Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 July 8

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 8

Dead rockstar?

Who was the guy that died after playing his electric guitar in the bath and getting electrocuted? --Kurt Shaped Box 23:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Keith Relf is the chap. DuncanHill 23:56, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Though I see the article claims he did not die in the bath - but alas no reliable citations!DuncanHill 23:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Quite a few rock guitarists have died or been seriously injured because of wiring errors in large stage setups - typically the problem comes about when the microphone or microphone stand get shorted out and when the musician grabs the mic with one hand and rests the other on the strings of his guitar - he gets a jolt right across the heart. But for this to happen in the bath is much less likely simply because the wiring setup would be so much simpler. It's clearly not impossible - but I'm a little skeptical. Maybe if he was using one of those small mains-powered practice amps (I have one - it's about 10"x10"x6") - he might have rested it on the edge of the bath and then had it accidentally slip into the water. That kind of accident with small appliances is alarmingly common. SteveBaker 21:08, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I hear you there. I once had to stop a girl I was seeing from using a hair dryer in the bath. She was running an extension cord from the kitchen into the bathroom when I asked her what the hell she was doing. Apparently, she'd been doing it to save time for years. The mind boggles - that's literal Darwin Award material. My grandma used to be bad on electrical safety too. If she had an appliance that was repeatedly fusing, she'd replace the fuse in the plug with a piece of rolled-up tinfoil... --Kurt Shaped Box 01:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

SHIA LITERATURE

shia muslims have 4 major books of ahadith , amongst them 1 is called Bihaar ul anwaar (Oceans of light) a major work by ALLAMA MAJLESI , and is based upon 110 volumes..

is there any URDU TRANSlation of it available? or ever published anywhere in the world.. if not then who can BE contacted to REQUEST a work on A urdu translation..

Google suggests that at least Vol 1 is available in Urdu; published in Karachi in 1998. Here is an Urdu edition for sale, but I've never heard of or dealt with the merchant before. I definately see evidence that such a translation exists, but, other than the link that I provided, I don't know where you could buy one. Good luck! ergot 16:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

paranormal

is there any club or community where THE PEOPLE WIITH SUPERNATURL powers can meet and share their experiences ( i mean if ppl say in community they have powers they shoukd be able to )proove it and where real jerks and showoff and liars should not be a part of community)

By definition - no. Since there is clearly no such thing as supernatural powers - anyone who claims to have them comes under your category of "real jerks and showoff and liars" - hence there is nobody left to form clubs. SteveBaker 01:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Which definition would that be, Steve? Our article has quite a lot to say about the supernatural, and doesn't just dismiss it on the basis that you adduce. You've got to tread lightly when it comes to the supernatural, because whether it objectively exists or not, it is - by definition - beyond the capacity of science to explain. It's almost the spiritual analogue of the square root of -1, which was originally considered logically absurd and therefore couldn't possibly exist - but look at how useful it's proven to be to mathematicians and scientists. -- JackofOz 03:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The square root of minus one seems logically absurd to me. A.Z. 03:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible that supernatural powers can somehow be useful even though they don't exist, like the square root of minus one? A.Z. 03:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, damn it... I just saw that the article on imaginary numbers says that the said square root is as real as any other number. I guess I'd have to study a lot to understand that. Anyway, I guess anything that exists can be defined as natural, can't it? So, anything supernatural would not exist. A.Z. 03:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That's actually a very good way of thinking about the supernatural, A.Z. Just as "imaginary numbers" have become totally accepted in mainstream mathematics, to the point that "real" numbers are now considered a mere sub-set of them - we could consider the true set of all experiences to contain all "natural" experiences and all "supernatural" experiences. Whether any particular person believes in the existence of the supernatural ones or not is not the issue, just as whether they believe in the reality of imaginary numbers is not the issue. Another problem with the claimed supernatural is that many outside observers who cannot explain certain events in rational/scientific terms simply dismiss them as never having happened at all in objective reality, and ascribe them to things such as hallucinations, lying, showing off, or whatever. That, to me, is not science. The difficulty is with evidence, because so many people who've had supernatural experiences cannot produce any external evidence of their experiences, which are more often than not essentially internal in nature (but that doesn't make them any less real than external experiences). Absence of evidence is not, in itself, evidence of absence. But neither is it evidence of presence, of course. Demanding rigorous evidential proof of such matters may well be as inappropriate as painting the Mona Lisa by numbers. It just doesn't work that way. With the supernatural, I prefer to keep an open mind and allow both left and right brains to get a look in. -- JackofOz 05:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Alright, let's stop using imaginary numbers to give credit to supernatural claims. They're not the same thing and the analogy just doesn't make any sense. Complex numbers are actually necessary because otherwise we wouldn't have an algebraically closed field. — Kieff | Talk 18:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The purpose of my analogy (which I did qualify by "almost") was not to give credit to supernatural claims. It was more as a reminder of what Schopenhauer said, that "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident". Probably the vast, vast majority of so-called supernatural happenings have, or will ultimately have, a natural explanation. But could there be others that are simply inherently unexplainable? -- JackofOz 22:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh Good Grief! Sadly, Schopenhauer didn't happen to mention the phases that "All complete and utter nonsense" passes though. The odds are good that the first and second phases would be pretty similar - and since supernatural powers have not yet reached the third phase (to be honest, I'm nowhere near done with "ridicule" yet!), we cannot use his witty little aphorism to deduce anything! But in any case, Schopenhauer is another of these people who is chiefly remembered because what he said was clever and amusing - not because he was a particularly deep thinker. He was (of course) quite utterly wrong. There is no recorded ridicule or violent opposition of Pythagoras' theorem, or the Church Turing thesis or...lots of other truths. That's not to say that no truth passes through those stages. SteveBaker 05:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You no doubt know better than I, Steve, that the ease with which something can be proven to exist (all you need is one example) is matched by the impossibility of proving something doesn't exist. So I'm still interested in the definition you referred to in your first post. Without it, what you've said so far is a circular argument: "It couldn't possibly exist (because I, Steve Baker, say so), therefore it doesn't exist". Whatever happened to today’s "One thing that is distinctive about good scientists is that they have open minds until they see proof" (from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Political views of Scientists)? -- JackofOz 06:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you Jack, Im sure 99% of the supernatural has a natural (i didnt say rational) explanation, but we must stay open minded, otherwise we assume (just as they did in the late 19th Century) that we know everything about the universe and the minds of people. Always remember the words of J.B.S. Haldane "Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." And no double-entendre responses boys, we've heard them all before ; ) Mhicaoidh 06:48, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

There you go again with the cute aphorisms! There are plenty of things that I can prove don't exist. I can prove that there are no planar triangles where side A is longer than the sum of the lengths of sides B and C. There are plenty of things we can disprove. The key thing about keeping an open mind was the second clause until they see proof. We now understand the smallest details of the electrochemistry of the brain - with that detail understood, we can clearly see that it does not permit any weird action at a distance - so my mind is now closed to mental levitation, spoon bending by the power of thought and that particular set of bullshit. We can't keep our minds open to everything without ending up as basket cases. If I have to keep my mind open to the fact that I might one day come across a planar triangle where side A is longer than sides B plus side C - then it would be very hard to get any useful work done. There comes a point where you have to say that something is solidly proven - then to take the results and act upon them with conviction. As for Haldane's assertion...well, it's unfalsifiable - so we probably ought simply to ignore it. But some aspects of the universe are certainly stranger than we know - I think the jury is out on whether it's stranger than we can know. However, other parts of the universe are pretty mundane and have been very well understood for quite a long time - and most of the time, those are the parts that bother us in day-to-day life. SteveBaker 11:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

(resetting indent) I'd be interested in your explanation of these notable cases, that have withstood the most rigorous medical and scientific examinations. -- JackofOz 12:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Without a double-blind study of statistically reasonable size, we cannot eliminate the placebo effect as a highly likely cause. With 5 million people visiting Lourdes each year in the hope of a cure, I don't really find it surprising that eleven cases of mysterious cures have come up in the 150 years they've been studying this! Really - it's hardly earth-shattering. It's especially notable that not one of those listed in the article has happened in the last 20 years, only one in the last 30 years - and only five in the last 50 years! It starts to look like our ability to figure out why these very few people are getting better is improving. This should come as no surprise - patients are much better documented now than they were in the 1950's. SteveBaker 21:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems ([1]) that the latest 3 miracles were acknowledged as recently as 1989, 1999, and 21 September 2005. The last one had been under medical and scientific examination since 1952 (!), so it was hardly a hasty decision to call it a miracle, and I think the placebo effect would have been well and truly taken into account over those 53 years. You seem to be setting yourself up in opposition to the best medical technology in the world with your stance that they are somehow overlooking something as basic as this. I grant that all these 67 cures may be explained in the future by as-yet-undeveloped technology. But they may not. This is where we seem to part ways, Steve. I remain open to the possibility that there are some things that science will never be able to explain; whereas for you it's just a matter a of time until the technology is developed. -- JackofOz 22:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no way to 'take into account' the placebo effect without a significant double-blind statistical study. It would be hard to do this experiment at Lourdes - I guess you'd have to take half of a set of sick people to Lourdes - but take them there blindfolded so they couldn't tell - then take the other half of the people to some other very similar city and blindfold them too - telling them that they were at Lourdes - then you'd have to follow their medical histories and count how many got better. But the problem is that only 11 people got better out of a few HUNDRED MILLION. That's far too few to measure in a reasonable statistical basis. How do you know that out of a hundred million sick people who didn't go to Lourdes, far fewer than 11 got better? It doesn't really matter how convincing your 11 cases are - they are just utterly, utterly, negligable. The rate of success is vastly lower than the number of cases of mixed up medical records - it's lower than the percentage of spontaneous remissions from otherwise terminal cancer. Actually, I kinda suspect that you could prove that going to Lourdes is actually harmful to your health because the rate of unexplained recovery is likely to be worse than for people who stayed at home! The fact is that people do spontaneously recover from diseases - it happens all the time. If even a million of the 150 million who went to Lourdes got better, that would be too few to matter. Now, if 15 million got better - *NOW* you have a major statistical anomaly that's worthy of investigation - but 11 people in 150 million is a JOKE. Oh - and that the last 'proof' of a miracle took 50 years to investigate, that still leaves the fundamental underlying fact that the person's initial diagnosis was done using incredibly primitive 1950's medicine with hand-written notes stored in a big filing cabinet - we have no solid proof that the person was sick in the first place - it's equally possible that they were misdiagnosed - or that they were suffering some phychosomatic problem - or that their records were mixed up with someone else. Sure, it might be unlikely that this could happen convincingly - but we're talking about an event that's insanely rare. It's 500 times more likely that you'll be struck by lightning (1:35,000) than being miraculously cured by going to Lourdes (1:15,000,000) !! Heck - if you stay at Lourdes for more than a couple of weeks, your odds of being killed by lighting WHILE YOU ARE AT LOURDES is better than you being cured! SteveBaker 00:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that the waters at Lourdes contain any magical properties or that a visit there will cure a sick person. I'm saying that there are 67 cases that the best medical and scientific minds in the world have examined as rigorously as humanly possible over a very long time, and have concluded that they are unexplained. Neither you nor I have any but the broadest details of the illnesses, and no details at all of the examinations and investigations that have taken place, so I don't believe it's open to outsiders such as us to make assumptions such as misdiagnosis, the possibility that no sickness ever existed, mix-up of records, or psychosomatic symptoms. I hold absolutely no brief for the Vatican, but I do know that they are incredibly wary of ever acknowledging claimed apparitions, miracle cures or the like. There have been far more claims of these types of things than have ever been accepted by the Vatican. This is because if they do so lightly, they run the risk of later being held open to public ridicule. If it was as simple as "spontaneous remissions and recoveries happen all the time", what has prevented the medical examiners from making just such a finding in these cases? I don't know, but I'd be very surprised if old Lourdes cases were not regularly re-examined in the light of newer technology, but to my knowledge none of the 67 unexplained cases has ever been later explained to anyone's satisfaction. The thing is that I'm discussing actual cases where, one might argue, there appears to have been some sort of supernatural (or at the very least, unexplained) factor at play; whereas you're talking about statistical generalities. No matter how statistically unlikely a phenomenon might be, unless the probability is zero, it can still actually happen; and if it happens, it happens. Then, it has to be explained. And if it can't be explained, what then? I know what your answer will be - they will all eventually be explained when our technology improves sufficiently. And maybe they all will. Or maybe not. This gets back to the basic philosophical question of whether we will ever be able to fully understand the Universe, or whether we will ever be able to know the mind of God. I prefer to believe that the answer to both questions is "No". While the Lourdes cases are interesting in themselves, they will never turn a non-believer in the possibility of the supernatural into a believer (as your answers amply demonstrate). On the other hand, believers were around a lot earlier than Lourdes, so Lourdes is unnecessary. Ultimately, this entire question is one of belief (which is unlimited), not science (which is inherently limited). -- JackofOz 01:39, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

We're getting way off-topic here. But your last sentence demands a reply. I've thought long and hard on this subject and I'm sure you have it completely the wrong way around. If there is a god who has completely unlimited powers - then that is the only single fact you can believe. Anything else is pure guesswork because you can't trust anything you see or feel - you can't do any experiments of even the most mundane nature. Anything you might conclude could just be god doing some more magic. As a scientist, I believe that my experiment to calculate the period of swing of a pendulum as a result of it's length tells me something about the nature of the universe. As a religious person (if you were behaving rationally) you'd have to say that you don't know whether God changed the force of gravity - or warped the ruler you measured the string with - or simply decided to speed up the pendulum - or change the operation of your brain to make it merely seem that this was the case - or construct an entire universe just for the purpose of fooling your brain into coming up with the wrong answer. You'll of course claim all sorts of things like "God wouldn't do that" - but how do you know even THAT? In a universe where magic works, all bets are off - all of them. Nothing you know is "true", nothing you know not to be true is "false". Nothing you "achieve" in your life counts for anything because you have no way to know whether it was "good" or not - or even if any of it really happened. I truly wouldn't find life worth living in such a ridiculous universe - if I believed in God (or someone proved it to me) - I'd jump off a cliff (although I'd be doubting whether it would actually kill me - if dying means anything anyway). On the other hand - if there is no god (and I have no way to prove that - because it's "unfalsifiable" - it's just the most rational guess and I rather like 'Occams Razor') - then the universe follows clearly defined rules - I can investigate those rules - I can gain pleasure from understanding them. My "inherently limited" science is only as limited as the universe is large - and the universe is very, very large indeed. Your religion reduces the entire complexity of our universe for all of time down to a single boolean variable "Something exists with infinite powers" - which you believe to be 'true'. So I'm deeply puzzled as to how religious people find their belief so wonderful. I can only conclude that they havn't thought about it...which kinda fits with their general personalities - they don't think deeply or critically about anything really. I much prefer a (potentially) understandable universe - it contains plenty of wonders without the need to invoke magic to make it work. SteveBaker 22:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to argue with a lot of what you say, Steve. But there are a couple of things. "[My]] religion" - there's no such thing; I'm not religious, and I follow the beliefs of no religious organisations. But I am interested in religions in the context of social history and history in general, which they have hugely influenced. And I am interested in observed phenomena that science has not come up with any explanations for - or not yet anyway. These phenomena have occurred, and I'm not a member of the camp that denies them, as many scientists seem to prefer to do rather then leaving them in the "unexplained" box. It's a pity that you resort to the argument that those who don't share your world-view (or universe-view) obviously haven't thought about it deeply enough. (Just a teensy bit intellectually arrogant, perhaps?) I hope you'd agree that Einstein was a fairly deep thinker, and he had no doubts about the existence of God. He never afaik tried to "prove" God's existence, because he knew that the question was not amenable to rational analysis. It's simply beyond reason. He just believed it, which was not only good enough for him but also the best one can ever do. I believe that there are some things we can never know absolutely, and for which faith or belief is required. It's emotionally unsatisfactory to certain personality types, but it's what we're stuck with. I also would like an understandable universe, and I relish any new discoveries about its origin. But I don't believe its ultimate origin will ever be known to us. Like perfection or infinity, we can get ever closer but will never reach the ultimate goal. Of course, I can't prove that - but if that troubles you, then you would have missed my point entirely. -- JackofOz 01:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Steve, be careful with your trig example! You are quite right at a local level but not at micro and macro ends of physics, particularly the subatomic and the astronomical. Mhicaoidh 20:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - I'm aware of that. But if one FULLY qualifies the description, the point of the discussion is buried under a large pile of irrelevent details. The message is that there are plenty things that we can prove can never exist - and every one of us is perfectly capable of coming up with a dozen of them with just a few minutes thought. Just because someone thought up a clever aphorism that's pleasing to the ear - doesn't make it true! It's too easy to pull one of these quaint sayings out of the air and thereby claim to have won the debate...well, it won't work! SteveBaker 21:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

SteveBaker, there was ridicule, and also strong and truly violent opposition to the solution of the Monty Hall problem. In fact, "Though vos Savant gave the correct answer that switching would win two-thirds of the time, vos Savant estimates 10,000 readers including several hundred mathematics professors wrote in to declare that her solution was wrong." The article doesn't talk about the violence of such opposition, but I did read somewhere that people said vos Savant was stupid and things like that. I bet mathematicians know about a whole bunch of mathematical truths that have been through the Schopenhauer stages. I did also read somwhere that Pythagoreans killed a man, Hippasus, because he pointed out that the square root of 2 was not a whole number. I like Schopenhauer, by the way, and I think he thought deep things. A.Z. 21:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Please read what I wrote - I didn't say that truths are never ridiculed - I said "That's not to say that no truth passes through those stages". Truths are not always ridiculed. That is sufficient to disprove Schopenhauer's outragous claim that all truths go through these three stages. QED. As for the Monty Hall debacle - 10,000 people and a handful of mistaken mathematicians - that's not a lot compared to Vos Savant's readership. There must be several hundred thousand mathematicians in the world - if just a handful of them were mistaken - that's hardly surprising. The Monty Hall problem is incredibly counter-intuitive and some people don't stop to think before they write. Scientists are only human - on any topic, you'll always find one or two percent of them who don't follow the ideas of the majority...and once in a while, they are right. (Mostly though - they are terribly, terribly wrong!) SteveBaker 00:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Since this seems a bit of a pile-on, I just thought I'd mention that at least one person reading this thinks Steve is remaining remarkably calm, logical and coherent. It was perhaps ill-advised to launch into an attack on the supernatural, however accurate, when the question-asker requested information on clubs for the supernatural, but it is hard to see how else the question could have been answered. Possibly the question-asker would be interested in the Fortean Times and associated clubs and media. Jack, you are usually so restrained. Skittle 15:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Heh. If you think that's unrestrained, you should see me when I really get going.  :) On the contrary, I could have said a lot more about this, but I was focussing mostly on Steve's "By definition - no. Since there is clearly no such thing as supernatural powers ... ". Despite 2 requests, I'm still waiting for him to provide that definition, but that's up to him. My last word on this subject (at least here) is that science, for all its benefits (which I do not argue with, and greatly respect), does not have all the answers. Science is a human construct which tries to understand the universe, which is not a human construct (read "superhuman", or "supernatural") and will therefore never reveal all its secrets. Millions of scientists (eg. Einstein) believe in God, or some form of higher being with supernatural powers. This is their only way of dealing with the question of how the universe came into existence in the first place. I don't believe that Steve speaks for them or represents their position in any way. I've simply tried to redress that imbalance, in a healthy exchange of views. -- JackofOz 00:35, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of treating this as a forum and "piling on", which of course it is not, well said Jack. Mhicaoidh 04:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

You've twice clutched onto this talisman of an idea that Einstein belived in God. Nope. He said on many occasions (especially later in life) that he used the word "god" as a synonym for "the laws of nature" but had absolutely no belief in an actual God-like being. Sadly, I'm not near my book collection right now - but there are a large number of quotes with references from Einstein in Dawkin's recent book. I'm sorry I can't quote them from memory. You'll have to put up with a couple of really, clear, unambiguous quotes from WikiQuotes:

• I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
• I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

As for my "by definition" statement, I am trying to say that it follows directly that if there is no such thing as supernatural powers then everyone who claims to have them is in the category of "real jerks and showoff and liars". Since I maintain that the former is true - then so is the latter.

SteveBaker 04:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it may be that Einstein didn't believe in God, and if I chose his name unwisely as an example, I stand corrected. But that still leaves millions of other scientists who do believe. My thesis was not so much about any one particular scientist, but about the fact that many highly intelligent and educated people have no difficulty in accommodating a rational approach to the world alongside an acceptance of certain things that defy reason, which can only be either believed or disbelieved. But just on Einstein, I don't think it's as clear cut as you say. I have "The Quotable Einstein" in front of me right now, and it includes such quotes as:

• I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenonemon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details.
• What interests me is whether God could have created the world any differently; in other words, whether the requirement of logical simplicity admits any margin of freedom.
• We know nothing about it all [God, the world]. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. Possibly we shall know a little more than we do now. But the real nature of things, that we shall never know, never.
• In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views". The note beneath this quote (presumably written by the editor, Alice Calaprice) reads "With this remark, Einstein dissociates himself from atheism".
• In answer to the question "What is your understanding of God?", he replied My comprehension of God comes from the deeply felt conviction of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the knowable world. In common terms, one can describe it as "pantheistic". (my highlighting)

And many others. In relation to your if-then argument, I don't think it necessarily follows at all that such people are real jerks and showoff and liars. One might more charitably say that they are mistaken. -- JackofOz 05:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with Einstein's position on religion is that he'd persistantly used phrases like "God does not play dice" - and this has mislead a lot of people over his beliefs. As I explained - I don't have the book I need at hand - but he did explain all of this at great length in an interview he gave, saying that he had habitually used the term "god" as a place-holder for the phrase "the laws of nature" - so "the laws of nature don't contain randomness" (which unfortunately, he was wrong about!).

Certainly there are quite a few scientists who believe in all kinds of religion. I don't know that it's "millions" - but they are certainly a significant minority. This has been studied at some length - and (predictably) many of them are from the 'softer' sciences - biology, ecology, that kind of thing - many fewer are in physics, astronomy, cosmology, math, etc. But it's my view that these people simply haven't thought through the implications of a being with infinite powers inhabiting a universe that you are trying to make scientific deductions about. This matters less in the 'soft' sciences where you can get away by describing what you see - but in fields like physics where you have to make solid connections between theory and experiment and the result of one experiment or theory is built upon by the next, the possibility that a being with infinite power might be working behind the scenes would make every law of nature seem very, shakey. "The period of swing of a pendulum depends only on it's length" becomes "The period of swing of a pendulum without god's influence is unknown, we kinda suspect that god doesn't often interfere with the rate that a pendulum swings - so it's probably reasonable to assume that he set things up so that the period depends only on the length - but we can't really rely on that."...it would be a very painful process to have to factor in those kinds of things when designing pendulum clocks - then using those clocks to calibrate other experiments - which also would have no solid basis. Doing 'hard' science under that kind of set of assumptions is bizarre and rather pointless. So these people are saying to themselves something like "God is wonderful, he make the universe be an amazing place - now let's ignore all of that and get on with figuring out how pendulums work" - but that's dishonest science - you can't ignore an axiom. SteveBaker 13:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh - and as for I don't think it necessarily follows at all that such people are real jerks and showoff and liars. One might more charitably say that they are mistaken. - yes, I agree 100% - I was merely reflecting the language of the questioner who wished that we explicitly exclude those classes of people. Technically, if we could find a paranormal club where everyone was merely mistaken about their beliefs that they have supernatural powers - then we could adequately answer the original question. I know of no such organisation - mostly they are jerks, showoffs and liars (all at once!) - it's hard to be merely mistaken about having super-powers - either you can leap tall buildings with a single bound - or you can't! SteveBaker 14:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can't see much purpose in prolonging this (and it is already way beyond both the question and how we're supposed to deal with questions). Thanks for the interesting viewpoints, and if you want to discuss this further privately, you're more than welcome. -- JackofOz 03:33, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Credit Report history

hi all, thank you in advance for any good answers to my question. Thinking about my recent credit history, I think there are 2 minor blotches. One was a magazine subscription (ironically a magazine about managing one's personal finances) which I attempted to cancel after signing up for a free trial issue and then getting a bill after the free trial issue- I was informed that it would be cancelled, I wouldnt have to pay anything, and that I should ignore any further letters/bills from them. So I did until a few months later I got quite a nasty letter from the publisher demanding money. This time I paid the bill first and then made sure I got a refund. Total money involved was about just US$12. the second time, I moved out of my apartment to go abroad. Several months later, while abroad, I received a forwarded letter from a collection agency employed by the insurer I had household insurance with. This was the first notice I'd seen about a penalty fee I owed them for moving and therefore ending my coverage with them early ( i still do not understand the logic of why I should pay a penalty for ending coverage early - but anyway. ). I immediately paid the bill, which amounted to just around US$17. My question - will these items have much of an impact on my credit reports/ credit score? Can I apply to have these items removed if they are on my credit history, with a reasonable chance of success? (currently outside of US and unable to access online free credit reports...) Thanks for any good comments....

(1) I very much doubt that a $12 dispute or a $17 dispute would appear on your credit report, especially since both have been paid off. And, even if they did, their impact would be negligible at best on your overall credit score. (2) Rather than ask us at Wikipedia, why not simply order your credit report and see, in fact, whether these items appear or not? Why guess? Go to the source. (JosephASpadaro 01:25, 8 July 2007 (UTC))

...Thanks Joseph for the reply. I did try to get my report online from one of the big three agencies but I switched my bank card address to the non-US address I moved to, so the website wouldnt process my access request. I guess I'll have to wait til I move back to the US to check properly.

help out

i m experiencing several strange incidents which do not fall under normal circumstances...i have some strange sights and visions...etc...whom shall i contact , family thinks i m mad , psychiatrists say i m completely normal but they cant understand why i am LYING about this....is anyone out there who knows something about this..

You have not clearly identified what you mean by "sights and visions." With only this to go on ... how about an eye doctor? (JosephASpadaro 01:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC))

We absolutely cannot give medical advice here - it is totally forbidden by Wikipedia rules. If you think you have a problem - seek more doctors. We're simply not allowed to help you here. SteveBaker 01:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think you need better shrinks. Even the worst of them should be able to theorize that you're inventing these to get yourself attention. See an optometrist, and if that doesn't explain it, see another shrink --L^augh! 01:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Please sign your posts. Thanks --S.dedalus 05:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't eat the mushrooms or drink the Kool-aid :)Perry-mankster 12:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Church of Scientology building exaggeration?

How is the space in Church of Scientology buildings actually used?

Recently I read a statement that the Church of Scientology exaggerates its membership figures. This got me to thinking: maybe this exaggeration extends to deliberately having buildings larger than the space it actually uses. The Toronto Church of Scientology, last I saw it, looked much like a mid-rise apartment building, apart from the ground floor (which, judging by the size of the plate glass windows and the brightness of the lighting, was a converted storefront). I would estimate each floor to be at least a 40-metre square. I am skeptical that the CoS would use this much space, given that there are only about 1525 Scientologists in Canada and that this was only one of their nine Canadian offices. It could be that they rent out some of the space, but how many unrelated people and organizations would willingly associate themselves with the CoS, and how many would the CoS willingly associate itself with? I suspect a fair chunk of the building is empty. NeonMerlin 05:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Plane Keys?

Not sure how this is going to go down, but it's been bugging me for ages. Do planes (like aeroplanes) have/need keys (like car keys)? Does it differ between smaller planes (like Cessnas) and larger commercial planes (like 747s) and military planes (like fighter jets) and where do you put the key (is there a keyhole in the console or is it more like bluetooth and the pilot just has to have it)? Thanks Guycalledryan 08:25, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

answered on howstuffworks.com. Jon513 09:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Although commercial passenger aircraft don't need an ignition key, the door to the cockpit is very secure. And no, we're not going to tell you which switch turns on the engines. For the second part of your question, this picture (I Googled images for "cessna cockpit") clearly shows a key in the dashboard.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

This has been asked before but I can't find the answer right now. Maybe my search terms are too vague. Anyway, yes, smaller aircraft like Cessnas do have ignition keys. I've flown a few Cessnas, the biggest was a Cessna 310, and the key just goes in the control panel in some out of the way, though accessible, sort of place. It's usually close to where it would be found on a car as in the photo shown by Shantavira. Dismas|^(talk) 11:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Technically - I don't think the keys in Cessna's and such are truly "Ignition" keys in that they don't control the ignition systems in the way that the keys on cars historically have. I'm pretty sure you don't turn the key on a Cessna to start it running - although it's been a long time since I last flew in one. Of course in many modern cars, the key doesn't control the ignition either...but the name remains. SteveBaker 05:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the last time I saw the switch in a Cessna it was the ignition switch: it switched the magneto settings between Off, Left, Right, and Both. The starter, on the other hand, was a pushbutton somewhere else on the control panel. I think I still have a '172 manual laying around; if I can remember and can find the manual, I'll re-check this alleged fact.

Atlant 17:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I couldn't find the '172 manual, but I did find the Jeppesen/Sanderson Private Pilot Manual, copyright 1983 and there on page 2-32 is Figure 2-50, a split photo showing some magnetos on the lower right and an ignition switch on the upper left. And this is clearly the sort of switch I was describing: a key that operates a switch with five positions labled "OFF", "R", "L", "BOTH", and (in this case) "START". It's impossible to tell from the picture what the type of the aircraft is, but other control panel shots in the chapter look like a Piper Cherokee to me. So yes, at least some lightplanes have keys that work just like car keys.

Atlant 10:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

entrance halls

hi, i am currently studing Interior design and i ahve been asked to desidn a classical traditional entrance hall. Due to my limited knowledge of the classical era i would appreciate if i could be shown a picture to help my understanding of the materials used for the floor, walls & ceiling.155.239.178.41 12:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)mpumalanga

Marble?--88.109.59.50 06:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Why not visit your college library?86.219.38.122 16:07, 9 July 2007 (UTC)DT

CLIPIOLA PRODUCER HELP HELP HELP

Hello,

I would like to ask for help. Does anybody know who produces the "Clipiola" round clips ?

They are supposed to be Italian but I have been able to find the factory. I would like to contact them in order to finish a special engineering study.

