CaptainPanic

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You should know that what happens in that movie is not 'mixing'. For mixing, you need turbulence (little vortices), and the movie shows (nearly) perfect laminar flow. They use a liquid with a high viscosity: it is easier to avoid turbulence in such a liquid. Laminar flow is comparable to what happens if you take a phone book, and bend it. The pages will slide over each other a bit. Bend it back, and all the pages will end up exactly how they started. [edit] Or, you could choose to keep bending it further. Whatever you do, page 9 will always come after 8. The fact that the pages don't mix is laminar flow. Turbulence is the equivalent of shredding the book, and tossing it all up into the air.

Meh, The Londoners built a penis on top of a church too. Wikipedia says so.

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No, no, no! Even if I can only see your 12 point Arial, it would be better if you have boobs. Just my 2 cents. I may agree with that. I wonder if the ratio of men/women here says something about science in general, or merely about online science forums. It is one thing to be a scientist. It is something else altogether to enjoy anonymous online bickering about science.

Although we are a scienceforum, we are also a community. And you basically get reputation for good scientific contributions, and/or for being a nice member of our community. So, yes, it is probably true that a part of the reputation system is a 'popularity contest'. And no, I do not see any problems with that. [edit] Hmm... posting after a thread was closed... Mod powers rule.

It is quite shocking to read the extent of this fake peer-reviewed journals. In certain cases, an educated scientist must be able to find out whether an article is flawed or not, but not always. It is worrying that the mainstream publishers (for me the most important is Elsevier) actually own some of these useless papers - which means that those rubbish results will also show up in their search engines! I think that publishers of scientific articles should be non-profit institutes. Not state-owned, but just an independent institute without that desire for profit. Unfortunately, in addition to these journals that will practically publish anything, there is a second trend that is just as worrying (in my opinion). Renowned institutes have targets for professors and students to publish. So, even when a research has essentially failed to yield publishable results (which happens quite often), the research group is pressured to produce something that can be published. This means that sometimes conclusions are extrapolated or a subsection of the research is inflated to become the main issue. And if the research was successful, it is not uncommon for research groups to attempt to cut up the research into smaller chunks, just to increase the number of publications.

I'd rather be on Mars. I think it would be nice to have a bit of gravity. If someone would be really serious about building a dome around a planet to contain an atmosphere, I would advise to start way smaller: a large asteroid (10 km diameter) would already be a huge project. It's nice to dream though. But I think that articles (and threads) like this are nothing more than dreams.

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Yeah, or worse... it could be that someone meant 1 kg liquid with 4 kg solvent. If the density of both liquids are not the same, the actual concentration is different than in your example! So, if you express a percentage, make sure to say whether it is a weight-percentage (%wt) or a volume percentage (%vol), or a molar percentage (%mol).

Units in chemistry? You mean something like this: kg (amount of matter, in mass) mol (amount of matter, in moles) J/kgK (specific heat) J/kg (enthalpy) Angstrom (length, bond length) Celsius or Kelvin (temperature) The list can become quite long... Without math (or numbers), units are quite meaningless. And likewise, without units, you don't know what you're counting.

This is where I disagree with you. The anger is both broad and deep, it just hasn't really expressed itself yet. I'm not sure how (or even if) it will manifest, but people are angry. Likely, it will not present itself until the next round of elections, though. Right, so for an outsider like myself it is barely visible as it is just simmering under the surface. From my outsider's perspective, I guess I expected some more expressions of anger. Still, thanks for the reply. Especially the first bit about the costs to the economy of the Shut Down is interesting.

The majority has been mocking the minorities since... since always? If you are the outsider in just about any group of people, the rest of the group will either mock you, prosecute you, bully you or ridicule you. If you are the only one drinking juice, while the rest of your friends drink beer, you're a weakling. But if you are the only one drinking beer, while the rest has juice, you will be branded an alcoholic. If you own a car among people without a car, you're a polluter, but if you have no car among people who all have one, you're a tree hugger. The list goes on and on. If you are different than the rest, the majority will surely rub it in. If you are really tired of being ridiculed, you have 2 options: (1) find other friends who also could not care less about Hollywood or pop culture, or (2) watch that crap. (Please note, there may be a 3rd, 4th, etc. option, but I want to keep thing simple here). Also, think deeply now... don't you ever ridicule someone else who is in any way different than you and some other people around you? It is quite likely that you participate in this behavior when you are part of the majority. It's only human.

One of the problems perhaps is that very few scientists publish failed research... this solar cycle research is one of the few exceptions, because the work was used to make predictions for the future that were verifiable in the relative near future. Far enough into the future that they would publish before they could check the results, and near enough that the same researchers were still working and could admit their mistakes. Other fields of research either make predictions which can be verified quicker - and if the predictions are wrong, they will not get published. Or we only find out mistakes decades or centuries later, in which case it is a new generation of scientists who publish the improvements.

