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emptybits 7 hours ago [-]
> "a quasicrystal — a kind of matter scientists once thought impossible that challenges traditional ideas about how solids form"
Whenever I read a phrase about scientists observing something they thought was impossible ... I get really excited for scientists in that field! :-)
spoll 2 hours ago [-]
There's a wonderful book by one of the discoverers of quasicrystals, Paul Steinhardt, called "The second kind of impossible" which is a fantastic read and full of the excitement you alluded to. Very accessible and enjoyable.
kridsdale1 3 hours ago [-]
Science advances one “huh, that’s weird” at a time.
What was special about the first nuclear test, rather than the thousands of others, at least hundreds of which were also in the Nevada desert?
Obviously it's historically significant, and the new forms of matter were first discovered there , so that's why trinitite is named after the site. But 80 years later, wouldn't we expect the other bomb sites to have just as many interesting chemical reactions?
comradesmith 11 hours ago [-]
It’s probably just that more people are looking at the trinity site because of said historic significance
lightsighter 15 hours ago [-]
The Trinity test took place in New Mexico, not Nevada.
I have some Trinitite. It's easy to obtain. You can buy it in rock shops, especially in the Southwest. Back in the day, when they opened the Trinity site to the public a couple of days a year, there was no prohibition on collecting Trinitite. That's why rock shops have it.
They still open the site to the public one or two days a year but they won't let you collect Trinitite any more. You can walk on it but don't try to put it in your pocket or a person with a gun will pull you aside for a chat.
There's not much public access to the sites in Nevada; at least until the DOE resumes their bus tours and they're even more hard over about not letting you pick up anything.
We do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitite#Similar_materials says "Occasionally, the name trinitite is broadly applied to all glassy residues of nuclear bomb testing, not just the Trinity test" and lists hiroshimaite and kharitonchiki as similar glassy residues from Hiroshima and the Semipalatinsk Test Site, respectively.
As a wild guess, what's special is it might be the easiest to get, with many samples to study.
kombookcha 13 hours ago [-]
Adding to this, I seem to recall that the specific geological/chemical conditions on the site is consequential for the sorts of glass produced. So presumably, Hiroshmiaite and Trinitite would actually be physically distinct as a material.
As I recall, research on meteorite impacts use the similarly formed Impactite to deduce various things about ancient impact sites. As an aside, I think they also do really elaborate calculations of force and angle of impact based on surveying the spread pattern and distribution of these little glass chunks.
Probably no Hiroshiaite as the explosion there was at higher altitude of 580 meters. Trinity explosion was close to the desert surface (30 meters). The radius of trinite formation was about 300 meters around the tower so none would have formed at Hiroshima.
eesmith 6 hours ago [-]
I think it's pretty surprising for you to make that "Probably no Hiroshiaite" claim given that the linked-to Wikipedia article says it exists: "Following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, it was discovered in 2016 that between 0.6% and 2.5% of sand on local beaches was fused glass spheres formed during the bombing." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitite#Similar_materials
"A complex association of millimeter-sized, aerodynamically-shaped debris, including glass spherules, glass filaments, and composite-fused melt particles was recovered from beach sands on the shores of the Motoujina Peninsula in Hiroshima Bay, Japan. .... This study interprets the large volumes of fallout debris generated under extreme temperature conditions as products of the Hiroshima August 6th, 1945 atomic bomb aerial detonation. The chemical composition of the melt debris provides clues to their origin, particularly with regard to city building materials. This study is the first published record and description of fallout resulting from the destruction of an urban environment by atomic bombing."
"Our analyses support the hypothesis that the Hiroshima glasses are gas phase condensates formed in the nuclear fireball ... The Hiroshima bomb exploded 580 m above the city so that no crater was formed at the surface. The plasma (called fireball) formed at this altitude, had a maximal radius of 230 m (Imanaka,2011; Malik, 1985). ... The maximum temperature on the ground during the explosion was estimated to be 6287°C (thermal wave) (Radvanec, 2009) while the maximum pressure reached 35 tons per m² (3171 bar) at the arrival of the blast wave at the hypocenter, 1.3s after the explosion (Radvanec, 2009). Under such conditions, the city materials were injected as vapor or melted debris in the air 0.5 to 2 seconds after the explosion and vaporized by the high temperatures prevailing in the plasma (4000-2500 K) at that time (Adams et al., 1960, Supplementary S6)."
