Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2009 January 8

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January 8

problem in thermodynamics

friends, if hydrogen and oxygen are present in a sphere of radius of 6cm, in a ratio of 2:1, and they are burned, what will be the pressure exerted on the walls of the sphere? will it be able to move a vehicle with a mass of 25kg if appropriately transmitted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.227.111 (talk) 02:10, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The former would appear to be highly dependent on the quantity of hydrogen and oxygen. The latter seems unlikely; "if appropriately transmitted" seems to be the core problem rather than a minor issue to gloss over. — Lomn 02:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

To clarify my dismissal of the second part of the question: what motive force does a closed pressurized scuba tank provide? None. The vessel is rigid and has no opening, just as you appear to have theorized with a "sphere of radius 6cm". There's nothing to "appropriately transmit." If you're willing to allow for a nozzle of some sort, then yes, said pressure can move a vehicle of any weight. It just may not move it much. — Lomn 02:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - I think we can assume that the OP has a valve on the outside of the sphere that lets air in or steam out depending on...whatever...and some kind of a piston or turbine or something to efficiently extract energy from the reaction. In an IDEAL world - any amount of pressure can move any mass of object - but in the presence of friction, the force of 'static' friction ('stiction') will actually prevent things from moving at all - unless there is a reasonable amount of energy liberated from the sphere. I rather suspect nothing would happen - but that's "gut feel" kind of a thing. SteveBaker (talk) 02:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, you'd have the same mass of steam/water/water-vapor left inside. It's kinda tricky to figure out the pressure of the water vapor versus the pressure of the hydrogen/oxygen mixture because there is temperature change as a result of the exothermic reaction and a lot would depend on how well that temperature is maintained subsequently. So I rather think there would be not a whole lot of change. If the water would condense back to a liquid - then the pressure inside would drop to essentially zero - but water boils at room temperature in a vacuum - so we know that's not gonna happen. Well - assuming there is SOME change - then with appropriate transmission, we need to know about the frictional forces for your vehicle - the mass of the vehicle doesn't help us to calculate that. In a perfect frictionless world, any force, however small can move a vehicle of any mass - albeit pretty slowly! So you really havn't given us anything like enough information. Sorry! SteveBaker (talk) 02:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

An aside - hydrogen was used as the fuel in the very first vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine, which was built by Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz in 1807. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:45, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

That's true - but it was working like a gasoline engine. Inside the cylinder would be AIR and hydrogen. When the hydrogen burned with the oxygen, water was formed but the remaining nitrogen from the air (4/5ths of the air is nitrogen, remember) would be heated by the combustion - expand greatly and force the piston down the cylinder. Our OP is talking about pure oxygen & hydrogen - so there is no nitrogen there to act as the "working fluid" (in heat engine terms). I don't know whether water vapor (which would be all that was left inside the OP's sphere) would have more or less pressure than the original gasses because that depends on heat and initial pressure - and we don't know what those are without knowing a lot more about the 'engine'. These days, we know that reacting hydrogen with oxygen from the air in a 'fuel cell' to produce electricity without generating heat is the way to go with hydrogen fuelled vehicles. Hydrogen simply doesn't have enough energy density to efficiently replace gasoline in conventional cars. SteveBaker (talk) 15:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The volume of a ball of 6 cm radius is V = 904.8 cm³. I assume the H2/O2 mixture is initially under standard pressure (p = 101,325 Pa) and at standard temperature (T = 25 °C = 298.15 K) - the amount of substance is p*V/(R*T) according to the ideal gas law (do I need to mention that the units have to be correct when you do the calculations?). Multiply that by 2/3 in order to get the amount of water resulting from the combustion (1 mol O2 + 2 mol H2 -> 2 mol H2O).

Now look up the standard enthalpy change of formation for water - in the gaseous state it's ΔH = -241.8 kJ/mol. Approximating water vapor as being an ideal gas, you can first calculate the pressure of the water vapor at standard temperature by p₀ = (amount of water)*R*T/pp₀ = (amount of water)*R*T/V (edit: you don't need that), then compute the temperature rise as ΔT = ΔH/c_V, where c_V is the (molar) heat capacity at constant volume (c_V = 6*R for an ideal gas with 3 internal degrees of freedom, like water is approximately). Now you can again use the ideal gas law to compute the resulting pressure at the temperature you just calculated, with the volume of the ball and the amount of substance of water.

This will be an upper limit for the pressure. Once the combustion process is over, the pressure will fall again as heat is conducted through the spherical shell. Also note that water vapor is not really an ideal gas and also that at high temperatures, the heat capacity increases, so the total temperature will be a bit lower than what you get from the simple calculation.

Icek (talk) 15:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

So what's the answer? Did you crunch the numbers? Well, anyway - if the thing were to work, the ball would have to be a pretty chunky piece of metal (probably) - so the conduction of heat away from the resulting water vapor would probably be significant. SteveBaker (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It's only 1.166 MPa, but the temperature is quite high, 5145 K (which means that it will be considerably lower at least due to vibrational degrees of freedom; they raise c_V to 9*R for higher temperatures). Icek (talk) 11:33, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

i am the one who asked the question. the sphere is connected to a piston. the object is situated in a frictionless region. what will be the acceleration produced? pV=nRT p * 0.001 = 0.0442*8.3136 * 5145 0.001p = 1890

        p= 1,890,000

that is nearly 19 atmospheres. what force will be exerted on a piston connected to an outlet in the sphere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.224.137 (talk) 13:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you forgot to multiply by 2/3, as 3 mol H2/O2 mixture become only 2 mol water. Then you get the value I stated in my last answer - between 11 and 12 atmospheres (and in reality it will be even less, for the reasons mentioned above). For the force on the piston, you only need to multiply the pressure by the area upon which the pressure acts in the right direction on the piston (most likely the piston is a cylinder (of radius r) and the area is r²π). You may ask how the force decreases when the piston moves out. Of course that also depends on heat transfer, but assuming no heat transfer, for an ideal gas p*V^γ is constant (see adiabatic process for the details). Icek (talk) 14:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

In Electric current(AC-230V) transmission-household wiring, why cannot we sense Nutral current using normal Current tester?

why cannot we sense Nutral current using tester? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ranga333eie (talk • contribs) 05:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no such thing as neutral current. A neutral wire simply completes the circuit by carrying the alternating current from the live wire, and is usually the same potential as (and connected to) earth/ground. So there's nothing to measure. (Note that this DOES NOT mean it's safe to touch the neutral wire, it's not or at least not always.) Nil Einne (talk) 13:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Purely for the sake of pedantic completeness, there is neutral current - but it's definitely not something you would measure with a current tester. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Aarrh, I hate quantum physics and its wacky names ;-P Nil Einne (talk) 18:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

If you were to insert an ac ammeter into the neutral lead of a household appliance then of course you would measure the electric current drawn by that appliance so I dont understand the Q (or the above answers for that matter). The neutral is only connected to earth in any installation at the consumer unit.--GreenSpigot (talk) 18:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In some countries, a 230 volt appliance has a hot lead (at 230 volts relative to earth ground) and a neutral lead, which is connected to earth ground back at the power panel, so has very small voltage difference from ground, as well as a safety ground wire, which carries no current if the equipment is working properly, but could carry fault current if the insulation failed somewhere in the circuit. In these locations, the neutral current should be equal to the hot lead current on the equipment power cord. In other countries like the U.S., a 230 volt to 240 volt appliance has 2 hot leads, each at 120 volts relative to ground, as well as a ground conductor. Each of the hot leads should carry the full load current, and there is no neutral conductor. The safety ground should carry no current under normal conditions. Edison (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the OP doesn't understand the difference between voltage and current, or is using the word 'current' in the colloquial sense of 'something to do with electrical power'. I say this because most householders lack the equipment to measure the current in their mains (house current) wiring. All most people have is a voltmeter or a neon tester, so perhaps when the OP writes "current tester" he really means "voltage tester". In that case, as Edison says, the neutral wire may be at or near ground potential and so a voltage tester will read practically zero. To check the actual current in the neutral wire without breaking it, you need a current clamp. --Heron (talk) 20:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

To do much electrical testing. it's good to own an RMS multimeter and a current clamp. A wattmeter/kwh meter is also useful. Edison (talk) 05:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Light as waves AND particles

Our first observation of waves and wave like action in nature was with ripples of water in a pond. The little particles of water are moving in a wave like fashion up and down. This is what we picture in our heads when we think of light waves also....Why is it that it is incorrect to assume that light can't be light particles moving up and down in a wave like fashion....why can it only be one or the other PARTICLE or WAVE? How is it that they proved that photons dont move up and down in a wave like fashion as they travel? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.145.103.161 (talk) 10:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Light exhibits properties of both wave and particle. It is not "one or the other". But it also is not a particle moving in a sine pattern up or down. Such a model would not explain interference, for example, or standing waves as in a microwave. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I like it! Proof of the wave nature of light using chocolate: [1]. SteveBaker (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Light is very different from water or sound or other kinds of waves. It's not correct to say that light "is a wave" - we should say rather that "under some circumstances it behaves like a wave". Ditto for particles. Photons are definitely not "normal" particles. But it's certainly not as simple as photons (particles) wobbling up and down...that's a bad image to have in your head. Why is this bad? Well, it's just not how things are.

The 'wave/particle' duality thing is best demonstrated in the double-slit experiment (which we described and discussed a few questions ago). If you take a water 'wave-tank' and make a ripple pass through two slits in a wall of some kind - then the ripples that spread out on the other side of the wall will 'interfere' with each other. As the peak of one ripple crosses the peak of another - they add together to make a double-sized ripple - and where the peak of one ripple crosses the trough of another, they cancel out and leave calm water. This produces an "interference" pattern of radial lines that is quite distinctive. Soundwaves can be made to do the same thing.

