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Woops, my oversight.
I intended to say that most of what I said in my last post, after "So, what is crude oil?", is taken from http://www.chevron.com/learning_center/crude/]this site by Chevron which was much easier than writing it all out myself. But I forgot to say so.
Sorry.
...organic/inorganic mean different things to chemists and non chemists
Well yes, but I was discussing this thing seriously, not in the ignorance-speak of the (so-called) 'organic food' greenies, who don't know the meaning of the very word they call their overpriced substandard rubbish. They make their money from the principle that there's another fool born every minute. (Like 'genetically modified': we humans have eaten nothing but GM food for many thousands of years--it's called selective breeding. ... but I digress...)
No no, Methane and other organics can be produced from purely nonbiological sources too in the deep Earth, as evidenced by radiocarbon dating and trace Helium, and that the stuff happens to be where biological materials and fossils are not.
Well of course, I agree with that. It's what I've been saying!
However: Methane (CH4) is organic to the same extent as, say, CO2 is organic. In other words it's organic in the strict sense of the term: it contains carbon. But it's not a complex hydrocarbon of the kind that makes up crude oil--and living oranisms. Ethane (C2H6) propane (C3H8) and butane (C4H10), also simple hydrocarbons, are the other main components of natural gas, but about 75% of natural gas is methane. These gaseous (at NTP) compounds are the hydrocarbons that have been detected on Titan -- and also in intersetellar gas clouds, by the way. Their chemical simpicity is why, unlike petroleum, they burn so cleanly--
CH4 + 2*O2 --> CO2 + 2*H2O (+891 kJ)
So, what is crude oil?
Geologists generally agree that crude oil was formed over millions of years from the remains of tiny aquatic plants and animals that lived in ancient seas. There may be bits of brontosaurus thrown in for good measure, but petroleum owes its existence largely to one-celled marine organisms. As these organisms died, they sank to the seabed. Usually buried with sand and mud, they formed an organic-rich layer that eventually turned to sedimentary rock. The process repeated itself, one layer covering another.
Then, over millions of years, the seas withdrew. In lakes and inland seas, a similar process took place with deposits formed of non-marine vegetation.
In some cases, the deposits that formed sedimentary rock didn't contain enough oxygen to completely decompose the organic material. Bacteria broke down the trapped and preserved residue, molecule by molecule, into substances rich in hydrogen and carbon. Increased pressure and heat from the weight of the layers above then caused a partial distillation of the organic remnants, transforming them, ever so slowly, into crude oil and natural gas.
Although various types of hydrocarbons—molecules made of hydrogen and carbon atoms—form the basis of all petroleum, they differ in their configurations. The carbon atoms may be linked in a ring or a chain, each with a full or partial complement of hydrogen atoms. Some hydrocarbons combine easily with other materials, and some resist such bonding.
The number of carbon atoms determines the oil's relative "weight" or density. Gases generally have one to four carbon atoms, while heavy oils and waxes may have 50, and asphalts, hundreds.
Hydrocarbons also differ in their boiling temperatures—a key fact for refiners who separate the different components of crude oil by weight and boiling point. Gases, the lightest hydrocarbons, boil below atmospheric temperature. Crude oil components used to make gasoline boil in the range of 55 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Those used for jet fuel boil in the range of 300 to 550 degrees, and those for diesel, at about 700 degrees.
There are three essentials in the creation of a crude oil field:
First, a "source rock" whose geologic history allowed the formation of crude oil. This usually is a fine-grained shale rich in organic matter.
Second, migration of the oil from the source rock to a "reservoir rock," usually a sandstone or limestone that's thick and porous enough to hold a sizable accumulation of oil. A reservoir rock that's only a few feet thick may be commercially producible if it's at a relatively shallow depth and near other fields. However, to warrant the cost of producing in more challenging regions (the Arctic North Slope, for example) the reservoir may have to be several hundred feet thick.
Third, entrapment. The earth is constantly creating irregular geologic structures through both sudden and gradual movements—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and erosion caused by wind and water. Uplifted rock, for example, can result in domelike structures or arched folds called anticlines. These often serve as receptacles for hydrocarbons. The probability of discovering oil is greatest when such structures are formed near a source rock. In addition, an overlying, impermeable rock must be present to seal the migrating oil in the structure.
