Cancer

Re: Hard Science Help Presumably, but we're on slippery ground here. If we're talking about a black hole, and the photon is inside the black hole, then (1) the photon had to "borrow" its initial energy from the energy of the black hole in order to exist in the first place and (2) strictly speaking, you shouldn't ask questions about what goes on inside a black holes, because you can't learn the answers (no information can escape the event horizon). In fact, you can't be certain whether the same laws of physics operate inside a black hole as outside, because no information escapes to let you know. Virtual particles (of which photons are certainly included) come into existence and are destroyed all the time. This situation probably fits into that process, modulo the problems of discussing the inside of black holes already mentioned. Actually, I never considered that before. There's no fundamental limit on the minimum energy in a photon, but you have practical problems making very low energy photons. The black-body spectrum goes to zero as energy/frequency goes to zero/wavelength goes toward infinity. Also, in a non-vacuum, photons interact with the particles around them, which tends to increase the photon energies, though I forget the dependencies of the strengths of the interactions as a function of photon energy (it's a constant value at low energy, though). Remember, you're changing frames of reference. Not only do the clocks slow down as your speed increases, but your meter sticks contract, also. With photons, the total photon energy is conserved as you change reference frames ... it was arguments about electromagnetic waves and energy conservation that make the entirety of "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies" which was Einstein's initial paper on special relativity.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Paris Hilton, Superstar! NT: Highly appropriate celebrity endorsements for medical products.

Re: The Last Word In HERO terms, it's like successfully casting Dispel on yourself. A neat trick, but usually it only happens because of a plot mcguffin.

Re: Answers & Questions (Rats, beaten to the punch.) Q: What other novel apparel storage strategies do you have to offer? A: ((same as above))

Re: Answers & Questions

Re: A Thread for Random Musings It's probably too late to start a thread for "Your favorite NGD threads, 2007", but to me there really was none better than Solomon's Draft a Superteam thread. Real creativity in there, and more nostalgic pleasure for me than I'd got in a long time. A pity Solomon's been idle for 7 months now.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

Re: The Last Word No, as in, the irrational fear of becoming a lecturer or politician.

Re: The Last Word The irrational fear of making one's self bogus.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Breaking wind.

Re: The Last Word Sounds like autobogotiphobia.

Re: The Last Word Well, the second isn't required....

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Sir, were you aware that you are so strung out your eyes look like spheres made of very lean bacon? A: I am going nowhere near that frying pan.

Re: The Last Word For stand-alone books, all I have is contributor credit. Well, unless you count my PhD and MA theses, which I don't think you should. For magazine/journal articles, I've got a few dozen, ranging from single-author to one of a cast of thousands, so to speak.

Re: The Last Word Now you make me wish I'd published a single-author book.

Re: The Last Word Hmm. Resident Parasitologist, Dr. Marcus, specialist in disgusting worms and disfiguring insect larval infestations. OK, I give in.

Re: Steampunk/Victorian fantasy setting questions There's an expensive, apparently scholarly history book with a title "World Non-ferrous Metal Production and Prices, 1700-1976" ... haven't found any reviews on-line. If you can find that in a library it might let you know just what metals were produced historically in your era of interest.

Re: The Last Word Well, not on-line. For that you have to buy the book.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings No colloquium this afternoon. So in principle I could go home and go to bed right now. What an insanely attractive proposition.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER Usually zero. There are asymptotic spikes before the end of the quarter, before exams, and sometimes before assignment due dates. I listed those in inverse order of magnitude.

Re: The Last Word Hmm. The infrared spectral atlas file you can get by FTP doesn't have the line IDs in it. A pity.

Re: Hard Science Help It gets paid to the local gravitational well; it costs energy to go up. The photon doesn't have enough energy to be able to buy itself out of the gravity well. The black hole forecloses, takes all its energy. Since all there is to a photon is its energy, that destroys it and it's gone and you don't have to worry about it any more. Kinda like how the banking system wants to handle subprime mortgages: they take everything and that's the end. A small number. E = h f for photons, where h is Planck's constant. You've changed topics, believe it or not. In 1-5 you're talking about general relativity; in 6 you're talking special relativity. Still, the answer is, it doesn't matter. Photons travel at c. Things that travel at c don't have time pass for them.

Re: Hard Science Help Well, yeah. Actually, if you leave out the general relativity terms, then your GPS readings will be off by at least 50 meters, so this bites you in unsuspected ways.

Re: The Last Word Once you get out past 1.5 microns or so i's mostly all molecular vibration-rotation lines, though.

Re: The Last Word Why, in the solar spectrum, of course.