Topic: Episode #344

[Lyk]

As a geophysicist I was offended that you weren't familiar with Schlumberger, one of the most important geophysicists that ever lived! To suggest it was a marketing gimmick - blasphemy!

[quirk3k]

Falsifiability is tricky.

All the current data we have from geology, biology, genetics, morphology, etc. all points to evolution. What new thing could be learned to throw out everything we have already learned?

Think about Heliocentrism. All the current data we have from astrophysics, astronomy, planetary exploration, etc. all points to a sun centered model of the solar system. What new thing could be learned to throw out everything we have already learned?

Does this mean that Heliocentrism is non-falsifiable? No. Falsifiable questions have been asked and answered.

[mrwilson41]

^  Much like Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

"If evolution can't be falsified should it be discounted, or at least somehow relegated as a scientific theory?"

Evolution is already relegated as a scientific theory.  It's not a guess.

[Citizen Skeptic]

As a geophysicist I was offended that you weren't familiar with Schlumberger, one of the most important geophysicists that ever lived! To suggest it was a marketing gimmick - blasphemy!

Did Schlumberger get rich on oil?

[Lyk]

yeah, kinda

[Trinoc]

As a geophysicist I was offended that you weren't familiar with Schlumberger, one of the most important geophysicists that ever lived! To suggest it was a marketing gimmick - blasphemy!

They were also pretty dismissive about BAE Systems, who are a UK major arms manufacturer, similar in status to someone like Northrop Grumman in the US. While their developments often have civilian applications, the motivation for the structural battery was almost certainly military. The military have the twin advantages of being able to throw almost unlimited money at any problem, and the fact that their hardware has a fairly limited life before being shot to pieces or at least rendered obsolete, so long term battery life may not be a problem.

[Dynamic]

Structural batteries for aircraft - and how about as part of smart electricity grid?

I'm sure BAe Systems, as an aerospace company (civil as part of the Airbus consortium, and military too) is probably thinking mainly about airframe components that serve a dual purpose especially as part of a highly expensive capital item where upfront cost can to some extent be traded for weight/future-fuel savings/performance in terms of additional batteries and or other means of electrical generation from a jet aircraft (alternators in jet engine rotating parts or Thermo Electric Generators maybe)

In some cases total required battery capacity may be modest while the amount of aerodynamic structural real estate might be huge. Consideration of safety might also rule out certain efficient battery types that could be subject to thermal runaway like some infamous laptop batteries of the past.

Potentially, as part of a smart electricity grid, buildings with very cheap batteries (or supercapacitors) incidental to their structure could, combined with electric vehicles, provide distributed storage for time-varying renewable supplies such as solar and wind to provide for peak demand when it could be economically viable to sell back to the grid at a premium and to provide backup facilities locally for computers and emergency lighting if there's a power cut due to a line fault elsewhere. For this to work, though, it would have to add virtually no cost to the structure of the building. With electric vehicles, the battery cost factor isn't so important as they require a battery anyway as part of their primary function.

A good analogy for a smart grid is, if my Electric Car in the year 2030 has a 180 mile range left while I'm parked up and plugged in at work and knows I plan to drive 30 miles that evening (my smartphone will keep it informed of my plans and guess the likelihood I'll make a trip on impulse), it might sell back premium-priced peak demand electricity to the smart grid leaving me with no less than 90 miles and only eat into the 60 miles of buffer range if the price premium increases to compensate me for the chances I'll have to take a diversion before getting home and charging up on low-cost, sporadic off-peak electricity when it's cheap enough.

[The Dicklomat]

Regarding the matter of people feeling protected by SUVs and over-compensating, we have sort of an "SUV Arms Race" happening in this part of the world.

The locals, who all have more money than Allah, all drive almost exclusively Hummers or souped-up Toyota Landcruisers and they drive them like children let loose in the bumper-car pit.  In response, Expats who wouldn't be caught dead in ine of those things back home find themselves driving the same in an effort not to be caught dead at all.

However, after a few months, the "Stanford Experiment Effect" kicks in and many of these otherwise timid Expats end up driving over boulevards/sidewalks, taking up 3 parking spaces and tailgaiting 6" at 100km/h whilst flashing their high-beams...and these are the Expat's WIVES driving the kids to school!

I must admit that after years of this, I get a dark joy from watching "Qatari Road Accidents" on Youtube.  Look it up, but not on a weeknight - you will be hooked instantly.

BTW - I still drive a little Nissan Tiida.  Perhaps I am just suffering from "Sour Grapes" syndrome?

[PHI Guy]

WTN for episode 344, sounds like river ice near the shore. Heard it many times here in Canada on the Kennebecasis River which is tidally linked to the Bay of Fundy,

[Citizen Skeptic]

I know a little about batteries tangentially because of a nanomaterials project I worked on. The project had to do with the creation of nanospheres (<100nm in diameter) for use in a variety of applications. Turns out one of the applications for nanospheres was in the materials used in batteries. The reason is that charge is proportional to surface area. If you can make the spheres really small, you increase the ratio of surface area to volume and you can cram more surface area into the same volume. The process for making that materials was interesting - gas phase nucleation of metalorganics mostly.

[Kantalope]

Is there a place for the sources for the science or fiction?  I am particularly interested in the skulls to faces research.

and for the batteries how about in disposable items like cameras or maybe copy-protected media...you only have access to the book on the thumbdrive until the battery built into the chip goes dead?

anyway - whats the citation for the science or fiction article?

[Chew]

Is there a place for the sources for the science or fiction?  I am particularly interested in the skulls to faces research.

and for the batteries how about in disposable items like cameras or maybe copy-protected media...you only have access to the book on the thumbdrive until the battery built into the chip goes dead?

anyway - whats the citation for the science or fiction article?

They're in the shownotes for each episode: Podcast Archive - The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

[Citizen Skeptic]

and for the batteries how about in disposable items like cameras or maybe copy-protected media...you only have access to the book on the thumbdrive until the battery built into the chip goes dead?

I don't know about this particular instance but usually if you want to design something to self-destruct after some use, you'd probably just program it to fry access to the memory. It's pretty easy to build fuses into circuits. It is done all the time on chips.

[Kantalope]

Thanks Chew -- now I know and thats half the battle

[Kantalope]

Oh no -- the link in the show notes is wrong.  It links to the same article as item #1.