Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2011 April 6

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April 6

How long can wine be kept?

I read here that:

An amateur wine group paid a record 57,000 euros (US$77,000) Saturday for a 237-year-old bottle of wine from France’s eastern Jura region at a local wine festival auction.

Is this wine still safe to drink? Count Iblis (talk) 00:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The wine is likely safe to drink if it has a good seal with the cork. However, I'm skeptical that the wine would be good to drink, other than for the novelty of it. I remember Jacques Cousteau said in an interview that his crew found a 100-year-old bottle of wine in a ship wreckage. He said it was horrible stuff.

I have some experience with this due to my family running a winery. Typically wine will reach its flavor peak after 4 years and then start to decline in quality. Zinfandels have one of the shortest time-to-peak (4 years), Syrah is more like 8 years, and Cabernet Sauvignon will keep improving for many more years. Generally white wines should be consumed after 18 months or so. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The aging potential of wine depends on the variety of grape and (particularly) on the methods used to make the wine. Our article on aging of wine provides some rough guidelines. Most bottles of wine are ready to drink young (a year or two after they're made) and the best that can be said about further aging is that most won't decline much over the next few years. Reds are generally more durable than whites, but that's just a rule of thumb—your bottle of Beaujolais nouveau should be consumed now (or better, four months ago), but your Chablis can stay in the cellar. Our article suggests that only 5-10% of wines will benefit from five years of aging (instead of just one), and perhaps 1% will benefit from more than ten years. Most people lack both the facilities, resources, and inclination to properly manage a wine collection that spans years or decades, and the market reflects this. Of course, even a bottle past its prime is unlikely to be dangerous; the major risks with too much aging are a dulling of flavors (disappointing) or the formation of vinegar (painful).

That said, certainly types of specialty wines – particularly among the fortified wines, which have a higher alcohol content – have remarkable longevity and potential to age. Vintage port may need a decade in the bottle for its harsh tannins to sediment, and can usually benefit from at least another couple of decades of aging. Madeira may be the ultimate example. Traders discovered that cases of Madeira wines carried across the equator in a ship's hold tasted better than wine that had not; the heat and oxidation improved the flavor and made the wine virtually indestructible. Madeiras are now deliberately exposed to air and heat, and bottles more than a century old are highly prized.

The article Count Iblis links to mentions that the wine in question is a vin jaune (literally, 'yellow wine') from the Jura region. This wine is treated unconventionally, rather like a Sherry (Jerez) wine. During a long (six years or more) in-barrel aging process prior to bottling, a special yeast grows on top of the wine, modifying the flavor. The vin jaune is also exposed to air, allowing it to oxidize and also permitting a moderate concentration of the wine through evaporation. Because of this treatment, vin jaune should have a much longer 'shelf life' than most conventional wines. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, so perhaps I (who knows little about wine) should invest in Madeira wine :) Count Iblis (talk) 00:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Radioactive Water Decay

How long does it take for radioactive water to decay and become normal, drinkable water? 99.245.70.233 (talk) 02:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Depends on what isotopes are making it radioactive, and how much of them are in the water. Are you talking about, say, the drinking water in Tokyo, or the sea water surrounding the reactor? The answer will be quite different in either case. In general, what people are worried about in the Japanese case is iodine-131, which has a half-life of 8 days, which means that any given sample will have decayed 50% every 8 days. But you have to know how much in it the given water to know how long it will take to become stable. It's worth noting that very low levels of radioactivity are drinkable. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Sea water will never get potable because it contains too much salt (NaCl, mostly), even when not contaminated by radioactive elements. Any means to remove the salt will, depending on the type od contamination and the way it is done, also remove an essential part of the radioactive elements. Aside of iodine-131 there is also strontium-90 and caesium-137 to worry about. These two are produced by nuclear fission in large quantities but do not decay as quickly as iodine-131. Other products decay even slower, but as each atom releases radioactive radiation only at the moment of decay the longer lived products radiate less intensive. As Sr and Cs build salts readily they are unlikely to be transported by air (unless they are violently evaporated as happens when a nuclear bomb explodes). I doubt they can get into the sweet water supply. But they will get washed away with water. I wouldn't buy sea food from the Fukushima area for quite a while. 93.132.146.245 (talk) 10:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that if you are talking about sea water, the half-life time only matters if it is kept in a relatively isolated area. If it is allowed to diffuse with the larger body of the ocean, the average radioactivity of water you are sampling will drop very quickly no matter what the half lives of the material. What complicates this from an exposure point of view is if, say, seaweed gets the radioactivity inside of it, then it can move up the food chain anyway. But in general, radioactivity in ocean water is not a huge deal, because the vastness of the ocean diffuses it to harmless amounts fairly quickly. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

You are right, dilution will be much faster than decay. But near the cost, with waves and currents of all sorts, I would not bet that I am not the one with the bad luck that gets his shellfish from that one pocket of water where diffusion is not only limited but where the radioactive stuff somehow concentrates naturally. It is worsened by the fact that you can't get reliable information. By some kind of media, nearly everything is automatically prefixed with either "highly toxic" or "highly radioactive". I really would like to see what happens when they find out that many farmers use radioactive fertilizer. 93.132.146.245 (talk) 16:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

some questions

1. can cool gas in temperature less than its boil point in atmosphere be in thermal Maxwell – Boltzmann equilibrium ?
2. what cases the weight of gas in cylinder ,compare halo inside vacuum cylinder with 1 atm pressure gas cylinder weight .
3. how dos happen the colliding of clouds in air?
4. what is the deference between weightless condition and lying in gravity field for gas treatment and thermodynamic rules ?

--78.38.28.3 (talk) 04:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Would these be homework questions? You can consider water a gas (steam) that is cooled below its boiling point. It can exist in the atmosphere, and will exhibit phenomena such as evaporation, precipitation, and flow. The clouds you mentioned later are an example of condensation so the gas (water vapour) concentration exceeds the dew point in the air.

Can clouds collide? They have no solid surface, just being a suspension of water droplets in air. They do not make thunder when they bang together.

