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I bet you didnt know that

Cartouche

As people here work in various jobs / professions they might know things from work or study no one here knows yet. this is what this topic is about.

what do you know that we have never heard of?

Eg: you don't need to be great at maths to be an architect

this is obvious to me but everyone says to me "i wanted to be an architect but i was bad at math,i can barely add"

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mzungu

Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: »

Should it concern me that I never heard of her nor the band?

I certainly did not know that

I also have no idea who she is or who the band are!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

MikeyTaylor wrote: »

Blathnaid Treacy's brother is a member of the band Columbia Mills.

Should it concern me that I never heard of her nor the band?

MikeyTaylor

Blathnaid Treacy's brother is a member of the band Columbia Mills.

Fourier

I wanted to continue this on, as a better rendition of #5654. My poor sense of knowing when I've jumped into incomprehensibility might rear its head here, any confusion is my fault.

Fourier wrote: »

Sorry for the late reply, I was trying to think of an analogy and some facts that are easy to grasp to emphasise the point.

Think of a snakes and ladders game...

So I've basically said, Quantum Mechanics doesn't really tell you anything much about the world, but I wanted to also reduce the confusion of pop science books and some of the myths they carry.

As a different analogy, QM is closer in some ways to a cooking recipe than an explanatory theory. "Turn the oven on, set it to 200 C, add flour, etc" this just tells you if you do so and so, you get a certain result. The theory behind cooking is organic chemistry, which basically tells you why flour does what it does at certain temperatures. QM is cooking with no chemistry.

I will continue the cooking analogy to breaking point! :pac:

So this obviously leads to the question what is really going on, underneath QM. Over the last century there have been several guesses, but all have some problems and there is no consensus. Here's a list of some guesses with the names of some people who have espoused that point of view. Cooking analogy in italics.

What goes on underneath transcends science and human comprehension (Neils Bohr) or cannot be expressed in any language we can understand. (Werner Heisenberg)
Quantum Mechanics is the best humans can manage, a recipe for dealing with experiments.
All you can do is cook following the recipes, what flour or yeast really do is beyond you mortals.
Underneath the world is made of particles that act in a fundamentally random way (Paul Dirac, John von Neumann).
Quantum Mechanics's talk of particles and randomness is literally true.
The recipe is what is going on. You might want some explanation for "why" yeast rises, but there isn't one, it just does. Your human mind just foolishly wants a reason.
Quantum Mechanics is actually talking about multiple worlds/a multiverse. When I do an experiment the world splits into copies where I saw different outcomes. (Hugh Everett, David Deutsch).
Quantum Mechanics is literally true, but we were wrong in how we read it. Those aren't chances for different outcomes, it's saying all the outcomes happen.
The recipe is what is going on, but it isn't actually a recipe for one cake, read the right way it's how to make a whole bunch of different cakes, but you only get one of them out of the oven, the rest go somewhere else.

(Note: Yes, the cooking analogy is a bit strained here :P, however both 2. and 3. take Quantum Mechanics literally, saying there is nothing underneath, QM is fundamental. The problem is QM is so vague people disagree with what taking it literally actually means)
Something very odd is going on underneath, challenging very deep intuitions we have, but it is fundamentally something that can be discovered. (Einstein, Bohm, Northern Ireland's John Bell)
Different advocates of this have very different ideas of what is underneath, but they all share the idea that Quantum Mechanics is not the end and the next level can be described with a scientific theory.
Cooking is explained by organic chemistry.

About a million pop science books say Einstein was wrong about QM or that he didn't understand it. This is nonsense. He just didn't agree with Bohr. Books like this often act like (1) or (2) are known to be true and Einstein's idea of (4) is wrong, but nobody knows this. An example would be randomness, we don't know if that is a real feature of the world, or just something the recipe of QM uses. Horse betting also uses probability and odds, but we don't think that horses just randomly win races for no reason. The odds/probabilities represent ignorance of factors that will influence the race. It might be the same in QM.

So my words of warning would be: a pop science book author will be presenting QM the way they find easiest to picture, not "the truth" as nobody knows "the truth". This will make reading two books by two different people often seem contradictory, because they are, they picture QM in different ways. The really confusing thing is that many authors will switch between 1-4 depending on the topic, as some stuff is easier to explain with one or the other.
(e.g. radioactive decay is often explained with (2), quantum computers with (3))

The "default" for most physicists in the 20th century was (2), but this is considered the least likely today.

storker

Wibbs wrote: »

RIP Alan Bean. Pilot, engineer, astronaut, artist and good egg.

Aha! Wibbs! You missed the obvious giveaway that was staring you in the face from that photo! That painting on the right is what was presented to us as an actual photograph of the faked moon landings! This proves that it was a painting all along and the landings never happened and anyone who thinks otherwise is a sheeple!

