4:11 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

I found this, which reminded me of the problems associated with the insomnia musings about being able to shrink smaller and smaller.



I'd thought about the atoms of oxygen needed and set aside the weight issue.

Sadly it seems I'm not the only one with time on my hands in the dark of the night .

4:10 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

Thoughts about, flying, being invisible, faster than light, superpowers in general, the opposite side of the earth to you, they come and go.

But have you ever thought what it might be light to be twice your size? Three times?

Three time might be about 5,5 meters  or perhaps 17-18 feet tall. Heck twice might be 3.5 meters or nearly 12 feet.  Even if you're smaller of stature that's not going to be so much different, couple feet here or there.

The tallest man living is Sultan Kösen (Turkey, b.10 December 1982) who measured 251 cm (8 ft 3 in).  Robert Wadlow  was 8 ft 11.1 in (2.72 m), 439 lb (199 kg).  Thing is with unusually tall people is that they suffer from all sorts of health and skeletal problems, and gravity isn't kind. Humans are just not evolved to be taller than we, on average, are.

Putting aside the problems of mass (as always), and some other problems, like clothing, feeding, and shelter does being über tall have any benefits? or Opportunities?

I came to some conclusions.

Work:

Ideal for cleaning the gutters and general roof maintenance. Useless however at arial installation where there are small screws and fixtures required.

Possibly good at house washing, again houses have some fiddly bits about them.

Ideal for being an arborist, or tree maintenance. Not so much lawn mowing, too much crouching.

Seasonal work in pantomime as a 'giant'

Sports:

• Might be handy at basketball, but unlikely to be able to get into any stadiums.


• Should be good at swimming, big flipper like feet, and the diving in should give you a handy advantage.


• Might be good at running, but might not be able to stay in lane and get disqualified a lot. Cross-country running might be more the go.


• Might be good at lifting weights overhead, but not convinced about this.

Travel:

Getting around might be a problem, They don't make cars or trucks for the particularly tall, so you could walk or run, but there would be a fair amount of obstacles in the way, overhead wires, trees, etc. (Before you thing about Monster Trucks, for instance, they're big truck for 'normal' sized people).

Flying would be almost impossible, travelling overseas almost impossible

The only solution I had was to be chauffeured about on the back of a flat bed truck.

Not a lot of dignity in being tall.  Not a lot of jobs, and I don't think there would be a log of glamour.

Related articles

• 4:04 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

4:09 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

Remember this nonsense? ...

Putting aside the question of mass then, bear with me it's important or not,

There was I thinking

"What if you could shrink yourself"

 

You want to keep shrinking though, smaller and smaller.'

It opens up a lot of thinking

This led me to thinking about falling through the gaps between the threads in the sheet of the bed and falling to the floor. Size is relevant here, that would be a terribly long drop.

But, it then occurs to me this morning that this there is a simple and yet fatal flaw and it's down to lack of planning.

Again putting aside the question of retention of mass, two issues of size, one of which I glossed over. I may not even have mentioned the thing about clothing. But I have plan for that.

(i) Clothing, this is an important thing. It is 4:09 bear with me. or even bare with me.

The idea of shrinkage. Presume it's the physical self and the contained within the body. A closed system. You get around the problem of clothes but putting in your mouth small clothes that shrink with you. Clothes you are wearing don't shrink, they're not in the closed system. This is important, or your shrinking would go badly wrong when you were crushed by an amalgam filling that burst our of you cheek, or the salami sandwich that you had to have coming back to haunt you.

So you tuck a pair of tiny pants in your mouth. I've though this through, I had lots of time. You shrink in increments right, at some point you take the small pants from out of your mouth, and put them on? Am I right?  tell me I'm not?  You can shrink increments so tiny shoes are not a problem, you spit them out at the size you want and put them on. This does however limit the amount of equipment you can take with you, a story for another time.

Moving on ..

