Things you can't get your head around...

[Jon the Hat]

7 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Something to do with the wobbling of the atoms.  Or something.

Well this aged well.

[Free Falling Foxes]

Why is the correct way to use a fork upside down?

A little easier perhaps to stab food but then balancing or squashing other items such as peas on it is crazy..... isn't it?

You wouldn't use a spoon upside down and try and balance your Apple crumble and custard on it, so why your mash and veg?

[Great Boos Up]

13 hours ago, Line-X said:

The consilience and convergence of evidence in support of the Big Bang Theory presented by mathematicians, cosmologists and theoretical physicists is the most valid explanation that we have to account for the origins of the universe. Until an improved or refined model is demonstrated, I'll stick with that over a post on a provincial football forum if it's all the same to you. Incidentally, as I have explained before, science is not about belief. 

I spend many nights pondering this beginning. Most thoughts start with no energy is no matter and no time. I then experiment in my head. Given that our universe started by fluke at a single point because the energy formed more matter than dark matter. When I add several other dimensions the concept disovles. Maybe one night I’ll get a cyclical theory.

[The People's Hero]

6 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Couldn't wait

 

Boiled water may freeze sooner than the same amount of tap water contained in an identical container under the same conditions, because it has neither gas not hydrogen carbonates (these decompose on boiling) dissolved in it whereas tap water does and solutes of any type will depress the freezing point.

 

 

Essentially the boiled water is purer water, without any impurities decreasing its freezing point/preventing freezing.

 

In practice, I'm not entirely sure its bears out. It will depend on the shape of the container, what the container is made of, how cold the environment is that you're using to freeze it, and what level of impurities are in the tap water (as well as what impurities are on the glass and reintroduced to the boiling water as it cools).

 

Hope this wasn't too dull.

[Rain King]

Ancient Egypt. I love history, in fact it was my favourite subject at school and I took it for A-Level but this topic bores me to tears and I just can't get to grips with it.

 

My son is learning about with his homeschooling at the minute and I'm having to sit through countless videos with him for his work and it's just tedious.

 

[Ian Nacho]

How theoretically (I assume) if a car was travelling significantly faster than the speed of light, you could make the car look like it’s driving through you without making contact. 

[Guest Fktf]

27 minutes ago, Ian Nacho said:

How theoretically (I assume) if a car was travelling significantly faster than the speed of light, you could make the car look like it’s driving through you without making contact. 

Wouldn't it hit you before you even had chance to see it?

[Great Boos Up]

14 hours ago, Ian Nacho said:

How theoretically (I assume) if a car was travelling significantly faster than the speed of light, you could make the car look like it’s driving through you without making contact. 

This will blow your mind: when the car nearly reaches the speed of light- time slows down to prevent it from reaching the speed of light.

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, Great Boos Up said:

This will blow your mind: when the car nearly reaches the speed of light- time slows down to prevent it from reaching the speed of light.

...relative to the person observing the car only, of course. Inside the car, everything appears tip-top.

 

Relativity is just weird,

[Collymore]

If you're travelling 1mph slower than the speed of light, shine a torch, that lights leaves you at the speed of light, doesn't it? 

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, Collymore said:

If you're travelling 1mph slower than the speed of light, shine a torch, that lights leaves you at the speed of light, doesn't it? 

In your observational frame of reference, yes.

 

To an outside observer...well, that's where it gets a bit runny. When it comes to such things, observational frames of reference are really important.

[Carl the Llama]

11 minutes ago, Collymore said:

If you're travelling 1mph slower than the speed of light, shine a torch, that lights leaves you at the speed of light, doesn't it? 

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

In your observational frame of reference, yes.

 

To an outside observer...well, that's where it gets a bit runny. When it comes to such things, observational frames of reference are really important.

Photons are incapable of travelling any faster than c, so the light would only be travelling 1mph relative to Collymore, no?

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Photons are incapable of travelling any faster than c, so the light would only be travelling 1mph relative to Collymore, no?

...to an outside observer, yes, the photon would appear to be travelling at 670,616,629 mph, and Collymores vehicle at 670,616,628 mph.

 

But inside Collymores car, the photons from the torch would appear to be going away from him at exactly c.

 

The speed of light in a vacuum is constant within every single frame of reference.

