User:Greg L
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Four Great Minds:
A great observer, a great thinker, a great engineer, and a great experimentalist.
- “We shall not cease from exploration
- And the end of all our exploring
- Will be to arrive where we started
- And know the place for the first time.”
- T. S. Eliot – 1942 *
Hi.
If you’ve arrived here in search of information on U.S. Navy SEALs, click here to automatically scroll down to the relevant section of this page.
This is a “user page” for Wikipedia authors. Wikipedia is the premier, Web-based, free encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. User pages are where authors often maintain a “sandbox”: a place to store the digital bricks & mortar that comprise Wikipedia articles. The animation at right is one of those “bricks,” which serves as a technical note to myself detailing some of the intricacies when creating certain kinds of animations.
I worked for seven years as a fuel cell engineer and am now working on medical equipment. Three of my fifteen patents pertained to entirely new ways to calculate the properties of gases. One involved a new way to back-calculate the equation-of-state of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) to—in effect—find the terms of its quadratic equation when given only the pressure and temperature. This was not an easy task because SF6 has a very high molecular weight and is far from an “ideal” gas. The other two gas-related patents were a method for calculating the dewpoint of air using an analog circuit when given the relative humidity and temperature. Before this invention, the only known way to calculate dewpoint was to use a microprocessor. Interestingly, there were geometric solutions to both these problems (separated by many years). The SF6 problem was a relatively straightforward 2D solution. The dewpoint problem, though also a geometric solution, required complex 3D geometry (and logarithmic “math” in the analog circuitry). The reason for the dew point development is certain types of hydrogen sensors (MOS) are influenced by dew point. We wanted to null dew point’s effect on the hydrogen sensor and didn’t want a microprocessor running firmware in a safety-critical circuit.
So far, I've contributed to the following:
- International Temperature Scale of 1990 (mostly under 67.185.28.163)
- Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW) (mostly under 67.185.28.163 and 67.185.42.231)
- Kelvin
- Thermodynamic temperature
- Translational motion.gif (animation
) - Maxwell distribution graph.jpg (graphic)
- Thermally Agitated Molecule.gif (animation)
- Energy vs. phase changes.jpg (graphic)
- Zero-point energy vs. motion.jpg (graphic)
- 1D normal modes (I compressed an existing 6 MB animation to 4.7% of its original size) (animation)
- Sun at 304 Angstroms.jpg (graphic)
- Close-packed spheres.jpg (graphic)
- Anders Celsius (a Photoshop-cleaned version of a image from elsewhere on the Web) (graphic)
- Carolous Linnaeus (a Photoshop-cleaned version of an image already on Wikipedia Commons) (graphic)
- Translational motion.gif (animation
- Specific heat capacity
- Wet-bulb temperature
- Atmosphere (unit)
- Silicon burning process
- Celsius
- Sunspot with Earth Comparison.jpg (graphic)
- Sunspot (minor contribution)
- Cannonball stack with FCC unit cell.jpg (graphic)
- Close-packing (modest contribution)
- Freedom From Fear war poster with Normal Rockwell’s work (I assembled and cleaned up the image)
- Four Freedoms (minor contribution)
- United States Office of War Information (minor contribution)
- Absolute zero (modest contribution)
- SI prefix (modest contribution)
- Meter (modest contribution)
- Triple point (modest contribution)
- Planck temperature (modest contribution)
- Atmospheric pressure (modest contribution)
- Rankine (modest contribution)
- Solar radiation (modest contribution]
- Elastic collision (modest contribution)
- Inelastic collision (modest contribution)
- Sucralose (modest contribution)
- E=mc² (modest contribution)
- Work (thermodynamics) (minor contribution)
- Power (physics) (minor contribution)
- Standard deviation (minor contribution)
- Wien's displacement law (minor contribution)
- Temperature (minor contribution)
- The various Planck units (minor contributions)
- Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (minor contribution)
- Multiple (mathematics) (minor contribution)
- Hafnium (minor contribution)
- Nuclear isomer (minor contribution)
- Normal mode (minor contribution)
- Phonon (minor contribution)
- Electron (minor contribution)
- Coldest temperature achieved on Earth (minor contribution)
- Fahrenheit (minor contribution)
- Equipartition theorem (minor contribution)
- Body mass index (minor contribution)
- Helium (minor contribution)
- Solid solution (very minor contribution)
Also, my son and I together added a small section on the Navy SEALs regarding the physical standards required to join the SEALs.
Please see the ITS–90 discussion page and the VSMOW discussion page before editing the articles. I don't do "drive-by shootings" on articles just to inflate the number of articles I've contributed to. I take pride in doing that which is hard. And doing well-researched, correct, tight, understandable (for the target audience) technical writing is among the more difficult tasks I ever attempt to tackle. I derive pleasure in making excellent contributions to just a few articles (as opposed to poor contributions to many).
Contents |
[edit] Trying to become a Navy SEAL
- Lt. Weinberg: Why do you like them so much?
- Lt. Cmdr. Galloway: ‘Cause they stand on a wall. And they say “Nothing's
- Lt. Cmdr. Galloway: gonna hurt you tonight. Not on my watch.”