Gas is matter with mass and in a gravity field has weight. The more pressure it is under the higher the density: Boyles law.

In weightless conditions there will be no convection. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

not home work(i am not student and graduated in 1998 master science degree) :for the reason of what happens in atmosphere the production of clouds is such as collection of steam in one point till cloud growth . and with noticing to the properties of clouds we can imagine colliding of per star nebulae , the last questions is about the condition of such clouds in interstellar space .how did first nebula obtain thermodynamic equilibrium and the fragmenting of matter in such nebula ,for example can the gas be separated layer by layer such as spectrum of matter from light to heavy and wise versa ? --Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 09:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As, I think, you have been told here before, your English is too incoherent for us to understand properly what you are asking. I myself studied Astronomy at university, but I cannot make out with sufficient certainty what you are trying to say in your last paragraph. You really need to find a more fluent English speaker to translate your questions properly. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.111 (talk) 11:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I cannot find the IP when I try to look back in the archives but if he is the one who lately has been asked to post in Farsi I think his English has improved since that. It is still not clear, but also not totally unintelligible. So I will ask some questions of what I think he may be interested in: In what way do terrestrial clouds and interplanetary or interstellar clouds behave differently? What are the main forces on them, how do they heat up or cool down? What keeps them together? Questions added from me on my own behalf: can terrestrial clouds collide at all? From an air plane I saw clouds having a very sharp bottom, as if they would be sitting on an invisible sphere, why is that? 93.132.146.245 (talk) 16:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

well i find some one who think as i do , thank you for your questions (as I think they will change some physics rules) the first our common idea is this : cloud molecule mass and its density is near to air density (H2O)and CO2 N2 and O2 but they are there in sky (floating) and not fall such as flying an eagle , they make ice drops and rain drops and snow . all of this happen in gravity field , when there not be gravity filed and all matter be weight less (either in gravity field or when they orbit around center of gravity field -based on Einstein general relativity- )how will they act?

Contributions/78.38.28.3|78.38.28.3]] (talk) 06:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.38.28.3 (talk) 06:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

my dear friend , Imagine the come of one comet the length of come in nearest distance to sun can be 1~3 AU how can any core(head) with 10 KM diameter tide them together and they move in orbital , its gravity force is very poor , but they come here and back to KOeeper belt . in the other hand in outer orbital and soe inner parts of terrestrial planets orbitals we have asteroids , they have density near to earth's one , how they condensed so , with gravity field ?or in other where

?--78.38.28.3 (talk) 08:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I think Roche limit is what you are looking for. 95.112.159.20 (talk) 08:21, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I know Roche limit and I am studying about comparing the recent matter distribution diagrams gave in some astrophysical articles for upgrade them .

--78.38.28.3 (talk) 08:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

So I will ask some questions of what I think he may be interested in: In what way do terrestrial clouds and interplanetary or interstellar clouds behave differently? What are the main forces on them, how do they heat up or cool down? What keeps them together? Questions added from me on my own behalf: can terrestrial clouds collide at all? From an air plane I saw clouds having a very sharp bottom, as if they would be sitting on an invisible sphere, why is that?

Only one theorem (the new one which I will publish )can replay this contraction and others which I had list them in my article,so then .Any one who is intersted to know I will send his email , I cannot give it here based on wikipedia rules , till it be accepted and evaluated.

--78.38.28.3 (talk) 09:13, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The cloudbase is well defined because due to adiabatic heating and cooling, that is where the air is cool enough for droplets of water to condense in a cloud. |The water droplets are suspended in air and move with the air, but will evaporate if the air heats up or dries out for some reason. For a cloud to move, air around it will have to move out of the way. If two clouds approach each other the air between them would have to move out of the way, but when they meet there is not much energy, so the air pressure stays the same and they don't interpenetrate. In space the gas is expanding due to lack of pressure, and will ahve plenty of energy due to its velocity or internal heat, or due to radiation. If one expanding cloud hits another you will get a shock wave and an increase in density. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

compair this two diagrams

File:Diagram dr margaret hansen.jpg File:Diagram dr douglas n.c.lin.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.38.28.3 (talk • contribs) 00:04, April 6, 2011

Um, they don't seem to exist on Wikipedia. (I have edited the post to "nowiki" the file names so that they would not look so strange.) Looie496 (talk) 04:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I changed it to link to the images, but they don't exist. Ariel. (talk) 04:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

help me for bring two pictures here Plz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.38.28.3 (talk • contribs) 00:45, April 6, 2011

You need to upload them somewhere first. You are trying to link to images on your local computer, and we don't have access to it. Ariel. (talk) 04:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Refortmatting the diagrams into a gallary isn't going to make any difference. The diagrams exist on your computer. We can't see stuff you have saved on your harddrive. If you need to upload something; you can do so at any of the various "picture hosting" sites around the internet, or if they meet Wikipedia's critieria, you can follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Uploading images. Be aware that if you upload images which are not appropriate for Wikipedia, they will be quickly deleted. --Jayron32 04:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think an anon can upload an image here, in fact one has to wait few days after registration to be able to do so. But indeed - image hosts all over the web, I think there was one imageshack that dosen't require registration - go there, follow the instructions to upload, copy-paste links here ~~Xil (talk) 09:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Have any miracles really happened?

