Scam product for sale in Guardian newspaper, allegedly

[Dr Ivan D. Reid]

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

[1] Or G, H, what-have-you...

[JAF]

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 13:13:15 -0000, "Paul Nutteing" wrote:

[Prai Jei]

Marcus Houlden (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message :

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

*works* ? The future of this thread is in your hands, you could kill it right now.

[IanAl]

No they couldn't, as people would argue about what constitutes 'working' as with good reception conditions any old piece of wire would work.

[Mike]

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

[Mike]

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

[Mike]

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

[Mike]

Those Russian units one uses for listening into coastguard.

[Juggz]

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

[Marcus Houlden]

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

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

mh.

[JAF]

Am I missing something here?

'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.

[Linz]

I'm reading in uk.misc.

[davebudd]

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

[Juggz]

'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

[DZ-015]

'Big G', I think:

[JAF]

[stuff wot gurlz aren't s'posed to know]

Me too, apparently.

[Andy Dingley]

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

[Cynic]

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

[Cynic]

[DZ-015]

Oh well.