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June 12 Information
Hi. After watching the mini-series and reading alot of articles on WP about the disaster, I read about Valery Khodemchuk. The list states "likely killed immediately; body never found, likely buried under the wreckage of the steam separator drums". Would there be any remains left of him, or would it all be destroyed due to the radiation? Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 10:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's difficult to find factual information on the condition of one specific individual. Contemporaneous news stories reported in Western newspapers, like this 1986 story from the Los Angeles Times, are sparse on detail, except to say that the unrecovered remains will be left inside the building inside the protective concrete casing. The condition of the remains is unknown; it may have been exposed to ionizing radiation, fire, water, and debris.
- From my archive of emergency preparedness, here are some helpful links:
- Explosions and Blast Injuries - A Primer for Clinicians, from the CDC Mass Trauma Preparedness website
- Bombings: Injury Patterns and Care from the American College of Emergency Physicians - a full course including two segments on radiological effects, and the handy pocket reference to injury patterns
- These resources help medical responders know what to expect, and help first responders prepare for the logistical and psychosocial effects of a major nuclear incident.
- From a more academic approach, here is a 1954 publication,
Pathology of Total Body Irradiation in the Monkey. This is research from an era when
government researchersprivate-sector individuals in Western societies conducted experiments to see what would happen if... - If you really want to know what happens to a body after it dies, you might start by reading about the methods of forensic pathology, so that you learn what normally happens; and then read onward to see what is unique to a highly-irradiated individual.
- Even in a conventional disaster, human remains are not always locatable. For example, the fire near my home in 2018 killed more people than the Chernobyl nuclear incident, and there are still more persons reportedly killed whose remains were never located. They may be in unknown locations; they may be so severely damaged by trauma, fire, debris, or crushing, that they are unidentifiable.
- Nimur ( talk) 12:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Radiation could potentially preserve a body, by killing off all the bacteria that would normally decompose it (however, bacteria are resilient, so it would take a lot of radiation). That would leave dehydration/mummification as a possibility, but if enough moisture was sealed inside, that might not have happened, either. SinisterLefty ( talk) 17:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Ionizing radiation doesn't do much to the macroscopic structure of organic tissue. It's bad for living things because it damages or kills cells, but it won't turn a dead body into a puddle of goo (unless it manages to heat it to a quite high temperature, but for that you would need a substantial amount of radiation focused directly on the body, like what you'd get from chucking it into the path of a particle accelerator beam). Indeed, as others have noted, irradiation is actually a good way to preserve organic material, because it damages or kills the microbes that otherwise decompose it, and that's why it's used as a method of food preservation. When an unpreserved corpse decays, some of that is due to liberation of enzymes from tissues and organs, but most of it is microbes, and other decomposers such as insects and fungi, beginning to digest it. -- 47.146.63.87 ( talk) 19:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
If you cleaned them to the bare, uncorroded metal and soldered square contacts the thickness of the coin to the rim, 180 degrees apart. The 1981 to 1909 penny must be pretty damn low as it's almost pure copper and not that big (19mm), is it thick and small enough to outconduct all the undebased silver coins? Sagittarian Milky Way ( talk) 13:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity quotes the resistivity of Copper 16.78 nΩ·m (at 20 °C). It is difficult to make an accurate resistance measurement of a coin material by the means described and it is more appropriate to measure its Sheet resistance using Four-terminal sensing. Typically a constant current is applied to two probes, and the potential on the other two probes is measured with a high-impedance voltmeter. For details see Van der Pauw method. The composition of US penny coins from 1909 is copper 95%, tin/zinc 5%. Due to wartime shortages of copper the 1943 steel cent was struck in zinc plated steel that tends to rust around the edge, being the only regular-issue US coin that contains no copper and can be picked up with a magnet. DroneB ( talk) 13:36, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
| User was indef'd. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC) |
|---|
| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Has The Big Bang & Evolution been proven, If so, Why are they still addressed as theories? What I mean is that for a long period of time in history there has been debates about the origin of life & some people have held it that a supreme being or beings were responsible & some have held it that the universe naturally came into being through natural selection. There have been many scientific contradictions but there seems to be a favouring of natural selection. I can cite science articles, books & passages that speak for/against both sides to prove that I am not giving my own personal opinions & biases but looking & presenting the implications objectively. This is a discussion that should be had because if anything in life is sacred, the truth is...A true scientists should look at the implications objectively,be prepared to be proven wrong & be willing to accept it. Again I will stress that I am not giving any of my own personal opinions or biases but instead, offering to present evidence while also willing to accept the possibility of being proven wrong. I have no intention of deceiving, misleading or manipulating anyone which is why I will only present & address without being personally involved. I only ask that my debate opponents (no disrespect) who may be skeptics do the same because you have every right to expect the same from me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Repent.The End is Near ( talk • contribs) 14:21, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
|
I smelled this rat. Don't we have some kind of (polite; more polite that I would be...) RTFM, to redirect questions about relativity, evolution etc. to refdesk archive, where they were asked hundreds of time? Gem fr ( talk) 22:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's been suggested from time to time that the ref desk should have a "frequently asked questions" page, with maybe something easier to navigate than the actual archives. ←
Baseball Bugs
What's up, Doc?
