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Things Scientists do that make you crap your pants

  • 16-12-2006 1:37am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,156 ✭✭✭


    So Like this one time in Physics class, our teacher who was every bit a scientist nerd, told us about the first Atomic bomb test. He went through all the usual details about why they did it : Mutally assured bollix, trump the nazis, show the commies etc. But he dropped a bit of a bombshell at the end : The scientists involved had a Very Real Fear that the test detonation would ignite the nitrogen around us and set the Atmosphere on Fire.

    Did it stop the test Detonation? No. It didnt.

    I didnt belive it til the invention of the intarweb til i could look up paranoid sh1t but it turns out it aint Paranoid, Physicists on the Manhatten project thought it could happen!

    Anything the white-coats are doing keeping ye awake?


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,216 ✭✭✭✭monkeyfudge


    This bad boy is pretty scary.

    ITER will run hotter than the sun and it's very close to home.

    It's the third most expensive science project after the Manhattan Project and the International Space Station.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,305 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    This bad boy is pretty scary.

    ITER will run hotter than the sun and it's very close to home.

    It's the third most expensive science project after the Manhattan Project and the International Space Station.
    It is kind of cool that so many different countries have joined together, though.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,608 ✭✭✭✭sceptre


    DaBreno wrote:
    But he dropped a bit of a bombshell at the end : The scientists involved had a Very Real Fear that the test detonation would ignite the nitrogen around us and set the Atmosphere on Fire.
    Your teacher wasn't nerdy enough. Hans Bethe worked with Ed Teller and Emil Konopinski to prove that this was impossible before they carried out the initial test. The original idea that it might happen had been Teller's so it's pretty emphatic that they didn't have a "Very Real Fear" of any kind that this even could happen. The idea took legs when Robert Oppenheimer wouldn't shut the hell up about it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Kel Varnsen


    The invention of aloe latex.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 416 ✭✭oRlyYaRly


    I'm ****ting myself over what those Gillette scientists get up to! :eek:


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭ziggy


    This post has been deleted.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,512 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Gray goo

    GMO's that exist only for profit. There isn't a food shortage.

    The use of antiboitics without perscriptions, or some way of forcing people to finish a course as otherwise you just breed anti-biotic resistant germs.

    Star wars and such stuff. If they ever perfect a perfect shield the yanks will behave more like jerks.

    Polywater was another of those big scare things


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,156 ✭✭✭DaBreno


    sceptre wrote:
    Your teacher wasn't nerdy enough. Hans Bethe worked with Ed Teller and Emil Konopinski to prove that this was impossible before they carried out the initial test. The original idea that it might happen had been Teller's so it's pretty emphatic that they didn't have a "Very Real Fear" of any kind that this even could happen. The idea took legs when Robert Oppenheimer wouldn't shut the hell up about it.

    Hehe. Scientists work on experiments. Whos atmosphere did he test an atomic bomb on before he could pass it safe for ours?

    Ironic bonus : NYTimes.com through a Google of Emil Konopinski show that "he made testing of the first hydrogen bomb possible by showing that it would not destroy the world". Lol.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,255 ✭✭✭✭The_Minister


    GMO's that exist only for profit. There isn't a food shortage.
    GMO's have other uses. Vitamin A has been added to rice. If this is introduced in asia, it could stop millions of people from going blind.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,156 ✭✭✭DaBreno


    ziggy67 wrote:
    Those Laboritoire Garnier people scare me.
    Crazy f***ers!

    My God Man. Have you seen their ads?
    Hubba!


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 28,128 ✭✭✭✭Mossy Monk


    oRlyYaRly wrote:
    I'm ****ting myself over what those Gillette scientists get up to! :eek:

    a damn fine shave i had with one only 20 minutes ago


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,794 ✭✭✭JC 2K3


    Inventing laxatives.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,048 ✭✭✭SimpleSam06


    Lace my oatmeal with laxatives. :(

    Edit: Doh! Beat me by a pip, you cur!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭ziggy


    This post has been deleted.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,437 ✭✭✭Crucifix


    Creating black holes in labs is a bit worrying. But sure fuck it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,352 ✭✭✭funky penguin


    JC 2K3 wrote:
    Inventing laxatives.


