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Main Contents
My contributions (well, some of them)
Why everyone should adopt the SI system
Alternative to the Big Bang theory
Mendeleyevian Mechanics
Countries I have visited

My name is Dirk van der Made and I live in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, to be precise). I've studied management and philosophy and my fields of interest are just about anything new (which is why Wikipedia is especially addictive to me), but specifically science, music and travelling.

I discovered Wikipedia in March 2005 and was instantly hooked. In the sense that it really has become an addiction.

I've toned down my activities at Wikipedia a bit to dig into my family history. Going ever further back in time (13 generations), my ancestors (mother's side) are:

Schunck, Cloot, Prickaerts, Küppers

Snoeck, Damoiseaux, Kroppenberg

de Hessele, Keybetz, Schiffers, Stassen, Thissen

Handels, Pluymaekers, Ramekers, Scheepers, Schins

Meens van Musschenbroek, Quadvlieg, Schönen, Latten, Bosch, Hameckers

Reuters, Schepers, Sinsteden, Rutzerveld, Biessels, Coninx

The oldest ancestor being Macarius Priccardus, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand-father, who must have been born around 1500.
If any of the those names appear in your family, let me know - we might be related. :)

I managed to almost completely break away from Wikipedia in May 2006, to start up a political party. But then the Dutch cabinet fell, and elections came too early for the party to participate, so I made a 'slight return', until the next project (see above) presented itself.

Here's my favourite section in Wikipedia, from the Babel fish article:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don't. Q.E.D."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

And here's another gem, linked to at the ref desk by Edison:

Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs and in front they have fore legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity. Therefore horses have an infinite number of legs.

[edit] Chestbeating

Some of the work I've done during my almost two years long addiction. This list is far from complete because I don't always think of putting a link here when I've written something. At the moment (26 March 2006) I've done about 5000 edits on 1200 pages ([2]). This number has risen considerably during the first months of 2006 because I had stopped waiting until the last moment to hit the 'save' button (in other words, I started doing intermediate saves).

[edit] Photographs

Wikipedia:Babel
nl Deze gebruiker spreekt Nederlands als moedertaal. li Dizze gebroeker haet Limburgs as modertaal. en-4 This user speaks English at a near-native level. de-3 Dieser Benutzer hat sehr gute Deutschkenntnisse. es-2 Este usuario puede contribuir con un nivel intermedio de español. fr-2 Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau intermédiaire en français. af-2 Hierdie gebruiker het 'n gemiddelde begrip van Afrikaans. id-1 Pengguna ini mampu bersumbangsih dengan bahasa Indonesia tingkat dasar. fy-1 It Frysk fan dizze brûker is minimaal. html-2 This user is an intermediate HTML user. sw-0 Mtumiaji huyu hasemi Kiswahili.
Search user languages

Photography has become a bit of a hobby of mine in the last few years, so I thought I'd upload some nice ones. I started this here at the English Wikipedia, on a subpage of my user page, but I restarted that on Wikimedia commons to make them directly accessible from any Wiki project. That is also a better selection and presentation. In the process I've created an online portfolio. Not necessarily of the best ones, just the better ones that I thought relevant for Wikipedia.

I've also created some stubs just to place my photos, such as National Park De Groote Peel.

[edit] Major article contributions

[edit] British Isles (terminology)

An article I wrote (well, started, anyway) that clarifies terms like (Great) Britain, the British Isles, the UK and England (and whether Ireland has anything to do with any of these), because that will be a mystery to many people and there is no comprehensive explanation in a single (obvious!) place. There have been several structural and other changes, but still about half the text is originally mine.

[edit] Schunck and Glaspaleis

An article I started on the warehouse that my greatgrandfather founded in Heerlen and the monumental 'Glass Palace' my grandfather built to house it. Originally one article, but someone split it, which made sense. Actually, the two articles have grown so much now that they could almost do with another split (each).
On 16 December 2006, 15 months after I started the articles, the Glaspaleis article got a rating of B class with high importance. I suppose the verifiablility of data will hamper a rise on the scale because my sources were largely in print, not from the web. At that moment it was still almost exclusively written by me, but that will probably change if others get to scrutinise it now that it's been tagged 'important'.

