General Scientific Thread

[shyshy]

k this place has been dead long enough. why dont we tackle fusion (hot or cold), nuclear fission, and hydrogen: lets talk about alternate fuel sources.

[shyshy]

so first, fusion. from what i understand (almost not at all), fusion is "the most efficient and clean, safe fuel source".

i have read up on the subject of alternate fuel sources recently. hydrogen and fission seemed most promising. fusion seemed to be a more feasible solution.

fusion is believed to be able to be commercialized as an alternate fuel source (replacing fossil fuels) within the next 30-40 years. given that time frame, i would expect that studies in such areas as fusion would progress and increase. anypony got any ideas on how to make this work for fusion? (how to use fusion as a commercialized fuel source?)

[shyshy]

ohkay this thread is like abandoned now.

[CrescentBlaze]

actually now that you bumped it i 've seen it so maybe not! I would say at this point the most effective way to make something widely accepted in america right now (I cant speak for the world) would be to make it workable into to a form of transportation. ei. make a fusion powered train engine then cars and the like. What people want right now is cheap convenient transportation. If they can make it work at a feasible price then bam, you got yourself popularity

[shyshy]

exactly! but first we have to commercialize this form of energy for use in large powerplants and work our way up to smaller things. i would expect that fusion powered vehicles would be openly sold on the market as vastly as gasoline fossil fuel cars today, in a good 40-55 years.

[CrescentBlaze]

their are already designs for fusion powered vehicle engines. hydrogen cell fusion engines that recycle their own fuel through fision. its crazy awesome but way too expensive to produce right now.

[shyshy]

hmm, sounds promisisn tho!

[starswirlthebearded]

hmm, sounds promisisn tho!

It is, so long they have a containment system and a way to diffuse excess hydrogen in the case of ignition to prevent explosion. Hydrogen is extremely flammable...

Also, I should mention its not perpetual motion. There is loss of energy, but its just less so there is less need to refuel. But refueling is still necessary eventually.

[Kendrick]

There are always trade offs with energy exchange. I read not too long ago that our current gas engines are only about 20% efficient, diesels are a bit better, but they have a bit slower response curve. There was a time when they experimented with Stirling engines in cars which can approach 50% efficiency but they are larger and had to be warmed up before use. People want instant action from a car so they were a failed experiment.

Fusion, if we pull it off, will likely never (in a timeline that matters to us personally) be compact enough for anything but powerplants. And I seriously doubt that it would be an on/off switchable reaction like an auto would require.

Now build me an Arc reactor and woo-hoo!

[Kendrick]

So on a lot lower tech level, I've been doing a lot of research lately on historic metallurgy. Being from the States I'm used to Farenheit. But most of the metallurgy liturature is in Centigrade. Anyone have any experience switching over their thought processes? Wondering how to get to a point where I'm not trying to do conversions in my head.

[shyshy]

So on a lot lower tech level, I've been doing a lot of research lately on historic metallurgy. Being from the States I'm used to Farenheit. But most of the metallurgy liturature is in Centigrade. Anyone have any experience switching over their thought processes? Wondering how to get to a point where I'm not trying to do conversions in my head.

hehe im form the states too brother. i live in florida waaayy down south by duette on a farm. i tend to animals every day and i wanna medical license

a dreamer huh?

michio kaku did a lecture on discovery channe that i watched yesterday afternoon about fusion engines n he said that they would be an estimated 55-70 % efficient!

[starswirlthebearded]

So on a lot lower tech level, I've been doing a lot of research lately on historic metallurgy. Being from the States I'm used to Farenheit. But most of the metallurgy liturature is in Centigrade. Anyone have any experience switching over their thought processes? Wondering how to get to a point where I'm not trying to do conversions in my head.

Oh! I do! About 8 years ago I stopped using the Imperial System, and completely switched to Metric. This is to the annoyance of anyone who picks up my phone they are greeted with 24h time, and full metric in ever single app that uses any form of measurements. My computer too and everything else.

Metric > Imperial. End of story. It is so natural for me to use, I have to do backwards conversions now for most people that ask me anything... And it annoys them XD.

Though I still use imperial for cooking and cars (generally) Hard to switch for those things. I can convert in me head approximately Km/h and mph.

[TenthSpeedWriter]

Bwahahaha... engineering major enters the discussion!

Nuclear fusion (to my understanding) as we have it laid out right now is a foreseeable thing in the long run, but right now faces the simple issue of efficiency. A sustainable fusion reaction is a very difficult thing, and keeping one going tends to take more energy than can be harnessed from it.

On systems of measurements:

Honestly, the chief advantage of the SI system (the scientific version of the metric system, using kilograms as a standard rather than grams) is that it's more widely employed. (Its units of temperature are also on a more intuitive scale, but it matters much less in application.)

