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Shop: North Spore Injection Grain Bag, North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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The Size of an Atom * 4
    #13331043 -

Many people have heard described various ways to wrap one's mind around the enormous scales of the universe and the distances between galaxies, but less often is heard descriptions of the other end of the scale.

I've been building a random number generator gadget that measures the radioactive decay of the element americium. The americium sample I'm working with is very small. It is the size of a single grain of baby powder. This is barely visible naked eye, so I've been working under an industrial microscope to see what I'm doing.

Americium decay works like this. If you watch a sample of americium, its atoms will spontaneously decay and parts will fly out of the sample at close to the speed of light. This happens at a very precise rate. It takes 432 years for half of the sample to dissipate as its atoms decay and fly away one by one.

Now think about this. In a sample the size of mine (one grain of baby powder) 370,000 atoms decay every second. At that rate, it will take 432 years for half of my tiny grain to vanish by decay.

It loses 370,000 atoms every second, and after 432 years of this, only half the sample will be lost!


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid] * 1
    #13331105 -

There are more atoms in your hand than there are grains of sand on this earth.

If you blew an atom up to the size of the earth, the nucleous would be the size of an orange.

Two examples Ive heard to bend your mind around the mass of atoms.

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid] * 1
    #13331114 -

I knew it. You're a mad scientist. :thumbup: I just finished watching Back to the Future before I read this.

I have very few desires when it comes to people anymore. I like to keep my distance usually. So take this as a real heartfelt compliment... If I could have a wish in regards to humans I would like to be your next door neighbor. I can't imagine anything more interesting.:heart:


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Icelander]
    #13331158 -

I can barely imagine what's 370,000...


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:shroompick:

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: whosthewalrus]
    #13331190 -

Also americium is on the larger end of the periodic table, so imagine doing the same with like lithium which has a molar mass of 7 versus 243.


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Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must
Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: bigmike7104]
    #13332822 -

Wait a minute, you are hooking up a fire alarm to your computer for random numbers?  Thats awesome!  :thumbup:

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Icelander]
    #13334042 -

Icelander said:
I would like to be your next door neighbor. I can't imagine anything more interesting.:heart:


Be careful what you wish for

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: johnm214]
    #13334713 -

I can deal with that.:thumbup: And after all he did make Eagle scout.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: DieCommie]
    #13339600 -

Wait a minute, you are hooking up a fire alarm to your computer for random numbers?

Close, but actually I built a high voltage power supply and hooked it up to a Geiger tube. I took the americium from a smoke detector, yes, and put it next to the Geiger tube with some shielding.

Then I measure spikes of voltage drops across the tube in the time domain to get random numbers.

Good guess!


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid]
    #13339698 -

I wish I was a genius.:sad:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid]
    #13339765 -

Thats the best/only way I have ever heard of to make a TRUE ramdom number, nice!

Now what do we do with these random numbers?


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People can fly

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: BadAcid]
    #13340473 -

BadAcid said:
Now what do we do with these random numbers?


thangs


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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: BadAcid]
    #13340653 -

Now what do we do with these random numbers?

My initial motivation was to replicate the results of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR) whose lead scientist reported that it was possible for humans to influence 2 to 3 random events out of 10,000 with thoughts alone.

The lab operated from 1979 until it closed in 2007. Their results have been attributed to bad experimental design rather than a real measured effect. Some scientists have even hinted that the lab deliberately fudged results when they couldn't generate them honestly. Physicist Robert Park called PEAR an "embarrassment to science".

Be that as it may, although I'm pretty sure the PEAR results are a giant pile of fudged bullshit, as a completely open minded person my intention is to start my gadget generating a high-speed stream of random ones and zeros, 24 hours a day for several months to years and ask the True Believers here to attempt to influence the numbers with their thoughts.

Over the course of many billions of random samples that will be gathered, the expectation is that there will be almost exactly 50% ones and 50% zeros, within a fraction of a standard deviation from the mean. Although I expect this whole thing to end in a giant yawn, a statistically significant skew will definitely make me sit up straight and pay attention.

I work on the machine only sporadically, so I don't know when it will be working, debugged, and calibrated for bias. I'll make a new thread eventually when it's ready and we'll start the experiment.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: bigmike7104]
    #13340675 -

yeah a little smaller atom so in mathematical terms a much greater number of atoms


also not NEARLY as radioactive


amazing that radioactivity lasts thousands and thousands of years. but after detonating a nuclear explosion, the radioactive decay will disappear after a few decades, at least most of it. i wonder if it is absorbed into the ground?


does radioactivity favor some atoms more than others? it's not like I know..............................


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:kingcrankey: I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!

:facepalm: I'm never giving you the password again. Jerk

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid]
    #13340734 -

Here is one major problem with this type of test: a positive deviation from chance may be considered significant, but a negative deviation from chance will likely be discarded as some sort of experimental flaw or be considered meaningless.

This will skew the results and conclusions unless I am misunderstanding.


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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #13340801 -

That's exactly what the PEAR people were doing.

One way to guard against this is to gather a huge calibration sample first then run the test enough times with p = 0.0000001 as the threshold. This will give a false positive due to a statistical fluke in 1 out of 10 million experiments if the null hypothesis is true.

Get a positive result in a couple of experimental runs and you're in the "almost certain" range. Such results would be hard to dismiss.

Naturally, the PEAR people got frustrated after decades of non-results, so instead of accepting that there is nothing there, they started to increase their p-value until something showed up... duh, no wonder something showed up.

Isn't that what the Inquisition did when people refused to admit they were witches so they dunked them underwater for longer and longer intervals until they finally confessed (or drowned)?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid]
    #13340817 -

So if you could instill fear in the atoms, you might get a better result?


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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #13340894 -

:lol:


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Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid]
    #15823447 -

I was going to make a new thread about this, but I thought it would be apropos here, so here goes.

When you knock on wood, the wood feels pretty solid, right? But it isn't. It's almost 100% empty space. Here's why:

Consider an atom of hydrogen, the simplest of all the elements. Its lightest isotope is a single proton surrounded by a single electron, no neutrons. If you compare the diameter of the proton to the diameter of the entire atom, you find that the atom is ~99.9999999999999% empty space.

To wrap your head around this, imagine our hydrogen atom enlarged until the proton was the size of a beach ball, about a meter (3 feet) in diameter. At that scale, the sole electron would be at an average distance of some 10 kilometers away (30,000 feet).

Remember the last time you looked out the window of an airliner at cruising altitude? If you were an electron, the beach ball sized proton you're bound to would be on the ground. Now imagine the giant sphere of empty space around which you orbit. That's how much empty space wood, your body, even solid lead is composed of. :whoa:

Pretty weird eh? If the universe has a creator, he definitely has a sense of humor.

Note to purists: in quantum mechanics, there is no such thing as "the diameter of a proton". It is a meaningless concept which I'm abusing here for the sake of illustration. If you're curious as to why exactly it is a meaningless concept, I expounded on it in this post I wrote a year or so ago. If you find this thread interesting, you'll find that post interesting too.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: The Size of an Atom [Re: Diploid]
    #15823490 -

Quote:
there is no such thing as "the diameter of a proton"


No?  Protons are composite particles, not point particles.

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