What is the newest installment of 'Random Thoughts' on Physics Forums?

[Astronuc]

Don't fool with Nature - but of course we do.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...ince-the-mayor-and-the-us-fish-that-ate-japan

The prince, the mayor, and the U.S. fish that ate Japan​

An innocent gift from Chicago to Prince Akihito in 1960 caused a decades-long ecological crisis that Japanese scientists are now close to solving.

Will CRISPR work?

 

[WWGD]

New claim, at least to me, that ( drinking) water is beneficial because it flushes the kidneys, but that is far from being the best at hydrating, in that a smaller portion of it is retained over time by the body than the portion of other liquids that is retained.

 

[fresh_42]

Fastest US car on Famost German Race Track (Nürburgring Nordschleife, 20.832 km = 12.944,4 mi)

Spoiler: Corvette

Sorry, you lost.

Spoiler: Viper

Congratulations! Dodge Viper ACR (2017, manual) in 7:01.3

 

[WWGD]

I should have specified I was talking about Bayes when I said I liked her posterior.

 

[DrGreg]

Today I heard the phrase "pile-on" being used in a TV discussion about abuse on social media. I wasn't giving the TV my full attention (multi-tasking) and hadn't heard this phrase used in this context before, so I thought they said "pylon", and was confused why electricity transmission towers were relevant to the topic under discussion.

 

[Astronuc]

SF Chronicle has compiled some obituaries of those who died from/with Covid-19. One page belongs to those just from Connecticut. I haven't looked further since there are over 1 million deaths in the US.

Arnold J. Cantor, a distinguished scholar, earned a PhD in Physics from Harvard where he occasionally corresponded with Albert Einstein, his obituary said. He applied his knowledge of lasers and aeronautics through his work at Sylvania, Mitre and United Technologies. He was not only a gifted and brilliant theoretical physicist, but also warm, loving, kind, funny and generous. He leaves a body of poetry spanning sixty years which he shared on his website and at the Bloomfield Library poetry readings. Later in life, he engaged in a diversity of courses at the President's College at the University of Hartford as well as becoming an avid and skilled birder.

https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/connecticut-coronavirus-obituaries/
The long list seems to be only for March-July 31, 2020 during the initial wave of SARS-Cov-2

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/hartfordcourant/name/arnold-cantor-obituary?id=2187846

Physicist, Artist, Poet, and Naturalist Arnold Jules Cantor (~87) of Bloomfield CT (formerly of West Hartford, CT and Lexington, MA) passed away at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford on July 6th, 2020 of Covid-19 after a long struggle with dementia. Arnold was a distinguished scholar graduating Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Brooklyn College where he was President of the Physics Society. He earned a PhD in Physics from Harvard where he was a recipient of a Corning Glass Works Foundation Fellowship and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Mu Epsilon honor societies. He applied his knowledge of lasers and aeronautics through his work at Sylvania, Mitre and United Technologies.

 

[Astronuc]

The Telegraph - Coal miner’s daughter and ex-White House aide new chancellor of Durham University
https://www.yahoo.com/news/coal-miner-daughter-ex-white-213947997.html

A coal miner’s daughter who became a White House foreign policy adviser has been appointed chancellor of Durham University.

Dr Fiona Hill, who has worked for US presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, was selected on Monday to become the ceremonial head of the university in the county where she grew up.

 

[pinball1970]

We have just started the match with the Welsh (world cup Association football)
Why did Wales have a different national anthem?

 

[WWGD]

We have just started the match with the Welsh (world cup Association football)
Why did Wales have a different national anthem?

Or a different team? Ive always been curious about the status of the member states of the UK. Are they formally countries?

 

[pinball1970]

Or a different team? Ive always been curious about the status of the member states of the UK. Are they formally countries?

It's UK national anthem. Different team and country but there is one national anthem

 

[DrGreg]

Ive always been curious about the status of the member states of the UK. Are they formally countries?

Opinions differ whether to call them

• countries within a country
• countries within a sovereign state
• nations within a country

or various other options. Nobody calls them "states". The Wikipedia article Countries of the United Kingdom discusses some of the alternatives.

