Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2009 February 4

= February 4 =

Speed of light, sound
My first question: At the end of the 19th century, before Einstein, before Michelson-Morley, everybody seems to have known that the velocity of light was independent of the speed of its source. Why and how? (Or did they? Is this Lorentz's doing?) I'm not finding the answer on the speed of light page—it just asserts that experimental evidence has proved it. But how did people know this then? My second question: is the speed of sound (in whatever medium you choose) dependent on its source? Yes? Sorry if I sound confused, but I've somehow gotten confused. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's the case. People knew the speed of light, more or less.  However, the margin of error was far larger than the speed of measurable sources.  James Bradley's 18th century experiments established the speed of light within 1% of the presently accepted value; however, that's still an error of six million kilometers per hour.  You can't stick a light source on a car moving 100 kph and make a meaningful estimate about the new speed of light with an error four orders of magnitude larger.  I don't think there was any general awareness of the specific properties of the speed of light prior to special relativity; certainly there was no concept of why it should be so.
 * As for sound, the speed of sound in a medium is independent of its source. The medium is what matters. &mdash; Lomn 03:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It really was the other way around. Pretty much everyone thought that light was vibrations in a universal medium that filled all of space.  They seeked to prove that hypothesis by measuring the speed of light in different ways (eg in the direction the earth was travelling versus looking in the opposite direction) expecting to get different answers showing the earth's progress through this universal material. But the precision of their experiments never seemed good enough to find that difference.  Now we know that there IS no difference - so they'd never have succeeded.  Sound is not like light - only light (well 'electromagnetic waves' - light, radio, ultraviolet, infrared, microwaves, etc) behaves in this peculiar manner. SteveBaker (talk) 03:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I'd have to disagree there. The speed of the earth's movement around the sun was known with a decent degree of accuracy (~15 km/s), as well as the speed of light. So the necessary accuracy was known, and when the Michelson-Morley experiment was performed, it was known that its accuracy (~8 km/s) should've been enough to detect the aether. This is why the Michelson-Morley experiment is the famous one, and what lead Einstein to postulate that the speed is constant. --130.237.179.182 (talk) 06:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that Einstein denied being significantly influenced by the Michelson–Morley experiment. Algebraist 11:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The article you looked at about the speed of light has a bit on this. See the bit about Römer and the moons of Jupiter. If the speed of light depended on the source then the light from a moon coming towards us would get to the earth aster than when it was going away on the other side. So one would see the one coming back sooner than expected and the one going away later than expected. Dmcq (talk) 10:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The luminiferous aether theory accounted for the fact that the velocity of light was independent of the motion of its source. The more surprising implication of the Michelson–Morley experiment (1887) was that the velocity of light also appeared to be independent of the motion of the observer. The reality of the aether was still not doubted, so in an attempt to reconcile the Michelson-Morley result with the aether theory, Lorentz developed the Lorentz ether theory (1895). The underlying idea was that the aether was still real (how else could light propogate through a vacuum ?) but the laws of physics were so structured that motion relative to the aether could never be detected - this principle of relativity was first proposed by Henri Poincaré. Einstein's step of genius in the development of special relativity in 1905 was to realise that the Lorentz transformations did not depend on the assumption of a special fixed frame of reference, and hence the whole idea of the aether could be dispensed with. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * People have known that light travels faster than sound for thousands of years by simple observation. If you see a person make a loud sound by, say, smashing a rock with a hammer, from more than ~200 feet (60 meters) away, you see the action before you hear the sound. That question would be like asking "when did people discover that trees grow over time". It;s just something that people would notice, once we evolved a high-functioning brain.- Running On  Brains  18:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There's no doubt that the fact that the speed of light is vastly higher than sound has been known for a VERY long time. But that's not the distinction we're making here.  It's that the speed of light is independent of both the source and the observer - no matter how fast either of them are moving relative to each other OR to this notional 'aether'.  That's not true for sound - and that's the KEY distinction here because from that very odd fact comes all of the relativistic weirnesses. SteveBaker (talk) 19:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah. Question-reading FAIL.- Running On  Brains  19:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Steve, I'm skeptical of your statement about sound here. As best I understand it, the speed of sound in a given medium is a constant (and our speed of sound article appears to support this).  The perception of sound varies with the speed of the emitter/observer, certainly (per the Doppler effect) -- but that holds for light, too.  So apart from relativity's assertion that the speed of light is intrinsically tied to the nature of the universe, I'm at a loss for how the invariant speed of light is significantly different from the invariant speed of sound.  Frankly, I expected it to be a far more profound difference when I first entered this thread, but I'm not seeing it. &mdash; Lomn 21:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think he's saying that its possible to move within the medium in which the sound is traveling, therefore changing the "speed" of sound, but since there is no lumeniferous ether, this is not possible with light. Example: Say you are moving at 50 mph, and something in front of you is making noise. In your reference frame, sound is actually moving 50 mph faster', and appears higher in pitch than in the frame of the noisy object. The light waves appear to be slightly higher-energy in your moving frame, but the speed of light appears to be the same, and, in fact, IS the same.
 * As a related question: would the Doppler effect be noticed if there was a stationary observer, but with, say, a 50-mph wind? For example, if there was a train whistle in a 50-mph cross-wind, would it sound different upwind vs. downwind? I would have to think so...- Running On  Brains  21:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm going to say "no" on your 50 mph thing, as otherwise, you wouldn't have stuff like sonic booms and other faster-than-sound phenomena. It's just a frequency shift.  Saying that "the speed of sound seems faster because the frequency is higher" appears fundamentally identical to "the speed of light seems faster because the object is blue-shifted" -- "seems" and "is" remain separate things. &mdash; Lomn 23:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There's never a Doppler shift for an emitter and receiver at relative rest, regardless of the wind speed (as long as it's constant). -- BenRG (talk) 00:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Time Travel and Fate
I'm all too familiar with the different types of problems that arise from time travel (yay for sci-fi), but there's one type that particularly confuses me; the idea of fate. Here's my example:

Say that you're in a building and you fall through a trapdoor into a pit in the ground. You can't get out by yourself no matter how hard you try, but suddenly another you comes along and helps you out of the hole. He then points you down the hall in the direction he came from and walks in the opposite direction. You go in the direction he pointed, and find out it's a dead end. When you come back to the pit you find yourself stuck in it and realize this is how you originally escaped; by helping yourself. You have become 'future you' and MUST help 'past you' out of the hole and point him in the direction in the dead end. Otherwise you would never have been helped by yourself and would still be stuck in the hole. But how can you HAVE to do something? What happens if you choose to just walk around the hole and leave?

In this example, can you be independent of the actions you have already taken / the choices you have already made? -Pete5x5 (talk) 05:04, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The situation is impossible, so it makes no sense to ask questions about it. This is the science desk, not the science fiction desk.  --Anonymous, 07:15 UTC, February 4, 2009.


 * Oh, let's not be too hasty here. It's a good question -- sure, it's an impossible situation, but that doesn't mean there's no science about it. Let's say it did happen to you. First of all, there's the Novikov self-consistency principle, which essentially states that only timelines that are consistent are possible, meaning that if you wouldn't do it, then it wouldn't have happened. That sounds complicated, but it's actually very simple: you have a choice about it, and you choose to help yourself, because that's how it happens. (Read the article, it's pretty fascinating stuff!)
 * So what happens if you choose to walk around the hole and leave? It's a meaningless question, because you don't. To properly understand this, you shouldn't think about it in terms of inevitability; when you're in that situation, you just do it, because that's what you choose to do. It's that very choice that enables the situation to exist. If it helps, you might think of it like this: the situation is no different from any other situation you encounter every instant of your existence. What if you didn't post the above question? Then you wouldn't be reading this answer. Is it fate that you read it? Depends on how you look at it -- you chose to come back and read it. Or, alternatively, perhaps you chose differently, or got hit by a car, and never read this. Is that fate? The point is, it works out the way it works out, and you cannot make a choice that doesn't lead you to this moment. It's just that most of the time, you have no reason to be aware of this process in any way.
 * The Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, on the other hand, might suggest that when you travel in time, you actually enter another timeline -- which would be completely identical to the one you left. In this instance, you could leave yourself in the pit, because he wouldn't actually be the same you, even though he would be completely indistinguishable from you.
 * This may not make it any easier to grasp the concepts involved, of course. It tends to be kind of mind-boggling stuff by its very nature. It's great! -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The protangonist in such stories is usually not aware of the paradox at the time. In your example, you may not recognise yourself when you're helping yourself out of the hole, perhaps because it's very dim light and the you in the hole is wearing a hoodie. Perhaps enough subjective time has passed since you were helped out of the hole that you've forgotten about it.- gadfium 08:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It is indeed a fictional matter - constructing a paradox from a fictional situation is kinda meaningless. From a scientific perspective, there really isn't much of a problem.  Free will doesn't exist.  We do what we do because the laws of physics work out that way.  So if the state of the neurons and chemical pathways in your brain when you are in the hole are such that you'd decide not to help yourself out - then no help will come.  If help does come it's because the chemical pathways will lead inexorably to you helping yourself out.  You might FEEL like you decided to do it for some particular reason - but in truth, free will is an illusion.  So you'd come to the edge of the hole - think about how interesting it might be to cause a paradox - then inevitably - for some reason or other, you'd decide to help yourself out of the hole - then walk off, confident in the "knowledge" that you COULD have not done so had you not wanted to.  But this is fiction and there is no real answer here. SteveBaker (talk) 13:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Excellent answers. There's more to be said about this (specifically the many-worlds theory), but it will have to wait until after I've done a little more reading.  Thanks! -Pete5x5 (talk) 22:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Isaac Newton's scientific fraud
In the Oxford Dictionary of scientists I found mention of probably a fraud committed by Newton.There was a dispute as to who had invented the calculus.The Royal Society was asked to adjudicate between Newton and Liebnitz.

It set up a Committee heded by the then President and ruled in Newton's favour.The only problem was that the President of the Royal Society was Newton himself and he headed the enquiry!!!Does this not tantamount to scientific fraud?(Ramanathan) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.70.129 (talk) 13:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You may find our article on the history of calculus useful. &mdash; Lomn 13:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That would be a rather severe conflict of interest, not fraud. There are some who have so much respect for authority that they can't believe that any authority in such a high position could ever be wrong.  For example, there was the idea that the Pope was infallible. StuRat (talk) 14:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that the Pope is a great example -- those who accept his infallibility (in the limited scope in which it applies) do so because of God rather than his human authority. &mdash; Lomn


 * It sounds like the OP really means "scientific misconduct", which is a much more vague phrase. Serving on your own ethics committee would definitely be misconduct under modern regulations, but modern regulations can be pretty strict and certainly would have been viewed as wholly unnecessary in the 17th century. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There is more information in our article on the Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:40, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Breast enhancement scams
Not more than a few minutes ago, I heard an ad on a popular Chicago radio station (B96) about a "scientific" study requesting volunteers for Latavi, a breast enhancement supplement. Without ever hearing about Latavi before, my internal bulls**t meter was flying off the scale. I've seen lots of these sorts of scams before, but what got me was not that they used the word "scientific" at least twice but that instead of asking for customers, they framed it in a way that they were conducting a scientific study, as if they were interested in doing a serious study in determining its effectiveness. Anyway, I'm sorry if this question isn't appropriate for the Reference Desk, but how are these ads allowed to go unchallenged? Certainly, this is a scam and a case of false advertising. If a company sells a product that does not do what it claims to do, isn't this a contractual violation? Or perhaps the question most appropriate for this Reference Desk is "Do any resources exist to fight this sort of BS?". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I see three possibilities:


 * 1) As you suspect, it's a total scam and the "volunteers" for the "study" will be hit up for money ("a small processing and registration fee"). This probably is illegal, but regulators of advertisements have been asleep at the wheel for many years in the US.  If they ever do anything at all, the company can just close and open under a new name and continue the same scam.


 * 2) It's the first phase of a marketing campaign for some fake substance. In this phase, they will give it to many people, some of which will report that it worked miraculously, due to the placebo effect and/or wanting to get on TV, and the company will then use those interviews to sell the product in an infomercial later.  That's probably legal, unfortunately.  Only stock investments seem to be required to give actual statistical info, anyone else can show these type of total BS testimonials and get away with it, possibly with a "results not typical" disclaimer written so small at the bottom that nobody can read it.


