DrP

I would guess it would mean different things to different people... There is also inner joy, which I think is a different thing. I was going to ask if your definition was contentment... but you can be content without inner peace I suppose. I would guess that it would have something to do with being content. I would not want to be so practiced at being content with my situation and having inner peace that I lost all feeling. Grief, for example, needs to be experienced and worked though and I cannot think how you could keep a level inner peace whilst freshly grieving. I suspect your definition might stem from your experience with Buddhism? Have you ever experienced multi emotions at once... both joy and sorrow simultaneously? It is a powerful mixture of emotions when you have extreme grief but you keep your joy at full tilt too.

0.02% by weight is easy.. Weigh 0.02g of the powder for every 99.98g of the glycol. By volume you will need to include the densities. If you need the percentage to be molar then you will need the molecular weight of the chemical you are dissolving and Avogadro's number. Convert it all to moles and work out the ratios you need from there. - Same - 0.02 moles per 99.98 of the glycol. If you are formulating a lotion, where you don't need exact molar ratios because there are no chemical reactions taking place, then I would just work with masses - it is easier and quicker. For weighing out 1 L you just measure the density of the final product and work out how much you need to weight out to get 1 L. I hope this helps.. it depends on what you are exactly trying to achieve.

Fish has an exact definition.. A shark IS a fish by definition. A fish is NOT a shark by definition. That first pic looks like a Dunkleosteus. It's prehistoric and had no teeth - its jaw bones extended into cutting plates beyond the flesh of its mouth... a bit like teeth (convergent evolution). The second looks like a gator gar and I do not know what the 3rd specimen is though. There are over 15000 species of fish. All the examples you gave have fins, gills, a tail, big teeth or bones shaped like teeth. I confessed earlier that I maybe hadn't thought the statement through enough and that it was very speculative. It would depend on the environments we find, how many extinction events, how the early life started, how long ago it started, what other evolutionary drivers were in place over millions of years on the planet and many many other factors as to what shape life is on other planets... Of course it was wild speculation to say we might find a shark. Maybe I should have said fish... it is gives a broader range... but swimming predator things? Why not.... unless the giant jelly creatures eat them first. Maybe I am not the best person to accurately predict what life will be like on other planets - I am no evolutionary expert at all by self admission. No one can say what life will look like when/if we find it. I still think fish like beings likely... I could be wrong - I admit it is speculation and maybe not that thought out. Starfish, being invertebrates are not fish, no. Cuttlefish are, I think, cephlopds not fish but I could be wrong.

I am sorry, but when I first read this I was reminded of Father Ted explaining the size of cows to Father Dougal.

I saw the thread title and logged in to say borosilicate.. I remember someone mentioned glass and I thought that borosilicate glass would be the best... although re-reading the OP it is for an ashtray... so you can get away with a lot of different materials for that.

I used to have contacts at my old uni who I reckon would have slipped the odd NMR through on the quite for me... I might still be able to wangle that, but they are more likely to charge me £60 nowadays as they know I work in industry. I think I got quoted £30 in the past... I know they put it up to £60.00, but it could be even higher now.... For something personal and speculative I would try the gift of the gab and see if you can't blag a one off run for free, lol. Worth a try and could be an exercise in charisma.... of which I am sure you have plenty. Good luck. PS - of course IR spec might be easier and will also give structural info... It will be cheaper too maybe... but you don't get much cheaper than free.

Don't suppose you can give some to someone to run an NMR? That's the best polymer id technique I remember. I first thought either PVC (for similar reasons stated above) or just polyethylene if the sodium salts out with the chlorine and water in dehydration... idk . Looking at the physical properties of the polymer though might not help as you do not know how far cross linked it is or what the MW is.. these things can effect the hardness etc. NMR would tell you straight away (sorry if that doesn't help as you would probably have done this had you had access to one).

It is a fish though. One of many types of fish I'll give you, but it is still a fish. When I say we might find sharks (speculation from my backside aside) I mean that we might find big fish shaped predator things with big teeth that eat anything that moves. Why not? It an optimised shape for swimming - like the other 15000 or so species of fish that are around in the seas. It would have to eat and the most vicious with the biggest hardest teeth would evolve through surely? I'm not saying it would be the only thing we find or exactly like a shark even - if life as complex as something akin to a shark or a big predator fish evolved then there probably would be a huge variety of diverse life on that same planet. Saying this - If some of the early earth catastrophic evens had not taken place to whip out some earlier life forms then maybe something else would have dominated - but sharks have been the apex marine predators in the seas for hundreds of millions of years.

They can't... they don't.

