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November 21

Problems developing life forms on planets around orange and red dwarf main sequence stars

For a while, I thought planets around orange and red dwarf stars the planets around it can develop advanced life forms, more advanced than it can get up to humans. But my teacher told me developing life forms around orange and red dwarf main sequence stars can be harder because of the solar flares. But the thing is orange and red dwarfs stars have 10s or 100s of billion years to linger on main sequence than how can planets around the stars have hard time developing lives. Because some people thinks if at all they can only get up to simple life bacteria on planets around red dwarfs, how come life development is than slim, when small red stars have 10s or 100s of billion years to live on main sequence? Can small orange star planets reach the life forms get up to human types, or its life available on the harbor planets have to be more limited (at most hit up to life developed to Cambrian period? Orange dwarf stars have reduced luminosity, it have 10s or 50s billion years to linger on main sequence. Is the problems reduced luminosity, requiring CHZ to be closer to the parent star, or is it reduced ultraviolet radiation and solar wind, making greenhouse gases hard to escape from planets. Can too little solar wind cause problems on planets making greenhouse gases hard to escape?--69.226.32.110 (talk) 05:59, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Any answer we give is outrageous guesswork. However, I am suspicious that ultraviolet light plays an important role in getting the ball rolling, because it's a source of direct energy to create different kinds of reactions. See [1] for an example. Wnt (talk) 06:25, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Also note that the greenhouse effect isn't always bad. First, if a planet is so far away or the star is so dim that it would be too cold for life, then some greenhouse effect can bring the temperature up to something better for life. Second, a thick atmosphere helps keep the temperature more constant between day and night, which promotes life. Third, even a case of "runaway greenhouse effect", like on Venus, might tend to favor some forms of life. On Earth we have organisms that live around black smokers and such, where conditions aren't that far off from Venus. StuRat (talk) 07:04, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

In discussing the possibilities of terraforming Mars, Carl Sagan said that we would necessarily have to create a greenhouse effect and global warming there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:25, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

It isn't just the greenhouse effect. The Martian Atmosphere, according to Mars, has an average surcace pressure of about 600 pascals. Earth has an average surface pressure of about 100 kilopascals, making the Martian atmosphere less than 1% as dense as the Earth's. That's a LOT of gases in general you'd have to import to Mars to get an atmosphere which is breathable, never mind warm enough, for people to survive. You'd need an atmosphere that is about 75-80% inert gas and 20% oxygen to be breathable, and to get THAT atmosphere on Mars is just a lot of matter to get onto that planet. Besides the fact that the lack of a magnetosphere means that the solar wind is constantly stripping said atmosphere away, which is a problem Earth doesn't have. --Jayron32 14:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

There are two very distinct questions here:

1. What is needed for life to initially develop? ...and...
2. What is needed for it to continue to survive after that?

We know that extremophiles from Earth can live in outrageously nasty conditions (by human standards at least!) - but that only answers part (2) of the problem. Perhaps life needs a very special set of precise conditions to initially develop from inert compounds (this is called "abiogenesis"), but once it has a toe-hold, evolution is certainly capable of adapting initially fragile life into extremophiles who could live in all manner of difficult places. We can say with some degree of certainty that given time to adapt, Earthly life could evolve to survive on the surface of Venus, or even Mars - perhaps in oceans under the ice of various moons, for example.

But the tricky part is (1)...What does it take for life to initially develop? Because science does not yet know (for sure) how that initial abiogenesis step happened here on Earth, we have no idea what conditions were necessary for it to happen. Worse still, we can only possibly know those conditions for DNA/RNA-based lifeforms like all of life on Earth. We can't say what it would take for a lifeform based on some other scheme entirely would need.

Hence, we can discuss with some degree of accuracy whether DNA/RNA life could continue to exist on a suitable planet orbiting at an appropriate distance around a Red Dwarf - but we have absolutely no clue whether life could initially develop there.

Worse still than that, there is an increasing body of evidence for the "panspermia" notion that life didn't even develop here on Earth - but that it was carried here on a meteor or comet from some other place. If that turns out to be true, then perhaps life doesn't have to develop around a Red Dwarf - maybe it develops right here on earth, gets shot out into space following a giant impact early in our history - then sails gracefully through space until it hits a small planet orbiting Proxima Centauri (a red dwarf just 4 light years away) - and survives long enough to evolve to live underground or deep underwater - where it's protected from solar flares or whatever.

When you put together panspermia as a means for life to develop someplace different from where it currently lives - with the "we have no clue" answer to what Earth-like DNA/RNA life took to develop - and toss in the possibility of life based on other forms of biochemistry - then coming up with bold statements like "Life can't exist around Red Dwarfs" starts to look like a completely untenable claim.

Let's go one step further. There is no reason to believe that mankind won't one day soon figure out how to make self-reproducing machines - robots that can mine materials and be powered by solar panels and which can make more robots. That seems entirely possible. It's also quite reasonable to imagine that we could engineer such a thing to live near Proxima Centauri. Now you have to ask yourself whether our definition of "life" (which is exceedingly hard to pin down) should include artificial self-reproducing entities? If so, then an advanced civilisation living on a twin planet of Earth might quite easily have seeded planets orbiting Red Dwarves with this kind of "life" billions of years ago - which may in turn have evolved into advanced beings who are most certainly "alive" by any reasonable standards - and living absolutely anywhere where there is a source of raw materials and sufficient energy to keep them running (albeit very slowly).

The universe is huge, and incredibly ancient - I don't see any reason why life should not exist in every conceivable niche - however seemingly hostile. However, there are very likely to be some fairly strict limits as to where life can initially develop - but we don't have any idea what those limits are, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

So - feel free to ignore your teacher - let your imagination roam free - and perhaps gently suggest that he or she try to think outside the box for a while before making such bold (and clearly unsupportable) claims.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

We actually have an article about it: Habitability of red dwarf systems. main problems: low energy output so small habitable region close to the star, planets being tide-locked so no day-night sequence, tidal heating may boil the planets, solar output could vary up to 40% due to sunspots (compared to 0.1% with our sun), massive solar flares could strip the atmosphere... Ssscienccce (talk) 18:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

My point is that while this situation might seem impossibly difficult for life to initially form, those problems are not necessarily issues for already-existing life to adapt to. I have no doubt that we (as an advanced civilization) could design a machine that would function perfectly well on the boundary between boiling and freezing on a tidally-locked planet - living in perpetual (but relatively comfortable) twilight. That could sit there absorbing energy from the star until it has enough stored up to take one small step in its life cycle, then go back to absorbing this low grade solar energy until it can take the next step. It could bury most of its sensitive parts below ground, or in pools of whatever liquid may be there - where the solar flares would not damage it. Such a machine could be designed to slowly reproduce itself - it could even be made to evolve as it does so - it could be made functionally indistinguishable from "life".

The sharp temperature gradients between the side of the planet that's boiling lava and the side that's frozen solid are the perfect places to collect free geothermal energy - life could exist on the energy flow due to that temperature gradient without ever seeing daylight on the surface. Buried deep underground, they would be immune to solar flares and could easily find that 'sweet spot' between boiling and freezing. There are earthly extremophiles who survive with far less resources.

Who is to know that some advanced civilisation, living in a more comfortable place, wouldn't go out and seed the planets of red dwarf stars with artificially created (or possibly bio-engineered) life forms that would thrive, reproduce and evolve under those difficult circumstances?

If it's possible (even in principle) for something artificial to survive and reproduce - then we must ask ourselves whether we can rule out the possibility of life ever developing there in the first place. But we absolutely cannot make that determination. We really don't know how DNA/RNA life formed here on Earth, so we can't say what conditions might be favorable and what not. We have even less idea whether other forms of life (based on other chemistry) is possible. So saying "life is impossible here" is ridiculous. There is an energy source (albeit a weak one), there is a source of raw materials - that's all that self-reproducing organisms need if we free them from the need to be fragile DNA/RNA machines. We can't rule it out - we just can't. SteveBaker (talk) 15:19, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I just did a moment's web searching and found [2]. There are lots of goodies that come up on a search like "red dwarfs" flares lifespan... sometimes for science questions, searching is very frustrating and it's best to ask an expert. But for a field as diffuse and speculative as life on other planets, you're better off casting a wide net and seeing what comes up in it. Wnt (talk) 21:00, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

From a science perspective, we have no observable evidence that life exists outside earth. No "I love Lucy" episodes have beamed in. We speculate where life "might" be but the uniqueness of our own condition means we could easily be overconstraining it or underconstraining it as life boundaries and mechanisms are too unknown. Could life live on a comet? Could it use different chemistry? Could it depend on the energy available? what does "extreme" mean? What is "alive"? What is intelligent? There are so many constraints, assumptions, guesses an possibilities that it is ultimately unknowable until/unless actually found. It's like playing the game "guess what number I'm thinking" with a range of 1 to 1 trillion with the possibility that I'm thinking of a letter (if you guessed 42, good try). So yes, life could exist anywhere because we have no reasonable way to constrain it and no, life may be unique to earth because we have no way to know whether life could exist elsewhere. These questions sound sciencey but they are really more philosophical. "Are we alone?" "Is there a God?" all point to the same place of a certain amount of faith and philosophy that science is simply not ready to answer. --DHeyward (talk) 05:44, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, exactly.

We cannot rule out the hypothesis that we're completely unique and alone - and we also cannot rule out the possibility that life exists around 90% of all stars - or even that life exists between the stars.

Let's be clear about this though. The fact that we haven't detected "I love Lucy" coming from outside of our world doesn't tell us much about life around other worlds.

If we're talking about omnidirectional broadcasts (like our TV's, cellphones and most other radios) - where the signal spreads out in all directions, then it's important to note that our radio receivers (even radio telescopes) simply aren't sensitive enough...if you took the most powerful radio transmitter we've ever built and put it on the nearest star to our sun (Proxima centauri - 4 lightyears away), our most sensitive radio receiver would be unable to detect it. So the only signals we're likely to spot with current technology are those aimed directly at us (like a laser beam)...and that is unlikely to happen because nobody "out there" could have known we were here more than maybe a hundred years ago. That means that only civilizations on planets within 50 lightyears of us could have had time to send us a message. There are only 1875 stars within 50ly...so all we know is that statistically, less than one in 2000 stars have civilizations with either ungodly powerful radio transmitters or insanely sensitive radio telescopes who actually care to talk to a clearly warlike, potentially space-faring people like us. In another 100 years, there will be 15,000 stars within range - and after 1,000 years about 1.8 million of them. So we should certainly keep looking and not give up just because we didn't find anything yet.

But consider this: We know that (for example) dinosaurs existed at the top of the food chain for 135 million years - and never got smart enough to come close to making even the simplest stone tools - let alone building radio telescopes. Whales and dolphins have similar size brains - they've been around for 55 million years - and also, not so much as a stone axe. Yet mankind went from apes to radio telescopes in less than 1 million years. So we know for sure that it's easily possible for species of large, impressive animals to get stuck in an evolutionary niche without the prospect of ever becoming intelligent tool-makers to the degree necessary to communicate between stars.

So we shouldn't be surprised that life on other worlds isn't beaming us episodes of "I love Phhttaargh".

Which is hardly any indication that there are no bacteria (or giant insectoid monsters for that matter) on some planet orbiting a star a hundred lightyears from here.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:56, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Dreamliner takeoff distance

What is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's minimum takeoff distance when it's carrying the minimum possible weight, including very little fuel? The article talks about its minimum takeoff distance when fully loaded, and this news article does too, but nobody seems to talk about whether the airplane in the article could fly to its intended destination if they unloaded it and moved the freight to the destination airport by road or a smaller airplane. 2001:18E8:2:28C9:F000:0:0:A11E (talk) 14:37, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering that too. But it wasn't a 787 doing the delivering, right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed not, it's a modified 747 cargo aircraft. Page 9 of this paper gives the critical runway length (that is, if one engine fails during take off, something they have to worry about) for two different 747 variants, at 3000m and 3500m respectively (it's about 75% of that as long as all the engines work okay). That variant is different, and may be a bit heavier due to its larger fuselage, but that's the rough distance. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Although those are MTOW (maximum take off weight) numbers. I don't know if they publish minimum weight numbers. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:06, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, they do - they define the legal and safe weight and balance envelope. The pilot in command of the aircraft must crunch the numbers to ensure that the airplane weighs enough - if it is too light, or if the weight is improperly distributed, the aircraft will be aerodynamically unstable. In such circumstances, when a large aircraft ends up at a tiny GA airport, or the length of the runway with respect to the takeoff roll is doubtful, the aircraft may not be legally certified to take off. The aircraft operators then file for a ferry permit with the local FSDO (part of the FAA), who may allow the aircraft to take off below its legal minimums - or outside its ordinary category envelope - provided that it is actually capable of the flight. If it's marginal, the operators may wait for a much colder and windier day (with a lower density altitude and a solid headwind) to bring the takeoff roll even shorter. Nimur (talk) 16:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

And the runway at Colonel James Jabara Airport is 1,860m. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:07, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

In the United States, we measure runways in feet: AAO has a 6101'x100' runway. Normally I advocate the SI system of units, but there are times when it is inappropriate to require a unit conversion, such as during the landing of a large aircraft. The POH specs takeoff rolls in feet; the FAA's charts and data sheets spec airfields and elevations in feet; the altimeters are measuring in feet, the radio communication uses feet. Nimur (talk) 16:32, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The aircraft concerned is a Dreamlifter, not a Dreamliner. Very different (and very different from a normal 747, too). - David Biddulph (talk) 16:34, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

If they're going to want to unload it (I don't think I've seen a news report that says whether it is loaded) then that would prove a logistical challenge too. The gigantic DBL-110 "Dreamloader" is "half the width of a football field", putting it about 20m wide - it'll be very hard to get one of those to the airfield. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:59, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, it's far worse than that! The aircraft is too large to turn on to a taxiway! It's still on the runway, which is why the FAA filed this NOTAM:!AAO 11/009 AAO RWY 18/36 CLSD 1311211440-1311212200. The runway is shut down for all other landing or departing aircraft! Nimur (talk) 17:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

This report says that the tug to turn the aircraft around has arrived, that they can take off, and that they intend to do so "around noon" today (an hour or so from now). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

That article says that after takeoff it "will then land at McConnell Air Force base and unload, as planned." Thincat (talk) 17:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I never heard of a Dreamlifter before, so I guess I misread the original news article. But doesn't "half the width of a football field" mean bigger than 20m? When we Americans talk about something being the size of a football field (or half, or whatever), we normally mean its length. Boeing 747 Large Cargo Freighter has a wingspan of 211 ft 5 in, which is a width vaguely close to half of an American football field's length of 360 feet. 2001:18E8:2:28C9:F000:0:0:A11E (talk) 17:37, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

It's the Dreamloader, the machine they use for loading the Dreamcarrier (with bits of Dreamliner), that's about 20m wide. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The article that Finlay linked earlier actually specified: "The longest in the world at 118 ft., 1 inch, this loader was designed and built in less than 15 months by TLD at its facility in Sherbrooke, Quebec." I wonder if Boeing managed to make Québécois use feet and inches, or if 118'1" is "conveniently close" to 36.0 meters!