 

[WWGD]

I used the term for lack of a better word/term.

 

[pinball1970]

Opinions differ whether to call them

• countries within a country
• countries within a sovereign state
• nations within a country

or various other options. Nobody calls them "states". The Wikipedia article Countries of the United Kingdom discusses some of the alternatives.

I suppose I should know this without googling but do we have a national anthem?

Opinions differ whether to call them

• countries within a country
• countries within a sovereign state
• nations within a country

or various other options. Nobody calls them "states". The Wikipedia article Countries of the United Kingdom discusses some of the alternatives.

I had a google at this.

I think that the other guys regard God save the Queen/King as England/English and want to be separate from that.

However England do not actually have one.

If you put a gun to my head I would have guessed either “land of Hope and Glory” (not keen) or ”Jerusalem” (Beautiful but the words are confusing)

“Jerusalem” won a poll for England the common wealth games anthem apparently.

I only guessed those two songs because the always play them at “last night at the prom.”

Northern Ireland do not have their own just to complicate things. They are not part of the Island of Britain but are part of the UK so they have “God save the king”

Wales and Scotland are part of the land of Great Britain but use their own.

EDIT:
Sottish independence is not an impossibility so they would be part of the Island of Great Britain but would be no longer part of the UK.

So they would be British Scottish and European by geography but not from the UK.

Perhaps they will write another national anthem to commemorate?

https://www.royal.uk/national-anthem This says the anthem is for Britain. So in summary:

England- No anthem just for England- uses God save the king

Wales – Uses their own even though they are part of Britain (and UK)

Scotland – As per Wales and may not be part of the UK going forward

Northern Ireland – Uses God save the king, part of UK but not part of Great Britain although many regard themselves as British not Irish.

 

[DrGreg]

On the subject of national anthems, I remember in the 70s and 80s, when the UK had only 3 and then 4 TV networks, all of which closed down overnight, BBC1 always played the UK national anthem before closedown; BBC2 and Channel 4 did not.

The other network, ITV, in those days wasn't a single station but a federation of independent regional stations. Some used an anthem at closedown, some did not. My local station Granada didn't use an anthem, but I could also pick up a weak signal from an adjacent region, HTV Cymru Wales. They played two anthems at closedown, first the Welsh anthem and then the UK anthem.

 

[pinball1970]

On the subject of national anthems, I remember in the 70s and 80s, when the UK had only 3 and then 4 TV networks, all of which closed down overnight, BBC1 always played the UK national anthem before closedown; BBC2 and Channel 4 did not.

The other network, ITV, in those days wasn't a single station but a federation of independent regional stations. Some used an anthem at closedown, some did not. My local station Granada didn't use an anthem, but I could also pick up a weak signal from an adjacent region, HTV Cymru Wales. They played two anthems at closedown, first the Welsh anthem and then the UK anthem.

Granada is my region too. Kids today (anyone under 40) cannot imagine such a 1970s world.
3 TV stations that all finished by 12am or so.
Pubs that shut at 3pm and opened up again around 5.30pm, last orders 10.30pm and time at 10.45pm.
No mobiles, no PCs, no lap tops ANYWHERE. Work, home, shops, restaurants, none.
People wrote letters to each other using the post.
A take away was a chippy tea.

It was great.

 

[fresh_42]

Granada is my region too. Kids today (anyone under 40) cannot imagine such a 1970s world.
3 TV stations that all finished by 12am or so.
Pubs that shut at 3pm and opened up again around 5.30pm, last orders 10.30pm and time at 10.45pm.
No mobiles, no PCs, no lap tops ANYWHERE. Work, home, shops, restaurants, none.
People wrote letters to each other using the post.
A take away was a chippy tea.

It was great.

 

[pinball1970]

View attachment 317972

Test card? Great. What were normal people suppose glean from that?

We had the 70s girl to take the edge off but as a kid I had no idea.

Life on Mars featured this in a way every 70s British person understood

 

[fresh_42]

Test card? Great. What were normal people suppose glean from that?

We had the 70s girl to take the edge off but as a kid I had no idea.

