Ask the Zot!

[Wesley]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I can see how this particular answer was both amusing and vexxing.

One of my favorites that sticks with me is from Chief Joseph..."I will fight no more forever."

[Moe]

wait.. ask zot??? twhy ask him... thats what search engines are for

[Nailbunny]

Simple, Zot IS a search engine, he knows all....

[Wesley]

wait.. ask zot??? twhy ask him... thats what search engines are for

If you trick me, do I not laugh? If you prick me, do I not bleed?
Here is a boring but honest and insightful answer to your uninspired naive lame attempt at a rhetorical question: People ask questions in this thread because - 1) I am able to give an answer in such a way that they understand it - 2) I may have amusing personal anecdotes to support my answer - 3) They may not want a textbook answer, but rather, my opinion... and - 4) just for fun. These are things you cannot get from search engines.

Care to ask another question?

[summer]

Simple, Zot IS a search engine, he knows all....

he's in my toolbar

[Clarence]

What are your thoughts/feelings on Roentgenium?

[Wesley]

What are your thoughts/feelings on Roentgenium?

Sorry man, didn't mean to skip you there....

I have mixed feelings about these synthetic elements. I mean, technically they ARE elements, but just because you smash some atoms together and they stick for a few seconds.... should that count? It is theorized that as we make synthetic elements heavier, they will start to become more stable.... maybe stable enough to have a much longer half-life, maybe even stable enough to become safe. If that happens, we can use these ultra dense elements as new sources of fuel, radiation, gravity, who knows! The possibilities are truly exciting, and I can understand why researchers keep working on this stuff.

[Clarence]

I don't get how these elements after Uranium are synthetic. I mean everything after 92 or so (and 43 for some reason) are SYNTHETIC. So if we can fill in the gaps in the periodic table with synthetic or man made elements, then can we synthetically make the already natural occurring elements too? Can we make synthetic GOLD, that would have the same properties as real gold, like not just on a visual, but atomic level? Can we make lead.

It also seems that all the synthetic elements are radioactive

I don't understand and never did, can you explain this to me?

Can we make something that we know exists, or can we only make up shazam! that doesn't exist like Roentgenium by randomly mashing other elements together.

: only a few atoms of element 111, roentgenium, have ever been made through a nuclear reaction involving fusion of an isotope of bismuth, 209Bi, with one of nickel, 64Ni.

209Bi + 64Ni → 272Rg + 1n

Isolation of an observable quantity has never been achieved, and may well never be.

Like they're just randomly mashing other EXISTING elements together to make these new crazy elements that have no use. Can we make gold by randomly mashing titanium with say Silicon? WTF

source: http://www.webelements.com/roentgenium/

[Wesley]

Without properly filled electron subshells, and without enough nuclear density, the potential energy is like a teapot left unattended and so the weak atomic force is overcome by the degradation of the nucleus into separate protons, neutrons, radiation, and all that stuff. It is as though they are actually making an isotope of the new element in question. As the stuff flings off into the universe, it takes both energy and mass with it, in stages, thus giving us the half-life phenomenon.

I think you wold like the book,"The Dancing Wu-Li Masters"

[Wesley]

To answer the second part of your question.... no.

We cannot just smash stuff together and hope to make something different or new. Take Gold. It has a complete electron subshell and a balance in the nucleus. It is so freaking stable, almost NOTHING will react with it. How do you expect to make something this stable by smashing other things together? You might make something similar, but you will not make Gold.

[Nailbunny]

Most of that was so over my head that I think part of my brain just drowned....

[Clarence]

To answer the second part of your question.... no.

We cannot just smash stuff together and hope to make something different or new. Take Gold. It has a complete electron subshell and a balance in the nucleus. It is so freaking stable, almost NOTHING will react with it. How do you expect to make something this stable by smashing other things together? You might make something similar, but you will not make Gold.

Well a lot of the super heavy elements are made this way, they take seeming random elements and combine them to make element 118 for example: http://www.webelements.com/ununoctium/

It's like Krypton and lead and some other crap.

How do they know what's going to work, it looks like they just pick random things and put them in a big pot, and when it finally makes something it's like "Holy shazam! Frank, come here, we just made element 118" And does this mean there is only one way to make these elements and they just get lucky

I don't get this science stuff

[Moe]

zot... what are the first 40 numbers in pi(3.14...)?

[Wesley]

zot... what are the first 40 numbers in pi(3.14...)?

I don't care, but Clarence used to know the first 100 or so. Let's ask him!

[Moe]

I don't care

don't care? or don't know???

[Clarence]

Here's what I remember

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028???

The red part may be wrong and I forget the rest.

[Moe]

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

first 50(after the 3)

[Wesley]

I don't care

don't care? or don't know???

Both. Don't care. Don't know. It is not information that I will ever need to use. Even the periodic elements questions are inherently more useful that knowing an infinitely small number of the digits of an irrational number.

[Clarence]

Wow, I'm surprised I got the 5028 part right, it's been years since I tried to recall this.

I learned it because I was watching this stupid show where a guy had to memorize the firs 100 digits of PI to win some contest. And if he screwed up he and his family would miss out on a new car or something. They would have all sorts of stupid contests, like learning how to spin plates on the end of a poll and etc etc. I think it was on fox. If anyone can find what show this was it would be mind blowing.

Anyway I seen this in grade ten and wondered how hard it would be to actually accomplish this, and I set off on memorizing it in less then a week to beat some guy I never heard of before. I think I did it quicker anyway. I just had little print offs of it and kept reading it over. I guess school was very boring for me.

[Moe]

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117
06798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493
03819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602
49141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951
941511609

anyone counting the digits???