carrots→ 22:28, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Why not. But I was thinking about some kind of {{see also|whatever}} message to redirect toward this FAQ or to the search archive tool, that I currently miss (unless it exists, unbeknownst to me?)
Gem fr (
talk) 05:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Perhaps a refdesk version of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 08:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Why not. But I was thinking about some kind of {{see also|whatever}} message to redirect toward this FAQ or to the search archive tool, that I currently miss (unless it exists, unbeknownst to me?)
Gem fr (
talk) 05:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
In a James Bond novel (title in rot13: Zbbaenxre) Bond flees from the villain through steam pipes and survives by huddling inside them while the villain blasts hot steam (not convinced that Bond is in the pipes, but as a precaution). He's badly burned, but escapes and recovers in full in a hospital. Contrary to the movies, it seems to me that Fleming at least paid lip service to realism in the books, but surviving something like this still seems like a little over the top, considering how uncomfortable is even a waft of mere 100°C steam from a coffee pot. Are the any real chances of someone surviving an (I think) 30-second blast stuck to the sides of a (presumably hot) metal pipe, and being well enough to crawl off afterwards? 93.136.9.45 ( talk) 23:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- According to
[1], human survival in humid air is limited to minutes at 122oF, so I'm gonna take a gander that if the air was hot enough to burn him, uh, no. Not if he's immersed in it, anyway - I never read the book.
Someguy1221 (
talk) 23:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
-
ROT13 is a simple letter-substitution
Caesar cipher that is inadequate to obfuscate the 1955 novel title
Moonraker. I claim the (presumed) prize for this decryption and invite the OP to pay it to the
Wikimedia Foundation.
DroneB (
talk) 00:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- The idea of using rot13 in these situations is to provide
spoiler protection while still making it easy for someone who wants to know the details to obtain them. It's a courtesy. It's not supposed to be deeply obfuscatory. --
76.69.46.228 (
talk) 03:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Yeah, it was just to avoid spoiling the book. Sorry, DroneB 93.136.8.179 ( talk) 19:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC) (OP)
- The idea of using rot13 in these situations is to provide
spoiler protection while still making it easy for someone who wants to know the details to obtain them. It's a courtesy. It's not supposed to be deeply obfuscatory. --
76.69.46.228 (
talk) 03:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- first, while steam is hotter that water, and will release
latent heat upon condensing, you must realize that it is gas, and as such as VASTLY less volumetric
heat content that hot water for a simple mass question (the magnitude is ~103 less). Steam is not the same hot scalding water.
[2] hints at a few tens of seconds for second-degree burns to occurs on unprotected skin exposed to steam. If the victim has clothing (+protect his eyes etc.), surviving and even being fit to escape doesn't seem over the top to me if the exposure last a time you evaluate 30s or so (besides, we usually do not evaluate time properly, ~2-3x over/under estimate are frequent). The steam will replace oxygen, so you cannot breath; 30 s without
breathing is not that a feat but is uncomfortable...
Gem fr (
talk) 07:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks, that sounds reasonable. Searching further I found Cave of the Crystals which says that ~60°C at 99% humidity can be endured for about 10 minutes. IIRC Bond pulled his shirt over his head to protect it, so he didn't have unprotected skin. 93.136.8.179 ( talk) 19:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC) (OP)
-
ROT13 is a simple letter-substitution
Caesar cipher that is inadequate to obfuscate the 1955 novel title
Moonraker. I claim the (presumed) prize for this decryption and invite the OP to pay it to the
Wikimedia Foundation.
