Subject: Re: A photon - what is it really ?
From: Peter Diehr
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 12:54:58 -0500
Robert Fung wrote:
>
> But isn't a photon a wave ? Mathematically a wave packet
> built up from a superposition of a certain spectral distribution
> of wave frequencies ?
>
No, a photon does not consist of bits and pieces of an electromagnetic
wave. The photon is a quantum object; it is the quanta of the electromagnetic
field. As such, it has both wave and particle attributes. It is also subject
to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP).
If you are able to fully specifiy the electromagnetic field, then one of
the quantum properties is that you no longer know how many photons you have!
That is, the photon number is not an eigenvalue of the electromagnetic field.
When you think of a photon as having wave properties, the waves in question
are probability amplitudes ... and these are going to tell you the likelihood
of finding the photon here or there.
Best Regards, Peter
Subject: Re: ethanol & environment
From: ae277@yfn.ysu.edu (Stewart Rowe)
Date: 10 Nov 1996 17:06:28 GMT
In a previous article, bill.henderson@zetnet.co.uk (Bill Henderson) says:
>Hello
>
>My chemistry teacher is kindly allowing me to use his access to the
>'net to ask a question about my project. Mind you it's him that's set
>me the problem in the first place!!!
>
>I have to complete a project on the industrial manufacture of
>ethanol. Everything is going fine except I can't find any information
>on the adverse effects on the environment due to this process.
>
>Can anybody out there help me PLEASE?
>
>Kirsty Simpson
>Blairgowrie High School
>Blairgowrie
>Perthshire
>Scotland
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>--
>Bill Br of Cally, Perthshire, Scotland
>e-mail bill.henderson@zetnet.co.uk
>packet GM0VIT@GB7YEW.#79.GBR.EU
>
>
>
>
In the U.S. $6,000,000,000 has been spent by the government to
subsidize the use of corn-derived alcohol as motor fuel.
While the corn processed by cattle into meat would not feed a great
many people, this amount of corn processed into people food
_could_ feed a great many people. AND save us taxpayers
$6 billion spent on Archer-Daniels-Midlands corporate welfare
program.
Stewart Rowe srowe@tso.cin.ix.net
Subject: Re: Info on boranes??
From: a5321mai@mailbox.UniVie.AC.AT (Helmut Drobny)
Date: 10 Nov 1996 21:18:45 GMT
Hello Steven Richard,
: Can anyone name a few sources on Di-, tetra-, penta-, and hexa-boranes.
: I am looking for articles or books on synthesis ...
William L. Jolly. Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry.
Prentice-Hall,Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1960
Library of Congress Card Number: 60-14660 p. 2ff &INDEX;
(B3N3H6, B3N3H3Cl3, di)
G. Brauer.,Handbuch der Praeparativen Anorganischen Chemie.
Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart 1954, p. 751.
hope that helps
greetings
helmut
Subject: Re: Fertilizers?
From: skg@asis.com (Steve Gill)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 21:39:27 GMT
On 8 Nov 1996 19:26:03 GMT, Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
wrote:
>"S. Geller" wrote:
>>I'm looking for a way of producing affective fertilizers at home from
>>metirials which are found in every house.
>
>Compost heap, night soil.
>
>The horrible things about technology are not only that it makes life
>better in every way, but also that the better living is less expensive in
>ways one never can imagine beforehand. If Moore's Law is allowed to run
>hog wild for another decade or two, those who invest their youth in
>joining their civilization will be in pretty good shape. Everybody else
>will continue to slide down the razor blade of life.
>
>Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works.
>He who dies with the most toys had the best ride.
>
>--
>Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
>UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
>http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm (lots of + new)
> (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
>"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
>
>
Good ol' Alan!
I can vouch personally for his radically low-tech method: We have used
a composting outhouse for many years, and when the output is finished,
you can pick it up - it is pleasant smelling and excellent fertilizer.
Our secret: Good mixing with a carbon source (sawdust) and red worms
(compost worms). Those red worms will eat anything, and they're
totally biodegradable!
Subject: Re: WHY THE HELL.....
From: gmt1810@msu.oscs.montana.edu (Mark Tarka)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 22:06:12 GMT
In article <565e5b$541@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de>, fc3a501@GEO.math.uni-hamburg.de (Hauke Reddmann) writes:
>Mark Tarka (gmt1810@msu.oscs.montana.edu) wrote:
>: In article <560ke9$kke@sjx-ixn9.ix.netcom.com>, Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz writes:
>: >richard wrote:
>: >>why the hell is mercury a liquid?
