Quote from: Azendac on November 27, 2016, 04:14:04 PM

Quote from: BaconShelf on November 27, 2016, 04:06:00 PM

Quote

just shoot nuclear waste into space

That would be a tremendous waste of expensive rocket fuel, and have the risk of blowing up and spreading radioactive debris over a large area.

It was the only alternative solution I could come up to for "what do we do with all this radioactive waste material". Don't tell me nuclear rockets wouldn't be awesome.

Nuclear rockets along the lines of Project Orion would be cool.

But shooting nuclear waste into the sun like so many people think we should do is dumb.

Orion could actually be viable if we launched it from the moon, no chance of destroying our ecosystem then.

And we don't need to send it all the way to the sun, just out of earth's orbit, or far enough out that it's no longer worth worrying about. Space is only INFINITELY big after all, it's the perfect place to dump your trash.

Since the article starts off with a mistake about Einstein i'll just clarify. It wasn't Einstein that discovered that the speed of light is constant (in a vacuum), the theory is a natural consequence of Maxwell's laws of electromagnetism, when you apply the equations to an "electromagnetic wave", you get a nice formula predicting the speed of such a wave in terms of the strength of the electric and magnetic constants (referred to as permeability and permisitivity). What Einstein did was apply Newtonian calculations to the movement of such a wave, and while investigating other quirks of accelerating co-ordinate systems, came up with his special theory of relativity. General relativity is another story entirely.

Point being, this article is really talking about the idea of universal constants such as Newton's gravitational constant, and the electromagnetic constants, changing over time.
http://phys.org/news/2016-11-theory-einstein-physics.html

Scientists behind a theory that the speed of light is variable - and not constant as Einstein suggested - have made a prediction that could be tested.

Einstein observed that the speed of light remains the same in any situation, and this meant that space and time could be different in different situations.

The assumption that the speed of light is constant, and always has been, underpins many theories in physics, such as Einstein's theory of general relativity. In particular, it plays a role in models of what happened in the very early universe, seconds after the Big Bang.

But some researchers have suggested that the speed of light could have been much higher in this early universe. Now, one of this theory's originators, Professor João Magueijo from Imperial College London, working with Dr Niayesh Afshordi at the Perimeter Institute in Canada, has made a prediction that could be used to test the theory's validity.

Structures in the universe, for example galaxies, all formed from fluctuations in the early universe – tiny differences in density from one region to another. A record of these early fluctuations is imprinted on the cosmic microwave background – a map of the oldest light in the universe – in the form of a 'spectral index'.

Working with their theory that the fluctuations were influenced by a varying speed of light in the early universe, Professor Magueijo and Dr Afshordi have now used a model to put an exact figure on the spectral index. The predicted figure and the model it is based on are published in the journal Physical Review D.

Cosmologists are currently getting ever more precise readings of this figure, so that prediction could soon be tested – either confirming or ruling out the team's model of the early universe. Their figure is a very precise 0.96478. This is close to the current estimate of readings of the cosmic microwave background, which puts it around 0.968, with some margin of error.

RADICAL IDEA

Professor Magueijo said: "The theory, which we first proposed in the late-1990s, has now reached a maturity point – it has produced a testable prediction. If observations in the near future do find this number to be accurate, it could lead to a modification of Einstein's theory of gravity.

"The idea that the speed of light could be variable was radical when first proposed, but with a numerical prediction, it becomes something physicists can actually test. If true, it would mean that the laws of nature were not always the same as they are today."

The testability of the varying speed of light theory sets it apart from the more mainstream rival theory: inflation. Inflation says that the early universe went through an extremely rapid expansion phase, much faster than the current rate of expansion of the universe.

THE HORIZON PROBLEM

These theories are necessary to overcome what physicists call the 'horizon problem'. The universe as we see it today appears to be everywhere broadly the same, for example it has a relatively homogenous density.

This could only be true if all regions of the universe were able to influence each other. However, if the speed of light has always been the same, then not enough time has passed for light to have travelled to the edge of the universe, and 'even out' the energy.

As an analogy, to heat up a room evenly, the warm air from radiators at either end has to travel across the room and mix fully. The problem for the universe is that the 'room' – the observed size of the universe – appears to be too large for this to have happened in the time since it was formed.

The varying speed of light theory suggests that the speed of light was much higher in the early universe, allowing the distant edges to be connected as the universe expanded. The speed of light would have then dropped in a predictable way as the density of the universe changed. This variability led the team to the prediction published today.

The alternative theory is inflation, which attempts to solve this problem by saying that the very early universe evened out while incredibly small, and then suddenly expanded, with the uniformity already imprinted on it. While this means the speed of light and the other laws of physics as we know them are preserved, it requires the invention of an 'inflation field' – a set of conditions that only existed at the time.

Quote from: Azendac on November 27, 2016, 03:27:40 PM

Quote from: Kupo & the Two G-strings on November 27, 2016, 03:04:48 PM

Quote from: Azendac on November 27, 2016, 01:30:42 PM

Quote from: Kupo & the Two G-strings on November 27, 2016, 09:41:32 AM

Quote from: Azendac on November 27, 2016, 03:19:34 AM

Quote from: LC on November 27, 2016, 01:52:53 AM

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that Russia had a hand in spreading fake news in an attempt to undermine American elections.

