If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?
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Things that baffle the human race. Please add to the list.
- Thread starter Wez
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Meade's Ball
Well-known member
Who came first, me or my girlfriend?
Yup, you guessed it: it was ME!
Oh alright, i haven't got a girlfriend.
Yup, you guessed it: it was ME!
Oh alright, i haven't got a girlfriend.
Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their bum when they ask where the bathroom is?
If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?
Gritt23
New member
How does the guy who drives the snowplough, get to work?
jonnyboylennon
New member
Why at the end of every party is there a fat girl crying?
The Great Cornholio
New member
CrabtreeBHA said:
OK - you guys asked for this!
(BTW I meant frequencies, not bandwith!)Light is an electromagnetic wave. If you stand in one spot as a light wave passes by, there will be an oscillating electric field and an oscillating magnetic field, which are perpendicular to each other. If the light is in the range of frequencies that we can see, then the frequency of the vibration affects the color of the light. The color-vision receptors in our eyes, the cones, are of three types: "blue" receptors that respond to light over a broad range of high frequencies, "green" receptors that respond to medium frequencies, and "red" receptors that respond to low frequencies. The ranges of sensitivity of the receptors overlap considerably, but they have their maximum sensitivities at different frequencies. The perceived color depends (among other things) on the relative strengths of the signals from these receptors.
Molecules are usually electrically neutral, but they are made of charged objects: their atoms consist of negatively charged electrons and positively charged nuclei. If there is an electric field at the position of an atom, the nucleus will move a short distance in the direction of the field and the electrons will move the other way, and the atom will become a "dipole": the positive and negative charge will be centered around different places. A molecule made of such atoms will acquire its own electric field, something like the magnetic field of a bar magnet.
A dipole's electric field falls off more rapidly with distance than it would if the molecule had a net electric charge. This is because at large distances, the fields from the positive and the negative charge tend to cancel each other out, as the difference between their average positions becomes less important.
However, if the dipole is made to oscillate-- that is, if the positive and negative charge wiggle back and forth, out of phase with each other-- then the molecule can produce electromagnetic radiation of its own, for reasons I'll explain below. This is how air molecules scatter light: the oscillating electric field of the incoming wave makes the molecules develop oscillating dipoles, which in turn give off radiation.
The radiation destructively interferes with the incoming wave in the forward direction. The original wave is lessened in intensity, and new waves move out in all other directions, so that overall energy is conserved (this requirement is sometimes called the "optical theorem"). The net effect is that light energy that was moving in a straight line from the sun ends up traveling in some other direction.
Since sunlight appears white but the sky is a robin's-egg blue, it must be that the scattered light excites our blue-sensing cones more, and our red-sensing cones less, than the original sunlight. The distribution of frequencies in the scattered light must be biased toward high frequencies. Why is this?
There are another 4 sections but I'll spare you! Ask Jeeves if you really care.
The Great Cornholio
New member
tedebear said:
Mineral Oil.
God I'm feeling bored and pedantic today!
Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near ?
The Great Cornholio
New member
Minghawk said:
Yet more words of wisdom :-
Teflon, the non-stick coating used on pots and pans, holds the title in the Guiness Book of World Records as being the slipperiest substance on earth.
Scientifically speaking, Teflon will not chemically bond to anything, but can be forced mechanically into small nooks and crannies. This slippery substance adheres to their surfaces once manufacturers sandblast them to roughen them, apply a primer, and embed the Teflon into the primer.
Brady's Old Lady
New member
why has the twot opposite me just got me a cup of tea(1st one this week), with sugar in, when i distinctly said no sugar - and he knows I'm diabetic!!!
The Great Cornholio
New member
Titanic said:
Because, just like me, they long to be, close to you.
I should be charging for this information!
Dave the OAP
Well-known member
Ok then...if a rainbow is light refraction, then why is it that you can shine a light through one drop of water and get a rainbow...ok....BUT why when its raining is there one big rainbow ...why isnt there millions of little rainbows? and how does each little drop know what colour it is?
The Great Cornholio
New member
In nature, living things evolve through changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote -- the first cell of a new baby chicken. This first cell divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. In any animal, every cell contains exactly the same DNA, and that DNA comes from the zygote.braders100 said:
Chickens evolved from non-chickens through small changes caused by the mixing of male and female DNA or by mutations to the DNA that produced the zygote. These changes and mutations only have an effect at the point where a new zygote is created. That is, two non-chickens mated and the DNA in their new zygote contained the mutation(s) that produced the first true chicken. That one zygote cell divided to produce the first true chicken.
Prior to that first true chicken zygote, there were only non-chickens. The zygote cell is the only place where DNA mutations could produce a new animal, and the zygote cell is housed in the chicken's egg. So, the egg must have come first.
The Great Cornholio
New member
dave the gaffer said:
A ray of light enters a raindrop and is refracted and reflected from the back surface of the raindrop.
Due to the spherical geometry of the raindrop, the exiting light is concentrated near 42º because of the index of refraction of water.
Every raindrop at 42° (rainbow angle) from the observer has the potential to contribute to the rainbow if cancellation doesn’t occur.