[edit] Valkenburg resistance

An article I started because my uncle was part of it and because it's a good example of how the resistance operated in the Netherlands during WWII. It's largely based on a story in Dutch on a site about my family (mother's side).

[edit] Corcovado National Park

This was a mere stub. I transformed it into a complete article because this magnificent park deserves it. I know what I'm talking about - I do a lot of 'tramping' (as Kiwis call it) and no other park comes anywhere near this one when it comes to watching spectacular wildlife.

[edit] SAIL Amsterdam

There was already a stub, but I changed that during the 2005 event, also putting in some photos like the one to the right here.

This event (and my general interest in sailing) inspired me to write more about (tall) ships. I created stubs on several ships (such as the Stad Amsterdam) and added to some existing articles, such as Batavia (ship).

[edit] Ship replica

An article I started after digging into the subject when writing the SAIL Amsterdam article (above).

[edit] Peace One Day

Another stub I made into a full article.

[edit] Black Tulip

An article I started, on an operation in the aftermath of the Second World War in the Netherlands.

[edit] SmILE

Since I consider climate change by far the biggest problem mankind faces, I should put more effort into researching that. I've made a start with this article on a showcase car demonstrating how a simple redesign of just one product, the car, could knock about 10% off the greenhouse gas emissions. (Car accidents are another major problem, with over 1 million deaths per year, so there's another project for me.)

[edit] Reference desk FAQ

By popular demand, a faq list for the reference desk. I encountered many questions that had been asked before there, so I already came up with the idea in the first half of 2006. When other people started requesting it too, I decided to give it a go. This might just turn into the biggest thing I started on Wikipedia. A month later, no one else has done any work on it, though, not even the one who specifically asked for it (lazy bastard).

[edit] Hiking equipment

An article I started. Basically a list. I plan to do more editing on the subjects of hiking and travelling.

[edit] Other article contributions

Also an overview of my interrest, so really an introduction to me. The links in bold are roughly the ones where I've done most work (don't expect too much - most of my work is spread over loads of articles - a bit here, a bit there).

I travel a lot, which of course causes a specific interest in countries I've been to. Especially those of my last trip, to Cuba, Costa Rica and Panamá. See for example Monteverde and Baracoa, which were still stubs.
Alas the articles concerning Cuba sometimes give me a headache due to the controversies. An exceptionally long one is at Talk:Cult of personality about whether, and, if so, how, Fidel Castro should be mentioned. This automatically led me to articles on Communism, such as Communist state (and whether that term is an oxymoron). I have for now moved largely away from those articles, effectively letting the 'other side' 'win' by default. The effect on my total output is considerable. Finally I find time to really add info (without seeing it reverted within a day)!
One Cuba-related article I started is Vieja Trova Santiaguera, which is sufficiently uncontroversial not to have led to any reverts (actually, there haven't been any other edits at all). It also reflects my interrest in music, a field in which I'd like to contribute more.

Travelling has also inspired a more general interest in geography. That combined with a tendency to address things structurally and historically/etymologically correct has led me to do a somewhat controversial rewrite of the Western Hemisphere article.

Related to the above is my rather cocky attitude towards the meaning of America/the Americas and Football ('soccer' is of course one of the ugliest words in the English language :) ).

Being from Amsterdam I've also worked on articles relating to that city and the Netherlands, including History of the Netherlands' and Maastricht, the city in which I grew up.
And also related to the Netherlands are Curaçao (where I was born) and Indonesia (another country I've visited), which in turn led me to the Dayaks (of whom I've made a bit of a study in the early 1990's while panning a crossing of Borneo).
I created the stubs on the Peel, a region in the Netherlands and the National Park Groote Peel (both just to have somewhere to put some nice photographs :) ).
The Dutch (and original!) version of Santa Claus is Sinterklaas, so I made a point of pointing that out.
Being from Amsterdam of course I couldn't help having my say about cannabis and related subjects.
After hearing some very interesting stuff about Dutch history (we were close to a revolution!) I've added that info to Pieter Jelles Troelstra. I am now finding out that there were several similar (communist/anarchist) rebellions in Europe at the time, something I'd like to dig into further.