"It's okay to be a conspiracy theorist if it means stopping Trump"
Until they release their report, and until we can verify that they're not another Soros funded smear group, then there is literally no evidence of Russian tampering, none whatsoever.

I don't know if I would go that far. There's none publicly available, so we should remain highly skeptical.

Sure, from a purely evidence based argument, you can't make one without leaking classified information. And from a speculative argument, you have to add in a lot of "maybe"'s to your statements, as in:
"Some government agency might have incriminating evidence that maybe shows that Russia did something"

But at that point you're not saying anything of value beyond speculation, and you're certainly not proving that Russia rigged the election for Trump.

Calm down with the strawmen, jesus. I didn't say anything remotely close to that. I think we're mostly in agreement here anyway.

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, those were just the possible arguments that i'd come up with. Since this is the second time i've confused someone I'll just quickly explain: Being able to say "this piece of evidence logically leads to this conclusion, but replacing it with this other piece leads to this other conclusion" is the crux of mathematics, so if I ever start saying "if you accept that this happened, then this is the kind of argument you're also making", I'm not actually strawmaning you, just laying out the chain of logic that I see.

What you're explaining sounds exactly like strawmanning.

If you had read my first post in this thread, you wouldn't have made those assumptions to begin with. We're mostly in agreement here.

Yeah my bad, I think and talk in hypotheticals quite often.

I always thought we should just shoot nuclear waste into space, justifying both a space program and a nuclear energy program, but this is a much smarter idea.
http://phys.org/news/2016-11-diamond-age-power-nuclear-batteries.html

New technology has been developed that uses nuclear waste to generate electricity in a nuclear-powered battery. A team of physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol have grown a man-made diamond that, when placed in a radioactive field, is able to generate a small electrical current.

New technology has been developed that uses nuclear waste to generate electricity in a nuclear-powered battery. A team of physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol have grown a man-made diamond that, when placed in a radioactive field, is able to generate a small electrical current. The development could solve some of the problems of nuclear waste, clean electricity generation and battery life.

This innovative method for radioactive energy was presented at the Cabot Institute's sold-out annual lecture - 'Ideas to change the world'- on Friday, 25 November.

Unlike the majority of electricity-generation technologies, which use energy to move a magnet through a coil of wire to generate a current, the man-made diamond is able to produce a charge simply by being placed in close proximity to a radioactive source.

Tom Scott, Professor in Materials in the University's Interface Analysis Centre and a member of the Cabot Institute, said: "There are no moving parts involved, no emissions generated and no maintenance required, just direct electricity generation. By encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy."

The team have demonstrated a prototype 'diamond battery' using Nickel-63 as the radiation source. However, they are now working to significantly improve efficiency by utilising carbon-14, a radioactive version of carbon, which is generated in graphite blocks used to moderate the reaction in nuclear power plants. Research by academics at Bristol has shown that the radioactive carbon-14 is concentrated at the surface of these blocks, making it possible to process it to remove the majority of the radioactive material. The extracted carbon-14 is then incorporated into a diamond to produce a nuclear-powered battery.

The UK currently holds almost 95,000 tonnes of graphite blocks and by extracting carbon-14 from them, their radioactivity decreases, reducing the cost and challenge of safely storing this nuclear waste.

Dr Neil Fox from the School of Chemistry explained: "Carbon-14 was chosen as a source material because it emits a short-range radiation, which is quickly absorbed by any solid material. This would make it dangerous to ingest or touch with your naked skin, but safely held within diamond, no short-range radiation can escape. In fact, diamond is the hardest substance known to man, there is literally nothing we could use that could offer more protection."

Despite their low-power, relative to current battery technologies, the life-time of these diamond batteries could revolutionise the powering of devices over long timescales. Using carbon-14 the battery would take 5,730 years to reach 50 per cent power, which is about as long as human civilization has existed.

Professor Scott added: "We envision these batteries to be used in situations where it is not feasible to charge or replace conventional batteries. Obvious applications would be in low-power electrical devices where long life of the energy source is needed, such as pacemakers, satellites, high-altitude drones or even spacecraft.

"There are so many possible uses that we're asking the public to come up with suggestions of how they would utilise this technology by using #diamondbattery."

Cadenza rides Putin's cock.

And this is why i'm quickly remembering why I hate posting under a persistent ID, and using forums in general.

Quote from: Azendac on November 27, 2016, 02:14:29 PM

Quote from: challengerX on November 27, 2016, 01:53:26 PM

LMAO You know nothing about the Middle East. He's a dictator. That makes him bad. He bombed peaceful protestors. That makes him bad.

Why do you think people were protesting him? Are you insane or just dumb?

"He's bad because I say he's bad, anyone who has an actual opinion is a stupid poopy head"

No Challenger, nobody takes you seriously. Go fuck a goat if you can't handle a conversation.

