HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: iwsbarke@acs.ucalgary.ca (I W Scott Barker)
Subject: Re: dragons were dinosaurs?
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 15:27:40 GMT
Organization: The University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Lewis Murtaugh (myboy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
> The fossil record shows NO dinosaurs after the mass extinction that killed
> them off (I'm not sure how long ago that was, but it must have been around
> 200-300 million years -- before any primates, let alone humans, existed).  The
> idea that maybe "a few" dinosaurs survived to the present day (or to the time
> of prehistoric man) is common in pop sf (some people suggest that the Loch 
> Ness Monster i a diplosaurus or some such b.s.), but it is scientifically 
> impossible.                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  ^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> It may be that a statistically insignificant number of dinosaurs survived the
> great extinction, but they would be doomed genetically to extinction.  Any
> time a gene pool is reduced that far the species is in trouble -- that is why
> many scientists are worried that certain endangered species of tigers,
> elephants, etc. are doomed because their numbers are too small to ensure
> genetic diversity.
> 
> If enough dinosaurs did survive to ensure genetic diversity, where are they
> now?  Did primitive man kill them off?  Why aren't there any cave paintings of
> dinosaurs?

Your reasoning makes some sense, but that one statement above makes me think
you have never put any real thought into the matter. If you had, you would 
realize that nothing is "scientifically impossible". It may be HIGHLY
improbable, but in science, one can never assume something is impossible. That
something may just come up a take a bite out of you someday.

--
Scott Barker
barker@enel.ucalgary.ca

"Remember, wherever you go, there you are."
   - Peter Weller, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
From: dillard@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Dillard)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: merpeople
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:16:49 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <BtABpG.Cn3@news.cso.uiuc.edu> rolf@geoserv.isgs.uiuc.edu writes:
>According to what I have been told (I've certainly never tried it)
>there is sometimes a reason to drink seawater. Eventually, the salt
>buildup will kill you, but dehydration can kill you much faster, if
>say you are in a lifeboat under a blazing sun. Drinking the salt 
>water might keep you alive long enough to be rescued, at which time
>you would need large amounts of fresh water to flush out the salt.

  Unfortunately, the dehydration from retching your guts out will far 
outweigh any small benefit gained from ingesting the water.  The salts
in the water irritate your stomach lining, inducing a strong regurtation
reflex, similar to ingesting a tablespoon of baking soda. (don't try this
at home, unless you _really_ want to stay home from school).  Remember:
   "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink."

 
-- 
 \ _
 - o  We were once so close to Heaven, Peter came out and gave us medals,
  ^   declaring us the nicest of the Damned. - They Might Be Giants
        Alex  dillard@sleepy.cc.utexas.edu 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: rob@guinness.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Subject: Re: Superconductors
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 06:16:28 GMT

In article <Bt66ry.H2B@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>
neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) writes: 
>In article <1992Aug18.060748.2986@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu>
rob@guinness.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) writes: 
>>No matter what the critical current density, that [storing energy in a
>>magnetic field] is your _only_ option.  The
>>electrical energy stored in the loop is I^2*R, and since R=0...
>>
>   No, the electrical energy stored in the loop is I^2 * L / 2. L, the
>inductance, is not zero. However, this expression for stored energy is

Err, that's the _magnetic_ energy, thank you.  I'm happy to be corrected, but
only when the correction is, well, correct.  Calling the energy stored in a
magnetic field `electrical' just because there happens to be a handy current
loop in the immediate vicinity is a bit Humpty-Dumpty-ish.

>rigorously equal to the energy stored in the field, the integral over all
>space of one half the dot product of the 'B' and 'H' vectors. They're two
>different ways of expressing the same thing.

Oh, so you knew that.  Then what was your point?  In effect, you just said:
"You're wrong, it's not like what you said at all, it's like what you said."

>   I don't know why you think magnetic storage is any more dangerous than
>any other. 

Oh, I can think of things that are far worse, sure.

>A well designed superconducting coil doesn't dump the field in
>seconds even during a quench. 

Hmm.  I'd like to see what your coil does in a severe mechanical impact
situation.  (Your car battery can be pretty much relied on to survive a
crash.) 

