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Canadian Researchers Create Supernova In-lab
Erebus42 writes "Canada has done something neat. Apparently researchers at the University of British Columbia have created supernova in their ISAC (Isotope Seperator and Accelerator), transmuting sodium 21 into magnesium 22. Spiffy."
If a country were able to make this portable enough to use in battle, could this be made into a type of weapon?
The rammifications of a portable supernova are chilling when you put in in Osama or Saddam's hands, no?
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
R1: 'Hey eddie, turn the dial up, let's see what this can do, eh! (get it? eh?) R2: 'Here it goes!' *POOF* R1: 'Where'd nova scotia go?'
Now could you make a black-hole for power generation purposes?
Thanks!
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Canada has done something neat.
Christ, how many dollars is the new coin worth this time?
--saint
The world has enough Sodium 21. It's about time someone started converting all that crap to Magnesium 22.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Is this science for sciences sake, or will there be any praticle uses from this. I can't think of any off the top of my head....
Cruise TT
"Canada is now leading the world in the field of nuclear astrophysics.
;-)
"We have bragging rights."
Finally... I was wondering when we would.
void women (int money, time_t time);
If they can turn sodium(21) into magnesium(22), they're only two steps away from transforming Lead(82) into Gold(79)! Go Canada! :-)
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
The way the author describes this, they make it sound like something impressive. But, um... could someone fill me in here? And for all the other clueless out there?
Everything is mainstream now.
Nova Scotia's on the other coast you butthead!
You're using her as bait, Master!
They could use it to melt snow ? ... or something else , i am sure there is other things in canada... mabey melt snow ?
Cruise TT
PK
"Where are we going... and why are we in this handbasket?"
Engineers arn't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.
THere seems to be wuite a bit of bragging in the article, but I guess that is to be expected. Something big like this sounds like it took a lot of effort, so these guys were psyched. Can't say as I blame them.
But it does kindof worry me that Canadians ccan now create there own elements at will. What is to prevent them from creating tons and tons of gold and flooding the gold market? Or How about creating their own Plutonium. Uh oh, I think Canada just got the bomb...Or Carbon. If canada can create it's own Carbon, what can keep them from creating diamonds and flooding the diamond market. And Carbopn is the basis for life. they can create their own stem cells. George Bush ain't going to be happy about that one...Wait, I just relized this means they can create their Hydrogen. My god, they cancreate their own sun. My god, Canada must be stopped.
Congrats goes out to these guys.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Just another visual stimulant to add to Pink Floyd...
..Canadian shield proves ineffective.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
So the physicist was right after all. Someone just created a black hole!
Cheers,
levine
I cannot believe how lame this is!
What has this to do with stars exploding?
I mean, yes, this is a nuclear reaction that occurs in supernovas, but it's only one of many. If you come to my house and I sell you a book, I have not recreated Barnes and Noble in my study.
Still, it's a cool trick.
--
E_NOSIG
I didn't know scientific research was about "braggin rights."
I can hear Isaac Newton now: "Suck dis m*therF*#$^@ Michaelangelo. You be illin & I be chillin."
d@
It will never cease to amaze me that there is this army of trolls just lying in wait to come up with the stupidest, most knee-jerk, ignorant and uninformed comment on damn near anything withing moments of its appearance. There's almost a sort of genius to it...
Unfortunately it's a really stupid, useless sort of genius.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
But the next thing ubc wants to do is ignite the "supernova".
:)
Next for the lab is what Shotter describes as one of the thorniest problems for nuclear astrophysicists, duplicating the reaction of the isotope oxygen 15, which is believed to be the spark that ignites nova explosions and x-ray bursts.
What can I say, America better not try and invade...
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
While this is all facinating and incredible and stuff, im just wondering when these guys are gonna blow up he planet =)
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
Chalmers: Good Lord, what is happening in there?
Skinner: Aurora Borealis?
Chalmers: Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?
Skinner: Yes.
Chalmers: May I see it?
Skinner: Oh, erm... No.
So now I can have my Leaden Took turned into a Golden Took?
Mmmm... Pistol Whip...