The oldest oil-bearing rocks date back more than 600 million years; the youngest, about 1 million. However, most oil fields have been found in rocks between 10 million and 270 million years old.
Subsurface temperature, which increases with depth, is a critical factor in the creation of oil. Petroleum hydrocarbons rarely are formed at temperatures less than 150 degrees Fahrenheit and generally are carbonized and destroyed at temperatures greater than 500 degrees. Most hydrocarbons are found at "moderate" temperatures ranging from 225 to 350 degrees.
It is the particular crude oil's geological history that is most important in determining its characteristics. Some crudes from Louisiana and Nigeria are similar because both were formed in similar marine deposits. In parts of the Far East, crude oil generally is waxy, black or brown, and low in sulphur. It is similar to crudes found in central Africa because both were formed from non-marine sources. In the Middle East, crude oil is black but less waxy and higher in sulphur. Crude oil from Western Australia can be a light, honey-colored liquid, while that from the North Sea typically is a waxy, greenish-black liquid. Many kinds of crudes are found in the United States because there is great variety in the geological history of its different regions.
Of course, light hydrocarbon gasses like methane are often—even usually—found in oil fields because they tend to be off-gassed by the crude, but this is a separate (although currently more common) source than direct geological production from non-oil fields. In fact these gas fractions are so common and such a nuisance that standard practice has long been just to burn it off as it emerges from the well. That's what most oil flares actually are.
Actually no, I mean real live crude oil is created through a purely geologic process, not just from decomposing biological sources
My father was an oil geologist and an uncle was professor of geology after years in the oil business. I have many good friends in the geological side of the oil business and in universities as professors, etc. Credit me with a little bit of knowledge about this.
If there is one thing everyone in the business is quite certain about, it is that yes, crude oil is created geologically all right, but from the pressure and temperature effects on deeply buried dead bits of biology over millions or even billions of years. For one thing, it's a mixture of hydrocarbons, which means its chemistry is organic and not inorganic. That fact alone kills your idea stone dead.
Most rich crude oil reserves are near geologicly active places
Not as I recall, top of the head. There are oil-exporting countries such as Iran, that are subject to earthquakes, but not near their oilfields (remember Iran is as big as the US east of the Mississippi) and as for volcanoes--it's true Krakatoa, that blew up last century, is in Indonesia, but the country's main oilfield is about 1,000 miles away on another island.... and so and so on.
Earthquakes and volcanoes happen along tectonic plate boundaries in the earth's crust; oil tends to turn up where the surface has been away from one of these fault lines long enough for the organic processes that lead to oil to have happened.
We weren't even able to send objects into orbit then, so we certainly did not have the technology to go to Mars.
Yes we did, and yes we did. What we lacked was the political will to do it.
Really? So how many things had we sent into orbit by 1952?
Sorry, my typo. What I should have said was, "Yes we were, and yes we did.", meaning , "Yes we were able to send objects into orbit, and yes we did have the technology to go to Mars."
Ehhh I wouldn't count oil out... we still have quite a bit here and there in Alaska and off the coasts. Oil will continue to be a popular source of energy because of it cheap and storeable.
It's rapidly going to become anything but cheap and there will not be nearly enough to go around. When China and then India a few years later go for automobiles in a big way, world oil demand will double and then treble and than quadruple... just as supply starts to run out. This will happen soon enough, even without any major upsets in the Middle East, and even with every imaginable source exploited as rapidly as possible (For example, you don't mention the Alberta tar sands, for one, which the last I heard were likely to cost up to $100/barrel to extract; or the offshore oil off Newfoundland, which will require enormous production platforms able to withstand 'direct hits' from icebergs on a regular basis, and will also cost well over $100/barrel to land. Oh! And the pollution danger would be great and permanent.)
Now of course if the demand is there--for the reasons I mentioned-- you'll be able to sell stuff from these places. But the selling price is likely to be something more like $200/barrel (supply and demand--and we cry at $40/barrel today) so yes, you're right, don't count oil out. But I'd sooner get my energy from somewhere else, thank you very much.
I think I said on an earlier thread: I used to work for Mobil as one of the people who looked at the feasability of these Alberta and Newfoundland projects, among others, so I know of what I speak. The private view of those of involved in these studies was that burning oil as fuel ought to be made a crime; it is too valuable and really is irreplaceable as chemical feedstock.
