Useless Fact of Day: Dime & Quarter Mass/Value Ratio

[1MileCrash]

Did you know that according to the measured mass of the dime and the quarter, which are 2.268 g and 5.670 g, respectively, they have the exact same mass/value ratio?

 

[KingNothing]

Good to know. But we all know quarters are more valuable to anyone living in a big city ;).

 

[wuliheron]

There are 435 members of the house of representatives with a theoretical turnover rate of 100% every two years, yet the public complains they are not representing them and re-elects them at an average rate of 90%.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Did you know that according to the measured mass of the dime and the quarter, which are 2.268 g and 5.670 g, respectively, they have the exact same mass/value ratio?

There's a perfectly logical explanation. They were originally made of an amount of silver equal to their face value. When the value of currency changed too much for this to be practical, they continued to be made in the same sizes, but out of nickel.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

There are 435 members of the house of representatives with a theoretical turnover rate of 100% every two years, yet the public complains they are not representing them and re-elects them at an average rate of 90%.

It's called democracy, universally reviled in this country.

 

[wuliheron]

It's called democracy, universally reviled in this country.

Exactly, democracy is a useless fact.

 

[brewnog]

Same as ours. In fact, our £10 coin weighs over 40kg.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There are 435 members of the house of representatives with a theoretical turnover rate of 100% every two years, yet the public complains they are not representing them and re-elects them at an average rate of 90%.

Clearly the public only complains about 434 representitives, 90% of the time.

 

[wuliheron]

Clearly the public only complains about 434 representitives, 90% of the time.

No, that's the beauty of democracy. People will complain about even the politicians they vote for, then re-elect them. Its like watching a junkie stick a needle in his arm, and then complain the stuff is killing them.

 

[Drakkith]

No, that's the beauty of democracy. People will complain about even the politicians they vote for, then re-elect them. Its like watching a junkie stick a needle in his arm, and then complain the stuff is killing them.

Sounds like we are addicted to good government. Compared to a lot of places at least...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On three-head reel-to-reel recorders, a small piece of photographic film placed over the erase head before stringing the tape, allows one to overdub.

 

[arildno]

Did you know that according to the measured mass of the dime and the quarter, which are 2.268 g and 5.670 g, respectively, they have the exact same mass/value ratio?

Did you know that my regular quiz team ended at fourth place yesterday evening?

Out of four competing teams...

 

[wuliheron]

Sounds like we are addicted to good government. Compared to a lot of places at least...

That's what all addicts say until they get a bad fix, can't find a fix, or their whole world starts falling apart some other way.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That's what all addicts say until they get a bad fix, can't find a fix, or their whole world starts falling apart some other way.

I've written two viewer comments to CNN and one made it on the air. It was this:

If the politicians we elect did what we want them to do, they could never get reelected.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Always oil your green weenie

...air filter.

 

[wuliheron]

I've written two viewer comments to CNN and one made it on the air. It was this:

If the politicians we elect did what we want them to do, they could never get reelected.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

 

[BobG]

On three-head reel-to-reel recorders, a small piece of photographic film placed over the erase head before stringing the tape, allows one to overdub.

How is this a useless fact? Stay on topic, please!

Do you know how hard it is to find blank reel to reel tapes? Overdubbing is a great way to record new stuff without losing the old stuff!

Now if I could just design a sound filter that would let me listen to the Hindenberg disaster without having to listen to Bob Newhart jokes at the same time. What a strange effect that is! What was I thinking?!

 

[triden]

Caligynephobia is a fear of beautiful women.

I have this

 

[Ivan Seeking]

How is this a useless fact? Stay on topic, please!

Do you know how hard it is to find blank reel to reel tapes? Overdubbing is a great way to record new stuff without losing the old stuff!

Now if I could just design a sound filter that would let me listen to the Hindenberg disaster without having to listen to Bob Newhart jokes at the same time. What a strange effect that is! What was I thinking?!

We are dating ourselves. But Newhart tapes - man you must be reeeeeeally old! Do you have a four or two-channel recorder?

On a three-head machine, if you run the aux out from channel 1 to the aux in on channel 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and then 4 back to 1, and enable sound-on-sound, you get a nice echo effect when recording.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Caligynephobia is a fear of beautiful women.

I have this

I don't. That's why I have uxarphobia, fear of one's wife barging in.

 

[IMP]

Useful tip of the day:

Never hold a cat and a Dustbuster at the same time...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Useful tip of the day:

Never hold a cat and a Dustbuster at the same time...

LOL! You made me spit my coffee all over my computer! :grumpy:

 

[turbo]

When my cousin's daughter (elementary school or 7th grade, IIR) had to learn to spell the word "sabotage", I told her that workers protesting the industrial revolution in France would surreptitiously make sure that a wooden shoe (sabot) got introduced into the (wooden) gears with hand-carved cog-teeth and wreck them. She got a kick out of that and told her friends. I know because I got comments from a couple of her friends' parents.

 

[Drakkith]

What kind of comments turbo?

 

[BobG]

My daughter was told to write "I will not chew gum in class" 500 times or something like that. I've always thought that was always a really lame punishment and she was learning to type, so I made up some various ways to say she wasn't going to chew gum in class and she had to type each of them a certain number of times (I certainly wasn't going to come up with 500 unique ways to say I won't chew gum in class).

I wasn't sure how my daughter's teacher would take me modifying the punishment that way, but I figured I'd talk with her if there were a problem. It turned out the teacher thought what I did was hilarious - especially all the different ways I'd come up with for not chewing gum in class (I needed to make sure the words covered the entire alphabet, so some of the sentences were rather creative).

