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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Monkeypox: Could it be similar to cowpox, and just a mild variant of smallpox?

« on: Yesterday at 13:09:49 »

Wonder how effective the smallpox vaccines are after a few decades of being used, as I had the pressure injection at primary school, many years ago.  But will say the Covid vaccines are pretty effective, still here, despite having had it likely at least twice, but both times a negative test result, which is still possible with the quick tests. Last one was just like a moderate case of flu, while those who are antivax seem to be selecting themselves for Darwin awards, with a very high probability of winning one.

Darwin requires natural selection to take place before reproduction. Darwinism has failed to stop hereditary early age breast cancer or heart failure.

some sort of illness doctor on this forum

In his day job, Chris (Smith) is a virologist; he has a lab with gene sequencing equipment.
- This lab was very active during the COVID pandemic
- I am sure activity will increase again if Monkeypox reaches as far as Cambridge!

See the answer from Chris, above.

I know. He's always introduced as such when making appearances on the national media.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Do cats meow only for humans?

« on: 26/05/2022 00:17:08 »

You have obviously not been on YouTube.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Monkeypox: Could it be similar to cowpox, and just a mild variant of smallpox?

« on: 25/05/2022 22:33:51 »

It is some sort of less worrying virus from the same family as the smallpox  virus, but as there has been a gap in the market for a pox virus and immunisation for smallpox is fading out.
Worrying thing about monkey pox is it varies between 1 and 10 percent lethality and mainly attacks the young.

I seem to remember some sort of illness doctor on this forum, he'd be more help.

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Just Chat! / Re: a suitable pseudonym

« on: 25/05/2022 22:26:14 »

- more severe cases often being seen as children of parents with mildly autistic tendencies (ie a strong genetic contribution) - with Silicon Valley being a particularly intense hotspot

People with mild autism often have sharp intellects but are socially awkward. Severe autism is debilitating condition and usually requires institutional care. Personally I am against the medicalization of human traits where every variation becomes a "syndrome". On the original topic, I couldn't think of a suitable pseudonym and I used my real name. At my age I couldn't give a f#@* who sees it. 

I thought computer people have aspergers syndrome, rather than autistic, which has no slant on someone's interlect other than slowing development.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why do I find it easier to run up steep hills than walk up them

« on: 25/05/2022 07:08:08 »

For the same reason that it is easier to throw a shot put 10 metres than hold it at arms length. Do you find running uphill for 30 seconds easier than walking uphill for 30 seconds?

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General Science / Re: How do we make synthetic gasoline?

« on: 24/05/2022 20:58:55 »

Problem solved, alancalverd has a source of free energy!.Sorry,  i'm just being a smart-ass.  On the subject of Margaret thatcher she sure was an abrasive cold character but she did make Britain great again in terms of the ECONOMY but not necessarily in societal terms(and that's coming from an Irishman). Prior to thatcher Britain was heading to becoming an economic basket case.

1987 crash? Recession of the early 1990s? Exchange rate mechanism?

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General Science / Re: How do we make synthetic gasoline?

« on: 22/05/2022 23:42:20 »

Ethanol would be great, methanol too, but they all come from plants in current form. We have trouble feeding the world at present, which means cutting down the forests and exterminating all the biodiversity.

I would have thought a mixture of different chemicals will provide the greatest effi iency. The idea of an Ice engine is not an explosion but an expansion in a similar way to gunpowder and petrol which has various different molecules there in, different chemicals expand at different rates.

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Just Chat! / Re: Should we report all people to the police if we find them with child porn?

« on: 21/05/2022 20:08:03 »

Torturing someone to death because of their religious utterances cannot be considered a crime of greed or lust. What else motivates anyone?

Power and money? I have heard that on the odd occasion that these can be factors.

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Just Chat! / Re: Should we report all people to the police if we find them with child porn?

« on: 20/05/2022 15:43:56 »

. Every christian church has at least one graphic depiction of a hate crime,

In what way a hate crime? The rulers hated him?

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General Science / Re: Is it safe to transport hydrogen gas compressed into a water tank?

« on: 18/05/2022 13:04:44 »

How about pipes, and huge gas storage containers dotted here and there
.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is there a limit to how hot things can get?

« on: 17/05/2022 21:42:41 »

You would do well to review the basic physics of thermoelectricity. Standard thermocouples and thermopiles have a known temperature coefficient of voltage. If you buy a cheapish digital multimeter it will probably come with a Type K thermocouple and thermistor compensation block that you just plug in to the meter and measure temperatures to better than ±0.1K.

Come on, PC, this is very simple, robust engineering hardware. The guy who repaired my cooker had one in his bag.

Coefficients spake greatly of powered monitoring thus allowing as you say ohmic heating. Also if you never see a change how can you be sure that your measurement is correct. You need to alter the objects temperature.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is there a limit to how hot things can get?

« on: 17/05/2022 18:10:27 »

At some point in your schooldays you should have been introduced to zero-current potentiometric measurements, the Wheatstone bridge, or some other classic null device. If not, I  can only recommend that you review a basic physics text. All we are doing here is a heat-flow null using rate of change to indicate the null point.

