I hooked my VCR up to an HDTV. It was a real travesty to watch an old VHS 'upscaled' to 720p. lolunnamednewbie13 wrote:
And you still won't be able to tell the difference on a 40" screen. I'm not ditching my VHS's, DVD's or Blu-Rays just yet.Harmor wrote:
Move aside Blue-Ray...get ready for Blue-Violet Ray!
Stores 20x the information that today's Blue-Ray:
Source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/0 … re-Blu-ray
Unless you like VCR fuzz. I know I miss its little quirks.
Oh gods I don't want to imagine.SenorToenails wrote:
I hooked my VCR up to an HDTV. It was a real travesty to watch an old VHS 'upscaled' to 720p. lolunnamednewbie13 wrote:
And you still won't be able to tell the difference on a 40" screen. I'm not ditching my VHS's, DVD's or Blu-Rays just yet.Harmor wrote:
Move aside Blue-Ray...get ready for Blue-Violet Ray!
Stores 20x the information that today's Blue-Ray:
Source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/0 … re-Blu-ray
---
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 … 085352.htm
Somewhat large.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
No, but like the article says you could have an entire season of 24 on 1 disk.unnamednewbie13 wrote:
And you still won't be able to tell the difference on a 40" screen. I'm not ditching my VHS's, DVD's or Blu-Rays just yet.Harmor wrote:
Move aside Blue-Ray...get ready for Blue-Violet Ray!
Stores 20x the information that today's Blue-Ray:
Source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/0 … re-Blu-ray
Convenient, I guess. The utility of having them all on one disk diminishes at a point when you no longer need to get up and switch disks constantly. Not to say it shouldn't happen, but that isn't a factor that would make me rebuy TV shows on this new format. Hell, even BluRay isn't enough to make me rebuy DVDs...not when Big Lots sells regular DVDs for $3-$5 each and I already have probably 300+ titles.Harmor wrote:
No, but like the article says you could have an entire season of 24 on 1 disk.unnamednewbie13 wrote:
And you still won't be able to tell the difference on a 40" screen. I'm not ditching my VHS's, DVD's or Blu-Rays just yet.Harmor wrote:
Move aside Blue-Ray...get ready for Blue-Violet Ray!
Stores 20x the information that today's Blue-Ray:
Source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/0 … re-Blu-ray
I wrote a paper a few years back on the upperlimit of solar masses...I'll have to see if I can find it. From what I remember, the previously established 150SM (though for some reason I thought it was high 120's...but 150 is close enough) was not that well agreed upon in literature. Fascinating still, since the supermassive stars are somewhat rare (I think).Spark wrote:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100721085352.htm
Somewhat large.
How many Solar Masses before the star implodes into a black hole?SenorToenails wrote:
I wrote a paper a few years back on the upperlimit of solar masses...I'll have to see if I can find it. From what I remember, the previously established 150SM (though for some reason I thought it was high 120's...but 150 is close enough) was not that well agreed upon in literature. Fascinating still, since the supermassive stars are somewhat rare (I think).Spark wrote:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100721085352.htm
Somewhat large.
Errr... that's not how a solar lifecycle works. Basically any star bigger than about 10 solar masses will eventually form a black hole, the question is how long it will take (it doesn't take "long" in any circumstances but generally bigger = shorter lived) - the exception being really rare (in fact has it actually been observed yet? or is it just a theoretical possibility) cases where the star is so big and the nova so massive that it is completely blown apart, leaving nothing behind.Harmor wrote:
How many Solar Masses before the star implodes into a black hole?SenorToenails wrote:
I wrote a paper a few years back on the upperlimit of solar masses...I'll have to see if I can find it. From what I remember, the previously established 150SM (though for some reason I thought it was high 120's...but 150 is close enough) was not that well agreed upon in literature. Fascinating still, since the supermassive stars are somewhat rare (I think).Spark wrote:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100721085352.htm
Somewhat large.
@ST - interesting. 150 was what I heard as well but you'd think that any "upper limit" would be very much conjecture given how few of these monsters there are.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Out of personal interest exactly what is the believed chain of events that leads to the formation of a supermassive black hole? I would rather not use wiki as I find it easier and more entertaining to read the words of others in this sort of context.
From memory:
Firstly, note that: When a star "dies" you either get black holes or neutron stars (probably other stuff too, but I don't remember)
Simplified process:
- While a star is "alive" (i.e. burning) the heat produced balances gravity.
- Heat causes expansion, gravity causes contraction: They cancel each other out
- At some point the fuel runs out and the star stops burning
- All leftover material collapses in on itself
Why a black hole?
- The mass of the star determines what it becomes when it "dies"
- They measure the mass of stars as "solar masses" (1 SM = the mass of our sun)
- If a star's mass is great than X solar masses then it collapses to a black hole
- If a star's mas is less than X solar masses then it forms a neutron star (or a white dwarf)
So there's a critical value that determines what a star becomes when it dies.
So you end up with a very small dense thing, called a black hole. A singularity. It's basically impossible to imagine what a black hole is like. Mass has no volume, time does not pass
Firstly, note that: When a star "dies" you either get black holes or neutron stars (probably other stuff too, but I don't remember)
Simplified process:
- While a star is "alive" (i.e. burning) the heat produced balances gravity.
