Ah yes. Blessed powers to completely contradict thousands of years of medical science. Magical healing. Elves too perhaps? Or lightsabers?
Now who sounds ridiculous?
Y'know, between the two of you, you make my argument so much easier! Thank you immensely! It's just obvious in a moderated view of what you two are saying that you're absolutely insane, perhaps suffering from mercury poisoning. I'm not complaining, but if you want to be taken seriously, come up with real arguments, otherwise, the two of you are making my case for me.
Miracles, healders, and gifts. It's like a Lord of the Rings convention.
Fuckin' hilarious
Anyways,
Today I was doing a lab in which we were looking at the microstructures of several metal alloys. We mounted the samples on resin disks, then used grinding wheels with progressively higher grade Silicon-Carbide grit paper, followed by diamond powder solution soaked polishing wheels to reduce the surface of the sample to a 1 micron standard (the smallest visible surface scratch is no larger than 1/1000 of a millimetre)
During the process we would make use of optical microscopes to check the surface of the material for any remaining scratches from the previous grit or polishing wheel. (we rotated the sample by 90 degrees per operation as to produce a cross-hatch pattern... and once the pattern disappears, you know that all of the scratches on that surface are to the level of grit/polish you just used.... so we looked for cross-hatching)
We used chemical etchants (1, 2 and 5% Nitrile in an alcoholic dilutant) to etch the surface of the material. This chemical reacts with the atoms on the grain boundaries, creating slight pits in the surface of the material and thus revealing the grain structure. Finally, we used the better optical microscopes which had cameras fitted to photograph the samples at different resolutions.
Now, just look at all the different bits of technology used there... all the science and engineering that has been required to design them... the chemistry to know which chemicals to use to etch the surface... and all the science needed to understand what the results mean... With this we can look at a chunk of metal and know how it was made, what processes it has been put through, what its chemical composition is (and thus its mechanical properties)... hell... We can show exactly why the material behaves as it does.
Roll back time a couple 'o' thousand years... They had NONE of the above, all they had was their imaginations. People created gods to explain the world. They didn't have microscopes and 1 micron diamond polishing wheels. They couldn't look at a lump of alpha brass to see that the reason that it is so malleable and easy to cold work is because of its microstructure. Okay, maybe they didn't write that god made brass malleable and bestowed his beautiful creation unto mankind in bountiful quantities that we may build trombones to our hearts content, but this is just an example that I can explain well and thoroughly 'cos it's what I study
Essentially... what you lot believe in is a 2000 year old method of explaining the world, a 2000 year old theory on how the world came into being. Seems a bit silly to me...
oh, and Duke..
that vid with the book guy is interesting... might see if one of my libraries has a copy
Edited by Calamity_Jones, 07 October 2006 - 03:23 AM.