- From A Few Good Men
My son just entered into the U.S. Navy SEAL’s training program known as BUD/S. I hope he makes it through BUD/S and I pray that our President and the Navy put him in jeopardy only for well-conceived, important reasons. Over 70% of BUD/S candidates wash out (so it's real, real tough). Here's a letter-to-the-editor I wrote that appeared in our local paper. It will give you a little insight into how proud I am of my son:
My wife and I just read your riveting article about a 20-year-old
who spent 41 straight hours in a Wal-Mart. He reportedly passed
time with such activities as reading magazines and playing video
games.
WOW. Just… wow. That is something. TV networks have started
calling. He was a guest on NPR radio and he’s had discussions
with a movie company!
Our 19-year-old son just joined the Navy with a guarantee to join
their special forces (a six-year commitment with the SEALs). To
prepare, he ran six miles a day wearing boots. Before shipping
off, he could do 87 sit-ups in two minutes and a 500-yard side
stroke in 10:17. He studied for months to improve his entrance
exam score so he could qualify to simply apply for the SEALs.
Even though the Navy will teach him scuba diving, he took private
lessons before joining. In many ways, he was a product of 9-11.
Events like that can make an impact on a 15-year-old.
But you know, with the Navy intent on growing the SEALs to 3000
members, there are probably hundreds of young men just like our
son doing the very same thing. Nothing at all unique like the
Wal-Mart kid.
The thing that really impressed me though was the privilege during Navy graduation of meeting two of the three other young men in my son's division who also had SEALs guarantees. To prepare before joining the Navy, they had all done almost exactly the sort of stuff my son had. They had read nearly all of Dick Couch's books on the SEALs, they knew the Discovery Channel's series about the SEALs by heart (because like my son, they too owned the DVD set), and they had all worked very hard at getting into awesome physical shape.
The future of the U.S. is in good hands with the next generation.
- In a call recently, my son recounted an incongruity he found humorous. There’s an instructor at the BUD/S training base in Coronado who’s extremely "buff" and bronzed and has a jaw that looks like it was whittled out of granite using a chain saw. He gets around on base using one of those most-practical retro-’50’s-style bicycles with fenders, old-fashioned wide seat, fat white-wall tires, and a thumb-driven bell. It even has a basket on the front to carry items in. So as my son and his friends walk about on the base, they'll occasionally hear the "cha-ching" of the bell as this ultra-tough instructor wearing camo passes them sitting ram-rod straight up atop something that looks suitable for Dorothy (from Kansas).
UPDATE: (Greg L 04:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)) I guess the odds of 70% attrition rate applied to this group of three. My son and one of the two friends I mentioned above didn't make it through BUD/S. My son re-trained as a master of arms (military policeman) and now guards a naval base.
“Phase 1” is the period of SEAL training that lasts through Hell Week. Hell Week is by far the hardest week to get through. The second hardest is the first week of Phase 1; the instructors (all of whom are operational SEALs) really ride the trainees hard to weed out the weak or uncommitted as early as possible. My son's class was the biggest on record and the instructors were doubly motivated to get the class size down to something half-manageable before Hell Week started.
There's the mini-series about BUD/S you see occasionally on the Discovery Channel and the Military Channel. My son and his friends all owned a set of DVDs of the mini-series and all thought they knew what to expect. But no; the Navy has lots of stuff they put the trainees through that you never see on any TV documentary. My son and one of his two friends both washed out in the last exercise of the last day of the first week. After that, they would have gone to dinner, taken the weekend off, and would have to get through the three, somewhat easier weeks before Hell Week starts. What tripped up my son and one of his two friends is a pool exercise that doesn't appear on the mini-series. Maybe that's partly why my son didn't make it; there was a fear factor due to the uncertain novelty of it. What you do see on the mini-series is something called "drown proofing" where they put the trainees in the water with their hands and feet bound with rope. They have to sink to the bottom of the pool, push off and rise to the surface, and repeat for so many minutes. Then they have to swim — still bound hand & feet — 50 meters to the edge of the pool. My son had seen that many times (he owns the DVD) and was prepared for it.
What tripped my son up is an evolution called the “Mask appreciation exercise” (which I think is a euphemism akin to “Taser Appreciation” exercise). The instructors put about thirty trainees into the pool wearing just their swim suits and masks. The trainees all cluster tightly around an instructor floating in a raft in the middle of the pack. Everyone is treading water but since they're so tightly packed together, they are half treading other trainees. It's hard to stay afloat. Then they have the trainees fill their masks completely with water and have them start singing loudly and yelling out calls. A lot of water goes up many of the trainees' noses, down their throats, and into their lungs. Most handled the situation well. Some didn't. The instructors are looking for the ones who don't freak out at the sensation of drowning. My son kept at it until his mask was about half filled with air. Half a mask-full of water had gone up his nose and down his throat, and about half of that had gone down into his lungs. He swam out of the group to the edge of the pool. Well, of course the instructors were all over him then and told him to suck it up and get back into the group. So he did. And the same thing happened again: after a few minutes, he sucked in half a mask-full of water and felt like he was drowning. And he swam to the pool's edge again.
