Interesting Stuff Thread

swampgas · 09-10-2013 2:57pm

For even larger examples in science fiction, check out Ringworld, or even the Halo rings in the Halo games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld‎
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(megastructure)‎

Same principle: spin something to create an outward force, indistinguishable from gravity.

Mr. CooL ICE · 09-10-2013 3:16pm

Only time I came across the Coriolis effect was in CoD: Modern Warfare when you had to snipe a guy about 2km away. Basically, when looking through the scope, you could see a slight delay between pulling the trigger and the bullet landing. Because the earth was rotating, the position of the target relative to the crosshair was going to be different by the time it lands, meaning you needed to compensate with the aim.

Sarky · 09-10-2013 3:22pm

swampgas wrote: »

For even larger examples in science fiction, check out Ringworld, or even the Halo rings in the Halo games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld‎
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(megastructure)‎

Same principle: spin something to create an outward force, indistinguishable from gravity.

Yeah, but Halo is crap. :pac:

I have to admit preference for the Citadel in Mass Effect.

swampgas · 09-10-2013 3:27pm

Obliq wrote: »

But yeah, my question was whether the center of the gyrating object (that stays level, like in a gyroscope) would have that force acting on it - in which case it wouldn't matter how small the craft was as only the outer sphere would be spinning - but I guess not....:o

At the center of a rotating space station there would be zero gravity. As you moved out towards the edge, gravity would appear to increase, and when you reached the outermost part of the station gravity would appear strongest.

It's a bit like standing at the center of a spinning playground roundabout - you're spinning but experiencing no sideways force at the center, but as you move to the edge of the roundabout you feel a stronger and stronger force trying to throw you off.

Also, an easy way to see the coriolis force is to stand on a roundabout facing the center, and swing your leg back and forth - it will move left and right as it swings forward and back.

Coriolis forces are also what cause the rotating winds in the atmosphere, as winds moving towards the poles from the equator (and vice versa) are curled round.

sbsquarepants · 09-10-2013 3:42pm

swampgas wrote: »

And there is no difference between the force exerted by gravity and that exerted by spinning a spaceship, they're both just mass experiencing acceleration. ".

I never thought of it that way, but you're right. I had kind of imagined it as "fake" gravity - doing the same job but not being the same thing, but as you said it's just acceleration doesn't really matter what's causing it.

robindch · 09-10-2013 3:42pm

swampgas wrote: »

Coriolis forces are also what cause the rotating winds in the atmosphere, as winds moving towards the poles from the equator (and vice versa) are curled round.

Coriolis forces are peculiar, but for rotating weirdness, gyroscopis motion is hard to beat:

http://www.thehowandwhy.com/Gyroscopic.html

swampgas · 09-10-2013 3:59pm

Sarky wrote: »

<blasphemy expunged>

I have to admit preference for the Citadel in Mass Effect.

Unintentional pun ??? :pac:

robindch · 09-10-2013 4:01pm

20 libraries which should make you drool:

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/the-20-most-spellbinding-university-libraries-in-the-world-8778283.html?action=gallery&ino=1

swampgas · 09-10-2013 4:06pm

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I never thought of it that way, but you're right. I had kind of imagined it as "fake" gravity - doing the same job but not being the same thing, but as you said it's just acceleration doesn't really matter what's causing it.

It's known as the Equivalence Principle.

Turtwig · 09-10-2013 4:09pm

Meh,

Best library of them all.
KS-slate-02-lg._V399249911_.jpg

No excessive walking, no heavy lifting, easy access to books and instant dictionary.

Bannasidhe · 09-10-2013 4:10pm

Jernal wrote: »

Meh,

Best library of them all.

No excessive walking, no heavy lifting, easy access to books and instant dictionary.

I love my kindle.

That is all.

James74 · 10-10-2013 3:04pm

swampgas wrote: »

At the center of a rotating space station there would be zero gravity. As you moved out towards the edge, gravity would appear to increase, and when you reached the outermost part of the station gravity would appear strongest.

It's a bit like standing at the center of a spinning playground roundabout - you're spinning but experiencing no sideways force at the center, but as you move to the edge of the roundabout you feel a stronger and stronger force trying to throw you off.

Also, an easy way to see the coriolis force is to stand on a roundabout facing the center, and swing your leg back and forth - it will move left and right as it swings forward and back.

Coriolis forces are also what cause the rotating winds in the atmosphere, as winds moving towards the poles from the equator (and vice versa) are curled round.

My favourite Arthur C. Clarke book Rendezvous with Rama deals with this exact effect. For anybody that hasn't read it I highly recommend it. Great technical details, interesting science but above all a damn good story... and you could polish it off in one sitting.

Cabaal · 11-10-2013 11:01am

Praise be to Lesus!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24489512

Vatican pulls papal medal which misspelt name of Jesus

Hotblack Desiato · 11-10-2013 1:27pm

As the inscription is in Latin, shouldn't it have been Iesus not Jesus? I to L is a more common mistaka to maka.