I've translated some articles from other languages (especially Dutch), such as the ones on Sociocracy and Nuna (the latter of which was really a matter of national pride, something of which you'll otherwise always hear me deny having any :) ).

Wasting way too much time watching movies, I wrote stubs on some that I saw, like Der Tunnel, Hiroshima (film) and Fidel (film). I expanded the stubs on Sir! No Sir! and Balseros and out of a nostalgic interrest also the one on Floris (TV series) (the first acting job of Rutger Hauer).

Being a categorisation-freak I can't leave disambiguation pages alone.

I somehow got caught up in the God article (God knows how). Luckily I managed to break away from that. Religious discussions must be the least productive type of discussion imaginable (and I've studied philosophy, so I've heard some bullshit in my lifetime :) ).

And then there are of course loads of other minor contributions, of which I will just mention 911 as an oddity because of the asserted numerological assumption that the fact that some attack took place 912 days after some other attacks is in some way worth mentioning because the first attacks took place on 11-9 (little endian). Which it isn't. But then those who think it is turned out to be more adamant than me.

Talk:Dollar voting shows an attempt at setting up a theory on Dollar voting (that article is just a stub at the moment). I had put a link in the article to the talk page, but someone removed that. So now nothing links to it. Except for this - as if anyone's going to notice :( . Ah well, that taught me not to put time into original research.

Two more of the many stubs I've created:
Kees Boeke
User:DirkvdM/World politics overview This is a project I started to give an overview of world politics (coalitions and such). Nothing much yet, but I have big plans. Then again, I have many big plans and only one life. :)

The last decade or so, I've started to realise more and more how indoctrinated I have been by my upbringing. My travels have a lot to do with that, but it struck me most when I saw a list of firsts in space and noticed that during the first decade, the USA achieved next to nothing compared to the USSR. Yet, I grew up believing the lie that the US had won the space race by putting a man on the Moon. And this despite the fact that I was very interrested in astronomy and the like when I was a kid and have always had a very critical look at things. Knowing that, I now realise why most people (even intelligent ones) are so close-minded and ready to go to war against other cultures, simply because they are different. Anyway, I decided to counter the bias at the space exploration article, starting with the list of firsts, which lacked about half the achievements of the USSR space programme.

[edit] Reference Desk

In September 2005 I discovered the fun of the Science Reference Desk, which meant I really didn't have time for anything else anymore (though with some effort I still managed to eat and sleep :) ). But it paid off, as the two barnstars show (I even helped someone pass an exam). I suppose I need to spend more time in one place in stead of jumping from article to article, to get more of these. :)
Alas, in november 2006 someone started deleting posts he didn't like and even got support from admins who didn't know what they were talking about, while the opponents couldn't get their act (protest) together. Since then, the ref desk isn't fun anymore because everyone is scared their post might be deleted if it contains humour. I WILL NOT BE GAGGED. So I left the ref desk. (Effectively gagging myself.)

To give an idea of the sort of thing that would disappear, here's a fine example of what kept me coming back to the ref desk, from a question about whether it is safe to swallow a pen (the things people ask :) ):

WORST JOKE: A boy swallowed a counterfeit coin. After a few days he died. Reason? He couldn't pass it. Edison 19:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

BETTER JOKE: A boy swallowed a silver dollar and was sent to the hospital for observation. When his parents inquired as to his condition, the doctor responded "no change yet". StuRat 23:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

BETTERER JOKE: A boy took a medical exam. To the last question he wrote "no change yet." He couldn't pass it, and died. — [Mac Davis] (talk)

There is also more useful stuff there too, though, such as the following remark:

In countries where people are not rich, the valued thing is the ability for you and your children to survive, not freedom. [...] Almost every country where democracy works the people are all already living in acceptable condiditions when the democracy is installed. (by Philc)

