No doubt ADSR would produce some great science, but it wouldn't address chemistry issues, or any other important issue any better than a LFTR project. It seems to me that it just introduces large amounts of extra complexity and cost. Particle accelerators are big unreliable machines, hence the need for 3 of them for redundancy and they could well reduce safety if something goes wrong. They are not even particularly suited to breeding, as they produce protons which as the name suggests are charged and so need to be very high energy to hit a nucleus and cause fission. The cynic in me says the whole idea was cooked up by the nuclear energy industry to ensure costs could be kept high, and so turn them and their friends in other energy industries a bigger profit (or even just a profit?). My understanding is also that between the various stockpiles of fissile we have, and high breeding ratios from early LFTRs startup fuel should not be a big issue.

I wish you all the best in your learning, I can think of few endeavors more worthy of changing your life's direction >> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Spacedog79:
The ADSR or "Accelerator Driven Sub-critical Reactor" is unfortunately a massive waste of time. Why not build a properly configured LFTR reactor and it does just the same thing and you don't need to build 3 large particle accelerators to do it.

I agree in one sense, but in another, the chemistry of the LFTR might prove impossible to solve (though this is hardly even a fear atm), so divesting in a "less" effective way to fission isn't a complete waste. Also, you could use this just to breed thorium which would be handy if you hand thousands of thorium generators to start up (you need a good deal of U233 to start the reaction as Thorium is only fertile, not fissionable). This also would be a good way to burn up waste before we get a highly functional LFTR's with the ability to siphon in fission products. In the end, no road should be left uncharted when the end result maybe the salvation of the energy crisis and a life like star trek
I play to dedicate most of my laymen efforts over the next couple of months in learning more about fission for use in determining if I want to drop my life for what is it now and pursue nuclear physics. Pretty sharp turn from where I am now, but I almost feel morally compelled to do so.

It all starts when the nulecule comes out of its egg...
>> ^rottenseed:

I like how he can't discern the difference between atoms, molecules, electrons, protons, and cells...

I like how he can't discern the difference between atoms, molecules, electrons, protons, and cells...

You'd think they'd confiscate the proton pack and uniform after firing a Ghostbuster. Maybe Ghostbusters are responsible for their own gear. *wtf

Hey there. I guess I've just been focused on other things, but I still love you guys.

According to Occams razor, the theory that makes the fewest amount of assumptions is the right one. IE, do not multiple causes unnecessarily. There are only 2 ways to look at this. Either something came from nothing, which is logically incoherent, or there is an eternal first cause. The eternal first cause is obviously the more simple explanation. So, this eternal first cause created the Universe, and since we know that time, space, matter and energy had a beginning at the big bang, we know that the first cause is timeless, spaceless, immaterial and transcendent, as well as being enormously powerful. Those all match God perfectly. God is the most simple explanation for origins based on the evidence. Since God is uncreated and has always existed, we don't need to explain His origins either. The buck stops with Him.

Many scientific theories about origins violate occams razor but no one seems to care about that. For instance, the fine tuning of the Universe, the precise calibrations of the 30 or so values that make it and life possible, are a mathematical impossibility to come about by pure chance. The ratio of electrons to protons must be better than one part in 10 to the 37th power, otherwise no stars or planets would have formed. That's 1 with 37 zeroes. The expansion rate of the universe must be tuned to within one part in 10 to the 55th power. If you take all of those values together, you have a well crafted Universe which defies explanation by naturalistic means. Scientists have recognized this..even dawkins admits the Universe has the "appearance" of design.

So, to counteract this fact they postulate the multiple universe hypothesis. The corralary would be, if you have one roulette wheel, you are very unlikely to guess the number that comes up. But if you have 500 roulette wheels, your number suddenly becomes very likely to come up. So, if you have multiple universes, you can now explain away design because we just happen to be in the Universe that appears as if it is designed, which is mathematically certain to happen at some point. However, this metaphysical explantion, for which there is no evidence, completely violates occams razor. You now must not only explain all of these Universes and how the laws of physics evolved in them, but also the Universe Generator that is churning them out, which would require even more fine tuning than our Universe has.