In science and engineering, the chief difference between them is that SI defines force in terms of mass times acceleration, whereas the FPS (foot-pound-second) system employed heavily in North America defines mass in terms of force divided by acceleration ("slugs" are the proper term, and anyone who uses the phrase "pounds mass" deserves to be whopped with a wet noodle.) (A slug, by the way, weighs 32.2 pounds at standard Earth gravity.)

[shyshy]

^ JESUS MAN this guy wins +10 internets. smart man. i envy you. however, i aint a scientist, ima jar head. but still i enjoy science.

[CrescentBlaze]

Bwahahaha... engineering major enters the discussion!

Nuclear fusion (to my understanding) as we have it laid out right now is a foreseeable thing in the long run, but right now faces the simple issue of efficiency. A sustainable fusion reaction is a very difficult thing, and keeping one going tends to take more energy than can be harnessed from it.

On systems of measurements:

Honestly, the chief advantage of the SI system (the scientific version of the metric system, using kilograms as a standard rather than grams) is that it's more widely employed. (Its units of temperature are also on a more intuitive scale, but it matters much less in application.)

In science and engineering, the chief difference between them is that SI defines force in terms of mass times acceleration, whereas the FPS (foot-pound-second) system employed heavily in North America defines mass in terms of force divided by acceleration ("slugs" are the proper term, and anyone who uses the phrase "pounds mass" deserves to be whopped with a wet noodle.) (A slug, by the way, weighs 32.2 pounds at standard Earth gravity.)

[starswirlthebearded]

Bwahahaha... engineering major enters the discussion!

Nuclear fusion (to my understanding) as we have it laid out right now is a foreseeable thing in the long run, but right now faces the simple issue of efficiency. A sustainable fusion reaction is a very difficult thing, and keeping one going tends to take more energy than can be harnessed from it.

On systems of measurements:

Honestly, the chief advantage of the SI system (the scientific version of the metric system, using kilograms as a standard rather than grams) is that it's more widely employed. (Its units of temperature are also on a more intuitive scale, but it matters much less in application.)

In science and engineering, the chief difference between them is that SI defines force in terms of mass times acceleration, whereas the FPS (foot-pound-second) system employed heavily in North America defines mass in terms of force divided by acceleration ("slugs" are the proper term, and anyone who uses the phrase "pounds mass" deserves to be whopped with a wet noodle.) (A slug, by the way, weighs 32.2 pounds at standard Earth gravity.)

Well if you want to get into efficiency, I'm sure you know there is no such thing as a perfectly efficient reaction, as each cycle is imperfect and thus energy is rendered unusable. While nuclear fission is currently the best option for widespread energy, general population ignorance and some safety issues arise in universal utilization. These concerns have increased since the Fukushima disaster. Though disasters such as that are easily preventable and managed with updated equipment people don't understand that it is rare and thus not too much of a concern. There is also confusion on grades of plutonium, namely weapons grade and reactor grade. They are different and most people don't understand that, and think that every nuclear reactor is a nuclear explosion waiting to happen. THEN there is the concern with nuclear byproducts (which again is easily managed). All of that is leading to the development of the next biggest energy source. I believe there is great amounts of research being put into "green" energy. But I'm not too well read up on the current literature on it.

As for units of measurement. The great thing about the SI units is that they are all based off of the metric system in some way, and thus have a very easy scaling system. Even Kelvin is just C+273.15. As for FPS, is in my opinion like MPH. Widely utilized but ultimately the same as it is an arbitrary method of measurement from an archaic system. Newtons and km/h and the like are far more usable, as well as flexible if you need a more accurate method of measurement. SI units, and by extension metric units, are the global standard for a very good reason, and should be utilized more in my humble opinion.

[TenthSpeedWriter]

You do realize that, except for its scale of temperature, SI is equally arbitrary?

[TenthSpeedWriter]

On Fukushima:

I agree that folks tend to over-react to the idea of nuclear power. Fukushima-Daiichi was old, poorly maintained, and of a hilariously terri-bad design -- not to mention hit by one of the worst natural disasters in recent history.

The more recently designed reactors at the same plant went through disaster procedures very well under the circumstances; it was only those with switching stations in exterior facilities (as opposed to inside the sturdy, well protected reactor complex) which failed to shutdown correctly when the plant was flooded.

Someone did point out a relatively new idea to me during the wake of the disaster: http://en.wikipedia....en_salt_reactor

The concept is still being hammered out, but it's very promising. It could offer lower mechanical stress on reactor systems, shorter-lived byproducts, and an overall safer system (for instance, a reactor whose fuel is always in a liquid state can't 'meltdown' in the traditional sense).

