Revision as of 07:26, 22 November 2005

Reference Desk

November 13

electrical

electrical tester, that we use to see if current is there or not in sockets,...n when we use it even while standing on wooden stool the ckt gets completed n the bulb in tester glows how?? irrespective of the thickness of wooden stool(insulator)..how it happens??

from Avinash parhi,India

--59.93.129.191 02:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Keep checking back for an answer while it is developed over the course of a few days, as we generally don't reply by e-mail. --HappyCamper 02:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I'm not sure you've thought this out. Most likely, the tester is completing the circuit itself. I.E. it has a bulb in it and two contacts, allowing the electricity to pass through it, lighting the bulb. Superm401 | Talk 13:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest that although a wooden stool acts as a resistor, nothing is a perfect insulator, and there is still sufficient current to light the bulb. I suspect inductance may play a part too. Shantavira 14:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

There are "hot-wire" testers which only require one contact with the ungrounded side of an AC mains source to indicate. The technology uses capacitance to ground (earth) and can be quite sensitive. --hydnjo talk 14:59, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

He doesn't quite say so, but I suspect he's talking about the simplest kind of electrical tester, which has two leads and a neon lamp inside, along with a big old (100k or so) series current-limiting resistor, since small neon lamps require a ridiculously small amount of current. Secondly, I suspect he's asking about the case where you connect one lead of the neon tester to a hot wire, and hold the other lead in your hand. In this case, the neon bulb will in fact glow -- not as brightly as when you connect that second lead to the neutral or ground wire, but still plenty bright enough for you to see. (And in fact this effect leads to a useful trick, one I use all the time: determining which of two indistinguishable wires is hot and which is neutral.) The current flow -- if indeed there is any -- is so tiny that you don't feel a thing.

The explanation for why/how this works always involves phrases like "the capacitance of your body", although this has never made perfect sense to me. Steve Summit (talk) 19:50, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

CPU vs RAM?

Is it strange that my CPU is maxing out at 100% when such a large fraction of my RAM remains unused? Causes? Fixes? Perfectly normal? Etc?--ineedhelp 02:39, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

A computer can carry out intensive processing without needing much RAM, so that is not strange at all. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 02:48, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

That's not strange, RAM and CPU are different resources that are not necessarily related. Click the Processes tab to see what process is using up you CPU.

High CPU usage indicates your computer is carrying out a processor intensive task (of which there are many). Some of these required large amounts of RAM, and some do not. The two resources are orthogonal in that respect. So no, it's not surprising that your CPU is at 100% without a large consumption of RAM. Nor would it be surprising if there was a large consumption of RAM. →Raul654 07:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

OOP! It is not strange, but that is not was is alaming. What is running on 48 processes? Please click on the previous tab ( Processses ), and click on the CPU Column. That will sort processes by CPU usage, and tell us which one of the 48 processes is taking your CPU time.

( I am browsing, playing, downloading and surfing, and I have 16 processes. ) --69.181.232.116 08:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Another Question

I've been getting these alot lately any ideas???--ineedhelp 06:51, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I typically see this message on disks that are about ready to go bad. Get as much information off the disk as possible. Then run chkdsk to *possibly* fix the problem. If on a Windows 2000/XP machine, go to Start, click run, type 'cmd' without the quotes and hit enter. In the new window that pops up, type 'chkdsk a: /f /r /x' again without the quotes and hit enter, where a: is the drive that you are using when you experience that error. This will check the disk for bad spots, moving any data it finds in those spots to new areas and marking the old areas as bad. My suggestion would be to then move everything off that disk that you can and replace it. imsaguy

Yeah, that's a bad sign. I've seen floppy disks do this when they have bad sectors. Backup if you can, then try chkdsk, see if that helps any. If it doesn't, you should probably invest in a new hard drive. --Fastfission 01:00, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The same goes for any sort of disk (floppy, hard disk, CD...) — I get these from time to time on old CD-Rs that have just been through too much. In case you're wondering, a cyclic redundancy check is a type of error-checking mechanism that Windows uses to make sure the file you're moving/copying is intact. And I would agree with the other posters - if you get this while moving files to/from a hard disk, get your files off there as soon as possible. If you get this while reading from a CD, then that CD is damaged, but you might be able to get your files by cleaning it off with a cloth (to get rid of stains, fingerprints etc). — QuantumEleven | (talk) 09:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statistical tables

Carole Winch e-mailed the following question to the help desk. I am taking the liberty of posting it here.

Hi I need to know how to access tables of values for the students t-test, or how to use the fx-83WA calculator to extract the p-value from the t -statistic

I have tried looking in various places without luck!

Hope you can help Carole Winch (Maths tutor)

Thank you in anticipation of your help. Capitalistroadster 09:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Critical values for t can be found here (PDF file), as well as many other places on the web. This site will enable you to calculate probabilities corresponding to a given t-value and number of degrees of freedom. The two sites were on the first page of a Google search for "statistical tables": as I say, there are many, many sites which publish tables (as the information contained is not eligible for copyright). Physchim62 (talk) 11:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Request for Diagrams - Fungal Enzymes

How can I find diagrams for the listed Fungal enzymes please? they are required for illustration purpose--195.93.21.103 11:03, 13 November 2005 (UTC); asparaginase, amylase, catalase, cellulase, dextranase, b-glucanase, glucoamylase, glucose oxidase, hemicellulase, laccase, lipase, pectinase, protease, rennet, tannase, xylanase

Structural or Ribbon? Id start with a college biochemistry textbook. --Artoftransformation 06:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Your best bet would be to find the PDB file for the enzyme and then plug it into RasMol or similar piece of molecular modeling software. --David Iberri 01:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

CGA Monitors

Some question? CGA was the first graphic standard for the IBM PC. ( 160x200x16c ), ) It can be emulated in VGA, by most SGVA graphics cards. --Artoftransformation 17:21, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

What would be your question? --R.Koot 21:59, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Why is it important that only one sperm may fertilise one egg in reproduction

what do you mean "important"? it is a fundamental feature of sexual reproduction. in the case of asexual reproduction, you don't talk about sperms and eggs. If you can think of another method, involving several fathers, Nature hasn't :) dab (ᛏ) 14:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Your question has two answers:

1. The egg already has half a set of chromosomes for a new person. One sperm supplies the other half. Trying to incorporate more than one sperm's worth of DNA would probably lead to higher rates of chromosomal aneuploidy.
2. It does seem necessary, or at least more efficient, for more than one sperm to participate in fertilization, though only one sperm ends up being incorporated into the nucleus and contributing its chromosomes.

Does that answer your question? alteripse 14:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

It only takes one sperm because it only needs one sperm.--Eye 21:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

quantum mechanics?

I am looking for Open Source software tools and/or libraries that can help me simulate (not 'solve', but propagate) many-body problems in classical quantum mechanics. dab (ᛏ) 14:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

If you find one, let me know too!! I'm actually doing research in this area, and it would be wonderful if there was such a thing. What sort/form of many body problems are you looking at specifically? --HappyCamper 16:48, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The Models of Classical Quantum Mechanics, relating to Hydrino theory were constructed with Wofram Research's Mathamatica. They are avaible for download at blacklightenergy's webiste. I would love to know if you find any Open Source Software that works with Mathamatica Workbooks. --Artoftransformation 17:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you'd be interest in this website? ☢ Ҡieff⌇↯ 17:23, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Application of mathematics in Actuarial Science, Medicine and Engineering

Hi,

I am writing a paper on the application of mathematics in the following industries:

• Actuarial Science
• Medicine
• Engineering

But I am unable to fine anything, please help

THANKS Kaydean Campbell

This is a very general question. Have you had a look at Engineering? The fields you mentioned all use computers, maybe Computer science will help.--Commander Keane 16:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

You could contact the Society of Actuaries.

You could ask a student in a nursing program. --Artoftransformation 17:10, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Is the paper you are writing for your homework? If so, then read the articles that Artoftransformation has suggested that you read and then if you have any specific questions please ask them here. --hydnjo talk 19:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

For the medicine answer, you could even ask a doctor. Over 99% of the math used in clinical medicine by doctors and nurses is straightforward arithmetic and simple algebra: especially percentages, ratios, unit conversions. There is also some use of statistics and probability in devising and understanding research reports. alteripse 19:42, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course the maths invovled in getting an MRI is more complicated.--Commander Keane 05:23, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Planet VenusI

I could use some help answering some ? about Venus. I have searched the site but can not find these answers, the diameter of the planet- average day& average year on Venus. Also my opinion of the color of Venus is purple& gold. Would you agree? Thanks for any help you can pass on to me on this subject. SAVANNAH — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.117.12 (talk • contribs)

If you had "searched the site", you surely would have looked at the article Venus, which answers all of your questions. --Kainaw 19:20, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a table of physical characteristics on that page. In particular, it says that the year is approximately 243 days. The other values can be found by reading down the list carefully. --HappyCamper 21:20, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

What's this all about?

--Whatgives? 19:48, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

So? any advice? or what?--Whatgives? 00:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Disable your firewall. --R.Koot 00:46, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Slow page loading

This is perhaps a question for WP:HD but since it is only showing up here I'll ask here. Does the inclusion of an image within the question (like the one just above) cause the page to load more slowly, perhaps waiting for the image server? It seems so to me. I'm going to be bold and link instead of call the images above to see if it helps. --hydnjo talk 20:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I've started a topic on the talk page. --R.Koot 21:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Why are Hydrates formed?

Why would hydrates form? (preceding unsigned comment by 68.48.11.145 (talk • contribs) )

Hydrates are formed if they impart thermodynamic or kinetic stability to the chemical system. Let's take a substance X - If X forms a hydrate with water, it simply means that a bunch of water molecules surrounding molecules of X is more stable than if they were separate. But this is somewhat of an oversimplification. --HappyCamper 21:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Computer

distinguish between Management Information System and "Information System" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.255.50.2 (talk • contribs)

'To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a comptuer' MIS systems typically have the ability to do either summories or ad-hoc reporting, where as Information Systems is a general catch all for any storage system. ( like a card catalog in a library ). --Artoftransformation 05:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Law of expirementing with hydrates

What law illustrates the heating of a hydrate in order to get an anhydrous substance?

• There's no specific law, but heating water to remove it from a hydated substance would be called evaporation. - Mgm| 23:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
• The second law of thermodynamics. Physchim62 (talk) 07:25, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Venus

I have had conflicting answers to my ? on an average year on Venus is a year 243 days one site says a day on Venus corresponds to 243 earth days. Please Help Confussed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.117.12 (talk • contribs)

You're back again huh? Give me a minute. I'll help you out, I promise :-) --HappyCamper 22:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

From our article Venus, the diameter of the planet is about 12,103.7 km. The average day on Venus lasts about 243 days, and a year on Venus (the orbital period on the list to the side of the table) is about 224.700 days.

So, a "day" on Venus is actually longer than a "year"! Does this help clarify your questions now? --HappyCamper 22:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that is correct. The article says one venus day takes 116.75 earth days. One venus year takes 224 earth days (1.92 venus days). --R.Koot 22:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Check out in the section "Retrograde motion". The 116.75 days is the synodic period. --HappyCamper 22:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, according to NASA 1 Venus day = 243 Earth days and 1 Venus year = 225 Earth days. --R.Koot 22:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

This was a confusing point for sure! No wonder why the IP kept coming back. I hope this was helpful for him/her and hopefully encourage them not to blank the page or use excessive caps here. --HappyCamper 23:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I understand the sentance "Sun could be seen from Venus' surface, it would appear to rise and set in a 116.75 day cycle (Venus' synodic rotation period), and a Venusian year would thus last 1.92 Venusian "days""? Shouldn't the 116.76 be 121.5? --R.Koot 23:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

THANK you all for your info. I do not know what blank the page or that other thing is. This was my first time on this site an if I hit a wrong button sorry;;; please explain what those are.

