Hypography Science Forums: Boerseun - Viewing Profile - Hypography Science Forums

Oi - wot's this, then?

http://www.nasa.gov/...trobiology.html

Anybody know what this might be? I can't wait till the 2nd if there be aliens involved...

Imagine this:

There's no water on Earth. It's all gone. You're standing on what used to be the shore, now it's just a barren, dry and dusty wasteland stretching out before you where the sea used to be.

Next to you is a pipe leading into the sea. It's a massive pipe, over 1 kilometer in diameter, and where it comes from is anybody's guess. But it terminates on the shore, right next to you, and it delivers water at a speed of 1 kilometer per second. That's a hell of a lot of water - one cubic kilometer of water is being pumped into the emptiness of what used to be the sea, every second. How long do you think you'd have to wait before the sea fills up to the point where you're standing?

No. You're wrong. Whatever number you though of, is wrong.

It will take 46 YEARS. 46 Years of delivering a cubic kilometer of water per second, every second, to fill up the sea. That's a hell of a lot of water, and kinda puts some perspective on the cavalier methods proposed for terraforming planets.

Sorry - not really a science-related thread, but heck...

The Mach-Effect (ME) drive is a proposed propellant-less spacecraft engine.

It is based on the Woodward effect, which hypothesizes that energy-storing ions experience transient mass fluctuations when accelerated. There's a whole lot of maths an' stuff involved, but it boils down to the engine pulling ions when their mass are low, and pushes them away when their mass is high. Thus, no propellant is required. Experiments have been done that supports it, but opposing views include for instance that the Woodward effect violates Conservation of Momentum, and would in effect be a perpetual motion machine. This, in turn, is countered by inertia resulting from the gravitational influence of the entire universe upon mass, creating resistance to acceleration, meaning that if the Mach Effect engine were to work, the entire universe would be the reaction mass. Momentum would thus be conserved. On another website I looked over for info regarding this engine, they propose that as the engine is in operation, the temperature of the universe will come down - albeit with a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the thermal properties of a lady of the night's heart, but it will come down, nonetheless. But be that as it may, if it works, the entire universe will be the "local system", and this won't be a perpetual motion machine. See it as a "universe-powered" engine.

On yet another website, the force generated by such an engine is described as being only a matter of scale. Makes sense - the lab experiments with this generated a few micro Newtons of thrust, but scale it up and you could conceivably generate a constant 1g, permanently.

I confess, I know practically zilch about this engine or the physics and processes involved. But I have started this here thread so that you can share your ignorance regarding this machine with me. Because if there is anything to it, and such engines can be made, our Solar System will be completely and utterly open. You can go to the moon in two to three hours. Mars in a matter of days. Jupiter, a few days more. The closest stars will be reachable in a matter of years, not requiring massive multi-generational obese ark-ships like sci-fi of old will have you believe.

So - go and do a search for it, see what you can find. The info on the web is a bit sparse, but what I've seen paints a tantalizing picture of where humanity might be at the end of the 21st century.

Whaddaya think? Can we start packin' for Pluto yet, or is this just another pie-in-the-sky?

So we all know that homeopathy relies on the placebo effect for its perceived effectiveness. It's a big ole' load of hokum, but many, many people believe in the magic of homeopathy. My mother is one of them - she swears high and low by it.

So, here's a test:

Are there any homeopathic pediatric medicines out there? There shouldn't be - infants should be immune to the placebo effect. But if there is, and a bunch of infants show any statistical improvement upon taking it, then there definitely is a case for homeopathic medicines.

But I doubt it.

I don't think there's a single homeopathic pediatric tincture out there. Not one. And we all know why. The Placebo effect does not apply to babies - and that's what homeopathy is all about: Smoke and mirrors, mixed with a dash of sympathy and a pat on the back. And babies just don't dig it.

Now can someone tell my mother?

So... stoopid question time:

On all the computers I have ever owned, worked on, looked at, seen, you name it, the math operators on the keyboard are plus (+), minus (-), divide (/) and multiply (*).
Yet, on all the calculators I have ever had or seen, the divide sign is a minus with a dot above and a dot below (can't type it 'cause I don't have that particular character on my keyboard - it's prolly somewhere in the ASCII map) and the multiply sign is an x. So why did they change the x into an asterisk when it came to computing? And why do we have to use the slash "/" for divide, instead of the proper division symbol that appears on calculators?

Me not understand. I'm sure there's a very good reason for it. If you know, please enlighten me.