scientific-thoughts

I always get vexed when this topic always appears in July? and other times . The govenrment at some point in history [ 1970's] decided that more people were going to get better results each year , a result which has been ongoing since then . [ and is now so ridiculous that the results are inceasingly meaningless] . Results are used by people for differing reasons : 1. so the government can show how good it is atgetting more and more people into higher education 2. The population can see how their kids are much better than the preceding generation. 3. Universities can pick the best students commensurate with their teaching capabilities 4. Employers can know theyve a good chance of getting an employee who can do the job required. For too long , we've been getting items 1 +2 ..... rather than changing the whole shebang , I propose the following : Let the pass mark be 0% ,ie everyone passes [ its heading that way in any case so why not accept the inevitable] . Make the number of g...

This isnt a scientific bit , but thought I'd mention it nevertheless. America et al states that Iran has no intentions of becoming a nuclear power - it stopped ages ago , but has centrifuges [ read the news report on it - it does state this quite clearly ] To make a nuclear device using uranium , the metal has to be 'enriched' . Enrichment involves concentrating the isotope of uranium that can go 'bang' [U235?] from the stable bit [U238?] , the difference in the numbers being approximately the difference in atomic weights . Clear so far ? This is done by making uranium hexafluoride , which is a gaseous compound. This is put into a centrifuge where a slight separation happens [ it's only slight because the density of each compound is nearly the same . After that it goes into another , and another [ hence the term used of a centrifuge train- they are all linked together to ease production]. After several thousand centrifuges have been used, enough ha...