John Cuthber

I'm intrigued by some of the things Eric5 writes. For example "Time is not being measured, oscillations are. Not all machines that are built to “measure” time use an oscillator. " This is true; a few other things have been used to verify time dilation such as the extended half life of subatomic particles whne they are traveling near the speed of light. These "clocks" agree with the "conventional" ones; time dilation happens, just the way relativity says it should. Eric5 seems to have gone to the trouble of pointing out more evidence against his claim-that's rather odd behaviour. He also says "If time is something more that a mere human consideration, then it must exist as some sort of energy , either energy that is flowing or moving, or energy that is condensed, as in the case of matter" Now, when I was at school the definition of energy was "the capacity to do work". Presumable in Eric 5's world there is no impending energy crisis because we can use time to heat our houses and run our cars. In this world it just looks like his understanding of energy is as shoddy as his grasp of relativity. He repeatedly asks for evidence, some of the available evidence is a bit highbrow- not easy for the layman to understand. The fact that GPS systems work with clocks that were deliberately set (on earth) to run at the wrong speed so that (in orbit) they will run correctly is pretty good evidence for most people. But I realise that he wasn't there to see the clocks being set so he's entitled not to believe it. I was particularly pleased to see that an amateur got a collection of second hand (no pun intended) atomic clocks and took them camping in the mountains. Then he took them back home and showed that they had gained an extra 22 ns just as predicted. A bloke with some spare cash, a van and a family that don't mind camping can verify special relativity. Surely it's time for Eric5 to believe in it.

I think that the real problem here is that Mr Bush doesn't understand that torture doesn't work. Whether or not this counts as a "black mark against the USA" or breaks international treaties isn't the point. He is condoning torture for no valid reason. If he is in a position to make decisions like that he really ought to check the facts before making them.

Coden 3, I see you say "I fear I will not be able to convince you that any alternative to the present dogmatic view of Earth’s formation and compositition should ever be considered. " It has been considered, at some length in this thread. It has been found to contradict the observable facts. It's time to ditch it. And I note you seem not to have answered my questions about the chemistry of hydrogen.

At the start of this thread NH4OH didn't exist, and it still doesn't now. As you have pointed out, the original project is done. That's why I think nobody's listening. "You seemed to have missed the essence of my argument since NH4OH represents (NH3+H2O). So if there are a lot of NH3 present in water, the concentration of NH3 + H2O would be high, and therefore the same would go for NH4OH" That simply isn't true; there's lots of water, lots of ammonia, not a lot of ammonium or hydroxide ions and even less undissociated ammonium hydroxide. Why call the stuff after the least common species present? In principle there must be some tiny concentration of H3O+ and NH2- present too. Is it sensible to refer to ammonia solution as hydroxonium amide? If not then calling it ammonium hydroxide doesn't make sense either. I'm not planning to tell all the books' publishers to change nor do I intend to lobby the universities. I will just wait for people to look on the wiki page which says "Thus, the term ammonium hydroxide is a misnomer". I think the pH of household ammonia is about 12 so the OH- concentration is about M/100 or a dozen or so miligrams per hundred ml, the NH4+ concentration will be about the same. Compare that to the 10 g or so of ammonia there. I don't think it makes sense to call the stuff ammonium hydroxide when that is only a small fraction of the material.

We are just fine. Thank you for asking. Please don't "SHOUT AT US IN Odd fonts" or unusual colours- it doesn't help. If someone here knows the answer and feels like answering you willl get a reply. If not, you won't. Offhand, I'm not sure how you would make collidine, but I'd probably look at wiki and such first. Perhaps I will think about it and post a more complete answer later.

I think the essense of the problem is that this "Most of the ammonia will exist as NH3 within the solution (Which is written as NH4OH rather then NH3+H20). Since the concentration of OH- is low" is a contradiction. There's a whole lot more ammonia there than OH so practically none of the NH3 is, in fact, present as NH4OH. Since practically no NH4OH is present, even as a dissociated species and even less is present as as such it's plain wrong to say that it is formed. This being a scientific forum I think many people would agree with me that putting stuff that's plain wrong is unhelpful. As for " most scientists and engineers would also refer to a solution of ammonia as NH4OH, ammonium hydroxide." The scientists I know would generally prefer to call a spade a spade accordingly they would call aqueous ammonia aqueous ammonia. Ammonia, per se is vastly more likely to react with a carbohydrate than the NH4 ion so the fact that some tiny fraction of the stuff gets protonated isn't important to the question in hand. I doubt that many sweets have significant concentrations of transition metals that would be complexed by ammonia. If you hadn't bothered to mention the (substantially irrelevant as well as non existent) NH4OH, not only would you have avoided your second verbose post, but your first one would have been shorter. If you want, I will debate the fact that the reaction NH3 + H+ can be studied in the gas phase; In that instance you can decide whether or not NH3 is a strong base and you don't need to involve NH4OH at all so the assertion "Since the concentration of OH- is low, ammonia is a weak base. " isn't generally true either but I doubt anyone is listening. In short please don't say stuff that's just plain wrong, even if, like references to NH4OH, it's a common mistake.

Boiling point, or melting?

"Ammonia is NH3, but if it is dissolved in water, it becomes NH4OH." Oh No it doesn't. Anyway, none of the acids or bases used is strong enough to affect sugar to any great extent. All of them are overwhelmingly water so there probably won't be much effect. I guess the bubbles in the sprite might make some difference.

