Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 August 6

= August 6 =

Pain and alcohol
This is not a request for medical advice (I am fortunate enough to live in a country with commie pinko liberal socialist free healthcare for all), but rather a request for information. Having failed to sleep last night, and spending much of today in pain, as a result of a swollen gland in my neck, I decided earlier this evening to resort to malt whisky in my quest for a nap. 2/3 of a bottle later, I am largely pain free (there is a twinge at certain angles, but nothing like what was there before), but not at all sleepy and barely tipsy. Normally I would be frankly sozzled at this point in the bottle. In consequence of this concatenation of circumstances I was struck by the question "What (if any) research has been done on the effect(s) of pre-existing pain on the intoxicant effects of alcohol in the adult human? And what were the results and where can a chap access them?". DuncanHill (talk) 01:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You may find some useful information at Short-term effects of alcohol and Ethanol use and sleep. According to the latter, high doses of alcohol don't promote sleep very well.--Srleffler (talk) 01:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that's a start. Unfortunately an editor decided to vandalise my post by falsely accusing me of asking for medical advice, even though I had made it clear that I have free access to a properly trained and qualified professional for that. DuncanHill (talk) 03:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Neither of those articles mention pain, which I feel is central to my enquiry. DuncanHill (talk) 03:28, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Look for Analgesia; that's pain relief. It is mentioned.--Srleffler (talk) 06:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It has nothing about the effect of pre-existing pain on the inebriant effects of subsequently consumed alcohol. DuncanHill (talk) 13:20, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't read a lot of acaademic papers, and when I do, I generally pretend I get the gist of the strange words, just to finish reading faster. But I have guesses, based on plenty on informal drinking and hurting.


 * When in pain (especially a new kind), the heart beats faster. More oxygen is less drowsiness. Acute jolts can provoke a fight-or-flight response (maybe partly why they call it "stabbing pain"), and your brain tells itself this is no time to be sozzled (cool word, thanks). It may be the same to a lesser (and less noticeable) extent, hormone-wise, with more constant kinds, if they're still acute in the larger picture (like a whole day, after a whole lifetime). InedibleHulk (talk) 03:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I assume it's quite the other way around in fainting goats, who would seem far more drunk when stressed. Probably why you don't see them at bars. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:03, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Maybe there's a good reason that someone who's drunk is said to be "feeling no pain". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:03, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm sure it has something to do with gamma-Aminobutyric acid, N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid and excitotoxicity, but all I know is when you fall down drunk, you don't anticipate in time to tense up. Landing on tense muscles strains them. Makes landing on your face more likely, though, and that's no good.


 * Substance P, Prostaglandins, and GABA should be added to that list. I don't see any papers investigating the actual question, but I read through about a hundred on noiception, ethanol, and the above chemicals. A guess would be that alcohol intoxication has something to do with binding to/inhibiting a certain receptor, but that when in pain, that receptor/pathway is more highly active than normal, thus, the reduced intoxication - of course, this is not something I saw even kind of substantiated anywhere and is purely speculation. If I do find any actual sources, I'll pass them along, but I'm doubting the likelihood of that. I'd suggest starting at both ends (ethanol intoxication - neurotransmiters in pain) and slowly building to the middle, there's tons of articles on both and I think with very diligent work, you could bridge the gap between the two subjects and get an informed idea (if you're knowledgeable on medicine and pharmacology). As it stands now, I don't see any straightforward answers out there.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:05, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * That first weird term is GABA. Gabba Gabba Hey might have something to do with wanting to be sedated. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * When you're right smashed, even if you do feel it a bit, you can't really grasp what the bouncers hurting you has to do with why you should stop trying to go through them. But there is hope, at least for the bouncers.


 * The catch is, you're only invincible till the morning. Here are some tales about the pain drunks feel later. But pained people who are "feeling no drunk" seem a whole different story. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not interested in the anaesthrtic effects of alcohol, what I am interested in is research into the effects of pre-existing pain on the inebriant effects of alcohol. For the benefit of the more hard-of-thinking editors I DO NOT WANT ANY FUCKING MEDICAL ADVICE. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Please bear in mind for the future that any question framed in terms of a condition experienced by the questioner is going to be treated as a request for medical advice. You could have avoided that by avoiding any reference to yourself.  Anyway, regarding the question, it is well known that there is an antagonistic interaction between pain and substances that induce global anesthesia.  It's particularly clear in the case of opiates such as morphine:  doses that induce stupor or unconsciousness in most people might not substantially impair alertness in somebody in severe pain.  It also holds for alcohol -- but it should be noted that even though pain improves alertness and arousal in somebody who has consumed alcohol, it doesn't improve motor control or decision-making. Looie496 (talk) 02:36, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It won't be treated as a request for medical advice by anyone capable of understanding what was actually written. Anyway, do you have any references to research on this subject Looie496? DuncanHill (talk) 02:51, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Shortest-lived tropical cyclones
I'm aware that there have been a few cases where a tropical cyclone only lasts for a day or two (notably Tropical Storm Marco (2008)), frequently with tropical lows and tropical cyclones, but among storms which have reached tropical storm strength, which have had the shortest lifespan? Also, what is the shortest-lived cyclone/hurricane/typhoon on record? And finally, among cyclones to have had their names retired, which ones were particularly short-lived? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 05:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * This doesn't have a well-defined answer. In the United States, the National Hurricane Center typically evaluates a storm one to four times a day, updating the forecast and deciding what category the storm falls into.  With the correct timing, a storm that is at "tropical storm" strength for fifteen minutes and one that is at strength for just under twelve hours might both be classified as tropical storms for six hours. --Carnildo (talk) 03:22, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia's storm season articles have a "Dates active" column in their seasonal statistics table, a "Duration" entry in each storm's Infobox, and a width (range of dates) associated with each storm in their timeline graphic. The periods are often but not always the same, and where they differ I do not know if that is due to error or because of varying definitions.  Presumably WikiProject Tropical cyclones has some guidelines for these, but I've not researched that.


 * Looking at just these dates, many tropical depressions and tropical storms are listed with a two calendar day life, like your 2008 TS Marco. For instance, 2007 Atlantic hurricane season has TS Barry, Chantal, Jerry, & Olga and TD Ten & Fifteen each spanning two calendar days in the "Dates active" column.  (Those dates match the values in the season timeline graphic, but TS Barry's infobox gives a "Duration" of June 1 – June 5 compared to the "Dates active" of June 1 – June 2, and TS Olga's infobox gives a "Duration" of December 11 – December 13 compared to the "Dates active" of December 11 – December 12.  Barry's section says that it dissipated on June 2, so its infobox appears to be in error, but with Olga it is less clear if different standards might have been applied to the two fields.)  Anyhow, there is even the occasional two calendar day hurricane listed, such as 1974 Pacific hurricane season, September 9 – September 10.


 * As suggested by Carnildo, this duration (whatever its accuracy) is of limited precision, and a some one calendar day storms might be active for longer than other two calendar day storms, depending on when during the day they started and stopped. In my limited perusal, I did not see any one calendar day tropical storms, but did see quite a few one day Tropical Depressions, such as on September 11, 2001 when Tropical Depression One-C formed 400 mi southeast of Hawaii and dissipated 12 hours later. -- ToE 05:05, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I saw two highly fortified skyscrapers become pressurized, then dissipate into clouds after a depression lasting about as long as a movie that day, and only that day. Nature's odd that way. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:43, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Amongst cyclones who have had their names retired (question, part 2), there are several hurricanes with five day active periods listed, such as Cat4 (SSHS) Hurricane Audrey, June 25-29, 1957 and Cat5 Hurricane Kenna, October 22-26, 2002. Retired Tropical Storm Alma, the easternmost forming Pacific tropical cyclone on record, dissipated the day after it formed, active May 29-30, 2008.  As before, there is inconsistency with date ranges for many retired storms, such as 1996–97 Australian region cyclone season which List of retired Australian cyclone names gives "Dates" of 23 – 23 December, 1996, while it has an infobox "Duration" of 23 December – 25 December, and a narrative stating that it, "formed in the Pacific Ocean, lasting from 29 December to 31 December 1996".  The retired list calls it an AusCat3 with 90 mph sustained wind speed, while its infobox calls it an AusCat2/SSHS-Cat1 with 60 mph peak intensity.  Go figure. -- ToE 07:13, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, and mad props to WikiProject Tropical cyclones and anyone else who has contributed to these articles. While there is a lot of work still to be done, the articles addressing recent decades of Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons are sharp. -- ToE 07:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Weather forecast accuracy
Can anyone point me to research that shows how accurate the 'chance of rain' forecast is? Research that shows that when the forecast was 50%, it actually rained 40% or 60% of the time. I suppose that accuracy is best at the extremes...that when the chance is 0%, the actuality is near 0%, and similarly when the chance is 100%. But what happens in reality when the forecast is 30%, or 50%, or today's (unlikely)...62%? That's what provoked my question. Of course, there are many factors...geography and seasons, 4 season weather versus dry/rainy season weather. Anyway, I'm curious for any such research results. Thanks if you can help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.173.50.222 (talk) 07:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has an article about Weather forecasting. An major factor affecting accuracy is the advance time of the forecast: longer-term forecasts are less accurate than current forecasts. Here is a study in the USA: Accuracy of 6-10 Day Precipitation Forecasts and Its Improvement in the Past Six Years 84.209.89.214 (talk) 14:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Wet bias is also very relevant. There is a phenomenon where some forecasters intentionally exaggerate a small chance of rain in order to make forecasts "more useful".  The Weather Channel in particular admits to doing this, so if the true chance of rain is only 5% they may nonetheless report the chance of rain as 20%.  Dragons flight (talk) 16:07, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I think they need to go with more dynamic forecasts. For example, if the current temperature is above the forecast high, they should definitely increase the forecast high.  But, less obviously, if the temp is 5 degrees above the forecast at 8 AM, it will probably be around 5 degrees above the forecast high, too, so they might want to bump that up.  This can probably all be done with computers, so you'd get a better forecast each time you refresh the web page.  Of course, the "rewriting history" aspect of this might be a bit annoying, so they should keep the old forecasts around and available, too. StuRat (talk) 17:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Personally, I've lived in places where different types of weather vary on how much skill the model/forecasts have. When the weather is based on fronts following the jetstream (like winter storms in North America, the forecast is very good even out for 5 or more days.  In places where there were non-frontal events such as monsoonal-like weather, the forecast skill was very poor.  It's not uncommon for the forecast to swing from 0% to 100% to 0% precipitation in near term, hourly forecasts (less than 12 hours).  It's pretty useless to read the weather at 3:00pm and see 0% chance of t-storms overnight, at 4:00pm it's 100% chance and by 8:00pm it's back to 0% with no rain.  The seasonal wind shift due to movement if the center of high-pressure is what changes the moisture pattern but the creation of t-storms is convective heating and adiabtic cooling along with orographic lift.  The location of the high pressure center can be forecasted but because the t-storms aren't at front boundary precipitation forecasts are notoriously wild and inaccurate.   Virga is common.  Usually the first storm is virga and haboobs and occurs on a 0% day and the 10 day 0% forecast is immediately updated to 30% chance.  This contrasts greatly with frontal t-storms that spawn tornadoes in the U.S. midwest where a cold front interacts with warm, moist air. The front is predictable with considerable skill in five day forecasts.  --DHeyward (talk) 13:13, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Frost Airship Glider
There are claims that a man who as a poorly educated carpenter developed, patented and successfully flew a kind of human-powered hybrid airship/glider sometime in the early 1890's. We have an article about William Frost and the Frost Airship Glider. Sadly, the only book written about the thing is essentially useless and press articles about it only repeat what's in the patent, plus some hearsay. The only technical information is in the patent. And the patent is very light on details too. In fact, the diagram is the only part of the patent that can give us any clues about how it got off the ground. In particular, we don't know what lift gas he used.

Most people claim that the machine looked like THIS...which seems like a reasonable interpretation of the diagram.

Could someone take a back-of-envelope shot at figuring out roughly how much lift the balloon part and the wings of the thing could have generated? Our article has a copy of the drawing from the patent - but the scale at bottom-right is a bit blurry. I've seen a better copy of the diagram and the scale is marked off in feet.

I've done the math myself, but could use an independent sanity check because I don't think it could possibly have flown - yet there are several seemingly-reasonable eye-witness accounts of it flying for around 500 meters before crashing into a tree.

If I'm right, then we're in that ikky Wikipedia situation, where the science says that something can't possibly be true - but the supposedly reliable sources say that it is. Any suggestions on how to circumvent that without accusations of WP:OR/WP:SYNTH would be useful!

SteveBaker (talk) 17:09, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * You might get more offers for help if you show your work. For instance, what type of wood and wood density did you use in your model? Why type of airfoil equations did you use? Why speed of headwind are you assuming? I think more people would be likely to contribute to debugging/validating your methods than doing all the work over again. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm trying to get independent confirmation...I didn't want to bias your answers with my methods...and there are a heck of a lot of complete unknowns, so feel free to make your own assumptions. I did, however post my conclusions on the talk page of the Frost Airship Glider article. SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I checked there, and it seems that all you did was compute the lifting force for an estimated volume of hydrogen, and the assumed that the craft + rider must weigh more than that. I have no reason to doubt your lift calculation, and I think your assumption on weight is apt enough for the moment. Still, it seems to be completely reasonable that this thing could glide a few hundred meters. For example, would you believe [unfilled weight of craft] -[lift from gas] = ~20kg? If so, just roll it down a hill, off a cliff and you'd cover some distance. If you're really vested in this, use lift equations based on some estimates of wing area, , and I suspect you'll find that the speed required to generate lift greater than the heavier-than-air weight is not that high. I agree with your conclusion to this extent: either his patent drawing was not to scale, or he did not make a true vertical take off from a stationary position. Finally, the only way I see to avoid WP:SYNTH for purposes of adding this info to the article is to publish a treatise on it elsewhere first. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * There are many confirmed reports of inflatable castles taking off and flying for hundreds of feet during storms. So it is not implausible that it flew... in any case. Wnt (talk) 17:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, yes - but we're talking "controlled" flight. SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * That pic seemed to show it made of wood paneling, not "wire work covered with light waterproof material", as our article states. I'm picturing a wire-reinforced balloon.  Also, what gas do you assume was used ?  Hydrogen ? StuRat (talk) 17:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The pictures are all guesses made from the patent diagram. Nobody who saw it is still alive, nobody sketched it at the time.  Interviews with the guy who built it seem "sketchy".  One source said that he thought it was made of bamboo.  As for the lift gas...we don't know.  The best chance for it working is obviously hydrogen - but this guy was a poor carpenter in a sleepy agricultural village.   Helium had been discovered but not isolated...so that's out.  Hydrogen had been discovered, but not liquified or (much) compressed - so he couldn't have bought large quantities of it...as far as I can tell, he'd have had to make it using iron filings and acid...which sounds hard in the quantities he'd have needed.   Coal gas seems like the most likely possibility...its around 50% hydrogen and might have been ridiculously easy to get if there was a coal gas supply to homes for lighting, etc at the time.  Hot air seems unlikely because the machine has no heat source while in flight...but it's not impossible.  We don't know. SteveBaker (talk) 18:55, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Bamboo sounds reasonable, but not large panels of it, as the pic seems to show. Rather I picture the frame made from bamboo, with wires between frame elements to contain the balloon. StuRat (talk) 21:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Steve, you're overstating the reliability of these sources! This is not the first, and certainly won't be the last, apocryphal tale of an unsung hero inventor whose contraption predates the inventors that the establishment wants us to credit.  Many things have been patented; many flying machines were attempted and many had very promising results.  But few persisted because few of these inventions worked reliably and repeatably.
 * If this inventor really did do something incredible and notable and verifiable in the 1890s, in England, don't you think there might be some mention of it in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica? There are many pages in the article on Aeronautics.  There are full-page lithographs!  There is an astounding coverage of the history of aircraft, from the Montgolfier brothers to the Wright brothers to the more obscure airships and dirigibles of the early 20th century.  The coverage is very thorough.
 * I don't doubt that an inventor could have built and patented such a machine; perhaps he even tested it outside... but it probably never really "flew."
 * Nimur (talk) 19:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree that it never worked reliably, but I also wouldn't expect the Encyclopedia Britannica to provide coverage of one <500m glide flowed by a crash and aborted project... As Steve mentioned on the talk page, it's not that notable if it's lighter than air. If it was heavier than air, if obviously didn't work that well, but I see no reason to cry "impossible!" based off such little information. In my opinion, the claim that this thing once 'flew' a few hundred meters is not outrageous, if you allow that the wings could generate some small to moderate lift. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:01, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * One problem with that is that the guy claims a vertical take-off capability...so wing lift is not effective. There appears to be some sort of hand-cranked propellor - but it seems to me that this is only going to work if the thing is at near neutral bouyancy.   The reason (it is claimed) that he never got any further with it is that he was a poor man and he'd scraped and saved to get the money for building and patenting the machine.  The claim is that he flew it once (successfully!) but that it was blown away and destroyed during a storm the following night.   There is some evidence that the storm really happened...so that's a reasonable thing.   Then, as he saved money to make a second prototype, his patent needed to be renewed - and he didn't have the money even to do THAT.   So there are plausible reasons why it didn't get huge interest - and it seems that the knowledge of it was more or less forgotten until relatively recently.
 * I'm not actually interested in "proving" that it happened so much as proving that it didn't...which the numbers suggest must be the case. SteveBaker (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * As I said above, I think it is reasonable to believe that either the craft could not take off vertically or the patent drawing was not to scale. Unfortunately for your desire to prove that it couldn't have happened, you'll never fully discharge the latter alternative. You'll also never prove that it was impossible for it to have taken off from a running start, as such a thing is clearly conceptually possible -- there are several examples of Hybrid_airships whose ability to fly is not questioned. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:52, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Or perhaps it only "flew" in a flugtag fashion. That is, it was pushed off a high point with significant velocity, such that the height, initial velocity, partial lift from the wings, and relatively light weight allowed it to move laterally 500 meters before it landed.  Of course, this isn't what's described in the patent, but might explain how such a thing could possibly "fly". StuRat (talk) 21:20, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Seriously, I suspect a poor carpenter might have had a hard time financing an airship hangar. Those things are huge.  And an airship without a hangar in a storm... is a Bouncy Castle waiting to happen.  I picture him looking at a choice between telling people "sorry, it got blown apart in a storm" or "test flight SUCCESS!*" and it doesn't seem like a hard choice.  But what airship inventor would do his first test flight in a storm? Wnt (talk) 21:23, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * No, he definitely didn't have a place large enough to assemble it. He's said to have placed two old iron girders over a stream, then laying planks across them to make a platform that he assembled it on.  Evidently it was built in pieces in his workshop.  The storm happened on the night AFTER the supposed flight happened.  According to everyone involved, he had a gentle slope, but not a steep/high launch point.
 * It's possible that the patent drawing wasn't to scale - but it has a definite scale next to it and the guy was a carpenter, so he'd have been familiar with working drawings and such.  The patent was filed right before the flight - so it's unlikely the design changed much. SteveBaker (talk) 00:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Going with the most optimistic assumptions I can about size, shape, and lifting gas (35 feet long, 10 wide, 10 high, pure hydrogen), I get a maximum lift from the balloon section of around 250 pounds, and a more realistic lift of around 150-200 pounds. Assuming hand-cranked propulsion, aerodynamic lift from the wings and body of the craft would be low enough to disregard (on the order of tens of pounds). --Carnildo (talk) 02:15, 8 August 2014 (UTC)