    QuitE DrY good sir! Well done.

    /me hands measuring tape.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,238 ✭✭✭Kwekubo


    If I recall A Short History of Nearly Everything correctly: going by current technologies for telescopy etc, if an extinction level meteor was heading for earth, chances are we wouldn't know about it until it starts glowing as it reaches the atmosphere, which would be about three seconds before it hits us :eek: Can we not pay a couple more astronomers to keep sketch round the clock?


  • Posts: 2,874 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Kwekubo wrote:
    If I recall A Short History of Nearly Everything correctly: going by current technologies for telescopy etc, if an extinction level meteor was heading for earth, chances are we wouldn't know about it until it starts glowing as it reaches the atmosphere, which would be about three seconds before it hits us :eek: Can we not pay a couple more astronomers to keep sketch round the clock?


    Id rather not know to be honest. Theres not much we could do about it if there was one headed our way. Its not like we can pack up and change planets.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 16,649 CMod ✭✭✭✭faceman


    Crucifix wrote:
    Creating black holes in labs is a bit worrying. But sure fuck it.

    more worryingly...
    About 12-18 months ago scientists in the states (sorry i cant find the old links) where working on recreating the conditions that caused the original big bang - in a labratory experiment.

    However and thank God, they decided at the last minute (days before they were due to begin) to cancel the project as they didnt know whether the "new universe" they were about to create would continue to expand and engulf our universe! no joke.

    Scary.

    No amount of bruce willis flying spaceships into a meteor would stop that!! (altho it mite stop those annoying ads!!) :p


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,512 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    GMO's have other uses. Vitamin A has been added to rice. If this is introduced in asia, it could stop millions of people from going blind.
    Just like adding iodine to salt could stop thyriod problems in parts of india. Except a lot of the merchants there only pretend to add the iodine, they charge more for their ordinary salt. There are other sources of Vitamin A , like a balanced diet. Which reminds me the reason cereals here are fortified with vitamins is because they have to be by law. I just can't see kellogs selling GMO rice krispies because they would get hammered by bad PR.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,395 ✭✭✭Marksie


    GMO's have other uses. Vitamin A has been added to rice. If this is introduced in asia, it could stop millions of people from going blind.

    Well GMO covers a wide range of stuff not only food. Recombinant vaccine is "genetically modified".

    I did recall reading about a company who was experimenting on a contraceptive vacine for mice in australia. They were using the attenunated mouse polio virus as a vector and aimed to enhance the immune response by adding a receptor. Unfortunately this addition switched off one arm of the immune response and resulted in death 100% of the time, even in those mice previously immunised.

    They stated that this would be a very cheap way of creating a deadly human strain so published how it could be done... great thinking!


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 16,649 CMod ✭✭✭✭faceman


    None of this talk of GMO is making me crap my pants...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 950 ✭✭✭Feral Mutant


    Two words, Brown Note. Fortunately it doesn't work.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,558 ✭✭✭netwhizkid


    Lets hope scientists don't work out how to hit the brown note or we might all crap our pants.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,104 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tar.Aldarion


    I doubt such a note exists.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 34 fulofh20


    Laxatives, did they invent them as a practical joke? They sure work :D


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Regional East Moderators, Regional Midlands Moderators, Regional Midwest Moderators, Regional Abroad Moderators, Regional North Mods, Regional West Moderators, Regional South East Moderators, Regional North East Moderators, Regional North West Moderators, Regional South Moderators Posts: 8,037 CMod ✭✭✭✭Gaspode