>: >
>: >Relativistic effects. It's been periodically discussed.
>:
>: FOUL!
>:
>Indirect free-kick only :-)
>Try your chem library with "Pyykko" (hope I've got the
>name right) who made studies about this issue.
A search in CARL for authors under PYYKKO lead to this highly likely
connection:
Schwerdtfeger, et al.; "The polarizability of Hg and the
ground-state interaction potential of Hg2"; Theoretica chimica acta,
87(4/5), 313 (1994).
The name's Pekka Pyykko, and the publications therewith associated
give the impression that he works as a computational chemist,
quantum mechanics.
Might we hazard a guess, that Hg's polarizability is low at room
temperature (polarizability being a good idea if one is to condense,
crystalize)? Will element no. 112 also be a liquid at room
temperature?
Mark gmt1810@msu.oscs.montana.edu msu-bozeman USA
Subject: Re: PATNEWS: Chomsky on India, GATT, Pharmaceutical Patents, 3rd World
From: ram@mbisgi.umd.edu (Ram Samudrala)
Date: 11 Nov 1996 01:47:01 GMT
Andrew C. Greenberg (werdna@gate.net) wrote:
>> I don't buy this at all. Before IP laws came about, people were
>> inventing and publicising their inventions for hundreds of years.
>> Further, my understanding is that those concepts were interepreted far
>> more narrowly than they are today.
>Well, gosh. You say it ain't so by asserting that you don't buy it.
Not at all. I justify why I don't buy it immediately in the next
sentence. You said "If you permit rampant free-riding, the same thing
would result, but this time because all the inventions are kept
secret-in-fact and not disclosed generally, or because nobody really
has any incentive to invent." This is a false assertion given tat
people created and published their inventions while "rampant
free-riding" was permitted. I don't think you understand the
mentality of inventors and creators very well.
>You suggest that the Rennaisance came and passed without IP laws just
>fine.
I'm suggesting a lot of discoveries and writings were created without
IP laws just fine.
>How about the industrial revolution? Who can deny that industry has
>thrived under the patent act, and that invention and technology have
>moved at staggering rates in the past hundred years compared to the
>prior thousands?
Fallacy in logic. The issue is whether the industry would not have
thrived were it not for patent laws.
>Moreover, who can plausibly try to assert that science and technology
>prospered in those nations without strong IP laws even at any rate
>near that the development in those nations that did in the past
>century?
I cannot believe you're using this sort of logic. It could mean
hundreds of different things. Perhaps it means that science and
technology proposered in a certain set of countries and it didn't
prosper in a certain set of countries (due to various other factors)
and the countries where it prospered were able to retard its growth
with the means of patents.
>For my part, I will use the Regan/Clinton argument. Is technology
>better off today than it was five centuries ago? I think so.
>Demonstrably so.
Again, this is a major fallacy. This could be due to
anything---you're asserting it's due to patents. Heck, without
patents the technology could've been WAY better off.
I know this for a fact: if, today, in my field, all the people working
there decided to go about using patents and copyrights to protect my
work, it would retard growth. Further, there's almost unanimous
opinion among all software programmers I know that software patents
retard growth (and there's plenty of stuff by the League for the
Programming Freedom to support this POV). In both cases, the people
who actually create the inventions agree that progress would be
retarded by allowing monopolies over the ideas. I can give you
specific examples as to why if you wish (the protein data bank is a
classic example).
--Ram
me@ram.org || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th
When the going gets tough and the stomach acids flow.
The cold wind of conformity is nipping at your nose.
Some trendy new atrocity brings you to your knees.
Come with us and we'll sail the seas of cheese. ---Primus
Subject: Re: New sci-fi movie called PULSAR, BEAM ME HOME
From: Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium)
Date: 11 Nov 1996 02:08:31 GMT
In article <563hh6$skd@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
> Time : For advanced aliens on Bu it was one light year after they
> discovered controlled fusion energy. There civilization sent a space
> ship in the shape of a rocket and about the size of the Earth's radius
> to another pulsar signal. For Earth, it was the Permian geological
> time period.
>
> Mission: The mission for the Bu rocket was to go to the Nascent star
> system because the Nascent pulsar had radioed Bu of how to increase
> space ship flight speed in trade for pulsar technology. Earth and the
> Solar system was a stopping station between Bu and Nascent.