There is infact good evidence that oil is produced by non-biological geologic mechanisms,
You're thinking of natural gas. It's pretty well established that crude oil is the product of biological processes--just as coal is.
and infact some partially depleated wells in the Gulf of Mexico are refilling
This hoary old one comes up every now and again. What's really happening is that deposits in unexploited areas immediately adjacent to the depleted field seep in to fill the 'vacuum'. It may deliver a little more pumpable crude, but it ain't the second coming.
And what retaliation could the allies sortie that they wern't already deploying?
The Nazis were on a hiding to nothing. They surrendered eary May 1945. If they have managed, by poison gas or whatever, to keep going for another 3 months to August 1945, they would have been nuked into immediate surrender.
Putting alot of our oil interests in the Middle East has wound up being much more trouble than we bargained for...
I don't think anyone consciously decided to make the Middle East the centre of our oil interests. It just happens to be where the oil is.
the trouble with (all alternatives) is that they just aren't going to come fast enough either no matter what we do. It will take a while even if we started a push today, and the stuff is no good for gasoline or kerosene.
The one sure and certain event in our future is the end of the oil economy. (This is not all bad: it means the dire predictions of the global warming doomsayers will never happen) But it does mean we need to be constructing the alternative energy economy NOW.
In my view all the so-called green energy sources are like trying to put out the Great Fire of London by peeing on it. They are just not on the right scale -- or scaleable.
The only two technologies that we know of that are capable of doing the job are nuclear and space solar power satellites (SSPS) Nuclear is the short term stop-gap, and right now we need to be building nuclear power plants like there's no tomorrow (as there might not be if we don't build them) while we gear up towards building vast arrays of very large SSPSs at GEO...
...and there's a lovely spin-off for all or us: really cheap and really large-scale access to space. The cost of going to Mars (and everywhere else in the system) will tumble.
Well you get the idea... if the technology is not efficent enough, then it is impractical. Though I wonder what would have happend to England if Hitler had put Tabun instead of explosives on the V-2... gas masks would only prolong your agony
And what would have happened if Churchill had put Tabun instead of explosives on the Lancasters ... No, whatever way you look at it, the V-2 was a bad investment for the Nazis at the time.
Hitler was extremely reluctant to use poison gas (except in concentration camps) for some reason. One I can think of, so far as using them on England was concerned, is that the prevaling wind would blow them right back over Germany. The other is that he knew their use would invite an immediate British retaliation (Churchill said as much) and the British had better means of delivery. (The RAF)
We weren't even able to send objects into orbit then, so we certainly did not have the technology to go to Mars.
Yes we did, and yes we did. What we lacked was the political will to do it.
If we created some big incentives for using biodiesel, we could eliminate much of the petroleum consumption in a fairly short time frame.
No we wouldn't. Biodiesel projects I've seen require more fertiliser (produced from crude oil) than gasoline replaced, and would use up so much surface area, half the world would have to do without enough to eat. Also biodiesel is a much dirtier fuel than gasoline or normal diesil, so pollution would be increased.
Problem: Putting all the power plants in one place invites our enemies to obliterate our nation with a single nuclear strike. With our ability to produce energy gone for years.. all electricity and transportation nationwide.. the United States would cease to exsist in a single day.
Putting all (or near enough) our oil resenves in one place, which happens to be the most unstable politically on earth, ain't so smart either.
According to Dr. Marvin Herndon, the Earth's core is made of uranium.
...and the moon is made of green cheese. Can we try to stick with a modicum of realism around here, please?
Mmmm I would NOT say the technology was available yet... yes the actual hardware could be built to fly to Mars back then, just not without completly obliterating the gross product of the whole country for years. For a technology to be "available," it has to be at least somewhat affordable. His scheme was more of a thought experiment than a real plan...
You're right and wrong at the same time...
It's not hard to show that the Peenemünde A-4/V-2 project actually used up as much a proportion of the German war economy as the Manhattan Project did of the US war economy--and in the end it delivered upon the enemy rather less bomb-load than one typical nightime raid on Germany by 500 RAF Lancaster bombers, so in terms of who got best value for money there, it most certainly was not the Germans. Yet without Peenemünde, I doubt we would even be where we are today so far as space travel is concerned, so from that perspective it was worth every penny.
