A busy week after a holiday. A quick popup questions.
Science: How fast is the earth moving around the Galaxy?
The solar system is spinning around the galaxy at approximately 420,000 mph or 675,000 kph. It would make since that the galaxy spins at the same speed. The galaxy is also moving towards the Andromeda galaxy at 480,000kph. It is also moving towards the Great Attractor at 2.16 million kph. Read more in Quora: How fast is the earth moving around the Galaxy?
Science: What is the problem with controlled fusion?
The fundamental problem with controlled fusion can be summed up in one phrase: Plasma is hard. Really, fusion is easy. You can make a device that does a lot of fusion cheaply in your garage (Fusor). Table top fusion is something we solved long ago. The problem is scalability and self-sustainability. To get enough energy density to make it economical, you need to deal with high density plasmas, which is hard. Not just because they're nasty things, but because they're incredibly hard to make and study. The only natural source is in the center of The Sun, and it's very expensive to make in the lab. A good chunk of the money that goes into fusion research is actually going into making and studying these dense, hot plasmas. Read more in Quora: What is the problem with controlled fusion?
Science: Do galaxies travel faster than the speed of light?
Galaxies don't need to move faster than the speed of light. In my view light is mass less(photons) and it can not move. Any pulse of light emitted by a star is left there itself and the star goes on moving ahead with the galaxy at a very high speed (close to the speed of light). Since the galaxy is moving at the speed close to the speed of light the stationary photons(light) appears us to be moving at the speed that we call the speed of light.
Technically yes. This is because when we compare the speed of light with the speed of another object, the frame of reference here is light. But when we compare it with the expansion of universe we can't assume the expansion as a frame of reference. If you take a balloon and mark two points on it and if you blow the balloon, the two points move away from each other. They didn't move by themselves. Likewise if you consider the balloon as the universe and the two points as two galaxies, the objects in the universe moves along with the expansion of it. So it appears that the galaxies move faster than the speed of light. Read more in Quora: Do galaxies travel faster than the speed of light?
Science: Under what conditions is a residential wind turbine economically feasible?
Average annual wind speed is important because if you do not maintain at least an average of 10-12 mph a wind generator may not be the ideal solution for your energy needs. Solar or a wind/solar hybrid may be a better solution. Read more in Quora: Under what conditions is a residential wind turbine economically feasible?
Crash Course: Open World Games
Today we’re going to talk about open world games. Open world games are different than most video games because although they often have goals and tasks, they usually encourage what is known as “emergent stories.” These are stories that weren’t planned by the game creators, but players create within the constructs of the game. And this leads to a completely different type of gameplay encouraging players to explore as well as socialize with others. Now, these types of games have been around for a while, but within the past couple decades they’ve seen incredible growth with games like Minecraft, Skyrim, and Grand Theft Auto, and this isn’t by accident - open world game also mirror the growth of the hardware that supports them.