How much work does it take to send a packet across the internet? | AskScience Blog

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Wednesday, January 20, 2016

How much work does it take to send a packet across the internet?

How much work does it take to send a packet across the internet?


How much work does it take to send a packet across the internet?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 07:33 PM PST

A packet of some size is sent from A to B, which are some distance part, via some number of routers. Can someone Fermi estimate (or better) the energy required to do this?

submitted by aggasalk
[link] [329 comments]

Ask Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science

Posted: 20 Jan 2016 07:05 AM PST

Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science

Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".

Asking Questions:

Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions.

The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.

Answering Questions:

Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.

If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here.

Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here.

Ask away!

submitted by AutoModerator
[link] [1 comment]

Is hygiene a learned behaviour or instinctive in the animal kingdom?

Posted: 20 Jan 2016 04:32 AM PST

It seems like different animals clean themselves in many different ways so I'm just wondering if their methods are culturally based, passed down from mother to offspring, instinctive, etc.

submitted by MySlipperyPete
[link] [comment]

Have any extra dimensions been found?

Posted: 20 Jan 2016 04:56 AM PST

Does the color of light shining on ice affect the melting speed?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 09:03 AM PST

Hi!

I was just ice skating and a bit bored when I saw the ice melting. (It is a really good ice rink! Not...) But I noticed colored lights shining on the ice and I wondered if they can speed up (or slow down) that spot of ice.

I began thinking and I came up with this: I know white colored things reflect all colors of light. So if the ice is colored white it does not matter? But if the ice for example is colored red. Could not red light shining on it increase the melting speed? Becasue red objects absorb all light except red, they reflect that. And absorbing is also absorbing heat? Not? I was just wondering... Thanks!

submitted by SimonGulix
[link] [10 comments]

What does Math in Quantum Physics "look like"? Is it still much like applied math, or does it start to look more like doing proofs?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 06:21 PM PST

I've heard that a lot of the really theory-heavy areas of math show up in quantum mechanics a lot; things like linear algebra, group theory and complex analysis. Moreover, it seems like there are some folks in the pure math camp that are also doing stuff related to QM.

Does quantum physics mostly rely on the computational results coming out of these fields, or do you start working at a higher level of abstraction and do a lot of proving?

submitted by Smartless
[link] [6 comments]

Why should this perpetual motion machine not work?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 11:07 PM PST

The proposed machine is as such: There is a bar magnet with its N pole facing a wheel, and on top of the wheel, there is another bar magnet firmly attached to it. On the right half of the wheel, the N pole is always closer to the bar magnet above, and is thus repelled, causing a clockwise rotation of the wheel. As the wheel rotates round and the magnet on the wheel reaches the left half, the S pole is closer and is thus attracted. This reinforces the clockwise rotation of the wheel.

In both cases, it seems that the wheel is constantly being accelerated clockwise resulting in perpetual motion. What am I missing here?

A bonus question (if anyone is nice enough to answer this as well): Does this system have an equilibrium state (unstable or stable)? That is, is there any position I can place the magnet and the wheel such that there is no motion.

Note: I do realize that perpetual motion machines can't exist because of First Law of Thermodynamics, so please do not simply quote the law as an explanation. I want to know why it holds in this context.

Also, by placing the wheel in its initial position as shown in the picture, I understand that I have input some initial energy into the system.

I would appreciate any ideas regarding this!

submitted by scorleo
[link] [20 comments]

If light has energy, does it lose that energy over time? For example, the stars we see: does that light lose energy between their point of origin and it reaching Earth?

Posted: 20 Jan 2016 07:18 AM PST

How to calculate neutron decay?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 06:22 PM PST

I was recently reading about neutronium, which is composed of purely neutrons that is extremely dense and is present in neutron stars. What I read stated that neutrons isolated from protons are unstable and start to decay. According to what I read they have a half life of ~10 minutes. When they do decay they release a ton of energy. What I want to know is how one could calculate that amount of energy released per # or neutrons or lbs or whatever. Your help is greatly appreciated!

submitted by 20mcgug
[link] [8 comments]

Hawking recently quoted ""Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years." Do the chances of a disaster increase after not occurring for a long period of time?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 07:36 AM PST

Also, is it possible Hawking is including other unstated factors that increase the probability over time ? Thanks you geniuses!

submitted by PoundingOutVag
[link] [41 comments]

Can an atom from a solid theoretically pass through into the atomic structure of another solid?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 08:44 PM PST

Since solids experience movement at the atomic level, is it possible that an atom can randomly wiggle its way over time into the atomic structure of another solid?

submitted by justbcuzzzz
[link] [9 comments]

What color light would Radon emit in a gas-discharge lamp?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 04:11 PM PST

Everything that I've read says Radon is obviously difficult to experiment with due to its radioactivity. I can't find anything conclusive, though it seems from the spectral lines of other noble gasses and their procession toward higher temperatures (with regards to color that is) that Radon would probably emit a violet/UV light. Basically, if I filled a neon "OPEN" sign with Radon instead of neon, what color would the light be? Thanks!

submitted by Matador32
[link] [1 comment]

Can someone in mid Indiana, go outside, look up, take a picture of the giant ring around the moon. What the hell is that?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 07:26 PM PST

Why is the NH3 molecule shaped like a pyramid? Despite the orbits of the lone electrons being on both sides of the N-atome?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 10:20 PM PST

If a plane flies towards me at Mach 2, would I hear the noise it makes, backwards?

Posted: 20 Jan 2016 04:54 AM PST

If not, is there a way we can manipulate the Doppler Effect to hear/see something in reverse?

submitted by MrMcGowan
[link] [8 comments]

Why does silly putty break if yanked and stretch if pulled slowly?

Posted: 20 Jan 2016 04:53 AM PST

Asking for my inquisitive kid, who noticed that if he pulled hard on his silly putty, it would break cleanly. But if he pulled gently, it stretches. You can even combine these by pulling gently to stretch it, and then doing a quick yank to break it cleanly. What is the science behind that? Thanks!

submitted by Ratscallion
[link] [5 comments]

How do you calculate the well depth of a Lagrangian point? Is this "depth" directly used to state the volume of the well?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 08:00 PM PST

How do you wake up from coma ?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 01:34 PM PST

Just curious

submitted by sweetjoe221
[link] [2 comments]

How could Venera13 send photo of Venus to Earth when digital photography was practiclly non-existent?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 03:40 PM PST

I found that Venera13 "It snapped a panorama of images with its camera, sending back 14 color photographs and another eight in black and white."

But there is nowwhere to be found how it developed or processed these, was there digital camera in 1981 in SSSR?

submitted by Tanknastole
[link] [3 comments]

How can coral reefs be threatened by climate change when they have endured it before?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 07:46 AM PST

Coral reefs are composed of relatively ancient organisms, with the corals and sponges being the oldest members. These species have all endured a shifting climate before and Im not sure how long the ecosystem has been around but I did remember hearing that the earth was so warm when the dinosaurs were around that there were no ice caps. If this was the case then wouldn't we expect this ecosystem to survive modern climate change, or is it happening too rapidly?

Bonus question: what are some whole ecosystems that were eradicated during a great extinction that are no longer around today?

submitted by bryophyteclub
[link] [8 comments]

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