Things that are all...
 

Things that are allegedly 'science', but are self-evidently magic

253 Posts
102 Users
680 Reactions
2,432 Views
Posts: 22849
Free Member
 

Why an incline treadmill is harder work than a flat one, you are not actually running up a hill

a friend discovered the reason for that when he moved his treadmill-  he hadn’t adjusted the feet properly when he first set it up and the reason it was particularly hard work on an incline was because he was wearing a groove in his carpet

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:34 pm
Posts: 170
Full Member
 

What about cycling! How the #*&@ does that work?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:38 pm
funkmasterp, chipps, TedC and 3 people reacted
Posts: 2226
Full Member
 

to bring together the x-ray crystallography and magnetism thoughts ...

How the hell do CT scans and MRI work, that has to be magic

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:41 pm
TedC and TedC reacted
Posts: 11402
Free Member
 

neutrinos what's the bloody point 😕

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:44 pm
tjagain and tjagain reacted
Posts: 19970
Full Member
 

What about cycling! How the #*&@ does that work?

You're asking on the wrong forum, no-one rides bikes on here.
We just argue about them. 😉

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:45 pm
silvine and silvine reacted
Posts: 10155
Full Member
 

computers and anything else that relies on microchips. It's quite evident that they are actually powered by spirits and the design of the circuit board is actually a magic rune which tempts the spirits in to do your bidding.

This also explains why coding is gibberish as its basically magik invocation.

Printers go on the fritz or refuse to print documents because it's a well known phenomena that demons that thrive on bad energy and stress, occupy the magic loci where the energy is most dense (such as an office) and intercept the spirits to take their essence before they can complete their printing task.   It can only be fixed by re-powering the rune (turning it off and on again) or chanting the sacred banishment spell of "work you ********" made even more powerful by the rhythmic banging of head on a desk or blood sacrifice

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:47 pm
funkmasterp, anorak, funkmasterp and 1 people reacted
 IHN
Posts: 19468
Full Member
Topic starter
 

How the hell do CT scans and MRI work, that has to be magic

I haven't had a CT scan , but I've had an MRI and I think the principle is that it's so loud that it makes your bones shake, and it senses the vibration.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:48 pm
anorak and anorak reacted
Posts: 5680
Full Member
 

The migration of birds, fish, animals, butterflies etc over thousands of miles to an exact predetermined destination. Without any recourse to Google Maps even.

A swallow born here in August can fly around for 6 weeks and take off ofter his family all the way back to Africa and maybe be the only one to return to the exact nest he was born in the following spring. How?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:52 pm
Houns and Houns reacted
Posts: 6997
Free Member
 

the acceleration of a piston from top dead center.......is accelerating at 15,000 ms^-2,

I've seen up to 10,000 g quoted for F1 engines. Closer to 100,000 m/s2.

The figures for RC car engines are even more absurd - around 3 times that for a 1/8 scale car giving it some beans.

At full throttle it’s about 10tones of force, which is a lot.

Well... tones aren't a unit of force, just saying. Tonnes are mass; only gravity makes the mass apply a force. Could say "like being crushed by 100 tonnes" I guess?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 1:55 pm
Posts: 43561
Full Member
 

{engineer} opens thread, shrugs shoulders / slowly shakes head, leaves thread.

I don’t get this thread. If something intrigues you educate yourself.

Explain quarks strangeness and charm to me.  then gluons 🙂

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:01 pm
Alex and Alex reacted
Posts: 90742
Free Member
 

computers and anything else that relies on microchips. It’s quite evident that they are actually powered by spirits and the design of the circuit board is actually a magic rune which tempts the spirits in to do your bidding.

I'm old enough to have been a home computer enthusiast from quite close to the beginning.  So I know (or I used to) how to build logic gates out of transistors; how to do arithmetic with logic gates; kind of a bit about how CPUs work, how device busses work (loosely); a bit about how device software is written, how OSes apps are written; how networking works and so on.  I also know how transistors work and at uni I learned how semiconductors work. So I have a reasonable idea of the full stack 🙂

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:10 pm
TedC and TedC reacted
Posts: 8487
Full Member
 

I’ve seen up to 10,000 g quoted for F1 engines.

F1 engines are things of wonder. Anyone else remember when BMW got 1500bhp* out of what was essentially the block out of the then current 316? Granted it was only for a couple of laps...

