Mr Intron

The European space research and technology center have made a competition for european university students, to propose experiments that could be made at the international space station. The reason that I'm not writing in the astronomy-forum is that the experiments is encouraged to be made in a wide variety of fields. I think its a very interresting topic... does anybody in here have some good ideas?

I have a related question. When I turn off my computer, my monitor goes on stand-by. Does turning it completely off every time, decrease its living-time?

... hmm, nobody want to give it a shot?

I know that entropy is a measure of molecular disorder of a system. But how come that two different molecules have two different entropy-values? Example: The entropy of Hydrogen H2(g) = 131 J/(K·mol); Helium He(g) = 126 J/(K·mol); Fluorine F2(g) = 203 J/(K·mol); ... and so on. (Standard values at 298K and 1atm) For me it would seem that the only factors (at inducing "randomness") to take into consideration would be size and #atoms/bonds in the molecule, but I can't seem to pick a trend... Anybody can help me here, I have some guesses myself....????

It is possible to provide pictures of individual atoms on, or in surfaces. With the help of an atomic force microscope. It uses a technique called scanning prope, that also makes it possible to arrange atoms. (Some of you might remember the famous IBM drawing) To follow the terminology in this thread, I´d say it's equally valid to say that atoms exist as the table you´re sitting at exists.

frequency · wavelength = c Where speed of light is constant (although depending on the medium). Which means a higher frequency gives rise to a shorter wavelength.

A lot of stuff can happen. The photon can be Scattered -e.g. The colors we see depends on the wavelength of the scattered photons. Absorbed -Vibrational/rotational energy, excite elecron, etc. (heat) Give rise to pair production (photon materializes into an electron and a positron, high energy only) And probably a bunch of other, more exotic interactions. I think the key words you are looking for is absorbed or scattered.

As I remember, its not a problem travelling with the speed of light if you´re mass-less (photons). The problem lies in accelerating a body with a mass to c. As you approach the limit c, your mass goes to infinity, meaning that your momentum and energy goes to infinity as well (which of course is impossible). And yes... this is sadly one of the occasions that the friendly "1/0 = inf" doesn´t work