If you go through the quotes you will notice that the scientiest never said they created "a supernova". For some reasons - saying so is really stupid, a supernova is something million times brighter than a star (more precise: around 10^10 times as bright as our sun). Even if our sun goes up in a nova it won't even come close to that - how do you want to build that in a lab?
Artifical supernovas? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't supernovas the cause of black holes? I mean, it seems unlikely to occur, considering the small mass involved in the experimental samples... but if the matter is compressed enough, won't we get a "mini" black hole -- the idea that escape velocity from a single point would be that great is not (completely) insane.
When are they going to make a dollar that's actually worth one dollar?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Is *that* what you meant by "don't cross the streams"?
Oh, wait a minute. The price for Platinum is 1.7 times the price of gold.
nevermind...
Using a proton beam from the university's TRIUMF cyclotron directed by giant electromagnets, the team accelerated the radioactive isotope sodium 21 in a recreation of the explosive death of a star eight times the size of our own sun.
So let me get this straight. They made a small supernova? They made a supernova the size of a sodium isotope?
Would that be a Supernovetta?
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
If this was a supernova, the earth and the moon would be a plasma wave in a few seconds and the rest of the planets and the sun would be next. Hell, Alpha Centuri would be toast in about 4.5 years!
What a load of hype!!!
They just needed some way to keep warm.
I went outside a little while ago and didn't see any bright flashes. I was looking northward too (from Florida). Are you sure this wasn't made up, like the lunar landings?
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
So you can turn salt in to Mg
All you have to do is light it, add a tough of rust and Al to it and boom...
You can have a new way to have salt melt snow....
Project director Paul Schmor noted, "We have satellite detectors in space called observatories, studying the effects [of stellar explosions] long after the event.
"Now we can re-create the event itself."
BS. You may be able to emulate the effects or the reactions of supernovae, but studying the facsimile will avail us nothing in the realm of physics.
That would be like me saying that I could create a black hole in my bathtub with a few particle accelerators and a little needle to punch a hole in the STC, and then saying I knew how they formed in space.
The very fact that you could do such a thing is impressive, but the creation is based on your limited, earth-based observations nonetheless.
--
dthor
One can see any number of science fiction books coming out in which Canada manages to suck itself into a black hole or blow itself into orbit.
It's a huge stretch to say this is the first man-made supernova. Maybe it's the first man-made r-process nuclear reaction, but that's a far cry from a supernova. The reaction they've reproduced involves trace elements, not the iron/nickel that are really important in a SN.
Basically, a SN happens when a massive star has converted all of its core fuel into iron by nuclear fusion. The star's gravity compresses and heats the iron until it can fuse also. However, iron is the most tightly bound element, so fusing iron nuclei doesn't release heat energy, it removes it. The thermal pressure that was holding up the star's core disappears in a fraction of a second, and the whole thing comes crashing down in a huge implosion. The implosion causes the core material to form a neutron star or a black hole, and the rebounding shock wave blows the rest of the star apart.
Doesn't sound much like what they did. I don't mean to downplay their achievement; it's still very impressive. I'm just lamenting the sorry state of most science reporting...
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
What is more interesting than the article, is the fact that most of the slashdot comments are nothing more than vaguely anti-canadian blither. Good stuff.
...there long term goal being to convert water directly into beer
Now I get it"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
Offtopic, but it's interesting to know that the University of British Columbia has the ubc.edu domain too as the article links to. As a former UBC student, I always thought that it was just ubc.ca... Always thought that .edu was just for the american universities. Simon Fraser University - also in Vancouver, BC is just sfu.ca, not sfu.edu.
It's just giving the atoms "special hugs".
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
The better we understand how the universe works, the closer we get to that hyperdrive.
Also this shows that the same physics applies here as applies many light years away. That might seem like an obvious assumption to make, but it is good to confirm these things.
All this bragging aboot Canada makes me want to go download that Molson beer commercial from AdCritic...