Also, with any kind of field-strorage device you have to worry about field
leakage and how that will impact the people working in the vicinity (The
answer may turn out to be `not at all', but you still have to do the lengthy
and expensive research.)

>We have a superconducting magnet which
>occasionally quenches, dropping 200 kilojoules into the helium vessel. We
>can have the magnet up and running again in a couple of hours, at the
>cost of a few dozen litres of liquid helium. Of course our helium
>recovery system is incapable of taking the helium flow during a quench,
>so we lose the evaporated gas during a quench, but even that is not an
>inevitable cost of running a superconducting coil.

200 kJ?  That's what my hot pot expends to make two cups of coffee.  As an
energy storage device, this thing is a toy.  I wouldn't recommend
extrapolating from it.

>At the moment, though, there are no practical
>large-scale energy storage systems in common use. They're not really
>needed for the current crop of base load power plants like coal and
>nuclear. If solar or wind power were ever asked to take up the base load
>we would need some better electricity storage systems for leveling these
>intrinsically erratic generating schemes.

Agreed.

SR
---
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: ccw@prefect.uucp (26554-wood)
Subject: Re: general relativity
Reply-To: ccw@prefect.UUCP ()
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 16:54:13 GMT

In article <drenze.713571260@icaen.uiowa.edu> drenze@icaen.uiowa.edu (Douglass J. Renze) writes:
>ccw@prefect.uucp (26554-wood) writes:

>>In article <drenze.713555212@icaen.uiowa.edu> drenze@icaen.uiowa.edu (Douglass J. Renze) writes:
>>>I've been re-reading Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" (yes, I know--pop-
>>>physics) and on page 32, he writes:

>>[quote trimmed.  clocks further down in gravity wells run more slowly
>>than clocks higher up, predicted in 19[01]X, demonstrated in 1962]

>>>Now, I've a question:  Out of curiosity, how would one calculate this time
>>>differential?  Assuming that we could take "instantaneous" readings of

>>[whole mess o' stuff, including a few questions and some mathematics that I
>>may or may not understand]

>>Aren't you glad you asked?

>Yepper, I am.  I still find this rather puzzling, though, as to *why* this
>is the case.  It seems to be based on the premise that time is some form of
>electromagnetic radiation (light).  Nicht wahr? or am I way off base?

Oooohhh.  Why.  That's a good question.  I may need some help from other
net.relativists.  General relativity is built on the hypothesis that an
accelerated reference frame is (locally) identical to a gravitational
acceleration, and since time is dialated in an accelerated reference
frame, it is also dialated in a gravity well.  The fact that the math
worked out just right for the time dialation/frequency of a photon was
probably just icing on the GR cake.  Now, if I could recall why an
accelerated reference frame forced clocks to run more slowly, I could
finish answering your question.

*nope*. brain empty.  Try sci.physics...

>>>| Douglas J Renze 
>>Chris 
>Doug
Chris



Chris Wood     Bellcore     ...!bellcore!prefect!ccw
                         or ccw@prefect.cc.bellcore.com

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines)
Subject: Re: Superconductors
Originator: nickh@VOILA.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
	<Bt66ry.H2B@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>
	<1992Aug18.145005.7655@porthos.cc.bellcore.com>
	<Bt6yD6.AGn@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 00:36:10 GMT

In article <Bt6yD6.AGn@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) writes:


	[hydro energy storage systems]

      Yes. I knew some had been approved for construction, but are there any
   which are actually being used for that purpose by utilities at the
   moment, as opposed to prototype or proof of concept plants?

Yes, there are. There's at least one in Wales, and I think at least
one other somewhere else in Britain. Actively used to store overnight
excess from the National Grid.

Nick Haines nickh@cs.cmu.edu

BTW: Hi folks, I'm back.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: myboy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Lewis Murtaugh)
Subject: Re: dragons were dinosaurs?
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 14:46:27 GMT

In article <Bt92J2.1Gp@teleride.on.ca> stevew@teleride.on.ca (Stephen M. Webb) writes:
>In article <auwen.714089675@starman> auwen@convex.com (John David Auwen) writes:
>>I've always been curious about the origin of various dragon myths.
>>I've always read that the dinosaurs were all dead by the time man
>>walked the Earth.  But could some of them have survived longer?
>>Is this where the concept of dragons and sea monsters came from?
>
>There is no concrete evidence that any dinosaurs have been alive for the
>past several hundered million years.  This isn't to say there haven't been
>any, but a few hundred million years is a long time.

