Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 August 31

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August 31

Metabolization of trans fats

Small amounts of ethanol naturally occur in our food, thus we have evolved a way to metabolize those small amounts which would otherwise be harmful. Distillation of alcohol, however, allows us to drink way too much alcohol to metabolize before it does damage.

Similarly, small amounts of trans fats naturally occur in our food, but the food industry has found a way to add massive quantities of artificially created trans fats. So, then, my Q is if our bodies have evolved a way to metabolize small amounts of trans fats before they cause damage. For example, is 0.1 g of trans fats 1/100th as harmful as 10 g, or not harmful at all ? Or, put another way, would you do as much damage to your body eating 0.1 g of trans fats every day, for 100 days, as you would if you consumed 10 g in one day ? If possible, I'd like to know just how much we can metabolize safely in a day. If "trans fats" is too broad of a category, let's restrict it to partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

The reason I ask, BTW, is that some restaurants have started listing tenths of a gram on their nutrition info for trans fats, and I don't quite know what to do with that info. Before, if it had 1 gram or more, I would skip that item. If it said 0 g I would eat it. But now I see 0.1 g, for example, and don't really know if that's safe to eat or not. StuRat (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd say eat it, go for a good walk afterwards, and stop worrying. The worry is more likely to kill you. HiLo48 (talk) 02:30, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

That would be blatant medical advice. Over the past century, the geniuses who came up with the notion of putting artificial chemicals that superficially resemble lard into the food supply have managed to kill millions of people, and that really does matter. The risks might be "relatively small" (I just saw a figure of +7% risk of stroke per gram per day in men) but they are increases in risk for some of the most common causes of death. Wnt (talk) 12:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

For part of your question, the answer is that "trans fat" isn't all one thing that acts one way, just as "fat" isn't. Even if you suppose lipids are cleanly broken up into fatty acids in a fungible way, each type of fatty acid has different properties; they are precursors to hugely important compounds like prostaglandins, endocannabinoids, and many many others. Each of those classes of compound is made up members with different chemical formulas that are produced from one specific fatty acid or another. If you look at [1] and [2] you'll see this kind of study, but not much is known; it appears though that the natural trans fats are much less harmful if harmful at all, presumably because the evolution of metabolism has taken them into account. Generally speaking, if you climbed on board an alien spaceship and managed to get a machine to pump out bars of "generic food" made up of all the right elements in a vaguely right proportion, it wouldn't be healthy eating. Catalytically altering fat is very much like that, only among a more restricted class of compounds.

In a quick search I didn't find data about consumption of limited amounts of trans fats. It would be next to impossible to control for in a human population, and it would make for an immense animal study in order to have the necessary statistical power, so I can see the difficulty. Biology is never simple though - it's impossible to say a priori whether a small amount is as bad as a large amount, or proportional, or harmless -- for all I know some sort of hormesis could apply. But I wouldn't bet on that. Wnt (talk) 12:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but remember, I added "If 'trans fats' is too broad of a category, let's restrict it to partially hydrogenated vegetable oils". StuRat (talk) 12:13, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, my point is that the natural trans fats in food are not partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Wnt (talk) 15:16, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, that would seem to imply that any ability we've evolved to deal with natural trans fats would not help in the metabolization of PHVOs, and hence any amount is harmful. StuRat (talk) 19:05, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I would not eat it unless it was a very rare and special occasion. Trans fats are cumulative killers. Each little bit does a tiny bit more damage. I don't believe it works like Radiation hormesis but rather like the Linear no-threshold model. Ariel. (talk) 02:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

You're free to guess that, but biology doesn't know theory. It is possible, for example, that eating a tiny amount of trans fat would induce cytochrome P450 enzymes that break down some sort of metabolic products that end up accumulating, leaving you better prepared for some point over the next week when you gulp down grams of the stuff in a mislabelled or unlabelled product you didn't know about. On the other hand, that same sort of activity might increase the oxidative stress on something and cause toxicity well out of proportion to the quantity. The only real advantage of the linear no-threshold model is that it's sort of an average among the possibilities. Wnt (talk) 17:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

What type of Hair styling cosmetic doesn't contain any lipids\Hydrophobic materials?

I want use something which is both easy to get, and doesn't contain any lipids\Hydrophobic materials and thus leaves the hair easily in wash... Any suggestions? Thx. Ben-Natan (talk) 03:49, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Lipids should be easy enough to wash out, provided you use shampoo (not a shampoo/conditioner combo). If you had something that rinsed out in just water, then rain would leave your hair a mess, too. StuRat (talk) 04:23, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Anything else?, Does Gels or Mouses typically contain\should contain Lipids? Ben-Natan (talk) 22:11, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Lead acetate is the mot common men's hair coloring. It is certainly not easily washed out, although the instructions say not to shower for qt least four hours after use.

