In my experience, so true, so true...
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 3:23 pm
APOD and General Astronomy Discussion Forum
https://asterisk.apod.com/
Hmm... upper lip, on the towpath, huh? Tell me, do you by chance 'sing' whilst rolling along the towpathowlice wrote:All the same places, beyond, all the same places! I got hit by a bat a few weeks ago; that (fortunately!) was not in the eyes or mouth, but on my right thigh. I brushed him off. I've been buzzed by bats before, but that's the first time (and I hope the last!) that one has actually run into me. Last night, I had numerous fireflies landing on my high-visibility vest; they eventually flew off.
A couple of summers ago, I did a solo bike tour of the C&O Canal towpath (which is 184.5 miles long), and found that the average C&O Canal Towpath spider which drapes a web line across the towpath likes a certain height, because 98.9% (or more!) of the spider webs I rode through hit me in the upper lip. This is not true of the paved paths I usually ride; the height is much more varied on my usual trails. But on the towpath... upper lip. It was uncanny.
Which probably explains riding solo for 185 miles.owlice wrote:Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I sing the cyclist's tune I have bugs in my teeth from smiling while I'm riding. Other times, it might be Pedal, pedal, 'round they go/Riding bikes, we can't feel low or Push, push, push the pedals round and round to go/Merrily merrily merrily merrily, beats having a lawn to mow. Or Broadway tunes or Mozart or whatever pops into my head.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2720.html wrote:
<<We do not really know what the interstellar medium looks like up close and personal. If it is just stray hydrogen atoms you will just experience a head-on flow of 'cosmic rays' that will collide with your spacecraft and probably generate secondary radiation in the skin of your ship. This can be annoying, but it can be shielded so long as the particles are not ultra-relativistic. At speeds of 50-90% the speed of light, these particles are not likely to be a real problem. At speeds just below the speed of light, the particles are ultra-relativistic and would generate a very large x-ray and gamma-ray background in the skin of your ship.
As it turns out, our solar system is inside a region called the Local Bubble where the density of hydrogen atoms is about 100 times lower that in the general interstellar medium. This Bubble, produced by an ancient supernova, extends about 300 light years from the Sun but has an irregular shape. There are thousands of stars within this region which is enough to keep us very busy exploring safely.
Interstellar space also contains a few microscopic dust grains (micron-sized is common) in a region about a few meters on a side. At their expected densities you are probably in for a rough ride, but it really depends on your speed. The space shuttle, encountering flecks of paint traveling at 28,000 mph (about 6 miles/second or 0.005% the speed of light) is pitted and pierced by these fast moving particles, but dust grains have masses a thousand times smaller than the smallest paint fleck, so at 0.005% light speed, they will not be a problem.
At 50% the speed of light which is the minimum for interstellar travel you will cover enough distance in a short amount of time, that your liklihood of encountering a large interstellar dust grain becomes significant. Only one such impact would be enough to cause severe spacecraft damage given the kinetic energy involved.
A large dust grain might have a mass of a few milligrams. Traveling at 50% the speed of light, its kinetic energy is given non-relativistically by 1/2 mv2 so E = .5 (0.001 grams) x (0.5 x 3 x 1010 cm/sec) = 1.1 x 1017 ergs. This, equals the kinetic energy of a 10 gram bullet traveling at a speed of 1500 kilometers per second, or the energy of a 100 pound person traveling at 13 miles per second! The point is that at these speeds, even a dust grain would explode like a pinpoint bomb, forming an intense fireball that would melt through the skin like a hot poker melts a block of cheese.
The dust grains at interstellar speeds become lethal interstellar 'BB shots' pummeling your spacecraft like rain. They puncture your ship, exploding in a brief fireball at the instant of contact.
Your likelihood of encountering a deadly dust grain is simply dependent on the volume of space your spacecraft sweeps out. The speed at which you do this only determines how often you will encounter the dust grain in your journey. At 10,000 times the space shuttle's speed, the collision vaporizes the particles and a fair depth of the spacecraft bulkhead along the path of travel.
But the situation could well be worse than this if the interstellar medium contains lots of ice globules from ancient comets and other things we cannot begin to detect in interstellar space. These impacts even at 0.1c would be fatal...we just don't know what the 'size spectrum' of matter is between interstellar 'micron-sized' dust grains, and small stars, in interstellar space. My gut feeling is that interstellar space is rather filthy, and this would make interstellar, relativistic travel, not only technically difficult but impossible to boot! Safe speeds for current technology would be only slightly higher that space shuttle speeds especially if interstellar space contains chunks of comet ice.