"I am a cipher, a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce" -Jimmy James
I hate starwars buffs, but I honestly misread this:
"A University of B.C. research team has recreated the death of a star"
as
"A University of B.C. research team has recreated the death star"
God spoke to me
I must be tired. The first time I read this headline, I read:
Canadian Researchers Create Supernova In-Pub
I think my first reading would have made a more interesting story.
Lots of things could end up in Osama's hands. Let's ban hands altogether.
Where's the guy who makes the joke about other people asking about Beowulf clusters of supernova's?
-
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
the sodium 21 was transmuted into magnesium 22, which decays into the radioactive isotope sodium 22
as opposed to remaining as magnesium 22. That being said this is still a huge breakthough. With the exception of hydrogren and helium all the elements in the universe are believe to have been formed in Novas or Supernovas. These researchers now has the ability to observe this process directly. Up till now all our knowledge on the subject in based on theories based observations of distant (super)Nova. Who knows the possible extensions of this technology? Transmutation of elements? Fission reactors? Not to mention the huge betterment of our understanding of these processes which will undoubtedly lead to new fields of research which may lead to other breakthroughs in themselves.
I stole this Sig
Just me?
Scientific groups RUSH and SAGA were disappointed to learn of TRIUMF's success, but swore to produce even bigger explosions next time.
Now that they have conquered the tricky sodium to magnesium problem, they can begin work on the classic lead to gold problem. We must annex Canada (no, its not a state yet despite what most Americans think) before its too late!
.. what about the classic water to wine? I'd be far more interested in that - good thing I've got a vote in this country!
"Old man yells at systemd"
There goes the funding, they created a super nova, using fourty million, which is like $90 in US dollars. What does this mean for humanity? Ohhh, just another nightlight for Johnny.
NOT QUITE!!! sure its one of the reactions in one...but if they created a supernova...we wouldnt need canada.com (of all places) to report....the shock wave would deliver the news a little faster!
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Now can they turn silicon into unobtanium?
Remain calm! All is well!
I suppose the perfect antidote to a portable 'Supernova' weapon would be a portable 'Blackhole' weapon. Man the defense industry is going to love this.
Blame Canada!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I'm waiting for the machine that turns Pb into Au.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
What happens when they figure out how to cheaply turn an element into gold? I guess it would be some strange isotope of gold that would then decay into a new isotope of the original element?
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
A University of B.C. research team has recreated the death of a star and subsequent birth of elements that form the universe, the first time this has been done by mankind.
The statement following was left out for some unknown reason. In the interest of preserving the true integrity of journalism, it is included below:
The team, along with the University of B.C., became the first humans and university, respectively, to be instantly vaporized by a supernova. Bystanders were awed at the sight before receiving intensive doses of gamma- and x-rays. Despite their injuries, some requested prior notification of future tests, in hopes of capturing the event on film.
University of B.C. officials were not commenting on the event, but bystanders were eager to recount their version of the story: "It went boom," said one man, who claimed to be in his early forties and said he had been attending the school for over 20 years, "and I think I had a class in that building once! It's things like this which make me try that much harder to graduate."
Come on, it's only one feat, so you get one (1) bragging right, no more.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Has everyone forgot that what happened on September 11th was made possible by the everyday technology of airplanes and _box cutters_ ?
/ 1450218&mode=thread">computer trojans</a> [slashdot.org] and nuclear astrophysics.
Come on.. a few months ago bin Laden was under the refuge of a backwards government that *prohibited* technology.. and now, if you listen to people like this, bin Laden and al Queda are suddenly on the cutting edge of <a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/18
This isn't to say that bin Laden and al Queda aren't dangerous, but let's keep things in perspective, mmkay?
One Toonie = Twenty Timbits
One Toonie = 2 KFC Pieces + Fries (on Tuesday)
Most certainly a versatile coin!
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
If you look at their Vision Statement you can see they have some pretty ambitious plans. I'm not sure if this is on the order of cold fusion but I certainly made a bookmark of it.