It's hard to believe that this topic is being discussed on this newsgroup,
along with discussions of superconductors, general relativity, and other real,
hard science-type topics.

The fossil record shows NO dinosaurs after the mass extinction that killed
them off (I'm not sure how long ago that was, but it must have been around
200-300 million years -- before any primates, let alone humans, existed).  The
idea that maybe "a few" dinosaurs survived to the present day (or to the time
of prehistoric man) is common in pop sf (some people suggest that the Loch 
Ness Monster i a diplosaurus or some such b.s.), but it is scientifically 
impossible.

It may be that a statistically insignificant number of dinosaurs survived the
great extinction, but they would be doomed genetically to extinction.  Any
time a gene pool is reduced that far the species is in trouble -- that is why
many scientists are worried that certain endangered species of tigers,
elephants, etc. are doomed because their numbers are too small to ensure
genetic diversity.

If enough dinosaurs did survive to ensure genetic diversity, where are they
now?  Did primitive man kill them off?  Why aren't there any cave paintings of
dinosaurs?

--
Charles Murtaugh
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: ins450m@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (T.F. Eccles)
Subject: Re: Merpeople
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 09:17:20 GMT

matoh@lysator.liu.se (Mats \hrman) writes:

>u894793@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (Timothy D Little) writes:


>Or you could base your merpeople on whales and dolphins instead of
>fish, making them airbreathers who have to surface regularely...

Look at Superluminal, by Vonda McIntyre (sp)...it has info about
this...mixed  in with some somewhat dodgy plot.

Eccles
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: michael@sequent.com (Michael Squires)
Subject: Re: Evolution under High Gravity
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Distribution: sqnt
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 21:49:43 GMT

jchapin@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (John M. Chapin) writes:

>daynem@byron.u.washington.edu (Dayne Miller) writes:
...
>>     Anybody know what story this was?
...
>I don't know the title, but I remember the story well.

>The plotline involved one representative from each species being
>brought together to fight a climactic battle to defend the galaxy
>from an invading alien force.  The competition referred to above
>was merely the way that one ship (the one the human ended up on)
>determined the line of command.  If you could beat someone in hand-to-
>hand combat, you could order them around.

>The human became important when the computers of the defenders decided
>that the cause was lost and ordered a retreat.  The human did the
>usual white-western-male-"I'll-never-give-up"-mythic-hero routine,
>the one little ship charged the alien force, disturbed the pattern,
>and the defenders carried the day.

Gordon Dickson, "Hour of the Horde" (?)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: jgl2p@landau5.phys.Virginia.EDU (Joseph G. Louderback)
Subject: Re: Evolution under High Gravity
Reply-To: jgl2p@landau5.phys.Virginia.EDU (Joseph G. Louderback)
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 20:59:30 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.183819.26517@u.washington.edu>,
daynem@byron.u.washington.edu (Dayne Miller) writes:
|>      It seems to me that there was a story in some anthology dealing
with
|> representatives from a bunch of different planets being brought
together
|> by some "superior" alien race to test their mettle in a competitive
environ-
|> ment, or to fight a battle for them, or some such plotline. Anyway,
the 
|> rep from the humans found that his chief rival was some dude from a
high-
|> gravity world. His race was slightly shorter than the average human,
but fairly thin, though quite strong. The single most notable effect of
evolving in high
|> gravity, though, was shit-hot reflexes. The alien could move in a
blur when
|> he wanted to. This makes sense, because in a high-gravity situation,
acceler-
|> ation is much higher, and any evolved beings that deal with
ballistics (such
|> as throwing rocks, swinging from trees, avoiding falling obstacles,
etc.) 
|> would have to have the reflexes to deal with it.
|> 
|>      Anybody know what story this was?

