CaptainPanic

It is a title you earn. You cannot volunteer for it.

If you realize someone is a troll, your dialogue/conversation has already ended. From then on, it is just two people having a monologue. So, you should adjust your writing style accordingly. I still think we need a resident troll on our forum. A nice one, who doesn't swear too much. I love trolls.

I don't think that ethanol can be considered a surfactant actually. I'm not an expert in interfaces, but I think that ethanol is basically too short to be a good surfactant. Its non-polar 'tail' is too short. What you essentially get is a mixture that behaves as a "ternary mixture": it has three components (and we shall treat gasoline as a single component). Depending on the ratio in which these three are present, you can get one phase (complete mixing), or multiple phases (probably two phases: a non-polar and a polar phase). If you get two phases, then all your three components will be present in both phases, but in different ratios. You will get a non-polar gasoline phase, which still contains minor amounts of water, and an aqueous phase which contains traces of gasoline. And the ethanol will be distributed over those phases, but I actually don't know in what ratio. So, whether the water will separate out into a separate phase will depend on: (1) the amount of water, (2) the amount of ethanol, and (3) the polarity of the gasoline phase. You could probably add some components to gasoline to increase or decrease the amount of ethanol/water that you can blend in. Some useful keywords are "Liquid liquid equilibriua", or "extractions".

I'm no expert... but it seems logical that we "like" anything with a high energy content. If you look at a healthy diet, from all the food groups, those with high energy content (proteins, fats) were the most scarce. Also, contrary to vegetables, proteins usually ran away or tried to fight back. So if that food required the most effort to get, we may have evolved a craving to motivate ourselves to make that huge effort to find it and catch it? I seem to remember (but I have no source) that as humans evolved to become more and more intelligent, we required more and more proteins to grow our larger brains. That means we required more meat and other sources of protein. Maybe we just evolved a craving for meat and high-fat foods? If humans would have remained strict vegetarians, we might not have become what we are today. It is just a guess. Again, I am no expert.

We'll just say that your internal server was lagging a bit at 11:20 CET.

Your lungs are only capable of creating pressure differences of about 0.2 bar. It was pretty difficult to find a good source actually... all I found was this. A glass bottle has to withstand pressures in the range of several bars, because of the CO2 in the drink. So, this has to be a trick. But it is a pretty good one! Nice I guess that the older guy was in it too: that bottle might have been prepared before the trick.

The budget for the European parliament for 2012 was set to €1,732 million. Wikipedia estimates the actual costs of "Brussels" at 2 billion. Or, about 4 euro per person (the EU has 500 million inhabitants). Or about 0.016% of the GDP of the EU. If that is the price of peace, prosperity and progress, then I have to disagree that this is "expensive". The total budget of the EU is €142 billion. Or about 284 € per person. Or about 1% of the wealth generated in the EU (=GDP). So, this shows that the large majority of the budget is spent for something else, not for the bureaucrats themselves. I know there have been scandals where people in Brussels wasted millions. But that is not an argument against the whole EU. That is just an argument against those particular individuals. Contrary to what you think, or what you have been told by some populists, the EU is not expensive. The majority of the costs come from other streams of money: we pay tax, which is then used to subsidize farmers elsewhere (which in turn makes our food cheaper). We have paid a LOT to improve the infrastructure of central and eastern Europe. Personally, I am happy to pay for such things. The simple fact is that large majority of the money that we pay to the EU is also invested straight back into the EU. And we all pay a massive 4 euro per person to the actual bureaucrats. p.s. I am inclined to agree that the political course in Brussels is heading the wrong way, drawing too much power towards Brussels. But it has not yet gone wrong.

From XKCD:

We have discovered all the light elements. So, if you want to introduce a realistic new element, it is going to be a very heavy one. All radio-active elements have a predictable half-life time. The only realistic way that I can see that something is unpredictable is when something is not sufficiently purified, studied, or when the chemist would make a mistake. In other words: if a chemist does not know what goes into the reaction, he cannot predict what comes out. But if a chemist repeats the same experiment twice, and with sufficient care, then the same result will occur twice.

Look up "spaghetti bridge" on google and youtube. It's an international competition, and multiple universities participate - usually the civil engineering departments.

Caesium makes a very good point: Europe has experienced the longest peaceful period since... since when actually? Since the Pax Romana? We have not had a war for 68 years. You can say whatever you want, but that should definitely be partially attributed to the EU. The EU is like daycare for politicians. Keeps them so busy talking about money that they can't afford to fight a war.

! Moderator Note Upon review, we agreed to re-open the thread. We want Mr Rayon to be the next person to post anything (everybody else, please do not post here yet!), and that he must show us where he got this notion.

