inertial confinement fusion using lasers. The blue arrows represent radiation; orange is blowoff; purple is inwardly transported thermal energy.

2. Fuel is compressed by the rocket-like blowoff of the hot surface material.

3. During the final part of the capsule implosion, the fuel core reaches 20 times the density of lead and ignites at 100,000,000 ˚C.

4. Thermonuclear burn spreads rapidly through the compressed fuel, yielding many times the input energy"

Points 1 - 3 make sense but point 4 kinda threw me a bit.

Is it just poorly worded or are they suggesting that internal confinement fusion defies the laws of the conservation of energy?

How would I go about cultivating the bacteria for it, just do my business in a bucket and leave it in a cupboard for a month?

what about adding sugars to promote bacterial growth?

I know my wee wee contains ammonia and i'm sure this is a volatile substance when mixed with nitrogen.

Would it be possible to boil down to collect the raw material?

How plausable is it to make a small incendiary device/firecracker utilising "organic" methods?

Out of curiosity and possibly moving the topic off its intended route...

How would superconductivity affect a "perpetual motion device"?

I don't beleive that PM is obtainable but something that could run for a VERY long time could be.

If we were to supercool the transmission medium of an electrical circuit so that it has zero resistance ( Perhaps I am wrong in my belief but superconductors have no electrical resistance?) wouldn't all the energy we put in to a device be dedicated to powering the device rather than creating waste heat and thus increasing the efficiency of the device? Ignoring friction of course and gravity and all those other forces we take for granted.

I assume the method for sustaining such a temperature would take a tremendous amount of energy anyway so I assume this would be a waste of time too?

There is actually an electronic scoring method for fencing in the olympics. While not actually delivering a shock to the opponent it will detect a hit.

Perhaps this website for a patent will point you down an appropriate route: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3920242.html

I just was thinking what is there next to the black space(universe is growing in a black space)

There is nothing next to the black space. The universe is not expanding into anything; the universe is everything.

Because there is nothing to compare it to as humans have no experience of "nothing" surrounding "something" it's a difficult concept to grasp.

There is no vacuum of space that contains "nothing" for the universe to expand into because technically a vacuum of nothing is infact something.

A good way to perhaps understand is an analogy of a young baby and how limbs and fingers start off small and with time grow - compare an adult with a child and you will see that arms and legs are much longer than a childs and this is because they've expanded and grown over time, the tip of the fingers is much further away from the base of the arms because the space between them has expanded.

The problem with this analogy is that people "expand" into the space around them where as space only expands......into nothing.

As said before, the best way to understand it is to not imagine "nothing" for it to expand into because "nothing" doesn't exist. The universe is everything.

I am thinking of buying one or the other but i haven't decided yet. I've never had much experience with either so i was wondering if someone could tell me how much use i could get out of a microscope?

 

A telescope is fairly self explanitory and astronomy does interest me, and apart from looking at hair and skin cells i'm not sure how much use i would get out of a microscope, so is there much more i could use it for in terms of learning for myself and seeing some crazy things?

Unless you really know what you're doing with a telescope and where to point it you're not going to see much more than the moon (It's the biggest,brightest object in the night sky and pretty easy to point at)

A microscope on the other hand is a lot easier to focus, you wont have haze from the atmosphere blurring your view and theres loads of interesting stuff to look at than just hair and skin cells - Bugs, plants, plastics, ice, loads of stuff.

I'm not saying that a telescope isn't interesting but you will first of all need a little knowledge of the constellations to find anything. Then of course there's the earths rotation and everythings moving out there AND millions of miles away.

I have a 6" reflector with an alt-azimuth stand and you'd think pointing it in the sky would yields loads of cool stuff like comets and planets and stars but i really find it difficult to point it at something even as big as jupiter. I've yet to see if I can check out the ISS with it, that shows up pretty often overhead but i reckon it will still be incredibly difficult to track considering the speed.