Have any REAL miracles happened that cannot be explained by science? Religious people always talk about miracles and god exists and he caused all these miracles to happen like parting of the sea or the first born of non-jews dying, etc... But there are good explanations for most if not all of that stuff. So has anything that cannot be explained happened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.33.234 (talk) 06:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

"Has anything that cannot be explained happened"? Lots of things have happened that are not understood, not fully understood, open to debate, etc. This might not be what you are looking for, but perhaps something in the lists at List of unsolved problems. For example, gamma-ray bursts happen, but I don't think they have been figured out yet. A more personal example might be the hard problem of consciousness. Pfly (talk) 06:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Natural science by definition accounts for those things which proceed by natural law. It links the present moment to a series of past moments according to the predictions of those natural laws, whether or not that is what really happened. Likewise it would be traced to some other past if you suppose that a miraculous process was at work. For example, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy it is supposed that the Earth is destroyed, then recreated by aliens. But scientific study, at least by those not on a near par with the aliens, will show that the recreated Earth is billions of years old, was created by the slow accretion of planetesimals, etc. The decision about what "really" happened, or will happen, whether it is always invariably consistent with natural law or not, is a philosophical decision, not a scientific fact. Wnt (talk) 07:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the root of the difference in views held by science-oriented people and religion-oriented people is the difference in the mode of thought rather than one knowing something that the other doesn't. Science-oriented people look for rational explanations of observed phenomena, they are likely to practise critical thinking and they are willing to say "We don't have an explanation." The practical application of this mode of thought can be traced to Galileo Galilei in the early 1600s, so it is a relatively modern mode of thought. Religion-oriented people have faith in ancient scriptures, as a matter of principle. They are likely to regard critical thinking about miracles, the deity, and ancient scriptures as disrespectful and to be avoided. Each religion has its most influential leaders and, among these leaders, saying "We don't have an explanation" would be uncommon, possibly because it would be disrespectful of their organisation and the deity. Religion-oriented people are likely to be obedient thinkers rather than critical thinkers. The practical application of this mode of thought is evident throughout recorded history, and earlier, so it is truly an ancient mode of thought.

Obedience to doctrine is highly valued among religion-oriented people, whereas in science, alternative views are tolerated, even encouraged, and obedience to doctrine is not highly valued. Religion-oriented people have always made a practice of forming groups, called churches or denominations. Some churches practice forms of ex-communication or rejection of members who seek out or publish new or alternative explanations. Science-oriented people do not form groups that resemble churches. Science-oriented people applaud people who genuinely seek out new or alternative information or explanations. They certainly don't ex-communicate or reject any scientist genuinely advancing the aims of science.

So, on the matter of miracles, searching for evidence that one view is right and the other is wrong is likely to prove unsatisfying because at the root of the matter are two very different ways of thinking about things, and two different sets of values placed on observed phenomena and non-observable phenomena (such as an invisible deity.) Dolphin (t) 09:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think your characterisation of scientists as pure people of reason is entirely fair. Being humans, they have accepted widely-held beliefs before, and are likely to maintain the status quo than they are to change it, but I think in general certainly they are less likely to. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that my characterisation of scientists would be inaccurate if I applied it to all people claiming to be scientists, just as my characterisation of religion-oriented people would be inaccurate if I applied it to all people who identify with a religion. My words were intended to focus on a mode of thought rather than on the people themselves. Similarly, my words about religion-oriented people were intended to focus on a mode of thought rather than on the people. Dolphin (t) 00:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

STX: Dolphin, please see Academic freedom#Evolution debate (permanent link here).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

What David Hume wrote in 1748 remains true today: [T]here is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts, performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable: All which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men.[1] --Mr.98 (talk) 12:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

At 107 words that is quite a sentence! It looks obscure to me. Would you care to translate? Thanks. Dolphin (t) 13:41, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

To what language would you like it translated? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Contemporary English. The English written by philosophers and others 250 years ago was clearly different to that used on Wikipedia today.

All which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men. (What was Hume trying to say?) Dolphin (t) 22:36, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That phrase just means These conditions/circumstances (described in the preceding passage) must be met in order for us to consider any eyewitness testimony (regarding miracles) reliable. His point was that no such reliable testimony existed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The short answer is "no". thx1138 (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed short, but like "47" I don't believe it is actually an answer. I am hoping Mr.98 will tell us his understanding of what Hume meant. (Hume was a very clever and perceptive philosopher, and an astute observer of men and their institutions, so I am confident that what he wrote was very sound, but I would like to know more.) (Perhaps mine is the long answer.) Dolphin (t) 23:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the quote from Hume means what it says - that there is no credible testimony of miracles from credible witnesses. thx1138 (talk) 00:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems like an unfair standard, though. If miracles were readily apparent to all people, they'd just be part of the laws of physics. (e.g. childbirth) Wnt (talk) 03:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be true regardless?

If miracles are possible, then they and the deity or deities that cause them are just part of the "laws of physics" like anything else. Scientists simply haven't described them yet.

