Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2010 March 14

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March 14

Is it possible to cause a prolonged temperature increase (eben a small one) in the skull just through mental activity?

Is it possible to increase the temperature of the skull, even by only a slight amount, just through assiduous mental activity? If so, what kind of mental activity is appropriate that I could do to show this effect? (Note: I'm the poster who asked about boiling water above) 80.187.97.42 (talk) 00:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

A metabolic PET scan can show increased glucose oxidation occurring in parts of the brain where mental activity is occurring, but actual temperature increases are too small and thermal conductivity of human tissue too poor to measure any differences overlying the scalp. (And yes, it was obvious it was the same questioner.) alteripse (talk) 05:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Contrary to intuition and many claims in the popular literature, the increase in brain metabolism as a result of intense mental activity is actually pretty small, just a few percentage points. Our article Brain#Brain energy consumption gives a pointer to the scientific literature on this topic. A lot more heat is actually generated by the muscle-tensing that people tend to do when they are thinking very hard -- this can easily give rise to a misperception that it is the thinking itself that consumes energy. Looie496 (talk) 17:26, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly there is some change in the energy consumed by the brain when doing more calculations than in a resting state. That energy has to go someplace - and that someplace is heat. But the difference between the rest state and the working state is small and the energy consumed is small - so the temperature increase is undoubtedly there - but very, very tiny. SteveBaker (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

But, you have to define "resting state" - and since it is not clear what level of "rest" corresponds to "idle thinking", we can't really say with certainty that (for example) arithmetic is "more brain work" than staring at a blank wall. In other words, the biological version of the NOOP instruction might be just as energy-intensive as the biological version of the XOR. As an example, there are many digital computers which do this intentionally (to provide for extremely deterministic power consumption, for example). I see no reason to assume that the brain needs more energy when undergoing "heavy thinking" (unless somebody has a scientific source to the contrary). Nimur (talk) 17:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps extreme high levels of mental activity could cause increased blood flow to the brain, thereby raising the temperature of the brain? But I'm not an expert on this. ~AH1^(TCU) 02:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd expect increased blood flow would cool your brain down. I'm pretty sure your body uses it for coolant. This would probably be countered out by burning the extra oxygen and sugar the blood brings. So, even less of an effect. — DanielLC 04:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The answer to your first question is a qualified yes, but it is not as straightforward as you may imagine.
Neuronal activity does increase local metabolism, consuming oxygen, and producing heat, which tends to heat the local tissue. However the body responds by increasing the blood supply to the region of the brain that is being used, and the effect of this usually overwhelms the direct metabolic effect. Paradoxically, the oxygenation level of the active areas of the brain increases, and the temperature (typically) falls a few tenths of a degree centigrade. However the temperature change shows considerable inter-subject variability depending upon for example, the physical activities the subject is engaged in, and their environment, since these affect the instantaneous blood and cranial temperatures. You can read more about the subject in the following articles, and the references they contain:

• Coupling between changes in human brain temperature and oxidative metabolism during prolonged visual stimulation, PNAS, 2000
• Theoretical model of temperature regulation in the brain during changes in functional activity, PNAS, 2006

These references will also give you an idea of the techniques used to measure the temperature in areas of the brain in vivo.
Typical mental activities that are used in such studies are visual simulation (fancy way, of saying show some moving pictures), or simple finger tapping, which engage the visual cortex and motor areas of the brain respectively. Abecedare (talk) 09:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Clockwise and counterclockwise galactic spirals

I've noticed whenever I deliver rolled up papers that they are either rolled up clockwise or counterclockwise, depending upon the end of the paper I am looking at. On the other hand whenever I read a astronomy article in order to improve my brain I only seem to get more confused since the articles say that Galactic spirals only rotate in a clockwise direction. However, when you view the Galaxy from the other side, like looking at the other end of the rolled up papers, the Galaxy is spiraling counterclockwise instead of clockwise. Should I stop reading astronomy articles and just go with what I know? 71.100.11.118 (talk) 02:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

A spiral galaxy will look clockwise from one direction and anti-clockwise from the other, just like any other spiral. Can you give an example of one of the astronomy articles you have been reading that say otherwise? Perhaps you are misunderstanding them (either that, or you need to read better astronomy articles - we can help you there, too!). --Tango (talk) 03:25, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The latest article (2002) I've read makes a comparison of the rotation of the central bulge and the rotation of the spiral arms as being in opposite directions. What is surprising and confusing to me is that I can find no characteristic of classification which is based on the 3-axis orientation of the Galaxies and in conjunction on clockwise or counterclockwise rotation. 71.100.11.118 (talk) 04:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't comment on the galaxy described in that article, having not researched it, but that article doesn't say anything about galaxies being rolled up the same way from both sides... --Tango (talk) 05:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The article says nothing to make clear that the opposite directions of rotation will be reversed when looking at the Galaxy from the other side. 71.100.11.118 (talk) 07:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Why would the article make that clear when it is obvious anyway? --Tango (talk) 08:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I think perhaps the OP is asking why we would choose to view it from one side, and not the other? What justification do we have for that? I don't know the answer, but this seems to be what they're after. Vimescarrot (talk) 09:58, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

We have no choice - galaxies are a little far away to go around behind them to get a photo. --Tango (talk) 10:30, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

There actually is a very good choice which would fix the problem. First we need a reference point and that point can be the Earth. Next we need a system which utilizes that reference and that system is already in existence and well known. That system is Spherical coordinate system. What we need when talking about any Galaxy or about some aspect of its orientation is to speak first in terms of Spherical coordinate system. I would think we could draw a line between the Earth and the Galaxy and let that line represent the coordinates of two perpendicular planes and then provide the coordinates of the axis of rotation in either the clockwise or the counterclockwise direction 'so long as it were named. Perhaps we could call the clockwise side the North side and the counterclockwise side the South side. In fact, maybe someone has already thought of this and we can adapt, refer to or use the system they have designed. 71.100.11.118 (talk) 12:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The galactic coordinate system and supergalactic coordinate system are very similar to what you describe and could easily be used to define north and south sides of spiral galaxies (and, for all I know, maybe already are). --Tango (talk) 12:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Very similar. Although the Earth's Geographic coordinate system is more dynamic in terms of looking at Galaxies than our Sun or the Milky Way using it as a reference point instead would allow it to be more directly or easily included in time dependent observation chart object data. Of course such a system can also be easily duplicated for any reference point. 71.100.11.118 (talk) 03:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

In fact it might do very well to establish such a system for every Galaxy and then use the spherical coordinates to identify the locations of all other heavenly bodies. With such information provided to a neural network model... but then I allow my imagination to go too far! 71.100.11.118 (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation as seen from Earth has been counted. See Galaxy Zoo#Progress. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Brain acceleration?

