Biker, Happy Joan of Arc Day!
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Biker! Happy Levelland Day!
Well Pa on this day in 1957 - The Levelland UFO Case in Levelland, Texas, generates national publicity, and remains one of the most impressive UFO cases in American history.
The Levelland UFO Case occurred on November 23, 1957 in and around the small town of Levelland, Texas. Levelland, which in 1957 had a population of about 10,000, is located west of Lubbock on the flat prairie of the Texas panhandle. The case is considered by ufologists to be one of the most impressive in UFO history, mainly because of the large number of witnesses involved over a relatively short period of time. However, both the US Air Force and UFO sceptics have labelled the incident as being caused by either ball lightning or a severe electrical storm.The incident
The incident began late on the evening of November 2 when two immigrant farm workers, Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz, called the Levelland police department to report a UFO sighting. Saucedo told police officer A.J. Fowler, who was working the night desk at the police station, that they had been driving four miles (6 km) west of Levelland when they saw a blue flash of light near the road. They claimed their truck's engine died, and a rocket-shaped object rose up and approached the truck. According to Saucedo, "I jumped out of the truck and hit the dirt because I was afraid. I called to Joe but he didn't get out. The thing passed directly over my truck with a great sound and rush of wind. It sounded like thunder and my truck rocked from the flash...I felt a lot of heat." As the object moved away the truck's engine restarted and worked normally. Believing the story to be a joke, Fowler ignored it. An hour later, motorist Jim Wheeler reported a "brilliantly lit, egg-shaped object, about 200 feet long" was sitting in the road, four miles (6 km) east of Levelland, blocking his path. He claimed his vehicle died and as he got out of his car the object took off and its lights went out. As it moved away, Wheeler's car restarted and worked normally.
At 10:55 pm a married couple driving northeast of Levelland reported that they saw a bright flash of light moving across the sky and their headlights and radio died for three seconds. Five minutes later Jose Alvarez claimed he met the strange object sitting on the road 11 miles (18 km) north of Levelland, and his vehicle's engine died until the object departed. At 12:05 am (November 3), a Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) student named Newell Wright was surprised when, driving 10 miles (16 km) east of Levelland, his "car engine began to sputter, the ammeter on the dash jumped to discharge and then back to normal, and the motor started cutting out like it was out of gas...the car rolled to a stop; then the headlights dimmed and several seconds later went out." When he got out to check on the problem, he saw a "100-foot-long" egg-shaped object sitting in the road. It took off, and his engine started running again. At 12:15 am Officer Fowler received another call, this time from a farmer named Frank Williams who claimed he had encountered a brightly glowing object sitting in the road, and "as his car approached it, its lights went out and its motor stopped." The object flew away, and his car's lights and motor started working again. Other callers were Ronald Martin at 12:45 am and James Long at 1:15 am, and they both reported seeing a brightly lit object sitting in the road in front of them, and they also claimed that their engines and headlights died until the object flew away.
By this time, several Levelland police officers were actively investigating the incident. Among them was Sheriff Weir Clem, who saw a brilliant red object moving across the sky at 1:30 am. At 1:45 am Levelland's Fire Chief, Ray Jones, also saw the object and his vehicle's lights and engine sputtered. The sightings apparently ended soon after this incident. During the night of November 23, the Levelland police department received a total of 15 phone calls concerning the strange object, and Officer Fowler noted that "everybody who called was very excited."
The Levelland sightings received national publicity, and were soon investigated by Project Blue Book. Started in 1948 as Project Sign, Project Blue Book was the official US Air Force research group assigned to investigate UFO reports. An Air Force sergeant was sent to Levelland, and spent seven hours in the city investigating the incident. After interviewing three of the eyewitnesses - Saucedo, Wheeler, and Wright - and after learning that thunderstorms were present in the area earlier in the day, the Air Force investigator concluded that a severe electrical storm - most probably ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire - was the major cause for the sightings and reported auto failures. According to UFO historian Curtis Peebles, "the Air Force found only three persons who had witnessed the 'blue light'...there was no uniform description of the object." Additionally, Project Blue Book believed that "Saucedo's account could not be relied upon - he had only a grade school education and had no concept of direction and was conflicting in his answers...in view of the stormy weather conditions, an electrical phenomenon such as ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire seemed to be the most probable cause." The engine failures mentioned by the eyewitnesses were blamed on "wet electrical circuits." Dr Donald H. Menzel, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University and a prominent UFO researcher of that era, agreed with the Air Force explanation: "members of civilian saucer groups complained that, since [the Air Force investigator] had spent only seven hours in the area, he had obviously not taken the problem seriously and could not have found the correct solution. Even seventy hours of labour, however, could not have produced a clearer picture...the evidence leads to an overwhelming probability: the fiery unknown at Levelland was ball lightning." Dr Menzel argued that "in Levelland on the night of November 2 conditions were ideal for the formation of ball lightning. For several days the area had been experiencing freak weather, and on the night in question had been visited by rain, thunderstorms and lightning." Menzel admitted that "since ball lightning is short-lived and cannot be preserved as tangible evidence, its appearance on the night of November 2 can never be absolutely proved." However, he also argued that "only the saucer proponents could have converted so trivial a series of events - a few stalled automobiles, balls of flame in the sky at the end of the thunderstorm - into a national mystery."
However, not everyone agreed with the Air Force explanation. Critics of the Air Force explanation pointed out that the Air Force investigator did not interview nine of the fifteen witnesses, nor were they mentioned in Blue Book's final report on the incident. In later years two prominent UFO researchers - Dr James E. McDonald, a physicist at the University of Arizona, and Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer at Northwestern University and, at the time, a top scientific consultant to Project Blue Book, would also dispute the Air Force ball lightning/electrical storm explanation. Both men argued that there was no electrical storm in the area when the sightings occurred. Dr. Hynek wrote that "as the person responsible for the tracking of the new Russian satellite Sputnik, I was on a virtual around-the-clock duty and was unable to give it any attention whatever. I am not proud today that I hastily concurred in [the Air Force's] evaluation as "ball lightning" on the basis of information that an electrical storm had been in progress in the Levelland area at the time. This was shown not to be the case. Observers reported overcast and mist but no lightning." Hynek also noted that "had I given it any thought whatsoever, I would soon have recognized the absence of any evidence that ball lightning can stop cars and put out headlights." In 1999 UFO researcher Antonio Rullan published a detailed analysis of the Levelland sightings. After examining various weather records and the competing claims of the Air Force, Dr McDonald, and others, he concluded that "there was no severe thunderstorm in Levelland during the time of the sightings...there could have been a few clouds with light rain in Levelland despite no rain being reported at the [nearby] Lubbock weather station." Rullan also added that "conditions for scattered lightning, however, cannot be discounted...lightning conditions did exist" and that "data sheets from the US Weather Bureau show that thunder and lightning were observed in [nearby] Lubbock one hour after the sightings ended."
Well Pa on this day in 1957 - The Levelland UFO Case in Levelland, Texas, generates national publicity, and remains one of the most impressive UFO cases in American history.
