McCoy

Re: Asteroid mining vs. moon mining.

Re: Asteroid mining vs. moon mining.

Re: Asteroid mining vs. moon mining. It was basically a "feel good" treaty that is probably not enforceable.

Re: Take a Teammate to a Movie

Re: Take a Teammate to a Movie I will never understand why anyone likes that movie.

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? Not the gamma rays, the crystal structure is (supposedly) why an apparently solid bar of palladium can soak up so much hydrogen.

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? Thank you!

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? I'd settle for helium, at least for now.

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? The claim is they start with hydrogen and end up with helium. How by any definition of the word is that not fusion?

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? Allegedly so does this as an intermediate step.

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? Believe a neutron, high or low energy, is 1 proton plus 1 electron. If it was one proton and two electrons, it would have a net negative charge. So the process splits hydrogen atoms out of water molecules (takes energy). Then turns a neutral hydrogen atom (1 proton plus 1 electron) into a neutron, without exposing it to forces on the order of magnitude of the gravity of a neutron star. Being a low energy (which in this case means "not fast moving") neutron it is "captured" by another hydrogen atom, creating an atom of deuterium (2H). Will admit I'm not familiar enough with free neutrons to know if that takes or releases energy, but the rule of thumb is movement toward iron (Fe) from either end of the periodic table releases energy. Maybe this is part of the energy released. Anyway, then another neutron bumps into the deuterium atom and tuns it into tritium (3H); another one comes along and it becomes quadrium (4H). 4H is unstable enough it emits an electron (beta decay), turning one of the newly created neutrons back into an electron and a proton, and the quadrium into helium (4He). Without enough neutrons being soaked up in creating heavier isotopes of oxygen to keep the process from going past the break-even point. If this even becomes a less expensive way of creating deuterium and tritium it would have commercial applications. Again, I'll wait for the peer review. *shrug* On Earth, water is the most readily available source of hydrogen. If we are talking a long enough timeline that mining for extraterrestrial ices becomes cost effective, you have water (H2O), ammonia (H3N), or methane, (H4C), in order of increasing abundance, and "protenium" can be extracted from all of them. Or if other elements do soak up some of the free neutrons, diatomic hydrogen (H2) would be the most efficient choice.

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? BTW, if this works, I said IF, it is not water that is being consumed, it is hydrogen. Should, in principle, work just as well with ammonia, methane, or for that matter diatomic hydrogen.

Re: A brain the size of the universe...

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? No, this is cold fusion. I'll wait for peer revue. So you start with 4 hydrogen atoms, turn 3 of them into neutrons, they form a "quadrium" atom, which spontaneously deteriorates into helium, and this results in a net loss of mass? I need to see the math. Easily testable hypothesis, in addition to heat this should be generating detectable amounts of deuterium, tritium, and helium. Where are they?

Re: Give me a head with Hair!

Re: Give me a head with Hair! TK with a feedback limitation?

Re: Give me a head with Hair!

Re: Give me a head with Hair!

Re: Give me a head with Hair!

Re: Jokes I think the Spider Robinson version was: When you swim in the sea And an eel bites you knee That's a Moray!

Re: "Neat" Pictures *raises hand*

Re: Beaks and Speech And Corvids are spooky-smart! Tool making and a grasp of math! My mother clearly remembers a Raven that lived on a neighbor's porch. It was free to come and go as it pleased, but it had a perch on the porch and was fed by the family. It could say a few words of English. It called some individuals by name, but what really impressed my mother was that it could tell race in humans. The road was clearly visible from the raven's perch, if a Black person turned in at the gate it would call out "Someone's coming!" Maybe call them by name as they got closer. But if a White person, man or woman, turned in at the gate it was "White folk coming, Essie, White folk coming!"

Re: CHAMPIONS LIVE ACTION Kickstarter from Darren and Silverback Press! +1 Am supporting this project for reasons already given, but I just don't "get" LARP. Don't "get" pro sports either. Don't have anything against those who do enjoy them.

Re: Beaks and Speech