Another smart question.

[DarkSider]

If today there are 0 degrees Celsius, and tommorow it's going to be twice as hot, how hot will it be tommorow ?
I don't know the answer, just saw this question at brainiacs :p

[ViVi]

17.7 celsius.

[Polo]

273.15 degrees C.

[Bored]

273.15 degrees C

[DarkSider]

Another one :
If you put a cameleon in a room full with mirrors, what colour will it take ? :D

[Hippie]

a dark reflection of itself

[Polo]

Another one :
If you put a cameleon in a room full with mirrors, what colour will it take ? :D
The colour of the light source?

[Charlie_B]

The answers above, working on converting the temperature to either Fahrenheit (Vivi) or Kelvin (Polo, Bored) are both unsatisfactory. Consider the question like this: if it's 1 degree C outside, and tomorrow it's going to be twice as hot, how hot will it be? The question has to be appreciated linguistically, and in normal conversation the answer is more likely to be 2 degrees C than ~300 degrees C or ~20 degrees C. There is an implicit understanding that where a unique scale is specified, that is the scale that you should relate to (especially if, as here, changing scale gives different answers). The only reason to mess around converting scales is an unnecessary aversion to multiplying zero. You should stick with Celsius, and the answer is simple:

0 x 2 = 0

As for the chameleon - they don't change colour based on their enviroment, but based on their moods, so the answer is 'it depends'.

[Nonny]

To answer the chameleon question from a different perspective. As it was stated the room was full of mirrors, but did not contain a light source nor an opening for light...

There is no light to refelect off of the chameleon so it can only be black along with the rest of the room.

Then assuming no-one lets it out before the air runs out, what colour is a an asphyxiated chameleon??

Green.

And charlie is kinda right, they do take on colour dependant on mood, though, sometime that mood has to do with environment, and they can become slightly camoflaged.

Depends on the chameleon though.

[Charlie_B]

Blue and swollen ;)

The question "if there is no light source what colour will (anything) be?" is a whole new can of worms...

[Souls]

Depends on if it's a chameleon that changes colour based on mood or based on surroundings!

If it's based on mood, I'd imagine red. I imagine it'd be irritated seeing everyone else around him! :P

If it's based on surroundings, I'm going to guess it wouldn't change colour, since it just sees itself. :P

[Alvestein]

go Charlie_B!

[Maxi]

The question "if there is no light source what colour will (anything) be?" is a whole new can of worms...

Got to love those kind of questions! Does a falling tree in a forest make a noise when there's no one to hear it? :P

[Meneldil]

The answers above, working on converting the temperature to either Fahrenheit (Vivi) or Kelvin (Polo, Bored) are both unsatisfactory. Consider the question like this: if it's 1 degree C outside, and tomorrow it's going to be twice as hot, how hot will it be? The question has to be appreciated linguistically, and in normal conversation the answer is more likely to be 2 degrees C than ~300 degrees C or ~20 degrees C. There is an implicit understanding that where a unique scale is specified, that is the scale that you should relate to (especially if, as here, changing scale gives different answers). The only reason to mess around converting scales is an unnecessary aversion to multiplying zero. You should stick with Celsius, and the answer is simple:

0 x 2 = 0

I disagree with this completely, as I feel it implies and propagates a lack of understanding of science and the world around us, and to give an answer of '0' is thoroughly misleading.
Let us take the question at hand and delve right in.
'If today there are 0 degrees Celsius, and tommorow it's going to be twice as hot, how hot will it be tommorow ?'
Let's go back to basics, this is obviously looking at heat - as implied by the word 'hot'. 0 degrees implies, as we know, an amount of heat. To say that twice this amount of heat is the same as itself is self-evidently false.
Doubling this heat does indeed give 273.15 C.

The whole problem, of course, are these somewhat bizarre scales which don't actually start at 0, but misleadingly pupport a different value to be the point of reference.

Perhaps (though only perhaps), if the question were worded:
"If today there are 0 degrees Celsius, and tommorow it's going to be twice the temperature, how hot will it be tommorow ?"
Then I might agree with your argument, Charlie, as 'Temperature' implies taking into account the scale, it is measured on, whilst 'Heat' certainly does not.

[CFalcon]

The answers above, working on converting the temperature to either Fahrenheit (Vivi) or Kelvin (Polo, Bored) are both unsatisfactory. Consider the question like this: if it's 1 degree C outside, and tomorrow it's going to be twice as hot, how hot will it be? The question has to be appreciated linguistically, and in normal conversation the answer is more likely to be 2 degrees C than ~300 degrees C or ~20 degrees C. There is an implicit understanding that where a unique scale is specified, that is the scale that you should relate to (especially if, as here, changing scale gives different answers). The only reason to mess around converting scales is an unnecessary aversion to multiplying zero. You should stick with Celsius, and the answer is simple:

0 x 2 = 0

If it's -5 degrees C today, and its going to be twice as hot tomorrow, how hot will it be?