This is an issue that no one in the science fiction world has even bothered to explore! The only possible exception is in Star Trek where the Enterprise is equipped with a forward-directed 'Brussard Deflector' (that big gold dish just below the main saucer) which is supposed to sweep away particles before they arrive at the ship. This is very dubious technology because hydrogen atoms are not the main problems a ship like that would have to worry about, especially traveling inside a planetary system at sub-light speeds.>>
But, some of the things that pop out of your head....owlice wrote:Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I sing the cyclist's tune I have bugs in my teeth from smiling while I'm riding. Other times, it might be Pedal, pedal, 'round they go/Riding bikes, we can't feel low or Push, push, push the pedals round and round to go/Merrily merrily merrily merrily, beats having a lawn to mow. Or Broadway tunes or Mozart or whatever pops into my head.
I am suggesting that you:owlice wrote:
neufer, are you suggesting that it boils down to...
the bug that hits me and doesn't kill me only makes me stronger?
(But what if it tastes really nasty?!)
When I'm going backward on my bicycle I don't need pocketsowlice wrote:
Slow down? Slow down???
Sometimes I'm so slow I'm in danger of going backwards!
You might consider then also letting insects know that you're passing them.owlice wrote:
And I do, mostly, keep my trap shut, but trail courtesy requires I let people know I'm passing them, so sometimes, I have to open it to call out. (These are people who are either standing still or nearly so, I point out. The only cyclists I pass are under four feet tall and have four, rather than two, wheels.)
owlice wrote:-I was going to respond to Star*Hopper with something about not needing pockets for an insect scoop when one has cleavage, but think I'd best skip that for now.
I take it there is more than one reason.Ann wrote:
When I was a kid, I once read that the female of one species of bird or another would "start feeding her young meat, for example earthworm".
Gaaahhh!!! The "yuck" factor of thinking of earthworms as "meat" almost made me throw up.
But why not let this be a valuable a lesson to you, Owlice? (As Mr Pendansky in the movie Holes would have said.) Small bugs aren't nearly as yucky as earthworms. So whenever a small bug flies into your mouth when you are out cycling, think of it as Nature's way of supplying you with a fresh helping of protein and offering you a relatively non-yucky free meal!
(And it took me two days to think of this reply.
That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)
I don't know. Earthworm flour is good in cookies. Fried crickets are delicious, as are tarantula abdomens. And of course, there's not much difference between pillbugs and other crustaceans like shrimp and crawdads. You can't beat a snail if you use enough garlic and butter. You need to open up your mind to other protein sources.Ann wrote:Gaaahhh!!! The "yuck" factor of thinking of earthworms as "meat", that, on top of the general barf-worthiness of the whole concept, your mother fed you by forcing it down your throat, almost made me throw up.
I'm still trying to decide if his earlier references to Brussard deflectors represent an error or some subtle pun or obscure reference that is escaping me.(And it took me two days to think of this reply. That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)
Reminds me of something else I read about as a kid (well, I was probably in my late teens). I guess it was in the early seventies. In my hometown of Malmö, a really weird and exotic delicatessen shop had opened, and my local newspaper sent a reporter there to try some of the treats.I don't know. Earthworm flour is good in cookies. Fried crickets are delicious, as are tarantula abdomens. And of course, there's not much difference between pillbugs and other crustaceans like shrimp and crawdads. You can't beat a snail if you use enough garlic and butter. You need to open up your mind to other protein sources.
AnnThe chocolate was good, but no one could figure out what the über-crispy little creepy crawly things were doing in it.
Chris Peterson wrote:I'm still trying to decide if his earlier references to Brussard deflectors representAnn wrote:
(And it took me two days to think of this reply. That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)
an error or some subtle pun or obscure reference that is escaping me.
I had some sugar coated ants once. They tasted like sugar. Just like the snails... pencil erasers with butter and garlic. But with butter and garlic, I've no objection at all to pencil erasers!Ann wrote:The reporter brought some friends with him, probably to fortify him. They all agreed to eat whatever the reporter ate. So everone feasted on chocolate-covered ants. I'll never forget the reporter's verdict:The chocolate was good, but no one could figure out what the über-crispy little creepy crawly things were doing in it.
Ann, Art is an art unto himself. NO one else could be like him even if they tried.Thank Goodness!!Ann wrote:When I was a kid, I once read that the female of one species of bird or another would "start feeding her young meat, for example earthworm".
Gaaahhh!!! The "yuck" factor of thinking of earthworms as "meat", that, on top of the general barf-worthiness of the whole concept, your mother fed you by forcing it down your throat, almost made me throw up.
But why not let this be a valuable a lesson to you, Owlice? (As Mr Pendansky in the movie Holes would have said.) Small bugs aren't nearly as yucky as earthworms. So whenever a small bug flies into your mouth when you are out cycling, think of it as Nature's way of supplying you with a fresh helping of protein and offering you a relatively non-yucky free meal!
(And it took me two days to think of this reply. That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)
Ann