On the question of first causes, science is rambling and incoherent, delving into metaphysics which contradict reason and just plain common sense. God is a far more simple explanation than any of this, and it matches the facts of the matter perfectly.

What I do for a living and what I do in my bedroom are polar opposites...

>> ^AgentSmith:

>> ^MonkeySpank:
I don't understand how this works. I read the articles and I am a little skeptical. I've designed fMRI and DTI algorithms for years and I don't see why they keep talking about fMRI and brain waves. fMRI is an activity map that is related to the hot spots in the brain where the hydrogen protons aligned by the magnetic field resonate to the frequency of the emitter (TR/Echo Time) and only show consumption of glucose (hydrogen protons motility) during a designed paradigm, which in this case would be having the subject watch a video. Diffuse Tensor Imaging will help map the neurons going there in case a surgical procedure is necessary, and that's about it. Extrapolating fMRI (a very coarse k-space reconstruction) to brainwaves (an EEG signal) and images sounds very suspicious to me, and nothing published so far explains how this is technically done. I understand the excitement and it certainly would be possible in the future, but under the current state of the art, I don't see how this is possible, especially with fMRI or Fractional Anisotropy.

...says "MonkeySpank", lol! Really, thank you for the insight, but the association between your well informed comment and your avatar is what did it for me.
This is what led me to believe that E = MC² --LoudBelcher78

>> ^MonkeySpank:

I don't understand how this works. I read the articles and I am a little skeptical. I've designed fMRI and DTI algorithms for years and I don't see why they keep talking about fMRI and brain waves. fMRI is an activity map that is related to the hot spots in the brain where the hydrogen protons aligned by the magnetic field resonate to the frequency of the emitter (TR/Echo Time) and only show consumption of glucose (hydrogen protons motility) during a designed paradigm, which in this case would be having the subject watch a video. Diffuse Tensor Imaging will help map the neurons going there in case a surgical procedure is necessary, and that's about it. Extrapolating fMRI (a very coarse k-space reconstruction) to brainwaves (an EEG signal) and images sounds very suspicious to me, and nothing published so far explains how this is technically done. I understand the excitement and it certainly would be possible in the future, but under the current state of the art, I don't see how this is possible, especially with fMRI or Fractional Anisotropy.


...says "MonkeySpank", lol! Really, thank you for the insight, but the association between your well informed comment and your avatar is what did it for me.

This is what led me to believe that E = MC² --LoudBelcher78

I don't understand how this works. I read the articles and I am a little skeptical. I've designed fMRI and DTI algorithms for years and I don't see why they keep talking about fMRI and brain waves. fMRI is an activity map that is related to the hot spots in the brain where the hydrogen protons aligned by the magnetic field resonate to the frequency of the emitter (TR/Echo Time) and only show consumption of glucose (hydrogen protons motility) during a designed paradigm, which in this case would be having the subject watch a video. Diffuse Tensor Imaging will help map the neurons going there in case a surgical procedure is necessary, and that's about it. Extrapolating fMRI (a very coarse k-space reconstruction) to brainwaves (an EEG signal) and images sounds very suspicious to me, and nothing published so far explains how this is technically done. I understand the excitement and it certainly would be possible in the future, but under the current state of the art, I don't see how this is possible, especially with fMRI or Fractional Anisotropy.

This isn't even new! There have been magnet bracelets for YEARS, and the "holographic" ones are even more of a scam, if that's even possible. The holographic ones tout that they "align the proton flow through your body" or some such nonsense.

>> ^westy:

>> ^ghark:
The last crash was kind of weird, the car seemed to have slowed right down, yet when it hit the car in front it caused the car it hit to go flying.

They don't have the same physics in Canada , this is also the reason why they have a strange accent.


ahh I see. Lucky they didn't build the large hadron collider there then, the scientists would have had an awful time explaining extra bouncy protons and the like.

