>> ^xxovercastxx:

Some of you people seem to really have it out for the guy on the left when you don't even understand the question to begin with. He seems to be the only person on the panel who understands the crux of the question... ultimately it comes down to "What definition of sound do you go by?"
If you define sound as vibrations in the air, then you'd say yes, the tree makes a sound.
If you define sound as the sensory experience of those vibrations, you'd say no, it makes no sound unless someone hears it.
They are both valid definitions of sound. See definitions 1 and 2 here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sound
It doesn't mean the tree doesn't fall if nobody witnesses it.
By the way, light is invisible. You can't see it, only its effect on objects it strikes.
Also, that idiotic tool's name is John Lloyd. He's the creator of the show.


Like Stephen Fry said, given the second definition the point is moot since you can say a mechanical recorder can experience the vibration. If you admit that - and there is no reason you shouldn't except bad faith - then you can take it to the quantum level and say that every object around the falling tree is an observer and thus "hears" (is affected) by the vibrations. In fact, given the first definition, sound cannot exist without affecting something (the molecules in the air) thus by default there must always be at least one observer in order to even conceive of the possibility of the existence and transmission of a sound in the first place. Thus, whether there is a macroscopic observer is moot since there is always a quantum level one in the first place to produce anything (like the tree falling). Its a regression problem and in the end it comes to quantum probabilities: there is a small chance that no sound will be produced, but it is highly unlikely. You'd need an Infinite Improbability Drive to make sure you're there when the sound doesn't happen and be smug.

By the way, light is visible since what is visible is what you can see with your eyes. In fact, technically speaking the only thing you can see with your eyes is light. What you think you "see" (objects) are your interpretations of the light patterns on your retina. What light you can't see are those particles of light that are not converging on your retina, just as you can't see objects that are not in your field of vision or can't hear sounds that don't enter your eardrum. Doesn't mean you can't see anything or hear sounds now does it? Also, you can't ear supersonic vibrations, but your dog can. Thus you can't hear sounds? No, you can't hear supersonic vibrations. The same way you can't see ultraviolet light, but you can still see light. See? It doesn't matter what definitions you take, only that they all be on the same level of abstraction. Now do that with the second definition of sound and you see that you get solipsism. Thus the second definition of sound is not good for any kind of knowledge about the world. Why? Because it cannot explain the exteriority of the sound's provenance. The second meaning can only be a special usage reserved to neurology as a substitute for a more appropriate but cumbersome technical word, just as we still use "heat" to refer to the state of excitation in molecules.

>> ^entr0py:

Somehow it seems like a bad idea to inject your skin with florescent chemicals.

You'd think it would be a bad idea to inject your skin with died chemicals as well, but I guess progress has got to be made.

My pants and underwear react under ultraviolet light too.

Even though the punch of the Mantis Shrimp is very impressive and most talked about, I think its eyes are most impressive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#The_eyes
Mantis shrimp possess hyperspectral colour vision, allowing up to 12 colour channels extending in the ultraviolet. Their eyes (both mounted on mobile stalks and constantly moving about independently of each other) are similarly variably coloured, and are considered to be the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. They permit both serial and parallel analysis of visual stimuli.

Rows 1-4 of the midband are specialised for colour vision, from ultra-violet to infra-red. The optical elements in these rows have eight different classes of visual pigments and the rhabdom is divided into three different pigmented layers (tiers), each adapted for different wavelengths. The three tiers in rows 2 and 3 are separated by colour filters (intrarhabdomal filters) that can be divided into four distinct classes, two classes in each row. It is organised like a sandwich; a tier, a colour filter of one class, a tier again, a colour filter of another class, and then a last tier. Rows 5-6 are segregated into different tiers too, but have only one class of visual pigment (a ninth class) and are specialised for polarisation vision. They can detect different planes of polarised light. A tenth class of visual pigment is found in the dorsal and ventral hemispheres of the eye

The word "Hippopotamus" comes from Greek for "River Horse." The Greeks though them to be a relative of the horse, but recent research shows that their closest living relatives are actually whales.

