How are opals formed?
Are they formed differently from other rocks? A specific process?...
Can you actually get a small profit doing your own opal mining at a tourist spot like Royal Peacock in Nevada, or would you be better off gambling?
I'm not asking if I should quit my day job or anything like that, but I think it would be really cool to have the cahnce to actually earn a little cash when on a vacation. I heard about opal mining tourism and I love the idea. However, I have no idea what kinds of opals are worth what and if how rar...
Is there a shorter term for "equipotential surface of the Earth's gravitational field"?
I just used this phrase in another answer and I can't believe there's not some short term for it....
Where do most commercial geodes come from in 2020?
My brother gave me a geode last week and I was wondering where it might have come from. I know he bought it, but I'm trying to figure out where whatever company sold it to him found it. Is there a sort of "mining" industry for geodes in 2020? Or are they just stumbled upon? ...
Do carnivorous plants help control houseflies, or do they attract them?
I know that the plants can kill flies, but they also have to attract them to be able to kill them. So will more end up killed or will more end up attracted and in my house?...
Diffraction interference patterns from grating much smaller than wavelength
For a 405nm laser diffracting through a 10nm spaced grid, how to compute the interference pattern? Or more generally, is there a relatively simple formula to compute the diffraction interference pattern when slit width is an order of magnitude smaller than the wavelength? How I tried first ...
Are comedians more prone to mental illness than non-comedians?
I feel like comedians that have a mental illness are constantly in the news, and I am curious if I am alone in this....
Were astrologers and alchemists from pre-modern times the intellectual forebears to contemporary scientists?
How much real science was behind medieval times astrologers and alchemists? Hollywood has glamorized, but also mocked, those professions in fantasy and medieval movies. I'm wondering how much modern-day chemistry and science we can trace back to them?...
