Ask any question you want about Physics

a reply to: Bedlam

Isn't white balancing in the brains the same as saying you have to conceive of something in order to see it?

Does that effect only work for light or any amplitude of any sensation?

originally posted by: Bleeeeep
a reply to: Bedlam

What do you mean by normalize the image?

The most dramatic example of this for me was when I went scuba diving on a coral reef and saw what appeared to be all kinds of brilliant colors. I also used a video camera using natural lighting while I was diving.

When I reviewed the video, it was very apparent that my eyes/brain had done some significant "normalizing" as my senses detected much more vivid colors than the camera did. Colors in the video looked very dull and not nearly as vivid as what I saw. What I later learned is to make the brilliant colors show up in photography required a bright light source. That will give you a better correlation between what you see and what the camera records in that environment.

originally posted by: Bleeeeep
Point 2. Okay you're actually suggesting that we equate math to actual physical things instead of using math as a predictive / language tool? You want all of reality to actually = math? To that, no. My point about number = number stands.

So you don't understand a 100 watt light bulb isn't really the number 100? 100 is a measure of the watts the light bulb converts from electricity to light and heat. Nobody is saying that the light bulb is actually the number 100, but the number 100 means something physically which is not just a number (and not necessarily "material" depending on how you define that term, since power and energy are not necessarily something you can hold in your hand like a brick).

you should not conclude that it is therefor factual what math does or that math is really anything more than a predictive tool that we use.

If you want to toss out the very foundations of science that's your choice but it sounds to me like that's what you're suggesting.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
but the number 100 means something physically which is not just a number

To the physicality of those watts, 100 doesn't necessarily mean anything. It is just us trying to be predictive. 100 watts is a prediction on behavior. You have to know this?

watt
wät/
noun
noun: watt; plural noun: watts; symbol: W

the SI unit of power, equivalent to one joule per second, corresponding to the power in an electric circuit in which the potential difference is one volt and the current one ampere.

math = n
n = equivalent to potential

equivalence is not real!!1111 lol

also, I put the definition there because it so oddly had, within the definition, how I feel about math. "equivalent potential"

edit here: What if I said, "n is a potential which = o" and "o is a potential which = p" and so on and so forth? Then can we agree math is only predictive where time is involved?

Is this not a commonly accepted understanding? That math measures potential functions/will/force?



As for my story on normalize, I saw the dress as white/gold and I fall into the 4 cone spectrum. It took someone telling me it was blue/black and me looking at it over and over to see it as blue black. But once I had conceived of it being blue/black, that is all I saw. Now, every time I see the dress, it is always blue/black. I think it has to be conceptual, and I would bet that, like every concept learned, all of our perceptions went through that same kind of conception - where precepts have to be conceived (conceptualized) to be "accurately" perceived.

According to this I am 4 cones, anyways. Idk how accurate it is but i can see all 39 colors.

originally posted by: Bleeeeep
a reply to: Bedlam

Isn't white balancing in the brains the same as saying you have to conceive of something in order to see it?

Does that effect only work for light or any amplitude of any sensation?

It's not a concept, it's a process. Your visual system tries to optimize your color perception by looking at the scene and making a clever guess at what "white" might be as a reference. Your senses pretty much all do scaling and balancing because a great meat sensor is hard to come by.

So most if not all of them do things like stochastic filtering and renormalization. Your eyes do a LOT of trickery. For example, head motion compensation.

a reply to: Bedlam
Arb posted an image of this somewhere. I found this vid while searching for that image. Does this illustrate the point?

a reply to: DenyObfuscation

Yep. Keyhole head bob optimization failure is another.

When you walk, your eyes/visual system edits out head motion. Your head bounces up and down as you walk. But you don't see your visual field bouncing. It's nearly infallible...except when a "keyhole" is involved.

About three places back, we had a long hallway with a door at the end, and in the door was a small window at head height, about eight inches square. I'm not sure why such a small window. But it illustrated the thing perfectly.

Your eyes/visual center can remove the bounce from the hall, and door. But if the window is small, they can't compensate for outside scenery. If the door is mostly window, you'll compensate the motion for the outside scene as well. But for a small window ("keyhole") you can't get enough data fast enough on the outside scene, and you will fail to compensate for head bob.

