More sloppy science

[bunsen_h]

Further thought on my post yesterday...  If you really had a bucket with one hundred pounds of an isotope with a half-life of 3 years or so, it would have to be a very special bucket.  And you and your neighbors would probably not be happy.  If your hypothetical bucket-o-zappy-crap really lost 50 lbs. by conversion to energy in three years... it would be emitting 21.6 gigawatts on average.
 

Comments

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

That's enough to power a flux capacitor!

[foms.livejournal.com]

Several flux capacitors, but that's not important, right now. If one left a bucket of the sort of high-grade zappy-crap to which our esteemed colleague, Dr. Bunsen, refers sitting around, then the Libyans (and, probably, others) would be very likely to come 'round, in short order, to, um, help.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Anyone coming 'round to help themselves would probably get when they deserved. In the total-conversion case, assuming a 0.5m-diameter spherical black-body container and emission only by thermal radiation, the temperature of its surface would be about 26400 K. Even if X was merely breaking down conventionally, it would be pretty hot both by heat and by radiation. Good luck with those lead-lined underpants.

[ambiviolent.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid all I took away from this was "yow that's a lot of power" "yow that's hot" and "lead-lined underpants".

And I'm afraid all I have to contribute is lead would be very very much less than bendy and wouldn't provide the best in ventilation either.

Lead-lined cargo pants and a lead-lined hoodie would be way better.

[beable]

So speaking of crappy science, I hope for your sake that you gave up on watching Torchwood: Miracle Day after the episode with the poison.

It's just gotten dumber in terms of plausibility-fail.

I'm watching it anyways, out of the same grotesque fascination which causes us to read about train wrecks. I haven't quite had the energy to rant about the more spectacularly silly plot developments / abuses of science / abuses of common sense / abuses of sanity, but then one of the LJers that I follow (ed_rex has been keeping up steady reviews that I have largely been agreeing with, so that "it's already been said by someone who posts more quickly tan I" probably weighs into that)

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched any more episodes, and from the comments I've seen, I think it's best that I stay away from them. At some point, I might read capsule summaries of the episodes... when I'm in the mood for something I can sneer at. Perhaps someone should do an MST3K version, as was done for "Eye of Argon" and "Attack of the R*ck*ids".

I was getting pretty annoyed by the repeated assertion that everybody in the world had become immortal while Harkness had become mortal. That last part was an assumption for no reason at all; it was far more likely that he was in exactly the same situation as everybody else — might get extremely damaged but wouldn't die.