The Thing

I've just saw an article online about finding a recursive expression for pi through a formula of centripetal force. It doesn't tell you how though! Anyone's ever heard of this?

Thanks, but I need the results of the experiment in about 2 days. Oh yea, it should be an experiment or an innovation.

OMG OMG! I have a science fair project due in about 3 days . Haven't even started. I need a topic, bad. The provincial fair is not till April and I have a topic for THAT. HOWEVER, our teacher wants us to hand in our project in JANUARY because our school's semester based and this semester is over in about a month. The project I'm doing for April is too immensely complicated for me to pull off in less than 3 days and have all the materials and display done. So it's time for a desperate alternative. I'm 15 years old, Grade 10, able to spend about 100 to 200 bucks. I am interested in computers, math, engineering, physics, and chemistry. Our teacher wants a good project and she's a hard marker, so please, is there a topic that's seemingly frightening and impressive but easy to do in 2 or 3 days? Thanks a lot! I'm desperate.

Go to this link . It has a list of all the molecules with ridiculous, silly or just plain ridiculous names! http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/sillymols.htm

Lol what a coincidence. I JUST finished the article in WiSci about van der Waals equation about 20 seconds ago. Boiling point of a liquid can be defined as the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the outside pressure upon the liquid. It also means the boiling point is a temperature at which the liquid has enough energy to break free of the forces of attraction between its molecules. In the article I mentioned this, so I'll mention it again. One of the things the ideal gas law missed was the forces of attraction, without which a gas cannot ever become a liquid. So it is because of these forces of attraction (with which a is connected) that the gas can change phases. So knowing theses, you can see why there's a relationship between a and the liquid's boiling point, because the stronger the forces of attraction within the liquid, the higher the boiling point would be.

Okay, thanks. I didn't understand the first page of that thread, partly because it was in Norwegian. Now to think about it, I didn't understand the 2nd, the 3rd and the 4th pages either. He seems to extremely anti-communism and curses Karl Marx wherever he can and seems to think that Marx had a diabolical plan to brainwash the entire earth population into believing 0.9 repeating equals 1. He's not very satisfied with the proofs. Guess we'll never get the $50.000... Is it $50.000 or $50,000?? *Drools* Incidentally, you can ask him to write out a number between 0.999 repeating and 1 in decimal expansion form. But he will probably think of some highly intelligent answer to that as well.

I have two extremely stupid questions that I don't know the answers to. Please, do not diss me bad for this! Ahhh! Okay, question 1: To discuss things on the Community Portal, do we simply edit the page? 2: Can we post articles about non-science things?

Hint for 14 then: If two triangles are similar, then: One side of triangle 1 / the corresponding side of triangle 2 = another side of traingle 1/ the corresponding side of triangle 2.

I've seen two proofs. One is the one where you try to change .99 repeating to a fraction and you end up with 1: 0.9999 repeating = x 9.9999 repeating = 10x 10x-x=9.9999... - 0.99999... 9x = 9 x=1!! Also the easier one by far: 0.333333...+0.33333....+0.3333333...=0.99999.... 0.3333....=1/3 1/3+1/3+1/3 = 1 Thus, 0.9999....=1

Lol, good point. [hide] Don't know how to write it though. 001??? 1? [/hide]

What happens when two people edit one article at the same time? It actually happened! I was editting the Stirling Engines article I created, and the captain was editting it too. He finished first . I didn't though . So when I finished, there was something funny going on saying the thing has changed, and I don't remember what I pressed, but it ended up being the captain's version, and all my new info was gone...

[hide] They're numbers like these: 61,52,63,94,64,18,121,441... BIGGER SPOILER: Read the numbers backwards! [/hide]

Absolutely! I've had a lot of those dreams. Mostly they're not tornadoes or disasters, but rather things I'm fearing, like a bad mark on finals or something. One night a long time ago I dreamt that I got an unbearably bad mark on finals and I was absolutely miserable throughout the entire dream. When I woke up...it was the best feeling in the world, to know that nothing of the sort that I was fearing had happened.

Never mind, I got it. Thanks everyone.

