Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Nuclear is obvious, an energy surplus is desire (Score 1) 433

Air filtration, chemicals for narcose/desinfectant/pre and post op medicine, a couple of people busy, hospital heating.
A sex change operation is quite expensive, even just energy wise. It may cost more to change from female to male than there can be saved.
Especially since adding those parts may not change a woman from semi coldblooded to warmblooded.

Although, if every woman did that the energy consumption would dropping quite far in a hundred years.

Oh and GPP probably meant whenever reasonably possible.

Comment Re:Am i the only one? (Score 1) 630

Well, you could end each conflict by lobbing a few ICBM's at the enemy. That'd stop them for sure.

These weapons are an alternative to lobbing nukes. A nicer alternative, something akin to the difference between removing a tumor with a scalpel or with a sledgehammer. Neither is fun for the tumor, but the surrounding tissue prefers the scalpel.

Comment Re:Difficult to defend against (Score 1) 630

Decelerating it with a magnetic field isn't feasible. The current in the railgun does 2 things:
1. It makes a hell of a magnetic field
2. It runs through the projectile. That current undergoes a Lorentz force due to the magnetic field. The Lorentz force moves the projectile.

How are you going to induce that current in a projectile that is heading towards you? Without it the magnetic field will not influence the projectile.

And that is besides the technical challenges in making a magnetic field with enough strength to stop this while enveloping the entire ship.

I'd upgrade the goalkeeper, but I am Dutch so that was to be expected.

Comment Re:"Low Cost" (Score 1) 630

Depleted uranium has the tendency to ignite with air at 700 ÂC. It may be so that the compression heating from the speed exceeds that temperature. In that case the projectile may turn into a nice cloud of poisonous uranium oxide. On your ship.

In short: I'd advise a tungsten coating around the uranium if they go that way. The hull of the target ship will strip away the tungsten. The friction will make it exceed 700 ÂC. The scientists working on this probably already know that.

Comment Re:IANA Physicist, So... (Score 1) 630

While oxygen is the most common oxidizing agent it is not the only one or even the strongest one. Oxidizing just bears a similar name because usually oxygen is the oxidizer. Chlorine is more powerful and fluorine is even stronger than that.
Some nasty stuff like ClF3 will oxidize with the silicon in sand, expelling the oxygen.

Comment Re:IANA Physicist, So... (Score 1) 630

Not only with oxygen. Chlorine and fluorine oxidize stuff way faster. That is why ClF3 is so much "fun".
(burns sand, burns concrete, burns water, burns glass, burns workbenches, burns researchers, burns labs, burns buildings. All while emitting nasty fluorine based gasses like large quantities of HF. Fun stuff.)

Slashdot Top Deals

This file will self-destruct in five minutes.

Working...