Jump to content

exchemist

Senior Members
  • Posts

    4241
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    67

Everything posted by exchemist

  1. Thanks for digging out the paper. I happen to be in Scotland this week so it was interesting to read and to see the diagrams of the geology of the Highlands between the two great faults. They seem to have sampled not only the Garvellach islands but also Islay and a location in Donegal in N Ireland where the same formation outcrops. (It’s rather romantic that they call these rocks the Dalradian sequence, after the ancient Irish/Scottish kingdom of Dalriada which encompassed both N Ireland and W Scotland.) It seems the rocks in question are alternating layers of “diamictite”, a poorly sorted sedimentary conglomerate associated with glacial moraines, and sandstone, which of course is homogeneous and laid down in a marine environment. So it looks as if at wherever on the globe these rocks were laid down, it was by no means one solid era of glaciation at the (near equatorial?) latitude in question. interesting too for me to see how they get a fix on the earliest and latest date for the age of the sequence by radiometric dating of volcanic intrusions and volcanic ash deposits.
  2. Quite: a minor classic here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-bacon-rally-wind-power-b2604316.html WTF???…..
  3. This is a discussion forum.
  4. You need to summarise this video and explain what it is you want to discuss.
  5. On the contrary, there is increasing recognition that too much research on health matters, and consequently too much health provision, has failed to take into account sufficiently the differences between the sexes. Like many people, I detest identity politics, but health provision is an area in which there are obviously big differences between the sexes, so recognition of this is not playing politics.
  6. Analysis of his electronics? Marvin, the Paranoid Android? What do they mean?
  7. I think you need to see a doctor. This CIA stuff sounds as if it may be produced by a psychiatric condition. It makes no sense.
  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape
  9. Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything
  10. Yes, this has always been understood by thinking Christians - and, I’m sure, Jews. The problem can be with literalists and other idiots, not excluding idiot critics😄.
  11. What I’m suggesting is that “true” is a risky term to apply to theories in science, at least in the strict, absolute, logical sense in which it tends to be used in philosophy. The old saying that “the map is not the territory” is the way I tend to treat scientific theories, at least in principle, though there are some that almost achieved the status of fact, e.g. the existence of molecules.
  12. Scientific theories are models that are only provisionally true, as history shows.
  13. What absurd ballocks: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-is-music-good-for-the-brain-2020100721062 Bach means brook in German. It has no meaning in Latin, as ch is not a possible ending. sugondese is a joke fictitious language: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sugondese I assume you are pulling our legs.
  14. Because as matter formed, it would have been in a gravitationally unstable state. So it would have begun to move to a lower gravitational potential energy configuration. But it’s all rather speculative, as we have no observations that reach back that far in time.
  15. Latin phrases from centuries ago are not a definitive guide to modern science. It seems there may have been such a time. Before matter coalesced, one would presumably have had a sea of quantum mechanical entities, none of which can be said to be in “motion”, in the classical sense of following defined paths, because of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
  16. Why do you suddenly bring politicians into this discussion? These graphs are the result of scientific research.
  17. If it has been stable from 1000 to the start of the industrial revolution why do you think it would be radically different 1000 yrs before that?
  18. Here's a graph covering the last 1000yrs: From: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011GB004247
  19. Interesting. Maybe it is this Rayleigh-Taylor fluid dynamic modelling that is the really new contribution, then, i.e. the mechanism that drives the progressive delamination that others had already proposed. As you imagine, a chemist finds this misuse particularly ridiculous. By the way, re hydrogen, I understand hydrogen is predicted to have a metallic structure when compressed sufficiently. However I don't think anyone has succeeded in forcing it into a metallic state so far, though there was I think a (strongly disputed) claim to have done so a year or two ago.
  20. Like astronomers' perversion of the term "metals", you mean? 😁
  21. OK but presumably that is "parasitic" induction in the wire, from the alternating magnetic field around the transmission line. This is about running a generator as a motor, and also in some way involving a non-zero Earth voltage, allegedly. The only way I can envisage that is via a large enough earth current for the grounds's natural resistance to cause a potential difference along the ground. (From what I read, livestock can be electrocuted this way, due to PD between back and front legs! So bit of an own goal for any farmer who tries it).
  22. (La) masse does in fact appear in my Cassell French/English dictionary as having an additional electrical meaning of ground. Does this rely on using the earth to complete the circuit so that the return bypasses the meter, or something?
  23. Bon, d'accord. I did not know "masse" means ground, or earth, in French electrical terminology. Next time I'm at the house in France I'll try to remember that, in case we have any electrical problems.🙂 It makes sense that if 2 generators are connected in parallel and one is generating a lower voltage than the other, then it will run as a motor until the 2 voltages match. But it will do so by taking energy from the higher voltage generator, not from the ground. The ground is not a reservoir of energy. When you speak of the the "voltages" of the 2 generators, you are implicitly stating their voltage relative to a ground voltage of zero. The ground is zero by definition. You have not drawn a circuit diagram, so it is a bit unclear what is earthed or grounded in your scenario and why anyone might (misguidedly) think energy can be extracted from the ground. But the notion of energy companies "hiding" some "principle" does not make sense. It's a mature technology and there are plenty of electrical engineers who don't work for energy companies, so it's a bit ridiculous to imagine there is some secret principle that they would not know about. Could this story be part of some scam that the writer is trying to sell to people?
  24. This ignores the whole, well-established phenomenon of the greenhouse effect, whereby certain molecules in the atmosphere (chiefly water, CO2 and methane) absorb, and re-emit in random directions, the IR radiation that is continually being re-radiated up from the ground and oceans warmed by the sun. This creates a longer path length for IR radiation to escape from the Earth into space, delaying its escape and causing the net amount of heat retained by the earth's surface and atmosphere to increase. I'm sure you are right that the energy in light captured by photosynthesis will not be available to be re-radiated as IR radiation, but this is not the main issue. Changes in vegetation cover are important, certainly, but that is because photosynthesis absorbs CO2, rather than because it reduces the re-radiation of IR.
  25. Well that is obviously a ballocks conspiracy theory. But what on earth are you talking about when you say “mass”? Mass of what?
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.