breaking the speed of light article on howstuffworks.com

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 04:30:59 GMT, Richard the Dreaded Libertarian
<eatmyshorts@doubleclick.net> wrote:

On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 13:21:19 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 12:21:20 -0800, John Larkin
jjSNIPlarkin@highTHISlandPLEASEtechnology.XXX> wrote:

[snip]

Brings back the horrors of Field Theory class. We had a Japanese
instructor who was as brilliant as he was unintelligible. Luckily for
us, he was junior in seniority so also had to babysit us in the
afternoon EE labs. So we came to an understanding: he'd give us really
easy Fields tests and everybody would slip out of afternoon labs
early. We just faked the lab results, which made much prettier graphs
than we could get using the ancient equipment in the lab.

I developed a certain sloppy slide rule technique that produced
excellent data point scatter.

John


At MIT we called it "dry lab" ;-)


So, as we see, Mr. Thompson and his ilk learned the techniques of
self-deception quite early on in the indoctrination process.

Faking lab results isn't self-deception. It's the course instructor
who's being deceived. Or, in the example I cited, nobody was being
deceived.

If I understand the math of a process well enough to simulate it with
a slide rule, then I deserve an A in the class.

In our EE lab, we had a master power supply system that powered all
the workbenches. The B+ supply was +300 volts with about 100 volts p-p
of ripple. I figured this out right away, left early, and faked all
the amplifier frequency response graphs beautifully. The poor deluded
fools who actually stayed and measured the frequency response got
huge apparent gains and perfectly flat frequency response graphs and
D's for grades.

Deception!

And Jim doesn't have an ilk; they prefer cooler climates.

John

 

[Daniel Haude]

On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 01:40:40 GMT,
Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net> wrote
in Msg. <pan.2005.02.08.01.40.32.919106@example.net>

The biggest reason people don't want to believe that you're 14 is that
you're writing coherent English. And you seem to have humility. The entire
group is gaping in awe at such a phenomenon. ;-)

I don't think she's a day older than 14. She comes in here, posts a lot
of precocious stuff and gets all sulky if people don't treat her as a
fellow adult. All smart kids are like that. She'll grow out of it like we
all did.

--Daniel

 

[Daniel Haude]

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:42:30 -0500,
keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote
in Msg. <pan.2005.02.08.03.42.17.859537@att.bizzzz>

Ya' dumb twit! She want's to figure out how the television works, not the
guys on the screen! I figured that out about her age, so decided to relax
and watch the game.

TV is simple. Color TV is a bit of a headache. --D.

 

[Rich Grise]

On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:47:17 -0800, ~~SciGirl~~ wrote:

Superbowl's on. I don't understand football, so I'm going to stare at
the TV and think about how it works.

Not much to understand, really. The point is to get the ball across that
line when you're on offense, or stop the other team from getting it across
your line when you're defense. They switch back and forth throughout the
game.

The rest is just gingerbread, much like calculus. ;-)

(big hint - be in the presence of males while watching - how they react
will give you a pretty good insight as to what's "important".)

Cheers!
Rich