Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 August 4

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August 4

avoidances of putrefaction

Hello, I hope that I'm not disturbing you, I would like to know what are the processes that avoid putrefaction without destroying the cells, please. In fact, I had made a draft of a process to do something in the distant future in favor of the deceased (based on dismantling the brain into neurons permanently individually excited by computer) but it is necessary for that that the brain is intact...37.165.0.6 (talk) 05:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

How about Cryopreservation?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:15, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

As with Ted Williams. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:30, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

or Mummification. More generally, embalming. Xuxl (talk) 15:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not so sure those things would be reversible, as contrasted with the cryogenic approach's theory. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The bee and the bus - a six-year old's question

A bee flying at 10 mph collides head-on (and fatally) with a bus travelling at 50 mph in exactly the opposite direction. The bee's body sticks to the bus. During the collision the bee's velocity changes from +10 mph to -50 mph, so at some point in the process the bee's velocity must be exactly zero - in other words, at some point it must be stationary.

As the stationary bee must be in contact with the front of the bus at this point, why is the bus not stationary at the same time?

And does it make any difference if the bee is replaced by a rigid object that just bounces off the front of the bus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.134.70 (talk) 10:04, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

This depends on the is the definition of stationary, usually stationary is meant as having a constant velocity, which the bee has not, it is decelerating (in it's frame of reference).

The bees velocity is also not a constant, its front part has accelerated to the velocity of the bus "instantly" while its rear is still moving at 10 miles per hour. Meanwhile, the area where the bee impacts on the bus locally deforms as it decelerates (in the bus's reference frame_ to absorb the energy of the bee impacting it. This later is probably negligible ...

If replaced by a rigid, this will experience higher accelerations as it impacts and bounces off, but this too can't be called stationary at the moment its velocity crosses the 0 velocity line. Rmvandijk (talk) 10:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

One problem: "As the stationary bee must be in contact with the front of the bus..." This is not the case. In front of the bus (and the bee) is a cushion of air. When +10 and -50 cushions of air collide, there is a very brief moment when they net out to zero. This must occur before the bee hits the bus (and probably is what killed the bee). DOR (HK) (talk) 16:09, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I would say that there are two different things to consider here. In the physical sense, there is no such thing as a perfectly rigid body (because force can translate through the body at best at the speed of light). Thus, the speed of the bee at the moment of collision is not well-defined - different parts of the bee move at different speeds. The center of mass of the bee will have speed 0, but only for an infinitesimal moment. That would not affect the bus - in zero seconds it moves zero meters, anyways, so no problem ;-). A curve can touch a line in one point without the line having to be curved. But if you look at this in a mathematical abstraction, with a perfectly rigid bus of infinite mass and a perfectly rigid point of a bee (with perfect stickiness), the bee will be instantly accelerated from 10 to -50 MPH. Of course such instant acceleration requires infinite force. But with an instant transition between the two speeds, the speed function is not continuous, and hence the intermediate value theorem does not apply. In other words, no, the bee never is at speed zero, and hence neither is the bus. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

This is, in a sense, Einstein's classic "throwing a ball on a train" example of relativity. From the Bee's relative viewpoint, it is at 0mph initially. The bus is traveling towards it at 60mph and the ground is racing past at 10mph. So, it begins at 0mph and then changes to -60mph. From tbe bus's relative viewpoint, it is moving at 0mph. The ground is moving past at 50mph. The bee is coming towards it at 60mph. It doesn't change speed enough to notice because the mass of the bee is negligible compared to the bus. From a third party relative viewpoint, the bee is moving at 10mph. The bus is moving at 50pm in the opposite direction. The ground is stationary at 0mph. The bee will change from 10mph in one direction to 60mph in the other direction. At some point, it will be at 0mph. Technically, the bee is crushed, so that 0mph state will travel through the bee as the front of the bee is at -50mph and the rear of the bee is at 10mph. The bus doesn't change speed. You can expand this to the viewpoint of a space station astronaut watching it from orbit. The ground is moving at around 17000mph. The bee is traveling at 17010mph in one direction. The bus is moving at 16950mph in the opoosite direction. The bee changes from 17010 to 16950mph. This is where it gets weird. The change is small in comparison to the total speed. It changes about 0.35% of the absolute speed, but it is crushed. That is why relativity is important. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 12:29, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Asisbiz

Who and what is Asisbiz, and who owns it. I see it appearing more and more on the internet especially as a photo site I have searched Wikipedia but cannot find anything.