'blank the page' means removing all the contents from a page, 'execessive caps' refers to WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Hope to see you around. --R.Koot 00:03, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Umm, go up to your original question (Venus) and at the end of it (after the word "Confussed") skip every thing else and click on contribs. That way you can see all of your contributions here. hydnjo talk 01:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Note that the IP in question belongs to AOL. Therefore, OP may very well not have been the vandal. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 02:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The article states that Venus has an extremely slow rotation of less than one rotation per Venusian year. This effectively means that it has a retrograde rotation, right? I've mentioned this on the talk page there as well. Also, the "Rotation period -243.0185 d" in the table looks rather puzzling. I'm not sufficiently on certain ground here to alter this myself. DirkvdM 10:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The minus implies the retorgrade rotation, I think something like Rotation period 243.0185 d (retrograde) would be more informative. Retrograde means it rotate the otherway around, compared to earth, having a slow rotation doesn't necessarily imply a retrograde rotation. --R.Koot 15:41, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but slower than a year does. This is such a counterintuitive thing that I'd say it deserves a better explanation in the article, rather than a puzzling minus in the table. I added some text to the top section of the article. DirkvdM 09:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Retrograde rotation means "opposite of the orbit". So, if you look from above and you see a planet going clockwise around the sun but spinning conter-clockwise, it is retrograde. It really has nothing to do with Earth except that the planets tend to always have the same orbit direction as Earth - so retrograde tends to be the opposite direction of Earth.

Venus spins in the opposite direction of the direction it orbits the Sun. It does so very slowly. The fact that is spins slowly does not make it retrograde. Other planets spin slowly without retrograde spin. The Moon, as another example, makes one rotation on each orbit of the Earth - that is almost as slow as Venus. However, it isn't retrograde. --Kainaw 20:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't put that very clearly. I meant that it rotates slower than a venusian year (which is the way it was stated eralier). Anyway, I my edit in the article was clear enough and that matters most. DirkvdM 13:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

November 14

Algebra

Who started algebra in the past? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.236.189.93 (talk • contribs)

See Algebra#History. --R.Koot 01:08, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Reading the Algebra article will give you some insight into the subject. And, if you do read it all you will know more about Algebra than any of your friends. hydnjo talk 01:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Spin states of deuterium

Here's a question to chew on: I read somewhere the "...para-deuterium pD₂ has a nuclear spin of I = 1..." - what is it trying to say? That the entire molecule has a nuclear spin of 1? --HappyCamper 02:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

No. Atoms have spins. The atomic spin that they are talking about is the spin moment of a single atom.

TEXT REMOVED "HyperPhysics (©C.R. Nave, 2005) is a continually developing base of instructional material in physics. It is not freeware or shareware. It must not be copied or mirrored without authorization. The author is open to proposals for its use for non-profit instructional purposes. The overall intent has been to develop a wide ranging exploration environment which could be of use to students and teachers."

But to answer your question directly:

Nuclide ----- Nuclear spin I ----- Magnetic momentm mu in mu mN

2H(D)-------------1 --------- +0.8574376*

• For a proton with g = 5.5857 the quoted magnetic moment is m = 2.7928 nuclear magnetons.

Data from V. S. Shirley, Table of Isotopes, Wiley, New York, 1978, Appendix VII.

This is the basis for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

--Artoftransformation 05:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

everything I know, I learned from 10^100.

Netscape Favicon

Why do a lot of websites have Netscape's icon as their favicon.ico file?

Examples:

http://home.att.net/favicon.ico

http://cia.gov/favicon.ico

Theshibboleth 06:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Mostly its leftover from the days when Netscape ruled the world. I never knew what that file was for, until I looked at your links. Thanks. Now I know how to fix all my favicons on my toolbars.

See article

--Artoftransformation 06:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

You mean favicon? Anyway, I'm fairly sure that sites that have Netscape's icon are using a Netscape-branded web server which uses that favicon by default, and the server administrators haven't bothered to change them yet. Garrett Albright 14:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Either that or they were originally written with some sort of Netscape-based tool which inserted it as default (Netscape Composer or something like that). As an aside, have you checked out what the CIA lists their site's keywords as in their META tag? Fairly humorous...:

US Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, C.I.A., cia, c.i.a., Intelligence, Government, United States, Goss, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, directors of central intelligence, cia homepage, cia home page, cia factbook, cia fact book, cia world factbook, cia world fact book, world factbook, world fact book, intelligence community, US intelligence Community, spy, spies, the company.

Does not seem to have helped their ranking for searches like "the company". --Fastfission 04:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Gender and blood

Say you had a drop of blood and wanted to know whether it came from a man or a woman. How difficult would it be? Would the easiest way be to look for the X or Y chromosomes in the blood cells? Can you even tell X and Y chromosomes apart with an optical microscope? —Keenan Pepper 04:37, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Well for starters, red blood cells have no nuclei and no chromosomes, so there wouldn't be much in the way of visual clues to sex unless you could pull down their little pants. White blood cells can be stained to show nuclei with Barr bodies under the microscope. A Barr body is a partially inactivated second X chromosome and, though not infallible, is generally a better clue to female gender than a pink hair ribbon. Staining for Barr bodies is old technology however, and if you want something slightly newer and less fallible, you can rely on the good old peripheral blood karyotpe. Perhaps the most up-to-the minute test for sexing blood is detection of the SRY antigen, a pretty reliable indication that the owner also sports a set of testicles. So take your pick. alteripse 05:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Alteripse, could you also measure the hormone levels in blood and figure out the gender that way? I was thinking testosterone and oestregen (modulo the small group of steroid-taking women and male sex offenders being treated with female horomones). Not my field, but just curious as to whether it would work. --Robert Merkel 05:40, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

You could do that if you measured several hormones for adults, but all sex hormone levels are indistinguishably low during childhood. The SRY probe would be my preference for maximum (not perfect) gender identification regardless of age. alteripse 16:29, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

This depends a lot on just how much time, money, and blood you have available. Instead of doing the classic karyotype, you could probably speed up the process by using a technique like FISH–fluorescence in-situ hybridization–to automate the identification of each chromosome. If you're just looking for gender and not chromosomal abnormalities–but you want to avoid any problems related to hormone therapies mentioned by Robert Merkel–you could do a DNA isolation from the blood and probe for Y chromosome specific genes using PCR. That would be pretty quick and easy, and nearly bulletproof.

If you start getting into some of the less-common border cases, you can see things like 46XY karyotype combined with negative SRY antigen and malformed genitalia. (See this page, warning: some images may not be appropriate for some workplaces.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Which is Correct Molar Mass or Molecular Weight?

Which is correct to use? molar mass (MM), a more recently introduced term, or molecular weight (MW), an older term still in widespread usage?.HappyApple 06:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• IUPAC will let you have relative molecular mass, relative molar mass or simply molar mass. WikiProject Chemicals tends to use molar mass because it has units (g/mol) whereas the other two are dimentionless: editors like putting units in tables, even where they don't belong... The other advantage is that molar mass and relative molar mass are general terms, whereas relative molecular mass can only be used for molecular compounds (i.e. not sodium chloride, for example). The links (to PDF files) are from the online version of the IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, better known as the "Gold Book". Physchim62 (talk) 07:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Don't they mean different things?--Hello'from 00:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

(Note: I edited the signature above. It had unclosed HTML tags changing font size and color for the rest of the page.) --Kainaw 00:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Literally, they mean different things, but this depends on who you talk to. I use whichever term that is clearest based on the context. If I were on the moon, I'd definitely use "molecular mass". We should contact NASA and see what they have to say! --HappyCamper 01:37, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Fonts

I am looking for fonts for the following languages/scripts:

• Yi language
• Inuktitut
• Cherokee language
• Tibetan language
• Khmer language
• Burmese language
• Sinhala
• Buginese language
• Tigrigna language

Does anyone know where I can download fonts for these languages so that when text is cited from them it is displayed properly? Because Misplaced Pages makes such extensive use of relatively uncommon fonts there should be some sort of technical support page for fonts.

Theshibboleth 08:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at Free software Unicode fonts. --Heron 20:40, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Electrostatics

Ques: Two point charges of values q and 2q are kept at a distance d apart from each other. A third charge Q is to be kept along the same line in such a way that the net force acting on q and 2q is zero. calculate the position of charge Q in terms of q and 2q?

reply on:

DYOH, and don't post your email address. Thanks. Garrett Albright 14:03, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

That means Do You Own Homework. DJ Clayworth 18:25, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Mathematical Logic - Some Fundamental Results

The above section named "Some Fundamental Results" in the page "Mathematical Logic" has been changed by the user Otto ter Haar on the 9th of October. The old text read: "Given a first-order formula as its input, the procedure eventually halts if the formula is valid, and runs forever otherwise." The new text reads: "Given a first-order formula as its input, the procedure eventually halts if the formula is valid or not valid, and runs forever otherwise." I do not know or could not find out, what motivated ter Haar to enter this change but it would be an incredible (and unbelievable) result, contradicting all our knowledge of computational theory and computability. The only reason - which I could imagine - to justify this statement, i.e. that there is a theorem prover, which works for valid as well as invalid formulas, is to assume certain finite domains, and do model checking. Nevertheless, this should be somehow included in the modification of this article. Otherwise, it leads to a contradiction with the statement that first-order logic is recursively enumerable (which means all valid formulas can be constructed) and that it is NOT recursive (which means that there is no decision procedure for saying whether a formula is valid or not) - and these two statements are enormously important results for computational theory and are general textbook knowledge. It is also unclear, in what situation the procedure would not terminate - since the modified statement implies that the procedure (the theorem prover) always halts (since in standard logic, there is only true or false). It would be appreciated to get some feedback, especially by ter Haar, on this change and my concerns about it.

Christel Kemke

Well, a good place to discuss that would be the talk page for that article.

That said, it seems to me that Otto is right. You can run a theorem-prover starting from the axioms of logic, and at some point, if a hypothesis is provable or disprovable, you will prove either the hypothesis or its negation. I may be thinking of this wrong, as I'm not an expert in this area. But something that makes me doubt your explanation is that you are confusing "true" and "false" with "provable" and "disprovable". By Godel's incompleteness theorem, there must be statements that are neither provable nor disprovable, so the procedure does not always halt. rspeer 15:25, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

a system

what is a system/ why we refer to a computer as a system

Have you read our article on systems? That should answer both questions readily. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 18:42, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

geographical landforms, erosion

What is the difference between a bluff, a butte, and a mesa? --165.83.196.106 19:32, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

You mean a bluff, a butte, and a mesa? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:15, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

November 15

What does the measurement "uF" stand for?

What does the unit of measurement "uF" stand for?

I'm pretty sure it is μF, which stands for microfarads. Titoxd 01:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

To clarify it is μF and this stands for microfarad which is a measure of electical capacity in a capacitor.