The Levelland UFO Case occurred on November 23, 1957 in and around the small town of Levelland, Texas. Levelland, which in 1957 had a population of about 10,000, is located west of Lubbock on the flat prairie of the Texas panhandle. The case is considered by ufologists to be one of the most impressive in UFO history, mainly because of the large number of witnesses involved over a relatively short period of time. However, both the US Air Force and UFO sceptics have labelled the incident as being caused by either ball lightning or a severe electrical storm.The incident
The incident began late on the evening of November 2 when two immigrant farm workers, Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz, called the Levelland police department to report a UFO sighting. Saucedo told police officer A.J. Fowler, who was working the night desk at the police station, that they had been driving four miles (6 km) west of Levelland when they saw a blue flash of light near the road. They claimed their truck's engine died, and a rocket-shaped object rose up and approached the truck. According to Saucedo, "I jumped out of the truck and hit the dirt because I was afraid. I called to Joe but he didn't get out. The thing passed directly over my truck with a great sound and rush of wind. It sounded like thunder and my truck rocked from the flash...I felt a lot of heat." As the object moved away the truck's engine restarted and worked normally. Believing the story to be a joke, Fowler ignored it. An hour later, motorist Jim Wheeler reported a "brilliantly lit, egg-shaped object, about 200 feet long" was sitting in the road, four miles (6 km) east of Levelland, blocking his path. He claimed his vehicle died and as he got out of his car the object took off and its lights went out. As it moved away, Wheeler's car restarted and worked normally.
At 10:55 pm a married couple driving northeast of Levelland reported that they saw a bright flash of light moving across the sky and their headlights and radio died for three seconds. Five minutes later Jose Alvarez claimed he met the strange object sitting on the road 11 miles (18 km) north of Levelland, and his vehicle's engine died until the object departed. At 12:05 am (November 3), a Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) student named Newell Wright was surprised when, driving 10 miles (16 km) east of Levelland, his "car engine began to sputter, the ammeter on the dash jumped to discharge and then back to normal, and the motor started cutting out like it was out of gas...the car rolled to a stop; then the headlights dimmed and several seconds later went out." When he got out to check on the problem, he saw a "100-foot-long" egg-shaped object sitting in the road. It took off, and his engine started running again. At 12:15 am Officer Fowler received another call, this time from a farmer named Frank Williams who claimed he had encountered a brightly glowing object sitting in the road, and "as his car approached it, its lights went out and its motor stopped." The object flew away, and his car's lights and motor started working again. Other callers were Ronald Martin at 12:45 am and James Long at 1:15 am, and they both reported seeing a brightly lit object sitting in the road in front of them, and they also claimed that their engines and headlights died until the object flew away.
By this time, several Levelland police officers were actively investigating the incident. Among them was Sheriff Weir Clem, who saw a brilliant red object moving across the sky at 1:30 am. At 1:45 am Levelland's Fire Chief, Ray Jones, also saw the object and his vehicle's lights and engine sputtered. The sightings apparently ended soon after this incident. During the night of November 23, the Levelland police department received a total of 15 phone calls concerning the strange object, and Officer Fowler noted that "everybody who called was very excited."
The Levelland sightings received national publicity, and were soon investigated by Project Blue Book. Started in 1948 as Project Sign, Project Blue Book was the official US Air Force research group assigned to investigate UFO reports. An Air Force sergeant was sent to Levelland, and spent seven hours in the city investigating the incident. After interviewing three of the eyewitnesses - Saucedo, Wheeler, and Wright - and after learning that thunderstorms were present in the area earlier in the day, the Air Force investigator concluded that a severe electrical storm - most probably ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire - was the major cause for the sightings and reported auto failures. According to UFO historian Curtis Peebles, "the Air Force found only three persons who had witnessed the 'blue light'...there was no uniform description of the object." Additionally, Project Blue Book believed that "Saucedo's account could not be relied upon - he had only a grade school education and had no concept of direction and was conflicting in his answers...in view of the stormy weather conditions, an electrical phenomenon such as ball lightning or St. Elmo's fire seemed to be the most probable cause." The engine failures mentioned by the eyewitnesses were blamed on "wet electrical circuits." Dr Donald H. Menzel, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University and a prominent UFO researcher of that era, agreed with the Air Force explanation: "members of civilian saucer groups complained that, since [the Air Force investigator] had spent only seven hours in the area, he had obviously not taken the problem seriously and could not have found the correct solution. Even seventy hours of labour, however, could not have produced a clearer picture...the evidence leads to an overwhelming probability: the fiery unknown at Levelland was ball lightning." Dr Menzel argued that "in Levelland on the night of November 2 conditions were ideal for the formation of ball lightning. For several days the area had been experiencing freak weather, and on the night in question had been visited by rain, thunderstorms and lightning." Menzel admitted that "since ball lightning is short-lived and cannot be preserved as tangible evidence, its appearance on the night of November 2 can never be absolutely proved." However, he also argued that "only the saucer proponents could have converted so trivial a series of events - a few stalled automobiles, balls of flame in the sky at the end of the thunderstorm - into a national mystery."
However, not everyone agreed with the Air Force explanation. Critics of the Air Force explanation pointed out that the Air Force investigator did not interview nine of the fifteen witnesses, nor were they mentioned in Blue Book's final report on the incident. In later years two prominent UFO researchers - Dr James E. McDonald, a physicist at the University of Arizona, and Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer at Northwestern University and, at the time, a top scientific consultant to Project Blue Book, would also dispute the Air Force ball lightning/electrical storm explanation. Both men argued that there was no electrical storm in the area when the sightings occurred. Dr. Hynek wrote that "as the person responsible for the tracking of the new Russian satellite Sputnik, I was on a virtual around-the-clock duty and was unable to give it any attention whatever. I am not proud today that I hastily concurred in [the Air Force's] evaluation as "ball lightning" on the basis of information that an electrical storm had been in progress in the Levelland area at the time. This was shown not to be the case. Observers reported overcast and mist but no lightning." Hynek also noted that "had I given it any thought whatsoever, I would soon have recognized the absence of any evidence that ball lightning can stop cars and put out headlights." In 1999 UFO researcher Antonio Rullan published a detailed analysis of the Levelland sightings. After examining various weather records and the competing claims of the Air Force, Dr McDonald, and others, he concluded that "there was no severe thunderstorm in Levelland during the time of the sightings...there could have been a few clouds with light rain in Levelland despite no rain being reported at the [nearby] Lubbock weather station." Rullan also added that "conditions for scattered lightning, however, cannot be discounted...lightning conditions did exist" and that "data sheets from the US Weather Bureau show that thunder and lightning were observed in [nearby] Lubbock one hour after the sightings ended."
Pa I may have changed my mind about BMW Bikes!
ca. 1936
ca. 1936
The "Schneekrad" prototype snow machine was built by BMW engineer Riemerschmidt, using a BMW R-12 engine in a "Gleitkettenkraftrad" or "slip-chain" motorcycle design and a Steib TR-500 sidecar. The diagram appears to be completely infeasible unless there are two separate tracks with the operator mounted between them: yet the photos appear to show a single track which runs beneath the rider and fuel tank. Most likely Riemerschmidt was simply experimenting with the design using whatever pieces were at hand rather than demonstrating a finished prototype.
