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2nd July 2021, 09:57 AM | #41 |
Pi
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I don't think that's right. It's a tension structure (not a compression one), the COG of which is at geostationary (or areostationary) orbit. If the base is not at the equator the orbit described by the COG is going to criss cross the equator (as do all orbits that are not exactly equatorial). You absolutely cannot build one at the pole, it just doesn't work that way. (as ever, I might be missing something) |
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2nd July 2021, 10:02 AM | #42 |
Penultimate Amazing
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The orbit of the COG isn't dependent on where the base is. The COG has to be in synchronous orbit or the length of the cable has to constantly change, which I assume is not what Ziggurat has in mind. You're not on the equator now right? But you have a (theoretical) "view" of satellites in GEO that are not changing their distance from or orientation to you. A fixed length cable can theoretically run from any point on the surface to any satellite in equatorial synchronous orbit that it can see.
ETA: And note that the more reasonable case that Ziggurat started with, just a few degrees off the equator, actually includes the possibility that the COG and any counter weight could be in off equatorial plane orbits. |
2nd July 2021, 10:12 AM | #44 |
Penultimate Amazing
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2nd July 2021, 10:18 AM | #45 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Yes, you missed something, which is that the cable is not vertical both at the base AND at the orbit of your end point. So the cable will exert a lateral force component which will allow the path to remain off equator.
And you COULD build one at the pole. It's a bad idea to, but assuming sufficiently strong materials and launch capabilities (both harder than an equatorial cable), there's nothing that makes it impossible. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd July 2021, 10:19 AM | #46 |
Penultimate Amazing
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd July 2021, 10:22 AM | #47 |
Pi
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I'm still missing it.
The counterweight sits at a synchronous orbit and the cable leaves it at an angle?
Quote:
I'm far from an expert, but I think the concept it way less viable than the already pretty unrealistic space elevator that's all at the equator. Again, I could be misunderstanding you entirely. |
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2nd July 2021, 10:50 AM | #48 |
Penultimate Amazing
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That's not quite true. If the base is not equatorial, then the tilt of the cable means there's a lateral force component being applied by the cable. So there has to be a counteracting lateral force component from gravity. Which means your "orbital" plane is actually going to be offset from the equatorial plane, not tilted.
Have you ever seen the TV show Final Space? The logo for the Infinity Guard has a planet with two rings: It looks nice, but obviously isn't physical for free-floating planetary rings. But the lateral force from an off-equator would pull the center of gravity into an orbit offset like one of those rings. Such a cable isn't free floating. It's constrained. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd July 2021, 10:55 AM | #49 |
Penultimate Amazing
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The counterweight has to be farther out than synchronous orbit, in order to hold up the weight of the cable. In other words, if you release the counterweight, it has to go flying away, not stay in that same orbit.
If the base is not equatorial, then the counterweight will be pulled off the equatorial plane. At the counterweight's position, the cable will be angled slightly off from straight down. I'll see if I can make a drawing to illustrate. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd July 2021, 11:09 AM | #50 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Here's a really crude diagram.
The circle is your planet. On the right side, a space elevator at the equator. The force of gravity and the tension in the cable both pull in the same direction, and the counterweight travels in a circular path in the equatorial plane. On the left side is a space elevator with a non-equatorial base. The cable (black line) pulls downward (relative to our viewing of the diagram) and to the right, parallel to its length. Gravity pulls upward and to the right (dashed red line). The net force is horizontal and to the right. So the counterweight travels in a circular path, in a plane parallel to but offset from the equatorial plane. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd July 2021, 11:18 AM | #52 |
Penultimate Amazing
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2nd July 2021, 11:26 AM | #53 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Depends on how far off the equator you are. Phobos is pretty small and orbits pretty much right in the equatorial plane, so you might not need to be far off to miss it. Might not actually make that much difference.
Not that we're going to be building space elevators on Mars any time soon. They'll come after our interdimensional portals. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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2nd July 2021, 11:35 AM | #54 |
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2nd July 2021, 11:38 AM | #55 |
Penultimate Amazing
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21st November 2022, 07:23 PM | #56 |
Crazy Little Green Dragon
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It's been a while. Here's something that I thought was a bit interesting.
A fungus growing naturally on roots is found to detoxify mercury in soil and water There's a bunch more to the story, of course, but that makes for an okay summary. The burning of fossil fuels has increased environmental levels of mercury, with detrimental effects all around, but it's one of the many issues that doesn't get much attention. Good to have some better means available to help counter the damage. Elsewhere... An entire genome is made from scratch to support a new genetic code; the result is a living organism One that might be immune to pretty much all current viruses, for that matter. |
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22nd November 2022, 02:33 AM | #57 |
Illuminator
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23rd November 2022, 01:59 PM | #58 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Along similar lines.
This genetically engineered houseplant does the air-purifying work of 30 plants
Quote:
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23rd November 2022, 02:02 PM | #59 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Dupe post.
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23rd November 2022, 02:09 PM | #60 |
Crazy Little Green Dragon
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Yeah, that is a bit pricey. Even so, if its functionality is actually 30 times as good, the equivalent other plants would need to be about $6 each for similar functionality. That's probably far less than the usual price for them. Also, space and care issues are probably of some note in such a situation. How well it compares to other forms of purification is of relevance, but I can easily see a niche for them even at $179. A caveat, of course, is that those living in situations where it would be most useful are much less likely to have the money available to spend on it.
