>> ^Drachen_Jager:

When they get a process going that can make carbon nanotubes at industrial volumes it will be as significant (if not more) than the development of steel. This is THE materials science breakthrough of our generation.
A 1 mm thick nanotube wire could hold 6,000 KG of weight. It is thirty times stronger than Kevlar and nearly a hundred times stronger than the finest steel.


This is without even bringing to light their electrical properties. They have a chirality induced band gap, so they can be either semiconductive or metallic based on structure. They are absurdly thermally and (in the case of metallic tubes) electrically conductive, due to ballistic conductivity. Electrical current densities are theorized to be more than 1000 times greater than copper. They truly are a miracle material. Biggest problem is the safety issues and cost of production.

>> ^mentality:
>> ^rychan:
yes, per mile a commercial airliner is safer, but that's a stupid statistic. Per mile being an astronaut is extraordinarily safe, but in actuality it's outrageously dangerous.
Say you're traveling from NYC to LA. You can either drive there, or you can fly there in one trip. Which is safer? Flying would be safer, because you have to physically cover the distance from point A to point B, and you said flying is safer according to distance.
A space shuttle "travels" many miles with respect to earth as it stays in orbit. Comparing the distance a shuttle "travels" to distance covered intentionally between two terrestrial locations is a stupid point to make.
I can tell you that water has a very low electrical conductivity, but you wouldn't want to get into a bathtub with a toaster -- and rightly so, because it turns out that the dissolved minerals in tap water raise its conductivity several orders of magnitude.
Guess what also tells you that getting into a bathtub with a toaster is dangerous because water with ions in it conducts? Science.
I really don't get the point that you're trying to make. Are you trying to say that the implementation of science is scary because statistics can be manipulated to show that cars are safer than planes or vice versa; or that a toaster in bathwater is bad? Or are you saying that applied science is scary because it cannot eliminate risk, only greatly reduce it? For example, your risk of dying from not performing the procedure would be far greater than the risk of dying from the anesthetics.


People don't think about distances when they step on a plane. They think "am I going to step off this plane alive?". The fact that the planes are covering more distance is as inconsequential as the spacecraft covering more distance. The fact that it would be even more dangerous to spend two full days driving the distance is inconsequential. They're stepping into a situation an order of magnitude more dangerous than when they step into their average car trip, so they're right to be scared. Of course, that fear is more based on lack of control and discomfort than statistics, but I hate people who try and calm you with statistics, because they're not strongly on the side of airplanes.

I'm saying science is great and reproducible, our human interface with science is often unreliable, because the real world and the human body have thousands of variables that science can't account for. And for that reason I'd be hesitant to test something like the Leidenfrost effect by dipping my hand in liquid Nitrogen (if I hadn't seen someone else do it, or maybe even then). Who knows, maybe if you sweat a lot and your skin is salty, if you have on nail polish, if you have on rings, etc... then something goes terribly wrong.

>> ^rychan:
yes, per mile a commercial airliner is safer, but that's a stupid statistic. Per mile being an astronaut is extraordinarily safe, but in actuality it's outrageously dangerous.

Say you're traveling from NYC to LA. You can either drive there, or you can fly there in one trip. Which is safer? Flying would be safer, because you have to physically cover the distance from point A to point B, and you said flying is safer according to distance.

A space shuttle "travels" many miles with respect to earth as it stays in orbit. Comparing the distance a shuttle "travels" to distance covered intentionally between two terrestrial locations is a stupid point to make.

I can tell you that water has a very low electrical conductivity, but you wouldn't want to get into a bathtub with a toaster -- and rightly so, because it turns out that the dissolved minerals in tap water raise its conductivity several orders of magnitude.

Guess what also tells you that getting into a bathtub with a toaster is dangerous because water with ions in it conducts? Science.

I really don't get the point that you're trying to make. Are you trying to say that the implementation of science is scary because statistics can be manipulated to show that cars are safer than planes or vice versa; or that a toaster in bathwater is bad? Or are you saying that applied science is scary because it cannot eliminate risk, only greatly reduce it? For example, your risk of dying from not performing the procedure would be far greater than the risk of dying from the anesthetics.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
That is the power of science!, you trust it every time you step on a plane or willingly let others perform surgery on vital parts of your body. This is what separates it from meaningless mantras like "faith" or "other ways of knowing": It is something you can reliably believe in, and it provides a true "way of knowing", not because scientists are smarter or more reliable than priests, but because they know that they aren't, so they put their own ideas to the test, and they are happy if people can prove them wrong. Because our intuition is often so very wrong, we need science to look deeper into it. And it works.


But the scary thing isn't the science, it's the implementation details.

I can tell you that water has a very low electrical conductivity, but you wouldn't want to get into a bathtub with a toaster -- and rightly so, because it turns out that the dissolved minerals in tap water raise its conductivity several orders of magnitude.

Once you encounter engineered systems of moderate complexity, you can't trust the simple scientific principles too much. And there's no more complex, engineered system than the human body.

So what I'm saying is, you're justified to be scared stepping into a commercial airliner. You're three times more likely to die on that plane trip than you are on your average car trip. If you're a safe, defensive driver, then a plane trip is ten times as dangerous.*

5 to 6 out of a million otherwise healthy people who go under general anesthesia will die. That number was 20 times higher in the '50s, but it's still scary.

* yes, per mile a commercial airliner is safer, but that's a stupid statistic. Per mile being an astronaut is extraordinarily safe, but in actuality it's outrageously dangerous. Per hour, the average commercial airliner is four times as safe as the average car, BUT, I don't drive the average car (I'm very safe, never drink and drive, always pay attention) but I DO have to fly the average airliner, with no control over who is flying, whether we should wait out the thunderstorm, or how well the maintenance was carried out.