Von Braun did cost his Marsprojekt. He forecast it would cost $4 billion, in 1952 money. He described that as the price of a small war.
Well, as we can see from his earlier venture in Germany, he did tend towards the optimistic side when it came to pricing his proposals. But even so, it would not have obliterated the entire GDP for years.
Now, talk of fission or fusion powered rockets is interesting for the future--and the same is true of practical/useful plasma rockets. But what I think we should be aiming for now is a manned expedition to Mars that does not require us to invent anything new; in other words, a mission profile that fits within known technology.
Which is what von Braun did 52 years ago. But yet of course, it was a thought experiment; an engineering paper setting out how it could be done with current echnology; a theoretical demonstration that the idea need not be science fiction.
six months each way is more fuel effecient. Actually I beleive it is the most fuel effecient route to mars (and back) in a reasonable time frame. Thus it would be cheapest to use a six month time period.
The most fuel-efficient transfer time to Mars is 260 days which is the duration of a Hohmann transfer ellipse at time of closest conjunction of Earth and Mars. Return transit time is the same.
The whole story is set out in painful mathematical (and German) detail by a certain Herr Professor Doktor Wernher Freiherr von Braun (he was made up to professor by Hitler, so he did not go on about that) in a jolly little booklet called Das Marsprojekt he published in 1952. There was no talk of using any form of nuclear rocket, or even high-Isp chemical rockets like LH2/LOX. LH2 has a high boiloff rate in vacuum, which could have been embarrasing when time came to go home, to find the tank was empty. No, von Braun wanted to use nice sensible hydrazine and nitric acid...
And so it goes on. The point von Braun was making, more than fifty years ago, was that even then we already has the technology to go to Mars. All it needed was the will to do it, and that's still lacking in certain quarters today.
An alien intelligence might also consider Pi as the most significant, fundamental, constant; and keep bradcasting Pi, in binary, as a beacon
You've been reading Carl Sagan's "Contact" (not the movie, the book)
You make it sound as easy as pi......
The problem is, to how many binary places? Or if not, if seeking absolute accuracy, once started the broadcast goes on for ever and if you tune in half way, how do you know what its all about? It'll just sound like a string of meaningless '1's and '0's.
From another forum, too good not to share:
Actually, Betsy Ross invented pi - specifically cherry pi - after George Washington cut down her cherry tree.
Pi is equal to one brownie or two scoops of ice cream in the Richard Simmons Deal-a-Meal plan.
No matter what they tell you in school, pi is not squared. Pi is round. However, if you take the crust off a circle of pi and try to arrange it in a line across the middle of the pi, you will still have pi.
Magic Squares give the illusion that each equal square has a line of numbers that add up the same, in any straight line up or down or corner to opposite corner. I have studied them as a hobby for 14 years and Love it. I want to continue to study them until I die.
Well I think that's fine and entirely commendable.
Once a suitable replacement is obtained, work will resume to complete it.
I look forward to hearing how you get on.
Constant by a definition only:
"It may be a surprise for many physicists that even within the framework of general relativity faster-than-light speed is allowed, provided that the space-time metric of the universe is globally hyperbolic"
The possibility of travelling faster than light is not relevant to the question of what is the velocity of light in a vacuum, c. It's a red herring.
BTW, if I were you I'd not hold my breath while waiting for faster-than-light travel to get here. It that day ever arrives, it's going to do so mighty slowly.
I agree C^2 is a constant when you refer the equation to light in a vacuum. Natural light comes from the biggest mass in the solar system the Sun.
But it does not matter what the source of the light is, or what frequency it is, or how rapidly or slowly the light-source is moving away from you or towards you, IT IS STILL EXACTLY C. (This is why it's called the Theory of Relativity, as it happens: the velocity of light in a vacuum is ALWAYS exactly the same: c.
For example:
(1) suppose you are stationary and a train is coming towards you at 90% of the speed of light, and it shines a light towards you as it does so. What speed would that beam of light be travelling at when it reaches you? (1 +.9)*c, ie. 190% of c? No, the answer is exactly c.
