Copper, zinc, einsteinium, dilithium.Quote:
Originally posted by Queen Tonya
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Copper, zinc, einsteinium, dilithium.Quote:
Originally posted by Queen Tonya
What does it sound like when doves cry?
It sounds like napalm.Quote:
Originally posted by Zuul
I mean victory.
Does this thread need a morning bump?
Of course.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Were you aware that the thirtieth anniversary of Azaria Chamerlain's death just passed? (The 'dingo got my baby' baby.)
What is the most linguistically diverse area on the planet?
No. No I wasn't.Quote:
Originally posted by OtakuLoki
Hmm. So, I knew the answer to that (that I didn't know that) once it was asked, but I wasn't aware that I didn't know it before it was asked. So is that a question about something I didn't know or not? Did asking it open the box? Was that Schroedinger's question?
At a guess, I'd say likely some place in Africa. But I don't really know.Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
Since you bring it up, can you describe the actual thought experiment known now as Schroedinger's Cat?
I'll try.Quote:
Originally posted by OtakuLoki
So there's this thing in quantum theory known as the Copenhagen interpretation. It's certainly more complicated than I understand (wasn't it Feynman who said "if you understand quantum, you don't understand quantum?"), but my basic understanding is that the Copenhagen interpretation states that for certain events that are not strictly predictable under the classical model, the only way to determine the outcome is to observe it, and therefore prior to that observation all possibilities are equally valid and can therefore be considered true.
Schroedinger thought this was ridiculous and devised a thought experiment to demonstrate its absurdity. He conceived of a device that consisted of a box, a geiger counter, a radioactive isotope, and a contraption that would release cyanide gas if the geiger counter detected any radiation. In the course of an hour, there was a 50% chance that the isotope would decay and set off the device. Schroedinger then hypothesized a cat in the box. After an hour there would be a 50% chance that the cat would be alive, and a 50% chance that the cat would be dead (and a 100% chance that the cat would be pissed). According to the Copenhagen interpretation, the cat would be both alive and dead until someone opened the box and "collapsed the wave function". Schroedinger thought this ridiculous.
Unfortunately for Schroedinger, when he proposed this thought experiment to proponents of the Copenhagen interpretation, they said "sounds about right to us." Now it's been co-opted as an example of how these things work, rather than an example of how absurd it is.
Nope. New Guinea. Under 10 million people, and somewhere between 10 and 15% of the world's existing linguistic diversity. (It's not known with more accuracy than that because a lot of it is still unexplored. Most of the languages are poorly studied and many are only known from second-hand reports from members of the tribes that we have contacted. There are likely well over a hundred uncontacted tribes on the island.)Quote:
Originally posted by fachverwirrt
Bump.
This is pretty fun. I'm particularly enjoying Exy's and OtakuLoki's contributions because I get to learn things while I expose my ignorance. Keep the questions coming, whether smartass or not (and I will answer, whether smartass or not).
Bill Labov is famous for, essentially, founding which subfield of linguistics? Also, which previously under-studied English dialect is he particularly well known for his work on?
Give yourself credit, too. That answer about Schroedinger's Cat was better than anything I'd have written. I would and have missed the fact that it was originally proposed by an opponent of the theory, just as the term Big Bang was coined by someone trying to mock the theory it's now come to represent in the popular mind.Quote:
Originally posted by fachverwirrt
Who was Myrna's first celebrity crush?
Dialectics (I don't even know if that's a real sub-field).Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
I've never heard of him in connection to AAVE. I'll say Scottish.
Nope. Sociolinguistics (which includes studies of dialects.Quote:
Originally posted by fachverwirrt
Nope, actually, he did the first real work on AAVE, demonstrating some of its unique grammatical features.Quote:
I've never heard of him in connection to AAVE. I'll say Scottish.
Walter Koenig.Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
Unless she's secretly (or not so) lesbian for Myrna Loy.
ETA: I just read chat. Go me!
I just looked him up and went "crap, should have just said AAVE".Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
That'll teach me to try to be clever.
