GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
Quite like both. I'm closet BeeGees fan. Bit of Saturday Night Fever, eh?
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
Different animals perceive time differently. I often wondered how animals in slo-mo clips manage to react as quickly as they do, so asked the question of Science Focus a few months ago. By showing animals strobing lights (the pace of which ramps up), their neural activity can be monitored and the point at which they stop detecting the strobing and just see a steady light can be detected. It varies, so many (particularly smaller) creatures are able to 'chop' time up into smaller chunks than we can - in part helping to give reactions that are beyond us.
I suspect 24fps must look pretty rubbish to them...
I suspect 24fps must look pretty rubbish to them...
Friesiansam
Well-known member
I would suggest that is just measuring the speed of their vision system, not how they perceive time. Also, part of the reason small animals can react faster, is just down to their size. Nerve impulses from the brain have far less distance to travel but, travel at about the same speed as in large animals, therefore instructions can arrive at the muscles very much quicker than in large animals.
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
It can't just be about the eye itself, there's nothing in the physical structure that could impose an arbitrary cutoff related to strobe frequency - the eye just transmits - it must be about how the brain interprets what it receives and therefore becomes about perception, not senses.
I should stress that it's not only small animals that have an advantage over us in this respect, though obviously you're right about nerve length.
The other factor is that because ratio of volume to size increases disproportionately, things happen faster on smaller scales, so it makes sense that smaller animals would have evolved to adapt to this.
Respect you though I do, I'm trusting Science Focus and the studies in question!
Friesiansam
Well-known member
I didn't say it was just about the eye. The vision system includes that part of the brain that receives the information from the eyes and interprets it. I still don't believe the study was testing perception of time, rather the speed at which the vision system can take in, interpret and react to, what the eyes see, not the animal's perception of our arbitrary human concept of time.
This is all getting a bit deep for this forum...
My daughter has come up with a good one:
The little Boots in our village. The amount of older people who shout and scream at her because their prescription isn't ready.
Even though she explains politely they haven't received the script from the doctors surgery, according to the customers it's all Boots fault.
A couple of the staff were threatened with violence a few months ago, and more recently the window of the shop was smashed.
The GP surgery clearly state it takes around 3 working days to be sent through to the pharmacy. And the pharmacy are overworked with around 200 a day. Often my daughter doesn't get home until 7-8 PM, even though they close at 6pm and 5.30pm on a Saturday.
She loves the pharmaceutical industry but hates our tiny Boots.
The little Boots in our village. The amount of older people who shout and scream at her because their prescription isn't ready.
Even though she explains politely they haven't received the script from the doctors surgery, according to the customers it's all Boots fault.
A couple of the staff were threatened with violence a few months ago, and more recently the window of the shop was smashed.
The GP surgery clearly state it takes around 3 working days to be sent through to the pharmacy. And the pharmacy are overworked with around 200 a day. Often my daughter doesn't get home until 7-8 PM, even though they close at 6pm and 5.30pm on a Saturday.
She loves the pharmaceutical industry but hates our tiny Boots.
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
Maybe the issue is that in this context, there might not be a meaningful difference between interpreting and perceiving?
Time perception varies between animals | The University of Edinburgh
Gray
Well-known member
Some dodgy residents in that village.
(One owns a Leema amp).
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
Was this intended to be another Room 101 entry?
Seen similar in our village pharmacy, though more frustration and rudeness than threats of violence.
Friesiansam
Well-known member
Being too impatient to wait the three days, is no excuse for some people's behaviour though. If they must get angry, direct it at the Tory party.
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Yes, grumpy old people who can't wait when they know how long it takes to dispense different medication. But being threatened by old'uns takes it to a horrifying level.
Too true. Problem is people from different villages always come to our pharmacy for some reason. As a consequence our little Boots has more traffic than any. In fact my daughter got hold of a memo and our Boots is one one of the busiest in the whole of Surrey - the shop is the smallest.
The Jubilee or hose clip was designed by Commander Lumley Robinson of the Royal Navy.
Robinson took out the patent in 1921.
Robinson took out the patent in 1921.
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
Reading a piece on black holes in Science Focus - SagA* - the one in the middle of the Milky Way, clocks in at 4 million solar masses. The one imaged first, at the centre of M87, weighs 6 billion solar masses. Phoenix A, the largest for which there is evidence, appears to weigh 96 billion solar masses. That's much, much more than the entire Milky Way - and until relatively (pun intended) recently, was well beyond what was theorised to be possible. But we live, rationalise and learn.
Gray
Well-known member
Everything about space is fascinating and mind boggling - not least the distances involved of course.
A former work colleague of mine had his own way of appreciating the scale.
Using everyday objects such as tennis ball, basketball no entry signs etc to represent planet sizes, he named different places in our county where each 'planet'would need to be when scaled down - to be the same distances apart as actual planets.
Really did illustrate the vastness of our solar system - which itself is just a dot in the bigger picture.
It really does make you wonder....all of us will live our miniscule 3 score years and 10 without ever knowing (or needing to know) how big the universe is - or if it ends somewhere 🤪
All those geeks you see on Horizon with blackboards full of formulae behind them - can guess as much as they like, they'll never know the answer - or why.
...anyway back to the important stuff - can a cable affect sound? 🤣
Gray
Well-known member
...then the famous 'more stars than grains of sand of every beach' quote.
What are the chances of that?
(Think about the grains in an egg timer then scale that up).
What are the chances of that?
(Think about the grains in an egg timer then scale that up).
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
I think Gaia revised the estimate to 400,000,000. I find it hard to visualise how much space that many grains of sand would amount to!
There have been attempts to measure whether space has any curvature - if there is, it's most likely that space isn't flat and therefore might not be infinite. These attempts all suggest that space is genuinely flat, which supports the view that it goes no forever. That doesn't fit in the human mind even in concept form!
There have been attempts to measure whether space has any curvature - if there is, it's most likely that space isn't flat and therefore might not be infinite. These attempts all suggest that space is genuinely flat, which supports the view that it goes no forever. That doesn't fit in the human mind even in concept form!
Friesiansam
Well-known member
You need to read up about relativity and special relativity, it's both fascinating and, as you dig deeper, mystifying. It's not that space is curved, it's space-time that is curved, by gravity. The curvature becomes dramatic close to the event horizon of a black hole.
Gray
Well-known member
chebby
Well-known member
Spacetime was theorised to be bent by Mr Einstein and proven to be bent by Arthur Stanley Eddington’s team in the South Atlantic in 1919. They managed to show that the light from distant objects was deflected by the curvature of space and time caused by the mass of the Sun …
en.m.wikipedia.org
Eddington experiment - Wikipedia
Friesiansam
Well-known member
I believe all attempts to test Einstein’s theories of relativity, have shown that he was right.Spacetime was theorised to be bent by Mr Einstein and proven to be bent by Arthur Stanley Eddington’s team in the South Atlantic in 1919. They managed to show that the light from distant objects was deflected by the curvature of space and time caused by the mass of the Sun …
Eddington experiment - Wikipedia
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
I think you both misunderstand. Matter can and does bend space, but without matter to bend it, and in particular on larger scales, space is flat insofar as we can tell. There have been pieces in The Sky at Night magazine recently.
(FWIW, I did physics and astrophysics to degree level, though freely confess I didn't finish - but I have kept up to date. Last year I bumped into someone from my school who went to the same university and did the same degree. He teaches physics and has worked at several large telescopes (even has an asteroid named after him) - my ego was plumped up by being able to comfortably converse at the same level, and by the fact that my understanding of orbital mechanics and why the Lagrangian points are stable was better than his. So it wasn't all wasted.)
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