Toadie

Hi all, I'm a relative noob to physics, but yesterday a question came to mind: If degenerate matter has maximum density, what would happen if you were to, say, whack it with a baseball bat? If F=ma and you apply a force to the degenerate matter, then it must produce some acceleration by the degenerate matter. My understanding would tell me that the entire mass would not accelerate uniformly, but it would deform to a degree; the matter closest to the impact would accelerate first, and after some period of time, however small, the rest of the mass would accelerate. Obviously if this were the case, the problem would be that the degenerate matter is already at maximum density, but the deformity from the external force would change some local density to exceed the maximum. So what would happen? Would the who mass indeed accelerate uniformly, or would something else happen? I understand that this situation is quite outlandish but my curiosity has got the better of me. Any input is greatly appreciated.

I figured - Just wanted to illustrate my point. Thanks, in any case!

Hi all- I was reading about psilocybin in the Erowid vaults, and it says: "The ED50:LD50 ratio is 641 according to the NIOSH Registry of Toxic Effects; compare this with 9637 for vitamin A, 4816 for LSD, 199 for aspirin and 21 for nicotine" Am I missing something or is that ratio backwards? Wouldn't that mean a user would have to kill themselves 641 times over to facilitate any psilocybin-induced effects? The way it's written, the effective dose is 641 times greater than the lethal dose, right? Am I missing something or should the ratio be LD50:ED50? Thanks

I realize that this is supposed to be a really easy concept, but I have a hard time understanding it. Could someone please try to explain to me what a state function is, without saying "a quantity that depends only on the current equilibrium state of the system" or something essentially similar? Particularly I would much appreciate it if someone could show me some examples of how things like heat and work do depend on the way the system acquired the state? Thanks a bunch

I know when thinking about radioactive decay, unstable isotopes are what come to mind. But out of curiosity (and I really have no education on the matter, if you couldn't tell), would any given matter decay into pure radiation in theory, if given an extremely vast period of time?

Oops, sorry about that :/ I would remove the bit with the answer in it, but it's been preserved by your quote.

That is not a correct assumption. The number of protons in an element always stays the same. If you change the number of protons, you change what element you're working with (as in a nuclear reaction). Protons dictate element, electrons dictate ionization, and neutrons dictate isotope (they are, for the purpose of this thread, just added weight with no charge). The numbers (20-22) are protons plus neutrons, where the number of neutrons is what's changing. To find the average mass: .909(20) + .003(21) + .088(22) = 18.18 + .063 + 1.936 So your answer is 20.179 amu or g/mol (assuming you don't have to worry about significant figures).

Thanks Hermann, that'll probably come in handy on my final tomorrow.

The question I'm working on reads: I assumed that the Kp would not change, because the mole ratio was not changed. But the back of the book tells me otherwise. The answer is supposed to be Kp = 3.42. Can someone please explain how to get that answer?

Hi all- Sorry for asking such an elementary question... I feel like I'm getting progressively worse at chemistry as I go through the AP course. Anyway, I'm studying for the midterm (which is tomorrow), and I'm reading over some stuff about Le Châtelier's principle, specifically the effect of temperature changes. I understand it all and don't really have a problem, per se, just a bit of a curiosity. The book explains the effect of temperature changes very well in terms of endo- and exothermic reactions: "In an endothermic reaction, we can consider heat as a reactant, whereas in an exothermic reaction we can consider heat as a product." So my question is: Is the reverse reaction always the opposite? I.e., if the forward reaction is exothermic, is the reverse reaction always endothermic? Are there any cases where both the forward and reverse reactions are exothermic or both endothermic? Thanks

Mr Skeptic brings up a good point. Essentially this whole topic is based on one's definition of a terrorist.

This is a ridiculous question. A good anti-terror group stops terrorists from killing innocent people. A good terrorist kills innocent people. I think the ethics are pretty cut and dry here, in most cases... Also, could you PLEASE invest in a grammar handbook/dictionary, or something? It's becoming increasingly difficult to read your posts o.O

I think the fact that no two people believe in the exact same "right and wrong" would lead me to believe that morality is subjective.

