Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 May 14

= May 14 =

has solar system sidereal rotation
As the sun and solar system rotate round center of milky way galaxy per 220milion years, it is clear that the system might rotate sidereal round sun , is there any information about such rotation? "I have inventive idea for this fact".--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 05:23, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

May it be tidal locked or faster ,i suppose it be faster, but not be sensed by man for his short duration of observation time''' !!--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 05:23, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sidereal just means "in an inertial frame of reference", that is, with respect to essentially motionless objects outside of the system being measured. Sidereal measurements of motion refer to measurements made against such a background; thus a sidereal day is the earth's rotation as measured against the stars, rather than the sun, which defines a solar day.  I'm not how you are using it in this context.  -- Jayron  32  06:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

May be the solar system ,or global stars or whole Orion cloud rotate round any center of mass ,when we are moving round center of galaxy. the planet day is its period of self rotating, i want to see , either the solar system or the global stars ,or Orion cloud has self rotating .then the sidereal rotation comes from comparing any inertial frame of reference, may it be very difficult to observe .(for the reason of our short duration of observation time)--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 06:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Our sun follows an orbital path around our galaxy. The timing of this orbital period will be perturbed by any orbital path through the universe that the galaxy may take, if the timing is with reference to something external to the universe.  We have no such reference.  Some boffins think that the universe does rotate, but as you surmised, it is difficult to prove.  No accepted theory requires it.  It has no practical importance.  Wickwack 60.230.230.117 (talk) 06:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Why it has no practical importance? A.M  IRAN — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.12.40.3 (talk) 14:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * We don't live long enough to notice the difference, and even as an evolving species, are not likely to. There is conjecture that the universe is ~17 billion years old. If our descendents are still around in another similar length of time, we might be in a postion to notice.  But without a reference frame outside the universe, we can never be in a position to know anyway.  And if we solve that one, we would still have to develop clocks billions of times better in precision that the best atomic clocks we have now, in order to measure the variation.  Wickwack 120.145.220.218 (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

when the sun and its global system for example alpha-Centures and Orion cloud are rotating round any center of mass, then the branch of galaxy which we are in has special form of equilibrium. in the other hand if the solar system does rotate so ,that has other meaning. how can any branch of galaxy be able to have both movement and conserve its own shape?A.M IRAN

Does it mean that we have special gravitational dynamic in galaxies other than planetary system ?A.mohammad zade IRAN  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.12.40.3 (talk) 15:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC) Lets I name this Dynamics ""galactic rotation""
 * I have no idea what you are trying to say. I realise that English is not your first language, but please take more care to write clearly.  Wickwack 120.145.220.218 (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * To a good approximation, the solar system is orbiting the galactic center without rotating the plane of the ecliptic. See conservation of angular momentum. To visualize this, assume taking a plate, holding in vertically in front of your breast, and walk in a circle around some fixed object, but always facing (e.g.) north. The plate will always be oriented along the east/west axis. Of course, the sidereal period is originally observed with reference to the fixed stars, and for time periods similar to the orbit of the sun around the center of the galaxy (~250 million years), there are basically no fixed stars ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * ok ,with this suppose our system will be tidal locked to center of galaxy . determining of it is very difficult ,and without any further dynamic result. when the center of gravity field effects on system (as I assumed whole Orion cloud or neighborhood stars )we will have special rotation, not because of conservation of angular momentum , but for their own equilibrium against such force.--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 14:40, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The solar system is certainly not tidally locked with respect to the center of the galaxy. This doesn't even make sense - tidal locking needs an at least somewhat deformable and minimally rigid body, since rotational energy is lost via deformation of the body. Also, tidal force is the difference in gravitational attraction between a nearer and a farther part of a body with respect to a source of gravity. On the scale of the galaxy, even the solar system is so small that this effect is negligible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:39, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * which factor gives the velocity of our sun rotation round galaxy center ? the galaxy rotation curve is very different than which  gives Newton  formula . then the vector of such force which causes own rotation of system large amount.--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 14:40, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * for the planets in our solar system:
 * The rotational period varies indirectly with the mass and distance of planets and satellites. As for neutron stars, however it is less than one second.  We also have synchronous planets and moons with one gravitational sidereal rotation per year. The fact that any primordial birth  event causes the rotational spin of sun and planets is clear, but     this variation seems to be mulch-factorial, from tidal energy, hypothetical events and mass variations.--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 14:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Why does Jupiter Rotate So Fast?
 * Jupiter and Saturn are very fast and that doesn’t obey any regular process or regime based on, for example, the planet's mass or distance from the sun. Satellites effect the volume of a planet (and so on ….) which was not clear until now--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 14:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

For observation of supposed either the solar system or the global neighborhood bodies angular rotation, we need far away reference ,sun has its own rotation ,but all its family are moving together ,may whole the galaxy has rotation for conserving its branches .--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 03:59, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