Well, that was it. For those who didn't handle the drown-proofing exercise well (the one where they tie their hands and feet in the pool), they had been allowed to practice the exercise in the pool over the weekend and try to qualify again on the following Monday. This wasn't the case with "Mask appreciation." Anyone who couldn't suck up this exercise the first time around were out. They were either threatened with being performance dropped, or they were given the option of ringing the "drop on request" (D.O.R.) bell. When my son went to the pool's edge the second time and stripped off his mask and looked up, hew saw the class's officer-in-charge (the ranking officer trainee of the class) ringing the D.O.R. bell. In BUD/S, officers and enlisted are both trained together. The only difference is that the instructors (who are mostly enlisted personnel) simply address the officer trainees "Sir" while they're yelling at them and making them drop and do one hundred pushups as punishment. Anyway…
The instructor told him he was finished but my son absolutely refused to ring the D.O.R. bell. So the instructor told him he could consider himself as performance-dropped. Period. That was it. My son knew it wasn’t quite that simple; he’d have to appear before a formal hearing board to make it official. He thought about it over the weekend and then put out the word that he wanted to wash out under the best possible circumstances. So the instructors allowed him to ring the D.O.R. bell on Monday morning. He carefully added his helmet to the end of the long line of helmets that had accumulated beneath the D.O.R. bell and walked away.
Note on the preceding three paragraphs: As far as I know, all evolutions in First Phase are not classified. However, it’s noteworthy that nearly all — perhaps all — books on the SEALs don’t tell about an evolution called “Mask Appreciation.” This is a likely indicator that this information might be sensitive and that the Navy requires that book authors and documentary producers not disclose the subject in return for inside access at Coronado. Mask Appreciation is no doubt designed to expose recruits to a novel situation; if the existence of this evolution became well known, it could undermine its very purpose. Wikipedia User Pages are predominantly the private domain of the Wikipedia authoring community. Still, the contents of these User Pages are indexed by Google and are discoverable in searches. To find the information on Mask Appreciation discussed above however, requires prior knowledge of the term: one must google on the words mask and appreciation (or the phrase “mask appreciation” in quotes) to hit on this page. More general Google searches like Navy SEALs and Coronado doesn’t produce this Web page in at least the first eleven Google search pages. Thus, the discoverability of detailed information on Mask Appreciation in a forum such as this is much different from that of actual books on the SEALs. Regardless of the Navy’s intentions regarding secrecy, it’s obvious that extremely few recruits or Navy personnel who are planning on trying out for the SEALs would ever happen across the information available here beforehand; they look to books on the SEALs (such as those written by Dick Couch), where they won’t find it.
The reason for this statement is the above three paragraphs were anonymously deleted by someone alleging that the Mask Appreciation evolution is “classified.” While I don’t doubt the sincerity of the individual in looking out for what he or she thought was in the Navy’s interests, this allegation seems utterly preposterous since every trainee who washes out during First Phase is discharged without signing any secrecy documents — or even counseled regarding the sensitivity of Mask Appreciation — and is free to roam about and discuss their experiences with whomever they please. Further, the URL of the anonymous editor traced back to a private Internet provider (SBC Internet Services/AT&T) in the Los Angeles area, not a government site. Even though Mask Appreciation is most certainly not classified, if the above information undermines the Navy’s interests in any way, the proper way to address this is to either contact me on my Talk page or e-mail me here. Please provide a telephone number so I can validate your identity and affiliation with the U.S. Navy. If censorship is to occur here, it will be self-censorship, for a valid reason, as requested and articulated by a responsible party. It will not be the imposed censorship of an anonymous Internet user who took it upon his or her self to delete someone else’s writings on their own User Page.
My son was real familiar with that bell. The youngest trainees in the BUD/S class are given the chore of polishing it. They take turns. Since there were four 19-year-olds in the class, every fourth day, my son polished the D.O.R. bell. It's the very same one you see in the video. You can even see the shadow of the D.O.R. bell on Google Map if you zoom all the way in on "The Grinder."
He stayed at Coronado for several weeks (though not as a SEAL trainee). He occasionally joined the crowds of civilians who gather along the road overlooking the beach where SEALs train. It's quite the tourist attraction for civilians as they cheer on the SEALs as they run on the beach under their rubber boats. My son was pretty much oblivious to them when he was under the boats. One evening after the sun had set, he realized that it should be the day and time when the SEAL trainees do rock portaging. So he joined the crowd that had gathered up on the road to watch the trainees bringing their rubber boats in over the rocks. It’s actually one of the more dangerous things, injury-wise, that SEAL trainees do. The sun had been down for about 45 minutes and the western sky was only darkly lit in cobalt blue. One could rather easily see the chemilum light sticks tied to each of the trainees and their equipment but could just barely make out the silhouetted forms struggling on the rocks. He listened as some lady wondered out loud who those soldier-types were. Her boy friend/husband/whatever stated with an authoritative tone that they were Army Rangers doing invasion training. My son said nothing. He just stood there, part of an anonymous crowd, watching the important-looking spectacle from the sidelines.