Thanks.83.60.94.25 11:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Cavallini & Co. at www.clipiola.com seem to be the people. DuncanHill 12:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Cavallini are certainly distributing the product, but I'm quite certain they do not produce it. if it is an Italian product, I guess it must be some factory in Italy ???213.27.215.66 06:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone else help me find this information ?213.27.215.66 14:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Criss Angel

How does Criss Angel make people float? --58.168.222.252 16:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing the same way as David Copperfield.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

see David Copperfield's flying illusion--Countincr ^{( T@lk )} 18:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a comment: If you read an accurate account of how a professional magic trick is done, and how trivial the technique is, it may lessen the enjoyment of watching it. Edison 19:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

In this particular case it's not all that trivial, though! (I did follow the link.) --Anonymous, July 9, 2007, 20:52 (UTC).

For some of us, on the contrary, knowing how it's done makes it more wonderful. (I imagine that Penn & Teller fans tend to be of this type.) —Tamfang 05:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Angel would not use Copperfield's illusion. Angel has done some great work but he's a bit of a cheater, he has used a lot of camera tricks and stooges in his videos, which a lot of magicians consider as cheating. Vespine 22:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Peter Snows and his Sandpit, footage?

I've heard and read about how Peter Snow depicted the 1991 Gulf War with only a sandpit and toy tanks, this sounds brilliant. Unfortunately I was born in 1990, so don't remember it quite as clearly as I'd like. Does anyone know where I can find some footage of it? I've checked Youtube and Google Video, no joy. A link to the BBC Archives might do the trick, I can't find the damn thing. It's meant to be exaustive.81.168.46.40 19:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

This was on BBC's Newsnight programme. There is a still shot of the "sandpit" in this article about Newsnight. Gandalf61 20:23, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It was done with computer generated graphics - he did not use a real sandpit. 80.2.209.196 19:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Dan the man and his Pa are currently showing on BBC2 Monday nights at 9pm (baring random acts of tennis) in a programme called 20th century battlefields, last night they 'did' 'the Yom Kippur war' ( yup probably spelt it wrong - in a hurry) next week is the falklands, and the next is to be the Gulf (action, engagement, war whatever)don't know where you are 81.168, but beg, steal and borrow any chance to see/copy it, take it from me, someone whom, until he 'met' the dear clio, had very little interest in history (shame on you perry, shame) the programmes are pretty good, enjoy Perry-mankster 10:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That show also appears on the Military Channel Sunday mornings in the US and Canada. Definately worth checking out if you're into this sort of thing. I saw one on Stalingrad last week that was exceptional. Heather 17:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

SAS or special forces

Do the SAS or any special forces (mainly from Britain) have some sort of rank system or symbols, i.e. like the star-and-crown symbols? Lady BlahDeBlah 23:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The Special Air Service are soldiers in the British Army and use the same rank system. I think a private is called a trooper. I don't imagine they wear rank insignia when on operations. — Gareth Hughes 23:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Fruit Flies

I was wondering how long do they live, and if there is something you can do to get rid of them besides getting rid of the fruit around.

According to Drosophila_melanogaster#Life_cycle they live about 30 days. You could try fly paper. DuncanHill 00:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

A really good solution is taking some red wine or thick grape juice, and put it in a large glass. Cover the rim of the glass with cellophane, and punch a couple of holes in the top for the flies to get it. They aren't too bright, and will fly in, then drown. Works better than fly paper in my experience. --Haemo 01:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

According to the same article, it takes about a week from when an egg is laid until an adult fly can take flight. If each fruit stays in your home for less than a week, the flies can't propagate, and will die out. --mglg_(talk) 03:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

(Unless of course the fruitfly eggs are already in the fruit when you buy them!)

One thing that ought to work well would be to keep your fruit in the refrigerator. Our article says that the life cycle of the fruit fly is dramatically slowed at lower temperatures. Eggs that normally take 7 days to develop and hatch at 25 degC, take 50 days to do the same thing at 12 degC. It doesn't say what happens at (say) 5 degC where your refrigerator might be at - but we can be sure that it must be dramatically slower. SteveBaker 04:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Black and white pattern

What's the name of the sort of black and white pattern here? I'm not sure if there is one, but I know I've seen that pattern and ones like it elsewhere. ShadowHalo 23:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It's mostly Houndstooth, although you may be thinking of some of the works of artist M. C. Escher (like "Day and Night"). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:04, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That's it! I kept thinking sawtooth. Thanks. ShadowHalo 00:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)