John Cuthber

4 hours ago, studiot said:

no one really knows how many becasue they haven't been around long enough to start failing.

Enough have failed that we know they really won't "last forever".

4 hours ago, studiot said:

Of course this excludes media that was defective from the beginning

That looks a bit like a "No true Scotsman" argument.
 

8 hours ago, Trurl said:

My question is if we ever create a conscious intelligence (like A.I. or computer learning) would you reevaluate your ideas on creationism?

Why would I?

On 12/8/2022 at 6:44 AM, kenny1999 said:

 

However, it looks like that there isn't any breakthrough in medicine (If I am not wrong). 

Good news; you are wrong.

The traditional version is "what happens when an irresistible force acts on an immovable object?".

And the answer is that they can't both exist (at least, not in the same universe).

19 hours ago, sologuitar said:

I say the truth shall set you free. 

Only if you pay attention to it.

12 minutes ago, Innocent Muggle said:

If battery capacity is 87kWh and max power is 430kW, can you calculate the weight? 

No.
 

11 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

I meant theoretically implement.

It is a theoretical implementation.
I haven't actually done it.
 

3 hours ago, Henry Trehub said:

If the electrons meet to generate heat isn’t that fusion?

No

That's "rubbing your hands together on a cold day".
Fusion is a bit more complicated.

7 hours ago, Henry Trehub said:

I have cracked cold fusion

3 hours ago, Henry Trehub said:

isn’t that fusion?

You are unlikely to have "cracked" something when you have to ask  what it is.

2 hours ago, Henry Trehub said:

I have cracked 

As far as I can tell, there's only one topic there.

2 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

How are you going to implement this given that a mind chooses the reference position.

Something like this would be the obvious way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_scanning

But it hardly matters how I'd do it.

The fact remains.
The point exists and it has all those numbers associated with it 

And it would do so even if there was nobody else in the world.
 

3 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

You can do all that because there are particles in the air. In free space one can only have one number for every point.

The point 1 inch east of the tip of my nose has a set of 3 Cartesian coordinates based on an origin at the corner where the floor meets the door.
It also has a set of three polar coordinates, altitude, latitude and longitude.
So that point has, in fact, 6 numbers.

That's before we look at things like a magnetic or gravitational field (and their first, second and nth derivatives).

So you are wrong.

You should stop now, because this is a science site and you are not doing science.
 

If you are making alcohol for drinking, you certainly don't need vacuum distillation- not bothering to add the most expensive and unnecessary bit makes things cheaper.

(Buying a 3d printer etc is unlikely to make things cheaper)

If you are making high purity alcohol for lab use then... you still don't need a vacuum still.
 

A geometric mean is the best measure of central trend for a log normal distribution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution#Occurrence_and_applications

Where Does Holy Water Come From?

Peckham Spring?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Nature's_Son_(Only_Fools_and_Horses)

40 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

We are not talking about the average of the entire batch of distillate only the first gallon or so.

I'm still trying to get an answer to this.

3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Does your still hold 2500 litres of wash?

2 hours ago, Sensei said:

How often do you distill beer?

Have you ever try to make beer? The whole procedure is completely different..

I am not allowed to distill beer in the UK; I don't have a license to do so.
But the people who make whisky make it by distilling beer. They typically make beer that's stronger than the usual version. About 7 to 10 %

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/aug/23/science-art-whisky-making

but whisky is made by distilling beer.


I have made beer and wine.

Did you somehow imagine that I thought that you made beer by distillation?
That's not what I said, is it?

Just in case you wondered about my credentials; I'm an enthusiastic drinker of spirits and have visited distilleries in 3 different countries. One of them, I was there working
And my dad worked in a brewery for decades.

 Gakusei, next time, before you assume I am wrong about the processes, you might want to check that you have read what I said properly.

2 hours ago, Sensei said:

23 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

and vodka (0-170 mg/L).

..because it is already distilled..

So, if it's distillation that matters, brandy will be the same...

23 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

brandy (176-4766 mg/L)

So, once again, it seem you are wrong. Confident, but wrong.

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

The lethal human dose of pure methanol is estimated to be about 2.5 ounces. 

And that's without the "antidote" effect of the ethanol.
The data above show that beer- which is essentially what moonshine is distilled from contains at most 27 mg of methanol per litre.
2.5 ounces is about 70 grams or 70,000 mg.
So, ignoring the fact that ethanol acts as an antidote, you would need to extract the methanol from 70,000/28 = 2500 litres of beer to get enough methanol to kill you.
Does your still hold 2500 litres of wash?
If not then there simply isn't enough methanol in the whole thing to kill you.
 

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I can't find a conversion to allow me to see how 27mg of methanol compares in volume or weight to 30ml of ethanol.

here's one
 

19 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

, the moonshine will contain a thousand times more ethanol than methanol.

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

But considering your cavalier attitude to methanol

I have a cavalier attitude to things that are far too small to be important.
But, as I already pointed out, there's other junk in there which you don't want to drink.

 

On 10/31/2022 at 7:26 PM, John Cuthber said:

That's sensible; you get rid of a lot of rubbish that way

So "topping and tailing" is a good idea.
 

5 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Where do you get that methanol shouldn't be there? 

