CaptainPanic

It was, but it was totally off topic in that other post, so it was moved. Anything in particular you want to discuss about the laser?

Well... you're in good company. You already got an answer above from chemists and chemical engineers. And it seems they also don't know. Are you very very sure that your scientific phrase is something that applies to the gas phase too? The fact that you search for something that's CO2 related in the atmosphere suggests that you want to learn something about absorption or something, but absorption (the laws of Lambert-Beer) are linear with the concentration of a certain material (including CO2).

That seems to be a question about yourself... so it would make sense if you provide the answer yourself too.

What do you mean by a cylinder? A piston (like in an engine)? Or just a pipe (like an exhaust)?

That's just how capitalism is supposed to work. Too little demand and/or too much availability will kill a business. The availability of the expensive quality goods is too big, and/or at that price nobody wants to buy it.

I think it's safe to assume that by now we've looked in every direction possible through our telescopes... and there are stars everywhere. If there were a black hole very near us, we would have noticed a Gravitational Lens. And since we haven't found this, I guess it is safe to assume that there is no black hole within 4 light years... or at least not one of stellar size.

Cap'n Refsmmat, for the most part your post is correct... but there are a few things I'd like to correct or add: The reason that the pan will burn your hand, and hot air won't is not the heat capacity. It's especially the heat transfer that is much higher between your hand and the metal surface. Heat transfer is independent of heat capacity... and metals actually have a really low heat capacity (the heat capacity of iron (460 J/kgK) is 9 times lower than liquid water (4180 J/kgK), and 4.3 times lower than that of steam (2000 J/kgK)). Gases normally have a really low heat transfer coefficient but will often have a very normal heat capacity similar to liquids or other (non-metallic) solid materials. Heat transfer from a gas to a liquid/or solid can typically be 10-20 times lower than between liquid/liquid or solid/liquid, but the difference depends heavily on things like mixing/stirring or the liquid and gas phases... and this can easily be an order of magnitude different from what I say here. However, regardless of mixing/stirring, metals typically have the highest heat conductivity of all materials. The 'heat conductivity' or 'thermal conductivity' of materials is listed here. The "heat transfer" describes the transfer of energy from one material to another. Heat conductivity describes how easily a material can conduct the heat internally. In the presence of liquid water, you can never heat the steam to a higher temperature than the boiling point of the water (i.e. 100 deg C). You can only superheat the steam if you bring the steam into contact with a heat source outside the kettle itself. Read more about superheaters (in steam engines) here - it's a bit off topic though, so I'll leave it at this. Anyway, 100 deg C is 100 deg C, regardless of the material, or its state (gas / liquid).

If there is a microscopic hole in the paint, the flow of oxygen or water through that hole (even if it's only diffusion) is so large compared to the rate at which the oxygen is consumed that it is not a limiting factor anymore. In other words, at some point and at a particular place, the permeability of the paint is just not the bottleneck anymore. The formation of rust proceeds at maximum speed. Of course, the paint can be damaged in a particular spot, and still be a protective layer in another place.

It might have something to do with excess properties (excess volume, excess enthalpy, excess entropy or excess Gibbs energy)? The excess properties are zero in ideal solutions, and are important in non-ideal situations. I am not sure I answered your question, because gases (like the atmosphere) behave quite ideally, which means that in the gas phase the excess properties are (practically) zero, and properties change linearly with concentration. The excess properties are usually only defined for the liquid phase.

The velocity of the outside of the cylinder (the surface you're standing on) is about 19 m/s, which is much faster than you can run. Still, if you walk backwards in the cylinder, you might just lose your 0.13 G, and actually fall out. The question is of course where you would hit the cylinder again... since you would still have some movement in the direction of the rotation of the cylinder, you certainly wouldn't fall straight down. You would hit the cylinder on the way back down. Simple highschool balistics formulas can solve this problem of the jumping up or walking backwards.

I am confused: you can't use an "air or electric motor" (but is an air motor something different from a pneumatic motor?) And then you say you can use cylinders - but those are part of a linear pneumatic motor. A pneumatic motor is essentially just a tool to convert the energy contained by compressed air into a movement.

