Concepts or ideas you just can't get your head around?

[SpudLink]

Roofless Toothless said:

98elise said:

Colours are linked to wave frequency and assuming you're not colour blind then your perception will be the same as the next person's.

Same reason we all hear the same note, unless your hearing is defective/limited.

We have no idea how the next person ‘sees’ a colour, as each of us has a mind that interprets the signals from the optic nerve in its own way. All we can say with certainty is that light of the same wave length is striking the retinas of both people. How their minds ‘perceive’ the colour is impossible to say.

The BBC program Horizon covered this years ago. Apparently the environment in which we are raised affects what colours our brains can 'see'.
A tribe of people who live somewhere arid (can't remember exactly where) could not differentiate between white and blue. Seems obvious to us, but not to them. But then they see a multitude of colours in when most of us see as the same shade of brown.

Edit: Daily Motion has the Horizon episode in 4 parts, starting here... https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl7cgh

Edited by SpudLink on Thursday 23 May 09:31

[Pitre]

Calculus

Religion

The state of some women's eyebrows these days.


That is all.

[Gary29]

5th wheel on a lorry tractor unit. How does a 'pin' manage to lug 30T behind it?

[LimaDelta]

Space and time - there are only two possible outcomes, either they go forever, or they don't. Both of which are equally terrifying.

What was before the big bang? Why was all matter collected as a singularity? If we are just a simulation running on a computer, or the creation of a deity, then who made that simulation or God? Is there another level or hierarchy above them, and one above that? At some point is there an ultimate creator, but where did they come from? Something must have made them...

[98elise]

Roofless Toothless said:

98elise said:

Colours are linked to wave frequency and assuming you're not colour blind then your perception will be the same as the next person's.

Same reason we all hear the same note, unless your hearing is defective/limited.

We have no idea how the next person ‘sees’ a colour, as each of us has a mind that interprets the signals from the optic nerve in its own way. All we can say with certainty is that light of the same wave length is striking the retinas of both people. How their minds ‘perceive’ the colour is impossible to say.

The vast majority of us will percieve it exactly the same way because we're built the same way though evolution.

It's like saying we may not all hear the same notes in music.

[Abbott]

Gary29 said:

5th wheel on a lorry tractor unit. How does a 'pin' manage to lug 30T behind it?

The 30T is supported by the rear wheels of the trailer and the Plate that the pin sits in which is then supported by the wheels of the tractor unit.

The pin only need to resist the shear loads in making the trailer move forward.

[Sway]

Abbott said:

Gary29 said:

5th wheel on a lorry tractor unit. How does a 'pin' manage to lug 30T behind it?

The 30T is supported by the rear wheels of the trailer and the Plate that the pin sits in which is then supported by the wheels of the tractor unit.

The pin only need to resist the shear loads in making the trailer move forward.

This. It's why I can push something I could never lift, like my camper.

[SpudLink]

Sway said:

Abbott said:

Gary29 said:

5th wheel on a lorry tractor unit. How does a 'pin' manage to lug 30T behind it?

The 30T is supported by the rear wheels of the trailer and the Plate that the pin sits in which is then supported by the wheels of the tractor unit.

The pin only need to resist the shear loads in making the trailer move forward.

This. It's why I can push something I could never lift, like my camper.

Like strongmen competitions where they pull lorries.

[cobra kid]

Yep. The universe. It must end somewhere. Then after that......what? As a kid I always thought there was a brick wall at the edge. Then of course, what is the other side?

[SpudLink]

cobra kid said:

Yep. The universe. It must end somewhere. Then after that......what? As a kid I always thought there was a brick wall at the edge. Then of course, what is the other side?

Why? Why must it end?

[Megaflow]

SpudLink said:

cobra kid said:

Yep. The universe. It must end somewhere. Then after that......what? As a kid I always thought there was a brick wall at the edge. Then of course, what is the other side?

Why? Why must it end?

Because surely it must live within something, I am thinking of the marbles scene at the end of the original Men in Black, But, then what is at the end of that?

There has to be an end, surely, if there isn't, what is it an us all within/beside/on/under/etc?

[Randy Winkman]

MBBlat said:

I just can’t get my head around why people think we couldn’t build the pyramids today. A 40ft container can be up to 30te gross load, we ship those things by the millions all over the globe, with a suitable set of cranes how long do you really think it would take to pile up a pyramid sized pile of containers? Probably a couple of days max.