I joke, but only partly: confusion between metric and "standard" Canadian units was the reported root-cause for the 1983 Gimli glider fueling mishap, one of the most famous aviation incidents in Canadian history. Nimur (talk) 18:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

... and we should draw a veil (or shroud) over the Mars Climate Orbiter. Thincat (talk) 19:05, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Update on KWCH's front page: they got the plane off successfully, and it landed safely at its intended destination :-) 149.160.168.94 (talk) 20:21, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Well...I'd say that the U.S.-metric confusion was a root cause, but far from the only one. When something goes that impressively wrong in commercial aviation there's often a bunch of technical and human failures that stack up, the absence of any one of which would have prevented the incident; this is definitely true for the Gimli glider. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:27, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

It being Kansas, which is pretty much flatland, and depending on how far apart the airports are, it might be easier just to close off the roads for a while and drive it there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:21, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Err.. that sounds right. Ground control: OK, now you are approaching a cross-roads with a no-left -turn so hang a right. Pilot: Is that starboard or port? Ground control: RIGHT!!!! Pilot: Repeat; is that starboard or port? Ground control: The hand with which one writes with!! Pilot: Well I'm left handed... so is that port or starboard? Ground control: See the little green light on one of you wing tips... turn that a way. Pilot: Affirmative, err.. De other wing with de red light has just knocked down some street lights!!! Hey,.. derr is a beefy looking law enforcement officer walking my way with-a-dog. Do you think he is going to search my plane for drugs? Ground control: Plead guilty, If you've driven at over 25 mph with no license plates nor a Mc Donald's drive-through family meal on board, then I think that is your best option! --Aspro (talk) 21:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Bugs: That is a dumb answer. You really imagine that there are 200'-wide unobstructed roads leading all the way from one airport to the other? 20-lane highways with no median ditch, no center light poles and no crash-barriers are not exactly commonplace! This thing is so big, they couldn't even find a taxiway wide enough to tow it off the main runway - let alone out of the airport perimeter. You really have to get out of the habit of answering questions that you don't actually know the answer to. SteveBaker (talk) 14:53, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

And that's a dumb retort. If they weren't able to take off, I'd like to know what you think would be a better answer. As it is, it's moot, because it was 90 miles from its proper destination, which would be tough to negotiate driving, and it was able to take off safely anyway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:19, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

If the airplane can't take off, the most likely alternative would be to partially disassemble the airplane in place and move the parts to a suitable hangar (say, one at McConnell) for reassembly, as is alluded to in this article. (This isn't as unreasonable as it sounds: removing the wings of an airplane is a fairly straightforward operation, and once you've got the wings and tail off, moving them and the fuselage is the sort of thing that oversize-load specialists handle all the time.) --Carnildo (talk) 02:32, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

If it landed, it can take off. The landing roll out would be much larger than a short-field takeoff. The issue is obstacles after it takes off. Short field configuration, same weight, stay in ground effect as long as possible and then climb. As long as the terrain and obstacles are flat there would be no problem. The fact that it landed and didn't take on additional fuel means it should be good to take off. Maximum takeoff weight greatly exceeds landing weight due to structure and rollout. The bigger issue would be damage to the runway, takeoff abort procedure, headwind, etc. They like the 10,000 runways not because they use the full length to rotate, but if they decide not to commit to a takeoff they can stop before the end at near takeoff speed. That's the safety margin they gave up here. The calculations were probably about the go/no-go spot and whether the runway could support the weight. BTW, the 6000'x100' runway is probably a spot on illusion for a 10,000'x150' or 12k'x200' runway. I wonder if they considered a touch and go when they realized they were in the wrong place (or when they knew). The runway lighting would be completely different. They are lucky they didn't wreck the runway pavement. was it the same crew that took off? Somehow, I think not and probably a Boeing test pilot came in. Oh, and driving on a regular road would destroy the road. Even empty, it would exceed the roadway weight limit over the area of the main gear. Runways have very tough criteria and specs for aircraft weight. It's not just a road. --DHeyward (talk) 06:21, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Rollerball ink splodges

Why do some rollerball pens produce occasional splodges of ink even if they're fine most of the time? What corners have been cut? --129.215.47.59 (talk) 16:01, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

In my experience, what happens is that unused ink builds up in a lump at the edge of the ball housing, which then falls off, creating the splodge, when it gets too big. I'm not sure this is a design fault, it's just something inherent in the operation of the ballpoint pen. Tevildo (talk) 21:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Some are most definitely much worse than others. I always assumed it was due to a poor fit of the ball in the housing leading to a rapid buildup of surplus ink. Of course, the opposite also occurs when the ball is too tight and the ink does not flow smoothly or writes too weak a line. SpinningSpark 22:21, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Well that was my OR explanation, here's a ref with a different answer,

Rollerballs use water-based ink, which provides smoother, finer lines. They are available in a wider array of colors and require less pressure to use. But their inks tend to dry slowly on the page, can easily smudge and bleed, and can dry out in the pen itself.

So apparently ballpoints and rollerballs are distinguished by the type of ink they use (oil-based or water-based respectively). SpinningSpark 22:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

artificial sweeteners

Do artificial sweeteners turn to formaldehyde in the human body? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.142.177.85 (talk) 20:23, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Aspartame does - see Aspartame#Metabolites. Saccharine, sucralose and cyclamate don't. Tevildo (talk) 20:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Phlegm bacteriotherapy and exotic bacteria

If you had smoke particles from a fire stuck in some ones lungs than could bacteria that consume those elements be able to consume what’s in the lungs? I doubt the bacteria would survive the environment of the lungs, though I've no references to say they couldn't temporarily, or if frozen. I imagine building and vehicle fires involve a lot of different elements, so you would need a wide variety of bacteria; but if you had such a bacterial Noah's arc, than would this be theoretically possible? Also, is there seriously no academic journal that even suggests the idea of phlegm bacteriotherapy, I can only find references to fecal bacteriotherapy. CensoredScribe (talk) 20:52, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Particulate matter in smoke is mostly carbon (soot). Toxic gases will usually be deadly long before the PM reaches dangerous levels. Carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide would be the most important ones, and sometimes sulphur oxides and hydrogen halides that will form sulphuric, hydrochloric and other acids when coming in contact with moisture in the lungs. The heat of the inhaled air may also do damage. I'm not sure there are bacteria that would consume soot particles. Ssscienccce (talk) 21:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

According to [3] there are "no" flora in the lower respiratory tract. Another reference that came up in a quick search called them "scanty" [4]. Our article on smoke inhalation describes mostly heat and chemicals as the culprits anyway. Though I'm a bit confused - silicosis says the particles go in the lower lung, coalworker's pneumoconiosis says they go in the upper, but the latter article says they look the same on X-ray. I might have to spend more than five minutes searching to unravel the truth about where any inhaled particles from a fire actually end up. :) Wnt (talk) 21:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

They both say "upper", no? Now I'm confused too.. Ssscienccce (talk) 21:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, that explains it... I was just confused. :) It's the upper lobes of the lung, but the lung is in the lower respiratory tract, and somewhere along the line I didn't read carefully. Wnt (talk) 01:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

As there is no page by that name currently, unlike fecal bacteriotherapy could I create it than put nothing in there just to prove the concept exists until someone finds a reference? CensoredScribe (talk) 22:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

What is this nonsense? Are you entirely unaware of how wikipedia works? Where did you get the idea that we create articles randomly based on bullshit until they are deleted? Do you need to be blocked from editing on a temporary or permanent basis? Stop vandalizing this service. WP:OR, etc., μηδείς (talk) 23:01, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what's bothering you, but this is a perfectly valid, interesting idea. For example, diatomaceous earth is at least potentially a cause of silicosis, and its breakdown can be accelerated by bacteria. [5] It may be less worrisome, though, to figure out something with the purified enzyme than raw bacteria. I encourage the OP to continue exercising his considerable creativity, and to ignore the other stuff. Wnt (talk) 01:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

However, I should also point out (politely) that Wikipedia doesn't actually start articles on things until WP:reliable sources support them. See WP:GNG for the standard. You can, however, keep a draft containing things related to the topic in your userspace for such time as you find enough to support it. Wnt (talk) 02:46, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Phlegm bacteriotherapy is not a known medical treatment. However, it has been speculated that probiotic delivery of normal microbial flora to the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis could potentially prove beneficial in a manner analogous to fecal bacteriotherapy. Over 100 genera of bacteria are known to occur in the lower respiratory tract, a substantially wider diversity than is present in sputum samples: the most common are Streptococcus, Prevotella, Moraxella, Haemophilus, Acinetobacter, Fusobacterium, and Neisseria. Absence of normal lung flora in germ-free mice leads to increased inflammatory activity, which can be reversed through the recolonization of a complex mixture of flora from SPF mice. Advocates of probiotic approaches have noted that normal lung flora tend to include Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes while pathologic states tend to include more Proteobacteria.

Oh, and I should also note that gavage is more likely to retrieve a wider range of bacteria; literally using phlegm is (among other things) not as good a source. Wnt (talk) 18:42, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I suspect that many will misinterpret User:Wnt's sentence, "Over 100 genera of bacteria are known to occur...", as applicable to healthy lungs, when the cited source is a study of people with COPD, who have recurrent lung infections. It remains unclear whether there is a sound basis for the proposed therapy, and there is no credible evidence that it is beneficial. Interesting notion, but fraught with peril (transferring organisms between people is a risky business). -- Scray (talk) 21:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Black colors on white people?

Are there Europeans or ‘white’ people who are born with black patches on their skin? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 20:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a condition called “vitiligo” where a suntanned European can 'appear' to have dark patches but this is in contrast to the pink patches caused by this condition.--Aspro (talk) 21:49, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes I'm one. I have a birthmark that looks like an almond on my back. --TammyMoet (talk) 22:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

See also Hyperpigmentation. Alansplodge (talk) 12:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

My son (who is caucasian) was born with a birthmark that was a whiter patch of skin (hypopigmentation) - so the opposite can happen too. (Whoever decided that "hypo-" should be the opposite of "hyper-" should have been hit over the head with a clue-stick!) SteveBaker (talk) 14:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

It's all Greek to me. Alansplodge (talk) 17:20, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

November 22

Big Xbox is watching you?

Trying to ask this question without sounding like a loon, so here goes:-

Is it technically possible for Them (CIA/MI5/whoever your local Them are) to use Xbox One's controversial new Kinect faciliy to watch and record you in your own home wihthout your knowledge?

Just curious about the technological side of it - not trying to advance any conspiracy theory here. Needless to say, They will probably find some way to watch you anyway, if They are interested in your activities, wheteher or not you happen to have an Xbox One in your home. Thanks. --146.90.108.78 (talk) 00:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

• While there are plenty of conspiracy folks speculating on this topic, there are some legit sources that express concerns (e.g.: [6]).

