BaneBlade
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Registered: 02-2006
Posts: 201
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Re: Comic: how I often feel about explaining my research
Yes, but if you could adjust the satellite so that it would stop beaming messages directly into my brain, I would be grateful. *dons tinfoil* 
---
...waiting patiently for a few submissions to come back.
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8/20/2008, 10:19 pm
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QS2
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Registered: 03-2006
Posts: 650
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Re: Comic: how I often feel about explaining my research
That is a pretty good xkcd comic, yes.  Still...., people actually think a satellite is able to find back oil under the ground? I thought you could at best find likely locations..., or not?
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8/21/2008, 7:21 am
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Reythia
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Registered: 11-2005
Posts: 546
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Re: Comic: how I often feel about explaining my research
Yes, I love XKCD!
Well Firle, to be fair, I'm now living in Texas where a lot of people earn a living by drilling for oil. So it's not really quite as random of a question as it would be elsewhere. Still, after you answer the same question dozens of times, it gets TIRESOME.
quote:
QS2 wrote:
That is a pretty good xkcd comic, yes. Still...., people actually think a satellite is able to find back oil under the ground? I thought you could at best find likely locations..., or not?
Well, the thing is, IF that oil was really moving around, we WOULD be able to find it. For example, we can measure large-scale aquifer drainage, or the filling of underground aquifers from glacier runoff. The thing is, oil doesn't tend to move around. So we calculate the gravity it creates one day... and the next it's the same, since the oil hasn't moved. So we can't tell if it's oil down there or just rock.
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8/21/2008, 4:24 pm
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David Meadows
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Registered: 09-2003
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Re: Comic: how I often feel about explaining my research
There is a weekly pop-science programme on BBC Radio 4 called "The Material World" and this week it was about the new GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) satellite. They gave GRACE a (very brief) name-check. That's yours Reythia, isn't it?
You can listen to it from the BBC archive on their web site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/thematerialworld.shtml. The programme lasts 30 minutes but only the first half is about GOCE -- it's very superficial 
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8/22/2008, 1:35 pm
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Reythia
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Registered: 11-2005
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Re: Comic: how I often feel about explaining my research
Yes, Meadows, GRACE is "my" satellite mission. GOCE (it's pronounced BOTH "go-ssss" (like "ghost" but without the "t") and "go-che" depending on who you talk to!)... anyhow, GOCE is the next generation gravity satellite. It'll start with the long-wavelength mean field that GRACE is calculating and use that the get finer details. It's basically useless without us, but they don't like admitting that, of course!
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8/25/2008, 4:38 pm
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