Recent content by billslugg

I was WA3LVP but that was 56 years ago!

Thanks, Harry. See you later!

At the rate humans are declining, I expect the machines to take over probably next Thursday, which is bad because that's my bowling night and they might ban bowling as "inhumane to the pin setting device".

The site appears to be alive but unused. Without a moderator it would be a free for all.

Way back in "the olden days" of SDC (2002-2012), moderation was very strict about "against the mainstream" stuff in the regular forums. If you made a claim you were expected to provide a reference. ATM stuff was in a separate forum which was easy to ignore if you wanted to. Such a high level of...

This condundrum is part of the reason Einstein came up with Special Relativity. He knew from Maxwell's equations that the magnetic field arose only when a charge was moving relative to the observer. If you ride down the street in a car with an electron driving, you cannot measure a magnetic...

I am sorry to hear of the forums closing down, I've enjoyed my time here at the SDC forums and look forward to them returning some day.

With vastly increased computing power "just around the corner" perhaps we can model every conceivable combination of solar nebula elements, etc etc and see just how often life arises. I think life is ubiquitous where there is water. I don't go with other solvents, water is just too unique in so...

The elasticity measuring apparatus would certainly have been immersed in the liquid helium along with the sample. Everything would have to be at the same temperature to prevent movements. It takes a very tough material to withstand the thermal shock of immersion. Stainless steel works OK. Teflon...

Six years ago this was published, showing a flexible graphene foam for use in space, flexible in liquid helium at -269°C. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-graphene-foam-squishy-coldest-temperatures

This is a possible method. One thing not taken into consideration is the conservation of momentum. If large masses are sent to Mars, other large masses must be sent in the other direction. The rings would move backwards by an equal amount of momentum.

Steel has no good use in space in strength structures. Too many far lighter alloys with similar strength.

I will defer to the principle of conservation of mass/energy. Stuff can't just "go away". There would be evidence, like a giant flash of light for example.

360 has 24 divisors. This is very handy for navigation purposes, for dividing round things up. The ancients probably knew this. From Wiki: "360 is the 13th highly composite number, and one of only seven numbers such that no number less than twice as much has more divisors; the others are 1, 2...

In essence, this reports on the weather at the core/mantle boundary, complete with mountains.