"Nipple delay"?
Reading the coverage of Angelina Jolie's preventative mastectomy, I saw the term "nipple delay" mentioned. Some Googling suggests that this might be this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22829005, but this just refers in turn to a "surgical delay procedure" -- as in "Surgical delay is a technique that has been used for more than 400 years to improve survival of skin flaps." Does anyone know what this might involve? Is it the same thing as "delay of flap" (see http://www.springerreference.com/docs/html/chapterdbid/349885.html ) -- The Anome (talk) 08:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As per http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15871701. It's not a common procedure, even in traditional nipple-sparing surgery. The vascular supply through the underlying glandular breast tissue to the nipple is obstructed (usually coagulation) under LA, and the nipple then left in place for two weeks or so for vascular collaterals in the skin to open up. Nickopotamus (talk) 23:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Animal defense
Where in Wikipedia is an article about patterns of defense tactics of animals (show of force, threatening, pasive/active defense)? Examples: peacoks spread feathers, cats make themselfs big (fur and corpus), some tropical fish form schools, and some beatles make loud noises. --77.4.36.43 (talk) 10:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Beatles do indeed make loud noises (or did, anyway, until Yoko Ono came along...) 24.23.196.85 (talk) 23:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Ethologists usually classify some of those as agonistic behavior. There is also some info at territory_(animal). Then there is herd behavior which covers some of the others. For the "passive defense", see Armour_(anatomy), and maybe animal coloration. Does that cover all your examples? I'll check back later. SemanticMantis (talk) 12:38, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I would agree, though, that we could legitimately have an overview article on that topic. Unfortunately high-level articles like that are the hardest kind to write, since they require the greatest level of expertise. Looie496 (talk) 14:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I was thinking the same thing. Maybe it would be appropriate to start a stub (rather than limiting and contentious redirects)? For instance, a page titled "Animal defense" that has the above links, and a few more, separated into behavioral and morphological... SemanticMantis (talk) 16:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That'll be great, too bad I'm not a behavioral scientist. --77.4.36.43 (talk) 16:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Big Bang
Why is the expansion of the universe evidence for the Big Bang? That sounds like horseshit to me. Thats the equivalent of seeing a car going eastward on the M25 and concluding "that car started its journey in South London". Aren't physicists similarly jumping to conclusions? Pass a Method  talk  10:25, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That's not a fair comparisson - the M25 just keeps going and going, there is no end of the road where you can't go any further. The whole point of the expansion evidence, is that there is such a limit, where you can't go further back in time. Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Technically the M25 doesn't 'just [keep] going and going' - there's a break for the Dartford Crossing. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Moreover, the M25 has many intersections, the car could have driven onto the M25 by any one of those. The Big Bang expansion has no intersections, it started at a specific point in time. We've got no evidence to the contrary. Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Is there any other evidence for the Big Bang besides expansion? From my perspective, the expansion of the universe could be explained by a modified version of the Big Bounce - perhaps an infinite universe without the gravitational singularity. Pass a Method   talk  11:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is predicted by, and consisted with, the Big Bang theory; an expanding universe which did not originate in a singularity might not be expected to have this. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually, as far as I understand it (and this is hazy, year or so old knowledge from a physics degree), the CMB originates from the surface of last scattering, rather than the singularity itself, so a "big bounce" type theory which gets close to, but does not reach, a singularity would still show CMB similar to what we see now. Of course, with any such theory you run into the problem of the regions where it is substantially different being near impossible to observe. 91.208.124.126 (talk) 12:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * What happened before the Big Bang is a whole different pot of stew. Feel free to adhere to any theory you like, like the Big Bounce. Expansion only indicates the starting point of the Big Bang. Plasmic Physics (talk) 12:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Try reading the article Big Bang (it exists for a purpose). The first two sentences of section Timeline of the Big Bang should tell you that the singularity is the result of an extrapolation of the standard cosmological model beyond the range of validity of known physical theories (general relativity and quantum mechanics). Simply put, the "big bang" (i.e. the singularity) is not actually part of "big bang theory". From observations we can infer that the universe was hot and dense at earlier times. This is directly observable to the last scattering surface/recombination when the CMB originated, temperature about 3000 K; indirectly to much earlier times based on a cosmological model with the observable universe given as initial conditions.--Wrongfilter (talk) 13:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Also note that the so-called "singularity", that is the point of infinite density with zero dimensions, is not itself actually proven, or even well believed, by anyone. Mathematical infinities show up frequently in physics calculations, but whenever we run into such an infinity, it is generally taken to mean that, at some arbitrarily large or small point, our theories cannot any longer match reality.  See Gravitational singularity, for example, which states "Many theories in physics have mathematical singularities of one kind or another. Equations for these physical theories predict that the ball of mass of some quantity becomes infinite or increases without limit. This is generally a sign for a missing piece in the theory, as in the ultraviolet catastrophe, renormalization, and instability of a hydrogen atom predicted by the Larmor formula." (bold mine).  That is, what we call the Big Bang is the massive expansion of the universe from its initial state; while most models take that initial state to be a singularity, that singularity just means "our theories break down as we get that far back" not "there really was an infinitely small point".  The "Big Bang" itself could be taken to mean cosmological inflation, which was a period from .000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds after creation to .000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds after creation.  We have some grasp on what happened before that, down to perhaps the Planck epoch, which ended .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds after creation, though often the term includes all of the events that happened from creation through the inflationary period.  There are still many unanswered questions about how certain things happened in the transition from these very early time, such as Baryogenesis and Baryon asymmetry, or why we have more matter than antimatter.  -- Jayron  32  13:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 'Bang' is a misnomer, that's been established, it's more like a 'Hum'. I guess, it's a bang in the sense of the rapidness of the event. In any case, something certainly went 'Big', that's been settled. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The evidence that should convince a lay jury to find the Big Bang guilty is:

1) The universe is expanding (galaxies are receding approximately according to Hubble's law).

2) Existence of the cosmic background radiation.

3) The age of the oldest white dwarf stars as inferred from the cooling rate is below the age of the universe as inferred from the expansion of the universe, while a hypothetical white dwarf of hundreds of billions years old would still be easily detectable.

4) The present day ratio of the abundance of hydrogen, helium and deuterium exactly fits the prediction of the Big bang model.

Count Iblis (talk) 13:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My contention is mainly with the gravitational singularity in the Big Bang model. Not the rest. Pass a Method   talk  13:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * As others have pointed out above, the Big Bang model is only useful to explain the evolution of the universe from some age onward. It has to break down when the universe was very young. We know this because the extremely high temperatures predicted by the Big Bang model would have led to the creation of magnetic monopoles and so much energy would have been in the form of these monopoles that the universe would have closed in on itself and collapsed soon after the Big Bang. This and other problems (e.g. the fact that the cosmic background is extremely uniform) are fixed by the inflation model. Count Iblis (talk) 14:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * When you use words such as "young" you are implying that we know whether the universe is infinite or not. The reality is we don't know. Let's be humble here Pass a Method   talk  15:32, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * At that level, we don't know anything beyond our own existence, individually speaking (see solipsism). At some level, we need to accept an amount of uncertainty.  The level of uncertainty present in modern scientific cosmogeny is not significantly more than the level of uncertainty necessary for you to operate in the world, and certainly not more so than any other branch of science.  We have a pretty good handle on stuff down to pretty small units of time from the moment of creation.  Science is very humble, but it also requires us to accept, until shown to be incorrect, theories that match observation well.  And most of the theory in this case matches observation very well.  -- Jayron  32  15:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Let's not be pedantic either. It's perfectly OK to describe the universe as young without implying that nothing happened before the Big Bang. We don't know if the universe really started at the Big Bang but we can take the Big Bang time as time = zero, and measure the age of the universe from there. Dauto (talk) 15:58, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The talk of "creation" is fruitless. We admit we have no idea what things would be like in the Planck epoch (and indeed, disputes about what happened later are so severe that the lay person gets the notion that at least some physicists don't know anything about what happened then).  So we have no real proof of any kind that there was a "moment of creation", or what that means; it is a point where the math and theory breaks down. Wnt (talk) 16:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Creation is as good of a word as any for that moment we define as the "zero" spot for our calculations of events as they occurred in what we call the "young" or "early" history, with all of the silly caveats we have to throw in about us not knowing if it is a real "zero" or merely an impenetrable barrier beyond which we can't measure, but still exists, and for which all of the other caveats we have to put on words like "early" and "young" and all that. But there's nothing inherently wrong with the word itself, it's a good heuristic word for a concept which, under Occam's razor, is the simplest explanation for what happened before that moment (i.e. "nothing", which is simpler than "something we can't ever know about, as far as we can tell") -- Jayron  32  19:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Not to mention Last Thursdayism, which pretty much makes the idea of "creation" unfalsifiable. -- The Anome (talk) 18:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That's certainly true - and can be taken to the extreme by saying that the only thing that exists is this precise instant - with time not existing at all - so no past and no future whatever. However, even in such a world-view, it is scientifically reasonable to ask why there are all of these signs and symptoms that make it look an awful lot like the universe was created 14 billion years ago - and to study those signs and symptoms to see why last Thursday's creation process resulted in such a bizarre set of seemingly self-consistent facts.  If the universe was created last Thursday, why does it have cosmic background radiation?  Certainly we can't falsify last-Thursdayism - but Occam's razor says that: like religion, the existence of ghosts and Russel's teapot - we're better off ignoring the unfalsifiable and pressing on with the study of what we can actually measure and conduct experiments upon.  Occam's razor doesn't have the force of law - but its a damned good principle that is right a lot more often than it's wrong. SteveBaker (talk) 19:41, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The Universe
I've always wondered, say the Universe is finite, it must have shape, right? If so, what is outside the shape? And since the Universe is said to expand, where is it expanding into? Say it were infinite, could the human mind ever comprehend how it looks like? ☯ Bonkers The Clown  \(^_^)/  Nonsensical Babble  ☯ 12:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Start at Shape of the Universe and read on. -- Jayron  32  13:10, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Short answer: nobody knows. Pass a Method   talk  13:27, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That's a terrible short answer! Here is a better short answer: cosmologists use the word "shape" to mean something different from what many people think.  If you would like to learn what they mean, you'll need a longer answer, as others have pointed out.  Nimur (talk) 15:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It could have a topological configuration (eg a hypertorus) without needing to be embedded in any real higher space, so 'outsideness' does not necessarily enter into consideration. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, and hypertorus should probably redirect to Torus, which has a very nice animation. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:19, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * From our article on infinities, Infinity: "In 1584, the Italian philosopher and astronomer Giordano Bruno proposed an unbounded universe in On the Infinite Universe and Worlds "Innumerable suns exist; innumerable earths revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the seven planets revolve around our sun. Living beings inhabit these worlds." Modocc (talk) 14:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's hard to mentally visualize a finite shape without boundaries - but imagine that if the universe was MUCH smaller than it really is...say no bigger than the solar system. Now imagine you have an impossibly good telescope, then you could look towards the horizon - see the earth as a tiny dot out in space - then zoom in and see the back of your own head - you could look straight up and (if you're standing someplace in North America) see another copy of the earth - and zoom in to see the middle of the pacific ocean.  Space itself could be curved back around in some extra dimension and looped back on itself...and it might do that in every direction you could look.  What you'd see would be time-delayed, repeating copies of the same volume of space in every direction.


