Matter/Anti-matter and alternate energy

tmacklin said:

The original post was about colliding matter with anti-matter to solve mans' energy needs. That thesis will require great effort and time to accomplish and I doubt that a solution will occur in my lifetime.

As for the debate between faith and science, consider this. Light travels a a tremendous velocity, 186,000+ miles per second. It takes sunlight some eight minutes to reach Earth, which means it's eight minutes old when our eyes see it. Science also tells us that that the Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light years distant, meaning that the light it emits is 2,500,000 old when we see it with our naked eyes on a clear night, even in Oklahoma.

Is it real or merely an illusion?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy

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The religious argument when faced with these facts is that "god put the light there so it would seem as if it were coming from the place in question"
Yes, completely ludicrous but since it cannot be proven nor disproven (whereas the scientific argument is supported by observation), it falls in the category of pseudoscience.

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tmacklin said:

The original post was about colliding matter with anti-matter to solve mans' energy needs. That thesis will require great effort and time to accomplish and I doubt that a solution will occur in my lifetime.

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I suspect the original discussion is the only reason the thread hasn't been killed...

Anyway, I agree, it's unlikely any of us will live to see antimatter energy in wide scale use. Fusion, maybe... Fusion at least we have a solid theoretical knowledge of and a lot of years working on it to refine the engineering. Antimatter we don't even have a concept of how we might use the energy or even get enough of it to bother. The elements needed for fusion are available enough, deuterium, tritium, hydrogen... Certainly far easier to obtain than antimatter. The engineering though, that has proven to be far more problematic.

As for energy without fossil fuels, even if you don't buy into the pollution arguments, fossil fuels are useful for plastics and other things. Let's save them for that sort of thing. The only single-source that I see as workable is fission. It's proven, well understood and we know how to build them now. That said, there are issues enough with it that it's worth using it sparingly. In many areas, solar and wind can generate sufficient energy to require much less power from large sources. If we run them all grid-connected, they can balance each other out to some degree. When solar isn't producing well, there's usually wind. And we can fall back to fission and gas fired plants as needed. There are methods to store energy at scale, even really simple ones like pumping water up to a large reservoir and draining it to make power later. I suspect the short term solution is to run in a more distributed manner with many smaller sources like rooftop solar combined together. That might even wind up being a good long term solution, but it's hard to say what we might come up with in 10+ years. I really like the Tesla solar shingles, combined with the powerwall, you could even run off-grid if your area gets sufficient sunlight.

In some ways, it's too bad that people would howl if you used some of the geothermal resources in Yellowstone. I get not wanting to turn it into a power plant, but that's a lot of energy just sitting about...

Personally, I have no problem reconciling my faith with science. Perhaps one mechanism by which God created things is evolution? Even the book of Genesis describes that a period of time was required for the creation.

I think these Bible verses are worth consideration by scientists as well as the faithful: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+90:4,2+Peter+3:8&version=NIV

Okay folks I'm going to say this ONCE. I don't have the time to edit this entire thread. If you want to discuss matter/anti-matter vs. nukes vs. solar power, etc. fine.

But if there is EVEN ONE more post about global warming or religion then this thread will be locked and the offender will get an infraction.

Oh, and for the record, I wanted to comment about the 6000 year old earth thing so much I almost gave myself an infraction so I could do it.

But I won't.

Seriously.

Please stop.

Peartree said:

But if there is EVEN ONE more post about global warming or religion then this thread will be locked and the offender will get an infraction.

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Thank you for saving me from myself.

Peartree said:

Oh, and for the record, I wanted to comment about the 6000 year old earth thing so much I almost gave myself an infraction so I could do it.

But I won't.

Seriously.

Please stop.

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John, I would be more than happy to give you an infraction, but only with your permission. :wink:

Peartree said:

Oh, and for the record, ... I almost gave myself an infraction so I could do it.

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Run for congress. The rules should apply to the rulers.

[video=youtube;EkNTAiWX8g0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkNTAiWX8g0[/video]

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I intentionally steer clear of threads like these normally, but... I'd like to see some meritorious discussion on "practical" nuclear energy from all you rocket scientists. One of the best proposals I've heard for nuclear was the notion of an "MSR" as proposed by Taylor Wilson in this Ted Talk:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...WdRHHis7es-l7xOpdxeVMw&bvm=bv.139250283,d.amc

Almost a win-win... ymmv

MWC said:

I intentionally steer clear of threads like these normally, but... I'd like to see some meritorious discussion on "practical" nuclear energy from all you rocket scientists. One of the best proposals I've heard for nuclear was the notion of an "MSR" as proposed by Taylor Wilson in this Ted Talk:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...WdRHHis7es-l7xOpdxeVMw&bvm=bv.139250283,d.amc

Almost a win-win... ymmv

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I've seen people talk about those and similar designs before. I like the idea far more than the "standard" style reactors in use today. A setup like that is something we have the tech and engineering to build right now, not some 20+ years away tech like Fusion. I'd love to see some of them made and put through some thorough testing for safety and failure modes. On paper things look pretty sound to me, but real life tends to mess with nice theories. If you really can mass produce them at a reasonable cost, they could be a really big deal. Something like that could be online in just a few years, likely faster to build than a coal or gas plant. Sure, lower capacity for a single unit, but if the cost numbers work, using a larger quantity of them could be cheaper.

Sure, Fusion is better, in theory and if we can actually make them work. But we could do a lot with fission while we wait.

Well I for one hope this gets locked. If nothing else, one person needs a "time out" or at least a talkin to. You mods better have already sent a warning to someone. He's new here and is probably trying to see how far he can push things. Last I heard (and I know from 1st hand experience) name calling on this forum is not allowed. Terms like "crazy" and "deluded" are very objectionable to me.

MWC said:

I intentionally steer clear of threads like these normally, but... I'd like to see some meritorious discussion on "practical" nuclear energy from all you rocket scientists. One of the best proposals I've heard for nuclear was the notion of an "MSR" as proposed by Taylor Wilson in this Ted Talk:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...WdRHHis7es-l7xOpdxeVMw&bvm=bv.139250283,d.amc

Almost a win-win... ymmv

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Not being a rocket scientist I have nothing meritorious to add, but it is very encouraging to see a young man pursuing his vision that may one day benefit all mankind. Very interesting and thanks for posting this intriguing concept by Taylor Wilson. It's good to see young people with something on their mind besides street theater. :smile:

Three words: Zero Point Module

(Yes, I'm a Stargate SG1 fan!)

Just tap into the energy of the fabric of the universe!

bill2654 said:

...Well I for one hope this gets locked. If nothing else, one person needs a "time out" .... Terms like "crazy" and "deluded" are very objectionable to me...

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THAT'S IT...

Everyone OUT of the pool...

Time outs for all ya all...

KidRockET said:

THAT'S IT...

Everyone OUT of the pool...

Time outs for all ya all...

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It's adult swim time!

(When adults contemplate whether the level of urine is at an acceptable level for their health.)

Looks like after Andrew deleted all his posts out of the Age Limits thread, he came here and nuked all his posts here too (or possibly annihilated them with antimatter).

So he was complaining about kids being irresponsible and then...... uh, yeah.


[video=youtube;0JNO0TBbpSc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JNO0TBbpSc[/video]