I think what your analysis didn't consider was the observation that "The fact that no crater was produced by the explosion (Glasstone & Dolan, 1977) reinforce the idea that the primary source of Hiroshima glasses is the city materials and not the soils or the basement rocks below the city."
eesmith 8 hours ago [-]
Yes, even the steel support structure and copper electrical wiring affect the trinitite composition.
Rover222 9 hours ago [-]
"also in the Nevada desert" - huh? The first test was in NM. Probably irrelevant to your point, but...
frereubu 13 hours ago [-]
> The clathrate’s “cage” shapes are 12-sided dodecahedrons and 14-sided tetrakaidecahedrons made of silicon atoms...
Totally OT but if "dodeca" means 12, why isn't 14 just "tetradeca"? What's the "kai" for?
adrian_b 6 hours ago [-]
For the same reason why in English 12 = twelve, but 14 = fourteen. Not all numerals are formed by the same rule.
The correspondents of the -teen numbers in Greek were formed similarly with English, after the model of 14 = four and ten = "tetrakaideka".
"Tetrakaideka" is a contracted form of 14, normally used in compound words. When "14" was an isolated word, it would have been "tettarakaideka" or "tessarakaideka". These are the forms for the neuter gender, the numeral "4" = "tettara" or "tessara" (depending on the dialect) was changed by declension for other genders and cases.
In Ancient Greek numbers bigger than 20, the word "and" = "kai" was usually omitted, but then the bigger number was always the first like in "twenty-four". When "and" was inserted, then the order could also be inverse, like in "four-and-twenty".
normie3000 13 hours ago [-]
kai means "and"
I guess like asking why 120 is said "one hundred and twenty" in some dialects.
Maybe that's how 14 and 12 are written in Greek.
HighGoldstein 10 hours ago [-]
The Greek term would be decatetrahedron.
adrian_b 6 hours ago [-]
Ancient Greeks did not say "dekatetra" for 14, i.e. ten-four, but as it is correctly written in TFA, they said "tetrakaideka" for 14, i.e. "four-and-ten", which is actually close to English "fourteen".
For example, already Aristotle used "dipoda" (2-feet) for humans and birds, "tetrapoda" (4-feet) for other terrestrial vertebrates and "hexapoda" (6-feet) for insects. After the same model one can say "oktopoda" (8-feet) about spiders and "tetrakaidekapoda" (14-feet) about woodlice.
normie3000 10 hours ago [-]
Apologies - Ancient Greek!
frereubu 12 hours ago [-]
Ah I see, thanks!
gapan 12 hours ago [-]
As the sibling comment already said "kai" (pronounced ke like in keg) just means "and". So it literally means 4 and 10 sides in greek. But I have often seen it written as τετραδεκάεδρο (tetradecahedron) in greek as well, so without the kai part. I'm not sure why it is 4 and 10 instead of 14 though. It would be more natural in greek that way (δεκατετράεδρο - decatetrahedron). Maybe it is for putting the distinctive part (4) first, or maybe it sounded more "poetic" like that to someone and then it stuck.
shever73 11 hours ago [-]
I think the three-and-ten, four-and-ten way of expressing numbers is primarily an ancient Greek thing. The modern numbers are expressed differently (δεκατέσσερα / dekatessara for fourteen, for example). In a lot of older European languages 11 and 12 behaved irregularly. You could argue that they do in English too (we don't have oneteen and twoteen).
I haven't read of any particular reason for this, but I'd posit that numbers up to twelve were more commonly used in everyday life, so shorter, irregular forms were easier to use and remember. Much like many of the irregular verb forms in spoken language happened because they were so commonly used.
