h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A bit of string.

What's the difference between a short piece of string and a long piece of string ? Could it be that the short piece of string is smaller in length than the long piece of string, or then again, it might be that the long piece of string is in fact longer than the short piece of string. But on looking at it, the short piece of string could be a long piece of string with the longer piece of string being longer and from the other side, the longer piece of string could be a short piece of string with the shorter piece of string being even shorter ?.
Only having the two pieces of string makes it hard to distinguish which could be referred as the short piece of string, plus the same argument applies to the long piece of string, as it can only be the longer piece of string or the shorter piece of string and it's also 50 50 on which could be classed as the long piece of string in any case. It is pointless having a measuring device to determine which is the longer or short by length because neither can be denoted as the long piece of string or the short piece of string.
Now knowing that the longer piece of string will reach further than the short piece of string is irrelevant , because it could well have been the short piece of string that was actually the length needed, making the short piece of string the right length piece of string, which in turn would cancel out it being called the short piece of string. If this wasn't the case, the long piece of string could have been the one needed, but it might have still been too long or again! still not long enough and that then would have to have had a name change to the piece of string that's not long enough, but longer than the shorter piece of string or the piece of string that's just a little too long and has some spare. Now some might think if they lion the two pieces of string together might simplify things, but you can't really go about saying two pieces of string one short and one long joined together with a knot in the middle, because the knot would not be in the middle and then the conundrum comes in again, a knot with a short piece of string at one end and a long piece of string at the other end.
This would not solve anything, as it can no way be called “A bit of string” and it would be a pointless exercise writing “what's the difference between a short piece of string, a knot and another piece of string that is longer after the knot”, taking in to view that another person looking from the opposite side would see a long piece of string, a knot and a smaller piece of string attached after the knot, especially if someone undoes the knot and that would make it a complete waste of time, but at least some of you will have had to read all the way down here to find that out eh!

is this what is meant by 'String Theory'?

you want to read "The Notice" and it's successors, I'm still waiting for the men in white coats

I never read it all, I skipped a few paras as soon as I realised it was a Prof journal

Prof that was a knotty piece of work and it does explain the multi-string theory.

thats one way to string out a journal Prof.

He's just stringing us along.

it's all of my own ac'cord

This looks a bit of a ropey thread to me...

He always did spin a good yarn.

I want 4 pieces


work the answer out

Well I think we should pursue a certain line of enquiry

I'll go for the

answer = a string quartet

Yeah, that would work. When a string is vibrating it is only a particular length for one beat of the frequency at which it is vibrating on each cycle, as the string runs out of energy from whatever set it humming the vibration gets smaller. So we have loads of bits of string, all contained in one and all of different lengths.

I think......

there's something about the strings of the universe I think

I think that we need some stronger ones prof, 'coz the moon's moving away innit? (Must have been something we said, or all that crap that NASA are chucking at it).

I agree TQ

I'd read that one lot said it'll only go so far away and the gravitational pull will hold it, but some others said that centrifugal force and inertia will eventually send it off in to space


easy answer is blend mecanno and lego and build a tower to itto tie it down

Another sciency guy says that it is slowing down as well and will eventually end up just going round and round with the Earth like those comms satellite things. I guess that someone will have permanent darkness (eclipse) and a permanent high tide. Wah-hey, we can all walk to Florida in our string vests (if it stops over the Pacific). If it stops over us we'll just have to blame Gordon and suffer I suppose.

too true

I saw a program that visualised the moon being sort of not there and it showed no tides anywhere, so the worlds seas/oceans was like one giant lake and went stagnant