Re: Questions (Space)

Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina Hall <Tina_Hall@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But I don't mind if other people imagine them as tiny things
whizzing around.

Well, I'm looking for an image. Your fuzzy balls don't work for me.

As the actress...

?

Because I would think those particles are a lot smaller (and
certainly visible if that big). I mean, bowling balls whizzing
around _ougth_ to be noticed, even ones without weight. <g>

The bigger they are, the lighter they are. It's the small ones that
are heavy :-)

Only if they have the same weight. ;)

No really, they don't have mass, so how could they weigh anything.

Photons do have mass. A red photon weighs about
0.0000000000000000000000000000000028 grammes (2.8*10^-36 kg), and a
blue photon nearly double that.

They're said to have no mass. So where do they get the weight without
mass?

I know scales are misleading, that people weigh less higher up (and even
more less on the moon) with the mass staying the same. But they are
related, no?

I can't shake the feeling that if they have weight without mass, some
other property should be negative. (One that normally wouldn't make
sense to be negative.)

That's hardly any time at all to know stuff. If you are younger
than that, I'm surprised you've had time to learn anything at all.
I'm only <mumble> years old, and I've barely started.

There are living people who know this stuff, so I don't think it's a
matter of getting old, just learning it at the right time (when the
mind is fresh and agile).

There we disagree. There are living people who know stuff. But not
*this* stuff.

I probably misunderstood what you were looking for. You started off
asking questions like "How are signals transported through space?"

For the story.

We nicely digressed into a subject I have interest in but no clue about.
:)

But when you say thinks like "There are living people who know this
stuff" it sounds like what you really wanted to know was "How do
people[*] think signals are transported through space?"

Well, as far as science knows, the facts behind the different
interpretations and ideas and images and visualizations, or however
people individually understand them.

The difficulty is disguising those facts in a way I understand (not
formulas, what the specialists work with, I suppose).

Where you probably have some kind of people in mind: experts, or
people who can send signals (make the equipment for satellites etc.).

That, too. While I can't repair a radio, I know at least some components
in it and some of the stuff going on (not the signal stuff, though).

To me, the first question is more interesting, but I don't believe
that there *are* living people who know the answer.

Of course it is more interesting. And speculating about possible shapes
is interesting, too.

There are living people who know a lot about it, but no one *knows*
what a photon is, or what an electron is. All they can say is how they
behave (e.g. in experiments).

The image I have of an electron works pretty well. Something of the same
sort for a photon would be fine.

Some people think they might be little strings, vibrating in a 26
dimensional space.

Cool.

That is *way* beyond my ability to visualise, and I don't know enough
maths to understand *why* they think that. (E.g. why not 23
dimensions?)

I wouldn't know where to put the additonal 22 dimensions, and don't have
time in the same pot as the other three we have here, either. But it
sounds fascinating.

Other people think something different.

What you are getting here (in this newsgroup) are (mostly) people's
own understanding, based on 19th century physics with a mix of early
20th century physics thrown in.

Sure.

If any of those pictures are helpful, that's good.

Yep.

Talking about which. Are there any interesting sites with free brain
jogging exercises? (I borrowed some books from the library about how
to improve memory. And promptly forgot to give them back. Those I
looked into had some interesting exercises, though, and that is
supposed to increase mental agility.)

Dunno. I don't need them. My memory has improved with age, not got
worse. (I do forget things, but I don't think I'm worse at
remembering things than I was at 20. And when I was 20, I couldn't
remember *anything* that happened to me 20 years earlier :-) )

:) I know that mine has dropped considerably. I used to be able to
remember a phone number at a glance. Now I would have trouble
remembering 327 between reading it here, and switching to a different
window to do a calculation with it.

My personal tips for having a good memory: use it. Try to remember
things. Like most bodily capabilities, memory improves with exercise.

The problem with that is that I want to remember all sorts of things
(thus am trying), but forget them anyway.

There *are* well known mnemonic techniques, for remembering things,
but I seldom use those either. Instead, if I need to remember
something important, I try to remember it more than one way. Sort of
like making backups.

How do you do that?

But the *crucial* factor is to get into the *habit* of using your
memory, rather than relying on writing things down.

Writing it down, I'd just forget where the note is. <g>

As an exercise, if you need to go shopping to buy only a few things,
make a list (at home) but don't take it with you. Just remember it.
That's what I do. (I used to use shopping lists, but now seldom
bother with them.)

I rarely use shopping lists, and if I forget something it's usually the
seldom bought stuff (like tape).

Jonathan
p.s. Oh, and diet. People used to think that eating fish made you
brainier, and it turns out there is some truth in that! You don't
have to eat fish if you don't like it, there are alternatives (fish
oils are also good for the joints - in the diet I mean, not as a
liniment).

Fish oil doesn't sound more attractive than fish itself. (I can't eat
fish; first fork full is nice, the second one makes me feel sick. Unless
it's drowned in tomatoe sauce or something, to get rid of the intrinsic
fish taste which is there no matter what else the fish tastes like.)

And make sure you are not deficient in B vitamins: very
important for nerve and brain function, and present in e.g.
wholegrain foods (and marmite).

Some time ago I started getting vitamins from the chemists' shop. It's
got all sorts of things from Vitamin A to Zink. For 4.25 euro a month (I
doubt I could get that by eating the proper things all that stuff is
in).

Oh, and lately I started eating oats (with milk and a teaspoon of a
cheap Nutella clone) because I heard it's got iron in it (they said it's
good for muscles), and one of the safeguards at the public swimming pool
said lack of iron might be responsible for the cramps I kept getting
because the water was too cold. (You can guess I don't like going to
doctors and ask them. Not that doing that does any good in my
experience, they don't give a *** and just tag you as the next n euro
earned for 5 minutes inspection. Except my dentist, the only doctor I
like.)

BIO oats no less. They taste better than the cheap ones from the
supermarket. (Crunchy, almost like crisps.)

Plus soup/stew with fresh vegetables.

And I started some minimal exercises (better than none). Weight finally
started to drop (subconcious finally convinced that that's better, not
for looks but for my knees). Only 4 k so far, but still.

A large contributor to poor memory in the elderly is poor circulation
(artherosclerosis(sp?)) leading to poor oxygen supply to the brain. If
you want a good memory, it's easier if you are healthy (probably
unnecessary or useless advice, that last one).

Elderly. Oh dear. I'm 35! <g>

--
Tina
WIP: Space: 1317 words
WISuspension: Seasons & Elements trilogy | Magic Earth series
Posted to Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition.

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