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:There are a couple categories I'm aware of:
:1) Items others invented but his company improved. I believe the [[incandescent light bulb]] is in this category. I wouldn't call this stealing, however. Edison's first light bulb patent was called "Improvement In Electric Lights", so he wasn't claiming he invented it.
:2) Items his workers invented, for which he took credit. Even today, contracts often give the company that finances such inventions the credit and profits, not the actual inventors. [[Nikola Tesla]] worked for Edison for a time, so some of his inventions may qualify. This probably isn't stealing either, in the legal sense, depending on the wording of the contract. But it does seem unfair if some low-paid worker invents something that changes the world, and gets no recognition and little money for it. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] ([[User talk:StuRat|talk]]) 12:08, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
== why JFET ==
== why JFET ==
Revision as of 12:26, 24 August 2019
Welcome to the science section of the Wikipedia reference desk.
The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
Anisotropic vs isotropic nature of spacetime in the universe
This question is regarding the expansion or contraction of the universe.
Is there any WP article that provides information on how to verify and validate the assumption of isotropic spacetime? Any other resource might also be helpful.
The FLRW General_metric relies on the assumption that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic. The FLRW metric is used in developing the Lambda-CDM_model of cosmology and is the basis of the narrative in Expansion_of_the_universe. For now lets ignore the topic of homogeneous vs inhomogeneous cosmology. But what if the universe is anisotropic implying that density of mass-energy and properties of spacetime are different along various directions of n-dimensional spacetime?
The WP article on anisotropy only has a small paragraph about cosmological anisotropy:
"Physicists from University of California, Berkeley reported about their detection of the cosine anisotropy in cosmic microwave background radiation in 1977. Their experiment demonstrated the Doppler shift caused by the movement of the earth with respect to the early Universe matter, the source of the radiation. Cosmic anisotropy has also been seen in the alignment of galaxies' rotation axes and polarisation angles of quasars."[1]
The articles on Gravitational_collapse, Chronology_of_the_universe and Big_Crunch weren't sufficient to indicate if different parts of the universe can be expanding or contracting in different ways. Why wouldn't a massive cosmic entity cause parts of the universe to contract as well as other connected parts in an orthogonal direction to expand while bending spacetime?
I am interested in this topic because I can analytically reason that if galaxies are contracting faster than the rest of the universe, regardless of whether the universe as a whole is contracting or static or expanding, many of the experimental observations of modern cosmology as well as predictions of general relativity would be true and would explain the current universe.
An observer from any galaxy would note that all galaxies were "moving away from each other" if galaxies were collapsing faster than the rest of spacetime.
And in particular, the observers in each galaxy would note increasing mass-energy density if galaxies were collapsing faster than an overall collapsing universe without the need for introducing concepts like dark energy and dark matter. Also in this case of more rapidly collapsing galaxies in a collapsing universe, ergodic regions could envelope a galaxy to cause internal refraction and reflection of electromagnetic radiation within the envelope that might be observed as "cosmic background radiation" from within the envelope. Such an envelope around massive entities that scatters light along with destructive interference of light on a cosmic scale could be an answer for why the night sky is sufficiently dark (an answer to Olbers'_paradox)
It doesn't seem to me that we would obtain the current observations of red-shifted radiation from cosmic entities or other indicators of "increasing separation" among galaxies if and only if the universe were expanding.
How might I go about discussing this topic and collecting verifiable resources so that I can make better progress in researching the topic of anisotropic universe?
