Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Marcuse » Wed Jul 24, 2013 10:29 pm

As an Englishman, they say far worse things about us. So it's cool
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:28 pm

I'm a quarter Welsh and now I'm sad. Or vengeful. Taking votes on which.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Qinglong » Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:43 am

Can't you be sad AND vengeful? Or sad that you are vengeful?

Wait -- this is a science thread; I need to come up with a science question.

What science would you use to get ... VENGEANCE?
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Learned Nand » Thu Jul 25, 2013 3:09 am

Qinglong wrote:What science would you use to get ... VENGEANCE?


Well the classic choice is nuclear science, but really, microbiology is the best choice. Revenge is a dish best served infested with bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Peryite » Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:31 pm

I was at the museum recently, and some of the paintings were kept in dimmer rooms to minimize light damage, kind of like how people who are sensitive of their furniture pull the shades down in the afternoon. So I was wondering, how does light damage happen? Does the surface get worn out from light rays bouncing off of it, so the tiny particles that reflect the colors we see reflect duller colors instead?
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Learned Nand » Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:52 pm

Peryite wrote: Does the surface get worn out from light rays bouncing off of it, so the tiny particles that reflect the colors we see reflect duller colors instead?

I'm not sure how fabrics become faded in the light, but this doesn't describe how they do, it's just another way of saying "the surface gets faded in the light."
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby w00 » Tue Aug 27, 2013 11:37 pm

Peryite wrote:So I was wondering, how does light damage happen? Does the surface get worn out from light rays bouncing off of it, so the tiny particles that reflect the colors we see reflect duller colors instead?

I faded that green right to black as it seemed especially appropriate here...

UV light is ionizing radiation so it damages the surface of whatever it hits at a molecular level, destroying the colour pigments thereby fading colour.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Blackfish » Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:46 pm

So I was on another forum and there was a statistic mentioned off-handedly that getting materiel from Earth's surface to space costs $10000 a pound.

So I was thinking: are rockets going vertically up really the most efficient way to get things into space? I mean, while a commercial flight obviously goes quite a bit lower than outer space, the cost per pound is also a mere fraction of the price. And what about hot-air balloons, like how Felix Baumgartner went up, where I'd imagine you wouldn't need nearly as much fuel?

(As you can tell, I have only the faintest conception of the science.)
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby CarrieVS » Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:57 pm

Well I don't know much about planes or hot air balloons, but I believe it's generally reckoned that the sensible way to get stuff into space would be an elevator. We are however, quite some way from being able to build a space elevator.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby 52xMax » Mon Sep 23, 2013 12:05 am

I'd recommend that you read both "Physics of the impossible" by Michio Kaku, and "the Physics of Star Trek" by Lawrence Krauss.

They are both written so a layperson can read them, and take time to explain the hardest concepts in a clear way, using examples from popular culture, and how we could actually make things that are still science fiction a reality.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby LaChaise » Mon Sep 23, 2013 12:41 am

Here's your answer.

Randall Munroe wrote:Getting to space is easy. It's not, like, something you could do in your car, but it's not a huge challenge. You could get a person to space with a small sounding rocket the size of a telephone pole. The X-15 aircraft reached space just by going fast and then steering up.
But getting to space is easy. The problem is staying there.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Learned Nand » Mon Sep 23, 2013 4:43 am

Blackfish wrote:So I was on another forum and there was a statistic mentioned off-handedly that getting materiel from Earth's surface to space costs $10000 a pound.

So I was thinking: are rockets going vertically up really the most efficient way to get things into space? I mean, while a commercial flight obviously goes quite a bit lower than outer space, the cost per pound is also a mere fraction of the price. And what about hot-air balloons, like how Felix Baumgartner went up, where I'd imagine you wouldn't need nearly as much fuel?

(As you can tell, I have only the faintest conception of the science.)

Randall Munroe's answer should be helpful for you, but to address you a bit more specifically: rockets don't go straight up. They do for a bit, but then they quickly start a "gravity turn", in which they tilt over to the side. This is for the reason Munroe describes: you have to be moving over the Earth really fast in order to orbit. If there were no atmosphere, the most efficient way to get into orbit would be to go straight up as little as possible. But we have an atmosphere: if you go sideways too long in the lower atmosphere, you waste a lot of energy fighting drag. So you go up until you're out of the lower atmosphere, then start turning sideways. That way you aren't firing into a thick atmosphere slowing you down.

source: Kerbal Space Program

You also might want to learn the rocket equation:

delta-v = 9.81 m/s^2 * ln(start mass of rocket / end mass) * specific impulse of the engine

Delta-V is the amount of change in velocity (if you keep firing in one direction, the total speed) that the rocket has. Basically, if you're in stationary space with a rocket that has 10 km/s of delta-v, and you keep firing in one direction until you've exhausted all fuel, you'll be going 10 km/s. Specific impulse is a measurement of efficiency, measured in seconds.

It takes about 10 km/s of delta-v to get into orbit. So if we want to get a human into space with a very, very light capsule, the final payload might be about 100 kg. Given a typical liquid fuel engine efficiency of 300 seconds, we can punch the numbers into this rocket equation calculator I made and we find that we'd need a rocket that weighs 3 tons. And that's unrealistically efficient, considering that you also have to lift the mass of the fuel tanks and engines into orbit. There's no way around this. You can use more efficient engines (though, so far, every rocket ever made to get things into orbit uses liquid and solid fuel engines, which have similar efficiency), but otherwise, you're going to need that big a rocket to accelerate to that high a speed.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Blackfish » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:01 pm

Thanks for the answers! The one from xkcd was particularly illuminating.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby Polydactyl » Sat May 03, 2014 8:55 pm

What's up, fools? So, I checked the date of the last post on this thread, and the Earth has literally travelled ALL THE WAY AROUND THE SUN since someone's science question was last answered here. So, provided the mods are cool with it, I'm resurrecting this baby. I just rolled through some final examinations, and I got way too many factoids bouncing around in my head to leave them unshared. So, fire away, folks: we've got astrophysicists, regular physicists, I've seen some cool mechanical engineering-type answers blow through here, and I know I'm personally pretty adept at the biological sciences and some chemistry. No question too big, no question too small.
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Re: Your Science Questions . . . Answered!

Postby 52xMax » Sun May 04, 2014 2:57 am

I got a question:

bro-do-you-even-science.jpg
bro-do-you-even-science.jpg (39.57 KiB) Viewed 4637 times


Well, do ya... bro?
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