-Sean Pepes
UNCLV
Just some assorted ravings of a mad man
Why do so many of my fellow Canadians have to keep gloating like this? We already know we're faster, bigger and better. Why do they keep blowing our perfect cover as the economically challenged, polite underdog of the free world? Why can't they all just shut up, keep with the Secret Plans(R)(C) and bide their time until we can hold our powerful neighbours as hostages with our superior science and beer? Now someone will buy our nova gun.... erm, research patents and we'll be stuck with a two-four of empties.
other way around... it would be $20-25mil US.
... can see it already
.. Bud Light ... ehh"
"Canada destroyed by ignited Super Nova".
Last reported words by one scientist "No
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
to take place sometime next year in Toronto.
You'd understand if you were Canadian.
Well it only took us thousands of years, but now we can turn lead into gold, LOL.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Have a look at SOME OF THE FIRSTS Canada is in the world and then get back to your bashing.
Although the URL you gave referring to the .edu TLD may work, the correct URL for UBC is actually www.ubc.ca.
The .edu alias is there for idiots who can't work out that the University of British Columbia is not in the US.
mod this up!
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Jesus was way cool.
Everybody liked Jesus.
Everybody wanted to hang out with him.
Anything he wanted to do he did.
He turned water into wine,
and if he had wanted to,
he could have turned wheat into
marijuana, sugar into cocaine,
or vitamin pills into amphetamines.
I guess I'm not catching the real significance of this "achievement". What was the theory? What was this experiment attempting to prove or disprove? Were they just showing off how fast they could accellerate protons??
Proclaiming that their proton beam somehow creates a miniature nova seems like a ploy to attract attention (and funding, of course).
The fact that they are more excited by "Canada" doing it, than the actual event, says it isn't so special...
If it were that impressive, someone would have thought it up 18 years ago (like Canada did in this case), and got it to work 15 years ago...
Kind of pathetic.
lighting Colemans and frying up back bacon?
Everyone here seems to be missing the point. They all want to know "Can it be used as a weapon?". This would be like using a particle accelerator as a weapon; very impractical and expensive. The reason this is news is because they are getting closer to understanding how supernovae work. (And Im not really an AC, I just lost my password and don't have access to my old email acct)
This is neat? No, it's scary.
If we all die, I blame Canada.
Hail South Park
Go see ramdac
So, to sum up, they've got their isotope accellerator up and working to the point where they can do some very nice experiments on high-energy nuclear processes, including a number that are important in stellar explosions. No supernova though.
-JS
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...
Now where did the U.S. put that super conducting super collider - Doh!
Blame Canada!
now we know who is regular canada.com reader! we spotted the canadans(sic)!!!
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
had one of those moments when a joke is told to a large audience, and your the only one who didn't get it? Then everyone laughs again and makes hand gestures over there head with the sounds "VVVRRRRROOOMMMMMM"?
...
Your in one of those moments right now
Is anyone else scared that these tests are being preformed by Canadians? They will end up sucking this planet into a blackhole and only say "eh?"
how the fuck is this "funny"?
huh?
crack head mods?
funny? no, interesting yes, but not funny.... if I had filtered out all "funny" I'd not seen this +5 informitive article.. because it's +5 funny.. HHMMM??
I thought it was just the wind...
Living WAY too close to UBC.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
lol.
Obviously a non-Torontonian who doesn't believe Toronto is the center of the universe, eh.
No, he was right, it was $90.00. It would be better spent on a TiVo.
It's only a northern sun.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Dose New York people are SOOOO self-centred! I mean look at 'em! Days got dere big builduns and days gots all dat money! We's just hate 'em SOOOO much!
In a parallel breakthrough sure to rock the physics world to its very foundations, Tsar has created a mini black hole in his ISAC (Incredibly Stinky, Ancient Cubicle), causing light to bend uniformly around a point approximately six inches above his desk. The feat was accomplished by using a sample of very pure silicon-based substance called "glass", which was ground and shaped to form what is, in effect, a solid "lens".
Ultraviolet light generated by an ionized gas was then used to excite a flourescent coating on the interior of a nearby cylinder, creating visible light which was reflected by the surface of a technical document placed precisely in its path. The light was then directed through the "lens" to produce the light-bending effect commonly seen only around supermassive objects such as black holes and galactic superclusters.
