I just want to say, kudos to the author for the excellent captions. So many articles include images with no captions whatsoever and expect the reader to somehow just know what they're looking at. Even when it's pretty obvious, it never hurts to state it plainly with a short caption.
I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
101–110 of 135 posts
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#102"In theory, samples with no-interlayer impurities should look something like this in direct measurements" Can we tell their purity from looking at the photos?
I think the materially, even pure, is strongly colored, so you can't easily determine impurities visually, unlike diamonds and sapphires and other colorless-when-pure minerals.
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Australia behaves the same way, exports ore to China and buys back the refined products. Both countries have abundant energy (hydro and solar) but have old fashioned mining interests in charge.
Why do the mining interests prefer exporting it to selling to some local processor? you could probably get similar prices and the transport wouldn't be as complex, right?
From 30-second googling: purifying Cu to from rocks to ~99% purity is done by mixing CuFeS2 found naturally with C and CaCO3 and smelting. This yields Cu2S. Then S is released by bubbling with O2. This process releases gaseous SO2. From there, Cu is further purified by electrolysis in CuSO4aq.
The whole process is going to need a ton of coal and calcium carbonate and heat, and you have to have a way to safely dispose of SO2 gases and CuSO4aq liquids. And there don't seem to be anything that sounds safe and clean about this process.
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#104I was arguing with a Chilean friend who moved a few years ago to the USA. He was telling me how Chile doesn't do good science. I challenged his claim saying Chile actually had great scientists that were severely underfunded (Chile's investment in science and research is ~0.4% of the GDP versus the OECD average of ~2.7%). I think it's sort of a big consensus with people that have never been involved in science work, i…
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Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#105I was arguing with a Chilean friend who moved a few years ago to the USA. He was telling me how Chile doesn't do good science. I challenged his claim saying Chile actually had great scientists that were severely underfunded (Chile's investment in science and research is ~0.4% of the GDP versus the OECD average of ~2.7%). I think it's sort of a big consensus with people that have never been involved in science work, i…
I had a Chilean coworker who earned his degree in molecular biology while in Chile. He emigrated to the US (sometime in the early-mid 90's) as he claimed there was little opportunity for scientists in Chile. He worked a basic job that paid the bills while he built up a side business exporting appliances secretly stuffed with gun parts. He was able to retire back to Chile on that money.
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#106”San Francisco mine” - is that a coincidence?
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Australia behaves the same way, exports ore to China and buys back the refined products. Both countries have abundant energy (hydro and solar) but have old fashioned mining interests in charge.
Why do the mining interests prefer exporting it to selling to some local processor? you could probably get similar prices and the transport wouldn't be as complex, right?
Extraction and metallurgy are different problem domains. Vertical integration can be more profitable, but not when regulatory burden is high. What you’re seeing is an arbitrage of regulatory costs. The government is much more tolerant of ecologically hazardous in industrial processes in the Australian government. I don’t want to go into why that is, but I think most would accept that as true.
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do the mining interests prefer exporting it to selling to some local processor? you could probably get similar prices and the transport wouldn't be as complex, right?
From 30-second googling: purifying Cu to from rocks to ~99% purity is done by mixing CuFeS2 found naturally with C and CaCO3 and smelting. This yields Cu2S. Then S is released by bubbling with O2. This process releases gaseous SO2. From there, Cu is further purified by electrolysis in CuSO4aq. The whole process is going to need a ton of coal and calcium carbonate and heat, and you have to have a way to safely dispose…
SO2 is typically scrubbed and used to produce sulfuric acid. It's not a _clean_ process, but its waste stream is fairly well-controlled.
The amount of carbon used in the reaction itself is totally neglibile, compared to other overheads.
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, you know, the Chilean US puppet Augusto Pinochet who killed, jailed, or exiled professors, intellectuals, students etc.
Pinochet was a garden variety kleptocrat and villain, not an ideologue. Where Milei falls remains to be determined. edit: also no reason to make this thread deeper, but you seem to be missing the idea that I am insulting Pinochet. He didn't do it for any reason other than power and money. That is worse. For whatever reason, you appear to think I have views I do not, and are assuming the worst of my replies. I will no…
You seem to be confusing Chile and Argentina. Milei is president of Argentina, not Chile. The new president of Chile is José Kast. I suspect the substance of your comment is unaffected by this, however.
Re: I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't even a critique of the comment. I was just pointing out the text of the comment resembled a bot comment on youtube shorts- almost an exact keyword match.
y'all be crazy af Do you even realize the irony of your unnecessary complaint about potential bots generating more noise than actual bots?
It wasn't even a complaint! I was mainly commenting on the similarity of the text (I've seen text extremely close to that in youtube shorts comments). If it was a genuine, organically sourced comment, you can simply ignore my message.