Todays Puzzel

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Dave

The chicken and egg question has occupied philosophers for centuries

In many deep rooted ways a lot of people care passionately about the answer depending upon their point of view, for example their being religious or non religious.

Creationists believe that the chicken came into being and laid the first egg.

Evolutionists believe that chickens are descended from dinosaurs and ultimately the egg came first.

Perhaps the answer does reside in a wise old chicken……but what do you think ?

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Paul and Dave,

Richard Dawkins makes a very important point in one of his books, namely that evolution is incremental: children on the whole are sufficiently like their parents that two successive generations of whatever species will (to any extent that matters) be obviously of the same species.

In other words, the (in)famous "missing link" is to all intents and purposes a chimera, in the sense that for example no Homo Habilis parents ever produced a Homo Erectus baby — the change that occured can only be recognised across the gap of a sufficiently large number of generations.

From this perspective, it could therefore be argued that independently of whether you take a creationist, an evolutionist or a mixed creationist/evolutionist (i.e. life begun by the creation of a primitive form, from which subsequent, more complex forms evolved) view, the chicken came first! In either case, at some point the first ancestor of the chicken came into being, either by creation or by some variation or other on the theme of lightning-striking-the-primordial-soup.

/Mattias

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Mattias

How about something more fundamental.

What came first The Acorn or the Oak?

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello Paul,

In one sense, I3d say my previous answer applies: the ascendant always precedes the descendant, until you eventually reach the ultimate. first ascendant, whether created or spontaneously arisen.

In another sense — the embryonological – the acorn iand the oak are of course different manifestations of one and the same being.

My tuppence'orth (for what it's worth; probably rather less) …

/Mattias

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Mattias

This is turning out to be quite enjoyable…….Where do you stand on the big bang theory?

I suspect that your tuppence'orth is worth more than you are letting on.

Paul

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Many boat modellers are very familiar with the Missing Link, it's called a fuse and its absence is frequently responsible for the Big Bang which is not a theory but often actually experienced in conjunction with a lot of smoke.

Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins elegantly and logically explains a lot of apparently impossible things which is why fundamentalists hate it.

Colin

 

Edited By Colin Bishop, Website Editor on 25/08/2015 16:54:04

[Mark Jarvis 2Participant @markjarvis2]

WOW. What happened to Haydock??????

Mark

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello Paul,

Where do I stand on the big bang theory? Would you believe, second row, third from left?! (Almost sounds like a variant on the old chestnut, doesn't it: "how many modellers can stand on a scientific theory?"; dancing on heads of pins is so 13th century).

More seriously, though, I must admit that while evolutionary science interests me, and as a general principle (if not in its nittiest and grittiest details) is something which I have no trouble getting my head around (and therefore also feel happy to have a view on) cosmology and the big bang theory is largely beyond my ken.

I don't in particular doubt the theory, seeing as how a number of minds much better than my rather feeble one have gotten to grips with it and seem to think it a very good theory. However, I have never really been able to understand either how space could be infinite, nor how it could be finite, and certainly not how it could at one point be just a very, very dense point, and then suddenly all over the place.

However, I am not one of those inclined to think that if I cannot understand summat, that summat must be wrong or cannot be; I'm much more likely to say "oh well, what do you expect from a dimwit like yerself". I simply don't feel that I must be able to understand or account for the universe/multiverse; I'm sure it'll continue to tick along quite nicely even though I don't bother.

Colin, that is yet one more reason, beside the elegance and logic of the explanations, that I very much like that book!

/Mattias

 

Edited By Banjoman on 26/08/2015 07:21:46

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Mattias

What I do find both fascinating and elegant is John Wheeler and Richard Feynmans theory of a single electron universe, now this is a theory that really does challenge the norm.

Paul

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hi Paul,

I'm intrigued, and shall certainly look that one up!

/Mattias

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Here is a question for those who pride themselves on geography

Fiji (in Melanesia) and American Samoa (in Polynesia) are two islands in the South Pacific Ocean.

Fiji is about 970 kilometres (600 miles) west of American Samoa.

A small airplane can fly this distance in two hours.

When will you arrive in Fiji if you leave American Samoa on a small airplane on Tuesday night at 11:30 PM?

Paul

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello Paul,

Time zone difference calculations are not that difficult, but still in their more common forms contain a few potential stumbling blocks; once you throw the International Date Line (IDL) into the equation, those stumbling blocks tend to become more prominent. I had a go, though, and came up with the following:

When the plane takes off from American Samoa, just east of the IDL in GMT -11, at 23:30 on the Tuesday, it is already 22:30 on Wednesday in Fiji, which is west of the IDL in GMT +12. When it touches down in Fiji after the two hour flight, it would thus be in the wee hours of Thursday morning, at 00:30, there, while back in American Samoa it is then only 01:30 on Wednesday morning, i.e. 23 hours earlier.