Well, cosmologists generally agree that an isotropic, expanding universe best explains what we observe from multiple lines of evidence. You seem to be coming at this from the angle of trying to find other ways (such as the collapsing universe you propose) to explain certain observations, like cosmic redshift. The thing is, you can always propose ad hoc hypotheses to explain observations (maybe the Solar System is a cosmic zoo, with a giant hologram projected around it by our alien wardens to simulate a universe), which is why we have principles like Occam's razor. If the universe is collapsing, what was the initial state before the collapse, and why is it collapsing? There's nowhere near enough mass in the observable universe (as far as we can tell) to cause it to collapse gravitationally. On the other hand, the Lambda-CDM model tidily explains many observations, including cosmic redshift, the cosmic microwave background, and the proportion of elements in the universe (including the metallicity of star populations). You also mention dark matter, but dark matter doesn't really have much to do with cosmological isotropy, as far as I understand it (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Rather, we have a lot of observations that indicate there's a bunch of mass sitting around in the universe that doesn't interact electromagnetically, so we call it "dark" matter. All conclusions in science are provisional, so it's possible tomorrow we could find something mind-blowing that totally overturns our theories (which is what basically happened with relativity and quantum mechanics), but until then there's a reason why the "standard" models are standard. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 07:15, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
An interesting paper on an apparent though still hotly debated anisotropy that has been observed, specifically regarding the alignment of distant quasars: [1]. Hypotheses include: A) Selection bias has not been completely handled yet (on both radio and visual observations); B) Many quasars in a region may be descendants of a single more massive object, and are expected to have similar axes of rotation; C) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Someguy1221 (talk) 09:04, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
August 18
Heating the sun with water
If the sun were to begin to transition to a red giant could we prolong it by adding water / hydrogen/ mass into it ?
Or would the radiation of the sun desipate/repel anything we threw at it before it got to the sun, Like a solar flare or something like that?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.203.37.29 (talk) 06:59, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This will not happen for perhaps five billion years, by which time it is unlikely that anyone will be around to spray water onto the surface. As you suggest, anything we spray onto the surface will be blown off and have negligible effect on the core, where even photons take many thousands of years to escape, and the time to change the thermal equilibrium is millions of years. Where would we get vast amounts of water? If we have the technology to transport it at that time, then we will have long inhabited other parts of the galaxy and Earth will no longer be of significance. Apologies for the opinion expressed here. The "solid" information came from our article on the Sun. Dbfirs07:50, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Adding mass makes a star's life shorter, not longer. The more mass, the more gravitational force trying to collapse the star, and thus the more pressure on the core, which accelerates the rate of fusion. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 09:52, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
relevant articles: Stellar evolution, Main sequence, etc. As pointed above, you would need to add hydrogen to the core, not just the star. Maybe you could reach the core with a high enough velocity projectile, but what need to be done would rather be to remove helium. have fun with that Gem fr (talk) 13:39, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That would presumably cause a supernova and fuse all the helium, which I guess counts as "removing" since it's not helium anymore. It's also now a huge cloud expanding through space plus maybe a black hole, rather than a star. Anyone up to calculating that to check? Would you get a black hole, or would the star be totally disrupted like in a pair-instability supernova? Since it's a collision, not a stellar implosion, I suppose you'd need fluid dynamics calculations to get a precise answer… --47.146.63.87 (talk) 00:30, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you waited until "the last minute" to shoot the slug, when it was mostly helium, the supernova scenario would be more likely than if you did it early on. SinisterLefty (talk) 12:16, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Representative lifetimes of stars as a function of their masses No matter where you add mass, it won't make the star last longer. (Not sure if this is what you meant by you would need to add hydrogen to the core, but in any case I'll elaborate for readers.) I think a lot of people are led astray by intuitively thinking of a star as an engine you can just add more fuel to, making the engine run longer. But stars "burn" their "fuel" more quickly if you add more. It doesn't matter where in the star you stick the mass, because it will always cause the star's gravitational pressure to rise and therefore increase the rate of fusion. (See chart for reference.) Actually, adding mass to a red giant, I believe, shortens the star's lifetime even more than for a star on the main sequence, because you might increase the core pressure enough to trigger the helium flash, or helium burning in higher-mass red dwarfs, which accelerates the star's transition to a planetary nebula. In contrast, a main sequence star will just continue to fuse hydrogen more rapidly in its core. In general, if you want to prolong a star's lifetime, you remove mass rather than add it. Of course, this means the star produces less light and has weaker gravity, which has implications for any planetary system. The only sort-of exception is in "re-igniting" stellar remnants like white dwarfs and neutron stars, which are no longer fusing. In these cases, if you add mass, you can restart fusion and generate more energy. But, it has to be done gradually so as not to trigger a supernova. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 00:30, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The plan would be to remove helium (mass) and replace the hydrogen consumed, to sort of reboot the star. Doing it continuously would be the best. Some practical issues, of course, but funny to imagine.Gem fr (talk) 11:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious where the OP intends to get enough mass of anything to make any difference at all. The sun contains 99.8% of all mass in the solar system already, so even if we threw the entirety of every planet and moon and asteroid and cloud of interplanetary gas and the best we could hope to do is change the mass by some insignificant amount. --Jayron3212:11, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