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^AeroMechanical:
As a related note, someone told me that a hydrogen atom is similar in relative scale to the solar system, with the sun being the nucleus and the earth being the electron. I dunno if that's right or not, but it's pretty cool anyways. Maybe Pluto was the electron. Back when it was still a planet.

That interested me.. if you're interested;
Accepted radius of a proton (nucleus of hydrogen) is 0.88 10^-15 m
Radius of sun = 6.96 10^8 m
Divide radius of sun by radius of proton to give how many times bigger the sun is than the proton = 7.91 10^23
Radius of an orbiting electron = 0.0529 10^-9 m
Multiply orbital radius of electron by our scale factor = 4.2 10^13 m.
We're 1.4 10^11 m away from the sun (that's the value of an astronomical unit, it's as good as you can ask for when talking about orbital radius, cos it's not a circle). So it's out by a factor of 300ish. (cos i rounded here and there)
Pluto's orbit is very eccentric (more elliptical than circular), but at its closest, it's about 4.4 10^12 m away from the sun. Out by a factor of 10 there. Or getting close to a factor of 5 at its furthest. Getting close, but still a pretty big difference.
^ all subject to change when (not if) i notice i've dropped a clanger

A factor of 300 is actually not that bad when you're talking about such big numbers.

>> ^AeroMechanical:

As a related note, someone told me that a hydrogen atom is similar in relative scale to the solar system, with the sun being the nucleus and the earth being the electron. I dunno if that's right or not, but it's pretty cool anyways. Maybe Pluto was the electron. Back when it was still a planet.


That interested me.. if you're interested;
Accepted radius of a proton (nucleus of hydrogen) is 0.88*10^-15 m
Radius of sun = 6.96*10^8 m
Divide radius of sun by radius of proton to give how many times bigger the sun is than the proton = 7.91*10^23

Radius of an orbiting electron = 0.0529*10^-9 m
Multiply orbital radius of electron by our scale factor = 4.2*10^13 m.

We're 1.4*10^11 m away from the sun (that's the value of an astronomical unit, it's as good as you can ask for when talking about orbital radius, cos it's not a circle). So it's out by a factor of 300ish. (cos i rounded here and there)

Pluto's orbit is very eccentric (more elliptical than circular), but at its closest, it's about 4.4*10^12 m away from the sun. Out by a factor of 10 there. Or getting close to a factor of 5 at its furthest. Getting close, but still a pretty big difference.

^ all subject to change when (not if) i notice i've dropped a clanger

>> ^xxovercastxx:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Estuffing17" title="member since May 2nd, 2010" class="profilelink">Estuffing17
Actually, because visible green light is at a higher energy level than red light, if an objects energy gap is high enough to let green light through, then red light will also pass through because it has even lower energy levels, not the other way around.
That's exactly what I said in my example.
As far as a translucent green material is concerned, when we perceive an object to have color, it is because that objects atoms are arranged in such a way that it reflects that wavelength of light (green in this case) back to our eye, while either absorbing, refracting or letting pass through photons of other wavelengths. Just because a piece of glass is green does not mean it will not allow other higher and lower energy photons to pass through it.
Green glass, as I understand it, is green because it's filtering out other colors. It's a simplified example, yes. Obviously you can have a little yellow or blue or whatever mixed in and it still looks "green".
But the energy gap explanation seems to mean that "green" glass would be letting all red, orange, and yellow light through since they are lower energy levels. It's one thing to say a little bit of another color is coming through and it's imperceptible. If all the "weaker" colors are coming through along with the green, it doesn't seem to me like it would look very green.


All the light at all the energy levels will pass through the material, you're right. But the extra bit that makes this make sense is that this isn't the only thing happening. You've seen a simple explanation of one thing. The other wavelengths of light are passing through the material, but not all in a straight line. Their paths are diverted and dispersed so you don't get a meaningful amount of these wavelengths of light entering your eye.

