Bizarre Or Pointless Questions That Have Always Puzzled You.

richardhomer

Misterg;337225" said:

Yes, decimals can't represent every number exactly (like 1/3 ). Fractions are always exact, though.

Is that why there has never been a .333333p coin?

Handsome_Chris

Axe_meister said:

If I have 1l water and heat it to 100c it becomes a gas hence compressible. If I compress it down to1/2 litre in a very strong bottle can I cool it down to the point it becomes a liquid again. Assume the bottle will not explode.

No.

ICBM

Axe_meister said:

If I have 1l water and heat it to 100c it becomes a gas hence compressible. If I compress it down to1/2 litre in a very strong bottle can I cool it down to the point it becomes a liquid again. Assume the bottle will not explode.

No, because long before you get the gas volume down to even 1l, it will turn back into a liquid. You can't get the volume down significantly below 1l no matter how much pressure you put on it*.

(*Outside a neutron star or a black hole, anyway.)

holnrew

How old is grown up?

digitalscream

johnnyurq said:

Is it possible to be allergic to water?

Yes.

imalone said:

Hertz32 said:

Hang on... 
Frets get closer together the higher up the neck they go. Therefore, if I had a 1,000,000,000 fret guitar, there must be a set length of neck that we will never reach? maybe? 
So the length of a guitar neck should have an asymptote... Right? presumably this length being where the string breaks over the saddle. But surely there must be a point at which the guitar string is incapable of producing a higher frequency... man I think weird shit at 2:30am

No, sort of and yes.
Frets reduce the speaking length of the string, between the fret and the bridge, which is inversely proportional to the frequency - you halve the length for every octave you go up, so it becomes a smaller amount you take off for the next octave or next semitone up than the last one, however if you could keep going up to infinite frequency you would get down to zero length. The most obvious limit to this is the thickness (and stiffness) of the string become significant as you get shorter and at some point it stops acting like a string, but metal crystals still have a resonant frequency according to size, which can be quite high. Eventually you hit limits as you get down to having small numbers of atoms.

You have to factor in the fact that the fret position is determined by the centre of the fret - its highest point - so there's a certain amount hanging over on the bridge side. The "never reach it" theory assumes zero width for the fret; in fact, it only has to get close enough so that the front edge of the fret is touching the bridge. Because the front edge is further forward than the fret position...yes, there is a non-infinite limit, and it's dependent on the distance between the highest point of the fret and its front edge.

Nitefly

randomhandclaps said:

Another for me is if I put the required years into studying to become a gynaecologist 

You'd be able to wallpaper the hall, stairs and landing through the letterbox.

DrBob

I used to wonder how they erect the really massive cranes that you see on building sites because surely in order to build a crane what you really need is a crane....

But I'm told that they self climb as they build.

Which is boring.

DrBob

And in fact the other one that does my head in is offshore drilling platforms.

Very few of them actually rest or are fixed to the sea bed and some of them I don't think are even tethered.
So how is it that when the drill hits the seabed and tries to start drilling that the rig doesn't just revolve around the drill ?

VimFuego

DrBob said:

I used to wonder how they erect the really massive cranes that you see on building sites because surely in order to build a crane what you really need is a crane....

But I'm told that they self climb as they build.

Which is boring.

they use 2 cranes, each one building the other.

johnnyurq

VimFuego;336863" said:

there are several varieties of grass that are blue. Interestingly, there are no naturally blue varieties of roses.

Does it only grow where banjos, mandolin and accordians are?

johnnyurq

digitalscream;337397" said:

johnnyurq said:Is it possible to be allergic to water?


Yes.

Astounding! Every day be a learning day.

So what about all the water that they consist of?

ThePrettyDamned

PolarityMan said:

ThePrettyDamned;336629" said:

[quote="ChrisMusic;336050"]If we could see another colour, what would it look like ?

That's my first thought!

The other is, "is the colour I see the same as the colour you see?". As we name colours to communicate the way they are, what if my red looks like your blue? I'd never know... [/quote]

If you're interested in this take a look at some back ground reading about qualia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Whooooaaaaaa very intreesting, thanks!

thomasross20

jellyroll said:

How can I get out of taking my wife and kids to Disneyland? 

Disneyland is amaaazing!

Hootsmon

^  when I worked as a pharmacy technician I phoned the local pharmaceutical distributors on April the 1st and requested some distilled water, DOUBLE STRENGTH, no one got the joke..........

paulnb57

Why is abbreviation such a long word? 

If we were not meant to eat animals, why are they made of food?

holnrew

paulnb57 said:

Why is abbreviation such a long word? 

If we were not meant to eat animals, why are they made of food?

If we were not meant to eat humans, why are they made of food?

HAL9000

If we weren't meant to eat turkeys, why do their insides come in those handy little plastic bags?

Misterg

DrBob said:

So how is it that when the drill hits the seabed and tries to start drilling that the rig doesn't just revolve around the drill ?

I don't know about drilling rigs, but there are various free-floating rig type things that are constantly positioned by gps using computer controlled propellers.

But on the subject of drilling -

How can they 'steer' the drill bit to go around corners and start drilling horizontally?

How do they know where the end is?

SimonC

DrBob said:

And in fact the other one that does my head in is offshore drilling platforms.

Very few of them actually rest or are fixed to the sea bed and some of them I don't think are even tethered.
So how is it that when the drill hits the seabed and tries to start drilling that the rig doesn't just revolve around the drill ?

The floating rigs are all anchored in position.

Also the amount of torque required to drill the hole is less than that required to spin the rig.

That's where I work, and also I'm a scientist me.

Hertz32

If our bodies natural reaction to injury is swelling to increase padding and blood flow etc. why do we put cold packs on to stop it? 
Surely we have evolved to have the most efficient way of healing physical injury, why do we know better?
Also, Why do we laugh, and why do we sleep?