Tsar's next ambitious project is to create a miniature expanding multiverse by blowing up several balloons for a staff New Year's party, the expense of which will likely be covered by the piles of grant money expected due to the unqualified success of the LENS experiment.
Disclaimer: I'm all all for the advancement of science, but why do we have to use hyperbole to make it seem interesting, or valuable? Maybe if everyone stopped claiming to have created supernovae or black holes or the core of a star or the moment of creation, we could get to a point where dull, devoted, brilliant researchers who didn't minor in drama can still get funding for their worthy efforts. (This is not a plug—I'm not a researcher, and I'm vastly overpaid as it is.)
Hah! This is just the beginning of our rise to dominance over the soon-to-be-former most powerful nation in the world.
Bow down before our greatness!
The media always get this one wrong. TRIUMF is not the same as UBC -- it happens to be situated near to UBC's campus, but they are about as separate as Linux and Redhat. Not completely distinct, but you'll get lots of people annoyed if you always say Redhat when you mean Linux.
The name "TRIUMF" actually comes from the original name: TRI University Meson Facility. The three founding universities being UBC, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Victoria.
Work at TRIUMF is done by people from the member universities, people from other institutions (although there's more paperwork involved IIRC), and by "facilities scientists" -- people hired by TRIUMF itself. I don't know about the rest of the research group, but Paul Schmor is listed in TRIUMF's databases as having TRIUMF affiliation -- not UBC.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
LOL. Try it.
The last time Americans tried to Annex Canada we not only turned you back, but pushed you back south of your beloved White House, then burned it down.
;)
Mike
I can't believe that the 3D View of the Experimental Hall (which I worked two weeks on as a summer student) is actually posted on Slashdot! Fame and fortune, here I come!
Wah!
Don't you wish these guys would quit creating nasty things in their laboratories. There are things we shouldn't be screwing around with...
...that they had a Champaign Supernova afterward?
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
It still amazes me after all these years that so many people react to the Slashdot editors' trolls. A lot of articles posted to Slashdot are informative, but obviously as a corporate entity, Slashdot needs to attract the masses with sensationalist, trollish stories as well. There are at least three 5-rated posts in response to this story that it is exagerative.
This happens over and over. Do you think that the Slashdot editors are that stupid? No, they are smart, and they make a lot of money. If they keep it too tight and smart, a lot of people (read: lurkers, not the average poster) might get bored or scared away.
Why do you think there is no article moderation or ratings in this supposedly "open" community? All I'm saying is that you shouldn't waste so much energy on getting worked up over Slashdot's editing.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
How many Torontonians does it take to change a light bulb?
Just one to hold the bulb - the country turns around him.
tell me when they turn lead into gold
Even bigger and better than a storm in a teacup.
Dunno, think they could probably go dig Uranium out of the ground in Saskatchewan and modify it with our world class reactors =).
And as for us having the bomb, we've had it for years. We call them the Canucks.
...a great way of getting rid of weapons grade stuff you might have around...
(former IT guy from AECL makers of the CANDU)
BlackNova Traders
When my regime comes to power anyone who says something like "Canada has done something neat", when in-fact only a small part of Canada (the researchers) actually did something, will be sent to death camps.
This story is no big deal - we have MANY black hole
my uncle recently lost his leg in such a hole - was unexploded 10'000 ordinance, not birth of sun, but hole is hole!
I have also seen many black hole on c64 at www.blacksluts.com!!!
Internet is Great!!! junis
They dug up my old office at TRIUMF to put ISAC in. I guess I'll stop pouting now that they've done something cool with it :) Actually, it wasn't a great loss; smelly old trailer from the 70s with a bunch of old DECs in it.
Brant
Let's make some gold, baby...
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
All you really need for a black hole is enough heavy matter in small enough space.
Astute physics students (those paying attention in class) should be able to distinguish weight (how "heavy" something is) to mass. What you need is a very very dense object... get it dense enough and you get a black hole. Size is irrelevant.
The step "above" a black hole is a neutron star. Among other things, they spin very very fast, and have cores which are superfluids. Neato!
