ramriot

ramriot t1_jeedxyv wrote

Definately read the book, also the audible audiobook narrated by R.C.Bray is totally worth a listen too.

Something to note is that there is a ton of stuff that the screenwriter missed that created plot holes & scientific absurdities in the screenplay, that if I had not read the book 1st would have made the movie unwatchable.

Marks story in the book is also way more thrilling as the author throws a ton more things at him which need the shit scienced out of them.

BTW IMO there is only one humorous point in the written word that does not come through in the audiobook or movie. When Mark is told that he should watch his language as the world is trading his words he types I think:

>![12:15] WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> ( . Y . )!<

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ramriot t1_jdizk2f wrote

The short answer is no, the neutron degeneracy pressure for a neutron star of mass greater than around 2.16 time the mass of our sun (Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit) is insufficient to stop it collapsing.

This is well below the mass density where an even horizon would form, thus a neutron star cannot simultaneously be a black hole.

If though there were a state of matter at higher density than neutron matter (perhaps a quark plasma or quark stranglet) that could stabilize the collapse before the critical radius is reached then there may be something denser than a neutron star. But this would not be a black hole.

But according to our current understanding of science, once the collapsing sphere is denser than the the Schwarzschild radius an even horizon forms & within that radius no known state of matter is sufficient to withstand it ultimately forming a singularity.

It would be very difficult with a non-rotating black hole to prove otherwise anyway as the event horizon forms an information boundary to external observers & also for infalling instrumentation.

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ramriot t1_ja7038b wrote

So first contrast, most meteorites are dark & snow/ice is white. Second climate, it's cold & dry there so weathering takes a long time. Third disturbance, there are very few things including humans to disturb a meteorites position.

But most importantly is that ice there flows over time down hill & near natural obstructions it pushes up into pressure ridges that ablate over time in the wind. This has the effect of concentrating any meteorites that fell into an area near the obstruction.

So researchers will search areas of sloping topography near an obstruction (rock outcrop) to get the best chance of recovering meteorites that fell anything up to perhaps a couple of hundred thousand years ago.

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ramriot t1_ja34jxs wrote

Well, look at it this way. It cannot be that bad an idea if no time travellers from the future suddenly arrive to stop us.

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ramriot t1_j9t7x9b wrote

That is an option, but you'd be doing it without any assistance & the FAA or local admin fine plus potential prison time would likely outweigh a diversion.

Which is another thing, why no diversion, is this airline so broke they can't land at an alternate & stump up for transport.

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ramriot t1_j93eitm wrote

So, outside of some small scale salt mining in the himalayan range it turns out that Himalayan salt is mostly not mined from the Himalayan mountain range but from the Pothohar Plateau in Pakistan where the climate appears to be continental and arid, changing from tropic to subtropic.

With only a short polar cold period in winter.

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ramriot t1_j7chord wrote

That is my understanding, the use of lede for this meaning was for instructions to the printer in such a way that inclusion is a typographic mistake.

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