tomgwyther

Dr P, You quoted... "b. similar vibrations whether audible or not" From the OED. My 1996 version says: "2: Vibrations causing this sensation" "3: What is or may be heard" May be heard meaning, it may have been heard by someone we don't now about yet. Not 'Definitely not heard'. The most current version says: sound1 • noun 1 vibrations which travel through the air or another medium and are sensed by the ear. 2 a thing that can be heard. 3 music, speech, and sound effects accompanying a film or broadcast. 4 an idea or impression conveyed by words. Q.E.D.

This topic has been explored endlessly. If a tree falls in a forest and there's no body around, it does not make a sound. In order for it to be a sound, it must be heard by some one. Sound is described as... the subjective sensation of hearing something; "he strained to hear the faint sounds" the particular auditory effect produced by a given cause; "the sound of rain on the roof"; "the beautiful sound of music" When the tree falls, it makes the air around it vibrate. this is not strictly a sound though. a sound is a subjective personal experience. Another way of putting it "If someone tells a joke and nobody hears it, do his audience laugh?" answer no, as there is a false dichotomy in 'nobody' and 'audience' as there is in 'nobody' and 'sound'

is it really? I didn't know that I've usually heard it used as a derogatory term in the local pub for someone who has drunk too much beer over the years and thus developed a large gut, similar to the shape of a teletubby. language has so many fun meanings!

These don't seem to unknowable or unimaginable. For exaple: "1) What it is like to be dead?" Try to imagine what you were doing on March 23rd 1673. or any other date before you were born. Being dead feel a bit like that. Most people have no problem with the concept of not having existed at some earlier time, but for some reason, the concept of not existing at a later time baffles people. "While I am, death is not; while death is, I am not. Why should I fear something which cannot exist while I do." "2) What you would "see" if you were born without eyes, optic nerves, etc." You wouldn't 'see' anything, you would have no concept of colour, light etc. Try to imagine what it would be like not to be able to see into the x-ray or infra red spectrum, which is easy to imagine, because you can't do it. 3) Visualizing a true higher dimensional space. ie. more than 3 dimensions. have a look into hyperbolic geometry, this helped me to visualise four dimentional space time. It does require alot of deep thought though. Roger Penroses' book 'Road to reality' deals with this idea. If a tree falls in the woods with no one there, will the tree make a sound? Short answer 'No'. A sound is a subjective experience. when the tree falls it will make the air particles around it vibrate, in order for this to be described as a sound these vibrations would have to be heard by some one. 1. Nothing (imagine nothing) With a bit of practice, this is possible. Buddhists do it a lot when they meditate. worth a try too, it's a very interesting experience. What would it be like to be a human who never had any sensory input, ever? ask Paris Hilton, nothing ever seems to get into that skull! If someone typed up a post, didn't hit "Submit", abandons the computer, meanwhile the branch of a falling tree eventually hits the Submit key, while no one's around.....Does it get posted? Answer 'no' it's really difficult to get internet access in a forest! The subatomic world, infinity, being an animal etc have me stumped though

By accessing the memory of that object. For example, a recent experiment shows that certain parts of the brain are responsible for certain images. When a person was asked to think about Jenifer Aniston (The actress) a certain part of their brain was active. When they were shown a picture of Jenifer Aniston, the same part of the brain was active. The same part of the brain that activates when you see an object is the same part which activates when you only imagine it. have a look here http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/342

barfsome. meaning to make one barf or vomit. japeful. 'Jape' is a practical joke played on someone, Japeful would describe a practical joker. Middle youth. Usually some one between the ages of 17 and 21. in the middle of their youth. Petrol head. Someone who is interested in or obsesed by cars, usually fast performance cars. Rocktabulous. two words blended together 'Rock' is in music and 'fabulous'. example - "I saw Alice Cooper live and he was rocktabulous." Stylephile Some one who loves style, Phile meaning a love of something. Telletubbified. would probably mean someone who has become like a telly tubbie, i.e grown fat or has aquired a television on their stomach

IMHO. I believe it was the wrong decision. At the time the bomb was dropped, Japan's military were largely defeated and the country's industrial infrastructure was crippled. Japan had also tried to negotiate peace talks with America. It is likely that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a way for America to test it's new weapon. As neither city had sustained heavy aerial bombardment before. Dropping a bomb on them would provide data as to the destructive power of the atomic bomb. here's some copy I found Marshall said the desperate attempts at surrender were "premature." Going through the list of terrible battles in the Pacific while the Japanese were frantically attempting to end the war is mind-numbing. Marshall was taking his orders from Harry Hopkins, who has been revealed as Stalin's most important agent in the US. Stalin never declared war on the Japanese and wanted the fighting to continue so that he could occupy Manchuria when he was ready, and when the Japanese were no longer able to resist. He didn't declare war on Japan until the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. Marshall still wouldn't accept surrender until the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The anticipated effects of atom bombing were too interesting to forego. further reading here http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm

The association between women and cats probably has more to do with there mutual psychological attitudes. In summing up cats in your post, you also summed up certain feminine traits... "They purr and sit in your lap and sleep on top of your bed curled up and look all cute and slinky. But they are also ferocious, they bite, they hiss, they cough up fur balls (nasty stuff), their poo smells frigging awful." I can think of a few women like this.

Two strings of different materials; under the same tension would quite obviously produce different notes. Likewise, two strings of different materials under different tensions may produce the same note. I have a nylon string guitar and a steel string guitar. the steel guitar requires vastly more tension (About 2 tonnes) to produce the same notes as the nylon guitar. If I were to put steel strings onto my nylon guitar and tune it up, the guitar would break in half before I finished tuning. A quick wiki search brought up this. The guitar strings act in such a way that they can satisfy the relationhip between wavelength and frequency, represented by the equation v = fλ . This equation can be rearranged to f = v/λ, meaning that the frequency of a wave (f) is dependent on both the velocity of the wave (v), and the length of the wave (λ). As well, the velocity of the wave traveling on the guitar string depends on the tension of the string (T) and the linear mass density of the string (µ), in fact, “the root frequency for a string is proportional to the square root of the tension, inversely proportional to its length, and inversely proportional to the square root of its linear mass density” . This means that waves will travel faster when the tension of the string is higher and in turn means that the frequency will be higher as the tension is increased (f = v/λ, the v is increasing).

It will end in 2012, during the London Olympics. As the traffic will reach critical mass on the A406 London north circular and destroy us all.

Without air pressure outside the bag, you should be able to pull the two sides of it apart, although it wouldn't look 'inflated' If you hold the - open - bag under water and pull the sides apart, you should get a similar effect; as if you were in space. The thought experiment which is easier to vizualise, is to use a syringe instead of a bag. If a take a syringe and place my finger over the end, then try to pull the plunger back, the surrounding atmosphere will impede me, where as if I do the same thing in space, with no atmospheric pressure, I should be able to pull the plunger out.

During some recent experiments on the matter. 'vaginal bagginess' or 'VB' has little of nothing to do with whether or not a woman has had children. in my experience, two previous girlfriends who had both had kids (Not by me) had equally taught vaginas. Whereas my last relationship (A nubile young 19yr old barmaid with no kids) was a different matter; intercourse being more akin to throwing a sausage down a storm drain. I hope this experimental evidence helps you to conclude that 'VB' is more of an inherited trait as opposed to one caused by excessive usage. p.s my experiments in this field are still ongoing and fruit (Watermelon or otherwise) should only be applied under controlled lab conditions.

One of my favourite town hall style discourses, with a great retort from Stevey. US financial newspaper Investor's Business Daily: "Due to the NHS, that if Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead." Prof Stephen Hawkin: "I am British - moreover - I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the NHS; I owe my life to it."

Glenn beck is irrefutably a 'Big Daft Cock'. Unfortunately, he's on T.V, and thus able to spread his retarded nonsense far and wide. A feeling of abject lament for humanity overcomes me whenever I see this cerebrally challenged moron vomiting onto our screens.

They used it in Queen's video for Bohemian Rhapsody by pointing the camera at it's own monitor The corridor effect is in the second half of the video.

I'm not entirely sure as to the answer to this, but I think it has something to do with the proximity of a metal to another conductive object. i.e the microwaves produce an electric charge in the metal object which then sparks to an Earth. Thus a gold rimmed plate produces a light show as the electric charge in the gold tries to Earth to the surrounding ceramic glaze; where as a steel spoon either cannot Earth or is permanently Earthed. Or it might have something to do with ferrous and non-ferrous metals. My ignorance is showing in this matter though I would be interested in the real reasons for this phenomena.

I thought Ursa Major was the big dipper, and that Ursa Minor had Polaris at the end of its handle. The handles bend in opposite directions, one constellation is bigger than the other also. The nearest constellation to the south pole is Octans, which looks more like a wine glass than a saucepan to me.