I don't know about the ruler, but the time thing is a pretty standard concept. Correct me if I'm wrong, but time is relative to your position in relation to Earth, in our case. This is applied to everyday things like GPS. They have to recalibrate the clocks on Earth and on the satellite to match up because they go at different rates. Length is a bit different... When you think about it, "centimeters" and whatnot are just man-made preconceptions. A centimeter will always be the same, because it is not actually natural. That said, the ruler itself, when treated as nothing more than a bunch of atoms, is definitely not absolute as far as size goes. That changes with temperature and pressure. Unless I'm missing something, it sounds like your theory is pretty standard. EDIT: iNow summed it up much better than I can haha.

I've recently done a bit of reading on the topic, and it appears that it is not hereditary, although you can be slightly genetically predisposed to it. I think the most important thing is to make sure that the child receives the emotional support that they need from their parents, and stay away from anything that could trigger the onset of such diseases. From what I've read, the reason things like this run in families sometimes is because if you have, for example, a bipolar person who has a child, the parent's depression will translate to a lack of emotional support for the child, which could lead to mental problems for the child. I'm also not a professional, so definitely wait for someone else to confirm/reject my statement

I think both people and music are so diverse that it would be impossible to find a concrete correlation.

Errmm.... Oh? I must say I felt your first reply was a bit more relevant xD

Thanks for the info! I guess it makes sense that there wouldn't be any visual sensation, but I must say I'm disappointed. I'll definitely check out the other study you mentioned; that sounds really fascinating. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJust wondering, why would the brain not be wired for sight if the subject was blind due to a problem with the eye, rather than the brain? If there's a problem with the eye, why would that affect the brain? Would the visual cortex be "taken over" by the other senses? I would think that the brain would remain intact as long as the blindness was not a brain problem.

The background for my experiment is this: I'm really interested in psychoactive drugs, and recently I have been specifically very interested with their sensory effects on people with sensory disabilities (e.g. blindness, deafness, etc.). If someone was born completely blind due to a problem with the eye and *not the brain*, would it be possible for them to experience visual hallucinations while on LSD? Unfortunately I have never done LSD (which in itself I guess is an odd sentence, haha), but I know people often report seeing vibrant colors and geometric shapes/patterns when they close their eyes while tripping on LSD. Obviously the drug affects the brain, not the eye or the light coming into it, so am I right to assume that a completely blind person could have visual sensations while using it? I would think that they would, and would have a very difficult time describing it. Of course, I'm 15 years old, and really don't know much about things like blindness from a scientific/neurological perspective, and I don't know if (for example) when someone is born blind due to problems outside the brain, the visual cortex of the brain shuts off since it is not in use, or something. I'm just extremely curious Also, I read about an experiment in 1999 in which neurobiologists "inserted fiber electrodes into the vision-processing center of the cat's brain". This was the result: The blurry images are supposedly the ones captured from the cat's brain, compared to the clear ones which were taken with a regular camera. I also saw a documentary on the Science Channel last night about a blind woman who successfully had electrodes connected to a video camera put onto that part of her brain, and she could indeed see, even if it was nowhere comparable to her sight before she went blind in a car accident. Could the same thing be done to a blind person that was done to the cat, in order to see what they "saw", since they would not likely be able to describe it? Sorry if this sounds really messed up!! I don't have any realistic plans to do this, as I'm sure it would be very difficult to find a person willing to be the test subject. EDIT: BTW, should this go here, or in the neuroscience section?

Hi all, I've recently discovered the field of psychopharmacology, and it sounds like exactly what I want to do. What I'm wondering is, to study psychopharmacology, would I become a psychiatrist first and then specialize in psychopharmacology, or is there some other educational route that one would take to do this? Thanks

Aha, I've also heard the Greek is really difficult! Interesting...

Thor is not a Greco-Roman god

That was the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. I hate people.

Oh really? I've actually heard it was pretty easy, though admittedly I've never tried to learn it. I've heard from lots of people that Icelandic is the hardest language to learn, but it's really just a matter of perception. If someone from Sweden wanted to learn Icelandic, it would be a hell of a lot easier than the same situation for someone from China. Mandarin Chinese is the hardest language I've ever attempted to learn. Memorizing characters alone is extremely tedious, and since there is no alphabetical order, looking things up in dictionaries is a huge pain. In a sense, though, it's one of the easier languages grammatically, in that there's no conjugation or declension. My favorite language will always be German.

Could someone please outline for me some specific differences between biopsychiatry and neuropsychiatry? I'm a little bit confused.