.You are probably right. An ichthyosaur, a dolphin and a marlin or tuna are all fish shaped though, even though one is a fish one is a reptile and one is a mammal. Convergent evolution in a marine environment. Perhaps I am reading too much into the fact that they are all vertebrates and marine animals though. There is a wide diversity of other life forms. The whole evolutionary process is probably so sensitive anyway - it took billions of years for the early life to form and anything could have popped up. Who knows what would have happened without the mass extinction events or if the earliest micro organisms had formed slightly differently. Convergent evolution though suggests that similar advantages might have been selected though. Sorry I am waffling again - thus my edit... I wrote several paragraphs of speculative waffle which didn't really go anywhere and I am no expert so I cut it. There is such a wide variety of life forms that have evolved that it would be hard to speculate on what would be most likely if anything at all. Would be interesting to know what would have happened to the dominant early life forms if catastrophic extinction causing events hadn't wiped them out. They would have had a lot longer to evolve than us and may have ended up far more advanced/intelligent if they had avoided extinction from things beyond their control. Maybe we are as advanced as we are because the larger more violent species were wiped out. We may not have had a chance otherwise. Who knows?

Synchronised posting... I'd give you +1 for the statement... but it is exactly my point and being honest, I do not know if I am right or not. We could easily be wrong, but until we know more about life elsewhere off planet then we won't know I suppose - seems likely though to me that there would be fish like creatures elsewhere. Humans are a bit special though due to our specific earth history.

Humans, I agree with. I'm not so sure about the shark though. It wouldn't be a shark exactly but shark like. If there is water then best shapes for swimming are for that of the sharks, fish and dolphins... we have seen convergent evolution happen before on earth - the ichthyosaur and the dolphin for example. Sharks have been around for millions of years have changed very little (Other than in size... and probably a few other things) - they are pretty optimised for their environment, so I would expect to see the same result of optimisation through evolution anywhere in the universe where there are similar conditions to here to yield shark like creatures. I agree though - humans are more complex -much more complex and a series of certain events and extinctions had to take place to allow the small mammals to evolve safely. They wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. The fish though... they became what they did a long time ago and given similar environments I would expect fish like creatures. Who knows what would evolve on a planet similar to earth... dinosaurs I suppose? It would depend on the number of mass extinctions and the requirements of life on the individual planet as you pointed out.

haha - no - I'll eat it if they come here to earth in space ships full of water. I still think we will find sharks somewhere else.... maybe not in our lifetime though. Most people assume that from my boyish good looks... but I am older than that, lol.

Not that I am aware of - sorry if I gave the impression that it was the case - it was my very own straw man I built to hit about. I was just saying that the word retarded has other meanings beside the out of date medical term and the word should not be discarded due to the over sensitivity of the PC brigade who might only know of one use of it. but there was no insult - that would be their own misinterpretation of the word. How will they learn if their error is not pointed out? Who told them it was offensive anyway? I do not think that fair at all and I despise the very thought of holding back society because a very small few do not understand basic language which is clearly laid out in any dictionary worth more than £5.00 or free on the internet. My cynicism level regarding the ability of the human race to survive is increasing daily. Although, I have already said that I will try not to use the word when describing views and laws on here. I hate using a sentence though when 1 word sums it up plainly. How would you describe the law I was discussing? This is how things like Brexit and Trump happen - *you preach to the converted and let true offenders go about their business or ignore them or label them as a lost cause. Get out of your information bubbles and talk to some working class people. Vote in a party that will spend money on education for the masses not just the rich so everyone knows what you are talking about. *you here does not mean 'you' outrider - it is a generic rant towards the left wing and libs... of which I am probably one well and truly now and have been sometime but haven't always been. Talk to the people that use the term Libtard! They are the ones you need to convince.

Yea - but that was less so - at least they were not literally fish people like they were in Star Trek, lol. They lived above the water in cities built on stilts. Who knows if they were native to that planet or not. The Aquatic Xindi had to swim about in fish tanks built into their space ships... it was totally ridiculous. (*Dr P eats his hat when our first alien contact on earth turns out to be with fish people from outer space). and if you are really lucky they will land on Uranus. ;-) lol

My point is that some people use it to indicate a person of dark skin (not me I hasten to add). I think it is wrong and offensive.... should we ban the word when talking about the digging implement because it has another meaning? If a view or a law is backward and held back by some stupidity then it has been held back by that stupidity... why should the word not be used in this concept where it causes no offence except to people that don't understand that words have multiple meanings? Surely it is better to educate the offended person as to the context of the word which carries no offence?