(tuts about declining journalism standards at the BBC...)

recedite · 12-10-2013 11:03am

Not being a latin scholar, I've checked wiki and "Lesus" seems to be the correct version in that language. Interestingly the name Lesus was used throughout the 1611 King James bible.
The original Aramaic name seems to have been Joshua.
In Arabic, Azerbaijani, and in Old Irish its Íosa.
In Finnish its Jeesus.
In modern Irish, Jaysus.

PopePalpatine · 12-10-2013 11:31am

Ah here, Lesus alone! :pac:

12-10-2013 8:00pm

TheChizler · 13-10-2013 5:01am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It's funny cause it's true?

magicbastarder · 13-10-2013 8:48am

he should have thought that one out a bit better.

Sulla Felix · 13-10-2013 11:43am

It's a troll. Like the deGrasse Tyson one about there being more stars in the universe than atoms which caught a few people in YLYL recently. :pac:

FouxDaFaFa · 15-10-2013 10:12pm

Glen Greenwald has left the Guardian and is setting up his own news organisation.

I wonder if it will work or if it will crash and burn?

Greenwald said he looked forward to creating a new organization with “no preexisting institutional strictures on what you can do.”

pauldla · 16-10-2013 12:49am

Short, interesting article about the status of religion in contemporary China.

Yes, I know, I'm banging on about China again. One-trick pony, eh?

China has highest rate of atheism in the world, but spirituality remains strong

Not sure I agree with the coda, though. Looks to me that the writer is confusing atheism with nihilism.

it is in society’s interest that the public believes in something as opposed to believing in nothing

KyussBishop · 16-10-2013 12:57am

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

Glen Greenwald has left the Guardian and is setting up his own news organisation.

I wonder if it will work or if it will crash and burn?

Just saw that now myself - very interesting, have been following his writing for at least half a decade now, and this is great to see; I think that could go exceptionally well with him at the helm, and would be very good to see more journalists taken in as protégé to learn from him, as there are not many people out there who even remotely compare to him, in quality of journalism.

obplayer · 16-10-2013 1:10am

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html

AI here we come, let's hope it's friendly.

Turtwig · 16-10-2013 1:28am

Need a non Daily Mail link. All I get when I click that are cute kittens.

Sulla Felix · 16-10-2013 5:46pm

Jernal wrote: »

Need a non Daily Mail link. All I get when I click that are cute kittens.

Wired has one about how it's shut down over the budget mess.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/15/dwave-nasa

obplayer · 16-10-2013 10:18pm

Jernal wrote: »

Need a non Daily Mail link. All I get when I click that are cute kittens.

Try this Daily mail one
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2461133/Google-D-Wave-quantum-computing-solve-global-warming.html

Turtwig · 16-10-2013 10:20pm

Um, I use an extension called kittenblock which means any time I end up in the Daily Mail domain I'll see pictures of cute kittens and cups of tea.

robindch · 17-10-2013 4:20pm

A guy with some time on his hands stitches together a few hi-res photos of Saturn which Cassini took last week - the composite image is available here.

And here's the lo-res version:

Mark Hamill · 17-10-2013 8:30pm

robindch wrote: »

A guy with some time on his hands stitches together a few hi-res photos of Saturn which Cassini took last week - the composite image is available here.

And here's the lo-res version:

Kinda looks like Saturn is wearing a bow tie (bottom left of the sphere). :pac:

Hotblack Desiato · 18-10-2013 12:14am

Due to the shutdown they were unable to instruct Cassini to stop taking pictures during the shutdown

Bannasidhe · 18-10-2013 11:51am

Perfectly preserved 1.8 million-year-old skull 'could re-write history of human evolution'
Palaeontologists believe finds could re-write early history of human evolution

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/perfectly-preserved-18-millionyearold-skull-could-rewrite-history-of-human-evolution-8887039.html

kiffer · 18-10-2013 12:01pm

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Perfectly preserved 1.8 million-year-old skull 'could re-write history of human evolution'
Palaeontologists believe finds could re-write early history of human evolution

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/perfectly-preserved-18-millionyearold-skull-could-rewrite-history-of-human-evolution-8887039.html

Anyone else annoyed that the url says 18 million and not 1.8?

PopePalpatine · 18-10-2013 12:46pm

AFAIK dots can't be included outside of www . urlname . domain.

Sarky · 18-10-2013 1:06pm

You can just picture J C dancing around screeching "CHECKMATE ATHEISTS!".

Knex* · 18-10-2013 1:28pm

PopePalpatine wrote: »

AFAIK dots can't be included outside of www . urlname . domain.

Yeah, basically this.

kiffer · 18-10-2013 2:40pm

PopePalpatine wrote: »

AFAIK dots can't be included outside of www . urlname . domain.

