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gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

This is an area for general science and maths based discussions.

Ask me directly for any info on any science or maths based topic!

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gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

Alright, I guess I'll start you off. Did you know that they discovered that a neutrino travels faster than the speed of light? Fascinatin, eh?

dair5
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dair5
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Shepherd

Yeah, I heard it was the tau neutrino, right? But I think to have definite proof they need to have it happen again. The problem is that they're very rare.

gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

Yes, they is! Like one in a million subatomic particles are neutrinos! We don't learn about it for another couple of months but it is very fascinating.

11pikachu11
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11pikachu11
167 posts
Nomad

i dont like maths that mush but science is ok but im young so i still have a life to see science and math things go on

HahiHa
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HahiHa
8,254 posts
Regent

Apparently they're still convinced that there is a mistake in the calculation of the distance of the experiment or something like that, but those who had measured those neutrinos first, made the experiment a second time and got the same result; faster than light. Now they need to find out why this is so, if it is a true representative result or a failure of the experiment (it could be the GPS measurement, so some say).

gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

Apparently they're still convinced that there is a mistake in the calculation of the distance of the experiment or something like that, but those who had measured those neutrinos first, made the experiment a second time and got the same result; faster than light. Now they need to find out why this is so, if it is a true representative result or a failure of the experiment (it could be the GPS measurement, so some say).


Yeah, I heard that too. It seems stupid that the theoretical physicists could have made a mistake about distance with them having phDs.

i dont like maths that mush but science is ok but im young so i still have a life to see science and math things go on


Yeah that's true. I didn't start likin maths till Year 10!
master565
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master565
4,107 posts
Nomad

Alright, I guess I'll start you off. Did you know that they discovered that a neutrino travels faster than the speed of light? Fascinatin, eh?


They actually just proved relativity instead of disproving it. They forgot add relativity into the equation when they were calculating it's speed, so once they did, the numbers made sense.
HahiHa
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HahiHa
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Regent

Yeah, I heard that too. It seems stupid that the theoretical physicists could have made a mistake about distance with them having phDs.

Seems stupid, but it would be even more stupid to not control everything only because there are PhD's working there. They make mistakes too, assuming they never do would be disastrous.
gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

Seems stupid, but it would be even more stupid to not control everything only because there are PhD's working there. They make mistakes too, assuming they never do would be disastrous.


Yeah, I agree there. How could the make mistakes and not care about them? Most theoretical physicists believe this result to be incorrect. But it'd be nice if it turned out to be correct because then that would change our understanding of the fundamentals of physics with the speed of light (what, like 3x10 to the power of 7 meters per second or somethin like that...) no longer being the fastest possible speed and therefore is it possible to go faster than the speed of light? All the fundamentals would change. And a subatomic particle going faster than pure energy; wow, that would be amazing; it hurts my brain to think of...
gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

They actually just proved relativity instead of disproving it. They forgot add relativity into the equation when they were calculating it's speed, so once they did, the numbers made sense.
I guess that makes sense... Although I don't learn about neutrinos until February/March time. So I don't have a full understanding of the theory or relativity yet...
gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

No? Nothin? Alright then, how about mercury then eh? Not the planet, I mean the elemental transition element. Wanna talk about that or Bromine, synthetic elements, organelles, breathing system, respiratory system (slightly different), maths, anything?

Somewhat49
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Somewhat49
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Nomad

Is it possible to have a seeable object (no microscopes) made of pure glucose?

gamer66618
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gamer66618
274 posts
Nomad

Thats pretty interesting.
Thanks. I'd explain it all, but then it would leave no topic for discussion.

Is it possible to have a seeable object (no microscopes) made of pure glucose?
Yes it is. I used it.
gamer66618
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gamer66618
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Nomad

Alright then, if nobody is willing to have a conversation about it, then I will answer my own suggestion questions.

No? Nothin? Alright then, how about mercury then eh? Not the planet, I mean the elemental transition element. Wanna talk about that or Bromine, synthetic elements, organelles, breathing system, respiratory system (slightly different), maths, anything?
Mercury is the only transition metal that is a liquid at room temperature and pressure. This is because its outer electron subshell is full therefore it is more difficult to remove the outer electron. Because it most closely resembles the noble gases it has a closer structure because of it therefore it is liquid. Bromine is a holegen. Going down the group there is an increase in volatility and therefore Bromine is a liquid. Organelles are mitochondria, chloroplasts, tonoplasts, vacuoles, plasma membrane, cell wall, plasmodesmata, ribosomes, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, rough endoplasmic reticulum, golgi apparatus, cytosol cytoplasm, nucleus, centrioles and lysosomes. Breathing system your lungs expand. The pressure change causes the air to be sucked in through your trachea, bronchi, bronchioles and alveoli. The wet alveoli with a large surface area causes the oxygen to dissolve into the bloodstream. The Nitrogen which makes up 70% of the air we breath in doesn't affect it at all. You then expel the carbon dioxide. The respiratory system. The oxygen moves along the bloodstream. The cells absorb the oxygen molecules by diffusion. The mitochondria absorbs the oxygen and synthesises ATP which then is used to provide the cells with energy. No one's interested in maths, so I ain't talkin bout it. Somebody reply!
aknerd
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aknerd
1,416 posts
Peasant

air to be sucked

There really is no such thing as suction. Moving on...

I like math(s?)... If I had enough time in my life, I would probably make a thread about cool math things. But I don't, so I guess I'll just post on here.

So, this is something I learned this year which is pretty nifty. As many of you probably know, we run into problems when we try to take square roots of negative numbers. So, as a nice little workaround, we just define the square root of -1 as the number "i"*, an imaginary number. This gives us a whole domain of complex numbers (we call them z's, by convention) of the form z = x + iy, where both x and y are real numbers (so iy is the imaginary part of z, and x is the real part).

This is where things get interesting: in order to keep track of complex numbers, we don't use a number line like we do for real numbers, but a plane (called the complex plane). We represent each point z=x+iy on the plane by its x and y coordinates, just like we would if we were graphing an equation of one variable onto a real graph.

However, something cool we can do with this complex plane is "map" it onto a sphere (in this case called a Riemann sphere). We create a basic bijective, conformal function that takes each point on the complex plane, and relates it to a 3D point on the sphere. Similarly, we take the inverse of the function to map every point on the sphere back onto the plane.

When we do this, we see that all lines through the origin (the point 0,0) on the plane are mapped to circles on the sphere that intersect the north and south poles, IE longitudes.

THIS is the interesting part (I SWEAR). So, the circles intersect each other twice (once at each pole) but the lines only appear to intersect each other once. Because the function we are using is conformal, we know that every intersection on the sphere must be mapped from an intersection on the plane. So, where is the missing intersection on the plane? I'll tell you! It is at the POINT at infinity! You see, in the complex plane, there is no difference between "negative" infinity and positive infinity. I mean, what would infinitely imaginary mean, anyway? So, we consider all the different kinds of complex infinity to just be one point on the plane that all lines must pass through.

So, all non-parallel lines in the complex plane intersect twice, and all parallel lines intersect once. Crazy!

*The interesting this about this definition is that imaginary numbers have no inherit concept of size or polarity (like positive versus negative) the way real numbers do. Think about it: what is i squared -1. But, What is negative i squared? -1. (just like how -2 x -2=4). So, what is the square root of -1? both i and -i. So, every time we define i, we don't know if we are getting negative i or positive i. So we can't say things like -i < i, since, we don't actually know which is which!
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