Life on Mars featured this in a way every 70s British person understood

I thought this was meant to adjust the central cathode-ray tube after repairing components or fine-tuning the frequencies. But why at night? I have no idea. Maybe a nationwide signal to go to bed, like the Batman signal?!

​

 

[pinball1970]

I thought this was meant to adjust the central cathode-ray tube after repairing components or fine-tuning the frequencies. But why at night? I have no idea. Maybe a nationwide signal to go to bed, like the Batman signal?!

​

When nostalgia meets a Mathematician

 

[WWGD]

What is it with these celebrities asking others to donate to their causes?
They earn way more than the average. Have them donate their own money.

 

[DrGreg]

I thought this was meant to adjust the central cathode-ray tube after repairing components or fine-tuning the frequencies. But why at night? I have no idea. Maybe a nationwide signal to go to bed, like the Batman signal?!

Yes, the purpose of the test card was to help TV engineers adjust TV sets and antenna installers position aerials. In the UK they were broadcast during daytime hours when no programmes were on air, which on BBC1 and BBC2 was most afternoons in the 1970s. Later on they were alternated with Pages From Ceefax (BBC's version of teletext).

After closedown at night I think they sometimes used to transmit a tone, for half-an-hour, to wake up any viewers who had fallen asleep and encourage them to switch off their set. The tone on audio had to be accompanied by a video signal, so they might as well use a test card.

Something that I discovered only recently was that the test card signal wasn't generated at the TV studios; it was generated at each of the transmitter sites. This was relevant as there were multiple transmissions standards in the UK: 405 lines black-and-white on VHF, and 625 lines either colour or black-and-white on UHF. Each standard had its own test card. The famous UK "Test Card F" with the picture of the girl was the colour-625 version.

• List of BBC test cards
• ETP-1 -- electronically generated test card used by ITV and C4 from 1979

 

[BillTre]

This is just fun:

 

[pinball1970]

What is it with these celebrities asking others to donate to their causes?
They earn way more than the average. Have them donate their own money.

A pet peeve of mine, especially at gigs. I did not buy a ticket to listen to some poorly crafted political sound bite from a musician.
Lilly Allen made my blood boil in one particular stunt. This is random thoughts not random rants so I will stop here.

 

[WWGD]

A pet peeve of mine, especially at gigs. I did not buy a ticket to listen to some poorly crafted political sound bite from a musician.
Lilly Allen made my blood boil in one particular stunt. This is random thoughts not random rants so I will stop here.

If I may, this goes for all sides:

 

[pinball1970]

Very emotional watching the world cup national anthems. Just watched Korea and Portugal.
It's great and more than football, its competing then shaking hands. One of the few things we do as humans that is overwhelmingly good.
Totally happy being a hopeless optimistic hippie in this scenario, it's once every 4 years.

 

[kyphysics]

Why don't restaurant entree salads usually give you the choice of two sides the non-salad entrees do?

The price of an entree salad is sometimes more than a non-salad entree. E.g., you might see a chicken house salad cost $14.99, while a cheeseburger with two sides costs $12.99.

 

[Astronuc]

PSA - Don't drive stupid!

C7 Corvette Ejected Its Whole Engine in a Highway Crash
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/c7-corvette-ejected-whole-engine-175000459.html

In another story, a couple of teenagers were arrested after racing at 130 mph on I-93 in New Hampshire.

 

[WWGD]

Is there a straightforward proof that a line joining two points in a plane lies fully in the plane? We can crank it out, find the general coefficients of the points and show they satisfy the equation. I assume there may be a simpler one, since this is a feature of linear objects.

 

[nuuskur]

PSA - Don't drive stupid!

C7 Corvette Ejected Its Whole Engine in a Highway Crash
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/c7-corvette-ejected-whole-engine-175000459.html

In another story, a couple of teenagers were arrested after racing at 130 mph on I-93 in New Hampshire.

This is why I can't stand people not following the laws of the road. Racing is fine .. at the (god damn) track designed for it!

Not too long ago here as well, a young dude needed to test the limits of his 300 something kW engine on a freeway - the car is totalled, afaik he survived.

