Today I Learned

  • Thread starter Greg Bernhardt
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In summary: Today I learned that Lagrange was Italian and that he lamented the execution of Lavoisier in France during the French Revolution with the quote:"It took them only an instant to cut off this head and a hundred years might not suffice to reproduce it's...brains."
  • #5,076
Today I learned why there is a bite missing on Apple's apple.
 
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  • #5,077
fresh_42 said:
Today I learned why there is a bite missing on Apple's apple.
Is that the Turing thing? I thought that was an urban myth?
 
  • #5,078
pinball1970 said:
Is that the Turing thing? I thought that was an urban myth?

Well, that's why I didn't mention it. My source wasn't reliable. This is one of the things I like to quote someone who answered an anecdote I told him:

"I don't think it is true. However, the charm of the story is, that it could be true." (Brooks Ferebee)
 
  • #5,079
fresh_42 said:
Well, that's why I didn't mention it. My source wasn't reliable. This is one of the things I like to quote someone who answered an anecdote I told him:

"I don't think it is true. However, the charm of the story is, that it could be true." (Brooks Ferebee)
I quick search is fuzzy. The fruit seems a bit hippie (fruitarian, commune stuff) and the bite to show it's bigger than a cherry.
Steve Jobs on hearing the Turing story said he wished it was true. Apparently.
So apple = set, fruit
Bigger than cherry
Apple minus bite implies Turing

Code written all over it
 
  • #5,080
haushofer said:
TIL that if you place two small marbles of 1 kg in interstellar space at 1 meter apart, they will collide after roughly one day due to their gravitational interaction. And that this collision time is another striking example of how a derivation based on units and some thought (2 body problem) can save you from doing a nasty integral.

I just did the nasty integral* and came up with 26.7 hours.

*(Wolfram alpha helped. I also assumed the marbles were very dense, such that their diameters << 1 meter.)
 
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  • #5,081
Today I learned that, in a biology lecture, leech is used in surgery, thus its name.
 
  • #5,083
collinsmark said:
I just did the nasty integral* and came up with 26.7 hours.

*(Wolfram alpha helped. I also assumed the marbles were very dense, such that their diameters << 1 meter.)
Very much on the same lines, take a spherical asteroid (or rock) with the equivalent density to Earth. Put it out on its own in space and set a small stone in low orbit round it. The orbital period will be around 90 minutes; same as an Earth satellite.
I look forward to someone doing that demo. Come on, Elon!!!
 
  • #5,084
pinball1970 said:
TIL: Meteor showers are caused by the earth’s orbit passing through debris left over from a comets trail.

What did I think caused it before? I don’t know is the honest answer, I just thought material hit the earth all the time.

I did not consider that showers are predicted.

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/skills/meteor-showers-how-observe-record-shooting-stars/
it's interesting that a piece of ejecta from a comet is given just one burst of impulse as it leaves. It will have a new, different value of momentum when it leaves and will take up a different solar orbit (assuming it has greater than escape velocity from the comet). Orbital mechanics says that the piece's new orbit will re-visit the place where it left the comet (just the same as when satellites transfer orbits). It won't arrive at the same time as the comet's next time round but the piece, along with all the other ejected pieces will arrive back on the path of the comet and go through it. So, iirc, that means there is a focussing effect on all parts of the ejecta such that they will all turn up in a given belt, again and again. When earth passes through this belt, you will get a 'shower' of them; They don't just disperse all over the Solar System.

I'm not sure how many comets repeat their solar orbits closely enough for each pass to leave junk along the same track.
 
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  • #5,086
TIL More stuff about the sinking of the Titanic. @hagopbul and @russ_watters mentioned the subject for a possible Engineering thread so this is worth a mention if not an actual thread.
Titanic is very interesting, very tragic and had so many bad luck points associated with it. Worth a thread in the History forum.

There is also information regarding the design of the bulk heads, the iron grade used in the rivets, a fire in the coal store and the angle she hit the iceberg that would interest the engineers?

Anyway, this is a minute by minute animation but there is also a minute by minute animation with commentary on YouTube done on the anniversary. Very interesting and a lot of research went into it. "Titanic Honour and Glory." (Three hours 45 mins, I watched all, fantastic)

Anyway here is the link to the former. (No torpedoes....)

 
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  • #5,088
TIL that there are people who crochet animals:

Screenshot 2023-04-23 at 8.54.42 AM.png


Screenshot 2023-04-23 at 8.53.56 AM.png
 
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  • #5,089
Love the dopey grin on the angler fish...
 
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  • #5,090
Really that was I meant it is a very interested engineering question, I should not mention the sea projectil
 
  • #5,091
hagopbul said:
Really that was I meant it is a very interested engineering question, I should not mention the sea projectil
? what are you talking about?
 
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  • #5,093
hagopbul said:
Concerning @pinball1970
Well, please learn to quote the post you are responding to so it's clear what you are talking about.
 