Yeast does not make significant methanol.
Methanol is formed from pectin (though the yield is poor).

There's very little pectin in grain.
So, once again, where is this purported methanol in moonshine coming from?

I had a look on the net and found this
https://www.ijstr.org/final-print/feb2020/Simultaneous-Gas-Chromatographic-Quantitation-Of-Ethanol-And-Methanol-From-Beer.pdf
which says 
According to published information on alcoholic fermentation congeners detected in various alcoholic beverages, methanol levels are as follows; beer (1-27 mg/L), wine (8-151 mg/L), fortified wine (125-329 mg/L), brandy (176-4766 mg/L), whiskey (6-328 mg/L), rum (6- 131 mg/L), and vodka (0-170 mg/L).

If a litre of weak (3% ABV) beer contains 27mg of methanol and 30 ml of ethanol then, unless you screw up the distillation, the moonshine will contain a thousand times more ethanol than methanol. The ethanol would kill you long before the methanol would.

The wine has more methanol, but also more ethanol, so , again, it's not the methanol that will kill you.

 

6 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I only know what I was told while helping out the moonshiners.

Were they chemists?

14 hours ago, MigL said:

Damn !
I was just about to snack down on some choccolate coated ants.
( all this time, I thought my optic nerve problems were due to Glaucoma )

Formates aren't particularly toxic
https://www.fishersci.com/store/msds?partNumber=S648500&productDescription=SODIUM+FORMATE+CERTIFIED+500G&vendorId=VN00033897&countryCode=US&language=en
I suspect that the problem is that formic acid is produced within the eye and causes local damage, but I'm not sure

8 hours ago, studiot said:

It also oxidises readily.

Only superficially (Though it will burn if you get it hot enough.

13 hours ago, Erina said:

I just found out that Silicon is a kind of metal, which apparently has nothing to do with the periodic table, and everything to do with it not ending in a vowel.

The rules about the ends of names aren't reliable.
Most metals (apart from the ancient ones like iron and copper) have names ending "ium".

But helium isn't a metal.

The "inert" gases have names ending "on" (except helium) but silicon isn't an inert gas and nor is boron.

Silicon is interesting, but brittle.
I'm not sure it would be practical in the kitchen.

4 hours ago, observer1 said:

H₂O + CuSO₄ ---> H₂SO₄+ Cu?

because the correct reaction is
H₂ + CuSO₄ ---> H₂SO₄+ Cu?

And, in principle, that works.
In practice you ned a catalyst like platinum.

6 hours ago, Moontanman said:

All I know is that when the first run starts methanol is the first liquid to come off

How do you know that?
In particular, how do you "know" that methanol (which shouldn't be there) comes off first even though acetaldehyde has a lower boiling point?

6 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I was under that impression that ethanol was the antidote for antifreeze specifically ethylene glycol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity
says
Methanol poisoning can be treated with fomepizole, or if unavailable, ethanol may be used.^[7][13][14] Both drugs act to reduce the action of alcohol dehydrogenase on methanol by means of competitive inhibition. Ethanol, the active ingredient in alcoholic beverages, acts as a competitive inhibitor by more effectively binding and saturating the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme in the liver, thus blocking the binding of methanol. Methanol is excreted by the kidneys without being converted into the very toxic metabolites formaldehyde and formic acid. Alcohol dehydrogenase instead enzymatically converts ethanol to acetaldehyde, a much less toxic organic

The mechanism is comparable for glycol, where the ethanol keeps the enzyme too busy to make oxalic acid.

5 hours ago, iNow said:

The best home distillers I've known always discarded both tails of the distillate, up front when starting and at the back when finishing, keeping only that which was in the middle. 

That's sensible; you get rid of a lot of rubbish that way

On 10/29/2022 at 4:08 PM, Moontanman said:

The first quart or so of the first run is poured out because It can contain methanol after that it is almost pure ethanol. 

That appears to be the answer to the question where does the methanol go to.

An interesting question in its own right, but not the one I asked.

 

There's not much pectin in grain, potatoes or most grapes.
There's a bit of low boiling crap in most wash- commonly acetaldehyde.


The density of ethanol and methanol are pretty damned similar; about 0.79
You can't really see a change in density- only a change in refractive index and ethanol and methanol are pretty similar on that score 1.36 vs 1.33 .
 

If there's any methanol present in the distillate then it must have been present in the wash.
If drinking that wash won't kill you due to methanol poisoning then the same is true of the product.
So any of the millions of "homemade wine" recipes will give you a product that , when distilled, won't contain enough methanol to kill you.

One of the most effective antidotes to methanol poisoning is ethanol.

The only ways to get methanol poisoning from moonshine involve being fundamentally stupid.
You can either selectively collect the distillate with the wrong boiling range (and throw away the actual ethanol which would save you) or you can start with something like industrial meths which contains a lot of methanol.

The thing about methanol in moonshine is that it's mainly a bogey man set up by law enforcement to protect alcohol duty revenue.

I am not going to comment on any practical knowledge I may have about methanol tasting sweet but ethanol tasting bitter.

21 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

the idea that a field is numbers assigned to space points.

I have a feeling I have seen that particular word salad elsewhere.
It didn't go down well with scientists.

The most likely explanation is simply that they are clueless.