I was staring at clock, and noticed that when I first look at it, it seems a second hand stays there for a while (more than a second), and only then it goes on at a normal pace. Same thing happens with digital clocks as well. Why does it happen? Does the brain accelerate itself in order to analyze the information given by clock, so it seems time slows down for a while? 195.238.106.80 (talk) 02:19, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. I have never noticed this myself, but a bit of Googling shows that it is a known phenomenon, although the cause is not clearly understood. Here is a review from last year that discusses the effect, along with other temporal illusions. Looie496 (talk) 03:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to add a bit of info, the review suggests that this is a consequence of the suppression of visual perception that occurs during saccadic eye movements -- when you move your eyes rapidly from one place to another, your visual system basically switches off during the movement, but your time perception is warped for a short time before and afterward so that you don't perceive any gap -- in effect you perceive the eye movement to occur instantaneously. Looie496 (talk) 03:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

It's an amazing thing that our brains can create a seemingly seamless perception of the world given that the information provided by the senses have so many gaps and delays and mismatches. Dauto (talk) 03:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a really interesting article in this month's PopSci about this kind of stuff, entitled "How Time Flies". It is related to the brain's perception of time dilation under different circumstances and, while nothing is conclusive at this point, it elaborates on some pretty plausible theories. However, since it is the current issue, they won't have it posted on their web site for another couple weeks. —Akrabbim^talk 04:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

This article in New Scientist is good, and discusses the effect extensively: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.300-timewarp-how-your-brain-creates-the-fourth-dimension.html --99.237.234.104 (talk) 04:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I've experienced this too and have always been curious as to why it is. I've always just assumed that it's some sort of processing delay but never had a true understanding of why it happened. The theory regarding the movement of your eyes and the switching off of your visual system is pretty interesting.

That part is more than just a theoretical thing - some work I did in flight simulation actually relied upon it.

Back when computer graphics systems were hideously expensive it might cost you a million dollars to build a system that was less capable by far than a $100 graphics card of today. So making a large dome around the pilot and projecting computer graphics everywhere inside of it would have been prohibitively expensive. Instead, we built a system that measured the position of your head and eyes using a motion-sensitive helmet with an infrared camera that looked into your eyes and figured out where the 'blind spot' was on your retina - and from that, calculate exactly where your head and eyes were pointing. Then, we used a motorized projection system that mechanically moved a mirror and directed the graphics display to draw only in the region you were actually looking. That way we only had to draw detailed graphics in the area that actually mattered - and we filled in the 'background' with a very crude representation of sky and horizon brightnesses to keep your peripheral vision happy.

The problem with that was that the system took time to figure out how your gaze was moving and get the new image projected in the right place. So if you moved your eyes quickly, the machine couldn't keep up. Fortunately, this "Saccade" feature of the brain that "turns off" the video signal from your eyes when they are moving quickly, worked in our favor. Even though we were over a tenth of a second too late in getting the new image drawn, nobody could ever tell. In fact, you'd swear that the image you were seeing was continuously there as your eyes moved - when it was 100% certain that the computer hadn't drawn anything during all of that time.

It's one thing to talk about this stuff in the abstract - but when you see it with your own eyes (or at least don't see it!), it's downright creepy! You'd look to your left - then quickly glance over to your right and you'd be utterly convinced that you'd seen a continuous sweep of images in-between - and even be able to provide a reasonable description of what was that you'd seen there. But you could check the logs on the computer and know for sure that it never drew anything other than the image at the far left and then at the far right. Everything else was 'faked' by your brain in order to give you the illusion of continuous vision.

The brain is a deeply weird machine! SteveBaker (talk) 23:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in perception of time and time perception. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Temperature of a high-gravity planet?

Say that there is a planet with a very strong gravitational pull. Would the gravity condense some liquids into solid form, meaning there is more ice on the surface? Or would it cause more heat due to friction? If the strength of the planet's gravitational pull was the only differing factor, would the resulting surface conditions be more likely to be hotter, colder, or about the same as an Earth-like planet? 97.104.210.67 (talk) 05:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Gravity won't condense anything, pressure does that. Gravity is a factor in determining pressure, but it isn't the only one. Venus' surface pressure is about 90 times that of Earth despite having approximately the same surface gravity. --Tango (talk) 06:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me for my mistake, I should have remembered that, but it is 1 AM my time. I'm just curious to know which result is more likely to occur. 97.104.210.67 (talk) 06:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

(1) regarding the "friction": Compression heating is only important for "young" planets. When a proto-planet forms and compresses (becomes more compact), the gravitational force performs thermodynamic work, and therefore heats up and melts the proto-planet material. Surface of young planets are therefore very hot, much hotter than their eventual surface temperature. Cooling rate depends on surface to volume ratio, presence of primordial atmosphere, and so on. But some time (10⁶ - 10⁹ years, AFAIR) after the accretion and the compression stops the surface does cool down, and eventually approaches its steady-state temperature. The core remains hot, though. Steady-state surface temperature of planets depends most of all on the balance between the heat influx from the star and the radiative heat loss into space. Slow release of trapped heat from the core and additional heating of the core by radioactive decay contribute less to the surface temperature. Tidal heating by other gravitating bodies is much weaker yet. So in the very young planets "friction" if more important while in the older ones the "friction" (compressional heating) is no longer very important as far as the surface temperature is concerned. (2) regarding the gravity & atmospheric pressure effect. On a planet without an atmosphere, surface pressure is zero regardless of the gravity strength. To have a nonzero pressure you need a nonzero quantity of material to exert that pressure from above. For example, Earth has 10 tons of atmosphere over every square meter of its surface at sea level, thus the atmospheric pressure equals the force exerted by the weight of 10 tons per square meter. As you climb the Everest, gravity pull changes negligibly but atmospheric pressure drops a great deal. It is therefore incorrect to say that gravity will condense something on the surface. You need a atmosphere to do that. However, even though 1 bar of pressure feels like a lot, it is not nearly enough to change the melting point of most solids by any significant amount. Typical slopes of melting curves of metals are in the ballpark of 1 degree Kelvin per kilobar IIRC. For water ice, it is approximately minus 10 degrees Kelvin per kilobar; that is, if atmospheric pressure on Earth was 100 times stronger, water freezing point would have been 272 K and not 273 K. --Dr Dima (talk) 08:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Our article Triple point provides a pretty good overview of the story on the relationship between pressure, temperature, and phase. Looie496 (talk) 17:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