The novel is _The Hour of the Horde_, by Gordon R. Dickson.
Joe Louderback
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: Superconductors
From: hoyt@isus.UUCP (Hoyt A. Stearns jr.)
Date: 16 Aug 92 00:28:01 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.science
Organization: International Society of Unified Science
Keywords: superconductor, energy storage
Summary: Superconducting energy storage

In article <1992Aug12.155104.10111@odin.diku.dk> nomann@diku.dk (Ole Nomann Thomsen) writes:
>How about storing electricity in closed loops of superconducting wire?
>You could have a transformer where one coil is such a loop, and then 
>store/fetch the energy via the other coil.
>This might be a very effective battery, with short rechargeing(sp?) time,
>big(?) capacity, and virtually no wear.
>

This has been seriously proposed and studied.  The last design I saw
was a superconducting coil hundreds of feet in diameter buried in a 
reinforced concrete channel underground.  The main problem is the enormous
radial outward force on the conductors from the magnetic field, which is
the limiting factor.

-- 
Hoyt A. Stearns jr.|hoyt@          | International Society of Unified Science|
4131 E. Cannon Dr. |isus.tnet.com  | Advancing Dewey B. Larson's Reciprocal  |
Phoenix, AZ. 85028 |ncar!enuucp!   | System- a unified physical theory.      |
voice_602_996_1717 telesys!isus!hoyt The Universe in two postulates!_________|
From: lalibr@jec305.its.rpi.edu (Ron Scott Laliberte)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: general relativity
Date: 18 Aug 92 18:35:32 GMT

re: fast moving plane striking a building


>               (I ask this cause in a science program I saw a few
>weeks ago, it said that the object would go through the building
>without damaging either its self or the building)

  It seems like I recall reading something about this as well... it had to
do not at all with the speed of light, but the speed of sound in the solid
being surpassed.  Obviosuly there is a great effect with an object passing
the speed of sound in a gas (sonic boom) but in a solid, the solid tended
toward acting like a liquid, and objects fired at it beyond its 'sound
barier' passed through nearly untouched, and the surfact of the object was 
not shattered (though there was an effect, much like an ocean wave suspended
in the metal)
  

  At any rate, I would suspect that a building would not act as a homogenious 
solid would in this case.. at any rate, the sonic booms would blast out all
the windows...
 
  Anyone recall these experiments?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: braham@physics.ubc.ca (Stephen Braham)
Subject: Re: Worm Holes
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:54:03 GMT

mcline@terapin.com (Matthew Cline) writes:

>        I've been thinking about using wormholes instead of FTL travel in sf
>stories that I write.  Are there any books on special and general relativity
>that would enable someone with math skills limited to first year calculus to
>understand and do computations about wormholes?  Any recomendations would be
>apreciated.

What exactly do you want to compute? Even those of us who study wormholes
for our living can't really CALCULATE anything real about 'em yet :).
The undestanding may not be too good for you; present physics implies
that a traversible wormhole requires so much energy to construct that
it's almost impossible. On top of THAT problem, the energy need maybe
so concentrated around the hole that you could never go near the thing.

			Steve

--
| Name: Stephen P. Braham | Perversion: Quantum Cosmologist|
| Hangout: UBC physics    | Signature:  Euclidean          |
|          Vancouver, BC  |--------------------------------+
|          Canada         | E-mail: braham@physics.ubc.ca  |
From: dillard@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Dillard)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: dragons were dinosaurs?
Summary: Birds are dinosaurs
Date: 23 Aug 92 01:48:00 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Aug20.144627.24952@news.acns.nwu.edu> myboy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Lewis Murtaugh) writes:
>The fossil record shows NO dinosaurs after the mass extinction that killed
>them off (I'm not sure how long ago that was, but it must have been around
>
>If enough dinosaurs did survive to ensure genetic diversity, where are they
>now?  Did primitive man kill them off?  Why aren't there any cave paintings of

