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npts2020

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Everything posted by npts2020

  1. A large plurality of Americans are not represented in the US government. The largest number of voters *by far* are neither Republican nor Democrat. How many elected officials around the country are not Democrats or Republicans?
  2. According to Wikipedia's list of apocalyptic prophecies I have survived the end of the world at least 60 times. A few interesting predictions of the end of the world by (in)famous people; pope Sylvester II-Jan 1, 1000 pope Innocent III-1284 (666 years after the establishment of Islam) painter Sandro Botticelli-1504 Regiomontanus-1588 Martin Luther-1600 Christopher Columbus-1656 or 1658 mathematician John Napier-1688 then 1700 Cotton Mather-1697 then 1716 then again in 1736 mathematician Jacob Bernoulli-Apr 5, 1719 Emanuel Swedenborg-1757 John Wesley-1836 Jeane Dixon-Feb 4, 1962 then 2020 Jim Jones-1967 Charles Manson-1969 Pat Robertson-1982 then Apr 29, 2007 Louis Farrakhan-1991 Harold Camping-Sep 6, 1994 then Sep 29, 1994 then Oct 2, 1994, then Mar 31, 1995, then May 21, 2011 and again on Oct 21, 2011 Nostradamus-July 1999 linguist Charles Berlitz-1999 Jerry Falwell-Jan1, 2000 Isaac Newton-2000 or 2060 Edgar Cayce-2000 Sun Myung Moon-2000 Grigori Rasputin-Aug 23, 2013
  3. Four men are in a bar drinking and bragging about their families. As they come to discuss their sons, one has to use the bathroom and leaves the table. The other three continue the discussion, the first puffing his chest out with pride and telling how his son worked at an automaker and how he had gotten a bunch of patents to improve cars. He says, "In fact, he has made so much money off of his inventions that he bought his best friend a top of the line Mercedes for his birthday." The second man says, "Well, my son is also an engineer and works in the aerospace industry. He has made improvements to airplanes and spaceships and has earned so much money he gave his best friend a new Lear jet and is teaching him to fly it." The third man thought those were pretty impressive but begins to tell about his son being a real estate agent. He says, "My son is probably the best real estate agent in America and has made so much money that he gave his best friend a 30,000 square foot hacienda on the beach for his birthday." About this time the fourth man comes back to the table and is asked about his son. He says, "My son is a stripper at a gay nightclub. The other men are stunned and don't quite know what to say and begin to offer him condolences but he says, "No, he is my son and I love him nonetheless. Besides, he has a LOT of really good friends. Why just last week for his birthday one gave him a top of the line Mercedes, another gave him a Lear jet and is teaching him to fly it and still another gave him a 30,000 square foot hacienda on the beach." The conversation quickly turned to other subjects.
  4. It might also be mentioned that the less the Great Lakes freeze over, the more lake effect snow you can have. The colder the lake and the more it freezes, the less temperature differential (between water and atmosphere) and open water there will be for lake effect snow events.
  5. At least 15 states have open Presidential primaries and a couple others have semi-open primaries (like Massachusetts where independents can vote for anyone in the primary).
  6. Glad you brought this up. When it comes to nuclear power, you will need an entire salt truck for any cost estimates claimed. Since at least the mid-60's I know of no nuclear power plant built in the US at or under the cost projected when construction began and 2-3 times over budget is typical. The same is true of projected waste disposal costs and accident cleanup estimates are even worse. So far as the lifespan of solar panels, half of the ones Jimmy Carter put on the White House in 1979 (admittedly not PV but still saves on electricity for heating), are still in operation at Unity College in Maine with no loss in efficiency.
  7. Note that only the VERY pro-nuclear Royal Academy of Engineering lists nuclear power as being competitive with fossil fuels. At present wind and solar about the same or slightly less than coal and natural gas and are continuing to go down in cost. How much are coal and natural gas likely to go down in cost over, say, the next 20 years?
  8. While this is true, it is just as true that the more renewables you have, the less need for coal or other fossil fuels. Again, as mentioned previously in this thread, storage can obviate the need for fossil fuel backup and there are many ways of storing energy besides batteries. Without going into a discussion of the relative merits of nuclear power vs other sources, I can definitively say that attributing higher prices in electricity to abandonment of nuclear power in favor of renewables is not likely to stand up to scrutiny. The price of nuclear power has consistently increased ever since its inception to become one of the most costly sources currently in widespread use whereas the prices of wind and solar have decreased. (if you need citations for that, I will be happy to provide it but thought it was fairly common knowledge)
  9. How much the consumer pays for electricity is not an indication of how much it costs to generate said electricity. Last year, when German consumers were paying high prices for their power, Germany had one of the lowest production costs in Europe (substantially lower than France with all of its nukes). Here is an article with a good explanation of the reasons for this. http://cleantechnica.com/2014/05/27/german-electricity-prices/ Even more importantly than price, German per capita CO2 emissions have gone down, especially when compared to the 1990's when the push for renewables began in earnest. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?page=3 I apologize for entering this discussion late but this is a topic I spend a lot of time talking about.