*Wikipedia has reminded me this was an estimate as the dyno broke when they went past 1280bhp

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:15 pm
nickc and nickc reacted
Posts: 76786
Free Member
 

The gold-white vs blue-black dress internet debate a few years prompted some pretty interesting research about colour perception

Nah, that was just a crap photo.

You’re asking on the wrong forum, no-one rides bikes on here.
We just argue about them. 😉

Surely then he's in exactly the right place.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:18 pm
Posts: 25735
Full Member
 

what about full-price birds?

something something "going cheep"

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:38 pm
Posts: 912
Free Member
 

Before it got nicked on Saturday (£30k plus) my work surveying kit was magical the gps unit accurate to 15mm to OS grid (bit too big for fitting to bars) they say science but nah it’s proper magic first survey kit was premagic but worked in the rain!

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:38 pm
Posts: 41510
Free Member
 

I haven’t had a CT scan , but I’ve had an MRI and I think the principle is that it’s so loud that it makes your bones shake, and it senses the vibration.

CT is just a complicated X-ray.

MRI/NMR is a huge magnet powerful enough to make all the hydrogen atoms in your body point he same way.  You then apply a smaller oscillating field and measure the response.

If you know where they are but not what they are (i..e a chemical sample) you can use the response to draw a graph and determine things about the length/energy in the bonds. If you know the energy in the bonds (i.e. you narrow it down to just looking for the spikes on the graph that indicated water) then you can work out where they are in the magnetic field and draw a picture.

Well… tones aren’t a unit of force, just saying. Tonnes are mass; only gravity makes the mass apply a force. Could say “like being crushed by 100 tonnes” I guess?

Well, yes. But you still measure your tyre pressure in psi don't you? So people are comfortable with the concept of kgf / lbf.

And a layperson can visualize 10 tones, it's a small lorry. 98,100N is a bit more abstract and implies accuracy that isn't valid, 10 +/-1 is about right, 98,100 +/- 9,810 sounds like your making stuff up.

And how do you define a newton anyway, in the SI system it's the force required to accelerate 1kg @ 1ms^-2.

And you used g's as a unit of acceleration, which is the same thing (g being the not-a-constant between mass and weight).

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:46 pm
TedC and TedC reacted
Posts: 20336
Free Member
 

^ Ohh shit, the scientists have arrived.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:49 pm
Posts: 41510
Free Member
 

Ohh shit, the scientists have arrived.

We're like bike mechanics.

Feed us biscuits if you want anything and try not to get us talking on our specialist subjects unless you want to be bored to death.

"Scientific Communicators" are the real wizards, how can Brian Cox and Hanna Fry be both that clever and able to communicate with the outside world is the real wizardry.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 2:54 pm
Posts: 14810
Full Member
 

A swallow born here in August can fly around for 6 weeks and take off ofter his family all the way back to Africa and maybe be the only one to return to the exact nest he was born in the following spring. How?

Birds can see things that humans cannot see, eg the earth's magnetic field. And I literally mean "see" as with their eyes.

The reaction to a visual stimulus is instinctive. As when a cat that sees a mouse and the reactions of both the cat and the mouse.

It is amazing though, especially to humans who lack the sensory perceptions.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:04 pm
Posts: 1030
Full Member
 

Mirrors. A room with a mirror in it is fractionally colder than it would be without one. Measure it if you don't believe me.

What else do they steal, apart from heat?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:05 pm
funkmasterp, anorak, funkmasterp and 1 people reacted
Posts: 12178
Free Member
 

Before it got nicked on Saturday (£30k plus) my work surveying kit was magical the gps unit accurate to 15mm to OS grid (bit too big for fitting to bars) they say science but nah it’s proper magic first survey kit was premagic but worked in the rain!

Hmm that feels wrong. The OS grid is a flawed planar representation of a the surface of a sphere? Surely its 15mm accuracy to any point on the globe?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:09 pm
Posts: 34143
Full Member
 

Anyone else remember when BMW got 1500bhp* out of what was essentially the block out of the then current 316?

two stories about the famed BMW F1 engine that used a 1.5lt 4 cyl. bock that originally developed 80bhp

Story one: they found that aged blocks were the best for building them so they starting tracing taxi drivers with the right car and more than 100,000kms on the clock and would offer them a brand new Beamer in exchange for their ratty old ones. When that source dried up, they had a bunch sitting outside the factory rusting away that BMW 'encouraged' the workforce to wee on to age them.

