This idea was partially inspired by my friend Forrest's suggestion to develop footpaths that could be put on side walks to help mitigate slipping. There was some back and forth and tangential thought followed by tangential thought an idea occurred to me. Researchers did a study where they used pickle brine to remove snow build up. I am betting that there isn't enough pickle brine to successfully remove all the snow on America's highways, it does inspire a thought. A water bottling company could produce desalinated water, preferably using green energy, and the high salinity water produced as a by-product of the desalination process could be used to help melt snow. The fact that the water is bottled would allow us to avoid wasting groundwater supplies on bottled water shipped around. The real challenge is finding a location for the desalination plant that meets the requirements of relatively affordable green energy in the region, while also being near enough snow fall, that the cost of shipping the salty water isn't prohibitive. States north of Pennsylvania on the East coast and the entirety of the west coast have the potential to utilize this concept.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Weighing in on Steven Colbert's Friday Night Fights
During Friday's Late Show with Steven Colbert broadcast, host Steven Colbert asked astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson who would win the force of the black hole in the center of our galaxy or the force of you family asking/guilting you to join them during the holidays. Deciding on the winner is a tough one, but at minimum we can compare the impact of gravity's force on you as a person. According to Stephen's comment the black hole has a mass of 8.2^1036 kg, this is a number that doesn't quite sound right to me, seeing as 8.2^1036 would have hundreds of zeros in it. According to wikipedia, the black hole at the center of our galaxy is estimated to mass in at somewhere between 1.0*10^6 and 4.1*10^6 solar masses or, 1 million to 4.1 million solar masses. A solar mass is about 2*10^30 kg, using multiplication, (2.0*10^30)*(1.0*10^6) the lowest estimated mass is 2.0*10^36 kg at the upper bound 8.2*10^36 kg. It looks like some staffer didn't bother to properly note the math for Mr. Colbert. Now the next question is how far away is this super massive blackhole, well I am lazy and I am going to source wikipedia, where the distance between us and the black hole at the center of our galaxy is about 26,000 lightyears. 26,000 light years works out to about 2.46 *10^17 kilometers.
Now we need to do some math about the amount of gravitational force that your family applies to you. This is a bit harder to account for as I don't want to speak for everyone's family situation. Instead I am going to set up the problem symbolically and we can see what potential family situations would have the family's gravitational force on you is greater than the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Calculating the force of gravity between two objects can be solved using the equation, Force is equal to the Gravitational constant multiplied by the mass of the two objects, this result is then divided by the distance between the objects squared. (F= G*m1*m2/[r1^2]) In total we have two equations, one for the force of the black hole and the other for the family. The mass of you the reader is reasonably constant, we will designate that as m1, m2 is the mass of the blackhole (8.2*10^36kg), m3 is the mass of your family an undefined value. radius 1 (r1) is the distance between you and the black hole (2.46*10^20 m), and finally r2 is the distance between you and your family (while I can't know the exact distance between you and your family we have a comfortable range to limit ourselves to, it is unlikely that you are closer than 0.1 meters to a family member and unless someone you know works on the ISS the furthest they can be away from you is 12,742,000 meters (read the diameter of the Earth). First I want to estimate if there is a mass and distance where your family exerts a gravitational force roughly equal to that of the black hole. To do this we can set the equations to be equal. ( G*m1*m2/[r1^2])= G*m1*m3/[r2^2]) this can be simplified to m2/[r1^2]= m3/[r2^2] next we can put the mass of the family onto one side. m3=[r2^2]*m2/[r1^2]
for reference again
m2 is the mass of the black hole 8.2E36kg
r1 is the distance between the Earth and the black hole is 2.46E20 meters
r1^2 is then 6.0516E40 m^2
r2 has a range between 0.1m and 12.742E6m
r2^2 has a range between 1 E-2 m^2 and 1.62 E14m^2
m3 is the unknown mass
Now we can solve for an actual numerical answer.
m3=8.2E36kg*{(1E-2m^2)<->(1.62E14m^2)}/6.0516E40m^2
for the closest radius, read you guys are basically touching, your family would only need to have a mass of 0.000001355 kg, basically if your aunt is an actual ant, walking next to you her gravitational attraction is greater than the black hole
at the maximum possible distance of 12,742 kilometers, your family would need to weigh just under 22 billion kilograms, assuming the average person weighs 70 kilograms, your family would be rather massive with roughly 315 million members, otherwise known as the population of the United States.
As I am a red blooded 'Murican I do believe that Murican's are my family, in one way or another, therefore the gravitational attraction of the black hole is weaker than the bond I have with my fellow Murican's
the end detail is meant to be silly, but the overall math seems to work out.
If your family lives within 10 kilometers of you, 6 miles for those of us who have landed on the moon.