If something is truly impossible, then it can't happen. That's what the word means. APL (talk) 14:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Suppose that there are two orthogonal dimensions of time. One describes the linkage of three-dimensional universes according to the normal laws of physics, forming a four-dimensional spacetime in which miracles never happen. The other links three-dimensional universes into a supernatural progression - for example, the divine editing and building of the universe, the same dimension of time as the Days of Creation. Now a human mind may be capable of working perfectly, like a tape recorder, sensing only change in the mundane dimension of time. Or it may be capable of sensing some change in the other dimension; what in logical terms we would call a delusion, or a miracle. Such perception of miracles does not make them part of the laws of physics, and they cannot be detected by experiment; yet they may have a deeper meaning than all we know. It is not for science to prove, nor disprove, such statements about events occurring outside of the mundane four-dimensional spacetime. Wnt (talk) 21:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Hume's argument is that there has never been enough evidence to believe in miracles: "That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish." Which I think is fairly straightforward English, albeit with a few more clauses than we're used to. (It's English with German grammar! Har har, a language joke.) Any evidence of miracles has to be interpreted through the possibility of it being produced by somehow who is lying, has been fooled, or is just mistaken. And Hume says, hey — we don't know much about miracles. But we do know about humans. And we know they are prone to lying, being fooled, or being mistaken. (This is a variation on Occam's Razor — in Hume's mind it is always better to assume that the humans have screwed up somehow than to assume you've seen something supernatural.) Now in the quote I used before, Hume indicates some of the conditions that might get you out of this quandry — what if you had large numbers of people, people who were reliable observers (e.g. people who are not easily fooled), and people who really had no stake in the miracle being correct (e.g. people who wouldn't profit in any fashion from there being a miracle or not). Then maybe you could consider it. Hume illustrates this concretely: "When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. " Today we might generalize "testimony" well beyond human testimony — we know photographs can be faked, videos manipulated, data changed. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much Mr.98. Your summary is most persuasive. Dolphin (t) 05:02, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course, there are some who would say that e.g. The Miracle of the Sun, long after Hume's time, fulfils his criteria. But we will never know if that would have met his personal definitions. And I'm aware that, on the Science desk, this is basically waving a red rag... 86.162.71.235 (talk) 16:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's assume the Miracle of the Sun was indeed a deity at work. That invites the question Why did the deity do this odd thing, and why has the deity neglected so many thousands of opportunities to do genuinely beneficial and meaningful things that might have contributed to the betterment of humankind? The Miracle of the Sun might have vindicated the claims of the three children who predicted something unusual would happen at this time, and at this place, but what does that tell us about the deity? The deity obviously looked kindly upon these three children, but there have been thousands of other opportunities, many in our lifetimes, where a powerful deity could have done something truly miraculous by rescuing large numbers of children from fear, injury or death. Instead, we have this engimatic account of a few party tricks a century ago that gave a bunch of peasants a thrill but nothing more. Dolphin (t) 05:02, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Except that that is both a misrepresentation of the accounts in the article, and an attempt to suppose that a deity should have your values and priorities. As the article explains, the point of the miracle was that thousands should see it and believe the reports of the children, not for the benefit of the children but so that people would take their messages seriously. Clearly, a deity who has prioritised free will, knows the entire course of human history, and knows that what happens after you die lasts for eternity, can be excused not behaving as you personally would behave if you had omnipotence. And I hardly think the eye-witness reports can be discarded as 'a bunch of peasants' having a thrill. But this is all by the wayside: I don't think you would ever accept an account of a miracle, and it's not because you would apply Hume-like logic to the event. If every respected scientist and philosopher in the world woke up one morning and said they had seen in a dream that Richard Dawkins would be struck by lightning at 7pm while standing in a field in Dorset, and Dawkins stood in the field to prove it couldn't be true, and then was struck by lightning at 7pm in front of a crowd of magicians, scientists and politicians, while cameras recorded the whole thing, you would decide it couldn't possibly be true, even if nobody proposed a reasonable explanation. 86.162.71.235 (talk) 10:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I accept that I am supposing a deity would display values and priorities that I can understand. In respect of Richard Dawkins being struck dead by lightning in accordance with a dream experienced by scientists and philosophers, I think your prediction is sound. What would you say following these events - God is great? Dolphin (t) 12:04, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, first I would be scientifically curious ("What is almost certain to have happened, what is likely to have happened, what is probably an exaggeration or assumption, what seems like one person misreporting something? How can I explain this naturalistically? Does it seem like I need to allow for something new, or not?") followed by historical curiousity ("No really, who was actually there, what order did things happen in, what was the context? Who reported this, and do they benefit?") followed by anthropological interest ("What meaning was attributed to this? What beliefs informed the interpretation of the events?"). Any emotional "this can't be true because it would mean a God with morals I disagree with" would have to come after that, and would frankly be intellectually problematic: either it happened, or it did not. Deciding that something didn't happen because of the reality it implies is an emotional, intellectually dishonest position. Have your emotional reaction (we are human, after all), but don't pretend it is not. And I'm sure the theological discussion would be lively and divisive, with all sorts of interpretations :) Given an omnipotent, omniscient God who sees our souls and knows the implications of such for our futures, all sorts of potentially worthy interpretations are possible. And, after all, I didn't say Dawkins would die in this scenario. (This scenario actually took me a while to come up with, as I kept coming up with potential ways for it to happen naturalistically) 86.162.71.235 (talk) 13:12, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

An excellent response! I am pleased that you would begin by satisfying your curiosity. I am impressed by your analysis of the grounds for being scientifically and historically curious. Those of us who spend time on the Science Reference Desk should encourage critical thinking and scientific skepticism, as you have done, and expose obedient thinking.

I have been thinking critically about The Miracle of the Sun. I notice there are numerous estimates of the number of people who were present in the vicinity on the day, but the nub of the story is that according to many witness statements ... Critical thinking tells me that the number of people who were present in the vicinity on the day is almost irrelevant, but it lends an undeserved legitimacy to the story. The meaningful measure would be how many witness statements corroborated the idea that some sort of super-natural event had occurred. Our article seems to reflect the emphasis given by the sources, namely that the number of people who were present in the vicinity on the day was of paramount importance, but that the number of consistent witness statements was not worth reporting. I am curious as to how many thousands of those present would have taken the view that it was nothing more than a good day out, ruined. Firstly, they got soaked to the skin, spent the day staring at the sky and saw nothing apart from what they expect to see every dull day with intermittent showers. Certainly no apparitions of Jesus, the Blessed Mary or Joseph - it seems it was only the three children who saw those things. (Puts me in mind of the Cottingley Fairies.) I am also curious how many people elsewhere in Portugal, Spain, France, Britain and north-Africa saw the same thing. After all, the sun that shines on Portugal every day is the same sun that shines on those other places. If the sun truly did careen towards the Earth in a zig-zag pattern there would be millions of corroborating reports available to us from Europe and Africa.

Critical thinkers will be aware of success stories like The Miracle of the Sun, but they should also be aware of the failures, when the deity plain failed to show on the scheduled day. For example, see 1975 in Prophecy! Dolphin (t) 05:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Confused about Lyme Disease

