Gilded

It would be nice to scan public places (or even better, nuclear power plants when you're on a tour or something) with a Geiger counter and shout "OH F*** WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" and see how many people start running around in panic. You might achieve a better result if you wear official looking white overalls and a weird headgear.

I wouldn't mind visiting UK (especially when I'm 19 in May -07, since you can't buy over 22% alcohol here unless you're 20 ).

Ooh alexandrites, I'd like one of those for my collection. They happen to be mostly quite expensive & rare buggers though. It's basically BeAl2O4, with minute traces of iron, titanium and the chrome you mentioned. It's quite odd, as other members of the chrysoberyl family don't contain chrome (or then I've been eating mushrooms again). I think the color change goes something like this; sunlight (or fluorescent light) is enough to excite the Cr's electrons to the orbit that causes them to emit green light when they drop back. Unlike in the case of emeralds and rubies, alexandrite has the Cr arranged so that they can emit both green (as is the case with emeralds, in emeralds the green could be vanadium too though) and red (as is the case with rubies), depending on the... err, amount of electron volts? Yeah, that's probably it.

From what I've heard, the nucleus "doesn't know" it's age or any of it's conditions, and can decay just about any time. Let's take a gram of uranium; most likely after the time of the half-life (let's say 4 billion years), there is 0.5g left. But, there is a probability of 0.1g of it decaying within a week, it's just VERY unlikely (as you said, there is a possibility of predicting the probability). I phrased my thread starting post quite wrong, as I mostly wanted to know if there is an event that one could say there is an absolute 50% chance. Let's say, there is an absolute 50% chance of a nucleus decaying within 3 seconds, and an absolute 50% chance of decaying within the following two seconds. So, this is actually possible with the decay of a nucleus? Of course, I was looking for completely random events too, but mainly the absolute 50/50 probability (as these don't seem to exist in classical physics).

I got a weird headache once after a math lesson. Probably had something to do with banging my head on the desk all the time. I never achieved an intentionally self-inflicted continuous (aching for more than 1 hour or so) headache though. :<

Wow, quite sharp pics you got there. What camera did you use? I thought about taking pics myself but the camera I got isn't too good for taking pictures like that. :<

Dragon, I think bud meant that antimony pentafluoride by itself isn't an acid.

Ok, so one day randomness came to mind. Randomness in the aspect of flipping a coin; basically about 1/2 probability of getting tails. But, it is not actually random in the aspect of physics since you could calculate the momentum the coin has, and all the other factors like gravity etc., eventually getting the result of the flip (without seeing the actual result of course). So, I tried to think of a thing that has an actual random factor to it, and the only thing that came to mind is a radioactive decay (like would be the case in the Schrödinger's cat experiment). Any others? I'm just probably silly to forget about all the other nice randomy thingies flying about. :<

"Those science articles are written so joe blow can read them." Heh, I couldn't have said it better. "'ey Billy-Bob, what's that dar me-tain?" "You could probably argue that the earth's atmosphere is a lake of nitrogen, oxygen, etc. Of course "lake" is usually meant to mean liquid, but I could see the argument I suppose." I don't think it's appropriate to use the word "lake" to describe a thing that covers the entire planet. It could be a "sea" or an "ocean" of N and O (and other miscellaneous stuff).

"I was tired, leave me alone! :P" Being tired is my favourite excuse for being wrong, too.

Yay for da arcade! :> Perhaps "Sayonara's Thread Locking" as a reflex test based game would be nice too.

"Helium has 8 electrons now!!!! WOW" Rofl Yeah, as MolecularMan said, "just enough to be inert".

Hmmm... Didn't some ancient native tribe (can't remember the country) carry out VILE and BRUTAL sacrifices during the "red moon"?

Mmm... Titan would be a nice place to live. Only about 160% atmospheric pressure compared to Earth, 1/7 Earth's gravity... The only minus (literally) is the over -170 Celsius temperature. :<

I wonder if any country has a schooling system that allows you to learn exactly what you want and nothing more in high school (or similar). I'm not saying it's a particularly great idea, I'm just fed up with sitting in the classroom learning freaking English basics I have known for years. Here, it's nice in the aspect of being able to pass some courses independently (and that's exactly what I'm going to do with every English course I can :> ). Luke, nice rant you had there. Btw, you don't happen to actually be the Luke that did (or still does?) compete in the Cyberathlete Professional League? The one who played with bsl in... err, can't remember.

Ooooh, meeting. :> Someone should probably dig this thread up in late 2006 so that people could make some arrangements.

Come on people, write! If you don't, you're most likely a dirty commie.

Damn, I woke up about 45 minutes early (normally 7:30 AM, now 6:45) to see it. It was worth it though, and anyways the next one is @ 2007.

Oooh, UV. If I had some U-marbles and an UV-light, I would play with them aaaall day.

"Are civilians even allowed to put their own satellites into orbit?" I highly doubt it. It would be awesome to even send a baseball with "The first spaceball" written on it to orbit the earth, but as I said, I don't think the authorities are going to let you do it. NASA (or similar) should start a "Launch an item of your choice to orbit" campaign. "Kids - launch an item to orbit! Now only 150,000$!"

It would be awesome to have a game just for SFN. Maybe a science related quiz of some sort, done with Flash? Or perhaps a "Sayonara's Ultra Deluxe Troll Shooter 2000" when Sayo reaches 10 000

The weirdest things I've seen on eBay is an aircraft carrier (real deal, it was sold for a couple of million dollars I think) and The Scream for 9 million £, which was most likely a fake. And jsatan, it's always good to see that people sell their virginities, just like in the good old days. "You can buy almost anything on eBay, a gift to all. You got that right. However, I haven't found a good Geiger counter there yet.

Heh, one off-topic question came to mind about the stone eating: is an organism that consumes minerals (and only minerals, no organics whatsoever) as they are in the soil be a "lithovore"?

Couldn't find any at sciam.com. :< And I forgot to say that it wouldn't hurt to have the counter shipped from the EU-area. One provider said that shipping from US to Finland costs 119 dollars. One hundred and nineteen dollars for shipping. SHIPPING. ... 119$ FOR GODDAMN SHIPPING!

"Will anyone guide me to internet sites for highly technical exchange of views regarding chemical technology (and so on)" Isn't SFN technical enough? :<