You might have better luck regarding specific tech details here: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing; but, I am certain that if it could be done, it will be done. See also: PRISM (surveillance program) ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 01:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

A web-connected camera and microphone can be accessed by third parties without any real trouble by people in the know for these kinds of thing. It is absolutely possible. Is it happening? I don't think They care that much about you, but it is technically a thing that could happen. Norton explains possibilities for webcams here, and I have no reason to think Xbox is not vulnerable. Mingmingla (talk) 01:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The companies aren't even trying to hide the spying any more. Just look at any set of Terms and Conditions, any company - for example, Kinect. [7] You don't own it, you can't examine it, you can't export it anywhere that allows people to look at it, you don't have any claim to privacy, you don't have any access to the courts, and they can do whatever they want to you at any time. The bottom line is that the only security you have with any computer equipment (so long as you are allowed that) is to physically disconnect things, preferably by never taking them into your home. We are far, far beyond the level of technology that our social mores are able to sustain, and there will be a reconciliation of the overall tech level on one side or the other. Wnt (talk) 01:58, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

"They" have always had the technical ability to spy on you through any web-connected camera (see Webcam#Privacy), provided they are able to inject code into your machine. My own privacy concerns (over stupid trolls, rather than the government) has always led me to disable the webcams on any computers I buy, or receive from my employer. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

• Anyone who has a camera or microphone permanently enabled on an internet-connected device is completely crazy in my opinion. I'm not even particularly paranoid, but it scares the sh*t out of me. Why would you even take the remote chance that some pervert or lunatic could spy on you in your home? I don't understand how people can be so blasé about it. I'm not happy unless the camera is physically disconnected or covered when not in legitimate use. Unfortunately, in-built microphones are harder to physically disable because even covering them won't completely block the sound. 86.169.185.129 (talk) 04:04, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

What's the difference between a Kinect and every laptop and cell phone sold in the past 10 years? It seems like there are hundreds of millions more of those devices compared to a gaming console that just launched. Yet no one seems particularly paranoid about them. Why is a Kinect any different? --209.203.125.162 (talk) 23:49, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

What you want is a white noise machine and an earbud. Still, better keep up with the happy thoughts, just in case. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. This is the high-tech equivalent of Will Rogers' axiom, "Live your life so's you wouldn't be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip." Just in case, though, you could disable the camera by simply placing a piece of electrical tape over it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

A quick question, what's your banking account and password? Oh and a list of the numbers, CVVs, expiry dates, full name, addresses, sample signatures and PIN numbers for any credit or debit cards you own would be great too. Nil Einne (talk) 13:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Well you're at it, I want to know what your sexual habits are, and what you look/sound like when having sex. Creeped out? You should be. --Bowlhover (talk) 15:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't do bank accounts or credit/debit cards - I operate strictly on a cash basis. As for the other thing, just picture the typical rabbit during mating season. Creeped out? You should be. >:) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

That's fine then. You don't sound like you're extremely poor, so a quick question where you store your spare cash (specific locations, e.g. if in your house under your mattress specify that level of detail as well as a full address preferably including GPS coordinations to a 10 metre or so range)? Can you also let me know where you store any keys etc required for access for any of said locations as well as any passwords, pin numbers etc for safes, combinations locks, secured guards, whatever. Oh and don't worry if my friend visits these locations sometime soon, they're just checking this stuff out, ignore them since you have nothing to fear. Nil Einne (talk) 15:46, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The "you have nothing to hide" thing isn't true. To take a real example - my local neighborhood has a problem with people letting their dogs poop on the sidewalk. I proposed to our home owners association that we provide free poop bags at stations around our neighborhood and needed to research the cost. So I Googled for people selling those bags. Unfortunately, I accidentally clicked a "sponsored link" instead of just a regular search result. Consequence: For the last month, I'm plagued with adverts for dog-poop cleanup devices on just about every freaking web page I visit! Even to the point that I'm trying to find a recipe for a dish at thanksgiving - and when I print it out for my wife, it has TWO dog-poop-related adverts on the printout! Aaaaarrrrgggggh!

Privacy is a huge issue. Big businesses want to know as much as possible about you so that they can target you with adverts and other things that will entice you to spend more money with them. There is strong evidence that people like Amazon dynamically vary their prices depending on what they know about you. There is a very strong possibility that something you do online (thinking you're doing it in private) will result in them jacking their prices up when next you go to buy a book or something from them. Dunno about you - but I'd rather that didn't happen!

SteveBaker (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

While your response is correct, I don't think you have looked far enough forward to grasp the full problem. A merchant might say that his knowledge of you might entitle you to a discount instead; that's the first step. What about when they start saying that your Facebook/Twitter status determines the attractiveness of your online persona? What about when you're told that you have to have a degree in Microsoftology if you expect to be hired anywhere? What about when failing to be filmed for a few hours of your life is treated the same way as a ten-year gap on your resume is treated now, and they treat you like a terrorist? It is possible that the Revelation of John provides as good an insight as is to be had on such society, and on the fate of those who fail to comply with its dictates. Wnt (talk) 18:20, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Steve, you might be able to fix the flood of dog poop adverts by clearing the cookies from your browser; or am I being naieve to the reach of the dog poop or big brother? Astronaut (talk) 20:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Snakebite

If you get bitten by a venomous snake, is it possible to suffer permanent damage? This is NOT a request for medical advice. 24.23.196.85 (talk) 01:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, such as death (I assume the science reference would consider death permanent). Check out the article snakebite for some other long term effects. (In that article there is a picture of a particular injury that may be upsetting. Proceed with caution.) 88.112.41.6 (talk) 01:52, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Definitely. The Hemotoxin bites in particular can cause huge wounds that may never fully heal. Google and you'll see lots of awful pictures. Shadowjams (talk) 03:13, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Power required for hovering

Hi, please see the question here which I asked a quite a while ago. Returning to this problem, I could not remember how I had worked it out, so I tried to do it again. However, this time I get the answer Power = (M g)^(3/2)/(2 sqrt (rho A)), which is different by a factor of sqrt(2). Although the original answer was said to be correct by one respondent, I now doubt whether it was. Can anyone adjudicate as to which (if either, I suppose) is correct? 86.160.221.246 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:52, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem is under-constrained. There are literally an infinite number of correct answers. I gave a very technical answer, with citations and specific examples, when this was asked again in "Hover," in November 2012. "Helicopter flight is characterized by aerodynamic work against a non-conservative force. What this means in practice is that the amount of energy or power required for a maneuver depends on the helicopter's configuration. A helicopter pilot can independently control the collective, the cyclic, and also throttle the engine rpm. The pilot can also change the attitude of the helicopter to maintain a hover at many different engine settings and aircraft attitudes."

If your "ducted fan" has fixed blade pitch, your problem becomes a little bit better constrained; but you still need to completely define the angle of attack and the profile of the "fan" blade airfoil shape. Nimur (talk) 04:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

In a real-life helicopter there are masses of other considerations beyond what I am trying to calculate in my highly simplistic model. Forget all those. I believe that what I am trying to calculate is well-defined. It is just based on the amount of kinetic energy that must be imparted to the air in order to generate the right force to keep the mass hovering. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 12:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Correct, but because of the way that physics works in the real world, there are many ways to put different amounts of kinetic energy into air, and achieve the same effective net force. Ultimately, the problem with your approach is that you are trying to apply conservation of energy, but you want to "conveniently ignore" the numerous ways that energy can manifest in air: as turbulence, as cyclic flow, as heat, as convective flow, as laminar flow, as a compression or pressure perturbation, and so on. Because the engine performs no useful work (when hovering, the force is exerted over no net distance upward), you must use a model that considers the energy lost to lossy terms like aerodynamic drag and turbulent flow and heat. These are not "optional" parts of the equation.

The real work - force exerted over a distance - is performed horizontally, against the air in the form of the rotating fan-blades pushing against the air as it turns. Work is performed against the drag term. How much work? Depends on the drag - which depends on the airfoil shape, the angle of attack, an| the parameters of the air, like density and viscosity; and on non-ideal terms that characterize turbulent flow.

If you can't quite grok how there can be an infinite number of correct solutions to a physical equation, it's time to review the theories covered in advanced algebra or ordinary differential equations. There are an infinite number of correct answers, but that is not identical to saying any solution is correct. Nimur (talk) 12:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I do want to conveniently ignore all the other complexities. I know that the answer obtained will have little to do with the amount of power needed by a real-life helicopter. All I want to do is confirm the answer to the question "how much power to impart sufficient kinetic energy to the air to keep hovering", ignoring absolutely everything else, no matter how unrealistic it is in the real world. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 12:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Let's replace air with a solid material, then, since you are choosing not to treat it a fluid - you are intentionally ignoring the most fundamental and critical properties of air ("it can flow"). So, the amount of energy required is zero. The hovering machine rests on a solid material, exerting a contact force equal to, and exactly countering, its own weight. No work is performed, because no force is exerted through any distance. This model is only accurate as long as we can ignore the properties of air as a fluid. Nimur (talk) 13:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Or, let's take the other hypothetical extreme, treating air as a fluid that is so perfect that it never exerts any aerodynamic drag, nor ever exhibits any turbulent motion. The fan blades begin to spin, and lose no energy to the air! But there's a problem... the blades pass effortlessly through the air. They just ... go right through the air molecules, in total contraindication to all prior physical intuition! Because the fan blade cannot even feel the air, it cannot exert a force to push any air downward. (That would require drag and shear force to direct the rotational flow downwards). The fan keeps spinning, and keeps spending energy against its own internal friction, but air never flows, and the vehicle cannot hover.

Maybe you're starting to get the intuition that these "idealizations" are not only unrealistic - they're useless, ...and they aren't even consistent with any theory we could contrive if we started with first principles of physics, solving the kinetics for one single gas molecule, and then extrapolating statistically to billions and billions of other gas molecules. We need to deal with terms like shear force and viscosity. Those terms describe the way air really behaves, whether we observe it in a lab or if we model it with the kinetic theory of gases. If you choose to ignore those terms, you aren't writing "simplified" equations about your problem: you're just describing something else entirely.

We use drag coefficients and similar aggregate parameters so that we don't have to solve the harder, full-form analytic equations that describe fluid flow as an absolutely immense n-body problem with n=6.022x10²³. It's already in a "simplified form!" But if you just leave out these terms, you're going to get answers that are so incredibly wrong that they predict perpetual motion, or free energy, or zero energy, or something else totally ridiculous. Nimur (talk) 13:18, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I see that there is a complete failure of communication here, in terms of me conveying the problem that I am actually trying to solve. If it helps, forget air. Forget fans. Forget all the complexities that are plaguing you. Imagine a device being fed sand. It has to fire a stream of sand downwards at sufficient rate to keep hovering using some imaginary mechanism that wastes no energy. The density parameter is the density of the stream of sand emanating. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 13:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Even then, the answer is still underconstrained. A smaller amount of sand at higher velocity can accomplish the same task - providing identical impulse - as a larger amount of sand at lower velocity. The power expenditure depends on how you feed sand into the machine: are you constrained by mass flow rate? Are you constrained by maximum sand-pump power? None of these? Then, if you have a control system to ensure the craft hovers, you still have one unconstrained variable, so the engine can run at any power setting; a different amount of sand needs to flow at a different velocity depending on the power setting. That has to be controlled independently of the power setting. Your control system must calculate and match power- and flow-rate, (maybe it "opens the sand valve" to the desired level, at the same time it throttles the engine power to the desired level; alternately, the engine power can be set, and the "sand valve" is opened or shut); or else the craft won't actually hover. Again, because you're choosing to ignore energy loss terms, you've left open the prospect that we can, for example, take a 200 horsepower engine and use it to impel one single grain of sand at some preposterous hypersonic velocity every second, thus levitating the vehicle. A real engine cannot actually apply its entire power to drive a single grain of sand. Nimur (talk) 14:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The power expenditure does indeed depend on the flow rate of sand. That is accounted for by the cross-sectional area and density parameters. You are correct, the resulting equation would in theory work with a tiny flow rate and extreme speed. That is as expected. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 14:17, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

...so, power is force times velocity, which is just "weight times sand-velocity" in this case. Interestingly, that's the gravity-burn equation I linked for you... nearly the first answer you got, back in 2011! But, explain again why cross sectional area limits the sand velocity? Perhaps you mean to say ... the flow is choked, because it is non-ideal? Fascinating, that we would need to model non-ideal parameters for a simplified problem like this! Nimur (talk) 14:20, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) In the first round Dragons flight spoke of the air being incompressible; note that your sand idea is at odds with this (because obviously sand grains can be brought closer together with no energy). That said, the equations I can see here are $F=Mg={\dot {m}}\Delta v$ (conservation of momentum, and a sand supply separately suspended at your altitude), ${\dot {m}}=A\rho v'$ (note that this depends delicately on the issue of compressibility), and $P={\dot {m}}(v'^{2}-v_{0}^{2})/2$ (rate of kinetic energy deposition). For sand, we can suppose that $v_{0}=0$ (a horizontal conveyor feed), so $v:=\Delta v=v'$ and we can simplify to $Mg=A\rho v^{2}$ and $P=A\rho v^{3}/2={\frac {(Mg)^{3/2}}{2{\sqrt {A\rho }}}}$, which is what you have this time around. At least three of these four equations are separately wrong for a fluid: a fluid exerts pressure forces in addition to reaction forces, has a compression-dependent flow rate, and is moving when it arrives at the impeller. (Of course, if Dragons flight has a derivation of the older form, let's hear it; as Nimur says, this is treacherous ground.) --Tardis (talk) 14:28, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much for understanding what I was asking! It looks like last time I was off by a factor of sqrt(2), as I suspected. 14:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.18.115 (talk)

Tardis, you didn't apply the product rule on your derivative to compute "rate of deposition of kinetic energy":

${\frac {d}{dt}}{\frac {1}{2}}mv^{2}={\frac {1}{2}}(v^{2}{\frac {dm}{dt}}+2mv{\frac {dv}{dt}})$... surely you don't think we can idealize away that velocity term? And that's why your answer for power totally lacks a term proportional to exhaust velocity. I'm not so very good at following equations, but I can spot an error a mile away if it forgets a term that has physical significance... and in this case, you left off v_E. Not that it's important, it's just where the majority of the energy is getting put! It also makes for a catchy song lyric... udv +vdu, you left off vE... something wasn't quite right about it... Nimur (talk) 15:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether this answers your question, but in my working-out the exhaust velocity gets accounted for in the form v = sqrt(F/(A rho)). 86.129.18.115 (talk) 18:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure which of those two terms I'm omitting: the first is appropriate if you consider the "object" to be the slug of falling sand, which (neglecting gravity on it since we don't have to pay for that) is moving at a constant velocity but has a growing mass (yielding $P={\frac {1}{2}}v^{2}{\dot {m}}$: here v is a constant, so is your $v_{E}$), while the second is appropriate if you consider an infinitesimal mass — but then you need to integrate over the time during which the impulse is applied, giving $dE=dm\int _{0}^{t}v{\frac {dv}{dt}}dt={\frac {dmv_{E}^{2}}{2}}$ so $P={\frac {dE}{dt}}={\frac {v^{2}}{2}}{\frac {dm}{dt}}={\frac {1}{2}}v^{2}{\dot {m}}$ (where I have again taken $v:=v_{E}$). (There are, I'm sure, some very technical arguments that could be made about integrating and then differentiating with respect to t in two different senses, but the rigorous approach of considering the simultaneous distribution of energy parcels of mass that are at different points in their acceleration will yield the same result because of linearity.)

