Chlorine Talk: Acids

Now that we know about chlorine's role as an oxidizer and a disinfectant, it's time to learn about the remainder of it's uses.

Some of you may have heard of chlorine gas, which was used in World War I by both sides against entrenched enemy soldiers. Since chlorine gas is heavier than air, it would sink to the bottom of the trenches, where soldiers would inhale it. Due to chlorine's afore mentioned oxidizing powers, it reacts with the water in their lungs and turned into hydrochloric acid, the strongest acid known to man. I don't believe I need to explain why having acid in your lungs is a bad thing. Now, when you smell the chlorine coming out of your pool, don't worry; while that is chlorine gas, it's not going to kill you. Chlorine gas, (the lethal poison, not gaseous chlorine) is made with a few other key ingredients, and not just be evaporating chlorine; it can be smelled at 3 PPM (Parts Per Million), starts causing coughing and/or vomiting at about 30 PPM, and doesn't cause lung damage until 60 PPM. And even that can be healed. The concentration doesn't become lethal until 1000 PPM.

Back to hydrochloric acid or HCl. But first, we need to know exactly what an acid is. An acid is any substance that is willing to take electrons from another substance that is willing to give electrons. This means that an acid will react with specific substances, known as bases. Lye(Drano) is a commonly known base. During the reaction, the acid and base mix themselves together to create a new substance. And of course, some acids are strong enough to react with materials that aren't normally a base, such as pouring muratic acid (a mix of 30% HCl and 70% water) on concrete. The concrete melts away and mixes with the acid, leaving behind a watery-ish residue that won't react with more concrete.  HCl is also used in toilet bowl cleaner (~3% HCl) and many other solvents.

Other than in chemicals, chlorine is also used in the construction of a lot of plastics, chiefly PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) and any vinyl materials.

Random Fact: Brain Freeze

I decided to start a new series of posts based on random ideas that will make a small, yet informative post. Look for more random facts in the future!

As you all should know, brain freeze is a small, short lived headache that results from consuming cold food or beverages (e.g. ice cream) really fast. This headache is caused by rapid cooling and rewarming of the blood vessels in the roof of your mouth; heat expansion/contraction causes the blood vessels to dilate, which is detected by the trigeminal nerve, which sends the pain signal back to the brain. This is all pretty simple, just like stubbing your toe; toe gets stubbed, the nerves relay the pain signal back to the brain and you feel said pain in your toe. "But why is pain from the roof of my mouth being felt in my forehead?" An excellent question. See, the trigeminal nerve is one of the primary nerves for detecting facial pain, as a result of this, the brain gets confused and thinks the pain is coming from your forehead.

Incidentally, the same expansion/contraction of blood vessels is what makes your face turn red after being outside on a cold day; this occurrence just doesn't cause pain.

Chlorine Talk: Oxidizers

So now that I've glanced over one of the most common applications of chlorine, I thought I'd provide a bit more information on the chemical nature of chlorine itself.

Chlorine is a part of a group of chemicals called oxidizers. Basically, this means that in a chemical reaction, chlorine pulls electrons off of surrounding elements, just like oxygen does in a fire. In fact, fire is nothing more than oxygen pulling electrons from fuel (like wood) when exposed to a heat source greater than the fuel's flash point, which is a term that refers to the temperature at which our fuel is no longer stable and becomes combustible. Charcoal has a high flash point, which is why lighter fluid (which has a low flash point) is used to heat the charcoal up to its own flash point and burn of its own accord, rather than with the support of the lighter fluid. A flame is the result of some of the heat (energy) from the combustion being transferred to the electrons that the oxygen pulled off the fuel. These electrons then release the energy in the form of light. 

So now we know what an oxidizer does and that oxygen is usually the oxidizer regarding fire. Chlorine can act as an oxidizer instead of oxygen. For example, hydrogen can burn in chlorine. The hydrogen acts as the fuel (and it's very good at this, just look at the Hindenburg), and the chlorine is the oxidizer. Incidentally, the result of this reaction  produces gaseous hydrogen chloride, also known as hydrochloric acid, which I shall discuss in further detail in another post.

