RyanJ

I find the space elevator idea really fascinating. It could be do-able sometime in the future too.

Hi guys! I came upon an interesting idea, unfortunately I don't know how to calculate it. I was wondering how far out would the GPS satellites be for a car traveling say 100 miles if GR was not factored into their programming? How much out would the distances be?

The water would act as a solvent - allowing the enzymes to function and of course to dissolve the compounds that it has broken down.

There is limited information on their exact protection measures. I believe the systems they use are block isolators which allow them to basically shut down sections of the power lines and so on to prevent power surges being spread over large areas and thus containing the damage. How well this would work for a severe vs. a usual solar storm I cannot tell you.

In the worst case GPS would be gone (unless the military have some shielded satellites that they aren't making public, even then those would be only for their use). Most mobile phone signals and most aircraft calls are sent via satellites at some point so those would be damaged badly. In the event of total system failure like that the communication companies probably have backups in place, such as land lines, that could take the signals in such a situation. If this is the case or not though I am unsure. Can anyone clarify this point?

No. You are correct. They have added a lot of safety systems to the power and communication systems over the years that should greatly reduce the risk of anything catastrophic. The satellite systems are still quite a worry though.

Only provided the power systems aren't put into safe mode first. Otherwise there would be minimal damage only. They do have protection. The storms only affect things that are currently active so putting the satellites into a low power state (safe mode) would prevent damage to the systems. Precautions have been taken to ensure that such things are quite preventable.

As with most things in science it is not a matter of if it will happen but when it will happen. If we have enough time before the event satellites and power grids can be put into safe mode to minimize any damage caused. If we didn't have enough time then the grids could be taken offline by the storms and many of the satellites fried by the radiation.

No, I understand what you are saying but I am trying to explain that it comes down to more than just the "code" that runs the hardware. The hardware it's self is usually configured specifically for a task. Just adding more standard cores will not make up for hardware optimizations that can't be programmed in. As I said you could emulate virtually anything that way sure but you would never get as good results as hardware specific optimizations combined with firmware optimizations.

That isn't true I'm afraid. If it were that simple it would have been done a long time ago no? Things like graphics cards don't reply on the underlying "software" (the firmware) but also on advances in the hardware. Compressing everything into one multi-cored CPU where each core could be programmed individually wouldn't allow for one to expand upon hardware and, say, upgrade to a faster graphics card because removing the core would not be possible. See what I mean? You need to have flexibility and that can't be given by programming.

And that would require you to upload new hardware instructions each time you wish to add a new component? Sorry but programming hardware isn't the best solution. Graphics cards for example are optimized for their task and for their specific hardware. While other hardware may be able to emulate the features they won't be as good as the originals. No code can, for example, turn an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT into a 275 GTX. The hardware has to be changed.

Good point. If everything were built directly into the CPU then extensions (such as extra PCI cards say) wouldn't be possible. Thanks for pointing that out.

I did try to correct it but the posts seem to time out so I could no longer edit it.

That's what I meant since the original question made no reference to a curved surface at all.

If you're looking for the calculations you could try something like this. Good luck

Because the connections would still need to be as intricate as they are now. A GPU could be integrated into a CPU but why bother? It's no more optimal and would only serve to make the design more complex and harder to dissipate the heat. Of course you are correct. Most things have a processor at their core but combining them together would cause more problems than it would solve. See my first post.

It doesn't quite work like that. Gravity is uniform and the object falls at an equal rate regardless. The Mythbusters demonstration proved the point very well.

There are several issues, the first would be the size. This would make the processor larger and thus slower as it would take the electrical signals longer to cross the processor and it's components. The second would be cooling. CPU's already generate huge amounts of heat and need to be kept cool to work optimally. The more you try to cram into them, the more heat generates. The third is that it's pointless. It would not reduce the complexity of the system and would still require just as many connections - why waste time doing something that will not make a great deal of difference in the end?

You refer to the multiverse theory, it is fair to warn you that it hasn't been proven at the time of writing. There are some ideas about how it could be shown to be correct but none have yet been tested as I recall. You make one fatal assumption in your post however - you assume that we can define exactly what life is and what limits it can endure. Neither are true. In face every time we try to set a limit on what we believe life can endure, we usually find an extremophile that can live there. As to the original question of this thread - it doesn't necessarily have to end somewhere... not even if the universe were finite in volume!

Adding dangerous compounds to a solution that contains unknown compounds could lead to dangerous reactions. People who play with cleaners without understanding the chemistry of their components usually end up being hurt. The compounds used in most cleaning agents are usually dangerous enough on their own, mixing them without the proper understanding is not recommended as it can lead to explosions, production of toxic gasses etc. DO NOT attempt it unless you know what chemicals it contains and understand how they will react.

The biology section is still largely a work in progress due to the vast volume of information required. But it is being worked on - give it some time and see what they come up with

http://www.physorg.com/news175953892.html

Please add Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com) to the main post too as it can do all sorts of useful chemistry calculations (I'll post a thread for that later).

There are plenty of tests that can be done before mass spectrometry to identify potentially dangerous compounds before they are analyzed. Otherwise you would be correct, step 1 in particular could be hazardous with certain materials.

I've never heard of that happening. Basically the process for entering an unknown substance into a mass spectrometer is as follows: Load a sample into the MS instrument, and vaporize it. Ionized the unknown substance (which results in the formation of positively charged ions) Accelerated the ions using a magnetic field. Computation of the mass-to-charge ratio of the particles based on the details of motion of the ions as they pass through electromagnetic fields. Detection of the ions, which in step 4 were sorted according to m/z.