This is the reason the sky is blue. Light is refracted by particles in the substance through which it is traveling. The closer the wavelength of the light is to the particles it's being refracted by, the more it's course is altered. The blue end of the spectrum has the closest wavelength to the size of particles in the air.

When you look at the sky with your back to the sun, the light that makes it to your eyes will obviously have had to have it's path altered a lot by the particles in the air. Only the wavelengths that are closest to the size of the particles in the air will be altered this much, hence the sky looking blue.

The lower the sun, the more air there is for the light to pass through and the more the other wavelengths will be refracted. At midday on the equator the sun in a white dot surrounded by blue. There isn't enough air between you and the sun to cause anything other than the blue light to be refracted back to your eye, so if you're not looking at the sun (not good...) you're only going to see blue. At sunset there is a lot more air between you and the sun, enough for the longer wavelengths to be affected, hence the red colours spreading away from the sun causing the firey sunsets we all love.

So, to sum up; just because all the wavelengths of light can pass through something it doesn't necessarily follow that they aren't affected in any way at all. They can pass through but have their paths altered, hence the different colours you see.

I'd love a fuller explanation of this. How do the particles affect the protons? What makes them alter course?

>> ^AeroMechanical:

I think I used to have one of those on my car.
proton torpedoes?

>> ^conan:

useless without explanation. could also be a moby music video.


Well, being a biology professor let me try and help you out...

0:13 - 0:22 - mitochondria

0:23 - 0:29 shows glucose (long blue string) with associated phosphates floating in the cytoplasm. I believe those are phosphates (?) coming off as it enters the mitochondrion. Though there should only be 1 phosphate, so this may be incorrect.

0:30 - 0:32 show the extramembranous proteins on the exterior of the mitochondrion.

0:37 we enter the mitochondrion.

0:38 - 0:47 we float through the mitochondrion. Notice the green double-helixed DNA at the left and bottom of the screen. This is mitochondrial DNA. I believe those other colored things floating around are later molecules from the Krebs Cycle - they could be miscellaneous intermediary molecules such as oxaloacetate and citrate.

0:48 - 0:54 we see the cristae (inner foldings) of the mitochondrion with the transmembranous proteins along it. The small molecules floating around are ADP and ATP.

0:55 - 0:59 we see NADH and FADH2 floating to a transmembranous protein (purple) and becoming oxidized, losing their electron. The green/blue colored sea on the bottom of the screen is the membrane (phospholipids).

1:00 - 1:01 we flip to the opposite side of the membrane, to the outer membranous space. The tentacle-looking things is part of the membrane, the phospholipid bilayer.

1:02 - 1:07 I'm not entirely sure which part this is...if I had to guess I'd say it was an electron carrier.. perhaps ferredoxin transporting electrons from protein to protein in the electron transfer chain, which is why it glows (electron-rich) as it moves from protein to protein.

1:07 - 1:10 we see millions of protons flowing DOWN through the transmembranous proteins, into the outer membranous space (bottom) from the matrix (top). This creates a hypertonic concentration of protons in the outer membranous space.

1:10 - 1:14 we see ATP synthase, the main energy-producing enzyme that rotates on the cristae (part of the electron transport chain). This enzyme has a stationary portion and a rotating portion (purple and part of the brown at the top). When protons flow back into the matrix from the intermembranous space, ATP synthase rotates, creating energy. You can see the dull yellow-colored (energy-low) ADP getting transformed (being phosphorylated) into the bright white-colored (energy-high) ATP.

1:15 - 1:21 we see the phoshporylation of ATP up close. A phosphate is added to ADP to produce ATP. This is done by ATP synthase via the energy produced by the movement of protons.

1:22 - 1:29 just an overview of the whole phosphorylation process. You can see the energy-rich ATPs moving into the outer-membranous space through pores in the membrane.

1:30 - 1:32 shows a close-up of this ATP movement, to the outer-membranous space, and eventually out of the mitochondrion to be used by the cell for energy.