1. Size. Say I'm 2.00 meters tall (I'm not, unless I'm wearing heels) but anyway I'm not, ok, and it was the once. And there was no lippy, well a bit but no eye shadow and even if there was it wasn't blue. ok.  Say also  200 pounds

Anyway, say, just do it, say that I'm 200 cm tall (not in heels) and suddenly I'm  20cm tall (don't worry about the mass thing I can't imagine being 90kg/200 lbs and 20cm tall. If you can't put the mass aside then you're pretty much done.So put aside the problem with retention of  mass, particularly if you want to recover to a 200cm 200lb person.

It's important here to mix the Metric and Imperial as maths is so much easier than inches and ounces. And I'm that old that I can pounds and not grams.  And isn't it convenient 100cm and 200lbs. That's cm a lb.  If only I was a chistmas/thanksgiving Turkey how much would I be worth.

Even this thinking is keeping me awake so I shy away and move on.

So now I'm 20cm tall.

The bed I'm on is 100cm tall, with the mattress and everything. Thats a half a body tall right, I'm 200cm tall, keep up. Anyway I'm now 20cm tall.  So the Bed is 5 times my body height.

That's like the 2nd floor in an apartment high isn't it? To get off the bed I have to decent 5 times my height, instead of .5.

I'm 10cm tall, this is now 20 times by height, that's the equivalent of 40 meters (131 feet) in the air.

I'm 1cm tall, 200 times my height above the carpet, in the bedroom, on the second floor (first floor depends on the country you live in), I need a parachute to get off the bed, of I should have planned it better.

1 mm tall. I nearly gave up the maths,

I gave up the maths.

I don't know about this being so small I can see the gaps in atomic structure.

Smaller, and then I call through the cotton threads, it's an awful long drop to the mattress, and then smaller I fall through that, if I get through that there is that huge gap betwixt the bed frame and the carpet...  This wasn't my best plan.

1. Size.

Right I sorted out a better place to 'shrink'

Smaller and smaller, no falling anywhere, it's all a bit safe.

Smaller and smaller what could go wrong

Oh wait I know, at some point my new shrunk fixed lungs are smaller than an oxygen, I can't breathe.

The end.

Related articles

• Us vs universe: Quantum dance enters forbidden zone


• Science Review of Stellar Structure and Nuclear Reactions inside Stars


• A Sword as Sharp - Science vs. The Sword

4:08 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

Putting aside the question of mass then, bear with me it's important or not,

There was I thinking

"What if you could shrink yourself"

This lead me to thinking about falling through the gaps between the threads in the sheet of the bed and falling to the floor. Size is relevant here, that would be a terribly long drop.

So stand on the ground floor and do it then. Well and good,

You want to keep shrinking though, smaller and smaller.

You'd fall between the gaps of the molecules wouldn't you?, What if you keep striking so you could see individual atoms? What if you kept shrinking and could see the gaps? Down to Atom level?

Atoms are the smallest unit that defines the chemical elements and their isotopes. Every substance, be it solid, liquid, or gas is made up of atoms. Atoms are tiny. The size of atoms is measured in picometers (trillionths of a meter). A single strand of human hair is about one million carbon atoms wide.

Every atom is composed of a nucleus made of protons and neutrons (hydrogen-1 has no neutrons). The nucleus is surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The electrons in an atom are bound to the atom by the electromagnetic force.

What if you got to be so small you could see the gaps between the protons and neutrons? What would that look like?

What would happen if you could push one electron out of the cloud surrounding the nucleus? Like actually literally push it out?

Then of course I thought why not just build a microscope and be done with the question of retention of mass?

Related articles

• Us vs universe: Quantum dance enters forbidden zone


• Science Review of Stellar Structure and Nuclear Reactions inside Stars


• A Sword as Sharp - Science vs. The Sword

4:06 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

Meditation on sleeping.

Two things.  Being small which I'll get to another day

the second though a dream snippet, which is what I want to write down.

.. The laughing man declares that he's figured it out, and he can do it. There is no indication that the laughing man in under duress or particular strain.  There appears to be some kind of family tree on a large monitor, some of the dots on the tree wink out and fade, the tree withers and re-arranges.

The man looks at the big screen again.  Laughs. 

