/sci/ - Science & Math

>>2076796

*at not as......

Is light a wave or a particle; because damnit it seems like it's both and neither.

Do you like grapes?

What is an 'eigen value' and how does it relate to linear algebra?

>>2076806

I'm not OP; but that's easy.

It's both. It has the properties of both a particle and a wave.

>>2076811

>>2076812

An Eigen is basically how much an object changed from it's original shape. Used to calculate the scale of increase, but it can be applied to multiple theories; especially when you get mass into high gravity concentrations.

What do you actually do on a daily basis? I know everything everything in student world is "we're gonna be \ the future and make breakthroughs!" which usually amounts to sneaking playing Windows solitaire every chance you get and hating idiots you work for.
Honestly, as a real world Physicist. What kind of tasks and timelines are expected of you.

Question's still open: does the Möbius strip have torsion?

>>2076845

At my job I am not really on a timeline. I do mostly theoretical work, trying to pin down fancy new solutions to the current crop of energy problems - especially nuclear energy.

As long as I get the job done, and done correctly; they don't care what I do or how long it takes. Not all physicists are so lucky though, I have friends that are treated like slaves at their job.

This might seem unrelated to the topic, but I figured I would give it a go.

Do you know of any sites for someone who haven't studied Mathematics in a long time? My main interests are languages, Linguistics and Education, but I feel like I've lost all the maths I've ever learned and I intend to reclaim my lost knowledge and a bit more that I never had the chance to learn.

>>2076860

That is completely dependent on which field of thinking you prefer - a flat spacetime or a curved one.

From your opinion on that, we could assume what the mobius strip would look like if taken out to a fourth rank tensor; which if spacetime is curved would imply a curved mobius. If not curved.....then flat.

what were your classes as a undergrad? grad? and how hard is it? What extracurricular activities did you do to boost your resume?

Captcha: correct Aphysts

What is your position within the department?

Can we the people expect any scaling back of coal-based energy production, or are we just masturbating when we say we're goin' green?

>>2076879
"I don't know" would've been enough, but thank you.

What do you think about Dr.Steven Greer's claims that the US Govt has access to, and has 'back engineered' extraterrestrial technology, particularly focusing on 'free energy' and anti-gravity? In your mind, is there ANY hint of a possibility of this being the case?

Kind Regards,

Anon

>>2076892

>implying going green isn't just masturbation anyways.

The resistance to really turning to nuclear energy as a viable energy source has left me disgusted with environmentalists. They don't know shit about what they are talking about yet they exploit the ignorance of their fellow ignorant to keep us from making use of this energy. I mad.

>>2076892

Actually you can probably see a short term scaling up of coal in the next decade; followed by a drastic decrease in all fossil fuels as we switch to a primarily nuclear system.

Modern nuclear power is 100% safe, and amazingly efficient. IMO we aren't going to develop anything better and equally sustainable within the next decade or two. Basically, the only stopgap is building a nuclear powered rocket to launch the radioactive waste into deep space.

>>2076915

That's what I always thought they should do. Any rods in good enough shape to be recharged should be, the rest just disposed of off planet - given a safe trajectory right out of our solar system.

>>2076895

......Ummmm no. We have no alien technology.

Granted if we did, I wouldn't tell you anyway.

Any chance on thorium nuclear power being allowed / utilized?

>>2076936

Unlikely. It has gotten to the point where the process is almost kink free; and a single modern plant has more than enough power to provide to even the largest of metropolises, I doubt our methodology will ever change; since what we have already spent 40 years perfecting is just now coming into perfection. Like I said, only thing we lack is a rocket to get rid of the waste.....and that is in the works. Only problem will be getting other countries to play along with letting us launch spent nuclear fuel into space.

>>2076954

Most other countries wouldn't sign, if for anything just to inconvenience us. If we were to ever do such a thing, it would have to be deliberated through NATO or something.

>>2076915

That's encouraging, but what about those studies claiming the planet is going to run out of adequate fissile material within 50 years at the projected rate of expansion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium

>>2076954
A rocket to get rid of the waste, like sending it to the sun or something?