Yes, a piston would work. However, this is a rather special case with mine. I have two pistons aligned in a line inside the same cylinder. The rods connecting them to the crankwheel are separated by a 90 degrees angle, so the 2 pistons don't move uniformly up and down. I have to connect the rod of the upper piston to the crankwheel THROUGH the second piston, but the sideways motion of the rods resulting from the crankwheel spinning complicates matters, because any sideways motion of the rod would make a perfect seal of the piston and cylinder difficult. Here are 2 pictures of what I'm talking about: http://www.geo.unizh.ch/~iwoodh/beta1.gif http://www.keveney.com/img/stirling.gif

Yeah probably. The thing is, the focus is not primarily on the engine, but on a mechanism that changes the torque generated to linear force. Thus I couldn't decide whether it was engineering or physics. Err...moderators and admins can probably move this to engineering if you see fit.

How can I change torque, like the motion generated by an electric motor, to a linear force, like the force generated by a linear motor? What kind of device would do this? The motion should be piston-like. Okay, let me elaborate more: I'm building a Beta Stirling Engine that will act like a cooler. I will run it using another Stirling Engine, and the torque will be applied on the flywheel of the cooler. The drive mechanism is too complex. I was wondering if there is simply a way to convert a wheel's motion into a linear force WITHOUT any angular or side motions. I should attach a drive mechanism to the wheel, and I want the end of the drive mechanism to have no side motions, only linear motions like that of a piston. Thanks.

Say we have two objects, object A and B. Object A is heavier than B. We tie them together using a length of rope. Let the tied body fall. What should be its speed? If we assume that heavier objects fall faster: From one point of view, the object now weighs A+B, so it should be faster than either the individual A or B when dropped. (A+B>A) Well, from another point of view, A will fall faster than B because it is heavier, and B will therefore pull A UPWARDS because of its slow falling speed. We achieve an apparent weight of A-B this way, and the speed of the entire object will be SLOWER than either the individual A or B when dropped. (A-B<A) Two completely opposite answers. Hmm...What's wrong? Iunno, you tell me.

I usually have 2 or 3 books and alternate between them. I can simply get bored of the storyline of a book and feel the need to go onto a slightly more interesting storyline, like switching from a classical novel such as a tale of the two cities to a much more exciting novel, like ROBOTECH!!! Yeah! Sometimes I attack a book, that is, finish reading it in a couple of hours doing NOTHING at all in between, save some certain biological needs nature has bestowed upon me. I can keep going at it (reading the book) for about 8 to 10 hours at a time =). But usually I attack books that are small, like Lord of the Flies, not gigantic books like Ulysses. I rarely read books over 800 pages long.

Okay, You probably think that I'm an idiot for asking this, but I have been sending a lot of emails out and not receiving replies via my hotmail account. Maybe I'm just highly unpopular , but I'm pretty paranoid about my hotmail account's well-being, since a lot of the emails I've sent out are very important and receiving replies, therefore, is very important to me. I've done a web search about hotmail problems, and this one caught my eye: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5980987.html Anyone knows whether that problem's been fixed? Mind you, I do not know for sure whether my email recipients have even sent the replies-maybe they're just on Christmas holidays and are away from the computer. Another problem is, I don't even know if they've RECEIVED the emails. I don't know any of the recipients personally, so I can't check. I've sent a lot of test messages between two of my accounts, and there is usually a small delay in time between when I sent it and when I received it. A delay of a few minutes. Is that normal? Sorry for being so paranoid. But the entire hotmail service is looking pretty woolly to me now.

*runs to turn system restore back on* It's a shame it wouldn't restore files though. Such as the numerous documents I accidentally deleted or changed.

Try booting it in safemode and running Adaware or whatever spyware detectors you have.

My half Windows, half Mac hybrid desktop =). Okay, so I like mac OS X, but not all of it. YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT!!!?!? Then tell me . Sincerely, The Thing

Err...do brackets count? It strictly stated use only 2, 3, 4, 5, +, and =.

Woa, I just had another idea . Can I use an array of thermocouples instead of a stirling engine to generate electricity? Obviously the thermocouple will generate miniscule amounts of electricity, but is there a way to maximize that?? To get enough electricity for a LED from about 17 degrees of temperature difference?