By your logic, -5 x 2 = -10, so -10 is twice as hot as -5.

To avoid any cases like this you must convert to a scale that starts at zero. Whether it's the Kelvin scale or not doesn't matter, it mustn't have any negatives.

[Azzer]

This thread ftl.

It's going to be even colder tomorrow, in fact snow is forecast for the afternoon, here.

Twice the temperature my backside! You were blatantly all very wrong!

[Splatter]

The question "if there is no light source what colour will (anything) be?" is a whole new can of worms...
Well as far as my feeble understanding of AS Philosophy goes, colours themselves are a secondary property - they change between each perciever, for example someone who is colour blind will see a colour differently to someone who see's colours 'normally' (and I use the word very loosely). So logically colours cannot exist in the objects themsleves, they exist in the perciever.

And from there I'm not sure where to go, so I can only conlude: You were right! It opens up too many problems to be dealt with at 4am.

On a side note: I'll have snow here too! Can't remember when though, think it was like 2pm.

[Ranzou]

The question "if there is no light source what colour will (anything) be?" is a whole new can of worms...
Well as far as my feeble understanding of AS Philosophy goes, colours themselves are a secondary property - they change between each perciever, for example someone who is colour blind will see a colour differently to someone who see's colours 'normally' (and I use the word very loosely). So logically colours cannot exist in the objects themsleves, they exist in the perciever.

Haha, I remember that very same argument. I think it's absolute rubbish though, as the colour spectrum can be defined in scientific terms as a particular range of wavelengths within the EM spectrum. It is light energy. Energy is as 'real' as matter, regardless of how one person perceives it compared to another. The perceiver's perception does not alter the absolute.

[Twigley]

Does a falling tree in a forest make a noise when there's no one to hear it? :P

Define noise.
Noise is created by vibrating particles.
Particles WILL vibrate.
But if nothing picks up the vibrating particles then is there noise? :O

[Maxi]

I bet you a beer you google'd that. :P

[DarkSider]

You don't need a perceptor to have sound. Sound exists even if there is nobody around at that time to hear it.
Would be same as saying that in a cold day of january a big wave comes at the beach but since there was nobody around to see it means it didn't happen. It happened, just there is nobody to testify.

I checked wiki and found this :
The mechanical vibrations that can be interpreted as sound can travel through all forms of matter: gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas. However, sound cannot propagate through vacuum.

Does that mean you only need walls with vacuum inside so you can listen to loud music at 2 am ? :D

[Splatter]

You don't need a perceptor to have sound. Sound exists even if there is nobody around at that time to hear it.
Would be same as saying that in a cold day of january a big wave comes at the beach but since there was nobody around to see it means it didn't happen. It happened, just there is nobody to testify.
Well there are different philosophical theories which try to justify what you just said, and to be honest...They're terrible :P The ones which argue against it are far better, they have less problems and tend to explain their theory alot better. For example Phenominalism (try saying it 5 times really fast :P) which says everything unpercieved exists only as 'potential sense data' and so it doesn't actually exist. I think that's right, correct me if I'm wrong :/


I checked wiki and found this :
The mechanical vibrations that can be interpreted as sound can travel through all forms of matter: gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas. However, sound cannot propagate through vacuum.

Does that mean you only need walls with vacuum inside so you can listen to loud music at 2 am ? :D
that'd be really cool :D But it wouldn't work - Gonna have to have a door somewhere! Unless you used an airlock...

[willymchilybily]

You don't need a perceptor to have sound. Sound exists even if there is nobody around at that time to hear it.
Would be same as saying that in a cold day of january a big wave comes at the beach but since there was nobody around to see it means it didn't happen. It happened, just there is nobody to testify.

I checked wiki and found this :
The mechanical vibrations that can be interpreted as sound can travel through all forms of matter: gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas. However, sound cannot propagate through vacuum.

Does that mean you only need walls with vacuum inside so you can listen to loud music at 2 am ? :D



one problem you cant have a vaccume all the way around a room walls cieling and floor. because then what would the room be connected to and how the hell would you get into or out of it

[Forwyn]

CharlieB, the only way one day could be thought of as twice as hot and still the same temperature is if the 0 would be if the first day were absolute zero! Since 0 celsius doesn't mean lack of heat.

As for the chameleon, who cares? What color will its tail be if you cut it off?

[BlackWolf]

DS answer to your question is yes. Even if you have door and connection points on your rooms amount of sound those walls would be soaking would still be enormeous compared to anything you have experienced before.
Problem is that such vacuum is next to impossible to create and as such even "silent rooms" are made using different methods.