[Carl the Llama]

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

...to an outside observer, yes, the photon would appear to be travelling at 670,616,629 mph, and Collymores vehicle at 670,616,628 mph.

 

But inside Collymores car, the photons from the torch would appear to be going away from him at exactly c.

 

The speed of light in a vacuum is constant within every single frame of reference.

I see.  It's witchcraft then.

[Buce]

21 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

I see.  It's witchcraft then.

 

You think that's witchcraft?

 

If a spaceship travelling at lightspeed was to cross the galaxy, it would take circa 70,000 years to an outside observer; however, for the astronauts, only circa 14 years will have passed.

Edited 15 January 2021 by Buce

[leicsmac]

20 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

I see.  It's witchcraft then.

[leicsmac]

Just now, Buce said:

 

You think that's witchcraft?

 

If a spaceship travelling at lightspeed was to cross the galaxy, it would take circa 70,000 years to an outside observer; however, for the astronauts, only circa 14 years will have passed.

To say nothing of the spaceship taking only about one year from the reference of the astronauts to accelerate to c at a very amenable 1g acceleration rate, though that has been said on here before.

[Dahnsouff]

25 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

You think that's witchcraft?

 

If a spaceship travelling at lightspeed was to cross the galaxy, it would take circa 70,000 years to an outside observer; however, for the astronauts, only circa 14 years will have passed.

 

23 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

To say nothing of the spaceship taking only about one year from the reference of the astronauts to accelerate to c at a very amenable 1g acceleration rate, though that has been said on here before.

[Wymsey]

The new strains/variants of Coronavirus that have been mentioned in the news (from Brazil and South Africa).

 

How can this come about, if the first one originated from one source (in China, allegedly)?

Edited 15 January 2021 by Wymsey

[String fellow]

If it's witchcraft you're after, how about considering the fact that the sum of all positive integers from one to infinity is equal to -1/12. This was shown by the famous Indian mathematician Ramanjuan a century ago. It can also be obtained by plugging n=-1 into the Riemann zeta function. If I understand this function correctly, the sum of the 13th. powers of every positive integer from one to infinity is also equal to -1/12, obtained by plugging n=-13 into the zeta function.

[hejammy]

2 minutes ago, Wymsey said:

The new strains/variants of Coronavirus that have been mentioned in the news (from Brazil and South Africa).

 

How can this come about, if the first one originated from one source (in China, allegedly)?

Virus can mutate, mutations are random, if the virus in Brazil had mutated then you could say the new strain (mutation) is from Brazil.

[Tielemans63]

3 minutes ago, String fellow said:

If it's witchcraft you're after, how about considering the fact that the sum of all positive integers from one to infinity is equal to -1/12. This was shown by the famous Indian mathematician Ramanjuan a century ago. It can also be obtained by plugging n=-1 into the Riemann zeta function. If I understand this function correctly, the sum of the 13th. powers of every positive integer from one to infinity is also equal to -1/12, obtained by plugging n=-13 into the zeta function.

I was just about to post this. Beat me to it.

[Collymore]

12 minutes ago, String fellow said:

If it's witchcraft you're after, how about considering the fact that the sum of all positive integers from one to infinity is equal to -1/12. This was shown by the famous Indian mathematician Ramanjuan a century ago. It can also be obtained by plugging n=-1 into the Riemann zeta function. If I understand this function correctly, the sum of the 13th. powers of every positive integer from one to infinity is also equal to -1/12, obtained by plugging n=-13 into the zeta function.

But there's no difference between the number 1 or 0.1 and infinity

Edited 15 January 2021 by Collymore

[String fellow]

Two things. Firstly, my spelling was incorrect - Ramanujan was the mathematician. Secondly, the link below explains how the bizarre equality can be obtained quite easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww

 

[Stuntman_Mike]

That essentially the US and Russia are only 2.4 miles apart. 

 

''In the middle of the Bering Strait, between Russian Siberia and the US’ Alaska, there are two islands.  The island of Big Diomede belongs to Russia, while Small Diomede belongs to the US. Only 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometres) separate the two. 

The International Date Line runs between the two islands, so Big Diomede is almost a whole day ahead. That’s why it’s nicknamed Tomorrow Island and Small Diomede is Yesterday Island'' 

 

BBC.

Edited 15 January 2021 by Stuntman_Mike