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Gilded

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Posts posted by Gilded

  1. If you look very closely you can occasionally see small DNA strands dressed as members of Village People.

     

    But seriously, genes alter basically all of our behavior to an extent but it's pretty obvious they aren't the sole reason for homosexuality (due to reasons well summarized by Sisyphus).

  2. i would have went for electrolysis followed by a seperation of normal hydrogen from deuterium.

     

    I guess it's possible, sure, but I'd imagine the Girdler process is more energy efficient (although this kind of enrichment processes always require ridiculous amounts of energy), and that it achieves a reasonable purity with a convenient chemical cascade setup. I'm not sure how desirable the process is for small scale production though.

  3. funny definition of nice gilded has there.

     

    Knowing is half the battle. If people didn't know about fecal bacteria they wouldn't have that much of a reason to wash up after a Boston pancake.

     

    PS. If you don't know what a Boston pancake is I don't recommend looking it up. Especially on an image search.

  4. I'm not sure; has proton decay been observed yet?

     

    No. According to current results they would have to have a half-life of at least 10^35 years if they decay at all.

  5. That is a really horrible way to put it Gilded.

     

    It is much better to use the general, non-rest frame, equation:

     

    [math]E^2=p^2c^2 +m^2c^4[/math]

     

    Then you can see that even if [math]m=0[/math] (as for a photon) the particle still has momentum from its non-zero energy [math]p=E/c[/math].

     

    Well yeah I suppose it's more convenient as it has the E in there rather than the wavelength.

  6. I'd recommend doing thorough research before messing about with a tesla coil. A tesla coil is deceptivly easy to build but keep in mind that a large tesla coil can deliver the same punch as a lightning bolt.

     

    If by large you mean a coil larger than any manmade structure yet then you're probably right. Tesla coils are relatively safe projects compared to stuff like coilguns where a large capacitor bank is used.

  7. Due to mass-energy equivalence ([math]E = mc^2[/math]) you could say that a photon has mass since it has energy, and thus it has momentum since it has a non-zero velocity. And anyway [math]p=mv[/math] is just a classical approximation. For example the momentum of photons is described by this equation:

     

    [math]p = \frac{h}{\lambda}[/math]

     

    where [math]h[/math] is Planck's constant and [math]\lambda[/math] is the wavelength of the photon.

  8. All of it falls within the bounds of the uncertainty principle. Virtual particles can violate rules all they want as long as they don't get caught, so to speak. :P Regarding causality, information isn't transmitted at superluminal speeds even by virtual particles with negative energies as noted by Severian.

  9. Green fire: Mix some boric acid with ethanol. This might be what you did for the project, but if it isn't you might want to try it. It's beautiful.

    A very bright flash: Mix 1.4g of potassium perchlorate with 0.6g of aluminum powder and light it with a fuse or a burning stick. As with burning magnesium it's not recommended to stare at it directly.

    Melt steel: Thermite. About 75% Fe2O3 and 25% aluminum by weight. While thermite isn't as destructive as it's often portrayed to be, one kilogram can easily melt a steel pan or similar sized object as evidenced

     

    As for other stuff it would definitely help if you'd list some equipment and materials you have access to.

  10. I did come out of a GR exam once thinking I had totally screwed it up, and everyone else was saying the same thing. I was almost suicidal after that because I thought it had lost me the class prize.

     

    It turned out that everyone else had done so bad that I was still first. In fact, my mark was good enough that they didn't feel they could rescale the mark to let more people pass, since I had demonstrated it was doable. They publicly said that, and then everyone hated me.

     

    I think it's only fitting that your score was relatively excellent. Although I suppose all observers perceive A as A no matter what their own score is.

  11. That's a rather inaccurate definition of a chemical element. For example, a uranium-238 nucleus can decompose into a thorium nucleus and a helium-4 nucleus (alpha particle) through radioactive decay, yet uranium is a chemical element. Better definitions include "an atom distinguished by the number of protons in its nucleus" and "a chemical substance composed of atoms with the same number of protons in the atomic nucleus", which covers the iodine molecule you mentioned and the block of copper big314mp mentioned.

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