I have not experienced any problems at all, but I may be online at different times than those who did have problems.

I don't like that.

Bah. Another show that reinforces the idea that a scientist is essentially a mad tinkerer. I do not think it is a good thing to reinforce this image of the mad tinkerer. It does not make science more popular, I think. All the cool kids at age 15, when they are about to choose a profession want to be like in the cool series... The amount of tinkering, a lack of social skills or someone's hair style have absolutely nothing to do with how good a scientist they are. Also, good scientists will be team-players, not loners in a basement. Take some social responsibility, please. Don't call that life-style "scientific".

Aha! So, if you just compare Switzerland to the Netherlands, and you focus only on your two best institutes, then the Swiss are awesome. But if you look at all the universities, then the Netherlands has a much more stable score. comparing the 3rd, 4th, 5th etc. universities between the Netherlands and Switzerland shows that the Dutch have pretty good universities too! It seems that the Swiss just put all their money on one horse, whereas the Dutch spread it out across multiple institutes. Also, the Netherlands has far less mountains, which makes it better than Switzerland. p.s. Fellow mods, I realize that we might want to open a separate thread on the awesomeness that is Switzerland. We're going off topic here.

We humans invented stuff that made us from prey to top predator. So, our technological path included weapons and fire at a pretty early stage. It is important to realize that it depends on your position on the food chain what adaptations you would need. Let us for example choose raptors as a case. (Some claim they were above average in dino-intelligence). A raptor certainly would not need a spear, or any weapon. They have plenty of weapons: teeth and claws. But they might require a better teamwork (evolve larger brains for that). They might first invent some tricks to trap prey (trapping pits or so). I'm just brainstorming here... not claiming any of it is based on actual facts. My only point is that a lack of fossil artifacts that resemble those of human prehistory means little to nothing.

alpha2cen, this is probably a question from a textbook. I don't think that there is any chance to to additional tests. on topic: I think that the convention is that heat that you put into a system gets a positive sign (it is the heat required), and heat produced gets a negative (you have a negative heat requirement). Since your sample heats up, the Q should probably get a negative sign. But this always confuses the hell out of me, so in my work, I prefer just to avoid the symbol Q altogether, and just explain in normal words what happens: normally stuff either heats up or cools down, and needs a certain amount of fuel, electricity or whatever to do that...

Good for you. It is very interesting to read an opinion. But I struggle to find a topic to discuss in your post. Could you please provide your source and explanation for the following statements: - how you rank your money, and the notes (what makes it "better")? - how you rank your laws (why are they better, how to rate them)? - university ranking (also, it would be interesting if you list all the EU-based universities in the top-50). - how you rate the "goodness" of the EU and Switzerland? - the fact that the EU has a mouth - what the EU actually tells the Swiss to do? To make a long story short, your post makes little sense to me, I'm afraid. It sounds like an angry rant, but maybe I misunderstood. Normally, we prefer posts of a slightly higher information density.

In a different thread, I just wrote something about opinions in science. In addition to what Ophiolite wrote, I think there are a lot more things in science which are based on opinions. Instead of writing the same thing again, I'll just link to it (here, in the 3rd paragraph). I speak for myself when I say that I definitely would quit SFN if we would change our policy to enforce having to back up everything all the time. Our policy right now is that everyone is required to backup something with a reference if requested. And if someone refuses to provide a reference, moderators can take further action. But generally speaking, people will back up something if requested. It is a bit of a non-issue, if you ask me. Certainly doesn't require new rules. Again: time and motivation. You describe how I act at my work. At my work, I will continue and follow it even when it gets boring. But SFN is my entertainment, similar to watching a movie on the tv. If I lose interest, I switch channels. But I do sometimes grab a book to look something up for SFN. But I get to choose what I follow up on, and what I ignore. And nothing will change that.

If I may summarize everybody's answer here: the men pay because men and women are NOT equal. History and biology can back that up easily. But my point was that all of history is not valid. Our biology should also be ignored. Emancipation (on the scale of evolution, and millenia of history) is a very new concept... Women only have equal right for what, one, two generations? If we follow the historical reasoning, then there are very good reasons why men and women are not equal. Yes, men want to get laid. And yes, men want to impress, and all that. But the days are over that we just form a group of dudes, hop on a boat, sail across some sea, and pillage and rape everything we find on the other side. We have computer games and internet pr0n for that now. But my point is that emancipation teaches us that men and women ARE equal. So, isn't social convention just lagging behind a bit? zapatos, even if guys meet girls differently, I want to bet that your boys sometimes offer the girls some drinks, while I doubt that the girls ever do the reverse, and offer the guys something. Although I don't know the specifics of your situation, I think that offering a girl a drink is actually a strong hint, and a signal that shows interest. But the point still stands: in a world where we have emancipation and equal rights, why doesn't the reverse happen? Is our social rule of conduct still based on ancient values? And why doesn't anyone care? Is emancipation so shallow that it was only about voting and being allowed and have a career? (I hope I am not offending anyone yet, because the way this discussion is going, I might soon propose to reverse emancipation again - since women obviously appreciate the inequality ).

