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Physiology & Medicine / Resting heart-rate

« on: 12/02/2008 21:48:54 »

I am a rather fat 33yr old male. (120kg but working on it, gentle excercise, lowered kJ intake, down 2.5kg on last month  [])

Does obesity effect heart-rate? I consistantly meaure my resting HR at 58-64 per minute, this morning 54! Am I doing it wrong (two finger tips on my wrist)? or do fat peoples hearts beat slower? I understood a slow HR was a sign of a fit person,I would certainly not call myself that. Could I have some other problem going on? Despite the obesity, I keep pretty good health, nothing worse than the common cold to complain about.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Singularity - By Bill DeSmedt

« on: 12/02/2008 20:47:10 »

I have just finished listening to a free podiobook called "singularity" by Bill deSmedt. Absolutely brilliant story, check it out over at podiobooks.com, and unless you want the story spoiled for you don't reed this post.

I have a some questions about the science in the book. It is of course entirely fictional story, but I want to get an idea how plausible it is.





The centre piece of the story is that the Tunguska (sp?) (northern Russia) event was not a meteorite but a microscopic black hole impacting, and then getting trapped in an orbit inside the earth, a slowly decaying orbit, until some Russians discover it and proceed to capture it.

How plausible is this idea? The author says the singularity has the approximately the mass of Mt Everest, in a point source, obviously, travelling a a few thousand of km/h. He uses a nuclear power plant on the floor of ocean and loads of electro magnets to first of all nudge the orbit of the singularity as it "apogees" (if a subterranean orbit can have an apogee) and then slow it down to rest. How feasible is it to slow an object the size of Mt Everest to rest from thousands of km/h? The "braking path" used was 10km long. once at rest the singularities own hawking radiation was used to produce steam to turn turbines to provide power for the magnets to hold it in place. I know nothing about hawking radiation, again is this feasible?

Much of the plot is centred around the crazy physics associated with singularities. Further on in the story the Russians lower the event horizon on the singularity and create a time machine of sorts, and here the author brings in some even more crazy quantum physics/philosophy about needing a consciousness to have reality... The story is very very well done, but I would love to hear an educated opinion on the science in the story.

There is much much more, room temperature superconductors, bad shrooms letting you see what the universe looks like when no one is looking, self-fulfilling prophecies of time travel, hazardous waste disposal using molten iron baths...


If someone much more learned than me has listened to/read Bills book I would love to hear your comments on the plausibility of it.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How "fast" does force "travel"

« on: 11/02/2008 22:32:28 »

is the transmission of force instantaneous? if yes does this mean information travels faster than light?

if I have a long stick, say 10 light years long, OK so its a really long stick. If I push on the near end of the stick, how long until the force can be measured at the far end of the stick? does it take 10 years?