• Note that though it should be μF for microfarad, it's very common in places that don't do advanced fonts (electronics catalogues and the like) to find it as "uF". --Bob Mellish 03:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

vi and text replacement

Hello! I'm trying to learn how to use vi. Could someone show me how to make a text substitution in vi? I'd like to replace the word "apple" with "orange" in a text file that I have. Thanks! --HappyCamper 02:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

First, make sure you're in normal mode by pressing ESC (the escape key). Assuming you want to change all occurrences throughout the file, one command will do the trick:

:%s/apple/orange/g<ENTER>

This can be broken down as:

• : - activate command-line mode
• % - a range of lines spanning from the first line to the last (i.e. the whole file); without this, the command operates only on the current line
• s - use the substitute command
• /apple/orange/ - "apple" is the pattern to search for, while "orange" is the text to replace it with. The pattern has a syntax similar to regular expressions if you want to get fancy with it.
• g - Global substitution; without this, only the first match in each line is substituted.

If you want to step through matches one at a time and decide whether to change each of them, replace the "g" flag with "cg". You can find more information by typing ":help :s" (assuming you're using Vim), and if you haven't found it already it would probably be a good idea to go through the tutorial (":help tutor") as well. Hope this helps! —David Wahler (talk) 03:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Or, assuming you're currently positioned at the occurrence of "apple" you want to change (one of many ways to get there would be to type "/apple<ENTER>" without the quotes), entering "cworange<ESC>" (without the quotes) changes the word. Typing ":" as suggested above essentially takes you out of "visual" mode and lets you enter editing commands compatible with the line-oriented (non-visual) UNIX editor ed (vi is based on ex, which is a variant). In visual mode, any of the positioning commands ("w" to space ahead one word, "$" to move to the end of the current line, "l" to move right a character, etc.) can be prefixed with "c" which, rather than just positioning the cursor, changes the text from the current cursor position to wherever the cursor would end up as a result of the move command to what you type, terminated by entering <ESC> (similarly, prefixing "d" deletes through that point). If you're in a command line shell on a linux or unix system, "man vi" should give you more details. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks so much!!! This was very, very useful! :-) --HappyCamper 02:54, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Question about light and eye.

If you step out of a lighted house into a dark backyard what sudden change occurs in your eye?What is this process called?

Dilation of the pupil, or the abnormal version, mydriasis? (I'm not sure how appropriate it is to redirect pupil dilation to mydriasis...) AySz88 04:05, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The two are not the same. Mydriasis is used for excessive, drug-induced, or neurologic-lesion-induced dilation. Partly analogous to the difference between erection and priapism. alteripse 11:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget the other, albeit slower mechanism the eye uses to adapt to darkness-- the synthesis of rhodopsin in the rod cells of the retina. Light exposure depletes rhodopsin from these photoreceptor cells, while darkness permits a metabolic re-stocking of this substance. Actually, full darkness is not necessary in order to replete rhodopsin stores; the rods are insensitive to red light, which permits darkness adaptation with the use of red adaptation goggles. Using these devices, the eye can continue to function using solely the color-descriminating cone cells' ability to respond to red light, while the rods adapt to darkness.--Markitos76 16:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Can Menstruation will be happend without releasing egg?

Can anyone help me to get the answer for the question"Can Menstruation will be happend without releasing egg? "

• See menstruation which says: During the menstrual cycle, the sexually mature female body releases one egg (or occasionally two, which might result in dizygotic, or non-identical, twins) at the time of ovulation. The lining of the uterus, the endometrium, builds up in a synchronised fashion. After ovulation, this lining changes to prepare for potential implantation of the fertilised egg to establish a pregnancy. If fertilisation and pregnancy do not ensue, the uterus sheds the lining and a new menstrual cycle begins. Therefore, my answer would be no. - Mgm| 11:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

But this is the problem with theoretical answers because the answer is certainly yes. Menstrual bleeding without ovulation is called anovulatory bleeding. It is the most common type of infertility. It characterizes the menses of the first year after menarche in most girls. It characterizes many of the menses as menopause approaches. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome and several other types of hormone imbalances typically have menses despite chronic anovulation. Anovulatory menses are characterized by irregularity, unpredictability, variation of length and heaviness from period to period, lack of mittelschmerz, and lack of premenstrual physical symptoms. Finally, any woman taking birth control pills typically has menses without ovulation. alteripse 11:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Chemistry / instrument for finding mass

What instrument is best suited in finding the mass of an object?

Here on Earth where we have strong-ish gravity, probably a balance or weighing scales. These would not work in space however. Smurrayinchester 14:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

In college we use to use a balance scale. Actually this will work in space also, if you are on a space station or something which rotates to provide simulated gravity.

In zero gravity, you can find mass by measuring the acceleration of the object when you input some amount of force. F = ma -> m = F / a. But this is precisely what we do when we use a scale: F = weight, a = gravity. ☢ Ҡieff⌇↯ 17:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Aqua regia

Is Aqua regia dangerous to human's health? roscoe_x 12:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Only if you touch it, or inhale the fumes. In general, liquids that can dissolve gold and platinum are bad for human health. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

In spring 1998, a female graduate student of nuclear biology of Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University killed another female classmate at school over a love dispute. She strangled the woman and destroyed a part of the victim's body using self-made aqua regia. Anyway, most of the body was still there lying of the floor of an auditorium. It was found after a weekend break.

They searched the victim's e-mail and focused on her killer immediately. The suspect was caught in a few days and was sentenced for 18 years. She baptized while in jail. The principal of the University managed to defend her and visit her frequently after she was prisoned. She is expected to be released on 2007 if she's good enough.

Aqua regia is surely harmful. However, you may want a lot of it to dissolve a dead body. -- Toytoy 14:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)We used to use a balance scale to weigh objects.

• This seems like a semi-common confusion. "Gold disolves in aqua regia" doesn't mean that only gold disolves in aqua regia. Aqua regia can disolve just about anything; the point is, gold won't disolved in any(?) other acid. --Bob Mellish 17:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, either this or simply nitric acid is used in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray for the same purpose, more successfully. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 21:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

biochemistry of amino acids

Dear Sir(s),

Good day. I was wondering about the structure of the amino acid Isoleucine, whether it is the same thing as "acetyl-DL-leucine ", or not.

Thank you for cooperation

Dr. Samaah Zohair. Alexandria, Egypt.

The difference between leu and ile is which carbon a methyl group is attached to, so ile is not simply the acetylated form of leu. alteripse 01:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Quarks

what is the history of quark, that would be easyly written on a time line? --70.105.42.63 20:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Some important dates related to quarks are listed in Quark#History. --R.Koot 20:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Debian

not a science question, strictly, but I guess I am most likely to get an authoritative reply here :) -- I was updating my debian distribution with dselect, thinking no evil, and suddenly it turns out some kde packages are mutually exclusive, and at the same time dependent on each other. I spend time deinstalling and installing stuff, eventually I'm down to twm, with neither kde or gnome working. I figured there is maybe something wrong with my mirror and tried to get a list of debian mirrors. Lo and behold, http://www.debian.org/mirror/list gives me an empty list! Can anyone help me get my kde running again, and/or tell me where all the debian mirrors went? dab (ᛏ) 20:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what's happened to the mirror list on the Debian website (or on deb's www mirrors), but the FTP servers have an (apparently) good list, see ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/README.mirrors.html (or your local mirror, ftp://ftp.COUNTRY.debian.org/debian/README.mirrors.html). I've no ideas on the making KDE work front, though. -- AJR | Talk 00:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Toxic steroids

1. What are some common steroidal alkaloids?
2. Other than batrachotoxin, which steroid compounds are toxic?
   1. Are they typically neurotoxins?

‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 21:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• Solanine and samandarin are toxic steroidal alkaloids which are common enough to have Misplaced Pages articles written about them. Many steroid hormones are toxic in the wrong dose at the wrong time (and especially to the wrong gender, for sex hormones), vitamin D is notoriously toxic in overdose, so I guess it really depends on the level of toxicity you're interested in (or interested in avoiding!) Hormonal toxicity is not neurotoxicity, so I guess the answer to your third question has to be no. Physchim62 17:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Why did he say Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny?

Why did Ernst Haeckel say "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"? What was his point?

Have a look at Recapitulation theory, under the first heading, "Haeckel's theory". It's a pretty concise explanation. Shimgray | talk | 21:38, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

some beliefs of Chinese culture I would like to verify

My mother is not the superstitious type or anything, but she tells me some things I don't find documented in the standard textbook but tells me it's part of Chinese culture and medicine; but she was a former teacher herself so I'm just wondering perhaps whether some of it is real and documented, but not so common (ie. something like acupuncture?), undocumented for Western medicine but plausible, or false (perhaps misconceptions from my grandmother who is not prone to superstition either but perhaps picked up from culture as some urban legend or something); I can't recall most of these at the moment, but some of them are:

• Eating too much kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica) makes you weak (I wrote a scientific "answer" in there but it's really filler), supposedly becausethe hollow stem makes you weak and hollow like it (I think this was just a metaphor and not the actual reason for the belief?).

• Eating cold porridge will nearly ALWAYS result in a stomach ache (or at least 90% of the time) - doesn't seem to do anything with germs, if you refrigerate porridge and eat it later, you will get a stomach ache or its very likely you will. The explanation is that it will give you "wind" in your stomach, with my guess for the elaboration, that it is believed that coldness is incompatible with the nature of porridge (the latter part is my guess because Chinese culture always tries to maintain a balance between "heaty" and "cooling" foods, not to be taken literally, a refrigerated food is not always cooling and vice versa). This always seems to be true a lot: nearly everytime I ate porridge cold I always had a stomach ache afterwards (the last few times I didn't think it would matter and went against my mother's advice; it seemed I was mistaken)...nothing too sharp; sort of like a dull ache, not of satiation either.

• Males shouldn't eat overnight eggs (not sure whether this is just chicken eggs, or all eggs) because it will contribute to infertility.

If I recall any others I'm also bound to ask them again. Oh by the way, what happens to convection in zero gravity?

-- Natalinasmpf 22:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you eating porridge with milk or water. Every Chinese person I work with says that cold milk gives them a stomach ache. Some claim that they get a stomach ache when they see me drink cold milk every morning. --Kainaw 23:36, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Congee ... it often involves milk, I think. But my mother doesn't mention anything about the milk being the factor, and I sometimes get an ache with a water-based porridge.

I should also point out that the Chinese were are visiting from China (and many who were raised there) have trouble with cold drinks as well. They even heat up Coke before drinking it. They say that kids in the larger cities are getting used to cold drinks, but the older people are stuck in their ways. --Kainaw 00:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with kangkong specifically, but I can make some guesses. Leaves generally have little nutritional value and are difficult for humans to digest. Although they might fill you up, eating too many will make you sick and give you diarrhea. Leaves make a poor staple compared to rice because they contain very few calories, for example two cups of rice contain 400 calories, while two cups of watercress (a leafy vegetable) contain only 8. --Avijja 03:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I am a 36-year-old Chinese born and live in Taiwan. I don't find your mother's ideas practiced here. My father was born in Southern China and was grown up in Beijing. He also haven't heard of these things.