While waiting at Coronado for his transfer orders to arrive, my son was tagged to go out into the desert where he helped play the roll of Red-Force insurgents for full-tilt SEALs doing some polish-up training before shipping out to “The Sandbox.” This training is done at a remote desert "village" not too far of Coronado. The instructors pile the club cabs of government-owned three-quarter-ton trucks chock full of people and tear helter skelter up the freeway to the desert facility. Although none of what my son participated in was all that Earth shaking or classified (that I know of), I shouldn't say much since it pertains to the SEALs’ capabilities and tactics. There was this little bit of advise an instructor gave him: “Don’t get stung by a scorpion or bitten by a rattlesnake; we don’t have antivenom out here.” Okaaaaay… nice to know. In fact, when he wasn’t playing his Red-Force role, one of his tasks was to club rattlesnakes with a shovel.
There was something about his Coronado-related experiences that my son paid no attention to until after he had gone to Lackland AFB for his MA training. Lackland has an AFB/Navy joint MA training facility there. My son noted that a significant number of trainees at Lackland were immature as hell and were continually getting into trouble. During his short stay there, the Navy had to institute a complete lockdown so no one could leave base, even over the weekend. This was all due to the misbehavior of a few. Also, a driver had crashed an AFB-owned van. In response, no one would drive the vans anymore. The thing is, the vans were specifically there for the express purpose of transporting people and that was the drivers’ job! But there they sat. This kind of babysitting struck my son as odd because it contrasted so dramatically with his own experiences at Coronado. One evening in the desert, one of the instructors handed my son the keys to a truck and told him and another fellow (another SEAL wash-out) to find their way back to Coronado. Well, what the heck?!? He had only ever been a backseat passenger and had never driven the 90 miles from Coronado to the desert base before. Now he’s supposed to find his way back at night? Well, uhm… yeah; that’s exactly what he wanted. So my son — still 19 years old at the time — drove a government vehicle while his friend navigated. They found their way back to Coronado from the desert OK. That’s just the way things are at Coronado: everyone there is mature and driven. And they’re all given a crap pile of freedom and responsibility in return. Trainees are effectively tortured during the week and then are given the entire weekend off. There are no limitations at all as to where they can go. About all they’re told during indoc is that under no circumstances are they to get into fights in town; drunk locals often try test their manhood by getting a piece of a Navy SEAL trainee. Trainees can drive something like 90 miles away from Coronado and screw around all weekend if they feel like it. They had just better damn well show up for Monday morning muster though. My son didn’t realize he had so much freedom until he had been put into a situation where he no longer had it. Now he was at Lackland where, due to a lockdown, he couldn’t even walk to a 7-11 to buy some dish washing detergent or beef jerky. All because a bunch of underage “goombas and pregnant chicks” (my son’s words) got caught drinking and having a party on base. It was a big culture shock for the young man.
Getting back to the subject of not getting into fights in town: When my son told me about this, I opined that the Navy must not want their SEALs kicking the living crap out of drunk jackasses in bars. I was imagining something akin to that scene in Witness where Harison Ford’s character, while dressed as one of the Amish, busted the nose of that town bully. My son said “Jeez Dad, everyone thinks we’re a bunch of ninjas or something. We’re trained to shoot guns.” Well… perhaps. But I suspect that if the fights are done in the water, the jackasses are going down.
While at Lackland, my son retrained as a Master of Arms: M.A. (M.P. for you Army types) and scored top of his class in shooting the M9 pistol. He's now at his duty station. At the very moment I'm writing this, he's at his duty station's gym working out. He eats plenty of protein, runs miles and miles each day, and is looking even more “rough, tuff & buff” than when he first joined. He is also spending a lot of time in the pool with a mask. Of the two friends I met on the Navy Pier boardwalk in Chicago, the one that made it past Hell Week and past Second Phase, and is now — as I write this — into Third Phase, was very comfortable in water. He played water polo in college and was a life guard. So my son understands how critically important it is to be really comfortable in the water if he's going to be a water-borne warrior. We have a pool at home and my son and I both thought that since he had access to it for most of his childhood, that he was comfortable in the water. We also took private SCUBA lessons just before he shipped out to the Navy. So we both thought water wouldn't be a problem for him. We were wrong.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, he realizes he had been developing an ever-increasing fear of the water — and lack of self-confidence — with each passing day at BUD/S. The stress the instructors put the trainees under every single time they put them into the water was no doubt designed to uncover this sort of weakness. When they finally got to the Mask Appreciating exercise, my son realizes that he simply panicked. His heart rate went way up (and so too did his oxygen requirement). In such a situation (a continuous face full of water plus panic), he truly had to quit, rip off his mask, and swim to the edge of the pool. It was a constitutional weakness in water — not a physical weakness — but certainly not something the Navy needs in their SEALs.