 * That wouldn't work in practice for a couple of reasons - one being that the speed of light wouldn't allow you to see that far without you seeing something from the impossibly distant past, before stars and planets existed - the other related problem being that no matter what, the "observable universe" is still smaller than the complete universe.


 * But it's certainly possible (even quite likely) that there are no boundaries and yet the universe can still be finite. That's a weird thing to comprehend - but no weirder than an infinite universe.


 * In a sense though, it doesn't matter. No matter which way we look, or how good our telescopes may become, the further we look in distance, the further back in time we see - so out beyond 45 billion lightyears, all we can see in any direction is the big bang. SteveBaker (talk) 16:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Imagine the universe is the size of a room in a normal sized house, with all the galaxies floating in it like motes of dust. That room has four walls, each with a door in it, and trap doors on the floor and ceiling.  If you open the door facing east, the door facing west opens and you step in from the west as you leave from the east.  Likewise north-south, and floor ceiling.  Now imagine the doors are gone and you can see the back of your head by looking through any doorway.  Now imagine the doorways expand and the walls disappear until there is no framework to the room any more, just a universe the size of the room in which it is possible to move in any direction infinitely without coming to a boundary.  That is an finite unbounded universe. μηδείς (talk) 17:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * There is a natural intuition for people who haven't studied advanced geometry that a curved space is always embedded in a higher dimensional flat space -- in the same way we visualize the surface of a sphere as embedded in 3-dimensional Euclidean space. But that's a false intuition. It is mathematically possible to have a curved space without having it embedded in anything, and even if it is embedded, it may be impossible to infer properties of the embedding space from the properties of the curved subspace. Looie496 (talk) 17:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * For a smooth curved space it is generally true that one can do all the math one ever needs to do simply by considering local changes within the space. It is also true that any smooth curved space with a finite number of holes can always be mathematically embedded in a higher dimensional flat space.  Whether or not such an embedding is useful will depend on the details of the problem one is considering, but the existence of such an embedding is really a statement about the nature of mathematics rather than anything physical.  If people want to imagine that the universe lives within some empty, flat, higher dimensional space, then they are free to do that.  Whether or not it is ever actually useful to do that is a separate issue.  Dragons flight (talk) 18:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * As Dragons Flight says, it's possible to embed any any sufficiently well-behaved manifold in a higher-dimensional flat space, if only formally, for the purposes of discussing it, so it's not a bad way to visualise these things if you can't rid yourself of imagining everything in terms of curved things embedded in Euclidean space. -- The Anome (talk) 18:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I find this stuff totally counter intuitive and mind bending. The thing to remember is that there isn't ANYTHING outside the universe. It's not like there is a boundary at the perimeter of the universe, like a bubble, with "universe stuff" on one side and some kind of "other stuff" on the other. It's kind of meaningless to talk about 'shapes', our normal undetstanding of things completely breaks down. Vespine (talk) 22:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you find the room analogy I gave difficult, Vespine? μηδείς (talk) 02:01, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't find the analogy difficult, but that will only work if the universe is positively curved, which could very well be wrong. I believe the prevailing theory right now is that the universe is flat, which means you will never reach the same spot. Vespine (talk) 06:20, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That is not correct. You can very well have closed flat spaces, in exactly the way that μηδείς described. Think of a cylinder, a two-dimensional flat surface (it is indeed geometrically flat, you can roll up a piece of paper without tearing it) that is closed in one dimension. Here, you can mentally identify the open ends of the cylinder to have a flat two-dimensional hypertorus (not possible in practice though, embedded in 3D space). Observations currently show no evidence that the Universe is closed - if it is, the "room" is probably larger than the observable Universe. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The most common example to help with understanding a finite universe with no boundaries is the surface of a balloon. Imagine you were a 2D ant living on the surface of the balloon, and for some reason, can't look up or down.  The ant could move around the balloon and observe the effects of curvature, just like how astronomers can deduce our universe's curvature by looking at the CMB, but it will never come to the edge of its universe.  --Bowlhover (talk) 06:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's certainly the most common analogy - but I think it's wrong. A torus (donut) is a better choice than a sphere.  If the 3D universe was the surface of a hypersphere then I think we could easily tell.  Imagine we're ants in your 2D analogy ants-on-a-balloon universe...if you and a dozen of your ant-friends walk in a straight line (let's suppose you walk around the equator) - and for every inch you walk, one of your friends stops walking and takes a rest.  Now, after a prearranged amount of time, everyone turns right through 90 degrees and starts walking in a straight line again.  In a "balloon universe", you'll be reunited with your ant-friends at the north or south pole.  If you do that same thought experiment on a toroidal universe - you won't ever meet up again - each ant walks from the equator, through the donut hole and up the other side...no two ants ever meet again.
