J'Dona

All right, I agree with that. But since the uncertainty principle doesn't apply to whole atoms and you didn't mean to suggest that it did, then why didn't you say so?

1. Kinetic energy of atoms is directly proportional to temperature, hence abs 0 shud imply no motion.

 

2. In quantum mechanix, the heisenberg principle would not allow for such a situation however bcoz that wud mean no uncertainty in either position or momentum.

As for the last paragraph, I abdmit that I haven't ever solved quantum mechanical equations in that way, as I'm not in university yet. But if an atom is considered as a single object - as was being done before - and its velocity is zero, then I would have though its kinetic energy would be as well based on the equation (unless this is another case of being taught lies in college because they're easier to understand). Either way, whether or not its velocity at absolute zero is zero or just very small, the electrons and quraks still still obey the uncertainty principle so there's no argument there.

In that case I was referring to the atom as a single object, which wasn't moving. As a single object its position would stay the same and it would have no kinetic energy, if its position remained constant (as was the supposition in your first point), and that would seem to violate the uncertainty principle.

But, the point I was trying to make was that when you actually look inside the atom, the individual parts (i.e. electrons and quarks) are moving, hence the uncertainty principle isn't violated. At absolute zero an atom might have no velocity, but the parts inside could still be moving.

I drew that example from the link and quote I provided, which were written by university professors, and I hardly think they would be "grossly incorrect".

Here's an idea: suppose you have a car with n parts; the engine is running, pistons are moving, but it's in neutral and the brakes are on. The parts have kinetic energy.

But the car isn't moving. It has no kinetic energy. That's why it's wrong to look at the car as a whole, which was the point I was making.

If an atom has zero kinetic energy, it wouldn't be moving, but the electrons within it would still orbit and so there would still be some vibrations going on. Since the nucleus and electrons themselves are jiggling about their positions are never certain and so the uncertainty principle is obeyed.

To quote from the link I brought up:

Also, even at absolute zero, some motion is necessary (zero-point energy) by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Since the uncertainty in a particle's position times the uncertainty in its momentum must be greater than Planck's constant, if a particle is constrained in its position at all, it's momentum must have some uncertainty, which means it cannot be zero. For example, electrons in atoms must still move in their orbits.

For particles with mass only, and even in that case, it isn't. :/

But photons don't change speed or energy with temperature; they all travel at the speed of light. The temperature of a substance is a property which measures the average kinetic energy of massive particles, and that changes when they absorb and emit photons and gain or lose energy.

Also, photons have no mass, so technically they have no kinetic energy by the formula: KE = ¹/₂mv² (sorry for not using LaTeX for this, but it's too small to bother). But they still have energy, so at absolute zero there would of course be more than '0 gross energy'.

Stranger in a Strange Land. I'm reading it when there aren't any customers at the bookshop where I now work, which is most of the time. I get paid £3.50 an hour for it too.

Just wondering, but why would the particle at absolute zero have no mass or volume? If it wasn't moving at all, then it could still have mass, I would have thought. I don't think the kinetic energy of the particle is the same as the energy of it via E = mc².

For the original poster, I think this might answer your question: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00423.htm

Apparently there is still some motion at absolute zero, which resolves the dilemma.

I used to spend hours a day on cheap gaming forums. The average claimed IQ was around 136, so you can get an idea about what the people there were really like.

After discovering just how low-brow the forums were, my sister suggested that I try and finding one related to an intelligent subject. I said I'd get back to her and continued playing. So she sent me a link to SFN (based on a 10 second search in Google). I made two posts and then forgot about this place for about six months, hence my joining in October 2003 and not really posting anything before April 2004.

In early April I resolved to dump the main game that was interrupting my time when I was in a low point in playing, because exams were coming up. After that I wanted to find another forum to look at (i.e. compulsively refresh) and so I came back here, and I'm glad that I did.

Incidentally I've started playing that game again... just another episode in the saga against subversive computer game mind control.

A2 is the second year of A-Levels, which are two year courses in the UK. A2 would be the year immediately preceding university, if you chose to go to it and didn't take a gap year.