I'd tell the parents.. although the scenario is quite ambiguous and I'm not sure it is ideal at describing the situation. I will try not to use the word in future (on here anyway) - although I despair at the PCs gone too far when you can't call a spade a spade but have to resort to calling it a manually operated mechanical earth moving implement. One last time though - the law that allowed people to rape their spouses that was only abolished 20 years ago was totally backwardly regressive, held back by religious definition of marriage, totally offensive to my being. By very definition of the word (NOT the mental definition, but the definition that means held back) it WAS retarded. And I won't apologise for saying so. Also - the situation with the girl on the mountain was totally ridiculous and the PM of that country should rethink how he wants to portray his nations intellect to the rest of the world. The poor young girl was imprisoned and must have been terrified. Despite her lack of respect (although I am sure it wasn't made clear to her that she would go to prison for taking selfies on the mountain peak) she did not deserve imprisonment. I still think that describing their beliefs the way I did as an accurate use of the word with no relevance to mental retardation what so ever.

Fair enough - although I still cringe in embarrassment for the Malaysian people who have been portrayed by their prime minister as backward superstitious tribes people. I am angry that the poor young girl from my country was imprisoned for weeks in a foreign jail being threatened with a life of imprisonment due to their 'out of date and superstitious' beliefs. Seriously - I am glad I am not PM or I'd have sent in the SAS to rescue her. Announcing to the world that you believe the mountain spirits caused the quake due to the actions of a teenage girl is totally embarrassing in this day and age and I, personally, believe they should be ridiculed for this into rethinking their superstition. so tell me MigL.... how can a law or an idea be insulted or offended? Or were you not including my use of the word as a verb in your statement here?

I have often thought that the first life forms we encounter on another planet would be / could be sharks or marine life - sharks in particular. Sharks dominated our oceans for millions of years and are still the apex predators in the seas. We see many cases of convergent evolution here on our own planet, so I would assume that sea creatures on other planets would evolve in a similar fashion to life here. I think there would be animals that are similar to our shark on a life filled aquatic world. yea, early life evolutionary drivers for marine life would favour things like gills and fins and tails and other things that promote strength for survival in a marine environment. Even if they then become intelligent it is hard to see how their bodies would evolve the fingers or limbs necessary to develop technology. There was an intelligent aquatic race of Xindi in the Star Trek Enterprise series... I always though it a little far fetched, even for Star Trek, lol.

Looks like his dictionary only defines the noun and not the verb. ...also, is it the case that it is more offensive in the US rather than the UK? I don't think it is acceptable to call anyone a retard, but the word is just a normal word when used as a verb. I still support that it is correct to call an idea or a thought retarded... (not the person). I had a post deleted the other year when I said that the VIEWS of the Malaysian government were retarded when they imprisoned a British girl for taking a topless selfie on a mountain. There was an earthquake a short time after and they blamed her actions for the earthquake. They said she upset the mountain spirits and they caused the earthquake. I did not say that the Malaysian PM was retarded... of course not. I said that his BELIEF that the photo and the girls actions could anger the spirits that then sent the earthquake was retarded. Does anyone feel that these views are not retarded by our current understanding of the world? Does anyone still think that I am using the word with offence towards the mentally ill? It is not the case - read the dictionary. The view taken by the Malaysian PM was hundreds of years behind the times... it was by very definition of the word - retarded. No offence or relevance even to mental retardation at all.

Maybe he got his definition of the word from google or a cheap dictionary that only defines the mental health description of the word. Maybe the OP should purchase a better dictionary... the Oxford and the Cambridge dictionaries I have read seem to do a good job of giving all and multiple definitions/meanings of words. None of them are perfect... the full sized ones come in volumes like an encyclopedia, but I find the cheap ones unsuitable for defining words for intelligent debate.

At work we use a cellulose thickener in our products. To slow the thickening process we use a retarded grade. It has a dissolvable coating that slows the process to better incorporate the additive and it makes for easier mixing. It is advertised as a retarded grade. It's not wrong, it is just a word that describes something that is held back. In the context I used the word I was describing a law that had been held back... presumably by the religious definition of marriage. I don't know. In this context, imo, it was religion that retarded the law. It has nothing to do with mental health in this context and is just a word in the English language.

I used it to describe a law not a person. Mental disability was not implied and it was aimed at no person. But I hear you. I find the law I was describing, which was changed 20 years ago thankful, pretty offensive and so far out of date I do not know how else to describe it.

er, ok - as far as I can see he has not had a single red mark this thread (unless much earlier on that I missed)... he was defending the others and suggesting their red marks were unjust... to which I refer you to the post by Ten Oz again, which clearly explain why they have been receiving them from many different readers.

Did you read this post of Ten Oz's? Of course you didn't or you wouldn't have said what you said, sorry. So far in this thread I have issued 1 red mark (maybe 2)... so the red marks are coming from many different readers and probably for different reasons - read Ten Oz's post above that you missed.