[Nonny]

The ones which argue against it are far better, they have less problems and tend to explain their theory alot better. For example Phenominalism (try saying it 5 times really fast :P) which says everything unpercieved exists only as 'potential sense data' and so it doesn't actually exist. I think that's right, correct me if I'm wrong :/

Personally I find explanations such as the above simplistic and in a sense, arrogant. (Not you poster!!) For example, a tidal wave wiped out a coastal colony of ........ care bears, but no human heard or saw it, therefore it didn't happen.

No-one heard or saw the Big Bang so it didn't happen. No-one saw or heard the dinosaurs therefore those bones were never part of a living animal.

Very 'out there' and flashy sounding those sensory based arguments but in a manner incredibly egotistical too? ;)

[Bobbin]

CharlieB, the only way one day could be thought of as twice as hot and still the same temperature is if the 0 would be if the first day were absolute zero! Since 0 celsius doesn't mean lack of heat.

As for the chameleon, who cares? What color will its tail be if you cut it off?


Again... Green.

Until it starts to rot that is.

[Splatter]

Personally I find explanations such as the above simplistic and in a sense, arrogant. (Not you poster!!) For example, a tidal wave wiped out a coastal colony of ........ care bears, but no human heard or saw it, therefore it didn't happen.

No-one heard or saw the Big Bang so it didn't happen. No-one saw or heard the dinosaurs therefore those bones were never part of a living animal.

Very 'out there' and flashy sounding those sensory based arguments but in a manner incredibly egotistical too? ;)

Oh no you mis interperet the arguments! All state of a 'perciever' - while to percieve is neccasarry to be human, it is not sufficient (meaning, you need to percieve to be human, but becasue you percieve does not make you human automatically...Once again, I think that's right, I couldn't quite get my head around it :D But as far as I'm aware that's correct). So as far as I think, your example of the carebares and dinosaurs are flawed, as there were infact percievers at the event :) Can't argue with the big bang one though! :P

[Nonny]

At risk of taking the initial thread down a back alley.

If the perceivers are unable to express, enunciate, or any other way of telling someone what they perceived. How can you know they perceived anything? So did they perceieve anything at all? If it cannot be relayed to you in a manner you comprehend, it cannot have happened? :)

[willymchilybily]

At risk of taking the initial thread down a back alley.

If the perceivers are unable to express, enunciate, or any other way of telling someone what they perceived. How can you know they perceived anything? So did they perceieve anything at all? If it cannot be relayed to you in a manner you comprehend, it cannot have happened? :)

no it happened. you just dont know what it is. So to you it didnt happen, because you dont know it has happened. its all relative. but the fact wheather or not it happened is unchanged. your just drowning in a sea of ignorence. to the person that persieved the event, it happened.

a tree falling in a forest does it make a sound. yes. does any one hear that sound. totally different. sound cant go through a vaccum..so in space you cant scream?>....no you just cant be heard screaming.

its like saying if i wrote a book in french and you didnt speak french. then what i have written in the book is wrong... when it is just merely beyond your comprehension.



question:(this ones quite hard to follow but easy to answer)

hypothetical scinario

I have never lied in my life. i am asked "have i ever lied in my life" i answer "yes once."

am i lying?(do you see where this is going? :D)

technically its a lie to say i have lied when i havent. so i have lied. but if i have lied, then i have lied once. so saying "yes once" isnt a lie. its the truth. but if its the truth. then its not a lie. so i still havent lied. making it a lie again........and so on



so did i lie??

[bigjim1222]

Unfortunatley, my wife was reading over my shoulder and posed this question: If a man says something and no wome are around to hear it, is he still wrong?? lol

[Forwyn]

Only if a woman finds out about it :?

[MattM]

I disagree with this completely, as I feel it implies and propagates a lack of understanding of science and the world around us, and to give an answer of '0' is thoroughly misleading.
Let us take the question at hand and delve right in.
'If today there are 0 degrees Celsius, and tommorow it's going to be twice as hot, how hot will it be tommorow ?'
Let's go back to basics, this is obviously looking at heat - as implied by the word 'hot'. 0 degrees implies, as we know, an amount of heat. To say that twice this amount of heat is the same as itself is self-evidently false.
Doubling this heat does indeed give 273.15 C.

The whole problem, of course, are these somewhat bizarre scales which don't actually start at 0, but misleadingly pupport a different value to be the point of reference.

Perhaps (though only perhaps), if the question were worded:
"If today there are 0 degrees Celsius, and tommorow it's going to be twice the temperature, how hot will it be tommorow ?"
Then I might agree with your argument, Charlie, as 'Temperature' implies taking into account the scale, it is measured on, whilst 'Heat' certainly does not.