    Sneaking up behind me in the lab and dropping a stainless steel jug just as I'm about to mix two chemicals, or light a flame under something. Now that has made me crap my pants a few times!
    Science humour is best served cold and in small doses.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,305 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Two words, Brown Note. Fortunately it doesn't work.
    If played on your radio, no. If played with the right frequency, using some very expensive speakers, proberly. I remember something about if you're too close to the massive speakers at concerts, its not good for your heart, or smoething, so noise can affect you.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,338 ✭✭✭aphex™


    faceman wrote:
    more worryingly...
    About 12-18 months ago scientists in the states (sorry i cant find the old links) where working on recreating the conditions that caused the original big bang - in a labratory experiment.

    However and thank God, they decided at the last minute (days before they were due to begin) to cancel the project as they didnt know whether the "new universe" they were about to create would continue to expand and engulf our universe! no joke.

    Scary.

    No amount of bruce willis flying spaceships into a meteor would stop that!! (altho it mite stop those annoying ads!!) :p
    I watched a documentary on friday and it said it would create its own space and move away from our galaxy so we'd be grand.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,973 ✭✭✭fly_agaric


    ITER will run hotter than the sun and it's very close to home.

    Think I'd gladly take ITER as a neighbour over some of the chem stuff down by the banks of the Lovely Lee. Or the fireworks factories which are always exploding (it seems). Or a massive oil storage depot [one blew up in the UK around xmas last year (AFAICR)]


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 697 ✭✭✭the Shades


    I simply don't believe in science, saves me endless headaches.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,338 ✭✭✭aphex™


    the Shades wrote:
    I simply don't believe in science, saves me endless headaches.
    Okay, what do you believe in then?


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,104 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tar.Aldarion


    Either humour, or [strike]retardation[/strike] [strike]or Creationism[/strike] or something.

    Sound can of course affect you, resonance is a phenomenom that can be caused, doesn't mean the brown noise does what it says on the tin.
    Sick with laxtivs.
    >_>


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 697 ✭✭✭the Shades


    Okay, what do you believe in then?


    That's an interesting question and I'm sure I'll find an answer to it someday. For now I could only answer 'life.'


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,485 ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    Id rather not know to be honest. Theres not much we could do about it if there was one headed our way. Its not like we can pack up and change planets.

    I read a bit about this a while ago. There are actually a variety of options open to us. If you spot it far enough away, even a gentle nudge for a long time would send it out of the earths path (for example). Nukes are also an option.

    Also....and this wouldn't really be used as an option for avoiding an oul' rock, but it is not beyond the realms of human ability to move the earth to a different orbit. :eek: I read that in regard to an expanding / dieing sun (many many many years from now). :)


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,104 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tar.Aldarion


    Who cares if humainity survives, we will all be dead by the time any such measures would be necessary.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,574 ✭✭✭Slutmonkey57b


    Nukes are not an option. Extinction level asteroids are far bigger than people like to think they are. A nuke would a) not break them up and b) not provide enough energy to divert them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭The Gnome


    deswalsh wrote:
    Science humour is best served cold and in small doses.

    You can kiss my ascus!!!

    >_>

    <_<

    ~_~


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,512 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    the Shades wrote:
    I simply don't believe in science, saves me endless headaches.
    But you still use the products of it ?

    you are henceforth banned from using Asprin or Paracetamol.
    see how many endless headaches you have now muuha muuhahaha :p


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 16,649 CMod ✭✭✭✭faceman


    I watched a documentary on friday and it said it would create its own space and move away from our galaxy so we'd be grand.


    ehhhhh now that freaks me out!! Im not a physicist but that sounds like crazy talk! (said by them not by you my friend!) :eek:


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,061 ✭✭✭✭Terry


    Maybe this universe was created before and it's the one we are living in now and in 15 billion years the same thing will happen again and we'll all be here doing the same thing and stuff.