>
> Pit stop on Earth: It is the Permain time period on Earth. Animals and
> plants were coexisting nicely. Then this rocket space ship lands on
> Earth. It is huge and has to land in the ocean. The Bu-s need more
> lithium for their electrical systems. They make a quick analysis of
> Earth's environment and decide that the quickest way to restock their
> lithium supply is to run all of the big animals on Earth of that time
> through their distillation tank. The Bu-s immediately set out to net
> all of the Permain large sized animals and run them through their
> distillation tank. In one end is fed all of these captured animals and
> at the other end is seen a fractionalized form of lithium. Within a
> month most all big animals on Earth are gone and the Bu-s have plenty
> of lithium and take off to their rendevous with the Nascent pulsar
> civilization.
>
> Bu rendevous with Nascent : In the meeting with Nascent civilization
> the Bu-s trade their secret of how to pulse millisecond pulsar machines
> for the Nascent technology of faster rocketship flight.
>
> Time: On Bu, they have increased their rocketship flight from the trade
> in technology with the Nascent civilization. Both Bu and Nascent now
> use millesecond pulsar machines for communication. Time on Earth is the
> Cretaceous geological period. A Nascent rocketship is on its way to Bu
> to exchange biologicals.
>
> Pit stop on Earth: Again rocket spaceships are huge and they need pit
> stops to refuel for lithium. Nascent rocket surveys Earth among the
> planets of the Solar system and decides the quickest way to get more
> lithium is to herd together all the large animals on Earth and to
> fractionalize distill the lithium out of the animals. Here the movie
> shows interesting encounters and engagements with the dinosaurs as they
> are corralled and herded and killed and run through the distiller. Once
> enough lithium has been gathered and the Nascents take off for Bu.
>
> The movie is made long with interesting sequences of the Permian
> extinction of animals, and what the Permian animals looked like and
> what animals became extinct. And long sequences of the dinosaur
> extinction in the Cretaceous at the hands of advanced aliens.
I just did a little research on lithium to see if lithium might be
the most desirous single chemical element in the universe by advanced
aliens. Obviously to humans the single most desirable element for
energy sake would be plutonium. And should aliens land here, uranium
would be high on their mining list. But lithium , you see is perhaps
the most efficient maker of electricity. And I would go so far as to
say the lithium makes the best chemistry battery of all.
Here is the data I pulled today on lithium:
levels in humans
muscle/p.p.m. 0.023
blood/mg dm^-3 0.004
total mass of element in average 70 kg person 0.67 mg
--from THE ELEMENTS, 1991
And I read that lithium is concentrated in seawater more than it is in
biolife, but I doubt that data.
So, I put it out as a question. Is the concentration of lithium the
highest in biomaterial than it is in rocks or water? I read that some
brine has large concentrations of lithium. And are there organs in
animal or plant bodies that have higher concentrations of lithium?
Subject: Re: PATNEWS: Chomsky on India, GATT, Pharmaceutical Patents, 3rd World
From: ram@mbisgi.umd.edu (Ram Samudrala)
Date: 11 Nov 1996 02:12:14 GMT
Eric Lucas (lucas@superlink.net) wrote:
>While I agree with everything you wrote, it misses the point
>entirely. The point is that, if a company does research (at enormous
>cost, by the way, which the academics in this argument have
>completely failed to acknowledge--inventions in general *don't* come
>for free) they are going to want to get a return on their investment.
Are you insisting that the only way to get a return is to have the
current monopolistic system that we have?
>If another company comes along and uses that invention, it will reap
>the benefit without having made any of the investment, and the company
>that did the research in the first place will lose the competitive
>advantage that they paid so dearly to try to get. What then is the
>incentive for a company to put money into research then, if they can
>simply use someone else's technology essentially for free.
If I read Gregory Aharonian's article about the value of a biotech
patent right, this is almost the case right now anyway. It just took
one year for a competitive drug against Invirase to come out in the
market (just one example from his data).
>Technology may have moved forward before the introduction of the
>intellectual property concept, but it was certainly at a *much* slower
>pace.
This means nothing. The issue is whether current technology would've
moved at a slower or faster pace without IP laws.
Technology I'd argue was moving at a much slower pace during the days
of the cavemen than 1000 years ago (IP laws didn't exist at either
time). It simply shows that technology growth isn't a linear function
(and there are reasons for this---I think technological growth is a
snowball effect).
>If you insist that we give up the right to intellectual property
>protection, then you must also be willing to give up almost all
>advances that technology has given you.
Why? Are you saying the car, the TV, the AC, the radio, all wouldn't
have been invented and published without IP laws?
