wolframhydroxide

@wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works

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⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Physics books are a classic⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Fallout 3, apparently
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨fck yea⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Suppose you are trying to determine the concentration of a solution. You could try to boil off the water and figure out how much solid stuff is left over, but what if it’s a mixture, and you just want to know how much, for instance, “Hydrochloric Acid” is in the water. Or, alternatively, some chemicals (such as Hydrochloric acid) evaporate with the water. We’ll call this chemical of interest “Chemical X”

So, you need to know how much Chemical X is in your solution, but you can’t really easily separate it from the solution. What do you do? You Titrate! You find some other chemical that reacts with Chemical X, so that this new chemical (which we will call Chemical Y) will get instantly destroyed as long as there is still more Chemical X in solution. So, as long as there is more Chemical X in solution, the Chemical Y will get eaten up instantaneously, reacting with Chemical Y.

Finally, you just need to have some way of detecting whether any Chemical Y exists in the solution, since the moment you see it in solution, you know there’s no more Chemical X.

Now, you titrate: take a specific volume of your sample solution, and add a known concentration of Chemical Y, drop by drop. Once there is any chemical Y left over, you know you have found how much Chemical X was in the solution to start. Congratulations, you now know the concentration of Chemical X in the sample solution.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨idijt⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I considered that, though the play of prismatic colors which defines the diamond’s unique lustre, in addition to that same tendency toward internal reflection, are both ultimately caused by the extraordinary refractory properties of the crystal structure, and the refracted light coming out of the diamond after internal reflection is the constituent of the “shine”
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨idijt⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Yet another way this is wrong: the primary cause of the adamantine lustre of diamonds is refraction. Any old hunk of metal can reflect light.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unionized⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Am a chemist in your group. I read it the plumber way too. Took me five seconds to get it.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unionized⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
As a leftist chemistry teacher, I read it as “having attained union”, rather than “not ionized”, so YMMV with this heuristic
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Boss Mode⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Since an observer traveling at the speed of light experiences no time from the beginning of their journey until they decelerate, photon’s don’t just arrive precisely when they mean to, from the moment they are emitted, they have already arrived.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wobble Wobble⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I mean, you could think of it like rain. Imagine that you have a bucket, and it’s out in a rainstorm. There’s a plant in the bucket with some soil, and a tiny little pinhole in the bottom that let’s out a couple of drips at any given time. Now, let’s say you want to make sure that the plant gets just the right amount of water, so that it still gets the right amount of rain, but it doesn’t flood and overpower the leak out of the bottom. What’s the simplest solution? Figure out how quickly the rain is coming down, and then cover part of the bucket so you only get the right amount of rain, right? Now imagine that some hooligan comes by and decides to muck with your bucket, because for the slightest moment, it will bring their sad, shriveled heart some measure of joy to make your life worse. They decide to move the cover. Maybe they take it off entirely, and that would guarantee the plant would die, but they’re a sick, evil little gobshite, so they only move it off when you’re out for the day, and then they out it back when you get home. When you go into your house, they take off the cover again, letting in the full torrent of rain. You look at the bucket, and wonder why the plant is getting flooded. Why isn’t the cover working anymore? Because it’s only there to help some of the time
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wobble Wobble⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
The problem here is that the snow will melt at some point. The reason this is happening is because the sea ice that existed year-round until now is nearly gone each summer. The lack of consistent ice covering means that there is a greater amount of energy being absorbed by the ocean, perhaps not year-round, but that it’s happening so much more in the summer is sufficient to utterly outweigh any amount of temporary snowfall anywhere else on the globe.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horrific monsters!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
It’s more likely a reference to the Black-footed cat. See direct reply to commenter above.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horrific monsters!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
TheTux is close, but this is almost certainly specifically referencing the black-footed cat and the fact that it has the greatest hunting success rate of any felid.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hey is Sharing Luigi’s Manifesto on Social Media Actually "Glorifying Violence"? Because Reddit Said So 😭⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and provide new guards for their future security.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Am I a bad person if (as left as they come) I invest in American Private Prison contractors on the assumption that Trump will go through with his deportation scheme at least to some extent?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Oh, that was you? Good call, though I’d prefer to simultaneously splinch into a thousand fragments, each simultaneously teleporting into the carotids of each person with a warrant from the Hague, as well as the next 500 most-wealthy people, followed by the boards of any fossil fuel companies I can fit into the thousand. I don’t think it was specified that it was single-location or in-one-piece teleportation.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Shiny⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Hard disagree: they exhibit 4 perfect octahedral cleavage planes in addition to their adamantine lustre, diamond is one of the most useful materials in existence, and their petrological origins speak to incredibly interesting conditions of formation! In fact, a mineral inclusion within a diamond gave us our first solid evidence of the existence of liquid water at equilibrium with mantle rock, which was previously thought impossible!

