Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2019 May 4

= May 4 =

What's the volume of food that an average person can swallow at once?
What's the volume of food that an average person can swallow at once (in one action)? and What's the biggest diameter that can enter the pharynx (to be accurate: the oropharngeal isthmus). I've tried to find a data about the size and diameter of the oropharngeal isthmus in order to know how big it may be and then calculate the volume by this factor, but I found about it nothing. Even references for answers would be appreciated. 93.126.116.89 (talk) 03:53, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * How would you calculate volume from diameter without knowing length? Look at the volume of what sword swallowers get down their throat in one piece. They could presumably swallow a long hose or sausage. The internet being what it is, I would not be surprised if someone had a web page for the largest objects that people have fit into various orifices. For some reason I am reluctant do do a web search on this. I once tried searching for "cargo shorts" and mistakenly typed in "corgi shorts" and the result was ... interesting. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Swallowing too large volumes of food may cause choking by compressing the windpipe. It's better to look at the maximum sustainable rate at which one can eat, see e.g. here. Count Iblis (talk) 11:56, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * There is some material here and [REMOVED by poster]. Matt Deres (talk) 14:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you Matt, the second link doesn't work for some reason. I'd like to see what's behind it. 93.126.116.89 (talk) 20:15, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I was afraid of that. It's broken for me as well now. I can't even find what that was originally supposed to lead to, but the material here also looks good. However, all these links are for volumes of liquid; I'm not sure how much that would change for solids. Matt Deres (talk) 21:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah, here is the link that was busted. Matt Deres (talk) 21:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much Matt. I appreciate your help. 93.126.116.89 (talk) 03:55, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * This reminds of this oldie: How many eggs can a giant swallow on an empty stomach? The answer being one. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:11, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Kids don't know how to tell time
It was actually a fake story on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! but it was based on what I believe to be reality. Where is this idea on Wikipedia, or is it? The fake story was about a plan to put a digital clock below Big Ben because young people can't tell what time it is by looking at the hands.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  15:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC) — Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  15:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Are you looking for an article about how kids these days won't stay off your damn lawn? Old people have always highlighted the stereotyped shortcomings of younger generations. See generation gap for more. Are there Gen Zs who cannot read analog clocks or understand how to operate rotary phones? Sure. But every age cohort is teeming to the brim with dumbasses. Matt Deres (talk) 15:47, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * But does Wikipedia cover this? The Wikipedia article you linked to has nothing about that.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  16:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Cover what? That some people can't read analogue clocks? No, and I can't imagine how that would be deemed noteworthy. Even clock face ignores this vital topic. We also have nothing about how people of previous generations struggled with setting the timer on their VCRs. I linked to generation gap because it helps explain that people tend to perceive those of other generations as being deficient - in morals, in knowledge, and so on. Some kids today can't read analogue clocks in the same way that every generation struggles with something other generations feel is painfully obvious. Millennials can't drive stick, baby boomers think a Nigerian prince is going to make them rich, Gex X'ers thought grunge was music. The list goes on. Matt Deres (talk) 19:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Smells Like Teen Spirit wasn't that bad, though the name sounds like B.O. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:38, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Gen X'ers thinking grunge is music is a generation gap related topic but it's because those of us who are older know what real music is. And if it's not noteworthy, why is reading a clock a "vital topic"?— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  18:13, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * How did the Beatles get bigger than Jesus? Some of their songs are good like Let It Be and Hello Goodbye (though Happy Together by the Turtles sounds Beatle-y and is better), some were fair (like Hard Days Night, lots of old store music's better like Heart Of Glass, Tell Me Lies, Take My Breath Away, Give Love A Bad Name, Died In Your Arms etc) and some are so saccharine they sound much better autotuned to minor key (like Here Comes The Sun and Hey Jude). We All Live In A Yellow Submarine sounds like it's from a Woodstock-era kids show, what's up with that? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:46, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * If you intend each of all these songs were about the hands of a clock I'll follow and particularly with the Beatles it was, hate, the younger generations you'll have to wait. I remember some delight at reading the bars numbers when the first quartz displays came along although something was also wrong with the idea of quartz moving which remains the same feeling each time an electronic piece of devices starts ticking out of tune. --Askedonty (talk) 20:47, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that was a sarcastic use. --Khajidha (talk) 18:17, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I was hoping maybe he disagreed with whoever was keeping the topic from being covered.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  18:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * One needs to know something about analog clocks to be able to use clock position to describe headings or understand rotational direction as clockwise. DMacks (talk) 02:57, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * And many young people I have dealt with have no clue about what either of those things mean. --Khajidha (talk) 15:23, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Does "Generation Y" or whatever it is no longer watch television?  On ITV the "News at Ten" used to open with a picture of Big Ben chiming and showing the time.   Does the programme still air and does it have that opening sequence?   If so, it's impossible not to be aware that when the little hand's on 10 and the big hand's on 12 it's ten o'clock. 2A00:23C0:7900:1C00:288D:50DD:7D26:46D6 (talk) 10:42, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Even if it does, that is only relevant to people who watch ITV. Which leaves out most of the native English speaking populace . Even if a person watches that program, they may not pay any attention to the picture of the clock tower or may not make a connection between the image and the time. Also, many of the younger people I know do not actually watch television, per se. They watch whatever programs they want at whatever time they want on the internet.--Khajidha (talk) 11:27, 7 May 2019 (UTC)