Anyway, I didn't think of it with that equation at all. I simply said that each parcel of material changes from 0 velocity to $v:=v_{E}$, so its specific kinetic energy change is just the final value ${\frac {v^{2}}{2}}$. Since it is at a rate ${\dot {m}}$ that we dole out that specific kinetic energy, the power is just the same product from before.

You're quite right that specific impulse is relevant. However, here it is constrained by the known $\rho$ and A, whose product is a linear density. It is an entirely fair objection that $\rho$ at least is not known a priori, but must be found by equation of state considerations from the flow and varies non-trivially over space and time. However, our trivial "sand conveyor" case is reduced to one parameter in a physically plausible way (though the engineering is absurd) by the specified density. A different question would be "how can we minimize the power required by changing the output density?", to which the trivial answer is of course "make the density as large as possible to mimic a solid support where the power is 0". --Tardis (talk) 01:39, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that the solid support case is qualitatively different, and cannot be approximated or approached by making density large. 86.128.4.176 (talk) 14:29, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the best "qualitative" interpretation I have is that the first term reflects energy added to the slug of sand to move it through the impeller, and the second term reflects the energy added to each slug of sand to accelerate it through the impeller. It's not really physically meaningful to distinguish between these components of the equation, except in the infinitesimal sense: there is an instantaneous change in energy associated with the velocity, and another term associated with the acceleration, for each infinitesimal unit of mass. Nimur (talk) 09:01, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Your question has no reasonable answer. The energy required is entirely dependent on the nature of the fluid you're pushing downwards.

• An object can sit on top of a block of concrete indefinitely using no energy whatever - the power is zero.
• I have a desk ornament of Dr Who's Tardis that floats effortlessly in the air using magnetic levitation - again, zero power consumed.
• Work done is force through a distance. If the object is perfectly still - with a perfectly efficient mechanism, the distance travelled is zero and the power is zero. Ergo, any power that is needed is "losses" due to a less than perfectly efficient levitation scheme...so the amount of power required depends only on the relative efficiency of the machine.
• A hovercraft needs some power to keep it's soft skirt inflated - but otherwise is sitting on a block of air.
• Consider a helicopter, which needs much more power than a hovercraft because the air isn't contained and is continually leaking out of the sides.
• Even in a helicopter, the numbers are drastically different between a 'ground-effect' hover and a high altitude hover or a hover beneath an overhang (eg hovering underneath a bridge).
• Those water jet packs keep someone hovering very nicely with very little power because their working fluid is water - but regular rocket packs need huge amounts of power because they are exhausting hot gasses.
• A rocket hovering in a vacuum needs different amounts of power than one hovering in air - which is different again to a jet motor doing the same job.

Anyone who claims to have a simple formula for such a general question is talking nonsense. I think this was adequately explained to you the last time you asked this. One person gave you some equation or other - but it was incorrect, please don't latch onto that as "The One Good Answer That I Got" - it wasn't...it was the one complete bullshit answer you got!

If you can narrow things down more specifically to precisely how this "levitation" is being performed, we'd have a chance at getting a better answer for you.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:55, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Please read my last message. The question that I am posing is well-defined and has an exact answer. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 14:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC) Also, ignore ground effects. If any other real-life complexity occurs to you, IGNORE IT. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 14:13, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

There's some out-of-order posting here, (which is okay, just a little confusing). I've responded above. Your new problem restatement is still underdefined. Nimur (talk) 14:16, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I completely understand that you're asking for a spherical cow kind of answer - and I can tell you that the equation for that is "P=0". Gravity is a "force", not an energy source - so in the abstract "spherical cow" universe, producing an equal and opposite "force" requires no energy whatever - which is why magnetic levitation consumes no energy and this little TARDIS on my desk hovers so effortlessly - or why we could place an object at one of the "Lagrange points" and it would just sit there without falling.

Power equals force times distance moved...if the distance moved is zero, then the power/energy-consumption is zero too. The problem is that 100% of the energy consumed in a practical machine is in producing that force in a situation where there is nothing solid to push against. The details and losses that you're trying to ignore are 100% of the resulting power requirement - so you don't get a simple abstract answer. Many people here are trying to tell you that - they know the answer and you don't (which is why you asked them!) - so stop arguing with them and listen! I'm sorry, life sucks, there isn't always a simple answer to even the simplest question. SteveBaker (talk) 14:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The question that I am asking is well-defined and has an exact answer that is not zero. It is not difficult to solve for anyone with a knowledge of physics. For me, however, it is on the margins of what I can work out. The biggest difficulty appears to be explaining to other people what the question actually is. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 14:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry - but you say that you don't know what the answer is - but you somehow do know that it's not difficult and you know that it's not zero and you know that it's well-defined? Well, if you know so much, how come you don't know the answer? The truth is that you know none of those things - really - you don't. Everyone here is telling you that. Ask yourself what information you have that tells you that there it's "not difficult to solve"? How do you actually know that? The answer is that you don't...you're guessing that it's easy to solve, that it's well-defined and so forth - and we're telling you that your guess is incorrect. So, you asked us a question - we've told you the answer. Stop arguing and listen! SteveBaker (talk) 15:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

No, you listen. "We" have done nothing. At least one person understands what I am asking. The fact that you can't grasp it is your problem, not mine. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 18:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

See the article on thrust, specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust#Thrust_to_power. --Modocc (talk) 15:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey, is that the same as my equation??!! 86.129.18.115 (talk) 18:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Or see this pdf: www.aerostudents.com/files/aircraftPerformance2/helicopters.pdf‎ (notice the square root of 2, so your old answer was correct). This is a typical physics introduction handbook problem, one that a highschool student should be able to answer. Judging by the reactions you got, most people here would have flunked their physics exam. Ssscienccce (talk) 18:58, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's another one: FTM106: U.S. Naval test Pilot School Flight Test Manual chapter 5 Hover performance Power required assuming an ideal rotor: equation 5.24 Ssscienccce (talk) 19:26, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

And we even have an article on it: momentum theory Quote:

For a stationary rotor, such as a helicopter in hover, the power required to produce a given thrust is:

$P={\sqrt {\frac {T^{3}}{2\rho A}}}$

Ssscienccce (talk) 19:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Do you have any idea why the formulas here and here seem to differ by the same factor of sqrt(2)? My working-out was based on my pretty sketchy knowledge of some basic physics equations, and I did not consult any of these references, yet spookily I seem to have produced two differing equations that match the two differing equations in the articles. Unfortunately, I cannot now remember how I arrived at my original equation, so I cannot see where the reasoning diverges. 86.129.18.115 (talk) 20:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The formula in the thrust article would be valid for a rocket, not for a helicopter (you best ignore the comment in that section about incoming air). To quote A review of rotor induced velocity field theory (Office of Naval Research, 1954) "this was one of the most important features of momentum theory. It showed that the induced velocity at the disk was one-half its value in the ultimate wake." It can be derived with the Bernouilli equation, but to put it simply, you're not just pushing air away from the rotor, you're also pulling air towards the rotor. Look at it this way: the rotor creates a pressure difference between top and bottom, and the upward force is equal to (Pb-Pt)A . Pb will be higher than ambient pressure, Pt lower. Pb-Pa = Pa-Pt = (Pb-Pt)/2, so the upward force is 2(Pb-Pa)A. With a rocket, the upward force is only (Pb-Pa)A. Ssscienccce (talk) 21:57, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that real rotors will require more power to achieve the required trust. The calculated power will only produce T*FM thrust, with FM being the figure of merit of the rotor. Values between 0.7 and 0.8 represent good hovering performance, while state-of-the-art rotors may reach 0.82. The actual required power is P/FM, this is the power that the rotor must receive, doesn't include transmission losses between engine and rotor. Maybe add 10% for those losses and you get a value that, assuming good design and optimal conditions should suffice to hover without ground effect. Ssscienccce (talk) 05:05, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

A very similar factor explains the difference between the OP's two answers: since the fluid must already be moving when it reaches the impeller, its change in kinetic energy is larger ($\Delta (v^{2})=(v_{0}+\Delta v)^{2}-v_{0}^{2}=(\Delta v)^{2}+2v_{0}\Delta v$). --Tardis (talk) 01:39, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

A bit of searching turned up this power point presentation on propeller thrust: [8]. --Modocc (talk) 03:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I would like to momentarily go back to the "sand conveyor" simplification, which eliminates all the issues of fluid behaviour. Assume that the sand is made available to the device at zero velocity and zero cost. My method of working out the power requirement is as follows. (I know that this probably should be done with calculus but I want to stick with exactly what I have if possible, to avoid getting lost, as my grip on this is pretty tenuous.)

F is the force (thrust) required to be produced
v is the ejection velocity of the sand
m is the mass of sand ejected in each timestep of Δt
P is the power needed
A is the cross sectional area of the ejected stream of sand
ρ is the density of the ejected stream of sand

From basic principles:
(1) m/Δt = vAρ
(2) F = mv/Δt ⇒ m/Δt = F/v

From (1) and (2):
(3) F/v = vAρ ⇒ v = sqrt(F/Aρ)

From kinetic energy equation:
(4) P = (mv^2/2)/Δt

Substitute (2) and (3) into (4):
(5) P^2 = F^3/(4Aρ)

Now, what I would like to know is whether it is possible to adapt this method with just a small tweak in order to produce the forumula at Momentum theory, or whether a different method altogether is needed. I believe that in my original result from several years ago I may have had v = sqrt(2F/Aρ), but I can't figure out now how I arrived at that. 86.128.4.176 (talk) 00:12, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

As you have set up your equation, power is the dependent variable. You have set up an equation to calculate the power as a function of thrust. You specify the thrust (e.g., set it equal to vehicle weight), and you assume that some valid configuration exists for which you can deliver that thrust. You have (intentionally) ignored that some thrust values are impossible to achieve; and some power values are impossible to achieve; and that thrust and power are coupled in a real engine. Those are acceptable simplifications. It's all legal, but it's a little weird, because usually power is the variable we can actually control, and thrust is a result, not an input. You're sort of solving an inverse problem.

But there are still some flaws in your approach. Equation 1 assumes an incompressible fluid; that's also fine. You are in good company when you make that assumption.

Equation 2 is incorrect. It's just flat out wrong. Force is not "mv/Δt". Force is equal to the total change in momentum with respect to time. So, F = d(m v) /dt = (m dv/dt + v dm/dt). This is called the product rule for differentiation. In your approach, you are entirely neglecting one of these terms, which means you are failing to account for a significant amount of power. In order to calculate this term, you must provide some constraint equation. How do you accelerate each element of mass? Typically we could use the properties of a fluid (or sand) to constrain this term. But, I already know you don't want to bring those details into play, and you're happy to sacrifice physical accuracy. That's fine... you can constrain this term by some other method - by decree, if you like: dv/dt = 1. But you can't just leave it out of the equation. That would be mathematically incorrect.

Equations 3 and beyond are invalid because they depend on Equation 2. Equation 4 makes a similar mathematical error.

If you want to solve physical dynamics problems like this one - even if you choose to abstract some details away - you must become better acquainted with the correct applications of differential and integral calculus. These tools are not optional. Nimur (talk) 10:47, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

First, I disagree that this "inverse problem" is "a little weird". It is entirely reasonable to ask how much power is needed to hover a certain mass. Second, the basis of F = mv/Δt is simply F = ma. Over a time interval Δt, a mass m (of sand) is accelerated smoothly from 0 to v. Therefore a = v/Δt and the associated reaction force is mv/Δt. I would like further opinions on the validity of this please. I don't understand why it is wrong. 86.169.36.80 (talk) 12:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

It's legal to solve inverse problems; they are a central consideration of control theory and engineering. But they are frequently ill-conditioned, which means that you must use absolutely flawless mathematical rigor when calculating solutions. In your specific problem, you are considering power and force to be totally independent. Is this valid? Well, sure, if you drop the terms that relate the two! And then you are left with an equation that is wrong. Surely by now you've seen those mathematical jokes that prove 2+2 = 5 by cleverly hiding a division by zero somewhere in a simple-looking equation? Those are the consequences of incorrectly solving ill-conditioned problems. Nimur (talk) 16:17, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

(Disclaimer. I'm just another guy on the web that likes to seek relevant references too). From our Impulse (physics) article we have $d(m\mathbf {v} )\,=(dt)\mathbf {F} \,=d\mathbf {J} \,=(dm)\mathbf {v} _{e}\,$ which justifies the derivation given in the article on thrust which is essentially the same as yours. These derivations glosses over the some of the finer detail that Nimur is trying to constrain/define when he takes the derivative, but I see nothing inherently incorrect with your approach either (I may not have had enough sleep, and my maths can suffer when that happens). The power required is proportional to the jet velocity, see [[9]] but that means its better to propel larger masses when using lower exhaust velocities. The difference I see between what you have now and before is the difference between the forces produced by the rockets and helicopters that others pointed out above. Propellers have an incoming velocity added in addition to the exhaust velocity because the force is doubled (its a push pull system). A similar result (with a doubling of an upward force on the hand) can be obtained by dribbling a basketball. --Modocc (talk) 13:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Let's be sure there is no confusion about the meaning of m. In my derivation, m is, as explained above, the mass of a chunk of sand propelled out over Δt. It is not the mass of the vehicle. In my concept dm is zero (or is not a relevant measurement). The sand is available in the "milieu" at zero cost and does not need to be carried by the device (this is obviously unrealistic in the case of a rocket which must carry its own fuel, but is intended to be analogous to the air in the case of a propeller). That being said, do you feel, then, that my derivation above can yield the equation at Momentum theory just by applying a factor of 2 at the relevant point? This is the part I really can't get my head around. 86.169.36.80 (talk) 13:48, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The equation at Momentum theory can be obtained from the powerpoint presentation's equations that I provided earlier (you can simplify those by first setting the plane velocity to zero and then combine the equations for thrust and power). When you do that, you will see that for a given air velocity the thrust is twice that of the rocket. To understand that, envision a car with two props, one underneath expelling air from its interior and another one on top pulling it in, so you have left out half the force. --Modocc (talk) 14:12, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks, I looked at that before but I can't understand it unfortunately. That is why I just wanted to stick with what I had worked out and make a small change, if at all possible. I'm puzzled that my formula, P^2 = F^3/(4Aρ), actually needs less power for given thrust than the Momentum theory one, P^2 = F^3/(2Aρ). If I am somehow "missing half the force" then shouldn't it be the other way around? 86.169.36.80 (talk) 14:32, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that your entire equation is wrong: it states an incorrect relationship between power and force; and you are still trying to draw conceptual conclusions from it. If you make unphysical equations, you get unphysical results: 2 = 5, perpetual motion, faster-than-light sand conveyors. The least of your worries is a scale factor of 2. Your continued attempts to make these problems go away by substituting sand for air belies that you are not understanding the fundamental problem. Flow equations work equally well for grains of sand and for microscopic gas molecules. You still need to define shear terms, viscous interaction terms, ... it's almost as if the Navier-Stokes equation was written without loss of generality!

