Nothing In Particular

Subjects that don't have their own home
Neal
Shed dweller
Posts: 2299
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:57 am
Location: From the land of the Bodgers

#11671 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by Neal »

Just spotted this on eBay, a forum member by chance? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Single-ended ... 0012.m1985
Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
User avatar
jack
Thermionic Monk Status
Posts: 5493
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:58 pm
Location: ɐılɐɹʇsnɐ oʇ ƃuıʌoɯ ƃuıɹǝpısuoɔ
Contact:

#11672 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by jack »

shane wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:02 am
jack wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:34 am What connects:

1. The Dixie Chicks
2. The gravitational constant

And before anyone says it, it's NOT because they say "G" a lot...
Ok. I give up. What’s the answer?
Apologies - I thought that I'd already posted the solution, but it's not that complex...

Dixie comes from the Mason-Dixon Line, an artificial border drawn up in the 1760s between Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia and Maryland... It effectively became the border between the Northern (free) states and the Southern (slave) states. "Dixie" refers to the slave states or Confederacy, thus it's become sensitive and The Chicks dropped the "Dixie" part...

Where this gets interesting to me is in the problems that Mason and Dixon had in surveying the border. The standard technique in those days was to start at one end, survey to the other, and then work back to the start, i.e. you should end up back at your start point as the many small errors should statistically average out...

...but they didn't - they were consistently out in one direction. They were using surveying tools developed by Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal and alleged nemesis of John Harrison (of longitude fame), so Maskelyne and others, including Henry Cavendish (after whom the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge is named) at the Royal Society in London were intrigued by the problem.

...Cavendish realised that the problem may be due to the gravitational pull of the Allegheny Mountain range pulling the theodolite pendulum bob in one direction, so he developed an experiment to test this, now known as the Schiehallion Experiment - a key experiment in physics. - which was used by Maskelyne to measure very accurately the density of the Schiehallion mountain in Scotland...

...Cavendish later refined this experiment in 1798 using a ridiculously sensitive (and massive) torsion balance of his own design in what's known as the Cavendish Experiment to measure the density of the earth...

...and in the process discovered the Gravitational Constant, G !!!! However he didn't realise the significance of that part of the experiment and it wasn't picked up for about 100 years...

So, The Dixie Chicks -> The Chicks -> Mason & Dixon -> Maskelyne -> Schiehallion Experiment -> Cavendish -> Cavendish Experiment -> G !!!!

Easy really  :cool:
Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt
User avatar
shane
Social outcast
Posts: 3403
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:09 pm
Location: Kept in a cool dry place.

#11673 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by shane »

Good stuff! Never knew about the surveying problem before. So that means that near a mountain range, gravitational pull is not perpendicular to the earth’s surface so anyone living nearby will be leaning over a little.

I’m tempted to believe that in the southern states of the USA they all lean a bit to the right...
The world looks so different after learning science. For example, trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, they go back to air, and in their flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the Sun which was bound in to convert air into tree.
User avatar
pre65
Amstrad Tower of Power
Posts: 21373
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: North Essex/Suffolk border.

#11674 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by pre65 »

shane wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 10:46 am
I’m tempted to believe that in the southern states of the USA they all lean a bit to the right...
Surely it depends on which way they are facing ? :?

In parts of Suffolk or Norfolk one would say they were on the huh. :lol:

on the huh - Urban Dictionarywww.urbandictionary.com › define › term=on the huh
A phrase from the Norfolk dialect used to describe a something that is not level or awry.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

G-Popz THE easy listening connoisseur. (Philip)
User avatar
izzy wizzy
Old Hand
Posts: 1496
Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:02 pm
Location: Auckland NZ
Contact:

#11675 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by izzy wizzy »

jack wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:19 am Maskelyne -> Schiehallion Experiment -> Cavendish -
Schiehallion reminds me, was the name of a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, basically a floating oil rig with storage, which I did the fire and safety systems design for. It was meant to be able to be parked over one or more well sites so flexible and the future for oil production in the North Sea. Was looking one day at ship dismantling in pictures in Bangladesh, my goodness is that so dangerous, and there was Schiehallion being dismantled. Such a short life.
simon
Thermionic Monk Status
Posts: 5600
Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 11:22 am
Location: People's Republic of South Yorkshire

#11676 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by simon »

Sebastiao Salgado photos by any chance Stephen? His "Workers" exhibition was extraordinary.
User avatar
izzy wizzy
Old Hand
Posts: 1496
Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:02 pm
Location: Auckland NZ
Contact:

#11677 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by izzy wizzy »

I just looked him up but no it wasn't him that led me there. I think it was a Guardian article on the workers that led me there and then I saw Schiehallion in the yard. Any pictures of that place are incredible though. But what a place of horror!
User avatar
ed
retired
Posts: 5384
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2007 4:01 pm
Location: yorkshire
Contact:

#11678 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by ed »

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
User avatar
Ray P
No idea why I do this anymore
Posts: 6294
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 5:18 pm
Location: Somerset

#11679 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by Ray P »

In my work we have to deal with another aspect of the influences behind the surveying problem and that is the shape of the Earth (the Geoid) and how you fit maps/charts to the 'lumpy' surface - essential for positional accuracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoid
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
User avatar
Ray P
No idea why I do this anymore
Posts: 6294
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 5:18 pm
Location: Somerset

#11680 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by Ray P »

Schiehallion FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading facilty)

Image
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
Ant
Shed dweller
Posts: 2332
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:45 pm
Location: Yorkshire

#11681 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by Ant »

was listening to the f1 at the hungaroring on sunday on bbc radio 5 live, and was interested in some of the comments that it was a boring race (hamilton did as he usually does when on pole and buggered off into the distance), and that following other cars was problematic.
I wondered if it was the same back in the day, i.e when the ayrton senna and alain prost were running into each other at suzuka, when schumacher and hill were duking it out, and mika hakkinen was driving a mclaren that didnt have a gp2 engine.
Ive always loved f1, i can remember watching senna and prost crashing at the first corner at suzuka and being disappointed, even though as a kid i wanted senna to win, always wanting hill to beat schumacher, and wanting the silver mclarens to beat the ferraris. I missed the alonso years, mainly having hangovers on a sunday afternoon around that time.........and no sky sports......
So i got on YouTube and watched a couple of old races. 1988 spa, 1996 suzuka and 1998 suzuka.
Exactly the same comments were made back then. Not so much in spa 88, but in that race, senna led into the first corner then buggered off, suzuka 96 hill led into the first corner and buggered off, and so did hakkinen in 98. So hamilton doing the same in 2020 is hardly new.
And hearing murray walker, the voice of f1, was fantastic. Brought back memories.
Hes 97 now
Some murrayisms, top one is olivier panis arrows car iirc

"There's nothing wrong with the car except it's on fire"

"With half the race gone there is half the race to go"

"I imagine the conditions in those cars are totally unimaginable"

"Either that car is stationary or it's on the move"

"Do my eyes deceive me or is Senna's car sounding a bit rough?"

"And the first five places are filled with five different cars"

"And this is the third-placed car about to lap the second-placed car"

"The battle is well and truly on if it wasn't on before, and it certainly was"

"Two laps to go, then the action will begin. Unless this is the action, which it is"

"I'm going for first" (Explaining away a British Touring car driver putting up his middle finger)

Murray: "There's a firey glow coming from the back of the Ferrari!" - James Hunt: "No Murray, that's his rear safety light"

"Let's watch this typical Formula Ford start!" (instead they promptly all ran into each other)

"It's a sad ending, albeit a happy one, here at Montreal for today's Grand Prix"

"Andrea de Cesaris, the man who has won more grand prix than anyone else without actually winning one"

"Unless I'm very much mistaken... I am very much mistaken!"

"And now excuse me while I interrupt myself!"

"The young Ralf Schumacher has been upstaged by teenager Jenson Button, who is 20"

"It would have been Senna's third win in a row if he'd won the two before"

"I'm ready to stop my start watch

I still love f1. :D
Also starring Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln

www.bte-designs.weebly.com
User avatar
izzy wizzy
Old Hand
Posts: 1496
Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:02 pm
Location: Auckland NZ
Contact:

#11682 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by izzy wizzy »

I love F1 as well. There's always been a number of years where the best driver who usually has the best car always buggers off to be not seen again. Mansell at Williams for one from memory, Vettel recently and now Hamilton mostly. The main thing that has changed is that now, most of the cars are reliable so removing one of the things in the past that was random. Apart from Hamilton on Sunday, everyone behind had an eventful race and for Hungary, it was unusually good.
Ant
Shed dweller
Posts: 2332
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:45 pm
Location: Yorkshire

#11683 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by Ant »

how on earth the red bull mechanics fixed max verstappens car in the time they had ill never know
That was some fabulous work
Also starring Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln

www.bte-designs.weebly.com
User avatar
Mike H
Amstrad Tower of Power
Posts: 20157
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2008 5:38 pm
Location: The Fens
Contact:

#11684 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by Mike H »

Thanks Jack (Nick) that was genuinely interesting. :thumbright:
 
"No matter how fast light travels it finds that the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."
Neal
Shed dweller
Posts: 2299
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:57 am
Location: From the land of the Bodgers

#11685 Re: Nothing In Particular

Post by Neal »

With all the love for Hermes here and on PFM, this does make you wonder if it will get worse! :lol:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53477395
Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
Post Reply