I made a thread about that a few months ago and it was a shitstorm.

>>2076954
>>2076962

ESA pwns NASA at comertial launching by now, so I would not count on USA getting paid for anything.

question for physicist: I'm a student of third physics in Spain, its difficult to acces to a phd in the usa if your marks are only average (6-7 over 10) but you have a certain level of english?

Probably next year I'll be for a year in the states, canada or australia (depending of my luck), do you know if the level here its very different compared to the European?

>>2076977
Mine uranium from the ocean or use recycled depleted uranium. Bill gates is investing heavily in this at the moment

>>2076977

While that is a current issue, in 50 years it is regarded that we should be able to synthesize most if not all of everything needed from scratch, right in the plant itself. If not, we may be in trouble you're right.

>>2076984

Depends on if you go state school, or private school. I recommend state as they are usually MUCH better research institutions, which is where most of your work will be anyway.

>>2076984

Oh and one more thing. I graduated with my B.A in physics....with a 2.2 gpa lol. It really depends on whether researchers and professors take notice too you or not; make sure you stand out and have it be known you fucking LOVE physics. The thought of particle waves needs too get you hard as a rock.

>>2076996

Sounds like a plan! I wanna invest every last dime I have for that big ocean mining pay-out.

Follow Gates to glory!

>>2077001

Yes, I think all the options are state schools, but what I really would want to know is if we, the EU physicists, are well-recieved in your country, I mean, I guess there is a lot of competence over there, having as you have the best science universities of the world

Mining uranium off of the ocean floor seems......really stupid when spent mediums can simply be recharged for half the overall resource impact.

But those are smart guys, I'm sure there is something they know that I don't.

>>2077012
You can get a BA in Physics?

>>2077024

EU students are looked at great. The vast majority of youthful Americans (about 30 and under) is all full really really nice and chill people. No one is going to hold being from Spain, Japan, Canada, etc. against you.

>>2077026

You can get a BA in mathematics with an emphasis on physics or even a specific field of physics, yes.

hi bro

i've created an artificial planet neptun and i'm planning to plant windmills on it for energy generation
1. can you give me an orbit i can put it in so that it passes earth every 10-20 years
2. where do i store the energy

>>2077001
>should be able to synthesize most if not all of everything needed from scratch
wat?

> launch spent nuclear fuel into space
nobody who knows the costs and the risks of space flight would ever consider putting nuclear waste in a rocket its
very heavy thus almost impossible to get reasonable amounts away from earth and if one launch went bad the whole endeavour would be pointless

>>2077034

Feels great then, I was a little afraid of going that far alone (not forever btw), hope USA girls love spaniards jeje

>>2077001

That's not entirely true. Some of the best research institutions in the country are private; though I agree that in general state schools walk all over private schools in the amount of research they do. Part of this is due to grants though, state schools rake in tuition from thousands of students on top of multi-million dollar grants and donations.

Iowa State for example, the school I went too, yields the highest research data outcome per dollar than any other school in the country. Iowa state also makes tuition off of 30,000 students, and takes in hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and donations every year.

Luckily Iowa State is the only school in the country with a Department of Energy certified power plant!

>>2077065

This. Most state colleges have so much money it's ridiculous. In the current economic times, most of them have kept on the even or even improved by simply enrolling more students. State universities this fall took in the largest amount of students they have, EVER. There are more college students in America right now then there ever has been in our history. I think it was something as much as 8% of our population or more is in college right now; mostly state.

>>2077091

I would think it might actually be more than 8% if we are only considering those 18 and older.