So why did he order the bombing of peaceful protestors?

You're going to have to link me to whatever event you're talking about, I am not going to do your research for you and construct your argument in order to respond to it.

LMAO You know nothing about the Middle East. He's a dictator. That makes him bad. He bombed peaceful protestors. That makes him bad.

Why do you think people were protesting him? Are you insane or just dumb?

"He's bad because I say he's bad, anyone who has an actual opinion is a stupid poopy head"

No Challenger, nobody takes you seriously. Go fuck a goat if you can't handle a conversation.

Wow that's quite a lot of options, back when I binged on science/tech related news I din't have that many sites I visited. I'll test out each site for a week or so to see what sticks.

Thanks a million for the effortpost.

Short version of UN observers confirming legitimacy of 2014 Syrian election.

Quote from: Dietrich Six on November 26, 2016, 10:01:07 PM

What is this whole "cheat is a girl" meme?

I guess I ain't the only one who saw the similarity.

Cheats jawline is softer than riddly's. va jay jay confirmed maybe possibly not.

Quote from: Azendac on November 26, 2016, 11:33:30 PM

Quote from: challengerX on November 26, 2016, 07:17:40 PM

Quote from: Azendac on November 26, 2016, 06:00:41 PM

Quote from: challengerX on November 26, 2016, 05:51:03 PM

Quote from: Azendac on November 26, 2016, 05:30:17 PM

Quote from: Azumarill on November 25, 2016, 08:56:43 PM

Quote from: Ian on November 25, 2016, 08:44:56 PM

Assad did nothing wrong.

The only reason the US intervened is because Russia is involved.

Quote from: Azumarill on November 25, 2016, 08:42:39 PM

how does that kool aid taste?

yes assad is a wonderful benevolent leader who has never been responsible for anyone's suffering. praise be unto him!

Assad was democratically elected with both a turnout and victory margin several points higher than and US presidential election in history. If Assad's an evil dictator then America has always been one as well.

By they way, how many weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq? Please remind me of how Saddam was on the verge of nuking New York until he was "replaced"

LMAOOOOOOOO

Assad was the only person Syrians could vote for. It's not exactly an election when there's no opponent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Syria
You are quite frankly retarded, you always ignore all the facts that contradict your hallucinations of a world where you're always right. Assad was democratically elected.

But more importantly, why the fuck would he train in britain to be a doctor, only to return to his country to become a genocidal maniac? his brother went into the millitary and were groomed for political positions, but assad was a doctor that treated foreigners in a foreign country, explain that you snake.

Bro the elections were a sham. He and his family control Syria. There is no democracy there, it's a formality so they can deny that they're a dictatorship.

Also, who cares? Why did many of the people in the Iranian regime study in the UK and elsewhere yet oppress and murder their own people? What does this have to do with anything?

Perhaps, but that's quite the conspiracy theory you've got there. Did you consider that people might have seen in him the same things the Philippines say in Duterte? A man that gets things done regardless of how many people kvetch over it?

And his background is important because it completely contradicts the narrative of "he's an evil genocidal maniac", which is the entire justification for "we must invade and overthrow him, and install a democracy with western values, and also start a war with russia in the process". You're falling for atrocity propaganda, I haven't even shown you what a sham the white helmets are yet.

It's not a conspiracy theory if it's true.

And it doesn't matter what his background is. He's not personally conducting the torture. Either way you have a very naive view of all this, and you seem to think because a man trained to be a doctor he can't be a bad person. That simply isn't true.

I'm not saying election rigging isn't plausible, I'm saying you'll have to provide an argument outside of circular reasoning and some evidence as well. You can't say "He's bad because he's a dictator", and then back it up by saying "he's a dictator because he's bad", it's circular and you haven't proven anything, other than you being a conspiracy theorist.

And like I said before and above it does put a serious dent in the narrative of him being a genocidal maniac, why would he all of a sudden decide to start massacring his own people? why would he decide to commit war crimes against his own people? why would he prolong a war in which his people keep dying? The only explanation offered by the press is "he's literally hitler", which they say about everyone, so you're going to do better than that.

And really, you're going to have to come up with an explanation for why the war tarted in the first place, because nobody was calling him evil before the war happened. The mainstream narrative is practically non-existant outside of "muh hitler".

India actually has a well justified precedent for removing kebab. India and the surrounding states were partitioned on the basis of religious majorities being separated from one another, "India for the Hindus, everywhere else for the Muslims".

It's late so before I nod off:
Election machines could not physically be hacked by Russians, as they were not connected to the internet.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/hacking-the-election-2016-10?r=US&IR=T
And much more importantly:
Obama administration tells everyone to deal with it, the results will not be challenged.

“Nevertheless, we stand behind our election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people,” the statement read.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/audit-the-vote-recount-jill-stein-election-hillary-clinton-trump-2016-11?r=US&IR=T

why didn't you ad the AMA tag to your post? I had no way of knowing this was an ama in advance and am now severely confused. Please help.

$0.01 has been deposited in your account

Chally's attempt at meme'ing makes more sense than this, come on.