Recent content by Dr_Zinj

DaveE is correct. So much depends on the path of the electricity through your body; and it's never the same way twice. Next time it could cross the heart and disrupt, or even destroy, the nerves regulating your heartbeat. Either case usually causes death, either delayed, or instant. If it...

If I remember correctly, there was an article in either Scientific American, or maybe Popular Science about 20-30 years ago that talked about some experiments about electrical glassification of soil as a means of sealing hazardous waste in situ. If you've ever played around with an arc welder...

Don't know about YouTube, but MITOpenCourseware has a fairly extensive AV library available on-line https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses/#physics

1) If you're active enough to burn 4000+ calories a day, your system is dealing with the metabolic waste products of that, and your metabolic rate is too high for extended longevity. You're not going to see any lifespan prolongation until you're below the 2000 calories per day level. In most...

We really need someone like that who hasn't been told that traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible.

This is going to veer a bit off the topic of physics and into biology. The balance is achieved when the amount of food available limits the population of the borers. Whether that leaves a viable number of trees to reproduce is questionable. What is missing in this discussion is whether some...

A straight line is a mathematical concept. Doesn't actually exist in our universe if you take into account all influences on a moving object, be it a rock or a photon.

Without changing the structure of the house, there are a few things you can do to keep it cooler in the summer. (1) Put shades in all the windows during the day, preferably with a white color facing out. Solar radiation through the windows will heat the house. Shades will reflect and block...

Shall we really confuse him and mention making a microwave oven in the form of a truncated cone?

Rather than say, "Correct" it would be more precise to say that our current laws accurately describe physical phenomenon to an acceptable level of predictability. If I drop a rock anywhere on the Earth's surface, I have an expectation it will fall at an accelerated rate of close to 9.8 meters...

You can even repair completely snapped circuit boards fairly easily with epoxy and some stiff strips of plastic, bamboo or hardwood as bracing splints across the break; assuming there's enough clearance for them. Glue the broken edges of the board together, glue the splints (on both sides if...

FWIW, anytime I see a hockey stick graph with us at the beginning of the up curve, I become ultra skeptical of any claims about behavior into the future.

You also might research the theories behind the term, "kugelblitz".

Now that sounds like a Scientific American, Amateur Scientist project challenge. Something a bit more sophisticated than how many potato batteries does it take to run a cell phone?

And it shouldn't affect the use of a sextant, or celestial navigation techniques.