I'll never be forgiven for that title, will I?

Did you actually make a title like that?

Wow, I must've missed it!

I was talking about joking around with my friends. Us physics geeks have that dark sense of humor ;-)

oh!

I thought you were refering to "Arafat somewhere in between life and death"

You're missing a very important difference, and that is the sound is completely dependent on the actual observation. Hearing a sound is a perception, so without the perceiver there, the tree didn't make a sound. It certainly crashed and vibrated, but the sound itself is defined by the perceiver.

That's part of what Schrodinger's Cat states. The state of the cat is dependent on the observer. Until an observer sees it, it is both dead and alive.

I know little of what Schrodinger cat states so I do not wish to get into that.

Sound: Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing.

I understand where you are going with this. But the conditions for creating a sound, the way I see it, are still independant of the perceiver even if you consider it otherwise. And to me, it again boils down to the fact that if I did something and no one else witnessed it and I forget about it myself, did the event actually take place or not?? If one considers sound itself to be defined by the perceiver, I consider the same when it comes to events. Events exist, in that case, because we choose to document them in some way, whether this be in our mind, or on paper or on video. If a video is destroyed, a person forgets, or a harddrive fried, are we to say that the event itself never took place?

Just wanting to add 2 more things:

THe defination I put up is a bit flawed. it mentions 20 to 2000 which I believe is something that a human can hear ... sound exists outside of that spectrum as well.

Also, in support of what Beeblebrox said, there is another defination:

The sensation stimulated in the organs of hearing by such vibrations in the air or other medium.

Interesting thread. Unfortunately, I know nothing about Schroder's cat or why anybody would be locking it in a box and shooting at it.

Here are a few things that I only 1/2 way understand (or less):

- bABA's review of Halo 2 (I only get about 1/6 of that).

- Why Bush won re-election

- Rusty

- underarm hair

- Sauerkraut

you half understand underarm hair!?!?

I would put my level of understanding of underarm hair at 42.6%. It makes much more sense then your review, but I still have some issues with it. One thing I really don't understand is if I never cut it, shouldn't it be down to my elbows by now? Why does it magically stop growing once it gets to the correct length?

What I'm saying is that sound is not an independent event. A sound cannot exist without an observer to define it. If you think in purely physical terms when a tree falls in the woods, certain events DO take place. The tree falls, it hits the ground, many vibrations eminate out from it. But that is not what makes a sound. A sound only occurs when the vibrations make contact with a membrane that interprets those vibrations into aural signals in our brains.

Otherwise, any vibration would be called a sound. But it isn't.

Stochiometry :evil:

I understood what you said. And I answered you with another point about events. Its equivalent to saying that if an event goes unnoticed or fades away from all memory, then it never took place. Because the existance of an event must rely upon some form of recollection no?

Sorry, I'm not someone too good with words so if i make little sense, I'll try again.

I'm having horrible flashbacks to my college Philosophy class.

Anyhow, along these same lines, when I get in a really deep mood (which is almost never), I like to ponder these things. I easily forget a large chunk of my day to day life. For example, do I remember what I did on October 22nd, 1980 in 5th grade? Hell, no! So, what's the point of living the 85% of my life I forget and is gone forever. And, if I can't remember it, did it really happen.

My philosophy is that I try to liven up the 85% of my day I'd normally forget. Instead of sitting watching TV, I'll go run naked through my neighborhood. Then I'm sure not to forget that moment.

If I think I know what you're asking, it has to do with the stability of each element. Since they all aspire to have a full electron outer ring. That's why the elements on the far left of the periodic table are the most stable. When they don't and they only have, lets say, 5 electrons but would like 8, then they try to combine with another element that tends to have 3, and all 8 circulate the two. The way certain compounds react to others has to do with making sure the outer ring has the full number of electrons.

How far off am I? I slept through over 1/3 of my chemistry classes (it was first period junior year in high school, and my parents didn't care if we went to school in the morning or not. They would drive us in about third period).

@TonyMontana

"- Why Bush won re-election"

"- Rusty"

I said things that we at least partially understood. Otherwise its like grasping at straws. :wink:

I take it you mean, Stoichiometry :wink:

Stoichiometry deals with the amounts of substances that enter into and are produced from chemical reactions.

Example:
When methane unites with oxygen in complete combustion, 16g of methane require 64g of oxygen. At the same time 44g of carbon dioxide and 36g of water are formed as reaction productions.

CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O

I never did like Chemistry all that much...

Me neither. It's even worse than Physics.

Hehe. I kinda liked it...but maybe that was to do with the fact that I only went to class when I wanted to?

I thought it was okay because I could visualize it. I couldn't actually go do everything in tha lab (we made paint pigments in university once and whatever the hell I put in my jar flames up like crazy and the teacher had to come). But I always liked the reaction stuff on paper. Too much memorization, but the principles behind it are understandable (sort of).

Me physics to me was like geometry pure memorization and application.

On the plus side, if I hadn't learned the laws of intertia, and the difference between kinetic and potential energy, the entire social theory I developed using physics language would have never come about, and, IMO, social inertia and the difference between kinetic and potential energy in dating are grande additions to the bridging different disciplines.

Hence....Social Sciences.

What a misnomer :-P

My least favorite classes in college were actually in the social sciences. For awhile a picked up a major in sociology adn a minor in psychology on the side (math was my prmary major throughout the last 3 years of college). And based on comments my teachers made, I lose alot of respect for the social sciences and stopped taking social sciens courses. I left undergrad two classes away from a BA in sociology and two clases away from a minor in psychology.

I'd rather sit through evil physics and chemistry over a social science class any day.

I used to call the social science classes "Marxism Central" when I was in college.

That didn't bother as much as their blantant disregard for logic, math, and thy piss poor way professional and researching sociolgists and psychologist use statitsical analysis that they neither understand nor know how to use properly.

When you take a 300 level sociology class on reaserach methods and half teh class struggles with "mean, mode, and median" it doesn't instill conficence. I have yet to pck up the ASA or the APA journal and not find a study with statitsical research done wrong...if this is what the best and the brightest do, they I'll pass.

It also didn;t help to hve my sociology professors cliam math was really important, an opinion they merely because they are no good at teh subject.

I sucked at physics and had to work my ass off at it, you don't see my calling the whole discipline useless.

touche

Physics is my most loathed subject to study .. though the most interesting to have general knowledge about.

Chemistry was great, unless you refer to physical chemistry or organic chemistry that was tied in with physical chemistry .. that sucked!