In message , Cynic
writes
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 09:19:23 +0000, Linz
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 23:15:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 20:28:05 +0000, Juggz
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:52:12 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

Yes, really. The gravitational constant is decreasing, for instance.
It appears to be related to the density of our galaxy, which is
becoming less dense as it expands.

Cite please. I'm a girl, so I don't understand Physics, and find it
Difficult.

It's something I learnt quite a while back, so maybe do an Internet
search - ther's bound to be a cite somewhere. As this is a legal
newsgroup, I should also point out that there is as yet no Act that

Um, you need to check your headers, Cynic.

*I'm* posting from uk.legal. As I did not alter the newsgroup list,
you may be reading it in a diy group.

As it's x-posted to uk,d-i-y, we are aren't we


--
geoff

In message , Dr Ivan D. Reid
writes
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:41:32 -0000, N.LENN @ WKX.KM.EU
wrote in :
Costing the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Sn!pe said:
wrote:

One man's constant is another man's variable

as old computer programmers used to say

Old computers were like that.

And the languages that ran on them.

PROGRAM INCONSTANT
CALL BONK(5)
PRINT *,5
STOP
END
SUBROUTINE BONK(I)
I=I+1
END

Ah, good old FORTRAN IV[1]. Luckily it's now called "Fortran 2003".

In that case it should have security updates every other week

--
geoff

"Cynic" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:21:29 GMT, Mary Pegg
wrote:

Cynic wrote:

The laws of physics have hardly changed at all in my lifetime so far,

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.


'g' changed quite noticeably on 28th(?) December. The Earth is spinning
quite erratically at the moment.

"Juggz" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:26:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.

That's not very constant, then, is it?

Glenys


Even c is only constant in our particular universe. Ask the lot next door
what their value for c is.

" wrote in message
t...
Costing the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Juggz said:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:26:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.

That's not very constant, then, is it?

Glenys


One man's constant is another man's variable


Oh gawd. A COBOL programmer !!!!!1

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Cynic wrote:
Ferrite rod aerials are irrelevant to UHF. Or even HF, if you look at
the average radio which includes SW.

I have seen many radios with ferrite aerials for shortwave.

Perhaps you'd name one?

Those Russian units one uses for listening into coastguard.

In message , Mike
writes

"Juggz" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:26:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.

That's not very constant, then, is it?

Glenys


Even c is only constant in our particular universe. Ask the lot next door
what their value for c is.

Not even constant in this universe if one school of thought is to be
believed. ISTR an article in NS a while ago about someone postulating
that the speed of light was slowing down.

You just can't trust anything nowadays, can you?

--
geoff

In message , Mike
writes

"Cynic" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:21:29 GMT, Mary Pegg
wrote:

Cynic wrote:

The laws of physics have hardly changed at all in my lifetime so far,

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.


'g' changed quite noticeably on 28th(?) December. The Earth is spinning
quite erratically at the moment.

You mean the 26th?

I don't see what it had to do with g changing


--
geoff

"raden" wrote in message
...
In message , Mike
writes

"Cynic" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:21:29 GMT, Mary Pegg
wrote:

Cynic wrote:

The laws of physics have hardly changed at all in my lifetime so
far,

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.


'g' changed quite noticeably on 28th(?) December. The Earth is spinning
quite erratically at the moment.

You mean the 26th?

I don't see what it had to do with g changing


--
geoff

I was a bit surprised to see that day length has changed
for GPS purposes at least

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofn...rth_shape.html
The general shape of the Earth is slightly oblate - that is, it is not a
perfect sphere but is slightly squished down, making it about 26 miles wider
at the equator than between the poles. This shape, however, is not rigid,
with climate being a major distorting force.
But the magnitude nine earthquake last month almost certainly altered the
shape as well. Recent calculations have estimated that this catastrophic
land displacement caused a small reduction in the bulge, making the planet
more round.
"The waistline was reduced by not quite a millimeter because of the
earthquake," said Benjamin Fong Chao from NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center.
This slimming down sped up the rotation of the Earth, much like when a
spinning ice skater pulls in her arms to increase her speed. The length of
the day correspondingly decreased by 2.68 millionths of a second.
...