But yeah, fuck De Beers.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Alright, now we agree: solar isn’t for everywhere, and the gravity storage method won’t work in most places. You need preexisting slope, and my original comment was highly US-normative. As such, yes, we would need huge swathes of solar and wind collection sites, passive wave generators, pumped hydro and, yes, perhaps nuclear. Not everything will be “on” all the time. As far as the energy vs. Electricity numbers, while I vacillated between different terms, I WAS quite careful to only include electricity numbers throughout my stats and, again, none of my points were trying to prove that solar, specifically, is the right answer for the netherlands in exclusion of all else, but only that a significant energy storage problem can be solved with gravitational potential, and that the solution IS scalable if sites are selected carefully, and the fact that this has not been tried at scale anywhere in the world is due to government corruption. Still a US-normative idea, which I’ll grant, but still true, when you have places from morocco to the Gobi, to the outback to the western US, all with significant natural elevation change, significant open areas, and excellent prospects for renewable energy sources of ALL kinds.

Also, as far as solar panels go, remember that actual diode solar panels are NOT the only way to harvest solar energy (let alone the cheapest). Mirrors can easily be used to boil water, and this plan was nearly attempted throughout egypt a hundred years ago (see Frank Shuman’s solar thermal generators). However, I’m not about to argue that we should put giant solar collectors in one of the countries that is simultaneously the most population-dense AND in a climate where large-scale solar is somewhat inefficient, ESPECIALLY when you have so much available wind power.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
That’s interesting. For me, I guess it’s a “grass is greener” scenario. I look at the headway various countries in the eurozone have made on topics from socialized medicine, to universal basic income, to free postsecondary education, to the protection of personal data, and even to forcing Apple to change its charging cable to the standard USB-C. That change of policy forced them to change it here, as well. The EU’s stodginess helps people even beyond its borders. My students ALL have iPhones, and It’s unbelievable to witness the ease with which they can access their devices now, vs. when they were all forced to use a specialized cable for connection and charge. America hasn’t even figured out high-speed rail yet. As an american who teaches secondary science to a bunch of naturalized citizens under the age of 18, I don’t think I can stay through the next 4 years. I fear the pogroms, if not for myself, then for my students and their families. I can’t have my tax dollars go towards a repeat of the mistakes of 90 years ago. I’m thinking New Zealand is looking comparatively nice (though apparently there’s a growing nationalist movement there as well).

In general, I do sense that there is a significantly greater sense of “rugged individualism” in the US, compared to many other countries, but I see the costs of that individualism more acutely because of its proximity. People seem to be largely incapable of consideration here, from anti-vaxx and anti-mask movements to the hesitance to tax the wealthiest individuals due to the thought that “maybe that’ll be me one day”. It’s really quite distressing.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
And hey, you know what, that’s almost got a point. Firstly, I’m in the US, and I’ll freely admit that my comment was highly US-normative. However, I believe my comment on government corruption stands for the US case, where there is an insane amount of space that is already partly-developed in random bits of desert.

