John Cuthber

He also said "But no doubt some products use isopropyl alcohol and others use ethanol." which was also just plain wrong. Greg, did you say anything that was both correct and relevant? (Please note that the OP probably does not have cancer)

They are the carrier of the electromagnetic force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_carrier "As I understand it magentic fields are directly related to electrons. " indeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_NMR Count the electrons in a proton, yet it has a magnetic dipole.

"What does it mean that taller people 'do better'?" "the taller candidate almost always wins the Presidency" You seem to have answered your own question. Incidentally there's some evidence that Napoleon wasn't short. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_complex However you are quite right about this "One problem with eugenics is that the trait selected may be the best for the current environment but not for future challenges. Another is that the selected trait may be inherited with a cluster of other genetic characteristics which will interact disastrously with future environmental stresses, e.g., greater pollution, changes in diet, chenges in the world's temperature, etc." BTW, are smart people also more likely to generate problems ?

Yes, the photon.

"Not that I have ever looked at the active ingredients" Perhaps you should have. "But no doubt some products use isopropyl alcohol" Name one. Consumption of alcohol is known to be a risk factor for (at least some ) cancers. However it is also known that consumption of alcohol in moderation is associated with longer life than being tee total. As far as I'm aware, no study has been done on gargling and spitting it out. Can you cite one? "Recent studies have indicated that there is no safe level of consumption of alcoholic beverages." Studies on alcohol and health are notoriously difficult to do and these seem to be trying to prove a negative- which is a logical impossibility. Can you cite a reference for them please?

I believe that listerine (generally) uses ethanol. That's also widely known to be toxic, but it leaves me wondering why you seem to be worrying about the wrong chemical. They also do an alcohol free version.

Very clever, but I think it's misleading to say its zillions of frames per second. If a bus goes past my house at exactly 8 o'clock each morning and I take a picture at 08:00:00 today then 08:00:01 tomorrow, 08:00:02 the next day and so on, then stick the images together into an animation, have I really taken a picture every second? Give or take a change of scale, that's what this new camera does. In any event, if I want to make a time lapse or slow motion video of anything I'm going to arrange to play it back over the course of something like half a minute (at least for most things). It doesn't matter if it's a hummingbird's wing flapping, or a tree growing. If I make the end result take about half a minute then it will be slow enough to see what's happening, but not so slow as to be dull. If I play that back at 25 frames a second then I need 25*30 pictures. If each is a one megapixel image (which isn't bad resolution, it's probably comparable with the screen on which you are reading this) then I need 23*30*1000000 pixels worth of storage. If each is one byte resolution then I need 750 meg (with no compression). The speed at which I film those frames doesn't affect the memory I need.

Soda really wouldn't do the trick. It reacts with iodine (not very well but...) I studied chemistry and I worked for a long time as a chemist. I'm currently not doing so much chemistry in my job because the demand has fallen a bit so I'm doing other stuff related to safety and also some computing stuff. If that looks a bit evasive that's because it is. I'm not sure my employer would agree with some of the things I post here. (The name is wrong too- Cuthbert is a cartoon character but there wasn't enough space for all the letters) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bash_Street_Kids

The vitamin C in lemon juice would destroy some (perhaps all) of the iodine. I'd try with vinegar but I'm not sure it's a strong enough acid.

It may need more processing, but at least you know where it is to process.

I will stick a few numbers in the quote for easy reference. (1) Or perhaps not. You have absolutely no basis for this breach of Occam's razor. (2) I used kerosene to remove paint from something, but that doesn't mean it will remove tarnish from silver. Brass really isn't the same as silver so the fact that ammonia cleans brass has nothing to do with the issue (3) or (again) perhaps not. However the solubility and equilibrium data I gave earlier show quite clearly that ammonia doesn't dissolve silver sulphide and it (still) never will. (4) no, not really. (5) I know that, which is why I was able to write it earlier. Incidentally, do you know any examples of tarnished silver where the iodide is formed in any significan quantity? If not then you have to admit it's of questionable relevance to this issue. I introduced it to show that you were wrong about the idea that all silver salts would dissolve in ammonia. (6) Have you looked how much the solubility changes? Your data suggest that, in hot water AgI is roughly 10 times more soluble. So, on a good day, it reaches a solubility of about 1 mole (about half a pound) in a million litres (that's a thousand tons) of water. (7) it is indeed, and so is contemplating the effect of temperature on the ability of silver to form a complex with ammonia. One thing is certain- the complex is likely to dissociate when the solution is heated ( the entropy term in the Gibbs free energy will favour this). So, ammonia will do a less good job of forming a complex with silver if you heat it. As you say- pretty standard chemistry. (8) I would possibly burst the bottle so I'm not going to try it (and I advise other not to). It's hardly practical even if it works. You have not shown that it would work, and the thermodynamics suggests that it would not. By the way, as I have said plenty of times before, if your theory doesn't tally with reality then it isn't because reality is wrong. The silver wire remains tarnished. Now, go and look up the meanings of the data I provided earlier and see what they tell you about this silly idea that silver sulphide will dissolve in household ammonia. Sorry, I just realised I forgot about this bit. "CHEMICAL CLEANING The majority of silver objects recovered from archaeological contexts require only limited treatment. 1)In most instances, the various corrosion products can be removed with simple chemical solutions (Plenderleith and Werner 1971:227-229). Common tarnish caused by sulfur compounds can be eliminated easily with commercial silver cleaning solutions. Alternatively, a mild silver dip solution that consists of 5 percent thiourea and 1 percent non-ionic detergent in distilled water can be prepared. A solution of 15 percent ammonium thiosulfate in distilled water with a 1 percent non-ionic wetting agent is stronger than the silver dip and is effective for removing both tarnish and silver chloride. 2) For base silver with copper corrosion compounds, concentrated ammonia effectively cleans all copper compounds from the silver. 3)Care must be taken, however, because ammonia dissolves silver chloride and will substantially weaken badly corroded silver. " So, from (1) we see that these people don't suggest ammonia- which is cheap and easily available but prefer things like thiourea which is a bit more obscure and a suspect carcinogen. Perhaps that's because they know that ammonia doesn't really work. (2) shows that they can tell the difference between copper compounds (which dissolve in ammonia solution) and silver which doesn't. 3 might be important if the silver has been lying under the sea or something, but otherwise I can't explain where the chlorine came from. Can you? It's true enough that silver chloride is soluble in ammonia- I think I may have pointed that out already- but it's not the black stuff you find on tarnished silver. There's a relatively simple way to distinguish the black sulphide from the white chloride- only one of them dissolves in ammonia. Have you learned which yet? Incidentally, if Greg comes back and still insist that he's right I think we should transfer this to the "religion" part of the forum since he is insisting on the truth of something, even after the published solubility data and experiment proved it to be false.

The longer you spend trying to defend this silly idea the sillier you will look.

I read once (and I'm not wasting time looking up a reference) that the best single predictor of a child's IQ is the IQ of the person who they call mother. This is also true of adopted children. It seems the effect is, at least, largely environmental. Who cares? What's so bloody marvellous about IQ? In general in this world, taller people do better. It therefore makes as much sense to select for tall people as it does for people with high IQs. However, we generally already know that very tall people suffer from health problems related to their height- bad backs being the most obvious. The problem, with eugenics is that you end up with one trait, at the expense of others, and often to a degree that is itself, unhelpful. The OP has yet to explain his weird opinion that we would magically regain lost genetic diversity (it has taken us many generations to acquire it by mutation and it would take just as long to replace) He has also failed to answer the simple practical question of who would empty the bins. I work in a large laboratory- I accept that it wouldn't work without the bright people. However, if the cleaners went on strike we would be in a lot more trouble than if the senior managers did. Which group do we really need?