(2) suppose you are stationary and a train is going away from you at 90% of the speed of light, and it shines a light towards you as it does so. What speed would that beam of light be travelling at when it reaches you? (1 -.9)*c, ie. 10% of c? No, the answer is exactly c.
The answer is ALWAYS exactly c.
What happened to PI the fraction?
It makes no difference how you present or represent Pi; it is still exactly the same transendental number.
Therefore you can't square a circle, just as I said Lindemann had proved way back in 1882.
I don't agree.
With respect, it does not matter whether you agree or not, Lindemann is right and you are wrong. Learn to live with it.
c (as defined--and this was previously discussed here) is clearly not a transendental number.
Then C must be an algabraic number, having a minimum and maximum or a sliding solution, depending on the value of the variable M as both are linked to E.
c is an algebraic number in the sense that it has an exact value. It is a CONSTANT, which is BY DEFINITION 299,792,458 meters/sec. That is the ONLY value it CAN EVER have. Period. To talk of minimum and maximum values for c is just nonsense. Learn to live with it.
Pi is a transendental number in the sense that it does not have an exact solution. Thus Pi, which begins with 3.141… has been solved to 10 billion places but still without any end in sight. But Pi too is a CONSTANT. It has one value and one value only, but because we cannot determine it exactly it is called a transendental number, and that's why we cannot square a circle. (Or, if you insist, cube a sphere.) Learn to live with it.
What is the number prior to infinity?
Infinity minus 0.00000....((infinity minus 1) number of zeros)...00001
(Or to put it anouther way, infinity. I told you infinity is strange.)
So, what is...
(1) 0/infinity ?
(2) infinity/infinity ?
(3) infinity^2 ?
(4) infinity^infinity ?
Answers on a postcard, please ...
The ratio that would ratify a solution to squaring a circle would also be a transendental number, obtained from the radius and square length ratio.
A funny way to put it, but it illustrates my point. If that would be a transendental number (I think you are right, it would) then clearly it cannot be determined exactly. Therefore you can't square a circle, just as I said Lindemann had proved way back in 1882.
Are you implying that C^2 can only been seen as the transendental number of the speed of light as measured in a vacuum? .
c (as defined--and this was previously discussed here) is clearly not a transendental number.
I can only see the 2 of E=MC^2 as a transendental number the rest an algebraic formula..
The number 2 is also quite clearly not transendental.
(You still havn't got this transendental thing, have you?)
And here I thought "infinity" was a concept, not a number.
No, it's a number. But it's infinitely big.
I'm guessing it comes somewhere after ten. I think I'll try to count to it.
You mean like, "1, 2, 3....8, 9, 10, lots" ?
This ratio would have mystical properties just like pi
Mystical, schmistical.
Pi is just a transcendental number.
A transcendental number is a real number that is not the root of an algebraic equation with rational coefficients.
There are an infinite number of transcendental numbers, and they do not have any 'mystical' properties, any more than any other numbers. There is nothing very special about being a transcendental number. In fact there are infinitly more transcendental numbers than those that are not--although there are an infine number of non-transcendental numbers too, of course.
IOW:
The set of all transcendental numbers = Infinity
The set of all non-transcendental numbers = Infinity
but...
(The set of all transcendental numbers/The set of all non-transcendental numbers) = Infinity
If you've followed this so far, you might very well conclude that if there is any odd sort of number around here, it's infinity!
Thus when Lindemann proved in 1882 that Pi is transcendental (not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients) he effectively proved that the construction was impossible with only straightedge and compass.
This is a rather silly definition, although reasonably accurate as far as it goes. I'd have put it this way: you can't square a circle because it is impossible to accurately square Pi, or derive its square root (or, BTW, cube a sphere because you can't cube Pi or derive its cube root) due to its transcendental nature.
Pity he did'nt have a piece of string!!!
Uh, a piece of string is simply the poor man's pair of compasses, but much less acurate.
What has Lindemann got to do with using squares to make a wheel rotate?
You tell me.
ME: "It's just dawned on me that you think you can square the circle."
YOU: "If you mean, I believe, I can make something go in a circular motion using an incremented square matrix, then yes, I am trying to square a circle, um... I would put it, that I was trying to cube a sphere."
The proof was in Euclidian geometry. What is similar in curved space ?