    Oh yeah, there's a boards user named "the scientist" who puts "T. Sc" at the end of all his posts. doesn't really make me crap my pants, but it does piss me off. hey, dude. see the left hand side of the screen? yeah, your user name is there. we can all fucking tell it's you.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 288 ✭✭patzer117


    Back to the Nuke thing this is a post from the somethingawful.com forums, the guy knows what he's talking about when he's grilled on it later in the thread... i haven't seen it on boards.ie so sorry if it's been put up already, but it'd pretty interesting anyway

    "More from my old job. Things that no one should know. (I think all this is unclassified)

    We considered a loss of 70% of the civilian population, and "terrian loss" percentage of up to 60% a "winning strategy" in my old job.

    We were willing to go toe to toe, the Warsaw Pact and the NATO policy makers weren't. We were just sick of the threats and the bull****. I mean, if you want to dance, let's dance.

    Western Europe and Britian were written off in nearly all scenarios. Between SRBM's, and "Wave Generator Hits", you guys were more or less ****ed. You'd get off your missiles, and be gone. Buh-bye!

    Both sides aimed nuclear weapons at Australia for being mouthy. That's right, we planned on hitting Australia just for that "HA-HA! Nobody has a reason to nuke us, so go ahead, suckers!" comments Australia made. MAD means "Mutually Assured Destruction" and nobody got out alive. Plus, we were all dicks.

    If you weren't targeted for a nuclear ICBM or SRBM, you were targeted for chemical. Enjoy painful death, suckass.

    Prisons were routinely targeted to deny either side a conscripted military/workforce in the aftermath.

    Days after what everyone would think were the final strikes, subs would surface and hidden complexes would go fully online, and we'd nuke the rubble. Just to be dicks.

    At one time both sides found "enhanced jacketing" to be a funny thing to do. This would increase the time the area was uninhabitable for up to 1,000 more years.

    Biological weapons were to be deployed as a final "**** YOU!" to anyone who survived. The fact that some of them were "food source delivery vectored" was funny. "Wow, this steak and corn sure is tas... AAAARRRGGGHHHH!"

    We found it amusing that the American insistance that the Civil Defense programs had their funding cut and were mostly eliminated meant that most of the people would die who might have survived.

    After we were done with our big guns, we intended on fighting in a conventional sense, mainly using "pole hopping" troops. This meant that after everything was bombed into bite sized chunks, troops would fight over whose bite sized chunks they were.

    When we saw anti-nuclear war activists talking about 100 million megaton "continent busters" we'd always be jealous that we didn't have those. The largest weapon detonated was 54 megatons and was vastly wasteful in the amount of material used. Smaller, overlapping blast patterns caused more damage.

    Over a dozen small towns in various states successfully sued the US government to aquire land they thought was unused. When the explosive charges blow those multi-ton steel covers off, some people will be surprised by that cover flying through their living room.

    Early Soviet models of ICBM's forgot EMP shielding for the targeting and detonation systems. The mental image of all those missiles falling out of the sky and crashing into people's driveways was always good for a laugh.

    The insistence by activists that the very air itself would become radioactive always made us laugh. That's not how radiation works.

    According to rumor control after the fact, during the Russian Revolution, the order to fire one of the more remote missile grids went out by a supposed "rogue hard-liner general". For some reason it didn't happen, and rumor control stated it was the slipshod maintenance of the last 5 years of the Communist regime. Apparently the equipment was too old, too slopilly maintained, too cold, too brittle, and failed enmasse. Mostly, though, it was figured that the guy who got the order said: "Oh **** no. I'm not going down in history as the man who blew everyone to ****.", drank some vodka, and went back to his hooker.

    Some cities/countries were slated for nuclear hits just to be assholes. Let's face it, there was no real reason to nuke Nigeria, but why should they miss out on all the fun.

    If it wasn't nukes, highly persistant chemical agents were planned on being used on terrian in order to poison it for at least 5 years. Why? Because it was funny. "We made it through the nukes, let's hide in the swamp! MY SKIN IS MELTING! WHY, GOD, WHY?"