 * 3) It really is a scientific study. There are substances which could result in breast growth (hormones).  However, taking them would cause all sorts of nasty side-effects and this seems most unwise.  The FDA, however, has approved many such meds of questionable value with life-threatening side-effects.  If the pharma companies give a truckload of money to the right politicians, they can get just about anything approved, it seems. StuRat (talk) 14:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Free will doesn't exist
I don't want to take the time travel thread off in a tangent, so I'm creating a new thread. In that thread, Steve Baker stated:

"Free will doesn't exist. We do what we do because the laws of physics work out that way. So if the state of the neurons and chemical pathways in your brain when you are in the hole are such that you'd decide not to help yourself out - then no help will come. If help does come it's because the chemical pathways will lead inexorably to you helping yourself out. You might FEEL like you decided to do it for some particular reason - but in truth, free will is an illusion."

While I agree with this (I'm a determinist), I've seen where the indeterminism of quantum mechanics is used as an argument against the non-existence of free will. I was wondering if anyone can shed any light on any possible contradiction between quantum mechanics and the non-existence of free will. (I've read the section on Determinism, quantum mechanics, and classical physics but it doesn't help me much.) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That is certainly one perspective, unfortunately it is somewhat an axiomatic proposition. Perhaps the focus on the elementary physics aspects of human behavior is something of failing to see the forest for the trees.  There are certainly some well established philosophical/psychological thought systems (for example, the behaviorism of B. F. Skinner) which hold the same basic position.  However, its far from a settled matter.  Existentialism takes the counter position, that free will is absolute, and that the problem of the human condition boils down to our inability to deal with our own free will in a rational matter.  The deal with using elementary physics (the trees) to explain human behavior (the forest) is that there is of course the real possibility that there is something in the interactions along the way which allow for free will.  Its sort of a modern day Zeno's paradox; the idea that because you can quantify every aspect of free will in infinitessimal detail that it some how does not exist.  Just as Zeno's axioms make some incorrect assumptions, so does this one.  Also, the faith that only science may explain all aspects of the human experience is something which itself cannot be determined by scientific methods; concepts such as "mind" and "soul" lie outside of the realm of science.  You may deny their existance on that basis, but there are others who would contend that while ALL facts and theories arrived at by scientific methods can be taken as reality, the converse (that ALL reality can be arrived at by scientific methods) is not necessarily true.  To believe that the soul doesn't exist is as axiomatic belief as the belief that it does.  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  14:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Steve Baker is a hard incompatibilist. I, personally, am a compatibilist. — DanielLC 17:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Pessimistic" - not "Hard". Clearly quantum theory - and chaos theory both ensure that we don't have a 'clockwork universe' - so there is randomness there and determinism fails at the level of small things like brain cells and complex things like brains.  What I cannot accept is that there is some metaphysical 'thing' that lets our "free will" affect how the quantum/chaos dice roll to make the brain function the way we want it to.  There is absolutely zero evidence for that - it's just wishful thinking.  SteveBaker (talk) 17:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There are some pretty solid experiments that show that the conscious part of our brains doesn't even make any decisions - let alone 'free' ones! Instead some lower level computational unit does that and leaves the conscious mind to rationalize it perhaps several seconds after it's happened.  It's all rather disturbing - but the evidence is quite convincing.  There have been many studies where some stimulus is applied and consciousness has been shown to lag seconds behind the response to that stimulus.  I can offer you some references and examples later today - but I'm away from my books right now. SteveBaker (talk) 17:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've said similar things before about your mind doing it's own thing, everything for better or worse being predestined, etc. There seems to be something strange going on here, however. That being thatwe can actually have a conversation about free will itself! But even the thought to think about thought had to "appear". (!).....Is this why HP Lovecraft said that if we try to figure out the universe we'll go insane?Dr. Carefree (talk) 18:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Steve, I think you're talking about Benjamin Libet and Free_will. But there seem to be competing interpretations of those experiments.  --Allen (talk) 18:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes - but since the events of the 1980's - there have been many more experiments from many other researchers. I, myself (in the course of routine graphics work in Flight Simulation) have seen some odd behavior when using an 'eye tracker' that's hard to explain any other way.  It's almost as if the unconscious mind is actively 'editing' streams of events to keep the 'world view' of the conscious mind consistent - and if the conscious mind IS making any decisions, they are of a 'global policy' nature rather than the 'micromanagement' that we feel we are doing.  But there is no doubt that we have a lot to learn. SteveBaker (talk) 19:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The annoying thing about free will is the evasiveness of the term. There's all this compatibilism stuff which gets very philosophical. Firstly, most people will agree that the term should be more like "constrained will", because it is definitely not "free". You can't choose to fly, turn invisible, etc. Then you have to factor in things that are almost certainly out of our control, like instincts, although some people can train them selves to control them to a certain extent. For example, most people can't touch a hot iron (appliance) for more than 2 seconds, others may be able to train themselves to withstand the pain, but this still isn't proof for free will. Other things include a need for food, drink, shelter, sex, etc. So now we can go on to "conscious" things like speech or behaviour. Someone with selective mutism will be in a situation where they are desperate to say something to someone, but is incapable. I watched a documentary in which an autistic child showed many signs of mutism, and was prescribed fluoxetine. Within 2 weeks they were much better at communicating. Maybe those who argue for free will say that the non-physical spirit can be manipulated by physical substances, or the physical substance contains some non-physical "stuff" that interacts with the spirit, but that argument seems to basically render the spirit obsolete. --Mark PEA (talk) 20:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * One thing seems clear enough: The voice in your head that says "I am choosing this over that" is not doing the choosing. It's like a storyteller who has come to believe they are the protagonist! Pfly (talk) 08:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Free will exists. I state that at the very outset and will "try to" exaplain my reasons. With all due respect to Steve Baker (I have given him a barnstar for his work on the refdesk), he is wrong in explaining free will in terms of physical phenomena and chemical pathways because he is mistaking a fundamentally philosophical problem for a physical one. The one line answer to his arguments will be that "the world is not closed under physics" There are some phenomena which are purely physical. For example, a force acts on a moving element, its velocity changes - this is purely descrbed in terms of physics. But if I "decide to raise my arm", this cannot be completely described in terms of physics because there is a "will" which is outside the purview of physics and which acts to make the arm go up. Only the physical part of the phenomenon, that is the arm moving, can be explained in terms of physics. Those who try to explain human behaviour entirely in terms of Physics will do well to read an elementary book on Philosophy of Mind. Another point - as John Searle has said in one of his papers, it is absurd to talk of free will not existing - if "hypothetically", we were to find out at a future point that free will doesn't exist, we won't be able to say that "we disbelieve in free will", but something like "my mouth is constrained by the evidence presented to make negative affirmations about the existance of free will" - and even that ssumes some freedome. The whole edifice of scientific investigation, which involves postulating hypothesis and selecting the correct ones according to experimental results, falls down if we disbelieve in free will. -- ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 13:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