18 and older I bet as much as 15% of the population is taking some form of higher education right now, even if they already have in the past. People are using the past couple of years as a chance to get another degree or even a first. Several of my friends parents are back in school; in fact one of my buddies moms goes to college right here with us, she's 50 lol. Totally awesome lady though.

im calling you out nobody who properly understands the dangers of nuclear wast would ever consider launching it into orbit and that's as far as you cold launch it as its so heavy, you could never launch very much, the risks would be very high and the international community would never allow it.
there is nothing wrong with the risks of conventional storage in comparison to risks and costs of putting it in space

and no scientist would say that in 50 years we could synthesise nuclear fuel then bur it and produce energy with a net gain

i don't think your a scientist at all

>>2077118
I'm ditching my accounting job next year when I begin the process of transferring from the community college I attend part-time right now to a university (probably UCSB, since I want to do Physics and I live in California). This is certainly a time for learning.

please help. I know it may not be your field but somebody HAS to know.

what is the difference between a frankfurter and a hotdog?

it has haunted me for many moons now.

>>2077201
i would have picked sinking nuke waste into our subduction zones, personally...earths gooey center aught to make good use of it, no?

Just spread it over Israel.

Whose going to complain?

hey can you help me with my relativity homework?

The sun radiates energy at the rate 3.8 x 1026 W. The source of this energy is
fusion, a nuclear reaction in which mass is transformed to energy. The mass of
the sun is 2.0 x 1030 kg.
a. How much mass does the sun lose every year?
b. What percentage is this of the sun’s total mass?
c. Estimate the lifetime of the sun.

>>2077201

We can use lighter weight rods, they simply cost more money. Expanding nuclear power to be the primary provider however will provide it with enough cashflow to develop a LOT of new efficiencies and technologies. I'm not saying we have the tech for it right now, but if within 20 years we start switching to primarily nuclear energy; within 50 we will be able to stop hollowing out mountains for storage.

Launching unreusable nuclear waste into space, with the proper technology, is NOT dangerous. If YOU knew anything about science, you would know that a nuclear rocket by sheer design would be safe. The only reason we haven't done it yet is because of cost and lack of enriched materials. Both of these can be solved by building more; which provides a plethora of good jobs to engineers, scientist, biologists, right on down to janitors. All well paid by the tried and true efficient cashflow system nuclear power provides the energy sector; just look at Europe, several of them are free of fossil fuels in their total electricity production.

A nuclear rocket is safe for several reason; one in the sheer design. The containment center of the reaction would make up 75% of the ship, at least, and could be shielded using one solid heavy layer followed by several reductive lighter layers of polymer to absorb pretty much all of the reactive radiation. Layers of H3O would be slotted in between each polymer, and using a simple liquid nitrogen flow through radiators in the layers the H3O would stay plenty cool, since the reaction would only have to last long enough to get into orbit where smaller retro rockets would gently nudge it outward, on a safe course clean out of our solar system (or into the sun, if were feeling sci-fi minded). The tip of the rocket would be lined with the depleted cores, and would only have to be mildly shielded.

>>2077430

Also it is worth noting that a nuclear rocket could NOT detonate on launch or anywhere in between. Could it potentially melt down on ignition? I suppose, though technologies could prevent that.

But is the reaction going to reach enough critical energy to cause an uncontrolled detonation of all of it's content? No. Using a proper catalyst we can ensure the reaction energy required remains low enough to allow the process to go in a smooth linear fashion, without reacting all of the contents at once. It would depend on the weight of the rocket, but as long as we were financially willing to invest in say 3 small rockets at a time instead of one big one; the reaction energy needed just to get it out of our gravity is surprisingly low. The reaction would appear to be no more violent that a standard chemical rocket reaction like we use know; in fact it would probably be a much cleaner and less explosive looking thing.

>>2077453
Yeah...okay...i'll buy that.

*points outside at idiot masses*

Let's see you tell THEM that...go ahead... i DARE you to try.

>>2077453

I'm gonna be mega pissed if nuclear powered rockets come around, and they are quieter and less explosive than current rockets.

When I think of nuclear energy, I think of devastating potential. I don't want to see some little stream of pissfire coming out of the tail end of an engine capable of producing 100+ times the thrust of a chemical engine. That shit better only be viewable on camera, because the fire will swallow miles.

>>2077482

Did you think you were being coherent when you wrote this?

An auditor for Health Maintenance Services of Georgia reports 40 percent of policyholders 55 years or older submit a claim during the year. Fifteen policyholders are randomly selected for company records.