A supernova can create a neutron star by compressing the core and ejecting the remaining matter, forming a very small (relative to the original size of the star) and very dense "dead star." If these neutron stars are able to accrete material from, say, a nearby gas giant, well you're on your way to becoming a black hole. If a black hole is small enough, it could be the center of a solar system and not cause any problems for the orbiting planet.
A cool part of the black hole is the ergosphere. It is outside the event horizon, so if you put a space craft in the ergosphere, the craft would be accelerated by the black hole's gravity and could leave the ergosphere with more (kinetic) energy that in came in with... it could be used, in theory, to "slingshot" vessels around, the obvious advantage being they're actually going faster when they leave.
why do we have to use hyperbole to make it seem interesting, or valuable?
Most people can't relate to science stories unless they're pumped up. The "oooo, aaaaa" thang. In this story, it's done badly by a crappy writer.
More generally, in a crowded world full of talented people, attracting attention -- getting a share of people's limited attention span -- means more and more arm-waving. It's the same way at science conferences, just more subtle... sometimes.
*I mean, how often have you seen a weather map on TV that has temperatures in Canada that are even 32 degrees? It'll be 72 in Seattle and just across the border in Vancouver it's 20 degrees. And when it's 35 degrees in Buffalo, it's usually like ZERO in Toronto.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
another thing we can brag about.. we dont have to pay for your satellite stations.. Wohoo for Canada and Direct TV! 1000 Channels and Nothings on!
I was wondering what that bright flash was. Just wish they had warned us to put on 9999 SPF sunblock. Still, at least I know who's to blame for being sunburned extra crispy: Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"*I mean, how often have you seen a weather map on TV that has temperatures in Canada that are even 32 degrees? It'll be 72 in Seattle and just across the border in Vancouver it's 20 degrees." This is most likely due to the fact that in Canada, temperature is calculated in Celsius, not Farenheit. 0 is freezing. :P
(Score:-1, Doesn't Realise It's A Joke)
I understand these things are small, and are likewise controlled, but if you create something which may accidentally grow exponently bigger (if this is even possible)?...
Yep, spiffy is a perfect description.
You grab any old particle accelerator and aim it at element X and get element Y. Spiffy.
Well, I guess Canada needs bragging rights to SOMETHING better than "The only country in the world less likely to get in war with the US than Texas".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
What's Celsius?
Karma whorin' since 1999
I don't understand the points system, so I'll say it...
How about a Beowolf cluster of theses!!
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
Why, here in Canada, we've not only created a supernova but in fact a whole 'mirror universe'. Although virtually identical to the US in most ways, in this 'twin world' the dollar is almost worthless, the politics are leftish, measurements are conducted in a rather strange "metric" system, the minority language is French rather than Spanish, and people manifest love for their nation by violently asserting a profound lack of patriotism.
As near as I can tell, the real universe split from its when the war of independence failed to happen, although it could also have something to do with the invention of poutine.
Interestingly, since prime-time television programming has apparently not yet been invented in this timeline, this alternate universe is almost completely dependent upon its mate for non-drama, non-Prince-Edward-Island-themed broadcasts. Thus, while the existence of a 'shadow -universe' may come as a shock to all of you in out there in the real one, citizens of this other realm have known about your universe for quite some time. They've been watching you! They don't wear goatees, but they all seem to wear mustaches! Avoid replacement by your evil twin: Destroy Canada today!
- undoware.ca
Canadians don't need global warming, dumbass. We're tough enough to handle the cold.
In the nuclear physics field, reactions with unstable isotopes are a relativlely new topic (less than 10 years), yet such reactions are routinely measured at various labs in the world
(Michigan State Univerity NSCL, France's GANIL, and many others). The reaction of interest 21Na(p,gamma)22Mg is indeed one that is thought to take place in the so called rp (rapid proton capture) process that is supposed to happen in imploding super novae. But, this is a far stretch
from building a SN in a lab, it is only reproducing one elementary reaction among the many
that occun in a SN. However that does not detract from the academic interest of this experiment.