So if light "is a wave" we should be able to do the same thing. So we take a sheet of glass - paint it black and score two very thin lines into it that are very close together. Then we can shine a source of light at the glass and look for interference patterns. If you do that experiment - you get interference patterns that look EXACTLY like the ones you got from your water tank experiments. Hence (you conclude) "light is a wave"! Hooray! Problem solved - right? Nah...not that easy.

Along comes that nice Mr Einstein. He observes experiments on what is called "the photoelectric effect". This is a situation where you have something like a solar-cell and you shine light on it and look at the electricity that comes out. Let me quote from our article photoelectric effect:

"Eduard Anton von Lenard observed that the energy of individual emitted electrons increased with the frequency, or color, of the light. This was at odds with James Clerk Maxwell's wave theory of light, which predicted that the electron energy would be proportional to the intensity of the radiation. In 1905, Einstein solved this paradox by describing light as composed of discrete quanta, now called photons, rather than continuous waves."

So this experiment can ONLY be explained if light is a bunch of little particles. So "light is particles"! Hooray! Problem solved right? Nah...not that easy.

We've still got to explain the double-slit experiment. We have double-slit which says "wave" and photoelectric-effect which says "particle". They can't both be right can they? ...Well, sadly, yes they can. But it gets weirder. You want to take the red pill and see where this rabbit-hole leads? OK.

So - someone has the bright idea to put the two experiments together. We take our double slit and we shoot single photons at it...if the particle theory is correct then the photon goes EITHER through the left slit OR the right slit - and so it can't interfere with itself...right? Nah...'fraid not. Even if you shoot a SINGLE photon at the double-slit, you STILL get interference. So the photon must be acting like a wave and going through BOTH slits. OK - but we can use the photoelectric effect to build a detector for single photons. When the photon hits the solar panel, we can look at the electricity it produces. So let's build a 'photon counter' and stick one behind each of the two slits. If the photon is a wave that's going through both slits then we'll count "half a photon" in each detector - right? Nah...sorry. Wrong again.

This is where things get SERIOUSLY weird.

When you try to count the number of photons going through each slit - you find that it behaves just like a particle and either one or the other photon counters kicks in. You know which slit the photon went through - for sure. So how come it's interfering with itself if it didn't go through the other slit? Well - guess what: When you set up the experiment to count the photons - the interference pattern disappears - as if by magic. This is deeply - DEEPLY strange. When you decide to try to treat the light as particles - it somehow magically KNOWS that you're trying to do that - and obligingly behaves like particles. It's wave-like properties disappear BECAUSE OF THE WAY YOU ARE MEASURING THE RESULTS. If you switch off your photon counters - the interference pattern obligingly comes back.

My head hurts - and so should yours.

At the quantum level where photons and such like play - the universe simply doesn't behave the way 'common sense' says it should. Our brains are simply not equipped to understand this. So - light is a..."something"...that behaves like a wave when we try to treat it as a wave and like a particle if we do that instead. Try not to rationalise this as a particle that's moving in a wavelike manner because that doesn't explain the double-slit experiment at all. A particle that wobbled like a duck on a pond as a ripple goes by wouldn't be able to go through both of the slits in the double-slit experiment...so it doesn't help.

Sadly, there is no simple thing you can hold in your head that explains what a photon is.

When you get into relativity, light is even weirder. It's the only thing in the universe that can travel at the speed of light. Anything else that tried to do that would have infinite mass and time for it would literally stop...photons don't seem to be bothered by that at all. They have perfectly sensible masses and they behave quite sensibly at that speed.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe time for photons does literally stop, sort of like the opposite of someone falling past an event horizon. For an outside observer the guy slows down until he's going imperceptibly slow and finally freezes and fades. But the guy just experiences himself falling a bit and getting stretched to death. Maybe photons don't have any perception of time, but when you watch them you don't see that weird effect at all. Maybe that explains some of the weird quantum EM effects. Just a thought.. Pez00 (talk) 18:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Gravity also travels as fast as light. Light technically only refers to a certain spectrum of electromagnetic waves, all of which move at the speed of light. The stuff you mentioned before relativity applies to everything. I've heard the double-slit experiment has been done with buckyballs. Pez, you can't plug the speed of light into the relativistic equations. You could get it to work with limits, though. — DanielLC 19:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It's -> Its

Wrong, SteveBaker, the fotoelèctric effect finds the fotòn is a—a—wave. Rather, it's the elèctròn and its associated transition thas is the mote. The same goes for the two-slit experiment: The elèctròn, whose inner size is the classic radius and outter size is its causal radius (by propagation—that is, its field) inducts the charges in the whole target and both slits, in the same way your finger can strike two keys on a keyboard, and reaches a path between the slits. It's not a wave by itself; its wave is the fotòn. -lysdexia 21:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.108.164.45 (talk)

I'm sorry - but the photoelectric effect article (which I quoted directly) says otherwise. Here is the quote again:

"Eduard Anton von Lenard observed that the energy of individual emitted electrons increased with the frequency, or color, of the light. This was at odds with James Clerk Maxwell's wave theory of light, which predicted that the electron energy would be proportional to the intensity of the radiation. In 1905, Einstein solved this paradox by describing light as composed of discrete quanta, now called photons, rather than continuous waves."

If you think that's incorrect and can provide references to prove it - then you should go to the photoelectric effect article's Talk: page and argue it there. However, I'm very sure that you're wrong. SteveBaker (talk) 00:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not contradict your quote. -lysdexia 02:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

if an acid is added to a salt...?

what would happen to a salt if an acid is added to it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.96.121.79 (talk) 10:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it would depend on what acid and what salt. Nil Einne (talk) 11:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The rule from high-school chemistry is "Acid + Alkali = Salt + Water"...salt is the end result of a reaction with acid - so it's hardly going to react with the acid further. So GENERALLY - nothing. However, there are a lot of exotic chemicals that we call "salts" and a lot more that we call "acids" - and that leaves open the possibility for all sorts of exciting reactions in the right combinations. Basically, we're going to need a lot more information. SteveBaker (talk) 14:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You're missing a key ingredient:

Dilute acetic acid plus sodium chloride plus tuberous starch sections (hot) equals Delicious!

On a more serious note, SteveBaker and Nil Einne are quite right — we need more information. In the example above (without the fries), mixing acetic acid and sodium chloride (an acid and a salt, respectively) has no particular effect. On the other hand, mix acetic acid (vinegar) with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and you get the carbon dioxide bubbles which feature in every kid's science fair volcano.

And it gets worse — depending on how you choose to define 'acid', you can fit a vast number of reactions under the 'salt plus acid' umbrella. Using the Brønsted or Lewis definitions of an acid, many 'salts' are 'acids'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Mensa and god

I recently encountered someone who was a member of Mensa who also believed in god. Why would an otherwise intelligent person believe in supernatural beings? Surely, this person is smart enough to know better. But obviously isn't. This seems to be a paradox. Is it a question of emotion versus logic? Or intelligence versus knowledge? How is this possible? 216.239.234.196 (talk) 15:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The only criterion for membership in Mensa is a high IQ, so the question is how well IQ correlates with a realistic world view. I think that even if IQ was a measure of a person's ability to cope with reality, 132 would not be good enough to get you clean over the god hump. But it isn't. IQ, that is. A measure of that. Sophistication, I've heard it called—nothing much to do with a problem-solving, mathematical intelligence. And your nerdy genius types are often colossal crackpots. Take Feynman with his goddam bongoes. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

IQ is a measure of ability to do IQ tests, nothing more. There is a correlation between that and intelligence, but it isn't particularly strong. However, you do get otherwise intelligent people believing in god(s), I think it's a matter of them being capable of reasoned decision making but choosing not to do so in the case of their religious beliefs - religion is all about not questioning what you've been told. --Tango (talk) 15:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You said "There is a correlation between that and intelligence but it isn't particularly strong." You really need to define "intelligence" better before you make claims like that. All tests test only what the test tests. That's nearly a tautology and hardly even worth mentioning. If you say there's a correlation to "intelligence", but it isn't very strong, then you must be comparing IQ results to some other measure of intelligence. Unless you explain what that is, your statement has no meaning.