My son goes to the on-base pool pretty much every day to do varoius exercises. Lately, at pool’s edge, he tosses in some rope, bricks, and his diving mask to the bottom. Then he pretends that he’s at BUD/S, where he must complete an assigned task on the very first try. He jumps into the pool, dons his mask while at the bottom of the pool, and clears it. Then he ties various knots, gathers up the load of bricks under his arms, and walks along the bottom of the pool (slogs through the water) to the edge of the pool where he can get a breath. If he tries to clear his mask and only half-accomplishes it so he has to blow even more air out of his lungs (awe sh*t), he just guts through it and finishes his task. Stay calm. Stay frosty. Be “one with the water.” Accomplish the task. He used to have dreams where he was underwater at BUD/S and was failing his tasks. Freud would say this was the standard performance-anxiety dream many of us have about going into a classroom and discovering there’s a test one didn’t prepare for. Now he’s having dreams where he is succeeding at underewater BUD/S exercises. I think this dream business is very significant and telling.
He will have to work as an M.A. for a while before he can apply to go into BUD/S again. I think he will be ready then. He's damn motivated.”
UPDATE, 20:56, 29 March 2007: My son’s duty station recently had a “Command Competition” where each of the departments on base entered people to compete physically to see which command has the toughest dudes. At least that’s how it was supposed to work. In reality, people just showed up if they felt like it and entered for personal reasons. My son tried out for all that was available: sit-ups, pull-ups, and running. He won them all and the competition’s officials awarded him a trophy for each event. Since it was a Command Competition, they also gave him a giganzo-size “overall” trophy for his command, the MAs.
He took the three individual trophies to his room and the big Command trophy to his MA office. Apparently, the office had only a couple of small trophies (for things like “Third place in Softball”). His boss was so pleased that his command beat all the others (making the MAs look tough), he gave my son two days off with pay. He’s going to use them when my wife and I visit next.
Apparently, he missed a swim-off that was part of the competition. The competition had actually started the week prior but he hadn’t heard anything about it at that time. My son asked them if he could do the swim anyway but they guffawed and said it was all over. My son said he thinks that had he persisted, they would have caved and let him swim anyway. He added that he could have won the swim too. That sounded a tad arrogant so I asked him why he felt that way. He said “Well, it was a front crawl swim and the guy who won did it in twelve minutes; I can do it in seven-something.” OK, maybe not so arrogant.
He’s really looking forward to an on-base Ironman competition coming up this summer. He said he’s always been fascinated by Ironmans and wants to try one. He doesn’t own a bike though so he figures he’s either going to come in at the back of the pack due to poor bike performance, or he’s really going to hurt the next few days after the competition for pushing himself too hard, or he will have to rent a bike a month in advance.
[edit] Charles Algernon Parsons
P.S. If you’re wondering why I honor Charles Algernon Parsons with the picture included above with such prestigious company, it’s because of how well he designed the first steam turbine; not that he was also the first to do it. The current Wikipedia article doesn’t give him his sufficient due in my book. If one studies steam turbines, you will see that there is “this issue” or “that issue” that must be technically addressed to make a reliable and efficient turbine. And in pretty much every case, the lesson reads something like “Oh yeah, on this issue too, Parsons figured it all out and properly addressed it with his first design.” The development of his steam turbine is analogous to the development of the first airplane, only instead of ending up with the 1903 Wright Flyer, he ended up with a 1936 Spitfire on his first try. You can make a turbine that’s different, or bigger, but Parsons didn’t leave much room to make one better and more efficient. At a time when steam power was synonymous with big, inefficient pistons, Parsons’ invention was truly way ahead of its time.
[edit] PERSONAL SANDBOX
[edit] Tables
[edit] Row spanning columns
| Substance | Phase | Specific heat capacity J g-1 K-1 |
Specific heat capacity J mol-1 K-1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air (Sea level, dry, 25 °C) | gas | 1.005 | 29.10 |
| Air (typical room conditionsA) | gas | 1.012 | 29.19 |
| Aluminium | solid | 0.897 | 24.2 |
| Argon | gas | 0.5203 | 20.7862 |
| Beryllium | solid | 1.82 | 16.4 |
| Water (25 °C) | gas (100 °C) | 2.080 | 37.47 |
| liquid | 4.1813 | 75.327 | |
| solid (0 °C) | 2.114 | 38.09 | |
| Standard ambient temperature and pressure used unless otherwise noted. For gases, the value given corresponds to cp |
|||
[edit] Background color, text color, and rows spanning columns
SI prefixes may be used to denote multiples and subdivisions of the kelvin. The most commonly used factors of kelvin used in science and engineering are listed in bold.
| Kelvin and subdivisions | Multiples | |||||
| Factor | Name | Symbol | Factor | Name | Symbol | |
| 100 | kelvin | K | — | — | — | |
| 10−1 | decikelvin | dK | 101 | decakelvin | daK | |
| 10−2 | centikelvin | cK | 102 | hectokelvin | hK | |
| 10−3 | millikelvin | mK | 103 | kilokelvin | kK | |
| 10−6 | microkelvin | µK | 106 | megakelvin | MK | |
| 10−9 | nanokelvin | nK | 109 | gigakelvin | GK | |
| 10−12 | picokelvin | pK | 1012 | terakelvin | TK | |
| 10−15 | femtokelvin | fK | 1015 | petakelvin | PK | |
| 10−18 | attokelvin | aK | 1018 | exakelvin | EK | |
| 10−21 | zeptokelvin | zK | 1021 | zettakelvin | ZK | |
| 10−24 | yoctokelvin | yK | 1024 | yottakelvin | YK | |
A This is an example of small text. Assuming an altitude of 194 meters above mean sea level (the world–wide median altitude of human habitation), an indoor temperature of 23 °C, a dewpoint of 9 °C (40.85% relative humidity), and 760 mm–Hg sea level–corrected barometric pressure (avg. molelcular weight = 28.838).