For scale the largest container ships carry over 24,000 containers, those don’t take years to load.

This made me think of ............ how tug boats pull huge ships.

[BoRED S2upid]

SpudLink said:

cobra kid said:

Yep. The universe. It must end somewhere. Then after that......what? As a kid I always thought there was a brick wall at the edge. Then of course, what is the other side?

Why? Why must it end?

Because he’s been to all things have a beginning and an end. Of course the boffins who know the truth are all securely locked away in Oxford or Cambridge uni’s.

What if it doesn’t end? It’s not as if there is a wall.

[BoRED S2upid]

Randy Winkman said:

This made me think of ............ how tug boats pull huge ships.

Same as a man pulling a plane. Very slowly.

[Sway]

Randy Winkman said:

This made me think of ............ how tug boats pull huge ships.

Tug boats are damned awesome.

The hot rods of the shipping world - small yet damned powerful. I believe their props are designed for maximum 'grip' in the water too.

The Yanks love using them as pushers, directly contacting the big ship hull.

[MBBlat]

BoRED S2upid said:

Randy Winkman said:

This made me think of ............ how tug boats pull huge ships.

Same as a man pulling a plane. Very slowly.

Tugs are just a hull wrapped around an engine. Their propulsion is also optimised for high thrust at low speed. A lot don’t even have traditional propellers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Prop...

[crofty1984]

thegreenhell said:

Boom78 said:

andyxxx said:

I agree with most of what you say - apart from [There’s no mystery]
There is plenty of unknown/mystery

What’s the mystery?

Even if we accept that we know how they were built, can you explain why they were built? They aren't tombs - they are completely unlike all confirmed pharaoh's tombs, and no evidence of burial has ever been found inside one. There is not a single hieroglyph inside any of the great pyramids, unlike all discovered tombs and other ancient temples and buildings, which are highly decorated, even the ones that have been robbed.

Same as any big building/statue/tomb/bank account. Big ol' dick-waving competition.

[crofty1984]

boyse7en said:

Abbott said:

TUS373 said:

Loads of things befuddle me.

Inflation .... someone puts their price up for their goods. The person buying it puts their prices up to afford it...and so on. Crackers really.

Car values. E.g a Lambo/Ferrari is metal, composites and glass. Because it has a big engine and a different shape to other cars...it costs the same as a house

Range Rovers/Land Rovers...how they sell any. They cost more and are less reliable, yet people pay money every month to pretend they own one.

TV programmes that come down the bell wire of a phone line.

I think you are mixing up Cost and Price in your point about Car Values. The Brand is what makes the difference in the selling price of a car. A stronger brand can get a higher selling price and bigger profit.

Not entirely. Back in the day a 1600cc Mondeo or Vectra was cheaper than the 2000cc version, despite the engines being identical apart from bore/stroke. Both engines need the same amount of machining, as a bigger piston is the same to make as a slightly smaller one, cutting the bores takes the same time whether big or small...
Never understood why a bigger engine was more expensive other than the "because we can"

Speaking as someone who's done this in automotive manufacturing:

Because we can is a lot of the argument, but you're not quite right in some of the other aspects. Was the engine first designed as a 1600, then upped to 2000? Someone has to change those drawings and design new parts, which needs to be paid for somehow. You're also not thinking about amortisation of costs. Lets take the piston, we decide to forge them and the tooling to do so is £100k. Maybe we expect to sell 100,000 of the 1600 base model as it's cheaper so that's 25p to go on the piston, completely ignoring raw materials, overheads, logistics, personnel costs, coatings, paying for the design. If we plan to sell 10,000 of the premium model, then that cost per piston is now £2.50 on top of all the other things. It DOES take longer to machine out a larger bore, or if you produced a casting with larger/smaller bores so you have the same amount of machining time, you're back into designing/tooling for a new part.

[Ken_Code]

Megaflow said:

Because surely it must live within something, I am thinking of the marbles scene at the end of the original Men in Black, But, then what is at the end of that?

There has to be an end, surely, if there isn't, what is it an us all within/beside/on/under/etc?

To use the normal (and possibly not as helpful as you’d like) analogy, whee does the surface of the world end? If you roam it on land or on water, where do you get to the bit where it stops?

[Ken_Code]

Randy Winkman said:

This made me think of ............ how tug boats pull huge ships.

I think they use a rope.