I'm asking this question for educational purposes... I have a customer that is constantly taking different antibiotics for lyme disease. Why is it that the antibiotics don't ever kill off the lyme disease? How come antibiotics in every other case completely kill off the bacteria (assuming the right antibiotic is used) and don't for lyme disease? So is someone with this disease just stuck with taking different antibiotics constantly for the rest of their life? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.33.234 (talk) 06:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Have you read the obvious article Lyme disease? Nil Einne (talk) 06:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The big mystery to me is, with what frequency are people vulnerable to Lyme? (both in terms of infection rate and the rate at which people are susceptible to the disease at all) We have a large part of the northeastern U.S. where deer are everywhere, a large percentage of ticks are infected, and there is no realistic chance people are going to notice the tiny little deer ticks. It doesn't seem right that anyone is uninfected. Wnt (talk) 07:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Rates of infection are low because even if you are bitten by an infected tick, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease is not necessarily transferred to you. And your immune system has a chance to fight it off before it reproduces too much and spreads through your body. Also, even though deer ticks are small, they can be quite irritating to many people when you are bitten, so the chance of noticing them is quite high. 148.177.1.210 (talk) 13:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Our article also mentions this study, which found that roughly one in ten infections with Lyme disease are asymptomatic. During the course of the study, about 10% of people who developed antibodies to Lyme-related proteins did not report any symptoms of the disease. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like they believe they have chronic Lyme disease, something which may or may not actually exist. --Carnildo (talk) 01:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes antibiotics can kill off Lyme especially if caught early. Antibiotics do not always work for other diseases either, see Antibiotic resistance. Here is a medical journal article that talks about the issue in regards to Syphilis, which is in the same Family of bacteria.Kmusser (talk) 21:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

communication

I was looking through a few related articles here recently, and found that quite a number of radio messages have been sent out to random stars hoping to stumble across alien life. I was just wondering, though, whether any effort had been made to contact Epsilon Eridani, I could find no mention of such. Given that it is just over there, were we to do so and recieve a reply, that would arrive long before any chance of hearing anything from anywhere else...

148.197.121.205 (talk) 10:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

There is List of interstellar radio messages, there dosen't appear to be one targeting that costellation. However I believe all radio transmitions on Earth travel to outer space ~~Xil (talk) 12:19, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Also note that unless the aliens have much better receiver technology than we do they won't hear our message. Only our strongest military radars transmit sufficient power to be heard at interstellar distances by our currently developed receivers, and even then only at the distances of the nearest stars. At 10.5 light years, Epsilon Eridani might just barely be within that range. -- 110.49.241.13 (talk) 13:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Oops. I misremembered this Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum discussion. It is only our general radio noise that could not be heard at interstellar distances with our current level of receivers. Beamed messages are a different story -- the Arecibo radar transmitter, at full power, could be detected by an Arecibo type radio receiver at a considerable distance (with one claim of 100,000 light years). So while your friendly Epsilon Eridani ETs probably didn't watch the opening of the 1936 Summer Olympics some 64 years ago, they certainly could hear a message beamed from us, assuming they have at least our level of technology and that they were listening in our precise direction. -- 110.49.241.13 (talk) 16:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A forum isn't a very reliable source. I find that 100,000 ly claim very implausible. --Tango (talk) 22:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

SETI says 10,000 ly. --Tango (talk) 23:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Note that the Epsilon Eridani system is only about a billion years old. Intelligent life didn't appear on earth for 4.5 billion years. We don't know if or how the age of a star system affects the possibility of life appearing there, but maybe the people who sent messages to space thought older star systems were a better bet. thx1138 (talk) 16:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

LASER vs. CD-ROM/DVD moving

If there were no place constrains, and you could put a LASER 10 inches away from a CD-ROM, would it be more practical to move the LASER in circles and not spin the CD? (i.e. is there an easy way of pointing a LASER towards a target, instead of moving the target below the LASER)Quest09 (talk) 11:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not practical to move the laser in circles, no. Consider how fast a CD spins and how fast you would then have to spin the laser to replicate that. Consider also that the laser beam has to be reflected back at a sensor — something that's easy to do when the angle of the laser is completely fixed, something that's much harder when it is not or subject to jostling. If you wanted to try and read one bit at a time that way, it's theoretically possible — it would just be very difficult to do. Reading a bunch at a time, as is done when you use an actual CD, would be totally impractical. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It would be less practical to move the laser, if you're talking about the laser matching the normal motion of the disc. It's more massive, and worse, it's not balanced, so you'll have to build some mechanism to continuously rebalance it (which will make it even heavier). You could instead fiddle with angling the laser (or better yet, redirecting the laser with small mirrors), which would be an improvement, but honestly, none of it is going to be more practical than the system we actually use. — Lomn 12:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As the posters above note, while one could do it, there's no good reason to. Also, the minimum spacing of pits on a CD is roughly 800 nanometers, and about 400 nm on a DVD (and tinier still on a Blu-Ray disc). To resolve features that size at a working distance of ten inches, one needs a very large aperture to collect light. You can run through the specific math using the formulas at angular resolution, but you're going to need a lens at least several inches across. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Question about how long you can keep cosmetics

I have just been looking at the back of some cosmetics to see how long you can keep them for. I was suprised to see you can keep shower gels for only 12 months, since the date they are first opened. Does this in practise mean since the date of purchase, since most shower gels are not 'sealed' and can be freely opened in shops, for anyone to take a sniff? And a second question...why can purfumes/ after shaves only be kept 3 years? Can they go off? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.60.255.201 (talk) 14:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think most of them go "off" in any serious way, but they will lose the more volatile perfume oils that were added. I would be happy to use most such products for years after their "best before" date. Dbfirs 17:24, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

What is it called when we perceive time as passing slower?

If I am at home having fun playing video games the day passes by quickly. If I am at work being bored slicing meat (I work in a deli) the day takes forever do end.

Does this feeling have a scientific term? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevearino (talk • contribs) 14:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, the closest scientific term is probably time dilation, but what you experience is subjective rather than scientific, so that is rather different. The best term I can think of is that time drags. You might have more luck on the language desk.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As Einstein is supposed to have said: "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on this topic is Time perception, although that article doesn't really answer your question, and the article is only of moderate quality. Red Act (talk) 15:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As an aside, the article Tempus fugit may be of interest; the phenomenon described by the OP has been noted since ancient times. --Jayron32 15:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Mental state, you seem to be describing flow and apathy ~~Xil (talk) 16:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

What if your cosmetic says it can last longer than three years but it smells bad on you.Does that mean it has to be thrown away?

"The faces of the dead bore expressions of horror."