So, that site shows a single example of a poorly constructed building, and then writes the following conclusion: I'm sure it's supposed to be funny, but I dislike this form of humor. Generalizations like this are just fallacies. Since it did not make me laugh, I will just treat it as a serious remark. Anyway, people always have a choice: buy expensive quality goods, or cheap and crappy goods. Most people obviously want quality stuff for a low price, but that's just not how the world works. The Chinese make stuff at a low price, and the result is that quality is sometimes lower than we want. Feel free to pay more for more quality though. [edited because there was a typo]

I'm not sure you understood where I wanted to go with my remark. I'll explain better: Why don't we use current technology and existing rockets to build a sort of ISS with much bigger engines and more fuel? Re-entry is as simple as using an existing Soyuz capsule. No point in re-entry for the whole space craft. The obvious big advantage is that we do not have to wait a decade or more until the new rocket is designed and built. And while it is true that 100 launches cost a lot, I am not sure that NASA won't make the price tag of the new rocket even costlier. A single big rocket also has the disadvantage that you're still stuck with a limit to the weight of the space craft. Assembly in orbit has the advantage that you only require more flights, but there is no upper limit to the size of the spacecraft. Btw, as far as I know, docking of capsules and components in space does not necessarily have to be performed by humans. It's not necessary to send a crew up there every time just to connect two components. And I totally agree that certain things shouldn't be built in space (like the heat shield). I think you should only dock things, and minimize the time humans have to do any construction in space.

I think you can do this, but to have such a small rotating system to separate it you will run into 2 problems: 1. It's bloody expensive. You will need thousands, if not millions of these little vortex structures, and all have to be connected to each other in a parallel setup, possibly with some of them in series too to achieve a good separation. It's true that nature comes up with fractal systems - but they are self-organizing (you don't have to build it). This one, you need to construct manually and that won't be cheap. 2. The smaller the vortex and the higher the bulk gas velocity, the higher the pressure drop. And pressure drop means loss of energy (kinetic energy becomes heat). If you want to separate CO2 from nitrogen, I would just remove it by absorption. For example, CO2 will dissolve into water much better than nitrogen. Problem solved. And that solubility is temperature dependent, so you can also get it out again. Problem solved. For other simple binary gas mixtures, cryogenic distillation can be a method. Not everybody on the internet is interested in uranium enrichment for terrorist purposes or to help evil regimes. Some people are just chemical engineers with new ideas. And not all systems with lots of centrifuges are for uranium enrichment. Anyway, since wikipedia describes the process, one at least two websites, and even has a picture, I don't think this is a secret.

This is so far the best argument I've read in this thread against the conspiracy theory. It's true that in a building of such a size there are just too many people with access to maintenance areas, and you can't hide all the explosives and the network of cords that connect them. But this is a pretty good argument too. Could you connect the explosives with ordinary electric wire (copper cables), which is a lot more fire-resistant? (This is really my last attempt to make anything of this theory - it's falling apart, lol).

Damn, now I am defending the conspiracy theory... LOL. Ok, let's play the devil's advocate. I think that it is obvious why you need the planes. A controlled demolition really suggests an inside job. There would be multiple people, who have to be in touch with the owners of the buildings to even get in. At least someone would need to be in some sort of position of power in a large company (or government) to organize this. You need to hide the fact that someone in power (either in government or a large company) is involved, so you smash a plane full of fuel into a building first... and then to make sure it comes down, you still detonate it. Every floor was identical. A company doing maintenance would normally visit every floor anyway, and would be able to get to the weirdest little corners... and fire department, or any other government organization that checks on safety also will visit every little corner of a building before giving a certificate that it's safe. So it's not suspicious at all, if you have the right cover.

Just place them all over the building. Detonate either only those you need, or detonate all. I am no demolition expert, but it really isn't all that hard to plant explosives on each and every floor, and remotely detonate those you want to blow up. From the footage of 9/11 I remember that nearly every floor collapsed in the same way, and the building came straight down. If you would detonate explosives at that exact moment, if wouldn't make a difference. Again, I am not saying there were explosives. I am saying that if there were, the collapse would look the same.

Maintenance on cables, pipes or even the buildings' structure itself? I don't know about you, but in my office I just step out for a coffee if the maintenance crews need to do something to my room. And if they do anything in a room where I am not, I just ignore them. Elevator maintenance crews probably never get disturbed by anyone. Please note that I do not advertise this theory of explosives and I respect the emotions of the American people regarding this topic, but I think it would certainly be possible. Difficult, but possible. How strict were the safety regulations to the areas where pipes and cables were running? Could anyone get access to that, or was it severely restricted? And were those running right next to critical structural columns? There's a distinct difference in appearance of a scientific paper and an advertisement. And there are reasons for that. It's up to you whether you make your posts look like a scientific post or an advertisement. Personally, I prefer to close my eyes and cover my ears as soon as I notice an advertisement. I will then quickly scroll away and turn down the volume. And as far as I'm concerned the option of using colors is disabled entirely.

