Bizarre Or Pointless Questions That Have Always Puzzled You.

ICBM

How long is a piece of string?

Clearly this question does have an answer, since a piece of string can be neither infinitely long nor of zero length, in fact there are much narrower limits than that which could probably be established. So by the processes of extension and interpolation it should be possible to come up with a sensible value for the length of a piece.

breakstuff

Why do women ask "do I look ok"

If you say "yes,you look lovely" they think your lying and if you say "no" they go off their tits.

paulnb57

ICBM said:

How long is a piece of string?

Clearly this question does have an answer, since a piece of string can be neither infinitely long nor of zero length, in fact there are much narrower limits than that which could probably be established. So by the processes of extension and interpolation it should be possible to come up with a sensible value for the length of a piece.

I would hypothesize that the string length woulb be exactly half its length multiplied by 2

HAL9000

ICBM said:

How long is a piece of string?

Clearly this question does have an answer, since a piece of string can be neither infinitely long nor of zero length, in fact there are much narrower limits than that which could probably be established. So by the processes of extension and interpolation it should be possible to come up with a sensible value for the length of a piece.

Well let's take an average of the two lengths it must fall between... So that would be (zero + infinity) / 2 therefore the length of a piece of string is exactly half of infinity. Problem solved.

viz

ICBM said:

How long is a piece of string?

Clearly this question does have an answer, since a piece of string can be neither infinitely long nor of zero length, in fact there are much narrower limits than that which could probably be established. So by the processes of extension and interpolation it should be possible to come up with a sensible value for the length of a piece.

Don't know, but its length has a 30% chance of starting with a 1, regardless of what unit of length you use. And that really is true.

VimFuego

I'm not at all convinced by this string theory.

richardhomer

Though it probably has provided enough rope to hang yourself....

stickyfiddle

How much is the square root of fuck all? 

If 0 < FA < 1, then FA < √FA < 1, and so is actually bigger than FA itself. This makes no sense

stickyfiddle

hungrymark said:

Hertz32 said:

hungrymark said:

Why can I divide ten by three, multiply the result by three and not get ten? Troubled me for years, that one.

ten isn't easily divisible by 3. You get 3.3333333333... infinitely. 
If you multiplied 3.333333... by 3, you get 9.9999999999999999999... which is as near as ten as makes no odds. 

Thats like, Pre-GCSE maths mate xD 

Yes I'd got that far. It's as close to ten as makes no odds but it's not actually ten. Others have answered why though - the decimal system doesn't work all the time.

It's actually mathematically true that 9.9999999... = 10

First term Oxford maths course, that is

viz

VimFuego said:

I'm not at all convinced by this string theory.

lol

for those interested, check out Benford's law http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford's_law

bobblehat

sinbaadi said:

Why do we let the rain bother us so much?  I've never understood that.  If it rains a bit whilst I'm out I don't just fall to the ground screaming in anger and annoyance or run into the nearest hovel in panic, but I'm almost pre-disposed to let it affect my plans.  The only annoying thing about being on a motorcycle when it's raining is having to clean the thing that much more often, yet I let the precipitation dictate my use and enjoyment of that too!

People just seem to have this in-built reaction to it, and it's probably handed down from generation to generation.  It's wet, you'll be a bit wet.  Deal with it.

However, when someone invents a waterproof coat whose apparent secondary purpose is NOT simply to dump all the water from my shoulders and torso onto the front of my trousers, I will pay handsomely for that technology.

They have its called a "Poncho" 

Probably the most practical item of clothing you can buy , but for some reason we would never consider wearing one on a daily basis. We think they are only suitable festivals and sporting events.

ChrisMusic

sinbaadi said:

Why do we let the rain bother us so much?  I've never understood that.  If it rains a bit whilst I'm out I don't just fall to the ground screaming in anger and annoyance or run into the nearest hovel in panic...

Fair question, but I reckon anyone who watched Wizard of Oz as a kid has pretty good reason.

edit: and the poncho didn't help much either.