Is there a straightforward proof that a line joining two points in a plane lies fully in the plane? We can crank it out, find the general coefficients of the points and show they satisfy the equation. I assume there may be a simpler one, since this is a feature of linear objects.

We take $Ax + By + Cz + D = 0$ and $P_1\neq P_2$ on the plane. It is straightforward to check that $\lambda P_1 + (1-\lambda)P_2$ lies on the plane for any $\lambda \in (0,1)$. Can rewrite this in some equivalent notation, but that's the most straightforward solution I can think of.

Perhaps, you meant the line that is determined by two points, I'm not sure. In general, we pick a point $P_0$ in space and a nonzero vector $n$ (the normal vector of the plane) and require that $\langle n, P_0X \rangle = 0$ for any point $X$, where $P_0X$ denotes the vector determined by the two points.

Now, pick two points $P_1\neq P_2$ such that $\langle n, P_0P_1 \rangle = \langle n, P_0P_2 \rangle = 0$. E.g take the parametrised representation of the line that goes through $P_1$ and $P_2$, it is again straightforward to check that any point on the line satisfies the plane equation.

A special case of this is the plane $z=0$. Roughly speaking, it doesn't matter how the plane is positioned relative to some "observer". The properties of linear objects are invariant (and not just linear objects).

edit: I should mention that this is valid for euclidean geometry.

 

[Rive]

Here, almost every English lesson starts with the explanation of the common greeting of 'how are you?/fine, thanks' pair. This lesson often repeated monthly.
Futile effort. Here, this question is asked only if you expect a serious, long answer: a joint rumbling about politics, economy, job, health, life in general, family, pets, car: everything.

So, culture shock: a double one. One side just can't understand why is the other one fleeing just after a few sentences? And the other side is confused that how could he trigger a tirade with just a simple greeting?

Well, sitting in an open floor office and listening to the phone calls around can be quite funny sometimes

 

[pinball1970]

PSA - Don't drive stupid!

C7 Corvette Ejected Its Whole Engine in a Highway Crash
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/c7-corvette-ejected-whole-engine-175000459.html

In another story, a couple of teenagers were arrested after racing at 130 mph on I-93 in New Hampshire.

This made the headlines in August this year.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/08/22/one-...esla-and-landed-on-tube-rail-tracks-17222179/

The speed the car was doing (not motorway / free way) where it ended up, what state it was in and the fact it was all caught on CCTV made it more shocking.

One woman died at the scene, I could not find follow up on the other passengers that survived initially.

 

[pinball1970]

Here, almost every English lesson starts with the explanation of the common greeting of 'how are you?/fine, thanks' pair. This lesson often repeated monthly.
Futile effort. Here, this question is asked only if you expect a serious, long answer: a joint rumbling about politics, economy, job, health, life in general, family, pets, car: everything.

So, culture shock: a double one. One side just can't understand why is the other one fleeing just after a few sentences? And the other side is confused that how could he trigger a tirade with just a simple greeting?

Well, sitting in an open floor office and listening to the phone calls around can be quite funny sometimes

You are right, in the UK, “how are you” means “hello,” most of the time.

In fact, that is more what I would call text book English greeting, I rarely actually hear it said like that.

“You good?” You alright?” “how you doing?” All really mean hello.

Replies are, “Good ta/Great thanks/Ok cheers.”

“Good weekend?” From a colleague Monday morning, does not mean, “Did you have a good weekend? Please tell me about it.”

I really want the answer, “Yes ta/Great yeah etc,” not anything else including, “No.”

 

[Astronuc]

I don't know if this is worthy of a separate, but I find universities encouraging gambling/sport betting to be appalling.

'You freakin' idiots': Dave Ramsey just blasted US universities for promoting online gambling to students — and reaping millions in fees. Why young people are the perfect prey​

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/freakin-idiots-dave-ramsey-just-140000783.html

Sports betting is surging across America — with flashy ads and easily accessible apps encouraging wagers both at home and in stadiums — and has slinked its way over to several college campuses as well.

The New York Times recently uncovered that at least eight universities have partnered with online sports-betting companies, while at least a dozen athletic departments and booster clubs have signed agreements with brick-and-mortar casinos.