What is the probability that 10 or more of the selected policyholders submitted a claim last year?

What is the probability that more than 10 of the selected policyholders submitted a claim last year? (Round your answer to 4 decimal places.)


I'm not really interested in a direct answer more than figuring out how to solve these. I know how to do it if asks directly for 10. =binodmist (10, 15, .4, false) but how about if it asks for 10 or more, or more than 10.

Senior physics major here, graduating next semester (on time) with a 3.6 from NYU-Poly, minoring in nuclear science and engineering.

Any advice? I've been hoping to get work straight out of college and MAYBE do grad school later, and right now nuclear looks promising.

>>2077466

I know, it is unfortunate. Here were are, trying to fuel our cars up on corn and building vast fields of multi-million dollar wind and solar farms; all of which yield a pathetic amount of energy. We would literally have to turn our planet into a wind and solar field to really leverage the technology. Is it nice for farmers who want to offset some energy cost? Hell yes. Is it going to power the world, or even a fraction of it? Hell no.

Nuclear Power is our future. It is readily available, extraordinarily safe (modern reactors literally can not melt down) when contained, cheap, and most of all provides more energy output than energy input than ANY fossil fuel; this is awesome because compare any other form of energy besides nuclear to fossil fuels and fossil fuels kick their ass. Nuclear really is the pinnacle of our current technologies energy output capability, we simply cannot do any better, and won't need to for a long time.

Yet like you said, it scares the shit out of everyone. I can't tell you how sad it makes me to have such a clean, powerful answer to our current biggest crisis RIGHT in front of us - already here in fact. And yet....we can't use it because the standard population is so dumb they think building a nuclear plant in their city means the death of them at some point. Certain companies have tried to come in a build a new plant somewhere, but locals (IE-paranoid idiots withing a 2,000 mile radius) levy in both state and federal congress so hard the plant is never allowed to go up. Thousands of people electively denying their region cheaper, cleaner, and domestic energy; while the more expensive coal they currently use is busy dirtying up their atmosphere.

Bawww. It's all the cold wars fault. WWII made the world scared of nuclear power.....but the cold war made us obsessively paranoid about a field that his since progressed to absolute safety.

>>2077566
>>2077566
>Bawww. It's all the cold wars fault. WWII made the world scared of nuclear power.....but the cold war made us obsessively paranoid about a field that his since progressed to absolute safety.

No. People didn't turn away from nuclear power because of nuclear weaponry. Their fears stem from Chernobyl and the overblown Three Mile Island incident.

>>2077482
>>2077482
>>2077482

>That shit better only be viewable on camera, because the fire will swallow miles.

Hello! I am finishing up my PhD in applied math within the year. I don't know if you answered this already but which lab are you at? I am planning on visition LLNL and Sandia sometime in January. My advisor knows some people there and wants me to chat with them about our work.

>>2077586

that's just silly when i really think about it...
they were cobbled out of lunch boxes bubble gum and duct tape...early generation reactors

...and in their defense may i point out both those reactors attempted several times to save themselves
only to have their squishy human overlords deny them.

>>2077539

That's a really good GPA, better than I had for my B.A haha. In my educated guess, yes working for a nuclear company or something related is an EXCELLENT choice. It is getting to crunch time with fossil fuels; crude oil is currently being pumped out of mud (yes, mud) because usable reserves are running dry, BP fucked up our coastline trying to get to oil they didn't have the technology to actually get because their reserves are emptying too, etc. By 2020 the "moment" will have happened when the decision for our future was made; and IMO it is going to result in a year or so of international politics, followed by overhauling our energy infrastructure over the course of a decade or two into completely nuclear/water/solar/solar system. The thing is that crunch time is going to come, and Nuclear will be our ONLY option. None of the research into alternative forms of mass energy production is going well, in fact there is nothing even on the table at the moment that has the potential to be anything. We all remain unaware because over the past year or so, gas companies have been hemorrhaging the BILLIONS of dollars they have accumulated in an effort to keep prices at the pump low so we don't panic - all the rest of their money is going into extraordinarily complicated engineering projects meant to extract oil from some seriously ridiculous places (the aforementioned mud). By next year, it is going to cost every major oil company 2x the current price of a barrel of oil.....just to get it out of the ground! They are keeping it as silent as they can as long as they can; but the oil is literally running dry already this past year, far ahead of any estimates and scaring the hell out of a lot of people.

