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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 | ||
| 217925 | 2004-02-24 23:37:00 | Hi Team To celebrate reaching 2500 posts, I have decided to post a serious question that has haunted deep thinkers and theologians for generations.:p There is an answer of course, or there would be no point in posing the question, so go to it. This is not an entirely pointless post, as the answer is very precise and once known you can then use it to win free drinks in pubs etc. by betting that you can give the answer to the perennial question. Either that or get your head knocked off when you actually tell them the answer and they realise you are right. Cheers Billy 8-{) :D Must......get.....a......life! Too......much time.........spent.........on........PF1. :| |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 217926 | 2004-02-24 23:45:00 | The simplest approximation is 1 foot/nanosecond. If the string is wet, the dielectric constant of water has a significant effect. | Graham L (2) | ||
| 217927 | 2004-02-24 23:53:00 | Twice the distance from the midpoint to either end... | TonyF (246) | ||
| 217928 | 2004-02-25 00:01:00 | <geeky> Where can I download myself a copy of this "string"... String of what? Binary? </geeky> ;-) Chill. |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 217929 | 2004-02-25 00:18:00 | Graham, Tony and Chill... gotta love your responses! :^O Anyway, courtesy of Google's "define" I give you my answer: Take a piece of string, and cut it in half. You now have two pieces of string, each half the length of the original. Now, cut one of the halves in half again. Cut one of the remainders into half, and this again, etc. The fact is, that no matter how many times you cut the string into half, you will never achieve a state where the length of the segment reaches zero. So, eventually, you will have cut the string in half an infinite number of times, and hence you will have an infinite number of pieces of string which will all have a length above zero. Obviously, any value above zero multiplied by infinity equals infinity, and hence through logical deduction we have proved that any piece of string is infinitely long. |
Greg S (201) | ||
| 217930 | 2004-02-25 00:35:00 | Unfortunately, that definition is faulty . it's just "n*(length/n)" . . . which is equal to length whatever value n has . Infinity is not that magic . Infinite series tend not to tend towards "infinity" . :D There's almost always a limit . |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 217931 | 2004-02-25 00:39:00 | > There's almost always a limit. My damned maths lecturer used to say that too, but I haveta disagree - by definition of the word itself there is no limit |
Greg S (201) | ||
| 217932 | 2004-02-25 00:50:00 | Your saintly maths teacher is right.;-) If you divide by a number and then multiply by it,you end up with the original value. (Of course, that's mathematicaly, not computationaly --- numerical methods are very important when you want to get correct answers from computers) An infinite number of infinitesimals doesn't add up to infinity. You made the infinitesimal using the "same" infinity you are using to multiply by. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 217933 | 2004-02-25 01:03:00 | I reckon TonyF has got it, twice as long as half it :D Course you could cut it into thirds. |
mark c (247) | ||
| 217934 | 2004-02-25 01:16:00 | >by definition of the word itself there is no limit I'm in beyond my depth here, but all I was doing was trying to define the word. According to Oxford: infinite /'infinit/ adj. & n. 1 boundless, endless Anyway, I'm ok with my BBCode skills :D |
Greg S (201) | ||
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