Proof positive! I'm off to make a 30-minute YouTube video about it. Or maybe I'll take my meds first.

_

evolving_doors

mzungu wrote: »

I know it's a fake (it's very obvious), I stuck the picture there for the laugh instead of going with the usual picture as below.

However, in hindsight I probably should have put a pacman smiley in there just to seal the deal but I figured at the time there was no need because the picture was such a dodgy photoshop.

In any event :pac: Lincoln didn't grow a beard till just before the presidential election.

http://time.com/3462545/abraham-lincoln-beard/

Esel

VW 1 wrote: »

Wibbs, the more of your posts i read between here, the watch forum etc (and i imagine thats quite a few over my years on boards) the more you become one of the 5 people (alive or dead) l would have at a dinner party table! Great info above.

Probably BAF IRL.

Wibbs

Thanks VW! I'll have my steak blue.

VW 1

Wibbs, the more of your posts i read between here, the watch forum etc (and i imagine thats quite a few over my years on boards) the more you become one of the 5 people (alive or dead) l would have at a dinner party table! Great info above.

Wibbs

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Alan Bean, the 4th man to walk on the moon, died yesterday in Texas aged 86.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=52625

Ah no.

A very cool guy on so many levels. For my money the Apollo 12 guys were the best of the teams. They were actually good friends, before and after. They also had a major close call when the Saturn V rocket was hit by lightning just after lift off. Twice. This blew a few circuit breakers and had the instruments go crazy. The control panel lit up like a Christmas tree. Facing a possible "major failure of the vehicle"(IE kaboom!) mission control looked for a solution. One young engineer had seen similar in a simulation and the fix was "Set SCE to AUX", which means set Signal Conditioning Equipment (translated the various voltages to the different instruments) which had its main bus power supply compromised by the strikes to an auxiliary and clean unaffected power supply. Of the three men in that command module only Alan remembered what that was and flicked the switch. This saved the mission and they rode the rocket all the way to orbit and then the Moon.

Here's the entire launch to orbit audio with the "what the hell was that". When they get it figured out they start giggling and joke about how they need more all weather testing. Dunno how they fitted their man parts into those suits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31qt9jgtMMI

As an aside: The launch director at the cape for Apollo 12 was one Mr Walt "Kappy" Kapyran on his first time in that chair. He was involved in setting up procedures in case of future lightning strikes and became known affectionately as Captain Lightning. In my collection of mad stuff I actually have a copy of his personal verification tests manual for Apollo 15.

Some might be shocked how little I paid for that. Like a round of drinks for six people number. Mad.

Here's the actual audio and video of the approach and landing on the Moon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFSa6vUix70

They sound like two guys loving every second of it. Though oddly Alan keeps referring to his commander and mate Pete Conrad as "babe".

Pete loses the cool with excitement when they see the computers have them perfectly on track.

While setting up the video camera on the Moon, something went wrong with it(Alan gave a clatter of a hammer as a last ditch attempt to fix it, as one did with telly stuff back in the day. Vertical hold and all that). So no video from the Apollo 12 mission. Alan felt really bad about that and after he left NASA he got into painting as his job, trying to give an impression of what he saw in his time on the Moon for the rest of us. He sometimes added bits of moon dust from his gloves and boots that he was allowed keep.

RIP Alan Bean. Pilot, engineer, astronaut, artist and good egg.

Chancer3001

Rainbows are actually full circles except the ground gets in the way

Apparently you can see full circle rainbows sometimes from planes

mzungu

A double rainbow occurs when sunlight is reflected twice inside a raindrop. If you look closely, you can see that the colors of the secondary rainbow appear in reverse order.

double%2Brainbow.jpg

Buford T. Justice XIX

Alan Bean, the 4th man to walk on the moon, died yesterday in Texas aged 86.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=52625

Capt'n Midnight

thesandeman wrote: »

Google maps tells me I can walk from here to there in 78 days and 15 hours.
I didn't know that!

Back in 1789 Buck Whaley walked most of the way from Jerusalem back to Dublin, for a bet.

Graces7

thesandeman wrote: »

Google maps tells me I can walk from here to there in 78 days and 15 hours.
I didn't know that!

OK so when do you start;)

thesandeman

Duckworth_Luas wrote: »

Up to the early 1980s the northern Indian town of Gehlaur was cut off from the nearest major settlement by a mountain. In order to collect supplies or get professional medical aid the villagers had to make a highly treacherous 55 kilometer trek around this ridge on foot.

Here is a satellite image of his work

Google Streetview

Google maps tells me I can walk from here to there in 78 days and 15 hours.
I didn't know that!