The magnetron is likely to have the right frequency within a pretty tight specification. Assuming you can measure the distance between the melted bits reasonably well I can't see what other explanation for your result is possible apart from the fact that the speed of light is lower in chocolate than air.

"Hydrogen molecules can create intense heat [3200F] and water by exothermic reaction with oxides in crustal layers. " What oxides? For iron oxide (as an example) the reaction generally goes the other way; passing steam over hot iron produces hydrogen and iron oxide. For any element more reactive than iron (Al, Si, Mg, Ca etc) the story is even less likely. The reaction may be forced the other way at very high pressures so the idea isn't utterly absurd but I'd like some sort of evidence rather than being asked to take it on trust. It hardly matters anyway, Edtharan's point about density renders the idea "highly speculative". Oh, I almost forgot, the laws of thermodynamics would make the system about as stable as a baked Alaska.

#2 might technically be tricky (though I don't see why) but I'd include it in the answer anyway because it's the traditional way of doing things. Strictly, it gives the equivalent mass rather than the molar mass. Something like a freezing point depression measurement would give a rough value for the molar mass and you can use that, together with the equivalent mass to get the true molecular weight. An accurate molecular weight will probably give a very good idea what the compound is. #1 only works if the sample is pure, doesn't decompose on heating and is in the table when you look it up. If you do #2 properly you can get #3 "for free".

"How I can measure the fluorescence curve obtained from my machine?" "Lefthandedly" would be one possible, but completely unhelpful, answer. What curve? Absorbtion spectrum? quantum yeild vs temperature...?

"Our organisms characteristics do not make that possible " Please don't say things are impossible after someone has pointed out that they have been done. Odd as it may seem, it's likely that you could fly on the "high gravity" planet too. The atmosphere would be denser so the lift (and bouyancy) would be greater. Since (at least some very fit athletic) people can fly on earth "DIY flying" might be a useful tourist atraction for a heavy planet.

I used to think the logo was just rubbish until someone pointed out that it looked a bit like "Lisa Simpson performing an obscene act". Now I think its almost worth the cost (about $0.8 million. Yes, really, about £400000), just for the comedy value

"Searching google on [tetrahydrofuran methanol hypochlorite] points me towards the production of hexanitrostilbene (2,2',4,4',6,6'-hexanitrostilbene). " That's odd, because it looks to me like someone trying to make GHB- at best a recreational drug. I'm not commenting on the morallity of this, but runaway oxidations of organic compounds are a good way to get dead in a hurry. If you don't know the chemistry I think you should probably leave it to someone who does, or just leave it.

I predict major chaos and vast problems in 2012, because of this http://www.london2012.com/ The rest of the world wil probably be OK

Is there a competition for the weirdest and least plausible theory on this site? This thread seems to be a challenge to what I for one thought was the leading contender there. I'm sure many of you remember having a real laugh at the idea that nuclear explosions were a coonspiracy theory. http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29808&highlight=nuclear Now that theory just required a lot of people to be very gullible and a lot more people to be exceptionally good liars for half a century or so. This one about the earth being full of supercold hydrogen not only strains belief on the "surely someone would have noticed" front, but it also drives a coach and horses through the laws of thermodynamics. Are there any other contenders for this "honour" that I have missed?

"And if I do? Do you dispute the law of cause and effect?" Yes. I say that, while some people might be uncomfortable with it, nuclear decay is truly random. Pinning it on quantum fluctuations lending the energy to the nucleus to get it to decay just moves the random bit from the nucleus to empty space. The other interpretation is that it is "caused by empty space" ie by nothing. It has no cause. God plays dice.

"It isn't the circumstances of the outside world that affect it, but the circumstances inside the nucleus that cause the weak interaction." Fair enough, what are they (I have a feeling I asked that before)? (Incidentally, if God doesn't exist then the problem of causing Him goes away.)

"The electroweak interaction only happens during certain circumstances." What circumstances? (And how does the nucleus "sample" the external world to find out if these circumstances apply?) Anyway, I'm still waiting for someone to explain what caused God. If the theists are permitted an uncaused God that breaches the laws of cause and effect (but without having to produce any evidence for Him) then I don't see why I can't say that the big bang has no cause. Perhaps it was similar to (albeit unimaginably bigger and longer lasting than ) the real observable popping into existence of particles. The Casimir effect shows us that things flit into existence briefly. The spontaneous, uncaused, existence of particles is a real property of the universe. All it takes is one phenomenally large example and you have a big bang. Putting God into this just adds to the difficulty. It's easier to come up with a big bang than a thinking, deliberately acting, God; just look at the relative complexity of the 2 ideas.

Just for the record and as a clue as to the overall plausibility of this idea. When asked to come up with one simple paragraph that explained the (strange) idea that the middle would stay colder than the outside notwithstanding the laws of physics the proponent started with "All heat pump cycles work by compression and decompression. " Simply flat wrong, ask anyone using a Peltier cooler. BTW, hydrogen has a really anoying habit of leaking out of containers because the molecules are small. The idea that it's just sat there in the middle of the earth is untennable.

The question looks OK to me. With the tube horizontal the air column is at one atmosphere and is 50mm long. With the sealed end downwards the mercury squashes the air to 45mm long so the pressure must have risen to 50/45 atmospheres when you added the pressure due to the mercury.

OK, what's the cause; why does a particular atom fall apart at some particular time?

"That would be the Law of Cause and Effect. It's even good enough for philosophers." Possibly, but it isn't actually true in this case.

"why worry about a virus in africa?" Because it's about 8 hours away by airplane. I hope that was a rhetorical question.