Now comming to the subject of transmutation, it is indded possible to transmute materials with a particle accelerator, and this has been known in the nuclear physics community for ages. But the difficulty lies in transmuting macroscopic quantities (of the order of one mole or more: 10E22 atoms). The 22Mg must have been produced with at most 10E4 atoms (probably much less): there is a long way to go up to macroscopic scale.
The best example of transumtation on an industrial scale is the 239Pu production for military uses from 238U and neutrons from fission reaction (and this is hardly new, think Manhattan project !).
Sure Canadians calculate in Celcius, but do you really think American weathermen care about that?
Besides, our weather maps are colorized so that we don't have to read the numbers:
"Well, acording to the weather man it is blue here in Minnesota, and it is even bluer in Ontario. Must be really cold there!"
UBC's address is http://www.ubc.ca, not .edu.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but since black holes have so much pulling force that even light can't escape, by using that same force couldnt you use the "slingshot" thing to accelerate yourself faster than the speed of light? The only problem that I would see with that is getting out of "the loop"
A cool part of the black hole is the ergosphere. It is outside the event horizon, so if you put a space craft in the ergosphere, the craft would be accelerated by the black hole's gravity and could leave the ergosphere with more (kinetic) energy that in came in with... it could be used, in theory, to "slingshot" vessels around, the obvious advantage being they're actually going faster when they leave.
Perhaps some explanation is warranted. When any massive object rotates, general relativity predicts that it induces a "frame-dragging" effect around it, pulling other objects in the direction of rotation. With ordinary objects like Earth, the effect is minimal, but when a black hole rotates, there is a region outside the event horizon in which everything must revolve the axis, including photons. This is the ergosphere.
Ergospheres are only present around rotating black holes, and they are only significant around those whose rotational kinetic energy is a large fraction of their rest mass energy (i.e. they are spinning awfully quickly). The other neat aspect of rotating black holes is that the singular set is not a point, but a circle. However, you can't "jump through the hoop" - if you enter the event horizon, you will hit the circle with probability 1.
Hmm...Well for those of YOU who believe in a god and are profound on your beliefs, then you must realize that even god's firewall is vulnerable sometimes...hackers,free thinkers and others of the sort will one day go to that fiery place in the ground?FOR WHAT?What if you look at the other end of the spectrum,for instance: The Al' Quaida Network are some hardcore radical muslim SOBs whom believe that what their doing will get THEM to heaven and us to hell. On the other hand Americans believe that by reigning in capitalism and spreading freedom around the world,taking out terror from the planet will get THEM to heaven. So who is right? If you are at a different end of the same spectrum you understand ONLY that side unless you have the ability to care much for one side but understand the other,Like Me. I know I went totally off subject. But the Israelis deserve to die.If you stop and think, every thing bad that has happened to the US in the last 6 monthes can be blamed on them. And thats all I have to say.
"Fight The Power"
Didn't these people *ever* play Half-Life?
Anyone got a Hazard Suit for sale?
didn't they just steal this idea from an episode of Stargate?
No, really, they did.
Just let this escape and we will see up close and personal what a nova is like. Much like fusion experiments, what is to guarantee this is a controllable reaction? Remember the "Pepsi Syndrome" skit on Saturday Night Live? I would not bet money or my life that this kind of stupidity won't happen. Remember "O" rings on the space shuttle? Now there is a high tech solution. Sheesh!
P.S. Douchebags!
You went where?!
What's it like out there? It looks kinda bright to me. Much brighter than my room. God knows why you'd wanna go there.
Follow me
Am I the only one who finds the fact that the article referenced is in the Vancouver Sun just the slightest bit funny?
I think there needs to be a seperation of IT undergrads. Out in the real world CS majors and MIS majors and CIS majors may all vie for the same or similar jobs... BUT.. their curriculums in undergrad institutions are governed many times by completely different schools of thought. Many CS departments I've seen (plus my own) are run my science and research oriented faculty and many times see unix/linux as a great learning tool to tear down the system and show their students how the stuff really is programmed. As for MIS departments (at least in my college) are usually under the school of business or at least have a tie with that school. This is a completely different school of thought from the Science or math proffessors. The business guys see Micro$oft as the big kid on the block you should get behind.. which they are in some respects.. but still either way. Many of these programs would naturally go toward microsoft products.. and programming. As far as when you get out into the real world.. hopefully you've learned enough to be able to deal with any of these situations and hopefully learn the specifics as you work.