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Was chatting to a physicist friend today as to whether supercooled helium or hydrogen gas was the least viscose fluid and we couldn't figure it out, so had a wee look on line. So as an addendum to this day in history lets have some "Weird Science" facts - Pa Kelly Le Brock will not be making an appearance!
You don't have to worry about a soft drink spontaneously overflowing its rim or shooting up and out of the straw from which you're trying to drink. That's because soft drinks are nothing like the superfluid helium shown in this video.
Researchers have known for decades that if you cool liquid helium just a few degrees below its boiling point of 452 degrees Fahrenheit (269 degrees Celsius) it will suddenly be able to do things that other fluids can't, like dribble through molecule-thin cracks, climb up and over the sides of a dish, and remain motionless when its container is spun.
No longer a mere liquid, the helium has become a superfluida liquid that flows without friction. "If you set [down] a cup with a liquid circulating around and you come back 10 minutes later, of course it's stopped moving," says John Beamish, an experimental physicist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Atoms in the liquid will collide with one another and slow down. "But if you did that with helium at low temperature and came back a million years later," he says, "it would still be moving."
Like plenty of other physics experiments that make you go"Huh?"superfluidity flows from the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics. But unlike other quantum stuff, superfluid helium's weird behaviour is visible to the naked eye.
An early sign of helium's odd behaviour was observed back in 1911 by the Dutch physicist and 1913 Nobel physics laureate Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a master of refrigeration who was the first to liquefy helium. Onnes found that helium (technically, the helium 4 isotope) began to readily conduct heat below 455.67 degrees F (270.92 degrees C), also known as the lambda point.
It wasn't until 1938 that the Russian physicist Pyotr Kapitsa and, independently, the British duo of John Allen and Don Misener measured the flow rate of helium below that temperature through a pair of glass disks attached to a plunger and a long, thin glass tube, respectively. The viscosity was so low that Kapitsa, who won his own Nobel Prize for the work, coined the term "superfluid" to describe itafter "superconductor," the term for a material that conducts very high electric currents without resistance.
Key to the effect is helium's unique ability to remain liquid down to absolute zero (459.67 degrees F, or 273.15 degrees C), the temperature at which atoms theoretically stop moving. When most liquids are cooled, the slight attraction between atoms in the fluid finally begins to overcome heat vibrations, and the particles settle into a regular order, namely a solid. But helium atoms are so light and weakly drawn to one another that even when ordinary atomic motions have quieted, the atoms jiggle with zero-point motion, a slight momentum imparted by the quantum uncertainty principle. Hence, they never settle into the solid state.
Helium's liquidity at low temperatures allows it to carry out a transformation called BoseEinstein condensation, in which individual particles overlap until they behave like one big particle. Atoms acting in unison don't behave like individual atoms. "If you march in unison, you don't collide with each other," says Moses Chan, who studies superfluidity at Pennsylvania State University in University Park.
Researchers like to think of superfluid helium as a mixture of two fluids, one normal and one superfluid. Different experiments bring out the contrasting characters of the two fractions. The simplest "experiment" is to watch as a container full of liquid helium suddenly springs a leak as it is cooled below the lambda point and the frictionless superfluid fraction begins to pour through microscopic cracks that the normal liquid fraction cannot enter. ("Super-leaks" have been the bane of scientists working with liquid helium since the early days, Beamish says.) But stir the same helium like coffee and the normal liquid fraction will resist the motion, imparting viscosity to the superfluid mixture, after all.
As the temperature falls, the superfluid fraction takes up a greater share of the mixture. In the field's gold-standard experiment, researchers measure the ratio of the two fractions by placing a sample in a cylindrical metal container suspended by a wire. When they impart a twist to the wire, the cylinder will rotate one way and then the other. But only the normal fraction will rotate with the cylinder, because of friction between it and the cylinder walls; the superfluid portion cuts right through the normal fluid and remains still. As the superfluid fraction increases, the cylinder rotates faster, as if the cylinder were losing weight (technically, inertia).
Superfluid helium's dual nature is at work again when it climbs the walls of a container. Any liquid will coat the sides of a dish in which it sitsthanks again to the slight attraction between atomsbut the liquid's internal friction limits how far the coating may spread. In superfluid helium, the frictionless film slithers over the whole container, creating a sort of arena through which the superfluid can flow. If the liquid has somewhere to fall after it climbs out of the dish, it will drip from the bottom of the container until it siphons out all the superfluid pooled above it.
The same principle underlies another famous demonstration in which superfluid rapidly shoots out of an open, heated glass tube packed with fine powder at the bottom. Called the superfluid fountain, it occurs because the superfluid outside of the tube rushes in to cool down the superfluid that has been warmed by the inside of the tube. (Allen, the co-discoverer of superfluidity, is said to have discovered the effect after he shined a pocket flashlight onto a glass tube of liquid helium.)
Work on superfluid helium has already netted three Nobel Prizes and may yet garner more. In 2004 Penn State's Chan and Eun-Seong Kim rotated a ring full of solid helium at 26 atmospheres of pressure and found that as they cooled the helium below the critical temperature, the rotational frequency increased, just as it does with liquid helium. Half a dozen laboratories, including Beamish's, are studying the "supersolid" effect, but researchers still aren't sure which elements of the solid would condense into a single BoseEinstein state.
The trick now is to see if the supersolid can produce the equivalent of super-leaks or other well-known super-effects. "If other unique properties can be convincingly shown," Beamish says, "everyone would agree it's a new phase of matter."
You don't have to worry about a soft drink spontaneously overflowing its rim or shooting up and out of the straw from which you're trying to drink. That's because soft drinks are nothing like the superfluid helium shown in this video.
Researchers have known for decades that if you cool liquid helium just a few degrees below its boiling point of 452 degrees Fahrenheit (269 degrees Celsius) it will suddenly be able to do things that other fluids can't, like dribble through molecule-thin cracks, climb up and over the sides of a dish, and remain motionless when its container is spun.
No longer a mere liquid, the helium has become a superfluida liquid that flows without friction. "If you set [down] a cup with a liquid circulating around and you come back 10 minutes later, of course it's stopped moving," says John Beamish, an experimental physicist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Atoms in the liquid will collide with one another and slow down. "But if you did that with helium at low temperature and came back a million years later," he says, "it would still be moving."
Like plenty of other physics experiments that make you go"Huh?"superfluidity flows from the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics. But unlike other quantum stuff, superfluid helium's weird behaviour is visible to the naked eye.
An early sign of helium's odd behaviour was observed back in 1911 by the Dutch physicist and 1913 Nobel physics laureate Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a master of refrigeration who was the first to liquefy helium. Onnes found that helium (technically, the helium 4 isotope) began to readily conduct heat below 455.67 degrees F (270.92 degrees C), also known as the lambda point.
It wasn't until 1938 that the Russian physicist Pyotr Kapitsa and, independently, the British duo of John Allen and Don Misener measured the flow rate of helium below that temperature through a pair of glass disks attached to a plunger and a long, thin glass tube, respectively. The viscosity was so low that Kapitsa, who won his own Nobel Prize for the work, coined the term "superfluid" to describe itafter "superconductor," the term for a material that conducts very high electric currents without resistance.