 * Now imagine the ants all have flashlights tied to their backs, as they converged at the poles, they'd get closer together - but the light rays would arrive at your eyes on the equator as parallel rays. If our universe was a balloon universe, objects in the far distance would be hugely magnified...and as far as we can tell, they aren't.
 * SteveBaker (talk) 19:57, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * No, a sphere is definitely a better analogy. The Friedman equations, which are solutions of Einstein's field equations for a homogenous and isotropic energy distribution (aka our universe), predicts a constant radius of curvature throughout the universe.  That's the definition of a hypersphere; a torus has positive curvature at some places along its surface, negative curvature at others.  The real reason we don't see far-away objects being magnified is because the universe is flat to the limits of measurable accuracy.  If it were closed (and hence sphere-like), it would have an enormous radius of curvature whose effects haven't been detected yet.  If it were actually open, it would have negative curvature throughout.  That's a lot harder to imagine because no 2D surface of constant negative curvature can be embedded in a 3D space, but mathematically it represents an infinite universe.  --Bowlhover (talk) 05:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Don't know if this helps but consider this. The big bang (if such a thing happened) created time, mass, distance and everything. So, to answer the OP question: there is nothing existing (nothing at all) outside the distance that light has travel since the big bang.  Beyond that horizon not even time exist. No laws of physics – nothing. The out  side of the know universe isn't there. It does  not exist yet -until the universe expands there. So the universe is not expanding in to anything – its creating space. I took my head a while to get around this concept but I haven't found a better way to capsulize what is known. The shape of anything can only be defined by its boundaries with something outside -but in this case there is no outside.  So consider this analogy: A primitive person may gauges distance by how far people  can walk in a day. If  people in  mounting villages can arrive in in two days (walking down hill) and  others from the deep valleys take  two days (walking up hill) will he realize that they both have traveled different  distances - if they both took two days to arrive?.  He will not be able to see the whole shape of the planet from this local traffic and likewise we can only see a little of the outer reaches of the universe.  So I don't think any one can comprehend the shape because as yet we don't know – but we are probably 2.5 % of the way there.Aspro (talk) 00:01, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Sucrose gradient
Why doesn't the sucrose in a sucrose gradient diffuse to reach equilibrium and thereby eliminate the gradient? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.5.255 (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Doesn't it? Dauto (talk) 15:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The diffusion equation can reach steady state with a non-zero gradient only in certain conditions - when there is a source or sink external to the region in consideration. In your application, do you have a source or sink (inflow or outflow)?  Nimur (talk) 15:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I was curious about this myself long ago and forgot to look it up - good question! In a sucrose gradient centrifugation, in biology, different concentrations are layered on top of each other in a closed tube.  The point is that diffusion is slow: specifically, the diffusion coefficient is 520 um^2/s  or 5.7 x 10-5 cm^2/s .  (The precise value depends on your conditions but let's take the second 0.0057 mm^2/s since the first looks crowdsourced) According to Fick's laws (the first), the rate of flow is proportional to the gradient in space - if you have a 30% difference in concentration over a distance of, I dunno, say 10 cm, then you dphi/dx = a constant (you hope) 0.3% / mm difference .  J = -D dphi/dx = 0.0017 % mm/s, i.e. 0.0017% crosses a mm distance in one second.  In order for the entire gradient to break down to 15% across the board, 15% has to cross the centerline, which would take 147 minutes ... except the gradient, and so the motive force, gets weaker and weaker and so it trails off exponentially over time.  But this gives a first-order sense of how the gradient can last long enough. Wnt (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is something I had wondered about in the past as well (despite having done sucrose gradient centrifugation myself). Just a follow on from your excellent answer, surely the fact that you're centrifuging these gradients at 10.000+ g will affect the mixing? Or not, since the acceleration is approximately uniform over the length of the tube? Fgf10 (talk) 07:04, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It should have an effect. In cesium chloride gradients, the force is enough to create a gradient.  But cesium is very dense, and sucrose is not.  I think the sedimentation coefficient is actually the relevant number, and that is quite low.    Wnt (talk) 23:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Salt fingering is an interesting phenomenon that happens because of the slowness of diffusion. Dauto (talk) 18:22, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * a Brinicle is another interesting formation that depends on the slowness of salt diffusion in order to occur. Dauto (talk) 18:51, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