    So called "TV experts" on NBC Warfare had no real clue. This was proven in the days leading up to both Gulf Wars. One CNN expert was tossed out of the military because he was too stupid to correctly compute overpressure blast wave mechanics and effects with the help of a computer.

    Despite what the experts the activists trotted out claimed, doubling the amount of fissionable material does not double the radius of effect.

    Black people will burst into flame before white people from the thermal pulse. Apparently nuclear weapons are racist.

    It would only take 6 airbursts over the US to completely blanket it with a 450W EMP pulse. Theoritically, it would only take one, but why take chances? Eurasia would take only 3 at minimum, but was slated for 14.

    The chemical weapons used in the Iran/Iraq War were Russian in manufacture. We got to see film footage of the use.

    Three weeks after the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, plant growth was unbelievable. There was actually grass growing in the craters.

    Some people considered nuclear summer to be the real threat, not nuclear winter.

    Mt St. Helens detonated with 24 Megatons of force. Think about that for a second.

    Most of us were alcoholics within a year and the suicide rate was unbelievable."


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 16,649 CMod ✭✭✭✭faceman


    patzer117 wrote:
    Back to the Nuke thing this is a post from the somethingawful.com forums, the guy knows what he's talking about when he's grilled on it later in the thread... i haven't seen it on boards.ie so sorry if it's been put up already, but it'd pretty interesting anyway

    If its true, humanity sunk to a new low


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,649 ✭✭✭Catari Jaguar


    All their cloning and design your own baby stuff. They'll be able to clone dinosaurs soon. We know what will happen then, we've all seen "Billy and the Cloneasaurus".

    Also heard that Spider-Baby is in the pipeline. It's got the body of a spider and the mind of a baby...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,608 ✭✭✭✭sceptre


    DaBreno wrote:
    Hehe. Scientists work on experiments. Whos atmosphere did he test an atomic bomb on before he could pass it safe for ours?
    Scientists work on calculable evidence which they choose to verify with experiments. Earth's atmospheric pressure is too low to be able to support a self-propagating fusion of nitrogen (or specifically a self-propagating exothermic fusion of nitrogen and oxygen to form oxides of nitrogen) which was the initial daydreaming fear. That can be verified using one piece of paper and a sharpened pencil.

    Leaving that aside, the question was particularly whether the involved scientists had a "Very Real Fear". They didn't. They didn't have to as they knew how to usefully employ one piece of paper and a sharpened pencil. The original calculations are available and recreatable by anyone who can multiply. Now, rather than get involved in a silly discussion about how one can't really know, you know (because in this case, one certainly can), I'll leave my part of this side discussion there.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,061 ✭✭✭✭Terry


    how about the esquilax?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,117 ✭✭✭✭MrJoeSoap


    the Shades wrote:
    I simply don't believe in science, saves me endless headaches.

    Surely you can't be serious!?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,475 ✭✭✭Son Goku


    faceman wrote:
    ehhhhh now that freaks me out!! Im not a physicist but that sounds like crazy talk! (said by them not by you my friend!) :eek:
    The LHC will produce roughly one baby (i.e. very small) black hole every second. However that is only possible if Gravity turns quantum at the energies the LHC will probe.

    It is very unlikely that Gravity turns quantum at energies that low. Even if it does, the black holes are tiny and will last only a few milliseconds.

    And if people are still worried, the Antarctic Ice cap produces far more black holes than any collider ever could. There's a hole in the ozone layer there which allows raw cosmic rays to collide with atmospheric and ground particles at energies 10-100 stronger than any accelerator ever build (or can be built in the near future).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,312 ✭✭✭pbsuxok1znja4r


    Son Goku's username's namesake FTW

    Em...scientists don't do anything that really scares me. Or nothing that I yet know of. Ignorance really is bliss, I guess :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,483 ✭✭✭✭daveirl


    This post has been deleted.


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