Duration 1:57

Move to the dark side ~ fear the rain   8-X

RocknRollDave

breakstuff said:

Why do women ask "do I look ok"

If you say "yes,you look lovely" they think your lying and if you say "no" they go off their tits.

They ask because you haven't already told them they look lovely.

Trick is to tell them this at the very first opportunity, ideally before they've even finished putting their make up on: "Really? But I haven't even finished getting ready yet! Oh thank you, darling...!"


Waiting for them to actually ask...that's a real noob mistake. The question isn't really "Do I look OK in this?" it is "WHY HAVEN'T YOU EVEN NOTICED WHAT I LOOK LIKE?! I GIVE YOU CHILDREN, I COOK YOUR FOOD, I WASH YOUR CLOTHES, AND FOR A BRIEF PERIOD AT THE BEGINNING OF OUR RELATIONSHIP I EVEN PERFORMED...YOU KNOW, THAT ACT ON YOU...AND NOW YOU HATE ME!"

Misterg

bobblehat said:

sinbaadi said:

 The only annoying thing about being on a motorcycle when it's raining is having to clean the thing that much more often,

 

...

However, when someone invents a waterproof coat whose apparent secondary purpose is NOT simply to dump all the water from my shoulders and torso onto the front of my trousers, I will pay handsomely for that technology.

They have its called a "Poncho" 

 

For motorbike riding?

He'd look like the caped crusader (until the poncho gets caught on a truck...)

 

Oh, and WHY is it always BMW drivers that are blind to motorbikes?

underdog

When do DFS not have a sale on? Does anyone know someone who has paid the "after sale price" for a sofa at DFS?

Si_

ICBM said:

How long is a piece of string?

2x Half it's length.

imalone

digitalscream said:

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.

Good point! I'll give you a wisdom if no-one else will. Of course you could shape the frets differently so the contact point is the bridge side.

imalone

hungrymark said:

Hertz32 said:

hungrymark said:

Why can I divide ten by three, multiply the result by three and not get ten? Troubled me for years, that one.

ten isn't easily divisible by 3. You get 3.3333333333... infinitely. 
If you multiplied 3.333333... by 3, you get 9.9999999999999999999... which is as near as ten as makes no odds. 

Thats like, Pre-GCSE maths mate xD 

Yes I'd got that far. It's as close to ten as makes no odds but it's not actually ten. Others have answered why though - the decimal system doesn't work all the time.

.9recurring is exactly one. This is provable from the arithmetic series, but the layman's argument is that there is infinitely little difference between the two, which amounts to zero (any two distinct numbers have an infinite number of numbers between them). You can represent any rational number (integer a/ integer b) exactly in decimal if you allow a recurring representation.
Similarly 0.3recurring IS 1/3. Just your calculator may well not use a way of doing the calculations that can handle the manipulation and instead multiplies up its finite (and imprecise) representation of it. Some symbolic maths packages do understand this kind of thing.

ThePrettyDamned

10 divided by 3 is exactly 10/3, which is a fraction.

Multiply that fraction by 3, and you get 10. 

breakstuff

RocknRollDave said:

breakstuff said:

Why do women ask "do I look ok"

If you say "yes,you look lovely" they think your lying and if you say "no" they go off their tits.

They ask because you haven't already told them they look lovely.

Trick is to tell them this at the very first opportunity, ideally before they've even finished putting their make up on: "Really? But I haven't even finished getting ready yet! Oh thank you, darling...!"


Waiting for them to actually ask...that's a real noob mistake. The question isn't really "Do I look OK in this?" it is "WHY HAVEN'T YOU EVEN NOTICED WHAT I LOOK LIKE?! I GIVE YOU CHILDREN, I COOK YOUR FOOD, I WASH YOUR CLOTHES, AND FOR A BRIEF PERIOD AT THE BEGINNING OF OUR RELATIONSHIP I EVEN PERFORMED...YOU KNOW, THAT ACT ON YOU...AND NOW YOU HATE ME!"

@RocknRollDave LOL

That my good man is brilliant.

I now know where I'm going wrong and shall forever be in your debt.

I'd give you a wisdom too if I could