The above quote is from the New York Times article "Photos Found in Libya Show Abuses Under Qaddafi". A book I read many years ago by a forensic pathologist (I do not recall the author's name) said that when a person dies, the muscles relax and no facial expression, whether of joy, ecstasy, sadness, pain or horror can possibly remain. Expressions of fear or horror on the face of a dead person were staples of 19th and early 20th century fiction, such as Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories: "A study in scarlet"(1884): "There was no wound upon the dead man's person, but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his fate.." and "The adventure of the Abbey Grange"(1904): "His dark, handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of vindictive hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish expression." Is there any a present day documented scientific basis for inferences about the mental state of the deceased at the moment of death, comparable to this 1857 review discussion of facial expressions after death (usually blank faces, sometimes an expression related to the mode of death) or this 1870 review (smiles toward heaven on some dead faces, menace and hate on other dead faces in the Crimean war battlefields)? I see that some books on homicide investigation still claim a relation between cause of death and facial expression: Shot to death = "shocked look," blunt force trauma = "painful look," knife wounds = "relaxed," drug death = "smile." in "Homicide investigation: an introduction (2003)" By John J. Miletich , p 79. Edison (talk) 15:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Three possibilities:

Rigor mortis: Stiffening of the muscles after death could possibly cause the facial muscles to contract in such a manner as to give the impression of an emotion that was not there before.

Dessication: As the corpses dry out, tissues tend to become taut (think of the "mummy" look), which could cause a tightening of the face to give the impression of horror.

The writer is making it up for dramatic reasons.

That's all I can think of... --Jayron32 15:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

So in the 19th century medical literature, when they saw ecstatic heavenly expressions or expressions of hatred on corpses on the battlefield, they might have been seeing postmortem changes unrelated to the predeath expressions. Yet journalists and even those writing training manuals for homicide investigators claim to be able to infer premortem mental state from postmortem facial expression. Millions of people a year die in the presence of nurses, doctors, and paramedics. It seems like someone would have done a systematic study of premortem/postmortem facial expressions, without interfering with the quality of medical care. Similarly, dozens of cases occur every year where someone dies in a shootout and it is videotaped, to allow comparison of pre and post mortem facial expressions. Edison (talk) 15:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I am saying nothing of the sort. You made two assertions which you thought were contradictory, and I was providing possible ways the contradiction could be resolved. Your original post seems to assume that one cannot tell mental state from post-mortem facial expressions, then also asks how people can sometimes believe that you can. Lets say your assumption is correct; that is it is impossible to tell a persons mental state at the moment of death. My answer is valid given that we hold that assumption true. However, we have not established that assumption as true, merely assumed it to be true to answer the question. So sure, perhaps you can reliably infer pre-death mental state from post-death facial expressions. Or maybe you cannot. My answer was more about things that could lead to expressions which had no bearing in a person's pre-death facial expression. It doesn't mean, however, that your assertion that it is impossible to tell these things (based on a long-forgotten, half remembered statement you read once, but cannot locate to confirm). --Jayron32 16:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I misinterpreted your "Three possibilities" preface. Naturally I do not keep note cards with the exact source for every thing I have ever read, and it is "fully remembered," not "half remembered." It was a book on forensic pathology found in a college library. Edison (talk) 22:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I did some google scholar searches for you. Its a hard topic to search for, since "facial expression" and "death" and "corpse" turns up a lot of papers on things like studies of people's facial expressions in response to viewing a corpse, or articles designed for undertakers (like, how to put a certain facial expression on a corpse) but not a lot on the facial expressions of the corpse (I thought the same thing as you; it should be an easy thing to study!). I did find a bit; I can't read more than the abstract of this paper, but google's snapshot blurb in the search seems to indicate that contorted facial expressions are preserved sometimes when an epileptic dies as a result of a seizure. There was this book result by a pathologist that seems to indicate that he often is tempted to assign emotional state at death to a facial expression, but he quickly notes that there is no basis in fact for such a connection. Its pretty sketchy, though. I guess the answer to your question is, as yet, indeterminate. That is, we cannot say for certain whether any such study has actually been done or not. --Jayron32 01:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I've got some sources, but actual facts from doctors who see this all the time is surprisingly lacking - ask your friends in medicine and post here. From Cambridge paleopathology, "Diagnostic predictions based on such (grotesque) facial expressions rarely have any basis in fact." A few mentions of eyelids and such are in an article on rigor mortis and decay. One might consider Austronesian death masks which were constructed to record the facial expression upon death. On a similar cultural note, some Buddhists may interpret as fact that the facial expression on death indicates the fate of rebirth. But again, let's ask friends in medicine for some straight answers. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I have searched for definitive info on this, and have not found credible recent empirical evidence. People have asked sources such as Snopes and found nothing. It would be great if this community could find a believable answer rather than the assertions from the police textbook and the NY Times saying that facial expressions do provide indications about emotions at the time of death vs the (uncited) forensic pathology book saying the expressions relax when death occurs. Edison (talk) 12:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The null hypothesis would seem to be that dead faces of humans might display seeming emotions caused by various physical processes unrelated to the pre-death mental state, such as were mentioned above. To disprove that, one would look for a correlation between before and post death expressions, or alternately between modes of death and postmortem expressions, as listed in the Miletich book. Edison (talk) 04:43, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

"S" internet protocol?

I was looking through some logs of a game I play, and it tries to connect to its game server using s:// . Any idea what this means? Allmightyduck  What did I do wrong? 15:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

According to URI scheme (the bit before the colon in the URL, like "http://" or "ftp://" is the scheme) s:// is not an official or commonly used unofficial scheme. Perhaps it is a scheme unique to the game... --Jayron32 15:41, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Within logs, it could be the programmer's abbreviation for something, such as "server". It doesn't mean that the game actually tried to use s://. -- kainaw™ 15:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A URI is just a unique name to identify a resource. It is up to the program to decide what to do with a URI - e.g., the web-browser reads "http://wikipedia.org" and chooses to submit an HTTP protocol GET request to the server identified by the DNS name, wikipedia.org. In some cases, a URI is interpreted by the operating system; for example, on Windows, you can register any custom protocol to any application and Windows will delegate all URIs with that prefix to your program of choice (who may then interpret the URI as it sees fit). But in general, a URI doesn't have to do anything - and most importantly, it doesn't have to have anything to do with internet, web-browsers/web-pages. It's just a name for any type of identifiable digital resource. Nimur (talk) 19:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I remember I once ran across some bug where "https://" was reading "s://", but deuced if I could remember where. Try the Computing RefDesk... Wnt (talk) 03:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Real or digitally altered?

