mississippichem

Moved to speculations. Wacko, please post any non-mainstream science topics in the speculations forum. This smells a bit like religion though. If the thread takes that course, it will be moved to religion. Please say so if that is your intent.

-Using observation of controlled scenarios to invalidate or support hypothesized models of how the universe works. -Using logic and mathematics to interpret these results in a way that minimizes subjectivity. -Philosophy that observable phenomena can be explained.

Depends on how your brain works. Mathematics and physical science feel natural to some of us [robot people ]. Chemistry/physics/math was not that difficult for me in college but something like literature or history would've been tuff because my brain has near 0 liberal arts ability/interest. No subject is harder than any other in general. It's all about your natural tendencies and abilities.

So you have no problem with Hitchens' argument, just his career choice? Him being wealthy, educated or an ass does not make him wrong. How does getting one's nails dirty give credence to one's argument?

Well the Plutonians share a common language and religion (foot fetishism) with the Neptunians, so in the OP's defense it can be hard to tell sometimes

All the horned space travelers I'm aware of are from Pluto, and they're mad we downgraded their planet to a kuiper belt object. Horned space traveler bites are serious. You should consult an exobiologist immediately. They'll be willing to help, I know they aren't busy. You can expect the following symptoms to take effect: -atomic explosive diarrhea -sexual dysfunction of the third kind -stoned hippy-like paranoia -spontaneous nonsensical internet forum posting Stock up on toilet paper and please update us with any further developments.

Well argued.

Sulfuric acid reacts fine. What do you mean?

Yes. Not to mention that all the water in your body comes with a small amount of auto-ionized H+ . Green Xenon: Who told you that H+ ions are toxic? Do me a favor and bonk them over the head.

Nope. There are some electronic transitions between high excited states that may fall in this range but at room temperature these states are not likely to be populated. Of course you can cheat by looking at the quadrupole in a high pressure sample of H2 gas. This will require a ridiculously long path length to observe IIRC.

I would say that you are still using inductive reasoning to justify your subjective experience as insight into an objective reality. Meditation and psychedelic drugs both give you a strong sensation or feeling. Those forms of informational input do not lend themselves to valid conclusions. I may feel angry, sad, happy, or connected to my friend but that says nothing about the way the universe works (except for a strong statement about neuropsychology). Often times our emotions are erroneous. If I told you that I pushed your car off a building [assume you believe me] you would be furious. Once you went out to the parking lot and saw that your car was still there you may be thinking "Oh that mississippichem is such a trickster" or you may feel like the joke wasn't funny at all but annoying. The point being, that you felt angry about something that never occurred and the emotion you feel after that anger is dependent on your personality and how you feel about my personality. It's all subjective. Now I don't think this can be done practically but the only way to test whether or not you are god or to test whether or not there is a god at all is to define a set of criteria that you would have to observe to reject the null hypothesis (You are not god or there is no god). Then conduct the test with a lot of controls and analyze the data quantitatively. Otherwise we can just claim anything about some nebulous experience we had and call it evidence. I saw a a Ferrari the other day in my small (population ~150,000) town. Nobody here is that rich, must've been God.

+1 Not a mathematician so sorry if this is stupid. Am I correct in thinking that we can define 1/0 in some scenarios but it just so happens that such a definition leads to nothing of interest? That is, it may work for some things but will lead to contradictions? Good post by the way. Welcome.

Agreed. I've been watching youtube for years. I've never created an account. That would be just one more thing to spam my email inbox which I think is already approaching the density of degenerate matter BTW.

There was once a physics seminar so incredible that all the women in the audience immediately stood up and threw their [math] \langle x | [/math] 's at the stage. The lone chemist in the audience would've no doubt been impressed, but unfortunately he was passed out from overexposure to the [math] | \mathrm{RNH_{2}} \rangle [/math] he had been working with in his lab. For those of you who have lives: Bra-ket notation Amine

[math] \frac{1}{0} \neq \infty [/math] because [math] 0 \cdot \infty \neq 1 [/math], QED

Juangra is saying that in modern QM we represent quantum states as abstract complex vectors on Hilbert spaces. It has little to do with "localization" of particles. Wave mechanics works fine but get's troublesome and cumbersome in more advanced scenarios.

I would argue that what you experienced is just your neurons firing out of control because you are completely intoxicated on hallucinogens. I've done my fair share of drugs in the past [used to be a musician, give me a break guys ]. It never leads to enlightenment or insight. Only false notions of revelation induced by an intense yet artificial emotional experience. True insight requires logic, rigid objectivity and a sober mind not easily swayed by sensory perception. Hallucenigenic drugs offer none of that. If anything they offer the opposite.

Oh. Usually "ionization energy" refers to the energy it takes to ionize a given electron from an atom. So I thought you were talking about something entirely different. I know nothing about electron capture.

The acid donates a proton to the base. Which of those species is a proton donor? Keep in mind that an ammonium ion can't be protonated again. Consider sulfuric acid and ammonia instead. If sulfuric acid protonated ammonia it would make an ammonium ion and leave behind a hydrogen-sulfate anion. The "ammonium hydroxide" you have written there is really just what happens when you dissolve the weak base ammonia in the weak acid water. It's the same concept.

Why does ionization need to happen? I don't think I understand the question.

To describe an atom you can use stationary state solutions to the Schroedinger equation. You can neglect the time dependence of the wavefunction if you aren't interested in any dynamic stuff. The hydrogen solution has r, theta, and phi but no t.

I wouldn't worry much rigney. There are plenty of other legitimate things to worry about. It's not going to happen. If it did, there's nothing you can do about so rest your mind and enjoy turning eighty in peace.

Like Venus but worse

Only some molecules. There are countless other molecular geometries, namely octahedral and trigonal planar. Not at all. The foundation for molecular bonds is a linear combination of atomic orbitals (with coefficients that serve to minimize the energy expectation value) which are solutions to the Schroedinger equation for a hydrogenic atom. Though some of the mathematics behind molecular orbitals are formulated in higher dimensional or infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces, bonds only exist in "good ole" three-space. The notion of "atomic bonds" makes no sense. Do you realize that the conceptualization of four spatial dimensions is nothing new? Here let me write a vector in [real] four space for you: [math] \vec{v}= \langle 1,5, \sqrt{2}, 7 \rangle [/math] I don't notice anything special. Why is four so special, why not five, seventeen, or more dimensions?