We have so many stable elements that I've always wondered why everything on the table >92 is unstable?
Actually everything past bismuth 209 is unstable. 92 is merely the last element to have any isotopes that are stable on a geological timescale (U238 half-life around 4.5 * 10^9 years).
As for why, simply put their nuclei are very loosely held together. Neutrons hold nuclei together with a force known as binding energy (think of it as atomic glue).
For very light elements, (up to around calcium (element 20) stability is achieved by more or less associating one neutron with every proton. However, for heavier elements, an excess of neutrons is needed to hold the nucleus together - the excess growing as elements get heavier.
Simply put (and I hope any physicists will forgive me for this - they have equations and everything!) The electrostatic repulsion between the protons in the nucleus operates over a larger distance than the stronger, binding force of the neutrons. As the nucleus grows, the protons in the nucleus experience a weakening binding force. Beyond a certain point (Bismuth 209) this binding force is insufficient to hold the nucleus together forever - the nucleus will decay.
Elements are distinguished from one another by the number of protons in their nuclei. Hydrogen has 1, helium 2 and so on. The heaviest naturally occuring element found on Earth is number 92 - uranium.
The limiting factor on elements heavier than 92 is that they are unstable. In fact all of the heavier elements are unstable - they are radioactive, parts of their nuclei keep falling off - they turn into new, lighter elements. So uranium decays step by step, down the periodic table eventually forming lead.
The reason for nuclear decay is a concept known as binding energy - the energy needed to hold a nucleus together. Very simply, the nucleus consists of postively charged protons - each repelling the other. If this repulsion was not counteracted the nucleus would disintegrate. However, the nucleus also contains neutrons - which act very much like glue - sticking protons together. If you measure the binding energy of all the elements you will notice that it rises rapidly from hydrogen, peaking around iron (element 26) and then gradually diminishing towards uranium.
By the time you reach uranium, the binding energy is barely able to hold the nucleus together, beyond uranium, the nuclei of the elements become extremely unstable - they decay - rapidly.
2) Is it not possible for us to discover other natural elements?
Below 92? No. Each element must have at least one proton (in which case it is called hydrogen), we have found each and every element between 1 and 92. You can't have half a proton, so there are just 92 elements in Nature (see proviso below). Some models of atomic nuclei suggest that there are elements heavier than 92 which are comparatively stable - they would be radioactive and decay, but might have considerable half-lives. The theoretical 'island of stability' lies out between elements 118 and 130 (?) - but as yet remains undiscovered.
3) Is it inconceivable that our "new" elements could also be produced under similar conditions in nature?
Yes, supernovae are capable of building up super-heavy elements. However, the short half-lives of the elements mean that they have long since decayed in the rocks around us. The synthetic elements neptunium (93) and plutonium (94) are also generated in minute quantities in naturally occuring uranium.
4) Have all of these new elements only existed in very small quantities for short periods of time, under controlled conditions?
Pretty much, although some of the synthetic elements were first discovered in the residue of nuclear weapons tests.
Oh its worked so far, but the problem is that some people at the Department of Defense are feeling a might bit constrained by convention. The idea that nuclear weapons are so terrifying that they can't be used is gradually being eroded by the hawks. We hear that the US is planning mini-nukes, okay they're not big, but they are nuclear weapons. By deliberately building small nuclear weapons, the policy is not only to make the use of nuclear weapons acceptable, but to make their first use acceptable. (A policy that was immediately followed by Mini-Me Great Britain in the run-up to the most recent war in Iraq). People are now seriously thinking that nuclear weapons can help win a war.
It sounds awfully like the policy of the Reagan era for battlefield-nukes. The US believed that the use of nuclear weapons could be limited to the battlefield and that strategic weapons would live in their silos. The Soviet Union told them firmly that the detonation of a single nuclear weapon, no matter where, would result in a strategic retaliation. The US (wisely) backed down.
The people around Rumsfeld who are tripping so lightly down the path of mini-nukes might pause to consider that where the US goes, other countries will follow (and none faster than Britain which appears to be incapable of holding a single independent policy these days).
Best wishes,
Mike.
PS. Countries with nuclear weapons, you should probably add North Korea to that list.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. No nuclear material was ever stolen from the United States, all of the subsequent nuclear powers had to develop their own techniques for producing fissionable materials.