I never understand why we don't send multiple smaller components into LEO, which then combine into a larger spacecraft to get to wherever we want to go. The smaller launch systems are currently being optimized for cost by private companies (and by the Chinese)... so that's definitely going to be the cheapest way (in dollars or euros per ton of cargo) to get stuff off the surface of the planet for a while. The question is how expensive it is to recombine a spacecraft in orbit and then take off. But that seems technology which we already possess: we used it for the ISS too. Seems a bit pointless therefore to aim for an even bigger rocket... although I am really exited by the attempt, and I wouldn't mind seeing it take off in 2020

I have read most of the text here in the thread, but I cannot figure out the reason for the extra thrust. Is it the other fuel (hydrogen and/or methane vs. kerosene) or the oxygen rich (instead of fuel rich) pre-combustion? Hydrogen and oxygen are nothing new. The Space Shuttle uses used it too. Kerosene is just cheaper and easier to handle, and that's why it's used in many rockets. Regarding the oxygen rich chamber, I cannot figure out any thermodynamic reason why this would be more efficient. Can you give a summary of the point you try to make, instead of such a long story? It's a little difficult to follow.

Fixed that for you. In fact, this is an ongoing development right now. Old-fashioned water treatments used energy. Modern water treatment plants actually generate energy (through anaerobic digestion of waste). Through all our technological advances, poop has turned from being a health risk to an energy source. Likewise, desalination is still getting cheaper. There is a fundamental (thermodynamic) limit to the energy use. But the factory itself can get cheaper, and the generation of (sustainable) energy is becoming better and better. More general: It's strange that I agree with the core of Greg's issue: population growth is quickly becoming the #1 problem on this planet. I also agree that the growth as it is now is unsustainable on the long term. But because of the fallacies (linking the wrong things, oversimplifying, exaggerating, etc), I just find myself disagreeing. In this thread, the economy was brought up, and I do not see the direct link there. It was not explained, and if it would be, I am pretty sure I would disagree with it. The economy as we have it now is not directly linked to resources and people (although there is a correlation between economy and energy). A single person in our economy can generate more money while using exactly the same resources as someone else who is less efficient. If everybody becomes more efficient, then the economy can grow without the need for more resources. On this forum, I think it's more important that an argument is built up correctly than that it fits my personal political ideas. Especially the last couple of days, I've been fighting my allies, but so be it.

It is the right forum. Science always has the answer. A post-it will do what you ask for. Duct-tape will also work. But if you just put some chocolate spread on a sandwich, it might also stick. Your question is not very specific, so there are many answers.

If you want to read more: check out "Amino Acids" in an organic chemistry book. I'm sure those will be more general. Covalent bonds: obviously all atoms in the protein are bonded with covalent bonds. But amino acids can form peptide bonds too, linking them together. Ionic attraction: dependent on the pH, protons move around. -NH2 groups and -COOH groups get or lose a proton depending on the pH. Also, other functional groups present may affect at what pH this happens. Hydrogen bonds: interactions between the many functional groups. These forces, together with the ionic attraction are one of the reasons why large proteins can form such complex helix. I'm sure there's a lot more, and please note this is an oversimplification of the real complex nature of proteins... but those three are probably your main interactions.

I would go a step further: Making any claims based only on a degree is a Argument from Authority, which is a fallacy. Sorry to bring up this F-word ( )so much lately, but I think it is important. It is up to the other people, the ones you're trying to convince, to accept your (fallacious) argument that you are right because you have a degree (or because you're some kind of authority in the field). People will accept it only because they have no better argument. The argument then actually does not work, but people simply trust you to be right. But if the argument is challenged, the authority (or degree) is worthless. And claiming to be right based on being an authority (or quoting one) is still a fallacy. And since the OP wants to know the degree of his critics, and even makes a suggestion of dismissing people who are without diploma (self appointed and unqualified) I fear that giving the information will only enable more fallacies. Anyway, I am a chemical engineer with a MSc.

You write "hundreds of millions of immigrants" on a population of a billion. You exaggerate by numbers what a statistical average would indeed suggest. And then you ridicule it. And because the ridiculous claims which you by now have fabricated are silly, you claim that the core of the argument is wrong. That's just another fallacy...