When I buy apples from the supermarket there are a few varieties available. By taste, and description, it feels like some are much sweeter than the others. Gala, for example, compared to Braeburn. Are these meaningfully more sweet nutritionally, and if not how do they taste so different? I've done some Google searches but I just get articles with vitamin differences in mg. My question essentially boils down to "Are the differences big enough to matter?" For example, would it be sensible to treat different types of apples as different foods on a diet plan, or are all apples essentially the same? 51.9.138.192 (talk) 12:13, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
please, encyclopedia here. Advertorials are not a relevant information source. You should just delete such baseless health allegation, which BTW are banned for a reason: Organic_food#Health_and_safety No health agency ever found health benefits of eating organic (but everyone "knows" they sold their souls to evil non-organic food corps...) Gem fr (talk) 14:05, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That article cites a published scientific study:
Wassermann, Birgit; Müller, Henry; Berg, Gabriele (24 July 2019). "An Apple a Day: Which Bacteria Do We Eat With Organic and Conventional Apples?". Front. Microbiol. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2019.01629.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
for the level and diversity claims, though one could debate the reliability of a Frontiers Media journal, and notes that the other claims are based on an interview with one of that study's authors. The journal article also cites other studies noting microbiome differences. DMacks (talk) 14:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, different varieties will have slightly different nutritional values. However, how ripe the apples are and what type of soil and fertilizer they get, and the temps and amount of water and sunshine they get, will all affect the final nutritional values. So, rather than take this all into account, they just list nutritional averages. However, if it tastes sweeter, it probably does have more sugar, although the acidity also plays a (negative) role in sweetness. Also, most of the nutrition is in the peel, so if you peel them, the numbers will be quite diferent. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:23, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Cox apple availability ?
As everyone knows, although apples are a seasonal crop, they are available all year round. However, Coxes have recently disappeared from supermarket shelves and a worker I asked didn't know when they will be back. Does anyone know when Coxes will be back in season? 92.31.141.118 (talk) 13:56, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming that we're in the UK, English Apples & Pears - The British Season says that Cox's are in season from "Mid-September to early April". We used to be able to get Cox apples from New Zealand during the British summer, but the advent of hardier (but not quite as good) equivalents such as Gala and Braeburn seems to have put an end to that. If you like a traditional English apple, look out for Worcester Pearmains which can appear at the very end of August, weather depending. 50 years ago, Cox's totally dominated the British apple market, but seem to be a niche product now. Alansplodge (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is purely down to consumer demand. According to this article Cox's anly account for 21% of sales as consumers prefer the newer varieties which have been selected for sweetness - as well as shape, colour, and resistance to disease - rather than the older varieties like the Cox with their more subtle, complex flavours. Richerman(talk)18:11, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Resistance to disease isn't something consumers care about, unless you try to sell them diseased apples. But it is something farmers care about if it lowers production levels of sellable apples. SinisterLefty (talk) 18:18, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One of the fruit stalls in a local market was owned by Irene Hunt. She started in 1944 and was the mother of one of the metric martyrs (Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 August 22#Help understanding supermarket prices). She owned the shop behind her stall, and one day while it was being renovated I found their diary for 1943 discarded outside (which I still have). When Irene fell ill she was placed in Cox ward at the local hospital, so when we went to visit we had no difficulty remembering where she was. In the same market I picked up two large bound folio journals which would have been collected by the dustcart if I hadn't noticed them. They turned out to be the handwritten journal for a New England estate for several months in the early nineteenth century with details of staff, purchases, payments, etc. I left them on top of an empty stall and a few hours later they had gone. Are such books valuable and, if so, could they have been sold at auction and what would have been the likely sale price? 2A00:23C5:3186:E600:3D9B:C5C7:2662:1431 (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Might be of interest to a museum or historical society, but it doesn't sound like something that would generate much interest for private collectors. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:42, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
August 19
Shadow length
Is it possible to calculate the length of the shadow that a 5 meter tall building would cast at midday in mid summer in Brisbane Australia? The latitude is 27.47 South.
