Phi for All

Absolutely. In some cases, heat treating is essential to the application.

I've always heard that trying to heat-treat titanium to take a good enough edge for a sword or knife made it too brittle to be effective.

Well, if you're talking about the Keystone Pipeline, there are some issues that came out after approval was given. It turns out the Texas-based environmental assessment company that gave the green light had a financial interest in the pipeline's approval. Cornell University did a separate study and found that only a fraction of the promised jobs would actually happen. Much of the opposition is from Canada, because they would actually lose more jobs to the US. The opposition from the US came from an unlikely source, the mostly Republican Nebraska farmers who didn't want the pipeline going anywhere near the Ogallala aquifer. President Obama announced that they'd have to reroute around the sensitive areas, and the Republicans are using this to slam him as being against job creation, and the whole thing is getting tabled until after the election next year. Honestly, I wish Obama would stand up and call the Republicans on this crap and point out that the greatest opposition comes from part of the Republican base. He did the same thing with the debt ceiling, refusing to bring it to the public's attention that the Republicans had happily approved Bush's raising of the debt ceiling FIVE TIMES, but refused Obama's request, caused us to lose credit rating, and then, you guessed it, blamed Obama for the whole thing. Obama's desire to not burden the public with political snarls and leave it to the "professional politicians" is his biggest failing, imo. We've talked about this before. Oz still has a realistic understanding of what "conservative" means. In the US, the mega-corporate political lobbies have spent huge amounts of capital to equate conservatism with patriotism (at any cost), free market business (at any cost), and anything that's NOT what the Democrats think is important (at any cost). It's led to some very strange and warped interpretations of the Republican platform that Eisenhower had helped to make a respected stance. The crazy has them now, and the corporations can spin them like tops, always to the "right", of course. I've always said that third world countries don't need more electricity, they need more efficient appliances. If we spent a tenth of what it would cost for hydro-electric dams and gave every household on the grid a modern refrigerator and a washing machine, we'd solve their power problems AND gain the trust and admiration of the populace.

Thanks, good catch. Now that's what I consider to be a good, conservative reply. For too long, corporations have tried to conflate free market economics and deregulation with being conservative. Doing the smart thing, doing the right thing is not giving huge corporations carte blanche with respect to our safety and environment. When it comes to emissions and their affect on climate, why is it NOT conservative to want to do the right thing?

No, completely different in the approach to survival. Where is the person starting from? How is the person reaching such speeds before hitting the ground? This is more of an engineering or physics problem, not a chemistry thang. Which section would you prefer to move to?

I guess we just need to agree to disagree with you disagreeing.

I disagree. If anything, a regulation requiring cost-benefit analyses or safety-testing before a new product is sold to the public actually employs more people, since someone has to do the testing or analysis compliance. Remove the regs and you lose those compliance jobs too. What you actually have here are corporations who know a product will sell for x under current regulatory cost models. If they can make the regulations go away, claiming it will create more jobs, they can save the regulatory costs and treat it as profit. These are the same corporations who promised job creation if the Bush tax cuts were extended. You haven't forgotten that little lie, have you? How well did THAT work out for us?

Another idea is to create a multilayered material that has it's softest layer on the outside and gets progressively harder, with the aim at slowing whatever is trying to get through it. Of course, nothing is going to stop an object with more mass that's traveling at the speed of an F-15. You could be wrapped in 2 tons of titanium but if a 22 ton F-15 hits you at Mach 2.5, I don't think you'll survive.

I don't think that's a conservative stance, I think it's a corporate one. Regulation eats into profit, but it also usually represents the best balance of efficiency and safety. Corporations want to shave every fraction of a percent they can from operating costs. A true conservative appreciates spending the right amount of resources on doing something safely rather than underestimating and having huge expenses when something goes wrong. It should be obvious to everyone by now that non-sustainable policies are, again, the cheap workhorse for corporate short-sightedness. Saving the world is only expensive when it's opposed by those who want their money quickly, at the expense of those who come after. Everyone I see who is opposed to AGW always suggests that correction will be too expensive, and they always overlook the fact that if everyone were to get behind it, it would be half as expensive as they're leading everyone to think it will be. @ the OP, I think a world full of any one type of people would be horrible. If everyone was a scientist, the music would probably suck, the fiction would be boring and the architecture would all be right angles.

The problem you run into when you want to make something "strong" is that the harder the material, usually the more brittle it is. Titanium is incredibly strong and hard but it would make a very brittle sword that would shatter more easily than simple carbon steel. It also really depends on why you want the item to be strong. Is it so it can withstand the most impact? The most weight? Are you making a hammer or a bridge? When you say indestructible, does that include high temperatures or corrosion, or just impact?

What's really stupid is, in the US right now, the two party system we've got is so evenly split that most of what one party does is opposed by the other party, even if it's a good idea. All the good that gets done by one side is unraveled by the other side as soon as they can. And it doesn't help that the Republicans are trying to woo the average Joe by making science and intellectuals out to be untrustworthy. I can understand the motivation to undermine public education so they can privatize it, but they're actually dumbing down the populace with this campaign against anything that requires study and rigor.