[starswirlthebearded]

You do realize that, except for its scale of temperature, SI is equally arbitrary?

No, it isn't actually... If you look at the history of the two, SI was based off of a singular standard for each measurement type.

Imperial on the otherhand had different standards that were made to fit into the current set of measurements.

Lets look at a few imperial measurements... like the mile, ounce, inch, foot, and Fahrenheit . Not one was from a standard at any time.

Now you can say EVERYTHING is arbitrary, because we invented everything. However that isn't the concern, because if we do that then all numbers everywhere are useless. However the fact that a standard was used and agreed upon makes SI far less arbitrary than Imperial, which was based off of what I consider to be historical tomfoolery by those in power.

[TenthSpeedWriter]

Fair point. Honestly, I'm only inclined to defend US Standard so hard because I've done my entire undergrad work thus far here. I find SI slightly easier to work with in many aspects, even if US Std is more intuitive.

[starswirlthebearded]

Fair point. Honestly, I'm only inclined to defend US Standard so hard because I've done my entire undergrad work thus far here. I find SI slightly easier to work with in many aspects, even if US Std is more intuitive.

I stopped trying to defend it. All my friends use it for most things and use it interchangeably for popular things like mph, weight and height. Pretty much all my friends know their height and weight in both... I actually can't remember a time where I used Imperial for temperature... it was always SI or Metric. As much as I know it due to growing up with it, I realize it is an inferior system, but I must know it for the general population... I mean... when someone asks you the temperature in winter and you say "Zero degrees" they look at you like you're mad.

I'm a big supporter of Metric and SI...

[shyshy]

geez i feel like an idiot. i read maybe 30 or so pages on the subject from a michio kaku book and assume i will understand. i dont. oh well.

[starswirlthebearded]

geez i feel like an idiot. i read maybe 30 or so pages on the subject from a michio kaku book and assume i will understand. i dont. oh well.

Don't be so hard on yourself... TSW and I have clearly dedicated our lives to the sciences in some way. You have not. Just keeping up is impressive in and of itself.

A lot of what we are talking about is current debate in the nuclear fission arena. People take sides and argue the points. Both of are are Pro-nuclear fission, but there are many people whom are not whom are looking for alternative solutions. Unfortunately most administrations are of the dissenting opinion and thus less funding goes into nuclear research than "Green" energy. Green energy has potential, but its in its infancy as far as I know, and thus cannot produce the energy output as nuclear fission.

[shyshy]

ah, thank you sir. the explanation is much appreciated. and yeah, if i dedicate my life to any science it will be medical. but, i am a soldier (will be). i wanna be a U.S. Army combat medic.

i dont get the SI. but i suppose i could just google it. i will later. right now it's like 11:41 PM here in Florida

[TenthSpeedWriter]

Yeah, don't worry if some of the things we spout sound a little too complex. It's the sort of stuff you pick up on when you spend long enough with the sciences. If you do decide to go down that path, you might pick up on quite a bit of it.

Like I said, SI (System International; blame the backwards word order on the French. xD) is just a little twist on the metric system. It uses most of the same units (meters, litres, degrees celsius, and so forth), but its base unit of mass is the kilogram instead of the gram.

Here's some basic physics, for your pleasure. : D

Mass and weight aren't the same. Mass is fixed for any object; weight is the force that gravity applies to it. Pounds are a unit of force, believe it or not; your weight in pounds will depend on what planet you're on, but your mass in kilograms will be the same anywhere (even if you weigh more because of different gravity.)

Force is kind of a fundamental idea in physics; it's the motivation an object has to accelerate. In the SI system, things are pretty simple: the unit of force is a newton. A newton is the amount of force it takes to make one kilogram of stuff go one meter per second faster, every second. (In other words, one meter per second per second, or one "meter per second squared"). You don't hear newtons used much outside of science, because the kilogram (mass) is the fundamental unit for SI.

On the other hand, In the US standard system, the pound (force) is the fundamental unit. The unit of mass in our system is the slug, which is the mass that 1 pound of force will accelerate at 1 foot per second, per second. At earth's gravity, a slug weighs 32.2 pounds force, making it a little awkward for measuring most household things.

For counting:

Engineers (and some scientists) like to think of things in terms of ten to the third (thousands of something.) For example: a kilogram is 1 000 grams. (A megagram is 1 000 kilograms, a gigagram is 1 000 megagrams, and so on.) Likewise, when you want to deal with very small things: a meter is 1 000 millimeters (mm). A millimeter is 1 000 micrometers. A micrometer (also called a micron) is 1 000 nanometers. You'll rarely use prefixes bigger than that, but they're out there on wikipedia, if you're interested.