The ancient Greek system also gave us triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13.
gapan 10 hours ago [-]
Indeed, in ancient greek they put the "δέκα" (ten) part second. Τρία και δέκα (13), τέσσερα και δέκα (14), πέντε και δέκα (15), etc, but 11 and 12 was (and still is in modern greek) irregular, έντεκα (enteka) and δώδεκα (dodeka) respectively.
shagie 9 hours ago [-]
French has some weirdness to its counting. 11 - 16 is specific words, 17 - 19 is "ten {number}" (dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf).
There's also some fun when you get to 70... which is soixante-dix (sixty ten)... and 80 which is quatre-vingts (four twenties)... and 90 as quatre-vingt-dix (four twenties ten).
Some dialects of French outside of France have changed how they count.
dylan604 9 hours ago [-]
With Spanish being similar with distinct words for 11-15 with 16-19 being 10+number. Taking Spanish in high school made me consider that for the first time while never having thought about 11,12 being similar in English until that same thought process.
anthk 4 hours ago [-]
On_ce, do_ce, tre_ce, cator_ce, quinc_e seem to share similar Latin roots with uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco...
shever73 8 hours ago [-]
Yes, there are lots weird remnants of the vigesimal system around in French. You can see it in names like the Quinze-Vingts hospital - literally "fifteen twenties" because it was designed to have 300 beds.
onlypassingthru 9 hours ago [-]
>we don't have oneteen and twoteen
But we do have duodecim, aka dozen. So we just need to add "onezen" to the current vernacular to make the set complete. Let's go team onezen!
colechristensen 7 hours ago [-]
There were plenty of base-12 number systems in Europe, one way of counting to 12 is using your thumb to count the bones in the other 4 fingers, one hand for the 1's digit, the other for the 10's digit.
12 being divisible by 2,3,4,6; 10 being divisible by 2,5 -- means base 12 is easier to multiply and divide to reach whole numbers.
beeforpork 10 hours ago [-]
> "kai" (pronounced ke like in keg)
Ancient Greek spans several centuries of sound shifts and many dialects. It cannot easily be simplified into one specific pronunciation, particularly not one that is based on your specific dialect of English. Wiktionary has /kǎi̯/, /ˈkɛ/, /ˈcɛ/ and /ˈce/ for "καὶ".
gapan 4 hours ago [-]
You don't have to span several centuries to witness that. "και" is pronounced in several different ways in modern greek as well. But that's besides my original point.
fhars 11 hours ago [-]
Nobody would be so weird as to put the "four" first when pronouncing "14".
Because the Greek word for 12 is something like "though-theka". And the word for 14 is "theka-tessera". Like most European languages, 11 and 12 are special, then it reverts to the "single digit - ten" or "ten - single digit" pattern.
"kai" is "and" in Greek.
autoexec 14 hours ago [-]
> The only other known naturally forming quasicrystal was found inside meteorite fragments
Does it really count as "naturally forming" if we had to artificially construct and detonate a nuke during a carefully conducted experiment to create this one?
pocksuppet 13 hours ago [-]
Well, it's more natural than something like a lab diamond. This one forms naturally given unnaturally created, but not completely implausible, conditions. There is a big difference between "we blew up rocks and they formed this mineral" and "we treated rocks with X acid and Y acid and then carefully annealed them under extreme pressure and they formed this mineral"
theowaway 11 hours ago [-]
De Beers has entered the chat
kridsdale1 3 hours ago [-]
You don’t really love your wife unless you’re willing to detonate a nuclear device and wait for the half-life.
rationalist 4 hours ago [-]
How do we know the quasicrystals in the meteorite fragments are naturally occurring, and weren't created by nuclear detonations on an alien planet, then blasted off into space when an asteroid hit the site? Or perhaps the nuclear explosion was tested on an asteroid rather than a planet.
NoMoreNicksLeft 6 hours ago [-]
If a beaver constructed and detonated the nuke, it'd still just be natural though.
autoexec 2 hours ago [-]
I doubt many people would think that was natural and if the beaver wasn't killed outright for acting so unnaturally it'd probably spend the rest of its life in a lab being researched.
