The WOW Science Thread

[lindosfan1]

I use windows to let light in, same problem though no use in the dark.

[sandman67]

Another local one for the "WOW how retarded" section, and a damnng inditement of the level of scientific education in Thailand:

Tugboats harnessed to tackle raging floodwaters

Powerful boats from the navy and other state authorities have been brought into the fight to expel damaging floodwater into the ocean, a Pheu Thai MP says.

Ayutthaya MP Ong-at Wachiraphong said an experiment in his province found the boats could raise the flow rate of large amounts of water and increase the discharge into the ocean.

Mr Ong-at raised the proposal yesterday after a test in the Noi River, a subsidiary of the Chao Phraya, found its flow rate increased by 20%, or 57 cubic metres a second, with the help of boat engines.

The propellers of eight powerboats anchored by ropes to bridge posts had helped push out the water in a one-day test, he said.

"It's a good result," Mr Ong-at said, attributing the success to joint efforts among hydrographical experts of various agencies to find ways to cope with water run-off from the north.

"We need to push water out into the sea [the Gulf of Thailand] as fast as possible while the tide is still not high."

A massive amount of run-off is flowing downstream along the Chao Phraya River to Ayutthaya, Pathum Thani, Bangkok and the Gulf.

The situation in Bangkok was normal yesterday with no overflow from the Chao Phraya to flood riverside communities, said Department of Drainage and Sewerage director Sanya Chenimit.

Though the river flow in Nakhon Sawan yesterday hit an alarming rate of 3,935 cubic metres a second, it decreased after the water passed the Chao Phraya Barrage in Chai Nat and Ayutthaya. In Bang Sai district, the flow rate was measured at 2,946 cu m a second.

Royal Irrigation Department spokesman Vira Vongsangnak said this instilled confidence that Bangkok would be saved.

However, officials at the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration were not so relaxed. They met yesterday to discuss plans to prevent flooding in the capital.

Deputy Bangkok governor Pornthep Techapaiboon said the city will allocate a budget of one-billion baht for flood solutions.

Villagers and farmers in other provinces are still fighting against flooding brought about by heavy rainfall and overflow from major rivers.

In Chaiyaphum, people in high-risk areas in 10 districts have been told to evacuate after an overflow from the Chi River kept increasing, flooding many areas, while in Phetchabun, the overflow from the Pasak River has flooded parts of Nong Phai and Si Thep districts.

Physics..... Thailands Undiscovered Country.....

[Khundon1975]

Sandman I can't wait till they have a drought, they will simply turn the boats around and pump water up-river. Ong-at Wachiraphong is a bloody genius. Of course they will have to learn to drink salt water!

[sandman67]

of course....dredging the river never entered his walnut like brain......you expect this sort of utter pig ignorance from a politician, even ones in the west. But this....

Royal Irrigation Department spokesman Vira Vongsangnak said this instilled confidence that Bangkok would be saved.

that is just insane.

[Nereus]

He must of been at the same party as this clown:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/securit ... ood-crisis

Meanwhile, the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry plans to build another canal to drain water from the Chao Phraya to the sea to prevent flooding in the Central Plains in the long term, Minister Theera Wongsamut said yesterday.

Mr Theera said the canal, linking the Chao Phraya River in the upper part of Chai Nat to Samut Songkhram, Samut Sakhon and the Gulf of Thailand, would be 300 metres wide to allow water to flow to the sea rapidly.

In addition, a road would be built on each bank of the canal to improve transport links between the provinces near the new canal.

[buksida]

Now this really is "wow science" ...

Particles found to break speed of light
GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles travelling faster than light -- a finding that could overturn one of Einstein's long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, told Reuters that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/ ... CW20110922

[sandman67]

On this river thing.... I am right arent I?

Fluid dynamics means the boats energy input into the river system would be so miniscule as to be insignficant? It would only change the flow rate in the direct backwash from the prop and not at all any further down?

Its just that the Nation today has an artcle where someone from the Thai NAtional Science lot is trumpetng the idea?????

Im sure its a duck.....maybe its a job for Mythbusters

anyway. Back to proper mad science at CERN....faster than light neutrinos

agree Buksi...wow indeed

more on that and previous research showing the same from todays Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/ ... -neutrinos

Albert's reaction?

images.jpg (8.75 KiB) Viewed 909 times

phbbbbbbbbbbbbt!

[Nereus]

On this river thing.... I am right arent I?

Fluid dynamics means the boats energy input into the river system would be so miniscule as to be insignficant? It would only change the flow rate in the direct backwash from the prop and not at all any further down?

Its just that the Nation today has an artcle where someone from the Thai NAtional Science lot is trumpetng the idea?????
Im sure its a duck.....maybe its a job for Mythbusters

Its a very complex exercise to try and measure something like this. Fluid dynamics involves just about every theory ever developed by Newton, Bernoulli and several others.

A boat propeller is designed to "advance" through the water as it rotates, so the first thing that is happening here is that a big part of the power being developed by the propeller is just churning the water and causing cavitation. Newtons laws in part state that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so if the boat is tied up to the bridge (as it must be), then a big lump of energy is going into the towline and hence to the immovable bridge.

Then there is the turbulence and swirling eddy currents already flowing in the river. Any accelerated water flow will immediately come up against this natural flow and lose energy trying to overcome it, friction if you like.

They have not, at least I have not seen where, they are measuring the claimed increased flow of the river. Directly astern of the boat yes there may well be increased flow, but how far does it go downstream?

I think the little children may be having a game!