3 core 0.229in diameter wire vs 7 core 0.229 in diameter wire pure copper
How do these wire compare ? which one is better for upto 20 amp DC current ?
 * I don't think there will be much difference in conductive properties, but the 3-core wire will be quite a bit stiffer -- harder to break, but also harder to bend. Looie496 (talk) 17:08, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There would be a significant difference in conductive properties at high frequencies because of the skin effect - but nothing really measurable at DC. That said, if the overall diameter is the same (0.229"), can you get more cross-sectional area with three circles or seven?  Gut feel says that you get more copper and less air with seven cores than with three...but I'm not enough of a math whiz to know for sure.  If you really care (and I doubt you need to!), get a length of each and weigh them...since the plastic sheath isn't likely to weigh much, whichever wire is heaviest should have more copper and hence less resistance at DC. SteveBaker (talk) 20:12, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't mean to say that the conductivity is the same for both, just that it's so high as not to matter except in some sort of extreme application such as wires that are miles long. For either one of them, a kilometer of wire has a resistance on the order of 1 ohm. Looie496 (talk) 21:08, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily true. The OP asked about DC.  If the source of DC is a 12 V lead acid battery, and the 20 A load is 25 m (~ 75 feet; taking into account go and return, routing within and around buildings etc, this could be almost just the next room), then the voltage drop in the cable would be 1 V, about enough to loose 8% of the power, and seriously compromise the operation of the load.  Wickwack 121.215.78.174 (talk) 00:28, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, there's 20.367% more copper in the 7-strand case than in the 3-strand case. In the 3-strand case, the ratio of the two radii involved is 1 + cos 30° + (sin 30°)(tan 30°), and the rest of the calculation is easy.  After I did the calculation, I learned that I could have gotten the answer a lot quicker if I'd known about the Circle packing in a circle article.  Red Act (talk) 02:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Did Prafulla Chandra Ray discovered Mercurous nitrite?
Can any expert in chemistry explain me if Prafulla Chandra Ray discovered Mercurous nitrite. I am really confused reading the wikipedia article and The Telegraph article 1. Solomon7968 (talk) 17:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * See http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Jan2001/pdf/Jan2001p42-49.pdf for a full account. Looie496 (talk) 17:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

What do you call the inverse of speed?
Hi,

Speed is (distance travelled)/(time taken). Is there a specific word for the inverse of speed that is (time taken)/(distance travelled) and would have units of seconds per meter.

