insane_alien

also, we're better at conversions between SI and imperial. just cos we see it every day. although, i am starting to use SI units more and more. the other day my mum asked me what temperature it was going to be today(the weather was on) and i replied in kelvin. completely automatic unit converstion. totally didn't mean it.

from the article linked to by molotov. this seems particularly relevant here don't you think?

its not really that much different from the interview process is it? its really just a filter system for that to get the candidate that are obviously unsuited for the job out of the system before they waste somebodies time by arranging an interview. obviously, artificial intelligence is not at the point where it can decide whether to ask questions that would distinguish between an OK candidate and a superb candidate. this is what human interviewers are for and probably will be for a long time to come even if AI does progress enough.

STU's back! azure has the nitroglycerin cake waiting in IRC.

umm pretty much. its one of the variables it can act upon. its not a fixed unit or anything. its in relation to the other variables as well.

d'you know what. i ;m not convinced we're right about anything. but, from the evidence, i'm convinced that we have a damn good approximation for our ability to gather data and formulate a theory. you on the other hand, have done nothing but claim things that go against the mainstream without providing evidence. if there is no evidence then there is no theory and no science.

it is a bit strange isn't it. i'm ambivalent about it. its ... i don't know what it is... gahh..... i'll get used to it.

well, this is a forum. you can read over the posts. go have a cup of tea and think about the replies you got. even go on holiday for a month and mull them over and you can still come back and reply. you can take as long as you want to try and make sense of them. we'll still be here. i think you can ignore erlyrisa's posts as they are more than a little inaccurate. basically, what is being said is that the units aren't everything to a value in physics. a better way of understanding it is to begin with the simple formulae and build it up to the unit formula. so we'll start with Energy= Force * Distance. this has units of N-m (obviously) nice and simple. distance is a measure of a dimension so we can't break that down any further. so lets look at force. Force= mass * acceleration (kg-m/s^2) so 1 N is the force required for 1 kg to accelerate at 1 m/s^2 from this we can get the units of a joule. a kg-m^2/s^2 . this does look kind of horrible i'll admit that. but, all it is, is the energy required to accelerate 1 kg at 1 m/s^2 over a distance of one meter. now, the energy doesn't have to be accelerating anything over any distance to exist. and that energy itself doesn't have mass(well, it does a bit but it is negligble for a basic understanding). so we can see that the mass unit comes into play when you are quantifying the energy. it is a measure of how much work it can do. so a photon can exist without mass because it is merely energy. not the object the energy is acting upon. or something like that. i'm sure swansont will correct any glaring errors. i hope it was simple enough for you and i hope that you'll take a bit of time to think about it if you don't get it right away. just remember that there is no rush to reply here. it is not IRC. <edit>woah, just realised how much i wrote. seemed a lot shorter.

well, the thing is that they have a storage tank for ethane as it comes in to even out the flow for the process but it can only hold 16 hours worth of ethane. if its a problem big enough to stop the plant working then its not going to be fixed in a few hours. its a 10,000 tonne storage tank they have. this is usually about 40-60% full so that reduces the time it can absorb. i'm not to sure if adding another tank would be feasable or not. It would probably only add another day or two onto the buffer period.

yeah, YT, is right. there is now way the ham is going to last till the ice melts. you could always chuck in some liquid nitrogen. that'll keep it cold enough so no-one will touch it till you get wherever your going.

I was on a site visit to ExxonMobil's Fife EthylenePlant with my uni today. it was pretty interesting and the free buffet they put on was pretty damn good, although there was a sandwich that appeared to be just red onion and mayonaise, no-one touched that one. I got into a discussion with one of the chemical engineers who was giving us a tour of the plant about the flare system they have. If you don't already know the flare is used when there is a drop in the output for whatever reason (eg. a pump failure) but the feed keeps on coming so they have to burn it off to prevent an explosion. This is shown in 'typical' veiws of refineries shown on the news and by environmentalists. the fact is that these things rarely light up and the companies don't want the to. Anyway, we were talking about alternative uses for the excess feed(such as using a gas turbine to generate electricity although that would be pretty inefficient since the flare rarely fires and is fairly inconsistent). i suggested using the gas stream to boil water to be fed into the existing steam turbine they have for generating all of their own power(most of the time) and feeding the excess energy into the grid. Apparently this wouldn't be feasible as there would be too much energy released by the burning feedstock for the turbine to handle and it wouldn't be cost effective to have a standby turbine either so thats that one down the swanny as well. So, i'm wondering if anyone else has some other ideas about what you could do with an oversupply of ethane(contains some propane and methane)?

i would go with a mixture of solid blocks and crushed ice. unless you are taking it out the freezer and straight into the cooler. then it would just be the solid block. it'll last longer than the crushed ice.

no, it wouldn't be possible with any substance at all, ever. there is no way to make a substance stay colder than its environment without either a chemical reaction(which would eventually reach equilibrium and warm up anyway) or a refridgeration cycle which dumps a lot of heat into the environment.

if you put a spark plug in a magnetron then you'll get a lot of sparks. no LED though.

yes, we're all unscientific because we provide evidence and mathematics and follow the scientific principle.

tree, it was already mention that it wasn't the dark energy of astronomy. i know about the dark energy of astronomy.

i was struggling for games. he's not a chemical engineer. unless he can get his hands on a 2kW centrifugal pump and a jamaican then he's not going to be able to play most of our drinking games.

he did. the mass does change according to E=mc^2 its just that not enough of the mass reacts before the star rips itself appart and stops reacting.

maybe if the laws of thermodynamics went on a nice little holiday to the maldives...

a shockwave isn't like sound. its ALMOST like sound but a shockwave can actually travel faster.

its a dimension. like the three spatial dimentions your used to. what you described were measuring devices akin to drawing a meter stick when asked to draw distance.

or just going super nova. or if its a red dwarf it could just turn into a black dwarf in a few trillion years.

nothing. it would evapourate until it reached a pressure where it can remain in vapour liquid equilibrium at room temperature. its only going to be old if you let it evapourate.

because the sun will never convert all of its mass to energy. it blows up well before then. oh and swansont, i get where you were coming from there. i had a bit of a brain fart there.

and then i'll give you triple what swansont gives you.