  Actually, birds are dinosaurs.  Well, birds are directly derived from various
flying reptiles which existed along with the dinosaurs. I suppose that this is
not what you mean when you are talking about dinosaurs which survived, but 
a big petrosaur could be the basis for a dragon ledgend (of course no critters,
bird or dinosaur, survived that were that big by the time early man came along)
  The one book I've read on the subject suggests that dragons were related to 
the flapping reptiles, but developed lighter-than-air flight instead.  Sulfuric
acid was used to react with excess bone to produce hydrogen gas and some left-
over slush.  The hydrogen filled large body cavaties of the dragon and it could
fly.  Excess hydrogen could be breathed (and ignited), which is where the fire-
breathing ledgends come from.  Since dragons had to be lightweight, their gas-
bag had to be flimsy, and the best weapon would be a pitchfork, which punched
lots of holes in the gasbag, preventing flight.  No fossils remain, due to the 
fact that the gas-producing process dissolves them after the death of the dragon
Gold is associated with dragons because it made soft, non-puncturing beds for
the critters.  Jewels were the only thing the beasties could use to grind food
with, as all others would be destroyed by the acid (although I'm not too sure 
about this, but I recall that is what the author said).  Princesses were 
preferred fodder, because they didn't struggle, where a farmgirl might poke
holes in the drake.  I'd give the name of the book, but it has been ten years,
and I'm lucky to remember the contents, much less the author and title.  
-- 
 \ _
 - o  We were once so close to Heaven, Peter came out and gave us medals,
  ^   declaring us the nicest of the Damned. - They Might Be Giants
        Alex  dillard@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
From: tmyoung@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Thomas M. Young)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: general relativity
Date: 20 Aug 92 02:57:32 GMT
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

In article <5755@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> phl@fiveg.icl.co.uk 
( Peter H Liyanage) writes:
>Just something I need to clear up. 
>
>	If a large object(ie. an aircraft) was travilling at the 
>speed of light, and is on a direct path to collied with a tall
>building. At the time of collision, what would happen to the building/
>aircraft ??.
>		(I ask this cause in a science program I saw a few
>weeks ago, it said that the object would go through the building
>without damaging either its self or the building)
>
>			Is this possible ??????.(I mean, is this
>true in theory?>)
>
>			Pete.

You can't travel *at* the speed of light. You could, in theory,
travel as close to c as you like, so I will assume that's
what you're doing.  The answer is yes - the interaction cross
section for protons, neutrons and electrons all decrease with
increasing speed as you near c.  So if you went fast enough,
you would pass through the building without actually interacting
with it at all.  

I know that if you accellerate anti-hydrogen to high enough energy,
it will pass unscathed through several cm of lead.  (It's kind of
obvious when it interacts, being antimatter and all).  I assume 
that you could extrapolate this effect to include meters of material
and objects like airliners, but I'm not sure what velocities like 
that would do to molecular structures passing through one another. 
Does anybody know if there are any phase effects that could cause
a problem?


--
Tom Young                                         tmyoung@rodan.acs.syr.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
From: bcr@cernapo (Bill Riemers)
Subject: Re: Superconductors, the last word please
Organization: CERN, European Research Center for High Energy Physics
	<Bt7y3H.A1x@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>
	<Aug.19.10.50.42.1992.13852@math.rutgers.edu>
	<1992Aug20.032059.7651@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 09:54:02 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.032059.7651@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu> rob@volga.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) writes:


>  In article <Aug.19.10.50.42.1992.13852@math.rutgers.edu>
>  janowsky@math.rutgers.edu (Steven Janowsky) writes: 
>  >Would you idiots stop arguing about whether the energy in a
>  >superconducting coil is electrical or magnetic in nature?  Perhaps you
>  >recall Maxwell, Einstein et al?
>
>  where it behaves exactly like a wave would.  We weren't discussing abstract
>  philosphy, we were looking at a specific situation where the distiction
>  between electrical and magnetic is meaningful.

Ok... but the distiction is NOT meaningful in this case.  Normally the
distiction is only meaningful when you can play dumb and pretend like
you don't have a current loop or you really don't have a current loop.
i.e. An ideal capsitor does not have a current loop, so we can say it stores
electrical energy.  Likewise, with a fixed magnet we normally make a
magnetic dipole approximation.  In this case we can say the stored energy
is magnetic.  In the super-conductor case, you were discussing you can't
make a dipole approximation to say the energy is magnetic.  Also, you
still have a current loop, so you can't say the energy is electrical.
So, what do you do?  You say the energy is ELECTO-MAGNETIC and move
on to the next problem.  (Afterall Maxwell's equations don't care.
Also, they are lorentz invarent, so solving E&M problem with Maxwell's
equations is the relativistic answer.)

                                      Bill