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks, Bobbejaa.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobbejaa (talk • contribs) 10:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

It appears to be a Philipines-based company, I found This contact page about them. Not sure what they do, most of their website seems to be a random photo repository. There is some contact information on that page, perhaps someone there could answer your queries. --Jayron32 13:34, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Alcohol and whitening teeth

In this article the general recommendation for alcohol consumption (for those who can have it that is) is for men no more than 1-2 drinks per day for men no more than 1 for women what are they saying when they're saying that? https://web.archive.org/web/20120814163955/http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/alcohol/index.html

My last question Is it bad to whiten teeth?--2001:8003:7432:4500:C84D:DF63:F456:C676 (talk) 12:41, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

That article doesn't show up for me. But what they are likely saying is that's the most that one should have: 1-2 for men, just 1 for women. Right? As to the teeth question, does that include routine polishing done when you have your periodic dental checkup? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:44, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

As with most of these questions that you ask, the information is about the most that a person should consume, not about the amount they must consume. People who choose to drink should limit their intake to a maximum of 1-2 drinks per day for men, and only 1 per day for women. The general guidance is that a "drink" is a typical serving size of a typical alcoholic beverage, so a single 12-ounce (about 380 mL) bottle of beer, about a 5 ounce pour (about 75 mL) of wine, and about 1.5 ounce (22 mL) of spirits, though that will vary. this is the guidance from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, a government agency. The recommendation is specifically that a drink is assumed to have 12 grams of absolute alcohol in it; if you are consuming a beer that has, say, a higher alcohol content than the standard 5% lager, you should adjust your consumption accordingly. --Jayron32 13:29, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The question arises whether these figures are to be interpreted as meaning day-by-day or as, say, a weekly average. If one drinks 1 beer every day day for a week (as I sometimes do) one will have drunk 7 beers in total; if one drink 7 beers in one day and no beers for the next 6 (as I sometimes do*) one will still have averaged 1 beer a day.

(* Long-time CAMRA member and occasional brewer: not looking for advice, thanks.)

As for whitening teeth, has the OP read our article Tooth whitening? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.68 (talk) 16:41, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Seven beers in one session could qualify as binge drinking, per the same NIH website. The advice that I see is that is a maximum per day and not an average; if we take this to reductio ad absurdum, if you drank only one day per year, but consumed 500 shots of whiskey in that one session, you'd die of alcohol poisoning. The 1-2 drink per day amount is not an average over any time period, it's a maximum in a day. --Jayron32 16:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

As I well know, but it needs to be spelled out for the likes of the OP who have trouble interpreting the advice. As for myself, I note the discussions around the topic and the periodic adjustments made to such advice (which in any case is a little different in my own country, thousands of miles away from the USA) but choose not to abide by the latter. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.68 (talk) 22:45, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Advice will always be changed as collective human knowledge grows. This is a Good Thing. If we learned new things that made existing advice inaccurate, it would not be good to leave the existing advice in place. --Jayron32 12:12, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I completely agree, and did not intend to imply otherwise. I feel however we are straying rather far from the OP's initial query. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.68 (talk) 18:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Not applicable to religion and other dogmata: If we learned new things that made existing advice inaccurate, it would not be good to leave the existing advice in place. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Mostly not. Many practitioners (note that I do not say "believers") of Wicca and other neo-pagan paths regard them as experimental, and do modify their ideas, rituals and practices over time. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.68 (talk) 18:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

While true, religion is mostly irrelevant to this particular discussion, as religion and science operate in different spheres of the human experience. --Jayron32 18:05, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

That is one interpretation, and often a very useful one: however, not everyone concurs with it, or agrees on the definition(s) of "religion." Some consider it, at least in part, to depend on psychological manipulation (of oneself as well as others) and psychology is widely considered a science. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.68 (talk) 23:20, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Interpretations are infinite, limited only by the number of people who care to subscribe to them. Useful interpretations are finite, often very much so, and in this case the infinitely useless interpretations are not worth considering, and neither are the people who choose to subscribe to them. --Jayron32 02:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)