Thanks 49.197.49.105 (talk) 05:47, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. For any given position on earth, the position of the Sun can be calculated for specific date and time. The solar zenith angle (angle above the horizon) is the angle the top of the shadow makes with the ground (assuming flat ground, including ignoring the curvature of the earth itself), and then just a bit of trigonometry to solve the base of the triangle for the given height. There are online calculators that can do it all for you. Or be sure you cite your source of this information and show your calculations manually if this is a homework problem. DMacks (talk) 06:02, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks DMacks, It's not for homework, just for a friend who wants to make a fern garden on the south side of her house. Can you give me a link to an online calculator? 49.197.49.105 (talk) 06:57, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
But if you want mid-day in mid-summer, this is the easiest calculation possible - so easy that we can (and should) be doing it in our heads! Earth's axial tilt is about 23 degrees; the latitude is about 27 degrees south; in this case, mid-day during the southern-hemisphere's summer solstice, sun will peak at four degrees (... or, "27.47° - 23.44°"), or, just a bit to the north of of "directly overhead." (If you really need more decimal-digits, we can give you a few; but at some point, we have to start accounting for the apparent size of the sun, which is half a degree - ... we still teach these basic facts in science classes, right? They seem, to me, like prerequisite knowledge for any educated intelligent life-form that plans to inhabit the planet Earth... I mean, we build powerful computers to do the math that's too hard to do in our brains, but ... this one? Easier without the computer - plus, when summer midday rolls around, the shadow presents us with directly-observable evidence to confirm or refute our mathematical model's hypotheses!) Forgive my exuberance, but .. literally the entire body of mathematics that evolved over thousands of years among intelligent Earth primates stems from this specific calculation. Primitive monkey-people had brains that could do this computation, without resorting to the use of digital-logic or semiconductors!
The point, though: Brisbane is particularly close - maybe a couple hundred kilometers - from the Tropic of Capricorn. At midday in mid-summer, the sun appears to be "very nearly overhead," or "so close to apparently directly overhead that the length of any cast shadows will be quite small." I have a gut feeling - nay, more than an intuition, but actual scientific hypothesis informed by my many years of calculating celestial things - that to a mere mortal human who is not equipped with precise and accurate and calibrated scientific instruments, the sun will apparently be "directly overhead" at noon on mid-summer. Any cast shadow will appear "directly below" the object in question. Then, thanks to our friendly specifically-easy-to-approximate tangent equation, the length of the shadow is "zero." Well, I computethirty-five centimeters of shadow, from a five-meter building - but speaking as a pedigreed physicist, this is "sufficiently close to zero that our other approximations start to break down," notably that the building is an imperfect 5-meter rectangle, sunlight at Earth's surface is not accurately-modeled as a point-source at infinite-distance; and so on - for the record, these computations are much easier on Moon, which has no atmosphere to speak of; but that is regrettably an unsuitable site for most fern gardens).
If you would like to see a user-friendly but extremely-scientifically-accurate simulation, I use a piece of free software called Celestia for puttering around; and if you want "not very user-friendly but much-more-accurate" software tools, I can help find something for any interested reader with more specific needs.
And finally, a recent debate between myself and a more avid gardener resulted in the following conclusion: astronomy-geeks are better at fast calculations about sun-angles than gardeners; but gardeners know practical things about botany that astronomy-geeks may overlook. For example, the sun-angle at midday might be less important than the sunlight in late afternoon, or the temperature or the humidity or any other number of things - at least, this might be important to the fern - so it's a good idea to reach out to local garden experts to see what expertise and domain-knowledge they have to offer!
Point of trivia - the smallest shadow is going to be "no shadow," because (in the southern hemisphere) the ecliptic swings south of due-east- and due-west during summer time; but this will never occur at mid-day. That means that if there is no obstruction on the horizon, the southern wall can receive full sun - no shadow - in the early morning and late afternoon during summer time (rather, this varies throughout the year, with its most extreme apparent excursion at each solstice). At mid-day (solar noon), every single day of the year, this side of the building will be shaded; but it can see the direct sun during some portions of the year. This is perhaps non-obvious, but the sun's most northern excursion is not coincident with its greatest elevation. The reciprocal, of course, applies in the Northern hemisphere. This is a fun fact known to our most well-educated astronomers and gardeners alike.
