Posts filed under 'Movies'
So today, having a fever, I took a bath. Having recently seen the movie Pi, where Sol paraphrases the story, and possible as a result of my feverish condition, I began to ponder the Archimedes principle of displacement. The quote from Pi goes:
“The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he’s received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks – insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife – she’s forced to share a bed with this genius – convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he’s entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that’s a way to determine density – weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams ‘Eureka’ and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king’s palace to report his discovery.” (Sol’s point is that Max needs to ‘take a bath’ to solve his problem, but this quote spurred my interest, apparently)
Not remembering the quote exactly, I seemed to remember something about weight, and claims being made that the amount of water displaced were somehow related to the weight of the object, but I couldn’t get it to make sense that anything but the volume of the object would determine how much water it would displace. Enter google: Search archimedes gold displacement.
It seems reasonable to go from the top, and this site is on a .gov domain, carries the emblem of the US department of energy, so it seams at a 10-second glance to have some reliability. While, when reading it again, the scientists answering do not appear to give any outright wrong information, they don’t at all seem to convey the essence of the story. And when initially reading it, I strongly got the sense that some of them were arguing for a heavier object displacing more water than a lighter object (of the same volume).
Right, let’s try link 2: Now, suddenly, the crown under inspection could be partly silver instead of iron (as claimed by the first site), and this site is more or less about posing a critique against the method anyways, ending up suggesting a setup with scales, reminding me of the epic scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Sir Bevedere goes ‘we shall use my largest scales’.
Browsing through the google-list once again, my eye caught (after having discarded link three as relatively unuseful for my purposes) a debate at ‘Science forums’. This debate again reminded me of the debate preceding the use of Sir Bedevere’s largest scales in the forementioned movie. A guy called Vexer seems determined not to get it, and during a full 2-page discussion seems to hold that the water displaced has to do with weight and not volume.
While scrolling down the list further, my eyes catch something most welcome: What looks like an authoritative source indeed – the Encyclopædia Britannica in it’s very person (the linked page was followed through a couple of additional links). However, my rejoicing is short, since you can read about 5 seconds off that page, before a nag screen pops up asking you to register. So I took a screenshot of the info and read it at my leasure. It seems that indeed, the volume of water (or any fluid for that matter) displaced by a fully immersed object is – dam dam dam – the volume of that object; irrespectable of its weight I might add (while it is of course true that the upward force has to do with the weight of the object, and so becomes relevant for determining to what degree the object will be immersed). Which incidently is the same conclusion found (albeit in even more understandable terms) at Wikipedia. Which adds another point to the trustworthiness of Wikipedia.
So I’m happy; I got confirmed what I initially thought to be true (which raises again another set of questions on the biasedness of my inquiry). However, what’s the point of writing it here, or, as one of my lecturers like to reiterate, ’so what?’
I had a chat with my dad yesterday evening about postmodernism and the pluralistic society in which we live. He thought much of it had come from technology (perhaps somewhat like Lyotard). And I was reluctant to accept that (there must be more). However, as this little exercise confirms, on any given topic – even the ones we consider to be very established and universally true – we can find a host of both confusing, opposing, and confirming information, since anyone with a keyboard and Internet access can contribute even further to the confusion (you and me both).
I think my dad said something about how it used to be simpler. I agree. Maybe I’m missing a bit of that simplicity, even though I’ve never experienced it, or rather, I’ve probably experienced it growing up, since as a child, you tend to trust your authorities much more. I don’t think I’d like to go back though.
And even further, within especially religious communities, there tend to be those groups who view everything as being very simple. I am envious. However, I find it difficult to go back. And yet I agree. It is very simple. But perhaps simplicity is about choice, and that choice starts out with examination. And entails inspection. And then perhaps in the process, we learn which voices to ignore and which to include.
februar 1st, 2009
Just watched the not-quite-as-excellent as the Indiana Jones movie we watched earlier in the evening, though still enjoyable, movie, ‘The Fighting Temptations’, while sitting at my computer, being a good boy and drinking the feelgood drinks company’s ‘gorgeous’ cloudy lemon juice drink, while my friends were eating Ben & Jerry’s 
A moment in the film made me pause and go into blog-admin mode: (boy and girl standing just having kissed, in kind of a pausing moment)
She: “Experience has taught me that fighting temptation makes you strong”
He: “Yes, but the problem with fighting temptation is that you might never get the chance again”
She (smiling): “Oh, yea of little faith”
maj 26th, 2008
Getting out of the metro today, while taking the escalator up to the surface, I got a glimpse of a little goodbye scene. A woman was smiling, crying, waving at her family; four persons standing outside by a pram and waving back.
I instantly got a flashback to the opening scene of ‘Love Actually’:
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion love actually is all around.”
maj 25th, 2008
Today, as I was walking early in the morning around Newbold, I had a real Lion King moment.
I looked to the field, saw 4 deer standing, and found myself going: ‘Nants ingonyama bagithi baba’
And just as in the movie (where I think it’s an antelope or zebra, but still), one of the deer raised its head and looked towards me.
So I kept going: ‘Ingonyama Ingonyama nengw’ enamabaal’ (which I’ve just now discovered mean ‘it’s a lion and a tiger’)
And suddenly I felt the sun rising to my right, and surely, when I looked, there it was. Admittedly, the little red dot was not as impressive as the African sunrise depicted in Lion King, but still.
It was my Lion King moment
april 23rd, 2008
Yesterday, I went with a group of people after church to grab some food and see a movie.
After the great Indian food, and the for some unexpected conversations, we went to see the movie 10,000 BC (which is actually the main theme of this blog-post).
The movie is directed by the same director who brought us ‘Independence Day’ and ‘The Day after Tomorrow’, and based on this, the expectations should be quite high. On the other hand, I had seen the trailer, and thought the concept really did not seem that interesting, so my expectations were not high.
I am glad to bring you an excerpt from the movie in action:
‘Tic-Tic, can I have the white spear?’
‘No, d’Leh, you cannot have the white spear, only the worthy warrior may possess the great white spear’
‘I now have killed the great nadal [or something similar - it's a mammoth], and claim the white spear, and my woman, Evolet’
‘Okay, now you may have the white spear’
‘But I did not really kill the nadal, it only fell on my spear’
‘Then you must return the white spear to me; it is not the way of the yagal to come dishonorably to the white spear’
‘Oh no, the four-legged creatures are coming [i.e. horsemen]‘
‘They have taken Evolet!’
‘You are the chosen one, who speaks to the Spear-tooth; you must lead our people to the mountain of the gods and free our family and friends’
‘Okay, let’s go’
‘Oh no, the great birds have arrived and have just left with all our loved ones [the birds were actually ships, but hey]‘
‘where does this river go?’
‘It moves like a snake in the sand’
‘Where is the head of the snake’
‘The head of the snake is fixed in the night, but moves during the day’
‘We will find the head of the snake!’
‘Oh no, we’re lost; we will never find the head of the snake’
‘Now I remember. The star, I told Evolet she would always be fixed in my heart like the light in the sky – let’s go this way! [the north-star of course]‘
‘We have found the head of the snake!’
‘How can we overcome them? They are so many?’
‘The one of the three, who is left, fears only one thing – the hunter with the mark of the star – do you have the mark of the star?’
‘No, I don’t’
‘Then you are not the one – by the way, I knew your father’
‘She has the mark of the star!!!’
‘How can they do such a thing to father nadal?’
‘We must find the lead bull’
‘Oh, no, the slaves are rebelling as well, what can we do?’
‘Take her outside and sacrifice her’
‘You can have your woman if you take her and go in peace’
‘Yes, I will take the deal – tell him I will take the deal’
‘No! (I will not take the deal)’
‘If I can’t have her, you can’t have her either!’
‘He killed Evolet!’
‘And as great mother drew her last breath, she gave it to Evolet’
‘She is not dead at all!’
‘Now, I have both the great white spear, my woman Evolet, and a bunch of new friends from many places around the world’
I may be exaggerating just a bit – the action wasn’t that simplistic. Or, come to think of it, it almost was. Not the finest piece of artwork made. It was as if the film tried to ascend to heights of epic movies like Lord of the Rings and the like, but just could not get there. It was painful to feel how it strove to create grandeur, but just didn’t make it.
On the bright side, the soundtrack was good I was originally intending to call the blog-post ‘What a great waste of time’, but in the end, the evening was all a good experience. Hanging out with good friends. Eating good Indian food. Desserts eaten in a rush (even if it was cleared away before I could finish it ). Luckily sitting next to someone who couldn’t take the film seriously either, which made it a whole lot easier – actually being able to laugh openly during those great moments 
Ah, well, you should’ve been there
marts 16th, 2008