NoMoreNicksLeft 1 hours ago [-]
You'd think that, but the beaver who does this is a nuclear power. Are you quite so sure you can keep him prisoner?
kridsdale1 3 hours ago [-]
Those industrious bastards need to be stopped before they get their paws on The Bomb.
Towaway69 14 hours ago [-]
We’re a product of nature, it’s mistaken to believe we are above nature or that nuclear weapons aren’t also part of nature.
We’re also very much dependent on nature and natural forces.
So everything we do is, even if many steps removed, still an act of nature.
nkrisc 12 hours ago [-]
With the influence of humans: artificial.
Without the influence of humans: natural.
There’s a useful definition for you. Otherwise according to your definition the term “natural” is completely meaningless and serves no purpose.
SecretDreams 11 hours ago [-]
All natural nuclear weapons has a nice ring to it ~ the OP.
leonidasrup 10 hours ago [-]
"As strange as it seems now, the notion of “clean” nuclear weapons was taken fairly seriously in the late 1950s and early 1960s. U.S. government officials had been interested in the possibility of such nuclear weapons, which they believed would produce far less radioactive fallout than standard “dirty” thermonuclear weapons."
You can drastically change the amount of fallout with materials and design decisions, so it's worth considering.
For example, tsar bomba was tested with a lead tamper instead of uranium; this reduced the yield, but also the fallout. The Ripple design has no tamper, was used in the last US airdrop test, and produces very little fallout compared to other designs.
A limited fallout design allows for occupation and/or resettlement after an attack, so it seems useful to consider.
Yes, yes, it didn't make a practical difference because MAD makes them all unusable.
kridsdale1 3 hours ago [-]
They also wanted these for domestic use. No fallout means making a new Panama Canal, or removing a pesky mountain, are just nuclear construction projects.
toast0 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah... the problem is if you were to use them for excavating, you have to explode them on, in, or near the ground which will generate lots of fallout from neutron irradiation of the ground materials.
Clean H-bombs are only clean if used for air bursts, but air bursts aren't effective for excavation.
conductr 8 hours ago [-]
Here I have been thinking all these freeways and strip mall suburbs are organic growth of older cities. You mean a person designed this hellscape?? /s
autoexec 14 hours ago [-]
Diamonds are also product of nature, but when we grow them in a lab they aren't often considered to be "naturally formed". It's just that the lab we used in this instance was part of the Jornada del Muerto.
dylan604 9 hours ago [-]
> when we grow them in a lab they aren't often considered to be "naturally formed"
Isn't this solely because De Beers wants to keep the product of their mines artificially priced higher? So they come up with phrases to make lab grown diamonds sound less than the ones they mine?
leonidasrup 10 hours ago [-]
Very small diamonds can be created using detonation.
Side note: Jornado del Muerto translates to English as Journey of Death.
4gotunameagain 14 hours ago [-]
This is a valid argument, albeit a pointless one.
We use the term natural specifically to distinguish between the.. natural and artificial.
A term like that is necessary.
dylan604 9 hours ago [-]
A similar one is synthetic. We've used that label for things like synthetic oil, but there are a lot of other things that are synthesized because it is too difficult to get the material naturally.
lwhi 13 hours ago [-]
I think sometimes the distinction is made between natural and artificial (human made) as a way to sway an argument. In many of these cases, the reasoning is tenuous if we examine with an understanding that the difference is sometimes arbitrary.
If anything, we should be more careful with our use of language. For instance; 'naturally ocurring' vs. 'human made'.
zelphirkalt 14 hours ago [-]
One language usage question, and one content question:
"Melted sand"?? Isn't it "molten sand"? Is my hunch completely wrong, or is the author not a native speaker? Neither am I, but melted sand sounds so weird to my ears.
This all happened in a matter of seconds, so atoms didn’t have time to arrange into stable structures,[...]