I'd go for the microscope

Aren't we in danger of "accidentally" discovering some new material on the moon when we send ROVs? when this could just be a meteorite.

Actually, no...we wouldnt be so stupid to fall for just one or two of these lumps of suspicious ore. We'd have to find them consistently.. actually i've pretty much answered my own question. the lumps would just be laying on the surface and would obviously be foreign bodies...Durrrrr Hurrr hurrrr.

Perhaps this is way off the mark but to get around the head bending idea that something can expand into nothing I have a hypothosis that space is curved and because space could be curved it is no longer expanding into "Whatever is on the other side of the edge of space".

Now i'm imagining that it's curved it is "expanding" into itsself and strreeeeeeeeeetching rather than growing, very much like the baloon.

Imagine an elastic band at rest. It has X amount of mass and covers X amount of area, now pull on all sides of it and you will expand its area but you have not added any more mass to it, the mass was there to begin with but it still "Expands" but not into nothing, away from itsself instead - it is not expanding into more elastic band.

Perhaps the analogy isn't the best because eventually eleastic bands snap when you stretch them too much and tearing space would be beyond the scope of this discussion. It would raise questions like: if there was a tear in space what is outside of that tear and could things leak through it?

It sounds to me as though he's asking for a way to refine the periodic table of elements from the natural resources available at home.

OK A dyson Sphere is out of the question as a space based solar power station because 1) We'd be blocking out the entirety of the suns rays to earth causing major devastation to a huge list of things on earth and 2) im sure we probably don't even have enough material on eath to entirely encase the sun completely.

So I thought how about a dyson swarm instead.

Questions begin:

1) What would be the most efficient way of launching the swarm?

I am of the thinking that launching one or two of these would be the standard affair of using a rocket or space shuttle to carefully place them but there would be a much larger number of these to qualify as a swarm and I don't see anyone funding regular space flights to do that

1a) would it be more effective to wait until we can build an orbital elevator to get the things into space? Carbon Nanotubes are becoming a reality and I heard these could be a big step into us finally producing one of these.

2) Once the satellites are in orbit - Geostationary or not as long as they don't collide with one another or get sucked into the sun by it's gravity. How would the satellites transmit the energy they collected to earth for a useful purpose?

Theres something ticking in the back of my mind that this may have something to do with Nikola Tesla's free transmission of energy, then again we might also use relays like stepping stones - I dunno thats why i'm asking.

I mentioned an orbital elevator earlier and have a couple of questions about that too. Instead of starting a new thread I might as well ask here.

What is the main problem of building one and how could we solve it?

I know we'd need a counterweight of some kind on the other end so i'm guessing that it's supplying enough mass at the other end to stabilise it.

Do we capture an asteroid and use that to teather it? Do we get spacemen to go up with some sort of hose that sprays out expanding foam? not sure.

Wouldn't the large mass floating out in space have detrimental effects to the orbit of earth over time and sent us hurtling out into space uncontrollably? ( little over the top but you get the point about it destabilising earth somehow, and wouldnt the moons gravity pull on the mass too making the elevator sway like a skyskraper while the moon drags it?)

How would we initially deploy the large cable into space? That much cable surely just cant be carried into space??

The Kuiper Belt objects are so far away, they don't concern us as much as NEOs (Near Earth Objects) that cross our path.

 

Yeah, let's get some target practice on some dastardly NEOs!

I didnt mention the kuiper belt did i? if I did nevermind, thought it was the Van allen radiation belt I mentioned.

Anyway - Kuiper belt is between Mars and Jupiter? I wouldnt consider that near Earth.

Target practice on neos would be like a huge game of missile command! I hope the targetting system is better than a trackball.

 

about the same as you'd find in the earths crust. not sure what this has to do with it. not all radioactive materials are suitible for making a nuclear bomb.