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23rd November 2022, 03:36 PM | #61 |
Penultimate Amazing
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5th February 2023, 02:39 PM | #62 |
Crazy Little Green Dragon
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Here's something potentially very good -
Practical lithium-air battery shows 3x the energy density of today's best electric-vehicle batteries A solution may well have been found to address the technical difficulties that have been in play, in short, and hopefully, they'll start appearing relatively soon. Cheaper, safer, lighter, and much more powerful batteries? Yes, please! Supposedly, the next step being claimed is commercial production, so I'm quite hoping that all goes well there and no notable issues crop up. I also think that this is a bit interesting - New Type of Entanglement Lets Scientists 'See' Inside Nuclei First-ever observation of quantum interference between dissimilar particles offers new approach for mapping distribution of gluons in atomic nuclei—and potentially more |
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So sayeth the crazy little dragon. |
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11th March 2023, 01:28 PM | #63 |
Crazy Little Green Dragon
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This caught my eye as something interesting -
Cancer cells reprogrammed to "switch teams" and join the immune system as informants
Quote:
Also, this might be worthy of some note - The First Law of Thermodynamics has been revised and extended
Quote:
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So sayeth the crazy little dragon. |
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23rd September 2023, 11:49 PM | #64 |
Crazy Little Green Dragon
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A little thing that I found interesting -
Jellyfish shown to learn from past experience for the first time
Quote:
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2nd October 2023, 12:10 AM | #65 |
Crazy Little Green Dragon
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This looks like a nice little invention -
Ingenious solar distiller makes fresh water from seawater for less than 1¢ a gallon
Quote:
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So sayeth the crazy little dragon. |
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18th October 2023, 02:05 AM | #66 | |||
Illuminator
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Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet:
kurzgesagt video about the possibility that life could have started "soon" after the big bang, at a time when the temperature throughout the universe was thought to be right for liquid water. This is also based on a finding that suggests that DNA record suggests that changes go back longer than the age of the Earth. In fact they go back to about the time that the universe was warm enough to support life! The film states this is still a hypothesis, and links to the studies are in the description. |
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23rd October 2023, 07:47 AM | #67 |
BOFH
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I don't see links to studies just to social media and a shop.
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23rd October 2023, 07:06 PM | #68 |
Observer of Phenomena
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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23rd October 2023, 07:27 PM | #69 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I haven't watched the video yet (can't right now) but I think I heard a discussion of it in the latest SGU. They are skeptical, as am I. I see that one of the sources is Avi Loeb. Just sayin!
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-big-bang-life/ |
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23rd October 2023, 08:02 PM | #70 |
Observer of Phenomena
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No, it's not the same thing. On the SGU they were referring to the Law Of Increasing Functional Information. Anyway, the Kurzgesagt video clearly states that it is engaging in interesting scientific speculation, rather than reporting peer-reviewed experimental results. And the channel always makes it clear when they are doing that.
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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23rd October 2023, 08:24 PM | #71 |
Nasty Woman
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The one big glaring issue with that video is they suggest panspermia, unless they are saying one single multicellular organism seeded the Earth. But so far all the genomes we've mapped are related, suggesting life started once, not a number of times with cells raining down.
One hypothesis I've seen is that there was a period of time in the early evolution of Earth where the organisms exchanged DNA, like tangled roots that leaked into each other. So there are explanations for life landing on the planet already in formed microorganisms. I did like the video, there was some new stuff there. |
23rd October 2023, 08:29 PM | #72 |
Observer of Phenomena
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Maybe as individual cells spread throughout the universe, which is a big place, only one of them happened to land on Earth, and seeded all subsequent life.
Well, we know that horizontal gene transfer is a thing, so you're not proposing any novel mechanisms there. |
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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23rd October 2023, 09:17 PM | #73 |
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23rd October 2023, 09:19 PM | #74 |
Nasty Woman
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23rd October 2023, 09:38 PM | #75 |
Observer of Phenomena
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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23rd October 2023, 09:55 PM | #76 |
Crazy Little Green Dragon
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To finally chip in a bit...
It's speculative enough that I'm more inclined to classify it as science fiction than a science story, at present. Fun science fiction, certainly, though. It sorta lost credibility to me at the part where it looked like it was pushing time-based genetic material projection, though, using what sure looks like cherry picking and glossing over issues at a glance.
Alternately, outcompeting before evidence could be left works. At last check, it's been claimed that abiogenesis could have happened a bunch of times. With that said, I could easily be mistaken, but it looked like the story was slightly different from panspermia. It seemed like it was dealing more with components and genomes than full cells. Basically, abiogenesis with a big jump start in development by using remnants of precursors. Admittedly, that happening once could very easily produce a huge competitive advantage that would likely sweep away pretty much anything just starting to develop from scratch. |
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23rd October 2023, 09:59 PM | #77 |
Nasty Woman
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24th October 2023, 03:43 AM | #78 |
Lackey
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24th October 2023, 06:15 AM | #79 |
BOFH
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24th October 2023, 07:06 AM | #80 |
Illuminator
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As said, its possible that there was only one survivor from many that landed on the Earth.
Do you agree that the DNA record suggests that the record of changes goes further back than the age of the Earth ? That seems to be one of the main foundations to the idea. Or is there reliable evidence to suggest that they are wrong in this? |
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