New Home

And they needed Tinder to meet up?

mzungu

In 2014, Tinder made its first match on the continent of Antarctica. This should come as no surprise, both parties involved were research scientists!

Graces7

Ted_YNWA wrote: »

If memory serves me, they are called drupes.

You beat me to it.

Tell me how

roosterman71 wrote:

I just have the one observation. The road, isn't that far down from the peak of the ridges there on both sides. Why couldn't they just walk over the top? Build a few steps up each side if it was slippy. There must have been a simpler way

I think I read before that the issue had been an ambulance had to travel the longer distance and his wife died due to the delay. Hence carving the road.

roosterman71

Duckworth_Luas wrote: »

Up to the early 1980s the northern Indian town of Gehlaur was cut off from the nearest major settlement by a mountain. In order to collect supplies or get professional medical aid the villagers had to make a highly treacherous 55 kilometer trek around this ridge on foot.

In 1960 Falguni Devi, while taking this path, fell and injured herself. Dasrath Manjhi, her husband, said enough was enough and decided that a safer path through this mountain ridge was needed.

Using only a hammer and chisel, purchased by selling three goats, Dasrath began to chip away at the rock formation.

Alone, after initially being mocked as a fool, he managed to excavate almost 8000 cubic meters of rock by himself using only handheld tools. That's 270,000 cubic feet.

In 1982, 22 years later, he completed what is known as the Dashrath Manjhi Breakthrough. A path 110 meters long, 9 meters wide and 8 meters deep cut through the rock solid ridge.

Alone and using only hammers and chisels.

Instead of the original 55 kilometer dangerous journey, the inhabitants of Gehlaur now had a much safer 15 kilometer journey.

Here is a satellite image of his work

Google Streetview

I just have the one observation. The road, isn't that far down from the peak of the ridges there on both sides. Why couldn't they just walk over the top? Build a few steps up each side if it was slippy. There must have been a simpler way

Duckworth_Luas

Up to the early 1980s the northern Indian town of Gehlaur was cut off from the nearest major settlement by a mountain. In order to collect supplies or get professional medical aid the villagers had to make a highly treacherous 55 kilometer trek around this ridge on foot.

In 1960 Falguni Devi, while taking this path, fell and injured herself. Dasrath Manjhi, her husband, said enough was enough and decided that a safer path through this mountain ridge was needed.

Using only a hammer and chisel, purchased by selling three goats, Dasrath began to chip away at the rock formation.

Alone, after initially being mocked as a fool, he managed to excavate almost 8000 cubic meters of rock by himself using only handheld tools. That's 270,000 cubic feet.

In 1982, 22 years later, he completed what is known as the Dashrath Manjhi Breakthrough. A path 110 meters long, 9 meters wide and 8 meters deep cut through the rock solid ridge.

Alone and using only hammers and chisels.

Instead of the original 55 kilometer dangerous journey, the inhabitants of Gehlaur now had a much safer 15 kilometer journey.

mountain-india-man-hammer-and-chisel-through.png?x48769

mountain-india-man-hammer-and-chisel-through.png?x48769

Here is a satellite image of his work

Google Streetview

Wossack

Absolutely fantastic telling of the Chernobyl accident I stumbled across this evening:

https://m.imgur.com/a/TwY6q

Shemale

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Can you explain further? because Sylvester Stallone wrote Rocky....

He was meant to write a film called Rucky but he didnt spell it right....

Esel

Greybottle wrote: »

Up until the end of the 18th Century, St Stephens Green was the most popular place in Dublin for public executions, from 1780 to 1795 alone, 244 people were executed here. They usually came down from the prison near Thomas St, past St Patricks Cathedral and down Kevin St.

It was a huge attraction at the time, well before the time of organised sports.

Here's an extract from a 1773 burning:

I'm guessing that faggöt was the word that got swear-filtered.

Skylinehead

Working class heroes wrote: »

Pity Leitrim wasn’t on it as well.

Banned :mad:

mzungu

In Switzerland, it's illegal to own only one guinea pig. The reason is that they are sociable rodents and isolation is extremely bad for them. Hence this animal welfare law aims to stop that from happening.

Two_adult_Guinea_Pigs_%28Cavia_porcellus%29.jpg

Two_adult_Guinea_Pigs_%28Cavia_porcellus%29.jpg

lmimmfn

MikeyTaylor wrote: »

There are no active volcanoes in Australia.

Safest place on earth then...oh wait!

MikeyTaylor

There are no active volcanoes in Australia.

gozunda

Yuba city in California is known as the "Prune Capital of the World" ....

It was also designated as the 'Worst City' in America in 1985.

Who knew ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