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Things that I dont understand
minnmess
Posts: 8142
minnmess Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 4:14 PM Quote
-if the world is round, how come when you are on the bottom of it you aren't upside down? with the blood rushing to your head?

-how planes fly

If you know the answers, please explain to me. In very simplistic terms.


What don't you understand?


 
Re: Things that I dont understand
Turtleneck
Posts: 7404
Turtleneck Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 4:34 PM Quote
Kristy, I know how a plane flies. I had to teach it as a lesson once upon a time when I thought I was going to be a teacher. Once you understand the principles of air pressure, you will see that it would be difficult to keep a plane on the ground once it reaches a certain speed. It actually made me feel more comfortable flying.

In simple terms: The way the wing is shaped, the air passes over the top of the wing faster than it does the bottom of the wing. This creates lift and up it goes.
In complex terms: The Bernoulli Principle.
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
Turtleneck
Posts: 7404
Turtleneck Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 4:45 PM Quote
I don't know where helium comes from, and how do they get it in the tank? And chemicals. Where do they get chemicals? How do they make bleach? Where does the chlorine come from originally?
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
minnmess
Posts: 8142
minnmess Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 6:04 PM Quote
Turtleneck wrote:
Where does the chlorine come from originally?


swimming pools? :)

thank you for explaining the wonders of air travel to me. It still doesnt make total sense to me, but Im glad it works because flying through the clouds and seeing them around you is on my top 5 favourite things ever list.
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
Typing to Reach You
Posts: 1667
Typing to Reach You Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 6:45 PM Quote
minnmess wrote:
-if the world is round, how come when you are on the bottom of it you aren't upside down? with the blood rushing to your head?


There is no up and no down at all really, it's all relative to your position. We've got used to pictures of the world the way up it is. But we could've just as easily got used to it with Australia at the top. We could've flipped it and had Canada 'below' America for instance, in our pictures. Would we weird to think of the world in any other way than what we're used to wouldn't it? :)
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
minnmess
Posts: 8142
minnmess Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 6:57 PM Quote
there is no wrong, there is no right, the circle only has one side?
Is that what you are getting at?

But doesnt SOMETHING have to be on the bottom? whether it is Canada or Australia or Santa?
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
I Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Posts: 7556
I Came in Through the Bathroom Window Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 7:25 PM Quote
Typing to Reach You wrote:
minnmess wrote:
-if the world is round, how come when you are on the bottom of it you aren't upside down? with the blood rushing to your head?


There is no up and no down at all really, it's all relative to your position. We've got used to pictures of the world the way up it is. But we could've just as easily got used to it with Australia at the top. We could've flipped it and had Canada 'below' America for instance, in our pictures. Would we weird to think of the world in any other way than what we're used to wouldn't it? :)


I've seen a few maps of the American continent with South America at the top. Mostly made by political movements pro-Latin American union :o). And also a lot of drawings...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yhWWIQpsbws/SKCW7n89DkI/AAAAAAAAAVc/ioHaD7xJM3A/S240/nuestro+norte+es+el+sur.gif
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
Turtleneck
Posts: 7404
Turtleneck Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 7:44 PM Quote
A circle has two sides. A sphere only has one side. Running and hiding now.
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
megg_inc
Posts: 3778
megg_inc Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 7:45 PM Quote
Dude, I'm not gonna post the list of the things I don't understand on a public forum! Too embarrassing.

I think that's why I'm usually atracted to engineers and computer geeks who seem to get all sort of things that are a mystery to me.
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
minnmess
Posts: 8142
minnmess Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 8:00 PM Quote
Megg, my love, go find one of them and have them explain it. Lukey, despite his pointiness, did not help.

There are like 134903294 other things I dont understand. I'll try to think of them if it would help with your embarassment.
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
Typing to Reach You
Posts: 1667
Typing to Reach You Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 9:28 PM Quote
minnmess wrote:
there is no wrong, there is no right, the circle only has one side?
Is that what you are getting at?

But doesnt SOMETHING have to be on the bottom? whether it is Canada or Australia or Santa?