Does knowledge is been verb in English language?

Does knowledge is been verb in English language?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 07:55, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

As I know, the knowledge is been the verb forming, which is been a verbs saying. Is it right?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 08:30, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you asking if "knowledge" is a verb in English? If so, then the answer is that "knowledge" is a noun. The verb is "to know". The words "is been" don't occur in English in that order. You can ask "is knowledge a verb", and you need to omit "been" in your sentences. Dbfirs 08:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Here are references for your English language questions:

• WP:RD/L - the Wikipedia Language reference desk. Your questions will be seen by language specialists who may not look at this science desk.
• [www.onelook.com] - a site that checks a large number of dictionaries. You can try it now.
• [3] - etymology is the study of the origin and development of words. You can try it now.
• There is also an Wikipedia article about Knowledge. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 09:12, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Some nouns and adjectives will are derived from verbs, is it not this the case? In my language mind the knowledge is been discovery process.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 08:58, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes nouns and adjectives can be derived from verbs, and this is exactly what we have here: the noun "knowledge" is derived from the verb "know". "Knowledge" as a verb is obsolete, but has been used historically in the English language. The Oxford English Dictionary gives six distinct senses of "knowledge" as a verb, these have mostly been replaced with "acknowledge". The most recent attestation given by the OED is from 1797: "If any ecclesiastical person knowledge a statute merchant or statute staple, or a recognizance in the nature of a statute staple." (Burn's Eccl. Law (ed. 6) III. 204) - Lindert (talk) 13:50, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Lindert, Thank you very much!--Alex Sazonov (talk) 14:12, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

So it is correct to say that "knowledge" has been used as a verb, but is not used as a verb in current English. The verb "to be" in English is usually strong enough to stand on its own (but occasionally needs reinforcing with another verb). It never appears with two different tenses together (like "is been" or "will are"). Dbfirs 14:28, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

The commonest way to derive a noun from a verb is to add the ending -ing which creates a Gerund that can function as a noun. The verb to know makes the gerund knowing which can be used as a noun (as in Knowing two languages is useful). There are many similar verb/gerund pairs such as to paint/I like painting, to write/I like writing, to build/I like building. I will emphasize that Dbfirs is correct, "knowledge" is used as a noun and never as a verb in modern English. The past tense of "to be" that you should know is "Has knowledge been a verb? - Yes, it has been a verb but it is not a verb today". 84.209.89.214 (talk) 14:45, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I been spouse that, the verb been always has the perfect form of the verb in all tenses.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 05:41, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

You might wish to read the conjugation section of Wiktionary's entry on the verb. Dbfirs 07:39, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! Do I understand correctly that the values of perfect verbs never change, and not to override by other verbs participating in the phrase?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 09:00, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Does a perfect mirror violate the laws of thermodynamics?

A mirror that reflects 100% of the electromagnetic radiation directed towards it. I'm fairly certain this is impossible, but I just want to confirm that it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. ScienceApe (talk) 13:32, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

As I think that, the absolute mirror reflection which is been an absolute mirror effect will always had be possible only in the case of resonance of a mirror reflected.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 13:59, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Reflecting 100%, as opposed to absorbing some of it as heat, for example? Just trying to understand what you're thinking. Nyttend (talk) 14:08, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes. ScienceApe (talk) 18:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if a perfect mirror is possible, but it doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics. The second law says that no process can globally decrease entropy. All that a perfect mirror would do is to locally keep entropy constant. Looie496 (talk) 15:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Well if it's not possible, it has to violate some law of physics right? If it violates no laws of physics, it should be possible. ScienceApe (talk) 18:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

If the mirror is not attached to something but is drifting in space, won't the photons that are hitting it "push" it a bit, causing it to accelerate? If the mirror is being accelerated, I think some of the energy of the original light beam must be being used to push the mirror. CBHA (talk) 18:37, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Which to me would mean that the mirror is not reflecting as light all the light energy hitting it. Therefore ,a less than perfect mirror. CBHA (talk) 23:36, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Reversible process might be a useful comparison. A thermodynamically reversible process isn't theoretically impossible (indeed, most thermodynamic calculations depend on them being available), but isn't achievable with real materials in finite amounts of time. A perfect mirror isn't theoretically impossible, but would require a material that didn't absorb electromagnetic radiation at any frequency (from radio to the most energetic gamma rays) - such a material doesn't exist in the real world, although there's no theoretical reason why it can't. Tevildo (talk) 18:48, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Not a traditional "mirror", but according to total internal reflection, an interface can reflect all the light directed at it if the angle of incidence is right.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:00, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Over the range of frequencies in which its refractive index doesn't have a complex component, yes. No materials possess that property over the entire spectrum. Tevildo (talk)

