explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2816: Types of Solar Eclipse

2023-08-17T21:25:50Z

172.71.242.65:

Is the annular eclipse actually possible? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.118|162.158.78.118]] 21:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eclipses/2023/oct-14-annular/where-when/ [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.7|172.69.33.7]] 21:34, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I interpret the Hug Eclipse as the sun wrapping around the moon giving it a hug, rather than the moon being pinched in on the sides. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.62|172.70.211.62]] 21:38, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
:I amended that (twice, first time got blitzed in an Edit Conflict situation), when I thought of a better way (two slightly different better ways! ...might not even have used the better one, in instance #2) to describe it. But I rushed a bit anyway... I can see typos. (Not including the likes of "centre", which is not a typo but me defaulting to British English by default; though no doubt that 'needs' changing too.)
:I'm still wondering if just "label" and "description" columns are needed (image details can be recycled into Transcript, per label). Or if it could be ";header" and ":...description" without the table, but I think it looks no worse than I had feared, as the current table form. Of course, others have added more prosaic explanation paragraphs, so I'll let it sit a while. Almost certainly the other active editors here are going to have ideas about how to merge/expunge my efforts, and I'll let them copyedit my errors/'errors' as well. But at least there's a framework answer (or several) now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.179|172.70.162.179]] 22:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

That must be a VERY scary dragonite. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.153|172.71.26.153]] 02:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
: I think I need an explain XKCD for the dragonite reference in the bot joke... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.160|172.70.210.160]] 16:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
:: Looks like it was originally [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2816:_Types_of_Solar_Eclipse&diff=next&oldid=321046 just a dragon] (consistent with various actual eclipse-myths). I'm not so sure whether it became a Pokemon creature (does that have Sun-eating capabilities?), which seems to be the main searchable reference, or something even less known to me. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.63|172.70.86.63]] 17:17, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I love this community, which will explain how a solar panel works and why the moon cannot give the sun a hug with the same level of rigor and detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 04:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I have always wondered about solar eclipses... does anybody else think it's really weird that the Earth is not just the only planet with exactly the right ratios of star/satellite size/distance to make eclipses happen, but is also the only planet (so far as we know) where there's an evolved intelligence that can appreciate such a phenomenon? After all, a similar effect viewable only from Mars or Venus would be totally wasted... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.161|172.70.91.161]] 06:35, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
: It is indeed a weird thing. We don't know if it is a weird thing that is of significance for life or intelligence or civilisation, or if it is just a happenstance weird thing. The universe has all kinds of weird things. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.22|162.158.74.22]] 07:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
: "Right place, right time". It helps that we have a Moon roughly the same (angular) size of the Sun, which seems rare, but if we didn't know it was a thing then we might not miss the coincidence. And, because of the slightly drifting Moon, at some time in the past (tens/hundreds of millions of years ago), we never had annular eclipses – but then very few people appreciated that. In another few millions of years, we'll lose all possibility of total eclipses (imagine being there to witness that last one, everyone who makes effort to be there cramming into the short stretch of 'final, brief totality' in the literally-ultimate hybrid eclipse...).
: On human scales, it's a fairly wide window that may very well out-spread the full reach of humanity (in fact, I'd bet on it, but do feel free to try to collect if we're both there jostling for room in that 'last eclipse sweet-spot' viewing platform). But imagine all the other astronomical co-inky-dinks that we ''might'' have witnessed if humanity were significantly shifted by time (and place) in the universe. Instead of "very edge of totality" eclipses, who knows what else might have been (surprisingly-)'normal'... Or at least totally different (not-)Earth (not-)Moon (not-)Sun eclipse combinations that are right-sized just like ours is. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.69|172.70.91.69]] 08:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
::postscript: of course, if large moons (created like ours was supposed to be) had to be settled down enough to allow life (after the Thea-like impact) but significant enough to cause tides (variously theorised as driving the chemical creation of life, if not the later development of advanced life forms or even the prerequisites of civilisation leading to scientific enquiry) then ''perhaps'' the chances of any equivalent beings to ourselves having any equivalent eclipses to what we see is slightly raised above that of 'any random planet with or without appreciative audience'. But, until we get very good at surveying exoplanetary systems (if we ever do) and/or visit them ourselves (ditto, with bells on), it'll be hard to quantify any inherant tendency to serve such things up on a platter to all those who might appreciate it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.69|172.70.91.69 (again)]] 09:07ish, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
: I don't understand your 'evolved intelligence'. Whether planet that has intelligence is very not-correlated with its capacity to create eclipses. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.36|172.69.71.36]] 18:40, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
:: SFAIK, there's no evidence from which to base ''any'' kind of correlation/non-correlation/anti-correlation between intelligence and eclipses, given that we have only one instance of a planet with intelligence upon it to study (and we might even learn of further eclipse-worthy planets well before we do of intelligence-populated ones). Speculative reasoning can try to fill in gaps, maybe (see just above), as long as one realises it's wild-ass-guessing. But, luckily, the thing you're replying to doesn't even try to suggest that by any reasonable reading of it. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.65|172.71.242.65]] 21:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2798: Room Temperature