Although I've very dramatically made the case for how easy it is to approximate the mid-day shadow, if we care about the shadow at other times of day, things get a lot more tricky. The time-variation of the shadow is a difficult calculation of trigonometry, requiring many coefficients and numerical constants (the solar ephemerides), and we might actually want to refer to an almanac or a digital computer software tool that effectively computes an almanac. Nimur (talk) 02:45, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the actual area always in shadow and partially in shadow is difficult to calculate, because it depends on the shape of the roof line, the edges of the building, placement/size/shape of trees, etc. And the Sun doesn't go straight across the sky, either, but follows an arc. So, you might do better to rely on direct observation or the presence of indicators, like moss, which only grow in shadows. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:21, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(OP) Thanks Nimur and Sinisterlefty, for those great answers!! I appreciate the points you make about the possible origin of mathematics, the different viewpoints of gardeners versus astronomy geeks, and the position of the ecliptic at sunrise and sunset. 49.197.49.105 (talk) 07:17, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If the purpose of the fern house is to provide shady growing conditions (and most ferns prefer some shade, though it isn't an absolute rule - it depends on the species and latitude), the simplest solution here would be to install shading as part of the construction, either through blinds, slats or netting, or liquid products applied to the glass. For any shade loving plant, it's important that it receives protection from the sun at its fiercest - what happens at sunrise and sunset doesn't really matter, as the radiation received is too weak. At the latitude of Brisbane, the sun in midsummer would be so close to overhead at midday that a 5m-high building wouldn't cast much shade, and bear in mind that the foliage of the ferns inside the house wouldn't be at ground level - they might be grown on benches, and even if planted in the ground, their foliage would grow upwards away from it, making them more exposed. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:07, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, sorry, I've just re-read the opening post, and the intention was to create a fern garden, not a fern house. Well, the same principle applies - the owner will need to supply extra shading, either by constructing something overhead, or growing taller plants to provide shade. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:13, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Radon chemistry
Has there been much recent work on this? I have found some good reviews (10.1021/bk-1987-0331.ch018 and 10.1524/ract.1983.32.13.163), but both are from the 1980s. Double sharp (talk) 16:28, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I probably ought to have clarified that I wrote a significantamountof that section, so what I really meant is "has there been work more recent than that I found and cited in the article, because the latest review I found and cited is from 1998". I found some good information in Felice Grandinetti's Noble Gas Chemistry: Structure, Bonding, and Gas-Phase Chemistry (2018), but it seems to be theoretical (the section on Rn chemistry is part of a chapter with the title "Chemistry in Silico"). Double sharp (talk) 02:52, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Russian government has been trying to cast a veil on the magnitude of the disaster in the North region. Two geographical landmarks over there are two cities: Severodvinsk and Archangelsk. At the same time they shut down four monitoring stations, first in Dubno and Kirov, then 3 days later Bilibino and Zalesovo. Google maps give us a perfect way to get geographical estimate of how far the radiation has spread.
Dubno is about only 50 miles or less north of Moscow, it lies to the West of the Severodvinsk meridian, that is the radiation kept spreading west. It is difficult to measure on google maps but it seems to be about 2 thousand miles down south from the explosion. Kirov, a large city is exactly on Severodvinsk meridian about a thousand miles down south.
It is clear why only those two stations were first shut down and then the other two were added. Bilibino is in the Chuckcha region, thousand of miles to the east from the explosion. When the radiation came in there, which took exactly 3 days, as it seems, they shut it down. Zalesovo is in Altay Mountains, to the east and south of the explosion, perhaps 3-4 thousand miles from Severodvinsk.