The ideas themselves were far more dangerous and harder to restrain (and haven't we heard that more recently with the collapse of the Soviet Union and their nuclear, bioweapons and missile specialists).
The USSR and the UK relied heavily on pre-war research to explore the basic science behind nuclear weapons. Most of the research on fission and isotope work was published in the open scientific press right up until the outbreak of war in 1939.
The USSR got a lot more detail from their brilliant espionage operation, which doubtlessly allowed them to develop Joe 1 in record time - after all, they knew what had worked for the Americans, 'all' they had to do was copy that design. They did, it worked, and the World was never the same again.
The UK had many scientists who had worked on atomic weapons before the Americans even joined World War II and who then went on to work on the American bomb programme. When the UK was excluded from future weapon design, they brought their knowledge back to the UK. So it wasn't very surprising that Hurricane was almost identical to Trinity.
And both the UK and the USSR benefited from the genius of Klaus Fuchs.
In both cases it took enormous effort and genius to replicate the US's achievements. But in both cases, countries with relatively few resources were able to piggy back their success on the American programme.
the inventor of the Gatling gun had similar ideas. He thought that if he could create a weapon that was so devastating to use, nobody would want to go to war anymore. We all know where that led.
And the developers of chemical weapons, and biological weapons, and the bomber, and the battleship, and nuclear weapons...
I'm beginning to suspect they might all have been wrong.
The U.S. has not pulled out of any non-proliferation treaty, only the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
True, but it has also refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - one of the most important treaties that would prevent new nuclear powers emerging.
How many US Nukes have fallen into the wrong hands before? I couldn't find info on any.
That's not the question. The technology and information will leak. The Manhattan Project produced the first plutonium bomb in 1945. The Soviet Union exploded Joe 1, a carbon-copy of Trinity in 1949, the United Kingdom exploded Hurricane, its own copy in 1953. The Chinese almost certainly had Soviet help in designing their first bomb. None of them used stolen American material - just ideas that had been circulating.in the scientific press, seeded with the results of espionage.
Nor can the US hope to hold the entire stock of raw materials - deposits lie all over the World. In the post Manhattan era, the US and the UK tried to hoard the global supplies of uranium - they failed.
If these weapons are possible they will be made, it is up to us to decide if they should be controlled or not. If we are willing, we could start arms negotiations to make these weapons illegal even before they were produced. It's been done in the past. But I don't think the current American administration believes in international treaties. Which means we might be about to allow another genie out of the bottle.
My basic question concerning this is two-fold, is this realy needed, and if it is created will we be able to control the techology. With world events the way they are now it seems like one of the last things that we end is a small high yeild weapon that can fall into the worng hands. At least with nuclear weapons there are some means of detecting their presence, but it seems that these weapons will not have the same signature.
If the second procedure mentioned of bombarding hafnium by high energy photons is a goer, I can't see how the US could hope to control the technology.
I think you're referring to an 1979 outbreak of anthrax in Sverdlovsk. The city housed a plant manufacturing anthrax for the Soviet Union's bioweapons programme.
During routine maintenance, a filter was removed from part of the plant and not replaced. The shift changed, the missing filter was not noticed and evaporators which dried anthrax into spores were switched on.
A cloud of anthrax was blown across the city, dozens of people died. The Soviet government panicked (it should not have been manufacturing anthrax in the first place) and first of all denied that there had been an anthrax outbreak. When that proved untenable - even the tame Soviet press was asking questions, they said there had been an outbreak but it was caught from infected meat (not entirely impossible).
IIRC, the truth only came out when the Soviet Union had imploded and Yeltsin confirmed the cause.
Also I would like to see where they got these numbers? If they are using the new 'feature' that notifies microsoft of application crashes then I'd be skeptical... If the OS crashes then the notices won't be sent to Microsoft.
With XP, if the system crashes and forces a reboot, you get a 'System has recovered from a serious error' message and an option to send an error report to Microsoft.
Now if only there was a way of translating those messages into human-readable form, that might actually help us mere mortals work out what is wrong with the computer.
It does not prevent companies storing, processing or selling said data to others.