What it looks like is that everything's normal...but the outside through that window is bouncing up and down dramatically. Your visual system throws in the towel on compensating for the view through the small window. And the effect of head bob is enormous. It's very striking.

Same place, as you walked down the hallway with the lights off during late afternoon, you passed through a fairly well lit area because there was a door to the left with a big window. As you walked through the doorway into the front area, the only light was from that small window.

If you paid attention, at that point you could repeatedly see your eyes rescan the entire scene. A lot of times, your visual system will do a sort of shorthand remarkably similar to the way video compression systems work. Having "seen" the relatively dull, low detail scene, your eyes don't "see" it in detail any more. You sort of scale it in your head based on visual cues. It saves energy and processing time inside your head. But when you passed through the light into the darkness at that doorway, it was like a lightning flash on heavily compressed video.

Your eyes "re-see" the entire scene. Only instead of breaking into square pixellated areas, you see a really odd rippling effect in your peripheral vision. I was able to teach people to "see" it using that hallway. You generally edit it out, sort of like the keyhole effect. But if you learn to see it, it's irritating as hell, because you start seeing it all the time. Your eyes and brain fake a lot of data.

originally posted by: Bleeeeep
To the physicality of those watts, 100 doesn't necessarily mean anything. It is just us trying to be predictive.

100 Watts is a nominal value, but you can measure the watts and if the actual measured wattage is 99 watts or 101 watts then you're no longer talking about predictions, you're measuring actual power.

math = n
n = equivalent to potential

equivalence is not real!!1111 lol

None of those three lines has any meaning for me. Even if I try to guess what you're trying to say, I don't think the meaning of the word "potential" in your source is what you think, or at least it's not clear to me you understand the meaning of the word in that context. I'm not sure if you know what equivalent means in that context either. If you burn the 100W light bulb for 1 hour you will use about 0.1 kW-h of electricity and you'll get a real bill that you have to pay with real money. If you don't think this is real and don't pay your real electric bill, real people will shut off your real power at which time you can sit in the dark with no lights on re-contemplating if any of this is real. So the 100 watts seems real enough to me though it could be actually 99 watts or 101 watts on an individual bulb, if you want to get picky.

also, I put the definition there because it so oddly had, within the definition, how I feel about math. "equivalent potential"

edit here: What if I said, "n is a potential which = o" and "o is a potential which = p" and so on and so forth? Then can we agree math is only predictive where time is involved?

Again it appears you don't know the meaning of the word "potential" in this context (maybe not equivalent either, and maybe this is why you think it's odd?) and as I said your electric bill is not based on predictions but on actual, measured usage. You will probably need a science or engineering dictionary to find out what "potential" means in your quote, because it's not referring to the layman's definition of that word.

Is this not a commonly accepted understanding? That math measures potential functions/will/force?

No, it's not. The fact that you stuck "will" in there sounds like complete woo when talking about the energy used by a 100W light bulb, which I don't believe you can change with your will and has nothing to do with will.

According to this I am 4 cones, anyways. Idk how accurate it is but i can see all 39 colors.

I only see 37 colors which might still be an indication of 4 cones (33-39 supposedly suggests 4 cones) but she says "the number and distribution of color cones can only be measured by a special device, therefore the categories proposed in this message are of course just indications."so I guess that puts the accuracy in perspective, plus I'm male and another source suggests it's much more likely with females than with males:

www.bbc.com...

the gene for our red and green cone types lies on the X chromosome. Since women have two X chromosomes, they could potentially carry two different versions of the gene, each encoding for a cone that is sensitive to slightly different parts of the spectrum. In addition to the other two, unaffected cones, they would therefore have four in total – making them a “tetrachromat”. For these reasons, it’s thought to be a condition exclusive to women, though researchers can’t totally rule out the possibility that men may somehow inherit it too.

originally posted by: Bedlam
So most if not all of them do things like stochastic filtering and renormalization. Your eyes do a LOT of trickery. For example, head motion compensation.

So does the brain. The image on the back of our eye is upside-down, and the brain inverts it so it looks right side up. This apparently isn't hard-wired but is processed in the brain because some volunteers wore some mirrored vision apparatus on their heads that inverted the image so it was right side up on the back of the eye, and the volunteers all saw the image upside down, as you might expect, for a while. But after 10 days the volunteers could see right-side up again.

