If I were to take a "frame by frame" video of a hydrogen atom and its electron, whould I find the electron moving along a trajectory or teleporting randomly throughout the cloud? | AskScience Blog

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Wednesday, August 17, 2016

If I were to take a "frame by frame" video of a hydrogen atom and its electron, whould I find the electron moving along a trajectory or teleporting randomly throughout the cloud?

If I were to take a "frame by frame" video of a hydrogen atom and its electron, whould I find the electron moving along a trajectory or teleporting randomly throughout the cloud?


If I were to take a "frame by frame" video of a hydrogen atom and its electron, whould I find the electron moving along a trajectory or teleporting randomly throughout the cloud?

Posted: 17 Aug 2016 02:18 AM PDT

Are humans apes?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 10:44 AM PDT

So humans are primates. And we evolved from apes. But are we considered apes from a taxonomy viewpoint?

submitted by /u/DarthDovahkiin5
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Is visibility much worse in Venus's atmosphere than Earth's?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 02:52 PM PDT

I know the pressure on the surface of Venus is incredibly high, but does that pressure, gases of the Venusian atmosphere, and the cloud thickness significantly affect viability? If so, to what degree? If you were in some kind of super space suit that could withstand the hellish surface of Venus, would you even be able to see anything?

The pictures from the Soviet landers make it seem like the visibility is comparable to Earth on a cloudy day, but I have a feeling the camera and exposure settings might be compensating for Venus's atmosphere.

submitted by /u/RobertM525
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Why have we not used IVF to impregnate a elephant with a wooly mammoth yet?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 07:54 AM PDT

What barriers are stopping us? Is it the science or the ethics of bringing back such an old animal?

submitted by /u/commi_furious
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Why has the "Great Red Spot" storm on Jupiter, unlike storms on Earth, lasted for so long?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 08:54 PM PDT

[physics] Why do people say that laws of physics are time-simmetric when nothing can leave a black hole?

Posted: 17 Aug 2016 04:41 AM PDT

And what about the second rule of thermodynamics

submitted by /u/Hiephoohallo
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What does the electric field look like in a basic circuit?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 07:33 PM PDT

Imagine a very basic circuit: a battery hooked up to a light bulb. From what I know, the battery, through its chemical constituents, creates a potential difference across its terminals, thereby generating an electric field. My question is, what does this field look like? If you were to sketch the field lines in the picture described above where would they lie? Would it only exist within the battery? and if so what keeps the electrons moving through the wire?

submitted by /u/FiresJ
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With CRISPR, is the solution to many diseases just a matter of more computer power and more efficient delivery of CRISPR?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 03:44 AM PDT

With CRISPR, genetic material may be (somewhat) simply removed and replaced by other material. Some issues remains, such as how to get a uniform delivery throughout the organism, but that is being worked on by many teams at the moment, and will likely happen fairly soon.

So, my question is: Given enough computer power, wouldn't it be possible to analyze the DNA sequence of, say, a healthy cell's DNA and the DNA of a cancer cell, find the difference, and then use CRISPR to simply write trash DNA instead in the cancer cells, which will kill any "descendants" of the cell. I could see more or less the same method being used to kill off bacteria, simply find an unique "target" in the DNA, then thrash it with garbage DNA.

Now, I'm not a medical expert of any kind, I'm a programmer, but this is a solution which makes sense to my programmer mind. Conceptually, it's very straightforward, and mostly a matter of faster computers (which, in turn, is just a matter of time).

Am I making sense, or am I just finding a neat, but wrong, solution to a problem I don't understand? Could this be the silver bullet?

submitted by /u/ElMachoGrande
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Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology

Posted: 17 Aug 2016 08:05 AM PDT

Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology

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 /u/AutoModerator
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What initiates meandering of a river channel?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 03:54 PM PDT

Been doing some research, and the initiation on meandering seems extremely complicated and hard understand, and I was hoping someone with an advanced knowledge could help. So far 2 theories:

1) Alternation of convergent and divergent flow along the channel, combined with 2nd circulatory currents. Surface convergence at the pool induces a descending secondary current which increases the bed shear stress and encourages scouring, while surface flow diverges at the riffle producing convergence at the bed and thereby deposition - Keller and Melhorn

2) Macroturbulant flow and the bursting process envisages alternating regions of high-speed and low speed flow. Such stream-wise fluctuations in the velocity field could give rise to the necessary alternation of scour and deposition, the region of high-speed flow being associated with pools - Yalin/cliddord.

