Recent content by NobodySpecial

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    Fringe pattern of a vapour lamp

    What is the setup? You don't have fringes from just a lamp on it's own
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    Vertebrate and Number of Breaths - Ideal Gases

    The amount of air needed is given at STP - but the volume of the lungs are at a different T,P so you need to work out either how much air is needed at lung T,P or the lung volume at STP
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    Undergrad Understanding Boyle's Law: The Effect of Volume Increase at Constant Temperature

    Exactly .
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    Undergrad Simple Question on Earth Rotation involving Newton III

    No force is needed to keep the Earth rotating (remember Newton's 1st law) if you wanted to change the rotation then you would need something for the force to act against
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    Undergrad Understanding Boyle's Law: The Effect of Volume Increase at Constant Temperature

    It doesn't say the momentum decreases. The number of colisions / time with the container walls decreases which gives a less force on the walls and so a lower measured pressure. Note in an ideal gas you ignore any collisions between the gas molecules.
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    BBT's Portrayal of Nerds: Offensive or Accurate?

    Don't know how many of these played in America - and a few of them are a bit 'British' in their humor to travel well. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sitcom/winner.shtml Only Fools and Horses (1981–2003) Blackadder (1983–1989) The Vicar of Dibley (1994–2007) Dad's Army (1968–1977) Fawlty Towers...
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    Can radar detect flying animal?

    Your standard Smaug-class middle Earth dragon has a hide made of gold encrusted with diamonds and sapphires to make them invulnerable except for a single vulnerable spot. In the Discworld, the only way to guarantee hitting a dragons vulnerable spot is a million to one shot. which is why it's...
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    Beginner Microcontroller Project Resources?

    http://www.arduino.cc/ The language is c, but the programming in a uc is so limited that there isn't much difference between c and basic. The important points are the dev environment is nice, a gui editor with a single button compile and download, and vast online resources and users sites
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    Can radar detect flying animal?

    It would have to be a million to one shot - that's the only way to guarantee hitting a dragon's vulnerable spot.
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    Can someone tell me what these parenthesis mean?

    (CH₃)₃CCH₂CH(CH₃)CH₂CH₂CH₃ The first paranthesis means the group in parenthesis is repeated the number of times in the subscript, the second set mean that the group is separate and attached to the atom next to it.
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    What Is the White Layer on Water?

    In solution it's Calcium bicarbonate, when you heat it the reaction forms calcium carbonate (limescale) Ca(HCO3)2(aq) → CO2(g) + H2O(l) + CaCO3(s) It means your water tastes nice and will have lots of useful minerals in it - at the cost of using a bit more soap and needing a new kettle every...
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    BBT's Portrayal of Nerds: Offensive or Accurate?

    Although drama on TV has got very good - West Wing, House, Lie to Me, are better than the cinema has produced in recent years.
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    Can a Photomultiplier be Calibrated for Extremely Low Light Levels?

    APDs are generally easier than photo-multipliers if you don't need a very large area. They don't need scary HV supplies, have better red sensitivity and are pretty immune to damage from high light levels The electronics for them is pretty simple - I had breadboard circuits doing individual...
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    Undergrad Milky Way; How do we know it's a spiral?

    It's not exactly my area but I think star formation being concentrated in the arms is still the orthodox model? A quick arvix search suggests lots of recent papers and an IAU conference on it.
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    Undergrad Milky Way; How do we know it's a spiral?

    Star formation seems to occur mostly in the spiral arms of galaxies, we only see nearby stars so seeing nearby star formation means we are in the arms.