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[Yoink]

Just fill ya vape with wacky 'baccy instead, no worries.

[Shadowlord]

> maths can be beautiful

Wait, what?

[Lord Shonus]

Actually, IIRC it's pretty recently been uncovered that a lot of the vape fluids are carcinogenic.

Well yes, all of the nicotine ones. Unless they found out the "non-nicotine" ones are as well.

Nicotine isn't a carcinogen. The cancer, emphysema, &c. came from inhaling a bunch of tar-filled smoke with all sorts of nasty additives, which is why vapes were initially touted as a healthy alternative to smoking. The issue with vapes is that researchers found high levels of formaldehyde in the vapor--something like 5x-15x as much as in cigarette smoke under reasonable usage conditions.

Yep but reading the article it seems that the condition for it to produce formaldehyde is unrealistic for most (if not all) people.

As the article said it is the equivalent of a steak that has been cooked for 18 hours. Sure it is full of carcinogens, but it is also charcoal.

...No, the article did not say that.

Conley compares it to overcooking a steak.

The conditions under which the formaldehyde was produced (the maximum possible output) produced a cloud of boiling vapor that no human could ingest without severe pain. At any level possible to use, there is none. The scientist claims, based on the amount of vapor that he sees people produce, "many" people use the dangerous setting, but that is not necessary to produce large clouds.

Here we present results of an analysis of commercial e-liquid vaporized with the use of a “tank system” e-cigarette featuring a variable-voltage battery. The aerosolized liquid was collected in an NMR spectroscopy tube (10 50-ml puffs over 5 minutes; 3 to 4 seconds per puff). With each puff, 5 to 11 mg of e-liquid was consumed, and 2 to 6 mg of liquid was collected. At low voltage (3.3 V), we did not detect the formation of any formaldehyde-releasing agents (estimated limit of detection, approximately 0.1 μg per 10 puffs). At high voltage (5.0 V), a mean (±SE) of 380±90 μg per sample (10 puffs) of formaldehyde was detected as formaldehyde-releasing agents. Extrapolating from the results at high voltage, an e-cigarette user vaping at a rate of 3 ml per day would inhale 14.4±3.3 mg of formaldehyde per day in formaldehyde-releasing agents. This estimate is conservative because we did not collect all of the aerosolized liquid, nor did we collect any gas-phase formaldehyde. One estimate of the average delivery of formaldehyde from conventional cigarettes is approximately 150 μg per cigarette,3 or 3 mg per pack of 20 cigarettes. Daily exposures of formaldehyde associated with cigarettes, e-cigarettes from the formaldehyde gas phase, and e-cigarettes from aerosol particles containing formaldehyde-releasing agents are shown in Figure 1.

Standard voltage on most vapes is 3.7 V. The high voltage setting which was the basis for the claims (5 V) is well within the ideal range for vaping (example here). The upper range for vaping without burning the juice or damaging the coil is 8 V. I haven't been able to dig up a single mention anywhere of the heat of the vapor being a health concern because of potential scalding. Pretty much any vaping-centric source will tell you that it's a matter of the blend you use and personal preference; 3.3 V isn't just low, it's at the very bottom end of the spectrum most people who use this stuff talk about.

Here's the actual study. At 3.7 v, the standard level, formaldehyde values were ZERO. 

Voltage levels by themselves are mostly meaningless - resistance levels vary massively, what is important for the final temperature is wattage.

A detailed criticism of the study in question is here.