Ho Hum. I have two choices here. I can believe the evidence of my own observation. The tarnished bit of silver wire is still sitting in the ammonia, and it's just as tarnished as it ever was. Or I can believe the website you quoted as being "expert". Call me cynical but since I see that what they are saying seems not to be true, I wonder why they are saying it. Well, lets analyse what they are saying, and who they are. The site is silversmithing.com. It's the association of silversmiths. What they say is "if your silver needs cleaning then we suggest you try soaking it in snake oil,and, if that doesn't work, sending it to use so we can charge you for the privilege of cleaning it." Do you have any idea how long I agonised over deciding what to believe. So, "That makes all your relative solubility of silver halides and silver sulfide effecting whether or not the silver can form complex silver ammino ions with ammonia a load of nonsense." or it makes them mistaken (or worse), and the bit of wire shows which interpretation is correct. "Well the experts seem to think that ammonia does take care all but severe sulfide based silver corrosion." they are plainly not experts, if they were then I would have a nice shiny bit of wire by now. So this "If the sulfide corrosion is severe enough for ammonia not work then it is highly likely that the bicarbonate aluminium method will not remove it either and you would still have to get it done professionally. " is also plainly hogwash, because it doesn't work with fairly mild tarnishing. Incidentally, if you knew enough chemistry to comment usefully on this topic you would have looked up a few bits of data. Solubility product: Ksp(Ag2S, 25 °C)= 6.69x10−50. and What is the Equilibrium constant of Ag (NH3) 2+? Ag(NH3)2+ 1.67 x 10+ 7.223 stability constant I will leave it to you to work out how those data (and a few sensible assumptions) explain why silver sulphide does not, and never will, dissolve in household ammonia. Being stubborn is only good if you are right.

These two questions are equally valid If everything in the universe adds to zero, why do we need a God? If everything in the universe does not add to zero, why do we need a God? The answer is that the need for a God is entirely independent of the "sum of the universe" If I want chocolate ice cream, why do we need a God?

"the dissenters will be re-educated to cure them of their brainwashing." or vice versa, depending on your point of view.

I concede that it "takes care" of silver suphide by saying that it doesn't really work "If the black corrosion spots remain, place the shaker back in and let stand for another ten minutes and inspect again. If the corrosion is not gone after 30 minutes, have the shaker professionaly refinished."

The following statements in your posts are factually incorrect 1 For example, silver chloride and silver sulphide salts are both insoluble in water, but if you add enough ammonia (as in cloudy ammonia) these insoluble salts will dissolve to form Ag2(NH3)4S and Ag(NH3)2Cl. 2 So in other words ammonia is enough to remove the tarnish from both silver and copper based alloys. 3 As far as the formation of complex ions goes, it is irrelevant how soluble the simple salt is to begin with, whether it is silver sulphide or silver chloride. 4 Ammonia would work at least as well as aodium bicarbonate if not better. 5 Silver carbonate is as insoluble as silver sulphide so I am dubious as to how effective it would be in removing tarnish anyway. 6 With ammonia, the silver ammino sulphide that is formed is completely soluble in water 7 For starters solid Al and insoluble Ag2S cannot chemically interact directly unless the Al was in the form of vapour. 8 Secondly, in preparation of this home made solution, the Al is already disolved in the bicarbonate solution before it is applied to the silver. 9 If this solution works then there is clearly some sort of ion substitution occuring between the Ag2S and the Na[Al(H2O)2(OH)4] 10 As far as I have ever known and according to this from Wikipedia there is NO distinguishing between the relative solubilities of silver halides - they are all regarded as insoluble period. 11 John it is utterly impossible for the aluminium foil or the aluminium saucpan to reduce the silver sulphide to silver metal. 12 The only way that can happen is if the reductant (aluminium) is in solution. 13 So reduction of silver sulphide is CLEARLY not the mechanism here. 14 The only way that could happen is if the Al is in the form of vapour at extremely high temperatures, no doubt enough to melt the silver. 15 As far as I can see the H2S would not be generated directly by the process anyway. 16 So even if the silver reduction part of that equation is valid in terms of an electrolytic process, the direct generation of H2S is not valid given that the electrolyte is alkaline. Since, as you said " I was not familiar with the process until it was brought up in here." perhaps you should have learned more and typed less. And, btw, I'm sure that anyone who reads this will come to their own conclusion about to whom the phrase " Sorry buddy but your chemistry is some what 'rusty'. applies."