2023-07-07T15:05:42Z

172.71.242.65:

Isn't there actually quite a lot of funding available for uncontrolled hot fusion? https://www.icanw.org/squandered_2021_global_nuclear_weapons_spending_report ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.32|162.158.38.32]] 23:29, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Note that '''controlled''' hot fusion (e. g. a functioning Tokamak) would also be really valuable. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 02:17, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Someone explain why superconductors are a big deal

Arguably the temperature has to change for a semiconductor to work. For it to work at room temperature alone would be pure magic.

:While I agree that a semiconductor that does not heat up in operation (IE stays at room temp) would be revolutionary, the way Cueball describes that they work "while sitting right here on the table" suggests they are "Room Temperature Semiconductors" in the sense that they can operate while immersed in a room temperature environment not necessarily that they themselves stay room temperature. Akin to the contrast between current superconductors that need to be blisteringly cold before they super-conduct and the hypothetical "room temperature superconductors" that could simply be strung through the air like present day power lines.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.223|172.70.174.223]] 14:04, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

A note about the fusion connection. In recent years, there have been breakthroughs in high temperature superconductors, which theoretically would allow to build controlled hot fusion reactors at a much smaller scale (because they can create much higher magnetic fields). There are seveal private companies that attempt to do that, most notably CFS with their [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_(tokamak) SPARC Tokamak]. I think this is what is being referenced here. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.54|172.71.160.54]] 08:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
:Maybe you could add that yourself? I wrote the current explanation but actually have no expertise in that area, and also I'm not sure how to incorporate that into the current flow of the explanation. [[User:Rebekka|Rebekka]] ([[User talk:Rebekka|talk]]) 09:01, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

:I assumed the title text (which says "demonstrates" and not "produces" uncontrolled fusion) - could be as simple as a device proving the sun is a fusion reaction --[[User:Nico|Nico]] ([[User talk:Nico|talk]]) 11:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

::It could also be that he does have a device that produces uncontrolled hot fusion, and they won't fund it because the government does not negotiate with terrorists. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 11:56, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