Some eyeball/brain trickery that has been popularized is the first "Phoenix Lights" incident where people saw a formation of planes and thought it blocked out the stars so they thought it was a huge solid object blocking out the stars. The first phenomenon is called Illusory contours that causes our brain to see outlines that aren't really there, sort of a "connect the dots" happening in our vision processing. The second part of the illusion has to do with the distribution of rods and cones, which can cause stars to appear to vanish when we look at them, or in the case of the phoenix lights incident can cause stars to disappear within the illusory contour, making some witnesses think the formation of planes was a huge object blocking out stars:

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...

Cone cells need more light to work than rod cells, and since there are so few rod cells at the center of our vision, it's not hard to understand how a formation of planes could appear to block out some dim stars, giving the illusion of a huge solid object.

OK I actually have a serious inquiry this time.

I need help trying to figure out the correct scientific terminology for something I do when training martial arts. Involving determining the depth of energy transference from a strike in an object by listening to the tone and reverberation the target makes.

A little back story.

At the urging of my friends that know about my love of martial arts, I've begun a blog discussing it. I'd like to write a article on the science behind proper striking mechanics and kinetic transference. I'll talk about things like reinforced body structures and mass transference. But I'd also like to talk about something a little more esoteric that I was taught to do in relation. The only problem is I don't know what to call it or how to describe the science behind it correctly.

What I was taught to do to learn how to strike so that the energy is transferred to the appropriate depth in to the target, was to go to the park or baseball field, any place that has those tall hollow metal poles for the lights, and practice your strikes against them in a way that you listen for a certain tone or reverberation of the energy as it shakes the pole.

Basically if you strike it wrong and the energy over penetrates you get a dull thud and you in effect do no signifigant damage to the target. It's more like a shoving motion the target is receiving. Along with the dul thud the pole will tend to sway showing that the energy is traveling like a big wave through the target and not really dumping the energy into the target.

Hit the pole too lightly like a rabbit punch and you will hear a light tinny sound and the energy stay mostly on the surface and the pole don't move at all. This also is unsatisfactory because it also does no real damage to the target.

Eventually working with the pole, And every poles slightly different, even seemingly identical ones, you'll get your strikes dialed in so that the energy transfers dead center into the pole. The pole shudders and you hear a satisfying resonant tone. This is what you want as it tells you that the energy from the strike is delivering maximum power dead center into the target. causing hydro static shock (granted the target is a person) Think of it like training your strikes so that they in effect function like a hollow point or frangible bullet, instead of a jacketed bullet that over penetrates.

It's not a perfect system to train the skill since people after all aren't hollow metal poles, but it gets you used to dialing in the strikes and it helps you find your range.

So after all that explaining. Here's my big question:
Anybody out there have any idea what I should call this listening to the sound of the strike on the target to determine the depth of energy deliverance in scientific terminology? Need to call it something when referring to it in the blog and I need to be able to explain it in a little more concise scientificky terms so I don't seem like a complete idiot.

Any help????

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
The pole shudders and you hear a satisfying resonant tone. This is what you want as it tells you that the energy from the strike is delivering maximum power dead center into the target.

I'm not sure if that's true. If I tried to deliver maximum power of my martial arts strike to a pole I'd probably break the bones in my hand or foot.

It's not a perfect system to train the skill since people after all aren't hollow metal poles

That is true.
The characteristics of a pole and a human opponent are, as you say, different. The pole is relatively immobile and unforgiving, while a human opponent is not fixed, immobile or unforgiving, so I can strike a human target with less likelihood of breaking my hand though I've done it once.

Basically if you strike it wrong and the energy over penetrates you get a dull thud and you in effect do no signifigant damage to the target.

I don't know what that means in physics terms or if it makes sense.

Hit the pole too lightly like a rabbit punch and you will hear a light tinny sound and the energy stay mostly on the surface and the pole don't move at all. This also is unsatisfactory because it also does no real damage to the target.

I think what that means in physics terms is you haven't transferred much momentum.

The techniques I use are based on transfer of momentum or kinetic energy, and these techniques absolutely require that the opponent be movable, which a pole is not. You can estimate the amount of momentum transferred with some simple equipment available in many gyms like a large, suspended punching bag. If you do what you call a "rabbit punch" which is too light the punching bag will hardly move.