Well, if you pick up a tennis ball, does that have a top and a bottom? I guess it depends on which way you hold it? But it doesn't inherently have a way up or down. The Australians are on the other side of the world from my perspective. But from their perspective, they're probably asking the same question you are - why isn't all the blood rushing to British people's heads? So to speak. :P

I guess we artificially attach these ideas of top and bottom, up and down to things. These ideas correlate with how we see things, in order to make sense of the world. Imagine if we saw things upside down. Nothing would actually change - buildings and people wouldn't fall into the sky 'bellow'. In fact we do see things upside down in a sense. The image received by our eyes is reversed by our brains. I don't understand it completely, but there's a little something about it here. Anyway it all to do with perspective and all that jazz. We've learnt to understand 'down' and 'up', on a general level, in relation to gravity. The direction gravity is pulling us is down. But that idea can kinda go out the window when talking about countries, earth, planets etc. It's easiest to understand if you think of space. If you think of yourself as an astronaut spinning around in space, you can image how you'd soon loose any conception of what is up and what is down. There's nothing to relate anything to. In every direction it's just space and distant stars.
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
minnmess
Posts: 8142
minnmess Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 9:34 PM Quote
okay, i get your arbitrary up and down mumbo jumbo, but if I am holding up a tennis ball, while in its current position, it has a bottom. How would a teeny little action figure man walk on that bottom without being upside down?
If i flipped the tennis ball and action figure was now on the arbitrary top and right side up, there is still a bottom where Barbie would now be upside down!! Gravity would keep little Barbies very high heels attached to Earth, but why isnt the blood rushing to her plastic head?

Someone explain science with Barbies. Maybe I will get it then.

I think I'm going to draw all my scientific thoughts in crayon tonight.

ps- I once explained supply and demand to someone with hotdogs. It was awesome

 
Re: Things that I dont understand
I Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Posts: 7556
I Came in Through the Bathroom Window Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 9:56 PM Quote
Maybe blood isn't rushing to Barbie's head because she doesn't have any :oP.

I have absolutely no idea, I haven't studied physics since highschool, but I think it has to do with gravity. Gravity applies to every object with mass, right? Doesn't it pull to the centre of the Earth? If so, then it doesn't matter if something is up or down (no matter which reference point you take) because it's a sphere and we're all more or less at the same distance from the centre?

Like I said, I haven't got a clue, but in my ignorance I always thought it had something to do with that xD.
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
Turtleneck
Posts: 7404
Turtleneck Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 9:56 PM Quote
Barbie is a Victim of Gravity. I guess the way the gravity is makes everything feel like right side up no matter where you are. You just have to accept that you will always feel like you are up no matter where you are on the earth, regardless of how it would look from outer space. Barbie's blood does not rush to her head because her heart is pumping it where it should go. Just like you can swallow when you are upside down. Stuff will still get to your stomach because it's squeezed and pushed down there.

But what about bleach and helium?
 
Re: Things that I dont understand
Typing to Reach You
Posts: 1667
Typing to Reach You Posted Tue 12 Jan, 2010 10:14 PM Quote
minnmess wrote:
okay, i get your arbitrary up and down mumbo jumbo, but if I am holding up a tennis ball, while in its current position, it has a bottom. How would a teeny little action figure man walk on that bottom without being upside down?
If i flipped the tennis ball and action figure was now on the arbitrary top and right side up, there is still a bottom where Barbie would now be upside down!! Gravity would keep little Barbies very high heels attached to Earth, but why isnt the blood rushing to her plastic head?

Someone explain science with Barbies. Maybe I will get it then.

I think I'm going to draw all my scientific thoughts in crayon tonight.

ps- I once explained supply and demand to someone with hotdogs. It was awesome



Ok you have Ken on the 'top' of the tennis ball and barbie on the 'bottom'. :P But then if you turn your head upside down and look at it, I guess it looks like Ken is at the bottom instead, right? Lets forget that your actually stood on earth holding this tennis ball and pretend its like a planet floating in space (where there isn't any up or down!). And then lets pretend that this tennis ball is, er, magnetic. And barbie's and ken's shoes are metal. 'cos the tennis ball is in space, there is no up and down - from ken's perspective he's stood upright, but from barbies perspective she's stood upright. They're not falling off or anything - they're been pulled magnetically to the tennis ball. Their, er, blood circulation is the same and in perfect working order... for plastic people. After all gravity... um I mean the magnetic force of the tennis ball.. is pulling on them (and their blood!) the same way. So yeah. This analogy is starting to get a wee bit odd... but that's what the Earth is like. If you don't get it still, live with it. Lol. ;)
 
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