>All those are developments that would not be nearly as likely to have
>happened, or would not be nearly as cheap to obtain, if people or
>companies didn't have some certainty of having at least some period of
>time during which they alone would benefit from an invention.
I don't see the logic in this assertion. We can say the same thing
regarding all sorts of musical instruments to things like the wheel
and fire and various other invention.
>Remember also that patents exist for two reasons: to protect inventions
>and to disclose technological information to the public. While a patent
>protects the right of the inventor to benefit from an invention, it also
>disseminates information to the public, who can then benefit from that
>information by using it to make further inventions (which they then have
>the right to patent).
Have you looked into the issue of Software Patents (that's just ONE
example, BTW)?
--Ram
me@ram.org || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th
Hey! Aren't you scared of me Christ? Mr. Wonderful Christ! You're a
joke, you're not the Lord, you are nothing but a fraud. Take him away
he's got nothing to say! ---King Herod in Jesus Chris Superstar
Subject: Re: Lab Accidents.......
From: n5p2y5gv@abaco.coastalnet.com (Patrick Simcox)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 03:36:15 GMT
rwpick01@ldd.net (Randal W. Pick) wrote:
>All *true* chemists must have had at least one or two spectacular accidents while they were in
>school learning the science and craft. Here's one of mine (let's hear yours):
I have had the experience of several accidents, and while such events
are instructive, I would rather pay a bit less for learning...
I was performing a vacuum distillation of a material which had an
impressively high boiling point, even under high vacuum. Something
like 220 C. Idiot me, it never occured to me that the cooling liquid
around the condensor needed to be hot. So the distillate crystallised
in the condensor, eventually blocking it. Which caused the pressure
in the pot to build up until the thermometer was blown out.
Fortunately, the joint wasn't clamped down, which is something of a
habit for me, or the whole pot would likely have blown apart. Well,
worst case anyway.
When I was an undergraduate, I was working as an assistant/gopher in a
natural products lab. After assembling a THF still, we would take the
sodium flakes that were left over along with any towels and other
equipment to an isolated part of the lab and spray small amounts of
water on them to react any excess sodium. Our professor walked in one
day while we were about to do this and when he found out what we were
doing, said that was a bit involved, just take the stuff and throw it
in the sink. Which he proceeded to do before we could stop him.
There was acetone in the sink from washing glassware (the sink didn't
drain particularly well). The resulting fire was both brief and
spectacular.
Another accident occured just the other day. I had a static discharge
followed by explosion in a 15 gallon kettle while doing some pilot
work. Fortunately, no one was hurt but this is the kind of thing that
has you rethinking your career options. The kettle was grounded but
it never occured to me (or I should point out, the chem engineers I
work with) that the glass in the kettle would probably insulate the
reaction mixture from the ground.
Lab accidents are something to learn from so similar mistakes can be
avoided in the future. It isn't what you know that will kill you.
It's what you didn't bother to find out beforehand.
Subject: Re: David Hudson's monatomic element/white gold claims
From: jac@ibms46.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Date: 11 Nov 1996 03:50:06 GMT
In article <327D0465.877@coax.net> king@coax.net writes:
>
>I would like some scientific feedback on David Hudson's claims. There's
>a fair amount of material on the web
Thanks for the pointer. Always fun to read stuff like this.
>His subjects range from 'white gold' and platinum-element powders, in a
>monatomic state which slips through standard analytical chemical
>techniques, 'high spin' states, 'distorted nuclei', kundalini
>orgasmic-like states, ....
I am quite knowledgable about several of those subjects.
I found one part of his stuff quoted on that web site quite amusing:
"Okay now this is new stuff people. You're not going to find it in
universities, you're not going to find it, you know, being taught,
because it's new. It's just 1985-86 when it was first discovered."
I will simply observe that most of the people making those discoveries
are at universities and that I have heard many seminars and lectures
on the subject of high spin states and superdeformed nuclei. One of
the world's experts is at Florda State.
"It's in the published literature up to 1990-91, and that's what you're
going to see today. It's probably, 50-60% of the physics papers in
Physical Review C are on this area right now. It is a hot topic. But
very few college professors ever heard of it because it wasn't in
their curriculum when they studied."
Half the papers in Phys. Rev. C is an exaggeration. Again, this
guy is glib and perhaps accurate when he says "college" here since
you are more likely to find "university" professors who are aware
of current research than "college" professors. I will again note
that university professors discover new knowledge as well as teach
old knowledge. Many of the papers in the Physical Review are by
faculty members at universities or colleges or their students.
