61

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Whats The Fastest Spinning Spacey Thing ?..

« on: 21/09/2016 10:35:52 »

I find the actual spin rate of the Gravity Probe B gyroscopes quoted as approximately 4000 rpm I would expect it to be much higher than that of millisecond pulsars.

62

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Why Does Venus Spin The Other Way Round ?...and other rotational questions !

« on: 20/09/2016 17:09:54 »

In the early ages of the solar system there was a lot of interaction between the planets including collisions ,the other anomalous one is Uranus that spins on its side

63

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What Is the Temperature Of a Black Hole ?

« on: 20/09/2016 14:03:29 »

Presumably a shrinking black hole would explode when its mass fell to the Planck limit 22 micrograms about one hundredth thousandth the energy of the Hiroshima bomb nothing like Hydrogen bomb levels

64

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why Don't We Eat Turkey Eggs ?

« on: 16/09/2016 13:10:38 »

In the immediate post war period when food was in short supply I used to get turkey eggs that had proved infertile from a hatchery to eat they were OK.

65

General Science / Re: Have I built the world's first human memory erasing machine?

« on: 29/08/2016 04:46:36 »

Once you have located the target volume you wish to destroy how do you keep the brain still while you blast it ?
The assumption seems to have been made that the storage of one memory is stored in just one location this seems very unlikely to me to take the similar case of a computer if you accidentally load a rogue program  it can be very difficult to remove it completely as little bits and pieces of it are stored all over the place often with numerous copies I have an uninstalling program that hunts for remnants and often finds hundreds !

66

Chemistry / Re: What medications could you isolate from plants in your backyard?

« on: 13/08/2016 21:25:26 »

What are the tomato like fruits that grow on potato plants ?
I have been told they are pretty poisonous
My Latin is weak did you miss out cannabis ?

67

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: If you put electricity, magnetism, super heat, super cold in a mass the size of

« on: 05/08/2016 15:10:58 »

The temperature of a newly formed neutron star is much higher than that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: Could pyramids have been terraformed?

« on: 06/07/2016 12:43:24 »

I am shocked to pyramid mumbo jumbo on a scientific forum1

69

The Environment / Re: Ideas for population control?

« on: 25/03/2016 22:15:11 »

In the UK there is a very effective form of birth control i.e An obsession with owning your own house and very high house prices.
It is impossible for a married couple with only one person working to buy a house so both work and take great care not to conceive or have abortions if they do.

70

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: If an object is moving through space and no force is applied, where does it go?

« on: 21/10/2015 12:22:03 »

This is really a question about the geometry of space , if it is flat it goes off to infinity if it is curved it comes back to where it started but what if it is saddle shaped where does it go then ?

71

General Science / Re: When Pool Balls Collide

« on: 16/01/2015 19:10:26 »

Although simple theories such as the conservation of momentum work fine in an idealised case the collision of pool balls in the real world is much more complex.
The balls are not of zero size upon collision some of the kinetic energy converts to a wave of compression within the ball which reaches the centre then in a slightly weakened and delayed form bounces back out to the surface during which time the balls may have moved to some extent or had some spin imparted to them.
There is always some spin imparted to the first ball due to friction between it and the table although a skilled player tries to pre-empt this.
A robot snooker playing computer would be quite difficult to program !
 

72

Question of the Week / Re: QotW - 14.10.27 - How will life end on Earth?

« on: 17/12/2014 16:39:56 »

I sometimes think Green peace who say "make peace not war" have got it the wrong way around it would be better for the world if humans killed themselves off.

73

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Does planet size determine life form size?

« on: 02/02/2012 08:01:44 »

There are other forms of life on the Earth that greatly exceed the mass of the large whales, they are the trees, fungi and coral reefs indeed life is very veratile.