Science trivia

Chlorine.

If electric current is flowing from left to right, which way are the electrons going?
 
Miss Freckles said:
by waving and shouting.

sorry didn't mean to intrude. what am i doing here, anyway? *shudders* such a dark and fearsome place...
Click to expand...

LOL - you're welcome in this thread! :)

Olorin: I'm actually not sure I know the answer to that one :eek: In fact, I think it's an unproven axiom of our physical theories. Furthermore,as I'm learning in my grad courses, Quantum Field Theory (which describes fundamental particle interactions) is actually not completely internally logically consistent and this may be one of those points...

If that answer was satisfactory, then what is a gluon?
 
Gluons can form 'glueballs', and I think they are the type whose attraction increases as distance increases – or was that another particle? :eek: They hold quarks together, and I remember something about 'colour charge'. Hope I got some of that right . . . .

Method of Carbon-14 dating? (You can explain Uranium-lead dating as well, if you like. :eek:)
 
Dernhelm said:
Gluons can form 'glueballs', and I think they are the type whose attraction increases as distance increases – or was that another particle? :eek: They hold quarks together, and I remember something about 'colour charge'. Hope I got some of that right . . . .
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's pretty close ;)

Gluons are the mediator of the strong force, in the same way that photons are the mediator of the electromagnetic force. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, for each fundamental force of nature (the strong force being one) there exists a particle which mediates the force or is the particle which gets exchanged so that the force can be "communicated." And in the same way as we define an "electric charge" for the electromagnetic force, we can define a "colour charge" for the particles that respond to the strong force-quarks. But it's more complicated in the strong interaction, because there are 3 "colours" whereas there is only 1 unit of electric charge in the case of electromagnetism.

Method of Carbon-14 dating? (You can explain Uranium-lead dating as well, if you like. :eek:)
Click to expand...

what's the question? how does it work in general?
 
Charn_Tim said:
LOL - you're welcome in this thread! :)

Olorin: I'm actually not sure I know the answer to that one :eek: In fact, I think it's an unproven axiom of our physical theories. Furthermore,as I'm learning in my grad courses, Quantum Field Theory (which describes fundamental particle interactions) is actually not completely internally logically consistent and this may be one of those points...

If that answer was satisfactory, then what is a gluon?
Click to expand...

first welcome me and then insult me as an unproven axiom and a physical theory *bursts into tears*

and by the way, carbon-14s date method: it's pretty simple. they come up to you and say, hi, i'm 14 but i'm so mature for my age that i can ask you out without having to ask my parents for permission. no, i don't have a phone number, phones have small pieces i could swallow so my mummy doesn't let me near one"

...*yawns*... now i remember how i passed the time in maths...
 
MF....:rolleyes:

CT said:
how does it work in general?
Click to expand...
Yes. :) (Sorry I wasn't very clear :eek:)

CT said:
Gluons are the mediator of the strong force, in the same way that photons are the mediator of the electromagnetic force. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, for each fundamental force of nature (the strong force being one) there exists a particle which mediates the force or is the particle which gets exchanged so that the force can be "communicated." And in the same way as we define an "electric charge" for the electromagnetic force, we can define a "colour charge" for the particles that respond to the strong force-quarks. But it's more complicated in the strong interaction, because there are 3 "colours" whereas there is only 1 unit of electric charge in the case of electromagnetism.
Click to expand...

Hm. Always more to learn!!! 'Close' as compered to MF's answers, perhaps? :D
 
Dernhelm said:
Hm. Always more to learn!!! 'Close' as compered to MF's answers, perhaps? :D
Click to expand...

haha, no you're not that bad :p ;)

Well, I think the idea's actually simpler than MF's. :) Every element has a certain half life which is defined as the time it takes for half of the atoms in one substance to decay into its decay product, a different element. The half life of carbon 14 is about 5000 years and we can roughly tell how old something is by looking at its chemical composition and measuring the ratio of carbon 14 to its decay product if we know that the decay product could not have gotten there by some other means.

(Hopefully, that made some sense?)

Question: What famous star in a very famous (possibly the most famous) constellation do scientists suspect will supernova "soon"?
 
It did – though I already knew the answer, so I can't say that it wouldn't look gibberish to the uninitiated...:D

Is Ophiuchus a famous constellation? I guess I'll leave this one to someone else, as I really have no idea.
 
That would probably be Betelgeuse. Although astronomers' idea of 'soon' is even worse than geologists'... :D

If a star has the mass to become a black hole after it explodes, why isn't it like a black hole before?
 
Because it has to be within the...whatcha-call-it radius before it can become a Black Hole. (Can I call them BH's?) I should know the name.... But I can't think of it. :(

The faster you move through space, the slower you move through _________ ?
 
*thinks* Arg. Not working. *bangs head* There, that's better.

Standard candles - isn't that the name for types of stars that have a constant actual brightness? They use them to figure out distance.
 
The Schwarzschild radius is the radius at which an object with a given mass would become a black hole if all of its mass were located inside that radius. Any massive object has an associated Schwartzschild radius-you can actually calculate your own schwartzschild radius-the radius of the sphere at which you would have to be compressed in order to become a black hole. Pretty cool, huh? :)...and of course, only black holes have an event horizon.

Anyway, Olorin, I thought there were many different ways of determining the distance of far away stars. I think Derny said one of them; I would also think of looking at their spectral lines emitted since stars emit characteristic spectral lines due to the type of nuclear fusion in their core.
 
Back
Top