As an oxidizer, chlorine is not flammable by itself, but it can cause other materials to combust. So if I were to hold a flame up to some pure chlorine, it would not ignite; however, if I held a flame up to some hair spray (outside of the can, of course) it would instantly combust (that's right, hair spray is quite flammable) which is why hair spray cans have flammability warnings on them.

Oxidizers are also important in explosives, which work in much the same way as fire does; instead of burning over a period of time, explosives release their energy all at once. 

Finally, oxidizers are one of the primary culprits behind corrosion. Oxidizers, again, usually oxygen, reacts with a metal, such as iron, to produce a salt and iron oxide, which is brittle and easily snapped. When a bit of metal oxides to much, it snaps, which can cause structures to collapse. This is what caused the silver bridge to collapse in 1967.

Chlorine Talk: Pools

A few posts ago, I mentioned that chlorine is toxic. I believe it is high time that that mentioning was expanded upon.

Chlorine is an atom found naturally throughout nature, usually a part of a larger molecule, like salt. It's also used heavily by man, in anything from corrosive agents, to disinfectants, and even weapons.

The one thing people think of most often when chlorine is mentioned is swimming pools. Chlorine is being used as a disinfectant to kill off bacteria and pathogens in this particular case. It does this by breaking down into hypochlorous acid and an hypochlorite ion. Both of these substances attack the lipids that hold cell walls together, resulting in the death of the cell. Imagine the cell as a tent, and the lipids as the poles that are holding that tent up. Once you remove those, the tent collapses. Luckily for us, our skin cells aren't quite as vulnerable to chlorine, even though it isn't exactly good for you. Oftentimes, chlorine is supplemented or replaced by chloramines, which kill off pathogens in almost exactly the same way, but are in a more stable form. This is seen as superior to pure chlorine (often called free chlorine) as free chlorine tends to evaporate before killing off much bacteria. As good as this sounds, chloramines are even more irritating to the human body than free chlorine is. Anybody who has gone swimming in a few different chlorine pools can tell that there are slight differences in the color of the water, the intensity of the smell, and how irritable the water is; these differences are due to difference amounts of chloramines being used by different pool owners.
My personal opinion is that chlorine pools don't necessarily need to be avoided, just be sure to shower afterward. Even diluted, chlorine and it's byproducts are pretty harsh chemicals. That's why your skin gets dry and your eyes red after a long swim.

 For those of you who own a swimming pool of your own, I recommend you switch to a copper ionizing system, which is often bundled together with a salt water system. A copper ionizing system works by running water from the pump between two copper plates that have a low electrical voltage running between them. This process is called electrolysis, it's the same thing that made the Statue of Liberty green (That's right, green wasn't the original color). That electrical current causes a small amount of copper ions to mix in the water. This copper is toxic to pathogens and algae, which keeps your pool clean. Don't worry, copper isn't toxic to humans or animals, not unless consumed at enormous levels that wouldn't ever be caused by the little bit of electrolysis that occurs in a pool system.

Salt water systems are often advertised as chlorine free filtration systems. This is completely untrue. As I mentioned before, chlorine is found naturally in salt. Salt water systems merely extract the chlorine needed from salt dissolved in the water. The salt merely acts as a sort of stabilizer, as the filter only takes as much as is needed to clean the pool. A salt water filter is better than a traditional chlorine system just because it only uses free chlorine without any chloramine added. The free chlorine levels found in a salt water pool are usually much lower than the concentrations in a traditional pool anyway. Without having a decent stabilizer (like salt) to keep the chlorine in the water, pool owners have to dump more chlorine in their pool to keep it clean.

Killer Cell Phones? Not.

According to a recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO), cell phones are a possible (note their use of the word possible) carcinogen, or cause of cancer. The WHO report states that radio and electromagnetic waves emitted by cell phones are a possible cause of brain cancer.

ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

So first we need to know exactly what electromagnetic radiation is. Simple put, electromagnetic radiation is light. Not just visible light, mind you, but also radio waves, ultraviolet rays, infrared light, etc. First we'll need a bit of a description of light itself.
Light functions as either a wave or a particle; but for our current intents and purposes, we can just consider it to be a wave. A wave has two parts, frequency and wavelength, which are inversely proportional to each other according to the following equation f = c / λ.  f stands for the frequency, c is the speed of light in a vacuum (which is constant), and λ represents wavelength. This equation merely shows that as the wavelength gets bigger, frequency will decrease, and vice versa. now it's time for a diagram!

Right, so now some of you might be asking what all those numbers mean. The top section of the diagram is the wavelength/frequency. Frequency is how close together each oscillation is and wavelength is how tall. This picture doesn't show it, but as the frequency gets lower (further apart; I know, that means the number is getting higher. I didn't make up the system, don't judge me.) on the right side, the waves should be getting much taller (higher wavelength).The set of measurements below that wave are the wavelength measurements, in meters. So gamma rays are around 0.0001 nanometers (0.000000000039 inches). The rest of the graph just shows where each of our commonly used wavelengths are located on the electromagnetic spectrum, the bottom bit shows visible light.

ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION

Now a short segment on radiation. Radiation is defined by any set of energetic particles, energy, or waves traveling through a medium or space. This includes both light and sound, but usually just refers to visible and non-visible light. There are two types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing. Ionizing radiation is the stuff you always hear about on TV, the stuff emitted by nuclear waste that causes cancer. This type of radiation has enough power to remove electrons from cells, which can damage cells and DNA; when DNA is damaged enough like that, it causes cancer. Non-ionizing radiation is any radiation that doesn't have enough energy to change atoms; meaning that it is completely harmless. The only ionizing electromagnetic radiation is found on the short wavelength end of the scale, namely gamma rays, X-rays, and ultraviolet light. 

So now that we have an idea on what electromagnetic radiation is, what's causing it in cell phones, and why is it deadly? Any electronic device emits an electromagnetic field (EMF) as a result of the electrons flowing through it. There's nothing we can do about it short of putting our phones in a Faraday cage (which doesn't allow any electromagnetic signals to pass through it) which would negate the purpose of a cell phone. You may as well keep a rock in your pocket instead. Now that we know the cause, we need to know the effect. According to the WHO, cell phones are emitting an EMF on the microwave scale, same thing your countertop  microwave uses to heat up food. I'm sure most people reading this have been sunburned at least once. This was caused by electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet spectrum, emitted by the sun. But has anybody been sunburnt by any regular household light bulb? No, because they don't emit ultraviolet waves and visible light doesn't have a high enough frequency to be harmful. Microwaves(wavelength between 1 meter [3.28 feet] and 1 mm [0.039 inches], about the same as radio waves) and radio waves have an even lower frequency than visible light, they aren't ionizing. In fact, microwaves are technically a type of radio wave. The sun itself emits both microwave and radio radiation. I can't find any numbers on this radiation (it's apparently hard to measure what radiation is coming from the sun and what's coming from other sources), but I'm willing to guess that the giant ball of fire in the sky is emitting more microwaves and radio waves than your relatively puny cell phone.

I started talking about microwaves and bunched radio waves in there without explaining why. Radio waves are the wavelength used by cell phones to communicate with cell towers, satellites, etc. Now, I am no expert on this subject, so if concrete evidence contradicts my work, you should probably ditch that phone of yours. I'm just explaining how the WHO's hypothesis doesn't make scientific sense to me. 

Chrome

I've noticed that a lot of the page-hits on this blog are from Internet Explorer. I'm sure some of you have your reasons for using Internet Explorer, but most only do so because it comes preinstalled on all Windows computers. I recommend you download Google Chrome and use it for at least one day. If you don't like it, switch back; however, I can guarantee that Chrome will make your browsing experience faster and more secure. Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Apple's Safari are also all good, fast, secure browsers as well, Chrome just so happens to be my favorite.