Story two: They had issues with detonation that they were really struggling to solve, until some old boy in the BMW fuel division piped up with "Ah yes, we used to have this problem with the engines in the Bf109, I've still got the fuel recipe at home we used to stop it happening". For a while (until fancy fuel was banned) the Brabham team used fuel developed for Nazi warplanes..

Gerhard Berger said you didn't really steer the car, just aimed it at the next corner and held on for grim death...

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:23 pm
scuttler and scuttler reacted
Posts: 2275
Full Member
 

Hmm that feels wrong. The OS grid is a flawed planar representation of a the surface of a sphere? Surely its 15mm accuracy to any point on the globe?

^ Ohh shit, the nitpickers have arrived.

😉

We're talking 15mm here. How big is the difference exactly depending on the mapping system?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:24 pm
Posts: 24384
Free Member
 

Quantum physics and relativity is still a field of physics populated by some very clever monkeys with some very clever tools looking at some very hot fire and going “oooooohhhhhhhh”, Just like they did in a cave a million years ago.

Just because you said that I'm going to go and stare at them now

A time will come when, due to entropy, there will be no light in the universe.

Every star will have died. Any sentient being still around will see nothing but a uniform blackness in their sky.

Right now every square whatever of the sky is covered by stars, the blackness that you see (don't see?) between the visible stars is still stars, just ones that are so far away their light hasn't reached us yet.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:25 pm
Posts: 6997
Free Member
 

^ Ohh shit, the scientists have arrived.

Just ye hope the spelling police don't rock up.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:27 pm
Posts: 24384
Free Member
 

For me it's radio and other EM waves. Not that they exist, it's just a frequency wave and I get frequency, V=fλ, etc.

It's that you can transmit stuff in them. The wave's the same frequency, but half a minute ago it was carrying Nirvana and now it's Dua Lipa

Makes. No. Sense.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:28 pm
Posts: 3642
Full Member
 

Boats, how can that many tons of steel float on water?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:29 pm
 IHN
Posts: 19468
Full Member
Topic starter
 

The wave’s the same frequency, but half a minute ago it was carrying Nirvana and now it’s Dua Lipa

Makes. No. Sense.

I know, I mean who would rather listen to Dua Lipa than Nirvana?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:31 pm
Posts: 1310
Free Member
 

Boats, how can that many tons of steel float on water?

Archimedes principle innit.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:35 pm
Posts: 76786
Free Member
 

Boats, how can that many tons of steel float on water?

They contain an awful lot of air.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:36 pm
Posts: 11021
Full Member
 

slip gauges messed with head for a bit,

Wringing is the process of sliding two blocks together so that their faces bond. Because of their ultraflat surfaces, when wrung, gauge blocks adhere to each other tightly. Properly wrung blocks may withstand a 300 N (67 lbf) pull.[5] The mechanism is a combination of:[4][5][needs update]

Vacuum applies pressure between the blocks because the air is squeezed out of the joint[note 1]
Surface tension from oil and water vapor that is present between the blocks
Molecular attraction that occurs when two very flat surfaces are brought into contact; this force causes gauge blocks to adhere even without surface lubricants, and in a vacuum
It is believed that the last two sources are the most significant.[4] Experiments with friction of the blocks suggest also that the removal of the oxide film from the steel surface by wringing plays an important role in the wringing action.[7]

And electricity to a certain degree,

On our first day in the second year of Electronic/Mechanical Engineering our professor looked at us and said “forget everything you learned and understand from last year”, (or words to that effect) he wasn’t wrong………I developed a stress headache for the first few months and started grinding my teeth whilst asleep so had to wear a guard, I eventually cracked a molar.

I should’ve studied Art/Classics/English Literature or something easy as we never had free time.

25 years later I’m still unsure if I “actually” understand it or whether I “know enough” to get by without killing myself

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:37 pm
Poopscoop, fasthaggis, fasthaggis and 1 people reacted
Posts: 34143
Full Member
 

Nah, that was just a crap photo

Striking individual differences in perception 

Older women more likely to see white/gold than blue/black. Depends on the wavelength your brain perceives/prefers and corrects for it. People who spend more time outdoors have different perception and people seeing the dress as white/gold had brain areas interfering in thier perception.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:39 pm
Posts: 12178
Free Member
 

😉

We’re talking 15mm here. How big is the difference exactly depending on the mapping system?

I can't  remember.... A bit... It just feels odd for a total station to be claiming accuracy to an inaccurate thing... And i am trying to appear more cleverer than wot i are.