Thanks, Gulielmus estavius (talk) 18:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Sloth? μηδείς (talk) 18:23, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * (Could you please use a &lt;small&gt; tag - or some other means to indicate when you're joking - this is a potentially confusing answer...I'm fairly sure sloth isn't the scientific term for inverse speed - and certainly your link doesn't indicate that)
 * Could you stop using Wikipedia as an alternative to Facebook or Twitter please Medeis? You may find your own jokes amusing but most of the people who don't know your "style" have no idea what you're talking about.  Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not joking. If you bothered to look at the source, rather than your own emotional content, you'd see the word sloth means slow-th, i.e., slowness. μηδείς (talk) 22:25, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I would call sloth or slowness the opposite of speed, using speed as a relative term. Speed as a measurement is distance over time, so the inverse would be time over distance. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:08, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter why you choose to call it that. Here on the reference desk, we work hard not to invent our own answers - which is what you (evidently) did.  If it's a joke - then it's essential that you make that very, very clear...if it's not a joke then it's irrelevant that you've invented your own personal word for this...nobody gives a damn.  Either way - bad answer. SteveBaker (talk) 19:37, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Quite. Medeis, please use Twitter or Facebook, rather than abuse Wikipedia (which is, after all, an encyclopedia, should you wish to contribute to content) to publish your "humorous" responses to Reference Desk questions.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:30, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This abstract kinda suggests that "slowness" has been used - but there clearly isn't a formal SI derived unit like the "siemens" or "mho" is sometimes used as a reciprocal ohm or "hertz" as reciprocal seconds. SteveBaker (talk) 18:58, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hertz is NOT a unit for reciprocal seconds. Hertz dimensionally is 1/T, but Hertz is reserved for expressing the frequency of a periodic function that can be measured by cycles per second.  There are other phenomena that are dimensionally 1/T that are not cycles per second and are thus not expressed in Hertz.  For example, angular velocity (expressed in radians per second) also has dimensions of 1/T.  And, obviously, if it takes me (say) 40 seconds to type this, and I express that as (0.025 Hertz)-1, you'll rightly think I am a complete idiot.  Also note that under SI, Hertz is defined in terms of atomic phenomena.  If for some reason you are measuring the frequency with reference to sidereal time, the correct way to express it is as "cycles per second". Wickwack 121.215.78.174 (talk) 00:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The perm (unit) coincidentally cooks down to (some multiple of) the same base units – if you cancel all the units in kg/s/m^2/Pa, then you get s/m left over – but obviously isn't quite what the OP is looking for. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:19, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * No scientific term exists, but there's one in popular culture: the "minute mile". See four-minute mile, for example.  --Bowlhover (talk) 19:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * OK so the inverse of speed is journey time. Sussexonian (talk) 21:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No, that has the dimensions of time: it's actually got to be journey time per distance: units of time-per-distance, in order for things to work dimensionally. -- The Anome (talk) 22:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think Journey time works, journey implies distance, a journey of zero distance is not a journey. Vespine (talk) 22:49, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd think of journey time as being along the lines of "I live about an hour away from London". Not something with units of time/distance, but rather using time in place of distance (with an implied reference speed, in this case the speed of a car) 91.208.124.126 (talk) 08:19, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The inverse of Electrical resistance as measured in Ohms is conductance, as measured in Mhos (Mho is Ohm backward, of course). So by that logic "Speed" could be "Deeps". There doesn't appear to be a standard unit for this, so maybe you could invent your own. As a matter of pure nosiness, why do you ask? Tonywalton Talk 01:01, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, the invent-your-own answer is obviously superseded by sloth, but the "deeps" idea is worth extra credit! μηδείς (talk) 02:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Why on Earth would anyone choose sloth, which to just about anyone means a certain South Amaerican animal, or a person behaving like one, makes no sense in any other context, and not choose slowth, which atleast is a new word in English, & seems to have something to do with being slow? Of course, the right wword for the property of being slow is the existing word slowness - which is why neither slowness, slowth, or sloth is ever used for the purpose of naming time per distance.  Now, enough of this nonsense, Medeis.  English is a very good language, and a lot of experince has gone into its use.  While there is once in a while a need to invent a new proper nown (as otherwise we would be going around with cellular radio linked portable telephones stuck to our ears instead of cellphones (USA), or mobiles (non-USA)), if you feel the need to invent a new word otherwise, stop.  There is almost always an existing word in either English or another European language to do the job, or a good reason why there isn't. Wickwack 121.215.37.165 (talk) 07:09, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The animal was named for its characteristic "sloth" or "slowness" or "laziness", not the other way around. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what Wickwack's point is. It seems to have been written without reading past the third line of this thread or the link on the third line. μηδείς (talk) 17:51, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think most readers have no idea what your point(s) mean and whether they actually contribute to embellishing the encyclopedia. You also need to consider that many visitors to the reference desks are new editors and your "style" is entirely inappropriate and discouraging.  It seems clear you're happy to use this forum as some kind of substitute for Twitter or Facebook, and most of your edits don't actually provide any encyclopedic value whatsoever.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The OP is clearly asking for a scientific term. "sloth" is clearly not a relevant answer. This kind of "clever" reply can be quite annoying. 86.176.211.20 (talk) 00:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Feel free to look for information that might actually answer the OP's question. Ironically, "sloth" is probably the best answer posed so far. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:40, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * After immediately thinking of hertz and wavelength I could not come up with an existing term that answered the OP's question from within the perspective of physics, so my mind immediately went to etymology, which is a very rigorous science. Certain editors' unfamiliarity with the fact that the word precedes the animal is not surprising.  