It's not easy to make the bag move much with the spectacular-looking but not so powerful roundhouse kick (at least for me), but it will move a lot more with a front kick. The following video shows a really fancy version of a "punching bag", it's a partially anthromorphically correct "dummy". Watch the first 15 seconds of this video and note how much momentum is transferred to the dummy. While I don't claim to be a martial arts expert, I do have some small experience and I think training with something like this would be far superior to training with a pole, for several reasons, but the main reason being it's got a lot more in common with a human opponent than a pole does.

Taekwondo Front Push Kick Tutorial

a reply to: BASSPLYR
Hey bassplyr,

Back in my day I was also very into martial arts, it runs in my family. A great uncle was an arnis master and street prize fighter in philliines of the 20's. Another cousin is also a arnis master and was good friends with stuart quan, whom was married to a friend of mines sister.
I studied a little of this and a little of that, but I really liked wing chung, being a short guy its a natural system us, getting in close.

I never had a teacher who talked about a focused depth, my early teachers were all about hitting thru the target.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I loved high kickers, again being short and stuff, when I was competent, that guy in the video, doin a high kick would be mine.
Duck, grab the kicking leg and deliver a solid low side thrust kick to the supporting knee and tear all the ligaments out of it.
He does have a good straight thrust kick, though.
I had to use one a couple years ago leaving the local pub, id been havin a few newies and couple jack asses were giving the bartender a hard time, since I was standing next to them and shes a real good friend we kinda got into it a little until they got thrown out by the bouncers. I finished my imbibing and proceeded to walk home. And low and behold the loud mouth as I the parking lot and wanted to go again, so I made sure there were plenty of witness, let him get in my face, back up, he touched me again, finger in the chest stuff, he's lucky he didn't lose the finger,i backed up a step. He took a step and started to swing so I straight kicked him square in the center of the pelvis and laid him out, at that point his friend became the biggest pussy.
My other fave kick is low side thrust to the leading knee.

originally posted by: punkinworks10
I never had a teacher who talked about a focused depth, my early teachers were all about hitting thru the target.

As I said I'm no expert but the man I studied with was. He was an American who moved to Japan for several years to study three different martial arts styles from masters there and got 3 black belts, one for each style.

That "hitting through the target" was a common theme in all his styles and he emphasized that, maybe not with those exact words but that was the idea, with a lot of focus on balance and shifting weight at just the right time to make that happen.

originally posted by: punkinworks10
He does have a good straight thrust kick, though.

Yes, the attack kick he demonstrates around the middle of the video is very similar to the way it was taught to me, the defensive variants may be useful but they aren't as powerful as the offensive version which can knock someone down, even a larger opponent. I can't imagine trying to use these techniques on a pole though. When you use these techniques, if your opponent doesn't get knocked back or down, something still has to give, and since the pole won't give very much, that only leaves the bones in your hand or foot. Speaking of that I don't know if my sensei broke every bone in his hands but he at least chipped them, you could feel all kinds of ridges in the bones in his hand where they had been damaged from impacts. I wasn't into it enough to do that much damage to my bones though I did manage to break one when I learned that the other guy's jaw bone is thicker than the bones in my hand.

a reply to: Arbitrageur
I studied for a bit, about 8-10 months before the guy died, from a very old (80's) Chinese man, who learned in pre communist China. He taught us the basics of wing chung.
He wanted us to stand toe to toe to practice and not use the ubiquitous wooden pole/peg dummy, and he would say dummys don't fight back.
So we would stand toe to toe and wallop the crap out of each other, no hitting above the neck or in the groin and no knees and no foot breaking, that was one of his favorite inside moves, a solid blow to the top of the lead foot as soon as you are in close.
He was impressed with our home made practice, of trying to puncture a bicycle box(200psi burst strength) with only the index and ring fingers from a hands length distance.
It took me about 3 months of daily bike box killing (I worked in a bike shop) to be able to do it cleanly, almost broke my fingers a couple of times.
Being a young dumbass, we would sit around drinking Sapporo, from the heavy duty steel cans, and finger punch the can till it was fully dented.

a reply to: punkinworks10
And the guy was a japano hater and if you called him sensei, you would get a swift back knuckle to the chops.

is it not the meaning of quantum mechanic is to build something that changes time matter and at the same time can fly ??