So I guess the answer is that there wouldn't be much difference? Okay! Thanks for answering my question. :) 97.104.210.67 (talk) 18:18, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Is Chrysler 300 equiped with brake override system?

model: 2.7L V6

year of produce: 2006 Zhoudp (talk) 06:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I should clarify that you mean an antilock brake override, so as to avoid any advice on draining out all the brake fluid... :-) StuRat (talk) 13:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

This may vary by model year. However, in my searching I find no references to any such switch, so I would tend to say "no". Perhaps someone with that car model can verify this (or you could always call a dealership). StuRat (talk) 14:01, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Marine Creatures

what is the best topic for my report regarding Marine Creatures? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerlie gedoria (talk • contribs) 08:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Cephalopod intelligence is very interesting, in my opinion, and a sufficiently obscure topic to make it a good report. --Tango (talk) 08:12, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Diatoms are created too and they have interesting shapes! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I added to the weird title to make it useful. StuRat (talk) 13:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I completed tidying the title. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I always retain the original title, in case it's used as a search term to find the Q. StuRat (talk) 13:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

It's much easier to write a good report if you focus on a question rather than a topic, and you will probably write a better report if you focus on a question that interests you rather than a question that somebody else suggests to you. Looie496 (talk) 18:21, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

What about the intelligence of cetaceans, shark finning, ocean acidification, hydrothermal vents, the invasion of jellyfish, or turritopsis nutricula? ~AH1^(TCU) 01:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

[[:File:Vampyroteuthis2.jpg|thumb|Glow-in-the-dark vampire squid! Nimur (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)]]

Bioluminescence is a fascinating topic; it is found in many different types of marine invertebrates and glow-in-the-dark fish. Whether you're in third grade (and just want some nice photographs and a few sound-bite science facts); a high-schooler in need of in-depth ecological analysis of the hadal zone and a food-chain based on minimal/zero solar energy; or if you're a Ph.D.-level biologist who wants to discuss photophoric production of bioluminescent protein compounds, this topic will make an excellent topic for your marine creatures report. Nimur (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Methane

The hydrogen atoms of methane are distributed evenly over a sphere. How can you show that this angle is 108 degrees? (I don't know if I should ask this on the math ref desk). 173.179.59.66 (talk) 09:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it is 109 degrees. More precisely, it is arccos(-1/3). The hydrogen atoms are at the vertices of a tetrahedron, so that is the shape you need to study. This derivation is pretty good. --Tango (talk) 09:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

This is the N=4 case of the Thomson problem, for which no general solution is known.83.134.168.71 (talk) 14:03, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. 173.179.59.66 (talk) 01:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

How can i analyse......subject

my name is sumanthdarisi...i am engineering first year student of ECE. I hav aolt of passtion in creating something new eletrical or electronic goods, but i dont know the internal working procedure of the related things of my ideas . for example : I hav an idea to get mobile numbers of others without asking them... jus by passing few invisible rays on to their mobiles...which will received by their mobile and then send back to me.....so i need to know how should i proceed my experiment......plz help me to move forward!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumanthdarisi (talk • contribs) 10:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that already exists, in various forms (eg. the iPhone "Bump" app). That's the hardest bit of inventing things - finding something which hasn't already been invented! --Tango (talk) 10:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Asperger's Adam had it so good... :) 82.113.121.96 (talk) 12:13, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Instead of using the cell phone itself for this, how about a separate rechargeable battery powered device ? Each could send and accept info like you'd find on a business card. They would need to have a very short range (only a few feet), and probably should only record contact info if you stay near the source for a minute, to eliminate contact info from everyone you walk by. At the end of the day you'd have a list of contacts, listed by time of day they were received. Many would be contacts you don't want, of people you just happened to stand by, so you'd need to go through and eliminate those. For those you keep, there could be a USB port to upload that info to your computer, cell phone, etc. However, note that there would be a privacy issue, in that not everyone would be willing to share their contact info with everyone else. StuRat (talk) 13:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The electronics business isn't actually very short on ideas - the difficulty is in moving them from ideas into actual implementations - and then marketing those things to the public. To turn your idea from a thought to a thing requires quite a lot of deep knowledge. You'd need a clear understanding of stuff like bluetooth protocols or RFID scanners. It's possible that you could implement something like this on an existing cellphone (either iPhone or Android) - but that would require some fairly sophisticated programming skills.

I used to work for Philips research labs in the UK and we were told never to accept or acknowledge ideas like this from the general public - and in my present job as a computer games programmer - I have to live under the same rules. The reason for that is that these companies are not short of ideas for new products - so there is little benefit in taking an idea from outside of the company - and the risk of doing so might be that someone in the company might already be working on a similar idea and we wouldn't want to be sued for 'stealing someones idea'. Sadly, this means that unless you can do the work of going from idea all the way to a demonstrable product by yourself, the best way to get your ideas into products is to go and work for a company that does that kind of thing. There are companies who employ people only to have good ideas - but getting one of those jobs right out of college is almost impossible...you have to start in either the artistic, engineering or marketing fields and become known for having bright ideas.

In either case, you're going to have to study hard in the field you're interested in - do electronics - learn programming skills - get at least a basic understanding of math and physics. As you start to become proficient in those areas, start making things with off-the-shelf parts...I'd recommend using something like the Arduino system which consists of small, cheap computer boards (they cost about $26 online) and a relatively easy to use programming system. There are tons of online resources for how to add electronics to the Arduino - and using one of these, you could probably make some working prototypes of a short range identification exchanger...or whatever other idea you might have.