Soy: A Return

Now that I've explained what soy contains and how it hurts your body, you may be wondering why it's being put into much of our food. The answer is simple: cold, hard cash. Soybeans are easily one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest commodity from which a cooking oil can be derived. When this oil is extracted from the soybean, a byproduct is produced called soy lecithin. While a lot of food contains actual soybean oil, or fermented soy products like soy sauce, many of our processed foods only contain this soy lecithin.

 LECITHINS

Lecithin is a generic term used to describe any fatty acids or substances found within plant or animal tissue. Lecithins contain a variety of chemical terms, including choline, glycolipids, and glycerol. 

Choline (no, not chlorine, I didn't make a typo) is a nutrient necessary throughout life to keep the body healthy. It is used in the construction of cell walls; which, as you can imagine, are pretty important. 

 Glycolipids simply provide energy. They often have carbohydrates attached. Carbohydrates are another energy source. 

Glycerol forms the backbone of triglycerids and can be used as a sweetener. This is why the fat is the sweetest part of a steak, it's high in glycerol.

Triglycerids have two functions; they transport fatty molecules to your cells and serve as an energy source in their own right. In fact, they contain twice as much energy as carbohydrates or proteins. 

All these substances are necessary for life, so what's the big problem?  There is no issue here, until you consider all the phytoestrogens and trypsin inhibitors present in soy to begin with. Also, as I mentioned before, soy lecithin is a byproduct of the process used to extract oil from soybeans. But exactly what is a byproduct? A byproduct is the mysterious sludge in the bottom of the tank that nobody knows what to do with; at least, until someone figured out that it helped to hold food together and bread to rise. Now it's used as an additive in everything from candy bars to muffins and much of what lies in between. Unfortunately for consumers, byproducts tend to not only contain good stuff, but bad as well. Soy lecithin is contaminated with solvents and pesticides left over from the oil extracting process. To make matters worse, soy lecithin is bleached to avoid discoloring in the foods we eat. 

So why is this bad? Well, you wouldn't down a mixture of paint thinner, Raid, and bleach, would you? Essentially the same thing, just taken at lower doses and disguised with other flavors.

Soy: Pure Protein or Pure Poison?

Soy is used as an ingredient in many packaged foods today. It's said to be healthier than dairy products; as a result soy milk, soy butter, and soy yogurt have emerged as "healthy alternatives". But is soy actually better for you? Soy advocates often point out that Asian people have been eating soy for ages and are extremely healthy. In truth, a typical Asian diet consists of a lot of rice, meat, and fresh vegetables. Soy is merely a side dish in Asian food.In fact, Asians typically consume about 10 grams (2 teaspoons) of soy a day. It just seems rather illogical to say that Asians are healthy because of such a small portion of beans; rather than because of all the fresh, unprocessed meat and vegetables. 

Soy is proclaimed as a food that can replace meat. We need to eat meat because it contains amino acids which our bodies require to produce proteins. Without proteins, our bodies grow sick and die.  Soy contains a HUGE amount of amino acids, which is why it's used as a meat 'replacement'. I'll prove that soy causes more problems than it fixes, and that these amino acids are essentially useless when consumed from a soy product.

 PHYTOESTROGEN

Soy contains phytoestrogen, which simulates the effects of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen is produced naturally by several organs; the addition of more estrogen or phytoestrogen leads something called estrogen dominance, estrogen and other hormones are completely unbalanced. Nobody disputes the fact that such an overabundance of estrogen is a cause of several health problems, including Uturine Fibroids, Breast Cancer, and Infertility. Estrogen is one of the main ingredients used in birth control pills, which you wouldn't give to young children for obvious reasons. Feeding an infant the recommended dose of soy formula is the equivalent of feeding them 4 birth control pills. Even adults don't take that many at once. 

PHYTATES

  

Phytates are found naturally in all grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes (like soybeans!). Phytates are a type of enzyme inhibitor. Now, an enzyme is a substance that speeds up chemical reactions. So in this case, enzymes in your stomach are speeding up the breakdown of food. Phytates inhibit this process; which, of course, is not a good thing. If your food is not broken down properly, your body can't absorb any minerals from the food during digestion. 