NSFW warning; Is this image real? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.103.64.83 (talk) 15:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Note that the image is of several people on a nude beach, with one man is looking back at another who has a very large penis and who is grinning and shrugging. -- 110.49.241.13 (talk) 16:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't see anything to indicate that it isn't? What makes you think its a fake? --Jayron32 16:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Hard to tell for sure with so small resolution, but it is somewhat blury and with artifacts around it, which can mean it is fake or might as well be just an issue with quality of the image ~~Xil (talk) 16:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Error level analysis of the image (NSFW as it includes the original) does not seem indicate any evidence of 'shopping. There is some edge detection, but that would be expected due to the differing skin tones. However, I do see the artifacts in the original you mention. -- 110.49.241.13 (talk) 17:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if it is sufficient proof. The faq on the site says that it may not work well with low quality images. Also they have a blog which features analysis of obviously manipulated picture [2] the analysis of that image don't show anything at ower left corner. ~~Xil (talk) 19:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Clearly the ELA is just one of many tools. A tineye.com search gave 17 hits (half of them demotivational posters about choosing the wrong day to take your girlfriend to the nude beach), but all with the same image. It would be interesting if someone tried to match a crop of the image (the right or upper right side) to see if it matches some other photo, assuming the originals are online. The man on the left is quite tall, and to my eye his upper leg (femur) appears disproportionately long with respect to his torso. -- 110.49.235.214 (talk) 08:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you think that this "error level analysis" has any credibility as a way of detecting image manipulation. It appears to be snake oil from a random Internet crazy person. -- BenRG (talk) 00:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I tried it on unmanipulated high quality image, it did indeed generate fairly monotonus noise pattern, however I also tried it on manipulated pics, I didn`t see sufficient difference in noise to tell if and how it was manipulated, I don`t know, if it is credible or not, but, if it is, I doubt it can be used by someone who hasn`t any knowledge in the technique ~~Xil (talk) 07:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

1. The FAQ contains nonsense like "if you have a jpeg photo at 90% quality, and resave it, again at 90% quality, you will end up with an image at 90% of 90% (so, 81% quality)". No one with the slightest understanding of JPEG compression could have come up with that. 2. The analysis of a sample image is a train wreck. This despite the fact that there were no controls on image selection; the image was chosen, out of the million copyright-violating photoshopped images on the net, specifically to show off the abilities of this technique. Yet the analysis obviously fails to show photoshopping in the lower left of the image, the place that we know was photoshopped. The writer, undeterred, proceeds to identify nearly every aspect of the image, from top to bottom, as photoshopped, with no independent evidence for any of it. He believes the image was photoshopped because of the analysis, and he believes the analysis because it finds the places where he thinks the image was photoshopped. 3. As far as I can glean from the front page, "error level analysis" consists of resaving the image using (for no apparent reason) libjpeg at quality level 95, then amplifying the difference between that and the original image. This will highlight 8×8 blocks in the image in proportion to how much high-frequency detail they contain, and not much else. It's a complete joke. -- BenRG (talk) 20:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The reason to suspect that it's a fake is because the image is a racist joke, that plays off of the racial stereotype of black men as having large penises, and given that penis size isn't actually correlated with race (see reference 9 cited by Penis size#Studies on penis size), it'd be a lot easier for the creator of that image to just use Photoshop, rather than actually find a black man who has a penis that enormous. Red Act (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Our Human penis size article does have a Variance in penis size section which discuses micropenis, but does not address the prevalence of particularly large penises. -- 110.49.241.13 (talk) 16:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC) "I'm only four inches away from happiness!"

If you check the 2008 version or so you'll find discussion of the urban legend about large penis size in blacks (not borne out by evidence) Some deletionist censored all that out, together with the pretty pictures, and I'm been too tired of deletionists' time-wasting drivel to bother fiddling with it when I could write something copyrighted instead. Wnt (talk) 18:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

But of course, no matter what the general case is, there is enough variation in individual penis size that there will doubtless be individuals with the corresponding skin tones and phallus sizes corresponding to those seen in the picture: it's impossible to judge the reality (or fakery) of this individual photograph based on generalizations across a large number of people. See this distribution. Buddy431 (talk) 02:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. By the way, looking at that error level analysis, to me it looks like the lower half of that penis has extra blue/purple. But it's probably too much to read into this - I assume this tool (the analysis, that is) is mostly intended for when you have half of a picture from one source and half from another. Wnt (talk) 03:13, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see above about "error level analysis". -- BenRG (talk) 20:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Unikont vs Bikont

1. The article Unikont states "The unikonts have a triple-gene fusion that is lacking in the bikonts. The three genes that are fused together in the unikonts but not bacteria or bikonts encode enzymes for synthesis of the pyrimidine nucleotides: carbamoyl phosphate synthase, dihydroorotase, aspartate carbamoyltransferase. This must have involved a double fusion, a rare pair of events, supporting the shared ancestry of Opisthokonta and Amoebozoa"
2. And the article Bikont states "Another shared trait of bikonts is the fusion of two genes into a single unit: the genes for thymidylate synthase (TS) and dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) encode a single protein with two functions.[2] The genes are separately translated in unikonts."