As for the idea itself, it does indeed already exist in the iPhone "bump", it's also done to some degree in the Nintendo DS where complete strangers who are in radio range can even share games and such like. The Microsoft Zune MP3 player allows music to be shared in a similar way. So this idea is already "out there" and I doubt you'd get credit for originality there.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, WHY do you want to do this? (More specifically, why would I want you to get my phone number without my knowledge?)24.150.18.30 (talk) 16:48, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The type of question, where the questioner has an idea for an electrical/electronic device but knows nothing of electricity/electronics, is in the tradition of such famous inventors as Samuel Morse, an idea man who relied on the work of Joseph Henry and Alfred Vail to make a telegraph that worked more than a few yards. Similarly Alexander Graham Bell knew very little of electricity and relied on Thomas A. Watson and others to make a working telephone. Being convinced a device can be made to work and finding funding for development are the important contributions an "idea man" can bring to the art of inventing and developing a device, especially if "conventional wisdom" says it won't work or is impractical based on earlier unsuccessful experiments going at it in some different way. Often the need for a device has not been seen before the inventor presents it (like the telegraph, the telephone, or the Xerox). Historically, people have also said "It has already been invented," pointing at some device which is not at all the thing proposed. In recent years, some billionaire heads of software companies, often described as software experts, have been far from their companies' best programmers, and would be lost trying to maintain or improve the present software. Edison (talk) 18:03, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a world of difference though. Attaining a knowledge of simple electricity from other people in the field is childs play compared to something like (for example) understanding the software and hardware of a cellphone in order to change how it's bluetooth interface operates. You can easily summarize all you need to know to build a practical telegraph or telephone on one sheet of paper. It takes years of study to learn to program and to understand the way modern data transmission protocols work. A lot of what those early inventors did was trial and error - but that's absolutely not going to work with the kinds of sophisticated electronic and software systems that our OP is considering. It's not for no reason that largely self-educated individuals so rarely make ground-breaking technological advances anymore - and even well-educated people need the backing of teams of engineers to bring their ideas to fruition. SteveBaker (talk) 13:24, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really sure if I understand the OP's suggestion but apps for phones using Bluetooth to automatically exchange details have I'm pretty sure existed for a very long time, probably not long after Bluetooth was first available on phones or PDAs. E.g. [1] and exchanging business cards is part of the OBject EXchange protocol. (These weren't necessarily automatic, but I strongly suspect fairly automatic options existed although likely to be turned off by default for obvious reasons, and BTW by automatic I mean does it without you asking, clearly you don't have to enter details which are already stored in the device, in other words the actual exchange would always be fairly automatic, it's just whether you automatically send the details, and automatically accept the details that I presume we're talking about here.) These do of course have compatibility issues (although OBEX is a defacto standard) and more importantly, people don't generally want to exchange details with random people (even if you don't mind receiving, few people want to give out their details to any random person), so they're of most interest at conferences and the like.

Of course Bluedating has also existing for a long time, [2] [3], these I believe work in various ways but would usually include some sort of profile (at a minimum something like man seeking woman etc). Once they meet a match within range, they may exchange additional details of that person, they may start a Bluetooth chatting app so the people can talk etc, I even heard of one that wouldn't tell you anything other then a compatible person was in range (can't remember if it was Bluetooth or even a phone or a seperate device, may have been in Japan), well obviously it must still internally exchange some details so they know your compatible which you can hack, but the idea is you're supposed to find the person yourself, I believe it would beep louder as you got closer. While these have tended to concentrate on dating, since that's the most likely case when people are going to want to exchange details with random people, I presume many allow those simply looking for friends.

Of course more generally there are apps which allow you to chat with people in range (and repeating what has already been said, exchange details with people in range). Indeed concern over privacy given all these possibilities was one of the early worries about Bluetooth (along with security) and there are the more dubious devices which allow you to monitor all devices in range and look out for anything including access things and do things you may not have been intended.

Of course while not working on a phone to phone communication level, missed calling someone has been a fairly standard way of giving someone your mobile number in many parts of Asia (also used for other things of course, as our article partially mentions) since long before Bluetooth, although still requires one party to get the number some how (not that it's that uncommon one party may have it but the other party won't, e.g. if someone sends it in an SMS) although neither of these (SMS or missed calls) are generally completely automatic. Well you could easily make a phone which saved all missed call numbers that aren't already present to the address book but still won't have details on who the person is. Evidentally you can send/receive vCards via SMS on some phones [4] [5] so it can be fairly automatic with SMS (although probably most either just type the number or add it with the phone but not as a vCard and most phones generally recognises numbers in SMSes).

Nil Einne (talk) 21:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

barbs

i was prescribed a barbiturate and Tylenol mix for migraines is that common? its Butalbital. will only Butalbital work or do all barbiturates work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thekiller35789 (talk • contribs) 11:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid we can't give medical advice. If you want to check that your doctor has prescribed the right drugs you need to get a 2nd opinion from another doctor, not random people on the internet. --Tango (talk) 11:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this is medical advice. The OP isn't asking about the actual prescription of drugs but rather whether the one he/she was given is a common mixture, and whether or not that's the only barbiturate which is prescribed for migranes. Seems like a request for common information related to his experience rather than direct medical advice. What harm could come from answering the aforementioned questions? Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  15:28, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

If I knew the answer, I'd give it; this is basically saying "my doctor said that I should do this, so I'm going to do it, but I'm curious how many other people are supposed to do it". Nyttend (talk) 15:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, any time a question refers to a medical situation and an answer has a potential to lead to a change in behavior, it should be considered a request for medical advice. Looie496 (talk) 17:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you've thought this through. This would mean that we couldn't tell people that cigarettes cause cancer, for fear that they would change their behavior (stop smoking) as a result. What's wrong with Kainaw's criterion? Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

This book [6] and that [7] say you can buy it as a comination of substances in one medicament. And that one [8] says it is common in the US for migranes.--Stone (talk) 17:16, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I think both Tango and Cyclonenim are right on this but I think also, that questioner would benefit from a bit of background, so as to be clearer of what they should be asking their own doctor for by way of clarification. For it is their own prescribing doctor that should answer queries about the medication and treatment. So I've added this below, which I think avoids advice.
Q. “Is it common” . Answer: A doctor may say to his patient that he is prescribing it 'off label.' This means that there is no good medical trial evidence (yet?) that it works for migraine. Therefore, the doctor has to take responsibility for using his own judgement of the risk verses the benefits to his patient. Doctors hate proscribing 'off label', so yes, from that fact alone, one can conclude that this mix is not commonly prescribed for migraines.
Q.”do all barbiturates work” Answer: The addition of a barbiturate (of any type) does not increase the analgesic effect in anyway. So 'work' is the wrong word. It is just there as a sedative to give some relief from the anxiety and distress resulting from suffering 'this type' of intense pain.
If the questioner also registers their email address with Medscape and then search for “Fioricet Oral.” The whole of the patient information leaflet stuff (which should have been included with the medication) and more besides, is there. Including what to talk to the doctor about.--Aspro (talk) 17:18, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

iv read the barbs also have analgesic effect thou. otherwise they wouldent use them for migrans cause u can die eeasy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thekiller35789 (talk • contribs) 19:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I would add that I've never known barbiturates to be used in the treatment of migraines. More common treatments are β-blockers and Calcium antagonists. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  20:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Beta blockers are usually given as prophylactics, however I believe 5-HT_1D receptor agonists are the most common treatment (triptans). --Mark PEA (talk) 23:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