[edit] More color control as well as alignment control
| kelvin | Celsius | Peak emittance wavelength of black-body photons |
|
| Absolute zero (precisely by definition) |
0 K | –273.15 °C | ∞ (No emission) |
| Water’s triple point (precisely by definition) |
273.16 K | 0.01 °C | 10,608.3 nm (Long wavelength I.R.) |
| Water’s boiling point A | 373.1339 K | 99.9839 °C | 7766.03 nm (Mid wavelength I.R.) |
| Incandescent lampB | 2500 K | ~2200 °C | 1160 nm (Near infrared)C |
A For Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water at one standard atmosphere (101.325 kPa) when calibrated strictly per the two-point definition of thermodynamic temperature.
B The 2500 K value is approximate. The 273.15 K difference between K and °C is rounded to 300 K to avoid invalid precision in the Celsius value.
C For a true blackbody (which tungsten filaments are not). Tungsten filaments’ emissivity is greater at shorter wavelengths which makes them appear whiter.
[edit] Font control
[edit] Color control of text
This is an example of using Red text via RGB manipulation.
Here's a custom brown color with RGB values manipulated: custom brown
This is an example of using a named color “maroon” to change the color of text.
Here are more colors:
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make AQUA text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make BLACK text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make BLUE text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make BROWN text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make CHARTREUSE text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make FUCHSIA text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make GRAY text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make GREEN text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make LIME text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make MAROON text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make NAVY text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make OLIVE text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make ORANGE text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make PURPLE text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make RED text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make SILVER text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make TEAL text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make VIOLET text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make WHITE (white) text.
This is an example of using one of the widely supported named colors to make YELLOW text.
This is an example of using a wide-spectrum named color (that may not be viewable with some browsers) to make PALEVIOLETRED text.
And here is the same color but with the RGB value explicity controlled to make PALEVIOLETRED text.
[edit] Table of Decimal (DEC) and Hexadecimal (HX) number equivalents
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[edit] Text size and style control
Note that the above "five-level" ===== "five-equal signs" were replaced with an <h5> and </h5>.
| “ | This is an example of cquote {{cquote|text}}. | ” |
This is a synthesis of the cquote:“
The following words: bigger and bolder and more text
This is called an in-line CSS style. It causes only a size change but must be its own line of text since it is a paragraph attribute.
The following words: small via a "50% call, and more text
These are normal size letters and then they suddenly get small with a "-8" call, and then they go back to normal.
Using a "-8" call, there is a small gap in this string:
123 456. And…
123 456…
…had an ordinary gap
This is an example of the most simple way to change a font’s color by typing font color=maroon and then the line reverts back.
This is an example of full control over color, face, size, and style:
- “Grey in color, bold, italic Palatino, in +1 size.”
- “Gray in color, bold, italic Palatino, in 117%.”
☠
Links: html tips: fonts and… HTML Font Chooser and… font markup and… more font markup
[edit] Superscript, subscripts, special symbols
Superscript: 999.974 95 kg/m3 at 3.984 °C
Subscript: CpH
This is multiplication with a special "times" symbol: 2 × 2 = 4
And this is the most simple way to make a × (multiply) sign; just use the symbols from the Wikipedia box.
This is the use of of a non-breaking space (and I keep on writing a long string of text to force the value and it’s related symbol to the right): 999.974 95 kg/m3
Standard atmospheric pressure should be defined as precisely 100,000 Pa (=1 bar and ≅750.062 torr).
1.988 435(27) × 1030 kg is has full-tilt spacing control.
IDENTICAL TO: ≡ and ≡ (the second one was the HTML entity name)
APPROXIMATELY EQUAL TO: ≅ and ≅ (the second one was the HTML entity name)
ALMOST EQUAL TO: ≈ and ≈ (the second one was the HTML entity name)
This is an example of the square root of 2: 
where no size is specified
And this radic: √ …is at 75%
[edit] Graphics and videos
Click on this link to go to graph of absolute zero’s relationship to zero-point energy.
Here's an image that is 
imbedded in text.
Unicode, which is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers, includes a special “kelvin sign” at U+212A. One types K to encode this special kelvin character in a Web page. Its appearance is similar to an ordinary uppercase K. To better see the difference between the two, below in maroon is the kelvin character followed immediately by a simple uppercase K:
KK
When viewed on computers that properly support Unicode, the above line will appear as follows:
Click Image:Testofvideo1.ogg to go to a Wikipedia internal image page link. There, you will need to click on the icon to go to a movie (with was converted from QuickTime to .ogg using ffmpeg2theora.