• Ipomoea aquatica is a daily vegetable in Taiwan. If you like vegetables, you can eat it here almost everyday. I don't find its hollow stem leads to any metaphorical reading here. Some vegetables such as pineapple (sounds like "good fortune") and white turnip (also sounds good) are given as gifts though. A quick web search only results in a vague taboo: Do not eat Ipomoea aquatica during winter . This is not widely practiced. I haven't heard of it. However, if you belong to the "cool" type, an herbal doctor may suggest you to eat less Ipomoea aquatica and eat more lychee which is a "heaty" food.
• Most Chinese are not heavy milk drinkers because they lack of an enzyme to digest lactose. And in many parts of Asia where dairy cows are in short supply (farm lands are used to grow rice and other food crops), people drink milk prepared from hot water and imported powdered milk at home. If you live in a typical Asian city, you may see many 4- to 6-story buildings are built without an elevator. Why? Land is so expensive, you just cannot afford to waste it! If you live inside such an apartment, you don't want to buy liquid milk. By the way, you don't have a place to park your car. So you may need to carry the foods from the supermarket (usually not far away) to your home on foot or riding a motorcycle. Anyway, many Asians are trained to drink hot milk. It was not until the 1980s did they invent milk powder that dissolves in water at room temperature.
• Cold porridge is not welcomed here and in most of China. Cold porridge is not tasty because it does not smell that good. There's a Chinese saying, you wait for your porridge; your porridge does not wait for you. That means you have to wait for several hours until the rice in your porridge is almost dissolved. People love that texture. Some even to used a candle to cook a small pot of porridge over night. And when your porridge is ready, you eat it while it's still hot. People love the smell of the condensed glue-like mixture of rice and water.
• Overnight eggs are not unedible here. Many of us were bringing eggs cooked last evening in our lunch boxes to school. In many Asian countries, children and some adults take lunch boxes prepared last evening to school or work (see the "Outside Mumbai" section of dabbawala). Trust me, they love their eggs. People in China usually hate overnight tea. People DO hate overnight tea. You don't want to drink overnight coffee, do you? Are you serious about your freshly brewed coffee? We are serious about our tea. That's the point.

There were some food taboos circulated in China such as a widely referenced chart of foods you don't want to eat together printed on the back of a lunar calandar (similar to the Farmer's Almanac of the West) (e.g.: this Chinese page; top left: spinach and milk gives you diarrhea). However, many such taboos are no longer be taken seriously. Debunking these myths had been popular elementary school science project topics in Taiwan during 1950s to 1970s. Many of today's kids simply do not know anything about these taboos.

The food chart are always printed on the back of a lunar calandar. And its list of deadly food combinations are never unified. Its format is always two badly drawn foods + symptom + cure. Such as:

2. Carp and liquorice results in death. Cure: 75g of Ipomoea aquatica extract.

3. Dog and mung bean results in stomach rupture. Cure: 40g of liquorice boiled in water.

7. Frog boiled in tea results in death. Cure: You're dead.

9. A pregnant woman must not eat crabs. Or your baby will be gone and there's no cure.

31. Crab and mandarin oranges are poisonous. Cure: Take some garlic juice.

52. Milk and spinach gives you diarrhea. Cure: mung bean soup.

Some food combinations and cures are just too funny to be true. I love them. -- Toytoy 15:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I really enjoyed reading your write-up, Toytoy. I hope you find an article to add this delightful information to because I think others would want to read this. The deadly food chart lunar calendar was very amusing. Thank you for sharing these cultural tidbits with us. --Avijja 10:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

These lunar calendars are usually free gifts printed by temples. They are not your typical wall calendars (usually free gifts printed by rice shops or other "secular" business). The lunar calendars (農民曆; nonmin li; farmer's calendar) are used by farmers (time to plant/harvest ...) and ordinary people as well (when to/not to travel, have a wedding, moving, grand opinging, start building something ..., feng-shui or something like astrology). You may find some of them include updated modern life information (BMI and GI; for Buddha's sake). However, I don't see these things very often during the last couple of decades. Many families used to place a copy of the calendar in their living rooms. Some scholars study the sociological aspects of these calendars. You may even find teachers who teaches you to decipher the ancient jargon-filled small print.

Here are copies of the lunar calendar from an online book seller in Taiwan: Calendar for 2006 (NTD88 or less than US$3), Calendar for 2004 (NTD100 or about US$3). These covers are unlike the traditional ones (red background + lots of cheesy symbols of long life and good luck such as an old man and many fat kids in traditional custome with a big red peach and a white crane!). No wonder people love these free booklets (only if you go to a temple often, I guess).

I found a Taiwanese calendar printer here. If you want to give calendars to your customers, you can ask them to print your personalized calendars (100 copies minimum). However, I find the covers just too modernized. And the back cover, used to be the cheesy foods-that-kill-you chart, now becomes a real calendar (the small Chinese letters are lunar dates). No fun at all. I miss the good old days! By the way, this page talks about arthritis, gout and osteoporosis. This is really too modernized for my taste. :)

This eBay page of a 1990 calendar is partially in English. However, the cover is not traditional. The Nankunshen Temple is one of Taiwan's oldest and largest. -- Toytoy 13:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

It was also asked what happens to convection in zero g. I've clarified in the article that it doesn't occur. BTW, without convection, a flame behaves very differently in zero g. Here's a link. Samw 04:34, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Hair Synthesis

Briefly describe how mammalian hair is synthesised in the relevant organs.

• Briefly do your own homework. --Jpgordon 23:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• See hair and hair follicle. - Mgm| 13:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

November 16

Identifying a stroke

I received an email with the following information:

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Thank God for the sense to remember the "3" steps. Read and Learn! Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify.

Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

1. Ask the individual to SMILE. 2. Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS. 3. Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (i.e... It is sunny out today)

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 0-0-0 Immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

After discovering that a group of non-medical volunteers could Identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions.

They presented their conclusions at the American Stroke Association's Annual meeting last February. Widespread use of this test could result in Prompt diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people;you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

BE A FRIEND AND SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE, You could save their lives.

Is this correct? - Ta bu shi da yu 01:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems like a reasonably reliable screening method for a stroke, but I have trouble imagining a lot of lives saved. For this to actually save a lot of lives, the following facts would need to be true: (1) a large portion of strokes are misinterpreted as something else that does not seem to require urgent care, (2) a large portion of strokes go without early treatment that would lead to a fulller recovery than commonly occurs at present, (3) this screen would lead to an increased proportion of stroke victims getting early care that would produce a better outcome than getting later care. This is not my area of expertise but I suspect all three propositions are somewhat debatable. alteripse 01:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a fairly complete discussion of this on Snopes.com here --DannyZ 02:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Divergence and curl aren't enough

If you know the derivative of a function, then you know the function up to a constant. If you know the gradient of a scalar field, then you know the field up to a constant. But even if you know both the divergence and the curl of a vector field, that's not enough information to determine the vector field up to a constant. For example, <x,-y,0> has zero divergence and zero curl but it's not a constant. Is there a third property of a vector field that, together with divergence and curl, provides enough information? —Keenan Pepper 01:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I think you might need all partial derivatives of each component. After all, you have those (in the form of a vector) with the divergence of a scalar field. The curl and the divergence only give you four equations (three for curl, one for divergence) when I suspect you need nine. -- SCZenz 09:35, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, if I'm interpreting covariant derivative correctly, the covariant derivative of a 3D vector field would be a 3x3 matrix. Then the trace of this matrix would be the divergence, and the curl would be... something involving a permutation tensor or something. This is complicated; I think I'll just wait until I take tensor analysis in a few years. —Keenan Pepper 16:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's right. Another way of saying it is just that ${\displaystyle {\frac {\partial f_{i}}{\partial x_{j}}}}$, where the ${\displaystyle f_{i}}$ are the components of the vector field and i, j=1, 2, 3, can be written as a 3x3 matrix containing the elements you need to know. By the way, the curl is just given by ${\displaystyle (\nabla \times {\mathbf {f} })_{i}=\epsilon _{ijk}{\frac {\partial f_{k}}{\partial x_{j}}}}$ -- SCZenz 17:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

largest satellite in the solar system?

largest satellite in the solar system?

Well, Jupiter itself is a "satellite" of the Sun, but I think you're looking for Ganymede. —Keenan Pepper 01:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Titan (moon) is bigger than Ganymede Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 06:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Um, according to Misplaced Pages and several other sources Ganymede is larger that Titan in both size and mass. What's your source? —Keenan Pepper 16:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Ganymede is bigger than Titan in terms of mass, and has a larger diameter than Titan minus its (rather thick) atmosphere. Titan + its atmosphere has a larger diameter than Ganymede, and because until recently we've had trouble penetrating Titan's atmosphere, this led to confusion about how big it really was. From Titan:

Titan is the second largest natural satellite in the solar system after Ganymede. It was originally thought to be slightly larger than Ganymede, but recent observations have shown that its thick atmosphere reflects a large amount of light causing an overestimation of its diameter.

— QuantumEleven | ] 16:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

creatinine

I would like to know what is the normal range of creatinine levels for a woman taken from a urine test. Thanks --01:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC) Nadia

See our article on creatinine, down at the bottom. —Keenan Pepper 01:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Notice that a creatinine measurement is nearly always a blood test, not a urine test. There is also a more complicated test of kidney function called a creatinine clearance test which involves simultaneous collection of both blood and urine. alteripse 02:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

what is leukopenia?

See our leukopenia article. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 06:37, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

About Chicken Eggs

AS per the science I would like to know. Is Chicken Egg Vegetarian food Or Non –vegetarian Food? I think world vegetarian organization accept it as a Vegetarian Food. So how we accept it?. I kindly request for Answer.

Opinions differ. See Vegetarianism. Some people who call themselves vegetarians won't eat eggs; others will. A word for vegetarians who eat eggs and drink milk is ovolactovegetarians. A word for vegetarians who don't eat eggs or milk is vegans. - Nunh-huh 06:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

You may already understand that "vegetarian" is more a cultural category like "kosher" than a scientific category. I only mention this because you asked at the science desk. alteripse 11:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

From what I know, chicken eggs, that we eat are unfertilised, thus we are not eating any meat. However, it isn't a vegetable. Akamad 23:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• This is a perfect example of how this is a cultural not a scientific category. The entire biological world would consider an unfertilized egg part of an animal (as opposed to being a plant or a mineral), but apparently a haploid gamete is "fair game" (if you will pardon the expression) for vegetarians by someone's rules. alteripse 01:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

FREQUENCY

WHAT IS THE VIBRATIONAL FREQUENCY IN HERTZ (hz) OF HYDROGEN, OXYGEN, AND WATER H20?

Water has several different frequencies associated with it, because there are multiple ways it can vibrate. You can see some of those frequencies here, although I believe you'll have to multiply by the speed of light to get the frequency in hertz. I found those by googling for "vibrational modes" of water—I'll let you look for oxygen and hydrogen on your own. (Being diatomic molecules, they'll be simpler.) -- SCZenz 09:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Per the instructions at the top of the page, please don't type in all caps. And see "do your own homework" for the reason I'm leaving some of this for you to do on your own. -- SCZenz 09:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Building a cell phone

How would one go about building a cell phone? Even if one were succesful at this endeavor, would it even be possible to get any service? I was really surprised to see how little information I was able to find about this. I guess it's just not a practical thing to do. Theshibboleth 08:57, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Presumably some of the components are patented, and so you'd need to reverse engineer them to make one legally (or get permission). The permission seems unlikely, and generally reverse-engineering a piece of complicated electronics is only feasible for a big electronics company. Come to think of it, since many of the components are electronics in the first place, you'd have to be an electronics company to put those together—unless you just bought a few pieces and hooked them together, which might be feasible. -- SCZenz 09:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Howstuffworks.com has an article on how cell phones work. Not very technicle but there is some info available. Akamad 23:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• It's essentially a digital, GHz-frequency radio transmitter/receiver. So if you can build one of those, you're golden. If you look up the standard for GSM phones, which I think is readily available (probably on the web somewhere), IIRC it covers frequencies, data formats, etc., needed to interoperate with the standard. Of course there's also an authentication method so that only authorized units will get service. (I remember there's a interesting bit in the standard describing how each phone simulates a tiny bit of static during the "blanks" in conversation, otherwise people tend to think they've been cut-off.) --Bob Mellish 23:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Apparently at least one person thinks it's possible: The project was linked from Boing Boing just a week ago. —David Wahler (talk) 01:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• If you're determined enough, you can make one out of embedded computer parts, which would be very primitive, but it will work. I am thinking you could come up with one of those WWII sets which weighed 10 pounds and was as big as a textbook. -- Natalinasmpf 14:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

agricultural hollow blocks

Hi!!! We have an investigatory project in our school and our topic is all about agicultural hollow blocks. I need to know the procedure, materials, background, introduction and abstract of this project. Thanks!!!