Key to the effect is helium's unique ability to remain liquid down to absolute zero (459.67 degrees F, or 273.15 degrees C), the temperature at which atoms theoretically stop moving. When most liquids are cooled, the slight attraction between atoms in the fluid finally begins to overcome heat vibrations, and the particles settle into a regular order, namely a solid. But helium atoms are so light and weakly drawn to one another that even when ordinary atomic motions have quieted, the atoms jiggle with zero-point motion, a slight momentum imparted by the quantum uncertainty principle. Hence, they never settle into the solid state.
Helium's liquidity at low temperatures allows it to carry out a transformation called BoseEinstein condensation, in which individual particles overlap until they behave like one big particle. Atoms acting in unison don't behave like individual atoms. "If you march in unison, you don't collide with each other," says Moses Chan, who studies superfluidity at Pennsylvania State University in University Park.
Researchers like to think of superfluid helium as a mixture of two fluids, one normal and one superfluid. Different experiments bring out the contrasting characters of the two fractions. The simplest "experiment" is to watch as a container full of liquid helium suddenly springs a leak as it is cooled below the lambda point and the frictionless superfluid fraction begins to pour through microscopic cracks that the normal liquid fraction cannot enter. ("Super-leaks" have been the bane of scientists working with liquid helium since the early days, Beamish says.) But stir the same helium like coffee and the normal liquid fraction will resist the motion, imparting viscosity to the superfluid mixture, after all.
As the temperature falls, the superfluid fraction takes up a greater share of the mixture. In the field's gold-standard experiment, researchers measure the ratio of the two fractions by placing a sample in a cylindrical metal container suspended by a wire. When they impart a twist to the wire, the cylinder will rotate one way and then the other. But only the normal fraction will rotate with the cylinder, because of friction between it and the cylinder walls; the superfluid portion cuts right through the normal fluid and remains still. As the superfluid fraction increases, the cylinder rotates faster, as if the cylinder were losing weight (technically, inertia).
Superfluid helium's dual nature is at work again when it climbs the walls of a container. Any liquid will coat the sides of a dish in which it sitsthanks again to the slight attraction between atomsbut the liquid's internal friction limits how far the coating may spread. In superfluid helium, the frictionless film slithers over the whole container, creating a sort of arena through which the superfluid can flow. If the liquid has somewhere to fall after it climbs out of the dish, it will drip from the bottom of the container until it siphons out all the superfluid pooled above it.
The same principle underlies another famous demonstration in which superfluid rapidly shoots out of an open, heated glass tube packed with fine powder at the bottom. Called the superfluid fountain, it occurs because the superfluid outside of the tube rushes in to cool down the superfluid that has been warmed by the inside of the tube. (Allen, the co-discoverer of superfluidity, is said to have discovered the effect after he shined a pocket flashlight onto a glass tube of liquid helium.)
Work on superfluid helium has already netted three Nobel Prizes and may yet garner more. In 2004 Penn State's Chan and Eun-Seong Kim rotated a ring full of solid helium at 26 atmospheres of pressure and found that as they cooled the helium below the critical temperature, the rotational frequency increased, just as it does with liquid helium. Half a dozen laboratories, including Beamish's, are studying the "supersolid" effect, but researchers still aren't sure which elements of the solid would condense into a single BoseEinstein state.
The trick now is to see if the supersolid can produce the equivalent of super-leaks or other well-known super-effects. "If other unique properties can be convincingly shown," Beamish says, "everyone would agree it's a new phase of matter."
thats just super Goatboy
anyway, if you like airships and that the Japanese Anime movie Porko Rosso and others from Studio Ghibli may float your skyboat.
Also a good airship book from HG Wells "the War In The Air" . Written in 1908, it virtually prredicted the future, heres the epitaph from a publication in the 1940's;
"HERE in 1941 The War in the Air is being reprinted once again. It was written in
1907 and first published in 1908. It was
reprinted in 1921, and then I wrote a preface which also I am reprinting. Again I ask the reader to note the warnings I gave
in that year, twenty years ago Is there
anything to add to that preface now?
Nothing except my epitaph. That, when
the time comes, will manifestly have to be:
I told you so. You damned fools. (The italics are mine.)"
anyway, if you like airships and that the Japanese Anime movie Porko Rosso and others from Studio Ghibli may float your skyboat.
Also a good airship book from HG Wells "the War In The Air" . Written in 1908, it virtually prredicted the future, heres the epitaph from a publication in the 1940's;
"HERE in 1941 The War in the Air is being reprinted once again. It was written in
1907 and first published in 1908. It was
reprinted in 1921, and then I wrote a preface which also I am reprinting. Again I ask the reader to note the warnings I gave
in that year, twenty years ago Is there
anything to add to that preface now?
Nothing except my epitaph. That, when
the time comes, will manifestly have to be:
I told you so. You damned fools. (The italics are mine.)"
Squeaks when he walks. Yep! That is the one.
The smoking jacket ensemble was OK but he did insist on going sans strides. I always used to find that a bit off putting when he was watching TV or trying to 'play' with the kids.
The smoking jacket ensemble was OK but he did insist on going sans strides. I always used to find that a bit off putting when he was watching TV or trying to 'play' with the kids.
More real dieselpunk snow machinery.
This is the "SchneeMaschine", designed in 1944 by Johannes Raedel, a German soldier sent to the Eastern Front. He came up with the idea, when he saw the misery of the German troops in the deep Russian snow, and taking a good look at a meat mincer... Testing this machine in the mountains in Tyrol:
Some more from the Professor to while away the afternoon into evening...
[video=youtube;eELH0ivexKA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA[/video]
Some more from the Professor to while away the afternoon into evening...
[video=youtube;eELH0ivexKA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA[/video]
Biker! Happy Black Bart the Poet Day!
Pa, on this day in 1883 - American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the poet" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture.
Charles Earl Bowles (b. 1829; d.after 1888), better known as Black Bart, was an English-born American Old West outlaw noted for the poetic messages he left behind after two of his robberies. Called Charley by his friends, he was also known as Charles Bolton, C.E. Bolton and Black Bart the Poet. Considered a gentleman bandit, he was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers to operate in and around Northern California and southern Oregon during the 1870s and 1880s.
Black Bart had a reputation for style and sophistication.
Charles Bowles was born in Norfolk, England, to John and Maria Bowles, or Bolles. He was one of 10 children: seven boys and three girls. When Charles was two years old, his parents emigrated to Jefferson County, New York. His father, John Bowles, purchased a farm in the area, four miles north of Plessis Village in the direction of Alexandria Bay.
In late 1849, Bowles and two of his brothers, David and James, took part in the California Gold Rush. They began mining in the North Fork of the American River in California.
Bowles mined for only a year before returning home in 1852. He soon made a second trip to the California goldfields, accompanied once more by his brother David and this time by another brother, Robert. Both David and Robert were taken ill and died in California soon after their arrival. Bowles continued mining for two more years before leaving the goldfields.