Thus it is a full blown Chernobyl, not a mini Chernobyl as one of the Russian source has said. People in Alaska may expect the deadly Russian guest soon. AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:02, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You might be applying Western standards of transparency, which would be to share info unless it is so devastating as to panic the nation. But in totalitarian nations, they tend to hide all bad news, however minor. Thus, I suspect there is a detectable increase in radiation at those stations, and that is enough for them to hide it, even though it is not dangerous. SinisterLefty (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is just no way this can be a "full blown Chernobyl", as far as radioactivity is concerned. Chernobyl_disaster#Radioactive_release indicates an estimated 6 tons of fuel spread around into the atmosphere, with a lot of fuel remaining in situ exposed. The nuclear engine of the failed rocket would use some kg (maybe tens?), and Russians for sure treat the info on this as top secret: this is reason enough to shut down all info, since radiation level would help other nation guess how much fuel the rocket use. Gem fr (talk) 23:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Worth noting, I think, that radiation alarms were going off in Sweden only two days after Chernobyl. With all of the initial Soviet denials, other countries may not have known exactly what happened, but they knew something had happened. Right now, the winds in the general region of the crash would be taking any radioactive clouds north, into the arctic. Whatever there is to detect, the Russians can't hide that. If there is extreme local contamination, that's another matter. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:59, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, Norway might have detected radioactive iodine from the explosion, but if they did, it was an incredibly small amount, and apparently those small amounts are detected in Norway from Russia several times a year. There's no good way of knowing if it had anything to do with this specific explosion. Clearly, other countries are monitoring, and so far haven't found anything conclusively related. This was a very small radiation release, several orders of magnitude smaller than "full blown Chernobyl." --OuroborosCobra (talk) 23:50, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Should the near absence of solar wind there allow much smaller planetoids to maintain an atmosphere ? And containing lighter elements ? (At those temps, I'd expect a hydrogen/helium atmosphere, and even making it warm enough for those to be gases may require tidal heating from a moon.) SinisterLefty (talk) 04:35, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
With the much high pressure that i presume occurs deeper inside a white dwarf, I wonder if matter like in a neutron star could form(much denser than white dwarf matter, held from further compression by neutron degeneracy pressure) at the central core, especially in higher mass white dwarfes. Vice versa, maybe I should ask instead if a neutron star could have an outer layer of white dwarf matter, so much less dense than neutron star material that it would be analogous to an atmosphere for a planet(although actually far denser than rock). ThanksRich (talk) 10:48, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that the two can co-exist. The immense gravity would crush normal matter into neutrons, unless that normal matter was actually in orbit. So, I could imagine something like Saturn's rings, at least in the short term, but don't know if it could last (it might end up more like an accretion disk around a black hole). Perhaps if the distance is high enough, rings would be more stable. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:48, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A white dwarf cannot "contain" a neutron star since stars cannot contain other stars. Their composition is quite different: white dwarfs have cores containing electron-degenerate matter, basically separated disordered electrons, neutrons and protons with a lot of kinetic energy, much like a gas, held apart by electron degeneracy pressure. Neutron stars, however, have cores composed of neutronium; pressures are so high that the protons and electrons combine to form neutrons, or at least that is one theory of their composition; they are held apart by neutron degeneracy pressure. So their compositions are very different, as they experience different amounts of gravitational pressure. --Jules(Mrjulesd)12:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to add that we don't have clear ideas of the composition of these bodies, only theories. But there is no theory that a white dwarf can form a neutron star, but only a black dwarf. I would imagine that in the outer layers they could both contain similar matter. The atmosphere of a neutron star is only a few micrometers thick! --Jules(Mrjulesd)12:38, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The outer part of a neutron star consists of an electron degenerate matter much like a white dwarf. But this layer is very thin (probably a few meters). So, in some sense any neutron star sits inside a white dwarf. Ruslik_Zero20:03, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is a time when a white dwarf might have a neutron star in the middle, and that is when it is collapsing. If the star is heavy just below the Chandrasekhar limit, and spinning slows or more mass is added, it might exceed the limit and form a neutron star. This stage would only last for seconds tough and so much energy is released that it becomes a supernova. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In a fish pond, we noticed a strange phenomenon: every fish that approached the lighting electricity cable - first 'tasted it', then immediately slid on its side and glided over it (the two images demonstrate it). There is enough space above the cable for the fish to travel freely.
This happened with every single fish, and also in another location at the same pond. How can this behavior be explained? Gil_mo (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
sliding fish 1
sliding fish 2
Could it have something to do with the lateral line ? They could use that to sense the strange object more closely. Another possible explanation is that the wire puts out enough of a magnetic field to surpass the Earth's magnetic field, at that spot, which confuses the fish about what is up and down. I suggest turning off the electricity to see how the fish behavior changes, as that should kill the magnetic field. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:57, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A few species of fishes are thought to use magnetic field as a clue for travel orientation, but even them are not using it to tell up from down. Only a couple of bacteria do that, AFAIK.