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  • #5,095
TIL "A blackened, broken leg bone from Earth’s prehistoric past may hold the answer to when early humans diverged from apes and started their own evolutionary path."

From Last August- paper in Nature. I will check no thread on it and post
 
  • #5,096
Today, at this moment, I learned that cockroaches can cause infectious intestinal diseases viz: cholera, diarrhea, typhoid fever, etc. Also allergic.
 
  • #5,097
DeBangis21 said:
Today I learned that, in a biology lecture, leech is used in surgery, thus its name.
Still a current method or treatment today? Me, not sure, but I may not be well-informed. Today wound debridement therapy using maggots does exist; special care taken in rearing the young maggots.

edit: (excuse me for editing this. I forgot about the word, "maggot" so used the misspelled larva instead.)
 
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  • #5,098
symbolipoint said:
Still a current method or treatment today? Me, not sure, but I may not be well-informed. Today wound debridement therapy using larvas does exist; special care taken in rearing the young larvas.
Lordy,I had no idea.

[Warning, do not click into this following link unless you are a medical professional, or seriously deranged]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_therapy
 
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  • #5,099
berkeman said:
Lordy,I had no idea.

[Warning, do not click into this following link unless you are a medical professional, or seriously deranged]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_therapy
You really have led a sheltered life, haven't you...leeches(?), maggots..."lions, tigers, and bears, oh my...."
 
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  • #5,100
berkeman said:
Lordy,I had no idea.

[Warning, do not click into this following link unless you are a medical professional, or seriously deranged]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_therapy
I've heard about that - using 'clean' maggots.

I've heard about injured POWs who used maggots to debride their wounds of necrotic tissue, then urinated on them to kill them when they finished clearing the dead tissue and to start the healing. I believe leaches are used because they have anticoagulants, which aids in blood flow and prevents gangrene.
 
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  • #5,101
gmax137 said:
I don't think we have marmite in the US.
We do. I have Marmite and Vegemite in my pantry. Marmite is OK, but I have a preference for Vegemite.

I spread it thick like peanut butter. I also have it on toast with cheese or hummus, or in a Vegemite sandwich.
 
  • #5,102
Astronuc said:
I've heard about injured POWs who used maggots to debride their wounds of necrotic tissue, then urinated on them to kill them when they finished clearing the dead tissue and to start the healing.
**** **** | ** *** | * * | *** *** | * *** | **** *** | * * | **** *** | **** **** | **** ** | *** ****

:smile:
 
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  • #5,103
An advertisement for a lab job appeared a few times on Craigslist some years ago to work with maggots raised for wound debridement therapy.
 
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  • #5,104
DeBangis21 said:
Today I learned that, in a biology lecture, leech is used in surgery, thus its name.
According to the Wikipedia article Hirudo medicinalis § Current, leeches can still be used to treat venous congestion after microsurgery, varicose veins, muscle cramps, thrombophlebitis, and osteoarthritis. Leech saliva contains anticoagulants and vasodilators (so improves blood flow), and also anaesthetic so the bites don't hurt much.
 
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  • #5,105
DrGreg said:
According to the Wikipedia article Hirudo medicinalis § Current, leeches can still be used to treat venous congestion after microsurgery, varicose veins, muscle cramps, thrombophlebitis, and osteoarthritis. Leech saliva contains anticoagulants and vasodilators (so improves blood flow), and also anaesthetic so the bites don't hurt much.
I can attest that the bites don't hurt at all. More than once I've looked at my feet to discover fat leeches there. It's impressive how fast they can suck.
 
  • #5,106
symbolipoint said:
Still a current method or treatment today? Me, not sure, but I may not be well-informed. Today wound debridement therapy using maggots does exist; special care taken in rearing the young maggots.

edit: (excuse me for editing this. I forgot about the word, "maggot" so used the misspelled larva instead.)
No idea actually
 
  • #5,107
Today I learned that,
Galileo ever measured the speed of light, and again, by his pulse.
Oh
My
God!

And someone ever measured the speed of light by determining the time delay between one of Jupiter's moon eclipse.

Can't believe that. Four of Jupiter's moons are called "Galilean moon". How could a genius like Galileo missed that method?

But, I can understand that. Galileo was before Newton, and by that time, he didn't know the distance between Sun and Earth and Jupiter.
 
  • #5,108
That Galileo! What an ignorant stumblebum!

Measuring the speed of light with the Romer method requires, a) about five years between observations, b) a a heliocentric model (and five years after his discovery of Jupiter's moons Galileo was in enough hot water about heliocentrism) and c) timekeeping good to the few minute level, The latter didn't exist until Romer's time.
 
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  • #5,109
Vanadium 50 said:
That Galileo! What an ignorant stumblebum!
Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons!

 
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  • #5,110
Today I learned what these are called on a carpet
falskf.jpg
 

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