DroneB (
talk) 00:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Bond isn't noted for technical accuracy, but Fleming had served as a naval officer during WWII and did have some familiarity with steam scalding accidents. Andy Dingley ( talk) 08:28, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
| Science desk | ||
|---|---|---|
| < June 11 | << May | June | Jul >> | June 13 > |
| Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives |
|---|
| The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
June 12 Information
Hi. After watching the mini-series and reading alot of articles on WP about the disaster, I read about Valery Khodemchuk. The list states "likely killed immediately; body never found, likely buried under the wreckage of the steam separator drums". Would there be any remains left of him, or would it all be destroyed due to the radiation? Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 10:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's difficult to find factual information on the condition of one specific individual. Contemporaneous news stories reported in Western newspapers, like this 1986 story from the Los Angeles Times, are sparse on detail, except to say that the unrecovered remains will be left inside the building inside the protective concrete casing. The condition of the remains is unknown; it may have been exposed to ionizing radiation, fire, water, and debris.
- From my archive of emergency preparedness, here are some helpful links:
- Explosions and Blast Injuries - A Primer for Clinicians, from the CDC Mass Trauma Preparedness website
- Bombings: Injury Patterns and Care from the American College of Emergency Physicians - a full course including two segments on radiological effects, and the handy pocket reference to injury patterns
- These resources help medical responders know what to expect, and help first responders prepare for the logistical and psychosocial effects of a major nuclear incident.
- From a more academic approach, here is a 1954 publication,
Pathology of Total Body Irradiation in the Monkey. This is research from an era when
government researchersprivate-sector individuals in Western societies conducted experiments to see what would happen if... - If you really want to know what happens to a body after it dies, you might start by reading about the methods of forensic pathology, so that you learn what normally happens; and then read onward to see what is unique to a highly-irradiated individual.
- Even in a conventional disaster, human remains are not always locatable. For example, the fire near my home in 2018 killed more people than the Chernobyl nuclear incident, and there are still more persons reportedly killed whose remains were never located. They may be in unknown locations; they may be so severely damaged by trauma, fire, debris, or crushing, that they are unidentifiable.
- Nimur ( talk) 12:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Radiation could potentially preserve a body, by killing off all the bacteria that would normally decompose it (however, bacteria are resilient, so it would take a lot of radiation). That would leave dehydration/mummification as a possibility, but if enough moisture was sealed inside, that might not have happened, either. SinisterLefty ( talk) 17:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Ionizing radiation doesn't do much to the macroscopic structure of organic tissue. It's bad for living things because it damages or kills cells, but it won't turn a dead body into a puddle of goo (unless it manages to heat it to a quite high temperature, but for that you would need a substantial amount of radiation focused directly on the body, like what you'd get from chucking it into the path of a particle accelerator beam). Indeed, as others have noted, irradiation is actually a good way to preserve organic material, because it damages or kills the microbes that otherwise decompose it, and that's why it's used as a method of food preservation. When an unpreserved corpse decays, some of that is due to liberation of enzymes from tissues and organs, but most of it is microbes, and other decomposers such as insects and fungi, beginning to digest it. -- 47.146.63.87 ( talk) 19:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
If you cleaned them to the bare, uncorroded metal and soldered square contacts the thickness of the coin to the rim, 180 degrees apart. The 1981 to 1909 penny must be pretty damn low as it's almost pure copper and not that big (19mm), is it thick and small enough to outconduct all the undebased silver coins? Sagittarian Milky Way ( talk) 13:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity quotes the resistivity of Copper 16.78 nΩ·m (at 20 °C). It is difficult to make an accurate resistance measurement of a coin material by the means described and it is more appropriate to measure its Sheet resistance using Four-terminal sensing. Typically a constant current is applied to two probes, and the potential on the other two probes is measured with a high-impedance voltmeter. For details see Van der Pauw method. The composition of US penny coins from 1909 is copper 95%, tin/zinc 5%. Due to wartime shortages of copper the 1943 steel cent was struck in zinc plated steel that tends to rust around the edge, being the only regular-issue US coin that contains no copper and can be picked up with a magnet. DroneB ( talk) 13:36, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
| User was indef'd. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC) |
|---|
| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Has The Big Bang & Evolution been proven, If so, Why are they still addressed as theories? What I mean is that for a long period of time in history there has been debates about the origin of life & some people have held it that a supreme being or beings were responsible & some have held it that the universe naturally came into being through natural selection. There have been many scientific contradictions but there seems to be a favouring of natural selection. I can cite science articles, books & passages that speak for/against both sides to prove that I am not giving my own personal opinions & biases but looking & presenting the implications objectively. This is a discussion that should be had because if anything in life is sacred, the truth is...A true scientists should look at the implications objectively,be prepared to be proven wrong & be willing to accept it. Again I will stress that I am not giving any of my own personal opinions or biases but instead, offering to present evidence while also willing to accept the possibility of being proven wrong. I have no intention of deceiving, misleading or manipulating anyone which is why I will only present & address without being personally involved. I only ask that my debate opponents (no disrespect) who may be skeptics do the same because you have every right to expect the same from me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Repent.The End is Near ( talk • contribs) 14:21, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
|
I smelled this rat. Don't we have some kind of (polite; more polite that I would be...) RTFM, to redirect questions about relativity, evolution etc. to refdesk archive, where they were asked hundreds of time? Gem fr ( talk) 22:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's been suggested from time to time that the ref desk should have a "frequently asked questions" page, with maybe something easier to navigate than the actual archives. ←
Baseball Bugs
What's up, Doc?