Somehow I doubt if all 33,600 known species of fish have been studied for this [3]. But it isn't actually necessary that they use the magnetic field to tell up from down. Let's say a fish is trying to swim west, and does so by positioning himself so his right side faces magnetic north. If some local magnetic field changes magnetic north to be below the fish, then one side would turn toward the bottom automatically. This is somewhat similar to how airplane pilots flying on instruments sometimes turn the plane sideways when those instruments give false readings. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:56, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To reply to this I'll have to have access to the pond main power, which I don't. All I can do is observe what happens once they shut it off. Gil_mo (talk) 11:48, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it to be a fairly common for fish to rub their sides on the bottom of a tank or on the sea floor to scrape off bacteria and parasites. I would suspect that if you experimented and put a non conducting wire of the same diameter and texture in the same place, the fish would continue to produce the same behaviour. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 08:30, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to overcome it, say by squeezing a bunch of fermions together under enormous pressure, simply causes them to move to higher energy levels, rather than start sharing. The apparent force that resists an attempt to do this is often called degeneracy pressure or exclusion pressure. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:16, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In a sense that's technically correct, but misleading. If fermions keep getting compressed enough to overcome their degeneracy pressure, they get to such high energies that it becomes energetically favorable for them to change into other particles, as detailed in degenerate matter. This is what happens when a neutron star forms; the protons and electrons in the core of a star become compressed so much they transform into neutrons. And if the core exceeds the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit, the collapse continues to form a black hole. As detailed in degenerate matter, what happens in this process is not currently well-understood; the particles may transform to unbound quarks, bosons, or a string fuzzball. There's a Nobel Prize waiting for anyone with the answer. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 21:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Is the liver indeed the largest and heaviest internal organ?
According to this article on Wikipedia as well as many publications, the largest and the heaviest INTERNAL organ is the liver. I never understand it, because I think everyone agrees that the intestine is much more heavier and larger (according to the date that I saw on other site). Isn't it? (See here for example). 93.126.116.89 (talk) 23:39, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Seems there's some confusion of terms here. The liver would be the largest internal organ by mass ("heaviest"), but the large and small intestines are each larger by linear extent ("length"). The source used for the claim of largest organ does not specify, but it can only logically be by mass. I have modified our article appropriately.--Khajidha (talk) 11:32, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
PS - several other claims in our article say only that something is "the largest", without explaining if that means mass, length, volume, or cross section. --Khajidha (talk) 11:33, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If not specified, I would take "largest" to mean volume. And in the case of body organs, most have about the same density, so the largest volume likely also means the largest mass. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:57, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In the comparison with intestines, two points:
1) They are likely counting the small and large intestines separately.
As appealing as such comparisons are, it's a bit arbitrary, isn't it? It's all a matter of how humans have chosen to draw boundaries, without absolute criteria. Should the "liver" include the gall bladder (since the latter is just a contractile reservoir for the principal product of the liver's epithelial surface)? Should "intestine" include its pedicle (the omentum), the stomach, the visceral peritoneum? Which dimensions should be used to measure/compare? If we use mass, should it be average immediately after removal from the body (at what age, what allowance for disease), after fixation, after dessication? Of course we have conventional answers for these things - and our articles adhere to reliable sources - but many of the decisions are historical and/or arbitrary. — soupvector (talk) 12:52, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know. But, having looked at our article, I'd suggest that if the species is positively identified, your picture would be an improvement to the article. The illustration is okay, but the stuffed specimen is a tad nightmarish. Matt Deres (talk) 15:42, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather see the stuffed version (although somebody should comb it's hair flat) than a blurry pic with the background the same color. But, yes, it looks like the same varmint to me. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:42, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This picture would be too embarrassing to use, I think. If we can ID him, I'll go out again with a better camera and track down him or one of his friends. HenryFlower20:55, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know about the fruit, but our article says about the juice, "When first collected from the tree, it is sweet and appears slightly carbonated". Rojomoke (talk) 19:31, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
August 24
Thomas Edison
There are many claims being made that Edison stole works from others. These are true or conspiracy theories?
hello, in AGC circuits, they mostly have an amplifier with a JFET as the control element (voltage-controlled resistor) in the feedback path or the input voltage divider. why? specifically, why not BJT (BC547) or MOSFETs (such as the 2N7001/BS170), moreso as JFETs seem to become more and more exotic with each passing year (do they?)... Is there a way to "emulate" JFET behaviour using a BJT? Aecho6Ee (talk) 10:06, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
sliding fish 1
sliding fish 2