The OP may be curious why this immediately elicited Rambling Man's hostility, given he's an admin.  Unfortunately, the latter's inability to deal with me and other editors objectively has been documented on his talk page and various other places such as the ITN talk page where he has apologized for such behavior.  I really would appreciate it if someone would hat the string of comments terminating with this one as off-topic as well; it's tedious being attacked for no reason and feeling you have to explain yourself or stand offended. μηδείς (talk) 03:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Medeis, you got "attacked" by several people because you are wrong - very definitely wrong. Whether the meaning of sloth was first a person who is slothful, or the sloth animal, matters not.  What matters is that the dictionary meaning of sloth is a sluggish arboreal tropical American edentate; inactive; lazy (Source: Chambers Dictionary). You cannot just appropriate a word to mean something totally different.  The inverse of speed or distance / time is not an animal, nor is it lazyness.  You might just as well declare that the opposite of boyancy is swimming.  For a person who claims to be accustomed to precise scientific language, you show an alarming lack of familiarity with language concepts.  Ratbone 120.145.139.227 (talk) 08:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In SI, if you want to quote something as a reciprocal of speed, the convention is to just express the the numerical value with the units, as in 20 seconds per metre. Note that SI does not have names for everything (that would be impossible), and actually has a unit name for only relatively few things - generally things that had a unit name in the MKS, CGS, or Ft.Lb.Sec systems.  For example, absolute viscosity is quoted in SI as Pascal-seconds (Pa.S).  Wickwack 121.215.78.174 (talk) 00:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * you can "return back" or at distance or at time . thanks Water Nosfim --81.218.91.170 (talk) 04:53, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I have asked this specifically since I was working with some code, which was dealing with some computation which made much use of the value inverse of the speed of light, and I was just wondering what would be a proper and clear name for a variable that stored that value. Many have here talked of Ohm and Mho, but what I was interested was not the units but the quantities ie, resistance and conductance. I imagine the inverse of speed could be of use in some situations, akin to how wavelength and wavenumber quantities are in use while describing waves. Gulielmus estavius (talk) 13:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * From my Google search for "inverse of velocity", I found some interesting results, including one which mentioned the expression "LoadFactor".
 * —Wavelength (talk) 22:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Careful. Load factor is an existing term in many fields that has meanings not the slightest bit to do with inverse velocity or distance / time.  The general concept is like this:  If an automobile is in actuall use for 20 hours per week, the Load Factor is 20/(7x24) = 0.12.  Whether it is stuck in a slow freeway clog up, or is going a top speed has nothing to do with it.  The site that comes near the top when googling inverse of velocity seems to be about some sort of project mamagement approach, where load factor is the amount of useful work done by someone as a function of their time employed.  Wickwack 124.182.175.128 (talk) 00:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * How about calling it 'progression'? Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Once again, we are not here to invent terms for our OP - we're here to find terms already in widespread use. Calling it "progression" (or "sloth" or "slowness" or "deeps") is about as useful as calling it "wibble" or "qwertyuiop" - those are not terms in actual use, so it's pointless to invent them in answer to an actual question here on the RefDesk. SteveBaker (talk) 16:49, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The term "slowness" is used in well logging with a sonic tool which measures the time between a sonic source and a receiver on the same tool through the rock formation in terms of slowness measured in units of microseconds per foot (see footnote on page 40) - it is also known as "interval transit time". Mikenorton (talk) 17:17, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * What does slowness have to do with it? 'Speed' doesn't have an innate 'fast' or 'slow' quality to it. All of the answers relating to slow make no sense at all. Speed =/= Fast. Speed = distance/time. This can be very very fast or very very slow or anywhere in between. Speed =/= Fast. --Onorem♠Dil 17:46, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Colloquially an increase in speed would be described as going faster, so a decrease in speed (inverse) would be seen as going slower. But I do see your point.  The problem seems to be that time/distance makes no intuitive sense.  Wouldn't time normally be an independent variable?  Or is that irrelevant? μηδείς (talk) 18:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Similarly, "inverse frequency" is frequency, not infrequently, but a small value of frequency is a large value of infrequency (if you guys can follow what I just said then you're doing fairly well already :-)). Consider also, that the OP is referring to the inverse speed of light which is about (1/3)*10^-8 s/m therefore, unsurprisingly, light itself is still quick! But with slower objects we obtain larger values for inverse speed, thus this parameter measures the degree of "slowness"; large values indicate slowness, conversely the smaller values for photons indicating these are not slow. Google Scholar  brings up a few sources for its use (for instance, the concept is used in geophysics as mentioned above). -Modocc (talk) 18:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That's what it is called, slowness, so it has quite a lot to do with it. It's a fact that sonic log interval transit time, the reciprocal of velocity, is also referred to as slowness. That is just how it is. Think of it as an indirect measurement of porosity, so higher interval transit times or "slowness" indicate higher porosity values.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 18:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, it is defintely called the rate of change in time according/with-respect to distance. Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:04, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly, time/distance is called rate. I see no problem here and nothing to do with slowness. Let's say it takes me 5 mins to cover 1 km.  So my rate is 5min/km. Yes, value representing my min/km rate would get lower if I get faster. time/distance rate would be useful if we seek to find what time it would take to cover distance. To cover 10km, it would take 50min = 10km * 5 min/km, so units also behave: time/distance * distance = time. Viva la algebra! AgadaUrbanit (talk) 00:03, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Reread your link: rate = distance/time and distance = rate*time. Most rates, such as speed, are changes per time. The inverse velocity or speed is still a rate though, as it is a ratio between two measurements!  But calling it a rate is vague to the point of being too ambiguous (which rate does someone mean, because it matters), and there are sources for "slowness". Modocc (talk) 00:44, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * OK. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 01:04, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * My slow car has a great insurance rate and better loan interest rate