5,264 karma · joined July 17, 2008
If I asked “should I try lemon in my tea and coffee?” this would be effective communication. But Claude gives answers like this for “should I try lemon in my tea?” which is just annoying.
"I looked inside the TV, there were NO quantum dots."
"Well there's your problem right there - you've gone and collapsed the wave function by looking!"
Which device is more impressive and would garner more public support for the project: an amplifier which just makes the squeaks louder? Or one which also pitches down the squeaks into a range where we can actually perceive and appreciate the tune & dynamics of the underlying music?
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Embodied_energy#:~:t....
Spin period: how long does it take the pulsar to fully rotate once, ie. how often does it “flash”?
Dispersion measure: from our perspective, how much is the flash “smeared” across time and frequency vs. just being a narrow-band sharp pulse? This is a function of how much stuff (electrons) exists between us and the pulsar.
Spin-down luminosity: how much of the pulsar’s kinetic energy is being lost as electromagnetic radiation? Pulsars spin more slowly over time due to this, so how hard are the brakes being pressed?
Surface magnetic field strength: what it says on the tin, how strong is the magnetic field on the surface of the pulsar? Refrigerator magnets are 10-100 gauss, a powerful MRI might be 30,000 gauss.
Characteristic age: estimated age of the pulsar calculated by assuming a very fast initial spin & applying the known spin-down rate to see how long it would take to slow down to its current rate. Makes some “spherical cow” assumptions but should be a good rough estimate of its age.