exchemist

Professor Bargh sounds like a Private Eye joke. But I mustn't be bitchy...... Seriously I'm not sure how any of this can be applied. Personally, when I find myself in conversation with some who recites a lot of words like respect, respectful and patient, I find I soon want to get away, before my toes start curling.

I may be being a bit thick, but I don't understand these diagrams. Space-filling models are fairly useless at showing bonding and they don't seem to relate to the stick models beneath. Leaving them aside, what is meant by the red and yellow dots in the centres of the hexagons? And how can one tell which atoms are nitrogen?

Cult? Slavery? I have to say that - exercising my right of free speech - I am put in mind of this:

I agree that a "conflict model" between science and religion seems fairly ridiculous, given the number of scientifically literate people with religious faith, and given a knowledge of what many religions actually teach (as opposed what people like Dawkins might have you believe). There is however a conflict between science and a particularly noisy strand of American Bible Belt Protestantism*, which can lead to a misleading impression, especially in the USA. There is a detailed discussion of all this here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-science/#ModeInteBetwScieReli. which gives a more balanced view. * It seems to me there is a certain irony here, in that there is a case for arguing the Reformation originally gave quite an impetus to the development of modern science, only for some of the products of that Reformation to repudiate science today!

The normal meaning of elastic is to a material that returns to its shape when a distorting force is removed. So that would not apply to a liquid, surely? What spatial derivative do you mean?

Strange. What's all this about the supposed absence of free speech? Have you had some personal crank theory rejected, or something?

I do not think what you say it true. Most scientists, it seems to me, don't give a moment's thought to the question and simply accept the values of the fundamental constants are what they are. So in effect your "so what" option is what they subscribe to, by default. I think you are making a fuss about nothing, to be honest.

This seems very naive. The attractiveness of a person - which is about more than looks, of course - is a far more complex thing than can be shown in a photograph. And exactly the same applies to the women that men choose, of course. But perhaps you are too young to have personal experience in such matters.

I think that statement makes no sense. I also think that, for a teacher, you are not very good at spelling. 😁

The metal flanges and overall size suggest a commercial setup of some kind. I'm wondering if, as an alternative to handling materials at low temperatures, e.g. liquified gases, it is possible this was designed for some sort of biological growth process requiring close control of temperature. But I am speculating wildly and have no more to offer, I'm afraid.

There is no real evidence that throwing more money at fusion would speed anything up. The science goes at the rate it goes. And what we spend on climate research is probably fairly small, by comparison with the cost of ITER. Most of the climate change expenditure seems to be on what to do about it, which you have to keep spending.

There seem to be several different items here. Where did you get them and were they part of a set? First reaction is that they seem to be silvered. Is that right? And could they be double-walled? They remind me of double-walled vacuum flasks used to handle things like liquid nitrogen. Those are silvered, to reduce heat transmission by thermal radiation. I see the spherical one has ground glass joints at either end. Also these pictures are very poorly lit. Can you not illuminate them with daylight instead of a computer monitor?

Perhaps not (though it probably does). However there are other standpoints besides the biological one. It interests me me from the standpoint of physical science.

In fact, though, these projects were decided upon years ago. ITER - which JET will hand on to - was effectively started back in 1987. Though it is true that more partner countries (e.g. India, Australia) have joined the project in the last decade or so. But fusion remains a "jam tomorrow" energy source that will only contribute, if it ever does, in the 2nd half of the century. Given that state of affairs, it is actually quite remarkable that there has been the - global - political will to fund something so expensive, so long term and so uncertain.

So there are. I didn't realise (not having young daughters). But if it's just design issues, where does chemistry come in?

It sounds like a great idea in principle. I imagine the main problem is the range of drugs that could be used for spiking. You would need something that reacts with each one to produce a colour change. Possibly some kind of immuno assay method could be developed. However this will not be simple.

Depends how far back you go. The water would all have been present in the same cloud of gas and dust from which the solar system formed, and all the oxygen in it would have come, like all the other elements heavier than H, He and some Li, from stellar fusion in earlier generations of stars. So yes, it all has a common origin in that sense. It's interesting about Ganymede's water, but maybe not hugely surprising, given that it is bigger by volume than Mercury and about half its mass. The vapour pressure of water in the cold of space that far from the sun is pretty low so, given its quite large gravity, not much would have evaporated into space. What is a bit curious is that it has quite a lot of other similarities to the Earth: a molten metallic core, creating a magnetic field, surrounded by a rocky (silicate) mantle and then an ocean of liquid water, all beneath an icy surface. I see the internal ocean is even said to be salty. I'm not sure how that would arise, given the lack of the erosion cycle of the rocks that we have on Earth.

Yes I saw the square and the note too, but I'm not sure what it signifies. In the structure, I think there are both octahedral sites (6 coordination) and tetrahedral sites (4 coordination) for cations, which glue together anionic double chains of silicate tetrahedra. It may be that the Mg2 denotes occupancy of the tetrahedral and Mg5 occupancy of the octahedral sites in the lattice. Maybe the defect remark indicates a repeating gap (vacant site), necessitated by electric charge neutrality if all the cations are divalent. (There are some structures with monovalent cations, eg Na+, where more of these sites would be filled, I think.) But I"m guessing and unfortunately I can't find anything on the web that gives me a structure or explanation clear enough resolve the issue. Maybe if we have a mineralogist on the forum he or she could interject. I am conscious that I am approaching the bullshit threshold.

I read it as making a factual claim, which, as I have explained, it could easily have been. But OK, so it's just what you think. We can leave it at that, then.

I think this indicates that Mg appears in 2 different sites in the lattice and can be partially replaced by other cations, such as Ca++ or Fe ++, in the first position in related amphiboles. But I'm not 100% sure. The compositional ranges of these silicate minerals are not exact and are very complicated.

Not a silly question. If you make a factual claim, it is not unreasonable to ask for evidence in support. There could be case histories reported, e.g. upheld claims for unfair dismissal, newspaper reports, causes célèbres in the right wing blogosphere etc. Or you might have personal knowledge of people to whom this has happened. But in fact it is just supposition on your part - you've made it up, in other words.

And my earlier questions? Let me repeat them for the the third time: Do you have evidence of people being driven out, or of "new sceptics" being deterred from entering the field? Where does this come from?

OK, as @swansont says, maybe I can't separate the fields from the particles experiencing them.

I gather they are often found together in nature (both metamorphic products of ultramafic minerals like olivine, I think), so measures have to be taken to ensure commercial talcum powder does not contain any asbestos.

Eh? The gain in stored energy is accompanied by a gain in rest mass of the battery, yes or no? Yes, that makes sense, I suppose.