 * For over 50 years now almost every Australian child has been brainwashed to understand analog clocks by a program from our national broadcaster called Playschool. See this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD-gnQHMH7k I work in high schools now. Only analog clocks. HiLo48 (talk) 02:52, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Human Body. How long can a man survive missing specific nutrients ?
I was wondering why do we store energy in form of fat apparently easily but we don't do the same with water or oxygen.

My guess (that could be easily wrong) is : because humans evolved in environments where those two nutrients are relatively plentiful and easy to obtain.

Therefore one may use the implication that if a nutrient is plentiful, the human body doesn't really stockpile it.

For what I know (again I'm not sure whether it is correct) it seems that:


 * Without oxygen a human can survive few minutes
 * Without water: few days
 * Without food (all sorts): few weeks

What about specific deficits?


 * Without carbohydrates?
 * Without fat?
 * Without proteins?
 * Without vitamins ? (Or without a specific vitamin?)
 * Without iron? Potassium? Calcium?
 * What about other minerals?

Pier4r (talk) 21:42, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Your guess is basically correct. If a species doesn't need a trait, there's no reason for natural selection to select for it, since any trait has a cost. We're land animals, and oxygen is just there in the atmosphere, so our bodies only store limited amounts for fast-burst physical activity (in myoglobin). Aquatic mammals often need to dive for food, so they have large lung capacities and lots of myoglobin to store oxygen. Similarly, we're not adapted to arid environments. Animals that are, like camels, often can go their entire lives without drinking water. Their bodies are tremendously good at reabsorbing excreted water, so that the water in food is sufficient intake. Food, on the other hand, is never quite a sure thing. You're competing with everything else that wants to eat it. It's only because of the tremendous food surpluses made possible by agriculture that many of us no longer have to worry about our next meal (and of course, now we have the opposite problem, too much food leading to obesity).
 * You can live indefinitely without carbohydrate intake, since carbohydrates are mostly burned for energy (or converted to glycogen and fat for storage). If you have sufficient fat and protein, your body burns those instead: see low-carbohydrate diet and ketogenic diet. Note that this isn't the healthiest diet, and leads to higher mortality, but that's because of such a diet promoting long-term chronic diseases like atherosclerosis. Without fat, you develop protein poisoning (a.k.a. "rabbit starvation"). Without protein, you develop kwashiorkor. For micronutrients, it depends on the body's requirements and ability to store reserves of the nutrient and limit excretion. See Template:Nutritional pathology for a list. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 07:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Pier4r (talk) 21:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I have a separate question, and it's what's a nutrient where when consumed, it can substitute for 2 other nutrients? 67.175.224.138 (talk) 04:58, 5 May 2019 (UTC).
 * The essential amino acids, since the body can convert them into the non-essential amino acids as needed. Amino acids can also be burned for energy: some are glucogenic, some ketogenic, and others both. Similarly, essential fatty acids can be converted to non-essential fatty acids. And, maybe not an exact "substitute", but Vitamin B12 is used to convert 5-methyltetrahydrofolate back to tetrahydrofolate (THF), its active form. THF is derived from folate, and so with adequate B12 levels your required folate intake is lower. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 07:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * While carbs are not needed, per se, the problem is that they occur in almost all foods, such as dairy (except for 100% milk-fat products like cream and butter), grains, fruits, and vegetables; so to avoid carbs you would need to avoid all those, and lose all the associated micro-nutrients, eating meat/poultry/fish almost exclusively. Therefore, you'd need to take vitamin and mineral pills. BTW, one mineral you didn't mention is sodium. While with our modern diet we are likely to get far more sodium than ideal, a total lack of sodium intake will kill you. SinisterLefty (talk) 05:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * According to our article, butter contains a (very small) amount of carbohydrates. And, according to this even heavy whipping cream contains (again, very small) amounts of carbohydrates. They really are pervasive. The amounts are hardly worth mentioning, but your comment seemed to suggest that carbs were not present at all in those instances. Matt Deres (talk) 01:02, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Divers falling backward into the water wearing scuba gear
Won't they end up with CTE? 104.162.197.70 (talk) 23:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Why would they? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Repeated low level impacts. 104.162.197.70 (talk) 11:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Is CTE a reference to Chronic traumatic encephalopathy? Bus stop (talk) 13:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. 104.162.197.70 (talk) 00:07, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * One does not "fall" backward when performing a water entry.
 * A trained SCUBA diver may conduct a back roll entry, which is a standard maneuver that is often used to enter the water from a boat with gunwales. The method is a controlled and practiced maneuver.  Like all aspects of diving, there are real risks of injury, and these risks are mitigated by practice, training, and employing the correct procedures.
