Ask Dr. Jeremy

Why is spelling misspelled [in the email you sent us]? - Anonymous

Because the email I sent, just like this advice column, is a jkoe?

What has the sight of 7, can invoke beauty or destruction, holds many secrets, and can crush those at the bottom of it? - Shabiri

The sea? This riddle took me about five minutes, although I admit I tried to google it about two minutes in. I found no answers, meaning it’s at least somewhat original. 

How do I get closer to someone I don’t have any classes with? - Anonymous

Force them to do stuff with you. Try to spend at least seven hours a day with them to compensate for the lack of classes together. Try to text them as much as possible, and if they don’t reply instantly then spam them until they do.  

Do bees make honey? - Darwin Lu

Bees make honey insofar as you make sweat. I don’t think they try to, it just happens. Also I’m pretty sure not all species of bees actually produce honey. 

What is the purpose of life? - Anonymous

The reason life is life is because it evolves and reproduces. Thus, the purpose of life is to get laid.  

Pls help. Need advice for a homemade nuclear reactor in the garage and how to make a gas centrifuge? - Alecs

I’m going to assume this is info going to be used for making clean energy and not the other thing. Let’s start with the centrifuge (I’ll then explain how to build the reactor in the next edition). The gas centrifuge is what you’re gonna be using to separate the good stuff (Uranium-235) from the bad stuff (Uranium-238). U-235 is the good stuff because it is fissile and thus can be used for nuclear chain reactions. Basically, you’re gonna be taking Uranium hexaFluoride (UF6) (purchase here), which is a gas, and spinning it around super fast in a centrifuge, separating the lighter U-235 from the heavier U-238. The heavier U-238 is less affected by the centrifugal force, so it stays in the centre of the centrifuge. Keep in mind, the UF6 you start with is about 0.7% good stuff, and you need to get it to 3% U-235 to run a typical nuclear reactor (or 90% U-235 for making the aforementioned “other thing”). 

So, how do you make the thing that spins it (the centrifuge)? Well, it’s actually not that complicated. I read a few papers I found on the internet and decided that the existing centrifuges were not very home friendly so I created my own blueprint, let’s call it the Dr. Jeremy model. It’s based on the Iranian IR-6 centrifuge as well as Pakistan’s “secret” 706 project, but about a fourth of the size.

  1. First, you’ll need ten carbon fiber tubes about 5 in in diameter and 26 in in length. I would settle for these

  2. Next, you’ll need motors capable of rotating those tubes at around 100,000 rpm for extended periods of time. Thankfully, you can buy centrifuges that do exactly that (but are used for biology research) and just take out the motors and spindles. These bad boys go for about $2,500 a pop, and you’ll obviously need 10 of them.

  3. Place the tubes on a circular needle bearing above the motor, all enclosed by a non rotating casing (which is completely sealed to prevent escape of excess gas). Anything solid will work for the casing, I would recommend large PVC tubes (you can find these at your local home depot or something). This way, the inside carbon fiber tubes should sit under the motor and spin real fast, while the outside casing surrounds it completely and stands still. You then need to make sure the PVC tubes are completely airtight and totally enclose the carbon fiber tubes and motor. After that, make a hole at the bottom of each PVC tube to let out the outlet cord for the motor with a drill, and after you feed the cord through, seal it with caulk.

  4. Then, you’ll need pipes and a valve system, which I would recommend getting custom made by actual professionals (buy here) NOTE: MAKE PROFESSIONALS SIGN LEGALLY BINDING NDA BEFOREHAND. Drill two holes at the top of the PVC tubes and the carbon fiber tubes for pipes that will collect the UF6. Have a pipe connecting to the side-bottom of each tube that delivers the heavier, mostly U-238 air to the next tube. Have another pipe connecting to the top-centre of each carbon fiber tube, which should suck the lighter, mostly U-235 air out of the centre of the tube and deliver it back to the previous tube. At the final tube, have the pipe at the side-bottom deliver all that air into a VERY airtight lead barrel. As the UF6 air flows down each tube, it will become more and more U-238 and less and less U-235. Finally, use a vacuum pump to suck all the air out of the PVC tube. This will ensure that the spinning carbon fiber tube spins with much less friction. Use that caulk like your life depends on it. After you run the UF6 through all ten levels, you should end up with 4.9% U-238, if my math is right. 

For all the “visual learners” out there.

That’s all. I didn’t calculate the price, but I assume it will cost around $40,000 to buy all the parts, which isn’t too bad (this doesn’t include the UF6, of course). If you want to save even more money, you could use aluminum tubes instead of carbon fiber ones, but this is a lot less efficient. Still, this entire apparatus is gonna be pretty slow. It’s about 5 times smaller than the ones I modeled it off of, so I’d assume it’d be about 5x slower, plus the supercentrifuge motors it uses are just barely at the cutoff point for the necessary rotation speed, which is about twice as slow also. Since it’s much slower and lower quality than the real thing, I would assume the Dr. Jeremy Homemade Uranium Enricher® would be about 15x less powerful than the real thing (≈0.4 SWU/yr), but a lot more simple and home friendly, and only 40 grand(ish). Don’t forget to install pressure sensors and alarms in case of leakage, and happy uranium enriching!

This is Iran’s IR-6, which should look very similar to yours. The smarter readers here may be asking why they have much more than ten. This is because they’re trying to end up with 90% U-238, not 4.9% (big suprise).

Should women get paid more than they already do? Thanks Dr Jeremy, I love you. - Chance Smith

I can’t come up with a smug sarcastic answer for this one. You really got me beat. 

How do I get better grades? - Anonymous

Grades are a joke, the system of school itself is not a pedagogical service but a teaching apparatus pretending to be one. That is to say, almost nothing of what one would learn in school will be applicable in his later life, instead he is taught things to quantify his obedience and intelligence in relation to his peers. The only thing they really teach in school is compliance.

In the words of Michel Foucault (in his Discipline and Punish), “It was as a pedagogical machine that Paris-Duverney conceived the Ecole Militaire, right down to the minute details that he had imposed on the architect, Gabriel. Train vigorous bodies, the imperative of health; obtain competent officers, the imperative of qualification; create obedient soldiers, the imperative of politics; prevent debauchery and homosexuality, the imperative of morality”. 

Do you believe in evolution? - Anonymous

No, evolution is a big lie made up by the liberals. Believe that one book written by a goat herder 4000 years ago instead.  

Jeremy KalfusComment