A hell of a question...
(Moved from Misc. Desk.) StuRat (talk) 15:40, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

1) Which foods, drinks, and food additives contain significant amounts of sulfur ?

2) I believe eggs do (which would include eggnog), but is it the whole egg or just the yolks ?

3) How much sulfur do we need in our diets ? (I'd like both a minimum and maximum, if any). StuRat (talk) 18:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Partial answer (#3) - http://www.worldhealth.net/news/sulfur claims no RDA is set because a diet sufficient in protein will already have enough. Friday (talk) 18:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Onions and friends make you cry by forming a mild sulfuric acid on the surface of your eyes. Searching for "sulfur" in On Food and Cooking might be a good start.  --Sean 18:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My friends make me cry by being mean to me but they don't usually throw chemicals in my eyes! ;) --Tango (talk) 19:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I once squirted a friend in the eye with some cheap lemon-flavoured soft drink, turned out to have so much citric acid in it it made him cry for ages. ;) ~ mazca  t 18:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) King Garlic of course!! Sulfur is there under the form of alliin allicin and other compounds, and gives you the characteristic smell in your breath and in your skin. Notice that the sulfur breath comes from the lungs via blood circulation, so teeth brushing is hopeless if you do not want to smell. pma (talk) 18:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Dried apricots (and some other dried fruits) are often preserved with sulphur dioxide. It is also used in winemaking. Gwinva (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Partial answer to #1. I think the bulk of sulfur in biological tissues (including foods) is in the form of cysteine and methionine, two of the amino acids used to make protein. If this is true, foods low in protein are probably low sulfur and vice versa, although different proteins will have different amounts of sulfur containing amino acids. ike9898 (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers so far. Anyone care to take on #2 ? StuRat (talk) 20:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * 2): For sure eggs do contain sulfur, that we enjoy in rotten eggs as hydrogen sulfide. Moreover, the green color in yolk of over-boiled eggs is due to formation of ferrous sulfide, as reaction with iron in yolk. I think it's both in the yolk and in the white however. --pma (talk) 00:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Responding to 1) Some foods contain sulfite as a preservative. It smells bad (but not like the rotten-egg smell). ~ A H  1 (TCU) 17:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers, everyone. StuRat (talk) 20:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Showing CO2 => global warming in a lab
Is there an experiment that one can set up in a high-school science lab that will show that C02 is a greenhouse gas, that is, that it warms the earth? Say I took two aquariums and filled one with C02, would I be able to get a measurable change in the temperature of the aquariums? Is there a better setup?