Actually it does control how data is handled. Personal data can only be stored, processed or transferred with the consent of the data subject and then only for a limited purpose. (Obviously law enforcement bodies have an exception here).
Data may not be processed outside of the scope of the original purpose for which it was obtained. Nor can it be transferred to a country where similar data protection is not enforced.
BTW, that's exactly what I said when I sprained my ankle hiking on it during a field excursion. A mile and a half from the damn truck. Ah, my old ig-pet days..
Nasty, almost as nasty as me slipping on an obsidian flow near Mono Lake. Yep, that stuff sure is sharp.
Wouldn't it be natural to have stress in your voice if something has happened in your life causing you to file an insurance claim?
Not to mention stress induced by the 'Press 1 to speak to a human being who sounds like a machine, Press 2 to speak to a machine who sounds like a human being... [BLIP]
You pressed 1. Press 1 to speak to a person in Edinburgh, Press 2 to speak to a person in Bangalore, Press 3... [BLIP]
You pressed 2. If you want to learn more about our low, low rates Press 1, If you want a cuddly toy as seen in our adverts Press 2, If you actually want to talk to someone Press 3... [BLIP]
You pressed 3. Are you sure you want to speak to someone? Press 1... [BLIP]
whirr clickity
Hello and welcome to the queue to join the queue to talk to one of our service representatives, you are number [pause] fifty-seven in the queue, estimated wait time is [long pause] - do you have any plans for October? While you are waiting, do you know about our other services?' rigamarole.
Mostly good common-sense stuff there, but this stood out like a sore thumb.
In the UK there has also been an 80% annual increase in impersonating dead people. Of 10 billion items of mail sent last year in the UK, 22 million were addressed to deceased people!
Those two sentences have nothing to do with one another. People die all the time and it takes times for relatives to inform all of the authorities and businesses they corresponded with. In the meantime, mail would be sent to dead people. No crime committed, just a screw-up which can be distressing for grieving relatives.
And of course there are the inevitable screw-ups in databases which result in records not being deleted.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:Diamonds inorganic?
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I've always wondered this. Diamond is referred to as inorganic. Organic means "carbon based". What am I missing?
It's actually quite a good question.
I can tell you specifically why diamond is not organic with a quick definition that organic chemistry is the study of compounds containing carbon. Diamond is a giant molecule of elemental carbon, so it is firmly inorganic.
Although that definition isn't perfect, some compounds such as carbon dioxide are also considered inorganic.
Some people say that organic chemistry requires a molecule to possess carbon-hydrogen bonds - but that is wrong as well. Tetrachloromethane (CCl4) - dry cleaning fluid - is firmly organic but with no hygrogen atoms to be found in the molecule.
Which leads me to conclude that organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds - except carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbides.
I ask since the Atlantic Seaboard does have quite severe earthquakes from time-to-time. In 1755 there was a submarine 'quake about 270km off of Cape Anne, Massachusetts. Estimates put it at Richter 6 to 6.5. It caused massive damage to Boston.
Then in 1886 there was big 'quake centred near Richmond, Virginia. Estimated at Richter 6.6 it levelled most of the city.
And the East was heavily shaken by the trio of awe-inspiring New Madrid 'quakes of 1811-1812. Each was between 8.1 and 8.7 and centred on the Mississippi Basin. To give you some idea, people were shaken out of bed in New York, chimneys fell in Washington and church bells rang in Boston!
So that's the East, West and Middle well and truly covered by earthquakes.
A good number of volcanoes - such as those on Hawaii, are fitted with tiltmeters and laser-ranging reflectors.
As magma moves up towards the surface, some volcanoes start to 'inflate', bulging outwards. By measuring changes in tilt, and the geometry of the mountain, vulcanologists can get some warning of the changes under the mountain.
They usually combine this with seismic evidence (that moving magma creates swarms of tiny 'quakes), changes in gas production and the like to try and predict eruptions.
However, volcanoes are just as unpredictable. The USGS made a series of predictions about the Long Valley Caldera in Eastern California. It is an ENORMOUS crater which is underlain by an active magma chamber. The last volcanic activity in the region was about 400 years ago, and it is likely to continue into the future. Slap bang in the middle of Long Valley is the Mammoth Mountain ski resort, built around a dormant volcano.
In the early 1980s, the area around Mammoth Mountain began to bulge, molten rock was being forced upwards, there were swarms of 'quakes, trees began dying as CO2 bubbled up from underground. The USGS cautiously announced that they expected Mammoth Mountain to become active in the near future.
It didn't. The area remains highly active, but doomsday was put off for now.
BTW. if you ever get a chance to go to Mammoth Mountain, Long Valley and the Inyo Craters, do take it - the landscape is simply awe-inspiring.
Another example is Pozzuoli, which lies West of Naples in an area known as the Phlaegrean Fields. This is another colossal caldera with an active magma chamber. The last eruption was in 1538 when a new mountain (called Monte Nuovo somewhat unoriginally) was formed, the crater of Solfatara is still somewhat active, disgorging water and sulphurous fumes.
Pozzuoli is in the the middle of the Fields, a nice seaside town with some Roman ruins. However, during the 1970s, the area began to be shaken by hundreds of 'quakes a day. Even more worryingly, the area began to bulge upwards, sometimes by a centimetre a day! The Italian government ordered the evacuation of the entire city for several years, fearing another massive eruption. Eventually, the bulge subsided, the 'quakes faded and the people went back. But millions had been spent and enormous social dislocation caused.
It's quiet there at the moment, so everyone is looking East, over Naples to Vesuvius, which has been suspiciously quiet for far too long now.
It would be like John Ashcroft's daily terrorist warnings. When people are constantly warned then made afraid and nothing happens, sooner or later they start to ignore the warnings.
With prediction of seismic and volcanic events (Mammoth Mountain anyone?) as bad as it is, you would have a large number of warnings, followed by nothing.
Would you like to be the USGS spokesman who had to admit they had got it wrong - again? No, me neither.
Clive Sinclair did have a few sharp ideas and one of them was the the wafer chip project:
Another was the lovely little Z88 portable computer - sort of a laptop but not quite. It had a 5(?) line LCD display, a semi-travel rubberised keyboard, applications in ROM and solid state storage. IIRC it ran off AA batteries which lasted for weeks (or so it seemed).
They were as tough as old boots, mine travelled all around Europe with me without ever giving a problem. Eventually it met its maker courtesy of the British rain, but I still miss it.
The Segway is doubly screwed in Britain, since it cannot be legally used on the pavement and no insurer will cover it to be used on the roads. Even cycleways are out since the local bylaws forbid powered vehicles from using them.
You might be able to use them if you have a nice long driveway.
Yah, yah, I meant probes + rovers, not rovers alone. They all have the same problem. And don't use lunar rovers to compare with Mars rovers. Luna is heaven compared to Mars: no dust, no atmosphere (so perfect solar coverage!) so no problems. Mars isn't so easy. Don't switch celestial bodies to try to justify the point - the longevity of things on Mars's surface sucks. I could, of course, say that the longevity of planetary probes in general is terrible - just look at Venerean landers - but, Venus is much harsher than Mars. Likewise, the Moon is much more forgiving than Mars is.
Yes, it's true - if we sent down all the support equipment humans need, the rovers MIGHT last longer. The problem is that humans self-repair. Real easily. Rovers/probes do not.
Don't discount the dust so easily. It's not an easy problem - not at all. The dust is really, really fine, and very pervasive. It's not as easy to work around as you think.
Ooops we're in danger of agreeing on something shortly.
I used the Lunar rovers of an example of what can be done. Sojourner was not a real rover in any sense of the word, the two going to Mars at the moment are much more realistic examples.
Lunar dust is a problem for machines on the surface as the Soviets found out. It gets everywhere, shows some electrical conductance and is extremely abrasive.
The same applies to Mars, except that the dust appears to be even finer - around the size of smoke particles. Yes these will cause problems for machines, but likewise they will affect the machines that would be keeping people alive. It would clog filters, get into their electronics, into the bearings and seals in their suits, and perhaps most worryingly, get into their lungs. We know the consequences of breathing fine particles are serious.
Mars has lots of raw materials, such as iron, aluminum, platinum-group metals, as well as lots of volatile chemicals. Imagine if we had access to the planet Earth before all of the major mineral deposits had been taken, how much material that would constitute. And then imagine that we're not destroying a biosphere to get at them. That sounds like reason enough for me to go there.
Earth has plenty of all three, iron and aluminium prices are in decline due to their over-production. Platinum, well it fluctuates a bit, but its currently trading at about $680 an ounce. You'd need a hell of a lot of platinum to pay for missions to Mars.
We've hardly even scratched the mineral reserves on the Earth, we've started running out of the really nice stuff, but the only things that are starting to look decidedly finite are helium and oil - neither of which are on Mars.
And let's be careful about predicting that Mars has no biosphere, it may well have some life (I doubt it), but if any bugs survive there, all bets are off.
Yes, but that descent was probably hastened because for some reason China had been completely economically and politically cut off from the millions of Chinese colonists who had beaten the Europeans to the Americas back when China had been a pre-eminent power along with the European empires.
So where are the great flourishing Chinese colonies in the areas they discovered before deciding to turn their backs on the rest of the World? Where are the Chinese colonies in India and East Africa? Why is evidence of Chinese influence actually quite hard to find?
Simple, because the Chinese were never colonists like the British or the French. They preferred to trade with the locals, taking raw materials back to China. They did not build colonies in the image of the mother country.
China was always a highly centralised economy, it saw a homeland which was defended by strong borders, beyond that was a World that was most definitely NOT China. Trade there - yes, but live there?
Most of the ethnic Chinese around the Pacific are descendents of labourers and traders brought by the British and German Empires. They are not ancient colonies.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually everything past bismuth 209 is unstable. 92 is merely the last element to have any isotopes that are stable on a geological timescale (U238 half-life around 4.5 * 10^9 years).
As for why, simply put their nuclei are very loosely held together. Neutrons hold nuclei together with a force known as binding energy (think of it as atomic glue).
For very light elements, (up to around calcium (element 20) stability is achieved by more or less associating one neutron with every proton. However, for heavier elements, an excess of neutrons is needed to hold the nucleus together - the excess growing as elements get heavier.
Simply put (and I hope any physicists will forgive me for this - they have equations and everything!) The electrostatic repulsion between the protons in the nucleus operates over a larger distance than the stronger, binding force of the neutrons. As the nucleus grows, the protons in the nucleus experience a weakening binding force. Beyond a certain point (Bismuth 209) this binding force is insufficient to hold the nucleus together forever - the nucleus will decay.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Elements are distinguished from one another by the number of protons in their nuclei. Hydrogen has 1, helium 2 and so on. The heaviest naturally occuring element found on Earth is number 92 - uranium.
The limiting factor on elements heavier than 92 is that they are unstable. In fact all of the heavier elements are unstable - they are radioactive, parts of their nuclei keep falling off - they turn into new, lighter elements. So uranium decays step by step, down the periodic table eventually forming lead.
The reason for nuclear decay is a concept known as binding energy - the energy needed to hold a nucleus together. Very simply, the nucleus consists of postively charged protons - each repelling the other. If this repulsion was not counteracted the nucleus would disintegrate. However, the nucleus also contains neutrons - which act very much like glue - sticking protons together. If you measure the binding energy of all the elements you will notice that it rises rapidly from hydrogen, peaking around iron (element 26) and then gradually diminishing towards uranium.
By the time you reach uranium, the binding energy is barely able to hold the nucleus together, beyond uranium, the nuclei of the elements become extremely unstable - they decay - rapidly.
2) Is it not possible for us to discover other natural elements?
Below 92? No. Each element must have at least one proton (in which case it is called hydrogen), we have found each and every element between 1 and 92. You can't have half a proton, so there are just 92 elements in Nature (see proviso below). Some models of atomic nuclei suggest that there are elements heavier than 92 which are comparatively stable - they would be radioactive and decay, but might have considerable half-lives. The theoretical 'island of stability' lies out between elements 118 and 130 (?) - but as yet remains undiscovered.
3) Is it inconceivable that our "new" elements could also be produced under similar conditions in nature?
Yes, supernovae are capable of building up super-heavy elements. However, the short half-lives of the elements mean that they have long since decayed in the rocks around us. The synthetic elements neptunium (93) and plutonium (94) are also generated in minute quantities in naturally occuring uranium.
4) Have all of these new elements only existed in very small quantities for short periods of time, under controlled conditions?
Pretty much, although some of the synthetic elements were first discovered in the residue of nuclear weapons tests.
Hope that helps,
Mike.
It sounds awfully like the policy of the Reagan era for battlefield-nukes. The US believed that the use of nuclear weapons could be limited to the battlefield and that strategic weapons would live in their silos. The Soviet Union told them firmly that the detonation of a single nuclear weapon, no matter where, would result in a strategic retaliation. The US (wisely) backed down.
The people around Rumsfeld who are tripping so lightly down the path of mini-nukes might pause to consider that where the US goes, other countries will follow (and none faster than Britain which appears to be incapable of holding a single independent policy these days).
Best wishes,
Mike.
PS. Countries with nuclear weapons, you should probably add North Korea to that list.
The ideas themselves were far more dangerous and harder to restrain (and haven't we heard that more recently with the collapse of the Soviet Union and their nuclear, bioweapons and missile specialists).
The USSR and the UK relied heavily on pre-war research to explore the basic science behind nuclear weapons. Most of the research on fission and isotope work was published in the open scientific press right up until the outbreak of war in 1939.
The USSR got a lot more detail from their brilliant espionage operation, which doubtlessly allowed them to develop Joe 1 in record time - after all, they knew what had worked for the Americans, 'all' they had to do was copy that design. They did, it worked, and the World was never the same again.
The UK had many scientists who had worked on atomic weapons before the Americans even joined World War II and who then went on to work on the American bomb programme. When the UK was excluded from future weapon design, they brought their knowledge back to the UK. So it wasn't very surprising that Hurricane was almost identical to Trinity.
And both the UK and the USSR benefited from the genius of Klaus Fuchs.
In both cases it took enormous effort and genius to replicate the US's achievements. But in both cases, countries with relatively few resources were able to piggy back their success on the American programme.
Best wishes,
Mike.
And the developers of chemical weapons, and biological weapons, and the bomber, and the battleship, and nuclear weapons...
I'm beginning to suspect they might all have been wrong.
Best wishes,
Mike.
True, but it has also refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - one of the most important treaties that would prevent new nuclear powers emerging.
Best wishes,
Mike.
That's not the question. The technology and information will leak. The Manhattan Project produced the first plutonium bomb in 1945. The Soviet Union exploded Joe 1, a carbon-copy of Trinity in 1949, the United Kingdom exploded Hurricane, its own copy in 1953. The Chinese almost certainly had Soviet help in designing their first bomb. None of them used stolen American material - just ideas that had been circulating.in the scientific press, seeded with the results of espionage.
Nor can the US hope to hold the entire stock of raw materials - deposits lie all over the World. In the post Manhattan era, the US and the UK tried to hoard the global supplies of uranium - they failed.
If these weapons are possible they will be made, it is up to us to decide if they should be controlled or not. If we are willing, we could start arms negotiations to make these weapons illegal even before they were produced. It's been done in the past. But I don't think the current American administration believes in international treaties. Which means we might be about to allow another genie out of the bottle.
Best wishes,
Mike.
If the second procedure mentioned of bombarding hafnium by high energy photons is a goer, I can't see how the US could hope to control the technology.
This stuff would be the proliferator's dream.
But I might be buying some hafnium futures.
Best wishes,
Mike.
During routine maintenance, a filter was removed from part of the plant and not replaced. The shift changed, the missing filter was not noticed and evaporators which dried anthrax into spores were switched on.
A cloud of anthrax was blown across the city, dozens of people died. The Soviet government panicked (it should not have been manufacturing anthrax in the first place) and first of all denied that there had been an anthrax outbreak. When that proved untenable - even the tame Soviet press was asking questions, they said there had been an outbreak but it was caught from infected meat (not entirely impossible).
IIRC, the truth only came out when the Soviet Union had imploded and Yeltsin confirmed the cause.
Best wishes,
Mike.
With XP, if the system crashes and forces a reboot, you get a 'System has recovered from a serious error' message and an option to send an error report to Microsoft.
Now if only there was a way of translating those messages into human-readable form, that might actually help us mere mortals work out what is wrong with the computer.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Actually it does control how data is handled. Personal data can only be stored, processed or transferred with the consent of the data subject and then only for a limited purpose. (Obviously law enforcement bodies have an exception here).
Data may not be processed outside of the scope of the original purpose for which it was obtained. Nor can it be transferred to a country where similar data protection is not enforced.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Nasty, almost as nasty as me slipping on an obsidian flow near Mono Lake. Yep, that stuff sure is sharp.
Best wishes,
Mike.
OUCH!
Best wishes,
Mike.
Not to mention stress induced by the 'Press 1 to speak to a human being who sounds like a machine, Press 2 to speak to a machine who sounds like a human being ... [BLIP]
You pressed 1. Press 1 to speak to a person in Edinburgh, Press 2 to speak to a person in Bangalore, Press 3 ... [BLIP]
You pressed 2. If you want to learn more about our low, low rates Press 1, If you want a cuddly toy as seen in our adverts Press 2, If you actually want to talk to someone Press 3 ... [BLIP]
You pressed 3. Are you sure you want to speak to someone? Press 1 ... [BLIP]
whirr clickity
Hello and welcome to the queue to join the queue to talk to one of our service representatives, you are number [pause] fifty-seven in the queue, estimated wait time is [long pause] - do you have any plans for October? While you are waiting, do you know about our other services?' rigamarole.
Best wishes,
Mike.
In the UK there has also been an 80% annual increase in impersonating dead people. Of 10 billion items of mail sent last year in the UK, 22 million were addressed to deceased people!
Those two sentences have nothing to do with one another. People die all the time and it takes times for relatives to inform all of the authorities and businesses they corresponded with. In the meantime, mail would be sent to dead people. No crime committed, just a screw-up which can be distressing for grieving relatives.
And of course there are the inevitable screw-ups in databases which result in records not being deleted.
Best wishes,
Mike.
It's actually quite a good question.
I can tell you specifically why diamond is not organic with a quick definition that organic chemistry is the study of compounds containing carbon. Diamond is a giant molecule of elemental carbon, so it is firmly inorganic.
Although that definition isn't perfect, some compounds such as carbon dioxide are also considered inorganic.
Some people say that organic chemistry requires a molecule to possess carbon-hydrogen bonds - but that is wrong as well. Tetrachloromethane (CCl4) - dry cleaning fluid - is firmly organic but with no hygrogen atoms to be found in the molecule.
Which leads me to conclude that organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds - except carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbides.
Doubtless there are further exceptions.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Which of course means you have longer to live so that you can wait for the next one.
Best wishes,
Mike.
I ask since the Atlantic Seaboard does have quite severe earthquakes from time-to-time. In 1755 there was a submarine 'quake about 270km off of Cape Anne, Massachusetts. Estimates put it at Richter 6 to 6.5. It caused massive damage to Boston.
Then in 1886 there was big 'quake centred near Richmond, Virginia. Estimated at Richter 6.6 it levelled most of the city.
And the East was heavily shaken by the trio of awe-inspiring New Madrid 'quakes of 1811-1812. Each was between 8.1 and 8.7 and centred on the Mississippi Basin. To give you some idea, people were shaken out of bed in New York, chimneys fell in Washington and church bells rang in Boston!
So that's the East, West and Middle well and truly covered by earthquakes.
Best wishes,
Mike.
A good number of volcanoes - such as those on Hawaii, are fitted with tiltmeters and laser-ranging reflectors.
As magma moves up towards the surface, some volcanoes start to 'inflate', bulging outwards. By measuring changes in tilt, and the geometry of the mountain, vulcanologists can get some warning of the changes under the mountain.
They usually combine this with seismic evidence (that moving magma creates swarms of tiny 'quakes), changes in gas production and the like to try and predict eruptions.
However, volcanoes are just as unpredictable. The USGS made a series of predictions about the Long Valley Caldera in Eastern California. It is an ENORMOUS crater which is underlain by an active magma chamber. The last volcanic activity in the region was about 400 years ago, and it is likely to continue into the future. Slap bang in the middle of Long Valley is the Mammoth Mountain ski resort, built around a dormant volcano.
In the early 1980s, the area around Mammoth Mountain began to bulge, molten rock was being forced upwards, there were swarms of 'quakes, trees began dying as CO2 bubbled up from underground. The USGS cautiously announced that they expected Mammoth Mountain to become active in the near future.