Isn't seconds kinda like ages at that scale? Atoms needing longer than seconds to arrange under super high pressure sounds also dubious? But I am no expert in that area.
thejohnconway 14 hours ago [-]
To my ears “Molten” would imply that the sand is currently in liquid form. The sense ”melted” is used here, as having been melted, seems right. You melt sand to get molten sand, right?
zarzavat 12 hours ago [-]
"Melted sand" sounds strange because English already has a word for that: "glass".
radiorental 7 hours ago [-]
[dead]
tetha 13 hours ago [-]
"Molten" to me implies it is still liquid. Molten salt reactors, molten magma from a volcano, molten sand, molten steel, dipping something into molten cheese. All fluid.
If I was to nitpick, "melted" is kind of inaccurate and not entirely natural in this context. Technically, molten sand is also melted sand, because that's how you get it to that state? Usually, you'd hear about solidified magma, crystalized sand, cast iron, air-cast steel, unevenly settled corium... to make a better point on how it turned back into a solid and what to expect from it - something like "The molten sand crystalized into an unusual structure" would be clearer.
I'd usually rather hear "melted" if it is important to note that this had a phase change and back. Plastic on an electrical device may look melted, indicating heat. A hardened steel part may look melted, which may damage the hardening. Rubber on a hydraulic line may look melted, also indicating heat. A plastic container looking melted in the context of chemicals may indicate some compromise.
Now the words sound weird in my head. Thank you.
kashunstva 13 hours ago [-]
It’s being used as a participial adjective here. I don’t think there’s much semantic nuance in the distinction between “melted” and “molten.” It comes down to common usage. “Molten sand” sounds more suitable to my ears, but “melted butter” also sounds better than “molten butter.” Odd, I think it’s part of a trend to replace the use of the past participle in some adjectival contexts. Maybe melted/molten is just an incomplete transition.
bandrami 13 hours ago [-]
I think it's "molten" while it is still liquid but not once it crystalizes; at that point it's "melted"
rjp0008 13 hours ago [-]
Think of dropping a water balloon onto a pin. It pops instantly, but the water (like the temperature and overpressure) takes a while to dissipate into a puddle.
peyton 14 hours ago [-]
The sand melted, yielding a type of glass. Melt emphasizes a change.
kleiba2 17 hours ago [-]
Sounds like the plot of a B movie...
rectangleboy 17 hours ago [-]
Something like this came up in Robert R. McCammon's 1987 book Swan Song[1], one of the first novels to win the Bram Stoker award[2] for Best Novel (alongside Stephen King's Misery that year).
One of the survivors finds a glass ring (something like trinitite) among the post-nuclear-blast rubble of Saks Fifth Avenue[3] in New York and sees visions of the future (or something) through it.
Swan Song, coincidentally, is getting a pilot as a TV series. I'm not sure if it's gotten stuck in development hell or if it's actually going somewhere, it's only been 18 months or so since screenwriting started.
jdkoeck 16 hours ago [-]
Interesting! Is it any good? Did it age well?
TurdF3rguson 15 hours ago [-]
For God's sake man! You must learn to shield your thoughts from the crystals!
asimovDev 15 hours ago [-]
Found footage movie, combining Trinity Test and Philadelphia Experiment maybe? I think it has legs
CodeArtisan 9 hours ago [-]
The video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R is happening in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, an area filled with super natural anomalies and artifacts due to the radiation. A legend/rumor says that there is a special crystal granting any wish at the center of the zone, inside the power plant's sarcophagus. The existence of the crystal can't be verified because a cultist faction, The monolith, is preventing anyone to reach the center.
The second image from the article looks like caelid map from elden ring
yieldcrv 16 hours ago [-]
Oxen Free prequel incoming
josteink 14 hours ago [-]
While the news is interesting in itself, I found the lack of illustrations disappointing.
When discussing new novel molecular structures, one would think providing a concrete visuals of what they look like more interesting than human-scale photos of materials containing them?
yieldcrv 16 hours ago [-]
Its not “where is the crystal” its “when is the crystal”
Whenever I read a phrase about scientists observing something they thought was impossible ... I get really excited for scientists in that field! :-)
Obviously it's historically significant, and the new forms of matter were first discovered there , so that's why trinitite is named after the site. But 80 years later, wouldn't we expect the other bomb sites to have just as many interesting chemical reactions?
