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Science update,particle wave duality
Mike Kaliski wrote:
"Lostgallifreyan" wrote in message . .. Richard Clark wrote in : As the original poster (I presume it was Art) is in the habit of quoting a German surveyor of the early 19th century; it should have been settled by the Reichoffice of land boundaries. These threads seem to be started in the vein of a breathless discovery of an announcement tucked away in a locked file cabinet in the janitor's closet in the third basement revealing plans for the "new" hyper-Hohenzollern horse carriage expressway bypass - as much as the original comment, responses and counter-responses are so distinctive by fulfilling that metaphor. That reminds me of another great bit of writing, on military standards, I found it online somewhere, it explained how the Roman roads were decided based on uquestrian travel, went on to show how the same standard measures persisted through centuries of rail travel and ended up explaining why it is that the scale of the solid rocket booster of the most advanced form of orbital transport known was exactly correlated with the width of a horse's ass. :) Basically true. The ruts on Roman or older roads caused by wagons and carts meant that any cart not conforming to a standard wheel width would tip over or lose a wheel. Rail wagons were adapted from road carts and so the standard was maintained through the Victorian era. Modern machinery is still essentially set up to those standards to maintain compatibility with earlier equipment and so that older machinery can still be maintained. Bit like the DOS prompt still being available in Windows? Mike G0ULI "There is an urban legend that Julius Caesar specified a legal width for chariots at the width of standard gauge, causing road ruts at that width, so all later wagons had to have the same width or else risk having one set of wheels suddenly fall into one deep rut but not the other. In fact, the origins of the standard gauge considerably predate the Roman Empire, and may even predate the invention of the wheel. The width of prehistoric vehicles was determined by number of interacting factors which gave rise to a fairly standard vehicle width of a little under 2 metres (6.6 ft) These factors have changed little over the millenia, and are still reflected in today's motor vehicles." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge -- Jim Pennino Remove .spam.sux to reply. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
Science update,particle wave duality
On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 02:51:37 -0000, wrote:
In fact, the origins of the standard gauge considerably predate the Roman Empire, and may even predate the invention of the wheel. The width of prehistoric vehicles was determined by number of interacting factors which gave rise to a fairly standard vehicle width of a little under 2 metres (6.6 ft) These factors have changed little over the millenia, and are still reflected in today's motor vehicles." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge Yep. Put two people comfortably on a bench and measure the width of the bench. That's the minimum cart width. They probably should have changed over the millenia as we are becoming larger and more rotund. I dunno about the "standard" gauge. There seems to be quite a few not-so-standard gauges in use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_gauges Of course, the US standards were established in the time honored traditional methods of politics, rhetoric, violence, and open warfa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Gauge_War -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
Science update,particle wave duality
"Mike Kaliski" wrote in
: "Lostgallifreyan" wrote in message . .. Richard Clark wrote in : As the original poster (I presume it was Art) is in the habit of quoting a German surveyor of the early 19th century; it should have been settled by the Reichoffice of land boundaries. These threads seem to be started in the vein of a breathless discovery of an announcement tucked away in a locked file cabinet in the janitor's closet in the third basement revealing plans for the "new" hyper-Hohenzollern horse carriage expressway bypass - as much as the original comment, responses and counter-responses are so distinctive by fulfilling that metaphor. That reminds me of another great bit of writing, on military standards, I found it online somewhere, it explained how the Roman roads were decided based on uquestrian travel, went on to show how the same standard measures persisted through centuries of rail travel and ended up explaining why it is that the scale of the solid rocket booster of the most advanced form of orbital transport known was exactly correlated with the width of a horse's ass. :) Basically true. The ruts on Roman or older roads caused by wagons and carts meant that any cart not conforming to a standard wheel width would tip over or lose a wheel. Rail wagons were adapted from road carts and so the standard was maintained through the Victorian era. Modern machinery is still essentially set up to those standards to maintain compatibility with earlier equipment and so that older machinery can still be maintained. Bit like the DOS prompt still being available in Windows? Mike G0ULI That prompt SHOULD be there. :) The real problems with M$ come when