• Related Perfect mirror debuts (2013), related Perfect mirror. --prokaryotes (talk) 22:25, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah - but it only works at one very specific frequency - so it certainly doesn't achieve what our OP is asking for. SteveBaker (talk) 05:43, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I would expect that straight conservation of momentum issues would preclude the construction of a perfect mirror. (Where a 'perfect mirror' is defined broadly as some construct or device that receives photons from one direction and returns the same number of photons of identical energy/wavelength travelling in a different direction, possibly along a reciprocal course. In other words, a photon comes in, 'bounces', and comes back with the same energy.) CBHA gets close to it with his 'mirror in space' thought experiment, but doesn't go quite far enough.

Consider a photon with momentum travelling to the right (call this a positive direction) with momentum p. We want a device that accepts that photon and delivers us a photon with momentum -p, that is, a photon with the same-sized momentum (and therefore the same energy and wavelength) travelling to the left. But wait—if the photon has a change in momentum of -2p, the mirror (and the planet it is attached to) has to experience a change of momentum of +2p. For any macroscopic object and reasonable photon momentum, 2p isn't much—but it also isn't zero. And you can't impart that impulse on the mirror for free—there's an energy cost. That energy comes from the photon itself. It is redshifted ever-so-slightly, so that the departing photon has a momentum of -(p-ε) and the mirror has momentum p-ε. While this is a one-dimensional model, the same reasoning applies in three dimensions. You can't change the direction of a photon without paying, somehow, for the change in momentum. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Although, our OP doesn't preclude the mirror consuming energy in it's own right. So we could attach a very tiny rocket motor to the back of our 'perfect' mirror to eject material from the back of the mirror to carry away the momentum of the light bouncing off of it. (You could use a carefully controlled laser that would provide the same amount of light output). That suggests that a perfect mirror is possible, but you have to supply energy to it to keep it operational. However, I think even that is problematic. The problem is to detect the amount of momentum in the incoming light in order to generate the commands to the laser to apply the correct amount of counter-acting momentum...but since the commands to do that can only travel at the speed of light, the laser will always be a little bit too late...so the mirror would vibrate as momentum from changes in the amount of incoming light are counteracted by the laser...and that would manfiest itself as changes in the reflected light. To counteract THAT effect, you'd have to capture the incoming light, analyse it's nature and regenerate it perfectly at the output. I'm pretty sure the uncertainty principle would make that impossible. So, on balance, I still believe it's impossible. SteveBaker (talk) 14:43, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Sirs, all the phenomena of thermodynamics always had consist only in the dynamics of the heat, is no longer what!--Alex Sazonov (talk) 04:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Nothing that exists in the universe can defy the laws of physics. If something appears to defy the laws of physics, that can only mean that we have not yet figured out all the laws of physics. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Which leaves it "to be determined by experiment" whether a "perfect mirror" indeed exists. You isolate the mirror and a light source whose wattage (thus energy output) is known, and place receptors all around the mirror to measure reflected energy. Lasers might be better for this because you can actually tune the receptor devices to measure reflected light and ignore the original laser signal (by measuring its phase characteristics the way you would in a ring laser gyroscope}.

Some of your receptors wouldn't measure light, they'd be measuring heat, because the process of reflection involves moving electrons in the outer shells of the atoms which make up the mirror from one level to another, and back. That process would make me want to look for Joule heating of the mirror.

The "perfect mirror" would give back all of the incident light as reflected right by definition, correct? In that case, it's a simple case of measuring (or calculating) the energy of the incident light, then measuring the energy of the reflected light. Prior posters here are right in that laser light is almost certainly the simplest sort of light for this analysis, because phase information can separate incident from reflected light.

My hypothesis is that thermal losses by the local equivalent of Joule heating will prevent you from "breaking even" on the transaction of recovering all your incident light energy as reflected light energy. Heat sensors in the area will detect heat roughly equal to the difference between the incident light energy and reflected light energy.