In 1854, Bowles (who had by now adopted this spelling of his surname) married Mary Elizabeth Johnson in Illinois. They had four children. By 1860, the couple had made their home in Decatur, Illinois.
The American Civil War began in April 1861. Bowles enlisted in Decatur as a private in Company B, 116th Illinois Regiment, on August 13, 1862. He proved to be a good soldier, rising to the rank of first sergeant within a year. He took part in numerous battles and campaigns, including the Battle of Vicksburg, where he was seriously wounded, and Sherman's March to the Sea. On June 7, 1865, he was discharged in Washington, D.C., and returned home to Illinois. He had received brevet commissions as both second lieutenant and first lieutenant.
After the long years of war, a quiet life of farming held little appeal to Bowles, and he yearned for adventure. By 1867, he was prospecting again in Idaho and Montana. Little is known of him during this time, but in a letter to his wife in August 1871 he mentioned an unpleasant incident involving some Wells, Fargo & Company employees and vowed to extract revenge. He then stopped writing, and after a time his wife assumed he was dead.
Bowles, as Black Bart, perpetrated 28 robberies of Wells Fargo stagecoaches across northern California between 1875 and 1883, including a number of robberies along the historic Siskiyou Trail, between California and Oregon. Although he only left two poems, at the fourth and fifth robbery sites, this came to be considered his signature and ensured his fame. Black Bart was very successful, making off with thousands of dollars a year.
Bowles was terrified of horses and committed all of his robberies on foot. This, together with his poems, earned him notoriety. Through all his years as a highwayman, he never fired a gun.
Bowles was always courteous and used no foul language in speech, although this aversion to profanity is not evident in his poems.. He wore a long linen duster coat and a bowler hat. He covered his head using a flour sack with holes cut for the eyes and he brandished a shotgun. These distinguishing features became his trademarks.
On 26 July 1875, Bowles robbed his first stagecoach in Calaveras County, on the road between Copperopolis and Milton. What made the crime unusual was the politeness and good manners of the outlaw. He spoke with a deep and resonant tone and told John Shine, the stagecoach driver, "Please throw down the box." As Shine handed the strongbox, Bowles shouted, "If he dares to shoot, give him a solid volley, boys". Rifle barrels pointed at Shine from the nearby bushes, so he handed over the strongbox.
Shine waited until Bowles vanished and then went back to get the plundered box. Upon returning to the scene, he found that the men with rifles in the bushes were actually carefully rigged sticks.
This first robbery netted Bowles $160.
[SUP]
The last holdup took place at the site, fittingly enough, of his first holdup, on Funk Hill, just southeast of the present town of Copperopolis. The stage had crossed the Reynolds Ferry on the old stage road from Sonora to Milton. The stage driver was Reason McConnell. At the ferry crossing, the driver picked up Jimmy Rolleri, the 19-year-old son of the ferry owner. The stage had to travel up a steep road on the east side of Funk Hill. Jimmy Rolleri had brought his rifle and got off at the bottom of the hill, intending to hunt along the creek at the southern base of the hill and then meet the stage at the bottom of the western grade. However, on arriving at the western side of the hill, he found that the stage was not there. He began walking up the stage road and, on nearing the summit, he encountered the stage driver and his team of horses.
[/SUP][SUP]Rolleri learned that as the stage had approached the summit, Bowles had stepped out from behind a rock with his shotgun. Bowles made McConnell unhitch the team and return with them over the crest again to the west side of the hill, where Rolleri encountered him. Bowles then tried to remove the strongbox from the stage. Wells Fargo had bolted the strongbox to the floor inside the stage (which had no passengers that day). It took Bowles some time to remove the box.
[/SUP][SUP]McConnell informed Rolleri that a holdup was in progress, and Rolleri came up to where McConnell and the horses were standing. He saw Bowles backing out of the stage with the box. McConnell took Rolleri's rifle and fired at Bowles twice as he started to run away. He missed. Jimmy took the rifle and fired just as Bowles was entering a thicket. They saw him stumble as the bullet found its mark. Running to where they had last seen the robber, they found a bundle of mail he had dropped, and scattered further on was more mail, which had blood on it. Bowles had been shot in the hand. After running about a quarter of a mile Bowles stopped, too tired to run any farther. He wrapped a handkerchief around the wound to help stop the bleeding. Bowles found a rotten log and stuffed the sack with the gold amalgam into it. He kept the $500 in gold coins. Bowles buried the shotgun in a hollow tree but threw away everything else, except what he needed to get by, and escaped.
It should be noted that there is a manuscript written some 20 years after the robbery by stage driver Reason McConnell in which McConnell says that he fired all four shots at Bowles. The first was a misfire, he thought the second or third shot hit Bowles, and he knew that the fourth one hit him. Bowles only had the wound to his hand, and if the other shots hit his clothing, Bart was unaware of it.
During his last robbery in 1883, when Bowles was wounded and forced to flee the scene, he left behind several personal items, including a pair of eyeglasses, food, and a handkerchief with a laundry mark F.X.O.7. Wells Fargo Detective James B. Hume (who allegedly looked enough like Bowles to be a twin brother, moustache included) found these several personal items at the scene. He and Wells Fargo detective Henry Nicholson Morse contacted every laundry in San Francisco, seeking the one that used the mark. After visiting nearly 90 laundry operators, they finally traced the mark to Ferguson & Bigg's California Laundry on Bush Street. They were able to identify the handkerchief as belonging to Bowles, who lived in a modest boarding house.
Bowles described himself as a "mining engineer" and made frequent "business trips" that happened to coincide with the Wells Fargo robberies. After initially denying he was Black Bart, Bowles eventually admitted that he had robbed several Wells Fargo stages but confessed only to the crimes committed before 1879. It is widely believed that Bowles mistakenly believed that the statute of limitations had expired on these robberies. When booked, he gave his name as T.Z. Spalding. When the police examined his possessions they found a Bible, a gift from his wife, inscribed with his real name.
The police report following his arrest stated that Bowles was "a person of great endurance. Exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances, and was extremely proper and polite in behavior. Eschews profanity."
Wells Fargo pressed charges only on the final robbery. Bowles was convicted and sentenced to six years in San Quentin Prison, but his stay was shortened to four years for good behaviour. When he was released in January 1888, his health had clearly deteriorated owing to his time in prison. He had visibly aged, his eyesight was failing, and he had gone deaf in one ear. Reporters swarmed around him when he was released and asked if he was going to rob any more stagecoaches. "No, gentlemen," he replied, smiling, "I'm through with crime." Another reporter asked if he would write more poetry. Bowles laughed and said, "Now, didn't you hear me say that I am through with crime?"
Black Bart's end is in keeping with the way the romantics of his day would have had it. Bowles never returned to his wife, Mary, in Hannibal, Missouri, after his release from prison. However, he did write to her after his release. In one of the letters he said he was tired of being shadowed by Wells Fargo, felt demoralized, and wanted to get away from everybody. In February 1888 Bowles left the Nevada House and vanished. Hume said Wells Fargo tracked him to the Palace Hotel in Visalia. The hotel owner said a man answering the description of Bart checked in and then disappeared. The last time the outlaw was seen was February 28, 1888.