they try to break with history, not when they honour it. Given that their initial survival depended on direct inheritance that should be evident. OS's that have real security like OpenBSD don't reject their roots, they GROW on them properly. :) Which reveals an interesting point... The size of standards can easily be arbitrary. So it makes good sense to go with something that has historical context. That way we can efficiently revert to whatever earlier form we need at will. The only way to improve this proces is to think ahead better at the outset. Not easy, given that ancient Rome was in no posotion to imagine a space flight program's requirements. Actually, of those it COULD have imagines, it provided the groundwork for extremely well despite not having any way to imagine them. Likewise, people underestimate older and simopler computer systems at their peril. |
Science update,particle wave duality
Richard Clark wrote in
: On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 23:40:34 -0000, "Mike Kaliski" wrote: Bit like the DOS prompt still being available in Windows? As a duality, it fits within the context of this thread. C:\WINNT\$NtUnistall$\spuninst spuninst.exe ? an instance of the DOS-Windows duality annihilation ? What Would Chairman Bill Do? 73's Richard Clark, KB7QHC Ha! I bet that only runs in 32 bit protected mode, too. :) (Which I could easily be wrong about but it's the kind of silliness that might be true, as often happens when people think that plants continue to grow when you cut their roots off, as M$ appear to do. For the record, I stay with W98 for this reason, it was the latest M$ OS that grew firmly on the roots that Windows was designed for (and a lot of stuff I need depends on it anyway)). |
Science update,particle wave duality
wrote in :
Mike Kaliski wrote: "Lostgallifreyan" wrote in message . .. Richard Clark wrote in : As the original poster (I presume it was Art) is in the habit of quoting a German surveyor of the early 19th century; it should have been settled by the Reichoffice of land boundaries. These threads seem to be started in the vein of a breathless discovery of an announcement tucked away in a locked file cabinet in the janitor's closet in the third basement revealing plans for the "new" hyper-Hohenzollern horse carriage expressway bypass - as much as the original comment, responses and counter-responses are so distinctive by fulfilling that metaphor. That reminds me of another great bit of writing, on military standards, I found it online somewhere, it explained how the Roman roads were decided based on uquestrian travel, went on to show how the same standard measures persisted through centuries of rail travel and ended up explaining why it is that the scale of the solid rocket booster of the most advanced form of orbital transport known was exactly correlated with the width of a horse's ass. :) Basically true. The ruts on Roman or older roads caused by wagons and carts meant that any cart not conforming to a standard wheel width would tip over or lose a wheel. Rail wagons were adapted from road carts and so the standard was maintained through the Victorian era. Modern machinery is still essentially set up to those standards to maintain compatibility with earlier equipment and so that older machinery can still be maintained. Bit like the DOS prompt still being available in Windows? Mike G0ULI "There is an urban legend that Julius Caesar specified a legal width for chariots at the width of standard gauge, causing road ruts at that width, so all later wagons had to have the same width or else risk having one set of wheels suddenly fall into one deep rut but not the other. In fact, the origins of the standard gauge considerably predate the Roman Empire, and may even predate the invention of the wheel. The width of prehistoric vehicles was determined by number of interacting factors which gave rise to a fairly standard vehicle width of a little under 2 metres (6.6 ft) These factors have changed little over the millenia, and are still reflected in today's motor vehicles." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge I'll buy that it's a lot older, that's the thing about roots, they trace out further than any effort to cut them does. And given how much they cover, it seems unwise to consider them a limiting factor. Sure, if you want to fly, can't stay rooted, but even that little homily doesn't mean that Arthur Clarke wasn't right about the space elevator. :) We won't go far until we build one. And what's the betting its tramlines will still be the width of a horse's ass or two? |
Science update,particle wave duality
tom wrote in
