swansont

I've had difficulty explaining to some family members that e.g. a water molecule doesn't know if it was released in a "natural" or a synthetic process. It's just a water molecule.

I don't think I did, or perhaps the point was made badly. You're talking about propaganda, which was in the latter half of the post, and has nothing to do with playing the computer games in question, AFAIK. Two distinct topics, and I wasn't talking about the second one.

Please let's not pretend that a RTS game has any valid relevance to this. There is no moral factor in blowing up images on a computer screen, and no risk to your person for doing anything. If you mess up you might not win the game. That really doesn't merit any discussion whatsoever. I've played a turn-based (rather than real-time) strategy game and the decision to go to war and the details of how you go about that has is in no way preparation for the real thing for any rational adult. I'm really disappointed this has to be explained to anyone. And points to the earlier comment about how nobody would waste ammo blowing up a kindergarten. It is barbaric and demoralizing. There are reasons why the Russians are engaging in such tactics, but it's also one reason why (most of) the rest of the world is united against them. In WWII you didn't have the ability to do precision bombing and avoid hitting civilian targets. Everybody was doing it. That's not the case today.

I'm not sure "they are committing war crimes so we should, too" is a good strategy. I think you lose support for your cause if there is credible evidence that you're doing that. I think you might stop getting military aid. Do they even have that kind of weaponry (missiles that can travel hundreds of km)? I would be a little surprised if other countries were selling/sending them what would clearly be offensive weaponry.

In addition to exchemist's observations, you'd be in a situation like the old steam locomotives you mentioned - an engine but also a place to store the fuel, which you have to lug around with you. Along with the storage container and the fuel delivery system, which are likely to be more massive than a fuel tank and piping. That's an additional drain on your efficiency. That worked for trains, but not so much for other applications.

The first stumbling block, I would think, is not having a theory. I’m not sure the SSC was going to test quantum gravity

I don’t think so. It’s a matter of basing it in QM vs extrapolating from classical physics, as they currently do Also nobody observes gravitational effects at the Planck scale.

It depends. If you are just making hot water it’s 60-70%. If you are generating electricity it’s significantly lower.

Meaning it has no place in a technical discussion based on fact. As I pointed out, they pulled more rods out of the core than they were supposed to, As I recall, this was because of a buildup of Xe-135. Had they waited for it to decay, the situation would have been quite different.

I'd say it does matter, because by and large it's one party is repeating Kremlin talking points and subverting democracy, while the other isn't. That there isn't a clear distinction on some aspects of government, that doesn't extend to all aspects of government. These are the acute effects, but I worry about the long-term. I think we will be seeing the effect of TFG for some time, as things bubble through the courts. Roe v Wade is likely to be gone soon, and that won't be the end of it. All because of justices he appointed.

! Moderator Note I think everyone would be better off with fewer insults and condescension all around, and more focusing on discussing the topic

Dropship has been suspended for repeated thread hijacking violations, in addition to other infractions. A course correction is needed.

While I would hesitate to call a nuclear weapon a precision instrument, there are treatments in medicine that you can describe as precise. Proton therapy, for example. You send a beam of protons at a tumor, and tune the energy so that the protons will deposit the bulk of their energy in the tumor rather than the healthy tissue, so you disrupt the tumor. (They have a proton therapy center at TRIUMF, where I did a postdoc)

Indeed. But I'm saying the court might argue that something that's not a problem when one person is doing it might be a problem if a dozen people are doing it. Can you fit a dozen people into a 15' radius around a police officer and not interfere with them, while they are dealing with a suspect and also trying to do crowd control? From the description you included, this isn't a case relevant to the legislation. Destroying a recording is not the same as saying you need to be X feet away to record. And I'm saying that a court system that routinely finds that officers shooting unarmed people are not at fault (and whose numbers have been swelled for four years by an administration that was sympathetic to police-state attitudes) might not be swayed by that argument.

! Moderator Note This has been mostly off-topic for a while, and I just don’t have the bandwidth to filter the tiny bit of wheat from the chaff. Thus it’s all chaff, and to the trash it goes.

I think statisticians have known this for a relatively long time.

No, that's not accurate. The control rods had graphite tips, but were made of boron, which readily absorbs neutrons (graphite, not so much). One of several issues was that a bunch of the rods were completely withdrawn from the core. When the control rods were inserted, the first part in was the graphite tip. Graphite is a moderator, so it improved the efficiency of slowing neutrons down, making for an increased fission rate, which is exactly the opposite of what you want to happen when you are trying to shut the plant down. It was a design flaw, and was exacerbated by not following safety protocols - they pulled more rods out of the core than they were supposed to. The system also had a positive void coefficient, so when excess steam started forming inside the core, it increased the fission rate. Again, the opposite of what you want when trying to shut down. It's not about the rods being cheap. There were design shortfalls and procedures were circumvented; multiple issues which all acted together to cause the accident. https://www.vice.com/en/article/597k9x/why-the-chernobyl-nuclear-reactor-exploded https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx

v = at works for constant acceleration; it occurs to me that you didn't specify that (though a constant thrust over a period of time might be happening). If acceleration varies with time you'd integrate. a = dv/dt, so v(t) would be the integral of a(t) dt

That’s not actually what I meant. Evolution has been observed - that’s what makes it a fact. There is also a massive amount of evidence that tells us the theory is correct. That’s not the metric by which you assess a theory. There are areas on earth and in space where gravity has not been measured, but that does not call models of gravity into question. That would be a ludicrous standard to apply.

It’s a theory and also a fact.

This held up well. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/15/opinions/war-crimes-russia-invasion-ukraine-newton/index.html

We define what we mean by speculation But he didn’t call it “the theory of relativity” when he first aired it. The paper was “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” and Einstein later referred to it as the relativity principle.

! Moderator Note If you can’t be on topic, please consider whether you should post at all

Standard physics kinematics equation will give you this. v = at for an object starting at rest, with a constant acceleration. You just have to put this in SI units

Hillary is not in politics anymore, and Hunter never was. Jen Psaki doesn’t make policy AFAIK. And no GOP members/pundits on the list. I wonder if they get paid in rubles, will they continue to shill for Putin as the exchange rate drops?