There were rumours that Wells Fargo had paid off the aging bandit and sent him away to keep him from robbing their stages. However, Wells Fargo denied this.
Some believe that Bowles moved to New York City and lived quietly for the rest of his life, dying there in 1917, though this was never confirmed. Others believe the unlikely tale that the former poet bandit with failing eyesight had gone to the wilds of Montana or perhaps Nevada for another try at making a fortune.
Bowles, like many of his contemporaries, read "dime novel"style serial adventure stories which appeared in local newspapers. In the early 1870s, the Sacramento Union ran a story called The Case of Summerfield by Caxton (a pseudonym of William Henry Rhodes). In the story, the villain dressed in black and had long unruly black hair, a large black beard, and wild grey eyes. The villain robbed Wells Fargo stagecoaches and brought great fear into those who were unlucky enough to cross him. The character's name was Black Bart.
Bowles may have read the Sacramento Union story. He told a Wells Fargo detective that the name popped into his head when he was writing the first poem and he used it.
Bowles left only two authenticated verses. The first was at the scene of the August 3, 1877, holdup on a stage traveling from Point Arena to Duncan's Mills:
[/SUP]
Pa, on this day in 1883 - American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the poet" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture.
Charles Earl Bowles (b. 1829; d.after 1888), better known as Black Bart, was an English-born American Old West outlaw noted for the poetic messages he left behind after two of his robberies. Called Charley by his friends, he was also known as Charles Bolton, C.E. Bolton and Black Bart the Poet. Considered a gentleman bandit, he was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers to operate in and around Northern California and southern Oregon during the 1870s and 1880s.
Black Bart had a reputation for style and sophistication.
Charles Bowles was born in Norfolk, England, to John and Maria Bowles, or Bolles. He was one of 10 children: seven boys and three girls. When Charles was two years old, his parents emigrated to Jefferson County, New York. His father, John Bowles, purchased a farm in the area, four miles north of Plessis Village in the direction of Alexandria Bay.
In late 1849, Bowles and two of his brothers, David and James, took part in the California Gold Rush. They began mining in the North Fork of the American River in California.
Bowles mined for only a year before returning home in 1852. He soon made a second trip to the California goldfields, accompanied once more by his brother David and this time by another brother, Robert. Both David and Robert were taken ill and died in California soon after their arrival. Bowles continued mining for two more years before leaving the goldfields.
In 1854, Bowles (who had by now adopted this spelling of his surname) married Mary Elizabeth Johnson in Illinois. They had four children. By 1860, the couple had made their home in Decatur, Illinois.
The American Civil War began in April 1861. Bowles enlisted in Decatur as a private in Company B, 116th Illinois Regiment, on August 13, 1862. He proved to be a good soldier, rising to the rank of first sergeant within a year. He took part in numerous battles and campaigns, including the Battle of Vicksburg, where he was seriously wounded, and Sherman's March to the Sea. On June 7, 1865, he was discharged in Washington, D.C., and returned home to Illinois. He had received brevet commissions as both second lieutenant and first lieutenant.
After the long years of war, a quiet life of farming held little appeal to Bowles, and he yearned for adventure. By 1867, he was prospecting again in Idaho and Montana. Little is known of him during this time, but in a letter to his wife in August 1871 he mentioned an unpleasant incident involving some Wells, Fargo & Company employees and vowed to extract revenge. He then stopped writing, and after a time his wife assumed he was dead.
Bowles, as Black Bart, perpetrated 28 robberies of Wells Fargo stagecoaches across northern California between 1875 and 1883, including a number of robberies along the historic Siskiyou Trail, between California and Oregon. Although he only left two poems, at the fourth and fifth robbery sites, this came to be considered his signature and ensured his fame. Black Bart was very successful, making off with thousands of dollars a year.
Bowles was terrified of horses and committed all of his robberies on foot. This, together with his poems, earned him notoriety. Through all his years as a highwayman, he never fired a gun.
Bowles was always courteous and used no foul language in speech, although this aversion to profanity is not evident in his poems.. He wore a long linen duster coat and a bowler hat. He covered his head using a flour sack with holes cut for the eyes and he brandished a shotgun. These distinguishing features became his trademarks.
On 26 July 1875, Bowles robbed his first stagecoach in Calaveras County, on the road between Copperopolis and Milton. What made the crime unusual was the politeness and good manners of the outlaw. He spoke with a deep and resonant tone and told John Shine, the stagecoach driver, "Please throw down the box." As Shine handed the strongbox, Bowles shouted, "If he dares to shoot, give him a solid volley, boys". Rifle barrels pointed at Shine from the nearby bushes, so he handed over the strongbox.
Shine waited until Bowles vanished and then went back to get the plundered box. Upon returning to the scene, he found that the men with rifles in the bushes were actually carefully rigged sticks.
This first robbery netted Bowles $160.
[SUP]
The last holdup took place at the site, fittingly enough, of his first holdup, on Funk Hill, just southeast of the present town of Copperopolis. The stage had crossed the Reynolds Ferry on the old stage road from Sonora to Milton. The stage driver was Reason McConnell. At the ferry crossing, the driver picked up Jimmy Rolleri, the 19-year-old son of the ferry owner. The stage had to travel up a steep road on the east side of Funk Hill. Jimmy Rolleri had brought his rifle and got off at the bottom of the hill, intending to hunt along the creek at the southern base of the hill and then meet the stage at the bottom of the western grade. However, on arriving at the western side of the hill, he found that the stage was not there. He began walking up the stage road and, on nearing the summit, he encountered the stage driver and his team of horses.
[/SUP][SUP]Rolleri learned that as the stage had approached the summit, Bowles had stepped out from behind a rock with his shotgun. Bowles made McConnell unhitch the team and return with them over the crest again to the west side of the hill, where Rolleri encountered him. Bowles then tried to remove the strongbox from the stage. Wells Fargo had bolted the strongbox to the floor inside the stage (which had no passengers that day). It took Bowles some time to remove the box.
[/SUP][SUP]McConnell informed Rolleri that a holdup was in progress, and Rolleri came up to where McConnell and the horses were standing. He saw Bowles backing out of the stage with the box. McConnell took Rolleri's rifle and fired at Bowles twice as he started to run away. He missed. Jimmy took the rifle and fired just as Bowles was entering a thicket. They saw him stumble as the bullet found its mark. Running to where they had last seen the robber, they found a bundle of mail he had dropped, and scattered further on was more mail, which had blood on it. Bowles had been shot in the hand. After running about a quarter of a mile Bowles stopped, too tired to run any farther. He wrapped a handkerchief around the wound to help stop the bleeding. Bowles found a rotten log and stuffed the sack with the gold amalgam into it. He kept the $500 in gold coins. Bowles buried the shotgun in a hollow tree but threw away everything else, except what he needed to get by, and escaped.
It should be noted that there is a manuscript written some 20 years after the robbery by stage driver Reason McConnell in which McConnell says that he fired all four shots at Bowles. The first was a misfire, he thought the second or third shot hit Bowles, and he knew that the fourth one hit him. Bowles only had the wound to his hand, and if the other shots hit his clothing, Bart was unaware of it.