How can you post a response like this without noticing the fact this implies it will 273.15 deg. C tomorrow? My left foot it will :P It's not ever going to be 273.15 deg Celsius on this planet until we get swallowed up by the Sun when it becomes a red giant ;)

It is of course a redundant question. If its 0 deg C outside, you don't go around asking silly abstract scientific questions like that, you go and switch the bloody heating on!

Right, on the tree in the forest note; yes of course it makes a noise/sound. You find me a forest without anything in to hear it. You can't? Oh, that's right, that's because there isn't one ;)

And before anyone comments about that it's a theoretical/philosophical question, it doesn't have to be realistic... I suggest you keep quiet. Theory without application is the most useless thing in this world.

Down with academia.

[BlackWolf]

Actually i must disagree with your theory without praction part. Theory is actually a lot more valuable in science nowdays than practioning and propably have been so for centuries.

[Welshie]

I have never lied in my life. i am asked "have i ever lied in my life" i answer "yes once."

am i lying?(do you see where this is going? :D)

technically its a lie to say i have lied when i havent. so i have lied. but if i have lied, then i have lied once. so saying "yes once" isnt a lie. its the truth. but if its the truth. then its not a lie. so i still havent lied. making it a lie again........and so on



so did i lie??



IMHO yes it's a lie, because when the question was asked, you hadn't lied. The fact that you lied through your answer to the question is irrelevant. Throughout your entire life up to the point where you answer, you have not lied, so to say "yes once" is not true. If you are asked the question again, then of course to say "yes" is not a lie.

[MattM]

Theory is actually a lot more valuable in science nowdays than practioning and propably have been so for centuries.

Not true. The Romans built an empire that the world hasn't seen rival to since, and their knowledge of basic geometry was crude at best (for example, they used Pi = 3 (or 3.1 can't remember right now). However in practice they were unequalled, some of the most beautiful structures in the world, roads that last today etc.

[Hobbezak]

Theory is actually a lot more valuable in science nowdays than practioning and propably have been so for centuries.

Not true. The Roman's built an empire that the world hasn't seen rival too since, and their knowledge of basic geometry was crude at best (for example, they used Pi = 3 (or 3.1 can't remember right now). However in practice they were unequalled, some of the most beautiful structures in the world, roads that last today etc.

The Greeks had ways to calculate pi, so this sounds very unlikely to me, seeing as the Romans loved the Greeks, and stole pretty much everything the Greeks invented.

[MattM]

Theory is actually a lot more valuable in science nowdays than practioning and propably have been so for centuries.

Not true. The Roman's built an empire that the world hasn't seen rival too since, and their knowledge of basic geometry was crude at best (for example, they used Pi = 3 (or 3.1 can't remember right now). However in practice they were unequalled, some of the most beautiful structures in the world, roads that last today etc.

The Greeks had ways to calculate pi, so this sounds very unlikely to me, seeing as the Romans loved the Greeks, and stole pretty much everything the Greeks invented.

The Romans loved the Greeks? What the hell are you on about... the Romans were kicking the hell out of the Greeks throughout the entire period of their empire. They torched most the major libraries, and killed many famous mathematicians, philosophers and political figures. Archimedes is but one example. Sure the Greeks knew that Pi existed. The Romans used 3 in their calculations however.

[Hobbezak]

Just taking over their gods and other mythology is the first example that comes to mind.
I assume the nominativ, accusativ, genitiv and dativ were originally greek too, but I can be wrong there.
Further I thought I read in a latin text that it was a fashion for the richer families to have Greek teachers for their children.

[MattM]

But they didn't use the correct value of Pi, my entire argument ;)

[Meneldil]

Theory without practical use is not good? I disagree wholeheartedly. Furthering the sum of human knowledge, mere interest and learning for interest and learning's sake I don't view as bad, but even more than that, although there is no application now, there may be in the future.

When Group Theory was first being studied and furthered, someone rather famous in the field (alas, I cannot remember who), said it was the pinnacle of mathematics, because it had no application whatsoever. Nowadays, it's integral to high-level cryptography and the like.

[MattM]

Theory without practical use is not good? I disagree wholeheartedly. Furthering the sum of human knowledge, mere interest and learning for interest and learning's sake I don't view as bad, but even more than that, although there is no application now, there may be in the future.

When Group Theory was first being studied and furthered, someone rather famous in the field (alas, I cannot remember who), said it was the pinnacle of mathematics, because it had no application whatsoever. Nowadays, it's integral to high-level cryptography and the like.


Meneldil read again. Nobody said 'theory without application is no good'. The statement was 'theory without application is no use'. Which couldn't be more true. Check the definition of application of application :)