Historically, the technology employed to move liquids and gasesfans, propellers, and pumps—has been designed under the assumption that the path of least resistance is a straight line. This thinking evolved into the paddle wheels and early impellers used to capture energy or pump water. However, fluids in natural systems do not move in a straight line, but instead in a particular swirling pathway. Attempts to move gases or fluids linearly result in increased friction, backpressure, reverse heat gain, and in the case of liquids, cavitation. Nature, unimpeded, is more efficient than any industrial system.[/quote]

[dtaai-maai]

Coroner rules Irish man died of spontaneous combustion

A coroner has ruled that a man who burned to death was a victim of spontaneous combustion in what is thought to be Ireland’s first case of the phenomenon.

Michael Faherty, 76, was found dead near an open fire at his home in Clareview Park, Ballybane, Galway last December – leaving investigators perplexed as to the cause of his death. West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin admitted that it was the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he had returned the verdict of spontaneous human combustion.

Investigators found Mr Faherty’s body in the sitting room with no clues as to the cause of the fire. He was found lying on his back with no trace of a fire accelerant, the coroner’s court was told. Local fire officer Gerry O’Malley said that he was satisfied that Mr Faherty’s open fireplace was not the cause of the flame that caused his death.

Pathologist Grace Callagy said that Mr Faherty, who suffered from hypertension and diabetes, had been last seen two to three days before his death. His body was found cremated with damage to the floor underneath him and to the ceiling above. Due extensive internal damage to the organs, it had not been possible to determine the cause of Mr Faherty’s death.

Dr McLoughlin said: “This fire was thoroughly investigated and I’m left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation.”

Spontaneous combustion is the burning of an entity without evidence of an external source of ignition. Hundreds of reported cases of the phenomenon have surfaced over the last 300 years -though they are seldom assessed by experts.

[pharvey]

(The WOW point for me is purely the amount of ''gear'' out there!!)

Time to get the hard hats out.......

Second giant chunk of space junk heading for Earth

A defunct German space telescope is set to collide with Earth less than five weeks after a satellite the size of a bus hits the planet.

The 2.4-ton Röntgensatellit, or ROSAT, has been spinning aimlessly through space for 12 years after it was switched off in 1999 after its guidance system broke.

With its orbit bringing it inexorably closer to Earth, the authorities initially thought it would burn up entirely on re-entry.

However, it is now believed that pieces of space junk weighing up to 400kg could smash into the planet’s surface as early as the end of October.

And experts warned that ROSAT would not be the last to hit because solar activity next year is likely to damage far more ageing spacecraft and send them plummeting to Earth.

ROSAT’s pieces are almost three times heavier than the biggest chunk of UARS, the US satellite which is expected to strike within the next 24 hours.

Nasa experts have calculated that ROSAT is more than 50% more likely to cause death, injury or property damage on Earth than UARS, although the chance is still 2,000 to one.

UARS is heading for Earth in a potentially deadly shower of 26 pieces but there are estimated to be 30 chunks in the second strike next month.

The space telescope was built by the German firm DLR.

A spokesman for the firm told New Scientist magazine that the telescope’s huge mirrors were the objects most likely to survive re-entry.

Heiner Klinkrad, the head of the space debris office at the European Space Agency, also told the magazine: “ROSAT has a large mirror structure that survives high re-entry temperatures."

[sandman67]

Ive seen a couple of programs that link SHC to the "candle effect" you get when you burn a clothed human body. Still interesting phenomenon tho....

[hhfarang]

In Chile desert, huge telescope begins galaxy probe

A powerful telescope affording a view of the universe unmatched by most ground-based observatories gazed onto distant galaxies for the first time Monday from deep in Chile's Atacama desert.

Full story:

http://news.yahoo.com/chile-desert-huge ... 46084.html

[sandman67]

Just in case any Lunar fans are in BKK next month theres an opportunity for you to go look at a lump of the moon

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/new/bre ... 66992.html

Im luckier than most and have had my close up with lunar rock samples - whilst at school we had one afternoon of access to NASAs travelling school geology slide collection (complete with NASA exhibit security guard / lunar "experts"). Gotta say that was a memorable afternoon....the experts brought with the slides some Apollo memorabelia like a helmet from one of the missions, photos, hammers they used to gather samples, and the slides themselves and a real golfball size lump of moon rock you could hold (with gloves on). Made my day.

Anyways, if you are about its maybe worth a visit....NASA are great at exhibit stuff and it sounds like some of the same gear is coming with the basalt lump.

[sandman67]

This is from an American source, and so I dont know if this will be visible down here in the LOS, but....

The Orionid Meteor Shower peaks on the night of Oct. 21-22. This shower normally produces about 20 meteors per hour, many of which are a yellow or greenish color. The last quarter moon will not present much of a problem this year. At over 40 miles per second, these are fast meteors that at times produce fireballs.

So if you look up and see yellow and green spots in the sky it might not be the 15th Heineken playing tricks on your brain for a change

[migrant]

This is from an American source, and so I dont know if this will be visible down here in the LOS, but....

The Orionid Meteor Shower peaks on the night of Oct. 21-22. This shower normally produces about 20 meteors per hour, many of which are a yellow or greenish color. The last quarter moon will not present much of a problem this year. At over 40 miles per second, these are fast meteors that at times produce fireballs.

So if you look up and see yellow and green spots in the sky it might not be the 15th Heineken playing tricks on your brain for a change

Just happen to be on the beach those days, will try to hold the drink consumption down and watch for it!!