I was under the impression that EMP was generated through ionizing radiation in the upper atmosphere rather than intense heat. I don't see how heat interferes with electronics on such a large scale. The radiation had to come from somewhere and I assumed that it must have to do with the radioactives in a nuclear device considering we dont get random EMP every 1-2 years from asteroids colliding with the atmosphere

I'm well aware that radioactive materials need to be refined properly for weapons grade use.

that depends on the altitude. there is an optimum altitude for airburst of a specific yield where it will do more damage than a ground burst. above or blow this altitude, the explosion does less damage than the optimum.

 

tunguska likely exploded WAAAAY above its optimum altitude where the atmosphere is still a pretty damn good vacuum which cause the atmosphere to be a poor transmitter for the shockwave.

 

much like how the high altitude nuclear blasts caused little more than a spectacular light show(ignoring the EM pulse effects) with no more blast than a loud noise.

 

just checked up, typical optimum airburst heights for nukes are several hundred meters maybe a kilometer for a really big one.

 

tunguska would have detonated at over 10 kilometers, probably about 30-50km. definitely not an optimum height.

There shouldnt be any EMP to worry about with any kind of meteorite explosion should there? Isn't emp generated by particles specific to materials in nuclear weapons interacting with the van allen belts?

I don't really know how much radioactive material a given asteroid would contain but i wouldnt guess it to be much.

thats the thing though, it never hit the ground, it detonated in the air which lessened the force felt. if it had hit the ground the effects would likely have been more severe.

Actually an Air burst explosion of that kind of yield would cause far more destruction then a ground impact. Most of the energy would be absorbed by the earth or reflected upwards and away from the area whereas an explosion above any objects that may diffuse the blast wave means the shockwave can travel further out.

Because of the high pressure of the wave it would create a vacuum or at least an area of lower pressure travelling outwards from the detonation point. There is also the possibility of second shockwave travelling inwards due to the atmosphere rushing back in to fill this low pressure area, hence the typical double flash you see with nuclear explosions ( the front of the shockwave obscures the light - once with the outward wave and once on the inward.

Directly underneath the explosion things might survive depending on their size and shape. Trees in the tunguska event being a prime example because the small profile they presented.... I assume they were still horribly charred.

anything perpendicular to the shockwave would be gone as this type of explosion damages through blast effects rather than thermal and kinetic energy and even though i say that the effects of these are still severe.

I don't believe there are any moon-sized asteroids around. So relax, all you need to worry about are Tunguska-sized asteroids and some bigger ones. No big deal.

Tunguska destroyed everything within a 100 mile radius did it not and swept a few nomadic people from their feet? Amazingly this event wasnt investigated until around 20 years after it had happened either due to it's remoteness.

Arent there asteroids larger then pluto floating about? Pluto is only classed as a "Dwarf Planet" these days or not even that in some circles (the classification for what is a planet is pretty sketchy ) so even if there are no moon sized rocks floating around there are still some unimaginably huge asteroids out there. Infact a chicxulub sized object is something to worry about.

Airbrush:

I agree, why are we having talks with the Russian Federation about another START treaty and Non-Proliferation acts when we could be putting these nukes to good use?

Instead of just dismantling the devices we have in our arsenels, which I assume is a largely expensive procedure in removing/transporting/storing radioactive materials, we could be having target practice to see if these techniques will work.

Theory is all good and well but isn't Evolution just a theory? what I mean is what we think might work might not at all until proven fact.

Dislcaimer: Leader Bee supports the evolutions theory over God and or creationism and does not discredit this notion we evolved rather than just sprang from nothing.

Isn't the reason an ion engine runs for so long is due to their relatively low output?

Say we had an asteroid within 22,200 miles ( geostationary satellites are at this hight ) we wouldn't have time to use this method. What is an approximate minimum distance we could effectively use this plan?

Considering the energy output of Ion engines is more effective over time rather than lots of energy in one go wouldn't the object we'd be aiming for need to be as far out as Mars or something to be a useful method of deflection? Which also brings the question that if it does have to be out that far we wont be able to man a mission to deploy the engines so would robotics be sophisticated/reliable enough to deploy these on their own?