So is it a combination of turbulent flow from irregularities in either bank, resulting in a pair of surface-convergent helical cells becoming unbalanced and the forcing of the dominate cell to become reversed, resulting in the formation of a meander thalweg(erosion on one bend etc.), which ultimately has a negative feedback, inducing further meandering.

and

Macroturbulant flow and burst process, which cause differences in flow strength, thus erosion and deposition, causing the formation of pools and riffles, which in turn creates roller eddies and a thalweg.

EDIT 2: What I have on paper at the moment, but pretty sure its a mess!

Currently the initiation for meander is widely disputed, with no distinct explanation known and the idea remains speculative. Meandering is thought to occur, through the inherent properties of macrotubulent flow and burst processes (Yalin, 1992), where rivers are not perfectly uniform structures; due to localised differences in channel bank characteristics. As a result, flow will become spontaneous and turbulent, causing large scale roller eddies (Vortexis), which interact with the boundary walls. Large scale roller eddies (Vortexis) develop at both banks at an average spacing 2 π width forming pairs of surface-convergent helical cells (Figure ….). However, with the banks not having uniform boundary conditions and the flow being sporadic and turbulent, the surface-convergent helical cells will likely become unbalanced, causing a period reversal in the dominant cell, resulting in the formation of a meander thalweg and asymmetry in the channel cross-section (Thompson 1986; Knighton). Additionally the interaction between the flow and mobile channel bed, in which sediment transport is an essential element (Keller, 1973). A slight local irregularity on the bed surface causes flow deceleration and local curvature, which then leads to a relatively large local gradient in sediment transport that may grow into bed forms, bars, channels, sand waves and so on. This tendency is predicted even when flow and sediment transport equations are dramatically simplified and linearized. Linear stability analysis explores how this fundamental instability mechanism causes infinitesimal perturbations to grow to regular patterns (eg, Federici and Seminara, 2003). BAR/BEND THEORY - DISMISSED BECAUSE SUPRAGLACIAL MELT CHANNELS MEANDER WITH OUT SEDIMENT

Once meandering is initiated, positive feedback mechanisms is initiated. Water is super elevated against the outer apex, and lower water towards the inner bend, due to centrifugal forces and an in-ward acting pressure gradient. A transverse current directed towards the apex at the surface and towards the inner bar at the bed to give a secondary circulation additional to the main downstream flow, giving rise to helicoidal gradient forces which driven by the cross stream tilting of the water surface. Curvature induced not only secondary circulation but also large cross –sectional variables in the boundary shear stress velocity field. Means that a maximum boundary shear stress velocity, enters the meander at the bar head, cross the channel through the zone of greatest curvature, and intercepts the apex of the meander bend, causing an area of maximum erosion, and bank retreat (lateral migration) and pool development, whist the bar and riffle at inflection point experiences the lowest boundary shear stress velocity, where accretion of sediment occurs, causing a build-up on the point bar and riffle.

DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON POOL-RIFFLE MAINTENANCE

I've been doing this s**t to long....and just need some clarification

submitted by /u/RowanHawker
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Why doesn't the neutering of animals affect their growth and development like being a eunuch does for humans?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 03:44 PM PDT

According to Wikipedia regarding humans, "Males with testicular agenesis tend not to produce the reproductive hormone 5aDHT at any stage of their lives. As a result, they tend toward prepubescent appearance, with infantile skin texture, developing little body hair particularly in the crotch area, even vellus hair. ... Also muscular development is retarded and testicular agenetics are of rather frail build with short limbs and small hands and feet." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penile_agenesis_and_testicular_agenesis

Why doesn't this happen to animals in their own way? How can male animals get neutered, and yet not suffer stunted development?

submitted by /u/gardener_in_a_war
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How do aquatic plants propagate?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 04:02 PM PDT

To my knowledge aquatic plants don't "flower", like terrestrial plants do. Are underwater plants clones of one another, or huge colonies?

submitted by /u/s3gfau1t
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What do these parentheses mean in scientific notation? Ex: 1.616199(97)×10^−35

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 06:50 PM PDT

Follow up: Is this the most exact measurement/approximation of the Planck length?

submitted by /u/Vandechoz
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How much do we know about the sleep cycles of animals living without sunlight?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 08:20 PM PDT

Either underground or underwater, for example bats or angler fish. They don't see the sun rise or set, so there's no reason to think they sleep and wake up every day.