As it happens, I've just been reading an essay by Avram Davidson in which he mentions that he was prescribed, for migraines, pills containing phenobarbital, caffeine, and ergot. This was probably at at least 50 years ago, but it shows, at least, that barbiturates have been used in the treatment of migraine. Deor (talk) 01:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Whilst true, I suspect that ergot would have been the primary ingredient in that concoction as it's a vasoconstrictor and therefore useful for treating headaches, as long as you have the correct dosage. I imagine the phenobarbital was there to calm the patient rather than treat the actual complaint. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  12:32, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

the barbs are not used to calm they would use another safer sedative. they must have pain killing properties.

Moments in space

Hi ppl. I am obsessed with the following...

1)Does centre of mass exist in outer space? 2)In space, is there moment of a force? If so, what is the pivot in a rigid uniform bar? And Lastly, 3) What exactly is the pivot anyway when it comes to taking moments. I mean, I am kindy confused about the pivot thingy as to how every point manages to turn around it while others remain in place.

I will be glad to knw the answers. Thanks

Blueberry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.99.98.17 (talk) 16:54, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

For your first question, see barycenter, binary system and Lagrange point. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Let me explain why the center of mass still exists in space, and, in fact, is the same center of mass as on Earth. (I will assume that the object has a uniform density in a uniform gravitational field for this discussion.) The part that's confusing you is probably that you can balance an object on it's center of mass here on Earth, but not in space. But there is another way to measure the center of mass in space. If you push an object anywhere other than at that point, it will go into a spin. If you push it right at the center of mass, it should move, but not rotate. StuRat (talk) 02:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It might help if you remember that the motion of a rigid body (on Earth or in outer space) under any system of forces can be considered as made up of the linear motion of its centre of mass (just treat the body as a point mass with all forces acting there) plus the rotational motion produced by the moments of the forces about the centre of mass. (I used to be able to prove this, but can't remember now. I'm sure that someone will provide a link to the appropriate article.) You might be confusing centre of mass with centre of gravity (the point through which the weight acts). They are the same in a uniform gravitational field. Dbfirs 10:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and I added a comment to say that, now, although how often does one find oneself in a non-uniform gravitational field ? StuRat (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

A simple Buffer Question

Hi WikiRef-ers.

Hypothetical question for you...

Lets say you had a buffer solution of carbonic acid (H₂CO₃).

In this solution, the ratio of HCO3- to H2CO3 is 20:1. The [HCO₃^-] is 25 meq/L. [H₂CO₃] is about 1.2. The pH is 7.4.

Now, lets say you left the room to get some lunch, and a mischeivious co-worker sneaks in and adds a certain amount of H2CO3 to your buffer. You now know that the concentration in your solution of H2CO3 is about 1.5.

With that information, can you calculate what the pH AND the HCO3- is in the new solution?

Thanks!

--Cacofonie (talk) 18:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Like most homework questions this easy. Lets look if there is the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation and after you put in all the data you get !ops! I was not allowed to answer homework questions. --Stone (talk) 19:34, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

That won't quite cut it in this case, because you don't know what the new concentration of HCO3- is (adding the carbonic acid shifts the equilibrium). You need to do an ICE table, where 1.5 is the final concentration of H2CO3, and you don't know the initial concentration. Buddy431 (talk) 19:46, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Never mind: in this case, the equilibrium shifts so little that you can approximate it with the HH equation. Incidentally, the concentration of HCO3- is still 25, the change being several orders of magnitude smaller. Buddy431 (talk) 20:01, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, its not a homework question! I`m just trying to figure out arterial blood gases. It`s said that in Acute Respiratory Acidosis (i.e. an increase in H2CO3), for every 10 mmHg increase in the PCO2, your Bicarb increases by 1 meq. But, I`m not sure how that fits into this HH business if the quantity of bicarb produced is so minimal.

blagh --23:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cacofonie (talk • contribs)

no longer on speaking terms

Does Wikipedia have an article on the phenomena of people who are not on speaking terms? Such people are said to "not talk to one another." It is a human expression (or in-expression). It occurs between relatives, in families. It occurs between people who were once friends. It takes place between people who live in the same neighborhood, and ostensibly have to walk past one another. Is anything known about this human phenomenon? Has it been studied scientifically, methodically? Do we have an article or a subsection, on people who, due to some event or an interaction that has transpired — are no longer on "speaking terms?" Thank you in advance for any answers. If this needs to be moved to another page — fine. But I am asking mostly about the peculiar psychological condition. By the way, one interesting thing I have heard is that sometimes a point in time is reached at which the involved people no longer even remember what precipitated the situation! Bus stop (talk) 19:16, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems that it's a part of social alienation and social rejection, especially the latter. There may be links more from those articles. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 19:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems more like mutual deprivation: each one has made a calculation that there is a net gain in depriving the other of the mutual relationship of simply speaking. But that is just my own hypothesizing. Bus stop (talk) 19:55, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Both parties appear to be using a tit for tat strategy of not giving each other value in the form of social interaction (mutual defection in Prisoner's dilemma), and are now in a "death spiral" until one of them yields. --Mark PEA (talk) 20:12, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this is an example of social alienation, because this rarely occurs in families and usually happens to people who are not befriended by the "alienators". Relavent articles and topics may include mamihlapinatapei, zero-sum game, and wikt:estrangement. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Our article about the strange British expression "Sending someone to Coventry" makes interesting reading too. SteveBaker (talk) 12:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Drainage Systems in New York State

I have a question. What caused the development of different drainage systems in New York State? I think the answer is water erosion, but I am not sure. Could somebody help me with this? Thanks.--Lamb99 (talk) 22:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