The value of Pi is unchanged and so remains a transcendental number in any geometry. Therefore the Lindermann proof holds against squaring the circle in any geometry.
Apparently, light can go faster than the speed of light.
GCNRevenger is absolutely right; the physics of what's happening here is more than a little complex. I believe this apparent superluminal travel is an interesting efect similar to but not the same as quantum tunnelling.
However, reading the report carefully again, an even more interesting report seems to have been discovered:-
...The 3-microsecond long pulse of light would normally take only 0.2 nanoseconds to pass through the chamber in a vacuum. But when passed through the specially prepared chamber, light emerged 62 nanoseconds earlier than it would have had it passed through the chamber in a vacuum.
In other words, it emerged from the chamber 61.8 nanoseconds before it entered it.
Yeh, right.
If I'm right the maths of it are now published, free for all, but it has not been proved.
You're darn right it's not been proved. On the other hand it has been conclusively disproved:
In 1882 the Lindemann Theorm provided a rigorous and conclusive mathematical proof that squaring the circle is impossible because Pi is a transcendental number.
End of circle-squaring (or sphere-cubing) story, folks.
I can see and show 360 degrees in a 4 square. I believe I can use the math in a 4 square in an abstract way to produce Energy.
It's just dawned on me that you think you can square the circle.
ROFL!!!!!!!
If you mean Hiesenberg's principle, no. I ment the word 'unless'.
'Unless'? Huh? Where? That makes even less sense.
It's clear you have not the least notion of the real significance of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. (To be fair, not that many people do.)
However, since you can't grasp that the 'c' in E-mc^2 is a fixed value by definition, I don't think I've got enough energy left to get into trying to explain quantum mechanics...
There are none so blind as those that will not see.
I will continue my study into E=M^2*Sea^3 (*) once the Gravity Wheel's axle is sorted and I have witnessed it rotating under it's own power.
Well at least this means we should have a nice long breathing space before we have to contemplate that... a few decades or centuries, at the very least?
Nice to see the uncertainty principal...
I'm almost afraid to ask, but ... where has there been any mention of that in this thread?
In science, (unless you are dealing with the Copenhaggen Interpretation of QM maybe) then what you believe or think or have faith in has NO bearing or connection or effect on the physical laws of the universe... otherwise you are brewing your own particular brand of intellectual witchcraft.
GCNRevenger, the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM (also known as the Standard Model) does not say that what you believe or think or have faith in matters, but that the act of obesrvation affects what is observed.
I think it's important to make this point, in order to try to prevent Ant picking up the ball and running with the idea that QM depends on what you believe, etc.
------------
Meanwhile...
(Sigh)
• Extract gravitational energy
A Korean gentleman who is confusing the difficulties of solving the three-body problem with a failure of Newton's Laws of Motion and Law of Universal Gravitation, who then wraps up this rather basic misunderstanding into some gloriously scientific-sounding mumbo-jumbo, complete with very authoritative-looking mathematical formulae.
The three-body problem is the name given to any attempt to predict the motions of any object in a gravitational field where is more that one significant gravitating body (say, Apollo when travelling between the earth and the moon), using Newton's Laws. The problem arises frequently in astronomy and astronautics; for instance any body travelling through the Solar System is subject to the gravitation influence of very many objects-- the sun, Jupiter, Saturn, earth, etc., etc., etc.... In practice the solution is arrived at by a process of calculating the effect of each body on the object in turn for each minute fraction of time and then accumulating these effects to get a net effect, then repeating the process again. and again, and again.... The arithmetic involved is vast, and the process was extremely tedious and timeconsuming when done by pencil and paper--but it could be, and was, done. The computer now makes it a much faster and pain-free process, although the amount of calculation required is immense.)
• Shifting Theory of Gravity
This is not worthy of much discussion. For a start, the author clearly does not comprehend the Two-Slit Experiment, which does not just apply to photons, but (much more significantly) to electrons too.
I'm also not clear if he thinks he's replacing the Theory of Relativity or Quantum Theory or both. I don't think he knows either, but I do commend his valiant but doomed failure to take on this mighty task without benefit of mathematics.
"We may learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport." -Ben Franklin, 1780.
I think Ben would have agreed airships, then aircraft, fitted that prediction pretty well.