During his last robbery in 1883, when Bowles was wounded and forced to flee the scene, he left behind several personal items, including a pair of eyeglasses, food, and a handkerchief with a laundry mark F.X.O.7. Wells Fargo Detective James B. Hume (who allegedly looked enough like Bowles to be a twin brother, moustache included) found these several personal items at the scene. He and Wells Fargo detective Henry Nicholson Morse contacted every laundry in San Francisco, seeking the one that used the mark. After visiting nearly 90 laundry operators, they finally traced the mark to Ferguson & Bigg's California Laundry on Bush Street. They were able to identify the handkerchief as belonging to Bowles, who lived in a modest boarding house.
Bowles described himself as a "mining engineer" and made frequent "business trips" that happened to coincide with the Wells Fargo robberies. After initially denying he was Black Bart, Bowles eventually admitted that he had robbed several Wells Fargo stages but confessed only to the crimes committed before 1879. It is widely believed that Bowles mistakenly believed that the statute of limitations had expired on these robberies. When booked, he gave his name as T.Z. Spalding. When the police examined his possessions they found a Bible, a gift from his wife, inscribed with his real name.
The police report following his arrest stated that Bowles was "a person of great endurance. Exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances, and was extremely proper and polite in behavior. Eschews profanity."
Wells Fargo pressed charges only on the final robbery. Bowles was convicted and sentenced to six years in San Quentin Prison, but his stay was shortened to four years for good behaviour. When he was released in January 1888, his health had clearly deteriorated owing to his time in prison. He had visibly aged, his eyesight was failing, and he had gone deaf in one ear. Reporters swarmed around him when he was released and asked if he was going to rob any more stagecoaches. "No, gentlemen," he replied, smiling, "I'm through with crime." Another reporter asked if he would write more poetry. Bowles laughed and said, "Now, didn't you hear me say that I am through with crime?"
Black Bart's end is in keeping with the way the romantics of his day would have had it. Bowles never returned to his wife, Mary, in Hannibal, Missouri, after his release from prison. However, he did write to her after his release. In one of the letters he said he was tired of being shadowed by Wells Fargo, felt demoralized, and wanted to get away from everybody. In February 1888 Bowles left the Nevada House and vanished. Hume said Wells Fargo tracked him to the Palace Hotel in Visalia. The hotel owner said a man answering the description of Bart checked in and then disappeared. The last time the outlaw was seen was February 28, 1888.
There were rumours that Wells Fargo had paid off the aging bandit and sent him away to keep him from robbing their stages. However, Wells Fargo denied this.
Some believe that Bowles moved to New York City and lived quietly for the rest of his life, dying there in 1917, though this was never confirmed. Others believe the unlikely tale that the former poet bandit with failing eyesight had gone to the wilds of Montana or perhaps Nevada for another try at making a fortune.
Bowles, like many of his contemporaries, read "dime novel"style serial adventure stories which appeared in local newspapers. In the early 1870s, the Sacramento Union ran a story called The Case of Summerfield by Caxton (a pseudonym of William Henry Rhodes). In the story, the villain dressed in black and had long unruly black hair, a large black beard, and wild grey eyes. The villain robbed Wells Fargo stagecoaches and brought great fear into those who were unlucky enough to cross him. The character's name was Black Bart.
Bowles may have read the Sacramento Union story. He told a Wells Fargo detective that the name popped into his head when he was writing the first poem and he used it.
Bowles left only two authenticated verses. The first was at the scene of the August 3, 1877, holdup on a stage traveling from Point Arena to Duncan's Mills:
I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor, and for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.
Black Bart, 1877
The second verse was left at the site of his July 25, 1878, holdup of a stage traveling from Quincy to Oroville. It read:For honor, and for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.
Black Bart, 1877
Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will, I'll try it on,
My condition can't be worse;
And if there's money in that box
'Tis munny in my purse.
Black Bart
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will, I'll try it on,
My condition can't be worse;
And if there's money in that box
'Tis munny in my purse.
Black Bart
[/SUP]
Almost forgot todays strange but true, hopefully it will I will twist your melon this fine Sunday morning: -
Infinity Comes in Different Sizes.
In the 1995 Pixar film Toy Story, the gung ho space action figure Buzz Lightyear tirelessly incants his catchphrase: "To infinity and beyond!" The joke, of course, is rooted in the perfectly reasonable assumption that infinity is the unsurpassable absolutethat there is no beyond.
That assumption, however, is not entirely sound. As German mathematician Georg Cantor demonstrated in the late 19th century, there exists a variety of infinitiesand some are simply larger than others.
Take, for instance, the so-called natural numbers: 1, 2, 3 and so on. These numbers are unbounded, and so the collection, or set, of all the natural numbers is infinite in size. But just how infinite is it? Cantor used an elegant argument to show that the naturals, although infinitely numerous, are actually less numerous than another common family of numbers, the "reals." (This set comprises all numbers that can be represented as a decimal, even if that decimal representation is infinite in length. Hence, 27 is a real number, as is π, or 3.14159 .)
In fact, Cantor showed, there are more real numbers packed in between zero and one than there are numbers in the entire range of naturals. He did this by contradiction, logically: He assumes that these infinite sets are the same size, then follows a series of logical steps to find a flaw that undermines that assumption. He reasons that the naturals and this zero-to-one subset of the reals having equally many members implies that the two sets can be put into a one-to-one correspondence. That is, the two sets can be paired so that every element in each set has oneand only one"partner" in the other set.
Think of it this way: even in the absence of numerical counting, one-to-one correspondences can be used to measure relative sizes. Imagine two crates of unknown sizes, one of apples and one of oranges. Withdrawing one apple and one orange at a time thus partners the two sets into apple-orange pairs. If the contents of the two crates are emptied simultaneously, they are equally numerous; if one crate is exhausted before the other, the one with remaining fruit is more plentiful.
Cantor thus assumes that the naturals and the reals from zero to one have been put into such a correspondence. Every natural number n thus has a real partner r[SUB]n[/SUB]. The reals can then be listed in order of their corresponding naturals: r[SUB]1[/SUB], r[SUB]2[/SUB], r[SUB]3[/SUB], and so on.
Then Cantor's wily side begins to show. He creates a real number, called p, by the following rule: make the digit n places after the decimal point in p something other than the digit in that same decimal place in r[SUB]n[/SUB]. A simple method would be: choose 3 when the digit in question is 4; otherwise, choose 4.
For demonstration's sake, say the real number pair for the natural number 1 (r[SUB]1[/SUB]) is Ted Williams's famed .400 batting average from 1941 (0.40570 ), the pair for 2 (r[SUB]2[/SUB]) is George W. Bush's share of the popular vote in 2000 (0.47868 ) and that of 3 (r[SUB]3[/SUB]) is the decimal component of π (0.14159 ).
Now create p following Cantor's construction: the digit in the first decimal place should not be equal to that in the first decimal place of r[SUB]1[/SUB], which is 4. Therefore, choose 3, and p begins 0.3 . Then choose the digit in the second decimal place of p so that it does not equal that of the second decimal place of r[SUB]2[/SUB], which is 7 (choose 4; p = 0.34 ). Finally, choose the digit in the third decimal place of p so that it does not equal that of the corresponding decimal place of r[SUB]3[/SUB], which is 1 (choose 4 again; p = 0.344 ).