Some phytates are removed from these foods simply by cooking them. Many more are removed by either soaking said foods in an acidic medium or by fermenting them in a lactic acid. 

Now, an acidic medium is not necessarily a substance that will burn through concrete. About 30 ml (two tablespoons) mixed with some warm water will do just fine. The phytates in most foods are found mostly on the outer shell, or bran. The acidic water eats through this bran and removes most of the nasty phytates. The few that remain are insignificant. 

Unfortunately, soy contains so many phytates, soaking it just doesn't solve the problem. By the time the acid has burned away enough phytates, there isn't any soy left! Fermentation is the only viable option to eating soy. 

Fermenting your phytate infested foods in lactic acid is more effective still. Instead of using acid to burn off phytates, fermentation utilizes bacteria which eat away the phytates. As these bacteria consume they phytates, they increase the acidity of the substance they're in, which kills off any harmful organisms that would normally cause the fermenting food to rot. Common examples of fermentation are yogurt and sauerkraut. 

Fermenting soy only removes the phytates, not any of the other problem substances that I have mentioned or will mention. Fermented soy products should only be consumed as a minor condiment, not a main course. 

TRYPSIN INHIBITORS 

A trypsin inhibitor is, you guessed it, any substances that inhibits trypsin. But what exactly is trypsin? Trypsin is an enzyme used in digestion; it's necessary for the absorption of protein. This enzyme is similar to the other enzymes we discussed, but is used in the intestines, rather than the stomach. A deficiency in trypsin causes digestive cramps, diarrhea, bleeding, and could lead to problems with your pancreas. Soy contains an incredible amount of trypsin inhibitors, which keep trypsin from working and give you all those problems I just described. That is, simply put, not good. 

The raw soybean contains these trypsin inhibitors, which is why raw soybeans are toxic to humans and other mammals. Cooking or fermenting soy does remove enough of the trypsin inhibitors to keep any drastic health issue from immediately occurring, as long as the soy is consumed in small enough quantities. 

Hey, wait a second... Aren't we eating soy as a source of protein? How effective is that protein if soy also contains trypsin inhibitors, which prevent the absorption of  proteins? It isn't effective at all. Most of that valuable protein is completely worthless to you, now that your trypsin is being suppressed. 

So now to reiterate a bit. Soy is not good. Soy contains high levels of phytoestrogen, phytates, and trypsin inhibitors, which are also not good. As I mentioned a couple of times, fermented soy products aren't nearly as bad as the rest, as long as they are used conservatively. For example, a small amount of soy sauce (which is fermented!) in your soup won't hurt you at all. 

Artificial Sweeteners 3

One more thing. A lot of these artificial sweeteners were discovered by some guy accidentally tasting it. In chemistry, it's a very, very bad idea to taste whatever you're working on, unless you test it first. These men are lucky they didn't accidentally invent a new chemical weapon. Also, as they weren't actively trying to make a new artificial sweetener, their discoveries probably shouldn't be used as such. Just sayin'.

Artificial Sweeteners 2

SUCRALOSE

Sucralose, more commonly known as Splenda® is the most common artificial sweetener used in baking today. It was discovered in 1976 by a researcher who was asked to test a substance he was working on. This researcher thought his supervisor told him to taste the substance; when he did so, he discovered that it tasted extremely sweet.


Splenda® is said to be safe because the FDA says it doesn't break down at all. However, the inventors of Splenda® have actually stated that about 15% of sucrolose consumed is absorbed into the body and that they can't guarantee how much of chlorine out of that 15% remains in your system. 