Hey, what's this? An entire textbook chapter of correct physical equations, available at no cost, from a reliable source? It's almost stunning that nobody linked to this already! Except, that I did, twice before. You can download the entire textbook, at no charge, from the FAA; or you can buy a paper copy for about $15. I can recommend some good physics and calculus books if you need those, but the Helicopter Handbook uses engineering-charts instead of calculus-based derivations, so the math is quite simplified.

Have a look at chart 2-32. See how many parameters go into the power equation? The power required depends on the interaction between the impeller, and the fluid that is being impelled. The very same applies, whether we consider a rotor in air, or a conveyor belt pushing sand, or a ship propellor in seawater. The parameters are different, but you cannot ignore that required power is coupled intricately with the messy details of the motion of the fluid (or sand). Nimur (talk) 17:49, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

An actuator disk accelerating a fluid flow from right to left

Woeps, I should have paid more attention, wasn't as simple as straight forward as I thought, ignore what I said previously about rocket versus helicopter. What's missing is the continuity equation: we assume the air is incompressible, so the volumes above and below the rotor have to be the same. Since the velocity of the air under the rotor is higher than above it, the diameter of the air flow must contract to comply with the continuity equation. That's what you see in the figure: the rotor accelerates the flow to the left, the rotor is at point S, and you see that the air flow contracts, and the velocity increases up to the "ultimate wake". So the air doesn't exit the rotor at maximum speed, the pressure differential between the rotor and point S1 accelerates the air, and only at S1 will it reach the maximum velocity. On the right of the rotor, the same thing happens. Instead of using the velocity of the air exiting the rotor to calculate the kinetic energy, you have to take the ultimate wake velocity, which is larger, that's the reason for the higher power requirement. The ultimate wake velocity comes from momentum theory, that's why one handbook said: "this was one of the most important features of momentum theory. It showed that the induced velocity at the disk was one-half its value in the ultimate wake."

This also explains why the sand analogy can't be used, because pressure difference play an essential role.

I'll post a more decent overview later Ssscienccce (talk) 18:14, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Here goes: Air far above the rotor is at ambient pressure p_a and zero velocity, far downstream it's at wake velocity V_w and at ambient pressure p_a again (we assume inviscid and frictionless fluid, so the wake and the surrounding air don't mix). Directly under the rotor, the velocity is V_d and the pressure is p_d.

The thrust delivered is equal to the change in momentum with time, so (with dotted m meaning the mass flow rate):

$T={\dot {m}}V_{w}$ (why V_w and not V_d? Because at V_d there's an additional pressure component)

The power delivered by the rotor is

$P={\tfrac {1}{2}}{\dot {m}}V_{w}^{2}\quad or\quad P={\tfrac {1}{2}}TV_{w}$

But at the location of the propeller disc, the power is equal to the work done by the thrust:

$P=TV_{d}$

So

${\tfrac {1}{2}}TV_{w}=TV_{d}\quad or\quad V_{d}={\tfrac {1}{2}}V_{w}$, the velocity under the rotor is half of the ultimate wake velocity.

The mass flow rate is:

${\dot {m}}=\rho V_{d}A$

We can write the thrust as:

$T={\dot {m}}V_{w}=\rho V_{d}AV_{w}={\tfrac {1}{2}}\rho AV_{w}^{2}$

This gives us Vw in function of the thrust

$V_{w}={\sqrt {2T \over \rho A}}$

So the power becomes:

$P={\tfrac {1}{2}}TV_{w}=T{\sqrt {T \over 2\rho A}}$

That should be it, I think... Ssscienccce (talk) 13:53, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

So the essential thing to remember is: the air leaves the rotor at speed V_d, but the pressure difference with the ambient air continues to accelerate the air, so the thrust is actually mV_d + p_d (p_d being the overpressure under the rotor) Ssscienccce (talk) 14:16, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It's all very clever to point out that there is a ${\frac {dm}{dt}}$ term that arises from the product rule. You can even use that term (in my "slug of sand" case earlier). But there's a reason that students are taught $F=ma=m\Delta v/\Delta t=mv/\Delta t$ (further expressions appropriate in the case of constant acceleration (or average force) and zero initial velocity, respectively); you can always work merely with that expression. (The common cases where people use the ${\frac {dm}{dt}}$ analysis, like pushing a cart that's simultaneously being filled with material, can instead be interpreted using the normal second law if you consider that you are applying the force (perhaps indirectly) to the added material: its instantaneous velocity change times its mass flow rate yields the correct force.) (In reply to your comment higher up in response to me, to simplify things:) Acceleration requires work because it changes kinetic energy. Mere movement does not, unless it is in a potential field. Here, we can ignore the effects of gravity on the sand, because we can take it to be at zero velocity (and otherwise supported) until disbursed and to be irrelevant afterwards. --Tardis (talk) 21:44, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

About the only thing the derived thrust equations for the helicopters and rocket (which is nothing more than a souped up version of a sand blaster :-)) have in common exactly is their mass flow, and the change in volume elements with the helicopter's flow does not effect that. In addition to what I interpret to be a force $mv/\Delta t$ being applied twice (once during the inflow and secondly during the outflow), the induced power Tv that is dumped into the helicopter's wake is also twice that of the rocket Tv/2, thus the rocket is more efficient, producing an equivalent thrust with less power as the OP pointed out and, in any case, the difference between the relations turns out not to be very large and is simply the cube root of 2. -Modocc (talk) 00:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Let me try to rephrase: the quantity of energy conveyed away by the exhaust, during each unit of time, is a conceptually distinct amount of power from the power necessary to generate said exhaust. The former is purely derivable from a kinetics calculation, while the latter depends on things like engine efficiency. Even idealized engines have maximum efficiencies. Consider, for example, the Carnot cycle. An ideal rocket in a no-net-motion gravity burn is one limiting case, where all the momentum is carried away by the exhaust, and all the useful power is conveyed to the exhaust gas. But that is not the only power we need to consider: the original ask was for the power required to hover - not the subset of that power that gets wasted in exhaust gases; nor the subset of power that corresponds to only the kinetic energy of the rotor wash; nor the subset of power that corresponds to the kinetic energy of moving sand. When you fail to account for the lossy process by which an engine converts potential energy into kinetic energy, you are describing a perpetual motion machine. At that point, we may as well "further idealize the problem," connect the exhaust nozzle to the engine intake, and use perpetual motion to hover with zero energy input. Lots of power goes through, but no new energy gets put in by the engine. Everybody who keeps "simplifying" these equations is performing exactly this flawed process.

The ask was for how much power is needed to hover. That is asking how much new energy the engine must add, per each unit of time. The ask was not how much power denotes the rate of energy exchange in the airflow. The ask was not how many ways can we play with dimensional analysis to yield a term whose units are measured in terms of energy per unit time. The ask was "how much power is needed to hover." To answer that, we need to know how efficiently the engine converts input energy into useful work. Whether the engine is a rocket impulse engine, or a helicopter rotor, or a sand chute, the laws of thermodynamics still apply. If you want to calculate the energy conveyance for each granule of sand, and set up an n-body problem, you can do so, but what you cannot do is assume a magical sand conveyor belt that is perfectly efficient, has no friction, yet still performs useful work accelerating sand.

Think of it conceptually! If the conveyor belt has no friction, it cannot move the sand, because there is no traction. This is exactly analogous to a viscous drag term in a conventional fluid. You can not evade thermodynamics, no matter how many simplifications you make. You must account for how the conveyor belt exerts force on each sand granule. And you must integrate each differential unit of work over all n-gazillion sand grains. And did you remember to conserve angular momentum for each granule of sand with respect to (n-gazillion minus one) other grains? Oh, woops, you forgot? No problem, it's only that angular momentum is a fundamental property of the universe, whose conservation is more fundamental than the conservation of energy... not like anyone would notice if we totally use wrong physics to constrain the motion! We can just throw out one conservation principle so that it's easier to calculate the other one, right? Besides, each grain is so small that it has almost no momentum... how much different would our answer be? There's only n-gazillion very small errors... Or, you could use a bulk approximation that is physically accurate in the statistical ensemble, ergo, applying regular fluid flow equations. If you don't use the correct physically-guided equations, your answer is wrong. Period. Nimur (talk) 18:19, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I see you are trying to teach the OP something he didn't even ask about. How do you know he hasn't already figured that some processes are more losy than others? Did he ask for the power needed to hover with a balloon? No. He asked about some specific derivations regarding thrust and you don't seem to have a problem with the P(T) derivations nor their utility. -Modocc (talk) 18:57, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand perfectly well that all real machines are lossy. None of Nimur's obfuscations seem to be any help in deriving or explaining the formulas at Momentum theory and Thrust#Thrust to power, and they may be just a smoke-screen to disguise his early failure to recognise what seems to be a fairly standard equation. 86.161.61.128 (talk) 17:51, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• @Ssscienccce, thank you for your derivation above. I need to spend time working through it to see if I can get my head round it. I wonder, if you have time, whether you could cast your eye over my "sand conveyor" workings above (piece starting 'I would like to momentarily go back to the "sand conveyor" simplification') and give your opinion on whether this is correct within its own ambitions. Nimur keeps insisting that it is flat wrong but I am not so sure. What do you think? 86.161.61.128 (talk) 18:11, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

You are working with an equation so non-standard that it cannot be cited in any textbook or paper! But you believe your equation anyway, ...because some other anonymous Wikipedia contributor wrote a bunch more equations you barely understand! So tell me, when you read the article on thrust and power, which type of power do you think it is referring to? The Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (yet another free physics textbook for you) doesn't seem to have your "standard" equation in it. Actually, it states this, about comparing power and thrust:

“ It is possible to compare the performance of a reciprocating powerplant and different types of turbine engines. For the comparison to be accurate, thrust horsepower (usable horsepower) for the reciprocating powerplant must be used rather than brake horsepower, and net thrust must be used for the turbine-powered engines. In addition, aircraft design configuration and size must be approximately the same. When comparing performance, the following definitions are useful:

• Brake horsepower (BHP)—the horsepower actually delivered to the output shaft. Brake horsepower is the actual usable horsepower.
• Net thrust—the thrust produced by a turbojet or turbofan engine.
• Thrust horsepower (THP)—the horsepower equivalent of the thrust produced by a turbojet or turbofan engine.
• Equivalent shaft horsepower (ESHP)—with respect to turboprop engines, the sum of the shaft horsepower (SHP) delivered to the propeller and THP produced by the exhaust gases.

”

That comes from... what's this? A whole chapter on comparing different types of power between different types of engines. Oh! How relevant! It looks as if a group of experts on aerodynamics got together, wrote a physics book, and explained your problem very thoroughly! Were I to actually trust my life to an aircraft designer, I would sure hope they use that procedure, instead of "some equation from Wikipedia!" But, I'm sure you guys will be able to work through the small bug in your math. While you and your fellow contributors work through some more equations and conduct original derivations in total contravention of Wikipedia's standard policy, and in complete defiance of standard, published, approaches to solving this problem, I'll be out flying; the weather is great today. Nimur (talk) 19:17, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

If you believe that strongly that the P(T) derivation at thrust is incorrect and needs a citation, tag it, it was added over a year ago by some other guy... and if you didn't realize that we have been talking about two different equations (neither of which were the OPs although he has derived both independently apparently), then please reread this thread to see what you missed. --Modocc (talk) 19:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Nimur, I am getting very tired of your worthless and irrelevant rants. I would prefer it if you made no more contributions to this thread. 86.179.114.69 (talk) 19:57, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Unless his contributions are disruptive or violates WP:NPA he is still welcome, its the wiki-way, so please bear with it. --Modocc (talk) 20:17, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

From the article on thrust we have $\mathbf {P} ^{2}={\frac {\mathbf {T} ^{3}}{4\rho A}}$. From momentum theory we have $P={\sqrt {\frac {T^{3}}{2\rho A}}}$ or $\mathbf {P} ^{2}={\frac {\mathbf {T} ^{3}}{2\rho A}}$.