What they aren't telling you about DNA profiles
and what Special Branch don't want you to know.
http://www.nutteing2.freeservers.com/dnapr.htm
or nutteingd in a search engine

Valid email (remove 4 of the 5 dots)
Ignore any other apparent em address used to post this message -
it is defunct due to spam.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 23:29:31 GMT, raden
wrote the following to uk.misc:

In message , Mike
writes

"Juggz" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:26:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.

That's not very constant, then, is it?

Glenys


Even c is only constant in our particular universe. Ask the lot next door
what their value for c is.

Not even constant in this universe if one school of thought is to be
believed. ISTR an article in NS a while ago about someone postulating
that the speed of light was slowing down.

They'll use any excuse for increasing the electricity bills.

mh.
--
Reply-to address *is* valid. "From" address is a blackhole.

"Forgive me if I can't give you the answers today, I don't have all
the answers, and the answers I do have may be different tomorrow."

In message , Paul Nutteing
writes
"raden" wrote in message
...
In message , Mike
writes

"Cynic" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:21:29 GMT, Mary Pegg
wrote:

Cynic wrote:

The laws of physics have hardly changed at all in my lifetime so
far,

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.


'g' changed quite noticeably on 28th(?) December. The Earth is spinning
quite erratically at the moment.

You mean the 26th?

I don't see what it had to do with g changing


--
geoff

I was a bit surprised to see that day length has changed
for GPS purposes at least

Well yes, by a fraction of a second, but like they said it's like an ice
skater pulling their arms in to rotate faster, nothing to do with "g"


--
geoff

In article , "raden"
says...
snip
Well yes, by a fraction of a second, but like they said it's like an ice
skater pulling their arms in to rotate faster, nothing to do with "g"

ISTM that if we're rotating faster there's a larger force trying to
throw us off the planet, so anywhere other than the poles the
measured downward acceleration of a dropped body will be less.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 23:15:17 -0000, "Mike" wrote:

Even c is only constant in our particular universe. Ask the lot next door
what their value for c is.

Oh, c appears to be not particularly consistent at all. I am
suprised by the thought that G may have changed, at least, locally.
although there has been some speculation that G may differ at a
distance; we have no way of measuring it at the moment..

Glenys

--
No, really, the basket does not fit on your head.

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 02:10:21 +0000, Juggz
wrote the following to uk.misc:

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 23:15:17 -0000, "Mike" wrote:

Even c is only constant in our particular universe. Ask the lot next door
what their value for c is.

Oh, c appears to be not particularly consistent at all. I am
suprised by the thought that G may have changed, at least, locally.
although there has been some speculation that G may differ at a
distance; we have no way of measuring it at the moment..

Couldn't you try using a set of weighing scales and an abacus?

mh.
--
Reply-to address *is* valid. "From" address is a blackhole.

"Forgive me if I can't give you the answers today, I don't have all
the answers, and the answers I do have may be different tomorrow."

raden wrote:
[...]
Not even constant in this universe if one school of thought is to be
believed. ISTR an article in NS a while ago about someone
postulating that the speed of light was slowing down.

It used to be slower than the speed of sound back in the 1970s. You'd
turn on the TV and hear the programme immediately, but it'd take five
minutes before you saw the picture.

You just can't trust anything nowadays, can you?

I do not, in general, trust anything in New Scientist unless I've had
it also confirmed elsewhere. New Scientist used to be good, but now
it's little more than a popsci tabloid.

--
PGP key ID E85DC776 - finger for full key

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:27:57 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 09:19:23 +0000, Linz
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 23:15:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

It's something I learnt quite a while back, so maybe do an Internet
search - ther's bound to be a cite somewhere. As this is a legal
newsgroup, I should also point out that there is as yet no Act that

Um, you need to check your headers, Cynic.

*I'm* posting from uk.legal. As I did not alter the newsgroup list,
you may be reading it in a diy group.

I'm reading in uk.misc.
--
The point of education is to correct ignorance. It cannot deal with stupidity.
(Mortimer Hebblethwaite, uk.misc)

Costing the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Rob Morley said:
In article , "raden"
says...
snip
Well yes, by a fraction of a second, but like they said it's like an ice
skater pulling their arms in to rotate faster, nothing to do with "g"

ISTM that if we're rotating faster there's a larger force trying to
throw us off the planet, so anywhere other than the poles the
measured downward acceleration of a dropped body will be less.

I think not
--
tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger

Costing the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Mike said:

" wrote in message
t...
Costing the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Juggz said:
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:26:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.

That's not very constant, then, is it?

Glenys


One man's constant is another man's variable


Oh gawd. A COBOL programmer !!!!!1

You can trick many langauges into it. Soem more easily than others.
--
tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger tiger

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 09:41:00 +0000, JAF
wrote:

'g' (acceleration under gravity), the constant, is constant (having been
decided by a committee) but g (gravity) has been known to vary (anomalies)
for decades.

'g' is not 'G'.

One is the gravitational constant that gives the scale of the
proportionality between F, and the various masses and the distances
that are giving rise to a gravitational force between two bodies.

The other is the acceleration due to gravity, which is a measurment of
the strength of the gravitational field that has resulted from an
interaction such as the one described above.

Then there's 'apparent' g, which is what you are thinking about, which
is the percieved g on the Earth's surface, which is not a constant at
all places on the Earth's surface, due to fluctuations in rock
density, differing heights above sea level, and nearness to the
equator, as the centrifugal force introduced by the earth's spin
modulates the effect of the gravitational field somewhat.

I am still struggling to understand which 'G' of 'g' it was that Cynic
is talking about.

Glenys


Glenys

--
No, really, the basket does not fit on your head.

"Juggz" wrote in message

I am still struggling to understand which 'G' of 'g' it was that Cynic
is talking about.

'Big G', I think:
http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/gconst.html

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:21:29 GMT, Mary Pegg
wrote:

OTOH, what advances have been made in our understanding
of the fundamental laws of physics in the last 40 years or so?

Symmetry breaking. Very big change, just over 40 years ago.

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:17:14 -0000,
wrote:

Costing the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Rob Morley said:
In article , "raden"
says...
snip
Well yes, by a fraction of a second, but like they said it's like an ice
skater pulling their arms in to rotate faster, nothing to do with "g"

ISTM that if we're rotating faster there's a larger force trying to
throw us off the planet, so anywhere other than the poles the
measured downward acceleration of a dropped body will be less.

I think not

Think again. "G" is less at the equator than the poles both because
it is further away from the Earth's center of mass and because of
centripetal force due to the rotation of the planet.

--
Cynic

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:29:01 +0000, Juggz
wrote:


I am still struggling to understand which 'G' of 'g' it was that Cynic
is talking about.

It was the first one in your post. The relationship between force,
distance and mass. The decrease is miniscule but measurable.

--
Cynic

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:57:26 -0000, "DZ-015"
wrote:

"Juggz" wrote in message

I am still struggling to understand which 'G' of 'g' it was that Cynic
is talking about.

'Big G', I think:
http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/gconst.html

No, little "g".

--
Cynic

"Cynic" wrote in message

I am still struggling to understand which 'G' of 'g' it was that Cynic
is talking about.

'Big G', I think:
http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/gconst.html

No, little "g".

lol

Oh well.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:45:14 GMT, raden
wrote in :
In message , Dr Ivan D. Reid
writes

Ah, good old FORTRAN IV[1]. Luckily it's now called "Fortran 2003".

In that case it should have security updates every other week

Give it a chance. The standard was only approved in December, there
are no actual F2K03 compilers yet.

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

In article , "Cynic"
says...
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:17:14 -0000,
wrote:

Costing the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Rob Morley said:
In article , "raden"
says...
snip
Well yes, by a fraction of a second, but like they said it's like an ice
skater pulling their arms in to rotate faster, nothing to do with "g"

ISTM that if we're rotating faster there's a larger force trying to
throw us off the planet, so anywhere other than the poles the
measured downward acceleration of a dropped body will be less.