I've also made a selection of The Best Of The Ref Desk, but that was growing a bit large, so I put it on a separate page. The following are the 'best of the best' (that's biased POV OR and all that, but hey, this is my page :) ):

• Free markets - pro or con: my ideal economic politics in a nutshell.
• Need help urgently: Contains a little rant by me about the uselessness of manned space exploration (the second half).
• Football(soccer): Football ... and while I'm at it ... America.
• Time dimensions: does 'time squared' imply a second temporal dimension?
• USA success - some food for thought on international division of wealth, especially the first half.
• The square root of France: An exquisite bit of nonsense.
• Daily Death rates of US soldiers: Not all that special, really just about my last observation, comparing the relative death tolls of WWII (3.17%), US in Vietnam (5-10%), the US in Iraq (2.3% and counting) and the Dutch politionele acties (0.15%). Shame-wise, I'd rather be Dutch than USian.
• Terrorists : A educative analysis by Marco Polo of the Middle East and Al Qaeda, which inspired me to make some astute obsevations too. After that the thread degenerated to bickering, but that can be interesting too at times.
• Spacetime: An interresting view of spacetime, with motion and time being interchangeable.
• Turkey Pop Out: The odd naming of turkeys in different languages. This answer (by me) was used in the christmas 2006 edition of QI, a quiz that appears to make ample use of the ref desk because topics there happen to pop up in the quiz a bit later surprisingly often.

Another fun place should be Wikipedia:Department of Fun. I have yet to explore that.

[edit] Some thoughts on Wikipedia (just two so far)

I've also developed more general ideas over how things should be done in WikiWorld. For example, I'm a bit of a Don Quijote when it comes to pov and bias in articles. Such as the use of a word like 'regime' for some governments but not for others. I suggest dropping the word altogether in all articles to solve this. But the discussion at talk:Regime didn't get very far (or rather it got bogged down in details).

An other idea would be a fact sheet for each article, in which the basic facts to be presented in the article could be placed, not in the form of prose (as in the article) but as a simple listing. This could then also contain information that has not yet entered the article or has been removed from it, with a link to any discussions about it (the term fact sheet might not be quite right in this light, though). The article could then have just the undisputed text, maybe with a new type of link (eg in green) to the fact sheet where applicable.
All that is disputed could then be removed from the article, but still be accessible in a 'simple' overview without having to search through the talk page (or even the archives and the article history).
The reason for this idea is that some articles (eg Cuba) suffer from constant reverts. Many editors there are very opinionated and will add any 'info' (or twisted interpretation of it) that suits them. Which in turn inspires others who disagree to take a stronger opposing view. The result is that editors overload an article with so much info it can't all be checked, so they start reverting anything that looks suspicious. This will put off neutral editors, so they'll invest their energy elsewhere, leaving the article to the pitbulls.
A further step could be the use of moderators who are the only ones who can change the article, based on what happens on the talk page and the fact sheet. These would have to be people who have proven to be politically neutral (which is a tough one) and willing to put enough time into the article. An incentive for this would be that what they do will not run the risk of getting instantly reverted and they'll make more of a difference compared to the alternative situation.

I have already developed some more ideas in this area, on how to combat the shortcomings of Wikipedia, but before I got around to writing them down here, something new arose:

http://www.citizendium.org/

Cool! Have to check this out.

[edit] Physics

[edit] SI system

Note that I use the comma as the decimal separator, as indicated by the SI system

There is a lot of misunderstanding about the SI system (also erroneously referred to as the metric system), so I decided to put my frequent explanation here for easy referral.

Why everyone should adopt the SI system.

One reason is standardisation. Using different units of measurement once crashed a spacecraft (the Mars Climate Orbiter). So it makes sense to all use the same units. Next question is who should adapt. Two arguments here.

Firstly, the SI system is much simpler

1. There is just one basic unit per quantity.
2. Other units for the same quantity can be formed in a way that is the same for all units (milli, kilo, and such).
3. All these prefixes are base 10, which is also the base for our decimal numbering system (decimal means base 10).

