The second law of thermodynamics in action.

The music is Summer -- Allegro non molto from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi.

I think risk is the primary deterrent. It is the same logic behind becoming a scientist, doctor, or lawyer.

It is a fact we make a lot of money, but not everyone does it. There are more factors than simply 'this is in my best financial interests'. You are presenting things as they are absolute black and white, which they are decidedly not.

>> ^imstellar28:
^tell me this. why do you need incentive for people to enter a $1,000,000,000,000 industry? you don't think the sheer profit available is enough?


A good example of this would be:

MRI Industry
Microwave Industry
Cellular Communication Industry
Nuclear Energy Industry
Computer Industry(By way of the transistor, substrates, etc.)
Genetic Engineering Industry

Basically anything except Railroad and Oil...

Hey wait... Those had incentives... Carnot is basically the founder of thermodynamics. And the British Government gave him tons of money to research steam engines. And research into the science of mining for oil is supported by the government, too. So yeah, I guess your question is silly. Regardless of the profits to be made governments have always provided incentives in one form or another to support industry, because ensuring a good economy is in their best interests.

Can I get an amen?

What fascinates me is the prospect of possible abiogenesis from other forces besides thermodynamic, electrical and mechanical. Or even just variations in evolution. Take plants for example; we know that plants are alive, but they are inherently different from us in basic structure. Same with insects, as compared to a warm-blooded mammal. What forms of life are out there that we have yet to find? What could they look like? Or even better yet, what forms of life are still here in our present "field of view" that we have yet to recognize?

Love stuff like this.

The second law of thermodynamics says that energy will flow from a higher source to a lower source in the form of heat. So next time you walk out into the sun, know that all the heat you feel - and all the heat everything around you for thousands of miles receives - is pure usable energy.

I don't understand your point.

My impression is the following: the consensus in physics is that collapsing the wave-function does indeed have physical meaning and it is not just a mathematical construct. If this is where you take issue then, we will have to just disagree. I think the remainder of your comment merely supports what is called the Coppenhagen Interpretation.

Ask a quantum computing researcher "How come your relaxation times are so short?" And they will say, the thermodynamic noise in our system is collapsing the wave-function of our qubit.

Some of this stuff is up to interpretation, others not so much.

Here is a nice experiment about what I am talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern%E2%80%93Gerlach_experiment

>> ^Irishman:
The 'collapse of the wave function' is a mathematical term relating to a measurement being taken of a quantum system. NOT that they don't interact - this is wrong, the opposite in fact is true.

Exposure to some atoms of soluble mercury from amalgam fillings is thermodynamically inevitable. It's just a question of
1. Calculating the dose
2. Determining the long-term effect of that dose, if any.

I won't argue with their calculation of (1), but the studies on (2) are weak in methodology, since all of them that I have seen are too short, non-human, non-randomized, not double-blind, or fail to consider effects on intelligence.
The NCAHF is a little private hobby-job, not an authority. Try the National Academy of *Sciences.

And I have both kinds of fillings. Polymer fillings are commonly used on front teeth because of cosmetic concerns (color) and are deemed safe by the medical establishment. So why not also use them on back teeth? The NCAHF has nothing to support the claim that polymers are inferior. Those concerned with cosmetics would be getting polymer fillings in both places regardless. The difference in cost is small and will likely get smaller when patents on the newer technology expire. Cost parity would make this issue moot, as then no one would have any reason to get an amalgam filling.

To be on the safe side, don't get more than two vaccination shots at once and opt for the thiomersal-free variety.

There are plenty of easily-excreted preservatives that could be substituted for mercury. Nothing you do to dress up mercury can make it completely safe. The FDA has set no safe lower threshold for methylmercury exposure, and it's thermodynamically inevitable that any mercury compound will form traces of methylmercury in vivo.

Thiomersal has been used since the 1920's. It was grandfathered in by the FDA without adequate human toxicology testing. The only reason for these preservatives is to prevent bacterial growth in multi-dose vaccine vials after opening. I.E., they risk people's health with mercury-containing preservatives to save a couple of pennies per shot on independent packaging. The whole idea of using a general biocide as a preservative in something intended to be injected into human blood is ridiculous.

no sarcasm intended in my previous comment, and no offense taken. thanks for the explanation though... if i ever get to make a channel i'll make one for inventions.

In reply to this comment by rembar:
No offense to you. I've gotta stick by the guidelines I've set for the channel, and one of those is: Perpetual motion machines get chucked right out. The machine by itself might have some interesting properties to it, but it's not perpetual motion.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
sounds good rembar.

In reply to this comment by rembar:
EN, I am removing this post from the Science channel. That link pushed it over the edge and off the cliff. Sensational journalism loses out consistently to the laws of thermodynamics.

No offense to you. I've gotta stick by the guidelines I've set for the channel, and one of those is: Perpetual motion machines get chucked right out. The machine by itself might have some interesting properties to it, but it's not perpetual motion.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
sounds good rembar.

In reply to this comment by rembar:
EN, I am removing this post from the Science channel. That link pushed it over the edge and off the cliff. Sensational journalism loses out consistently to the laws of thermodynamics.

sounds good rembar.

In reply to this comment by rembar:
EN, I am removing this post from the Science channel. That link pushed it over the edge and off the cliff. Sensational journalism loses out consistently to the laws of thermodynamics.

EN, I am removing this post from the Science channel. That link pushed it over the edge and off the cliff. Sensational journalism loses out consistently to the laws of thermodynamics.

Perpetual motion is an idea dating back hundreds of years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Techniques
Don't blame me for pointing out that 'free' energy is impossible, blame the laws of thermodynamics.

I am not saying I disagree with your overarching beliefs, but you present them in a terrible way.

1. No biologist, geneticist, virologist would say evolution is a fact. It is a theory. The same way GR, Quantum Mechanics, and LQCD are theories, it just happens to have a copious amount of supporting evidence. Ask Doc_M.

7. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, I think you mean. And what it really says it that disorder will increase (or stay the same, see Kittel) in a closed system. The earth is an open system, the number of particles for example can change, ergo, the second law need not apply.

Yeah, are a native english speaker? You should check out a word processing software like Word or WordPerfect. Something, please for the love of Choggie, delineate your thoughts with a carriage return.

Thanks, and happy sifting.

MH

I am not sure this is based on science.

If one made a serious effort to produce alternative food sources it isn't clear to me that they would not produce different amounts of carbon dioxide. Also, I have found no scientific peer reviewed papers on ISI confirming this conjecture

Moreover, I think there is a thermodynamical difference between carbon dioxide and other green house gases produced by fossil fuels and those produced from defecation.

I'm not disputing that it might be useful to turn water into
hydrogen and oxygen for ease of transport and use, but one
main corollary of thermodynamics is that "there ain't no free
lunch". Even if this was electrolysis via RF (which I doubt;
look at the miniscule bubbles - they can't support that size
flame) and was 100 percent efficient, all you've done is converted
the electrical energy into chemical energy. This is measured
in one way by Gibbs free energy for 2H2O -> 2H2 + O2, what
one could call "the integrity of the water molecule", which
is really the difference in free energy of the bonds in
water and the gases 2H2 and O2. What it looks like to me
is similar to what happens when you put a candle in a microwave
oven. Check out these videos:

and

The first shows the plasma can be initiated on the smoke alone,
while the second shows the plasma dissociated from the flame once
it gets started. I think that what is happening in this saltwater
situation is a little salty water is ejected from the tube which
then starts a plasma going, which is constrained to appear as a flame
because the RF is restricted to the area above the tube, rather
than the whole cavity of a microwave, where the plasma can rise to the
top of the inverted glass.