"Okay, here is 'Collective and single particle structure of 103 Rh
[Physical Review C Volume 37, Number 2, February 1988, pp. 621-635]'.
Right up there on my shelf. Interesting that he chose an article by
three people at Texas A&M; University after claiming that you won't
find this stuff at universities...
"Rhodium 103 is the stable isotope of Rhodium. It's just like gold, it
only has one isotope that's stable. This is it. Key words that were
developed when they begin to make these discoveries, were "high-spin"
Rhodium 103. When the nucleus becomes deformed in a ratio of 2 to 1,
Pretty normal stuff in that article. I wonder if he was confused by
the graphs showing *relative* excitation energies (relative to the
bandhead) into thinking those high spin states were not up at
several MeV excitation.
>I don't have the patience to wade through all his stuff, but I'm hoping
>some of you can isolate and debunk some of his specific claims.
I had trouble finding any specific claims, although if he claims
that deformation of nuclei manifest at high excitation and angular
momentum have any effect on ground state properties, or on atomic
properties outside of the well-known hyperfine effects from
magnetic interactions with the nuclear spin, he is way off the mark.
>He talks of 'nuclear physicists around the world' agreeing with him,
I have never heard of him before, and I bet he would be hard pressed
to find anyone mentioning his work by name in the literature.
> ... then moved into much more dubious
>material seemlessly, so that the listener had no clear idea which part
>of his talks the references do or do not support.
That would be my impression. Quoting elementary stuff from Scientific
American is hardly impressive to me, and the leap from the paper
mentioned above to the "elements in my patent application" is quite
a long and unsupported one. I also found the statement
"This is 'Superdeformation in Palladium 104 and 105 [Superdeformation
in 104, 105 Pd, Physical Review C, Volume 38, Number 2, August 1988
pp. 1088-1091]'. The two most stable isotopes of Palladium. These
are not radioactive isotopes."
interesting. Again, this work was done at the lab at the University of
California, at Berkeley, which was a university the last time I looked.
I will observe that the ground states of these nuclei are stable but
the superdeformed bands mentioned are at 10 to 15 MeV excitation! It
takes a high energy heavy ion beam to produce them and they decay
promptly as soon as they are made.
It would seem more relevant to discuss chemical experiments if one
is talking about the properties of atoms.
> ... and is now contemplating buying into Mr. Hudson's
>$500-per-person 'investment' plan.
I would want to read the prospectus and talk to the SEC first.
--
James A. Carr | "The half of knowledge is knowing
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/ | where to find knowledge" - Anon.
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | Motto over the entrance to Dodd
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | Hall, former library at FSCW.
Subject: Re: BABEL mod, reads M3D files
From: wware@world.std.com (Will Ware)
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 03:50:23 GMT
Will Ware (wware@world.std.com) wrote:
: I've put together some modifications to the Babel program to allow
: it to accept M3D files as input
In my excitement about modifying Babel to accept Molecular Arts
M3D files, I posted before thoroughly testing the thing, and I
found a mistake. M3D files include "ep" atoms which represent lone
electron pairs, and Babel doesn't know how to handle these. If they
don't get handled correctly, Babel can't figure out hybridizations.
I've been trying to rewrite rdm3d.c to simply discard the lone pairs,
but for various reasons internal to Babel's source code, this is
difficult.
It's much easier to write a small program that translates M3D files
to one of the formats already understood by Babel (XYZ files), and
then discard lone pairs in the small program. Here is a C program that
does this. This is a re-write of an earlier version of this program,
which didn't correctly handle lone pairs.
Compile this program with any C compiler, and then type:
m3dxyz < stuff.m3d > stuff.xyz
to convert a file from M3D to XYZ format. The XYZ file can then be
used with the unmodified version of Babel to produce any of the
other formats it knows about.
You can get m3dxyz.c by snipping it from this note, or via FTP at
ftp://ftp.std.com/pub/wware/m3dxyz.c.
-------- snip ----------- snip ------------ snip -----------
/*
* m3dxyz.c - C program, translate M3D files to XYZ files
* Copyright (C) 1996 Will Ware
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
* modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
* as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
* of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* You can get a copy of the GNU General Public License by writing
* to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge,
* MA 02139, USA. It's also in a million places on the net.
*
* I can be reached via email at .
