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Cleopatra lived closer to today than to the building of the pyramids.
Although she was Greek, she would have lived in Egypt, which is where the pyramids you're referring to are I presume. I don't think there's even a place called today.
Another fact he stated was the scale of the atom, I don’t remember exactly, but say you scaled up an atom to be a mile in size, the nucleus would still only be the size of a grain of sand – – – note the empty space of nothing. However I did a quick google recently and what I found said a marble in a football pitch.
It depends on the atom, because more massive elements have larger nucleii, but the ratio is in the ballpark of 1:50,000.
So, if the nucleus was 1 cm in diameter, the electron cloud would be 50,000 cm, or 500 meters. So, if the atom was one mile in diameter, the nucleus would be roughly an inch or two in diameter, depending on the specific element.
...and what I found said a marble in a football pitch.
It depends on the atom, because more massive elements have larger nucleii, but the ratio is in the ballpark of 1:50,000.
I see what you did there.
the concept of secularism was an invention of medieval French priests and clerics
Many astronomy stats are mind blowing, even if some of them are just estimates. For example our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains we think around 200 billion stars. If you hold a grain of sand at arm’s length you blot out several hundred other similar sized galaxies.
Kenny’s contribution is based on this image. The Hubble deep field. As he says it’s the area of the sky covered by a grain sand at arms length. It contains 4 stars in our galaxy. Every other spot is a galaxy containing 100s of billions of stars. There are I think 1200 Galaxies in the image
Here is a video of me going on about galaxies and the Hubble Deep Field
Before they split the kingston bridge up it was 7 lanes each way ( its now divided) and one exit came out of lane 5 ie with two lanes to the right and 4 to the left.
It's 5 lanes each side, outer to inner, westbound you enter from the Clydeside Expressway x1, city centre x1, A804 x1 and M8 x2 then exit to Tradeston x2 and M8/M77 x3. Eastbound you enter from Tradeston x2 (segregated for the length of the bridge) and M8 x3 then exit to Clydeside Expressway x1, city centre x2 (one for each side of the segregation that merge on the slip) and M8 x2.
I can only assume it's the amount of cross flow on the eastbound side that means its still divided, not sure how they're going to square that with the new ULEZ as that is the alternative route since forever.
@ampthill thanks for posting that image. I couldn’t recall where I’d heard that stat, or even what the quoted figures were, but figured I wouldn’t be too far wrong. Would be surprised if I heard it from Brian Cox though. I find him quite irritating. Takes him about 500 words for each fact, and delivered in a patronising tone too. The only thing I’ve enjoyed him in is Monkey Cage.
For the Motorway geeks this is a strangely satisfying YouTube channel.
For the Motorway geeks...
Almost tempted to go off and create a thread about favourite motorway facts but it seems to be existing happily here as a thread within a thread!
There are billions of galaxies! This gas cloud would take 10,000 years to fly across at Mach 1!
The M25 is not continuous!
secrets of the motorway is fab - not just the facts but the guys delivery is good
The Eiffel Tower grows six inches in summer.
At Mach 2, depending on various conditions (humidity, air pressure, interior temps etc) Concorde used to grow between 150 and 200mm.
You could actually see the growth if you were sat near one of the joins in the aisle carpet on the earliest flights. All the other panels and joints inside the cabin had sliding/overlapping joints, the carpet didn't. So it'd be too short by the time you were in the mid atlantic. Later versions of the carpet were stretchy due to a) the trip hazard when Concorde cooled down and b) gappy carpets look cheap.
This is one of my favourites:
Sharks, have been around for longer than Trees.
Bonkers.
Aeroplane fuel tanks - quite big really.
Boeing 747-8 holds nearly a quarter of a million litres!
So that's enough to fill up the 50 litre tank on my car 5,000 times. I can do 500 miles on a tank, so that would be enough to drive 2,500,000 miles.
The different types of infinities and the fact that some are bigger than others hurt my head.
Diesel tanks on a site I work on had 300,000 litres of diesel. Just as a back up. And they were only 2/3's full.