I have some Trinitite. It's easy to obtain. You can buy it in rock shops, especially in the Southwest. Back in the day, when they opened the Trinity site to the public a couple of days a year, there was no prohibition on collecting Trinitite. That's why rock shops have it.
They still open the site to the public one or two days a year but they won't let you collect Trinitite any more. You can walk on it but don't try to put it in your pocket or a person with a gun will pull you aside for a chat.
https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/alamogordo-visit-the-trinity-...
There's not much public access to the sites in Nevada; at least until the DOE resumes their bus tours and they're even more hard over about not letting you pick up anything.
https://nnss.gov/community/monthly-community-public-tours/
The general term for for the fused glass-like material formed during a nuclear test" seems to be "atomsite" - https://www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/purl/3001767 . Some images of atomsite from the Trinity and Semipalatinsk test sites are at http://www.radioaktivitaet.uni-bremen.de/downloads/Pittauero...
As a wild guess, what's special is it might be the easiest to get, with many samples to study.
As I recall, research on meteorite impacts use the similarly formed Impactite to deduce various things about ancient impact sites. As an aside, I think they also do really elaborate calculations of force and angle of impact based on surveying the spread pattern and distribution of these little glass chunks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impactite
and when a quick search finds the relevant research paper at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22133...
"A complex association of millimeter-sized, aerodynamically-shaped debris, including glass spherules, glass filaments, and composite-fused melt particles was recovered from beach sands on the shores of the Motoujina Peninsula in Hiroshima Bay, Japan. .... This study interprets the large volumes of fallout debris generated under extreme temperature conditions as products of the Hiroshima August 6th, 1945 atomic bomb aerial detonation. The chemical composition of the melt debris provides clues to their origin, particularly with regard to city building materials. This study is the first published record and description of fallout resulting from the destruction of an urban environment by atomic bombing."
and when the dynamics are described in https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X2...
"Our analyses support the hypothesis that the Hiroshima glasses are gas phase condensates formed in the nuclear fireball ... The Hiroshima bomb exploded 580 m above the city so that no crater was formed at the surface. The plasma (called fireball) formed at this altitude, had a maximal radius of 230 m (Imanaka,2011; Malik, 1985). ... The maximum temperature on the ground during the explosion was estimated to be 6287°C (thermal wave) (Radvanec, 2009) while the maximum pressure reached 35 tons per m² (3171 bar) at the arrival of the blast wave at the hypocenter, 1.3s after the explosion (Radvanec, 2009). Under such conditions, the city materials were injected as vapor or melted debris in the air 0.5 to 2 seconds after the explosion and vaporized by the high temperatures prevailing in the plasma (4000-2500 K) at that time (Adams et al., 1960, Supplementary S6)."
I think what your analysis didn't consider was the observation that "The fact that no crater was produced by the explosion (Glasstone & Dolan, 1977) reinforce the idea that the primary source of Hiroshima glasses is the city materials and not the soils or the basement rocks below the city."
Totally OT but if "dodeca" means 12, why isn't 14 just "tetradeca"? What's the "kai" for?
The correspondents of the -teen numbers in Greek were formed similarly with English, after the model of 14 = four and ten = "tetrakaideka".
"Tetrakaideka" is a contracted form of 14, normally used in compound words. When "14" was an isolated word, it would have been "tettarakaideka" or "tessarakaideka". These are the forms for the neuter gender, the numeral "4" = "tettara" or "tessara" (depending on the dialect) was changed by declension for other genders and cases.
In Ancient Greek numbers bigger than 20, the word "and" = "kai" was usually omitted, but then the bigger number was always the first like in "twenty-four". When "and" was inserted, then the order could also be inverse, like in "four-and-twenty".
I guess like asking why 120 is said "one hundred and twenty" in some dialects.
Maybe that's how 14 and 12 are written in Greek.
For example, already Aristotle used "dipoda" (2-feet) for humans and birds, "tetrapoda" (4-feet) for other terrestrial vertebrates and "hexapoda" (6-feet) for insects. After the same model one can say "oktopoda" (8-feet) about spiders and "tetrakaidekapoda" (14-feet) about woodlice.