Here's a basic aircraft instrument panel. When the dial on the lower right shows zero  rate of change you are neither climbing nor descending so your lift vector equals your weight. 

It is true that some physics students (and some pilots) achieve a null balance by pure chance, but most of us do it by successive approximation.

Photon coupling with mirrors is not luck.

But the thermo couple is still not measured, unless you use a thermometer of a kind.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is there a limit to how hot things can get?

« on: 17/05/2022 14:00:17 »

I'm not Alancalverd but the idea seemed to be that the thermopile was powered, or somehow heated, initially to raise it to a particular temperature.   Then it is switched off and can even be disconnected from any battery or circuit.
   For the second part of the experiment you just connect a Volt meter to the thermopile.   That's the basic idea of an idealised thermopile, it's a thing that doesn't need powering by a battery, it just generates a voltage entirely due to the temperature it has.   You can measure that just by connecting a volt meter.  An ideal volt meter has an infinite resistance, so we can imagine that (almost) no electrons need to flow for that measurement.

A thermopile is a series of thermocouples. If you know the temperature of one set of junctions then the voltage across the  others depends on their temperature difference - no external power involved. But if you break the circuit and inject some current you can raise the temperature of the assembly by ohmic heating. Come to think of it, I'd probably use an auxiliary heater, even simpler.

The theory of operation is then to raise the thermocouple temperature seperatley to the same and as yet unknown temperature of the object body. Connect them into one system by pure luck and register a zero voltage.

Firstly how do you know the temperature of the thermocouple if you are not withdrawing heat from it. Perhaps with another thermocouple? It would be classed as a single system

Secondly even though there is a remote possibility you may achieve equilibrium by pure chance is this really credible!

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is there a limit to how hot things can get?

« on: 16/05/2022 17:18:55 »

The spectrum is irrelevant. As long as the source and detector are coupled and isolated from the rest of the universe, heat always and only flows from a hotter body to a cooler one.
 

Is the thermopile powered, thus allowing you to deduce the electron flow, or is it passive, thus meaning you do not know the temperature of it?

15

Just Chat! / Re: A Short puzzle with dogs.

« on: 16/05/2022 10:36:43 »

Straight to the dog house and vertically down to the river.

   I guess that might work.   The original problem did ask you to find the shortest route for a thirsty dog to get home.  The dog did get home and it was thirsty.

Best Wishes.

It did, and it is possibly the shortest distance to answer the riddle. Conversely with the dog being thirsty it may be the quickest (shortest duration) for the dog to arrive immediately at the river and then toddle off home as the dog probably will function far better once refreshed.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is there a limit to how hot things can get?

« on: 15/05/2022 20:25:20 »

You look at the thermopile voltage and rate of change.

V α T_thermopile

dV/dt α ΔT (thermopile - fly)

It sounds in a similar fashion to the new fangled measurement of mass, the difference is that in the measurement of mass the system is distinct, but in the temperature measurement using a thermopile the subject and the device develop into one singular system and therefore only know the temperature of the combined singular system not the original object.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is there a limit to how hot things can get?

« on: 15/05/2022 16:11:22 »

How do you detect it if energy is not leaving the system?

When you don't detect it coming or going, it isn't transferring. Therefore the subject and the reference must be at the same temperature.

A clever way to do this (at least in principle)  is to put your sample and a small thermopile at the foci of two spherical mirrors facing one another. You heat the thermopile by passing a current through it, and measure its temperature by measuring the voltage across it when you switch off the heating current. If the sample and the thermopile are at the same temperature its voltage won't change with time immediately after switchoff.  But as I remarked elsewhere, practical heat experiments are very difficult to do!  The experiment was originally devised in response to an interview question:how would you measure the temperature of a fly?

But how do you measure a lack of transfer. I understand the principle of  lack of  register but how do you tell the temperature. All I know is two blobs are in equilibrium.

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General Science / Re: Is it safe to transport hydrogen gas compressed into a water tank?

« on: 15/05/2022 16:07:45 »

There is a reason pressurised containers are the shape they are.

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Just Chat! / Re: A Short puzzle with dogs.

« on: 15/05/2022 13:13:46 »

Hi.

   It might be time for a new and suitably short puzzle with dogs.

   Find the shortest route for a thirsty dog going home.

The dog starts  100 m  west of his home and  10 m North of it.    There's a river running west to east which is 30 m south of his home.   The dog must get home and get to river at least once on the way.    What is the shortest route?

Straight to the dog house and vertically down to the river.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is there a limit to how hot things can get?

« on: 15/05/2022 12:36:56 »

Depends on what constitutes temperature? Is it on atomic level or subatomic level, is the temperature considered to be on the substance in question or the measuring device. For example how could you ever measure temperature without the substance in question loosing some energy.

Temperature is the mean internal kinetic energy of a mesoscopic body. It has no meaning for an individual particle.

You can in principle measure temperature without net heat loss by detecting the heat flow between the subject body at T_S and a reference at T_R. when there is no flow, T_S = T_R.

How do you detect it if energy is not leaving the system?