John Cuthber

The interesting question is not "how did English come to have so many mashed up languages" but how come the other places that had equally messy histories do not have the same ... interesting... pronunciations. Vikings invade bits of Germany and France; so did the Romans.

Have you ever been to Glasgow?

As a native speaker (and reader) of English, I don't understand this idea that pronunciation should have rules.

The same should be true of requiring people to join a religion. Sadly some religions don't realise that. And, by way of pretending to have read thee topic, I'm an atheist.

The difference between thermodynamic stability and kinetic stability. In effect, it is falling apart, but too slowly for you to observe it.

Pretty close to half the US population has not realised that he was elected on one policy: "Build a wall", but he didn't do it. They think he's a success. That's remarkably unobservant. "start"?

no. You need to look at what catalysts do.

You might get traces of ammonia but you won't get much. Ammonia decomposes on heating unless the pressure is very high. Also calling NO2 "nitrous gas" is , at best misleading. Either you mean nitrogen dioxide NO2 or you mean nitrous oxide N2O

I am intrigued by the idea that it doesn't show the effect on every lap (or none- but that's easy). No. But I have tried racing hovercraft. Great fun and I did quite well. I cam second of a bunch of about 10 of us. The interesting thing is I don't drive- never learned. And I'm not normally in any way a "sport" type- I don't even bother with computer games. It turned out to be an advantage. Other racers were expecting the hovercraft to "drive" like a car. It doesn't so they were flying off at every corner. I didn't have the "expectations" that the divers did, so I was able to cope with the fact that whereas , in a car, if you turn the steering, the vehicle considers it to be an instruction. In a hovercraft, at best , turning the steering wheel is a "suggestion" which the vehicle might follow eventually. If you want to steer, you lean hard towards the corner of the vehicle so it digs into the ground a bit. Art that point, the steering wheel is really useful- you can hold on to it for dear life. I had the advantage that I didn't have to "un -learn" how to drive a car. Without the benefit of a spoiler supplying a downforce equal to more than the weight of the racing car, I suspect the effect would be rather like trying to drive a hovercraft. Great fun, as long as you don't reach a speed where being tipped onto the grass will do any harm.

This might help. https://xkcd.com/2380/

YOu have missed the point. The reason for the aerofoils (whatever you call them) on the backs of race cars is to push the cars DOWN. That way you get more grip and can take the corners much faster and win the race.

Not quite rare enough.

Interesting: I wonder how many of them are still around.

My understanding is that the early disks were made from shellac with fillers. (earlier work had been done with metal foils and with wax.) Bakelite (and similar materials ) would have been harder to work with. I'm not aware of any that used formaldehyde. Part per trillion is not uncommon. Part per quadrillion is sometimes achieved. Radon concentrations are measured down at part per quintillion levels.

So far I have been very lucky. Nobody close to me has been taken seriously ill- the few I know who caught the virus have made full recoveries. I have a desk- based job which I can do from home. My employer provided a new monitor and chair for me. They would have bought a desk and computer if I had needed them. Working from home saves me from a long commute. I am getting a bit bored and miss going for a drink with my friends, but I realise I'm doing very well. I feel vaguely guilty about how fortunate I am.

By convention... iPrSH exists. You could use HSiPr The point stands that , in the presence of base, you are not going to protonate anything much. That's much more realistic.

That's the point. You would have two bits of metal, one "glass" and the other not, so any difference would be due to the "glass"

Imaginary, HSiPr does not exist. That's a fair point given... "HSiPr , Base" Protonation seems unlikely What's your view on a deprotonation of something by that base?

Only at depths where it could navigate by the stars in the way that sailing ships did. Attenuation of 1.5GHz GPS signals by water will be worse than attenuation of light.

Well... was it very expensive? Could you anneal some and find out if that makes a difference?

I listened to a strip of metal. It wasn't noisy. Would you like to rephrase your question with less emphasis on the assumption that we can read minds?

Interesting discussion. Either a supersonic submarine is possible, or it isn't. If it isn't possible, what does happen if I put an arbitrarily powerful rocket on the back end of a pointy lump of oil - filled metal with an overall density equal to sea water? Setting aside the practically, imagine that I can crank up the power as far as I like. As far as I can tell, if I put enough power into it, the thing will go supersonic- probably not for long before it's eroded away to nothing. A slightly more practical factor. The cavitation at the back of the craft may be somewhat offset by the exhaust gases from the rocket.

Interesting idea. Reminds me of the discovery of cisplatin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisplatin#History

Three of those images imply too much power in the wrong place. The other is a horse.

Odd. What if there are no couples wishing to get married that week? What if it's sunny, but also very cold? It is currently sunny in my garden but I don't see any weddings. Translating human language is difficult- partly because people are enormously clever and can cope with this level of ambiguity.