I haven't read of any particular reason for this, but I'd posit that numbers up to twelve were more commonly used in everyday life, so shorter, irregular forms were easier to use and remember. Much like many of the irregular verb forms in spoken language happened because they were so commonly used.
The ancient Greek system also gave us triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13.
There's also some fun when you get to 70... which is soixante-dix (sixty ten)... and 80 which is quatre-vingts (four twenties)... and 90 as quatre-vingt-dix (four twenties ten).
Some dialects of French outside of France have changed how they count.
But we do have duodecim, aka dozen. So we just need to add "onezen" to the current vernacular to make the set complete. Let's go team onezen!
12 being divisible by 2,3,4,6; 10 being divisible by 2,5 -- means base 12 is easier to multiply and divide to reach whole numbers.
Ancient Greek spans several centuries of sound shifts and many dialects. It cannot easily be simplified into one specific pronunciation, particularly not one that is based on your specific dialect of English. Wiktionary has /kǎi̯/, /ˈkɛ/, /ˈcɛ/ and /ˈce/ for "καὶ".
:-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence
"kai" is "and" in Greek.
Does it really count as "naturally forming" if we had to artificially construct and detonate a nuke during a carefully conducted experiment to create this one?
We’re also very much dependent on nature and natural forces.
So everything we do is, even if many steps removed, still an act of nature.
Without the influence of humans: natural.
There’s a useful definition for you. Otherwise according to your definition the term “natural” is completely meaningless and serves no purpose.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2017-0...
You can drastically change the amount of fallout with materials and design decisions, so it's worth considering.
For example, tsar bomba was tested with a lead tamper instead of uranium; this reduced the yield, but also the fallout. The Ripple design has no tamper, was used in the last US airdrop test, and produces very little fallout compared to other designs.
A limited fallout design allows for occupation and/or resettlement after an attack, so it seems useful to consider.
Yes, yes, it didn't make a practical difference because MAD makes them all unusable.
Clean H-bombs are only clean if used for air bursts, but air bursts aren't effective for excavation.
Isn't this solely because De Beers wants to keep the product of their mines artificially priced higher? So they come up with phrases to make lab grown diamonds sound less than the ones they mine?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detonation_nanodiamond
We use the term natural specifically to distinguish between the.. natural and artificial.
A term like that is necessary.
If anything, we should be more careful with our use of language. For instance; 'naturally ocurring' vs. 'human made'.
"Melted sand"?? Isn't it "molten sand"? Is my hunch completely wrong, or is the author not a native speaker? Neither am I, but melted sand sounds so weird to my ears.
Isn't seconds kinda like ages at that scale? Atoms needing longer than seconds to arrange under super high pressure sounds also dubious? But I am no expert in that area.If I was to nitpick, "melted" is kind of inaccurate and not entirely natural in this context. Technically, molten sand is also melted sand, because that's how you get it to that state? Usually, you'd hear about solidified magma, crystalized sand, cast iron, air-cast steel, unevenly settled corium... to make a better point on how it turned back into a solid and what to expect from it - something like "The molten sand crystalized into an unusual structure" would be clearer.
I'd usually rather hear "melted" if it is important to note that this had a phase change and back. Plastic on an electrical device may look melted, indicating heat. A hardened steel part may look melted, which may damage the hardening. Rubber on a hydraulic line may look melted, also indicating heat. A plastic container looking melted in the context of chemicals may indicate some compromise.
Now the words sound weird in my head. Thank you.
One of the survivors finds a glass ring (something like trinitite) among the post-nuclear-blast rubble of Saks Fifth Avenue[3] in New York and sees visions of the future (or something) through it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Song_(McCammon_novel) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker_Award#External_lin... [3] my memories of this book may be embellishing this a bit....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Cher...
Which could also result in a B movie, I guess.
When discussing new novel molecular structures, one would think providing a concrete visuals of what they look like more interesting than human-scale photos of materials containing them?