Sucralose is part of a chemical group known as organochlorides. Organochlorides are a group of substances that contain carbon and at least one chlorine atom. Some common organochlorides include carbon tetrachloride, trichlorethelene, and methylene chloride. Each of these substances is deadly if ingested, and each contains at least one chlorine atom. Chlorine is like mother nature's assault rifle; a truly nasty element used in chemical weapons, bleach, hydrochloric acid (the most potent acid known to man), and insecticides. What sucralose really is is a sucrose molecule forced to give up three hydroxyl (oxygen and hydrogen) groups and replace them with chlorine, as is shown with this picture: 

I suppose I should explain exactly what these diagrams mean. These diagrams are a method of mapping out the atoms within a molecule and the bonds between them. Each atom is represented by a letter; the lines show which atoms are connected to each other. The 'O's stand for oxygen, the 'H's for hydrogen, and 'Cl' stands for chlorine. These diagrams don't show this very well, but you can see that the molecules are nearly identical, if you reverse one of drawings. 


"Hold on Eric, isn't chlorine in table salt?" Yes, table salt, sodium chloride, does contain chlorine. But salt isn't an organochloride; when sodium and chlorine combine to make salt, there is no carbon present, which means it isn't classified as an organochloride. Table salt and and sucralose are about as similar as a tree and a laptop computer. 


Our cellular metabolism, the process by which our bodies burn food for energy, is designed to use organic molecules containing carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, as well as a number of other nutritional elements. Since sucralose is an organic molecule it is the perfect system to deliver chlorine, which would normally pass through the digestive system, throughout our cells. Then chlorine acts as a preservative on your cells. This may sound like a good thing until you consider that preservatives work by killing all living cells to prevent bacterial decay; your cells will be perfectly preserved, but completely dead. 


Fortunately, our liver acts like airport security for your body. It prevents toxins like chlorine from killing our precious cells. But the liver can only handle so much, especially when your body's metabolism is already being attacked by that 15% of consumed sucralose we discussed earlier. Under great stress of this sort, the body's liver is destroyed; other internal organs follow. Under 'normal' consumption, the chlorine takes the slower route through the bloodstream. Organocarbons are extremely damaging to the brain and nervous system, exactly where a lot of your blood flows. This messes up your genetics and immune system, potentially causing cancer, immune system destruction, and birth defects. 

Artificial Sweeteners 1

Everybody knows that eating to much sugar leads to obesity and other health problems, right? Or does it? Are artificial sweeteners like Splenda® and that stuff they stick in diet pop actually better for you than regular sucrose sugar?

The answer to this question requires a bit of chemistry talk. Don't worry, I'll talk you through it! The term 'sugar' refers to any substance that has a sweet flavor, usually sucrose, lactose, and fructose. Sucrose is regular table sugar taken from a sugarcane plant, lactose is the sweet component of milk, and fructose is sugar found in fruit. Artificial sweeteners are sugars that are completely made within a laboratory, not created via a refining process like table sugar (sucrose) is.

Now for a bit of history regarding artificial sweeteners.

The first artificial sweetener is called sugar of lead. See, lead has a naturally sweet taste to it. Of course, I've never actually tasted it myself. As you might guess, sugar of lead is gained by cooking or eating food in/on lead dishes. As you also might guess, sugar of lead is just as toxic as regular lead. Don't try it. Please.

There have been a few other artificial sweeteners between the ban of sugar of lead and the use of modern sweeteners, but I won't go over them now. Most of them have been banned since they were discovered to cause cancer or other diseases.

The two biggest modern artificial sweeteners are aspartame and sucralose.

ASPARTAME

Aspartame was discovered by a chemist who was in the process of creating an anti-ulcer drug. Aspartame was a byproduct in his creation; he discovered its sweetness when he licked a finger he had unknowingly coated with aspartame. Aspartame isn't used for baking, as it breaks down and looses its sweetness when it hits about 30°C  (86°F). Instead, aspartame was recently used in cold beverages, like diet pop.

The FDA holds that aspartame is completely safe. This is true, until you consider the products from breaking down aspartame. Aspartame breaks down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol.

Aspartic acid sounds bad, but it is just an animo acid found in our bodies and used to create other, essential animo acids. Phenylalanine is another animo that our body manufactures and uses naturally.