. net: Lostgallifreyan wrote: "Mike Kaliski" wrote in news:dbydneBBW- : "Lostgallifreyan" wrote in message . .. "Mike Kaliski" wrote in news:Et-dnelSh- : the solution to life, the universe and everything is 42. All at sixes and sevens. As I recall, the question showed that the universe was truly screwed up... Cheers Mike G0ULI least one of the books, and I don't remember if the question was ever settled. There were a couple of philosophers with Pythonesque silly names who asked Deep Thought the Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything, and whose equally silly named decendents spent their final years cleaning up on the chat show circuit, but the computer designed to calculate the original question got thoroughly panned by a small fleet of yellow butter-pat shaped ships full of petulant Vogons and Dentrassi chefs. But I sort of sense how Douglas Adams thinks, a small and persistent obervation blooming strangely. No-one ever spelled out that 42 came from seven sixes or six sevens, but 'all at sixes and sevens' is an English colloquailism that Douglas Adams would not have ignored. Basically the idea is chaos, but not exactly chaos, just an arbitrary collection is decreet entities that exist in no clear relation to each other, so all kinds of silly possibilities exist. Fits, no? :) And don't get me started on how I think he came up with 'The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul'... Actually it comes out during the TV play and at least one of the books that it's "what is 9 times 6?" Adams denied what many here should quickly figure out. tom K0TAR I never saw that one.. Read the books, but I don't remember that, at least not with much meaning. Maybe just to indicate human capacity for coming up with wrong answers from wrong questions? I doubt he ever spelled out what the real roots were. A good magician doesn't deliberately and publicly spoil the illusion (or in his case, allusion, perhaps). The one thing I'm fairly sure of is thet the references were cultural, colloquial, and that's why so many people got it. Without that it might have just been another impenetratable space opera with humour thrown in. |
Science update,particle wave duality
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Actually it comes out during the TV play and at least one of the books that it's "what is 9 times 6?" Adams denied what many here should quickly figure out. tom K0TAR I never saw that one.. Read the books, but I don't remember that, at least not with much meaning. Maybe just to indicate human capacity for coming up with wrong answers from wrong questions? I doubt he ever spelled out what the real roots were. A good magician doesn't deliberately and publicly spoil the illusion (or in his case, allusion, perhaps). The one thing I'm fairly sure of is thet the references were cultural, colloquial, and that's why so many people got it. Without that it might have just been another impenetratable space opera with humour thrown in. Ok, a hint. 9 times 6 IS 42. tom K0TAR |
Science update,particle wave duality
On Jan 2, 11:16*am, tom wrote:
Lostgallifreyan wrote: Actually it comes out during the TV play and at least one of the books that it's "what is 9 times 6?" Adams denied what many here should quickly figure out. tom K0TAR I never saw that one.. Read the books, but I don't remember that, at least not with much meaning. Maybe just to indicate human capacity for coming up with wrong answers from wrong questions? I doubt he ever spelled out what the real roots were. A good magician doesn't deliberately and publicly spoil the illusion (or in his case, allusion, perhaps). The one thing I'm fairly sure of is thet the references were cultural, colloquial, and that's why so many people got it. Without that it might have just been another impenetratable space opera with humour thrown in. Ok, a hint. *9 times 6 IS 42. tom K0TAR it wasn't when i went to school. but 7*6 was |
Science update,particle wave duality
tom wrote in
. net: Lostgallifreyan wrote: Actually it comes out during the TV play and at least one of the books that it's "what is 9 times 6?" Adams denied what many here should quickly figure out. tom K0TAR I never saw that one.. Read the books, but I don't remember that, at least not with much meaning. Maybe just to indicate human capacity for coming up with wrong answers from wrong questions? I doubt he ever spelled out what the real roots were. A good magician doesn't deliberately and publicly spoil the illusion (or in his case, allusion, perhaps). The one thing I'm fairly sure of is thet the references were cultural, colloquial, and that's why so many people got it. Without that it might have just been another impenetratable space opera with humour thrown in. Ok, a hint. 9 times 6 IS 42. tom K0TAR Well, I wondered about non-euclidean geometry for a moment, then remembered Greg House saying something about working smart, not hard, and no-one said I couldn't plunder Wikipedia, so.... Actually, before I got there, I wasn't even sure if what Adams had denied was that "six times nine equals thirteen is wrong", or that he denied the more interesting case that it was its correctness in base 13 that explained the 'answer'. Apparently he did deny it. Which doesn't mean it isn't true. :) But according to Wikipedia's stuff, he chose a small number that looked ordinary and totally unprofound. Which means that he let whim, i.e. unconscious conditioning hold sway, without attempt to mediate it. Given that the English colloquilasm would never be entirely far from a writer wose native language and culture was English, I stand by my 'theory'. :) Though I'd like to know if he was ever directly questioned about the 'sixes and sevens' thing and denied it. Even then, he would be telling the truth if it hadn't been conscious. MUCH more like he was influence ny this that by base 13, no? Maybe you should get me started on my idea for The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul, you might like it. :) The only thing I'll say about it now, unprompted, is that in this case the allusion isn't English, it's French. |
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