The 11kV gensets use 500 litres an hour when running at full load.
We turned 50,000 litres into heat, smoke and noise when testing them. As we weren't allowed to use the building as a load we had to hire a 50kW 11kV load bank which in itself needed two 400V generators to feed it's cooling fans.
Glad I didn't have to pay the fuel bill.
@didnthurt shiiiit, at least we can synch ours to grid! That said the MG sets need a load bank for testing, thankfully that's just a wee trolley.
Aeroplane fuel tanks – quite big really.
Boeing 747-8 holds nearly a quarter of a million litres!
So that’s enough to fill up the 50 litre tank on my car 5,000 times. I can do 500 miles on a tank, so that would be enough to drive 2,500,000 miles.
And at full chat the engines on a 747 will go through nearly 100000 litres an hour.
But at full chat the engines won't last an hour...
the maths thing that really hurts my head is that pi is such a silly number. It should be a whole number. Somethings wrong with maths that it is not. Makes my brain hurt
TREE(3)
Just don't go there.
There are slightly more bacteria in your body than there are cells (around 4 trillion bacteria vs around 3 trillion cells).
However, a really big poo can skew the number in your body's favour...
the maths thing that really hurts my head is that pi is such a silly number. It should be a whole number. Somethings wrong with maths that it is not. Makes my brain hurt
Irrational numbers are just weird. You have a number line with an infinite number of whole numbers. Half way between each of those is a fraction, so you now have twice as many numbers as your original infinite set. But half way between each of that new, doubled set of numbers, there is another fraction, so you've doubled the set again. You can repeat this an infinite number of times and keep generating new rational numbers. But, it doesn't matter how many infinities of infinities times you keep doing that, there are irrational numbers that always fall between the gaps, so there are an infinite number of those too.
it doesn’t matter how many infinities of infinities times you keep doing that, there are irrational numbers that always fall between the gaps, so there are an infinite number of those too.
and what about imaginary numbers?
which is where I and maths parted company. Unfortunately my A level exams were still some way in the future at that point.
TREE(3)
Just don’t go there.
Uh? 'tis a shame there's only two of us.
thols - there are only 9 numbers. Everything else is made up of multiples and bits of those 9 numbers. Zero is not a number.
🙂
there are only 9 numbers.
10 actually, 0 and 1. You can create all the others through logical operations on those 10.
Water is very sticky.
Water is very sticky.
There is a fly so small, that it actually paddles through the air as if it's swimming through water.
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/05/swimming-led-flying-physicists-say
Water is very sticky.
And humans don't actually feel wetness.
Thanks to @mattyfez, after watching Secrets of size I now know the smallest wasp is Megaphragma caribea, with a body length of 0.17mm. Something that small doesn't fly through the air, it swims.
DOH! Just seen your post.
@sirromj for some light but facinating relief, check out 'the magical world of moss' on iPlayer.
But also check out 'Einstiens nightmare'
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/einsteins-nightmare/
and what about imaginary numbers?
Useful for electrical engineering when describing inductance and capacitance IIRC.
I'm not an electrical engineer.
Many astronomy stats are mind blowing, even if some of them are just estimates.
Most of them are. One star alone that I was reading about earlier yesterday has staggering stats! VY Canis Majoris is a red hypergiant, while light takes eight minutes to get from the sun’s surface to Earth, it would take a photon six hours to travel around the circumference of VY Canis, and it could accommodate almost 3 billion stars the size of Earth… 🤪
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/vy-canis-majoris/
Canis Majoris means "big dog" I think
Photons take thousands to millions of years to escape from the core of the sun.
This is good for star size comparisons
But also check out ‘Einstiens nightmare’
It's excellent!
I could watch Jim Al-Khalili documentaries all day long.
the maths thing that really hurts my head is that pi is such a silly number. It should be a whole number
It is. The problem is with the base 10 system we use to try and describe it. If we just use base pi, there'd be no problem. There's always a way to refer to these numbers without using decimals, for example Physicists will give an answer as √3/2
The numbers exist independently of the digits we use to write them down.
there are only 9 numbers
Similarly there may only be ten digits in our common base ten system but there's an infinite number of positive integers. You could replace the digits with fruit machine symbols and nothing would change. But you'd still need ten different symbols not 9!