DO you mean waste water drainage systems or watersheds? --Jayron32 00:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Assuming that Lamb99 is referring to watersheds, I'd say that mountain formation (see also the article Orogeny) was the most important factor, with glacial erosion being another major factor. Deor (talk) 01:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I mean any kind of drainage systems. This would be both waste water drainage systems and watersheds. Please give answers for both, and more if possible.--Lamb99 (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The Finger Lakes and the Great Lakes and their associated drainages were created by Ice Age glaciers and ice sheets, for the most part. Niagara Falls too. Pfly (talk) 09:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't human settlement caused the development of the wastewater system? --Kvasir (talk) 07:49, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Fission Reactors

I've been reading the articles on fission reactors. I have a good grasp of how and why nuclear fission happens. I can understand how the neutron poisons and neutron moderators slow down and speed up the fission process. What I don't understand is where the process starts. Do they have some fissile material at critical mass and then they slow down the chain reaction? Do they have some fissile material and bombard it with neutrons to get the reaction going? I don't understand where the original fission reaction starts. Anything you can say to help? •• Fly by Night (talk) 22:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The atoms of the uranium or plutonium (or whatever) are spontaneously fissioning all the time at some low level - that's what radioactive materials do. Their atoms are fundamentally unstable. But the neutrons produced mostly fly out of the material as radiation. Only very rarely do those neutrons hit other atoms and causing them to fission in turn. If you increase the amount and compactness of the material, you increase that probability and eventually, at "critical mass", you get a self-sustaining reaction where there is enough material that the neutrons produced by one atom spontaneously fissioning are enough to cause (on average) more than one atom to fission as a result producing more neutrons and yet more fissioning events. At that point, you have a cascading, exponentially increasing chain reaction - an atom bomb. The trick in a nuclear reactor is to control the way those neutrons are absorbed or reflected back into the material to have enough neutrons captured to keep the reaction going at a useful level - but not so many that you get a runaway chain reaction. SteveBaker (talk) 22:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I already know and understand all of that; just as my original question states: "I have a good grasp of how and why nuclear fission happens. I can understand how the neutron poisons and neutron moderators slow down and speed up the fission process." Let me repeat my question. Do they have some fissile material at critical mass and then they slow down the chain reaction? Do they have some fissile material and bombard it with neutrons to get the reaction going? I don't understand where the original fission reaction starts. Anything you can say to help? •• Fly by Night (talk) 22:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

As steve explained, the fission is happening spontaneously at a low level all the time. That's where it starts from. It starts from that low level spontaneous fission and grows from there. Dauto (talk) 23:26, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Check out Spontaneous fission 82.132.139.87 (talk) 00:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I think he might be inquiring about how the moderator and control rods are used to bring the pile to criticality. --Aspro (talk) 00:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Grrr! Dauto and 82.132.139.87: I already know and understand that. But not just any old pile of radioactive material is used in a nuclear reactor. My question seems to be answered below: you start with some fissile material at (or very close to) critical mass, and the control rods keep the reaction manageable and useful. Thanks for your help, I do appreciate it. I think that you're aiming your well intended answers at the wrong level. But thanks again! •• Fly by Night (talk) 19:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Let me take a stab at this, in my fumbling way:

So let's imagine we're hanging out with Fermi and the CP-1 crew underneath Stagg Field. We have a neutron detector next to our pile, which is already a critical mass, with our control rods fully inserted. We're getting some considerable blips from our uranium, just from the spontaneous fissions and maybe from a few secondary fissions from those, but it's basically the same as if we just had some uranium metal lying around (nothing particular to fissioning). We start to remove the control rods. Without something absorbing those neutrons from the spontaneous fissions, they are going to start creating all sorts of secondary and tertiary fissions and so on. Assuming we've done this in a safe way, with our control rods only partially out, there's going to be a cap on how many generations are likely to fission, so we aren't self-sustaining yet. But we're getting a lot more neutrons, a lot more fissions. We pull out the control rods more, the fissions start really taking off, and at some point we have them out enough that the reaction can be self-sustaining. Now this graph in this instance looks like this (note that at one point they change the scale to keep it from going off the paper).

Now, we don't have to create the critical mass first, with control rods already inserted, and then remove the control rods. That's just an easy and safe way to do it. You could create the critical mass incrementally and it would have the same effect. As you start getting enough material in there for the reactions to continue exponentially, they will start doubling quickly.

It's important to remember that the important part about reactors (and bombs) is that you have enough reacting material for an exponential chain reaction (each fission producing 2 or more other fissions). If you have something that is not producing much of a chain reaction, it will not be terribly impressive—a measurable but piddly collection of atoms fissioning. If you allow the reaction to start growing exponentially, it really becomes something impressive, and fast—the Wheat and chessboard problem, but with neutrons. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that with a reactor, I think in most (all?) cases you can just let the reaction build up "slowly" from spontaneous fissions. With a bomb, you don't want to wait that long (you want an efficient chain reaction going off within 600 nanoseconds or so), so you use a neutron generator to just kick-start the reactions in a major way. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

So the answer to my question is that the fissile material is already at critical mass, but the control rods (acting as a neutrol poision) are stopping the fissile material from undergoing an uncontrollable chain reaction? About your question Mr. 98: I think that any pile of Uranium or fissile material will undergo nuclear decay; some of which will result in fission, and some won't. But within some finite time it will almost all decay away until it's something stable. •• Fly by Night (talk) 19:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's right. Such a reactor would be extremely dangerous, as a thermonuclear explosion would result if the control rods were withdrawn. I'd say it's best to think of a continuum between the radioactive decay that happens in naturally occuring uranium in rocks and that in nuclear reactors. That is, the rocks produce some nuclear energy, but at such a low level it's difficult to use. By refining and enriching the uranium, we can crank up the reaction rate until we get something usable for power generation but still far short of an uncontrollable chain reaction. The control rods are then used to change the rate, depending on demand, and also to shut down the reactor for maintenance, etc. StuRat (talk) 20:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you are very wrong on many important points. No thermonuclear explosion (no nuclear explosion, much less a thermonuclear one). Yes, you can have the reactor at a critical mass with the control rods in (this is exactly what CP-1 was). Critical mass just means the reaction is self-sustaining. Yes, if you draw all of your control rods out of a reactor quickly, it can be dangerous. No, it will not explode like a nuclear bomb. Yes, enriching to different degrees can affect the reaction rate, but no, that is not really relevant to this question. (You can do it with unenriched, "natural" uranium if you have the right moderator. And in fact, this has been done with actual rocks!) Keep in mind that the main difference between a reactor and a bomb is that the reaction in a bomb is FAST—all of uranium fissioning in less than a second. In a reactor the reaction is dragged out, not nearly so rapid, and the energy release is done at a more manageable speed (so instead of blowing up the plant, it just heats some water). Making a reaction go off fast enough to be like a bomb is hard—that's why bombs have to have extremely enriched material, clever internal engineering, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Thermonuclear? How would fusion occur in a fission reactor? I did write above "at (or close to) critical mass". I forgot to write "or close to" in my last post. Okay, so if it's not at critical mass, then what would the neutron multiplication factor be? It must be pretty close to 1. That's why there are so many SCRAM safe guards. If you pulled all the control rods out and left them out then you'd be in some serious trouble! •• Fly by Night (talk) 20:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear decay is fission. Skooled. --Sean 20:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Not quite. Fission is one mode of nuclear decay, but not all modes of nuclear decay are fission. See here. •• Fly by Night (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