And, in a nod to the people who'll ask "what about light sails?" I'd also measure the acceleration of the mirror away from the light source. While the propeller-head in me would want to do this in free-fall/microgravity conditions, the simplest way to do it could be to place the mirror on its back, on an extremely sensitive analytical balance before, during, and after the light is "on," - and place the laser light source directly above the mirror, to measure how much MORE downward acceleration it experiences when a light shines on it than when it's just sitting there in the dark. Do it in vacuum to eliminate any potential convection or other gas-related phenomena on the mirror surface, while you're at it.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics in action. loupgarous (talk) 17:08, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

In what is been the nature of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, and in what is been the nature of the phenomenon of thermodynamics, and also in what is been the difference between the nature of the phenomenon of electromagnetism and the nature of the phenomenon of thermodynamics?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 01:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Phenomena of electromagnetism always could been created phenomena of thermodynamics, but phenomena of thermodynamics always could been created only so much small phenomena of electromagnetism.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 14:45, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Toxicity of Hemlock and Nightshade

Hello, I am doing some research for a book and have the following two questions: Firstly, how poisionous are Deadly Nighshade petals/the purple flower itself? I noticed the wiki article only comments on the seeds/leaves/berries etc.

Secondly, can Deadly Nightshade and Hemlock (conium) both be touched with ones bare hands without poisoning occuring?

Thanks im advcance for your help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.250.86.85 (talk) 16:08, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I would expect that if just touching them was fatal, we'd all be very concerned about them, have public education and eradication campaigns, etc. Since the average person doesn't go around eating strange plants, they would be far less of a threat, if they must be ingested to poison us.

Incidentally, I understand that tobacco plants can cause contact poisoning, but only in certain circumstances. After a dew or rain, nicotine is drawn into the droplets, and pickers can absorb too much of that through their skin, and suffer from Green Tobacco Sickness. Still, it would take hours of picking, so it's not a threat to somebody just walking through them.

And of course there's poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak but those normally cause skin rashes only. StuRat (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

THE POISON GARDEN Website says of Deadly Nightshade; "There is disagreement over what constitutes a fatal amount with cases cited of a small child eating half a berry and dying alongside a nine year old Danish boy who, in the 1990s, ate between twenty and twenty five berries and survived." The same site has a page on Conium maculatum, poison hemlock which cites several people who died after mistaking it for carrot leaves or parsley. It doesn't say how much they ate. Alansplodge (talk) 20:35, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

But... but... they're natural! Monsanto has nothing to do with them! They must be good for you! Tevildo (talk) 21:43, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

First, if you're not already aware, deadly nightshade, poison hemlock and water hemlock are three different plants with widely different poisons in them.

Most important to you from your question is that all these plants make their poisons in every part of the plant, so that the flowers of these plants are not safe to eat. Their leaves, berries and roots are the most toxic parts, but eating flowers of all three species can poison you.

A survey of the medical literature shows:

(a) in poison hemlock, poisoning is associated with ingestion, not uptake through the unbroken skin, so that if you (say) picked a hemlock bloom and set it down again, didn't crush it between your fingers and let the juices enter open cuts, or eat the flower, poisoning is unlikely. However, the dose-toxicity relation is strongly age-related; in one case in Denmark, an infant and a nine-year old both ate hemlock berries; the infant died, the older child did not.

(b) while with water hemlock, due to its poison's different chemical structure, it passes through the skin readily; of a family who used the plant to treat a skin itch, two children died purely from skin exposure. I think it's safe to say that handling the flowers of water hemlock isn't a good idea at all.

Lesson: watch your kids around purple wild flowers that grow in swampy soil, because they might have tripped across either deadly nightshade, poison hemlock or water hemlock.

Also, don't harvest what you think could be wild parsley or wild carrot greens, because the hemlocks have often been mistaken for these plants, and poisoning occurred that way. loupgarous (talk) 18:45, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

mass of an electron at +1,000,000 V

An electron normally has a mass of 0.511 MeV. Suppose a perforated spherical electrode is somehow brought to a potential of +1,000,000 V. A loose electron from outside will therefore emit 1 MeV of energy, or gain 1MeV of kinetic energy, falling into the space.

Does a stationary electron inside the electrode therefore have a net negative mass?

