John Cuthber

Define "plenty" and "drastic". Actually, don't bother, it's just that your definitions won't tally with those of the people putting forward the plan. An alternative would be to simply tax these large, well established, rich businesses as businesses. The loan of a teacher or two might look very cheap by comparison.

Fair point, yes they are a bit sneaky. On the other hand, as a DNA based life form I'm a bit upset that you don't like organophosphates.

Pure DMSO is an odd choice (though I don't like the aftertaste you get when it ges on skin it's barely toxic). But what I'd really like to know is what is a "dishonest poison"?

In the heat of the moment I'd probably try to save the 5 year old. The idea that this is much to do with evolution intrigues me. I'm no bible scholar but I bet that somewhere it would offer advice that would agree with my decision. So maybe I'm not acting on the advice of my genes, but on that from a book I have heard bits of but don't believe in. On the other hand perhaps I would just be acting on the traditional idea of "Women and children first". After the fact I'd probaly justify it in much the same terms as YT2095 but, at the time I'd not really have had time to think that through. Since I don't know exactly how I came to this decision I think it's pretty conceited of anyone to tell me how I did so. Ascribing my behaviour in a complex problem to a single molecule seems odd to say the least. Of course, whether this reactions is instinctive, religious or cultural in its origin doesn't matter. The young child is almost always the logically correct choice (anyone want to argue that I should save the Granny?) and any instinct, society or religion that decreed against it would suffer in the long term.

What do you mean? The government are not asking the state sector for anything, they are asking for places like Eton to justify their charity status by acting charitably.

Whatever the pros and cons of Islamic law or the invasion of Iraq, that post doesn't say anything at all about contingency plans. A contingency plan is a description of what you plan to do if something goes wrong. Just saying "this will be slow and hard" isn't any sort of plan at all. I wonder if GWB had a "plan B", but that post has nothing to do with it. Imagine the "war" had gone according to plan. That warning would still exist. All it shows is that sometimes people guess the future correctly and sometimes they don't. Unfortunately, in this case it looks like GWB and co didn't.

Liquid nitrogen huh? OK, I will get a dewar of it and pour some over my arm if you will do the same with boiling water. I'm not sure dioxin is common enough for anyone to have investigated its toxicity. Tetrachloro dibenzo p dioxin is quite bad for you. I'm suprised that ricin and tetrodotoxin didn't make the list. Come to think of it anhydrous (liquid) HCN is pretty bad, not only very toxic (Not in ricin's league - but pretty bad), but explosive too.

101=102-1 But that's not moving a number; was the original question set out with matches, toothpicks or some such?

I can't get the video to work but I think I have seen the sort of thing. My guess would be sugar solution or glycerine and oil with an oil soluble or water soluble dye. If I were trying to home brew it I'd use cooking oil, sugar and water and ink from a water-washable felt tip pen.

Just thought I'd mention all the dead people's families who probably don't see the benefit so clearly.

Expanding gases generally get cold but he was talking about boiling points. The heat of vaporisation is a lot bigger than the cooling effect of expansion for most cases. Running oxygen into the air intake would be interesting. With a 1 litre displacement engine running at 1000 rpm you would need something like 5l/m of oxygen to raise the concentration by 1%. How much oxygen does a typical cylinder hold?

"I don't really think that would be a main reason why NO2 is used, because the boiling temperature of NO2 is higher than that of O2. So if the idea was to get the mixture denser to get more into the engine, then using O2 would be the better choice." No, it wouldn't. You can liquefy N2O (the stuff we are actually talking about, rather than NO2) at room temperature by compressing it into a cylinder. You can't do that with oxygen. To liquefy oxygen you also have to cool it. If you used liquid oxygen then the temperature would be so low that the fuel wouldn't vapourise. At best it wouldn't work. At worst you would briefly have an explosive mush then no car...

I doubt that there are any differences in terms of the elements that we and the other primates are made from.

I think the commercial production of BHT involves oxidation of toluene to p cresol then butylation with isobutylene.

I realise it's not the same thing, but at work I regularly use plastic pipe at 5000 PSI (yes, I mean over 300 bar)- it works fine. We also have copper "domestic" pipes which are being attacked by the soft water. The pipes that feed water to my washing machine at home are some flexible rubber/ plastic stuff and stand up to the pressure of the cold water mains perfectly well.

OK, sorry I didn't read your post correctly. There are no intermolecular forces in a molecule (heroin or anything else). How can you have forces "between one molecule"? It's like the sound of one hand clapping. If you are talking about the bonding between heroin molecules in a crystal then I think the dipole-dipole interactions will dominate.

They are largely covalent bonds (and I see you know how to find that in WIKI).

Part of the reason NO2 works (or so I read) is that it cools the gas mixture going into the engine (because it's cold having just evaporated from the liquid in the cylinder). The cold gas going in is denser so it holds a greater mass of fuel and oxidiser in each volume. With the engine sweeping out a given volume (the displacement) you get more fuel and oxidiser per stroke with cold gas. That's where a lot of the power gain comes from. The energy of decomposition of the NO2 helps and so does the greater effective oxygen concentration.

