exchemist

OK, I'm delighted you have replied. We get a lot of bots and drive-by spammers and I thought you might be one of those. I do think there's a problem with multiple oxidation states. Higher oxidation states of, for example, transition elements, tend to form bonds that have a lot more covalent character than lower oxidation states of the same element. This is not surprising when one thinks of the ionisation energies or, which comes to the same thing, the polarising power of a highly charged cation. I also wonder if you might give a better overall sense of what is going on if you were to use a colour coding scheme to distinguish the types of bond, instead of writing out the text each time. After all, you only mention 2 or 3 types of bonding. But good luck with your project.

Oh I see. Good idea, then. Although in my view the table would still be of highly doubtful utility.

Thanks. But making your readers go to that trouble doesn't seem a great way to make the table someone's first choice as a reference.

Quite so. I've often had cause to remark on how many Tory politicians seem either to be aliens, who make you want to exclaim "Christ! They've landed!": Or people who you expect to see being pursued down the street by men in white coats: I could post more images, but perhaps not appropriate for a Sunday morning............

I don't find this table useful, to be honest. You can't see the row and columns headings once you are in the middle of it. It also makes simplistic - and therefore incorrect - generalisations for those elements that can occupy a variety of oxidation states, for example the transition elements. I really don't see the point of such a table. Far better to look at the Periodic Table and consider electronegativities and oxidation state for each case.

I assume the objective must be to precipitate MgCO3. Mg(HCO3)2 does not exist as a solid (presume the Mg ++ cation is too small for 2 big HCO3- anions) so it won't precipitate as bicarbonate. Or alternatively just to convert dissolved CO2 to HCO3- in solution. But it seems at first glance a bit daft. Where would anyone get huge enough quantities of Mg(OH)2 from, in order to make an impact on the vast amount of CO2 dissolved in seawater? I've found the publicity blurb from the company in question: https://www.planetarytech.com/projects/cornwall/. It looks as if it is just a small scale exercise to confirm some models. There is no explanation of where they would get enough minerals to make a real change to the oceanic CO2 level, or what the effect might be of jacking up dissolved bicarbonate and metal cation concentrations. I do not believe it would be biologically neutral.

None of the 10 commandments says anything like that. There is one forbidding adultery, and another saying thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. It was a very patriarchal society and tended to be written very much from a man's perspective. The decalogue is written out in the table at the foot of this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

No I didn't mean anything to do with harassment. I just meant a normal, civilised, - if unwelcome in this instance - sexual approach.

They rely on metals being electrically conductive. An AC electromagnet induces eddy currents in the metal object, which alter the net field (from the detector and the metal) close to the object.

Possibly. Here is a link to the original PNAS article: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2217090120 The "Interpretations" section is the most interesting. This runs through the various compositional ratios of Fe, S, O, C and H that they considered, in trying to match the observed seismic data. Interestingly - and rather counterintuitively to me - they alight on H as needing to be present to avoid having what they consider an unreasonably large proportion of S in the mix. This could fit your idea of cooler conditions and a faster congealing, compared to the Earth. But they don't themselves speculate on formation processes for the core. This work seems to be offered as food for thought, for other planetary physicists and chemists to study.

Interesting article. Thanks for posting it. One would not expect nitrogen-containing compounds among the minerals. About the only example on Earth is saltpetre (KNO3 or NaNO3), which is derived from decomposition of organic material. This is because nitrogen is generally speaking most stable as N2, a gas, due to the great strength of the triple bond (excellent overlap of the 2p orbitals in this small molecule, leading to 2 very strong π-bonds as well as a strong σ-bond). So one would tend to find nitrogen in the atmosphere rather than in solid minerals. (This is in contrast with oxygen, which of course happily forms a huge series of silicate minerals, oxides, etc.) All the elements up to and beyond iron will have been present in the dust and gas from which the solar system condensed so, rather than formation, this issue is more about fractionation, i.e. which ones became concentrated in particular planets, and then in what part of the planet (atmosphere, crust, mantle core). Sulphur forms a range of compounds with iron, some of which are not of fixed composition, i.e. solid solutions or alloys. From the article it seems they think sulphur is a major ingredient in the Martian core due to the composition of iron meteorites and also, I presume, their assessment of the density of the core from seismology.

Nice idea but there’s no way to get this to work, unfortunately. The USA has to join the rest of the civilised world and get rid of the permissive gun culture, however hard and slow that is.

None. There is nothing you can apply externally that will do that.

The cream of the joke is Carlson was fired for objecting to Fox’s campaign of lies. But it couldn’t happen a nicer chap.🤣

Once you break the rules of physics you are in a fantasy world in which all bets are off.

@swansont is quite right of course: I wasn’t thinking. We need more information. What is the shape of the mirrors, what is the shape and dimensions of the 600sq m illuminated area and what is the angle of the beam to the ground? Is a diagram available?

I'm not quite sure what you want to know. Do you mean a formula for the rate of divergence of the beam? That's obvious, surely, if it grows from 51m² to 600m² , i.e. a factor of 11.6, over the course of 450m? Or do you want to know why it diverges at that rate? That would be more complicated - some function of the shape of the mirrors, I imagine.

Two questions: - On what grounds do you claim terrestrial forces could not have been responsible? - Have you calculated, or estimated, the magnitude of these interplanetary magnetic forces that you claim are implicated?

Central heating thermostat?

It’s a question of progressive pressure to change. We are moving quite a bit now: almost no senior politician any longer denies the need for action, and governments and industry are investing in the shift. Of course we have move faster but there won’t ever be a discrete tipping point.. People have get used to changes and find tangible upsides in it for them, especially when it impacts their personal lifestyles. We have not got far with that yet, apart from cars. Home heating is a big one.

I don’t think the Vatican, for all its faults, would want to have anything to with Trump. The guy seems to be actually evil.

I’m certainly with you 100% on maps. Like you I feel a need to know where I am going in relation to other places. I also like to have a mental picture of the journey. It makes me feel I am in charge rather than blindly following instructions.

On the contrary it seems to me that modern life requires mastery of an ever-expanding battery of computerised tasks, mostly to be done on your own without help. So mental agility is still needed but of a different sort. However I have certainly read of the importance of exercising the mind as one grows old. That’s one reason why I sing and why I do sudoku after lunch and wordle at teatime. And hang around science forums of course.

Yes it is only ex cathedra pronouncements on faith and morals. Most popes are very sparing indeed in their use of this. I think I recall this dodgy (and risky) doctrine was only formalised in the c.19th, at a time when the church was going through a phase of dogmatic absolutism.

Yes, pH can increase or decrease, or one can speak of a low (acid) or high (basic) pH.