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Ah, thanks for an excellent response.

I'll try and address your points as best as I can.

When I say maximum power i'm referring to how much energy is lost due to over penetration, causing a shoving like transfer instead of a sharp quick impulse where the energy goes in, and stays in. There's a sweet spot in striking mechanics that allows this. Hitting the pole and listening to the tone tells you if you're hitting that sweet spot.

Obviously I'm having trouble accurately describing whats going on hence the interrogatory to you guys.

Like for example. A 12 gauge deer slug at close range transfers more energy into the target at 850 feet per second than a 750 grain .50 cal bullet traveling at 2,600 feet per second. Or the net energy transferred is higher at least. The .50 cal will go right through the target at close range like a laser and barely do anything to it. The 12 gauge slug transfers all that momentum because it's not too fast and not too slow, but in that sweet spot.

Or maybe a better example is a billiard ball striking another ball. You can strike too hard and both balls travel in the same direction after the. You can strike too light and you barely tap the ball. Or you could do one of those things where you get it so that the que ball strikes the billiard ball and the que ball stops where it struck and the energy transfers to the billiard which goes flying. Isn't that the "Maximum" transfer of energy in that case from the que ball to the billiard ball?

Strikes to a body are the same.

As for the hand's being injured. You take a few years working up to it. You gotta temper them properly first. and there are obvious down sides. However once you've gotten to that point your hands can absorb a lot of shock and energy. Plus I don't recommend punches. This is more of a open palm like slap. Which incidentally are also better for transferring energy appropriately into a target than say a punch, if you're intending to knock someone out. Same reason a leather lead sap works better to drop someone if used on their head than a bat or something hard. It's the way it transfers energy.

So there's a sweet spot that you're aiming for. That's what I meant by maximum power.

As for the target being mobile. Yes and no. One it's a training tool to develop a skill. Just like a mook jong (wooden dummy) isn't intended to replicate the opponent fighting you but to serve as a tool to develop muscle memory, and ergonomics, proprioception and body tempering when in close quarters to your opponent. You still need to spar with a live human being who's not just standing there.

Also. Opponents are less mobile than you think if you follow certain principles when committing to a assault or counter offensive response. The hips, feet orientation and spine have a large part in that. For instance, the hips and spine can't mitigate force on a 45 degree angle off of the bodies front to back and side to side axis. if you shove someone to their front or back they can simply step with one foot and regain their balance. Same thing if you push them from the sides. Do it again with the same amount of force on a 45 degree angle off axis and the opponent will go flying, literally. And with a lot less force than you think. The reason is the feet have no place they can step to to regain a third point of balance and they topple. It's psuedo immobilization because it forces the opponent to take the full brunt of the force.

Also get a hold of a guys head and the rest of his body will follow. The reason is it locks the spine. Once that happens he's immobilized even if hes on his two feet and seemingly able to walk.

So yes and no when it comes to "an opponent is mobile." The more accurate thing that's happening is the opponent is generally mobile and for many types of strikes however with the proper setup you can severely limit the opponents mobility and options.

Some martial artists refer to all of this as "Combat Geometry" For instance in south east asian martial arts and a lot of european classical weapons fighting there is specific footwork that they use. In fact, most combative footwork in general will look similar and share the same geometry because it's intent is to control your opponents options and limit their maneuverability. So lets examine one example of how you control and maneuver your opponent via this universal "combat" geometry. In weapon work (Impact and blade) if your opponent is say standing left foot forward you are taught to attack by first stepping 45 degrees forward towards your opponent to his right (your left) then you attack him on an angle 45 degrees off his center. The footwork would look like the left half of a diamond shape. comprising of two steps. Step to get off center and flank, followed by a step where your attacking. To avoid your sword swing he will instinctively (through 1000's of years of experience this is true, hence why it's taught) 9 times out of 10 be forced to cross his legs by swinging his right foot behind his left. A dangerous position to be momentarily in. Your opponent at that moment has no real ability to maneuver effectively to escape that sword and will likely trip over his own feet or run right into your weapon.