I don't know if I can suggest much mima1129, especially since it's been so long since the post (so I'm sure it's already done). But just in case, these might be helpful for ideas:

http://www.courseworkbank.co.uk/AS__A2_and_A-Level/Psychology/

http://www.coursework.info/41/

These aren't experiments, but they might give some ideas. But again, I'm sure this has already been resolved. Hopefully you'll get a good grade with whatever one you chose (maybe the long-term memory of people watching football for an hour, two hours, or three as compared to those who wath none, assuming no alcohol is drunk during those times...)

EDIT: Didn't see JaKiri's post. He's definitely right about the 'silly' part. :/

The Mohs Scale of Hardness.

Atheism is[/b'] the religious stance of science.

Given that atheism is the belief that there is no God or god(s), which can never be proven, wouldn't that make it unscientific? I know that there is no area in (mainstream) science which studies or relates to a supernatural being, but that doesn't necessarily preclude one's existance, and any scientist who denied that would be biased.

To take any stance would be biased, unless it were agnosticism, which doesn't have anything to be biased toward. Individual scientists can be theists, so long as they don't allow any religious stance in their study which might affect it.

A beleif in science is, however, the stance taken by atheists.

A coolant would definitely be used, possibly coming from the metal supports, and if this were occuring between ships in space I assume that they would be able to turn themselves so that the docking areas were in shadow. I'm not certain how quickly the metal surfaces would radiate heat after facing away from the sun. But the surface istelf could be artificially cooled, particularly on the rough spots that jordan suggested. A reflective cover would be more energy efficient though. Maybe a cover can be made straight onto the ice, which is charged, via electrostatic coating with a reflective substance. That probably wouldn't work for some reason or another, because I thought it up.

It might be a little wasteful of water and so forth. but it would allow quick transfer of cargo and people between them, and for docking with a small, private spacecraft which doesn't have an airlock or can't afford to vent all the atmosphere in the cockpit.

Off topic, but what is the forum policy in regard to posts made by people like K. B. Robertson in the 'Temperature' thread? (I was preparing a reponse regarding his liberal use of adverbs, e.g. "arrogantly plebean opening barb", but I don't think it would be following the forum rules so I'm not anymore.)

This is a bit of a strange question, and maybe related to science fiction, so most people will just ignore it. Please move this to pseudoscience or engineering if it would be more appropriate there, and I'll take that cue on any further posts like this I might make.

Because in the future spacecraft built by different countries or companies might have different airlock mechanisms or external hathes, I was considering about the use of ice as a sealant in forming makeshift airlocks. Does anyone know if, when liquid water is sprayed onto a metal surface in space, would it just splash of off or would it crystallise and form a structure? Would that ice, if built up around an entire hatch on both of the ships, be strong enough to contain a small amount of atmosphere whih was pumped in, or would it shatter?

The reason I wonder is because it would make for a suitable universal docking process between ships, in case of different builds or an emergency which rules out the standard dock. The strength of the ice against forces due to any slight rotation between the two vessels would not be much of an issue, as either could be locked in place by metal clamps or some such. The clamps could also serve as a support for the ice if it were formed around it. Spacecraft in the future might use water as a propellant, so they would probably have a supply on board.

Ah, I've just looked up on the definitions in the Oxford Science Dictionary, and apparently breathing relates to the muscular movement, whereas respiration relates to the actual chemical processes involved. So, whereas I was mainly referring to the intake of atmosphere rather than the chemical reactions, since they had to be separated anyway and the physical process seemed more important than the chemical reactions about which we already know, then "breathing" and "breathes" could be replaced with "respiration" and "respires" and it might come across better. As Sayonara said, they are usually associated with one another.

I'll be sure to make the distinction in the future, now that I know the difference.

Yeah, I guess I should have been more specific in my first post. I think shardsofnarsil was more concerned with extracting oxygen from carbon dioxide though, so I didn't think it was necessary to go into exhalation and nighttime reactions since the use of the exhaled oxygen in the body was implied and the storage during night shouldn't be a problem. These humans do have technology, after all.

I've tried looking up on the light intensity on the surface of Venus, but I couldn't find much statistics. Apparently, based on the pictures from the Venera 13, it is "as bright as an overcast day on Earth". The heat and high levels of CO₂ might help to counteract that, but it's certainly a restricting condition.

This is of course completely ignoring the sulphuric acid and trace amounts of water on the planet.