It is my experience that the people who stick to the science generally receive more positive than negative rep. Negative rep is sometimes generated by those people who either complain about the forum or its members, or otherwise get themselves in a position of them vs. everybody else. (Or just the ordinary crackpots and trolls, but I think we can ignore that in this discussion). Sam, you have joined an existing community, with its own rules and values. Most people here stick around because they like what they see. If you are trying to change that, it is only logical that you will receive some negative rep, because you're going against the flow. Also, as the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you adopt a positive style, you will get more positive rep. Yes, it's sometimes emotional and unfair. And I will explain below in a very dry way why this is logical and to be expected. You seem to think that science should be very dry, and without opinions. While the school textbooks can be like that, real-life science is actually full of opinions. If you want to get some funding for cutting edge research, you have to write a proposal in which you put some expectations. This will be evaluated by some people who just form an opinion. At the largest scale, its our politicians who form an opinion about the fields of science and who decide on funding. We all know how clueless they are. Likewise, a peer review is, unfortunately, not 100% objective. People can bitch about style or details. And in many scientific subcultures, little fights break out in the scientific community all the time. At a conference, you can generally hear by the type of question if the person asking the question likes or dislikes the speaker. I have seen people who deliberately ask a mean question in front of hundreds of people. Also, there are great battles being fought in the grey area between fundamental and applied science. Applied science is very subjective. There is never a single best solution to a design problem. You mentioned the religion forum, and I think that's worth a remark all by itself. I would actually agree that we might as well cancel the rep system in religion altogether (but I don't think that's possible for technical reasons). Religion, on our forum, and in my opinion, is just a fight between religious people and non-religious people. And they never ever agree. That discussion is not scientific at all, even though one side claims to be the scientific side. The structure of every religious discussion is like one based only on opinions. Therefore, rep also follows that trend. My solution is to avoid our religious forum like the plague. I don't post on it and I don't moderate it either. I just pretend it is not there at all. So therefore this forum, with all its quirks, its negative rep, its emotions, and its lack of objectivity, is a really good representation of the scientific community in general. I hope you can learn to appreciate it. Btw, every forum needs its rebels, and therefore I respect your posts.

Imagine a society where almost nobody has a gun. Only the armed forces and police carry guns, as well as (unfortunately) a few criminals. Most people have never seen a gun from up close. Imagine that. In such society, should they change, and allow everybody to buy (and carry) a gun? Or, would it be better to leave things as they are? Because I am not an American, and I actually live in the society which I just described. And I would argue that it is a good and stable situation that I find myself in, which needs no change. I am curious to hear from the gun lovers whether they agree that there are two (or more) desirable situations, one being the one in the USA, the other the one for example in Europe? Or should Europe change, and do the gun lovers think that I'd be better off if everybody carried a gun here?

Don't worry. I never said you said that. I was just explaining our rules. Just in case. It sounds like you want the experts to sometimes kill a conversation, simply because they are experts and some other people are not, meaning they are right, and other people shouldn't fight it. But that is a logical fallacy, called an "Argument from Authority". In practice, we still sometimes use this type of argument, but if we do, we're actually breaking our own rules, because logical fallacies are against the rules. We're saying the same thing, but our glasses are either half full or half empty. Still, it seems to me that we agree that some questions get answered, and some don't. That's boring. Sounds like work. If you want me to be like that, you gotta pay me. When I write a report for work, I leave my opinion out. If I wanted to solve complicated issues in the scientific manner, and leave all emotions out of it, I should shut down SFN, and get back to work. I have plenty to do, actually. I come here for some nerd-entertainment. You make it sound like I am the one who does not like it here. But I do. You're the one who wants to change it. 4000 posts and counting says I like this place. Good idea. We may want to throw this idea onto the forum. Personally, I actually have asked some real-life friends to visit the forum. And they have. They just did not stick around long enough to become a mod/expert. I think that everybody on the forum agrees that it does not hurt to get some more experts.

For a start, we (humans) share 99% of all our genes with Chimps. So, in this whole story, we are talking about a percentage of the percentage that is actually different among humans. Swedes and Greeks share waaaaaaay more than 93% of their genes. After all, they all have 2 legs, 2 arms, a nose, 2 eyes, etc.