Fact for Easter Friday
In seventeenth century England, most children drank beer, not water.
Related:
- Fact for the day
- When Space Invaders was released in Japan in 1978 it apparently caused a nationwide coin shortage. The amount of Yen coins in circulation had to be quadrupled! >> via...
- WTF-of-the-day: Friday 30th May ‘08
- A US cleantech company called Blacklight Power has raised $60m for a new, very clean form of electricity production. Nothing astounding there, really - cleantech is very much du jour. What's "WTFotd"-worthy about this story is that the technology they claim to have developed runs against a key part of quantum physics: they claim that they have discovered a lower energy level for electrons than the 1s shell resting state: the hydrino. To the layman: hydrogen has been extensively studied because it's the simplest periodic element, and when you're talking quantum physics, studying basic, simple systems helps... a lot. So physisicts think they understand it pretty damn well. A fundamental tenet is that the lowest energy 'shell' (think of it as an orbiting satellite around a planet) that electrons can take around a hydrogen nucleus is called 1s. This is the 'resting state', and most physicists don't believe it could be pushed any lower. *If* it could, then you could take out the difference in energy, use it to power a plant. But physicists believe that hydrogen electrons can't go any lower: try to squish it in any closer, and it will just press back; so the only energy you...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Add New Comment
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks
(Trackback URL)