grungy-gonads 54 Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 I think I'll spend my free time elsewhere soubs. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 Interesting that t-b. Scotland has the best education system in the UK, but it is still possible to slip through without any physics. Saddening and depressing. After all, the laws of physics merely describe the universe and everthing that's in it. What possible interest can that be? How boring. I had a discussion about energy with the memsahib at work this morning, as we watched the stirring machine turn a cauldron of boiling ingedients into sweet bean paste. Her background is arts/humanities, but she loved the conceptual physics she studied at primary school. The job used to be done by muscle power, now it's done by electic power. The amount of energy required is the same, just a different form. She has a perfect grasp of the law of conservation of energy. Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 I did the 1 year taster course that everyone does in 2nd year of High School, before picking the subjects for your Standard Grades (GCSE's in England) and while I did think Physics was interesting, it was also in the same column as another subject I wanted to study. You could only choose 1 subject from each column, so Physics got binned and I studied Modern Studies instead. Chemistry was crap so I didn't bother studying that for my Higher Level (A-Level's in England) and concentrated on Biology, which is the science I liked best. I went to Uni and did Psychology with Biology, but since I didn't have a Chemistry Higher award, I had to do Chem-101 with the regular Chem students......jumping from Standard Grade to Uni access level was a huge jump....1 I barely passed! Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 Why does everyone have to be up on physics, soubriquet? Just because you find it utterly fascinating does not mean that everyone does/should. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 That's fair enough g-g. Tell me, why (because I was in the science stream) was I forced to do general studies? After all, just because some people find the humanities fascinating doesn't mean everyone should. T-B. I was a total failure at school. I left at 16 with 3 O-levels. English, maths and physics, to go to work on a farm. I started university at 29. Going back in after 13 years, trying to match it with the newly minted A-levels, was a struggle. To put it mildly. Link to post Share on other sites
Metabo Oyaji 71 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 For those interested, there is an NHK special on radioactive contamination coming up at 9:00 PM tonight. Link to post Share on other sites
SKI 15 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Nice one Metabo There was an interesting one on last night following some doctors around after the Mar 11 event. Link to post Share on other sites
xxx 2 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 This is a very sobering program, to say the least. Link to post Share on other sites
Metabo Oyaji 71 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Indeed. We'll be dealing with this situation for a long, long time. I noticed they talked about the Nasu-Shiobara hotspot that I "discovered" in this thread: http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubbthread...html#Post415003 Turns out my amateur speculation was wrong: the hotspot is due to that area getting especially heavy rain when a plume passed overhead; the mechanism for Shizuoka tea getting contaminated was different, with the tea leaves themselves catching cesium from the air. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 I missed it. What did it say? Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 I missed it too, but a few ppl on FB said it was pretty hard hitting. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Were these the same people who can't work out the difference between a becquerel and a seivert? After all, hard-hitting experts should be posing serious questions here. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Tubby hearts 'FB' recently. He may even change his signature to 'Some people on Facebook said....'. Just so we are clear on that. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 I watched it, interesting. Big plume of bad shit covering most of Kanto on 15th March and probably more 'hotspots' than we know about. Scary stuff like that. Cant remember za numbars. Link to post Share on other sites
RobBright 35 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 So did it say when we can expect our mutant superpowers? It's been almost 4 months now, and still nothing. Link to post Share on other sites
snowbender 3 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Yes, about 30+ years. Stop being so impatient! Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Originally Posted By: grungy-gonads Tubby hearts 'FB' recently. He may even change his signature to 'Some people on Facebook said....'. Just so we are clear on that. I always love FB TB Love FB 4EVA TBB Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 That was an interesting documentary. It showed that plume making it's way over this part of Niigata as well at one point, not for long but it came over here by the looks. Not that I have the scientific nouse to understand it all of course. But yes it was a sobering documenatary. Link to post Share on other sites
Chriselle 158 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Damn,, missed it. I'm interested to hear what they said about Shizuoka. Link to post Share on other sites
BillTheBinMan 0 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Shizuoka was mainly about the tea. One of the main points I got from it was that there are hotspots that we were unknown until recently, as far away as 110km from Fukushima Daiichi. Due to the plume and rain. They visited this place in Tochigi and did tests where they found the levels of (whatever) to be above the 'safe limit'. Someone more scienfitic may wish to elaborate there. And there may well be more of these hotspots further afield, but that is unknown as tests are/have not being been done yet. The general message was - this is only just starting and Japan needs to learn to live with it. Link to post Share on other sites
SKI 15 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 It was certainly not painting a rosy picture. Strange how the same tone isn't being shown as much on the main news, even NHK. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Originally Posted By: TubbyBeaverinho Originally Posted By: grungy-gonads Tubby hearts 'FB' recently. He may even change his signature to 'Some people on Facebook said....'. Just so we are clear on that. I always love FB TB Love FB 4EVA TBB Link to post Share on other sites
1 4 Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 I like watching programs like that. Wish there were more of them. Link to post Share on other sites
Metabo Oyaji 71 Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Originally Posted By: Chriselle Damn,, missed it. I'm interested to hear what they said about Shizuoka. The cesium is found pretty much only in the leaves of the tea plants, not in the "trunk" (or whatever it is called on a bush), not in the roots, and not in the dirt. The explanation was that the leaves on a tea plant are very densely packed together, so they captured cesium directly from the air as the plume passed through. When new leaves sprouted, they apparently cannibalize the nutrients and stuff from old leaves, and the cesium got transferred over in the process. As a result, the tea farmers have to shave off all of the the upper, leafy parts of the plants to remove the cesium. That's more or less what they said about Shizuoka. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Tea farmers pick the new leaves and leave the old. It is known as 'harvesting' (sorry, a technical term). If the new 'harvest' is outside limits, then it will be discarded. This is known as 'dumping' (technical term). Wss there any context in this progamme? How do the measurements presented compare with standard background? Link to post Share on other sites
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