The OP's equation using sand is exactly the same as the thrust article's equation. Thus, whether or not the OP used a rigorous derivation, if his thrust equation happens to be incorrect then the article's equation is also incorrect and would need to be removed. Apparently, Nimur snubbed a poorly written article, unless he was under the false impression that the two articles' equations were identical (and he would have misinterpreted much of what I and others have written about it). When Nimur says it "...doesn't seem to have your "standard" equation in it." emphasis mine, I'm not sure if he is referring to the article's equation, the OP's equation or both. -Modocc (talk) 20:53, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

It may be correct for sand (as far as I can see it is), it's not correct for air: sand will leave the accretion disk at it's ultimate speed because there's no force acting on it (ignoring gravity). Air that leaves the propeller is still accelerated until the pressure drops to ambient. So the velocity at the disk is correct for the mass flow (density * area * velocity), but for the thrust and power, the wake velocity must be used. That's the main result from momentum theory, and every source repeats it:

• http://www.aerostudents.com/files/aircraftPerformance2/helicopters.pdf‎ page 1: The ideal power of the helicopter now becomes equation (2.3)
• FTM106: U.S. Naval test Pilot School Flight Test Manual chapter 5 Hover performance page 5.16: The power required to accelerate the air mass through the disc, induced power, assuming T ≅ W at a hover, is equation (5.24) (T is thrust, W is weight of the helicopter)
• "Rotorcraft Aeromechanics" By Wayne Johnson, page 41: equation (3.5)

Every time the same equation, $P={\sqrt {\frac {T^{3}}{2\rho A}}}$ Ssscienccce (talk) 22:05, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Instead of moving air downward with rotors, the model used with momentum theory, one can build rockets with pressurized air, so same fluid but different equations. The OP was correct the first time for rotors, and has simply gotten our article's rocket equation the second time. But we've already pointed this out to the OP though, but I'm not sure if Nimur will agree that the P(T) equation at thrust is correct, so we will likely need to quote or locate a reliable source for it. -Modocc (talk) 22:33, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree, it would be good to find a source for that. It says here that P = Fv/2, which spookily enough is an equation I have written down on the pad in front of me where I did the workings-out. If we could also validate that F = Aρv^2 then that would seem to nail it. 86.179.114.69 (talk) 00:14, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

fluid mechanics

how to know flow analysis of fluid — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.55.110.123 (talk) 13:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

After you've exhausted the information in our article on fluid mechanics, you might be able to ask a more specific question, or more clearly define your request.

Do you need help finding information in a different language? We have thorough articles in German, Italian (it:Fluidodinamica), and Arabic, and even a stub in a stub article in Oromo. There are related articles in many other languages. Nimur (talk) 13:40, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Fluid mechanics is one of the tougher subjects out there (and one of the least well-understood ones). There is simply no way to contain all that you need to know in a response here - or even in a full encyclopedia article. You're going to need at least a good book on the subject - and possibly some college-level courses to properly get to grips with it.

The mathematics behind it is complicated - and even with the best math available, we need gigantic wind-tunnels or wave tanks to properly confirm the results of mathematical/computer estimations.

I can perhaps sketch out one approach to this in computers that may prove helpful to you:

• Divide the volume of fluid we're interested in into tiny imaginary cubes - producing a three-dimensional grid.
• Divide time into tiny steps.
• Within each cube we'll approximate the flow as a linear motion through the cube and the temperature and pressure as being constant throughout - clearly that's not true in the real world - but if we make the cubes small enough, it may be good enough.
• Now, we can formulate a relatively simple equation using the temperatures, pressures and kinetic energies of all of the adjacent cubes to figure out how they influence this cube during one tiny time-step. We figure out heat transport and fluid flowing into or out of this one - which gives us a new temperature, pressure and flow rate through this cube at the end of one tiny time step.
• Some cubes have boundaries that face the object we're interested in testing - so their equations have to take that into account.
• We start with all of the cubes being identical with the fluid flowing through them being stationary and the temperature and pressure being uniform throughout them all.
• Armed with those equations, we can have a computer run that equation for each of the cubes of fluid for one tiny time step - then move onto the next time step and do it again. You can then tell the cubes at one end of this massive grid that there is fluid being injected into them and gradually, after many more time-steps, the system starts to look more like how fluid flows in the real world.

Unfortunately, this misses a lot of real-world effects - but for some applications, it produces enough insight into the fluid flow to be useful. Sadly, to model something like an airplane flying, you'd need a mesh of cubes maybe a centimeter or two on a side - and there would be perhaps billions of them. The time step might need to be a fraction of a second - so even the fastest computers would take days to calculate anything useful. In many cases, these systems have to run on giant super-computers in order to get useful and realistic results.

Of course my description misses many subtleties of how this is really done - and there are certainly other ways to approach it.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

For reference, Steve is basically explaining the idea behind a finite element method to solve the PDEs governing fluid flow. More at Finite_volume_method_for_unsteady_flow. He's right that this is a difficult subject. Though some engineers can learn how to manage some simulations in undergrad, the real nuts and bolts of the theory are usually reserved for graduate level mathematics and physics instruction. On the flip side, we do have a system of equations that can answer most of our questions, the Navier–Stokes_equations, but no general solutions are available (as of yet), and so we tend to approximate solutions with numerical methods, as outlined above. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't forget about the finite volume method, which is also popular for CFD. --Tardis (talk) 02:24, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

For how many percents stress can raise the glucose in the blood?

I'm looking for an accurate information about that. It's interesting me because last week I saw someone that the EMTs cheeked her glucose and her levels was high (320) and the EMT said that it because the stress. I doubt if that true too much (because I know that the normal levels are between 80 -140 14:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.28.171.111 (talk)

You're not going to get a good answer here because there are some people doggedly enforcing policies against "medical advice" in a very broad sense. Note that an EMT may not give local busybodies a full medical history of people they are working on. We're hard pressed (and not supposed) to diagnose a patient who knows his history, so you're pretty much SOL for an "accurate" answer. If you're interested in the topic I encourage you to explore blood glucose, information from health organizations, etc., but that won't tell you what was going on in a specific situation. Wnt (talk) 18:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok, let's make order, I wouldn't want a medical edvice or somthing, so let's be relax... I would only like to understand the topic of the influences of the stress on the glucose in the blood, that all. I'm not talking about specific case, what I told you, it was only as an example. I came here because this issue of "stress influences on the level of the glucose" is a new for me and I'm looking for that some information. I think that we exaggerate sometimes when we take the warning about the medical advice - too much even to the place that we shouldn't need that at all and then people like me lose information. Although, I definitely understand you so Thank you. 19:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.28.171.111 (talk)

This is not medical advice, this is a list of references that address the general topic of stress and blood glucose. Here are two links, to authoritative sources that confirm that stress can increase glucose levels (though they don't say by how much). Mayo clinic ([10]), and the American Diabetes Association ([11]). I see that WnT has supplied one of these links already. If you want quantitative information, you might have luck searching google scholar for /stress blood glucose/, like so [12]. If you cannot access these articles, you might try the same search at your local library. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:56, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Also, since people react differently to stress, I'd also expect their blood glucose to respond differently. StuRat (talk) 22:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

As per our article on stress hyperglycemia, "the glucose [due to the stress of illness] is typically in the range of 140–300 mg/dl (7.8-16.7 mM) but occasionally can exceed 500 mg/dl (28 mM)." - Nunh-huh 22:28, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Projectile penetration

If a projectile hit the same target at 400 m/s and 800 m/s, the penetration doubles or became four times higher (i.e. the penetration of projectile is directly proportional to momentum or kinetic energy?)?95.246.215.102 (talk) 21:21, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Impact depth is the relevant article. If the speed of the projectile is great enough for elastic deformation in the target to be neglected, the penetration depth is directly proportional to the momentum, so doubling the speed will double the depth. Tevildo (talk) 21:53, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I doubt if it's as simple as either. A faster projectile has the ability to concentrate the pressure more on the point of impact, while a slower object gives the material which is struck time to respond, and distribute the force over a wider area. The also depends on other factors, like the material and temperature. If you look at video of a high speed bullet striking a rubber sheet, for example, it seems to shatter, not bend, just as it would if frozen of it made of a brittle material. (The difference between my answer and the previous one is that I did not assume that we can neglect deformation.) StuRat (talk) 22:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Penetration depth depends on the shape of the projectile, whether it's subsonic, supersonic or hypersonic (relative to the speed of sound in the target material, not in the air), the velocity range when it's subsonic, and lots of parameters like unconfined compressive strength. A range of penetration depth formulas exist, most of them similar to one of these forms (V is velocity, a, b, c, d, e are various parameters or constants):

• a.log(1+bV²)
• a.(b.V-c.log(1+e.V))
• a.V^1.8+b
• a.log(1+bV²) for V < 200fps, c.(V-d) for V > 200fps

An in-depth overview of penetration depth formulas can be found here (master thesis, 85 pages). Too bad that they only did five actual impact tests: velocity in m/s, corresponding depth between brackets in m: 277(0.173) 410(0.31) 431(0.411) 499(0.48) 567(0.525), so three times the depth at twice the speed.

A U.S. Army Engineers report on penetration in rock gives some data from tests, between 300 and 800 m/s. In that range, twice the velocity results in 2.4 to 2.9 times the penetration depth.

Experiments on porous rock with projectile speeds between 18 and 42 m/s showed "penetration depth quadratically related to the initial projectile kinetic energy" ( "quadratically related"? is that a convoluted way of saying it was proportional to the speed?) with dry rock, but proportional to the kinetic energy when the rock was saturated with kerosine (so double the speed, four times the depth).

See also a blog about slingshot tests here

All the test results mentioned are subsonic, at supersonic speeds penetration depth should be proportional to kinetic energy, so double the speed, four times the depth. Ssscienccce (talk) 00:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I would say that the penetration, if the material is homogenous and doesn't have any particular properties, should be directly proportional to the square of speed: this because the material resistance can be regarded as a strong form of friction, and if an object double the speed, appling the same force, the drake distance became four times higher. 95.246.216.236 (talk) 18:23, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, your model is based on fibrous materials or other situations where friction is the main stopping force. It is very different from Newton's model (linked above by Tevildo). In practice, I suspect that reality will lie between the two models for most materials. Dbfirs 21:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Yet another room temperature superconductor prediction notable?

Is this wild guesstimate:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131121135635.htm

Notable enough to include under High-temperature superconductivity? Hcobb (talk) 22:27, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

This question would probably be better on the article talk page, but Physical Review Letters is an impeccably reliable source, and I see no reason not to include the reference. Tevildo (talk) 23:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Topological insulator might be a better place. They are related though. --DHeyward (talk) 08:58, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

November 23

Genetically engineering hair color and eye color

Is it true that hair and [[eye color are coded for by a single gene, and therefore would be the easiest to genetically modify (compared to other traits)? ScienceApe (talk) 02:55, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

No. I have linkified the relevant articles if you want to read them. μηδείς (talk) 03:05, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Redshift experiments

The existence of dark energy AFAIK was deduced from differences between type-1 supernova derived distance and redshift-derived velocity of high-z galaxies. Surely all alternative hypotheses explaining these differences have been ruled out? So, for example, nonlinearity of redshift in the optical wave lengths at high-z velocities in general can be rejected how? Direct experiments? Which direct experiments measuring redshifts at the relevant velocities have been done? Any hint is welcome. --SCIdude (talk) 11:16, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The origin of these hypotheses is Einstein's cosmological constant, which was explicitly introduced as a fudge factor rather than as part of a more "elegant" theoretical equation. The astronomical data you mention establish that the cosmological constant is, in fact, non-zero and has a definite measurable value. Dark energy is an hypothesis that attempts to explain why the cosmological constant is non-zero based on known existing physical phenomena - on metaphysical grounds, the answer "it just is, it's an inherent property of the vacuum that we can only measure rather than predict" isn't (apparently) acceptable. Tevildo (talk) 11:37, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

No, all alternate hypothesis cannot ever be ruled out. Your un-orthodox nonlinear redshift would require some huge revolution of physics though and is considered to have a negligible a priori probability. Dauto (talk) 14:12, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

So the Nobel prize is rather for the SN1A observation, like the one for CMB discovery by Penzias/Wilson. I misunderstood that, thanks. - SCIdude (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

To answer the other part of your question, about experiments that directly measure redshift at high velocities: Novotny et al. have done spectroscopy on ion beams at 0.33c, not too different from the recessional velocity of supernovae at z=1 or so [13]. This confirms the expected shifting of spectral lines. Moreover, synchrotron light sources and free electron lasers use ultrarelativistic electrons with Lorentz factor much higher than anything that comes into play for supernovae. If you try to somehow tweak the Lorentz transformations to give a different result for cosmological redshift, you will almost certainly break SSRL and FELs in a way that would be immediately noticeable. People do still perform experimental searches for Lorentz violation, but they're looking for tiny effects that would make no difference at all for the original data that provided evidence for accelerating expansion back in the 1990s. --Amble (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Very good. Many thanks. Could you please augment the redshift article to include the relevant parts of your answer? - SCIdude (talk) 05:24, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid that might fall afoul of WP:SYNTH without some secondary sources to make the connection. --Amble (talk) 16:40, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Structural elements

Are there any good diagrams which show which part of a cantilever structure are trusses, supports and cantilever members? And which ones are beams?Clover345 (talk) 12:20, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This page goes through the terminology at a very basic level. Tevildo (talk) 12:53, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I've looked for such sources a few times myself. Questions like what's the difference between beam and girder (http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=164292).

Cantilever seems to be the easiest to identify: it's an overhanging part of a construction. A beam, a truss or any other construction can be supported at both ends; but you can also support it for example at the left end and somewhere in the middle, in which case the part of the construction to the right of that point is considered a cantilever.

A truss is a structural "unit" made up of straight elements connected as triangles. List of truss types should give you a good idea. You could consider it a metal plate where much of it is cut out to save weight but still keep the stiffness. The term is mostly used for a two dimensional structure, not sure if for example an antenna tower is considered a truss or a construction made of several trusses. The Allen truss bridge shown here has three trusses (or six, when you cross a bridge you have a truss to your left and a truss to you right) not one, because the parts are connected at only one point, so the bridge as a whole isn't stiff.

A support can mean different things. For example Truss#King_post_truss calls the top chords of the truss "supports". Cantilever uses the word for the points where the structure is "supported", the "external" connections you could say, which is the most common meaning I think. It can also mean the support column a truss rests on.

A beam is usually an element that has to bear a bending load: for example, a bridge can consist of two trusses, in between them is the deck that carries the traffic, this deck rests on top of beams that are connected to the two trusses. While the elements that make up the trusses only have to withstand either tensile or compressive forces (and a minor bending force due to their own weight), the beams are only or mainly subjected to bending forces.