 * NAUI's entry-level SCUBA Diver course, like most other SCUBA training organizations, includes book- and practical training for this and other maneuvers.
 * Nimur (talk) 05:06, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes.  I was just going to link to it. 2A00:23C1:D102:1900:D9E6:BC8A:5409:5DE2 (talk) 13:44, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Professional sports league claim they take safety precautions too. 104.162.197.70 (talk) 00:07, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you here for information, or to start an argument? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:39, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Review our article on Physiology of underwater diving.
 * I am not a dive instructor, but I am formally trained and credentialed in both the theory and practice of SCUBA diving, including the boat entry method described in this question. Out of all the serious risks that are specifically associated with diving - and there are many risks - the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) does not rank among the most serious or common ones that I would worry about.
 * Now, that doesn't mean that CTE can't or won't occur. All it means is that CTE isn't a subject that is prominently discussed by reliable resources, including professional training courses or standard textbooks.
 * Thanks to the extraordinary diversity of modern academic research into physiology and sports medicine, and to the amazing power of a specialized search engine, I was able to locate a recent research paper that actually did investigate this question: Long term effects of recreational SCUBA diving on higher cognitive function (2013). Those researchers studied accident-free divers, and compared to a control group of non-divers, and to a control group of professional boxers.  In the group of accident-free SCUBA divers, these researchers found "no evidence of general higher cognitive function deficiency."  This is one study, and it found some interesting results, but it doesn't appear to indicate a serious risk of diving-associated CTE.
 * If you're interested in the whole of the history of research into the health effects of diving, I can point you to several very wonderfully-thorough Navy textbooks on dive physiology that are also available at no cost. For example, the entire Chapter 3 of the first volume of the US Navy Dive Manual is on the topic of human physiology.  Here is a wonderfully-thorough bibliography of additional resources published and released to the general public: Diving Publications from NAVSEA (United States Navy, Naval Sea Systems Command).
 * In five volumes and 1000 pages of reference on this topic, the Navy book does not ever use the word "encephalopathy" nor the acronym "CTE".
 * For emphasis: this doesn't mean diving is without risk. There are serious risks of many types of dangerous life-threatening accidents, and there is some reason to suspect that chronic long-term exposure might carry all sorts of other physiological consequences.  But from the perspective of this question, I'd just summarize it this way: as divers, we accept far more serious risks of far more severe injuries, and we manage those risks to an acceptable level via training, technique, proficiency; education and engineering.
 * Anecdotally: the last time I swam with a group of novices - that is to say, first-time SCUBA divers - I got the very distinct impression that most uninitiated people don't quite grok the severity of this sport. The attrition rate (to drop-outs, not to fatalities...) was quite severe, and it got worse as we began to require the students to, you know, don their equipment - a typical rental tank weighs a lot when full, and you've gotta be at least marginally athletic to pick it up and put it on ...unless you're super-wealthy and can pay a boat-boy to carry your gear for you - but come on - you're a mammal, and that tank carries the air you require to breathe - if you're really that helpless, maybe this isn't the sport for you?
 * For perspective, recreational SCUBA is the adventure-sport version of the equipment and maneuvers developed and perfected by the frogmen - which is to say, the antecedent of the group commonly known today as the SEALs. The way I learned SCUBA had more similarities to a standard combat swimmer training regimen than with a "cruise ship vacation."  If you have a hard time interpreting the words in the syllabus, allow me to anthologize "indefinite survival without the use of a flotation device": the idea, of course, is that one throws the dive student off the boat and expects them to, um, survive for an "indefinite" amount of time.  My instructor-diver was not going to let just anybody leave the boat calling themselves a "diver," not unless they were really ready.
 * Of course, I am aware of the wide variety of places that a person may learn to dive; and not everybody's instructor is quite so severe; but if you're thinking of pursuing the sport, talk to a dive-master or a professional dive instructor. There are a lot of people who are single-time vacation-divers who simply are blown away by the sheer intensity of this activity.  It is not for the faint of heart: it is the very literal definition of a high pressure situation in which the faint-of-heart may, literally, suffer serious cardiopulmonary side-effects.  The words that describe these experiences are so profound that they have actually entered our lexicon as a general-purpose metaphor for "difficulty."
