This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.
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A battery can hold a lot of energy, but it takes a long time to charge it. A capacitor can be charged very quickly, but doesn't hold a comparable amount of energy.
A graphene supercharger is the best of both: it takes just seconds to charge, yet stores a lot of energy. Imagine being able to charge your spent laptop or phone battery in 30 seconds, and your electric car in a few minutes. Also, unlike batteries, Graphene supercapacitors are non-toxic.
The Nobel Prize was awarded to the inventors of Graphene in 2010. Wikipedia defines Graphene as a "substance composed of pure carbon, with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern similar to graphite, but in a one-atom thick sheet. It is very light, with a 1-square-meter sheet weighing only 0.77 milligrams."
I never thought of a capacitor as a battery substitute. Interesting. I'm not really in tune to the work that's being done in the area, but I've thought for some time now that battery technology is something that needs to make a large leap forward. You know: smaller, lighter, more capacity, etc. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Fish:
This is something that I've always wondered about, due to the fact that we each interpret color on an individual basis. Your interpretation of red, could be another person's green....
That kind of makes sense, but kind of doesn't.
If I laid out 10 crayons unlabeled and asked 100 people (not including blind or color blind people) to pick out a red one, all 100 would pick out the same one. Doesn't that mean they all have the same interpretation of red? [Reply]
Originally Posted by -King-:
That kind of makes sense, but kind of doesn't.
If I laid out 10 crayons unlabeled and asked 100 people (not including blind or color blind people) to pick out a red one, all 100 would pick out the same one. Doesn't that mean they all have the same interpretation of red?
No, say when you are in school and the teacher is teaching your class colors and she shows you red, well everyone in the class determines that the color they are looking at is what they see as red. Now when you lay those 10 crayons out everyone is going to see what their version of red was and pick the crayon. Not because they have the same interpretation of red, but because they see the color that they learned was red in school. [Reply]
Stunning photographs of the cosmos, like the wondrous images captured by the Hubble Space telescope, convey the beauty that arises from the simple interactions of dust and light and gas on absolutely massive scales. Missing from photos of the universe, however, is a sense of depth: These stunning nebula are not a paint splatter on a celestial canvas, but truly massive constructions hanging in the void.
The images, says Phil Plait, on his blog Bad Astronomy, are “not actually showing you the 3D structure of the nebula. It’s an approximation, a guess based on various assumptions on how nebulae are shaped. J-P broke the image up into layers, made a surface model of it, then remapped it all into different frames seen from different angles. He then put those together to make the animated GIF you see here.”
First, Metsavainio collects information about how far away an object is, and carefully studies the stars and structures in and around it. Then, he creates a volumetric model of his subject — usually a nebula, although he’s rendered at least one globular star cluster. Finally, he animates the 3-D rendering, providing viewers with a tantalizing taste of what it might be like to fly a starship through these enormous astronomical ornaments.
“How accurate the final model is, depends how much I have known and guessed right,” Metsavainio said. Many of his renderings carry the statement: “NOTE: This is a personal vision about shapes and volumes, based on some scientific data and an artistic impression.”