I know you're only saying what many, many others have said before (Some with modesty, others with sour grapes), but that's no excuse on the reference desk. APL (talk) 16:20, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a fair point. Can I get away with saying "any reasonable definition of intelligence"? (Reasonable is, as always, defined as something I agree with. ;)) The problem is that intelligence (in the sense that the word is commonly used to mean, which is the only real definition of any word) isn't really quantifiable. It's a measure of collection of abilities and any weighting of them to get a single number is going to be completely arbitrary. Exactly what it means for a numerical measure to be correlated (however weakly) with something unquantifiable, I'm not sure, but I think everyone knows what I mean (the various abilities we include in intelligence are correlated themselves, so you can often at least put people into bands, even if you can't give them a precise number, there will be people that don't fit in any band, though - such discrepancies are often associated with learning difficulties). Incidentally, tests do generally measure more than just what they test - we interpret the results of the test in order to draw more useful conclusions. For example, a reading test tests whether or not someone can read a given bit of text, but what it measures is how good they are at reading in general (it doesn't measure this perfectly, of course). In order for a test to be used to measure something more than just what is actually being tested there needs to be a strong correlation between the two things - the ability to read a given sentence and the ability to read other similar sentences are very strongly correlated, so reading tests are useful. Similarly, the existence of a particular bacteria in a blood sample is strongly correlated with the existence of that bacteria in the rest of the person's blood, so we use tests on blood samples to measure things about the blood in general. The ability to solve the extremely obscure questions in an IQ test isn't strongly correlated to anything particularly useful. --Tango (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

a bacterium. "whether or not" means "whether or not whether". Someone is not a they. -lysdexia

"a bacteria" is commonly used to mean "a species of bacteria", "bacterium" refers to a single cell. I don't understand your second point. The use of "they" as a gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun is very widespread. The English language is defined simply by how people use it, so it being widespread means it is, by definition, correct. In future, if you don't have a refutation for someone's arguments, keep quiet, don't pick holes in their English - and if you are going to, at least do it right. --Tango (talk) 21:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This question is based on the assumption that there is proof that God does not exist. In order to ask this question (without being a simple troll), the questioner must provide the proof that God does not exist, which all intelligent people must know, and this otherwise intelligent person is ignoring. -- kainaw™ 16:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no proof of the non-existence of some kind of god and never will be since it isn't a mathematical statement, so a mathematical concept like "proof" is irrelevant. However, intelligent people generally draw conclusions about reality based on evidence, and there is no evidence of the existence of any kind of deity. obligatory link to Occam's razor --Tango (talk) 16:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The proof

There is nothing which cannot be described by maths and loghics—so there can be such a proof; otherwise, one could not bring up the whim of "God" in the first stead, or contrast one God with another God, say what God is and is not or has and has not. God must be supernatural and infinite. However, the world and everything is natural and finite—otherwise, it would be God—so World and God cannot meet; that is, be in the same univers. By definition, if the world is natural it must make itself; otherwise, there would be nothing different between creation and creator as the former would also be supernatural and indistinguabil from God. As we cannot know God, there is no God and the world has nothing to do with God. The three kinds of god—theotèt (of theism, lord god), deotèt (of "deism", "god"), and pantheotèt (of pantheism, heaven-and-earth god)—with a mind informed of their proper meanings, can be stripped of their god-name for the first and last kinds and relegated intom natural and modern terms. The other kind left has nothing to do with mest of the world's sense or belief about God, so if god=God, god is everyways proven not.

I'll go with the others and say belief in God is dependent on ineducation—or more exactly, a miseducation of everything they believe in, which is mostly a monotheistic coverup of pollatheistic pagan roots. Their scriptures are ripoffs of Sumerian-Babilum creation and disaster stories, along with their misunderstandings of the size, scale, and shape of the world; whenever the Tanac or Vivli says something is true of the whole world or earth, it is wrong. Both texts (the Vedas too) like to blow up the lifetimes of their first men by some factor—12 or 60 or 360—by a spuriose reckoning of the year-day relationship as godly bodies rather than "heavenly" bodies. Every monotheism in order to please the old world makes up many Gods of their own, between five and eiht by my count, which are in sooth accessories of God but which they call servants of God, but which are nonetheless heavenly beings with God-like powers who pull off the same functions as the older pagan Gods. Kristianity, by exemplar, has pneýma, Immanuel, Ghabriel, logho, Mikael, basileia, and decsio—and the other Abrahamic religions hav variations of such, all in exact correlation with their pagan Gods, which I count fivefold (without the sun and moon) to sevenfold (with the sky and heaven). I'm about to finish a treatise against Creation and Creationists, with such a master list of Gods and other details against Ghenesis. My earlier writings can be found at Google Groups and Beliefnet, and some of the links are also where I proved, manifold, how there are no black holes. (Hint: The black hole is not a relativistic hýpothesis, but a classic and Newtonian one.) -lysdexia 20:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

All mathematical theorems are of the form "A implies B". "There is a god." is not of that form, so cannot be a mathematical theorem (I guess you could try "We observe the universe as we do, therefore there is a god.", but I don't see how you could translate that usefully into something you can do mathematics with). The existence of a god is a matter for theology, mathematics doesn't come into it (science can impose restrictions on what kinds of gods are likely to exist by finding evidence which contradicts the relevant religion, but you can't contradict the whole concept of religion). --Tango (talk) 21:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There had already been a mathematic proof for God with transfinite sets in extrapolation—which faild, as it would expect any nominally trivial being. Likewise, one can use the same sets as a mathematic proof against God. -lysdexia 23:45, 8 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.108.164.45 (talk)

Intelligent people can also draw conclusions such as: We do not know what happens after death. If there is no God and you do do not believe in God, that is fine. If there is no God and you do believe in God, no real problem. If there is a God and you do not believe in God, you may be punished in whatever happens after death. If there is a God and you believe in God, you may be rewarded in whatever happens after death. How is that less intelligent than "I ain't seen nun'it so's I ain't believin' nun'it!" -- kainaw™ 17:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Pascal's Wager is not exactly new. It's also not valid for any number of reasons. But to add another angle: What you propose really is the 1984 approach. "Say that 2+2=5 or I'll hurt you". I refuse to worship a god who needs such crude methods (and believing without worshiping is typically worse than not believing at all, of course). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd say the main reason it isn't valid is that it seriously stretches the definition of "belief". In what way is such a conclusion a belief? It's just going along with it because it has the greatest expected outcome. I, too, would refuse to worship a God as megalomaniac and sadistic as the Christian God, even if I did believe in Him. --Tango (talk) 17:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Pascal's wager is perfectly valid for the claim that I made. I stated that it is possible for an intelligent person to believe in God. Your response is that you refuse to believe in God. The point of this thread is not if you believe in God or not. The point of this thread is: Is it possible for an intelligent person to believe in God? Is your claim that you are the only intelligent person and, since you refuse to believe in God, no intelligent people believe in God? -- kainaw™ 17:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• I would say that a person practising religion because of a decision based on Pascal's wager does not "believe in God". (And, do you really think someone that is meant to be omniscient would fool for such nonsense?) --Tango (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• Why not? Those Sabbath mode ovens have been fooling Him for years.  :) --Sean 20:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

(And one of my favorite factoids: The bible is the most shop-lifted book in America...maybe people don't learn the "Thou shalt not steal" thing until AFTER they read it!) SteveBaker (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• I have not claimed that it is impossible for an intelligent person to believe in god at all. On the contrary, I'm very much aware that many intelligent people do. Pope Benedict XVI would be a current example, as would be Kenneth R. Miller. For historical examples, Alhazen comes to mind, or Isaac Newton. But Pascal's Wager is not a good reason to do so. It assumes, without any reason, a particular configuration of god or gods and the afterlive. Under that assumption (there is one god, and it will treat me better if I pretend to believe in it for the expected gain in the afterlive, and I pick the right god from the many possible ones to believe in), it is valid. But what if Thor is pissed off because I believe in that Christian upstart? Or what if god despises people who only believe in him for the pay-off? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You can strategically pick your god :) Thor hitting you with his hammer or being reincarnated as a hamster can't possibly be as bad as hell. Pez00 (talk) 18:33, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you ever hit your thumb while nailing down a board? But by your argument, I would have to pick the god or godess that will treat non-believers the worst. Kali, here I come! ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that religion is only worthwhile as an answer to the 'unknown', and that as science progresses and uncovers these secrets that religion becomes less and less worthwhile. Religion isn't like that in practice - it may be a cultural tradition, it might be a philosophy or guide for a person, it might be of comfort to them, or make them feel self-worth/purpose in life. Intelligent people are not devoid of wanting things that religion provides, and the fact that they are 'intelligent' enough to realise their belief isn't founded in perfect logic/scientific truth doesn't prevent them getting value from practicing their religion. The pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of happiness are different things. Additionally we are not 'logical' beings, we can happily exist with giant contradictions and we fool ourselves into believing something that to every outside is blatently lies. Finally just to note - i'm not religious in any way, but try to appreciate that the 'truth' isn't necessarily what's right/important. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you're confusing the issue here. The OP specifically asked why an intelligent person may believe in God. Not why an intelligent person may be religious. You can and many people do participate in religious ceremonies or religion for cultural reason, as a guide etc. However while it may be more likely that such people will believe in God, it's not a precondition and many people don't Nil Einne (talk) 18:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I think I may have confused the issue, too. I did not consider that there can be a distinction between being religious and believing in god. I don't suppose you know of any articles about people who are religious but don't believe in god? 216.239.234.196 (talk) 19:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at cultural Judaism for starters. These include people who may be involved in religious ceremonies and practices for cultural reasons, without actually believing in God. Indeed there are even ancient religions e.g. Buddhism which don't even have the concept of God. And new ones are cropping up e.g. Unitarian Universalism and other Liberal religions have no defined God (although some people involved in them obviously do believe in God) and many of the new age religions lack God. For those who do like the sense of community etc given by religion but who don't believe in God, as churches and the like are appearing [2] [3] [4] [5]. Douglas Adams a self described radical atheist, funeral was held in a Christian church with Dawkins in attendance. Parents sometimes attend church to give their children a change to explore religion or because they believe it's beneficial in other ways but don't believe in God themselves [6]. I've tried to avoid referring to these people as religions since whether you consider these people religious or not is an unnecessary distraction. I would say many are religious e.g. Buddhists, those involved in new age religions etc i.e. all of those with a sense of spirituality are religious, even though they may not believe in God. Indeed you could go further since it appears to me the OP was specifically asking about the Abrahamic monotheism concept which most Eastern religions lack. Of course you could argue that many of the spritual religious beliefs have the same problem as the concept of God and therefore it makes as much or little sense for an intelligent person to believe in them but I don't think it's a simple matter. To me, the idea of an omnipotent being (particularly one who punishes the 'wicked' for enternity although that's obviously not a precondition for believing in God) makes less sense then the idea we are all connected on a spiritual level. Then there are also those without any spirituality, i.e. do it solely for the sense of community, moral guidance etc who you could probably say are not religios but they still "participate in religious ceremonies or religion for cultural reason, as a guide etc" as I stated even though they obviously don't believe in God. P.S. You may want to ake a look at religion. Nil Einne (talk) 10:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