Thanks! &mdash; Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 15:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The Mythbusters did a fairly convincing experiment. They made a pair of large cuboid frames and covered them with polythene to make enclosed, gas-tight boxes.  They filled one with CO2 and left the other one full of air - then shined bright studio lights on them to simulate the sun and monitored the temperature inside each.  The CO2-filled container got hotter - QED. SteveBaker (talk) 16:40, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Were the boxes about the size that one could construct in a regular high-school lab? (I'm not wondering about the veracity of the claims -- we actually want to do the experiments ourselves!). &mdash; Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 16:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You'll probably need them to be at least 1 cubic meter for some efficacy, and don't use exhaled air, which is only 4% CO2 (last I checked). Or, even better, get identical cars from two of your students, fill one with CO2 (instruct the student to open all the doors and turn on the fan to let out the CO2 for a while after the experiment finishes), stick a pan of cookies in each, and see which one gets baked faster. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 16:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That won't work. The glass in the car's windows would cause a greenhouse effect far stronger than the CO2 you'd filled the cabin with. APL (talk) 17:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes - I don't like the car idea at all...there are all sorts of reasons why that's a bad idea. The Mythbuster boxes looked to me to be about 2m tall by about 1m by 1m...about two cubic meters.  I don't know that they need to be that big though.  To produce a good effect, make sure they are at the same temperature at the outset...if you can, get a pair of identical heat-lamps to shine into your two containers.   You'll need bottled CO2 in order to get the concentration up high enough.  Methane is another greenhouse gas - it's much more effective than CO2 - but it's also kinda inflammable - so maybe a bit dangerous for a school experiment! SteveBaker (talk) 21:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have never seen a mention anywhere of why CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I am not a physicist or chemist, but I think it must be because CO2 has a high specific heat compared to the nitrogen and oxygen that make up most of the atmosphere. If this is correct, the students could be told that. Wikipedia, under Specific heat capacity, has a college-level discussion that is too advanced for HS students (and for me!), but it includes a moving diagram of atoms vibrating in a molecule that would be suitable for the students if you can project it on a screen. - GlowWorm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.17.34.148 (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared light much more strongly than do nitrogen or oxygen gas. Consequently, when infrared light - heat - is radiated from the Earth's surface, more gets absorbed by a CO2-rich atmosphere that would be absorbed by a CO2-poor atmosphere.  Instead of that heat escaping into space, it just warms up the air &mdash; that's the greenhouse effect. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia articles for carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen give figures for the specific heat capacity of these substances. But I don't know enough about it to be able to compare them. - GlowWorm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.17.34.148 (talk) 00:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see why the specific heat capacity matters - it's a matter of the absorption/transmission and reflection spectra in the infrared range. CO2 (or more correctly CO2 - if you can be bothered to type all of those &lt;sub&gt; tags) absorbs and reflects infrared light - light from the sun is all over the spectrum - so some of the IR light gets absorbed and some gets radiated out into space - but all of the other wavelengths go right through.  The light hits the earth's surface and turns mostly into heat - which causes infrared light to be shot back out into space...unless there is a greenhouse gas in the way - in which case the heat is either absorbed into the atmosphere - or reflected back down to earth again.  This traps the heat under the blanket - and we slowly cook.  Pound for pound CO2 isn't the worst greenhouse gas - but there is a heck of a lot of it.  Carbon monoxide, Methane and Water vapor are also to blame.  Water vapor is something of a mixed blessing because it not only traps the Infrared - but it also reflects visible light out into space and thereby contributes a little to the cooling effect - albeit at the cost of "global dimming" - making the world a darker place.  That in turn shuts down the photosynthesis in plants and results in less CO2 being absorbed...so you don't really win much that way! SteveBaker (talk) 00:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the heat capacity will have an effect - something with a lower heat capacity warms up quicker, irrespective of the greenhouse effect. I think a better experiment would be to have a two identical tanks filled with air, with an fairly small airtight compartment at the top filled with CO2 in one and air in the other. Then you are heating air in both, so it's fair, but you still have the light going through the CO2, so you can get a greenhouse effect. The bottom and sides of each tank should be covered with opaque insulation to better simulate the Earth (there is nowhere for the heat to go but up). Also, you shouldn't use a heat lamp, they are designed to emit IR, you want visible light to get a greenhouse effect. Those lamps intended for hydroponics would be good - they are meant to simulate sunlight. Or, you could just put them outside on a sunny day... --Tango (talk) 13:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It seems that the "absorption" part of "absorption/transmission and reflection spectrum" would be a factor of specific heat. Transmission and reflection will keep infrared radiation moving around. Absorption will trap infrared radiation and convert its energy to vibration in atoms or molecules. It is the atoms or molecules that store the heat - and the amount they can store depends on the specific heat of the atom or molecule. I am suggesting that CO2 stores more heat than oxygen and nitrogen. The CO2 heat sink thereby keeps more heat energy near the surface of the earth. Oxygen and nitrogen let more infrared radiation bounce around and eventually let more of it escape into space than CO2 does.
 * The CO2 molecules radiate heat as well as absorb it. So also do oxygen and nitrogen. When the sun is shining, the absorption and radiation by atoms and molecules strike a balance. (Heat radiation from the earth also enters into it as well as the sun.) CO2 has more heat energy to radiate. So at night, when no heat is received from the sun, CO2 keeps the air warmer than oxygen and nitrogen. - GlowWorm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.17.34.148 (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * P.S. The transmission and reflection of CO2 also enters into it. They counteract the absorption effect. The absorption/transmission and reflection characteristics of the three gases put CO2 in the fore in global warming, - GlowWorm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.17.34.148 (talk) 03:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Effect of snow on rails
As many of you may already know, heavy snow in London, England bought public transport to a standstill including rail transport. I would like to what the technical/scientific reasons, which caused trains to be suspended or delayed are if there are any and why it could not have been prevented. Thanks in advance. Clover345 (talk) 18:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The main reason is that snow and ice go in the railroad switches and lock them. Northern countries lines usually have switches with electric resistors and even hot air devices like this, but in any case an exceptional low temperature is a problem. And if there is no heater in the switches (like in many southern countries), even a small snow may be a problem; in such cases one old but still good remedy to unlock a switch is to get off the train an piss on it. Old steam trains of course had a perfect source of boiling water for this. --pma (talk) 19:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, another form of switch heater just burns some fuel, making flames right next to the rails to heat them up.


 * Another problem with snow is that it is somewhat conductive electrically. On electric railways using a third rail power supply, like most subways and the South London commuter lines, if the snow reaches the height of the live rail it can short-circuit it.  (Overhead-wire power supplies are immune to this, but more vulnerable to wind.  A buildup of ice can render either one ineffective, as the ice is not conductive enough to pass the amount of power a train needs.)  I would think snow would also be able to interfere with track circuiting sometimes, although I can't recall reading of any actual incidents of that.  Fine powdery snow can also interfere with trains by blowing into the electric motors and short-circuiting them -- this is the origin of the much-misunderstood phrase "the wrong kind of snow" and it was also a problem in the US with the famous GG-1 electric locomotives until the airflow around the motors was changed. --Anonymous, 23:15 UTC, February 4, 2009.


