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Watsisname
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05 Aug 2020 07:00

Am I missing something but doesn't it need to be combined with a fuel to be explosive? My understanding is ammonia nitrate is just an oxidizer?
You're correct that it's not explosive on its own. But being a strong oxidizer that is explosive when mixed with fuels is precisely the problem. If it is not stored properly, and especially if it's subject to much heat in a confined space with other stuff around, it can easily result in an explosion, and many of the most destructive industrial accidents have happened for this reason. And it's really the same reasoning for why any chemical storage at an industrial site or a laboratory has such strict guidelines. It's not just in case a particular hazardous chemical leaks out, it's also to maintain their purity and stability, and to limit the possibilities of having things mix in ways that could go really bad.

This advisory by EPA, OSHA and ATF gives a good run-down on the handling of ammonium nitrate and prior accidents with it:
https://permanent.fdlp.gov/gpo45474/AN_advisory.pdf
 
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05 Aug 2020 13:08

Am I missing something but doesn't it need to be combined with a fuel to be explosive? My understanding is ammonia nitrate is just an oxidizer?
You're correct that it's not explosive on its own. But being a strong oxidizer that is explosive when mixed with fuels is precisely the problem. If it is not stored properly, and especially if it's subject to much heat in a confined space with other stuff around, it can easily result in an explosion, and many of the most destructive industrial accidents have happened for this reason. And it's really the same reasoning for why any chemical storage at an industrial site or a laboratory has such strict guidelines. It's not just in case a particular hazardous chemical leaks out, it's also to maintain their purity and stability, and to limit the possibilities of having things mix in ways that could go really bad.

This advisory by EPA, OSHA and ATF gives a good run-down on the handling of ammonium nitrate and prior accidents with it:
https://permanent.fdlp.gov/gpo45474/AN_advisory.pdf
It was *highly* irresponsible for them to store it like that for years....people who are calling for the people responsible for this calamity to resign are correct.  And this was the same fuel used in the Oklahoma City bombing, wasn't it, Wat?
 
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midtskogen
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05 Aug 2020 14:27

It's popular with bombers, since you can be or pretend to be a farmer and buy lots of it.
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midtskogen
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30 Oct 2020 08:01

When we thought 2020 in Europe could get no worse... 2700 km away from the epicentre, yet my seismometer went off the chart.
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30 Oct 2020 09:30

Wow, you felt it, Mid?  It was 7.0 on the Richter scale near Western Turkey!

In other news, we had our first snowfall today in the Poconos Mtns and I saw NYC and Long Island had some snow also.  1-2 inches here.  It was the shortest period between the last snow of the previous season (which was May 10 for all these locations) and the first snowfall of the next season (October 30).
 
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30 Oct 2020 13:12

Wow, you felt it, Mid?  It was 7.0 on the Richter scale near Western Turkey!
No, way too far away to be felt.  At 2700 km the ground movement is less than a cm, and is swinging only a few times a minute.  It's impossible to feel the ground move a mm over several seconds.
In other news, we had our first snowfall today in the Poconos Mtns and I saw NYC and Long Island had some snow also.  1-2 inches here.
We had out first snowfall ten days ago.  15-20 cm was just enough to ski.  It was gone in a couple of days.  Last snowfall in Oslo was 10th May, so 5 month 10 days without snowfall.  By no means a record, but we usually have at least 6 months without snowfall.
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30 Oct 2020 17:26

Heard there was a rare tsunami associated with that earthquake.  Hopefully not a lot of damage or casualties, I heard 6 deaths so far.

Sounds like you had a nice snowfall we had a couple of inches (around 5 cm) but around 20 cm just to our north where it snowed all day.
 
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midtskogen
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31 Oct 2020 15:01

Still waiting for snow that stays.  But today I skied for the second time this season,  On last season's snow which they stored under sawdust during the summer to create a 6.5 km track a couple of weeks ago.
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Watsisname
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31 Oct 2020 16:28

Same here in Washington. Had snow down to about 600masl recently, but it's not sticking around, even up to 1200m. Maybe in a few more weeks.
 
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08 Nov 2020 16:20

RIP Alex Trebek :-(  I grew up watching him host Jeopardy! and now he's gone.  He will be remembered forever and life will never be the same (something we already knew about 2020.)
 
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24 Nov 2020 13:48

So yesterday was Fibonacci Sequence day.... 11/23.  The most interesting thing I find about the Fibonacci Sequence is how prevalent it is in nature in the form of the golden section (spiral) from the structure of sunflower heads to mollusk shells to hurricanes to galaxies.  It reminds me of Bode's Law.....formerly it was thought a coincidence that the gaps between the planets follow a mathematical sequence, but now we've found that 90% or more of the exoplanetary systems we've discovered follow a similar sequence.  It must have something to do with how gravity creates certain resonances where planets are more likely to orbit and other areas, "forbidden zones", where there are gaps (we see the same thing in Saturn's rings.)
 
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25 Nov 2020 04:39

So yesterday was Fibonacci Sequence day.... 11/23.  The most interesting thing I find about the Fibonacci Sequence is how prevalent it is in nature in the form of the golden section (spiral) from the structure of sunflower heads to mollusk shells to hurricanes to galaxies.  It reminds me of Bode's Law.....formerly it was thought a coincidence that the gaps between the planets follow a mathematical sequence, but now we've found that 90% or more of the exoplanetary systems we've discovered follow a similar sequence.  It must have something to do with how gravity creates certain resonances where planets are more likely to orbit and other areas, "forbidden zones", where there are gaps (we see the same thing in Saturn's rings.)
I think math is nothing but a representation of the universe in form of numbers. Take the Fibonacci Sequence, it's basically a sum between numbers, so maybe the mollusk shells, the hurricanes and so on, follow the same principle on a microscopic scale that we use as numbers on the Fibonacci Sequence, making the whole complex look like a golden section.

Maybe the reason why the golden ratio is so special it's because it's related to a very simple principle, so simple that "nature" seems to be using it a lot, but we can say the same thing of any other constant  :)
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

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25 Nov 2020 08:31

Yes I see the same thing in how the human brain resembles the universe structure wise on a large scale or how slime molds mimic human architecture....humans are part of nature therefore knowingly or not, we mimic it.

http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/the ... y-networks

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-human-bra ... verse.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 152352.htm

Much as we'd like to think we're independent, we're not.  We function by the same laws as the rest of nature does.
 
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midtskogen
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12 Dec 2020 03:54

It's been snowing here for a week.  Bliss.
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12 Dec 2020 08:24

it's supposed to snow here a lot next week, we shall see

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