.nope

seamus · 18-10-2013 2:53pm

PopePalpatine wrote: »

AFAIK dots can't be included outside of www . urlname . domain.

They sure can, but having dots in filenames can pose some issues when you're trying to do things programmatically. Afaik, the point of having big long Urls is to do with search engines, but big long filenames often don't play nicely with content management systems. So in order to do a form of mapping between the url and the underlying information, they may strip out "non-word" characters from the title of the article to make this mapping easier. It's all really boring programming stuff.

Sarky · 18-10-2013 2:57pm

I've tried working with files ending in .fasta.gas.zip.tar.gz.qual.txt.zip before and it's not f*king pleasant.

Bannasidhe · 21-10-2013 1:55pm

scientists using an experimental setup with a similar crystal with the one found in a shipwreck have shown that such stones could indeed have helped the Vikings navigate from Norway to North America.

“The Vikings could have discovered this, simply by choosing a transparent crystal and looking through it through a small hole in a screen,” study researcher Guy Ropars said. “The understanding of the complete mechanism and the knowledge of the polarization of light is not necessary.”

It’s believed the Vikings used a common calcite crystal, called Icelandic spar. This stone has the special property that allows light to get polarized and broken into two – “ordinary” and “extraordinary” beams – when sunlight enters the crystal. Vikings might have calibrated calcite crystal sunstones by scanning them across a clear sky and noting the sun’s position when the crystal brightened. They could then repeat the trick to locate the sun when it was no longer visible by guiding themselves after the same reference point, subsequently marked.

Read more at http://www.zmescience.com/research/sunstone-viking-magical-compass-proved-by-science/#yCIe1p0SKsll6HeY.99

Cabaal · 21-10-2013 4:51pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24583903

A trainee Catholic nun has appeared in court charged with killing her newborn child at a convent in Washington DC.

The unnamed nun allegedly found the child cold and not breathing, and transported the body in a luggage bag to a local hospital along with Ms Amoa, court documents state.

That seems a mighty odd way to transport the body of a baby you are supposed to care about under your faith,

Sarky · 21-10-2013 4:53pm

The baby was already born, it's well-established that religion doesn't give a f*ck after that point.

Liamario · 21-10-2013 5:00pm

I don't call that situation tragic. I call it murder. And no attempt at religious justification is going to change that.

James74 · 22-10-2013 4:45pm

...but of course, this universe and everything in it was made just for us. Bit of a waste really.

http://exoplanets.newscientistapps.com/

robindch · 22-10-2013 4:48pm

Copper pipe and neodymium magnet - WTF?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BeFoz3Ypo4

Turtwig · 22-10-2013 4:56pm

robindch wrote: »

Copper pipe and neodymium magnet - WTF?
<<5BeFoz3Ypo4>>

Physics bitch!

Wibbs · 22-10-2013 6:30pm

recedite wrote: »

The original Aramaic name seems to have been Joshua.

Yeshua. Joshua is a slightly different form of the name. There's a bit in one of the gospels that only makes sense if his name kinda sounded like Joshua, but yea they're pretty much the same root/name(kinda like different spellings and pronunciations of the Irish name Ciaran/Keiran/etc keer awn or keerin). It means the deliverer IIRC? Like Fry from Futurama...

In Arabic, Azerbaijani, and in Old Irish its Íosa.

That's from the Greek iesous originally. The Arabic world being more in contact with that part of the world, didn't take on the slightly later Latin Iesus, from where we(by a circuitous route) get to Jesus, instead they call him Isa, not unlike how the Irish did originally. Interesting how a word can travel in unexpected ways and interesting that the Old Irish although far more exposed to Latin instead seemed to favour the Greek name.

In modern Irish, Jaysus.

legspin · 23-10-2013 8:19am

Wibbs wrote: »

Interesting how a word can travel in unexpected ways and interesting that the Old Irish although far more exposed to Latin instead seemed to favour the Greek name.

Isn't there something about the early Irish church being influenced as much by the eastern school as the west. Indeed, I heard that Henry II's excursion was blessed by Adrian IV partly to bring the Irish church back in line with Rome.*

*Can't remember where I heard that so I have no quotes or references to back it up unfortunately.

Bannasidhe · 23-10-2013 9:36am

legspin wrote: »

Isn't there something about the early Irish church being influenced as much by the eastern school as the west. Indeed, I heard that Henry II's excursion was blessed by Adrian IV partly to bring the Irish church back in line with Rome.*

*Can't remember where I heard that so I have no quotes or references to back it up unfortunately.

Structure of the Gaelic church followed the Coptic monastic model more than the Roman diocesan one.

That was one of the many issues Rome had with the church in Ireland but I haven't had my coffee yet so I'll spare you all the details.

* that bit made me twitch.

legspin · 23-10-2013 9:50am

Bannasidhe wrote: »

* that bit made me twitch.

Sorry.

Interesting Stuff Thread

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