Dark brown eyes do seem to be dominant in southern European whites, where lighter colors dominate in the more northern regions. How long has your family been in the area? Is there any southern European or possibly Semitic ancestry present? Here's a study that was done claiming to be able to predict brown and blue eye color from a minimum amount of genes. Not sure if that helps to trace backwards, though.

! Moderator Note Sorry Leonardo maia, if this is the only reason you joined, you'll have to look elsewhere. We're not here to advertise for you. If you would like to stay and discuss science, you are more than welcome. After 30 posts, you can even create a blog here, which may give you even better exposure. But it's our policy not to let new members link to outside sites. We get too many spammers to allow it. I hope you stay, and I hope you participate, and I hope you create a blog here.

Very well said, thank you. I'm really grateful that you've taken the time, immortal. Your POV in this thread has been an insightful counterpoint to PeterJ's absolutist, mind-reading, condescending, mumbo-jumbo approach. You've kept this thread interesting and you 've done it without insult and derision. Thanks again.

Very true. I worry that we'll have another "Patriot Act" type legislation railroaded across our liberties in the name of economic stability. Inevitable problems with manufactured solutions are the only conspiracies I truly believe in these days. Many people in power see these times of crisis as big opportunities as well.

OK, obviously trying to boost traffic to the SJC YouTube portfolio. Can't seem to get enough attention. Closing the thread temporarily while I confer with staff members who aren't involved.

The beginning of a downfall AND an oppurtunity for change, imo. Much of the world is starting to see the failure of their leadership, the corruption of values they hold that have nothing to do with organized efforts to make them afraid to live, and the stupidity of continued aggression among a species that gains its true power from cooperation and communication. As long as we remember that we hold more power together, I think we'll turn this crisis into an opportunity. We need to avoid drastic measures and not let fear guide our actions.

No sir, that won't cut it. You're the one making the extraordinary claim. If we have questions, it's up to you to answer them. The burden of proof is on you. It's now possible to gain some clarity since you're answering us, and for that I wanted to say thanks. But make no mistake, there is so much evidence to support the concept of a spherical earth that you'll need to refute that I think it's going to try your patience to a great degree. If you think that's laborious then why did you posit such an idea on a science forum?

I just want to devote a whole post to saying thank you, Steve Christopher, for taking the time to answer some of these questions we've had. Regardless of what we think initially of your hypothesis, your honest answers are sincerely appreciated.

How does any satellite work? They're all built to orbit at certain distances, the lowest of which goes out to 1240 miles. Telecommunications, weather tracking, television, space telescopes, these all seem to support the Orbiting a Round Earth hypothesis. If not, how are companies and governments spending billions of dollars and accomplishing these technological feats with equipment designed incorrectly?

People (myself included) often post things that need correction, because NOT correcting them lends a sort of tacit support, especially on a science forum. Replying to every sentence is supposed to show support, clarification and rebuttal where it's appropriately due, though I admit it can often seem tedious. Sometimes we need to let people know that ALL the battles are worth fighting if they're posting trollish garbage. As for Mods swarming when blood hits the water, imo it's only occasionally an overreaction. Sometimes we just want a poster or two to know they can't get away with crap, and sometimes it's just because we're all interested. And much of the time it's because someone used the Report Post feature and we're just trying to do our jobs. I should note that when we're actually posting in a thread, we don't use any Moderator functions, other than to point out the rules, which anyone is free to do, short of threatening enforcement. We try to have a Mod who isn't involved be the arbiter if there is even a hint of an interest conflict.

Nothing but threats and personal attacks, no answers, no explanations, no evidence. Is this how knowledge is gained? Really?! It's like the ghost of Kim Jong-Il has come back to haunt us. "Accept my outrageous claims and ask no questions, you unwise tardos!"

So... we're just supposed to accept an idea you won't answer our questions about? How is that "wise"?

You're forgiven. Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. "Young woman" doesn't equal "virgin", especially if she's conceiving and bearing a son (Hebrew text available here). Micah 5:2 Therefore will He give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth; then the residue of his brethren shall return with the children of Israel. Seems pretty vague to me. "Birthplace" should be more specific than "country". Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto Me because they have thrust him through; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. "Thrust him through" does NOT equal "pierced in the side". The Greek word plvra, or pleura, used only, out of all the Gospels, in John 19:34, describes a lateral stab to the ribs that brings forth water and blood from a single wound, not a double wound as would happen if he were "thrust through". There are many discrepancies with Biblical prophecies. That's why your source goes to great length to mention how astronomically improbable fulfilling all of them is: Did you notice how they slipped in the "modern science" with one hand while the other was waving to distract you from the fact that they just got you to accept their numbers without actually reading any of the scriptures for accuracy? This is a logical fallacy called Begging the Question. Their argument's premise already assumes their conclusions are true.