The Enlightening Science Thread

[ICIT2LOL]

The Hardest Thing To Find In The Universe? : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR

An interesting observation Golden and further looking for why it lasts so little time may be explained by it belonging to the halogen group along with elements such as fluorine which as I am sure you are aware is the most reactive element known to us. If yo look at the electron shells arrangements to they are quite odd amongst the elements.

As you can see from this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astatine the half life is frightening quick in some of the isotopes.

 

[Golden]

7 Graphics Of Earth's Coolest Phenomena, From Rainbows To Earth Wobble | Gizmodo Australia

 

[johngee]

I've only just found this thread, but those who can listen to or download from the BBC website (not sure whether it's UK only), look out for the radio program series "In Our Time" with Melvyn Bragg. Although Melvyn is an author and playwright a fair proportion of these programs embrace science and are delivered with very high quality (in terms of the treatment of the topics and the expertise of the participants). Although an "arts" person Melvyn is extremely open minded about science and doesn't fall into the frequent trap of dumbing down.

It's carried by BBC Radio 4. The website archive goes back literally years.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

7 Graphics Of Earth's Coolest Phenomena, From Rainbows To Earth Wobble | Gizmodo Australia

Cool stuff mate wonder if the wobble has anything to do with that 11 year cycle of the sun?? Solar cycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia would sort of make sense because of the change in the magnetic fields and solar wind perhaps??

Just a thought.

 

[A Guy]

Scientists capture pitch drop on camera for first time (w/ Video)

The Pitch Drop experiment set up in 1944 at Trinity College Dublin's School of Physics is one of the world's oldest continuously running experiments.

The experiment was established to demonstrate that pitch is a material that flows, albeit with an incredibly high viscosity hence extremely slowly. Also known as asphalt or bitumen, pitch appears to be solid at room temperature.

Whilst pitch has been dropping from the funnel in Trinity since 1944, nobody had ever witnessed a drop fall. It happens roughly only once in a decade.

Source

A Guy

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Scientists capture pitch drop on camera for first time (w/ Video)

The Pitch Drop experiment set up in 1944 at Trinity College Dublin's School of Physics is one of the world's oldest continuously running experiments.

The experiment was established to demonstrate that pitch is a material that flows, albeit with an incredibly high viscosity hence extremely slowly. Also known as asphalt or bitumen, pitch appears to be solid at room temperature.

Whilst pitch has been dropping from the funnel in Trinity since 1944, nobody had ever witnessed a drop fall. It happens roughly only once in a decade.

Source

A Guy

Like that Bill funny cos it is the same for glass it is strange to think of it as a liquid too but I wonder how long it would take to drop:huh:

 

[Golden]

Another take on this theme......how big is space.

BBC - Future - Science & Environment - How big is space?

 

[Kari]

Another take on this theme......how big is space.

... and how small the Earth is:

NASA Releases Images of Earth Taken by Distant Spacecraft

Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft on July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the planet.

(Source: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleases/newsrelease20130722/)

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Talking of space this has always fascinated me too Hydrogen Atom Scale Model that we are so full of nothing

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage | Watch Free Documentary Online


Top fellow

 

[ICIT2LOL]

The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion | Watch Free Documentary Online

Tons of stuff in this site

 

[Britton30]

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage | Watch Free Documentary Online


Top fellow

Used to watch Cosmos all the time. I like his novel "Contact" too.

 

[Layback Bear]

Thanks ICit2lol. I Bookmarked that puppy.

 

[Anak]

A solid-state device stores light coherently for up to one minute

Stopping light with Atomic Gases has been around for a decade now, but this is using Lasers

The ability to store light while keeping its quantum coherence properties (e.g., entanglement) plays an important role in quantum information science. It makes it possible to build quantum memories for light, which could become crucial elements in many quantum information processing schemes based on the use of photons, from quantum communication networks to quantum computing protocols.

Source: Physics - A Long-Term Memory for Light

 

[A Guy]

Super telescope captures sensational image of Andromeda galaxy

Astronomers have captured a sensational high-resolution image of the Andromeda galaxy located 2.5 million light years (14,696,563,432,959,020,000 miles) from Earth. No illustration, no mock-up -- it's the real deal, and it's breathtaking.

Source

A Guy

 

[Britton30]

Amazing clarity for a ground based telescope. Thanks Bill.

 

[kbrady1979]

The fact that we can now see through the "dust and debris" made by the big bang is exciting. Previously, we were only able to see about 250,000-500,000 years after the big bang because of the dust/debris/gas cloud. Well, it's a work in progress, but they have a workaround now

 

[Golden]

BBC News - The crazy ideas which failed to solve the longitude problem

 

[Layback Bear]

That was a great fine Golden. Thank you.

 

[Anak]

The 68th observance of the first use of a nuclear device in war is on Tuesday August 6th.

You can use this interactive Sim to estimate the effects of "Little Boy" (15kt) on your local area.
NUKEMAP2 by Alex Wellerstein

• There are presets. If your town is not on the list you can drag the map pointer to your chosen location.
• Click on the Advanced Options arrow to open it for more options.
• If you don't want to log your anonymous usage data, click on the check box at the bottom aside the Auto-Zoom check box.
• Once you click on the "Detonate" button it takes several seconds to calculate the estimated fatalities and estimated injuries.

There is also a 3D Sim. It can be reached by this link or at the top right of the 2D map: NUKEMAP3D by Alex Wellerstein
Settings are similar, one difference I found was in placing the location. Instead of dragging the pointer you had to drag google earth to your chosen location, then click on the "Place Target" button.