StuRat is wrong. It can be at a critical mass. You can also do it by slowly assembling a critical mass cumulatively. Either way would work. By definition, in a non-critical reactor the multiplication factor is less than 2. In a critical reactor it is 2 or greater. And no, it won't blow something up just because it is critical! If the reaction is slow (as it is in reactors), you'll get a lot of neutrons, and a lot of heat. And in some designs, yes, if you let it keep getting hotter and hotter, you'll have a meltdown. So real-world reactor operation is about keeping enough heat for things to work well but monitoring things so that they don't get out of hand. (Meltdown isn't inevitable, depending on the design. A TRIGA for example is set up so that the increase in heat corresponds to a decrease in neutron efficiency, so it levels off naturally.) --Mr.98 (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Some confusion appears to have crept in here. Is this clearer. Firstly it is not a 'critical fuel mass' one wants but a 'fuel loaded reactor pile' to go critical. The former condition can lower the value of the local real estate and much of the real estate most States downwind of the reactor. This is because the energy generation is so fast in a 'critical mass' that it is far beyond our technology to control it. However, the next bit of the answer depends on what type of reactor one is talking about, and so the question as asked is a bit difficult to answer. But I think it would be a fair generalisation to say that one employ the moderator(s) (and the addition of more fuel rods) to bring the reactor up to criticality over the long term time frame and use the control rods for short term fine control. In some reactors you can modify the liquid moderator to soak up some of the neutrons (with say boron) in a freshly refuel pile and then slowly adjust the mix as the fuel gets burnt. All the time using the control rods to control to adjust for short term fluctuations in output of the pile and electrical power demand placed upon the station. So no, you don't start off which a critical mass even though the pile may contain tons of fuel. That reminds me. The problem with the the Chernobyl reactor design was that this slow spongy characteristic was reversed a low power levels and so became very unstable at the hands of an ignoramus. The British Gas Cooled Reactors were extremely stable in comparison, (if a little inefficient). --Aspro (talk) 21:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Just because something is a critical mass does not mean that we cannot control it. It is unfortunate that almost all of our physics in the critical mass and nuclear chain reaction articles are about bombs, but there are critical masses in reactors as well. The difference is that we control the speed of the reaction. Critical mass just means "the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction." It does not mean "out of control chain reaction". Assembling a critical mass very quickly is dangerous—bomb-like—but assembling one slowly is a source of neutrons, heat, etc., all the stuff we want from reactors. As nuclear reactor puts it: "Nuclear fission reactors produce heat through a controlled nuclear chain reaction in a critical mass of fissile material. All current nuclear power plants are critical fission reactors, which are the focus of this article. The output of fission reactors is controllable." --Mr.98 (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Okay, fair enough. So to ask once again: "if it's not at critical mass, then what would the neutron multiplication factor be?" (or at least a good estimate) •• Fly by Night (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It been year since I did any any of this and I was only interested in the hard mechanical bits and control systems, so I would rather some one else carried this on. However, k = 1 is what one wants to achieve at every power level. So the rods are withdrawn or inserted to increase or decrease the flux until the required electrical power is being put into the distribution grid and then the rods are adjusted to bring it back to k = 1. Further adjustments will need to be made over time as the 'poisons' that get generated and decay have a time lag different to the power output.--Aspro (talk) 22:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Imagine the evolution of your chain reaction of your critical mass reactor that has its control rods fully inserted. In the beginning your k is going to be quite low. You withdraw your control rods. k increases, to something >1 (if it were just =1 at the beginning, you would not have any growth beyond your subcritical stage). (I imagine that exactly what you want k to be at this stage varies based on the size of the reactor, the level of enrichment, the heat changes it can tolerate, etc. If k goes too high too fast, you'll have a serious problem in any reactor that is not designed to go prompt critical. Some reactors, again, can do this safely, like a TRIGA, which are designed to pulse.) At some point you don't want it to keep going indefinitely (which increases heat), and so at your optimum level, you re-insert your control rods so that k=1 again. Self-sustaining, but not out of control. Critical—but delayed-critical, not prompt critical. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

And I suppose it would be useful to reiterate at this point, that at start up ALL the neutrons needed to create the next generation of neutrons are supplied by the normal spontaneous fission within the fuel. Most designs need enriched fuel so that there are more spontaneous fissions to act a seeds. This need is dependant on mainly the efficiency of the moderator but better moderators can run on natural strength uranium. That is not to say a reactor wont produce k = >0 on a natural uranium ratio (even the Cavendish uranium reactor managed that in England before the WWII), it is just that they would be uneconomic to run. Maybe all these articles need a bit of polishing.--Aspro (talk) 23:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

So the fissile material without any control inserted is critical? The fully inserted control rods will soak up a lot of the neutrons and so k << 1. This begs another question: how do they build these reactors? Taking the control rods out would be very dangerous, so what happened when they built the reactor and there were no control rods? Do the build up the pile around the control rods out of pieces of subcritical material and then bring it up to critical? •• Fly by Night (talk) 20:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

"Critical mass" is something of a misleading term. It's a measure of how much mass you need for k to be at least 1, but it's dependant on the material you're talking about, its shape, and the shapes and types of materials surrounding it. You can make a lump of nuclear fuel go from subcritical to critical simply by moving things that are near it: this is how control rods work, and failure to understand it has resulted in a number of laboratory accidents.