Are there any animals that live exclusively away from the sun that sleep? What are those cycles based on, if not the sun?

submitted by /u/TurboChewy
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Do animals that naturally spend a lot of time high up, like birds or monkeys, ever exhibit a fear of heights?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 12:21 PM PDT

How long did the epoch of recombination last?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 09:56 PM PDT

I get that prior to recombination, the fully ionized plasma made it impossible for photons to travel far without scattering, meaning it was effectively opaque. But as the universe cooled, it allowed atoms to form, and opened the mean free photon path up. But how long did this process take? Everything I've seen makes it seem "sudden" but that is a very relative term when talking about universal time scales. Are we talking seconds? Years? Millennia?

submitted by /u/IGotsDasPilez
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If absolute zero is when it's completely stop moving, what about movement though space?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:43 PM PDT

If something is moving through space, it can't stop moving, making it absolute zero. Are there different types of movement being described? If not, temperature must be relative right?

submitted by /u/FatGecko5
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Is there any species of mammal where there are not sex differences in behavior/temperament?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 10:42 AM PDT

It's often thought that males are dominant and aggressive among all mammal species, but this isn't true. However, is there any species of mammal where there's not sexual dimorphism in behavior?

submitted by /u/Arca587
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Why does the observation of a qubit change it's superposition to a single state?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 11:03 PM PDT

Could someone also define the meaning of observation in this context?

submitted by /u/iiskos
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Are Gravitational and Inertial Mass Always Perfectly Proportional?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 09:14 AM PDT

Alternate phrasing of what I'm asking about would be: Is there any known condition under which the mass of an object with relation to accelleration is not identical to its mass in relationship to the gravitational force applied?

I know Newtonian gravity isn't quite accurate, but I never got far enough along in physics to learn the formulas for Relativistic gravity.

I guess the real question I'm asking is if there is any evidence that Gravity can be generated without classically understood mass.

Please let me know if the question I'm asking doesn't quite make sense or is being asked wrongly.

submitted by /u/Sand_Trout
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Why can't the Delayed-Choice Quantum Eraser be used for FTL communication?

Posted: 16 Aug 2016 10:00 AM PDT

The following is Kim et al. 's Delayed-Choice Quantum Eraser experiment:

A photon goes through one(or both) of two slits(A and B). Behind each slit there's a Glan-Thompson Prism that generates two identical entangled photons from one photon. One of them passes through a lens and is detected by Detector D0. The other one, depending on whether it passed through slit A or slit B, is sent to Beam Splitter 1 or 2. Each beam splitter has a 50% chance of ending up in a detector(D1 and D2) or a quantum eraser. The quantum eraser collects photons from both Beam Splitter 1 and 2, preventing anyone from knowing from which detector(and so which slit) the photon came from. The quantum eraser then sends the photon to Detector D3.

Kim et al. proved that detectors D0 and D3 don't collapse the wave function of the superposition (|slit A> + |slit B), so after sending a sufficient amount of time interference patterns can be osserved on detector D0). D1 and D2, however, collapse the wave function, so D0 doesn't detect any interference pattern. This is true even if D1, D2 and D3 are light years away from D0.

Let's say instead that I built a particular device containing D1, D2, D3 and the Beam Splitters and sent it to Proxima Centauri(distance from the Sun = 4.24 light years), where my friend John is currently living.

A certain amount of photons go through A or B(or both) and then are duplicated: one goes to D0 in my backyard, one to Proxima Centauri.

Meanwhile my friend John flips a coin and if it is head, he replaces the beam splitters with two mirrors pointed towards their corresponding detectors, if it is tail, he replaces them with two mirrors pointed towards the quantum eraser.

If John flipped tail, after a few seconds D0 will detect interference patterns. If John flipped head, it won't.

Didn't I just receive information 4.24 times faster than c?

Alternative version if you don't like FTL theories: the photons enter the LHC and 4.24 years later they are directed towards the device.

Thank you for your attention and sorry for my poor grammar (I'm Italian).

submitted by /u/smarro
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