I should in all honesty add that my geography is not that good that I knew off the top of my head that American Samoa sits where it does in relation to the IDL; however, I do know that the IDL runs a zig-zag course down the Pacific, so from the way the question was formulated I strongly suspected that such woukl be the case, and quickly verified my suspicions by looking up the IDL in a well-known Internet encyclopedia …

The actual calculations are all my own, though …

/Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 27/08/2015 09:12:18

Edited By Banjoman on 27/08/2015 09:12:32

Edited By Banjoman on 27/08/2015 09:12:51

Edited By Banjoman on 27/08/2015 09:13:34

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Mattias

Thank you for having a go and a hearty congratulations for not falling into the time zone trap.

I have included images showing where the time zones are in this area.

The answer is as follows.

Fiji and American Samoa are in different time zones and are separated by the International Date Line. When it is 11:30 PM on Tuesday in American Samoa, it is 10:30 PM on Wednesday in Fiji. Since the flight takes two hours, you will arrive in Fiji at 12:30 AM on Thursday.

If you went from Fiji to American Samoa at 11:30 AM on Tuesday, you would arrive at 2:30 PM on Monday (the day before you left). The International Date Line was adjusted in 1995 so that all the islands of Kiribati, which span three time zones, would have the same date.

Samoa switched sides of the International Date Line on December 29, 2011. The date jumped one day forward and December 30, 2011 was eliminated. American Samoa remained in the previous time zone. The following map shows the change in the International Date line.

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hi Paul,

Just to make sure that we don't misunderstand each other, I take it that when you say "12:30 AM on Thursday", you mean exactly the same as I did when I, using the 24 hour system rather than the AM/PM format, wrote "Thursday morning, at 00:30"?! Unless I am mistaken, the two expressions 12:30 AM and 00:30 both mean half an hour past midnight, don't they?

/Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 27/08/2015 13:16:42

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Mattias

Yes 12:30 AM and 00:30 both mean the same thing.

Paul

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Now for a mathematical slight of hand…..but how is it done?

I predict that the answer is 18

• Think of a number.
• Add 7 to it.
• Subtract 2.
• Subtract your original number.
• Multiply by 4.
• Subtract 2.

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

It's pretty easy to tell when Paul is either bored or unwell, isn't it? If it's the latter then I hope it's brief and doesn't spoil his "jolly" at the weekend.

I shall be erecting a garden fence, along with landscaper Ross Oswin and my good friend Jack Daniels…..

O deep joy!

DM

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Dave

You be careful working with Jack Daniels, I've been on site with him before and he is murder with a saw and defiantly don't let him loose with the nail gun.

Paul

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

I shall only let him hold the posts (defiantly) while we check them with the level – promise.

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

A mixture of DM, JD and a level would be something worth paying to see.

Look at the last job they did

Edited By Paul T on 27/08/2015 17:49:49

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Pisa cake, mate. The icing was a bit tricky, though………………

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hi Paul,

Before Mr Daniels (or his mate Mr Walker, or any of their ilk) render me incapable of putting forth an argument, let me just say that if you start your equation by adding a number x and then, after no other kind of intermediate operation than addition or subtraction, subtract the same number x, it does not matter what the intial x was, as the initial addition and subsequent subtraction cancel each other out.

In other words, noi matter which number you initially think of, the answer will always be 18 … like this:

Think of a number. OK …. 10. Add 7 = 17. Subtract 2 = 15. Subtract initial number, i.e. 10 = 5. Multiply by 4 = 20. Subtract 2 = 18. In other words, the only operators that will ever have any effect are alsways 7-2=5, 5×4=20 and 20-2=18.

/Mattias

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

After the banter with our soon to be merry fence builder lets get back to the current question

As usual Mattias is 100% right as this is a straight forward self cancelling equation or a mathematicians slight of hand 

Paul

Edited due to Mattias hitting the send button at the same time as I did

Edited By Paul T on 27/08/2015 19:01:21

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hi again Paul,

I think we must have hit our respective submit buttons within seconds of one another … anyway, for an answer, please see my previous post!

/Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 27/08/2015 18:58:04

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Here is a little geometry quiz

The government pays farmers a specific fee for each row of four trees that they plant. An enterprising, but dishonest farmer found a way of planting five rows of four trees using only ten trees. How did he do it?

Paul

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