At my church we have professionals is many, many areas including biologists, chemists, physicists, doctors and surgeons, lawyers, architects, engineers etc. All these areas require intelligence, logical thinking and the like. Whatever their/my personal reasons may be, religious beliefs have very little correlation with intelligence in my honest opinion. As the IP above me has noted, it's not always in a search of God and the paranormal, its often a cultural reference in how to live in a generally accepted better way (with a few nutjobs taking it too far). —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 17:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You can have a sense of morality without being religious. What does visiting a given building every 7th day and worshipping a mythical figure have to do with living in a "generally accepted better way"? There have been studies which have shown a significant correlation between level of education and religious belief (the higher the level of education you've achieved, the less likely you are to be religious) - you can argue than education and intelligence are not the same thing (and you would be right, of course), but your examples are all of highly educated people, so such studies are relevant. --Tango (talk) 17:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There are also studies that show that older people tend to be more religious. So, can we safely assume that religion is a product of age and life experience? Is there a correlation between age and education? Do these correlations have no cause-effect relationship? -- kainaw™ 17:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Unless such studies have been repeated at different times, you need to be very careful what conclusions you draw from them. It could well be when you are born that is significant, not how old you are. --Tango (talk) 18:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

@Tango, sorry I didn't mean imply that only religious people can me moral. I'm saying that almost all religious people are, it's an almost ensured way of living morally. It's not going to church and worshipping a God as such which has anything to do with living your life a better way, it's adapting to the guidelines given in religious texts (of which many are now bound socially as well as religiously). How do such studies as you mentioned above help discourage my point? The vast majority of adults at my church are well educated and successful, and still religious. Studies based on religous belief and education is essentially like going and doing a survey of "Are you religious?" at an educational establishment. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 18:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but being religious does not seem to increase your chance of living a moral life. For one, many religious demands are outright immoral ("stone the witch!"), but also, believing in a religion does not at all imply that you follow the moral rules of that religion at all. "We are all sinners..." --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Two things. First as I noted above, being religious and following religious guidelines doesn't require you to believe in God which is the real question at hand. As also noted above, many people can and do do so without believing in God. Technically the guidelines may require you to believe in God but people can and do choose to ignore that part as nonsense in their opinion. Second I think many would argue the guidelines have been bound socially long before they appeared in religios. They would say the reason they appeared in religious texts is because of the social tradition Nil Einne (talk) 18:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC) Edit: Struck out being religios to avoid confusion Nil Einne (talk) 10:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Intelligent people can usually understand that there are things that logic and science can't deal with. Do you believe in beauty? Science cannot really measure that sort of thing and logic can't prove it exists. With no available evidence for or against, belief in god(s) is more or less a matter of personal taste. I don't think you can particularly draw conclusions about intelligence based on the god question. Friday (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot of defense you can throw behind the idea that a god exists, but a better question would be which religion do you believe in? Christianity? Try to reconcile all we know about the age of the universe and the earth with a recent creation and a god who "is not the author of confusion". Scientology? Perhaps the most relevant example; reason screams against their doctrine Pez00 (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

To be fair, it's only a small radical fringe of Christians who believe in a young Earth. Friday (talk) 18:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Personally I'm not altogether happy that I think all that God stuff is rubbish. I know the statistics show that religion is correlated with wealth happiness, and more children. I feel like the person who was offered great health, wealth or wisdom by a genii and asked for the wisdom, and a moment later says 'Oh I see now I should have asked for the wealth' :) Dmcq (talk) 18:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Correlation != causation. You are assuming that wealth comes about BECAUSE of religion - but how do you know it's not the other way around? People with a lot of money on their hands have nothing better to do maybe? Correlation with more children has GOT to be because so many religions encourage more children (eg by making women subsurvient to men - or by banning condoms). Without studies into causation - these statistics don't tell you a whole lot...it's possible for example...that like US politicians, you're doomed to becoming a social outcast in wealthy society unless you tell people that you are religious. So everyone lies. It's possible that in the past there was causation - and because children of religious parents tend to be religious - and children of wealthy parents tend to be wealthy - the statistical 'ghost' of that causation lives on. We simply don't know. Suffice to say that I consider myself reasonably well off - and I'm a total atheist. I only have one child - but family size correlates inversely with wealth - so we can't make any conclusions about that. SteveBaker (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Believe it or not - we have an article on the subject: Religiosity and intelligence - broadly speaking the percentage of religious people does go down with increasing intelligence - more or less independently of how "intelligence" is defined. (eg IQ or educational achievement or job title) - however, almost every statistical test you apply comes out like a bell-curve - so it's no surprise that even in people with the highest IQ - there are a few who buck the trend. Mensa's requirements for entry really aren't that great - and it's rather well established that you can pass their test even if your initial IQ is too low simply by practicing a lot. Since practicing IQ tests doesn't really shake your religious beliefs to their very core - we may conclude that this is all very unsurprising. IQ tests really only measure how good you are at IQ tests. Some very smart people (Einstein comes to mind) are very incapable at getting through their daily lives - a narrow intelligence is a very different thing from a broad one. However, it is still mostly true to say that in general...statistically speaking...smart people are less likely to believe in God. There is a reason for that. SteveBaker (talk) 18:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a lot of discussion about Pascal's wager here. This needs to be shot down in flames. It suffers from what I'm now going to be calling "The Pink Aardvark Gambit^(tm)". I have decided to believe that giant Pink Aardvarks with terrifying levels of technology are ruling the universe and if you don't pray to them every day (using telepathic thought projection) - they do horrible things to you after you're dead. It's a new religion - I just made it up. I have no evidence for it - but a part of it is that all believers have to send $10 to the Wikimedia foundation in order to supplicate the holy Aardvarks. You seem skeptical...

But if I merely apply Pascal's wager - magically, it's all true. If there are no Pink Aardvarks, it costs you almost nothing to pray to them redundantly - if there are then it's going to save you an infinite amount of torment in the after-life. Multiply the probability of their existance by the cost of praying to them and the result is non-zero - multiply the cost of torment for a day by an infinite number of days and the result is infinite.

...and with a brief *POP* of logic - everyone must now believe in my Aardvarks. So are all you religious nuts now believing in Aardvarks? No? What happened to this claim that Pascals Wager is worth a damn? You guys seem to have changed your mind.

The problem is that the wager assumes you are betting only on one very special thing (the existance of a very specific Christian deity). But a mathematician isn't going to let you get away with that. You have to apply a rule like that to everything to which it's relevant. So my Pink Aardvarks, the Invisible Pink Unicorn the Flying Spaghetti Monster, ever OTHER religion on the planet - and every conceivable concept like that - including a bunch we haven't thought of yet. When you do that, you multiply the 'cost of believing' number by the number of things you might have to believe in. Now, the wager doesn't look so good. You have an infinite personal belief "cost" balanced against an infinite "penalty" if any one of those things might happen to be true. So Pascal's wager says that you either need to spend 100% of your existance in a dedicated effort to believe and supplicate every concievable crazy religion - or you've got to say "screw it" and get on with your life without god or gods or unfalsifiable beliefs of ANY kind. Rational people take the latter - stupid people go and ask a priest who doesn't know much math and is perfectly prepared to lie to you in order to keep his job.

SteveBaker (talk) 19:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey, that's pretty good. Can you get that published by a reliable source so we can include it in the Pascal's Wager article. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 20:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a cite off hand, but I believe that Pascal had previous, less famous, proofs that the christian god was the only possible god that offers infinite bliss. (And in a wager of this sort, infinite bliss trumps all other forms of reward.) If you accepted that, Pascal's wager would suddenly seem a lot more attractive.

In any case it's a good answer to the original question. He was clearly an intelligent person who believed in god. APL (talk) 21:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Tribes and nations everywhere on earth have always had some sort of god or gods. There has been only a very few exceptions. These exceptions were in tribes that had a very low level of general civilization – they lived little better than animals and ignored inner religious promptings. However, as the human race evolved from an earlier type of anthropoid, it developed a dim understanding or feeling that there is a higher being or beings. It could be called a hunch. But it was a powerful hunch that appeared in all parts of the world before there was contact between the people in different places. From that hunch, specific gods were created. There was also a desire to relate to these gods by worship. Most early religions were terror religions which inspired fear. In ancient Egypt, for instance, the gods took the form of grotesque animals which could not be regarded with any feeling of worshipful friendship or personal closeness. But as time went by, there seems to have been a sort of evolutionary development in religious understanding. Religious views that seemed more suitable, more true, were adopted. The multiple gods were replaced with a single god. The concept developed that this one god was a beneficent god. Furthermore, this god was not just beneficent toward human beings, he also wanted humans to be good to each other. ("Love ye one another.") In some cases, rather than a religion developing gradually, it was abandoned when a more suitable religion was introduced by missionaries or conquerors. This happened with Christianity and Islam. In a further evolutionary development, Christianity abandoned the concept of Hell and damnation by ignoring those concepts. The evolution of religious understanding may be likened to a lesser concept – the development of typography. Many forms of typeface have been designed, and there was the question of which was easiest to read. Tests were made in which people were given texts in various typefaces and asked which was easier to read. The readers' opinions varied somewhat, but the general consensus was that Times New Roman, and some fonts very similar to it, were the best typeface for ease of reading. So it has been with religion. Down through the ages, countless millions of people have considered religion. Most of these persons simply accepted what they had been taught. But there were a few persons who developed new major or minor viewpoints on religion. Their views were considered by others, and were either adopted as being better, or discarded as being useless, harmful, or wrong. (Fundamentalists rejected all change. Thus, they do not allow religious evolution.) Abandoning the concept of Hell is an example of a major evolutionary development that has, in effect been adopted. Thus, while there is no proof that God exists, the concept of the evolutionary development of religion offers intelligent persons a way to accept a current interpretation and manifestation of the near-universal hunch that God does exist. – GlowWorm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.130.253.174 (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

A shorthand for what you are saying is that religion is a 'meme' - an idea that spreads itself much like a gene does. Memes reproduce (for example when I tell you a joke and you tell the joke to someone else) - and they evolve (someone tweaks the wording of the joke to make it a bit funnier - or changes "polish guy" to "irish guy" to better fit the times). In short, they work just like genes do. Things like "money" and "rock music" are memes - and so is religion. Thinking of it like that is instructive because it lets us consider analogies. Successful memes outlast unsuccessful ones. But note that a meme doesn't have to be a truth in order to be popular - it just has to be something that someone will tell someone else. Hence we get all sorts of Internet memes that turn out to be hoaxes - but if they are funny or amazing they become more popular than truth and they are VERY tough to kill.

The reason (I believe) that religion has shown up in so many cultures - possibly by "parallel evolution" - is that they have acquire power. If someone in a primitive atheistic village gets the idea that because an Aardvark stole his shoe - and that year his crops did better than his neighbour that maybe if he leaves a shoe next to the anthill then maybe his crops will do better the following year. He does this and there is maybe a 50/50 chance that it works. If it DOES work - then he'll tell everyone else and they'll all do it. If the crops are good the following year (again, by chance) then everyone believes that this guy has found the answer to why crops mysteriously fail sometimes. But he's a clever guy and he realises that he can make a killing here. He says "Well, actually - the Aardvark spoke to me and said that I'm the chosen one and I have to deliver the shoes to the anthill every month."...now you have a high-priest - his power will grow he can give up farming - when people's crops fail despite the offering of shoes to the Aardvark he makes up excuses ("Oh - did you forget to turn around three times before you came to me with the shoe?") large books will be written about the precise protocol - acolytes will flock to him because they have the possibility to sit around in the big comfy temple without working. Before you know it - it's everywhere and they own their own cable TV channel and have people with Aardvark badges on their lapels demanding donations outside shopping malls throughout the holy month of March. The fact that the meme builds itself from a series of coincidences is enough to ensure that sooner or later every civilisation is going to get infected by one. The very process of evolution is (ironically) what polishes and perfects the meme over the generations. Meme's that attract followers and money and respect grow in popularity - religions that are a pain to deal with fizzle out. Natural selection at work.

SteveBaker (talk) 21:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

lysdexia's first assertion that everything can be described by maths and logic is false. Gödel's incompleteness theorems. At the first hurdle! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.196.156 (talk) 00:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Be REALLY careful around Godel's theorem. It's a bomb that'll take off your head if you aren't careful with it! It DOES NOT SAY that math and logic don't work or that they don't have descriptive power. It says that there exist some theorems that can neither be proved nor disproved. No all theorems - not even most theorems..."some". It also doesn't say that mathematics somehow "goes wrong" and produces the "wrong answers". What happens is that there are circumstances where math doesn't have an answer - not that an incorrect answer is produced. But Godel's work has to be taken alongside such things as the Church-Turing hypothesis which asserts the equivalence of essentially all logical systems. Godels theorem actually says that ANY system of thought that has enough power to describe things in a reasonably powerful manner will suffer the exact same problems. That means that your brain can't solve these problems in ANY manner - the things that Godel says can't be proven by math can't be solved by other means either. SteveBaker (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I am aware of the meaning of Gödels theorems. I didn't say it produce false results, just that not everything can be described by maths, or that with a mathematical system that does describe everything, you cannot prove that it is consistent. Either way you can never have a complete proven description of the universe; and something that is assumed is only as good as the basis on which it was assumed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.196.156 (talk) 19:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a rather extreme version of the "God of the Gaps" problem. Gods are supposed to be omnipotent - it's really the defining feature of the mythologies - the Christian religion will not allow ANY limitations to be imposed on their God's powers. This blows the 'incompleteness' thing out of the water because what you propose is a god that can only remain hidden by being restricted to things that the Godel theorem says that we can't prove. Since there are an AWFUL lot of things that math can prove, that results in a God who is only free to act in the most narrowly defined ways imaginable! So, while you're right in saying that there are possible versions of supernatural thought that math cannot dismiss - that doesn't include any of the world's major religions. Hence your point is only of very restricted value in this debate. SteveBaker (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The Abrahamic god is omnipotent, and that's a defining feature, but I don't think the Norse, Greek or Roman gods are - they have conflicts with each other and there are even stories of humans tricking the gods. --Tango (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

To respond to stevebaker; A god is not restricted by mathematics, as many deists believe that mathematics and the like have descriptive but not governing power. Usual arguments assert that mathematics is a construct of human ingenuity and was created to describe; but has no meaning in the actual universe. And also that logic and maths are only true within the universe, not outside of it, where god exists. And so any arguments against god from mathematics are almost irrelevant. From the point of view of a scientist, this often appears to be a cop out, and evasive to the issue; but importantly, it does not make any assertions that that can be disproved, or even logically argued against. 92.16.196.156 (talk) 19:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Maths doesn't describe the universe, that's science's job. You need to combine mathematical theorems with a mathematical model in order to find out anything about the universe, and models are the realm of science. --Tango (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Pedantry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.196.156 (talk) 19:22, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

False dichotomy

See the work of the late Harvard University evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, especially Rocks of Ages. Saying that having a strong background and understanding of science and mathematics, or even of being "intelligent", is somehow mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy. Its like saying "You cannot like apple pie and drive a motorcycle". Science and religion do not have to serve the same purpose in a person's life. It is entirely reasonable, for example, to fully understand and accept the tenets of evolution, cosmogonic physics, and every single commonly accpeted scientific fact, and yet science for many people does not answer the questions of purpose and being and the entire field of Ontology. Science explains the mechanistic aspects of the world quite well, but it does not answer the questions such as "Why are we here?" Even if the answer to that question for you is "There is absolutely no reason at all.", science cannot even begin to answer that question. There are many people for whom the answers to those questions are different than that.

Look at it another way. I can take apart a beautiful and intricately made watch. I can understand fully how the watch is made, I can study and understand every part and every working and movement of the watch, take it apart, put it together again, etc. etc. Such understanding of the workings of the watch, however, in no way proves that the watchmaker does not exist, or that the watch arose spontaneously. Understanding the details of creation to the most exacting detail does not disprove the creator. Neither does it prove the creator. You must arrive at your belief in a creator, or in a belief in a spontaneous universe, entirely by faith. Having a different focus of that faith (either in God or in his non-existance) is in no way connected to intelligence or scientific understanding, or anything else except your own personal faith. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:52, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a dichotomy here at all. What you are talking about is the concept of non-overlapping magisteria. One problem with this is that many religions do make claims about the physical universe, and thus the different realms of science and religion do overlap in practice. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Science can answer the question "why are we here?" - because of the chain of events which happened before we were here, so many that I don't know them all and can only pick a few, very obvious ones out out: the big bang, the creation of our solar system, abiogenesis, very probably the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event and a whole lot of mutations along the way. As for the claim of false dichotomy... Say we have two neuroscientists, who happened to be part of the 15-man sample of this [7] study. These two neuroscientists often argue about the existence of God and religion, spirituality, etc. After taking part of the study, it is found that the one who is for God/religion/etc has low 5-HT_1A binding potential (implying a low number of 5-HT_1A receptors) and the one who is against God/religion/etc has high 5-HT_1A binding potential (implying a high number of 5-HT_1A receptors). This relationship between spirituality and 5-HT_1A binding potential (especially in the raphe nuclei) is also found in the other participants. Although no cause-and-effect is shown here, shouldn't the spiritual neuroscientist ask the question: "Why will my colleague (the non-spiritual neuroscientst) go to hell for having a higher expression of 5-HT_1A receptors?". This is where the intelligent spiritual person has to start asking some questions about his faith. --Mark PEA (talk) 21:36, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Or one could say that the increase in 5-HT_1A receptors is a biochemical response in the brain to having a higher faith; that is that having an internal spiritual life has measureable phisiological effect on the body. Thus, your friend will go to heaven because he has a belief in God; and the 5-HT_1A receptor activity is merely a side-effect of that faith. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I made a bad point because correlation doesn't show causation. Coincidently or not somebody earlier said that people tend to get more religious as they get older (causing scrutinizing replies about validity of such studies), and this study [8] shows that 5-HT_1A binding potential declines with age. Throwing a spanner into the works would be to start discussing 5-HT_1A agonists such as LSD, psilocin, etc. These compounds are termed entheogens as they can induce spiritual experiences in users. Of course they bind to a host of other receptors (5-HT_2A being the most well known) and this is why I say a spanner in the works as someone would have to do some research where a person is given LSD along with a 5-HT_1A antagonist to see if spiritual experiences are suppressed. Another problem is the functional selectivity of LSD/psilocin relative to 5-HT. I'm just covering all the bases here seeing as I doubt we can prove a causality between 5-HT_1A receptor expression and spirituality due to ethical and legal reasons (at least not for another 20 years or however long it takes for attitudes to change). --Mark PEA (talk) 14:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