It sounds like you need to do your own homework per the instructions you read at the top of the page. Try searching agricultural hollow block at Google for starters. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 15:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Bermuda

I was once asked if the bermuda triangle is real, not knowing the answer I told them that I would find out for them! So, is the bermuda triangle real or just a myth?

--Kkeene06 16:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)Keene-MindKkeene06 16:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)--

Look at Bermuda Triangle. --Kainaw 16:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• The area is real and there's enough real reports of people going missing in the area. However, the reason of these disappearances is still not known for sure. - Mgm| 18:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

The best explanation I heard for the disappearance of so many ships in this area is that the continental shelf off the coast of America contains a lot of methane gas which is frozen due to the pressure in the deep ocean. The shelf is not hugely steep and if there is an underwater land slide this methane is released as a kind of big Jacuzzi, like swamp gas. (ever stuck a stick in the bottom of a muddy pond and seen bubbles rise up?) Ships cannot float on water full of bubbles and they sink. Others catch fire and sink if the gas is ignited by the ships boilers/electrics. It’s all very local and all very quick. This might explain some of the strange disappearances but not all and I might add that this is just what I read somewhere as a possible explanation for some of the disappearances.--Eye 23:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

According to the Bermuda Triangle article, there is no justification for claiming that the Bermuda Triangle has a higher rate of lost ships/planes than anywhere else over the ocean. Basically, you can claim there's a nasty area south of Hawaii and give it a cool name. Then, go through history and claim every ship/plane that went down there was lost due some mysterious force. --Kainaw 23:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

How Curcumin is Made From Tumeric

Please describe the chenical process by which curcumin is extracted from tumeric. What percent of tumeric yields curcumin?

Neither turmeric or curcumin explained those two specific facts, but between them they have enough links and references you could probably find it. And googling for "curcumin extraction" found this among the first few links that explains how to do it. - Taxman 13:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Static Electricity on Dry Nights

I notice I get shocked more around the house on dry nights. Why is that? - Cobra Ky (talk, contribs) 19:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Dry air is a great insulator. It inhibits electrical flow. So, in dry air, the surface electricity on your body (and on other things) doesn't leak into the air easily. Eventually, the buildup will be enough that a spark can jump a small gap. --Kainaw 19:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with the conductivity of air. To quote Mr Static, "The effect of increased air humidity is to increase the thickness of the moisture layer on or in all surfaces, and this layer contains electrolytic ions that provide neutralizing charges." --Heron 17:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

November 17

How much annual precipitation does a tropical rain forest receive?

Is this a homework question? If so, the answer lies within the question. --hydnjo talk 01:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

what is the scientific name for a boa constrictor?

According to Boa, it's Boidae Boa. -- SCZenz 01:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

A Latin binomial such as Homo sapiens consists of the genus and the species names. Homo is the genus to which we, humanity, belong (along with Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis - all of which are extinct) and sapiens is the specific species name. Boidae is the family which includes several genera, one of which is Boa. In short, the Latin binomial for Boa constrictor (eg. ) is, anticlimactically, Boa constrictor. --Oldak Quill 17:10, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Animals!!!

What type of animal is Scorpion!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.70.39.83 (talk • contribs)

According to Scorpion, it's an arachnid, just like a spider. -- SCZenz 01:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Cows

How many organs cow have (stomach) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.70.39.83 (talk • contribs)

It's got four stomachs. Past that, take a look at cow. -- SCZenz 01:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Black holes

Is BLACK HOLE real? Can it like kill someone? If black hole sucks you in where are you going to be??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.70.39.83 (talk • contribs)

In order: very probably, yes, and squished to nothingness in the middle. For more info, see black hole. -- SCZenz 01:30, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I keep thinking that the experience of crossing the event horizon (without being spaghettified or incinerated by the orbiting matter) would take an extraodinarily long time, seeing as how you'd be approaching the speed of light fairly rapidly. (tangentially, would it compress time enough for basic particles to decay before they reached the "center"?) Or have I got relativity backwards? Tzarius 06:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

It would take a long time (in fact, forever) from an outsider's perspective. From the perspective of someone falling in it would be very, very fast—a few seconds for all but the most enormous black holes. -- SCZenz 06:36, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear, there's that again. I wanted to read up on the subject before pursuing this any further, but now that it has come up again... Doens't a black hole also compress space? In other words, isn't there a large (infinite?) amount of space inside a black hole, which, from the outsider's perspective, is little more than a point? Mass makes a dent in space. A huge mass could thus stretch this into something big enough to hold a universe of its own. Right? DirkvdM 10:01, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

No, I don't think that's true. I know the pictures show space appearing stretched, and going "infinitely far down" for a black hole, but that's not what's meant to be conveyed by the analogy of gravity as curved space. The distances inside appear rather finite when you're falling in. -- SCZenz 22:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

However, the closest known black hole to earth is apparently 1600-odd light years away. Given that the furthest a human has travelled from earth is about one light-second, and the furthest an unmanned probe has travelled is less than fourteen light-hours away, we're not likely to get anywhere near the thing in your or my lifetime. --Robert Merkel 22:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

But that's the closest known black hole. A problem with black holes is that they're black, which makes then a bit hard to see. :) Of course there are ways to detect them, but the known ones are probably a minute fraction of the existing ones (are there any estimates on that?). If one were to approach the Sun that would probably be the end of us. What the chances are is probably little more than a wild guess, but if it were a frequent phenomenon then we'd see that happening all over the universe (which we don't?), so I'd agree that you can count on it not happening in our lifetimes. DirkvdM 08:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Neutron Star by Larry Niven suggested that the tidal effects (difference between gravitation on your closest and nearest points) meant that a close approach to a neutron star would be fatal. I suspect the same must apply to black holes, so that there can be no way a living human can pass through the event horizon. (But if one could, could he take a string telephone?) Notinasnaid 09:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

size of a lymphocyte

It says that a lymphocyte's nucleus is about 7 micrometers in diameter. What is the size of the rest of it? What is the ration between the cytoplasm and the actual nucleus? And what are the other parts to a lymphocyte besides its nucleus?

Circulating lymphocytes usually have a nucleus that fits in that range. Most have only a thin rim of cytoplasm around their nucleus, so the cells as a whole tend to be not much larger than about 8µm or so. (Activated lymphocytes are considerably larger, up to twice that , but I suspect you're talking mainly about circulating lymphocytes.) Despite its small size, the cytoplasm does contain organelles, including endoplasmic reticulum, a small Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, and lysosomes. Hope that helps. --David Iberri 14:54, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Scince

What are the differences and similarities between a conventional camera and a digital camera? Please explain to me by words and by Venn diagram. Thank you!--67.70.39.83 02:26, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Please do your own homework. The articles camera, digital camera, and Venn diagram should help. --Kainaw 02:28, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

What's a "Scince"? And, thanks for signing your own stuff. --hydnjo talk 02:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I ment Science =)

Venn

Hmmm... What is Venn diagram and how it works?--67.70.39.83 02:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

See Venn diagram --HappyCamper 02:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

(Hey HC, edit conflict) Please read Venn diagram and then if you are in need of help well then ... c'mon back. --hydnjo talk 02:47, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Can you explain it to me in your own words?

What part of the article would you like us to clarify for you?--HappyCamper 03:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, for example i have two candys, both candies have similarities (like taste) and differences (like shape) so how do I draw Venn diagram about this two candys?--67.70.39.83 04:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Draw two big circles that overlap a bit. (The images at Venn diagram should illustrate this.) Label one circle with the name of one kind of candy (suppose it's "candy A"), and the other circle with the other kind of candy ("candy B").

Write things that are similar between candy A and candy B in the middle section (the intersection of the two circles). Differences should go in the rest of the circle. For example, if candy A is square and candy B is round, you would write "square" in the "candy A" circle, and "round" in the "candy B" circle.

I hope this helps. The Venn diagram article is terribly written, so I don't blame you for not understanding it. rspeer 04:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

heat transfer

Pour hot water in a glass with a silver spoon in it:

a)why will the spoon get hot?

b)why will the glass heat up?

c)why does the glass break when the water is too hot? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.84.189.18 (talk • contribs)

Did you make this question up or did your teacher? DYOH. Read the Heat article and then if you need help well then c'mon back. --hydnjo talk 03:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Ebola Virus

Which cells does the Ebola Virus attack. Also I need info on the genetic make up.

Try Ebola? —Keenan Pepper 12:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Sugar High

What exactly is a Sugar High if there is such a thing. What is the biology behind it. Doing this for my bio coarse.

See Sugar#Sugar and hyperactivity. "Sugar high" is widely regarded as a myth; high blood sugar doesn't make you hyperactive, it just makes you lose your appetite. —Keenan Pepper 12:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

A Sugar High is a concept of American folk biology. The concept is that excessive sugar will somehow make someone either "intoxicated" (e.g., Twinkie defense) to the point of diminished judgement or responsibility, or in its milder forms, euphoric. Either response of course, puts sugar in the cultural Bad Food category. The first concept is nonsense and the second perhaps has a nidus of scientific fact in the middle of the cultural concretion.

In terms of verifiable science, there are perhaps two relevant phenomena. First, sucrose tastes good, and this taste sensation is strong enough that studies have shown it can be used as an analgesic in infants-- this is part of the basis of the euphoria concept. Second, it is possible to show in animals that high or low dietary carbohydrate intakes produce somewhat differing effects on level of arousal of the autonomic nervous system. Unfortunately for the Sugar High meme, however, the effect of carbohydrates is generally sedating rather than arousing. alteripse 12:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Though note that the Twinkie defence wasn't that excess junk can diminish ones judgement, it was that consuming excess junk can be a good indicator of judgement alread having been diminished. Unfortunately, it got seized on as arguing the former, which probably helped fuel the myth... Shimgray | talk | 12:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I have never heard this interpretation. If you think about it for a moment it is actually lamer than the popular one-- which of the following is the correctly unpacked version?:

1. It's not that this Twinkie on this day made him temporarily unable to tell right from wrong or control his impulses, but that too many twinkies on too many days made him more permanently unable to tell right from wrong or control his impulses;
2. It's not that this Twinkie on this day made him temporarily unable to tell right from wrong or control his impulses, but that eating Twinkies is itself prima facie evidence of a mind so incompetent that he was unable to tell right from wrong or control his impulses.

And which is the lamer defense? alteripse 12:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

It's what our article on the Twinkie defense says... or rather, the original "twinkie defense" was that the consumption was an indication of a disturbed state, but now the usage of the phrase is to mean "junk food makes bad" as you mention. Apologies for being unclear, but I read it as referring to the original case rather than the general concept of a "twinkie defense".