Base 16 is in common use in IT and that used 0-9 and A-F but similarly it could use any symbols.
I am sure I have been told zero is not a number because it refers to no quantity
i once had a long conversation with a maths geek where we tried to devise arithmentic that used base pi.
Now my head really hurts 🙂
The numbers exist independently of the digits we use to write them down.
Hmmmm that is interesting to contemplate, difficult, but interesting. My brain will give up contemplating it shortly, if not already! Binary then really is the purest of number bases, it's all we need. Err.. Well floating point has it's issues in binary, well and decimal too. Hence some fractions easy to express as fractions have infinite digits in base 10. Imaginary numbers... I took an open source Mandelbrot set plotting program several years ago and reimplimented it using arbitrary precision floating point math libraries (GMP and/or MPFR). I'm pretty shit at maths though (GCSE grade C!). It's easy to zoom into the Mandebrot set and hit the wall of hardware implemented floating point calculations. The slow down was massive when switching to the arbitrary precision libraries, a small render could easily take hours and that's on modern hardware. Then along came Kalles Fraktaler* created by people who actually understand maths and so my little program killed instantly. I've seen several people talk about the zoom levels achieved exploring the M-set saying it's the equivalent to the size of the universe multiple times over, and leaves the planck length for dust. Used to love exploring it, spent a lot of time in there. If you know what you're doing in the paths taken when zooming down into it you can build up patterns by iteratively zooming into the same sequence but each time you do this the frequency of the sequence doubles and it can be difficult to keep track of it. *if you're a maths/fractal geek it's well worth a look around that website, way beyond my understanding though.
I am sure I have been told zero is not a number because it refers to no quantity
A lack of "something" is just as important than a "number" of things.
Without zero, we'd all be ****ed.
Oh we need zero. Its just is it a number or just a placeholder.?
Is 0.0000000000000001 a number or almost a placeholder?
I am sure I have been told zero is not a number because it refers to no quantity
It's the abscence of quantity.
I have one pork pie. I eat the pork pie, how many pork pies do I have?
2 more in the fridge but that's besides the point.
Oh we need zero. Its just is it a number or just a placeholder.?
How do you feel about "10"?
How do you feel about “10”?
Its OK
I prefer 7
But in the case of 10 the zero is not a zero, this is where numbers become meaningless/meaningful.
If instead of 10 our numbering system used X the existence of 0 would not matter.
There are loads of integers, big big numbers. So many grains of sand, stars, a googol, a googolplex, Graham’s number, tree(3) all increasingly mind boggling.
However, whilst each of these numbers have a square and a cube of their own, 26 is the only number that sits directly between a square and a cube. That blows my mind!
But in the case of 10 the zero is not a zero, this is where numbers become meaningless/meaningful.
Sure it is. This is primary school maths, 10 is one "tens" and zero "units".
If instead of 10 our numbering system used X the existence of 0 would not matter.
That's not maths, it's geometry. You could represent 10 as 😁😢 for the difference it makes. Your X still represents zero whatever symbol you choose.
There’s enough protein in a single ejaculation from a blue whale, to feed a human for an entire year.
Channel 5 are on the phone ...they want to talk to you about your pitch for a new reality TV show ..
Im still not sure if I believe Edinburgh is further west than Bristol
Im still not sure if I believe Edinburgh is further west than Bristol
Exhibit A:
Edinburgh is pretty much on the same longitude as Cardiff.
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Edinburgh is further north than both toronto and Moscow ( russia) but they get freezing cold winters. that just seems wrong
Channel 5 are on the phone …they want to talk to you about your pitch for a new reality TV show ..
Channel 4 have already got "Come Dine With Me".
Wales has 3 official languages
Wales has 3 official languages
sounds like BSl
Edinburgh is further north than both toronto and Moscow ( russia) but they get freezing cold winters. that just seems wrong
If sir would permit me to make an introduction?