>>2077601

I am not based in any specific place with them; I go where I am told when I am told too. I live in Omaha, Nebraska; which makes it easy for me to get anywhere in the country consistently quick. I get called out to a lot of "knowledge pool" teams, where we are given a specific task to do a specific thing. Sometimes at HQ I am involved in the fabrication of newer designs and solutions.

>>2077644

Exactly. I don't have a bone to pick with Russia or anything, they are chill nowadays in my book. But the Chernobyl disaster was the result of an appalling level of neglect and ignorance on the Russian governments part. From what I know it started showing signs of melting down, and was basically using it's own automated system to try and slowly shut itself off. Russia would have none of that.

>>2077530

I will try and help; I admit I suck at probability though. Would you like the equation(s) then that you would need? Or just some guidance? That is a heck of a probability question, has a lot of factors; where is it from?

>>2077726
HQ???

I call bullshit

>>2077482

That's the false thinking perception that people have about nuclear reactions; that they are always these HUGE explosive things? Hell no, most plant designs call for simply residual reaction heat being leveraged in some way, usually steam. The reaction itself is not directly producing the electricity, and therefore we can use a very slow and very controlled reaction. Good thing is, even a relatively weak and non reactive reaction produces a TON of heat. If you were to go into the core of a reactor I don't know what would kill you first; your body being cooked and your DNA ripped apart by the intense radiation, or you literally birsting into flames and disintegrating. We find lots of water bears though! Extremophile animals to the maximum.

Moral of the story: They may be 100% safe when you are outside them.....but if you are not a water bear then please don't go into the core of a nuclear reactor. The more you know.

>>2077738

I'm sorry, I like too call it HQ. I may be a lame nerd slave for the gov't......but I like to pretend I am an elite spy......

Guy can dream right? I mean what sounds better; HQ, or Pacific Northwest National Laboratory?

OP, you seem like a MAJOR supporter of nuclear technology. If we as a country switch over to all nuclear power; do you think we might be kind of dickish about it and tell some of our enemies they aren't allowed to do the same because they could misuse it?

>>2077530

(a) What is the probability that 10 or more of the selected policyholders submitted a claim last year?

Prob = Sum(from k=10 to 15) [15!/(k!*(15-k)!)] * (0.4)^k * (1 - 0.4)^(15-k)

(b) What is the probability that more than 10 of the selected policyholders submitted a claim last year? (Round your answer to 4 decimal places.)

Prob = Sum(from k=11 to 15) [15!/(k!*(15-k)!)] * (0.4)^k * (1 - 0.4)^(15-k)

>>2077675

OMG is that true? We are pumping crude out of dirt because we are so desperate?

Is this just a guess of yours, or do you have some legitimate reason to believe we are about to hit the gas crisis to end all gas crisis's? I mean, if they run out...what about our cars? We can switch to nuclear power for electricity easy enough.....but unless their is gas in the tank our entire method of commerce will collapse. Shit man, that would lead to straight up chaos breaking out in every major city countrywide.....

I mean we already know how people get when gas costs them $1.00 more, or they have to wait in line to get it.......

>>2077885

Certain people (Glen Beck) will enjoy spreading paranoia that an Israel capable of a nuclear power plant must also be capable of nuclear weapons.

To put it simply.....god no. First of all, it is my belief we should all just disband our nukes. I mean think about it, we literally CANNOT use them; because one goes up and hundreds more will quickly follow, fucking up the entire planet. You can debate weapons and their legitimacy all you want, but the fact of the matter is owning stock piles of human species ending weapons is just.....really fucking stupid.