 * Nimur (talk) 14:37, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I've also wondered about that "Falling backwards" technique, but for another reason. I should expect that would make you more likely to hit an object in the water, like another diver, potentially causing injury. Some type of ladder lowered over the side of the boat would seem to make that less likely. Of course, that would affect the balance in the boat while divers climb up and down the ladder, so might not work on a tiny boat. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:45, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * As it turns out, a ladder is one of the most dangerous things in the water, because there's a very good chance you'll bump into it on the way down. Ladder entries may be "lower impact," but I find them to be much more difficult: when you're transitioning your weight to the buoyancy of the water, that's the time when you're most unstable, and closest to the gigantic, heavy, usually-metal obstacle that is the boat.  More divers are injured during their attempt to clamber back aboard the boat via a ladder, than during the initial water entry.  This is compounded when the diver is tired or exhausted, and is especially difficult if there's any chop to the water.  Even a tiny ocean swell - say, one or two feet - is enough to knock you into something.
 * Ladder entries are not normal and there is rarely a good reason to use them for water entry.
 * One does not dive into water so shallow that there would be risk of obstacles - certainly not using the back roll entry. The ocean, as you may know, is quite deep; and if you're going somewhere wearing SCUBA, there's a very good probability that the bottom of the ocean is more than ten feet below its surface.
 * Techniques for entry and exit into water-near-obstacles are considered an extremely advanced, very-dangerous, and are almost always an unnecessary method. Those are the sorts of entries that are usually reserved only for saving a drowning or injured person.
 * Nimur (talk) 15:02, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * How about the risk of hitting the object I specifically mentioned, other divers ? Are there rules such as only diving in on one side of the boat, and climbing out on the other, strictly enforced, to guarantee collisions won't happen ? Still, if there are many divers and boats in an area, it would be difficult to manage. Also, dolphins like to visit boats, especially if they ever got a fish hand-out, so if one decides to come up on the side of the boat just when a diver goes in, that could be a disaster. As for hitting an object attached to the seafloor, perhaps sand bars or coral reefs could be a concern. Presumably they try to place the boat some distance away, but they can drift, of course, especially if they don't want to use an anchor for fear of damaging the coral. And sand bars have a habit of appearing or moving after each storm, so the boat pilot may not know exactly where it is, today. Viewed from straight above, at some height, it should be visible, but at a shallow angle the glare off the surface can make it less visible (polarized sunglasses help). There could also be junk floating in the water, just below the surface, that could be difficult to spot, especially if colored blue-green. SinisterLefty (talk) 20:52, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * It's been a while, but when I learned to dive, we were expected to, like, look over the shoulder before dropping into the see. And when doing a "giant step" entry, look before us. As for dolphins: this is a rare treat. You don't jump onto them, you gape at them. And overall the ocean is one of the bigger things around - usually there is enough space for safe entry. Exit is another matter - I'm weird enough to think it is fun to clamber up a wet ladder with 40 pounds or so of gear in high waves, but it definitely is neither simple nor easy. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:09, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Sure you'd look first, but objects can appear in an instant, especially if they come up from under the boat, or if the water is hard to see through. SinisterLefty (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Divers should not be surfacing from under the boat. Underneath the boat is a dangerous place to ever be, for lots of reasons: you can't resurface safely by swimming directly upward (e.g. in case of an equipment failure) - (see also, §diving under the hull); you can't be seen; you are exposed to the boat's screw (which can maim or kill you); you are not easily seen by the other divers or the boat crew; the boat can abruptly rise and fall in the swells and can very easily maim or kill you...; divers should not be hanging out underneath the boat at any time, and especially not during entry.
 * Other divers who are under the water, and breathing conventional SCUBA, will produce easily-visible bubbles. It is not hard to avoid jumping on top of them.
 * Typically, if there is a large enough group of divers that you can't count the individual diver entries, the entire group of divers will stage on a trail-out rope or line and once they are in the water, they will make a controlled descent, frequently by following down to a bottom-line, where they may stage underwater, or they may otherwise dive away from the entry at depth. Diving in low visibility water is common and requires a little extra proficiency and caution.  The dive master will coordinate and instruct divers on normal procedures.
 * Once again, this is a sport that involves techniques and procedures, and they need to be learned and practiced.
 * The two big certification organizations are PADI, who start with the Open Water training sequence, and NAUI, with the Diver Certification sequence. Both groups publish excellent textbooks that cover this exact type of material, and answer these exact kinds of questions.
 * Nimur (talk) 22:30, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I can't imagine that the air bubbles from SCUBA gear would be visible on the surface when you have choppy water. Then, of course, there's rebreathers, or perhaps malfunctioning SCUBA gear, causing the diver to surface quickly to breathe, and perhaps ignore some safety rules on the way. SinisterLefty (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2019 (UTC)