An important extract:

"There are many other major issues in that study. The authors fail to realize that voltage levels provide no information about the thermal load of an e-cigarette device. It seems that both the researchers and the reviewers who approved the study for publication missed that energy should be expressed in watts. As a result, we do not know how many watts were applied to the atomizer. However, there is a way to approximate this, through the information provided about liquid consumption per puff. The authors report that 5mg of liquid were consumed at 3.3 volts. Based on measurements I have performed, such consumption is observed at about 6-7 watts at 4-second puffs. Thus, the atomizer resistance is probably 1.6-1.8 Ohms. This means that at 5 volts the energy was around 14-16watts. That would be an extremely high value for most commercially-available atomizers (excluding some rebuildables which can withstand such high wattage levels). Thus, it is more than obvious that once again the atomizer was overheated, which of course will result in very high levels of formaldehyde production. What the authors ignore is that these conditions, commonly called dry-puff phenomenon (which is explained in detail in one of my published studies), are easily detected by the vapers. In fact, overheating results in an unpleasant taste that none can withstand. As a result, no vaper is ever using the e-cigarette at such conditions and, thus, will never be exposed to such levels of formaldehyde. The story published in New England Journal of Medicine is similar to finding carcinogens in an overcooked piece of meat that none can ever eat. Of course the findings are true, but none will be exposed to the levels found."


Before you claim that this is an E-cigarette shill site, the exact same conclusions were reached by the Society for the Study of Addiction.

[Spehss _]

> maths can be beautiful

Wait, what?

For example: Fractals.

Mandelbrot set. Explore the depths of infinity.

[RedWarrior0]

> maths can be beautiful

Wait, what?

For mathematicians, the beauty is generally in finding either a nice property of some mathematical object, or an elegant proof that something is true. For non-mathematicians, the beauty is usually pretty pictures that a mathematical object creates.

[NJW2000]

> maths can be beautiful

Wait, what?

For example: Fractals.

Mandelbrot set. Explore the depths of infinity.

Those are pretty pictures mathematicians use to calm the lynch mobs. But yes, they do look nice.

> maths can be beautiful

Wait, what?

For mathematicians, the beauty is generally in finding either a nice property of some mathematical object, or an elegant proof that something is true. For non-mathematicians, the beauty is usually pretty pictures that a mathematical object creates.

This. So much this. And the latter just seems to refuse to believe the former, for some reason, sometimes.

[Shadowlord]

I've seen fractals, but the math itself isn't pretty (and I couldn't understand how you get fractals from it, even after reading a computer program that draws mandelbrot fractals).

[LordBaal]

I know a mathematician genius that is simply one of the most gorgeous girls on earth, but from there to maths being beautiful... well in fact in their own way their are, but you can't simply compare oranges with blimps or something.

Dang now I miss her again.

[TempAcc]

A simple way to envision how math can be pretty is square numbers and square triangular numbers. For a more visual experience, create a set of perfectly symmetrical triangles, and notice how you can keep forming other perfectly symmetrical triangles by combining the smaller ones. The simple harmony in progression is a way in which math can be pretty.

[Shadowlord]

A simple way to envision how math can be pretty is square numbers and square triangular numbers.

But the only square number is 4. All the others have more or less sides, or no sides... What the fuck is a square triangular number? Oh, wait, I know. Must be 43.

[IcyTea31]

A square triangular number is a number that is both a square number and a triangular number. I would hardly call them pretty, though.

Square numbers: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36...
Triangular numbers: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21...
Square triangular numbers: 1, 36, 1225, 41616, 1413721, 48024900, 1631432881...

[TheBiggerFish]

But what are square and triangular numbers?   Okay, square numbers are perfect squares...

[Aklyon]

They look kinda ridiculous is what they are, from that post at least.

[TempAcc]

I forgot to insert triangular numbers on the original post :v

But yea, square triangular numbers sure don't look pretty when you write them down, but the fact that they can be represented as both a square and a triangle makes them rather hauntingly pretty, you could say. Most square triangular numbers aren't very pretty written down, but hey, there's always 36 :v

I'm in no way a mathematician by the way, I just enjoy the harmony of it.

[IcyTea31]

But what are square and triangular numbers?   Okay, square numbers are perfect squares...

Square numbers: values of y from the function y = x^2 when x is an integer.
Triangular numbers: values of y from the function y = x*(x+1)/2 when x is an integer.