I bet you didnt know that

gozunda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

In what timeframe?

I believe this statistic refers to the likelihood over a year in the UK.

https://eden.uktv.co.uk/nature/earth/article/thunder-and-lightning-facts/

The chances of being hit by lightening vary around the globe afaik

This guy's job and location probably increased his chances

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-lightning-strikes-survived

TomSweeney

Cartouche wrote: »

Time Stops at the Speed of Light

According to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, the speed of light can never change—it’s always stuck at approximately 300,000,000 meters/second, no matter who’s observing it. This in itself is incredible enough, given that nothing can move faster than light, but it’s still very theoretical.

The really cool part of Special Relativity is an idea called time dilation, which states that the faster you go, the slower time passes for you relative to your surroundings. If you drive in your car for an hour, you will have aged ever-so-slightly less than if you had just sat at home on the computer.

Of course, time can only slow down so much, and the formula works out so that if you’re moving at the speed of light, time isn’t moving at all.

Just note that moving at the speed of light isn’t actually possible, unless you happen to be made of light. Technically speaking, moving that fast would require an infinite amount of energy

or zero mass ....

TomSweeney

storker wrote: »

Good point, but not everything is observable e.g. gravity. We can't see it, only its effects. Couldn't there be something that doesn't reflect light yet travels faste than it?

(Not claiming any knowledge at all or, or even making a real argument, This is just one of those things I think about when I'm bored...)

Interestingly enough a few years back they thought they had observed particles going slighlty faster than light (at CERN perhaps?)



There was a big furore over it , and it turned out they made some mistake - turned out the lads timing it were just using Casio stopwatches to time it so yeah errors were to be expected

ohnonotgmail

TomSweeney wrote: »

or zero mass ....

So light particles have zero mass?

TomSweeney wrote: »

Interestingly enough a few years back they thought they had observed particles going slighlty faster than light (at CERN perhaps?)



There was a big furore over it , and it turned out they made some mistake - turned out the lads timing it were just using Casio stopwatches to time it so yeah errors were to be expected

Probably weren't pressing the buttons fast enough.

Reminds me of this:

There was a young lady called Bright
Whose speed was far faster than light
She took off one day
In a relative way
And returned the previous night

Fourier

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

So light particles have zero mass?

The terms can be a bit confusing, especially with the way E = mc^2 is usually explained or phrases like "matter is made of energy" or "matter and energy are the same thing".

Firstly Energy is the ability to do work, even more simply it's the ability to make other things move.

There are two ways of looking at Mass:

1. Mass is what decides how hard it is to move an object. Things with greater mass take more effort to get up to the same speed as things with less mass. It's how hard something is to move when starting from being completely still.
   
   Since photons are never still and can never be still (always moving at the speed of light), the idea doesn't make any sense for them, their mass is zero.
   
   
2. Another way of looking at Mass is it's how much Energy you have (how much you can make other things move) even when you're sitting still. Again since photons never sit still they don't have any such Energy, all their Energy comes from motion, so they have zero mass.

What "E = mc^2" was all about was that it introduces the second way of looking at mass in my list above. Classical (19th Century) physics only viewed mass the first way.

However note that Mass is only one of several properties of matter. So even though it is a form of Energy, it doesn't mean matter is Energy because all the other properties aren't a form of energy.

Sparks43

Fourier wrote: »

The terms can be a bit confusing, especially with the way E = mc^2 is usually explained or phrases like "matter is made of energy" or "matter and energy are the same thing".

Firstly Energy is the ability to do work, even more simply it's the ability to make other things move.

There are two ways of looking at Mass:

1. Mass is the what decides how hard it is to move an object. Things with greater mass take more effort to get up to the same speed as things with less mass. It's how hard something is to move when starting from being completely still.
   
   Since photons are never still and can never be still (always moving at the speed of light), the idea doesn't make any sense for them, their mass is zero.
   
   
2. Another way of looking at Mass is it's how much Energy you have (how much you can make other things move) even when you're sitting still. Again since photons never sit still they don't have any such Energy, all their Energy comes from motion, so they have zero mass.

What "E = mc^2" was all about was that it introduces the second way of looking at mass in my list above. Classical (19th Century) physics only viewed mass the first way.

However note that Mass is only one of several properties of matter. So even though it is a form of Energy, it doesn't mean matter is Energy because all the other properties aren't a form of energy.

I’m guessing you don’t get invited to many parties


Joking aside that’s very interesting

Grayson

Sparks43 wrote: »

I’m guessing you don’t get invited to many parties


Joking aside that’s very interesting

Who would expected that from someone with the name Fourier

gctest50

Fourier was fairly fast to transform that into something understandable

Fourier

Sparks43 wrote: »

I’m guessing you don’t get invited to many parties

I know when to be serious...


and when to party

nim1bdeh38l2cw

A ton of feathers is heavier than a ton of gold.

mzungu

St. Lucia was named after Saint Lucy of Syracuse by the French settlers who landed there. It is the only country in the world named after a living woman.