Interestingly without a weapon you'd want to step to the right in the above scenario instead.

This also allows for maximum transfer of energy via the weapon into the target since the person can't mitigate the incoming force let a lone avoid it well with out severely compromising their balance. If you get your opponent in that position which is your goal in combatives the fight is over and the opponent has likely lost suddenly.
Despite what a lot of younger MMA fans think. There is an actual science behind fighting. Or as a the De Thouars Brothers say Speed is meaningless, Power is garbage. The real art is in positioning and timing.

For instance you can't throw somebody if they have viable options to maneuver. It's more than just having Base, angle and lever if they can just step out of that position.

SO a mobile opponent is a relative term.

When you say you require your techniques to work on a mobile target, I think I understand but isn't an inelastic collision better than an elastic collision in those regards. So why not set them up for one as part of your strategy.
Ie... making the heavy bag swing violently when you strike it is no good, but making it shudder in place is good.

Hey I did tae kwon do and got a black belt back when I was a teen and did tournaments. question for you. I was taught to do the round house kick where you nearly completely turn your hip over so as the striking angle is down at 45 degrees to the head and not horizontal or on the up swing. I found it a lot more effective than just swinging the leg and I noticed more of the Korean taught guys did it that way too but the american schools taught it the other way. Wondering how you were taught it or use it.

As far as Bob the dummy. He's great. But he's just a training tool. AS is a mook jong, a simple pole, a brick wall, a speed bag, a pile of stacked tires and many others. It's never a be-all solution though. None of them really are. Hence the variety.

But if you like Bob. Then you are going to LOVE this.
www.youtube.com...

You bring up a good point with the hitting through the target. I've always been taught you use that ideology when striking bone or something you intend to break. But for soft tissue you want to do what I was mentioning above and cause hydro static shock and not over penetrate.

I think for now until I can better describe what the exercise teaches skill wise I'll keep the article to reinforced body structures and mass transference. I'll probably do a break down of the 18 standing Jurus of Serak for that since it is chock full of good examples.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Damn Pumpkinworks! Your Bui Gee must have been pretty damned good after all the finger jabs into things. Wouldn't want to run into that if I were going up against you. I used to train with a local Shaolin Monk (yes a real one) Mostly in Chi Gong back when I was into that sorta thing. His fingers were blunt and rounded due to striking trees back at Song Shan (Shaolin Temple in DengFeng) with his finger tips. Alas I got away from Shaolin, just couldn't drink the Koolaid. But for a full body work out the Shaolin forms are amazing for developing leg strength. Da Hong, Qi Xing, Pao Chui etc...

As for Wing Chun. Its a fascinating art. I love how it teaches body mechanics especially the focus on elbow positioning. Si Lum Tao is a amazing form in that regards. I've found a similarity between the elbow positioning and blade work. I often wonder if the two are connected in the past. Even though Wing Chun is largely a weaponless based art (yes I know about the butterfly swords and staff.) a lot of its movements seem rooted in weapon based arts. It has a lot of techniques and concepts that seem from the Hakka arts which seem to have indian heritage which is largely weapons based since it was developed for their foot soldiers.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

As far as Bob the dummy. He's great. But he's just a training tool. AS is a mook jong, a simple pole, a brick wall, a speed bag, a pile of stacked tires and many others. It's never a be-all solution though. None of them really are. Hence the variety.

Aside from bike boxes and Sapporo cans, we would also try to knock the fence boards out of my buddies back yard fence, with the finger length strike. Got a lot of splinters in my knuckles that summer.

Like for example. A 12 gauge deer slug at close range transfers more energy into the target at 850 feet per second than a 750 grain .50 cal bullet traveling at 2,600 feet per second. Or the net energy transferred is higher at least. The .50 cal will go right through the target at close range like a laser and barely do anything to it. The 12 gauge slug transfers all that momentum because it's not too fast and not too slow, but in that sweet spot.

Its the same reason a .45APC is such a hard hitter. But it has as much to due with the projectile nose shape, the more surface area, the more energy transferred, now imagine .50 cal with split nose hollow point.
And on the subject of a 12ga. slug , I had an aquaintence who served in viet nam, and was a shotgun guy.
He told me they would take a jewelers saw and split their slug points into 4 quarters, they were essentially making hollow point slugs.