Three very good reasons I'd say. The imperial system is a hotchpotch of units which don't seem to be related at all. Why have inches, thumbs, feet and miles (and different miles too, to complicate matters even further) if you just want to express one quantity, length? Some opponents in the UK use the argument that the imperial units are better for brain development because they are so complicated. :) And the imperial system can't even make up it's mind about which base to use. Sometimes it seems to be 6 or 12 base (1 foot is 12 inch), but not quite always and the ratio between some is just absurd (1 mile is 5280 feet - what kind of number is that?).

The other argument is that almost everyone except the US uses the SI system. Hell, even China has adopted it and the UK is trying, albeit a bit half-heartedly. New Zealand did it much better. They totally switched from one day to the next. A bit of a slap in the face, but because it is such a logical set of rules it made more sense. An SI unit is not just another unit. It's part of a whole.

[edit] Time

That said, there is one quantity that is a pain in the bottom. Time. The SI unit is the second. But in everyday life we also need the units 'day' and year' because they are entities we can't ignore. Fair enough, but it does complicate matters. That there are 365,24 days in a year is something that can't be helped. But 86.400 seconds in one day? In contrast to the day and the year we define the second. So why not make it 1/100.000 of a day? That would make it slightly shorter. So what? We could then have, say, 100 seconds in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour and 10 hours in one day. That would already be a major improvement (which would also get rid of the 24 vs 2x12 hour per day confusion). But why not follow the SI logic through, here? Take the unavoidable day, make that the SI unit and take it from there. You'd then get millidays (about 86 seconds, roughly a minute) and microdays and such. There would be nothing like the second (there is no prefix for 1/100.000) but is that really so bad?

But if all that weren't bad enough, these units are sometimes mixed in the same unit. Something like kWh/yr sends shivers down my spine. A Watt is J/s. So first you divide by seconds, then multiply by hours and then divide by years again. Aaaarghhhh! And for some mysterious reason Wh is always used in thousands (kWh). For conversion purposes:

• 1 Wh = 3600 J

so 1 kWh = 3,6 · 10⁶ J (= 3600 kJ = 3,6 MJ)

• 1 Wh/yr = 0,114 W

so 1 kWh/yr = 114 W

What's wrong with plain Watts? I bet some economist came up with the idea of the kWh/yr. (Economists don't seem to understand real science.)

Then there's the issue of how the year is carved up. Why 7 days in a week? (Religious discrimination is no argument.) And months take it one step further by being of uneven length, oh horror. Following the SI logic, we'd get something like kilodays (just under 3 years), but that won't work. A decaday (10 days for the SI illiterates among you - nothing decadent about it :) ) could replace the week. We could then have 7 workdays with a 3-day weekend (2/7 is 0,28, and here we get 0,3 free days, so that's about the same). And 36 decadays (6x6, not too bad) with 5 days off at the start or end of the year (or 6 days during a leap year, which is also unavoidable). And of course the year should start on a more logical day, like an equinox or solistice. Just my 2 bit. Not ideal, but a whole lot better. And also better than the French Republican Calendar, which was invented by an obvious nutcase.

Yet another issue is how to write a date (if one is to stick to months and such). The little endian dd-mm-yyyy makes more sense than the middle endian mm-dd-yyyy because it consistently goes from small to big. But our numbering system is big endian. For example, the year 1985 really means '2 milennia (kiloyears), 9 centuries (hectoyears), 8 decades (decayears) and 5 years'. So it makes most sense to continue from left to right with months and days: YYYY-MM-DD.
Of course, it would be mch simpler to drop the months and write YYYY-DDD. The first 'D' would then stand for the hectodays, the second one for the decadays and the third one for the days.

Oh, and then there's the issue of there not being a year zero, which is also pretty stupid, but at least that hardly ever poses a problem. Then again, while we're at it, we might as well resolve that too. And if we have to use some year as year zero it might as well be the alledged birthyear of Jesus, because there is no absolute year zero (except maybe for the Big Bang, but see below) and most people will be used to it. And then follow that through logically. The year before that would be -1. To make clear this is a year it could be called y-1 (the way y2k stands for the year 2000). This year could then be y+2006, but the plus sign might as well be dropped, so it would be y2006.

Note that this 'y' stands before the number, not after it, as is common with units. But this is not the unit of time, but a time-reference (or what should I call that?). It is also pronounced as 'the year 2006'. Then again, there is one unit (or a bunch of them really - another mess) that is usually placed before the number, money. Yet, it is pronounced the other way around - € 10 is pronounced correctly as '42 euro', just written the wrong way around. Why? We're dealing with economists again, here. :(

And of course, the defined unit of mass should be prefixed (kilogram). Or in the other SI system (CGS), the defined unit of length should be prefixed (centimeter). Just an old rant. And don't get me started on the absence of the standardized Neper, standardized binary prefixes (draft, not adopted), the wild hodgepodge of radiation-related units (Gray, Becquerel, et al.), and so on. Beyond that, SI is almost useful. -- Fuzzyeric 23:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

No, no. No basic unit should be prefixed, because else they wouldn't be basic units. Also, the basic units should be 'human', and kg and m are just fine in that respect. But then there should be a non-prefixed unit of mass. But do I get your point? DirkvdM 06:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative to the Big Bang theory

On 24 September 2005 I placed the following on the science reference desk. I should get into the subject a bit more to support the theory, but this is a start. Normally I reserve this page for my use only, but if you want to comment on this feel free to do so below.
(For the original thread view source.)

I've long had an alternative to the Big Bang theory, which surfaced when I gave an answer to Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#A_Variable_Speed_of_Light hereabove. I'm very much a layman when it comes to this field, but I made a prediction that went against the accepted theories but turned out to be correct, which is a bit of a theoretician's wet dream :) . So I now venture to put this theory before you. Here goes.

As a kid I heard the expanding universe explained as a balloon with dots on it. On that everything moves away from everything else, which is exactly what we observe in the universe. But then I wondered, how do you know a balloon expands? My thought was that you know that because the only alternative is that the room you're in (and everything else) is getting smaller. Which would be silly. The simplest solution is held to be true, which is that the balloon expands. But for the universe there are (by definition) no surroundings to compare with. There is no reference frame, so one has to assume the size of of the universe is given. I couldn't think of a solution then.

But later I realised that you can also compare the sizes of the universe and everything in it. If the size of the universe is given then the stars and such must be getting smaller. Hmmm, stuck again.

Later still I imagined falling into a black hole. I was supposed to get stretched out. But that's seen from the framework of an outside observer. For me, I'm part of the spatial framework that gets expanded. Also, time gets ever slower form the perspective of the outside observer, but, again, I live in that timeframe, so from my perspective it will take me forever to fall into the black hole. So for me nothing changes (right?). Except that I see everything around me moving away from me. Hold on, I thought, couldn't that explain the aforementioned phenomenon? What if we are caught in a collapsing (part of the) universe? But then I realised that as things are further away they will accelerate away ever faster. And acceleration is not what happened, right? Stuck again.

Until a few years ago someone (Riess or Perlmutter?) discovered that exactly that is the case. When I heard of this I jumped out of my chair. After the initial enthusiasm I didn't know how to present this idea. No-one would take me seriously. Now, finally, I've found a place where knowledgeable people might be bothered to hear me out. So. Any thoughts on this?

By the way, I don't necessarily suggest we're falling into a black hole. I suppose being attracted to anything sizeable enough will have a similar effect. And since everything is attracted to everything else there might not have to be anything special going on. Though if it's that simple I find it unlikely no-one will have thought of this before. Or have they?

Also, as for the other two bases for the Big Bang theory, I don't have an explanation for the background radiation. The abundance of light elements suggests a fairly 'young' universe, which would still be possible if we're in the middle of the Big Crunch. DirkvdM 09:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

There are two problems with the local attraction hypothesis for expansion. The first is that this would produce an asymmetry in the microwave background radiation. The dipole component would be huge.

The effect of nearby gravitational attraction doesn't produce recession in all directions. The classic description is the tidal deformation. Imagine a circle of test masses, with the circle's diameter on the line of attraction. The test masses "above" and "below" the center recede away. The test masses perpendicular move inward. (They have the same downward acceleration as a test mass at the center, but they have a small inward acceleration becuase they lie on different attraction rays -- and all the rays of attraction get close together, converging at the center of the attractor). Thus, the attraction hypothesis would show nearby objects receding on one axis and approaching on the perpendicular plane.

This is precisely what happens with the Earth's tides and is why there are two high tides and two low tides simultaneously (at different places). -- Fuzzyeric

[edit] Mendeleyevian Mechanics

SI (derived) units using kg, m and s
mass	kg
length	m
time	s
area	m2
volume	m3
Polar moment of inertia	m4
frequency	/s
speed	m/s
acceleration	m/s2
jerk	m/s3
kinematic viscosity	m2/s
specific energy	m2/s2
absorbed dose rate	m2/s3
volumetric flow rate	m3/s
momentum	kg.m/s
force	kg.m/s2
yank	kg.m/s3
angular momentum	kg.m2/s
energy	kg.m2/s2
power	kg.m2/s3
surface tension	kg/s2
irradiance	kg/s3
dynamic viscosity	kg/ms
pressure	kg/m.s2

This table shows the derived SI units that use the basic units kg, m and s, expressed in just those units and not other units like Newton, because I feel that that should give more insight in what these units mean (assuming kg, m and s are the 'real' basic units of mechanics).

I wonder what Mendeleyev would have made of this. There is a certain logic to the way it is built up, with usually the kg and m above the divisor and the s below it. But there are some missing, most notably kg.m/s³. And only one derived unit uses m³ in conjuction with the other two.

I also wonder what a philosopher might make of this. Why is the table almost complete for mass and length above the divisor and time below it? What is so special about that? Do we maybe have an inverse view of time (whatever that means)? Would thinking in terms of frequency in stead of time give us a better insight into the Universe?

According to the SI derived unit article there are just a few units that have mass below the divisor, three in electricity, plus specific volume: m³/kg. And mass is never used with another power. So kg² has no meaning? I can indeed not imagine what it would mnean. Length to the powers 1, 2 and 3 are clear and used a lot (although the third power not in all possible combinations). And I 'know' what those mean. But what is time to the power 2 or 3? Once again (see above) time is the problematic one. Should I be able to grasp what these mean to get a true understanding of reality?

Still working on this .....

I asked a preliminary question about the meaning of time-exponents and dimensions at the science ref desk on 3 september 2006, which raised some issues, but didn't quite end with a satisfactory conclusion (for me). I assumed that m² indicated a second spatial dimension, but that was disputed. I further assumed that the same mathematical equation should always have the same meaning, so s² should indicate a second temporal dimension, but it was pointed out that the units are essentially different, ie one can not go back in time. Or, better put (I suppose), time is directional, while length isn't.

If you have any useful input, please add it here.

Well, the units of heat capacity are cal/g.K.

You missed "yank": m/s^4.

That's kg.m/s³, but thanks, I've added it now.

In almost every usage, s^x, x>1 come about by differentiation. Differentiation is about ratios of things, so multiple differentiation is about stacked ratios. Acceleration is m/s^2 when the fraction is simplified, but is found in the for (m/s)/s as d/dt(d/dt(position)). d/dt(position) is "change in position per change in time", which is delta-meters/delta-seconds and has units m/s. d/dt(d/dt(position)) is "change in velocity per change in time" which is delta-(delta-meters/delta-second)/delta-seconds and has units (m/s)/s. Taking the derivatives is not multiplicative, so simplifying the units to m/s^2 is technically erroneous, but is not confusing becuase time doesn't enter into the equations of mechanics in any way except differentiation.

I tend to point to the example of heat conduction, which is in units of W/m.K which is a completely unhelpful way to write (W/m^2)(1/(K/m)) which we can actually see is the power transferred through an area as a function of the thermal gradient. In this case, the meters in K/m are introduced by a derivative, so it is technically incorrect to cancel them with the m^2 which is a bona fide area (and doing so is confusing). There's also a hidden derivative in the Watts: d/dt(Joules) and a bunch of subsequent derivatives in the J = N.m, N = kg.d/dt(d/dt(displacement)).

In a very fundamental way, units introduced by differentiation are different from units introduced by extension (i.e., a measurement of a non-zero, non-limiting, non-infinite property of some real thing). -- Fuzzyeric 23:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Fuzzyeric: Why do you say "technically erroneous"? The units are constants, so — Sebastian (talk) 09:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe Mendeleyev would have reduced this to 2 dimensions by setting a natural constant, such as the speed of light, to 1. Interestingly, when you do this with the gravitation constant, you get a numerator of kg² for the force between two bodies. — Sebastian (talk) 09:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quite Interesting

• Miguel Nicolelis: taught a monkey how to control a computer game purely through thought. A first step towards immortality. The second step would be letting information go the other way as well, ultimately leading to the mind spreading into the machine, so that when the wetware dies, the mind lives on (apart from a minor stroke). The idea that 'fairly soon' we might be able to achieve immortality is quite thrilling, to put it mildly. Imagine dying just before 'we have the technology'. Damn! Then again, if it works and religious believers are right, just imagine the fun they have sitting up there in heaven, looking down upon the idiots who condemned themselves to eternal life on Earth. Damned! (literally) There's no winning this, is there?
• Transhumanism: Related to the above. But the article refers to mind uploading and not a mind merger with a computer, as I envision (a bit more like Spock's trick). The problem with uploading your mind is that all you get is a copy of yourself and when the original dies, the copy may live on, but you are still dead. And where's the fun in that?
• Pykrete appears to be quite amazing stuff. And it's simple to make they say, so I should give it a go.
• Mantis_shrimp#The_eyes: the best eyes in the animal kingdom.
• a nice aid for visualising the fourth dimension, using a hypercube.
• http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm : Wikipedia statistics.
• http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Campaigns_Wikia : A Politics Wiki (alas with ads), where I operate under the name Dirk, the same name I use for my own political party, the Information Party (in Dutch), which has (information) technology and climate change as its main topics.
• Required reading for budding politicians
• User:Walter_Humala : How does he do all that? (censored, emperor.) Still need to check that out.
• And of course the links in the title are also Quite Interesting.

[edit] Fuel efficiency

This is a subject I want to delve into, but here is already a good rule of thumb for the fuel efficiency of cars (from Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Fuel consumption on 16 October 2006):
Power(t) = M * A(t) * V(t)
So fuel consumption is mostly dependent on mass, acceleration and speed. So a nervous SUV driver would consume many times over what the driver of a normal car using cruise control would consume. I just wonder about the speed bit. Too low a speed (below 80 km/h) is supposed not to be too fuel efficient either.

[edit] Countries I have visited

Mostly in chronological order (based on the first visit).

Birthplace and residence
Loads of short trips in Europe with family and friends (usually a week or two per trip)
Organised trip through Africa in a truck (half a year)
Various solo-trips (for a total of 2.5 years)

Note that I merely passed through Switzerland, Italy, Luxembourg, Wales, Northern Ireland and the USSR (in the USSR I never even left the airport :) ). I also merely passed through Australia, but that took me two months because the country is so bloody big!
The countries I visited most are Belgium (I grew up near the border), Denmark (more than 10 visits to the Roskilde festival) and Spain (several holidays).
The countries I spent most time in (apart from Curaçao and the Netherlands) are Indonesia and New Zealand (about three months each). Despite the distance, I visited New Zealand twice because it is one of the most beautiful countries on Earth. Other countries I want to re-visit are Indonesia (if only because I bothered to learn the language :) ), Cuba (because it is so completely different and for the music) and Costa Rica (another one of the most beautiful countries on Earth, although Panama is not that much different). I also want to visit Southern Africa (including Madagascar) one day. If I ever wanted to go to a really remote place, Pitcairn or North Sentinel Island might be a good option (but possibly a bad idea).