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Post by the light works on Feb 4, 2014 18:00:54 GMT
having cited this in another thread, I now feel I should make it a formal thing - and as such, perhaps we can make it at least a mini-myth for the crew to demonstrate, sometime.
simply put, Archimedes said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
however, more modern physicists have said, if you gave Archimedes a long enough lever, it would be so massive that he could not realistically expect to move the lever, let alone the world.
this is illustrated in several different myths that got posted from time to time in the old boards, including, can you move an aircraft carrier by direct human effort. (theoretically, yes, practically, no)
the basis for the bust would be to build a machine where you could sequentially add force multipliers, until the effort required to operate the machine was greater than the force required to directly move the load.
so, that said, what would be an effective design for this? the parameters I see are: something affordable, something that provides a degree of drama (visual interest) and something that prevents "they did it wrong because they didn't get the results i wanted"
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Post by ironhold on Feb 5, 2014 1:43:47 GMT
Far less dramatic examples have been proposed.
One of my economics textbooks, for example, used the example of pizza: the average person is going to be all over that first slice, but the more they eat the less they desire to eat and the less satisfaction they take from each additional slice.
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Post by the light works on Feb 5, 2014 1:56:46 GMT
Far less dramatic examples have been proposed. One of my economics textbooks, for example, used the example of pizza: the average person is going to be all over that first slice, but the more they eat the less they desire to eat and the less satisfaction they take from each additional slice. not quite the same principle, to my way of thinking. that is more a case of market saturation. the law of diminishing returns regarding pizza would be that pizza with no toppings is pretty plain - it gets better when you add toppings, but if you add too many toppings, it starts getting worse, again. |
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Post by wvengineer on Feb 5, 2014 22:53:55 GMT
It is interesting that the opposite is true in humour. You can tell a joke and then keep repeating it. The joke will soon stop being funny, however if you keep telling it, after a while the sheer repetition of it makes it funny again.
Prime example of this is the first LONG panning shot of Spaceball 1 in Spaceballs.
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Post by Cybermortis on Feb 6, 2014 0:16:08 GMT
Actually a lever long enough to move a planet would be unable to support its own weight.
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Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2014 3:17:03 GMT
Actually a lever long enough to move a planet would be unable to support its own weight. depends on how it was made... |
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Post by GTCGreg on Feb 6, 2014 3:27:56 GMT
Too bad some of us completely missed Archimedes' point.
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Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2014 16:39:57 GMT
Too bad some of us completely missed Archimedes' point. we get the point - we just also understand most things are not universally scalable. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Feb 6, 2014 17:48:07 GMT
It reminds me of my physics professor in college. On exam questions, he would state the problem to solve and then something like; "Assume massless, frictionless bearings." I was always tempted to answer; "Well let's also assume I already know the correct answer and be done with it." But I never did.
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Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2014 17:58:26 GMT
It reminds me of my physics professor in college. On exam questions, he would state the problem to solve and then something like; "Assume massless, frictionless bearings." I was always tempted to answer; "Well let's also assume I already know the correct answer and be done with it." But I never did. "what other laws of physics are we assuming don't apply?" |
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Post by kharnynb on Apr 1, 2014 21:33:52 GMT
The aircraft carrier moving, i wonder if there would be a way, for example an excercycle style build with enough gear size changes, or would you run into a point where you'd be unable to start the movement to begin with.
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Post by the light works on Apr 3, 2014 16:48:09 GMT
The aircraft carrier moving, i wonder if there would be a way, for example an excercycle style build with enough gear size changes, or would you run into a point where you'd be unable to start the movement to begin with. that is the sort of thing I was thinking of, yes. and in fact that is probably a great example - maybe not using an aircraft carrier, but some form of weight that the contraption lifts. hmmm... a 10-1 reduction gear, and a 2000# weight. then keep adding reduction gears until you can't lift the weight any more. |
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Post by OziRiS on Apr 3, 2014 21:53:10 GMT
I'm getting the idea of how you want this done, but I'm failing to see why...?
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Post by the light works on Apr 4, 2014 0:58:31 GMT
I'm getting the idea of how you want this done, but I'm failing to see why...? because there are some people who fail to understand the concept, and it could theoretically be done within the strictures of an episode. |
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Post by OziRiS on Apr 4, 2014 8:14:35 GMT
Explaining to people that credit cards work by you borrowing money from the credit card company that you'll eventually have to pay back is also a concept that many people fail to understand and could also be explained within the strictures of an episode, but how credit cards work is no more a myth than how the law of deminishing returns works.
I'm not saying that what you're proposing couldn't make interesting TV. I'm just saying that Mythbusters might not be the right show for it, since there's no myth, but just failure with some people to understand a concept.
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Post by the light works on Apr 4, 2014 14:51:38 GMT
Explaining to people that credit cards work by you borrowing money from the credit card company that you'll eventually have to pay back is also a concept that many people fail to understand and could also be explained within the strictures of an episode, but how credit cards work is no more a myth than how the law of deminishing returns works. I'm not saying that what you're proposing couldn't make interesting TV. I'm just saying that Mythbusters might not be the right show for it, since there's no myth, but just failure with some people to understand a concept. the myth is that you can keep adding mechanical advantage until it works. |
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Post by OziRiS on Apr 4, 2014 15:54:07 GMT
Explaining to people that credit cards work by you borrowing money from the credit card company that you'll eventually have to pay back is also a concept that many people fail to understand and could also be explained within the strictures of an episode, but how credit cards work is no more a myth than how the law of deminishing returns works. I'm not saying that what you're proposing couldn't make interesting TV. I'm just saying that Mythbusters might not be the right show for it, since there's no myth, but just failure with some people to understand a concept. the myth is that you can keep adding mechanical advantage until it works. More a misconception than an actual myth, since it's pretty logical that there's a limit where this stops working, but fair enough. I'll watch the episode if they pick it up. Myth or not  |
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Post by the light works on Apr 4, 2014 16:01:59 GMT
the myth is that you can keep adding mechanical advantage until it works. More a misconception than an actual myth, since it's pretty logical that there's a limit where this stops working, but fair enough. I'll watch the episode if they pick it up. Myth or not maybe I'm biased because Mrs TLW tends to act like the solution to every problem is to assign me to deal with it. - and the law of diminishing returns works with that, too. |
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Post by OziRiS on Apr 4, 2014 21:41:13 GMT
More a misconception than an actual myth, since it's pretty logical that there's a limit where this stops working, but fair enough. I'll watch the episode if they pick it up. Myth or not maybe I'm biased because Mrs TLW tends to act like the solution to every problem is to assign me to deal with it. - and the law of diminishing returns works with that, too. Know the feeling  |
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