However, the initial question did not ask about the tenets of a specific religion, or even about how a personal belief in religion which can work with an understanding of science. Rather, the question asked about a rather general belief in the existance of an intelligent creator, i.e. God. There is organized religion, and then there is personal religion. There is what has been written down and codified by people in the past, and then there is how people work the entire system into their own world view. My point is that it is not inconsistant to have a world view which both holds the existance of an intelligent creator (God) and which also fully understands the mechanisms of His creation. Any claims that these fields are somehow in conflict or mutually exclusive is themselves creating false conflict where there is none. A scientist who tells you that evolution and the big bang somehow proves there isn't a God (as opposed to disproving the literal explanation of creation in Genesis 1, which is entitely different) is committing the SAME falshood as a priest who tells you that if you believe in God, you must disbelieve evolution... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring all this worthless bickering, here are some stats on Canadian MENSA religious beliefs compared to the general population. They seem to be less religious, but not to the degree that the AAAS is less religious (I can't find exact numbers but I remember them being very disproportionately non-religious.--droptone (talk) 13:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The original question is flawed - "otherwise intelligent" and "know better." Whether you believe in/are discussing the divinity of a carpenter from Judea, or a Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's that Dawkins' own invisible, garage dwelling dragon is fundamentally unknowable. This is fundamentally a redress of the Prime Mover argument - which is "right?": the atheist construction of "before" is a non-sequitor as regards the Big Bang, or the theistic notion that His Noodly Appendage/the Word fait lux'd? It is, by definition, unknowable, so a person of any conceivable intelligence could hold any conceivable opinion on the subject. This is exactly the same as holding an opinion on the fate of Schrodenger's cat before the box is opened.

On to my OR synthesis of the trollbait, I think Greg Manique (sp)'s perspective on teaching economics is on point. I'm paraphrasing to paint in broad strokes, but generally college students tend towards "very liberal", and as they finish his course, they tend towards conservative (of course, given the starting point, it's difficult to go anywhere and not qualify it as such). At the risk of being misunderstood as insulting, I suggest a view which reflects opportunity cost and personal belief systems may be on point. It is "easy" to believe in a simple belief system which answers a lot of questions (let us say, the belief and questions of a child). It also becomes "easy" as one is educated to dispel both, and "difficult" to build a new, complicated belief system that holds together in the light of such education. That's not to assign right or wrong anywhere along the line - but where does God fit if the appearance of humaniform intelligence is stripped of its "miraculousness" and reduced to a set of equations which any schoolboy could solve? Well, it's a bit harder to fit God into the role of He who Determined The Constants Which Would Tidily Result In An Anthropomorphic Principle (heck, it's hard to even just formulate the question with that as an answer). As a consequent, you can move along the scale of education and find that the trend is reducing religiosity - it's a fundamental economic principle that the higher the cost, the less of a good is demanded. That said, Jesuits have always been my favorite example any time this subject comes up - I believe per capita they hold the most Ph.Ds (unsourced - if anyone has a source, I'd appreciate it, even a dispelling), and a fair share of those aren't just "theological studies" (which would be cheating from the perspective of this conversation) but rather, things like, oh, molecular biology. A degree which, for some definitions of intelligent, does sort of go hand in hand. (although correlation is not causation)

For what it's worth, I believe in God, and I would emphasize the word believe. I don't know there is a God. That would be what my intelligence directs me to state - what with that bizarre top 0.001% percentile IQ of mine. But I'd agree that dogmatism for its own sake is irreconcilable with intelligence, and there's a pretty good trend of historic elder statesmen of science lapsing into dogmatism (versus religion) being a sure sign of their having "lost touch." 98.169.163.20 (talk) 00:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

What IQ test was it that said you were in the top 0.001th percentile? Few if any IQ tests are accurate at such high levels due to the lack of a sufficient sample size to test them on, such high IQ's need to be measured specially by an expert. --Tango (talk) 03:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Ayup, belief in god and intelligence aren't mutually exclusive. I'd qualify for mensa (or at least I would have when I took the IQ test... my gray matter may have declined a bit in the intervening decades), and if you ask me, I'll say yes, I believe in god. It depends on the meaning of "god" and "belief" though: most conservative christians wouldn't deem my particular belief to be a belief in god (in fact, many of them don't consider my sect (Quaker) to be christian at all. It's not an intelligence issue though: It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Osama bin Laden had a very high IQ. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 15:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Umm...

Guys, I'm pretty sure here is not the appropriate place to have this discussion. Can you take this somewhere else? I think we all know nobody is going to 'win'. Cheers, --Joe^Talk_Work 04:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Solar power for a house

My south facing house has an area of about 500 square feet of available space for solar panels. If I were to maximize the available area with soalr panels, what could I expect to "power" in my house? Undoubtedly, there are many variables, but I am wondering in general. Just my lights? Maybe lights and electronics? My hopes are too high? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.161.223.61 (talk) 15:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

What latitude do you live at and what is the weather like? And what time of year are you considering? Those are the key variables, I think, and they will make a massive difference. Under poor conditions, you'll get next to nothing, under good conditions you may be able to get several kilowatts, maybe even more, that will certainly power your lights. However, you would need batteries to store the energy until you need it (powering lights directly by solar power is rather pointless!), so power isn't the best measure, we need to look at total energy. If you're getting around 20 kilowatt-hours a day (which seems reasonable if you are somewhere pretty sunny and at a fairly low latitude), and you're pretty energy efficient, you might just about be able to power everything. You would need a connection to the national grid to make up the shortfall during winter or a few days of overcast (you can only have so many batteries), and also to sell any excess. (Note, these are all back of the envelope calculations with extremely approximate assumptions, but my conclusion is that, depending on where you live, you may well be able to make a significant contribution to your energy needs with 500 sq ft of solar panels. If you want something more precise than that, it will take more research and would require knowledge of your location.) --Tango (talk) 16:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, consider to set aside something for a solar hot water and possibly heating system. These are typically better value for money and a more efficient use of solar power than solar electric systems. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:20, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I live near Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I know that there are a lot of variables so would need to consult with a professional company to get an accurate measure. I wanted to get a general sense of things (which I now have!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.77.185.91 (talk) 17:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

One major thing when you don't have that much strong sunlight is to try to get the solar panels to be as close to being at right angles to the sun's rays as possible for as much of the day as possible. As far North as Ontario, the sun is low enough in the sky that putting the panels on a vertical wall might make more sense than on a flat or sloping roof - a simple rule of thumb is that the amount of light you get varies as the cosine of the angle between the sun's rays and the direction the panel is pointing. If you are investing in a lot of panels, its worth considering some motor-driven means to track the sun across the sky. Everything moves very slowly so the motor can be geared down fairly dramatically and your motor can be small and energy efficient. SteveBaker (talk) 18:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The earth's surface receives ~1 kW / m^2 in direct sunlight. If your system is say 15% efficient you could get as much 7500 W from 500 sq. ft. if the sun was directly above your installation (with no clouds or other impediments). The average 3 person American household uses a time averaged 400-700 W of electricity, so your peak production should be way more than you need for the entire house. Once you add in other factors (e.g. nightfall, cloudiness, latitude, etc.) your average power generation from solar would be much less than your peak possible, but with 500 sq ft of panels there is still a good chance you would make more electricity on average than your home can consume. If you are serious about pursuing this, you can get solar power companies to evaluate your location and give you a more rigorous estimate of what to expect. Dragons flight (talk) 21:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You know, many people around the world are either using clean technology to power their homes and live off the grid, or for internal heating. Solar, wind, and corn are just some examples. There's also a store in Toronto called EfstonScience which is a passive solar building that uses solar for internal heating. The GTA doesn't get much sun in the winter, though, especially considering it's often cloudy (although sometimes it does snow under a clear sky). You need a way to store your power so it can be used later and at night. If you can make enough power, I believe there's also a way you can "sell" your power to the grid and earn money doing it. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Look up insolation. Dragons flight numbers above look OK. If its persistantly cloudy for more than a few days then your lifestyle will have to adapt. The panels still give at the worst about 1/20 power. A 5kW system with appropriate battery bank will definately give you lights, TV, computers 4 hours, stereo, fridge but no electrical heating (except electric blanket). Of course on sunny days (after batteries are filled up) you will have a massive surplus, to run airconditioners etc. I've never heard of a domestic house with such a large system. Also, the shading on the house will result in a much cooler house (good in summer). I actually live in a off-grid solar powered house (gas for cooking, wood for winter heating, very little airconditioning). About 2kW nominal. Batteries set up to go for about 4 cloudy days. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 13:27, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Temperature at which Magnesium ignites

At what temperature would a piece of magnesium ignite in air? (Magnesium says molten magnesium is highly flammable and gives the melting point of magnesium, but doesn't say it has to molten to ignite and doesn't say melting is sufficient.) RJFJR (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

No idea if this is what you're looking for, but Magnesium is listed at Autoignition_temperature#Autoignition_point_of_selected_substances. It's way below the melting point so I guess you have to melt it in partial vacuum to keep it from burning. Pez00 (talk) 18:20, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Or, more easily, under an inert gas atmosphere, either a noble gas, or possibly something as cheap and abundant as Nitrogen. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Not nitrogen--most active metals react with it and some even have specific warning labels about not using nitrogen atmosphere. See Magnesium nitride. DMacks (talk) 19:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. That's what I was looking for but didn't know what to call that temperature. RJFJR (talk) 20:39, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Colorlessness of a solution

I want to quantified how 'colored' a solution is, without regard to wavelength (within the visible range). The idea is that I am formulating a product for which the ideal is colorlessness; I'd like to be able to quantify how far from this ideal various versions of the product are, but ignoring that one might be a little green, and another might be a little red, etc.