Guys, the discussion is not about the wages of government workers, is it? I don't think that the wages of anyone is relevant to why and how the shut down happened? I am still very much stuck in a total misunderstanding of how the USA works. In my opinion, this shut down is a very huge event. But the American media seem to be far more worried about the political implications than about the very practical every-day implications. And it also surprises me that I read very little anger with the politicians who caused it. The anger is similar to any other political debate - just some general disagreements. So, the US are able to send 800,000 government workers home, which means that 800,000 people will somehow have to catch up with the work they were supposed to do these days, and bills may not get paid, services are unavailable... And it even may cause commercial parties to have problems too... The effects of the shut down must be felt everywhere. (Right?) And yet the media seem more worried about whether Boehner and the Tea Party will be friends or not... whereas I think that the discussion should be whether you want these idiots as your government in the first place? So, why are Americans not more outraged? Why are elections not an option? Is it because the effects are much smaller than I think? Or because Americans just don't see any feasible alternatives to this government?

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Dear all, I am curious about the consequences of the US government shut down. So, can you all please add some very concrete things that were shut down? The NY Times listed a number already. 1. At NASA, 97% of the employees must go home. Only the essential employees for the current ongoing missions are working. 2. National parks and museums are closed. (That must suck if you want to do some tourism)... 3. Here's one from the Netherlands: The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial is closed (source in Dutch), and it graves are no longer maintained. It is the final resting place of over 8000 American soldiers who died in World War II. If the grass grows too high, the situation will be re-evaluated but until then, the cemetery remains closed.

The US government has shut down, because the only two political parties both could not back down enough to reach a compromise. As a result, nearly a million people are not going to work today. The 'shut down' may last a while. The previous one in 1995-1996 lasted 28 days. The Republicans (and Democrats?) publicly included the healthcare reform in the discussion about the budget, whereas to me it seems these are two separate discussions. I know that politicians try to reach all kinds of compromises, and that negotiations mean that one party gets its way on one issue, and the other party gets its way on another issue. Or, sometimes, a compromise can be reached. But to attach the biggest and most important political issue (Obamacare) to this negotiation? As an item, for both parties it is 'too big to fail', so they will rather risk international embarrassment, and a shut down of nearly a million jobs. To me, that is just insane. It was a guarantee that this negotiation would fail from the beginning, and I think that whoever put the healthcare reforms on the same agenda as the budget for the government is responsible for this shut down. On this forum, such behavior might be considered a thread-hijack, and would lead to suspension and eventually a ban. From where I am sitting, in the Netherlands, this whole situation sounds like the US political system has some inherent design flaws. Our government negotiates over changes in the budget. If my government fails to reach a compromise, nothing changes (and nothing will be shut down). And this failure to reach a compromise would nearly always result in new elections for parliament, and therefore in a new government. Why can't democracy do its job in the USA? Allow the people to vote for new members of the house of representatives and the senate, and see if they can reach a conclusion in whatever new composition they will be in after elections.

imatfaal gave a perfectly normal reply, and you should give the Khan academy a look, if you really want to learn how to add a number to another number which has an exponent. It's just a website which has a lot of exercises for people who want to learn math! Not much of your 2nd post makes much sense to me, sorry.

A person who does not walk has only an top surface that will get wet (essentially the head and shoulders). A person who is walking, will have a top and a frontal surface (now also including legs, chest and arms). The horizontal umbrella will cast a maximum 'shadow' over the horizontal surface area, but will cast a rather poor 'shadow' over the vertical areas. As the speed increases, the amount of rain that a person will catch with the vertical surface areas will increase. And therefore you must attempt to increase the overall surface area, which you will achieve by holding the umbrella at an angle. Which angle was explained in my previous post.

You should take the person as the stationary reference point and calculate the angle of the rain in relation to that reference point. Then hold the umbrella at that angle right over the part of the body that you wish to keep dry (in many cases you cannot keep the whole body dry).

You don't want to build a solar panel (you don't have the equipment, you will never reach any reasonable efficiency - sorry), but maybe you can build a solar boiler. It's a lot easier, and it will save you at least as much money on your energy bill. (Still, make sure to have some professional help if you connect it to the system of the house). Completely unbiased by the fact that I studied chemical engineering, I would advise you to study chemical engineering, or mechanical engineering. You will understand a lot of everyday issues a lot better.

Oh my... I'm afraid I have a new addiction. Only at level 14 now, but it is hard to let go!