Personal finance author and radio host Dave Ramsey lambasted the institutions on The Ramsey Show.

“You freakin’ idiots … Selling out your own students who you’re supposed to be caring for,” said Ramsey. “The No. 2 addiction in North America today — and fastest growing addiction in North America today — is online gambling. It starts with the sports betting as a gateway drug.”

 

[Borg]

Unfortunately, once they've gotten in, it's nearly impossible to get rid of them. From what I remember, the state of Maryland put statewide gambling up for a vote 5 times before it was finally passed. Interestingly, there haven't been any votes to rescind it since then. Now there is a constant barrage of gambling commercials on DC stations.

 

[WWGD]

I know someone from Malta. Total area is 122 sq mi, and main island is 62 sq mi. So , approximating as 8x8, two points on the islsnd are never farther than $\sqrt {8^2+ 8^2}$ 12 miles apart. And you're never more than 4 miles from the sea. More so on the smaller islands. Seems strange.

 

[WWGD]

What's with these gifts of TV sets, general electronics that require you to pay a $1 or nominal fee to claim your gift? Are these necessarily scams? I haven't tried to claim any such, just curious.

 

[Bystander]

What's with these gifts of TV sets

"Turn on the green light. The man wants a green suit."

 

[Borg]

What's with these gifts of TV sets, general electronics that require you to pay a $1 or nominal fee to claim your gift? Are these necessarily scams? I haven't tried to claim any such, just curious.

Yes, that sounds like a scam. I'm guessing that they want you to pay using your checking account or some other type of personal account? Once they have that information, there's nothing stopping them from charging much more than a dollar and clean out your account.

 

[WWGD]

Wow, reading about Robert Wadlow, worlds tallest (recorded, I guess) man, at 8'11''. Wonder how much more food he needed than the average person. Thousands in a lifetime. Though he died at 22, in 1940.

 

[Bystander]

Just got Scott Adams' latest, Not Remotely Working, this a-noon and AI has a loonnngggg way to go far as proofreading flyleaf/jacket text; "...supply CHANGE...."

 

[Bystander]

Just got Scott Adams' latest, Not Remotely Working, this a-noon and AI has a loonnngggg way to go far as proofreading flyleaf/jacket text; "...supply CHANGE...."

p.132, third daily, "...supply chain...."

 

[WWGD]

p.132, third daily, "...supply chain...."

Change you CAn't believe in.

 

[WWGD]

The Taga in Siberia changed its name when Sylvester Stallone moved there. He's currently the i of the Taiga.

 

[WWGD]

When I'm hungry, 'workshops' sounds like 'pork chops'. If I'm thirsty, Friedrich ( As in Carl Friedrich Gauss) sounds like ' Free drink'.

 

[Borg]

I'm a bit underwhelmed with the news stories about the fusion "breakthrough". It's great that they got more power out of the system than they put in but it's nothing close to the power that they used. The lasers are very inefficient and require much more energy than they deliver. All of the news stories are only comparing the delivered energy to the energy received from the fusion reaction. If you compare the total power used to the output, there is still a long way to go.

 

[Tom.G]

there is still a long way to go.

Agreed.
Perhaps it should/could be considered as a "Proof Of Concept."
After all, that is what the Wright Brothers supplied.

 

[WWGD]

This guy telling me how he survived back in the 70s, in San Diego, by sleeping in his car and making enough for basic expenses ( he did have a job )by recycling cans, which were $0.02 each, and two for $0.05. I doubt the whole can-recycle can do little but barely break even. His total of all such monthly expenses was $150, according to him.You need to travel to several source areas, then drive to the recycling center, you will likely have some competition, etc. It was an interesting story, but not too believable, so I let it slide.
Nowadays, though, with several cars, sleeping in a car may be, other than the whole bathroom thing, more comfortable than doing so at an apartment.

 

[Borg]

I've always found that the best way to save money is to stay educated and earn more of it.

 

[WWGD]

I've always found that the best way to save money is to stay educated and earn more of it.

Sure. Just that I doubt you can break even at all. I see people walking around with bags full of cans, and it seems like a fool's errand.

 

[WWGD]

Here's an interesting bit from Glassdoor: