Rich_Sheffield Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 Question ! Why does a Mirror reverse left and right, but not up and down ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 mirrors reverse in and out, not left and right, nor up and down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 also, if you ask two people facing each other to point which way is up, they'll point in the same direction, but if you ask them to point right, it will be different directions. The concept of left and right is perspective based, while up and down is universal. Unless it's Muffy, who will point "write". Â Check out The Left Hand of the Electron, by Isaac Asimov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 a mirror doesn't reverse anything. it reflects. Â Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 So which freezes faster - hot water or cold water? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 and why does dust get "sucked" towards lightbulbs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arlen Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 and finally, can you identify a record just by looking at the grooves? Â now I have to get back to real work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Sheffield Posted March 24, 2004 Author Share Posted March 24, 2004 Answer the Question !!!!!!! A mirror does reverse left and right , but not up and down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashw_justin Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 there is no spoon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double_E Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 yeah i heard this ... what would you call it, sort of a koan i guess... many many years ago. stumped me for a while. then little by little came to some conclusions: Â first of all, it has to do with perspective. turn your head sideways and the mirror will reverse "up" and "down" as well, dummy!! Â no but seriously tho... it really has to do with the fact that we're all more or less symmetrical in the left-right orientation but not so in the up/down orientation ... and if you think about it, *that* is cuz we evolved with this funny thing called Gravity which made it so that our "up part", the head, had to evolve differently from our "down part", the feet. and also, because of gravity, we always (usually) have our heads pointing "up". Â so because of all of this, we've grown to think of left and right as being more "flexible" or "changeable" than up/down. (ever meet a dyslexic person who confused their ups & downs??) so basically.. when you're looking in the mirror and the bozo staring back at you is holding his/her beer in their LEFT hand and you're holding your beer in your RIGHT, don't fret ... it's just gravity playing tricks on yer mind. Â OK, enuf psycho-babble for a wednesday morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 I had an interview yesterday where one of the questions was to write a function in unmanaged C++ that would take an image within another image and flip it horizontally, vertically, or both, given a pointer to memory, height, width and Rectagle parameters. After that, contemplating mirrors makes me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double_E Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 side note about symmetricality... it's actually not really true that we're all symmetrical in the left-right. didja know that with each and every one of us, for *every* body part we have two of (eyes, ears, breasts, hands, etc) one is always gonna be larger than the other. always(!) ... even if it's barely or not even noticable. pretty cool, huh?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbw1966 Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 Nope, its ice cream. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrDoolittle Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 side note about symmetricality... it's actually not really true that we're all symmetrical in the left-right. didja know that with each and every one of us, for *every* body part we have two of (eyes, ears, breasts, hands, etc) one is always gonna be larger than the other. always(!) ... even if it's barely or not even noticable. pretty cool, huh?? Â Isn't saying that a difference is "not even noticable" the same as saying that two things are "identical"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashw_justin Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 side note about symmetricality... it's actually not really true that we're all symmetrical in the left-right. didja know that with each and every one of us, for *every* body part we have two of (eyes, ears, breasts, hands, etc) one is always gonna be larger than the other. always(!) ... even if it's barely or not even noticable. pretty cool, huh?? Â Isn't saying that a difference is "not even noticable" the same as saying that two things are "identical"? Â silly human! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thinker Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 Wow! All the brain power going into figure out how mirrors work astounds me. Â Maybe you'all can tackle the wheel next. How does a wheel go around and around without running over itself? Â And then, FIRE! How DOES a fire sustain itself as it burns the logs in your fireplace? Why doesn't it blow itself out? Â If you get those worked out, try your hand at string theory, though that skips a millenium of scientific knowledge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrDoolittle Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 So, smart ass, at what frequency and amplitude would a super-string need to vibrate at to produce a tau-meson? Additionally, discussions about "basic" science concepts often lead to the exposure of widely-held misconceptions. Take centrifugal force, for example Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thinker Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 So, smart ass, at what frequency and amplitude would a super-string need to vibrate at to produce a tau-meson? Â Hell if I know. Why don't you enlighten us? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrDoolittle Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squid Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 Of course it's 42. That's the secret to the Universe. Obviously, Squid and I know our hitchiker guides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Sheffield Posted March 24, 2004 Author Share Posted March 24, 2004 Double E gets an " A " Â Now what is the log of 1000 to the base 10 ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 I want an " A " too!... Â From my PM archives: Â Paul: "What's the name of that condition whereby a person's internal organs are reversed?" Â Norman Clyde: "It's called Situs Inversus. Strangely enough, it is present only in individuals who have an inborn defect of ciliary function. The cross section of the shaft of each little cilium lacks the extra arm that allows for the propelling function. It is theorized that something about this ciliary function operates in determining orientation of internal organs in the person's bodily space. The syndrome of lacking the ciliary function is called Kartagener's syndrome. (I haven't looked in a book yet, this is all from first year of med school, so I'm pretty pleased at my recall so far.) The most interesting detail about this syndrome, in my opinion, is the fact that only 50 per cent of the people with it have situs inversus-- because, of course, without the orienting function, there is a 50-50 chance of the organs ending up in either orientation, so half of all cases have their organs on the usual side. Â "One last detail: because the lack of ciliary function renders spermatozoa immotile, males with this condition are infertile. Â "The one detail I can't recall is how frequently this condition is seen. I know it's very rare. I'll see if I can find the prevalence in a book somewhere." Â ANYBODY KNOW ANYONE WITH THIS SYNDROME?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dru Posted March 24, 2004 Share Posted March 24, 2004 Double E gets an " A " Â Now what is the log of 1000 to the base 10 ? 3 Â hey rich, a thermos keeps cold things cold and hot things hot. how does it know which is which Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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