Modern alchemists make two new elements

Nature Magazine ^ | 03 February 2004 | MARK PEPLOW

[Servant of the 9]

"The 30s demonstrated that interest rates too low to recompense risk can vapor lock an economy just as effectively as too high interest rates."

Actually, the 30s showed that rewriting the constitution and heavy government intervention can make a self-stabilizing economy become a crippled one beat into submission by seizure of gold for ultimate government power.

They showed that too, but our economy is still not going to take off till interest rates are high enough to make it worthwhile.

" I object to anything that is likely to result in profitable spinoffs with a decade"

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes, it does. If a profit can be turned in 10 years, then private enterprise can and should finance it.

"Right now we have 3 private companies working on commercial orbital flight. There is no way private enterprise could have pioneered in space flight"

That is correct, but only because the government already did it.

No, because without the government proving the concept, demonstrating the possibility of profit and shortening the time line to profitability from 40 years to a few years, private enterprise would never have put up the money.

So9

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Servant of the 9]

I object to anything that is likely to result in profitable spinoffs with a decade.

How about never useful? Lots of this stuff is only going to procreate PhDs in nuclear physics...

That's the thing about basic research, you can't tell what possible use it will be. It is always a crapshoot.
If you can tell if research will have a profitable result, then it is aplied research and belongs in the private sector.

"The 30s demonstrated that interest rates too low to recompense risk can vapor lock an economy just as effectively as too high interest rates."

A far greater danger is the government sapping too much of the economy for political ends ...

Could be, but not now. The reason the Fed Funds rate is down to 1% is that there is far more money available than there is demand.

"We need more govt. spending right now, enough to drive the prime rate up to at least 4%."

You really mean this? You remember Limbaugh's comment about taxing ourselves into prosperity? This is exactly what you're proposing, .... It just doesn't work.

Rush has begun to sound like Perrot. Every answer is Realll Simple, but not every problem has a simplistic answer.

Saturday, posters were beating up on me claiming I was really a Libertarian in Conservatives Clothing.
Lord only knows what y'all are gonna think.

Gotta Go.

So9

[RinaseaofDs]

Try doing without all of the benefits of the residual technologies gleaned from nuclear research or the space program for one day and then ask me that question.

Funny how there are no luddites in the outpatient ward of a cancer ward. Ask anyone who's beaten cancer if nuclear research isn't worth it.

Smoke detectors, nuclear warheads, guidance systems, velcro, satellite TV, satellite everything, and a host of things you take for granted everyday started as things discovered in a lab or at NASA.

The Internet was a DARPA project. What a freakin' waste of taxpayer funds that was.

The answer is no. There is no limit to the amount of money we should spend to legitimately push back the frontiers of ignorance. Studying cow farts or the viscous properties of ketchup are probably things we can do without.

[from occupied ga]

Try doing without all of the benefits of the residual technologies gleaned from nuclear research or the space program for one day and then ask me that question.

They your position is that without government funded research these is no research?

[AdmSmith]

You may read an article from the Institute in Dubna here http://flerovlab.jinr.ru/dribs/mann2.html describing the work in the search for super heavy elements. The article is not technical.

A more speculative and technical article is http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/0105064 It is about the infinite nuclear matter model of atomic nuclei and the authors claim evidence of new neutron (N) magic numbers 100,152,164, new proton (Z) magic number 78 and new islands of stability around N=100, Z = 62; N=152,Z=78; and N=164,Z =90.

[DFW_Repub]

Remember Bob Lazar, the guy who claimed he worked on alien ufo's at Area-51. He claimed that element 115 was used to power the space ships. Element 115 is one the new elements that were created, I believe the article said is lasted 90 miliseconds before it decayed.

There is a brave new world coming.

[DFW_Repub]

This concept has been explored and thankfully discarded. Man must go into the unknown. With that attitude the Indians would still rule North America.

[AdmSmith]

Here are some pictures
http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/06news/NewsMedia/element.html

Simulation images of formation of elements 115 and 113