Physics is one of those things that I find fascinating while it always remains just out of my grasp. I often think that if someone forced me to start over and do something completely different, I would go into theoretical physics. (I was briefly a mechanical engineering major, but that's applied physics and not nearly so esoteric). I really just don't have the math, unfortunately.Quote:
Originally posted by OtakuLoki
Hmm... have you ever read any H.P. Lovecraft?
No, but I plan to, maybe next time I go to the library.Quote:
Originally posted by OtakuLoki
Any suggestions?
If you can read comfortably from a computer screen several of his stories are available online. If your library has the Arkham House reprints from the 80s, they're a good source of his stories. They were the first corrected editions that compared the first magazine printings with Lovecraft's own notes. The three books are:
The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales
As for stories of his that I most like:
In the Vault, one of his earliest, found in the first book I mentioned.
Pickman's Model You'll never want to ride in a subway again.
At the Mountains of Madness
The Colour Out of Space (If you're interested in a thematic follow-up to this story, when you're done, check out Tim Powers' Dinner at Deviant's Palace. It's not a direct sequel, but it shares a lot of the themes with the Lovecraft story.)
What is your favorite short story?
Who is your favorite short fiction author?
Do you have a favorite poem? If so, what is it?
It's been a long time since I've read short fiction. I went through a creepy phase some time ago and read a story whose name escapes me by Stephen King about a malevolent room. Very well written and extraordinarily creepy. I'm not sure it's my favorite, but it's the one that comes to mind right now.Quote:
Originally posted by OtakuLoki
I don't really have a favorite author at the moment.
I'm not sure I have a favorite poem either, although I've wanted to set The Raven to music for some time. I'm afraid it may be beyond my talents, though.
Bump.
169 to go people. Pad me, dammit!
What number am I thinking of right now?
Is it Graham's number?Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
Do I know who Graham is?
Yes. Invented crackers, you know. (The snack food, not the white people.)Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
Did he invent putting peanut butter on crackers?
He invented putting peanut butter on Graham crackers. That's actually why people call him Graham.Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
SHUT UP. Seriously?
Totally.Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
Is there photographic evidence or portraiture of this man, possibly applying said wondrous butter to said wondrous food item?
Alas, no. Graham Cracker was a solitary, secretive man who jealously guarded his culinary creation from the world. It was only after he died and his cryptic journals were finally deciphered that the public was gifted with his invention.Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
Oh, and he apparently did abstract math in his spare time.
American Sign Language is partially descended from the sign language spoken on which small American island?
Guam?Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
Martha's Vineyard.Quote:
Originally posted by fachverwirrt
Due to a single congenitally deaf member of the first wave of white settlers on Martha's Vineyard, there was a surprisingly large deaf population on the island. Something like 1 in 15, with as many as 1 in 6 in some parts of the island. It was so common that there was no real separation between deaf and hearing people -- they did business, got married, etc., and so the sign language that developed among the deaf population was spoken universally on the island.
Which is not just a really interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon but also a pretty fascinating study of the impact of a population being established from a very small gene pool.
(I'm treating this as the thread in which I expound upon random interesting linguistic phenomena.)
Was this thread supposed to be rhetorical questions we later answer? Because I could inform you something great about what number I was thinking of.
No problem at all. I love linguistics. I'd like to get a linguistics degree, I just don't have the time (or money). Unlike physics, I actually have the chops for that. Language and music are pretty intrinsically linked.Quote:
Originally posted by Exy
This thread is for whatever. I'm loving both the rhetorical and factual questions.Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
Should I be trying to attract Nature People to my garden by leaving out free sewing kits and hotel chocolate?
Does God Exist and what's his PIN?
Nature People are better attracted by unwashed men and petit fours.Quote:
Originally posted by Panther Squad
God didn't exist, but has since popped into existence solely to piss off the atheists.Quote:
Originally posted by The Original An Gadaí
His PIN is a complicated algorithm involving goats and wildebeest semen. You really don't want the details.
I thought it was music and mathematics that were pretty intrinsically linked?Quote:
Originally posted by fachverwirrt