What I did made such an impression that the next boy in class to be caught chewing gum had to write "I will not masticate in class" 500 times.

He was obviously very offended at having to type that 500 times and the incident turned into a very heated meeting between the teacher, the principal, and the boy's parents with the parents practically demanding the teacher's firing.

Well, at least until they heard what the boy was actually supposed to type. What's masticate mean, again? Uh, never mind.

 

[turbo]

What kind of comments turbo?

Comments from a doctor's wife "why aren't YOU a teacher?" and from the purchasing agent's assistant at a local mill that I sold to like "my daughter loved that! Why don't the teachers teach that?"

Etymology can make learning new words a whole lot more interesting than rote memorization of meanings and spellings.

 

[Drakkith]

Comments from a doctor's wife "why aren't YOU a teacher?" and from the purchasing agent's assistant at a local mill that I sold to like "my daughter loved that! Why don't the teachers teach that?"

Etymology can make learning new words a whole lot more interesting than rote memorization of meanings and spellings.

Hah! Awesome...

 

[turbo]

Hah! Awesome...

I had a good time with that. When you've got pre-teen girls letting each other in on cool stuff like that, it's a sign that you have reached them in a way their teachers haven't.

 

[BobG]

The ratio between a river's length as measured along its actual path to the straight line distance between a river's source and mouth tends towards the value, pi, as the river gets older and older.

The reason for this is that if there's any curvature in the river, the current on the outside of the bend tends to be faster than the current on the inside of the bend, causing more erosion on the outside of the bend than inside, which causes even more curvature of the river. The amount of curvature is limited by the fact that if the river curves back enough, it cuts right back into the upstream side of the bend, cutting the bend out of the river completely (as an ox bow lake), resulting in a straight line path for the river with the curving process starting all over again.

In practice, most rivers, icluding younger rivers, average a ratio of 3:1 between the actual distance and the straight line distance (with rivers bounded by a gorge/canyon/etc having much smaller ratios).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The ratio between a river's length as measured along its actual path to the straight line distance between a river's source and mouth tends towards the value, pi, as the river gets older and older.

The reason for this is that if there's any curvature in the river, the current on the outside of the bend tends to be faster than the current on the inside of the bend, causing more erosion on the outside of the bend than inside, which causes even more curvature of the river. The amount of curvature is limited by the fact that if the river curves back enough, it cuts right back into the upstream side of the bend, cutting the bend out of the river completely (as an ox bow lake), resulting in a straight line path for the river with the curving process starting all over again.

In practice, most rivers, icluding younger rivers, average a ratio of 3:1 between the actual distance and the straight line distance (with rivers bounded by a gorge/canyon/etc having much smaller ratios).

Interesting. However, just thinking about it, shouldn't that be pi/2 and 3/2?

We have a creek on our property and it has been interesting to watch the flow pattern over the years. One hard-learned lesson is that you can't easily steer a creek. I once had a $1000 worth of bulldozer work disappear in about an hour when we had a sudden high flow due to heavy rains.

 

[BobG]

Interesting. However, just thinking about it, shouldn't that be pi/2 and 3/2?

We have a creek on our property and it has been interesting to watch the flow pattern over the years. One hard-learned lesson is that you can't easily steer a creek. I once had a $1000 worth of bulldozer work disappear in about an hour when we had a sudden high flow due to heavy rains.

No. Circumference of a circle is pi*diameter. If you form half the circle over one part of the river and half the circle over the next part of the river, then you've completed the circle over twice the diameter (pi*d/2d= pi/2). Of course, that's assuming the circle formed has the same side to side diameter as the straight line distance for half a loop, and there's really no reason to expect that. In fact, I'm not really sure there would be a reason to expect any particular ratio for an average (well, actually, pi/2 would seem like a reasonable expectation, but ...).

Or, you could have the river to double back in almost a complete circle so the river would look like a circle with diameter d lying next to a line d, which would give you a (pi+1):1 ratio, but that's still making some assumptions about how far a river can go side to side and how often is the river going to completely double back.

The absolute maximum would be almost a (2pi+1):1 ratio if the side diameter were the same as the downriver distance, but the river would have to be doubling back on both sides over its entire length (and once again, there's no real reason the side diameter would be the same as the downriver distance).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No. Circumference of a circle is pi*diameter. If you form half the circle over one part of the river and half the circle over the next part of the river, then you've completed the circle over twice the diameter (pi*d/2d= pi/2). Of course, that's assuming the circle formed has the same side to side diameter as the straight line distance for half a loop, and there's really no reason to expect that. In fact, I'm not really sure there would be a reason to expect any particular ratio for an average (well, actually, pi/2 would seem like a reasonable expectation, but ...).

Or, you could have the river to double back in almost a complete circle so the river would look like a circle with diameter d lying next to a line d, which would give you a (pi+1):1 ratio, but that's still making some assumptions about how far a river can go side to side and how often is the river going to completely double back.

The absolute maximum would be almost a (2pi+1):1 ratio if the side diameter were the same as the downriver distance, but the river would have to be doubling back on both sides over its entire length (and once again, there's no real reason the side diameter would be the same as the downriver distance).

I was thinking of half circles but I see what you're saying. When I think of aerial views of rivers it makes sense. Our little creek isn't representitive of rivers at large scale. We tend to get half circles.

 

[Kurdt]

Most anti-biotics do not require you to refrain from the consumption of alcohol. I put that in the pub magazine once hoping we could draw back the infected market.