He's erased someone from history, from ever being, and that has changed his circumstance.

It's not clear if he's happy or not.  

It might be later, it might not be the same man, zoom out the monitor, more dots wink out and fade, swathes of them, a voice says we learnt to go further back in time than just the living.

There are a few hundred people left huddled in a large room, poorly dressed, looking at a large monitor, wondering, waiting. ...

4:05 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

Having, sort of, got my head around the speed of light thing, but perhaps not, the next part is the travelling to a new planet or star, somehow.

These are the current questions I muse on as I meditate myself to sleep.

How many of you are there on this journey?

If speed of light travel, or near to s-o-l travel is  possible that would still mean that something 2 light years away would take 2 years to get to? Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf about 4.24 light-years from the Sun, that's a 9 year round trip?

Could be nothing there when you got there.

4:04 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

I was watching some youtube things, and you know how that ends up, normally pictures of cats right. Well not in my case.

Hollow Earth Theory : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth

Hollow Earth. Hidden entrances at the North and South poles. Hitler sent expeditions! The claim was that the earth’s crust is only between 8 miles and 200 miles thick

Gravity? Well there is a micro start in the center providing gravity for those on the outside. Not sure how those on the inside get on, perhaps they’re squished to the ground flat, living in 24-7 sunlight

Oh this is where UFO’s come from too.

Which lead me to Expanding Earth Theory http://hollowearththeory.com/articles/expandingEarthAnimation.asp

But before that how NASA made up UFO’s so they could launch loads of satellites and space weapons, and how they use chemtrails to fly holographic aircraft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

http://www.disclose.tv/forum/chemtrails-and-holographic-planes-t37043.html

Which lead me to a video about how the human race is an Alien Experiment….

I’m not judging but the most plausible was the NASA one., well not the holographic chemtrail thing but.

I could expand on that by saying there are many possible scenarios of life on other planets

1. There is life on other planets.


2. Life on other planets is at a similar stage of development to that on Earth


3. Life on other planets is more primitive than that on earth

Now because we don’t perceive or have an explanation for things that can travel Faster-than-light, or an understanding of worm-holes that may or may not get us from one place in the universe to another doesn’t mean they don’t exist or are not feasible.

But the question is that begs is how would you detect life on the 3^rd rock from the sun  at the edge of a spiral arm we call  the Orion Arm, which is about two-thirds of the way from the center of our galaxy to the edge of the starlight?

It was a slow night

4:03 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

This being awake bit is a bit tedious :-)

So I moved on from Super Powers and  the question became  "What's on the opposite side of the earth from me"

Which it turns out is pretty easy to look up.  http://www.freemaptools.com/tunnel-to-other-side-of-the-earth.htm

For me that would be somewhere near Marbella in Spain. Nice.

Then, of course, the question became, what about I dig a tunnel to there?

Then, of  course this leads to some other interesting thoughts and dilemmas and wonderings, as you do.

If you (I) dig straight down then for at least 50% of the journey you're going downwards, you get to the middle and you have to start tunneling\digging upwards?, the floor (?) becomes the ceiling (?)

Does that mean the stuff you chip away at on the upwards bit falls out through the long tunnel hole you just made on the way down?

Or I guess that it just congregates at the middle point, neither up nor down.

Can you imagine if you've nearly completed you're upwards leg and you chip a bit off and it flies out the starting point hole like a shot from a cannon. Can't imagine getting a resource consent for that.

At some point too, halfway you're top must become bottom and your bottom top? Perhaps not, if you were making a 'floor' to drive on then perhaps this would end up being the roof at the other end? But as it's straight down, perhaps now, you'd just have to adjust the one/off ramp bit at either end.

Would you need brakes to slow you down or could you coast all the way through?

On the matter of digging to the other side I Came up with some fun #Facts about the Earth

• Radius of the Earth  is  give or take 6,350 km, that's about half way, depending on where you are though the Earth bulges a bit in the middle, like the most of us.


• Diameter then is, give or take, 12,750km


• Earth has a mantle (crust) that is 2,890 km thick


• The Deepest Known trench is around 11 km deep - that would be the Mariana Trench.