As I understand it, "cold fusion" doesn't necessarily mean room temperature. That would actually be quite useless. Cold fusion could mean anything from "doesn't need millions of degrees" to "cool enough to directly hook up to boilers to power steam turbines" (and potentially a lower pressure requirement). The "room temperature" thing is mostly due to bad "science" and frauds (though it is still questionable if higher temperature cold fusion can be a thing, too). It's easier to cheaply make an alleged "cold fusion device" if you don't have to heat it up to or contain it at up to several thousand degrees. [[User:627235|627235]] ([[User talk:627235|talk]]) 11:23, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
:I took that phrasing directly from wikipedia, but you appear to be right. I did some further reading and apparently there are working methods of cold fusion (most notably {{w|Muon-catalyzed fusion}}) which are very different from the badly-performed experiments that gave cold fusion a bad name. But the difference is, reputable cold fusion still requires vast amounts of energy, just not as heat, while disreputable cold fusion is claimed to perform nuclear fusion basically for free (commonly by doing an electrolysis of palladium in heavy water). I'll try to incorporate that, but it would be great if someone with actual expertise would chime in and do their own edits.[[User:Rebekka|Rebekka]] ([[User talk:Rebekka|talk]]) 12:33, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
::I don't claim any great expertise, but I was already (when I wasn't being edit-conflicted) adding little bits such as the "meeting at 'room temperature' speculation" whereby a nigh-on perpetual room-temperature process (albeit with 'hot products') ''could'' be the Holy Grail (or {{w|DeLorean time machine#Mr. Fusion|"Mr Fusion"}}) of future cheap and manageable (and somehow not weaponisable/fail-deadly) table-top-scale fusion devices. Of course, this is is at least twenty-minutes-into-the-future stuff (deLoreans aside!) and may or may not ever become realistic. Perhaps less likely than the "flying cars and jetpacks" (or hover-boards!), of common imagination. But ''perhaps'' we might sometime get something the size (and surface heat, beyond the layers of necessary insulation and shielding for temperatures, fusion products and magnetic flux) of a household gas boiler. Probably not even that, in which case it could be justneighbourhood "{{w|Cogeneration|CHP}}"s to add managed resilience across the power-grids. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.230|172.70.90.230]] 13:43, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
Do we really need "citation needed" that uncontrolled hot fusion is dangerous? Really? Because anyone who doesn't understand this is not going to understand "room temperature superconductors", probably not uses of any superconductors. Like ever. Oh wait! I'm sure this discussion statement has a [[citation needed]]{{cn}}!!! {{unsigned|Cuvtixo|01:56, 7 July 2023}}
:It's a ''joke''... albeit one that I think is somewhat overused. Currently 817 out of 2798 articles include it, just under 30%. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 04:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
::Oh good. I tend to think that it should be maybe, as a ball-park figure, no more than one in four articles that has the {{template|Citation needed}} (in order to keep it special, not shoehorned in ''everywhere''...), and it's almost down that. (It must also be on the absolute blinding obvious and perhaps even tautoligicous to the point of being a tautological tautology, of course. ''And'' funny. If it aint funny, it has no purpose.)
::Though bear in mind that some articles have multiple occurances, so the use-count is probably higher as a proportion. And I'd have to check to see if the count counts the common redirects (thus aliases) of "citation needed", "Citation Needed", "cn" and "fact", at the very least, which might get used accidentally or because they're easier to type.
::But, remember, if anybody wants an ''actual'' {{template|Citation needed}}, there's always {{template|Actual citation needed}}. And, naturally, if you see one of ''those'' then you ''are'' truly invited to confirm/deny or just more accurately word the 'fact' so labeled - if you are in a position to do so.
::Here endeth the lesson. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled program... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.213|172.70.91.213]] 05:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
::: I don't think that blindingly-obviousness is the right test - rather it should be that imagining that it were untrue results in a humorously absurd scenario. There are plenty of blindingly obvious statements that don't meet that test, and there are some less immediately obvious ones that do (in fact, these are often the more effective uses of the CN tag).[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.26|172.70.86.26]] 13:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
:::: I did say "''And'' funny. If it aint funny, it has no purpose." Plus, how can it be funny if someone (let's say the 'reasonable reader-on-the-web') doesn't recognise the underlying factuality without extensive additional research? There's going to be subjectivity, on both measures, but that's probably why I judge others' usage of the tag far more than I ever (have I actually ever? ...off my own back?) deign to impose it upon others. Horses for courses, but it's how I've become acclimatised to the local editing culture, and how I interpret it should be best perpetuated. YMMV, but its a POV. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.65|172.71.242.65]] 15:05, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Now here I thought the device to demonstrate uncontrolled hot fusion was a pair of binoculars to observe the sun and stars. [[User:Jamcdonald|Jamcdonald]] ([[User talk:Jamcdonald|talk]]) 06:10, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I usually prefer controlled hot fusion with gravitational confinement. We are already using one such power plant. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.90|162.158.62.90]] 13:21, 7 July 2023 (UTC)