Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2009 April 4

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April 4

1+1

1+1=2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.138.176.179 (talk) 01:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

See 1+1=2. -- kainaw™ 01:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Better yet, see Principia Mathematica. --Anonymous, 11:01 UTC, April 4, 2009.

1+1=10, Dave. HAL 9000 (talk) 03:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually HAL would probably think that 1+1=1 SpinningSpark 09:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

1+1=0 mod (2) (talk) 09:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There are 10 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary and those that don't. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

They can with rounding. 2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8. Round those and you get 2 + 2 = 5. StuRat (talk) 16:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and isn't 2.4 an extremely large value of 2? --Anon, 19:50 UTC, April 5, 2009.

What is the question? ~AH1^(TCU) 18:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

No, What is playing second base. DMacks (talk) 08:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Put 1+1 between the two segments of = and you will obtain a window!--pma (talk) 20:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean like this ${\underline {\overline {1+1}}}$ ? SpinningSpark 23:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

And in biology 1+1 can be anywhere from 3 to several million (guestimated) after a while  ;-) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 16:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Adapating to running

As of late i've taken up running (we all want to be healthier, dont we?).

I have seen running programs around the web like this one:


Week one: Walk for 6 minutes, then jog at an easy pace for 1 minute. Repeat 3 times. Aim for three sessions with that same sequence for week one.

Week two: Walk for 5 minutes, then jog for 2 minutes. Repeat 3 times. Aim to do three sessions in week two.

Week three: Walk for 3 minutes, then jog for 4 minutes. Repeat 4 times. Aim for four sessions in week three.

.....

Week seven: Walk for 1 minute, then jog for 11 minutes. Repeat 3 times. Do four sessions this week.

Week eight: Congratulations on making it to week eight! For your first run this week, try walking for 5 minutes to begin and end the workout, and run for 20 minutes in between. By the end of the week, try to run for 30 minutes without stopping. Aim to run for 30 minutes four times a week, and you'll notice that your stamina and fitness will continue to improve. Soon you'll be ready to run your first 5K!'''

They all follow that general run/walk pattern.

What adaptions or changes would you suppose would take place that would allow you to be able to run for 20 minutes at the end of week 8 where you could barely jog for a minute at week 1.

(just a little side question, would there be populations of people that would be better runners [eg, have larger lungs than everyone else, long legs ect] for one reason or another.. (running from daily godzilla attacks ) )

(well i thought this stuff was interesting anyway..)

Kingpomba (talk) 09:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Not sure this program is designed for people who have trouble with week 1. It's intended to step up gradually to give your muscles time to adapt and not to overtax your metabolism. Ideally you would avoid doing things you can "barely manage" and start or progress more gradually if you have trouble. See Muscle#Exercise, Aerobic exercise and Microtrauma 76.97.245.5 (talk) 21:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The semantics of the program and the whole thing wernt important (im not following this program or any one..just doing what my body tells me) i was just interested what makes you better at the end (eg larger lungs than before ect) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.167.5.29 (talk) 23:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

(1) If you are above age ~30, or have any medical issues whatsoever, consult your doctor before embarking on a fitness program designed for fast progress, such as the one you've outlined.

(2) The general idea of an untrained individual's adapting to running by alternately walking and running is widely accepted.

(3) You wrote: "we all want to be healthier, don't we?". Being healthier is about changing your lifestyle. It is not about reaching some numerical goal within a given number of weeks. Really! There's no hurry. Be patient.

(4) Be sure to get good running shoes adapted to your feet.

(5) The limiting factor is likely to be injuries. Never, ever run if it's painful. I believe that stretching after running is a good way of preventing injuries, although this has been a subject of considerable debate. (I'm speaking as an ex couch-potato now 40+ km/week runner, who started running at a mature age, and who has had just about every injury in the book). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

1) General adaptations: certain lower-body muscles will grow, your lungs will become more efficient at processing oxygen to fuel your muscles, your heart will become better at pumping blood to fuel your muscles. If you're doing this purely to build cardio, then be sure to get enough calories. In retrospect, when I began my running program, I took in far too few calories which ultimately caused me to decrease my muscle mass significantly.