Now, let’s get into your claims against the Netherlands case, aside from the ad-hominem of your incredibly condescending tone. Let’s do some “basic fucking maths”, thou king of Numenor:
1. Unless the IEA is very, VERY wrong, your claim that the Netherlands consumes “2600 petajoule per day” is INSANELY high. Every statistic I can find shows electricity consumption being between 113 [2] and 121 [1] Terawatt-hours per annum. Let’s divide that larger value by 365 (assuming uniform seasonal demand), then convert that into joules, and we get 1.19 Petajoules per day. more than a THOUSAND times smaller than your number.
2. Secondly, this “for a tiny country” bit is spurious, since your “tiny country” is the 33rd-greatest electricity consumer in the world for the 77th highest population [2]
3. The assumption that you must store an entire day’s worth of energy demand is ludicrous. Let’s be generous and assume that you have to store 50% of the day’s energy demand, despite the fact that the off-hours are during the night, when electricity demands fall off.
4. Next, let us point out that we don’t need to abandon literally every other method of energy generation. From wind energy to, yes, nuclear, the Netherlands is doing quite well for itself outside of solar. Let’s assume that we need to cover all of the electricity that is currently produced using coal, oil and natural gas. All other sources already have infrastructure supporting them, including the pre-existing solar. This amount comes to about 48% [1], so let’s assume 50%.
5. Now, we need to cover 50% of 50% of 1.9 petajoules at any one time, or 475 gigajoules, at any one time.
6. Because I neither want nor need your supposedly-charitable assumptions, let’s use the actual numbers from ARES in Nevada:
- Their facility’s mass cars total 75000 tons in freedom units, or about 68040000 kg. [3]
- They claim 90+% efficiency round-trip [4], but let’s assume that your condescending tone has made the train cars sad, so they’re having a bad day, and only run at 80% efficiency, despite the fact that we’ve known how to convert to and from GPE with insane efficiency ever since Huygens invented the fucking pendulum clock.
1. Now, is this perfect for everywhere? Of course not. Not everywhere has the open space necessary. The ARES site requires a straight shot about 5 miles long, but they managed to find one that, in that distance, drops 2000 feet (~610 m) [5]
2. Now, let’s do the math together: 475000000000J / 10m/s^2 / 68040000kg / 80% Efficiency = 880m total elevation needed
3. Thus, unless my math is quite off, we would only need 2 of the little proof-of-concept ARES stations running at 80% efficiency to cover the energy storage needs required for your country to completely divest from fossil fuels and go all-in on solar for the remainder of your needs.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[1] www.iea.org/countries/the-netherlands [2] en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_countries_by_electrici… [3] aresnorthamerica.com/nevada-project/ [4] aresnorthamerica.com/gravityline/ [5] energy.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/…/4 - ARES.pdf
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Again, a fair point. Assuming that anyone with an idea of the meaning of “potential energy” survives the next ten years, I’d still like to see it more fully explored in the american west, but it is, unfortunately, rather a moot point for at least five years.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
I agree with you on the linearity issue. I just feel like using its size as a criticism is invalid, given that the very source you cited pointed out that the reason it’s so small is because they chose to reuse an already a disturbed site, rather than building it on 100 acres of BLM land, which I’d argue is quite admirable. The colocation point is also fair, though our water resources in the entire american west are severely limited, and will become moreso over the next 50 years. Utah’s declining snowpack and the overdrawn Colorado can only cover so much. I feel like, while the GPE law is linear for both mass and height, the fact that we can scale both is a point in favor of both pumped hydro and rail storage, and rail storage can be stored virtually indefinitely, as long as it doesn’t have time to rust in place. Being able to supplement the off-hours is absolutely doable with rail.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
A fair point, but given how the best places to build solar infrastructure tend to not have easily accessible large volumes of water, I should think that economies of scale can apply if we were to put actual investment into scaling up the gravitational potential. Sure, it’s not a power law like for kinetic energy, but greater height and greater mass are both trivial quantities to scale in places with large empty areas. I’m simply pointing out that we’ve never invested in that obvious possibility as a civilization.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
I feel like we’re missing the part about “push carts up a hill”, which involves virtually no serious engineering difficulties aside from “which hill” and “let’s make sure the tracks run smoothly”. See: the ARES project in Nevada
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Let’s be clear, the only reason grid-level storage for renewables “doesn’t exist” is because of a lack of education about (and especially commitment to) simple, reliable, non-battery energy storage such as gravitational potential, like the ARES project. We’ve been using gravitational potential storage to power our mechanisms since Huygens invented the freaking pendulum clock. There is simply no excuse other than corruption for the fact that we don’t just run a couple trains up a hill when we need to store massive amounts of solar energy.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chemists of Lemmy, how accurate is this likability table?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Yeah, the only reason I replied was because you were responding to the calcium dude above, then said “s-block”. Just wanted to spread the good word of the 9th-most abundant element in the universe 🙏
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chemists of Lemmy, how accurate is this likability table?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Magnesium is fine (see response above). invidious.darkness.services/watch?v=Q_4I30Nz_b0 Just don’t vomit on it before you lick it, 'cause it’ll get spicy with acid.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chemists of Lemmy, how accurate is this likability table?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
I have elemental magnesium. it’s shelf stable and doesn’t react violently with water. Want me to try licking it and let you know? (hint: at worst it’ll make a minuscule amount of milk of magnesia)