I'm not terribly surprised that a hippo raised from birth around humans could be reasonably tame. Even though they are known to be very aggressive, they're still very intelligent.

>> ^rougy:
Hippos are pretty quick on their feet.


That they are, although the they aren't exactly distance runners, you'd still need a head-start on them.

>> ^Wikipedia:
Even though they are bulky animals, hippopotamuses can run faster than a human on land. Estimates of their running speed vary from 30 km/h (18 mph) to 40 km/h (25 mph), or even 50 km/h (30 mph). The hippo can maintain these higher speeds for only a few hundred meters.


Other neat facts:

On the National Geographic Channel television program, "Dangerous Encounters with Brady Barr", Dr. Brady Barr measured the bite pressure of an adult female hippo at 1,821 lb (826 kg)

...

Their skin secretes a natural sunscreen substance which is red-colored. The secretion is sometimes referred to as "blood sweat," but is neither blood nor sweat. This secretion is initially colorless and turns red-orange within minutes, eventually becoming brown. Two distinct pigments have been identified in the secretions, one red (hipposudoric acid) and one orange (norhipposudoric acid). The two pigments are highly acidic compounds. Both pigments inhibit the growth of disease-causing bacteria; as well, the light absorption of both pigments peaks in the ultraviolet range, creating a sunscreen effect. All hippos, even those with different diets secrete the pigments, so it does not appear that food is the source of the pigments. Instead, the animals may synthesize the pigments from precursors such as the amino acid tyrosine.


Cool!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'crime, scene, uv, light, ultraviolet' to 'crime, scene, uv, light, ultraviolet, karen taylor, csi' - edited by Zifnab

Tags for this video have been changed from 'crime, scene, uv, light' to 'crime, scene, uv, light, ultraviolet' - edited by jonny

i hug yoar *tlaks

>> ^jwray:
Most of the media suck at reporting science.


And most of the people reading it are just as clueless. Such as, for instance, yourself. Your statement regarding abiotic methane betrays a GROSSLY scientifically ignorant idea of the thing. You are obviously unaware of the long term thermodynamic instability of CH4 in the Martian atmosphere as produced by the non-ozone layer shielded high ultraviolet radiation flux on that planet. Further, you are clearly clueless as to the nature of the impossibility of extremely volatile organic compounds in a lithospherically differentiated small rocky planet. In conclusion, stop throwing stones inside your vitreous domicile.

Rofl, I love this movie. Too bad it helped result in Ultraviolet....

>> ^budzos:
No. Directed by Win Wenders before he really lost his mind.

I think you mean Kurt Wimmer. He directed UltraViolet too.

As soon as the song "Echoes" is played and the "Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite" title card pops up, a ping will sound. This pinging sound will ring once every few seconds for the first 1:20 or so. The music will slowly start to fade in after ten seconds or so. It is very eerie-sounding - as synthesizers slowly build, and eventually a mellow, slow guitar riff comes into play.

As all this psychedellic, mellow music builds up the images on the screen are of the monolith floating around in space while the outstanding special effects show the planets in the background. The sense of limitless space is evident, and the music only enhances that feeling.

LYRICS/IMAGES/INTERPRETATIONS:

The lyrics begin at 2:57. Here is a line-by-line breakdown and my own personal interpretations.

LYRICS: "Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air" IMAGE: The camera pans across the vast space background. INTERPRETATION: Obviously the albatross represents the monolith - which is, as the song says, hanging motionless.

LYRICS: "And deep beneath the rolling waves/In labyrinths of coral caves/The echo of a distant time/Comes willowing across the sand" IMAGES: The monolith continues to float around in space as the camera pans towards the Discovery ship. INTERPRETATION: The references to the ocean might be a comparison of the vastness of the ocean and the even more vastness of space. "The echo of a distant time" might refer to the monolith - as we know the monoliths have been appearing to Earthlings since evolutionary times. "Willowing across the sand" seems to symbolize the tiny little spaceship slithering across the vastness of space like a worm through sand.