Click here for Theora-based video
This is a citation reference[1]
The note attached to this paragraph does have Adobe PDF icon at the end. [2]
…But the note for this paragraph does. Adobe PDF icon. [3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ The ice point of purified water has been measured to be 0.000 089(10) degrees Celsius - see Magnum, B.W. (June 1995). "Reproducibility of the Temperature of the Ice Point in Routine Measurements" (PDF). Nist Technical Note 1411. Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
- ^ Citation: Torus Formation in Neutron Star Mergers and Well-Localized Short Gamma-Ray Bursts, R. Oechslin et al. of Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics., arXiv:astro-ph/0507099 v2, 22 Feb. 2006. Download paper (725 kB PDF) See… there is no icon at left.
- ^ Citation: Torus Formation in Neutron Star Mergers and Well-Localized Short Gamma-Ray Bursts, R. Oechslin et al. of Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics., arXiv:astro-ph/0507099 v2, 22 Feb. 2006. Download paper (725 kB PDF) See… the icon is at left because ".pdf" was appended to the end of the referenced file but this addition didn't break the link.
[edit] Vote Issue: Example article
The issue being discussed is whether the “Whole Foods Market” paragraph at the bottom of Criticisms and controversy should stay in the article.
[edit] Parties
Support, the paragraph should stay: Please sign with # ~~~~
Oppose, the paragraph should be deleted: Please sign with # ~~~~
- Greg L 03:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Debate
[edit] Other Proposals
Greg L / (talk)
Please note that the below text on E=mc2 is here for the review of true Ph.D experts in the subject. Although you may disagree with this information and it may not be correct, it is under professional review for accuracy.
[edit] Practical examples of E=mc2
Einstein performed his calculations using the CGS measurement system (centimeters, grams, seconds, dynes, and ergs). His formula works just as well using today’s SI system (with E in joules, m in kg, and c in meters per second). Using SI units, E=mc2 is calculated as follows:
- E = (1 kg) × (299,792,458 m/s)2 = 89,875,517,873,681,764 J (≈90 × 1015 Joules)
Accordingly, one gram of mass — the mass of a U.S. dollar bill — is equivalent to the following amounts of energy:
- ≡ 89,875,517,873,681.764 J (≈90 terajoules), precisely by definition
- ≡ 24,965,421.631 578 267 777… kilowatt-hours (≈25 GW-hours)
- = 21,466,398,651,400.058 278 398 777 1090 calories (≈21 Tcal) [4]
- = 21.466 398 651 400 058 278 398 777 1090 kilotons of TNT-equivalent energy (≈21 kt) [4]
- = 85,185,554,537.701 118 960 880 666 4808 BTUs (≈85 billion BTUs) [4]
Anytime energy is generated, the process can be evaluated from an E=mc2-perspective. For instance, the “Gadget”-style bomb used in the Trinity test and the bombing of Nagasaki had an explosive yield equivalent to 21 kt of TNT. About 1 kg of the approximately 6.15 kg of plutonium in each of these bombs fissioned into lighter elements totaling almost exactly one gram less.[5] This occurs because nuclear binding energy is released whenever elements with more than 56 nucleons fission. Another example is hydroelectric generation. The water passing through Grand Coulee Dam’s turbines every 1.6 hours loses one gram of its mass.[6] Turbine designers look at their equations in terms of pressure, torque, and RPM. However, Einstein’s equations show that objects falling into a gravity well lose mass and, per E=mc2, this mass is equivalent to a certain amount of energy. The potential energy — and equivalent mass — bound in the waters of the Columbia River as it descends to the Pacific Ocean would be lost as heat due to viscous friction and the turbulence of white water rapids and waterfalls were it not for the dam and its generators, which convert some of this potential and kinetic energy into electrical energy.
In the equation E=mc2, mass and energy are more than equivalent, they are different forms of the same thing. Anytime energy is added to a system, the system gains mass. For instance, lifting a one-kilogram mass upwards one meter against the force of one standard gravity increases its mass by 109.114 femtograms (1 fg = 1 × 10–15 g).[7] [8] From Einstein’s perspective, the kilogram gains mass as it rises out of a gravity well. To the engineer, the kilogram gains potential energy as it is raised upwards. A spring’s mass increases whenever it is put into compression or tension. Its added mass arises from the added potential energy stored within it, which is bound in the stretched chemical (electron) bonds linking the atoms within the spring. Raising the temperature of an object (increasing its heat energy) increases its mass. For instance, if the temperature of the platinum/iridium “international prototype” of the kilogram — the world’s primary mass standard — is allowed to change by 1 °C, its mass will change by 1.5 picograms (1 pg = 1 × 10–12 g).[9] All types of added energy adds mass. Note that no net mass or energy is created or lost in any of these scenarios (except for that radiated away into space as in the case of hydropower). Ultimately, the chemical energy required to heat the platinum/iridium kilogram, or the mechanical energy required to lift it upwards or to compress the spring, expends at least as much mass and energy as is gained by the object being worked on. These are all examples of the transfer of energy and mass in accordance with the principal of mass-energy conservation.[8]
Note further that in accordance with Einstein’s Strong Equivalence Principle (SEP), all forms of mass and energy have equivalent quantities of inertial and gravitational mass.[10] Thus, all radiated and transmitted energy retains its mass. Not only does the matter comprising Earth create gravity, but that gravitational energy itself has mass. This effect is accounted for in ultra-precise laser ranging to the Moon as the Earth orbits the Sun when testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity.[10] According to E=mc2, no closed system (any system treated and observed as a whole) ever loses mass, even as matter is converted to energy. This statement is more than an abstraction based on the principal of equivalency, it is a real-world effect. One can also just as easily say that in the context of E=mc2, no closed system ever loses matter+energy or energy.