Edit. About 5m and the extremes of OS grid.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:46 pm
Posts: 14810
Full Member
 

They contain an awful lot of air.

It doesn't make the boats any lighter.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:47 pm
Posts: 76786
Free Member
 

Striking individual differences in perception

All of that may be true.  But for this specific example I ran it through a colour picker in a paint package.  It was nothing to do with perception or wavelengths or optical illusions or what have you, it was simply a poor photo which went viral.  There was another one with some shoes, that was the same story, there was nothing clever going on, just the white balance was poleaxed.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:50 pm
Posts: 76786
Free Member
 

It doesn’t make the boats any lighter.

Except, it does.  You've got things which are much denser/heavier than water (steel) and things which are much less dense/heavy than water (air).  Add them together and you'll float or sink depending on whether you're at a net gain or not.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:54 pm
Posts: 16131
Full Member
 

somafunk
Full Member
slip gauges messed with head for a bit,

Wringing is the process of sliding two blocks together so that their faces bond.

Interesting!👍

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:56 pm
Posts: 3642
Full Member
 

Except, it does.  You’ve got things which are much denser/heavier than water (steel) and things which are much less dense/heavy than water (air).  Add them together and you’ll float or sink depending on whether you’re at a net gain or not.

Nope, self evidently magic 😉

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 3:58 pm
Posts: 13695
Free Member
 

johndohFree Member

This is the problem – I am NOT at all fine with the universe expanding. What is it expanding into? What is it beyond the universe that enables the universe to expand into it? Is it something (it must BE something)? So what is it? Or is it nothing? If it is nothing, then how can the universe occupy nothing?

Don't think of it as the universe expanding, think of it as the amount of nothing getting smaller

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:00 pm
Posts: 20336
Free Member
 

Don’t think of it as the universe expanding, think of it as the amount of nothing getting smaller

Stoppit! How can nothing get smaller? 🤯

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:01 pm
Posts: 6997
Free Member
 

Don’t think of it as the universe expanding, think of it as the amount of nothing getting smaller

Woah.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:03 pm
Posts: 16131
Full Member
 

Don’t think of it as the universe expanding, think of it as the amount of nothing getting smaller

Could there be dark matter/energy beyond the universe though? That would explain the constant expansion. Then again, What's beyond that dark matter/energy?

Also, if that nothing is infinite, it can't get smaller?

To be clear, I haven't a clue what I'm talking about.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:04 pm
Posts: 5131
Free Member
 

Consciousness

Yeah that's mad, a load of electrical signals passed through watery protein and ... Er....

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:04 pm
kelvin and kelvin reacted
Posts: 1962
 

I'm still amazed that superglue in a bottle doesn't dry up, but you put a drop of it out of a bottle and it sets in seconds.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:09 pm
Posts: 1486
Free Member
 

Spectroscopy was definitely built into the universe software as a way of telling us that we’re in a simulation.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:10 pm
Posts: 16131
Full Member
 

edhornby
Full Member
Consciousness

Yeah that’s mad, a load of electrical signals passed through watery protein and … Er….

It's the fact that those electrical signals account for what we assume is reality.

We could all have our brains* in jars wired up to god knows what type of simulation apparatus. What is reality?

Then my mind just gives up and tells me that we have to assume reality is just that or we go mad.

Philosophy is probably the most mind boggling area to me, well, as much as the whole universe thing anyway.

* We only "know" we have brains due to the same electric stimulus, so who knows what we really use to process reality?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:12 pm
Posts: 12178
Free Member
 

I’m still amazed that superglue in a bottle doesn’t dry up, but you put a drop of it out of a bottle and it sets in seconds.

Wait until sir tries some cyanoacetate accelerator on it.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:13 pm
Posts: 17250
Free Member
 

The brown stuff in between the wafers in a Kit-Kat.
Apparently this is just mushed up Kit-Kats recycled from the imperfect ones that are a by product of the manufacture process

Which begs the question..How did they make the first one?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:23 pm
funkmasterp, thepurist, theotherjonv and 3 people reacted
Posts: 2295
Full Member
 

Aircraft.  You expect me to believe that you can chuck a metal tube weighing hundreds of tonnes down a road at 100mph and it just magically takes off?

What is more worrying is someone suggested

'have you tried filling it with high explosive, pressurising it and then throwing it through the air at 500mpg at a patch of tarmac on another continent?'

