/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3782853
i very much doubt CERN would even mention this if careless mistakes like that were present

i'm not saying mistakes are not present, i'm saying if there are mistakes, they'll probably very bizarre or unique or not easily detectable ones

or physics just got proverbially molester, either way

>>3782806
>>3782841
>>3782844
man, i love these

hey, want something else to blow your mind?
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html

>implication; free neutrino density influences the rate of radioactive decay, perhaps is even the reason for it in the first place.

freaky shit.

>>3778823
the message of this video (and others like it) is more along the lines of "know exactly what you're getting in to, and be realistic about it"

which is what most normal people tend to do

>>3778794
>someone has to find how to travel FTL
that, right there, that EXACT SENTENCE
is where i stopped reading

i will temporarily abandon my professionalism to sate;
i would very much hit the girl in the middle, and probably the one on the left as well.

good luck building something like this with no defects

protip; it will be assembled by viruses

i was kind of irritated by him but tolerant
then then he showed up on CNN directly comparing fukushima to chernobyl

fuck em'

>Solar
shows lots of promise, not quite ready for primetime in any capacity though

>Wind
terrible

>Biofuel
a neat idea, but the economic backlash could be bad

>Geothermal
very interesting grid power solution, but it'll take a while before it's ready anywhere outside of iceland.

>Hydrogen
get those proton barriers up to snuff and you could have some potential; but not before.

>Nuclear
yes please. it's ready to go and has a lot of punch for the price tag.

>LFTR
needs a lot more attention and actual research for an honest to goodness test reactor, but probably has the most promise out of all of them.

>>3698725
sounds like a worthwhile angle to pursue.
keeping the immune system off your trojan bacteria might prove more troublesome than it's worth though

>>3698177
>http://richarddawkins.net/articles/642956-harmless-soil-dwelling-bacteria-successfully-kill-canc
er
but the cells aren't killing the cancer, the cells are essentially just target markers and on-site activators

as a bonus though, this could make a great bridge for most chemotherapy drugs that are known to work fantastically on cancer cells, but cause lots of local damage. remove the local damage problem and you can smoke the shit out of some cancer cells. hells yeah

question becomes; is it all types of cancer or only certain kinds?

>>3696864
yes, they're great, but you're basically asking every household to switch to them over the next few years

that's like asking everyone to update to windows 7 as soon as it comes out. it will never happen

it'll change, it just takes time.

>>3696805
oh wow i didn't catch that.
pandora slaps you when you open the box right, she isn't the one tempted to open it? i mean, who ever heard of a story like THAT

>>3696641
i want to strangle you so badly right now.

>>3696560
i would be incredibly un surprised if the cost to make a full conversion to solar power and LEDs is more expensive than just putting in more nuclear power plants

infrastructure changes are expensive, and difficult to force without the costs rocketing upwards

>>3684224
that's true, lightning could be problematic
but it seems the light pipe it just that, a light pipe. it could be ground insulated from the rest of the plant.

what kind of installations, residential exclusively or some large scale stuff too?

>>3684147
> stirling engines
i guess? they aren't that efficient unless you have a massive temperature gradient.
there's also the problem of having very high voltage cables stringing to the ground, those are extremely heavy and hard to handle compared to fiber optics.
stratosolar's got the right idea; keep the heavy stuff on the ground

>>3684111
bad idea. the infrastructure needed for pretty much any kind of turbine is very _very_ heavy. even braytons (which stratosolar will probably be too cold for) wouldn't be quite that compact or lightweight

this is pretty cool
nuka-cola approved

i'd love to see a test installation, very small scale, possibly sub kilowatt, and leave it up there for a year or two as a proof of concept.

i'd be worried about tresses on the light pipe cable thing, especially during very severe weather

>>3680884
i'm falling head over heels for this troll

>Why are repository for extremely dangerous waste needed?
because it's extremely dangerous waste, but produced in very small very contained packets that can be totally enclosed, instead of slowly spewed into the air over decades (all fossil fuels) or produced in the tons by substandard production methods (solar)

>Why a malfunction/unforseen contingency normally means that the land will be poisoned by generations?
pretty much all contingencies are forseen. almost all nuclear disasters to date have been due to incompetence on the part of the staff, tremendously bad timing on the part of equipment failures. It's a miracle there are any disasters at all, and if you look at the accident reports for TMI, chernobyl, and fukushima, you'll see they were all perfect storm scenarios instead of run-of-the-mill problems. Let me tell you, you can never prepare for perfect storms, but luckily they're hideously rare and their effects can be mitigated greatly.

>People working in those plants are normally asked "to take a break" due to long exposure to rads?
the yearly accepted dose in microsieverts for NPP workers is equivalent to a few transcontinental plane flights or a couple chest x-rays. the NRC is ridiculously cautious, which mass media latches onto unfortunately.

>I ask of you: is it really worth the risk? imagine that a nuclear plant is right behind your house/neighborhood. Would you feel safe?

i'd feel incredibly safe. a lot safer than most other grid-scale power plants that's for sure. Solar's ok i guess, but noisy ass blinking wind turbines can fuck right off.

>>3680162
also, from that same link
>The ability of natural geologic barriers to isolate radioactive waste is demonstrated by the natural nuclear fission reactors at Oklo, Africa. During their long reaction period about 5.4 tonnes of fission products as well as 1.5 tonnes of plutonium together with other transuranic elements were generated in the uranium ore body. This plutonium and the other transuranics remained immobile until the present day, a span of almost 2 billion years.[19] This is quite remarkable in view of the fact that ground water had ready access to the deposits and they were not in a chemically inert form, such as glass

woah shit! that's pretty damn cool. 2 billion years underground, completely unenclosed, and close to ground water without any natural contamination? very nice

>>3680117
best bet is some kind of heavily armored underground installation so it's difficult to accidentally get into. one main entrance has a very well built, geometric statue marking it, something that will withstand 10 thousand years of erosion, then carve on a stainless steel plaque, very deeply, the same message in about 5-20 standard languages.

if anything it'd be a great Rosetta stone for later civilizations, in case ours...doesn't work out...or long term records prove to be unreliable

>>3679941
as in; it's politics and the needs of the people are vastly outweighed by the perceived fears of the people.

yes, we know, and damn does it suck

>>3679784
forget thorium, uranium will last a couple centuries at least on its own