Secondly though, energy grade nuclear materials are not NEARLY enriched enough to actually make a worthwhile weapon. It would several times the enrichment of the most powerful nuclear plants in the world to even equal something like Hiroshima. America does own a crap ton of extremely high quality uranium (and others even) however; we have some bombs with a core enriched to damn near 100%, which when coupled with their catalyst will give you an absurd amount of energy per atom. Our current nukes would make Hiroshima look like a firecracker display....I'm talking 1 mile in diameter crater, Ozone blown off in the region, fires engulfing as much as 100 miles, and a radioative fallout so large it would cover the entire planet. And we have about 50,000 of them.

lulz humanity

>current nukes would make Hiroshima look like a firecracker display....I'm talking 1 mile in diameter crater, Ozone blown off in the region, fires engulfing as much as 100 miles, and a radioative fallout so large it would cover the entire planet.


>MFW and we have about 50,000 of them.

>>2077955
>>2077955
The point (and a legitimate one) is that countries with the capability to enrich uranium to power producing quality naturally have the capability to enrich it to weapons quality, as the processes and technology are rather similar.

The general knowledge then required to actually construct a warhead is more or less available to the educated public. The hardest part in designing and manufacturing nuclear weaponry is obtaining weapons grade fissile material.

>>2077981
>radioative fallout so large it would cover the entire planet.
Lol fuck no. Not even close to close.

>>2078003

That's what the year of politics is for. If a worldwide nuclear plan were to be put in place, enriching uranium would not be allowed to be done by any single country, I agree. Likely an international company of sorts, regulated by all of the partner countries, would be responsible for the production and enrichment of the uranium.

And yes, I would believe that would call for the disbandment of every partner countries nuclear stockpile and enrichment centers. Whether or not we can actually work close enough together to achieve a safe, effective system....we shall see.

My fear is in the name of "defending the peace of the project" it would become heavily militarized and secretive; which wouldn't help anybody either.

The world is always going to be full of crazy assholes looking to blow something up and kill a bunch of people, but we can't halt our own progress in such a desperate time because Kim Jong is a ginormous douchebag.

>>2078011

Actually that post is correct. A modern nuclear missile, one of the bigger one's meant for metropolises, would contain enough nuclear fallout to blanket the planet. The millions+ tons of debris kicked into the air would become highly radioactive and get pushed up high into the atmosphere by the extreme heat. Here it would catch wind and end up spreading REALLY far; depending on the weapon it may not be the whole world, but at the very least the country that has been nuked will turn into a radioactive disaster zone. Even Hiroshima, small as it was comparatively, kicked up radioactive debris hundreds of miles out into the ocean. Japanese scientists STILL measure a slightly higher rate of radioactivity than normal throughout the entire country itself; in it's wildlife especially. Mutations both in humans and animals were common country wide for 30 or so years; the birth defect rate due to radioactive mutations just started to die down finally in the 90's. We seriously fucked that country up, with something tiny compared to what we have today.

>>2078078
How do I shot Tsar Bomba?

>>2078078
>Actually that post is correct

No. You're absolutely overestimating the radioactive yield and don't understand how it spreads. Nor do you seem to have any concept of the scale of the planet and the difference in magnitude between 10 miles square and 100 miles square.

>The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever utilized by humanity. Its size and weight precluded a successful delivery in case of a real war.[9] By contrast, the largest weapon ever produced by the United States, the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of 25 Mt, and the largest nuclear device ever tested by the US (Castle Bravo) yielded 15 Mt (this was due to an unexpected runaway lithium-7 reaction; the design yield was approximately 5 Mt). The largest weapons deployed by the Soviet Union were also around 25 Mt, as in the SS-18 Mod. 2 ICBM warheads.

From wikipedia. As you can see here, the largest nuke ever detonated clearly did not come anywhere close to blanketing the earth in radioactive material, and the largest stockpiled weapons are no more than half as powerful as the Tsar bomba.

>>2076879

Sorry bro but the Moebius strip is not orientable. You fail.

please explain Grigori Perelman's proof of the Poincare conjecture using a car analogy

topologically speaking, is a person the same as a donut? Pic related

>>2078155
So there I was, cruising down Sunset in my top-down Porsche, just me and my girl and the setting sun, when I woke up and realized I lived in Pittsburgh ;_;

>>2078160
>>2078160
http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=304
Number 10.