Vocabulary of trusses explains some of the terminology and has diagrams. Keep in mind that the terms aren't always used consistently. Ssscienccce (talk) 17:28, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

How (non-rad) hard would it be to turn every cellphone into a radiation detector?

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/21dc0b023f1d Homeland Security Agency Wants to Turn People Into Nuclear Tripwires

Why not just mandate that this be used:

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/253023219_Detection_mechanisms_employing_single_event_upsets_in_dynamic_random_access_memories_used_as_radiation_sensors

To have every cellphone track the Single event upsets in its own chips and report to the cellphone network provider (and hence of course the NSA), whenever the rad counts hop over the background level? Hcobb (talk) 20:08, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

That would lead to too many false positives (from radon exposure, cosmic rays, even thunderstorms). Cell phones CANNOT reliably detect radiation that way -- this is a job for a dedicated instrument (such as that which DHS wants to use). 24.23.196.85 (talk) 21:06, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with 24.23.196.85 in part on this. At the current sophistication of cell phones they may be able to detect ionizing radiation but to be useful the Signal-to-noise ratio would need to be clear. However, having said that, if a thousand cell phones all reported an indication of a higher level of ionizing radiation above background, then yes, they could be used as trip wires.--Aspro (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The memory chip area available for use as a detector in a cell phone would, for a start, be far too small, meaning no detection events for months at least, even with significant increases in radiation levels. Because the chip is enclosed in the cellphone case and hidden by internal structures, it would essentially only detect cosmic rays - not what Homeland Security would be most interested in. The electronics industry / electronics hobbyist magazine Elektor carried a series of articles last year or ealy this year on making a home made radiation detector using a standard commercially available semiconductor device as a detector, instead of a gieger tube. Read that article, and you'll see that a detector chip has to have sufficient area (of the order 1 x 1 mm - vastly bigger than even a large number of DRAM memory cells), and be enclosed in special pakaging that blocks light completely while letting low energy particles through. 60.228.240.47 (talk) 00:12, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Memory uses error correction and detection. It used to be parity detection, but they grew the word line and sophistication so a 256 bit line can add 10-12 bits to correct either single bit or multiple bits. Usually this goes unseen to the user as the 270 or so bits still return a 256 bit corrected line. The ECC is flagged on access, not when the event happened. It cannot identify the cause of failure. An unreliable cell or noise could cause the error. As long as the device can correct it, it continues. Multi-bit failures that exceed the ECC capacity generate the parity type of halt/BSOD hardware error. The next question is how separate is neutron radiation from alpha particle radiation? Alpha particles dominate SEU from ionizing radiation in semiconductors not the least of which is the use of lead in packaging (although being phased out). I do not know if neutron radiation will cause enough ionization failures over background alpha radiation to be reliably detected. Feature size also makes cumulative damage difficult to measure in a single device. The mission for memory is to correct, not accumulate errors. To be honest, I think the best starting points are more like the CMOS digital camera arrays with methods to filter and isolate the radiation being sought. --DHeyward (talk) 04:44, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that most phones do not have ECC. I'm not aware if there is even a LPDDR3 (or any LPDDR) standard for ECC, our article Mobile DDR doesn't mention one nor do I find anything from a quick search.

And it's perhaps worth remembering that most desktops and laptops don't have ECC memory either. (Remember you will generally need a Xeon on the Intel side. Although on the AMD side there is limited support with some/many?/most?/all? of the AM3+ CPUs but many of the motherboard manufacturers still don't bother to official support it.)

The CPU cache may or may not have ECC I'm not totally sure.

Either way, most desktops and laptops, let alone mobile devices don't even have the capability to clearly detect many errors. This isn't surprising, as many above have indicated, in normal circumsances these errors are so rare, they just aren't worth worrying about for non mission critical systems. (Some people even use servers an workstations without ECC.)

Sure you can do some sort of test with a known result like people do for stress testing to detect errors, but that won't do wonders for your battery life.

(Just to emphasise the earlier point, if you have done stress testing, you would know whether one of the memtest variants or whatever, with a stable system with nonECC RAM you can run for over a week or more with no errors on any test. Incidentally as far as I know from such tests, you can generally obtain reports of ECC failures from the CPU if you want to.)

Now I guess you could mandate ECC, some may even be happy for it for the obvious other benefits. But to force a feature which is not going to work very well for what you're want to achieve, when you could at least force something which is designed for the purpose, just seems dumb. Although I share concerns with our resident cranky Perth engineer who likes to pretend to be multiple people, that you still won't be able to achieve much given the size and design limitations and perhaps cost ones as well (edit: for clarification I mean even if you require chip purposely designed to monitor radiation levels).

Nil Einne (talk) 13:15, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

ECC is not just DRAM. SRAM on the microprocessor incorporates ECC. It's inherent and invisible to the system or user. ARM and Intel both have ECC on L2 Caches. --DHeyward (talk) 05:10, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention that cellphone manufacturers really want to MINIMIZE the number of RAM errors - not MAXIMIZE them! What would be needed would be some kind of additional detector chip - and the cost of that makes this proposal impractical unless somehow a law were passed to require it - which seems overwhelmingly unlikely. SteveBaker (talk) 16:48, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Oil for plastics

I think petroleum products are used in the manufacture of certain polymers. When viable oil runs out, will we see certain types of plastic that we still have now disappear? Are there already alternatives in place? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.107.181 (talk) 23:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Bioplastic. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:44, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey, thanks. I was aware that there were already polymers that could be manufactured using non-crude-oil-derived plastics but I was wondering whether there were certain applications not yet covered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.107.181 (talk) 23:58, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The earliest plastics were made from cellulose; see: Parkesine. -- Also: History of Plastic ...And from milk (casein); see: Casein / The Plastics Historical Society. ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 05:57, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

See also Fischer–Tropsch process. In addition to carbon monoxide, it is also possible to turn methane or carbon dioxide into synthetic hydrocarbon compounds, which could then be used to make traditional polymers. So running out of fossil fuels will not make traditional polymers disappear, but it would make them more expensive (digging something out of the ground is often far cheaper than making it from scratch). Due to this increased expense, you may still wind up seeing bioplastics instead. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:13, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, we can make them, doesn't mean we will. Hard to find any Bakelite today. Unless you go to a chinese webshop. "Replacement Bakelite Saxophone Mouthpiece", two belgian inventions for the price of one! Ssscienccce (talk) 09:57, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, I don't think we'll ever run out of oil. If we keep burning it at the rate we are, we'll cook the planet long before we run out of the stuff. However, if we somehow did, we can make perfectly good oil-substitutes from plants, bacterial mats, algea and so forth. The problem is that it takes a lot of energy to do that...often more than you get back from burning the resulting oil. However, for the purpose of making plastics, the energy consumption isn't likely to be the primary issue.

What might be a problem is that as we burn through the easy-to-dig-up oil we'll have to start being more agressive about mining oil shale and oil sands - which will certainly push up the cost of oil - possibly to the point where we don't want to use it for making plastics anymore.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of alternatives. We already make plastics like PLA (Polylactic acid) from corn starch or sugar cane...and PLA is a perfectly useful plastic for many applications. You can make sheets of the stuff, extrude it in a 3D printer, injection mold it and so forth. It's also biodegradable and recyclable - which is useful - and it's easy to adjust vrious chemical properties to vary the time before it degrades, the melting point and so forth.

There are many other useful plastics that can be made from plant material without going through the intermediate step of converting it to oil. Cellophane is made from wood pulp, cotton or hemp. Plastarch is like PLA but better for high temperature applications. Then there is PHB (Polyhydroxybutyrate) - which is made using micro-organisms. Then there are whole families of exotic materials like amorphous metal glasses which can be stronger than titanium and yet heat-formed just like a plastic.

Hence, I don't think we have anything to be concerned about here.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:43, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think he's concerned about running out of oil, he's asking if there are certain kinds of plastics that will disappear once the oil used to make them is no longer available. As you note, it's much more likely that we'll render oil too expensive to extract before we literally run out of it, but that doesn't alter the premise of the question. For example, polyvinyl chloride is the third most widely used plastic (according to our article) and it's made from the vinyl chloride monomer which is derived from petrochemicals. Once oil becomes too pricey, will we no longer have any PVC? I don't know, but that would seem to be the implication. Polyethylene is the most widely used plastic and our article notes that it's available in bioplastic form, so presumably, it's not one of the forms that would disappear (not that plastic really disappears, but you get the drift). Our article on polypropylene (the second most widely used plastic) is so full of jargon, I have no idea how it's actually made in real-world terms and so can't even register a guess. Matt Deres (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

PP, PE and PVC can also be made from natural gas or from coal -- so they won't "disappear" even if we run out of oil. 24.23.196.85 (talk) 03:09, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Vinyl chloride is made from ethylene, which can be produced by steam cracking of fossil fuels, but the same process can also be applied to bio-ethanol. Basically, thermal cracking, steam cracking, hydrocracking apply high pressure and temperature to create a mixture of lots of chemicals, catalysts are added to increase the yield of useful products, the resulting mix is separated by distillation, unwanted chemicals are put through another cracking process. After all, heat and pressure is what produced the oil in the first place. It may be more costly when starting from biofuel, but that's no reason why it wouldn't be used. Look at gasoline production: light crude oil contains a lot of gasoline and diesel that can be extracted by simple fractional distillation, but we're also mining tar sands and using energy intensive processes to produce them. Ssscienccce (talk) 19:03, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

November 24

DNA to RNA to protein synthesis

When we say that a child resembles a parent, or that siblings resemble each other, other than things like hair color, I'd say we primarily focus on things like distance between the eyes, shape of the nose and chin and cheekbones, etc. Is it that biological design and construction of all of these physical features are directed by proteins? I mean, at first glance, I don't necessarily see how proteins are responsible for the structure of the human body -- I think of them more as directing function. But is that merely because science education focuses, perhaps, on physiology rather than anatomy, and the shape of bones and the relationship they share with other bones is also rigorously directed by proteins? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:56, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

DNA is the basis for the creation/synthesis of proteins but for familial traits just look not further forward than DNA. When the fertilized ovum cell multiply, a chemical message it sent out. For instance. Some cell will be told “you are going to be a nose” (differentiation). Sandra Bullock and Barbra Streisand have very different honkers. That's not proteins; that is the arrangement of genetics. DNA/RNA doesn't come into it in this sense.--Aspro (talk) 02:00, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Shape of organs is determined by development of the embryo which is both influenced by genetics and the environment. Genetics can do a lot of shaping via overlayed secretion of transcriptions factors, especially homeobox proteins; they are crucial for evolution of anatomy features. - SCIdude (talk) 05:38, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

It absolutely is the proteins, DRosen (honestly not sure what Aspro is talking about. Everything DNA does to the body is a result of its transcription). But understanding how proteins lead to body shapes is difficult to understand because you are talking about an interaction of massive scale - billions of cells each containing at least as many proteins of thousands of varieties. It is easier if you confine your self to looking at small effects in smaller animals. The entire DPY (dumpy) family of proteins in C. elegans, for instance, controls the length of the body, generally by controlling the properties of the extracellular matrix. And even in this case, researchers learned this by looking for extreme changes in body length/width. The philosophical equivalent would be trying to understand what controls height by looking at human dwarves, and indeed you can read about some of the genetic causes at Dwarfism#Causes (of course, a "genetic cause" exerts its effect through the presence or absence of a particular protein or RNA product). Understanding far more subtle differences in body shape is going to be far more difficult, since genetic causes may be hidden by natural variation. So I would not call this any sort of failure of education, but simply a result of the fact that emergent phenomena are very hard to predict, and can be equally difficult to explain. In case you are wondering why I am focused on explaining differences rather than explaining the phenomenon directly, this is just me thinking as a geneticist - the easiest way to learn about a machine is to break a piece and see what happens, or find a machine that's already broken and try to figure out how. There are researchers tackling this problem from the other direction, taking a minimal system and trying to use genes (and thus their protein products) to direct cells to assemble into particular shapes with particular dimensions. This research is slow-going and using it to explain the shape of an entire human body would be quite a leap. Someguy1221 (talk) 11:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

See morphogenesis. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:23, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Kirchhoff's first law of spectroscopy

Kirchhoff's first law of spectroscopy says that "A hot solid object produces light with a continuous spectrum." I'm wondering why an hot object wouldn't emit a discrete spectrum. 74.15.137.253 (talk) 03:22, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

This is basically the behavior of a black body, which is a well-studied subject in physics. Kirchhoff is well known for studying black body radiation. --Jayron32 05:23, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Because much more energy states are available. In a hot gas, it's individual atoms (or molecules) emitting, the electrons have a limited number of discrete energy levels they can occupy. In solids there are much more energy states possible. See density of states Ssscienccce (talk) 10:36, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't understand where these extra energy levels are coming from though... 74.15.137.253 (talk) 17:57, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

In two words: band theory. --Tardis (talk) 21:45, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Main Battle Tank

When you read the specifications of Challenger 2 and M1 Abrams you find that the speed of both vehicles off-road is 40 km/hr although they differ in their engines power , so why ? is it limit for any vehicle which drives off-road ? Tank Designer (talk) 12:32, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a five ton weight difference between them. Rmhermen (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

But the M1 has higher power to weight ratio, and is faster on the road. Maybe it's the suspension, M1 uses torsion bar, Challenger has hydropneumatic suspension. You don't choose a more complex mechanism unless it offers some advantage, I guess... Ssscienccce (talk) 15:36, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

With something like a car, top speed is generally limited by air-resistance and small variations in the weight of the car or the size of the engine are less critical than how slippery the design of the body is. In a car, power-to-weight ratio has little to do with top speed - but everything to do with acceleration.