Continuing down the list, this mathematical method (called "diagonalization") generates a real number p between zero and one that, by its construction, differs from every real number on the list in at least one decimal place. Ergo, it cannot be on the list.
In other words, p is a real number without a natural number partneran apple without an orange. Thus, the one-to-one correspondence between the reals and the naturals fails, as there are simply too many realsthey are "unaccountably" numerousmaking real infinity somehow larger than natural infinity.
"The idea of being 'larger than' was really a breakthrough," says Stanley Burris, professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. "You had this basic arithmetic of infinity, but no one had thought of classifying within infinityit was just kind of a single object before that."
Adds mathematician Joseph Mileti of Dartmouth College: "When I first heard the result and first saw it, it was definitely something that knocked me over. It's one of those results that's short and sweet and really, really surprising."
Infinity Comes in Different Sizes.
In the 1995 Pixar film Toy Story, the gung ho space action figure Buzz Lightyear tirelessly incants his catchphrase: "To infinity and beyond!" The joke, of course, is rooted in the perfectly reasonable assumption that infinity is the unsurpassable absolutethat there is no beyond.
That assumption, however, is not entirely sound. As German mathematician Georg Cantor demonstrated in the late 19th century, there exists a variety of infinitiesand some are simply larger than others.
Take, for instance, the so-called natural numbers: 1, 2, 3 and so on. These numbers are unbounded, and so the collection, or set, of all the natural numbers is infinite in size. But just how infinite is it? Cantor used an elegant argument to show that the naturals, although infinitely numerous, are actually less numerous than another common family of numbers, the "reals." (This set comprises all numbers that can be represented as a decimal, even if that decimal representation is infinite in length. Hence, 27 is a real number, as is π, or 3.14159 .)
In fact, Cantor showed, there are more real numbers packed in between zero and one than there are numbers in the entire range of naturals. He did this by contradiction, logically: He assumes that these infinite sets are the same size, then follows a series of logical steps to find a flaw that undermines that assumption. He reasons that the naturals and this zero-to-one subset of the reals having equally many members implies that the two sets can be put into a one-to-one correspondence. That is, the two sets can be paired so that every element in each set has oneand only one"partner" in the other set.
Think of it this way: even in the absence of numerical counting, one-to-one correspondences can be used to measure relative sizes. Imagine two crates of unknown sizes, one of apples and one of oranges. Withdrawing one apple and one orange at a time thus partners the two sets into apple-orange pairs. If the contents of the two crates are emptied simultaneously, they are equally numerous; if one crate is exhausted before the other, the one with remaining fruit is more plentiful.
Cantor thus assumes that the naturals and the reals from zero to one have been put into such a correspondence. Every natural number n thus has a real partner r[SUB]n[/SUB]. The reals can then be listed in order of their corresponding naturals: r[SUB]1[/SUB], r[SUB]2[/SUB], r[SUB]3[/SUB], and so on.
Then Cantor's wily side begins to show. He creates a real number, called p, by the following rule: make the digit n places after the decimal point in p something other than the digit in that same decimal place in r[SUB]n[/SUB]. A simple method would be: choose 3 when the digit in question is 4; otherwise, choose 4.
For demonstration's sake, say the real number pair for the natural number 1 (r[SUB]1[/SUB]) is Ted Williams's famed .400 batting average from 1941 (0.40570 ), the pair for 2 (r[SUB]2[/SUB]) is George W. Bush's share of the popular vote in 2000 (0.47868 ) and that of 3 (r[SUB]3[/SUB]) is the decimal component of π (0.14159 ).
Now create p following Cantor's construction: the digit in the first decimal place should not be equal to that in the first decimal place of r[SUB]1[/SUB], which is 4. Therefore, choose 3, and p begins 0.3 . Then choose the digit in the second decimal place of p so that it does not equal that of the second decimal place of r[SUB]2[/SUB], which is 7 (choose 4; p = 0.34 ). Finally, choose the digit in the third decimal place of p so that it does not equal that of the corresponding decimal place of r[SUB]3[/SUB], which is 1 (choose 4 again; p = 0.344 ).
Continuing down the list, this mathematical method (called "diagonalization") generates a real number p between zero and one that, by its construction, differs from every real number on the list in at least one decimal place. Ergo, it cannot be on the list.
In other words, p is a real number without a natural number partneran apple without an orange. Thus, the one-to-one correspondence between the reals and the naturals fails, as there are simply too many realsthey are "unaccountably" numerousmaking real infinity somehow larger than natural infinity.
"The idea of being 'larger than' was really a breakthrough," says Stanley Burris, professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. "You had this basic arithmetic of infinity, but no one had thought of classifying within infinityit was just kind of a single object before that."
Adds mathematician Joseph Mileti of Dartmouth College: "When I first heard the result and first saw it, it was definitely something that knocked me over. It's one of those results that's short and sweet and really, really surprising."
very good goatboy, I see your infinity and beond and I raise you Donald Rumsfield, war secretery of america ;
From Department of Defense news briefing February 12, 2002 [1] .
" Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones."
From Department of Defense news briefing February 12, 2002 [1] .
" Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones."
Lol, I'll see that and raise you by his quote, "I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."
Always nice to find there are folk stranger than our family.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
It was another Donald Rumsfield actually but "Old Doubleya" did many... "They misunderestimated me.", "I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here." , "Do you have blacks, too?" --to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001...
To de honest he could have his own thread of them.
Biker
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Very true. The man clearly hadn't a clue he was a laughing stock to the rest of the world. I just wonder if he had the wit to figure out whether this was a pi$$ take, parody or good honest fun.
[video=youtube;t4N93jLVPIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4N93jLVPIA[/video]
i just took a shot in the dark, it was either between the keeper of the biggest arsenal of war on earth, the pope, or boris johnson. Wrong in all cases.
Internet Roulette!
While waiting on something earlier I turned to the computer which was on, nobody was playing on BCUK and I took a mental blank as to what to do. This doesn't usually bother me but I had had a coffee earlier and was a bit buzy.
So I went here. LINK: Random Website Dot Com It will take you as promised to a random website, some are good, some are terrible, some come up 404:Not Found.
Well it passed the time and I did learn some things, like my written Dutch isn't so hot, Mick Jagger is to produce a James Brown biopic and that in east Bay Oakland there's a robbery epidemic of smartphones.
So now you know what to do on a Sunday when your mind needs to go for a walk.
While waiting on something earlier I turned to the computer which was on, nobody was playing on BCUK and I took a mental blank as to what to do. This doesn't usually bother me but I had had a coffee earlier and was a bit buzy.
So I went here. LINK: Random Website Dot Com It will take you as promised to a random website, some are good, some are terrible, some come up 404:Not Found.
Well it passed the time and I did learn some things, like my written Dutch isn't so hot, Mick Jagger is to produce a James Brown biopic and that in east Bay Oakland there's a robbery epidemic of smartphones.
So now you know what to do on a Sunday when your mind needs to go for a walk.