The Magnificent Explanations Thread or 'I wish I'd known this years ago'

"Oh, now THAT makes sense."

There are times someone throws light on the obscure, or links different facts or areas in a way that builds a denseness of inteconnectivity which makes them unforgettable. Some I have been lucky to encounter as a child, others only recently. Bertrand Russell did it with philosophy, Patric Moore and Karl Sagan with cosmology, Richard Feynman with physics, David Bohm with quantum/mystical interfaces, TitliNihaan with cooking ... 'to name but a few'.

"I'll never forget the moment when a,b,c etc made sense" ... "I read this short article and blam!" Sometimes it may be a single paragraph, and sometime just one phrase.

These are what I'd appreciate your sharing.

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Here's mine:

I was reading Uncle Phil's entry in Daily Quotations

"Rings a bell", I thought, so I wiki'd JBS Haldane, then I happened to google upon the following article. It blew my mind.

Here is the link and the first paragraph:

On Being the Right Size - J. B. S. Haldane 1928

"The most obvious differences between different animals are differences of size, but for some reason the zoologists have paid singularly little attention to them. In a large textbook of zoology before me I find no indication that the eagle is larger than the sparrow, or the hippopotamus bigger than the hare, though some grudging admissions are made in the case of the mouse and the whale. But yet it is easy to show that a hare could not be as large as a hippopotamus, or a whale as small as a herring. For every type of animal there is a most convenient size, and a large change in size inevitably carries with it a change of form."

 

When you a dolloping apple sauce on your pork chop - they are bred for meat weight, and they are bred so that if allowed to become adults, their legs will not support their weight. Not all pigs of course. Not all have been tampered with to such an extent - but turkeys are not meant to become adults either, they are expected to be killed for xmas - those hanging around for valentines day tend to have feet problems - once again the weight. Aint mankind wonderfull.

 

The f stop refers to the size of the Aperture or hole in the lens through which the light passes to expose the film or sensor. The number is the focal length of the lens divided by the effective diameter of the aperture. So a 200mm lens with a 25mm aperture is f8.

The aperture is variable in size so the light passing can be varied. This combined with the shutter speed (which is actually the duration it is open) and sensitivity of the film or sensor (ISO rating) defines the exposure received.

Because the area of the hole affects the amount of light it becomes a square relationship. So 1.4 times the size gives double the light, because 1.4 squared is 2 (ish).

So the full stop values giving double the light are 1, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22 etc.
If you look at the pattern you will see every second on is double. Half and third of a stop are intermediate values. Eventually you will learn them but all you need to know is that three clicks on a Canon dial is one stop or double/half the light whether it is shutter speed or Aperture or ISO.

Bob Shaw

http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?v...group_most_popular-0-b-ttl&goback=.gmp_112621

 

Ace!

Lindy ... I've already verbatimly repeated your "An amateur practices until she can play it right, a professional until she cannot play it wrong." this afternoon, to someone. Love it

@ChineseCrested ... pig, turkey ... meat bearing, to hell with legs. Ignorant until informed, yet now makes painful yet perfect sense. Algorythm for Agony. Hard wired in my memory, that, soddit

CaptainBob ... MUAHAHAH ... this is classic. You know I do photography, so I followed your tech info with glee .. and the Cherry on the cake was that "Eventually you will learn them but all you need to know" THAT'S the clincher. That's Elite It's like when someone experienced in construction work told me the "Three, Four Five Rule", and suddenly, Pythagoras' Theorem was clear as a bell forever.

 

When the President 'pardons' turkeys just before Thanksgiving they usually die within a year from a variety of issues since they were never bred for long life.

 

My favourite "ah-ha!" moment was when I understood why a stable orbit is referred to as "free-fall". Basically, it was a blinding flash of the obvious that came about when someone told me that an object orbiting 1000 miles above the centre (not the surface) of a planet will fall directly towards the centre of that planet. If the orbit is stable, then by the time the object has fallen exactly 1000 miles, it will have moved exactly 1000 miles to the side, leaving it 1000 miles away from the centre. In each time period, the distance the object falls, it moves sides exactly that amount, so that it is ALWAYS the same distance from the centre of the planet.

 

when my econ teacher said "economics isn't a bunch of numbers and formulas, it's people responding to incentives" since then i have yet to come out of a deal with someone where we aren't both pleased

 

It was June 2009, that I had experienced an epiphany. This was indeed an experience I will never forget; my mind had opened to an illuminating discovery of the subconscious mind and the different dimensions of reality. I was between two worlds; my body’s response was incredible. There before me was a human being that saw this transition of my mind, body and soul. Who sent this person to me? I would call this person my spirit guide/teacher, nudging me into the correct direction, not to get lost in this intuitive grasp of reality that I had awakened too. I learned not to question outcomes, or try to decipher dreams and everyday life. I had changed forever and loving every aspect of my new found life, still evolving. The mind is an incredible thing!

 

greywolf - Very nice - I had some mental spaghetti involving tangents and whirling things round my head on pieces of string, but it never satisfied me. What you've written clarifies it

EventHorizon - "people responding to incentives" This reminds me of when I was told that psychological terms are used to describe the condition of the stock market. Numerical transforms are what we see, but they represent levels of desire, motivation, confidence of the people and groups of people involved. I don't understand how the numbers work with each other, but these days, I'm better at making sense of the transform. Woah ... mini epiphane as I write: 'people responding to incentives' sounds like it does not have to be Money! That it could be ANY value system, and that economics is a way of measuring the flow

Freetofly Thank you. To discover the different dimensions of reality AND find what's needed to navigate. That's a great result. I've known people who only encountered the former, so I am very happy for you. The mind sure IS an incredible thing

 

my epiphany exactly it doesn't need to be currency, but goods, favors, sleep, reputation, everything! it's pretty awesome. he went on to say that economics has less to do with the monetary value of things changing so much as it is people making decisions (weighing values), and the numbers and graphs we see are quantified versions of a lot of people exercising their free will. it just so happens that anything can be bought and the easiest way to track massive social behavior is by what people buy and what they're willing to pay for it
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i'm now going to use this as inuendo... thought you should know

 

Exactly, Mr. Dent.

 

Douglas Adams, Piers Anthony, and to some extent, Terry Pratchett have leveraged ... operationalized my ... kicked me into enhanced understanding of this world by their skills of 'creative explaining'. "Throwing yourself at the ground, and missing", is a great example of that. Also, I consider the early Granny Weatherwax to be one of the Great Teachers.

 

AHA! moment... when i determined that our thirst for advanced technology is retarding the perfection of the technology we have... i realize this everytime my new web based contract generation system shows its ass. my old web based contract generation system STILL shows its ass, i just know how to cover it back up... LOL

now if i could just get people to value my opinion... LOL

 

Once you learn this, you've mastered the camera. At that point you can work on mastering photography.

Throwing yourself at the ground is a waste of delta-v. To get into orbit, you go into space and use that force to throw yourself far enough sideways that you miss the planet and atmosphere on the way down.