From: Keith F. Lynch

Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com> wrote:

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You quoted every word of my post, turning all my sentences into questions, and adding no text of your own. Why?

He certainly quoted your entire post, but didn't turn any of your sentences into questions (perhaps you're referring to the extraneous question mark that was also present in your original e-mail -- but nevertheless that seems to be an interesting definition of `all'). Also, he did append new material in the form of:

Answer:  You get the same amount of heat, since each digit on a punch card (in IBM format) removes 1 chad.  --  Gene

However, the new material was prefixed by the same number of > symbols as everything else in the e-mail, so it could quite easily have been mistaken to be part of your original message.

Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:

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"Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

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Note that the partial pressure of CO2 on Mars is much higher than on Earth, since its atmosphere is 95% CO2.

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--the atmospheric pressure on Mars allegedly is about 8.7% of Earth's so again I agree with Lynch.

Unfortunately, your decimal point is off. At that pressure, no spacesuit would be needed, just warm clothing and an oxygen tank. Also, liquid water could exist. But the pressure is actually at most 1/10th of that, and often far less. But the partial pressure of CO2 on Mars is still much higher than on Earth.

Yeah, there's very little CO2 present in the Earth's atmosphere (<0.04% if I remember correctly).

Randall Munroe recently pointed out that when a star goes supernova, it's brighter 1 AU away than a detonating H-bomb held against your eyeball -- brighter by nine orders of magnitude.

Astonishing! Wait a moment: the absolute magnitude of a Type IA supernova is -19.3, so its apparent magnitude when positioned at the centre of the Solar system would be -50.9. Now if a H-bomb held against your eyeball is merely 10^-9 of that, then it is 22.5 magnitudes dimmer, i.e. -28.7. But -28.7 is only about six times brighter than our Sun at the moment; that seems to be a severe underestimate of the brightness of an atomic bomb held against your eyeball. Unless you mean `nine magnitudes' rather than `nine orders of magnitude' (the conversion factor is exactly 0.4)...?

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For example, is that Finnish lab that got 100 picoKelvin, really the coldest place in the universe?

As David Makin points out, we have no idea what aliens may have done.

Agreed. Can we be sure that no natural phenomena can lead to temperatures this low?

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To make a completely crazy scenario, let's say we have a neutron star that has planets orbiting it. (It is known from pulsar timings that such exist.)

Exciting! Do we know whether there are any (preferably habitable) planets orbiting one of the stars (e.g. S2) that orbits Sagittarius A*? That would be an awesome place to live.

An astronomer acquaintance of mine once said there was no mystery about why the sun's photosphere isn't as hot as its chromosphere. He said that the photosphere is where most of the cooling in the solar system is taking place! It's all in your perspective. Seen from outside the sun, the photosphere is a source of heat. But seen from outside a refrigerator, the refrigerator is a source of heat too.

That's an excellent point.

(How to use your freezer as an impromptu heat pump: Make lots of ice. Throw the ice outdoors. You'll be heating your house with greater than 100% efficiency!)

Indeed. Commercial heat pumps can achieve about 600% efficiency, if I remember correctly. Sincerely, Adam P. Goucher