 * As Nimur wrote: That's why it's a learnable skill that includes procedural knowledge and rules, e.g. "don't ascend under a boat". Compare highway traffic - at any time, someone could spontaneously change lanes and hit you. Still, usually they don't and we accept the remaining risk. It's the same with diving. There are procedures that are usually safe, and we accept the remaining risk. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:00, 7 May 2019 (UTC)


 * A port worker watching passengers fall into the water as a ship's gangway collapsed could see there were going to be deaths, as the passengers didn't know how to turn to minimise the impact, although he did.  These incidents seem to be numerous .   It might be useful to provide some instruction. 2A00:23C0:7900:1C00:288D:50DD:7D26:46D6 (talk) 10:32, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Neutron star
Can the surface of a neutron star be smoother than the top of my bald head,? How so?


 * The surface will likely have a lot of crystalline iron. Under that pressure and heat, it will be as smooth as a polished sheet of metal. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 00:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Erm, a neutron star is totally neutrons, isnt it?--213.205.242.157 (talk) 22:55, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It gets less weird the closer you get to last layer of nucleons. There's even protons and electrons when you get close enough. Maybe iron too? Then there's an atmosphere the thickness of a fingernail or something. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:16, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * No. Neutron stars are not in any way totally neutrons. They have an atmosphere covering a metallic crust. Under the crust is a mix of star matter (mostly hydrogen). As you work your way in, the matter is compressed and becomes like spaghetti instead of separate little atoms. What happens inside the spaghetti layer is unknown and cannot be reproduced with any technology on Earth. 12.207.168.3 (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Pure neutrons
If you could blast off a glob (say 1 kg) of neutrons from the surface of a neutron star, and remove it far from the gravy field, what could you do with it,? 86.8.201.210 (talk) 23:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Make neutron gravy? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Or maybe neutron spaghetti in a neutron sauce yummy. Slight Smile 01:54, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Neutron thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce garnished with truffle paté, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam --Khajidha (talk) 04:13, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Um, approximately nothing? From reading neutronium and, it would appear that any clump of neutrons less than 20% the mass of the sun is going to very quickly become a diffuse gas (and/or decay, and/or absorb into other atoms), potentially through a violent explosion. And then you just have free neutrons, which we do not need a neutron-star-scoop to generate. You could imagine this material would make for a great radiation-shield/bomb/paperweight if you could contain it with the pressure needed to keep it stable, but then you're off in science fiction territory, and would have to use unobtainium. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, the properties of neutron stars arise from their crazy density. The neutrons are the same as the neutrons in the atoms making up you and me. The density is the product of the star's intense gravitational field; if you remove neutrons from the star, now you just have some neutrons. Similarly, main sequence stars like the Sun are almost entirely hydrogen and helium. The "star" properties are just the result of a whole bunch of it collecting in one place and getting compressed. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 08:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * And suppose it didn't go up in a puff wouldn't the volume of a 1 kg "glob" be about 10-17m3 making it kinda hard to find let alone do something with? hydnjo (talk) 17:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * No you just stick your pinky in there and pull a bit out under your fingernail. Just like picking your nose, 213.205.242.157 (talk) 22:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Kinda awkward picking one's nose with a 1 kg pinky eh ;-) hydnjo (talk) 23:20, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * You would be incinerated well before you could even get close enough to be sucked into it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Per the OP's thought experiment, If you could blast off a glob (say 1 kg) of neutrons from the surface of a neutron star, and remove it far from the gravy field, what could you do with it,?: you would first have to find that very tiny thing having a volume of about 10-17m3. hydnjo (talk) 04:16, 6 May 2019 (UTC)