It will end in 2012. That's when the Vogons are coming to build a hyper-space express route through our star system. I shalln't be here to see it though; We tried to warn you - and the mice - but our warnings were either misinterpreted or unheeded. "So long and thanks for all the fish."

What a fantastic video, worthy of a psycho-analytical study. In my line of work (musician/sound engineer) I get to see this sort of thing all the time, the behaviour of crowds is always entertaining. I'd imagine that in this particular video, a lot of the audience really wanted to get up and dance but were too inhibited or embarrassed to do so. it took a number of catalysts to get everyone up. one obvious catalyst is alcohol which may account for the first few; as alcohol increases, possibilty of an individual dancer increases accordingly. Another catilyst is the number of people already dancing. As the number of individual dancers increase, the number of embarrassed people who are willing to dance increases, as they feel less exposed in a crowd. Imagine a crowd where half the people will dance if the other half are. 1/4 of the people will dance if 1/4 of the total are dancing 1/8 of the people will dance if 1/8 of the total are 1/16 with 1/16 1/32 with 1/32... and so on. As in the video, the number of dancers increases exponentially as more people join the crowd. Another phenomena also happens, the so called 'tipping point'. Where the people who are sat down think "well, if everyone else is doing it, I shall to so as not to be embarrassed about being the only one NOT dancing. The opposite is also true. A small group will stop dancing (Usually the most inhibited) Then a slightly larger number will stop (The slightly less inhibited) and so on until the dance floor is clear, except for the original dancer who started it all off. There's probably a very elegant mathematical formula to illustrate this which I hope someone on this forum would be able to furnish us with.

I'd go with the cutting off option too, rather than the rubber band. You story reminds me of a true story I heard a few years ago, where by a rock climber had to amputate his own hand with a small swiss-army knife. the link to the news article is below http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0830_040830_aronralston.html

You have a point. I failed to take into consideration those who are unfit for military service and considered the U.S population as one homogeneous soup. Under my original assumption, one could extrapolate that a diabetic 90 year old grandma would be fighting the Taliban with an M16! These are clearly two different demographic groups. Although I still think that the U.S must surely have the ability to follow Europe in providing some kind of socialized health care system for its citizens. We understand that it can logistically do this; financially it can't be too far away, if it can bail out banks and pay for foreign conflicts etc.

Hello all, admitedly I've joined in this threat rather late. Having read all the back-and-forth debating something caught my eye. "1) what is the per-capita cost to provide this to veterans, and could we even afford extending that to every US citizen? Is it more or less costly than the system we have now?" If the US government is capable of providing healthcare to a large body of people - i.e the U.S military - then, as the OP suggests, could it not be rolled out to include the entire U.S population? I don't have the statistics to hand right now but it's a fair guess to assume that persons involved in active military service are likely to have higher health costs than civilians. Given that the U.S government is able to pay for and administer health care to 'high risk' military personnel, then it must be possible to administer and pay for the larger population. Some one working in an office must be at lower risk of injury or illness than someone who is or has been on the front line. Therefore the per capita cost for the whole U.S population - military or otherwise - would be less than it is for military personnel alone. p.s. In my honest opinion: The idea that every man, woman and child should not receive health care from cradle to grave, regardless of their social-economic background, from the state to which they pay tax, especially in a developed western country, seems to me to be alien, uncongenial, and to be frank, unintelligible.

Thanks guys, I'll be using the phono (RCA) connectors when I get there (I'm limited as to what equipment I can carry with me on the plane.) The reason I sked was because the venue I'm working at was fitted some time ago with BNC (Crimp-on) wall sockets. The whole system is a bit rusty and it's up to me to make it all work. p.s all the players are multi regional and the DVDs are USA region anyway. the broadcast system is all in NTSC too, the same as the player so no problems there. I also have a contingency plan to convert between PAL (phase alternating line) and NTSC (Never the same color!!!) I can hack the DVDs and the DVD players if there are any other region issues. Working in the U.S should be alot of fun.

Hello all. I am going to be working on Nevada in six weeks (I Currently work in the UK) I just have a quick and slightly dumb question for any Americans out there. What is/are the video conections on a standard American DVD player? e.g. European DVD players usually have a SCART connector (An all round A/V 1/0 analogue interface) and a analogue video-out which is either a Phono connection or a PAL connection. Do you guys over the other side of the pond use Phono and/or BNC connections? Thanks p.s I've Wiki links some of the terms used in this post so as you know what i'm on about.

Good point criscience, I was thinking more along the line of his music than his dancing. I still have far more admiration for Rod Templton than Jacko though! I wonder whether the 80's would have happened without Rod sometimes!