People in serious need of math and science lessons

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by geminilee

No, the Bible doesn't say anything about pi . What it does have is a description of a table, I forget who's. The table is described as being some measure across, and half that measure times 3 around. (I also forget the numbers used, and I am too lazy to google it.) For some literalists it is inconceivable that it could just be an approximation for ease, so they argue that pi must be three, in defiance of fairly easily testable reality.

Honestly, the only people I've ever seen argue that this passage says that pi equals 3 are non-believers trying to debunk the Bible, who ignore that this is likely an approximation, and also that the object might just possibly not be a perfect circle (you know, the kind that exist only in theory). Only with perfect circles would the circumference be pi times the diameter, never with man-made circular objects.

David

[snopes]

Comment: Statemen: "Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of CO²
out of the atmosphere."

How is this even possible? A gallon of gas doesn't weigh 20 pounds.

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: Statemen: "Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of CO²
out of the atmosphere."

How is this even possible? A gallon of gas doesn't weigh 20 pounds.

It is a person in serious need of a science lesson but it's not a bad question!
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml

[KirkMcD]

Originally Posted by lynnejanet

I think if you tried to calculate the probability of individual particles in two different solid objects, of different densities, vibrating at just the right frequency to pass next to each other, the probability would be 0.

The probability approaches 0, but it never reaches 0.

Originally Posted by lynnejanet

Is it possible, though? I know that atoms and molecules are always moving, but that movement is miniscule. They are vibrating, but they're not actually moving any great distance, otherwise the wall/window/other solid wouldn't be solid in the first place. I think if you tried to calculate the probability of individual particles in two different solid objects, of different densities, vibrating at just the right frequency to pass next to each other, the probability would be 0.

No, just close to 0 (as KirkMcD wrote). Also, if you actually looked at an atom, most of it is open space. What stops you is not your atoms running into the wall's atoms, but the fields that surround your atoms interacting (and repelling) the fields of the wall's atoms.

Besides, my point was a QM one. There is a mathematical probability, not equal to zero (but really close) that you can walk up to a wall and simply "pop" out the other side. There are actual devices that use this QM principle. One of them is the tunneling electron microscope.

[snopes]

Comment: In The Lottery, you stated that the odds of having 9-1-1 come up as the
winning number were 1 in 1000. I am not a statistician but I believe that
your calculations would be correct if there were only 10 balls each having
a digit from 0 to 9 on it. However, when there is a chance of obtaining a
number more than once I believe that would greatly increase the odds.

[FullMetal]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: In The Lottery, you stated that the odds of having 9-1-1 come up as the
winning number were 1 in 1000. I am not a statistician but I believe that
your calculations would be correct if there were only 10 balls each having
a digit from 0 to 9 on it. However, when there is a chance of obtaining a
number more than once I believe that would greatly increase the odds.

That's why you're not a statistician... since if there were only 10 balls each with a digit from 0-9, obtaining 9-1-1 would be impossible since once the ball is removed it does not re-enter. however when there are 10 balls in a drum, the odds of receiving a specific ball in that drum is 1 in 10, you do that 3 times, 10x10x10=1000.

and I learned that in high school statistics... nor am i a statistician (closest I come is a PnP RPGer...)

[snopes]

Comment: On your lost day article you stated that "Even the putative
reasons offered for the scientists' performing the calculations described
in this legend make little sense. We need not know about any 'missing
time' in the past in order to be able to launch spacecraft today." But
because light can only travel so fast, the light we're seeing from stars
today actually happened millions of years go, so essentially we're looking
into the past. If I misinterpreted what you wrote, please inform me.

[robbiev]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: On your lost day article you stated that "Even the putative
reasons offered for the scientists' performing the calculations described
in this legend make little sense. We need not know about any 'missing
time' in the past in order to be able to launch spacecraft today." But
because light can only travel so fast, the light we're seeing from stars
today actually happened millions of years go, so essentially we're looking
into the past. If I misinterpreted what you wrote, please inform me.

Easy enough. Consider yourself informed.

[snopes]

Comment: RE: Rare pink dolphin

You call the story true - and it may well be - but there is a very
questionable assumption in it:

The article states that the albino dolphin appears pink because blood
vessels under its blubber are giving a pink tone to its flesh.

This ignores every American kid's elementary school biology - blood isn't
red under the skin, it's blue until it makes contact with the air.

[Esprise Me]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: RE: Rare pink dolphin

You call the story true - and it may well be - but there is a very
questionable assumption in it:

The article states that the albino dolphin appears pink because blood
vessels under its blubber are giving a pink tone to its flesh.

This ignores every American kid's elementary school biology - blood isn't
red under the skin, it's blue until it makes contact with the air.

To be fair, this dupe's problem could be poor math and science lessons, rather than a lack of them. I was also told that blood returning to the heart from the extremities was blue. I never believed it, because I had seen blood from a nicked vein and capillary, but almost all my classmates did. After all, if the book says it, and the teacher says it...who are you gonna believe, them or your own lyin' eyes?

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: RE: Rare pink dolphin

You call the story true - and it may well be - but there is a very
questionable assumption in it:

The article states that the albino dolphin appears pink because blood
vessels under its blubber are giving a pink tone to its flesh.

This ignores every American kid's elementary school biology - blood isn't
red under the skin, it's blue until it makes contact with the air.

It's amazing how many people believe this. "Blood is blue, but if you cut yourself it instantly sucks up oxygen and becomes red! You want proof, look at the veins in your wrists - blue!"

I've yet to find a good, quick way to counter this "logic".

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Wondercow

It's amazing how many people believe this. "Blood is blue, but if you cut yourself it instantly sucks up oxygen and becomes red! You want proof, look at the veins in your wrists - blue!"

I've yet to find a good, quick way to counter this "logic".

How about "Look at the capilliaries in the whites of your eyes. Oxygenated blood - red!"

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Wondercow

It's amazing how many people believe this. "Blood is blue, but if you cut yourself it instantly sucks up oxygen and becomes red! You want proof, look at the veins in your wrists - blue!"

I've yet to find a good, quick way to counter this "logic".

When you have blood drawn for lab work (or donate blood), it's typically sucked/pumped directly into a collection vial or syringe without coming into contact with the air, yet the blood is still red.

- snopes

I believed that venous blood was blue and arterial blood was red until I was a freshman in high school. While I don't recall having read explicitly that venous blood was blue, I had a text on anatomy that showed the circulatory system with veins in blue and arteries in red, and I knew that arterial blood delivered the oxygen and somehow concluded that venous blood was blue (probably using my own arm as a reference). I was genuinely shocked to discover that this wasn't true.

Originally Posted by Wondercow

It's amazing how many people believe this. "Blood is blue, but if you cut yourself it instantly sucks up oxygen and becomes red! You want proof, look at the veins in your wrists - blue!"

Originally Posted by snopes

When you have blood drawn for lab work (or donate blood), it's typically sucked/pumped directly into a collection vial or syringe without coming into contact with the air, yet the blood is still red.

So why ARE the veins in your wrist blue?

[Spamamander]

My completely uneducated guess would have to do with the thickness of the vessel walls. Arteries do not need to have thick walls, as blood is forced through them by the heart, so you can see the color of the blood within. Veins have thick walls to force the blood back to the heart, so they are not transparent and you instead see the color of the venous walls.

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Spamamander

My completely uneducated guess would have to do with the thickness of the vessel walls. Arteries do not need to have thick walls, as blood is forced through them by the heart, so you can see the color of the blood within. Veins have thick walls to force the blood back to the heart, so they are not transparent and you instead see the color of the venous walls.

Actually arteries have thicker walls than veins, to cope with the greater pressure of arterial blood. Just as a fire hose is made of thicker material than a garden hose. Veins play no part in pumping the blood back to the heart, that's achieved by the residual pressure from blood following behind and a series of one-way valves inside the veins preventing it flowing back

ETA A better written explanation.

[Spamamander]

Ahh thanks... it's been a really long time since science class, as you can tell! I remember the valves and all that now that you mentioned it. It was a cool theory though .

[Lainie]

Nice illustration on that link. Ugh.

So why do the veins look blue (or green), though?