LYRICS: "And Everything is green and submarine" IMAGE: The Discovery. INTERPRETATION: "submarine" is obviously the spaceship Discovery - as a submarine explores the water, this machine explores space.

LYRICS: "And no one showed us to the land/And no on knows the where or whys" IMAGE: images of the monolith and Bowman's pod heading for it. INTERPRETATION: The lines might be something that the humans who discovered the monolith might say - "whoever put these monoliths here didn't tell us why, but we're figuring it out."

LYRICS: "But something stirs and something tries/And starts to climb towards the light" IMAGES: The monolith flying upward while the camera pans over to the Discovery. INTERPRETATION: Could mean two things simultaneously: 1) The monolith (not sure what it is, which is why it is referred to as "something") begins to gain momentum and moves from the bottom of the screen to top, and continues to move. The light it's moving to might be the light show that soon occurs. 2)Symbolic of how insignificant Bowman and his pod is (just "something"), and it is heading towards the monolith - as a subject might approach its savior and/or like a moth to a lightbulb.

LYRICS: "Strangers passing in the street/By chance two seperate glances meet/And I am you and what I see is me" IMAGE: Bowman's pod heading straight towards the camera. INTERPRETATION: The monolith and Bowman might be the two strangers who have just happened to run into each other. There's so many people in the world that the huge population and all the individual traits each person has might be compared with the vastness of space. "And I am you..." - I'm positive this is a reference to the later section of the film in which Bowman sees himself as an old man in the "hotel room," however, I believe that somehow this second verse was switched with the fifth verse. The "Through the window... a million bright ambassadors" lines would seem more appropriate at this time. Either way, this still is a thoughful, poetic line.

LYRICS: "And do I take you by the hand/And lead you through the land/And help me understand the best I can" IMAGE: The monolith disappears. INTERPRETATION: "Take you by the hand" - what the monolith might be saying to Bowman - to take him on a tour of the monolith's home land. "And help me understand...." what both the monolith and Bowman might say to each other - to learn more about each other. As Bowman was sent to study the monolith, the monolith is a tool to study Earth and its people.

LYRICS: "And no one calls us to move on/And no one forces down our eyes/And no one speaks and no one tries/And no one flies around the sun" IMAGE: The camera pans up and the light show begins just as the last word of the last line is sung. INTERPRETATION: "no one calls us to move on... forces down our eyes" - sounds like something two children might say who are so excitied about something and can't stop doing what they're doing (as Bowman and the monolith are about to embark on a fantastic journey). "no one tries.... no one flies around the sun" - open to interpretation, could mean just about anything.

Singing ends for the time being as the music becomes more mellow as the light show continues. The sound of the music seems to perfectly match the mood the lightshow induces - exactly like any other movie uses a pop song during any kind of montage.

At the 7 minute point the music changes and becomes driven by organs and drums, just as the light show becomes a series of starry images - the swirling galaxies, the images that look like embryos, the dancing diamonds. The music continues to match the images and mood on-screen until....

At the 10:30 point the music fades out and an extremely eerie, freaky sequence of sound effects is faded in. This transition occurrs as the transitition on the screen is made from the starry images to the ultraviolet images of the alien planet. The sound is no longer rock, but strictly psychedellic, much like the "eeeee"- choir-sung sound on the film's actual soundtrack. Some of the background sounds on the CD seem to synch with the images on screen such as wind, waves crashing, and seagulls as we are shown what looks like the alien planet's ocean.

The eerie sonic sequence lasts until 14:20 when Bowman finds himself in the bizarre "hotel room." The music starts to fade out as synthesizers slowly start to build in the background. It is at this time that Bowman begins to slowly walk around and try to figure out where he is. The sound and music continues to build and the eerie sequence fades out. The pinging noise also occurs. The music comes to a climax around 17:06 when Bowman sees himself in the other room as an old man eating.

At 18:00 Bowman gets out of the chair and looks around. At 18:14 the guitars kick back in as he turns around and returns to the table.

At 19:11 the lyrics come back.

LYRICS: "Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes/Inviting and inciting me to rise" IMAGE: Bowman walks from the door to the table. INTERPRETATION: This might be something Bowman, as an old man, might be thinking. Perhaps he has been stuck in that room for decades as the aliens' guinea pig?

LYRICS: "And through the window in the wall/Come streaming in on sunlight wings/A million bright ambassadors of morning" IMAGE: Bowman sits down at the table. INTERPRETATION: I believe all three lines refer to the rays of light which brough Bowman from our reality to the reality he is in now. It is possible this entire verse was switched with the second verse.

LYRICS: "And no one sings me lullabies/And no one makes me close my eyes/And so I throw the windows wide/And call to you across the sky" IMAGE: Bowman eats his meal. INTERPRETATION: "lullabies" and "close my eyes" might be something Bowman would say since it seems he has been alone for years in just a few seconds. The latter two lines might refer to the monolith - calling to it to do something.

Music continues much like it did during the light show sequence. At 21:18 the music quickly fades out just as the old, dying Bowman points to the monolith in front of him. The music at this point is keyboard-driven, very mellow - as if someone was trying to put somene to sleep (i.e. Bowman dying).

At 22:10 a strange sound, like a jet engine in the distant, starts to fade in, along with the pinging sound again. The image on screen is of the embryonic Bowman. Eventually the music fades out to just the eerie sound effects as the "Star Child" looks at the camera.

Both the song and the movie then end AT THE EXACT SAME TIME.

Credits/Thanks:
Chad Polenz

Have always wondered what it would be like to be in a similar field of endeavor-task-oriented, a single goal in mind, working day and night focused diligently on one project, one set of repeated actions.....the distractions and cares of the world non-existent while pushing forward into uncharted territory...surrounded by others with tasks similar to mine, all of us dedicated to reaching new horizons in our chosen disciplines.......But insects don't live that long, and DocM's here so folks like me can chase poontang and gamble.

Don't let the lack of action on yer moment here in the spotlight get ya down Doc, there are others here on the sift as uni-dimensional as yerself....It's hard to roast a cabbage y', gotta add so much flavor to it-like being on a desert island....("Will I eat fish and coconut, or fish and seaweed today???)

Speakin' a fish-glad to know you got yerself' a couple of fellas that you hang out with regularly that share similar interests and diversions...
Rob Roys and Starbucks eh??? Was it that girl you stalk that inspired you to be so......cosmopolitan???

" Sadly, you just can't do biology without animals."....Spoken like a true Onanist. If you took an ultraviolet light over to DocM's pad and dropped some good LSD, his bedroom would look like the stage backdrop at a Jefferson Airplane concert....

when he first got here, his first published post renewed my faith in cartoons being able to explain the obvious-I learned most of what I know from animated explanations of simple phenomenon as well-Now that we are clear on exactly what happened on 9-11...thanks for clearing that up for everyone.....

Yer a great sport DocM, man may the rest of your roast be good for you as well...Afterwards, you might ask Rosy Palm if it was good for her and her five sisters, too....

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/galex-20070815.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira

The simple answer is that it is a star.

Stars, like ours, emit radiation as a result of nuclear fusion. As it moves through space, the radiation creates a bow, where that radiation interacts with hydrogen. My guess is the hydrogen is excited to a higher energy state. When it decays, it emits the ultraviolet light that is whipped around the star in the shape of a tail.

You can't treat Mira with the same math and logic as a comet, because it produces its own energy.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'mira, shooting, star, ultraviolet, tail, spitzer, galaxy, evolotion, explorer' to 'mira, shooting, star, ultraviolet, tail, spitzer, galaxy, evolution, explorer' - edited by Issykitty