2) It is controversial, but if I were to bet, I would claim that there are both populations and people who live in certain geographic areas that are more suited for running for long distances. At the population level, the controversial claim goes that East Africans have certain biological features that make them ideally suited (again, at the population level) for long distance running. This is accentuated by social and geographic factors. At the geographic level, any person who is born and lives a significant portion of their life in a region that has a high altitude will have lungs that are better at processing oxygen. If I remember correctly, any person who trains at higher altitudes will also become better at processing oxygen, but this benefit diminishes quickly compared to a person who was born and spent a significant amount of time there. If you want to read someone who advocates biological differences between populations (and their descendants) in relation to sport performance, then Taboo : Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It by Jon Entine and Earl Smith is worth reading.

3) As someone who began a similar program last year, I think your expected progress is unrealistic. I began running for say 30s then walk for a minute, repeat for 30 minutes. Next came run for 1min, walk for 1min; run for 1:30, walk for 1min; ... I began running at the end of July and by October I was running for the entire 30 minutes I allotted for cardio. Admittedly, I wasn't pushing myself to exhaustion every workout, so it is certainly possible to progress quicker than my pace, but the progress you posted seems unlikely. But nevertheless, good luck.--droptone (talk) 12:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

What's this bug?

I was playing with my new camera, and I came across a bug that I photographed. I wouldn't mind adding it to an article, but I'm not sure what kind of bug it is? Any ideas? [1] — Deon555^talk_{I'm BACK!} 12:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

edit: I thought it might have been a Dung beetle but it looks a little long and a little thin for that...? — Deon555^talk_{I'm BACK!} 12:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking it's either some sort of ground beetle or a scarab of the family scarabaeidae.130.127.99.54 (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

How would this one be for a match de:Datei:Stierkäfer (Typhoeus typhoeus) weiblich.jpg ?

76.97.245.5 (talk) 21:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks a bit like a mealworm beetle to me. Mikenorton (talk) 11:10, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

ok, the family is probably dermestidae but most are, as yet "undescribed". You may very well have just discovered a "new" species. If that is the case, than please feel free to name it after me.67.193.179.241 (talk) 16:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)Rana sylvatica

Incidentally, before adding that pic to an article you should crop it, so we just see the beetle and a small area around it. StuRat (talk) 16:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

origin of multi cellular species

if we just had simple single-celled organisms when life first 'originated' on earth, then how did the more complex multicellular organisms evolve form the single celled ones who couldn't reproduce sexually and produced exactly the same type of offspring when they did reproduce asexually?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.122.138 (talk) 12:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

See Evolution of multicellularity. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Coral, which reproduce both sexually and asexually, are an interesting "in-between" species. They are normally considered a single-celled organism, but they do form colonies, some with a fairly complex shape. If you continue this trend, with added specialization by individuals, you eventually get to multi-cellular life. StuRat (talk) 16:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not really that hard to imagine - after all, even we humans have a brief unicellular phase of our lives! But one really good thing to read is the life cycle of 'slime molds'. These are truly amazing. They spend parts of their lives as amoeba-like creatures that function like animals - independently moving and hunting bacteria - they reproduce sexually during that time. But then, they can group together to form colonies - (sometimes up to a meter across) which can flow like a gelatinous blob - moving and seeking food as a unit - other times behaving like small slug-like creatures up to a half centimeter long - effectively becoming large animals. Then under other pressures, they make plant-like stalks with fruiting bodies on the top - requiring the cells to become specialised as root, stem and fruit - meaning that you really can't consider them as individual cells anymore. These does more than blur the line between unicellular and multicellular - it also blurs the line between plant and animal, microscopic and macroscopic. Truly weird stuff. But this kind of primitive organism shows how cooperating unicellular creatures can benefit from acting in a multicellular way when stressed in particular ways - and that (in all likelyhood) is how modern multicellular animals and plants came about. SteveBaker (talk) 17:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

physics

why does electric dipole always start with a negative sign124.125.39.197 (talk) 17:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

See electric dipole moment, it is just a matter of convention. The negative sign arises because the vector is pointing in the opposite direction to the electric field vector (at a point on a line between two charges). SpinningSpark 18:20, 4 April 2009 (UTC)