Who makes you Sig?
I think you wouldn't get much from Celein Dion. Maybe I'm thinking of deaths of stars carreers.
Light can't escape once it's passed a certain point, the Schwarzchild radius, IIRC. But the hole still exerts force beyond the "edge."
You could slingshot a spaceship around the otuside at a certain distance, although I'd hate to think what the tidal forces exerted by a black hole would do to your pilot.
----
"I used to listen to Null Device before they sold out."
rim job?
anyone want to take a guess as to how long it will take the studios to make this into another Arnie movie?
...I turned on a light, thus flooding the room with a billion^billion times more photons than before.
The US annex Canada! Not likely, dearest. Canada, now a proprietary of the truly beneficient ER, is way ahead of the US, and will remain so.
Canadians are able to admit truth, that they borrow their lunch currency from their children, through a bank which is privately owned by the most beneficient ER. From this bank, she is then able to direct funding, though the royal heirachy of knights (i.e. central bankers) towards progress. From within this honesty, their entire approach to the politics of life is based on reality: their approach to funding of scientific progress includes an admission of their duty of obedience, arising from their indenturement of their children to the Queen, and the beneficient Queen returns the favor.
US idiot-citizens still deny the fact that their "Federal Reserve Banking System" is owned by agent-knights of ER, through the Knights of the Order of Saint John of Jeruselum. These same US citizen-drones blindly deny that the United States has become a ressurection of the British East India Company, wherein the original British stockholders have merely been suplanted by the Queen. In a similar way, they deny that their lunch currency is created by a perpetual indenturement of their children to the owner's of the Wall Street banks which partake at the table of the so-called "Open Market Committee" of the "Federal" "Reserve." The result of this core dishonesty is that American billionaries do not seek progress, through implementation of scientific discoveries. Rather, through their babbling facilitator, i.e. through Osama-bin-Greenspan (who, with his Wall Street KKKronies, has debt bombed the US industrial infrastructure, once the most powerful in the world, far worse than any bomb imported by some unshaven anti-Muslim reptile who spends all day crawling around in caves), the Mike Milkins, Jim Kimseys and Manuel Maralandas of the world, are systematically preparing America for its higher destiny.
You bleedin' Yanks might do well to hope, that America will someday rise again in its more truthful form then, as a proprietary of the Queen, where it truly belongs, in harmonic similitude with its more truthful brothers, Canada and Austrilia.
Long live the Queen! Long live Canadian and Austrialian scientific progress! Long live the funding of scientific progress, by our beneficient Queen!
Yeah, well, your response on my unecessary derision of slashdot posters was longer than my original post...
I'll have to head over to your user profile and check out your other comments for more tips on the "proper" way to deal with posts I don't care for... I've obviously gone astray pointing out factual errors in comments and taking people to task for pretending to weigh in on articles when they're in fact too lazy to read anything but the headline. Clearly I haven't given enough thought to the high road of profane language and unkind "geek" stereotypes like glasses and acne. You kiss your momma with that mouth?
I gotta take this from someone that uses phrases like "a thin foul mist of pretention?"
the rest of us non-reactionary types.
After you learn how to spell "pretension" you may want to keep that dictionary out and review the definition of "hypocrisy."
In short... you're not helping.
Helping what? Helping the slashdot comments forum become a kinder, gentler place? Whatever. Yeah, I've got my pet peeves and occasionally vent my spleen. If I gotta swing for it I can take some comfort in the fact that there will be a very long line in front of me to the gallows. None of us is achieving social revolution wasting our time posting our brain drool to slashdot. At best we learn something from time to time, get into the occasional interesting conversation, and have the chance to blow off some verbal steam without doing any real harm. So get off your high horse. Anyone can see that you're easily as pretentious and reactionary as I am (though clearly nowhere near so smart and glib).
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries