Well, basically, stats don't work like that. 1 in 455 in one year != a certainty in 45,500 years. Same as flipping a coin- flip it once and the chance of getting a head is 1 in 2. This doesn't mean that if you flip a coin twice you always get a 1 heads, 1 tails result.
Of course in this case it's all kind of irrelevant anyway because, as many posters have already commented, the guy seems to have pulled the statistic directly from his ass.
Are you kidding? Ref. please or stop slandering, in your own words, "Thousands and thousands of scientists (professors and otherwise)". What grounds do you have for making these accusations? One shitty documentary and your own personal feelings?
Sure, human activity isn't the only factor effecting global temperature and weather (nobody is claiming it is) but the way to find out how much of an effect we are having isn't to continue dumping a shedload of CO2 into the atmosphere. Well, actually, I guess it is. Not the most responsible way though.
Re:A physicist's view on homeopathy
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I also have a physics degree and, frankly, I'm ashamed of you. You think that it's impossible to dismiss something without personally conducting the experiment? Damn. You must believe some real bullshit. This is why we have the scientific method. Homeopathy, in medical double blind tests, does no better than a placebo. In lab testing it has no biological effect. For an excellent example of the lab test:
As for "yes, I can tell when it is working and when it isn't.". This is prime example of why we have strict testing. No you can't. Damn. Sorry. This crap makes me angry. One step to faith healers in my opinion.
Are you joking? As far as can make out those "lego sets" featuring concentration camps were created by some polish artist. Its not like LEGO have mass produced them and sold them in shops.
Hell yes. Robot wars is a sport! No, wait, what was the question? Seriously I think it's still a sport at the level you talk about. Only difference is that the competitors are the engineers rather than drivers.
Just when you begin to wonder
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You know. Has google "jumped the shark" (to use the parlance of our times). Then they come out with this. You know it's a great idea because, ten seconds after you first see it, you're thinking "I could have thought of that" which slowly changes to: "Man, why did nobody else think of that"
You are auite correct- it does take a lot more than 2 degrees C to initiate a fusion reaction. What the hell this has to do with fusion reactor failure I'm not sure. I think that the reference to 2 degrees temp rise in the parent was another way of saying "not a hell of a lot". If the containment field fails not a lot happens- the reaction stops. As for neutron irradiation, as a consequence of working with fission reactors for a long time now we know exactly what happens to structural materials when bombarded by neutrons. You get a some residual radioactivity and they are more prone to failure (they tend to become brittle). But,like I say, we know all about this- it's not like you're the first person to think "hey there's neutrons coming out of that thing". By the way, I think they've actually had a few field failures at JET (ITER's precursor) with no dire conmsequences.
No it doesn't. Look, there's a significant difference between saying "we got fusion but we don't know how" and "we've somehow discovered a new type of deuterium fusion reaction". Please justify calling me ignorant. How does the method of achieving fusion in any way change the reaction products? Answer: it doesn't.
You didn't RFA did you? The thousand year estimate is based on the likelihood of death by accident. Admittedly I'm not sure where he got the odds of accidental death from (he may have pulled it directly from his ass).
Whether you believe that global temperature increase is or is not a direct result of human activity is not the issue. Issue is: do you think that the right way to discover how and to what extent CO2 affects climate is by conducting a vast, unsupervised global experiment? This is effectively what we're doing- dumping vast amounts amount of CO2 into the atmosphere with no real idea of the consequences.
p>Ok, now please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere, because this is going to be a bit of a rant.
As far as I know (and I actually have a physiics degree, believe it or not) all of the cold fusion experiments are claiming to demonstrate Deuterium-Deuterium fusion (D-D) at low reaction energies. Now, when I built MY fusion reactor (a Farnsworth-Hirsch based design, in my 2nd year lab project, since you ask), and the boys at JET built their slightly more impressive one the fusion signature that we (and you)care about isn't heat. More or less anything can account for excess heat, especially when you're talking about miniscule amounts. No, what you care about is NEUTRONS. I refer to the two possible reactions for D-D fusion (these are equally likely and each accounts for half of occuring reactions):
Now, in the case of the first of these reactions, 2.45 MeV of the resultant energy is carried by the neutron and it's these bad boys that we're looking for. So, any of the cold fusion experiments shown a neut signature? No. So in summary: Nothing to see here, move along
ref? Surely this would be enough to put the whole debate to rest once and for all. I'm dubious though: you seem to contradict yourself- "Even Pons admitted it", "Of course Pons covered it up". Incidently this doesn't mean that I'm on the "cold fusion works!" side of the debate. I prefer to think of myself as a nuclear physicist.
It's because a lot of the film making techniques / types of shot used in modern movies were 'invented' during the making of Citizen Kane. In my opinion it's somewhat overated.
Nobody will build enough breeder reactors. There's still the non-proliferation treaty thingy (yeah i know, 2 seconds on google would remind me what it's really called but why should I do it when you can?) preventing it too. This is from back in the days when building breeder reactors basically meant that you wanted more, better nukes. But, hell yeah, that's what we should be doing with it. This won't get rid of it all though- we'll still have waste. But the "bury it deep" plan's working for know and there's all kinds of crazy research into polymerising it or getting weird ass bacteria to eat it or whatever. In other words, no problems here move along.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a real product (just in case people don't get it)
Of course in this case it's all kind of irrelevant anyway because, as many posters have already commented, the guy seems to have pulled the statistic directly from his ass.
