exchemist

Yes. This poster has been posting blogs like this for at least five years now, in various places. It has never made any sense and it still doesn't. He makes no effort to interact with readers who ask questions or make observations, just carries on blogging regardless.

Suggest you look it up on the web first, and then revert here with any more specific issues you want to discuss.

But since that would be silly, that can't be what science is saying. I'm not a cosmologist but as I understand it, the age can be estimated, in the Big Bang model, from the temperature of the observed cosmic background radiation and the observed cosmological red shift. The temperature tells you how much space has expanded since the "surface of last scattering", which was the point at which it would have been effectively emitted, while the cosmological red shift gives you an expansion rate. Put the two together and you have an age estimate, back to the surface of last scattering. Extrapolating back from that on the basis of general relativity, you end up with a singularity about 300,000years earlier. So the model is based on observations of features of the universe that we have reason to think would be general, rather than specific to what we can observe with current technology. It is quite good at accounting for other observed features of the observable universe as well. There is more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda-CDM_model

These look like high magnification pictures of the same pyrite specimens you showed us earlier. The iridescent colours look to me as if they could be due to interference fringes, caused by diffraction arising from surface irregularities. You might be able to test this by seeing if the colours change as you move the source of illumination, so that the angle of incidence of the the light changes.

What has this to do with power? ?

Bye.

As I recall, when a non-fluorophore is excited by absorption of radiation, it can lose energy in a number of ways that are non-radiative. These will include collisional deactivation and also in some cases bond-breaking (e.g. if excitation is to a state involving a suitable antibonding orbital). I'm not sure I've seen the word "phosphorophore", but some molecules lose energy radiatively, not by fluorescence but via intersystem crossing to a triplet state, emission from which is known as phosphorescence rather than fluorescence. Conjugated organic molecules are far from the only compounds that can fluoresce*, but their extensively delocalised π-orbitals have fairly low lying excited states that often emit in the visible region of the spectrum without bond-breaking (the σ-bond will hold the molecule together when various π* modes are excited). Since the Stokes shift is something observed when a compound fluoresces, I'm not sure how it can be used to predict whether or not something will fluoresce. I'm afraid I don't know anything about the use of fluorescent molecules in biochemistry (I'm sure others here may), but it is to be expected that some organic molecules may be able to bind to nucleic acids, so synthesising one containing a fluorophore is not hard to envisage in principle. *The word fluorescence comes from the visible glow from fluorite (CaF₂) when it contains certain impurities, under UV illumination. Many minerals fluoresce.

Are they especially colourful? I think Ir compounds are mostly oxidation state +3 or +4 and quite a few of them are black or dark brown. But frankly Ir is not an element I know much about. Which salts do you have in mind?

Hmm, good as far as it goes, but my understanding was that the acidification of the oceans caused by higher atmospheric CO2 tends to make survival harder for all corals. Presumably this effect is global and not confined to warm waters.

Not even that, in the main denominations. Basically, there is no dispute between thinking Christianity and science. Christian thinkers have long since worked out that it is p***ing into the wind trying to oppose science with religious argument. People like Cardinal Wiseman had already realised that, back in in the c.19th.

Your view is consistent with what I understand to be the standard view, adopted by the main Christian denominations - and any Christian with half a brain.

I think the best thing would be a curve showing how the take-up of water varied over the 5 hours. One would expect an exponential of some kind, not a straight line. Obviously a lot depends how how much dessicant you have, since as @studiotpoints out, if it is a small amount it could get saturated. Is this a homework question, or a real scenario that you have?

Your question, as posed, does not make a lot of sense. Salts are just ionic compounds resulting from the reaction of an acid with a base. As most minerals are not acids or bases as such, they can't really be said to have salts. Most coloured salts are compounds of transition metals. This, as I recall, is due to the presence of partly occupied d-orbitals, whose energy levels tend to be split, by the ions surrounding the meal atom in many of their compounds, in such a way that transitions between the levels involve energy in the visible region of the spectrum. Well-known examples of coloured salts would include CuSO4 (blue in hydrated form, white in anhydrous form), CoCL2 (blue in anhydrous form, pink hydrated, FeCL2 (pale green) and so on. But maybe you are trying to get at something else?

But this is exactly the language I find confusing. Binding implies achieving a lower energy state, so that work has to be done to free the bound entities from what binds them. Whereas what we seem to have here is a higher energy state than the quarks would theoretically have if it were possible to observe them separated (and at rest). But I'm getting a sense from you and @swansont that the term "binding energy" is best avoided in this context. The mechanisms are clearly quite different, probably related to this asymptotic freedom idea that I have not fully got my head around.

Not at all. The dipole is due to a distribution of electron density that is offset, to some extent, from the +ve charges of the atomic nuclei. The internal structure of the nuclei has no bearing at all on this. The dimensions of atomic nuclei are far too small compared to the dimensions of the cloud of electrons. A molecule like H-Cl has a dipole because the electrons in the bond between the atoms are biased more towards the Cl atom than the H atom, giving the H atom a partial +ve charge and the Cl atom a partial -ve charge. That effect arises due to the way the electrons occupy successive quantum mechanical states, starting with those of lowest energy. Elements on the right of the p-block of the Periodic Table have valence orbitals that experience a strong nuclear charge in relation to their average distance from the nucleus, whereas those in the succeeding s-block are in the next quantum shell out, so they are not attracted as strongly by the nucleus. It is all to do with the quantum states available to the electrons.

