Chess Analogies

[Kevin Thurlow]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... offee.html

"Mrs Hill's attorney Chrissy Mincy said that in the following months she lived a horrific ‘game of chess’ in which she inspected every piece of food or drink in the house before trying it."

Probably one of the better ones! Many arbiters just take the food and drink before inspecting it.

Scientific note - barium enemas and barium meals are not dangerous, as they are only small doses. Also if you think someone has swallowed barium (or anything else), consult a doctor - it is not recommended to induce vomiting unless you are medically trained.

[Paul McKeown]

That report in the Daily Mail states that Barium is radioactive. Surely that is incorrect? Surely Radium is the only naturally radioactive alkaline earth?

[harrylamb]

Barium has one "radioactive" isotope Ba 130. Ba 130 is present in Barium at the level of 0.1%. The half life of Ba130 is about 10 raised to to power of 14 years. This level of radioactivity is negligible and well below the normal background levels of radioactivity that we are all subject to. It is a long long way below the legal definition of a radioactive substance.

I have doubts too about how poisonous was the amount of Barium Mrs Hill ingested. The article gives a photo of an analytical report saying "Barium 20 ug/ml". This means that the coffee she had contained about 20 parts Barium to one million parts of coffee. The limit for drinking water in the USA is 1ppm (part per million) Barium. Ok she was above that level but while 20ppm should be avoided I doubt if it is harmful. Certainly it is no surprise to me that she drank a cupful of coffee with that amount of barium in every day for 5 months without serious symptoms which would have hospitalised her.

Edit:-The word tea corrected to coffee

[JustinHorton]

It would actually be a substantial disappointment if a report in the Vile turned out to be scrupulously accurate.

[Paul McKeown]

Barium has one "radioactive" isotope Ba 130. Ba 130 is present in Barium at the level of 0.1%. The half life of Ba130 is about 10 raised to to power of 14 years. This level of radioactivity is negligible and well below the normal background levels of radioactivity that we are all subject to. It is a long long way below the legal definition of a radioactive substance.

You piqued my interest.

According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_barium), Ba-130 and Ba-132, both minor components of naturally occurring Barium, are "thought to" decay via double beta decay, Ba-130 with a half-life greater than 10^21 years, and Ba-132 suspected to be greater than 10^20 years but "observationally stable".

I remember some time ago being surprised when I learned that Bismuth, which my (decades) old inorganic texts proclaimed to be stable, was actually an alpha emitter with an (almost) unobservably long half-life. I'm told that certain physicists suspect that the proton itself is subject to decay, although this is yet to be established. In that case all earthly matter is "radioactive" in some pure scientific sense, but not in any practical sense, certainly not toxicologically speaking.

Writing of Barium as radioactive is simply wrong when placed outside its proper field (modelling nuclear structure). Stick a Geiger counter beside it and all you will get is background.

The science in that report in the Daily Mail was all over the shop in many details. "The heavy metal occurs naturally in the environment and is silvery white in appearance." is bizarre. Elemental barium might be silvery white in appearance, but only its compounds exist in nature (run like f*ck if you come across metallic barium, explosion hazard!) and describing it as a heavy metal makes it sound like some transition or post-transition metal, when its actually an alkaline earth, with an entirely different chemistry.

It isn't only the Daily Mail that writes cobblers on all matters scientific, though. It's the general state of the British media.

[harrylamb]

According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_barium), Ba-130 and Ba-132, both minor components of naturally occurring Barium, are "thought to" decay via double beta decay, Ba-130 with a half-life greater than 10^21 years,

I got my information from Wikipedia too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ra ... _half-life
Where it gives the half life of Ba-130 as 70*(10^12) years

Same source different value. Still what is 10,000,000 years between friends

[Bill Porter]

According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_barium), Ba-130 and Ba-132, both minor components of naturally occurring Barium, are "thought to" decay via double beta decay, Ba-130 with a half-life greater than 10^21 years,

I got my information from Wikipedia too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ra ... _half-life
Where it gives the half life of Ba-130 as 70*(10^12)

Same source different value. Still what is 10,000,000 years between friends

or ( 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - 70 trillion ) or so years

[harrylamb]

According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_barium), Ba-130 and Ba-132, both minor components of naturally occurring Barium, are "thought to" decay via double beta decay, Ba-130 with a half-life greater than 10^21 years,

I got my information from Wikipedia too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ra ... _half-life
Where it gives the half life of Ba-130 as 70*(10^12)

Same source different value. Still what is 10,000,000 years between friends

or ( 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - 70 trillion ) or so years

Oops
Harry

[Paul McKeown]

Trivial errors that any competent A Level student could have corrected really. But neither here nor there in the face of Daily Mail's entirely anti-science line on climate change ("science don't know nuffin" or "scientists are in the pay of a global left wing conspiracy"), for instance, or its earlier nonsense over vaccinations ("doctors want to give your children autism") or genetic modification of agricultural species ("Frankenstein") or just about any other scientific issue which requires a political response.

[Kevin Thurlow]

http://www.webelements.com/barium/isotopes.html may be useful.

Enjoy!

[Ian Thompson]

NBC commentators have twice said that Olympic Beach Volleyball is being played like a game of chess. They said it's due to the unusually deep sand that the games are being played on slowing the game down. Quite how artificially laid sand could be deeper than sand on a real beach is a mystery to me. Probably what they meant was that the players' feet are sinking deeper into the sand than is normal, because it's not compacted as much as on a real beach.

Perhaps this means the ECU should reconsider their ban on female competitors being dressed "like someone who was going to the beach".

[Neil Graham]

From the Telegraph Sports pages (Monday)

"If this carried all the hallmarks of a United rally of old it was also a landmark occasion for a managerial grand-master. The Kasparov of Govan, Ferguson made some hugely important moves in his 1000th league game and 599th victory."

[Richard James]

Paralympic wheelchair rugby is like chess with a bit of violence, according to The Guardian.

Funny - I thought chess was like chess with a bit of violence.