Eugenics, Stop and think for a minute. You don't get new genes from nowhere. Are you going to accept that you are wrong, or are you just going to say something silly again?

"my thorium dioxide is 99.9995% pure, it is a VERY pure sample" I'm willing to bet that it isn't. They usually quote analyses like that on a "metals" basis. There's likely to be more than 5 ppm of water in it.

I'd like to ask IamJoseph a few simple questions. Do you accept that the reason that, for example, chihuahuas are different from Great Danes is that they were bred to be different? What do you think stops that sort of thing happening naturally, albeit with different pressures rather than mankind's fashion sense? Evolution isn't just an observed fact, it's inevitable. What would stop it? Thirdly, if you had a severe infection and someone found that the particular bacteria causing it were resistant to penicillin would you want to be treated with some other drug? If you want to take the drug that works, rather than to which the bacteria have evolved resistance, then you actually accept the truth of evolution. If you don't then, in at unfortunate circumstance, you would die.

Yes, that looks right. But I have to ask, have you ever heard of "spurious accuracy"? You have specified the number of moles to so many places of decimals that you seem to be counting about a millionth of a single atom. If your thorium oxide is 99.99% pure (which would be quite a high quality sample, then anything more than 5 digits is meaningless.

If your theory doesn't agree with the reality, it isn't reality which is wrong.

From WIKI Killer whales are the largest extant members of the dolphin family. Males typically range from 6 to 8 metres (20–26 ft) long and weigh in excess of 6 tonnes (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons).[41] Females are smaller, generally ranging from 5 to 7 metres (16–23 ft) and weighing about 3 to 4 tonnes (3.0 to 3.9 long tons; 3.3 to 4.4 short tons).[41] The largest male killer whale on record was 9.8 metres (32 ft), weighing over 10 tonnes (9.8 long tons; 11 short tons), while the largest female was 8.5 metres (28 ft), weighing 7.5 tonnes (7.4 long tons; 8.3 short tons).[42] Calves at birth weigh about 180 kilograms (400 lb) and are about 2.4 metres (7.9 ft) long.[43][44 And for the Great white Males reach maturity at 3.5–4.0 metres (11–13 ft) and females at 4.5–5.0 m (15–16 ft). Adults on average are 4–5.2 m (13–17.1 ft) long and have a mass of 680–1,100 kilograms (1,500–2,400 lb). Females are generally larger than males. It is widely accepted that the great white shark can reach 6.1 m (20 ft) in length and 1,900 kg (4,200 lb) in weight.[3] The maximum size is subject to debate because some reports are rough estimations or speculations performed under questionable circumstances.[17] A number of very large great white shark specimens have been recorded.[18] For decades, many ichthyological works as well as the Guinness Book of World Records listed two great white sharks as the largest individuals: A 10.9 m (36 ft) great white captured in Southern Australian waters near Port Fairy, in the 1870s, and a 11.3 m (37 ft) shark trapped in a herring weir in New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1930s. Some researchers question these measurements' reliability, noting they were much larger than any other accurately reported sighting. The New Brunswick shark may have been a misidentified basking shark as the two have similar body shapes. The question of the Port Fairy shark was settled in the 1970s when J. E. Randall examined the shark's jaws and "found that the Port Fairy shark was of the order of 5 m (17 ft) in length and suggested that a mistake had been made in the original record, in 1870, of the shark's length".[19] According to J. E. Randall, the largest white shark reliably measured was a 6.0 m (19.7 ft) individual reported from Ledge Point, Western Australia, in 1987.[19] Another great white specimen of similar size has been verified by the Canadian Shark Research Center: A female caught by David McKendrick of Alberton, Prince Edward Island, in August 1988 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off PEI. This female great white was 6.1 m (20 ft) long.[3] However, a larger great white shark specimen was verified by T. C. Tricas and J. E. McCosker in 1984. This specimen was 6.4 m (21 ft) long and had a body mass of about 3,324 kg (7,330 lb).[20] So the Orca is bigger but not enormously much bigger.

Yes.