[edit] Notes
- ^ The ice point of purified water has been measured to be 0.000 089(10) degrees Celsius - see Magnum, B.W. (June 1995). "Reproducibility of the Temperature of the Ice Point in Routine Measurements" (PDF). Nist Technical Note 1411. Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
- ^ Citation: Torus Formation in Neutron Star Mergers and Well-Localized Short Gamma-Ray Bursts, R. Oechslin et al. of Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics., arXiv:astro-ph/0507099 v2, 22 Feb. 2006. Download paper (725 kB PDF) See… there is no icon at left.
- ^ Citation: Torus Formation in Neutron Star Mergers and Well-Localized Short Gamma-Ray Bursts, R. Oechslin et al. of Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics., arXiv:astro-ph/0507099 v2, 22 Feb. 2006. Download paper (725 kB PDF) See… the icon is at left because ".pdf" was appended to the end of the referenced file but this addition didn't break the link.
- ^ a b c Conversions used: 1956 International (Steam) Table (IT) values where one calorie ≡ 4.1868 J and one BTU ≡ 1055.05585262 J. Weapons designers’ conversion value of one gram TNT ≡ 1000 calories used.
- ^ The 6.2 kg core comprised 0.8% gallium by weight. Also, about 20% of the Gadget’s yield was due to fast fissioning in its natural uranium tamper. This resulted in 4.1 moles of Pu fissioning with 180 MeV per atom actually contributing prompt kinetic energy to the explosion. Note too that the term “Gadget”-style is used here instead of “Fat Man” because this general design of bomb was very rapidly upgraded to a more efficient one requiring only 5 kg of the Pu/gallium alloy.
- ^ Assuming the dam is generating at its peak capacity of 6809 MW at 50% thermodynamic efficiency.
- ^ 1.3: Mass-Energy Conservation at a Microscopic Scale by Paul Marmet. One kilogram raised one meter against one standard gravity (9.80665 m s–2) gains 9.80665 J of potential energy.
- ^ a b The increase in mass an object experiences when raised upwards against Earth’s gravity is not observer-dependent; the effect is real from an absolute point of view, i.e., for an observer outside the Earth system looking inwards. As matter loses mass as it falls down a gravity well, its contribution to a system’s total gravitational field diminishes slightly. Taken to the extreme, this effect can be striking. As Stephen Hawking wrote in A Brief History of Time, the net energy of the universe is exactly zero. He wrote that the matter in the universe is made of positive energy and in this context, gravitational fields are a negative energy. If the expansion of the universe somehow reversed and all its matter came together in a Big Crunch, no energy (mass) would remain. This is an example where the maximum conceivable amount of matter — the entire observable universe — falling down the greatest gravity well in existence — the entire observable universe — results in all mass being lost. The mass-loss effect occurs from an absolute point of view. Thus, the potential energy — and mass — the kilogram gains by rising out of Earth’s gravity well is independent of its position relative to an observer (e.g., it is independent of the respective floors in a building the observer and the kilogram are on); it is an absolute effect relative to the center of the Earth (the gravitational field outside of a sphere behave as if all of the sphere’s mass is concentrated in a point at its center). Accordingly, raising the height of an object on Earth entails an exchange of energy and mass from the lifting machine (human or mechanical) into the object being lifted; the entire Earth system (including the lifting machine and the object) gains no mass. However, if an extraterrestrial being magically reached down from space and separated the Earth and the platinum/iridium kilogram cylinder, the entire Earth/kilogram system would gain net energy and mass. Still, in accordance with the principal of mass-energy conservation, this added energy and mass would have been extracted from the extraterrestrial who did that work.
- ^ Assuming a 90/10 alloy of Pt/Ir by weight, a Cp of 25.9 for Pt and 25.1 for Ir, a Pt-dominated average Cp of 25.8, 5.134 moles of metal, and 132 J K–1 for the prototype. A variation of ±1.5 picograms is of course, much smaller than the actual uncertainty in the mass of the international prototype, which is ±2 micrograms.
- ^ a b Earth’s gravitational self-energy is 4.6 × 10–10 that of Earth’s total mass, or 2.7 trillion metric tons. Citation: The Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-Ranging Operation (APOLLO), T. W. Murphy, Jr. et al. University of Washington, Dept. of Physics (132 kB PDF, here)