Sure, human activity isn't the only factor effecting global temperature and weather (nobody is claiming it is) but the way to find out how much of an effect we are having isn't to continue dumping a shedload of CO2 into the atmosphere. Well, actually, I guess it is. Not the most responsible way though.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopat hy.shtml/
As for "yes, I can tell when it is working and when it isn't.". This is prime example of why we have strict testing. No you can't. Damn. Sorry. This crap makes me angry. One step to faith healers in my opinion.
Seriously. They should approve a .porn domain.
Are you joking? As far as can make out those "lego sets" featuring concentration camps were created by some polish artist. Its not like LEGO have mass produced them and sold them in shops.
apt-get is your friend
Man. The poor bastards. I used AOL (very, very briefly) back then and I didn't think it could get any worse.
3,602,000,000,000 kWh (2001) http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2042rank.html
3 and a half million petawatt hours.
The fucking Gulf Stream only carries 1.4 Petawatts of power. What the hell are you doing? Turn off the damn air conditioning before we're all screwed.Hell yes. Robot wars is a sport! No, wait, what was the question? Seriously I think it's still a sport at the level you talk about. Only difference is that the competitors are the engineers rather than drivers.
You know. Has google "jumped the shark" (to use the parlance of our times). Then they come out with this. You know it's a great idea because, ten seconds after you first see it, you're thinking "I could have thought of that" which slowly changes to: "Man, why did nobody else think of that"
You are auite correct- it does take a lot more than 2 degrees C to initiate a fusion reaction. What the hell this has to do with fusion reactor failure I'm not sure. I think that the reference to 2 degrees temp rise in the parent was another way of saying "not a hell of a lot". If the containment field fails not a lot happens- the reaction stops. As for neutron irradiation, as a consequence of working with fission reactors for a long time now we know exactly what happens to structural materials when bombarded by neutrons. You get a some residual radioactivity and they are more prone to failure (they tend to become brittle). But ,like I say, we know all about this- it's not like you're the first person to think "hey there's neutrons coming out of that thing". By the way, I think they've actually had a few field failures at JET (ITER's precursor) with no dire conmsequences.
Ok you sold me one. Where do I sign?
No it doesn't. Look, there's a significant difference between saying "we got fusion but we don't know how" and "we've somehow discovered a new type of deuterium fusion reaction". Please justify calling me ignorant. How does the method of achieving fusion in any way change the reaction products? Answer: it doesn't.
It has nothing to do with how you create the fusion.If D-D fusion is taking place there would be a neutron signature.
You didn't RFA did you? The thousand year estimate is based on the likelihood of death by accident. Admittedly I'm not sure where he got the odds of accidental death from (he may have pulled it directly from his ass).
Whether you believe that global temperature increase is or is not a direct result of human activity is not the issue. Issue is: do you think that the right way to discover how and to what extent CO2 affects climate is by conducting a vast, unsupervised global experiment? This is effectively what we're doing- dumping vast amounts amount of CO2 into the atmosphere with no real idea of the consequences.
As far as I know (and I actually have a physiics degree, believe it or not) all of the cold fusion experiments are claiming to demonstrate Deuterium-Deuterium fusion (D-D) at low reaction energies. Now, when I built MY fusion reactor (a Farnsworth-Hirsch based design, in my 2nd year lab project, since you ask), and the boys at JET built their slightly more impressive one the fusion signature that we (and you)care about isn't heat. More or less anything can account for excess heat, especially when you're talking about miniscule amounts. No, what you care about is NEUTRONS. I refer to the two possible reactions for D-D fusion (these are equally likely and each accounts for half of occuring reactions):
Deuteron + Deuteron -> Helium-3 + Neutron + 3.268 MeV
Deuteron + Deuteron -> Triton + Proton + 4.03 MeV
Now, in the case of the first of these reactions, 2.45 MeV of the resultant energy is carried by the neutron and it's these bad boys that we're looking for. So, any of the cold fusion experiments shown a neut signature? No. So in summary: Nothing to see here, move along
ref? Surely this would be enough to put the whole debate to rest once and for all. I'm dubious though: you seem to contradict yourself- "Even Pons admitted it", "Of course Pons covered it up". Incidently this doesn't mean that I'm on the "cold fusion works!" side of the debate. I prefer to think of myself as a nuclear physicist.
At JET they got a Q of ~1.02. That's over break even. It works. That makes it an existing technology in my book.
I started on partypoker yesterday. Judging by my experiences so far there are PLENTY of suckers to go around.
It's because a lot of the film making techniques / types of shot used in modern movies were 'invented' during the making of Citizen Kane. In my opinion it's somewhat overated.
Example "From Hell", the book: one of the finest graphics novels I have ever read. Film: sucked ass. I predict this will go the same way.
Nobody will build enough breeder reactors. There's still the non-proliferation treaty thingy (yeah i know, 2 seconds on google would remind me what it's really called but why should I do it when you can?) preventing it too. This is from back in the days when building breeder reactors basically meant that you wanted more, better nukes. But, hell yeah, that's what we should be doing with it. This won't get rid of it all though- we'll still have waste. But the "bury it deep" plan's working for know and there's all kinds of crazy research into polymerising it or getting weird ass bacteria to eat it or whatever. In other words, no problems here move along.
Ah, poor Bill, my heart bleeds.