The only idea I've had so far was to use a spectrophotometer to scan the entire visible range and integrate the area beneath the transmittance curve, and subtract this from the value that you'd get from 100% transmittance at all wavelengths. I'm afraid this is probably a little naive. Can you suggest a better way? I think I also have access to meters for getting Lab color space values, if that would be better. ike9898 (talk) 19:06, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

That will work, but you may have to correct for the visible range (if ambient light isn't equally intense across the spectrum, your result may get skewed by a strong absorbance at a wavelength that doesn't matter much practically. How about a white light (or a lightbulb, or something else corresponding to "what looks like broad-spectrum visible") and a similarly broad-spectrum (non-monochromator or filtered) PMT/photocell/photoresistor/etc? Still need to correct for visible-range, but at least you're starting with ambient-light spectral characteristics. You don't need the accuracy (I don't think?) of X decimal places at each wavelength, just the overall transmittance. DMacks (talk) 19:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Any one have any more input? I'd like my method to be reasonably defensible when put into a paper. ike9898 (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you want it to be colourless or transparent? They are different things. You seem to be describing transparency. --Tango (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

An important article dealing with this is the Beer–Lambert law, which describes the relationship between the intensity of a color in a solution to the properties of that solution. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If you do choose to integrate over wavelengths, you should probably weigh the integration using the photopic Luminosity function. If the "application" of the transparency is not related to human vision (eg. it is for a light sensor), then the sensor's spectral response curve would be an appropriate weighing function. Weighing ensures that you don't have to pick arbitrary limits for what constitutes visible light - the weighing function will smoothly roll off into the limits of human/sensor vision. From an experimental standpoint, try to obtain the highest possible concentrations of your solutions, because measuring very small Absorbance is generally hard (unless you have good equipment). Someone42 (talk) 10:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, for this application I'm really concerned with color as perceived by humans. With regard to measuring absorbance, I've always been warned that I is hard to get an accurate reading for solutions that are too concentrated (A>1.2). ike9898 (talk) 20:46, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

knotty problem

regarding entanglement on the quantum level, is there a limit to how many things can be entangled with each other? 86.155.28.235 (talk) 19:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Not as far as the theory is concerned and not as far as anyone knows, but there is a limit on the extent to which entanglement has been tested. Quantum algorithms depend on entangled states more complicated than any that have been created experimentally so far, and one of the reasons for trying to build big quantum computers is as an experiment in basic physics, to see if the world can actually sustain that level of entanglement. -- BenRG (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It is very likely that most of reality is entangled with itself, as all the particles now in existence have interacted with each other in the past. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

what would be the consequences of this? 86.155.28.235 (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You could expect that any measurement made will affect the potential results from any other measurement, but in unknown ways. For example if you measure the speed of a particle it will affect the results of a speed measurement of another particle that collided with it in the past, or collided with a particle that it collided with earlier etc. I am sure there will be many more consequences, physical and philosophical that I am not aware of yet. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't sound right to me. Entanglement is not one measurement affecting another (ignore the popular books claiming it is), it's just a statistical correlation that's stronger than is classically possible. We don't see such super-classical correlations in the world at large, only in carefully isolated systems (because of quantum decoherence). Different parts of the universe are similar in a way that suggests former interaction (e.g. the CMB is uniform), but that's classical correlation at most, and it's problematic to even call it that since you need multiple trials to establish a correlation and we've only got one universe. -- BenRG (talk) 06:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

A more used term is universal entanglement. This results in decoherence and is on way to explain how macroscopic reality is so different to the quantum experience. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If the sun went out...

Assume the sun either disappears somehow or stops giving off all forms of radiation right now. If this happened(I realize there's hardly any way it could, but this is a hypothetical question) how long would it take for Earth to become uninhabitably cold? How long would it take for Earth to cool down to absolute zero? 69.224.37.48 (talk) 19:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It is doubtful that earth will cool to absolute zero as a result of the sun disappearing, even space isn’t that cold.--Apollonius 1236 (talk) 00:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Uninhabitably? Difficult to say. Depending on the lengths to which humans are willing to go, it could take quite a while. Geothermal energy will continue to be useful for billions of years, most likely. That said, I'd guess that surface temperatures would plummet below freezing within a week (consider that temperature drops of 10-15°C overnight are common). For absolute zero, not until the heat death of the universe. Thanks to the cosmic background radiation, temperatures bottom out at about 3 Kelvin or so. — Lomn 19:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

We could probably support a small number of humans using geothermal energy (the remaining fossil fuels and tidal energy will also help), but given that all life outside of specially constructed biospheres would be dead it would be difficult to support a large number of humans - we would need to support an entire ecosystem as well to oxygenate the air and to provide food. I'm not sure how long we could support them for, though - as the Earth cools down the energy required to heat the biosphere increases and I'm not sure how cold the Earth would get and how quickly (uninhabitable without technological assistance within a year, certainly, since crops would all fail, but more than that, I don't know). --Tango (talk) 21:33, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Land and air gets cold a lot faster than oceans because the mixing in the surface layers mean you have to remove heat from a substantial volume of water. In a previous reference desk thread it was estimated that it could take months for the tropical ocean to start freezing if you assume a typical 50 m mixed layer. Dragons flight (talk) 21:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't feel like searching for that discussion (which I don't recall, so it may have been before my time), but I can try and repeat it (standard disclaimers about back of the envelope calculations apply). According to insolation (assuming I'm reading it correctly), a square metre of tropical ocean would receive an average of 250W from the Sun. Since the ocean doesn't change temperature much, we can assume it is losing that much too and would continue to do so if the sun went out (at first, anyway). For a 50m mixed layer, we need to cool 50m³ of water. The specific heat capacity of water is about 4 J cm⁻³ K⁻¹. Let's say the water starts off at 25C. That means we need to remove 4*25*50*1,000,000=5,000,000,000J. At 250W, that would take 20,000,000 seconds, or nearly 8 months. And that's just for it to start freezing, it would take longer for it to completely freeze. That's all very approximate, though. --Tango (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the water would have time to mix in this 50 m layer, as the top would freeze too quickly, at such low atmospheric temps. And the important factor is when the surface of the oceans freeze over, as that's when they cease to provide significant heat and moisture to the atmosphere. This would happen far sooner than when the ocean freezes solid. Since temps drop at night by about 2°F per hour, that would mean a 48°F per day drop in the absence of sunlight, at least at first, as it would drop off more slowly when it became really cold. So, after a couple days, the air temps will have dropped by about 100°F, which should cause the ocean's surface to freeze over in a few more days. This means that it would become too cold to survive in an unheated house, even in an island at the equator, in a few days. Even a heated house would likely lose so much heat through the walls that it would become unlivable shortly thereafter. Also, at those temps contraction and brittleness may cause houses to split in half. StuRat (talk) 18:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would drop to absolute zero, since the Earth has internal heat. Maybe geothermal heating could work for a while. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

As Lomn said, it wouldn't drop to absolute zero due to the CMB, geothermal would keep it well above even that 3K for billions of years, though. It would still be far too cold on the surface to support life as we know it pretty quickly (although the lack of light may be more deadly than the lack of heat). --Tango (talk) 23:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The current geothermal heat flux of ~50 mW/m^2 would keep the surface at 30K if treated as a black body. Dragons flight (talk) 00:23, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The other thing, and it has nothing to do with the Earth's internal heat, is that it will never drop to absolute zero (which is an asymptotic condition anyways) because the entire universe has an ambient temperature of roughly 2.725 K; so that is the theoretical lowest temperature that the earth could reach. In practical terms, the final temperature of the universe (and thus the lowest temperature the earth will reach) at the end of time will likely be higher than this, as the warmer parts of the universe will be slightly heating up the colder parts over time as well, so when the entire system equilibrates, it will fractionally higher... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

But the universe expands, which causes the CMB to red-shift over time, i.e. the energy density goes towards zero. Surprisingly, the time the Earth would need to cool down is quite long, even on a cosmological scale. I think we discussed this before. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

2.7 K is the current CMB temperature; it declines as the universe expands. In the limit of a flat universe, the CMB temperature (along with everything else) asymptotes to zero K. See also: Heat death of the universe. Dragons flight (talk) 00:40, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Great minds... ;-). Does anybody else have the feeling that edit conflicts are now very often resolved automatically? DF's answer was not there when I started editing, and I got no conflict, either. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've noticed a lot of messages getting posted at almost the same time in the wrong order, which seems to be due to automatic resolution of edit conflicts. --Tango (talk) 00:47, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

As an engineer and a musician of sorts, I find the projected heat death of the universe depressing. If there is to be no practically exploitable difference of potential, and the universe is just a uniform, flat, cold, mucky bog at 3 K (or 2.7 K, or whatever K), no useful work could be done and there would be no need of engines or power transmission or power conversion. Thus there would be no need for engineers, even if life of some form existed. There might be a need for poets, or composers, to write dirges for what had once been, but there would be no means of performance. Edison (talk) 05:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thinking requires energy, so there can't even be poets. --Tango (talk) 12:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure I've explained this before - but WTH. Advanced future civilisations will be able to transfer their minds into computers. Surviving the heat death of the universe is then a matter of gradually reducing the clock rate on those computers such that enough energy can be accumulated for a single thought from the increasingly microscopic temperature variations as we head towards 3 kelvins. Since the universe merely asymptotes towards a situation of zero available energy, those beings will start to require exponentially more time between thoughts - but with everything slowing down like that, this would be a positive advantage because they would be in perpetual 'fast forward' - with time rushing on at an ever increasing pace. I believe this allows a sufficiently advanced civilisation to continue to live their lives for as long as they can stand the boredom. SteveBaker (talk) 19:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it depends on how quickly the temperature approaches zero - if the time between clock cycles is forced to increase quickly enough then there would only be enough time for a finite number in an infinite amount of time. At a guess, I'd say it depends on whether the integral of temperature over time from now to infinity converges or not. --Tango (talk) 00:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Alcohol

Disclaimer: this is NOT asking for medical advice - merely trying to find the answer to an argument!