New Home

Was she alive when the settlers landed on the island?

mzungu

New Home wrote: »

Was she alive when the settlers landed on the island?

No, she died in 304AD!

New Home

So the island was name after a dead woman.

Sparks43

mzungu wrote: »

St. Lucia was named after Saint Lucy of Syracuse by the French settlers who landed there. It is the only country in the world named after a living woman.

Not true. There was another country named after a living woman. But then she had a sex change and became Chad

mzungu

Ireland is also named after a woman, the goddess Eire. But she never lived so it doesn't count!

mzungu

New Home wrote: »

So the island was name after a dead woman.

Aye, but she lived at some point! :P

mzungu

I should probably rephrase that. St. Lucia is the only country named after a woman that actually existed!

Capt'n Midnight

TomSweeney wrote: »

Interestingly enough a few years back they thought they had observed particles going slighlty faster than light (at CERN perhaps?)



There was a big furore over it , and it turned out they made some mistake - turned out the lads timing it were just using Casio stopwatches to time it so yeah errors were to be expected

Esel

mzungu wrote: »

Ireland is also named after a woman, the goddess Eire. But she never lived so it doesn't count!

Éiru.

From Wikipedia:

"The modern Irish Éire evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or simply a goddess of the land."

Ipso

Esel wrote: »

Éiru.

From Wikipedia:

"The modern Irish Éire evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or simply a goddess of the land."

Eriu was an usurper. I'm on team Banba.

cdeb

America (the United States of) is a feminine country. It was named after Amerigo Vespucci, so should have been called Amerigo or Americus, but as the known continents - Europa, Asia and Africa - were all feminine forms, it was decided Mr Vespucci's feminine form should be used for the new discovery - hence America

Carry

Ipso wrote: »

Eriu was an usurper. I'm on team Banba.

Poor old Fódla, nobody on her team...

There were three sisters, Eriu, Banba and Fódla, all three were tutelary* deities of Ireland and the goddesses of sovereignity. Eriu was finally the chief name, though why I don't know.

Legend has it, that Fódla lived in today's County Limerick, Banba in County Kerry and Eriu was all over the place with lovers everywhere, among them the god Lugh. Maybe that's why her name became more popular.




*just learned that word. I must use it more often, like, ehm, my umbrella is a tutelary device against rain.

Junkyard Tom

New Home wrote: »

Back on the subject of Germans having a sense of humour,

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

Badly Drunk Boy

Carry wrote: »

Legend has it, that Fódla lived in today's County Limerick, Banba in County Kerry and Eriu was all over the place with lovers everywhere, among them the god Lugh. Maybe that's why her name became more popular.

She sounds very popular indeed! I hope she used 'tutelage'...

Quazzie

There is an island called St Helena that is called after a real woman too, and the Virgin islands

mzungu

Quazzie wrote: »

There is an island called St Helena that is called after a real woman too, and the Virgin islands

Aye, but they are part of British Overseas Territory and not sovereign nations.

Duckworth_Luas

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Titanic and Olympic stuff



Titanic and Olympic were two of the three Olympic-class ocean liners built by Harland & Wolff for the White Star Line. The third was Britannic. All three were designed not to be the fastest ships in the North Atlantic, but the most luxurious. The fastest at the time were Lusitania and Mauretania, with Mauretania keeping the trans-Atlantic record until 1929.

Olympic launched first, in 1911. Employed as a stewardess on board was Violet Jessop, the daughter of Irish emigrants to Argentina. Jessop was on board Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke, a heavily armored British naval vessel. Olympic was badly damaged, with its hull breached under water, but didn't sink. Violet Jessop survived.

Olympic returned to Belfast for repairs, a move that delayed the launch of Titanic. Violet Jessop was convinced by acquaintances that working with the VIPs on Titanic would be a good career move and she took a job on board. Famously Titanic struck an iceberg on the 14 of April 1912 and 3 hours later it had sunk. Jessop made it onto a lifeboat and was eventually picked up by the Carpathia. Violet Jessop survived.

The third of the Olympic class vessels, Britannic launched in 1914 just before the start of World War 1, a conflict that caused Jessop to serve as a nurse. The British Admiralty found they had a dire need for troop transport and hospital vessels so they began to requisition civilian vessels, including Olympic. As luck would have it was on board the third of the White Star Line's Olympic class ocean liners that Jessop found herself serving. Guess what? While operating in the Mediterranean Britannic hit a German mine and sank. But Violet Jessop survived.

Ipso

An Olympian feat.