EDIT: Sorry, just saw your post JaKiri, I'll edit in a sec...

Okay, I think I must be misunderstanding you. Could you please give me the correct definition of "breathing" in the terms we're talking about so that I can find where my explanation doesn't apply?

That's at night though, if you're taking about inhaling and using it. Obviously they breathe CO₂ it in the sense that they use it during photosynthesis. They only breathe O₂ during day in the sense that it's waste product. I'm not sure how the reactions work at night but it's the reverse, so in that case they would certainly be breathing oxygen and using it and expelling CO₂. I was only referring to breathing case of reactants during day, which is what mattered. Surplus oxygen (which there should be if I was right in there being 29.6 as much "oxygen" once converted on Venus than on Earth) might just be stored for use at night.

Just to spoil the fun... it wasn't 0.999, aeroguy. It was 0.999, or 0.999~. That means 0.9999999999999999... and so on forever.

Theoretically, that does equal one.

Are you trying to prove that life exists on Mars, or are you trying to sell us something?

Phi for All has an excellent point, ExtraSense.

Clearly if all that you say is correct you have not only defeated the apparent NASA conspiracy but also proven that all other information about Mars aside from your sleected photographs are untrue or hoaxed, thus invalidating most of the fields of biology and physics. You could be famous! Quickly, before anyone else here fully learns how to copy your inimitable style of excessive smilies and logical genius, tell everyone in the world, all the major publications, before you lose out on the fame and glory!

If you're right, you're made for life. If not... well, you've already decided that you're not wrong, so what is there to fear?

EDIT: Thanks atinymonkey and Sayonara!

I'd recommend writing a lot as well for practise, as that's probably the best way to improve your skill, e.g. letters, essays, fiction. Bear in mind that I'm biased. In the extreme. (ERROR: SENTENCE FRAGMENT)

Really, it depends on what styles of writing you're looking to improve. If you want to improve scientific, analytical writing then reading and writing a lot of essay type papers would probably be your best bet. If it's not just analytical writing that you want to improve... well then, I'd best not get started on that.

Racial slurs!

To be quite honest, anyone who doesn't vote for TNG doesn't know what Star Trek is (this counts as a racial slur as well, if you get my meaning). Period. The way that episodes didn't have a continuing storyline in those are what's good about them; you can come in at any time without having had to watch all the previous ones to understand what's going on. Some shows like Farscape are alright, unless you miss a single one in which case you're lost. The same can be said for Stargate SG1 I suppose. They tend to replay critical episodes because otherwise nobody will have a clue what's going on.

DS9 was a bit religious at the end and started to go pear shaped with marriages/deaths/backstories, but they were trying to wrap it all up and they can't have a war without a continuing storyline so that's understandable. Voyager was good because they didn't interconnect (though they did tend only to be about Janeway + Seven + The Doctor). But TNG was the only non-interconnected one with original storylines, since they were all new, and got across the best visoin of the Federation. I think things would be different if Gene Roddenberry was still alive. :/

This post is long in a sad way, considering this is just about a scifi series, but maybe it'll stop yet another argument (or disagreement) from breaking out...

"Tell my mother... that, it hurts... when, I laugh..."

*dies*

A house key to anyone who can figure out who said that.

And yourdadonapogos, I think Sayonara was also making a reference to your 64.92 posts per day average as of this point when he mentioned "spam bots". :/

If doing it over and over again carried large scientific benefits with a reasonable chance of success every time, as compared to similar benefits for something with hardly any chance at all, then yes.

Well, in that case, the Federation would need to divert significant resources and manpower toward the project of investigating gas giant atmospheres for life, whereas they could have spent less resources doing something like colonising Mars and getting the name "United Federation of Planets" to actually apply. Oh, and they find out decades later that there's an underwater civilization on Europa, but they never bothered to check it before. And they're tentacled squids with no heads the eat and breath out of... nevermind.

No, seriously... the point is that there's a vastly greater chance of finding extraterrestrial life on another rocky planet than on a gas giant, and that in terms of overall efficiency it would be better to concentrate on the former. People can only send so many probes out into space, and since we're all very impatient we want to check out those incredibly more likely places first. If money still exists it wont be "different" in such a way that where it cost money to explore before, now it doesn't, so the issue holds.