OK. Thanks. So one can't pull quarks apart by doing work against the binding interaction. I can also understand that the (theoretical) masses of the quarks themselves in the model may be small compared to the total mass of the proton, if the quarks also have a great deal of potential and/or kinetic energy. But I'm struggling with the way some articles , e.g. Wiki, speak of QCD binding energy as if this is a source of extra energy, whereas in the case of nucleons in the nucleus - or electrons in an atom - the binding energy is the amount by which the energy is reduced as a result of the extra stability conferred by the binding attraction. It would seem that the term "binding energy" is being used in the opposite sense to that in which it used in these other contexts. Can this be right, or have I misunderstood?

The anions move to the anode, which from the point of view of the electrolyte, has a positive charge, not a negative one, But as the anions are discharged at the anode, it means the anode becomes the source of the electrons that flow in the circuit, round to the cathode. So from the point of view of the circuit, the anode is the negative terminal of the battery. The two points of view are opposite because in the electrolyte the electrons are moving in the direction preferred by the chemistry of the cell, while in the circuit, they flow back to where they started.

As a chemist, I am struggling with this. In, say, a helium nucleus, the rest mass is less than the rest mass of the "free" neutrons and protons from which it is made - the so-called mass defect. That makes perfect sense to me because, to separate the nucleus into its components, you have to do work against the strong nuclear interaction that holds the nucleons together, i.e. an energy input is required, which of course is then reflected in a greater rest mass of the separated nucleons. And hence the converse occurs during fusion, leading to a net output of energy when the nucleons combine and become bound. But when it comes to the quarks that form a proton, say, the opposite seems to apply. The proton has far more mass than combined mass of the three quarks that make it up are said to have in their "free" state. So apparently the bound quarks are in a higher energy state than free ones. This suggests a proton is thermodynamically unstable with respect to the free constituents - and should spontaneously fly apart, if whatever kinetic barrier there is to it doing so could be overcome. Can someone with a bit of nuclear physics explains to me how this works? I have not found an internet source that tackles this squarely - or not to my satisfaction.

In a high energy collision, the original particles may be annihilated and both some new ones and some radiation may be created by the interaction. Energy, electric charge, linear momentum and angular momentum will be conserved. Objects, i.e. bits of matter, don't obey conservation laws, fairly obviously*. Some of their properties do. But you have not answered my question. Why did you choose to quote that obscure and incompetently written link as a source, when there are so many competently written ones available on the internet? * If I crash my car into another one, I may end up with 2 crumpled cars, 2 hub caps, a headlight, a wing mirror and some fragments of windscreen. So the number of objects is not conserved, but some properties (energy, momentum) will be.

And you have been asked to do this for a school project? Really? What have you been studying in school recently that relates to this?

Einstein said nothing of the kind. Let's go through it. I quote the text of the link below: When Albert Einstein posits that energy and matter are one and the same, and one can be converted into the other, most people could not wrap their heads around the idea. They can imagine burning a piece of wood (matter) to get heat and light (energy), but the workings of chemical reactions (in this case oxidization) is well-established. But the idea that the stuff of matter itself (neutrons, electrons, protons) is made of this ethereal, barely-understood thing called energy, flies in the face of conventional wisdom and reasoning. We've come a long way since then... - Einstein never posited that energy and matter are one and the same. What E=mc² says is that mass is associated with energy and vice versa. Not matter, mass. Note that mass is another property of matter, just as energy is. Confusing mass with matter is a similar category mistake to the one you have been making. - And he did not say that they are the same, as quite clearly they are not, having completely different units. There is an "equivalence" between the two: when you multiply mass by the square of the speed of light, you find the associated energy. - It is rubbish to say one is "converted into" the other and Einstein never suggested that. Both are present together. When you charge a battery its mass increases, although not enough to measure. That is what E=mc² means: the chemical potential energy added to the battery when you charge it increases its mass. Just as the mass of an atomic nucleus depends on the potential energy of its constituent sub-particles, as revealed in the "mass defect" when you split a heavy nucleus into two parts in fission. - The fundamental particles of matter are not "made of energy". They have energy. Whoever wrote that passage on the website is incompetent. Why did you use it, when there are competently written sources all over the internet?

What that link states is garbage.

If you can't respect the meaning of established terms, you are not going to get very far. Here is a definition of energy: https://physics.info/energy/ A property of a system. It is thus meaningless to speak of the property as if it were able to exist on its own. That would be like trying to talk about a bottle of momentum, or a jug of the colour blue.

Terms in physics have quite precise meanings. Energy is one such term. If you decide you want to ignore the meaning of that term, you will not be able to talk to anybody about your ideas, because nobody will be able to understand what you mean. This article explains what a category mistake is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake If you think energy is "stuff" you are making a category mistake, confusing a property of entities with an entity. It's like thinking you can have a jug of blue, or a bottle of angular momentum. Both are nonsensical.

No that's wrong. You have fallen into the "Star Trek trap". Energy is a property, an attribute not an entity. You are making a category mistake. This will lead you into nonsense if you are not careful. I fear it is already doing so. It is nonsense to talk of energy having a shape. A physical system that has energy may also have a shape. That is different. A physical system may consist of particles and/or fields. Those are the entities that physically exist. They can have energy as one of their properties. But if you start talking about energy on its own, as if it has some kind of independent existence, you are not doing science any more but talking nonsense. It's like talking about the shape of the colour blue.