• Deepest Well ever drilled is 10.7km


• Mt.Everest is 8,850 meters tall


• Deepest cave is about 2km - Krubera Cave

So a few technical problems and other observations.

• We've managed to drill less than  0.004% of the way into the Earths Crust?


• We've found all the oil at this depth and much much less?


• We can't have used all the oil? IT must surely be just more difficult to get out?

I might try to think of something else.

Related articles

• 4:03 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings


• 4:01 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings


• 4:02 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings


• 4am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

 

4:02 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

Ok, so I don't have a handle on the speed of light thing, and how an observer would see two objects traveling at the speed of light that are heading towards each other.

So I revisited the super-power thing again. Two more came to mind. They are similar

• Making yourself super-hot - The Human Torch - or turning into flames


• Making yourself super-cold - Mr.Freeze.

Both rubbish.

The calorific output or calories required would preclude either of these two ever bring a thing. Can you image the amount of food you'd have to eat to sustain a body of flames, or how weak and frail you'd become after a quick jaunt.

OF course you could pair both of these up with flying ability for a double-rubbish.

And then one that I'd forgotten about Telekinesis, or the ability to move things with the power of your mind.

Rubbish. Particularly if I understand physics a bit, and force and reaction.

Oh and Remote Viewing, being able to visualise remote places and scenes. Or as most people call it, having a good imagination.

I have to come up with some new things to think about.

Related articles

• 4:01 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings (pdubyah.com)


• 4am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings (pdubyah.com)

 

4:01 am and the clock goes tick-tick-tick Musings

To help me back to sleep I try to challenge myself to thinking something.

I've worked through the perpetual motion machines, came up with a great idea, and almost convinced myself that I understood the theory of general relativity.

http://pdubyah.com/2013/11/26/4am-and-the-clock-goes-tick-tick-tick-musings/

This morning I was trying to work out what you'd see for two objects that are colliding, both of which are travelling at, for instance, 75% of the sped of light.  The closing speed would therefore be 1.5X the speed of light.

For each of the objects they would observe something approaching them at .75% of the speed of light, but if they could measure that they should know that they are closing at 150% of the speed of light?

And what would an observer view.

Anyway, putting that aside, the other thought train has been on super-powers and why I think that most of them are rubbish, the flight, the invisibility, the teleportation, the mind reading and thought control.

The latest one though, re-sizing. The ability to grow or shrink. Clearly nonsense.

Your mass couldn't change, you can't shed or gain mass. So if you shrank to say the size of a mouse, you'd still have to weigh 140lbs. There would also be a limit on the size you could shrink to, and this would be based on the 'space' that atoms meed. You can't cram more atoms into a space than will fit.

Would you turn into a black-hole?

Did I just show up my ignorance of science again?

 

It keeps me awake at night #2 - the speed of light.

Yeah it does, when the darkness comes without sleep the idea that I can understand or get my head around the statement that light has a finite speed. That's it. Nothing faster.

I get that I observe light, I see it at the speed of light. And then I imagine that I'm a spaceship of some kind. And then it gets interesting. To me that is.

If I'm banging along at a fair lick of speed, say 1/2 the speed of light and I look at a star, I observe the light at, guess what? the constant that is the speed of light. I don't see it at say one and a 1/2 the speed of light. If I'm advancing to the light source at 1/2 the speed of light the speed of light is still the same. Which is weird. Unless I got it all wrong.

And if I'm observing two objects, one on my right and one on my left, and each of the objects  is approaching the other in straight line (imagine a triangle ABC, I'm at A, and they are at B and C and heading towards each other). If they are both going 1/2 the speed of light I think I should see them converging at the speed of light. If they are both going the speed of light (ok so it's a big triangle) then I imagine that I should see them converge at twice the speed of light, which isn't possible, is it?

Now if there are observers on B and C looking at each other how fast do they think they are converging. It's worse if I imagine that one of them is going the speed of light and one is going 1/2 the speed of light.

Like I said it keeps me awake, for all of about 7 minutes.