I think not

Think again. "G" is less at the equator than the poles both because
it is further away from the Earth's center of mass and because of
centripetal force due to the rotation of the planet.

It may be further from the centre of mass, but there's also more mass
directly "beneath" it - how do they balance up?
(Probably a rhetorical question - I wonder, but not enough to go look
it up or figure it out.)

In message , Dr Ivan D. Reid
writes
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:45:14 GMT, raden
wrote in :
In message , Dr Ivan D. Reid
writes

Ah, good old FORTRAN IV[1]. Luckily it's now called "Fortran 2003".

In that case it should have security updates every other week

Give it a chance. The standard was only approved in December, there
are no actual F2K03 compilers yet.

Plenty of time for half a dozen service packs to come out (if it was
usoft)

p.s. Tell 'em to slow down in ukrm - I'm 5000 posts behind

--
geoff

In message , Cynic
writes
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:57:26 -0000, "DZ-015"
wrote:

"Juggz" wrote in message

I am still struggling to understand which 'G' of 'g' it was that Cynic
is talking about.

'Big G', I think:
http://www.npl.washington.edu/eotwash/gconst.html

No, little "g".


Oi ! I'm little "g"


--
geoff

In message , Peter Corlett
writes
raden wrote:
[...]
Not even constant in this universe if one school of thought is to be
believed. ISTR an article in NS a while ago about someone
postulating that the speed of light was slowing down.

It used to be slower than the speed of sound back in the 1970s. You'd
turn on the TV and hear the programme immediately, but it'd take five
minutes before you saw the picture.

You just can't trust anything nowadays, can you?

I do not, in general, trust anything in New Scientist unless I've had
it also confirmed elsewhere. New Scientist used to be good, but now
it's little more than a popsci tabloid.

Maybe so, but for those of us who have moved in other directions, a
useful addition to tyhe "Klo Bibliotek"

--
geoff

In message , Rob Morley
writes
In article , "raden"
says...
snip
Well yes, by a fraction of a second, but like they said it's like an ice
skater pulling their arms in to rotate faster, nothing to do with "g"

ISTM that if we're rotating faster there's a larger force trying to
throw us off the planet, so anywhere other than the poles the
measured downward acceleration of a dropped body will be less.

That would be centripetal force

(no relation - as they say)


--
geoff

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 18:07:09 GMT, raden
wrote in :
In message , Dr Ivan D. Reid
writes
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:45:14 GMT, raden
wrote in :
In message , Dr Ivan D. Reid
writes

Ah, good old FORTRAN IV[1]. Luckily it's now called "Fortran 2003".

In that case it should have security updates every other week

Give it a chance. The standard was only approved in December, there
are no actual F2K03 compilers yet.

Plenty of time for half a dozen service packs to come out (if it was
usoft)

p.s. Tell 'em to slow down in ukrm - I'm 5000 posts behind

You too? I just did a catch-up of about that many as the ratio of
high-scored posts to unscored was approaching zero...

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD. "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO# 003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

Juggz wrote:

Cite please. I'm a girl, so I don't understand Physics, and find it
Difficult.

I'm a Lady - what is "Physics"?

--
Nothing to be done.

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 18:30:19 GMT, Mary Pegg
wrote the following to uk.misc:

Juggz wrote:

Cite please. I'm a girl, so I don't understand Physics, and find it
Difficult.

I'm a Lady - what is "Physics"?

Soda Stream.

mh.
--
Reply-to address *is* valid. "From" address is a blackhole.

"Forgive me if I can't give you the answers today, I don't have all
the answers, and the answers I do have may be different tomorrow."

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 20:49:11 +0000, Prai Jei
wrote:

Is there anybody here, that's *got* one of these things, and finds that it
*works* ?

Almost certainly. We live in a densely populated country with good
radio and TV coverage. I imagine there are more people suffering
problems with urban ghosting than there are with remote weak signals.
Input stages also have AGC and very good sensitivity these days. In
such cases, a simple attenuator is more use than a bigger antenna. A
gadget like this (which I assume to have some level of band-pass
filtering) probably works very well for those people suffering from
out-of-band interference, induced pickup in long antenna leads, and
much ghosting.