  10. Teflon may work as suggested by Sensei but it might be impossible to reuse much of the equipment some resins and epoxies are mixed in. The best solution might be to have a disposable tip and design the applicator to mix components at the tip as they are being pumped out, thereby keeping them from hardening in the equipment being used. It will be interesting to see what you finally come up with.
  11. My favorite 70's band nobody ever heard of, Klaatu. The guitar work in this song is pretty amazing.
  12. "this is how chemists usually understand "ion"" Yeah, Enthalpy, so usually, that it is the reason I couldn't find out what I was looking for. The question was in relation to chemical reactions in a reactor. I do appreciate the responses, you guys are the greatest.
  13. Thank you, Hypervalent. You have pretty much answered what I was trying to find out, it was only a question from a friend but since neither of us knows much about chemistry and googling didn't really show much it was unresolved. Do you know of any resources where I can read up about this? I thought that changing the charge would effect the chemistry but really couldn't say how.
  14. Yes, I realize that. The noble gases was only an example. I am trying to find information on how ionization affects the chemistry of elements.
  15. Yes, I know about molecules that incorporate noble gases. Are Krypton and Xenon ionized before or after they form a compound? The article doesn't really talk about that.How does ionized hydrogen act chemically in comparison to non-ionized hydrogen? Is there any difference?
  16. I am having difficulty in finding information on how ionized atoms react chemically in comparison to non-ionized atoms of the same element. For instance, would an ionized noble gas then become more chemically reactive? Sorry if this sounds ignorant but my understanding of chemistry is rather limited.
  17. I guess for now, the historical posts will just be on the RePeace USA page on facebook. The most recent biographies were Evangelista Torricelli, Albrecht von Haller, Paul Bernays, Harvey Washington Wiley and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Tomorrow will be Vannoccio Biringuccio.
  18. Either I can't get another blog or am just not smart enough to figure out how to do it. Whenever I hit the "sign up" tab it just automatically kicks me over to the original blog. I guess I could just create another screen name but having two screen names is sort of frowned upon by some here, including myself.
  19. I already have a blog here (Engineering the Future) which has kind of reached a conclusion and I would prefer not to mix the biography posts with the automated transit posts. Am completely open to discussions but feel that the bios will be more informative than discussion oriented. The problem is that I am not sure if I can start another blog since it keeps putting me into my original one when I go to blogs. I do agree, however, that the blog format is probably best for those interested in reading the stuff. Thanks again for the feedback, guys.
  20. I am writing short daily biographies of people born on the date I publish them. The bios are oriented toward scientists and mathematicians but may also sometimes include inventors, composers or artists. Would it be worthwhile for me to put them on Scienceforums? If so, what would be the proper place for them? Thanks in advance for your feedback.
  21. You can boil water at room temperature but it takes a near perfect vacuum (around 1/50 of an atmosphere or less) to do so. IIRC the distilling units onboard ship operate at about 120º F at about 29.8" of mercury (close to pressure required to boil water at room temperature). The efficiency is not the biggest consideration because the option is to get a small amount of work out of the steam (distilling water) or just recondensing it and not getting anything out of it. The steam is around 500-600ºF (for a nuclear powered ship) to upwards of 1,000ºF for a 1200psi conventional ship, so you are already extracting the vast majority of the energy from the steam beforehand. Also, there is a fair amount of other equipment besides the main engines that are steam powered from catapults on an aircraft carrier to jet pumps for pumping bilges and more, so there is plenty of waste steam even if the main engines were 100% efficient (they aren't even close). The technology is substantially older than reverse osmosis 1860's vs late 1940's. The main problems with steam distillation are relatively high maintenance and high level of technical skill required to run them efficiently.
  22. Nearly every ship in the US Navy makes fresh water exactly via this method. The equipment is called a flash evaporator (or distilling unit), most having several stages where the water is boiled, sent through a series of chevrons to separate water droplets out of the steam, recondensed and boiled again. A typical evaporator will have 3-8 stages and the water is VERY pure at the end of the process. Waste steam from the engineering plant is used to heat the water and vacuum is maintained by a combination of condensing steam and air ejectors (which work similar to a jet pump). Note, not all of the water is boiled off, the remaining "brine" is pumped away. Evaporators on a ship the size of an aircraft carrier are rated at 100,000 gallons per day and ones on something like a destroyer might make about 20,000 gallons per day. The Navy has entire week and two week long schools on their operation and maintenance. The reason these types of distilling units aren't more commonplace is that they are pretty expensive and require a fair amount of maintenance.
  23. Until that time we could have a guaranteed basic income..... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25415501
  24. And what makes you think that liberty or any of those other things are a "fundamental right bestowed by existence"?
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