*/
#include
#define MAX_NUM_ATOMS 1000
struct
{
char name[5];
float x, y, z;
} atoms[MAX_NUM_ATOMS];
void main(void)
{
char line[200];
int num_atoms;
int i, dummy1, dummy2;
gets(line);
gets(line);
sscanf(line, " %d", #_atoms);
if (num_atoms >= MAX_NUM_ATOMS)
{
fprintf(stderr, "Too many atoms, increase MAX_NUM_ATOMS\n");
exit(1);
}
for (i = 0; i < num_atoms; i++)
{
gets(line);
sscanf(line, "%d %s %d %f %f %f",
&dummy1;, atoms[i].name, &dummy2;,
&atoms;[i].x, &atoms;[i].y, &atoms;[i].z);
/* discard electron pairs, Babel doesn't understand them */
if (strcmp(atoms[i].name, "ep") == 0)
num_atoms--;
}
printf("%d\nGlop\n", num_atoms);
for (i = 0; i < num_atoms; i++)
printf("%s %f %f %f\n",
atoms[i].name, atoms[i].x, atoms[i].y, atoms[i].z);
}
-------- snip ----------- snip ------------ snip -----------
--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Will Ware web
PGP fingerprint 45A8 722C D149 10CC F0CF 48FB 93BF 7289
Subject: Re: Lab Accidents.......
From: "Stephen L. Gilbert"
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 21:31:16 -0800
Keith Rickert wrote:
>
> In wpenrose@interaccess.com (William R. Penrose) writes:
>
> >2. Another time, I was making trimethylarsine with methyl magnesium iodide
> >and arsenic trichloride, in an n-butyl ether solvent. The TMA boils at 50C
> >and is distilled off from the higher boiling nBu ether. Except it didn't
> >boil. It just got hotter and hotter. Well, everyone in the lab was nervous,
> >and I was the most nervous. I realized that the magnesium iodide precipitate
> >in the flask was not going to act as a boiling nucleation, so I cleverly
> >dropped a boiling stone in through the condenser. In about three seconds, the
> >flask was empty, all over the inside of the hood. There was a stampede out of
> >the lab. I stayed for a minute to close the windows so that the discharge
> >from the hood wouldn't blow back in, and my coworkers thought I had been
> >killed until I came out still holding the breath I had taken when the flask
> >blew.
>
> This reminds me of something similar.In one lab I worked in,
> as a summer job, we once got a large batch of tech grade
> acetone which was contaminated with some sort of heavy oil.
> The stockroom told us that 'The whole batch was like that'
> and there wasnt much we could do about it till the next batch.
> Ok, so we decided to redistill some of this, use a big still,
> no problem. Threw in a few boiling stones, let it warm up,
> then wondered why there was no bubbling near the stones as
> the flask warmed up. Dropped in a new chip and the contents
> bumped, fortunately not even over into the receiver, it hadnt
> gotten a chance to get too overheated.
> Looking at the flask afterwards, it became clear that if
> you added the boiling stones while the solvent was cold,
> they got coated with the heavy oil and failed to nucleate
> much of anything. Unfortunately, this meant that every batch
> of this we redistilled, had to be accompanied by the same
> dropping the boiling stone in while it was hot and
> hoping for the best. We were very relieved when we got
> through this stuff and acceptably clean tech acetone was available
> again.
>
> Keith
> --
> Keith Rickert | "It was the least I could do - a quantity
> keith@eve.cchem.berkeley.edu | I specialize in."
> rickertk@netcom.com | Major Dennis Bloodnok,
> | Third Underwater Artillery
The heavy form of a BOD (biological oxygen demand ) is a chemical oxygen
demand, a digestion with mixed chromic and sulfuric acids at the boiling
point. You mix a measured amount of chromic and sulfuric acids, a
measured amount of the sample, add them to a boiling flask, add a
boiling chip, install a reflux condenser, place in a heating mantel,
turn on and walk away for a couple of hours. Well, if you don't
mix...the chromic and sulfuric acid layer is so viscous and dense, it
just doesn't mix...and just doesn't boil until way way above 100 C !
When it bumps, the entire contents of the flask exits via the reflux
condenser, travels across the room and eats a hole in whatever it
encounters along the way....coming back from lunch one day...BOOM !! and
was lucky enough to be a few seconds too late to catch it in the head !