It didn't. The area remains highly active, but doomsday was put off for now.
BTW. if you ever get a chance to go to Mammoth Mountain, Long Valley and the Inyo Craters, do take it - the landscape is simply awe-inspiring.
Another example is Pozzuoli, which lies West of Naples in an area known as the Phlaegrean Fields. This is another colossal caldera with an active magma chamber. The last eruption was in 1538 when a new mountain (called Monte Nuovo somewhat unoriginally) was formed, the crater of Solfatara is still somewhat active, disgorging water and sulphurous fumes.
Pozzuoli is in the the middle of the Fields, a nice seaside town with some Roman ruins. However, during the 1970s, the area began to be shaken by hundreds of 'quakes a day. Even more worryingly, the area began to bulge upwards, sometimes by a centimetre a day! The Italian government ordered the evacuation of the entire city for several years, fearing another massive eruption. Eventually, the bulge subsided, the 'quakes faded and the people went back. But millions had been spent and enormous social dislocation caused.
It's quiet there at the moment, so everyone is looking East, over Naples to Vesuvius, which has been suspiciously quiet for far too long now.
Best wishes,
Mike.
With prediction of seismic and volcanic events (Mammoth Mountain anyone?) as bad as it is, you would have a large number of warnings, followed by nothing.
Would you like to be the USGS spokesman who had to admit they had got it wrong - again? No, me neither.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Another was the lovely little Z88 portable computer - sort of a laptop but not quite. It had a 5(?) line LCD display, a semi-travel rubberised keyboard, applications in ROM and solid state storage. IIRC it ran off AA batteries which lasted for weeks (or so it seemed).
They were as tough as old boots, mine travelled all around Europe with me without ever giving a problem. Eventually it met its maker courtesy of the British rain, but I still miss it.
Best wishes,
Mike.
You might be able to use them if you have a nice long driveway.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Yes, it's true - if we sent down all the support equipment humans need, the rovers MIGHT last longer. The problem is that humans self-repair. Real easily. Rovers/probes do not.
Don't discount the dust so easily. It's not an easy problem - not at all. The dust is really, really fine, and very pervasive. It's not as easy to work around as you think.
Ooops we're in danger of agreeing on something shortly.
I used the Lunar rovers of an example of what can be done. Sojourner was not a real rover in any sense of the word, the two going to Mars at the moment are much more realistic examples.
Lunar dust is a problem for machines on the surface as the Soviets found out. It gets everywhere, shows some electrical conductance and is extremely abrasive.
The same applies to Mars, except that the dust appears to be even finer - around the size of smoke particles. Yes these will cause problems for machines, but likewise they will affect the machines that would be keeping people alive. It would clog filters, get into their electronics, into the bearings and seals in their suits, and perhaps most worryingly, get into their lungs. We know the consequences of breathing fine particles are serious.
So dust is a problem for whatever lands on Mars.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Earth has plenty of all three, iron and aluminium prices are in decline due to their over-production. Platinum, well it fluctuates a bit, but its currently trading at about $680 an ounce. You'd need a hell of a lot of platinum to pay for missions to Mars.
We've hardly even scratched the mineral reserves on the Earth, we've started running out of the really nice stuff, but the only things that are starting to look decidedly finite are helium and oil - neither of which are on Mars.
And let's be careful about predicting that Mars has no biosphere, it may well have some life (I doubt it), but if any bugs survive there, all bets are off.
Best wishes,
Mike.
So where are the great flourishing Chinese colonies in the areas they discovered before deciding to turn their backs on the rest of the World? Where are the Chinese colonies in India and East Africa? Why is evidence of Chinese influence actually quite hard to find?
Simple, because the Chinese were never colonists like the British or the French. They preferred to trade with the locals, taking raw materials back to China. They did not build colonies in the image of the mother country.
China was always a highly centralised economy, it saw a homeland which was defended by strong borders, beyond that was a World that was most definitely NOT China. Trade there - yes, but live there?
Most of the ethnic Chinese around the Pacific are descendents of labourers and traders brought by the British and German Empires. They are not ancient colonies.
Best wishes,
Mike.