How does gravity work?

Little is know about gravity.  Gravity is much like a mob boss.  You can see the effects around you, but it is hard to figure out exactly who or what is behind it.  Carrying the analogy further they are also both illegal.  For example, a mob boss kills people (well he just calls the hits; so lets say mob bosses commit tax evasion, that one will stick).  Gravity on the other hand is  in clear violation of the laws of thermodynamics. 

I could find no clues as to who Mr. Thermodynamic was, but I will call him Joe.  One of Joe's laws is the conservation of energy.  This law says that energy can't just come from nowhere.  Joe evidently was a democrat and realized that this law was essential to give the government the ability tax us hard working people for making use of gravity. 

After "The Law of Conservation of Energy" passed, gravity stuck it to the man and continued to give it's energy away for free.  Gravity has been using energy to accelerate mass everywhere at varying rates; at the surface of the earth the rate is about 9.81 m/s^2.  In fact gravity's energy distribution model appears to have no identifiable source, and yet it never wavers.  (I wonder what a rolling gravitational black out would look like on the 6 0'clock news, but I guess we would never know unless it somehow affected Paris Hilton.)

Anyway, based on observations there is no known other source of energy to cause this force and the earth is not loosing any mass to generate the energy needed for this gravitational acceleration.  The actual mass loss needed to fuel gravity can be calculated using Einsteins equation F=ma, or was it e=mc^2; well, odds are you would need them both to get the answer, might even need this one F=M1*M2/d^2.  Theres more if you need them, I've got plenty. 

Black holes ( if they exist) are an interesting case study for this point.  The more gravitational energy they exert, the faster they should lose weight.  Black holes can never form as a result if you are willing to fudge some numbers.  So what is the super dense thing at the center of the galaxy, my bet is its a politician, or even a bunch of them.  A galactic congress could fit...

We may never know how gravity works, but until the laws change, we assume it is working here illegally. 


Note.  Rumor has it that President G.W. Bush of the U.S.A. had plans drawn up to attack Nature so the US could claim sovereignty and rewrite the laws of nature, or at least install a democracy.  However, after failing to find it on a map, Iraq was targeted instead.  As a result the price of  gravity is the same, and gas sells for over $3.00 per gallon.  And people say the war is a bad thing, just imagine what might have happened if he had found the primary target.

Why can't I buy cashews in the shell, only as mixed nuts?

Several things first.  First, if you look hard, you should be able to find cans of just cashews.  Second, cashews aren't real nuts, same for peanuts; actually most of the 'nuts' we ear are not really nuts, such as almonds, Brazil nuts, pistachios, macadamias, and coconuts.  Third, cashews are not like water, they are bad eggs or nuts, but not real nuts; cashews are bad and they will kill you.  Well, maybe not kill you, but it could give you a mighty rash. 

You see, the cashew fruit contains a caustic phenolic resin, urushio.   This is the same irritating material found in poison oak, poison ivy, and mothers-in-law.  The seeds need to be removed carefully to avoid exposure to this vile substance.  This is referred to as habilitating the cashew.  Originally it was called rehabilitating, but the botanists decided it couldn't be rehabilitated if it had never been habilitated in the first place.

So, next time you pop open a can of mixed nuts to pick out just the cashews, give a moments pause to thank all the little people, mostly 8-12 yr. old boys and girls working 16 hour days for unlivable wages who live in India, Vietnam, or possibly Brazil who have gone through the trouble of getting that delicious cashew ready for your mouth.  Unless they are processed by machine or older people or trained monkeys or black magic, in which case I would recommend eating the whole can in one sitting behind a locked door.  Seriously, what good has sharing ever done you?

Greg M Says: "My sleeping bag is rated to 0 degrees, but it was only 30 and I froze, what gives?"

Well, Greg, in my experience it is usually best to assume that the person asking the question is an idiot, and work from there.  So, you froze because the bag was rated in degrees Celsius, and you were measuring in Fahrenheit.  See, a fahren's height is only 5/9ths as tall as a celsi, fahrens also have a baseline higher by about 32.  The math is complex but, this works out to be that you were actually 2 degrees below reported temperature (2 degrees Fahrenheit). 

However, if you are not an idiot, you deserve a longer answer.  First, it is important to understand how the ratings are achieved.  There are different organizations which provide guidelines for testing things.  Some of these are ASTM, ISO, and FEMA.  ASTM and ISO are industry standards, FEMA is a government standard and is much easier to get good marks using this benchmarking system, as long as the item is never required to actually be used, then the obvious flaws appear. 

The tests are performed in the following manner.  A bunch of people are placed in the sleeping bags and then put in a cold room (The actual number depends on which standard is being used.  If you try doing this at home 5 or more would be best to get a statistically relevant data set).  The temperature is gradually lowered until everyone dies.  From here statistics are run to determine the LT50 of the bag (Lethal Temperature 50, or the temperature at which half of the people die.  The LD50 for pharmaceuticals is calculated the same basic way.).  The ASTM and ISO standards require the company to report the temperature rating at 2 standard deviations above the LT50, which corrosponds to about a 3% death rate at that temperature.  Most of these people were anorexic, looked sickly and probably would have blown away in a stiff breeze if they had actually tried camping; so the actually user population is safe.  FEMA standards allow for the reporting of the real LT50 and actually allows for simulated testing done on paper, and even that is negotiable with proper campaign donations.

So Greg, go buy a new sleeping bag so you can then camp safely, as long as you use an RV.  One with a heater. 

Tommy P. Says: "I thought my bank loved me, but it turns out I just don't understand 'interest'."

Interest means different things to different people.  Let me give some examples.  For Charlie Brown, interest is the Little Red Head Girl.  For Lucy, it is Schroder.  For Schroder it is the piano.  For evil geniuses it is power, absolute power, the power to rule the world, or crush it like a bug.  Well... thats what, I mean, at least that is what I heard, it, uh, you know, sounds plausible.  And moving on I like cookies, not power, but cookies.  You know, I really like those pink and white Grandmothers cookies.  I can down a whole bag without even breaking a sweat.

Interest must sweat however, according to J. Ruben Clark "Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours..."  If his statement is true however, I must not have interest in cookies, because I take pleasure in them, perhaps I just have a passing fancy or infatuation for them as opposed to real interest.  Or perhaps, ol' J. Rube was talking about a different type of interest.  I know for a fact that there are a minimum of two types, simple, and compound.  With pioneering efforts led by firms such as Tyco, and Enron we may discover yet more types of interest, one can only hope. 

Because of Interest's work ethic, it was called "the strongest force in the Universe" by none other than Al Einstein, who is generally accepted as being a rather smart guy.  I thought the strongest was the Strong Nuclear force.  However, that force only operates over short distances, Einstein may have been looking at the total area under the curve(the integral for those math buffs out there), and interest does not diminish with distance, or time (in fact most interest usually goes up (prime +17%) with time, at least on credit cards); which would give it infinite power.  Douglas Addams, another great thinker demonstrated the power of interest in his published work "The Restaurant the end of the Universe."  Here, despite high prices for everything on the menu, it is quite easy to pay.  Deposit a penny in an account and by the time your dinner arrives compound interest will have swollen it to a large sum of money, this does require time travel.  Doug forgot two things however, first, the minimum opening balance, and second, bank fees.  While the first might be avoided, the bank fees would have taken the account into the red, leaving the bank patron owing untold sums of money.  Not making out like a bandit.