If you can somehow neutralize (I mean, accurately account for) the charge effects, can it be observed to fall upward under the influence of Earth's gravity? Wnt (talk) 16:22, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

The (relativistic) mass of the accelerated electron will be 1.511 MeV, not 1.0 MeV. See cyclotron for the detailed mathematics. Tevildo (talk) 16:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

This seems to be a misapplication of the principle that in a conservative field, the state of an object is independent of it's path (or previous history). To use this principle to find out what a stationary electron does, you would have to decelerate the electron to 0 velocity and include the effects of the deceleration in your calculation.--Wikimedes (talk) 18:48, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

One of the great things about the theory of relativity is that it's relative. That means that the value of the relativistic mass, which (in some formulations) includes potential energy, depends on who is measuring it, and where they are. So, depending on where you pick your electrical ground (your point of zero potential energy), your electron will have a different amount of potential energy. Subsequently, if you calculate its relativistic mass and account for that potential energy, you'll get a value that depends on where your ground is located. This shouldn't be a surprise at all: if you were accounting for the relativistic mass by including kinetic energy, then the value you compute would depend on your inertial reference frame. In other words, this is not the first time you've encountered a "mass" whose value depends on how and where you measure it!

In classical electromagnetic theory, the electrical potential energy can be formulated as a gauge. Moving your "ground" is a simple change of scalar gauge. In fact, if you pursue formal study of relativistic electrodynamics, solving these equations will be among your first homework assignments, to make sure that you are comfortable using analytical mathematics to move beyond the conceptual weirdness.

Nimur (talk) 22:50, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, so far I don't see this. But let's nail down something first: at "neutral voltage", an electron and a positron have equal mass. Does this remain true no matter what you adjust the voltage to be? And if so, why doesn't that potential energy, that could be tapped at any time, have mass? Wnt (talk) 05:28, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Remember that voltage is relative as well - we can only talk about the voltage _between_ two points, not the voltage _at_ a point or the "overall voltage" of a system. When you say "neutral voltage", where are you measuring it? Tevildo (talk) 07:14, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Always believed that the mass of elementary particles is always been the force of their electric charge or the force of dynamics of their electric charge, because the mass of the electron is always been pleasant to consider the variable mass, so the electron is been never the absolute gravity.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 09:30, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

No, gravity and charges sometimes electric can not pleasantify in that they are being what was always been their mass is absolute unless without question and when gravities and more massives do sometimes make differently from that. So yes. Sebastian Garth (talk) 10:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

The question is what, does the elementary particles had a mass or they always had only the gravity of the electric charge?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 09:41, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't know. The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It's more interesting and all. … Oh, sure! I like somebody to stick to the point and all. But I don't like them to stick too much to the point. I don't know. I guess I don't like it when somebody sticks to the point all the time. The boys that got the best marks in Oral Expression were the ones that stuck to the point all the time — I admit it. But there was this one boy, Richard Kinsella. He didn't stick to the point too much, and they were always yelling "Digression!" at him. It was terrible, because in the first place, he was a very nervous guy — I mean he was a very nervous guy — and his lips were always shaking whenever it was his time to make a speech, and you could hardly hear him if you were sitting way in the back of the room. When his lips sort of quit shaking a little bit, though, I liked his speeches better than anybody else's.… It's nice when somebody tells you about their uncle. Especially when they start out telling you about their father's farm and then all of a sudden get more interested in their uncle. I mean it's dirty to keep yelling "Digression!" at him when he's all nice and excited. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Sebastian Garth (talk) 18:37, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Mistake of the relativism is been a scientific fact that elementary particles which do not had a mass never had been an energy!--Alex Sazonov (talk) 15:53, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, that any magnetism had been nothing except a gravity, so that the magnetic and electromagnetic fields are always been a specially мagnetic inductive gravity.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 11:23, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Absolute mass of all elementary particles is always be considered to be the mass of light, because is always pleasant to believe that the speed of light is always be the absolute standard of speed in physics, because it have not a limits, I think it's be wrong, because an electromagnetic induction is always been more much powerful than the magnetic induction, because the speed of electric current is always be absolute, so that the mass of the electron can be adopted as the absolute standard, although the electron is been never the absolute gravity.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 11:10, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

What is been the natural nature of the electron that is what had always the electron magnetism or electromagnetism?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 12:08, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

All plasmic phenomena (plazmirovanie - плазмирование, plasma, protoplasm) are always been the phenomena of nature of the electromagnetic induction!--Alex Sazonov (talk) 13:16, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Do you think that science could researching the elementary particles which mass always is been immaterial, and does these elementary particles had a gravity?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 18:13, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe that science does not makes sense to researching the elementary particles which are never observed in materials (substances), although they may had a gravity.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 07:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

If would be in nature been an absolute resistance which been determines the force of the charge and its voltage, the electric current would had never been in nature, is it truth?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 13:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

note: I've started a separate question on absolute voltage two below because this is way too fundamental of a point for any of us to be confused about without humiliation! And our article discussion seems confused... Wnt (talk) 13:21, 1 September 2014 (UTC)