But tanks don't go fast enough for air-resistance to matter much and their complicated drive trains make frictional losses much more critical. Hence, any small variation in the way they are designed (and especially their weight) will have dramatic effects on their top speed for any given engine horsepower. Analyzing the reasons why one goes faster than another is likely to be a complicated business.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:16, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Think you'll find this is a safety issue. A WW2 Sherman taking a bend too fast would over-steer and skid off sideways. The low loading per square foot of track gave it little grip. On soft ground the same manoeuvre would lose it one or both of its tracks (too much resistance to side forces). Not a good thing to happen in the middle of a battle. Then there is the issue of pitching up and down over rough terrain. In the heat of battle with the adrenalin coursing through the body, the bod driving, can go too fast and give himself whiplash. Again, this could occur at just the wrong moment in time. --Aspro (talk) 18:37, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Also. At 40 km/h diving through rough scrub and into blind ground that one has not seen before and assuming the standard 1.5 second reaction time. Then the tank will have traveled (1.5 X 40 000) / 3600 = 16.6666667 metres be before the driver can even think “Oh Sh-one-T” and try to stop.--Aspro (talk) 18:56, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I can't see that the "off road" speed is calculated in any scientific way. Is there a standard "off road" terrain? I can imagine that on some surfaces, either tank could almost reach their top road speed, while on others it would be a lot less than the 40 kph quoted. After all, the Land speed record is set "off road" isn't it? Alansplodge (talk) 20:55, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

One does not 'need' an "off road" speed calculated in any scientific way (other than injuries received). Jump into a 4x4 and head out off road at 25 mph (40 km/h). Notice, that even with seat belts on, if the ground is rough, you're being bounced up and down quite violently. That's on a modern vehicle with good suspension. Even though the modern tank cost a couple of million, the tank designers don't put a lot of effort into providing a smooth diver experience. So at 40 km/h the human body has a lot of kinetic energy that muscle power can not compensate for. The WP article also states that:The M1 Abrams' powertrain comprises a 1,500 shaft horsepower (1,100 kW) Honeywell AGT 1500 (originally made by Lycoming) multi-fuel gas turbine, and a six speed (four forward, two reverse) Allison X-1100-3B Hydro-Kinetic automatic transmission, giving it a governed top speed of 45 mph (72 km/h) on paved roads, and 30 mph (48 km/h) cross-country. With the engine governor removed, speeds of around 60 mph (97 km/h) are possible on an improved surface; however, damage to the drivetrain (especially to the tracks) and an increased risk of injuries to the crew can occur at speeds above 45 mph (72 km/h). Try driving across Dartmoor in a Landrover at just 25 mph and you will see what I mean. So tanks apparently are governed to keep the speeds to with in safe limits in all terrains. In the last Gulf War they may have well have had these limits raised, as the terrain was flat and the TV coverage showed them belting-a-long at fair rate on knots (well, the British built tanks did). But off the production line, they will only go so fast and no more.--Aspro (talk) 23:17, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not just a matter of what's safe or 'comfortable' for the crews; the tanks themselves are more fragile than they look. Tanks require a lot of maintenance and repair even under ideal circumstances. There are a lot of heavy moving parts, working under (mechanically) stressful conditions. Consider the M1—there's more than an hour of maintenance required for every hour of operation. A set of tracks are good for 1000 (really) to 2000 (ideally) miles. They suffer a failure that affects combat ability every couple of hundred miles. Remove the governors and start really shaking up that equipment and the enemy won't have to blow up your tanks—you'll do it for him. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:55, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Gluten and Salt

I'm reading On Food and Cooking, and it states that salt increases the elasticity of the gluten. How does this happen at a molecular level? Is it something specific to the chemistry of sodium or chloride ions? Mostly, I'm trying to make puff pastry without adding salt, and I'm trying to understand what I could use in lieu of NaCl to produce the functional effect. I'd like to avoid KCl if used in any significant amount because of taste concerns, but if it's a function of binding available water instead of something specific to the chemistry of the chloride salts, I'm guessing I could try sucrose instead? 2001:558:600A:2F:45D:4092:30A6:49E3 (talk) 21:31, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know the answer specifically, but I do know that the elasticity of gluten results from two factors: the tendency of gluten (protein) molecules to curl up, and their tendency to stick to other gluten molecules. Salt solutions can affect both of those things, but not as a function of binding water -- dissolved salt doesn't do that. Instead the ions work their way into the protein structure and alter the force geometries. Sugar would not have the same effect. Also putting any substantial amount of sugar into a dough will radically alter the result you get when you bake it.

Integration of body temperature signals

When I'm cycling in the winter, my torso usually overheats while my face (and ears if exposed) and feet can get cold. I was wondering whether the body of humans or any other animal ever integrates temperature signals from different areas of the body to do something more sensible like delivering excess heat from the torso to the extremities? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.47.59 (talk) 22:13, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The body does have pretty sophisticated mechanisms for thermoregulation. I would be cautious about "more sensible" - evolution would favor survival over comfort, and it seems likely that heat loss (the major lethal risk) would be greater with diversion of heat to the extremities, especially when the thermoregulation system cannot "know" how soon the body will find warmer shelter. So, I would start by defining "sensible" - or realizing that the body's system is quite good already. -- Scray (talk) 22:24, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The body is already acting "sensible" by not moving more heat to an area that is loosing it quickly. Having your nose, fingers, ears or toes freeze is a lot better than having your core temperature drop. Also having those body parts freeze does not always mean you are going to loose them. Over the years I've frozen my nose and my fingers (those several times) and still have them all but my fingers do get cold very easily. See hypothermia and frostbite. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 00:23, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

When the core temperature rises, the body will start sweating, hairs on the skin lie flat, preventing heat from being trapped by the layer of still air between the hairs. Arteriolar vasodilation occurs. This redirects blood into the superficial capillaries in the skin increasing heat loss by convection and conduction. But that alone is not enough to keep exposed skin warm, because you can't get enough heat to the skin to compensate the cooling by the cold air. Keep your hand in -20°C brine while you're in a sauna, and your hand will still suffer frost bite. Whether local cold affects the blood supply to that part of the body, I'm not sure, but blood viscosity increases at lower temperature, so that would decrease the flow in cold skin. Ssscienccce (talk) 14:39, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've done quite a bit of winter cycling and experienced all these things. The mechanisms are a bit tricky. To begin with, when your core temperature begins to drop, the body reduces blood flow to the hands, feet, and face -- that's why they get cold. If you exercise enough to bring your core temperature above optimum, the peripheral blood flow will usually come back, especially to the hands. However, the switching is not immediate, and you might have to sweat pretty hard for a while to make it happen. I've done hard riding in 20 degree conditions with no gloves or face mask -- the usual effect is that for the first few minutes I feel a lot of pain, but then the "heat comes on" and my hands warm up and feel fine. For some reason, though, my feet usually get cold, even if I'm wearing good shoes and socks. Looie496 (talk) 17:01, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Snake bite article

The article on snake bites includes a section on first aid. Am I correct in thinking this equates to medical advice and that some of the details there should be removed? Bazza (talk) 22:39, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Reference desk requests for urgent medical aid are different from discussion of medical matters in articles. Talk and articles are different things. I'm not going to specifics, just saying on a general level - which sort of reflects the underlying difference. 88.112.41.6 (talk) 22:53, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

It does make an interesting question. Where does one draw the line between medical information or knowledge and medical advise? Anyways, the applicable policy is WP:NOTHOWTO. While I do not think the problem is that it is medical advise, but that it is a "how to" section. The information on how snake bites are treated seems OK, but the step-by-step part should be removed. Help yourself if you like, Bazza, since you saw it. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

it's open to interpretation, it uses the imperative mood, but is it instructing the wikipedia reader or merely illustrating how most first aid guidelines instruct their readers? NOTHOWTO writes: "describing to the reader how other people or things use or do something is encyclopedic", so putting "they" in front of every sentence would fix the problem... WP:MEDICAL states: "Nothing on Wikipedia.org or included as part of any project of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., should be construed as an attempt to offer or render a medical opinion or otherwise engage in the practice of medicine." Wile this disclaimer is compatible with providing general information on medical topics, it seems hard to reconcile with answering concrete requests for medical advice on the reference desk. Practicing medicine requires a patient (I think). There's no patient involved when writing an article, there may be when you answer questions from individuals. Ssscienccce (talk) 15:33, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Permeability of rocks in the soda canyon

Are the rocks of the soda canyon in Colorado mostly permeable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.146.126.108 (talk) 23:59, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

According to http://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3224/SIM3224_pamphlet.pdf, the rocks of Soda Canyon are essentially all part of the Goodridge formation, which consists of sandy shale, sandstone, and cherty limestone. All of those should be pretty permeable. Looie496 (talk) 16:33, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

November 25

Identifying dinosaur species from tiny bone fragment

This query was prompted by seeing dinosaur-bone beads and jewelry at an art fair: given one of those items (which are tiny, spherical beads or cabochons and presumably retain no trace of their original shape), would it be possible to determine in a non-destructive manner what species (or even higher taxon) it came from? 69.111.191.53 (talk) 02:10, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I am reminded of the Astragalus of Necrolemur, a paper I read several years ago. Its author made his entire career by identifying extinct primates almost exclusively from tiny ear-bone and wrist fragments. The scientific skeptic in me knows that there is at least a little hand-waving in the process; but the paper has many elements of rigorous palaeontological investigation. And its author has a certain literary flourish: announcing to a world who had been desperately holding its breath, "the previously unknown astragalus of the Eocene omomyid Necrolemur has been discovered." Finally! Nimur (talk) 15:35, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting... I don't blame him for sounding excited, though, because anything called the Astragalus of Necrolemur is clearly a magical McGuffin. (PS: I'm the OP, my IP just seems to have changed overnight.) 69.111.73.99 (talk) 16:58, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It might be possible to say something on the basis of a bone-bead, because there are differences in bone density and perhaps one or two other aspects of structure that might survive in a fossil. But if the shape has been lost, it wouldn't be possible to identify the species or anything close to it. Looie496 (talk) 16:16, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

...all of which leads me to wonder whether the vendor of these items is really selling dinosaur bones in the first place. Since birds are now considered to be therapod dinosaurs, you might be getting an old chicken bone! SteveBaker (talk) 18:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Electrochemistry question

Is the dropping mercury cathode still used for voltammetric analysis? I'm currently working on a design project for a multipurpose potentiostat which can make several different analyses using interchangeable electrodes and multimode software, but we can't agree on whether to include a polarography mode -- I'm in favor of at least making provision for it, while two of my teammates argue that it's not needed at all. Thanks in advance! 24.23.196.85 (talk) 03:20, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there are several journal articles from the last decade discussing current DME applications, and potential applications (no pun intended). From what I can find, DMEs seems to be uncommon in polarography. Nonetheless, it seems appropriate to make provision for it as you suggest. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:39, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Electrolysis

Why is it so that electrowinned copper occasionally exhibits a latency when redissolving in concentrated hydrochloric acid? The electrolyte consists of mixed sulfates. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:50, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Lack of dissolved oxygen or oxides? Copper shouldn't dissolve in hydrochloric acid, should it? Maybe the answer by pisgahchemist here can shed some light... Ssscienccce (talk) 16:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Copper will not dissolve in hydrochloric acid, but it will in nitric acid, due to the ability of nitric acid to oxidize the copper. It's the nitrate ion, not the acid part, that does the dissolving. See [14]. You get blue copper nitrate solution and brown nitrogen dioxide gas. But the chloride ion is a pretty crappy oxidizing agent, so HCl shouldn't do squat. --Jayron32 20:21, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Spectroscopic film ?

I saw on a science show where they held up a "special film" to a neon light, and the film then showed a series of lines, the spectrum of neon. Presumably this works because each line on the film is opaque to all but one narrow frequency of light. What is the name of this special film, where can I get some, and how much does it cost ? StuRat (talk) 14:08, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it was a diffraction grating? DMacks (talk) 14:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

While I obviously can't definitively say that what StuRat saw was a diffraction grating, that demonstration certainly works with a diffraction grating. Assuming you are based in the US there are several formats of diffraction grating available from Edmund Scientific, such as these, which cost $7.95 for 15, or in fashionable cardboard glasses format for a dollar fifty. Equisetum (talk | contributions) 14:53, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

With christmas time coming up you can probably find those glasses locally for a couple of bucks, if you don't mind the spectrum ending up displayed as images of snowflakes or "happy holidays" instead of nice clear bars. :-) They also show up around the 4th of July for watching fireworks. Katie R (talk) 17:36, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Social inhibition of urination

Why do some people find themselves unable to urinate when standing next to someone else at a urinal? Does this phenomenon have a name? How prevalent is it? 129.215.47.59 (talk) 17:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

In laymen's terms, it is called piss shy; that link is a redirect to the real article Paruresis --Jayron32 17:44, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It has also slightly more tastefully been called Shy bladder. Mingmingla (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

You've tasted what? --Jayron32 17:50, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Drinking urine is blue. Well, the link is, whether or not methylene blue is used. DMacks (talk) 18:09, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It has also been called Bashful bladder syndrome. Richerman (talk) 18:13, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I suspect that bashing someone with a full bladder in said area could be a way of overcoming the problem... DMacks (talk) 18:25, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Platinum Daniell cell

If I were to make a Daniell cell with a platinum cathode instead of copper and platinum chloride instead of copper sulphate, would I need platinum(II) chloride or platinum(IV) chloride? I am asking this question on behalf of user:DPL bot who keeps bugging me for an answer, but I don't know. SpinningSpark 18:55, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Liquids at zero pressure

Are there any substances that exist as a liquid at zero pressure? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.137.253 (talk) 19:56, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Zero pressure (like absolute zero) is an idealized state that does not really exist, except as an asymptote you can approach, but never realize. A perfect vacuum cannot be realized. As soon as you put a liquid into a vacuum, it will start to evaporate instantly, and then you don't have a vacuum anymore. --Jayron32 20:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

True. Is there a substance that doesn't sublimate at zero pressure? 74.15.137.253 (talk) 21:09, 25 November 2013 (UTC)