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26563 You don't make ammonium hydroxide; the fact that some people are misled into calling it that doesn't change this.

Cyanide certainly hydrolyses in water so it will go away eventually, even without outside help. Also, while it is very toxic there are biological mechanisms for detoxification. Hydrogen cyanide is volatile and will disperse into the atmosphere by evaporation; once in the air it will be destroyed by the same sort of mechanisms that degrade other organic matter in the air.. Not sure how much this helps but it might give you an idea where to look.

Form swansnot "Your statement, that physics has an insolvable problem, implies chemistry has none" No; it implies that, unless you are prepared make approximations, you never get anywhere. Belittling chemistry as just an approximation is pointless because approximations are all you get. Also, if you want to argue by authority A la "stamp collecting" comment, pick someone who didn't go on to do things like this."In 1933, four years before his death, Ernest Rutherford said that people who thought his discoveries would lead to nuclear power were talking moonshine." or say "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." or that the earth was only 20 million years old. Having said that, I quite agree with you that a heavy dose of sarcasm does a good job at getting rid of people who simply refuse to accept the laws of physics. That's not prejudice by physicists; that's just prejudice against fools.

No you don't. And it's not helpful to cross post about it qinfp.

Ammonium hydroxide is a myth; it might exist under some weird low temp/ high pressure conditions. Ammonia dissolves in water; the product is known by various names. Aqueous ammonia and ammonia water are 2 of the common ones. If I try to make ammonium hydroxide by, for example reacting sodium hydroxide with ammonium chloride in solution nothing much should happen. I should get a solution containing ammonium ions sodium ions chloride ions and hydroxide ions. (certainly, if I do this with potassium chloride and sodium hydroxide in solution nothing happens unless the concentrations are so high that salt doesn't dissolve in water) In the real world the mixture gets warm and gives off ammonia. This is because the ammonium ion is a relatively strong acid and the hydroxide ion is a strong base; they cannot co exist (certainly not at any meaningful concentration) because they react with eachother. The proton hops across from the NH4+ to the OH- and gives ammonia and water. The misleading nomenclature persists, partly for historical reasons (ie "we always called it that") and mainly because it sounds better to say 14% ammonium hydroxide than (roughly) 7 % ammonia. See, it's a bigger number so it sells better. If ammonium hydroxide existed it would have a molecular weight of 35. A 14 M solution would have 14*35 ie 490g of "ammonium hydroxide" but would really just have 14*17 ie 238 g of ammonia per litre. It's the same stuff but it looks like it's 49% (w/v) rather than 23.8%(w/v). Find me some data on the N O distance in NH4OH and I will think about believing in it; otherwise, since this is a scientific site, lets try to stamp it out.

I just wonder, has anyone here changed their opinion on any of the matters that have been debated as a result of what they have read? Anyway, "Originally Posted by John Cuthber I think you have missed the point; I shouldn't have to move to make way for the smokers. It should be the other way round. They are the ones doing something offensive; not me. You don't have to move. You choose to. I don't have to move away from fat people with rotten teeth, but I choose to because it's gross - even though they're the ones being offensive." The problem is that they think it's reasonable to sit near me and light up. Also, while from my point of view it's a choice, but from the point of view of some asthmatics these smokers make places like bus stations no-go areas. I still mainatin that the people doing something odd have the responsibillity to ensure that it does not adversely impact on others. It is not the responsibillity of everyone else to pander to them. The thing is, when a smoking area is deamed as such - by the owner of the business, then what right do we have to make laws to stop that? Just like a home owner, you don't have a right to tell them what to do in their own business. If you don't like my smoking in my house, then don't come in. Same with business. If you don't like them allowing smoking and you don't want to be around it, then don't come in. Same problem; I got there first but they lit up anyway. This isn't about your right to frequent any business you want without being offended - you don't have that right. Just like you don't have a right to walk in anybody's house and not be offended. Do you really not think that there's a difference? I can walk around my house naked; I can't do that in a shop, even if I own it. It is paid for by them and they have a right to allow smoking or slow emition of mustard gas too - in my opinion - so long as it is marked and partitioned appropriately. How many times do I have to point out that the partitioning does not, in my experience, work? You don't have a right to enforce your ideas of offensive behavior on everyone else. " No, I don't, but society does. Here in the UK it has made that decision. BTW, Pangloss, re "Carbon monoxide kills in sufficient quantity. Do not drive your car past my house anymore. You don't know that it won't harm me." No problem; I don't drive. Carbon dioxide is also toxic...

Well, as a chemist I have, from time to time, heard arrogant physicists saying that physics is the only real science; the others are derived from it or are approximations. I usually ask them if they have solved the 3 body problem yet. BTW, am I the only one who wonders what GutZ will do when he grows up?