--
Stephen L. Gilbert
Consulting Services........"serving the Semiconductor Industry"
3631 N. Hash Knife Circle
Tucson, Arizona 85749
browse http://www.goodnet.com/~conser for more infor
Subject: Re: PATNEWS: Chomsky on India, GATT, Pharmaceutical Patents, 3rd World
From: Rahul Dhesi
Date: 11 Nov 1996 05:05:56 GMT
In <01bbcf2e$b11af600$f5ac11cf@lucasea-home> "Eric Lucas"
writes:
>While I agree with everything you wrote, it misses the point entirely.
>The point is that, if a company does [costly research, it will want a
>return on its investment.] If another company comes along and uses that
>invention, it will reap the benefit without having made any of the
>investment...
But this too misses the point. The point was this:
The use of the word "steal" in this context is quite wrong. If using
somebody else's ideas is stealing, then you are committing theft
every time you use any published idea without compensating the
creator.
--
Rahul Dhesi
"please ignore Dhesi" -- Mark Crispin
Subject: Re: PATNEWS: Chomsky on India, GATT, Pharmaceutical Patents, 3rd World
From: Rahul Dhesi
Date: 11 Nov 1996 05:14:36 GMT
In <565cti$8bv@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com> Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
writes:
>The Third World has the right to be ground into garden mulch by its
>betters. Either it assumes the responsibilities of a technological
>society or it suffers the Four Horsemen riding the usual route.
>I have no problem with either choice.
True, but tangential to at least one point that Chomsky was making,
which was this: No country should recognize the patents of another
country, unless doing so clearly results in a net benefit for its own
citizens.
A less-developed country X has much to gain, and little to lose, by not
recognizing foreign patents and copyrights. It *should* have its own
system of patents and copyrights, so productivity will be encouraged.
It will of course need to live with the likely result that other
countries may choose not to recognize its copyrights and patents.
Similarly, there is nothing wrong with the US reciprocating by choosing
not to recognize the copyrights and patents of country X.
There is absolutely nothing immoral about using the published ideas of
others. It is only immoral to do so by deception. There is nothing
deceptive about an open declaration that countries X and Y choose not to
recognize each other's copyrights and patents.
--
Rahul Dhesi
"please ignore Dhesi" -- Mark Crispin
Subject: Re: PATNEWS: Chomsky on India, GATT, Pharmaceutical Patents, 3rd World
From: Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
Date: 11 Nov 1996 05:20:54 GMT
Rahul Dhesi wrote:
>In <565cti$8bv@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com> Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
> writes:
>
>>The Third World has the right to be ground into garden mulch by its
>>betters. Either it assumes the responsibilities of a technological
>>society or it suffers the Four Horsemen riding the usual route.
>>I have no problem with either choice.
>
>True, but tangential to at least one point that Chomsky was making,
>which was this: No country should recognize the patents of another
>country, unless doing so clearly results in a net benefit for its own
>citizens.
>
>A less-developed country X has much to gain, and little to lose, by not
>recognizing foreign patents and copyrights. It *should* have its own
>system of patents and copyrights, so productivity will be encouraged.
>It will of course need to live with the likely result that other
>countries may choose not to recognize its copyrights and patents.
>
>Similarly, there is nothing wrong with the US reciprocating by choosing
>not to recognize the copyrights and patents of country X.
>
>There is absolutely nothing immoral about using the published ideas of
>others. It is only immoral to do so by deception. There is nothing
>deceptive about an open declaration that countries X and Y choose not to
>recognize each other's copyrights and patents.
The proper term is "usufruct" - gaining value from another's property.
Convince me that you should steal value from my efforts and I should
award you my charitable blessing for having the chutzpah to do it.
It is more likely I will be predisposed to award you a punch in the nose.
--
Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
Subject: Re: Lab Accidents.......
From: U.SCHATZSCHNEIDER@NADESHDA.gun.de (Ulrich Schatzschneider)
Date: 11 Nov 96 00:00:00 GMT
Duesseldorf, 10.11.96
Hi out there,
last year, we had a guy in our organics lab who decided to grind LAH
(Lithiumaluminiumhydrid) delivered as pellets (about a centimeter in
diameter). Well, don't do that ....
Luckily nobody was injured by the explosion, but the equipement he used
was torn into pieces (shit, what's the english name of the thing you use
to grind solids in the lab ?) and the LAH was spread in the whole lab as
fine dust. Well, that was what he originally wanted, but only in his
reaction flask ;-)
So be careful with these hydrids. Only last week we also had a small
accident when somebody washed a dropping funnel (right word ?) with water
he used do add LiH in some kind of solvent to his reaction mixture before.
Well, he did wash it with iPrOH before, but acutally not good enough.
Looked like starting a flame-thrower ...