 * We also have to consider that a lot of snow fell, up to a foot in the suburbs of London. There is no way a train could operate in that amount of snow, you don't need a scientific explanation as to why, its just one huge obstruction along the entire length of the line! Obviously snow and ice also affect traction and, since much of the South East rail network is electric, prevents the trains picking up current from the live rail (as has been mentioned above). One of the solutions is to send out engineering trains to spray de-icing fluid  but of course the rail network is huge and would take a significant amount of time to clear the tracks. I don't know if the rail operators have snow plough's to clear the tracks but I imagine it would not be cost effective to have fleets of these since London very rarely gets heavy snow. Jdrewitt (talk) 12:54, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not all trains are stopped by a little snow! --Sean 14:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, Southern trains and other South East train operaters rolling stock are not snow plough's.(Although the Gatwick Express might work as one!) Jdrewitt (talk) 15:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Bird on wire not getting zapped
Why don't birds get zapped when they rest on a power line? The explanation from my textbook is that the two feet of the bird are the same potential/voltage, so the current doesn't flow through the bird. But, isn't the bird as a whole in lower voltage than the wire/power source? That means the current should flow through the bird. 128.163.116.27 (talk) 21:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Through the bird to where? --NorwegianBluetalk 22:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Birds sometimes do get zapped that way. It depends on how high the voltage is and the physical setup. If we're talking about the distribution grid, the bird will probably be all right as long as it doesn't land with any part of itself too near ground or another line with a different phase. Your question is not trivial, in fact it goes to the heart of what electricity is. Your question makes some false assumptions, most importantly that the only danger to the bird is the current in the wire, but if we make the same assumptions, the reason the bird does not get zapped is that in order for there to be current from one point to another there has to be a voltage difference. In the case of our bird, current would have to enter one foot and exit the other. The bird's feet are only about an inch (2.54 cm) apart, so the bird makes a parallel circuit with the wire. The resistance of a thick copper wire an inch long is approximately zip point shit, as we say in the trade (zero), and that of the bird, say, 1000 ohms. So by the equation for current in a parallel circuit, only a very tiny amount of current will flow through the bird. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Strictly speaking, a very small amount of electricity will flow into a bird landing on a high-potential wire. (Indeed, there will even be an oscillating current in and out of the bird on an alternating current wire.)  In effect, the bird acts as one plate of a very low-value capacitor.  When it first lands on the wire, current will flow into the bird until the potential of the bird matches the potential of the wire.  Under alternating current conditions, small currents will flow in and out as the bird's potential follows the alternating potential on the wire.
 * In practice, the total capacitance of a bird is trivial. If we model a bird as a conducting sphere with radius 5 cm (have you heard the joke about the cow, the farmer, and the physicist?) – an electrically-reasonable approximation – then the capacitance of the bird is about 5 picofarads.  Assuming a very high-voltage transmission line operating at 500 kilovolts (kV) and 60 hertz (Hz), the peak current into or out of the bird is a bit less than 1 milliamp (mA).  From our article on electric shock, 1 mA is about the minimum threshold of sensation for a flowing current; we wouldn't feel anything less.  I can't comment on whether or not birds are more sensitive.
 * The bird would get less than 0.5 mA through each leg, and even smaller currents distributed out through the rest of its body. So, no shock, and no visible effect, even though there is a small amount of current flow.  For smaller transmission and distribution lines (with potentials down to a few hundred volts), the peak current would be even more trivial.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Assume a spherical avian capacitor...", I like it! --Tango (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * TOAT, you've also not mentioned the bird as an inductor. Anyone want to try to calculate which current is higher, that due to the bird's self-capacitance, or that due to the induced EMF in the bird from the changing magnetic field? --Trovatore (talk) 03:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * While I'm comfortable approximating a bird as a five-centimetre conducting sphere, I'm not sure if I want to go out on a limb and make assumptions about how many windings it has. :D Honestly, I don't know what the best way to model the system would be.... TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Every time this question comes up I feel compelled to post this video of people climbing from helicopters onto high-tension power lines:  You can just barely hear the coronal discharge over the din of some large spherical brass objects clanking about.  :) --Sean 14:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)