studiot

I can move the goalposts too. What if L is varying? Is this a serious question or a windup?

This is a very important technique in Engineering and you have posted in the Engineering section. What you have is a control volume and your equation is not quite right for n, since they electrons at the start of the period are not the same as the eelctrons at the end ie you have electrons entering and leaving the control volume over the period so the current is the rate of electrons crossing a boundary surface. If you like n = dn/dt (leaving) - dn/dt (entering) this control volume idea is important in Thermodynamics (heat flow) Fluid mechanics Electricity and comes under the heading transport phenomenon. Momentum may be transported as well as mass and heat.

This is just nonsense. Real numbers have what is known as the well ordering property. It is this property that allows us to compare two real numbers as greater than or less than. So my statements are all correct ? Let us see. 1) Division of a number by another number greater than one always results in a smaller number. 5 is greater than 1. Divide -10 by 5. Is the result greater than or smaller than -10? 2) Division of a number by one always results in the original number. Statement is correct by Group Axiom 3. 1 is the identity element. 3) Division of a number by another number less than one, but not equal to zero, always results in a larger number. -10 is less than 1. Divide 5 by -10 Is the result greater than or less than 5?

My original question How many dollars? Your answer one billion Your reply. So you are telling me that if I have one dollar that I can convert it to 1billion dollars by dividing it by one billionth. You are further telling me that you do not understand why this is wrong. I can only suggest that you need to study the process of division more thoroughly. To help here are some further questions to ponder. They are not tricks. These questions can be presented in symbols if you prefer. 1) Division of a number by another number greater than one always results in a smaller number. 2) Division of a number by one always results in the original number. 3) Division of a number by another number less than one, but not equal to zero, always results in a larger number. Are any of the above statements correct?

Pearls, with your full-on approach, you are missing something many here are trying to tease out. Whatever may be wrong in the speculation about linking colour in photographs to specific geographic locations (I think so) but the study of perceived colour can still bear much fruit, especially if conducted scientifically. My approach is to nudge in this direction and try to find out if there are any more modest goals with real scientific value.

Does anyone know what proportion of the energy powering Earth's natural processes comes from Solar flux and what proportion is provided by processes due to the Earth / Moon system and what proportion may be attributed to 'other causes'?

Gosh yes, yet another factor to include. +1 tar.

That is known as over egging the pudding. When I buy bananas there are usually some areas that are not yellow. I still have no trouble differentiating between bananas and smoked haddock by comparing a small sample of the colours. BTW this brings up another point for whatever to ponder. What is the condition of the object to be identified? What if a human were jaundiced?

pzkpfw +1, good link. Since that was such a wildly wrong answer to a simple maths question, I don't see how you hope to tackle the more difficult one you wish to discuss. I have seen University Professors of Mathematics on at least three continents say to you "There may be something in your idea, but it needs putting in proper terminology" and taking great pains and length to try to help you do this whilst you consistently sidestep their patient attempts to help and constantly return to your untenable statements until the good professors have no hair left to pull out.

It would appear that you are already doing what I asked, but with the green leaves I listed as many of the variables (due to measurement technique) that could affect the apparent colour you were measuring as I could quickly think of, and offered a sample of red flowers that provided examples of some of these for discussion. There are many reds and also other colours in those red flowers. So surely the question is a simple one. Which red are you chosing and why? And how do you distinguish from another red flower that has that particular colour simply because it presents at a different angle or age or time of day? I note your expansion zooms on the green leaves above show the anti-aliasing colour changes I referred to. My picture will also show these if zoomed, although I did not post a high definition one to save space. I suggest the following experiments. Prepare a series of images of the same photograph at different resolutions and examine the same area in each with you image program. Good programs will provide infomation about the list /graph of colours present. Does this information change as you change the resolution of the whole photograph? Mike +1 I like your dirty dog picture

No I have divided all my page numbers by zero.

Considering your division of apples, Here is a pretty trick: Consider $ instead of apples and divide $1 by 0.0000000001 How many dollars do I now have? Perhaps if you knocked on the door of the Greek treasury you could solve their crisis with this wonderful new maths.

Let me just start this contribution by saying that this is the first time I have looked at this thread. The choice of subject title is (was) not attractive to look at before. However it has obviously been going a while and attracted some attention. I cannot claim to have studied every post in detail so will have missed much and I apologise if I repeat stuff unnecessarily. First let me say that the idea of studying the surface colour of object has been attractive and used in many ways for a long time. Such study has even been extended beyond the surface as in streak tests used by mineralogists and chemists. Of course the idea of these is that they should be independent of source. However natural minerals are never pure and the location of source can often be identified by the impurities, although by more sophisticated techniques than colour alone. Although naturally occurring, these are of course inanimate and you seem to be concentrating on the animate. It has been suggested that your study would benefit from looking into the reasons for the evolution of particular colour schemes. To this I would add looking into the nature of colour perception, the effect of the transmission path between observer and object. The nature of the information gained (ie the picture and its colour model) The conditions pertaining at the time of the observation (photograph) We developed and use the RGB colour model because almost all life uses the same chemical reaction to perceive colour. There are RGB receptors in our eyes that are essentially the same as those in a clour TV camera or the eyes of an iguana. This affects both instrumental measurements as well as eye observation. It is well known that coulours are seen differently close up and at distance, particularly in haze. This affects both instrumental measurements as well as eye observation. You are taking digital photographs. These are fundamentally different from wet chemistry photographs. Further most programs used to store and present the image change many of the pixels RGB values depending upon the values of neighbouring pixels. This does not happen in our eyes, but optical instrumentation is subject to this, so what you think you are measuring may not be the original vlaues. You should look up the idea of colour gamut. Life forms change their presented colour according to circumstance, for instance arctic animals grow white coats in winter. Some of this is voluntary, some dpends on external influences. The actual perceived colour of say a flower depends upon the time of day, the aspect of the view, the age and condition of the flower, the shading and or reflections from other objects. It really is a huge subject and much work has already been achieved and is there to take the benefit of. I am attaching a digital photograph to illustrate some of these points for discussion. What do you think is the proper red for the red flowers?

I, and many others, have given you several reasons. Do you need more? Hey, Strange, did you really say zero was undefined or was it division by zero?

I have a title Do-It-Yourself

Yes

I am writing a book. I have the page numbers complete, now all I need to do is fill in the rest......................................................

+1 John

Here is a simple explanation of extending fields. http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/infincalc.htm

Light can travel indefinitely hrough a vacuum, without energetic encounters. This is just a silly argument. All I said was that light has an energy level so you can apply entropy considerations to it. In circumstances where there is only one level available there will be zero entropy change. Most light propagation is not like this since it spreads out, reducing the energy density, distributing it over the available volume, thus increasing the entropy.

Thank you, John, so you have described an energetic process, which is all I said in the first place.

Thank you for that information, I will need to look at it. Can the scattering be considered elastic or inelastic?

Unless there is energetic interaction in the different paths there is no entropy difference in one path or one hundred paths.

Forgive my ignorance but how will monochromatic light be split into other colours?