'yep that's working now thanks'

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:29 pm
Posts: 13695
Free Member
 

The nothing is the same size, there's just less of it as the universe expands into the space that wasn't there

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:47 pm
Posts: 14810
Full Member
 

Except, it does. You’ve got things which are much denser/heavier than water (steel) and things which are much less dense/heavy than water (air). Add them together and you’ll float or sink depending on whether you’re at a net gain or not.

The air inside a boat does not make the steel construction any lighter.

Obviously a boat full of water is heavier than a boat full of air but the structure remains the same weight.

If I stood on a mouse would that make a 14 stone mouse? For clarity I weigh approximately 14 stone.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:54 pm
Posts: 76786
Free Member
 

The brown stuff in between the wafers in a Kit-Kat.
Apparently this is just mushed up Kit-Kats recycled from the imperfect ones that are a by product of the manufacture process

Which begs the question..How did they make the first one?

Ooh, I know this one.  The filling isn't wholly rejected Kit-Kats, they just add it to the mix to save waste.  It's pretty much a trace ingredient.  There would have to be a lot of imperfect Kit-Kats for that to be sustainable otherwise.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:55 pm
Posts: 2275
Full Member
 

The nothing is the same size, there’s just less of it as the universe expands into the space that wasn’t there

I wrote, thought, deleted and rewrote about 5 replies to that before giving in.

That doesn't make sense... no wait yes it does... but... nonsense... actually it's... hang on... 🤯 💀

Forget it

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:56 pm
Posts: 76786
Free Member
 

The air inside a boat does not make the steel construction any lighter.

"net"

If I stood on a mouse would that make a 14 stone mouse? For clarity I weigh approximately 14 stone.

Are you planning on floating?  You'd likely fare less well than the mouse on its own.

Also, poor mouse.  You monster.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 4:58 pm
Posts: 17250
Free Member
 

For clarity I weigh approximately 14 stone.

and if you fill your lungs with air and held your breath you would float in water and would still  weigh 14 stone. Blow that air out and you would sink despite not changing your mass measurably.
Because magic.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:00 pm
anorak and anorak reacted
Posts: 20336
Free Member
 

The nothing is the same size, there’s just less of it as the universe expands into the space that wasn’t there

I'm still not having it – if there is nothing for the universe to expand into, how can it expand into it?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:03 pm
Posts: 20336
Free Member
 

If I stood on a mouse would that make a 14 stone mouse?

It would make a 14 stone mousse.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:04 pm
ossify, pictonroad, Ambrose and 11 people reacted
Posts: 17250
Free Member
 

Because the nothing is also expanding…into a larger nothing. Which is also expanding.

It’s nothings all the way up.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:05 pm
Posts: 24384
Free Member
 

On anaesthesia, and beyond into psychology

Sedative type drugs like ketamine, to use to pull someone's dislocated shoulder or fractured hip back into line.

They don't have any painkilling effect per se, it still hurts like **** and you'll scream the place down. But then have no memory of it, and if you can't remember it then there's no harm done. The memory of something terrible is worse than the event itself.

By the same token then - executing people by humane methods, vs horrific endings. It'll be unpleasant while it happens but after you'll have no recollection, so what's the problem (ignoring supposed deterrent effect on viewers, etc.)

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:06 pm
Posts: 2275
Full Member
 

I’m still not having it – if there is nothing for the universe to expand into, how can it expand into it?

You said it yourself:

... if there is nothing for the universe to expand into

There is nothing for the universe to expand into. If there wasn't nothing there'd be a problem. HTH

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:06 pm
Posts: 2226
Full Member
 

Consciousness Yeah that’s mad, a load of electrical signals passed through watery protein and ….... Erection….

FTFY

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:07 pm
Posts: 2226
Full Member
 

Isn't the universe expanding only because the kit running the simulation has been upgraded with an even bigger SSD so it's just filling the empty space with old file copies and junk?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:10 pm
Posts: 34143
Full Member
 

On anaesthesia, and beyond into psychology

'They' have discovered that phantom limb pain can be markedly reduced with mirrors. Apparently placing a mirror strategically so that it appears (for instance) that you have a leg - where there isn't one, can help

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:13 pm
 IHN
Posts: 19468
Full Member
Topic starter
 

I note with interest that you 'boffins' claim to understand the infinity or otherwise of the universe, but still haven't explained the induction hob.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:16 pm
Posts: 20336
Free Member
 

If there wasn’t nothing there’d be a problem.

If there isn't nothing, then there is something. So what is it? (The answer isn't allowed to be 'nothing').

