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| Thread ID: 42853 | 2004-02-24 23:37:00 | OT: What is the length of a piece of string? | Billy T (70) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 217935 | 2004-02-25 01:57:00 | > What is the length of a piece of string? As long as you make it. |
PoWa (203) | ||
| 217936 | 2004-02-25 02:55:00 | Of course a lot will depend on how the length is measured and how the measurement is defined. Or as in the words of my mate, the late Professor Joad of the BBC Brains Trust, " it all depends on what you mean by length..." It could be measured by comparison with a secondary standard such as a measuring tape, or even by a relatavistic primary standard such as sending a ray of light from one end of the string to the other where it can be reflected back again with a mirror. Hence by measuring the transit time the length can be determined. Things start to get complicated if the string is moving with respect to the observer carrying out the measurement, because we then need to synchronise clocks in both frames of reference. If the frames of reference are moving quite fast with respect to each other, then the string will appear to get shorter to the observer who regards himself as stationary. Then again, for those of you who remember going by train out of Snow Hill station, Birmingham, there was this piece of tin nailed to the tunnel wall which was hit by the train as it went past, making this boing, boing, boing noise. There were shadowy workers carrying oil lamps in the tunnel whose job it was to bend back the piece of tin ready for the next train to hit again. I well remember the noise it made, straight up. Oh well back to the loony bin :D |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 217937 | 2004-02-25 03:12:00 | Fair answer. But frankly, I'd ask Spock | Greg S (201) | ||
| 217938 | 2004-02-25 04:05:00 | The length is not infinite. As the largest known piece of string is 2,137 kM in length, it would be reasonable to make an assumption that any piece of string must be >0 and <2138 kM in length, depending on the humidity and temperature and the co-efficient of the string. I think the answer is 42 (base 13) |
godfather (25) | ||
| 217939 | 2004-02-25 05:33:00 | > I think the answer is 42 (base 13) I should have known.... ;-) BTW - Congrats on hitting the big numbers Billy :-) Chill. |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 217940 | 2004-02-25 06:46:00 | For the correct answer you need to re-read the question properly. > What is the length of a piece of string? Notice that it is not asking the length of any or every piece of string, so therefore there must be a specific string the question is talking about. So the answer can only be found by actually measuring the piece of string in question, by whatever method you choose to measure it. |
kiki (762) | ||
| 217941 | 2004-02-25 07:32:00 | "Put simply" It is either long enough or it is to short | gerrypics (323) | ||
| 217942 | 2004-02-25 08:12:00 | I've changed my settings to thread mode but that didn't help me. :( Maybe it's just a bit bigger than a snippet. I suppose it really depends on the cut off point. Congratulations on the 2500 postings Billy, lots of serious stuff and lots of laughs to go with it too. :D :D Cheers, ExLL :) |
exLL (515) | ||
| 217943 | 2004-02-25 08:28:00 | I guess the answer is a bit like what does "F.B.H." stand for. In the building trade we would say that "F.B.H." means "Fairly Big Hammer", But some people insist we mean something slightly more descriptive. | gerrypics (323) | ||
| 217944 | 2004-02-25 09:04:00 | I am struggling to see the point in this post, and i no i have had some pathetic posts in my time here, but the length of string???? BT ????? and i thought there was enough post padders around with out all of us adding to the stupid post . ( note this is not aimed at any one, just the frame of mind set i guess . . . . . struggling with all concepts lately, patheticness one of them . . . ) . a peice of string is usually as long as the length you cut it, may it be long or short . but generally the peice you pick up is never long enough for the intended purpose you had hope to use it for . there is no right or wrong answer i feel, the proverbial peice of string is never ending really, the question itself is never ending and one slot this in the back of the mind for a rainy day mind bender to keep the brain active . So How long is a peice of string? is as good as how do you get green grass to become white milk????? waffle over, beetle |
beetle (243) | ||
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