In the original situation, basically, eating twinkies is not itself a sign of being screwy. Eating lots of twinkies and coke, when you've spent x many years eating good healthy salads and never touching junkfood, is possibly a sign (in context with other factors) that there's something up - imagine meeting a friend, who dressed very smartly as long as you can remember, to find they're unwashed, with tangled dirty hair, a ragged shirt and patched jeans. Not in and of itself an indication of a mental disorder, but a plausible outward manifestation of one, and not unreasonable as something to mention as corroboration if you're already arguing he had an undiagnosed disorder.

The problem is that "he was silly in the head and went shootin'" is pretty hard to reconcile with the case as it is presented - in the light of the case, it's a pretty lame defence - but verdicts of diminished responsibility through insanity are not uncommon, and this was just one where people could seize on something as "the loophole". Snopes has a decent writeup linked from the article. Shimgray | talk | 23:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Golly, Shimgray, I could almost imagine how a guy in a three-piece explaining it like that mighta sorta coulda been taken seriously. You have a future in litigation! alteripse 00:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the doctor in question believed there had been some kind of undiagnosed mental issues (to be fair, premeditated murder almost always means some!) and was casting around for evidence to support this. And in those circumstances, hearing of a major change in behaviour, especially one logically inconsistent with past behaviour, would presumably be a godsend. Reading the sfchronicle link, it notes that they brought up that White cast aside his normal habits and grew slovenly, quit working, shunned his wife, grew a stubble beard and rather than eat his healthful diet, indulged in Twinkies and Coke... - pretty notable changes for any individual, and taken together...

It does seem that one defense attorney made the connection in a vague aside about the modern "sugar rush" concept - Whether or not ingestion of food stuffs with preservatives and sugar in high content causes you to alter your personality somehow, or causes you to act in an aggressive manner, I don't know. I'm not going to suggest to you for a minute that that occurs. But there is a minority opinion in psychiatric fields that there is some connection... - but he certainly didn't intend it to be his actual case; it was more something he'd heard vaguely, thrown in because, hey, you probably can't have enough little details to support diminished-capacity. Shimgray | talk | 00:41, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

How to know if an Octopus a male or female?

I am doing research for my little daughter on the above topic. After a long time for search but still got no answer. Could you help on this? Thanks a lot. Mike Wong in HK.

It may depend on what kind of octopus you're thinking of, of course. But this post from the biology blog Pharyngula, suggests that even the octopuses themselves would have a hard time answering your question: "These octopuses seem to be able to recognize that the other is a conspecific, but do not recognize whether the other is male or female, at least not until after they begin copulation. Put two octopuses together, and within 3-4 minutes, a male will have pounced on the other, whether it is male or female, and inserted his hectocotyl arm into it's mantle. There didn't seem to be much in the way of perceptible preliminaries. Once copulation began, the male would figure out whether he was having sex with a male or a female." David Sneek 08:15, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The short answer is that, in general, male octopuses are distinguished by a modified third arm, called a hectocotylus, that is used in mating. More detailed information can be found at the Cephalopod Research website here and at The Octopus News Magazine Online here. --DannyZ 03:11, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Identifying Bacillus bacteria

Dear Wikipeida, I am a medical laboratory science student. I was identiftying this unknown bacteria of Bacillus thuringiensis. I incorrectly identified it as Bacillus cereus, a very close relative of my unknown organism? I was wondering if anyone from this Misplaced Pages site knew any major birochemical, cellular, or any differences between the two species which would aid in an identification between the two speicies. Any insight would be great, thanks.

Well, a bacteriology manual would be a better place to look for this information. But.... B. anthraxis can be distinguished from other bacillus species because it has a capsule (and also, hopefully, by the fact that no one will be giving it to you as an unknown). Bacillus thuringiensis is distinguished from B. cereus and B. anthraxis by being pathogenic for lepidopteran insects (moths), and by producing an intracellular parasporal crystal in the process of sporulation. As you probably know, nomenclature of microorganisms frequently changes, and these organisms are so closely related that some would place two (B. thuringiensis and B. cereus) or all three in one species. I'm a little surprised that you'd be tested on distinguishing B. thuringiensis from B. cereus: presumably you're not expected to perform DNA sequencing. "Bacillus species" has usually been close enough for most microbiology labs that I know of. - Nunh-huh 02:51, 19 November 2005 (UTC) You may find this .pdf file of interest. At least under the proposed UK guidelines, standard operating procedure distinguishes three classes: B. anthraxis, B. mycoides, or B. cereus or B. thuringiensis. It doesn't try to distinguish cereus and thuringiensis. - Nunh-huh 02:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

chemistry

who is calld the king of all chemicals and what is its formula

Hmm, a Google search turns up only one result, which says it's love. That sounds good enough to me. =P —Keenan Pepper 12:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Excellent answer to a question I didn't expect anyone to answer. Rock on! --Avijja 07:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Could Chernobyle have been "Sabotage" ?

Could this attached story be a "factor" or "cause" to the "Chernobyl accident " ?

Regards,

The Toxic Reverend Radiation Expirements on Humans http://www.angelfire.com/nm/redcollarcrime/radia.html

CIA slipped bugs to Soviets Memoir recounts Cold War technological sabotage By David E. Hoffman

The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/front.htm Updated: 12:13 a.m. ET Feb. 27, 2004

News article removed, view it at the following URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002/

Um, the contents of the Reference Desk are GFDL just like any other page, right? —Keenan Pepper 12:44, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the text of the news article as a copyvio. The original poster claimed a fair use rationale, but wikipedia guidelines say that in general, extensive quotation of copyrighted news materials... is not fair use. The article is still available at the URL linked above. —David Wahler (talk) 13:03, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

To answer the question, read our article on Chernobyl. Research points to flaws in personnel procedures as well as overall reactor design rather than point-failure of components. Given that, it's impossible to hang a sabotage label, and unlikely that tainted industrial contributions from the US would have had any meaningful effect. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 15:30, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't think so. For one thing, Chernobyl was of a completely different design to any American reactor, so there was little point in stealing American reactor control code except as something to learn from, rather than copy directly. Secondly, the alleged sabotage supposedly related to oil pipeline control code, not reactor control code. Thirdly, I have my doubts about the sabotage story for that oil pipelines. I do research into software testing; the story of how the sabotage caused spectacular but casualty-free damage in such a precise manner after the Russians had configured and modified the software for their own uses is just a tad too cute to be believable. Fourthly, the sabotage theories do not square with any of the Soviet inquiries into Chernobyl; sure, they were conducted in Soviet times, but as I understand it no new evidence has emerged to suggest a massive cover-up. Finally, the idea that America would sabotage a Russian nuclear reactor makes no sense. It's not like Chernobyl was producing anything that the Russians didn't already have in quantities sufficient to wipe most of the West off the map (heck, they still do). Imagine that the US had been caught doing so, killing a bunch of civilian reactor workers and potentially thousands of Russian (and even Western European) citizens. It would have completely fractured NATO (and other friendly countries around the world like Japan and Australia). Heck, the Russians might just have gotten mad enough to start a war over such an act; probably not, but there'd be a real risk. And for what payoff? Destablizing the man whose reforms, even then, looked like the best chance for a better relationship between East and West since the Cold War began? So, no, I don't think this conspiracy theory makes sense. And when similar suggestions were made on the article's talk page, I asked the Russian Wikipedians to comment. They thought it was complete nonsense also. --Robert Merkel 23:22, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

willies

how long is the longest willy in the world?, send your answer to as soon as possible please. thankyou for your dedication.

We have an entire article on human penis size. This is also the first entry at world-sex-records.com. —Keenan Pepper 12:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

More specifically . --R.Koot 12:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Why do you guys instantly think penis? Is this freudian? :) Willie and Willy are also names, so maybe the asker wants to know the who the longest person named Willie is. And 'willie willie' is also Aussie lingo for a miniature whirlwind (so how big can those get?). Then again, I suppose you've probably understood him correctly.... DirkvdM 09:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Looked it up. The

Why restrict the answer to humans only, who are rather pint-sized when compared to some other mammals. "hippopotamus and elephant can be several feet in length" and in " large Rorqual whales the penis can be 10 ft. long". 14:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Women are preoccupied with large willies and men preoccupied with small vaginas, isn't life full of problems. :-) --Eye 21:19, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Microsoft Excel cell fillup

I want to fillup empty Excel data cells smartly. Let's say I have a table like this:

John     Murder
         Rape
         Arson
Jack     Extortion
         Armed robbery
Sally    Mass killing
         Driveby shooting
Tom      Jaywalking
         Murder

(10,000 bad guys and 100,000 crimes in total ...)

If I select John and let Excel fills it up downwards, it'll become:

John     Murder
John     Rape
John     Arson
John     Extortion
John     Armed robbery
John     Mass killing
John     Driveby shooting
John     Jaywalking
John     Murder

This is not what I need. I need John-John-John-Jack-Jack-Sally-Sally-Tom-Tom. How do I do this. It'll be painful to do that manually. -- Toytoy 10:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know of a built-in method, but a fairly simple Visual Basic macro to do it could something like:

Dim i
Sub wiki_list()
For i = 1 To X ' Change X to the number of entries in the list (including column title)
    Range("A" & i).Select
    If Selection.Value = "" Then
    ActiveSheet.Paste
    Else: Selection.Copy
    End If
    Next i
End Sub

Change the X to the exact number of fields you wanted filled. If you haven't used a macro, simply click 'Tools', select 'Macro' and 'Macros'. Type a word into the top box that appears, and click 'create'. Then paste the following at the top of the text editor that appears. Then, hit the play button on the toolbar at the top. (Note: You cannot undo macros, so save the list first, in case it goes wrong). If anyone can do it any better, please say how! smurrayinchester 15:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Here's a way to do it without macros. Let's say your list of names is in column A, and the crimes are in column B.

• Create a new column between the two by highlighting a cell in column B and choosing Insert - Column. The new column is column B and the crimes are now in column C.
• Copy the first name in the list from A1 to B1.
• in cell B2, enter the following formula: =IF(A2="",B1,A2) (in English, this means, if the cell to the left of this one is blank, copy what's in the cell above this one; if not, copy what's in the cell to the left.)
• Highlight B2 and drag the lower right corner to copy that formula into the rest of the cells in column B.
• Optional: if you need everything back in the original columns, highlight column B, choose Edit - Copy, then (with column B still highlighted) Edit - Paste Special. In the Paste Special dialog box, click the "Values" option, then click OK. Then, right-click on a cell in column A, choose Delete... and then choose the "Entire Column" option and click OK.

Chuck 18:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Another macroless option

1. Highlight all the values in the column including the blanks
2. From the Edit menu, choose Go To . . .
3. Click Special
4. Click on Blanks
5. Click OK
6. Type =
7. Click on the cell above the first blank cell
8. Press Ctrl + Enter (simultaneously)

Nelson Ricardo 00:41, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Understanding Eye Movement Patterns - does the human eye commonly move in a "flipped" number 6 motion?

I am trying to relocate a piece of information that I recall reading years ago. It was an article / study that tracked how our eyes commonly move when we are confronted with new information - such as a new package, a new magazine cover, a billboard, a print ad, etc. I seem to remember that the researchers discovered that our eyes commonly move in what I would call a flipped number 6. (Sorry, i am bad a trying to describe spatial stuff - so bear with me) the pattern described was as if the eye were writing a backward "6" - starting at the upper left of the picture, and scanning right and down, and looping back up and to the left - ending at about the center of the item. Can anyone help me validate this? I have tried the following searches - and again - I am a first time user, so I may not be searching effectively: tracking eye movement / how does the eye move when confronted with new information / how does the eye scan a page / etc - and I have had no success so far.