(8.2E36kg)*(1E8m^2)/(6.0516E40m^2)=m3
m3 is equal to 13550 kilograms, or the mass of 200 of our "average" humans
Now we need to do some math about the amount of gravitational force that your family applies to you. This is a bit harder to account for as I don't want to speak for everyone's family situation. Instead I am going to set up the problem symbolically and we can see what potential family situations would have the family's gravitational force on you is greater than the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Calculating the force of gravity between two objects can be solved using the equation, Force is equal to the Gravitational constant multiplied by the mass of the two objects, this result is then divided by the distance between the objects squared. (F= G*m1*m2/[r1^2]) In total we have two equations, one for the force of the black hole and the other for the family. The mass of you the reader is reasonably constant, we will designate that as m1, m2 is the mass of the blackhole (8.2*10^36kg), m3 is the mass of your family an undefined value. radius 1 (r1) is the distance between you and the black hole (2.46*10^20 m), and finally r2 is the distance between you and your family (while I can't know the exact distance between you and your family we have a comfortable range to limit ourselves to, it is unlikely that you are closer than 0.1 meters to a family member and unless someone you know works on the ISS the furthest they can be away from you is 12,742,000 meters (read the diameter of the Earth). First I want to estimate if there is a mass and distance where your family exerts a gravitational force roughly equal to that of the black hole. To do this we can set the equations to be equal. ( G*m1*m2/[r1^2])= G*m1*m3/[r2^2]) this can be simplified to m2/[r1^2]= m3/[r2^2] next we can put the mass of the family onto one side. m3=[r2^2]*m2/[r1^2]
for reference again
m2 is the mass of the black hole 8.2E36kg
r1 is the distance between the Earth and the black hole is 2.46E20 meters
r1^2 is then 6.0516E40 m^2
r2 has a range between 0.1m and 12.742E6m
r2^2 has a range between 1 E-2 m^2 and 1.62 E14m^2
m3 is the unknown mass
Now we can solve for an actual numerical answer.
m3=8.2E36kg*{(1E-2m^2)<->(1.62E14m^2)}/6.0516E40m^2
for the closest radius, read you guys are basically touching, your family would only need to have a mass of 0.000001355 kg, basically if your aunt is an actual ant, walking next to you her gravitational attraction is greater than the black hole
at the maximum possible distance of 12,742 kilometers, your family would need to weigh just under 22 billion kilograms, assuming the average person weighs 70 kilograms, your family would be rather massive with roughly 315 million members, otherwise known as the population of the United States.
As I am a red blooded 'Murican I do believe that Murican's are my family, in one way or another, therefore the gravitational attraction of the black hole is weaker than the bond I have with my fellow Murican's
the end detail is meant to be silly, but the overall math seems to work out.
If your family lives within 10 kilometers of you, 6 miles for those of us who have landed on the moon.
(8.2E36kg)*(1E8m^2)/(6.0516E40m^2)=m3
m3 is equal to 13550 kilograms, or the mass of 200 of our "average" humans
Monday, January 18, 2016
Gecko person Gecko Person, does what ever a gecko does
Fuck the Square Cube law (I'll have an explanation on what that is at reader's request) Engadget had an article stating that it is unlikely humans could climb walls like gecko's (or spiders as they say in the article's title) Well then I have an idea for some work out equipment that could allow humans to at least climb walls in an interesting way.
Using dual treadmills, one with a ladder array, the other treads covered in gecko skin like materials, humans could have a human powered means of climbing all but the smoothest surfaces. These treadmills would allow the mechanically assisted human to have an area equivalent to that of their full bodies in contact with the wall
Render (read shitty drawing) to happen later. Its like midnight (1./19/2016) and I should try to wind my brain down.
As always comments, thoughts, or questions are welcome
Using dual treadmills, one with a ladder array, the other treads covered in gecko skin like materials, humans could have a human powered means of climbing all but the smoothest surfaces. These treadmills would allow the mechanically assisted human to have an area equivalent to that of their full bodies in contact with the wall
Render (read shitty drawing) to happen later. Its like midnight (1./19/2016) and I should try to wind my brain down.
As always comments, thoughts, or questions are welcome
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Colonizing Alien Planets
If I were part of the planning committee for creating guidelines for colonizing exo-planets here are some of my suggestions for how the colony would be established.
1) Planning for tomorrow:
One of the misfortunes Earth has had is our need to mine minerals, the environmental impact of extracting metals from the ground has been substantial. Colonizing another solar system gives us the opportunity to reduce that potential impact. Before the colony ships even arrive, robotic mining infrastructure could place a constellation of asteroids in orbit around the target colony world. Ideally these asteroids would have means of artificially stabilizing their orbits added to them and on a regular schedule minerals would be dropped into a designated mining zone. Not eliminating the need for mines, but at the very least limiting the number.
2) Urban Planning:
Cities on Earth have developed organically over the centuries, this has led our cities to have strange idiosyncrasies in lay out and use of natural resources. While I wouldn't want to encourage cities to look like depressing grid patterns of identical buildings, we should also aim to avoid city lay outs like Boston, where no one seems to know where streets should connect with each other. The tv show Tera Nova as short lived as it was, did have an incredibly well thought out first city where the design grew out in a radial pattern, allowing for relatively easy navigation. Organizations like the Venus Project have cool examples of what these cities might look like. The goal is not to crush adapting to the local climate, but it is to minimize false starts that we had here on Earth.
.... Taking a break for lunch and enjoying the weekend (1/17/2016) be back later
Friday, January 15, 2016
Blu-Ray/DVD features I want in the Deadpool movie
Dear Marvel Studios,
When you release Deadpool on DVD, can you have an easter egg where when you pause the movie at certain scenes, Deadpool starts moving from the action after several seconds and starts talking to the viewer. That would be delightful.
Yours Truly,
A Fan
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