During a conversation the other day, the subject came up about a man who has given up beer and started drinking vodka instead - as vodka is apparantly less fattening. I thought the man was being quite ingenious in trying to lose weight as the fattening effects of beer are well known (hence the term "beer belly!") but my friend said it wasn't as apparantly spirits are much worse for the liver than beer. I argued that this was not the case as provided he drink the same number of units of alcohol, the effect on the liver would be no different...so here's the question.

1. Is say 8 units of alcohol drunk as vodka (about 200ml I think) any worse for the liver than 8 units of alcohol drunk as beer (about 4 pints of standard 4% ABV beer)? Obviously there are other factors at play that would affect how the alcohol is absorbed, such as the individual's body and how much they've eaten etc but assuming all other factors are the same?

2. Would the guy in question actually lose any weight by substituting beer for vodka? OK, silly question as obviously the answer would be no if (as I suspect in this case) said guy did little excercise and ate loads of junk food but if it was just the beer that was making him fat, would this actually work? I've never heard of that method of losing weight before. Beer presumably has loads of carbohydrates in it therefore loads of calories but I presume vodka would too? Alcohol is made from sugar isn't it and sugar is a form of carb?

Answers on a postcard (oh OK then, on here) please to settle this question! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.33.180.73 (talk) 19:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think one factor to consider is the effect of drinking large quantities of liquid on the muscles keeping the stomach in place: usually they become stretched to cope with this volume and that's what gives men the "beer belly", not the deposition of extra fat round the middle. So if you switch to vodka, as long as you're not diluting it with a pint of lemonade or coke, the volume will be less and the stomach muscles will not need to stretch in order to cope. Of course, your mate will then need to do exercises to tighten his stomach muscles and get rid of the beer belly. No gain without pain as they say. --TammyMoet (talk) 20:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you drinking the vodka straight or mixing it with orange juice or something? If the latter, keep in mind that those add calories to the drinks. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 20:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Vodka does have fewer calories per serving than beer. And, you will lose weight any time you're using more calories than you're taking in. So, a reduction in your caloric intake is good for losing weight, as is increasing the calories you burn. The calories in vodka (and pretty much any liquor) is from alcohol, not carbs. Fermentation changes the sugars into alcohol- after that, it's not sugar anymore. There would be sugar left over that did not ferment, but in a distilled beverage this sugar is not in the end result like it is with beer or wine. Friday (talk) 20:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Be careful. According to this, there are 30 calories in 100 ml of beer and 222 calories in 100 ml of vodka (at 40%, which is slightly lower than what I'm used to). So even if a serving of beer comparable to 100 ml vodka is 700 ml, there would still be more calories in the vodka excluding the mix. And according to this, one gram of alcohol has more calories than one gram of carbohydrates. Here's another comparison. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It says 55 calories in a shot of vodka. Compare with 100 or so calories for even a very light beer. There are no carbs in (normal) liquor, so liquor is the winner if you're looking to maximize alcohol content and minimize calories. Friday (talk) 20:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Even for a pretty light beer, a pint is worth about 2 shots of a spirit alcohol wise. Assuming Zain's figures are correct, 570ml (about one UK pint) of beer would be 171 kcal. 1ml of alcohol in vodka would require 2.5ml of vodka, which would be 5.55 kcal. For the beer to have a calorie to alcohol ratio of 5.55kcal/ml it would need an alcohol content of 5.4%, which is a pretty strong beer. So, assuming the 30kcal figure holds for all beers (the source actually says 30kcal is for stout, bitter is 32 and lager 40), most beers are slightly worse than vodka in terms of calories per unit of alcohol, but strong ones are pretty similar. If you do switch from beer to vodka, though, you need to make sure you drink more water, since you aren't getting the water from the beer. --Tango (talk) 21:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Water from the beer?? lol.. Beer is a diuretic, it makes you pee more then you drink, the resulting dehydration is one of the main causes of hangover.Vespine (talk) 05:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

No, that's wrong. In medieval times, small beer often was the staple drink for people, as water was likely contaminated. It's quite hard to get a hangover from normal beer alone, simply because it's 95% water - and this is also the main reason why it makes you pee. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The ~5% of alcohol in the beer will still increase your frequency of urination, so the water in the beer isn't the only reason for peeing. If you go to the pub and drink 4 pints of water in the space of 3 hours, you will urinate fairly often. If you drink 4 pints of beer, you will urinate more often. The best time to rehydrate yourself from alcohol induced dehydration is after alcohol's effects on vasopressin have worn off, so that your body isn't just getting rid of any water you intake whilst intoxicated. --Mark PEA (talk) 20:36, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but we're not comparing beer to water, we're comparing beer to vodka. --Tango (talk) 00:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

What is it in beer that is a diuretic? Isn't it the alcohol? Drinking vodka will also make you pee more, but it doesn't have the advantage of including lots of water, so it dehydrates you more. --Tango (talk) 12:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Alcohol blocks vasopressin release from the pituitary gland. Vasopressin is required to re-absorb water from urine. Axl ¤ [Talk] 18:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Child and Adolescent psychotherapist

Hello, I'm de:Benutzer:Widescreen from German WP. I'd like to know what kind of education and trainig Child and Adolescent psychotherapist got to have, to work in a Hospital or by there own. (excuse my bad english). In USA & GB please. Widescreen ^® 20:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In the UK, I don't think there are any restrictions on who can call themselves a "psychotherapist". I think anyone explicitly practising psychotherapy in a hospital would be a psychiatrist, which is a type of doctor and they have the same medical degree(s) as any other doctor (they just specialise in psychiatry after they qualify). --Tango (talk) 23:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

"Psychotherapist" is definitely a licensed profession in the US. Not to the same degree as "psychiatrist", which requires a medical degree, but the US has a variety of licensing standards for anyone who professes to "treat" or "diagnose" patients for specific psychological conditions. Dragons flight (talk) 00:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Or, of course, you could be a psychologist, which requires a degree in psychology. There are psychologists working in hospitals. See here for a job description of a psychologist's role in the NHS in the UK. However, treatment, as implied by 'therapy', is limited to psychiatrists. Psychologists do the talking and counselling instead. At least this is how I think things work here. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 23:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Counselling sounds like a kind of treatment to me. Prescribing drugs is definitely restricted to psychiatrists, but beyond that, I'm not sure how it works. --Tango (talk) 23:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In US, psychotherapy can be provided by psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors or social workers and their education, and the type of service they provide, will vary accordingly. See the Occupational Outlook Handbook pages I have linked to, for more details. Abecedare (talk) 00:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If you are an psychiatrist, you can work with both, adults and childs in USA & GB? Theres no specialization needed in Child and Adolescence? If you are an psychologist or social worker you can work as an psychotherapist (adult and child) in Hospital and as an own offer in USA. In GB only psychiatrists. I've read for example Peter Fonagy (GB) is trained in child and adult psychoanalysis. Is this an privat amusement? Got this education effects on the status in the health system? What about other Schools of Therapy for example Cognitive behavioral therapy? Got they any training in child psychology or is this part of the clinical psychology education? Widescreen ^® 09:02, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

In the UK there are basically two kinds of recognised professional working in this field. Psychiatrists are qualified as medical doctors and then also in psychiatry as their specialism, then in child psychiatry as a sub-specialism. The other kind of professional is a clinical psychologist who has a doctorate in clinical psychology (D.Clin.Psych.), a qualification that is equivalent in level to the PhD. These people would usually first have a first degree and perhaps also a master's degree in psychology and then would take their doctorate part-time while also training in the NHS. There are also postgraduate courses in clinical counselling. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, Thanks a lot. What about USA? Widescreen ^® 18:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

What's the lowest point in Badlands national park?

Resolved

Pleas place {{tb}} on my talk page when you have an awnser.--Ipatrol (talk) 22:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

As the lowest point in the park isn't particularly noteworthy (unlike in, say, Death Valley), it isn't listed there. I doubt if any source will list such info, for the same reason. A topographic map of the park could be used to determine the lowest point, but I can't find any which are available for free. So, I don't know the answer. (If you're British and leave a beer at that point, though, it will then be the lowest pint in the park. :-) )StuRat (talk) 19:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If you can find a brit who'd leave a pint of beer behind after hiking through the badlands - that would certainly be a new low point. SteveBaker (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean a topographic map? Algebraist 19:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

A quick scan over the park in Google Earth gives the impression that the lowest point would likely be between 2,300 and 2,400 feet. Elevations in this range can be found at the eastern end of the northern "finger" of the park projecting eastward. The lower elevations appear to lie along the park's boundaries. Here is a Google Maps style USGS map interface. Click the "Topo" button to get topographic maps. Zoom and pan, etc, to figure it out the hard way. Elevations appear to be shown in metres. Zooming in past a certain point brings up the higher resolution topos. There's probably a way to calculate it automatically with some kind of GIS like tool, but I can't think of how offhand. Pfly (talk) 07:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, 2460 at sage creek. I had to look at something from the USGS on geopubs.com P.S. sorry for the typo :-)--Ipatrol (talk) 20:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)