Thank you very much in advance for helping me with this.

CMT--61.213.181.82 10:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC) (is that the correct way to sign? Thanks for tolerating a first time user!)

The term you're looking for is Eye tracking, here are some related links that I'll add to the article:

• Eyetrack III study
• eyetools study
• ViewPoint EyeTracker software
• Applied Science Laboratories trackers

The first document features something that vaguely looks like an inverted "6". However, it's important to note that the path that the eye takes varies quite a bit depending on what it's looking at. For example, my eyes automatically seek the upper, left-hand corner of an English document; but when confronted with Hebrew, they go to the upper right without any conscious thought on my part. When looking at artwork, my eyes tend to seek out areas of the highest contrast first and then follow contours. These trackers are very useful for determining what people notice in an advertisement, which things are distracting, and which elements are overlooked. Lastly, you did a great job asking the question. Cheers! --Avijja 07:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

See also saccade, which describes the track of the eye as more zig-zag in nature. --Ancheta Wis 15:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Raise in temperature of a road tankers contents whilst in the sun

Is there an equation to compare the effectiveness of insulation for a stainless steel road tanker?

I wish to compare a insulated tank to an un-insulated tank.

Some facts and figures:

The uninsulated tank is cylindrical, 9 metres in length and 2 metres diameter and has a external surface area of 69m² The tank is constructed from 3mm thick 304 grade stainless steel which has a thermal conductivity, k, of 16.2W/m.°C There is 30,000kgs of liquid product inside the tank with a specific heat capacity of 3.9kJ/kg.°C

The product temperature is 5°C, the ambient temperature is 25°C

What will be the rate of temperature increase for the product in the uninsulated tank?

The insulated tank is the same tank as above but is insulated with a 70mm thick polystyrene external layer surrounded by a 0.7mm thick stainless steel cladding panels.

The polystyrene has a thermal conductivity, k, of 0.038W/m.°C

What will be the rate of temperature increase for the product in the insulated tank? 213.218.255.233 14:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

There is some missing info. The difference in temps between the inside and outside is critical, as is the amount of sunlight hitting the tanker and it's reflectivity. The wind, humidity, and air pressure would also play a role, as would any precipitation. If both temps are equal and it is night and there is no precip, then there should be no temp change in either case. Given the limited info you have, I would just say the ratio between the two rates of temp change would be approximately / , if we ignore the thin layer of stainless steel on the insulated tanker. StuRat 16:47, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Programming a gas furnace thermostat for max efficiency.

Is it better to set the temperature low when the house is unoccupied? The furnace then runs longer to raise it to a comfortable temp. when programmed to come on. Or is it better to maintain a more moderate temp. with the furnace only coming on periodically to maintain it? Also, does it use much more gas to maintain it at 70 degrees F as opposed to 65 degrees? (Note: Thermostat has available 4 changes for Mon - Fri and two for Sat-Sun)

Would apreciate comments 15:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)~--4.225.202.248 15:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

A climate-control system is more efficient when the target temperature is closer to the ambient temperature (that is, a house at 80 F when it's 30 F outside cools much faster, and so requires more energy to maintain, than a house at 70 F in the same conditions). Consequently, it's better to set the thermostat low when unoccupied. Similarly, it's better to set the thermostat high in the summer to avoid unnecessary air conditioner use. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 15:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Turn the temp down to the lowest level you can stand, in winter, to save energy. One common misperception is that a furnace that is on longer is less efficient. This is true for some variable speed engines, such as a car engine, which are less efficient when running full-out. However, a gas furnace only runs at one speed and one efficiency. In fact, running it once for a long period is actually more efficent than many short runs, since there is some inefficiency associated with poor convection during start-up and running the fan after shut-down. There are some other concerns with turning the temp low when you are gone, however:

• The pipes could freeze if it gets too low, especially pipes in exterior walls, such as those to outside faucets. Ideally, those pipes should be drained in winter.

• Low temps could be uncomfortable for some pets, like dogs, and dangerous for others, like birds or tropical fish. Measures such as a warm dog bed or heated fish tank could fix these problems.

• Temp variations, and the associated humidity variations, can be hard on wooden furniture. If your home is full of expensive antiques, keep the temp constant. If you have cheap furniture, don't worry about it, it will likely go out of style before it splits or warps. StuRat 16:34, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The flooding k's

Could there be any sensible reason why my computer occasionally starts flooding letter k's wherever the pointer happens to be? Usually it happens when I haven't touched the keyboard for, say, 15 seconds. It looks very natural and human in that it keeps short pauses and sometimes slows down. It's quite nasty when trying to formulate the next sentence in my head. The keyboard is a USB one and the OS is Debian. Thanks! –80.186.221.15 16:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest there's a broken wire. You need one of these to fix it. Alphax  07:40, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

It could be a broken or incompatible keyboard. It might be a malfunctioning or incompatible USB hub, dongle or port. It might be an old kernel or USB subsystem that doesn't work properly with your keyboard. Unless you're using a common USB device and running a modern Linux kernel, you are liable to encounter problems. Try connecting your keyboard directly to different ports on the motherboard. Try unplugging the USB keyboard and use a PS2 keyboard. Try just leaving the keyboard unplugged and see if it's still happening. I seriously doubt that this is caused by a keylogger, because those are designed to be quiet, and this isn't. PS: Alphax, that wasn't funny or helpful. --Avijja 08:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Familial Alzheimer Disease / Mutation

I would like to know if Familial Alzheimer disease is a spontaneous mutation, and if so what fixes the mutant allele in the population? I read a research article that refered to the allele as a "private mutation", occuring only in idividual families excluding non relatives. Is a private mutation the same as a spontaneous mutation.--131.204.83.180 17:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Our article on Familial Alzheimer disease should anwser your question. The condition is inhereted in an autosomal dominant pattern, which means that only one parent needs to have an inhereted or spontaneously mutated gene associated with FAD for the condition to be passed on, thus with about ~50% chance of the offspring getting a mutant copy of the gene, the disease then has a pretty good chance of becoming fixed in the population. I haven't come across the term "private mutation" before, but often papers focus on a particular family and this term might be being applied to the specific muation in one of the FAD associated genes common in that family.--nixie 03:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

"Private mutation" is a sort-of unfortunate term. It means, essentially, "observed only in one family" - or in this case, "the correlation between this mutation and Alzheimer's is observed only in this one family". It gets stretched sometimes to "only in a few families". It's mostly used to indicate that there's no reason to use the test for screening a general population. Alzheimer's can be caused by any number of mutations, in several different genes on several different chromosomes. All mutations are spontaneous, but if it's familial the original spontaneous mutation is being transmitted genetically in the usual manner - it's not re-occurring. A mutant allele will persist in the population until it dies out by being selected against, or by chance. - Nunh-huh 08:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

nanotechnology

what is the role of a chemical engineer in nanotechnology.

Nanotech, as you probably know, is the science of making REALLY small things. A chemical engineer working for nanotech, therefore, focuses on making very small but useful molecules. Examples include carbon rods and "buckyballs", or buckminsterfullerene. These molecules can be used to help develop nanorobots, as the structures developed lend strength to the tiny machines.

User:Articuno1

Groaning Islands

Robert Harris's novel Archangel mentions ferries from Archangel in Russia to a) Murmansk; and b) "the Groaning Islands". I've heard of Murmansk, but Google shows no trace of the Groaning Islands. Are they real? Mark 19:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you know the names of nearby landmarks, regions or relative directions? Did the author provide the Russian name? I used a detailed map and looked for islands whose Russian names might match along the coast from Arkhangelsk to Murmansk to Norway -- nada. I didn't have any luck with any of the Russian-language searches I tried. There are a baffling number of islands in the area, but only a few are named on the map. Many islands there served as forced labor camps, so it's possible that this was an unofficial name that reflects their gruesome history. If this was an official name, it's likely that they've since been renamed to something more pleasant. Oh well. On tangential note, I had fun looking at the map and was amazed by the bizarre names of the area's landmarks. I've translated some of them back into English for your amusement: "Ninth", "Little-Granny's-Hut", "Rounded", "Petro(leum)-Factory", "Semi-Islandish", "Fix-Up", "White-Mustache", "Big-Shelf", "Wolfy", "Third-Stream", and the mysterious "Giant-Western-Face". --Avijja 10:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

;) My only clue is that I found a map on the net (though I can't find it again) which showed one ferry route going west to Murmansk, and another east off the edge of the map. So maybe somewhere along the coast in that direction? Mark 14:28, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I looked in the other direction all the way to Hokkaido, Japan. Once past the Nenets Okrug, the map was basically blank and unsettled for thousands of kilometers and only the huge islands had names, and none of those matched. Taymyria (population density: 1 person every 22 km^2) had a countless number of unlabeled islands. Unless someone else has a better idea, I'm afraid these islands are going to remain clandestine a bit longer. --Avijja 21:52, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah well, thanks for trying! Mark 00:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Could it be due to the groaning of shifting sea ice around these islands? --Eye 21:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

gallbladder

If the function of a gallbladder is to store bile to be used to help digest fat, what happens to the digestion system after a gallbladder is removed? What breaks down the fat in foods after digested? When a person does have their gallbladder removed, do they tend to be heavier due to the fat content in their system? 150.176.244.119 20:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Like you said, the gallbladder is just a reservoir for bile produced by the liver. Removal of the gallbladder (cholecystectomy) doesn't prevent bile from reaching the small intestine; without a gallbladder, bile is delivered from the liver directly to the duodenum. So folks without gallbladders are able to digest fats just about as well as folks with gallbladders. And the process is the same: bile emulsifies fats and enzymes from the pancreas digest them. Hope that helps, David Iberri (talk) 03:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I suppose the gallbladder has a function, and that might be to release the bile when it is needed, when food passes by. So lack of the bladder could reduce the efficiency of the bile (too much when it isn't needed and therefore too little when it is). So I can imagine it would still increase the chances of obesity. DirkvdM 10:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, being obese increases the chances that your gallbladder will be removed. You'll have a hard time finding anything which demonstrates that it makes much of a difference to anyone whether they have a gallbladder or don't. - Nunh-huh 02:32, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I should think an inability to digest fat would lead to weight loss, not gain, as those fats would pass thru the system unused. A negative would be diarrhea, which is also cause by fat binders like chitosan and undigestable fat substitutes, like olestra. StuRat 16:05, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm kicking myself right now. Stupid! DirkvdM 12:24, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Atomic Theory of Matter

What is the theory of Matter? Can u summarize it for me please?

Reading our atom article would be a good place to start. -- SCZenz 23:19, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Also see atomic theory. -- SCZenz 23:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The basic idea is that ordinary matter is composed of isotopes of the elements in the periodic table and ions of those atoms. Note that this excludes matter in nuetron stars, black holes, and some other special cases. These atoms are in turn made of protons, nuetrons, and electrons, which are in turn composed of quarks, which are in turn made of strings, etc. StuRat 15:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

November 18

Where was typhoid fever first found??