carrots→ 22:28, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- Why not. But I was thinking about some kind of {{see also|whatever}} message to redirect toward this FAQ or to the search archive tool, that I currently miss (unless it exists, unbeknownst to me?)
Gem fr (
talk) 05:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Perhaps a refdesk version of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 08:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Why not. But I was thinking about some kind of {{see also|whatever}} message to redirect toward this FAQ or to the search archive tool, that I currently miss (unless it exists, unbeknownst to me?)
Gem fr (
talk) 05:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
In a James Bond novel (title in rot13: Zbbaenxre) Bond flees from the villain through steam pipes and survives by huddling inside them while the villain blasts hot steam (not convinced that Bond is in the pipes, but as a precaution). He's badly burned, but escapes and recovers in full in a hospital. Contrary to the movies, it seems to me that Fleming at least paid lip service to realism in the books, but surviving something like this still seems like a little over the top, considering how uncomfortable is even a waft of mere 100°C steam from a coffee pot. Are the any real chances of someone surviving an (I think) 30-second blast stuck to the sides of a (presumably hot) metal pipe, and being well enough to crawl off afterwards? 93.136.9.45 ( talk) 23:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- According to
[1], human survival in humid air is limited to minutes at 122oF, so I'm gonna take a gander that if the air was hot enough to burn him, uh, no. Not if he's immersed in it, anyway - I never read the book.
Someguy1221 (
talk) 23:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
-
ROT13 is a simple letter-substitution
Caesar cipher that is inadequate to obfuscate the 1955 novel title
Moonraker. I claim the (presumed) prize for this decryption and invite the OP to pay it to the
Wikimedia Foundation.
DroneB (
talk) 00:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- The idea of using rot13 in these situations is to provide
spoiler protection while still making it easy for someone who wants to know the details to obtain them. It's a courtesy. It's not supposed to be deeply obfuscatory. --
76.69.46.228 (
talk) 03:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Yeah, it was just to avoid spoiling the book. Sorry, DroneB 93.136.8.179 ( talk) 19:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC) (OP)
- The idea of using rot13 in these situations is to provide
spoiler protection while still making it easy for someone who wants to know the details to obtain them. It's a courtesy. It's not supposed to be deeply obfuscatory. --
76.69.46.228 (
talk) 03:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- first, while steam is hotter that water, and will release
latent heat upon condensing, you must realize that it is gas, and as such as VASTLY less volumetric
heat content that hot water for a simple mass question (the magnitude is ~103 less). Steam is not the same hot scalding water.
[2] hints at a few tens of seconds for second-degree burns to occurs on unprotected skin exposed to steam. If the victim has clothing (+protect his eyes etc.), surviving and even being fit to escape doesn't seem over the top to me if the exposure last a time you evaluate 30s or so (besides, we usually do not evaluate time properly, ~2-3x over/under estimate are frequent). The steam will replace oxygen, so you cannot breath; 30 s without
breathing is not that a feat but is uncomfortable...
Gem fr (
talk) 07:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks, that sounds reasonable. Searching further I found Cave of the Crystals which says that ~60°C at 99% humidity can be endured for about 10 minutes. IIRC Bond pulled his shirt over his head to protect it, so he didn't have unprotected skin. 93.136.8.179 ( talk) 19:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC) (OP)
-
ROT13 is a simple letter-substitution
Caesar cipher that is inadequate to obfuscate the 1955 novel title
Moonraker. I claim the (presumed) prize for this decryption and invite the OP to pay it to the
Wikimedia Foundation.
DroneB (
talk) 00:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Bond isn't noted for technical accuracy, but Fleming had served as a naval officer during WWII and did have some familiarity with steam scalding accidents. Andy Dingley ( talk) 08:28, 14 June 2019 (UTC)