Terry Tao links to this page. It must containe wisdome.

Hi Almostphysicist,

My question is...sort of physics. It's actually chemistry, but hopefully you can help me. I'm quoting out of my Lab instructions here because I'm kind of confused.

"precipitated product was taken up in 200mL dichloroethane, and the aqueous layer extracted with 100mL dichloroethane"

I don't understand how you can extract one liquid layer from another liquid layer with more solvent.

Have mercy, I'm in first year, first semester Chem.

Help?

>>2078138

Ok, wow. First of all, don't link me to wikipedia. I know what Tsar Bomba is.

Second of all do you know anything about that bomb, the reason it was detonated, or the measures installed to ensure it remained safe? It was designed to be a clean bomb, because Russia realized if they detonated it as normal it would blanket their country in fallout.

A nuclear reaction takes place in stages (as I'm sure you learned from the Wiki article you linked me too). The first stage is the one that initializes fussion using uranium, a catalyst, and some form of a "detonator" to trigger the reaction. Once the reaction is initialized, there is usually 2-3 following stages, where layers of uranium are heated by the initial reaction which increases the yield level, and causes the production of more energy as well as radioactivity.

For the Tsar Bomba Russia essentially used the last stages as a buffer to drastically decrease radioactive fallout by using lead instead of uranium, which meant it contained the vast majority of the radioactivity to just right where the bomb detonated.

From the Wiki article you linked me to:

>This eliminated fast fission by the fusion-stage neutrons, so that approximately 97% of the total energy resulted from fusion alone (as such, it was one of the "cleanest" nuclear bombs ever created, generating a very low amount of fallout relative to its yield).


So go fuck yourself. The bomb was designed to NOT create fallout; had it not been designed that way it would have poured radioactive debris all over the damn place.

If all the black holes started merging into each other, can they eventually suck all matter back into it and reverse the big bang?

>>2076891
>>2076891
>>2076891
>>2076891

>>2078219

You just owned that guy using the resources he gave you to try and own you lol.

But wait, if Tsar Bomba was so powerful but still so clean.....why don't they make every nuke like that? Why incur excess environmental damage when we obviously have a way to design a bomb that limits the impact of such.

>>2078242
The same reason a third of the world is still religious and cannabis is illegal mostly everywhere.
MOST PEOPLE ARE DUMB.

>>2078242


They...do.

Nukes haven't been used in combat since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and probably will be never used again. Read up on "nuclear paralyzation."

When is the last time you did science?

>>2078235

About half of my classes were math based, the rest were general LAS credits and such. Was it difficult? Yes. Physics professors are almost always kind of...bad at teaching. No offense against them, but they just suck at teaching the material. To them it is simple, and they often have a hard time understanding why it is worth spending more than a week on a single concept. There are good lecturers out there though; and even with the bad one's you can still learn if you put in some side effort.

How did I pass my extra time in college? When I was alone videogames and weed, when I was with friends.....errr videogames and weed I guess. Hey, it's the time to have fun you know. So have some damn fun; GPA is not the most important thing in the world, and much of what my college experience taught me was outside of a classroom.

What are your thoughts on using nuclear fusion as an energy source?

>>2078180

I'm not sure if I understand the question correctly. But would it not be the solvent density? You can apply one solvent to another in order to "extract" a specific chemical in a mixture. It's like oil and water.

I could be offbase with what it means though.

>>2078297

As I have established over the whole thread, it is our future. Unless some miracle idea pops out of nowhere, nuclear energy is going to be primarily what sustains us for the next 100 years at least.

What do you do on a daily basis and how much do you make? Are you happy?

Did you go straight to grad school after getting your BSc? If you didn't where did you work and how hard was it getting a job with only a BSc?

>>2076865
This may help:
http://www.khanacademy.org/

>>2078365

I work on whatever project I am told too work on. $70,000 a year after taxes, with benefits; fiance makes about $70,000 a year too (accountant) so together we do just fine, especially for today's economy. In my spare time I play a lot of videogames, work on cars, etc. I'm pretty normal lol; not really special or different than any other person.