See Typhoid fever. It is as old as mankind. --Kainaw 01:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Molar concentraion of NaOH

How do you calculate the molar concentraion of 24.05 ml of NaOH poured into 25 ml of HCL? To help: the molar mass of NaOH is 40g/mol

See molar concentration and do your own homework. --Kainaw 01:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I am trying! But I do not understand how! The thing is that I don't know how to change 24.05 ml of NaOH into moles.

There is something missing in your question...you need to know the concentration of that 24.05 mL of NaOH before you can proceed. Does your question sheet state what it is? If not, then assume a concentration of "X" and continue... --HappyCamper 01:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

What is cave diving?

Spelunking will probably help you. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:51, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Cave diving will help you even more. DJ Clayworth 21:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Light - Photons

1. Is light a continuous stream of photons? If so, light traveling from a distant star must connect the observer with the past in a very real way. In other words, along that continuous stream of photons some photons actually belong to part of the stream that is thousands of years older than other parts of the stream. How can such a structure exist? This stream of photons not only crosses vast distances of space, but also of time -- yet it remains a single unified structure that can carry a continous stream of information. Gary O--65.66.151.189 04:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Light is made of photons, yes. And yes, photons arriving now from other star systems left many years ago. As for how such a structure can exist, you might read electromagnetic wave, wave-particle duality, photon, light, or speed of light, depending on what you mean. -- SCZenz 04:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Light travels in packets of energy called quanta. - Cobra Ky (talk, contribs) 04:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

And those quanta (a general term) are called photons, in the case of light. -- SCZenz 04:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Keep in mind nothing exists now except you. This may be the basis of subjective reality. Just like light, sound travels in waves, and takes a certain amount of time to reach you from the source; just on a much larger time scale compared to light. And even the electrical signals of your firing synapses take a finite amount of time to traverse your brain, so even you might not exist in the now. - Cobra Ky (talk, contribs) 04:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh yummy, that's a philosophically wonderfully confusing way of looking at things. I found the question a bit odd - how can one see the stream of light particles as a structure, as an entity. But if there is one entity one can be sure of it's the self (cogito ergo sum). But different parts of that self 'exist' at different moments in time. So what, then, is 'now'? If reality and therefore the 'now' is defined by me (in my case, that is) then there can't be different nows for me. Or do I exist in different nows at the same time? I'll have to sleep on this one. I feel a Zeno paradox coming up, but I don't want to go there right now (whenever that is). DirkvdM 10:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Going back to the original question: think about a snapshot photograph of a stream of water coming from a water hose and that the stream is an entity of water molecules being emitted from that hose. The water molecules at the end of the stream furthest from the hose are older than the water molecules that have just come out of the hose. Now go to live action: watch as the hose is modulated (wiggled around) and watch that information travel in time to the end of the stream. I think that's the concept you are trying to capture. As always, analogies eventually fail so don't take this water stuff too far.  :-) --hydnjo talk 02:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Let's see if we can unravel the question a bit further...:

1. Is light a continuous stream of photons? - This is actually quite a difficult question to answer, because there are a number of concepts which are underlying this. I would say "no, not really...it does not have to be." - keep in mind that photons are really just a particular concept for light - a particular model which describes certain behaviours of light. In reality, we don't really "know" what light is, but we know from science and systematically repeatable experiments that it behaves sometimes like particles, sometimes like waves, and sometimes like a mixture of the two. It's perfectly okay to think of light in that manner, but it is slightly misleading, as it is subtlely mixing up the particle and wave models for light.

1. ...If so, light traveling from a distant star must connect the observer with the past in a very real way.

Yes, I would agree, in some sense this is the case. If you look outside on a very dark night, you are in some sense, looking at some sources of light that has travelled millions of years to you! You are literally "looking back in time!".

Your comment "...This stream of photons not only crosses vast distances of space, but also of time -- yet it remains a single unified structure that can carry a continous stream of information...." -- You can think of it this way: Light is a form of energy, and in its purest form, there is nothing more to light than light itself... so in some sense there is some unity behind all this. However, I would not overextend these ideas. There is much beauty out there between physics and philosophy, and is always a good idea to know which end of the continuum you are leaning on! Hope this helps :-) --HappyCamper 03:49, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Hoff Lu's Equation of Irreversibility?

I came across this, but had no idea what it is. Google doesn't give much answers. Care to shed some light?

-- Миборовский 07:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

keyboard shortcut for WindowsXP to create a new folder

I had been looking for the keyboard shortcut for WindowsXP to create a new folder for a very long time, but I still can't find one. does anyone know what it is? I'm sick of clicking the mouse and wait for the menu pop-up, just for creating a new folder.

thanks! guys!

Unless you're on the desktop, you can do Alt, F, W, ; alternatively, try Alt-D, Alt-F, , . Neither is very elegant and probably not much faster than waiting for the right-click menu (which sometimes takes ages, doesn't it?). Plus, either may fail if your version of Windows is not in English. There is a program advertised at this website which claims to be able to give you a shortcut key to create a folder using VBScript, but I haven't tried it personally (see the discussion on annoyances.org), so use at your own risk. As far as I can tell, there is no built-in shortcut in Windows for creating a new folder (someone would have found it by now). Maybe in Windows Vista... Either way, Good luck! — QuantumEleven | (talk) 09:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

On a related note, if your context menu is taking forever to load when you right-click, you can download some freeware (snapfiles.com) called "ShellExView" which lets you view and enable/disable shell extensions installed on your system. Disable enough of them that you never use anyway, and your right-click menu should start appearing much more quickly. --PeruvianLlama 10:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Technology behind Submarines

What is the technology behind Modern Submarines? How do a submarine Sink and what does it do to come back to the surface of water? What kind of driving mechanism does it equip to steer sush a under water giant? Where does a submarine use nuclear tecnology? What will be the maximum speed of a submarine? Is there any time limit for a submarine to remain under water? What are the various components of a typical Submarine? --61.17.220.200 10:09, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages article, Submarine would be a good place to start. Plus there are plenty of external links on that article. Also check out the howstuffworks article. - Akamad 10:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

With modern nuclear submarines, they can desalinate ocean water to make drinking water and produce oxygen by electrolysis. The nuclear power plant can operate for years. The physical limiting factor is then food for the crew. However, the isolation and separation from loved ones also creates a psychological limit. Perhaps having married couples on board would solve this problem, but would require more space to be devoted to "family crew compartments". Similar issues arise with long term space travel (with current technology, it takes years even to get to other planets in our own solar system). StuRat 15:05, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

whole cell simulation

what are virtual erythrocytes

• An erythrocyte is a red blood cell. "Virtual" means you're talking about a blood cell simulated in a computer. - Mgm| 19:14, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Ports question

I understand there is a command in Command Prompt to find out what ports your firewall is using/allowing. Can somebody tell me what this command is, and perhaps a little more detail on what to do? -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 10:27, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• Assuming you're using windows, the command "netstat" will show you all the ports currently in use. Under XP, "netstat -b" will also display which applications are using which port. If you install a software firewall like Kerio or Zonealarm, you can get a friendly GUI view of the same info. --Bob Mellish 16:09, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  You'll need to use netstat -a (or netstat -ab), or you'll only see existing connections, rather than what ports are being listened on. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 19:14, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Netstat isn't a msWindows thing. It also works on the Unix family of OS's (which includes Linux). Actually, that's probably where it came from, with the msWindows version being an imitation. DirkvdM 08:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

septic tanks and photographic processing

Can normal developing and priniting chemicals used in B & W photogrphy damage a septic tank sewage treatment system; if yes, is there any method of filtering the chemicals from the drainage?

A home septic system depends on robust anaerobic bacterial activity for its long term survival. My rule of thumb is can bacteria survive in this stuff? My quess is that it is your best interest to bottle it up for disposal elsewhere. --hydnjo talk 15:46, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Polar "radiant"—?

On a globe, all meridians converge at the poles. If you wanted to express it the other way—the meridians emanate from the polar point—what would that polar point be called, the polar "radiant" (like with a meteor shower, the meteors appear to radiate from a single spot, which is called the radiant), or is there a better or more proper name?: See this image. ~Kaimbridge~ 15:51, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

In a meteor shower there is movement, so specifying a 'direction' (outward) makes sense. With meridians, that is not the case, so I wonder why you would want to use a different viewpoint and name. Put differently, they'd still be called 'poles'. What is the reason for your question? DirkvdM 09:02, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, because I plan on discussing "transverse graticule", where the "pole" is on the equator (imagine the pole on this image is on the equator). I had thought the term may be "apex" or "vertex", but when its on the equator (or obliquely in between the equator and pole), those don't seem appropriate—the term I am looking for is meant to describe the meridians "sprouting" out of a single point (i.e., "radiating"), such as I tentatively have it now, in discussing the "transverse graticule's radiant". There very well may be a specific geometric (or other general math) term that names this idea that I either can't think of or haven't heard of. ~Kaimbridge~ 15:10, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

There is the movement of magnetic particles along the magnetic lines of force, which eminate or terminate at the magnetic north and south poles, resulting in auroras. StuRat 14:52, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Magnetic particles? Never heard of those! I thought that the magentic lines were a projection to visualise magnetism. And therefore static. If they have a direction then they must have a speed also. Do they?

But back to the question. Failing the magnetic field, there is no direction, like I said. The opposite alternative to 'radiant' could be 'convergent' (or 'convergant'?). A more static word could be 'node'. Which sounds conveniently similar to 'pole'. DirkvdM 12:45, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

That was my term for particles affected by magnetism, which would be charged particles, including ions, free electrons, and free protons (unless you consider those to be hydrogen ions). Iron-containing particles would also be affected by magnetism, but I wouldn't expect any of them in the upper atmosphere. Also note that a photon carries the electromagnetic force, according to gauge boson theory, so could also be called a "magnetic particle". StuRat 07:14, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Then how about "transverse vertex"? ~Kaimbridge~ 15:28, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Commodore 64 Help

A Turkish user sent the following email to the Misplaced Pages help mailing list.

At my home I have a Commodore 64 which has been sitting in the cupboard for many year without any use. Just yesterday I wnted to install it and use it. However I forgot to use it.

I have some games on the cassette and I also installed all connections. After the installation the screen (TV) came as READY. I need to run one game on the cassette however I can not remember what I write and what command I have give the COMMODORE 64 for running the game programme.

Please kindly send me simple explanation for that.

Thanls for any help you can offer him or her.

Capitalistroadster 16:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Going from memory, you type list to list files on tape or disk. Then, you type load "file",8,1 - but I can't remember what the ,8,1 is for. Those may not even be the correct numbers. --Kainaw 18:02, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

For disk games, you have two options. You can either try LOAD "*",8,1 to load the first program (usually works with official disks), or you can do LOAD "$",8,1, LIST, LOAD "PROGRAM NAME",8,1. Either way, type RUN after this to start the program.

For tapes, rewind the tape to the beginning, type LOAD, and press Play on the tape player. Once it finds the program, press the Commodore key. If you need to find a specific program, use LOAD "PROGRAM NAME" instead of just LOAD.

As for what ,8,1 means, it refers to the disk drive. Actually, older versions of the C64 might not recognise the ,1 part, if memory serves me correctly. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 19:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

LOAD "filename",device number, 1

The device number for the tape drive, if I remember correctly, is 1. The default for the disk drive is 8 (and 9 for a second floppy disk drive). The final '1' specifies that the code loaded should be loaded into the same place in memory that it was saved from. This allows some programs to run automatically once loaded, without requiring the use of the RUN command.

If you use the LOAD command without a device number or trailing ,1 (that is, LOAD "filename"), the tape drive will be assumed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

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