General science thread

June 26th, 2022 at 3:52:47 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
in case anyone comes along wanting to guess I'll put this in spoiler

the temperature of a sort of plasma there is 54,000 degrees F.

this is interesting to me because it shows how scientists get used to something and no longer give it any thought. The point of those hints was, we think of temperature and heat as being the same thing. But to a scientist they are not the same thing. Heat is an amount of thermal energy, while temperature is a measure of the vibrational state of something. Take the Thermosphere, there are enough air molecules there to consider it still part of the atmosphere. This must be because scientists can measure such even though there are so few molecules an object can orbit the earth there. But they are very agitated there, and vibrate strongly. There is no thermal energy to them because they are so few.

Clearly this is the case at the edge of the Sun's Heliosphere. The video states the spacecraft stays "cold".

source: go to 5 minutes in


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June 26th, 2022 at 12:38:48 PM permalink
petroglyph
Member since: Aug 3, 2014
Threads: 25
Posts: 6227
Quote: odiousgambit
in case anyone comes along wanting to guess I'll put this in spoiler

the temperature of a sort of plasma there is 54,000 degrees F.

this is interesting to me because it shows how scientists get used to something and no longer give it any thought. The point of those hints was, we think of temperature and heat as being the same thing. But to a scientist they are not the same thing. Heat is an amount of thermal energy, while temperature is a measure of the vibrational state of something. Take the Thermosphere, there are enough air molecules there to consider it still part of the atmosphere. This must be because scientists can measure such even though there are so few molecules an object can orbit the earth there. But they are very agitated there, and vibrate strongly. There is no thermal energy to them because they are so few.

Clearly this is the case at the edge of the Sun's Heliosphere. The video states the spacecraft stays "cold".

source: go to 5 minutes in


Really interesting video about Voyager.
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July 1st, 2022 at 2:59:25 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
NASA is scheduled to share the first images from James Webb telescope on July 12.
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July 1st, 2022 at 4:06:38 PM permalink
missedhervee
Member since: Apr 23, 2021
Threads: 96
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I am reading a Michael Crichton book, "State of Fear" which is about the subject of climate change.

While the book is a novel Crichton cites numerous sources to support his argument that climate change is a natural, not necessarily man made thing.

His data shows temps aren't rising, seas are pretty stable, and that the increase in CO2 is too small to do what claimants argue, i.e. greenhouse effect.

Interesting, as I figured he'd be a proponent not an opponent.
July 1st, 2022 at 4:57:35 PM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Quote: missedhervee
I am reading a Michael Crichton book, "State of Fear" which is about the subject of climate change.

While the book is a novel Crichton cites numerous sources to support his argument that climate change is a natural, not necessarily man made thing.

His data shows temps aren't rising, seas are pretty stable, and that the increase in CO2 is too small to do what claimants argue, i.e. greenhouse effect.

Interesting, as I figured he'd be a proponent not an opponent.
the epilogue is very good, where he gives historic examples of the dangers of politicized pseudoscience
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July 1st, 2022 at 5:32:46 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
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Quote: odiousgambit
the epilogue is very good, where he gives historic examples of the dangers of politicized pseudoscience


Science is not about whether something is real or not. It's a process. The only pseudoscience would be doing the process, wrong even if you were trying to study something that ultimately turns out to not be a real thing. You can study crystal ball gazing legitimately.
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July 2nd, 2022 at 10:58:22 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Quote: rxwine
Science is not about whether something is real or not. It's a process. The only pseudoscience would be doing the process, wrong even if you were trying to study something that ultimately turns out to not be a real thing. You can study crystal ball gazing legitimately.
In particular he cites the eugenics phenomenon of the last century. People back in the early part of the century were quite worried about the stupider part of the population having all the babies. This led to abuses which you can catch up on in Wikipedia, they were pretty bad in this country. But it probably took Nazi Germany to really give it a bad name ... and get people to think twice over here, it had been really very accepted and popular with people of influence

Importantly for my point, people who subscribed to it thought they were being very scientific. But as Crichton pointed out, much of it was pseudoscience.
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July 2nd, 2022 at 12:01:03 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
Quote: odiousgambit
In particular he cites the eugenics phenomenon of the last century. People back in the early part of the century were quite worried about the stupider part of the population having all the babies. This led to abuses which you can catch up on in Wikipedia, they were pretty bad in this country. But it probably took Nazi Germany to really give it a bad name ... and get people to think twice over here, it had been really very accepted and popular with people of influence

Importantly for my point, people who subscribed to it thought they were being very scientific. But as Crichton pointed out, much of it was pseudoscience.


It’s important to not to add assumptions that you haven’t actually proven. There’s an article online from the Institution of Creation Research which points out the failure of several fruit fly experiments. Headline: After 600 generations fruit flies fail to evolve and end up with defective genes or dead flies. That assumes that if you take a colony of fruit flies, isolate it, you’ve satisfied all the ingredients of evolution. In fact more recent fruit fly experiments show when you add different micro biome organisms to their diet like might happen to flies around the world you can start getting significant mutations in as little as 5 generations. (You become what you eat?)

Also, it’s a mistake that any one trait always gives you advantage. No matter what it is. Besides that, it’s not uncommon that dominance of one genetic trait deprives you of another that you could have used. When the soot from a factory started darkening the tree trunks, light colored moths became prey to predators and darker ones became invisible.
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July 2nd, 2022 at 12:07:09 PM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Quote: rxwine
It’s important to not to add assumptions that you haven’t actually proven. There’s an article online from the Institution of Creation Research which points out the failure of several fruit fly experiments. Headline: After 600 generations fruit flies fail to evolve and end up with defective genes or dead flies. That assumes that if you take a colony of fruit flies, isolate it, you’ve satisfied all the ingredients of evolution. In fact more recent fruit fly experiments show when you add different micro biome organisms to their diet like might happen to flies around the world you can start getting significant mutations in as little as 5 generations. (You become what you eat?)

Also, it’s a mistake that any one trait always gives you advantage. No matter what it is. Besides that, it’s not uncommon that dominance of one genetic trait deprives you of another that you could have used. When the soot from a factory started darkening the tree trunks, light colored moths became prey to predators and darker ones became invisible.
I think you are saying you agree with Crichton in the matter of eugenics?
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July 2nd, 2022 at 12:11:51 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
Quote: odiousgambit
I think you are saying you agree with Crichton in the matter of eugenics?


I didn’t read his book. So, I don’t know for sure what all he was saying.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?