And of course, if your existing antenna is already working well,
you're unlikely to shell out on any new gadget. So even if this thing
is useless for nearly everyone, for probably two thirds of those
people who have a problem, it's quite possibly appropriate - contrary
as its technical capabilities might suggest.

Years ago I worked briefly for the radio interference investigation
branch of BT. In one small area (underneath a local radio transmitter)
a standard technique was _unplugging_ the aerial altogether. There was
just too much of it - no sensible radio could cope. Signal strength
was such that I really did hear Radio Merseyside on Granny's fillings.

raden wrote:
[New Scientist, now in handy tabloid format]
Maybe so, but for those of us who have moved in other directions, a
useful addition to tyhe "Klo Bibliotek"

Neither Google nor I know what "Klo Bibliotek" is. However, if you are
referring to the loo, I find that Private Eye does the job, is half
the price, and is also softer and more absorbent than New Scientist.

--
However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police.
- Quentin Crisp

"raden" wrote in message
...
In message , Mike
writes

"Juggz" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:26:18 +0000, Cynic
wrote:

You mean they have a bit? I do hope not.

Some of the constants have changed by a tiny amount.

That's not very constant, then, is it?

Glenys


Even c is only constant in our particular universe. Ask the lot next
door
what their value for c is.

Not even constant in this universe if one school of thought is to be
believed. ISTR an article in NS a while ago about someone postulating
that the speed of light was slowing down.

Okay - to be precise c is a constant related to the age of the universe. As
you say it is slowing down very gradually now, though in the first few
milliseconds it plummeted down the curve.


You just can't trust anything nowadays, can you?

I blame Phoney Blair myself

"Peter Corlett" wrote in message
.. .

You just can't trust anything nowadays, can you?

I do not, in general, trust anything in New Scientist unless I've had
it also confirmed elsewhere. New Scientist used to be good, but now
it's little more than a popsci tabloid.

Agreed - it's just the science edition of the Grauniad nowadays.

" wrote in message
t...

One man's constant is another man's variable

Oh gawd. A COBOL programmer !!!!!1

You can trick many langauges into it. Soem more easily than others.


True. COBOL programmers just did it first :-)

In article ,
Andy Dingley wrote:
Almost certainly. We live in a densely populated country with good
radio and TV coverage. I imagine there are more people suffering
problems with urban ghosting than there are with remote weak signals.
Input stages also have AGC and very good sensitivity these days. In
such cases, a simple attenuator is more use than a bigger antenna. A
gadget like this (which I assume to have some level of band-pass
filtering) probably works very well for those people suffering from
out-of-band interference, induced pickup in long antenna leads, and
much ghosting.

Don't believe you. To get a good clean signal, the best way is with a
decent roof top aerial and a good downlead. If this results in too much
signal, an attenuator is pennies.
The problem with any set top aerial at UHF is reflections from people
moving about in the room etc. Hence get the aerial above any such
interference. This also applies to decent MF reception - get the aerial
above the interference fields and use a decent screened feeder.

And of course, if your existing antenna is already working well,
you're unlikely to shell out on any new gadget. So even if this thing
is useless for nearly everyone, for probably two thirds of those
people who have a problem, it's quite possibly appropriate - contrary
as its technical capabilities might suggest.

Years ago I worked briefly for the radio interference investigation
branch of BT. In one small area (underneath a local radio transmitter)
a standard technique was _unplugging_ the aerial altogether. There was
just too much of it - no sensible radio could cope. Signal strength
was such that I really did hear Radio Merseyside on Granny's fillings.

It was usually due to 'poor' receiver design - it was picking up the
strong signals elsewhere than the actual aerial input. A decent receiver
will filter out all the crap at every stage - as will a simple amplifier.
But this costs money.

Years ago, I spent some time sorting out a very expensive TV of a pal who
lived close to Crystal Palace, and who had a near unwatchable picture. It
took quite some time, but the components cost pennies.

--
* I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.