Fusion refers to the fusing of light atomic nuclei into heavier nuclei to release energy. Currently nuclear powerplants use fission: breaking apart heavy nuclei into lighter nuclei to release energy. Medium sized nuclei are the most stable, and tremendous energy is released in breaking apart heavy nuclei and fusing together light nuclei. Uranium is used in nuclear power plants now because it is easy to set up a fission chain reaction to keep the plant working properly.
Fusion is of course the process that powers the sun and all other stars. Hydrogen nuclei fuse together into helium nuclei, converting some small amount of mass into energy in the process. In stars, this occurs because of the high amounts of gravitational force pushing all the matter together, creating high levels of heat and pressure.
Currently there is research in using fusion to generate power on earth. Most of this research is in recreating fusion as it is done in stars, on a much smaller scale. Heavy hydrogen nuclei (they are heavy because they have more neutrons) are put into conditions made to simulate those in stars, allowing them to fuse into helium. This takes lots of energy to generate the temperatures at which fusion takes place, and currently the energy required to cause the fusion is much greater than the energy released by the fusion reaction. The goal of the research is to produce a fusion reactor where a fusion reaction can be started, the high energy plasma contained by magnetic fields, such that the energy produced is greater than the energy required to start the reaction, so power can be generated and put to use.
Cold fusion is an alternative way of trying to use fusion to get energy. The idea is that instead of recreating the conditions of a star, fusion is caused to occur by some alternative means not involving such high temperatures. In the late 80's, some scientists reported success in getting fusion to occur at room temperature in test tubes. But the effect was small and hard to reproduce and not well understood, so lots of scientists say that it isn't really fusion or that the effect didn't exist or something like that, and the scientific community ended up mostly losing interest in it. More recently there have been attempts to cause fusion using soundwaves, and this has apparently been more accepted. But cold fusion just isn't well understood, so it hasn't received as much support in the scientific community as efforts to replicate the conditions inside of stars which is better understood since we think we have some idea how the sun works.
Cold fusion isn't a theory. It refers to any sort of fusion that takes place in conditions where temperatures are less that that of a star (ie room temperature). And there have been at least these two approaches taken to getting it to happen. Scientists haven't dropped the theory, there are still scientists researching these approaches and probably others as well. It just isn't a popular field, since it isn't well understood.
Ask Chromus
While you're right that the base for the word lunacy comes from the latin word for moon ("luna"), there isn't really any proof when it comes to the effect of the moon on mental states. The ancient greeks thought that, because the brain has water in it, the moon affects it just like it affects the tides, causing madness at certain times. While this view has become more refined in the past few years, no one is really certain about how the moon affects us. What we do know, however is that certain types of crime and admissions into mental health institutes rise when the moon is full. Source: http://www.psych-health.com/moon1.htm
The largest insect alive today is the Giant Water Bug, measuring 6 cm long and 2.5 cm wide. These bugs are so large that they eat other bugs, including baby Giant Water Bugs. Source: http://www.alienexplorer.com/ecology/p96.html
The largest bird is the ostrich, though only because humans drove to extinction the actual largest bird, the Elephant Bird, around 1700 AD. The flightless Elephant Bird weighed up to 1100 pounds and was as tall as 11 feet. Source: http://www.aristotle.net/~swarmack/patra.html
The largest bird is the ostrich, though only because humans drove to extinction the actual largest bird, the Elephant Bird, around 1700 AD. The flightless Elephant Bird weighed up to 1100 pounds and was as tall as 11 feet. Source: http://www.aristotle.net/~swarmack/patra.html
According to http://ufbir.ifas.ufl.edu/chap30.htm the largest insects are of a few species of beetles. This page looks at the largest specimens of these beetles. The beetle Titanus giganteus can apparently grow to over 16 centimeters (over six inches) long. Even the average Titanus is reported to be over 13 centimeters, and the smaller ones only grow to about 9 centimeters. Which is still probably bigger than almost all giant water bugs.
Nope. You've got it backwards. The moon is actually increasingly getting farther and farther away from the Earth, though not at a rapid pace. The moon's orbit around the earth increases by about 3.8 cm a year. This doesn't mean much now, but in a ten thousand years, the moon is 380 meters farther. The reason behind this has to do with the way the moon's gravity interacts with the tides on Earth. The moon pulls at the Earth, creating tides, but also pulling the land in that area. In fact, because of this, the Earth is slightly more oval shaped than sphere shaped. The increased mass at the bulge causes more gravity to be exerted on the moon, slowing it's orbit but extending it in the same process. http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/questi ... number=124
When you're sick, your body directs the flow of blood to the sick areas to increase the resources available to fight the infection, which leaves less blood for other things, like balance or the proper functioning of your eyes. While it may feel uncomfortable, it's a lot worse for your body to try and fight the infection without the extra resources. The best thing to do is to rest and let your body spend as much energy as it can fighting the infection, rather than spending energy on moving you around.
A smurf just turns an even darker shade of blue.
When you're sick, your body directs the flow of blood to the sick areas to increase the resources available to fight the infection, which leaves less blood for other things, like balance or the proper functioning of your eyes. While it may feel uncomfortable, it's a lot worse for your body to try and fight the infection without the extra resources. The best thing to do is to rest and let your body spend as much energy as it can fighting the infection, rather than spending energy on moving you around.
A smurf just turns an even darker shade of blue.
That's what I've been thinking for years!
You insane americans.
Saying 'I could care less' implies that you _could_ care less, when the intention of phrase is to show that you _couldn't_ care less.
You insane americans.
Saying 'I could care less' implies that you _could_ care less, when the intention of phrase is to show that you _couldn't_ care less.
Last edited by Twilkitri on Wed May 21, 2003 12:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
~Twilkitri~
http://darktwilkitri.thegreatbeyond.net/ (is broken)
http://darktwilkitri.thegreatbeyond.net/ (is broken)
Actually, according to Wayne Magnuson's English Idiom Dictionary, "could care less" is synonomous with "couldn't care less". This is just one of the many idioms that English has. In fact, an idiom is a sentence whose true meaning can not be just by looking at the words in the sentence, and every culture on Earth has them. People from the US tend to have the most memorable ones, though. Source: http://home.t-online.de/home/toni.goell ... are%20less
I'll answer that question as soon as Pez clarifies what he means.
I'll answer that question as soon as Pez clarifies what he means.