>>2078383

I had a tough time finding a job when I graduated. I never had a job while I was in college, and I only graduated with a 2.9 (was lazy in college more than anything). Upon graduation I went to work for my father, made good money (better than now even); but eventually stumbled across a friend of a friend who worked at the DoE. We hit it off talking about physics, nuclear plants, future of energy, etc. He asked if I would be interested; and a month later after an interview I was employed with them.

>>2078420
I mean like outline 2 of your workdays. I'm having a hard time separating what you described from engineer work.

Based on what's being worked on now in the department, and what you expect funding to be directed towards in the near future, what are some good things to invest in? Would uranium be a good bet then? I've been considering placing a bit of money down on it long term. Do you think fusion power will be available in the next 20 years?

>>2078453

It basically is engineers work, sort of. Let's take a random day that I get called and told to fly to "x" city for whatever reason I am needed. I might get there, and be told by a team of engineers that a hairline fracture has developed in an H3O tank. My job would be to take the data assessed by the engineers, and decide the best course of action. My job is not to carry out the repair in any way however, my job is to figure out what to do with the plant in the mean time. Power it down totally? Put it in dormant mode? Etc. From here I dictate basically the process of putting the plant in a mode in which it is capable of being safely worked on. Once the work is complete, I oversee the return of the facility to it's original running state.

It actually involves quite a bit of math (sadly); but is a lot of fun too. I can't really divulge too much though; I am not allowed to talk about any specific thing I have done or they could fire me if they find out.

>>2078489

Well, the DoE really likes to focus on nuclear pretty much all the time; so it's always where they are headed. Would I invest in uranium? I don't know man lol, I am not fit to give you such important advice. But, IMO is the world going to go nuclear? Yes, there is no better alternative we can put in place fast enough.

Fusion power? Well, the technology is "there" so to speak. It is a much more dangerous process; you must understand that this is the process the sun undergoes to produce it's energy. If fusion were to ever be viable within the next century, it would have to be what is know as "cold" fusion as opposed to "hot" fusion. Cold fusion is, theoretically, possible; but I think it is far out of our current reach. Cold fusion is just a much much cleaner process than hot; and as it's name implies, it runs "cold". It is insanely efficient however, using little to produce a LOT. A good cold fusion reactor could, in theory, run perpetually on the same products. However, the only viable way it looks like we could trigger such a thing is by leveraging a tiny bit of anti-matter to induce an explosion and initialize the ions. We don't have any boxes of that stuff lying around.....

>>2078219
>>2078219
Unless this guy is still here, I'm not going to bother continuing with the argument. Just wanted to say I left before he posted his latest rebuttal, and there was no ownage involved.

Does anyone ever talk about peak oil around the water cooler? When it gets brought up do you guys just get all quiet and then go back you your cubicles?

>>2076915
Fuck that, just reprocess the shit, like France does.

>>2078676

I'm not OP, but please continue your argument. Based on your argument, the bomb being the most powerful ever detonated is proof that radioactive fallout isn't as big of a scope as he assumes.

His argument is that, most powerful bomb ever detonated or not, it was designed to emit as little radioactive fallout as possible; from what I see emitting about the same amount as the first tests during The Manhattan Project, which is not much compared to what we have today. So assuming no radioactive reduction measures on our modern arsenal I think his point is that even with a similar yield, they are going to emit far far more radiation than Tsar Bomba.

I think he is right; from what I have googles on Tsar Bomba the past half hour or so has basically told me that unchecked it would have blanketed the entire continent in fallout.

Are IQ tests a good measure of intelligence?

>>2078741

They are a decent measure of your ability to reason using visual information.

They test nothing of intelligence. There is no test for that outside of your day to day life.

>>modern nuclear power is 100% safe

lol at implying anything is 100% safe

>>2078795
lolol death is 100% safe

death and taxes

How hard is it to get into grad school at a good uni? I take it it's pretty much a pre-requisite to have a first, but what other factors determine how likely they are to take you on?