Methanol, on the other hand, is highly toxic in humans; as little as 10 ml (2.03 tsp) can cause permanent blindness, 30 ml (6.03 tsp) and above gradually increases the risk of fatality. In contrast, the minimum lethal dose of pure arsenic is about 70-200 ml (14.20-40.58 tsp). The FDA states that aspartame is completely safe; they are completely correct, unless it is heated to 30°C (86°F) and breaks down into toxic components. The internal human body temperature is about 37°C (98.6°F), which is well above the breakdown point of aspartame. After this breakdown occurs, toxic substances are absorbed into the bloodstream and carried straight to your brain, effectively acting like a neurotoxin. Since the FDA finally recognized the lethal effects of aspartame, they have removed it from the public eye and have mostly replaced it with sucralose.

Metric

I am going to use metric for all my posts. Even though I grew up with English and often still use it through habit, metric makes much more sense mathematically. Rather than having to memorize a series of arbitrary conversion ratios (e.g. 12 inches to the foot, 4 quarts to the gallon), I merely have to remember that there are 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 10 grams in a dekagram, etc. As for the names, I only have to memorize 13 prefixes for metric, but English requires the knowledge of at least 15 terms, plus whatever I couldn't think of off the top of my head. For all those who don't know metric, I will provide the appropriate English measurements in parentheses. 

For example, the moon is a maximum of about 406,700 km (252,712 miles) from the earth. So worry not, I won't have a post filled with terms you don't understand, at least not without explaining said terms.

Movie Misconceptions 2

Time for another common movie misconception! Fans of scifi movies and TV series will recall that spacecraft always have their engine running. You might say "Well, yeah Eric, if they stop their engines, they will stop moving." This statement is completely true when considering gravity and air resistance. See, according to Newton's first law, an object won't change velocity until acted upon by another force. This means that an object in motion will not slow down until something forces it to stop. When you roll a ball on the floor, it stops rolling after a few feet, assuming it doesn't hit a wall. This ball slows down and stops due to the forces of gravity and air resistance acting on it. A spaceship is subject to the same laws of physics; however, as I pointed out in the last post, gravity and air resistance aren't present in enough force in space to make a difference.

With this knowledge, we now know that a spacecraft won't slow down or speed up if the pilot shuts off the engines. But what would really happen if the engines are run constantly? The ship would continually accelerate until something, like a planet, forced it to slow down. I personally doubt that this ship will ever reach or surpass the speed of light, but that's another post. 

Movie Misconceptions 1

In many scifi movies, large spaceships are seen as slower and less maneuverable than their smaller counterparts. (Think Star Destroyer vs. Millennium Falcon.) When you really think about it, that doesn't make sense at all. The only time a smaller ship might be more maneuver when one is on-planet; as air resistance and gravity would have less of an effect on the smaller ship. Since there is no atmosphere in space, (that's why they call it 'space'. dur hur...) there isn't any air resistance, which is what makes large aircraft and watercraft slower and less maneuverable. Without gravity and air resistance, a large spacecraft should be just as fast and maneuverable as a small one with a comparable engine. As, according to Newton's first law, a body remains in a state of constant velocity until acted upon by an outside force. In our spaceship example, air resistance and gravity are the outside forces causing the larger vessel to loose speed and maneuverability. Since these forces aren't really present in space, the larger spacecraft will not loose speed or maneuverability. Quite the opposite in fact. A larger vessel can support a larger engine/generator/power supply thing, thus meaning it gains more thrust. Without the outside forces of air resistance and gravity acting against this thrust, the larger spaceship will possess an even greater top speed than the smaller vessel.

Hello World!

So, I figured I'd start a blog to rant on and share thoughts online or whatever. It'll probably end up that nobody else reads it and I'm talking to an empty room... *sigh*

Anyway, be prepared for topics on just about anything: from science to video game reviews and everything in between. Plus some stuff outside that domain. Basically whatever pops into my head; as long as I can turn into a  decent discussion. Worry not, you won't have to read about how hungry I am.