Those two statements are not saying the same thing, but they are kinda similar. I can't figure out whether one of them is incorrect or may be they are both correct and unrelated to each other in which case both articles should be updated to include the information present in the other article. Dauto (talk) 19:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Correct and unrelated. (Except conceptually, that well evolved organisms, by which I mean microbes, get their genes well organized) The dihydrofolate reductase and thymidylate synthetase fusion is unique to bikonts.^{PMID 12664159} The carbamoyl phosphate synthase, dihydroorotase, aspartate carbamoyltransferase fusion is unique to unikonts. Quote: "Unikonts comprise the ancestrally unikont protozoan phylum Amoebozoa and the opisthokonts (kingdom Animalia, phylum Choanozoa, their sisters or ancestors; and kingdom Fungi). They share a derived triple-gene fusion, absent from bikonts. Bikonts contrastingly share a derived gene fusion between dihydrofolate reductase and thymidylate synthase and include plants and all other protists, comprising the protozoan infrakingdoms Rhizaria [phyla Cercozoa and Retaria (Radiozoa, Foraminifera)] and Excavata (phyla Loukozoa, Metamonada, Euglenozoa, Percolozoa), plus the kingdom Plantae [Viridaeplantae, Rhodophyta (sisters); Glaucophyta], the chromalveolate clade, and the protozoan phylum Apusozoa (Thecomonadea, Diphylleida)." [3] Unfortunately, that article, in the European Journal of Protistology, is available only to those willing to pay $37.95, or who are members at either of the academic libraries that subscribe to it, or are willing to rigamorale for an interlibrary loan, and I'm afraid I'm not going to fall into any of those categories. But for example, you can search for homologies from the human trifunctional protein [4] or the Arabidopsis bifunctional protein [5]. I haven't determined if there are outlying members of either clade which lack both of these fusion proteins. Wnt (talk) 05:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Fifth force announced at Fermilab --- maybe.

There's a breaking news story in which physicists at Fermilab say that they may have found a new fundamental force. It involves 1.96 TeV collisions at the Tevatron which sometimes create two opposite jets of particles - and there are excess jets in the 120-160 GeV range... The specifics are beyond me, so I'm curious what people can say to explain this. The news summary is that it is a "three sigma result", capable of happening by chance a fraction of a percent of the time, but it could indicate a new particle or force not predicted by the Standard Model. News [6] [7] Paper (arXiv): [8] Wnt (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm wondering what you're looking for that's not already in the NYT article. Right now we're in a who knows situation which might range from nothing to something spectacular. It's as interesting to wonder at the timing of the paper in relation to the funding crisis facing Fermilab. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The Herald Sun article stinks; the NYT article is quite good. "Three sigma" to particle physicists means "worth further investigation, but probably nothing". The publicity seems disproportionate, and, like Tagishsimon, my first thought is that it (the publicity) is an attempt to save Fermilab's funding. There's slightly more detailed non-technical coverage at Cosmic Variance. It mentions two different unresolved three-sigma effects from the Tevatron; the second is the one that's getting the attention right now. I'll also link Resonaances because it's my favorite particle physics blog. -- BenRG (talk) 23:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It will trigger a flood of theory papers, some will propose new models. When the experimental result is finally dismissed as coincidence, then those models will be modified so that they explain why nothing has been observed so far :) Count Iblis (talk) 00:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, that Resonaances blog is saying it could be a Z' boson, and that this might also explain the "forward-backward asymmetry" (asymmetry when a proton hits an antiproton). Is a Z' boson a kind of mirror matter, or is that an unrelated idea? Wnt (talk) 02:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It is a similar kind of idea, but not exactly the same thing. I think mirror matter is more of a fringe idea while the Z' has been part of the usual suspects choice of models available to the theorists for several decades. It's actually a simple idea. While the regular Z and W bosons interact with the left-handed particles while completely ignoring the right-handed particles, the Z' and W' are supposed to interact with the right-handed particles while ignoring the left-handed ones. That way right-left symmetry is restored. Of course some kind of theoretical explanation must be summoned to justify the fact that the Z' and W' are so much heavier than the W and Z. If that explanation turns out to be correct, it would indeed be a 5th force and the discovery would be the most revolutionary discovery in particle physics since 1974's discovery of the charm quark. Dauto (talk) 04:31, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

absurd discrepancy of large numbers

In this age of global comunications/reports sometimes involving big numbers(billions,trillions)of people, dollars, pounds, miles etc. it seems absurd that there is no international agreement on what these numbers represent. The american billion being the 9th.power, the english billion being the 12th. power. The american trillion the 12th.and english trillion the 18th. Has there ever been any international effort made to reconcile this ridiculous discrepancy. Perhaps a suffix a. or e. or better yet, use the same damned number. that might obviate the neccessity of looking up the nationality of the author in the hope of guessing what he means.Phalcor (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

In Britain, we've used the same system as the Americans for years now. There isn't really a problem when speaking English. The only problem now is when translating from other languages - words often don't mean what they look like they should. For example, the German word "Billion" means trillion and "Trillion" means a thousand trillion. --Tango (talk) 22:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Correction: "Billiarde" means a thousand trillion (quadrillion), "Trillion" means a million trillion (quintillion). Icek (talk) 11:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank's Tango. I haven't been to England in about 40 years. I can sleep better now.Phalcor (talk) 22:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

We could just use prefixes: megadollars, terapounds (?!), etc. Wnt (talk) 03:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Country populations in Megapeople, schools of fish in Gigasardines? I don't think it's workable. Roger (talk) 08:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

We already measure mortality in megadeaths... --Jayron32 15:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Tango is evidently a modern Briton. I still use the billion of a million million, as I was taught, and as it always was until Harold Wilson decided that the British government would use the American billion for economics. (OK, I admit to being old-fashioned and unreconstructed, and to disliking Harold Wilson, though I couldn't help admiring him in some ways.) Scientists always use powers of ten to make international communication clear. Dbfirs 16:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

To Roger: that's not necessarily how you'd use them. What some people propose is to put the prefixes in the numbers, effectively replacing the old words "million" with "mega", "billion" with "giga" etc, so you'd say eg. that the population of the Earth is approximately six giga and nine hundred ten mega. This is not in any way a currently accepted use of the prefixes, only an informal proposal by some.

I for one would suggest using exponential notation such as "six point nine one times ten to the ninth" instead of trying to read out anything with billions or hundred thousands in them. – b_jonas 18:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)