TJ, the Gulfstream. The Gulfstream, TJ.
Yes! English, Welsh and BSL
That's why the Wales Govt COVID press conferences always had signing
Just posted this link on the space, astronauts and rocket thread, but it properly ought to be here. JWST has just revisited the tiny patch of sky that Hubble looked at for the Ultra-deep field view, which took twenty days to produce. JWST has picked up more objects that weren’t visible in the original image, in twenty hours…
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/jwst-surpasses-hubbles-deepest-image/
IHN - I know why it happens but it still seems weird 🙂
Its just is it a number or just a placeholder.?
Define 'number'.
The set of natural numbers is what most people think of - the question of whether or not natural numbers includes zero seems controversial. For me it would seem to be a number. If I ask you how many fingers I am holding up, the answer to the question 'how many' must be a number, right? But you could legitimately answer 'zero'. I can never hold up -3 fingers, so the answer can never be -3, but it can be zero. You could say that the answer zero is a special case by saying 'you are not holding up any fingers therefore the question is invalid' and if we had no word for zero that would be correct. But we do.
Although, for you to answer zero you would expect me to be holding up two fists. But if I didn't hold my hands up at all, would you still say zero or would you say that the question is unanswerable and the answer is therefore not defined?
It's a bit like a problem we face in IT. If you fill in a form with say your address on it, you can leave one line blank for example the second line after your street and house number. Does that mean that you just didn't fill that in, or is it that you don't have a second line? We have to distinguish between the two when we store your address. There's a difference between no data and an intentionally blank line or, in maths terms, 'zero' and 'undefined'. So in the case of fingers, there's a difference between me holding up two fists and you having your eyes shut. In both cases you see no fingers, but you intuitively know there's a difference.
Edinburgh is further north than both toronto and Moscow ( russia) but they get freezing cold winters. that just seems wrong
If sir would permit me to make an introduction?
TJ, the Gulfstream. The Gulfstream, TJ.
That's the explanation I always used too, but someone told me the other day that the relatively shallow sea around us has more of an impact than the gulfstream.
the mississippi flows uphill in places due to centrifugal force
Are you sure? Momentum perhaps. I'm not certain that's the right word either, fluid dynamics is weird. Pressure? Water flows upwards out of fountains.
I can ride a bike uphill without pedalling, given sufficient downhill just before it.
No I am not sure - it baffles me but centrifugal force means that there is a slight upward force as you get near to the equator so at one point this is greater than downward pull from gravity as the area is very flat. so for a stretch the river gets further fromthe centre of the earth. add in that the earth is not a sphere and it all gets confusing
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/209805/rivers-that-flow-uphill-due-to-earths-rotation
apparently sea level is 20 km further from the centre of the earth at the equator compared to the poles because of the centrifugal force. My head just burst.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_bulge
And still using the same software for the this forum 😉
Full Member
So Sirius will be in proximity of earth in about 500,000 years.
At which time the politics and brexit threads on STW will still be going strong with windbaggery coming from descendants of today’s protagonists
apparently sea level is 20 km further from the centre of the earth at the equator compared to the poles because of the centrifugal force. My head just burst.
Ah, now that makes more sense to my GSCE Physics mind. The Earth isn't a globe, it's an "oblate spheroid" - it's flattened at the poles. So water might well seemingly flow 'uphill' due to centrifugal (or is it centripetal?) force, but that's the force acting on the Earth as a whole which has deformed it rather than force directly on the river itself. Sea levels are going to be higher at the equator because of spin, the same reason as you need a rear mudguard if you don't want to end a ride looking like a sepia Dickie Davies.
Maybe.
because of the centrifugal force
Also worth noting that centrifugal force is relativistic - it's only really a 'thing' if the observer is in a rotating frame of reference and needs a way to describe the apparent force pushing an object away from the centre of that rotation, for the external observer in a static frame of reference all that exists is the centripetal force that stops the object from continuing in a straight line.
so the river ends up flowing away from the centre of the earth. Weird.