- Heat causes expansion, gravity causes contraction: They cancel each other out
- At some point the fuel runs out and the star stops burning
- All leftover material collapses in on itself
Why a black hole?
- The mass of the star determines what it becomes when it "dies"
- They measure the mass of stars as "solar masses" (1 SM = the mass of our sun)
- If a star's mass is great than X solar masses then it collapses to a black hole
- If a star's mas is less than X solar masses then it forms a neutron star (or a white dwarf)
So there's a critical value that determines what a star becomes when it dies.
So you end up with a very small dense thing, called a black hole. A singularity. It's basically impossible to imagine what a black hole is like. Mass has no volume, time does not pass
Honestly? Aside from the obvious hypothesis of normal black hole formation and mergers we don't know. I think they evolved at the same time as quasars - maybe they are quasars. Astro is not my strong suit but I think this is a somewhat unknown field. I don't think anyone has explained why they're at the centre of galaxies either.
Possibly a very large clump of matter formed so densely that it created a large black hole, and "similar" events happened, and merging of black hole and/or/galaxies created them. But I just made that up on the spot.
Possibly a very large clump of matter formed so densely that it created a large black hole, and "similar" events happened, and merging of black hole and/or/galaxies created them. But I just made that up on the spot.
Last edited by Spark (2010-07-23 07:58:11)
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Oh, I totally missed the fact you said "supermassive". lol
If I watched 24.Harmor wrote:
No, but like the article says you could have an entire season of 24 on 1 disk.unnamednewbie13 wrote:
And you still won't be able to tell the difference on a 40" screen. I'm not ditching my VHS's, DVD's or Blu-Rays just yet.Harmor wrote:
Move aside Blue-Ray...get ready for Blue-Violet Ray!
Stores 20x the information that today's Blue-Ray:
Source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/0 … re-Blu-ray
But still, your show's just on one disc. Could it withstand a scratch that might just affect a five-minute segment on a DVD?
I misremembered. I reread my paper on this, and it appears that the upper mass limit was set at 150 due to an extrapolation of observed data with the Salpeter mass function. I got the 120 number from the fact that few stars are found above that size in areas where they would be predicted (Arches cluster, near the galactic center). But yes, there are very, VERY few of these. Most of the really huge ones would be long gone anyway--(as you said) big stars live a short life.Spark wrote:
@ST - interesting. 150 was what I heard as well but you'd think that any "upper limit" would be very much conjecture given how few of these monsters there are.
Last edited by SenorToenails (2010-07-23 11:18:52)
From the article:Spark wrote:
Errr... that's not how a solar lifecycle works. Basically any star bigger than about 10 solar masses will eventually form a black hole, the question is how long it will take (it doesn't take "long" in any circumstances but generally bigger = shorter lived) - the exception being really rare (in fact has it actually been observed yet? or is it just a theoretical possibility) cases where the star is so big and the nova so massive that it is completely blown apart, leaving nothing behind.
Apparently, there are a few candidates (SN 2006gy and SN 2007bi) for such massive supernova.Stars between about 8 and 150 solar masses explode at the end of their short lives as supernovae, leaving behind exotic remnants, either neutron stars or black holes. Having now established the existence of stars weighing between 150 and 300 solar masses, the astronomers' findings raise the prospect of the existence of exceptionally bright, "pair instability supernovae" that completely blow themselves apart, failing to leave behind any remnant and dispersing up to ten solar masses of iron into their surroundings. A few candidates for such explosions have already been proposed in recent years.
Very interesting. Gotta find out more about the mechanism.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
NASA's Deep Space Camera Locates Host of 'Earths'
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/ … latestnews
"Scientists celebrated Sunday after finding more than 700 suspected new planets -- including up to 140 similar in size to Earth -- in just six weeks of using a powerful new space observatory."
This significantly improves the chance of not only life but intelligent life.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/ … latestnews
"Scientists celebrated Sunday after finding more than 700 suspected new planets -- including up to 140 similar in size to Earth -- in just six weeks of using a powerful new space observatory."
This significantly improves the chance of not only life but intelligent life.
Possible Room Temperature Superconductor Achieved
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/07 … r-Achieved
If proven this would be a huge step in energy savings. Up to 40% of electricity that you and I get from the outlet wall is loss during transmission to our homes.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/07 … r-Achieved
If proven this would be a huge step in energy savings. Up to 40% of electricity that you and I get from the outlet wall is loss during transmission to our homes.
steady on... "his research has not been peer-reviewed or published yet"
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
For places like California with all our Eco-nazis who can't even get a solar plant installed in a desert because of the fear of some turtles, this would mean cheaper energy for us because we could pull it from the grid in the middle parts of the United States or even from Canada where energy costs are much lower.
not peer-reviewed or published = not science. could be complete bullshit for all we know (hope it's not though, a 313K superconductor? that would be revolutionary in every sense of the word)
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.
Hahah, yeah. A friend of mine pointed that out for me just a while ago. Quality stuff
Room-temperature ice
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2 … rature-ice
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2 … rature-ice
The Mars vid is depressing. I'll probably be dead before any country gets the gumption to send a manned mission. >:(