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:20 pm
Posts: 16131
Full Member
 

perchypanther
Free Member
Because the nothing is also expanding…into a larger nothing. Which is also expanding.

If the nothing is infinite, it can't expand though?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:24 pm
Posts: 17250
Free Member
 

If the nothing is infinite, it can’t expand though?

The individual nothings are finite and constantly expanding. There are just an infinite number of them.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:32 pm
Posts: 8487
Full Member
 

Sedative type drugs like ketamine, to use to pull someone’s dislocated shoulder or fractured hip back into line.

They don’t have any painkilling effect per se

Going to disagree with you there. While ketamine's main effect at higher doses is to cause dissociative anaesthesia, at low dose it's a potent analgesic.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:35 pm
Posts: 43561
Full Member
 

rastherbeintobago is correct and it would be extremely poor practice to leave a patient screaming in pain while manipulation is done

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 5:38 pm
Posts: 24384
Free Member
 

Going to disagree with you there. While ketamine’s main effect at higher doses is to cause dissociative anaesthesia, at low dose it’s a potent analgesic.

And I'm a bit smarter now than i was 15 mins ago......

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 6:06 pm
Posts: 16131
Full Member
 

ernielynch
Full Member
Ah, the light-hearted thread has taken an unpleasant turn.

His comment couldn't go unchallenged. It's not on.

It's not my wish for this genuinely interesting thread to go off topic though.😁

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 6:09 pm
Posts: 2571
Full Member
 

I have just started a degree course in Physics so I can study quantum mechanics - I find it fascinating as it's so counter intuitive as we experience a Newtonian universe on a day to day basis.

I already have a degree in Material Science and we covered quite a lot of physics but it was 35 years ago and I was mainly drunk

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:04 pm
Posts: 41510
Free Member
 

I’m still amazed that superglue in a bottle doesn’t dry up, but you put a drop of it out of a bottle and it sets in seconds.

Wait until sir tries some cyanoacetate accelerator on it.

I think (therefore I am, as we're doing psychology) it's catalyzed by water? So in the dry tube it's fine, and it can seem like it's taking forever to stick two things together.

Then as soon as you touch it the moisture your skin immediately sets it and you're bollocksed.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:05 pm
Posts: 14810
Full Member
 

It wasn't in reference to your comment poops, it was in reference to the other now deleted posts.

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:07 pm
Poopscoop and Poopscoop reacted
Posts: 16131
Full Member
 

ernielynch
Full Member
It wasn’t in reference to your comment poops, it was in reference to the other now deleted posts.

To be honest I was apologising (poorly) for biting and therefore detailing the thread far more. I should have made that clear but I'll admit, he made my blood boil a smidge.

Sorry Ernie and op!👍😁

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:13 pm
Posts: 13695
Free Member
 

IHNFull

I note with interest that you ‘boffins’ claim to understand the infinity or otherwise of the universe, but still haven’t explained the induction hob.

Induction hobs, like time, are a flat circle

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:17 pm
Posts: 43561
Full Member
 

What did I miss?  Deleted posts on this silly thread?  Wasnae me honest 🙂

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:22 pm
 Ewan
Posts: 4321
Free Member
 

@WorldClassAccident this is my favourite opening paragraph...

"Ludwig Boltzman, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously. (Opening lines of "States of Matter", by D.L. Goodstein)."

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:29 pm
Posts: 33017
Full Member
 

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

©Sir Arthur C Clark

Why an incline treadmill is harder work than a flat one, you are not actually running up a hill.

Kate Bush was… 🤷🏼

Keep it up, folks, I’m getting some real laughs out of this thread!

Oh, and by the way; Bumblebees - magic can be the only explanation for how something so fat with such tiny little wings actually fly?

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:32 pm
Posts: 912
Free Member
 

joshvegasFree Member
Before it got nicked on Saturday (£30k plus) my work surveying kit was magical the gps unit accurate to 15mm to OS grid (bit too big for fitting to bars) they say science but nah it’s proper magic first survey kit was premagic but worked in the rain!
Hmm that feels wrong. The OS grid is a flawed planar representation of a the surface of a sphere? Surely its 15mm accuracy to any point on the globe?

2types of magic going on , 1st is GPS to 10m then magic 2 down to 15-20mm magic 2 is some sort of base station radio link so is limited to UK at that accuracy. It was magic though 🙁

 
Posted : 21/05/2024 7:44 pm
Page 2 / 4