Modern nuclear reactors (ie. not CP-1) are built without any fuel in them. Outside the reactor, fuel is stored and transported in shapes (typically rods) that cannot go critical unless you place a number of them in close proximity. As the fuel rods are put in the reactor, enough of them are gathered together to go critical, but now the control rods are preventing this from happening. Once the reactor is fuelled and the operator is ready to begin, the control rods are withdrawn to the point where the reactor goes critical. --Carnildo (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, in other words—you keep the control rods in as you assemble the reactor (and this is not essentially different than CP-1, I don't think, except for the fact that the CP-1 reactor was basically just fuel, moderator, and control rods, and nothing else). The amount of material would be critical if the control rods were not there, but they are there. When you want it to actually start to go critical, you start to remove the rods. It's not that complicated. If you start putting together material without control rods, it can go critical, and that is certainly dangerous. (This is one of the really dangerous things about the German nuclear reactor that we being built during WWII—they essentially had no control rods, just a lump of cadmium they were going to dump on it if it went critical. The odds are it would have killed the scientists involved if they had actually gotten it working.) Accidental/uncontrolled assembly of critical masses leads to criticality accidents, where you get a burst of neutrons and/or heat, which can be very harmful to people nearby. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

is it possible to detect, at a distance the power of the mind?

I know you can detect mental activity with electrodes placed directly on the skull. My question is: is it possible to detect mental activity from a distance (ie not with electrodes touching the skull). I don't mean like with an infrared heat scanner, rather I mean actual thinking, so that you can detect, at a distance, whether someone is engaged in a certain intellectual activity versus just spacing out. Thank you. 82.113.121.89 (talk) 22:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

pet scan might interest you. Dauto (talk) 22:53, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Neuroimaging might interest you as well. Dauto (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Of course we can. We are not always right, but we often can understand what is going through another person's mind. There are no instruments that do that. alteripse (talk) 00:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

On the Reference desk, we can often detect mental activity, as well as spacing out, in our contributors, by means of keyboards plus the internet. But more concretely: neuroimaging can do the sort of thing you are talking about, if the person's head is inside a big instrument. But if you mean, could we do something like that for somebody not wearing or inside a big measuring instrument, I don't think so. Now, the catch here is that you could imagine some sort of technology in the future that stretched the bounds of "a big instrument" to mean, "within a large area of space" or "inside a specially equipped room of a building" or something like that. But I don't think we have anything that sensitive yet. The signals coming out of people's brains are probably too feeble to be measured accurately (and without interference) without something right next to their head, but I don't know that for a fact. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:52, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It's theoretically possible, but the voltages on the skin outside the skull are already very small, and the voltage gradients in the surrounding air are orders of magnitude smaller. There must also be electromagnetic radiation, but its magnitude is infinitesimal. So it would take an extremely clean recording environment and ultrasensitive recording equipment to have any chance. I'm not aware of anybody having ever attempted this. Looie496 (talk) 05:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The best research I've seen recently on something somewhat related to this was the use of magnetic resonance imaging in coma patients. For a long time it's been assumed that coma patients have no conscious thought but when these patients are placed in an MRI scanner, and asked certain questions and told to respond in a certain way, we can use the results to indicate yes and no answers. So for example you could ask the patient to think of their favorite film if they wanted to say yes, which would stimulate one part of the brain, and ask them to imagine playing hockey if they wanted to say no, and that would activate a different part of the brain. The patient can then be asked yes/no answer questions and it indicates that at least some comatose patients still have conscious thought.

Okay maybe that wasn't so relevant, but I found it incredible when I first heard it. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  12:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

That supposedly comatose people can be imaged in this way is not the most interesting thing: the most interesting recent result is that using the same experimental procedure you can find the same results in dead fish. (Just Google "dead salmon MRI".) I am currently working on a way to "channel" the intelligence of a dead salmon, however so far I have not been able to reproduce the consciousness effect of the above paper. 82.113.121.99 (talk) 18:34, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Worse still, it's a matter of focus. There is likely to be almost zero useful information that can be obtained from the sum of the tiny electrical perturbations caused by around 300 trillion synapses firing at the same time (Maybe: "Is this person dead or not?"). Even with electrodes on the scalp, we can only locate signals very approximately and we get only a very broad-brush picture of what major parts of the brain are producing the most activity. Brain scanners are able to get a more precise view of what's going on - but still not down to the level where thoughts could possibly be read. So the answer to this question is "No". SteveBaker (talk) 12:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

But a brain scanner (like an MRI) can tell you if significant mental activity is taking place. You can see activity in various lobes, compare it to the "background" rate, and do all sorts of neat things with that. You just have to have the person inside a gigantic MRI machine first. You can't wave a wand at someone on the street and do that. They are, in fact, looking at ways that MRI machines could be used as lie detectors and things like that. I'm not sure we know what the limits of what will be able to be "read" with things like MRI and whatever the next generation of that sort of imaging will be. But I don't see it working "at a distance" (e.g., without your head inside a giant magnet) any time soon, if ever. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes - it's necessary (as a barest minimum) to have detectors spaced around the head in order to localize the signals you're picking up to a particular 3D coordinate. This imposes limits that would make it utterly impossible to have (for example) a hand-held gizmo that you could point at a person from 30 feet away and say "Hey! This guy is thinking about blowing up a plane - stop him before he gets past airport security!". Hence my comment (above) about "focus" - it's not enough to pick up some overall waveform representing the output of the entire brain - you've got to know whether the neurons were firing in the temporal lobe or some other place - even more detail than that is really needed - and in the limit, you might need to know which of the 300 trillion synapses is firing and when. Without some spatial resolution, there is no conceivable way to extract significant information from a simple one-dimensional waveform. There are also severe issues of range. Because the signal strength of the electromagnetic waves falls off as the square of the distance, you've got to be really close in order to pick up those signals...there are very real physical limits on how far you can be in order to do that. Worse still, brain signals are all over the waveband - these super-faint signals would be completely swamped by cellphone, radio and TV signals washing through everything. SteveBaker (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The above person who said

egg sexer or egg sexing

where are our articles on these? I don't mean chick sexing I mean egg sexing. 82.113.121.89 (talk) 23:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

If you mean determining the gender of the unhatched bird, maybe candling ? I don't think you can actually determine the gender that way, but our article is just a stub. I suppose you could do an amniocentesis, but that would be expensive, why not just wait until it hatches ?

If you mean determining the gender of a human baby using a spinning egg, I don't know where the article on old wives tales like that would be. StuRat (talk) 02:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)