Yours,
Ulrich Schatzschneider
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: World's second most beautiful syllogism
From: David Kastrup
Date: 11 Nov 1996 11:28:33 +0100
darla@accessone.com (Darla) writes:
> You cannot judge the importance or the value of a thing by the number and
> weight of the tools needed to produce or complete it. It takes a lot of
> heavy equipment to haul garbage, but only a heart to fall in love. And
> which is the greater endeavor? Which has more directly enhanced the lives
> of men and the survival of the planet?
Well, how long do you think you'll continue to love if your love
refuses to take the garbage away?
And how long do you think you are going to *live* if the garbage keeps
piling up in your rooms? Can be pretty unhealthy.
--
David Kastrup Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut fuer Neuroinformatik, Universitaetsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany
Subject: Re: A photon - what is it really ?
From: Frank_Hollis-1@sbphrd.com.see-sig (Triple Quadrophenic)
Date: 11 Nov 1996 10:13:25 GMT
In article , Bob_Hoesch@fws.gov (Bob
Hoesch) says...
>
>Q: "Is a photon a particle or a wave?"
>
>A: "Yes"
Congratulations. You win the prize for the shortest wrong anser on Usenet
this month.
--
-- BEGIN NVGP SIGNATURE Version 0.000001
Frank J Hollis, Mass Spectroscopy, SmithKline Beecham, Welwyn, UK
Frank_Hollis-1@sbphrd.com or fjh4@tutor.open.ac.uk
These opinions have not been passed by seven committes, eleven
sub-committees, six STP working parties and a continuous improvement
team. So there's no way they could be the opinions of my employer.
Subject: [Q] Does limestone violate the Gibbs Phases rule ?
From: C++ Freak
Date: 11 Nov 1996 12:22:14 GMT
A question for those who know Gibbs Phase Law:
F = C - P + 2
where
F = degrees of freedom
C = number of components
P = number of phases
Imagine a system with CaO, CaCO3 and CO2, e.g. heating marble in a closed
vessel.
3 components (CaCO3, CaO and CO2).
2 phases (CO2 gas, decomposing marble solid)
The reaction is
CaCO3 <-> CaO + CO2
That gives F = 3 - 2 + 2 = THREE degrees of freedom !!!
This seems to be wrong, as there is only ONE degree: each temperature of
equilibrium belongs to a given pressure. Above the temp the equilibrium
shifts to the right and below to the left of the above reaction.
At atmospheric CO2 pressure it is 900 C.
Is limestone an exception ?
What is wrong here ?
Klaas
Subject: BOOKS/PLANTS/CD
From: Rare Digital Books
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 13:33:51 GMT
Hi-
A very-very rare year 1890 Goulds Medical Dictionary on CD using
Acrobat software with bookmarks, 500 pages.
Every page has been scanned at 1200 dpi, then converted into the PDF
Acrobat file. Each page is the same as it was then now only digital
(picture). All the books on the CD has been re-crafted this way for
authenticity of the info and can be read straight from the CD.
Antique Botany, Trees, Garden, Seed Catalogue-more, 14 books!
Great for herbal/botany research, especially historical. All the
plants we found in this volume are still used today!
Plus over 1800 black and white clipart images. Over 2500 with the cut
and paste option of the books with the Acrobat Reader.
The latest Acrobat reader can be downloaded at no charge from
http://www.adobe.com.
Thankyou for your interest.
Sincerely;
Margie
http://www.alice.net/pers/antiqque.htm
Margie's Rare Books and Plant Clip art on CD-R
Subject: Composition of seawater
From: Rolf Schinkel
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 14:16:05 +0100
Dear Colleagues,
For ecologic rehabilitation projects I am involved in, I need to know
several parameters of the seawater near
the coasts of:
- the Mekong river Delta (Viet Nam; East or Chinese sea);
- the Bahia de Cartagena (Colombia; Caribean sea).
I am interested in the following parameters:
- pH;
- Salinity;
- Transparancy;
- Concentrations of
- Dissolved Oxygen (D.O.);
- Ortho-phosphate (P-Ortho);
- total Phosphate (P-tot);
- NH4+;
- NO3-;
- NO2-;
- total Nitrogen (N-tot);
- Chlorofyll-a,
and in the fluctuations of these parameters throughout the year.
Is there a handbook, reference book or something similair that contains
suchlike information about (the
different parts of) our oceans?
Thank you very much for your responses!
HASKONING, the Netherlands
Rolf F. Schinkel