h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have exams in the first week of February. Until they're over, I cannot justify spending much time online. I'll get back to ye on this one.

TRiG.

Righto

Hi all.

I've changed the title to "Atmospheric Pollution from the Internal Combustion Engine in the Urban Environment" and have therefore dropped a lot of the gumph from the beginning of the essay:

The title of this essay -- "The Impact of the Internal Combustion Engine on the Urban Environment" -- is very broad: it could, at its fullest extent, be taken to include a discussion on how the availability of private transport encourages the widening of the commuter belt and the development of satellite towns, thereby encouraging urban sprawl, and of how traffic affects the look of a city (public space dedicated to pedestrians is usually more attractive than a road for cars). The internal combustion engine is also often a cause of high levels of noise pollution. The main focus of this essay will, however, be on the chemical pollution that results from exhaust fumes.

(The original title was assigned to me by my environmental chemistry lecturer.)



I have started to move all of the catalytic converter stuff together, as you suggested. Do you think that you should be listed as a co-author at this stage, radioactive?

I have pointed out a few places where I need to do further research. Shall see ye all later. Thanks for the help.

TRiG.

Well, I don't think I really contributed that much really, so I would think No.

h2g2 is addictive. If I come onto the site at all I don't leave for far too long. For this reason, as exams approach, I may need to disappear for a while. Is there any way for me to pull this entry from Peer Review and put it back in later when I can afford to spend time on-line nursing it through?

Sorry about this.

TRiG.

Hi TRiG - it seems to me you are nearly finished with this, and in my opinion it doesn't need a big paragraph on catalytic converters. An entry on catalytic converters could be a completely separate entry when you had a bit more time.

I would think you need to do two things - remove the first heading in the main text, and remove the sentence about more needing to be added in the catalytic converters needing to be added, and you're pretty much done.

If you are convinced it should be pulled from Peer Review, go into Peer Review, find your entry, and click the "x" button beside your entry.

I would prefer to see it stay in PR, as I think its nearly ready to go, but in the end its up to you.

Best of luck with your exams!

Woodpigeon

Hi Trig!

This is an interesting entry. It'll certainly get into the Guide when it has been tidied up a bit. I found it easy enough to read, as I have studied all this before. But I fear that some of it may be too technical for the general reader. There's enough in there to hold their interest so it shouldn't need many changes, but you could provide some more explanations in footnotes. At the moment, most of your footnotes seem to be citations and things like that. We don't really worry too much about citing source on h2g2. It's not a technical journal. We're much more concerned that the reader figures out what you're talking about.

You could for example provide an explanation of troposphere, a word you drop into the entry without explanation. The reader might completely miss the fact that ozone is a "bad thing" because of this.

Another example is when you talk about "photochemical smog". You say "It is given this name because it is formed by photochemical reactions between NOx and hydrocarbons". This amounts to saying it's called photochemical smog because it is photochemical. What you need to say at this point is what "photochemical" means. You do explain it later on, but it should be explained the first time you talk about it.


The first few paragraphs, talking about the four-stroke engine, are out of place. The article is not really about the four stroke engine. It is about pollution caused by internal combustion engines in general, so you should cut out the first two paragraphs.


Remove the Header at the start of the entry.

Put the word Environment at the end of the Title.

It's an Entry rather than an article or essay. So:

This article focuses --> This Entry focuses
This entry, then --> This Entry, then
later in the essay --> later


Use 'single quotes' rather than "double quotes". That's the UK standard for the publishing industry and is insisted on here in h2g2.

I think 'sulfer' should be 'sulfur'. That is the normal American spelling, isn't it?

ulikely --> unlikely

Your footnotes are coming out strangely on my browser, with music symbols in the hover text, but I haven't figured out yet whether that's me or you.

lungs -, thus --> lungs - thus

componants --> components

The raised dot in the chemical reactions of methane doesn't really work. It is too small a dot and is not easily noticed. Is there some other symbol you could use which would be a bit more visible? And in one of those reactions, you've omitted the subscripts in H3.

convertors --> converters

Trig, why have you removed this entry from Peer Review? It was a good one, and deserves to be part of the guide.

Oh, alright, then. I'll put it back. Though I'm warning you now that I won't spend much time with it.

I'd put it back now, but I keep getting "This page cannot be displayed" messages.

Thanks,

TRiG.

Okay. It's back in.

Any comments should, of course, be directed to the new PR thread at F48874?thread=593502

Thanks all for all your help so far.

TRiG.

As long as we know that you'll work on it eventually, we're willing to wait. At least, I am. Some people seem to get very impatient.

Hi there, good entry.

You might want to make a footnote about the measurement ppm for those of us who arnt chemists.

Andúril

I've gone over most of what was said in the first two PR threads and implemented a great deal (though not all) of it. The Entry is now back in PR for the third (and, I hope, last) time. You'll find it at F48874?thread=739070.

Thanks for your help, people.

TRiG_Ireland.