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From: Neeum Zawan
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 10 Jul 2010 02:49:28
Message: <87hbk7g79t.fsf@fester.com>
Le_Forgeron <jgr### [at] freefr> writes:
> the case of the sea water (rather 3 to 4%)), but 2 seems bogus: when
> pression increases, the states move from gas to liquid to solid (unless
> you are on the diagram part where liquid is gone away... well there is
> also a part of high pressure where liquid and gas are not separate...
> for high temperatures).

Actually, when external pressure increases, the melting point of water
goes down:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Melting_curve_of_water.jpg

Here's one explanation. Not 100% sure it's correct:

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae132.cfm


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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 10 Jul 2010 05:16:38
Message: <4c383a76$1@news.povray.org>
nemesis wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

>> volume be?
> 
> dunno.  Ask Wolfram.

Duh. Like I didn't already try that. ;-)

WA is great, but it doesn't understand modestly complex queries.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: John VanSickle
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 11 Jul 2010 12:27:17
Message: <4c39f0e5$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> Since it _is_ Friday and all...
> 
> 
> 

> volume be?

Slightly smaller.

> Where the heck do silent letters come from?

They represent sounds that existed in the spoken language at some point 
in the past, but which have since been lost.  I blame the French.

Regards,
John


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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 11 Jul 2010 16:42:41
Message: <4c3a2cc1$1@news.povray.org>
John VanSickle wrote:

> I blame the French.

Sure. Everybody does.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: M a r c
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 11 Jul 2010 18:03:10
Message: <4c3a3f9e$1@news.povray.org>

4c3a2cc1$1@news.povray.org...
> John VanSickle wrote:
>
>> I blame the French.
>
> Sure. Everybody does.
>
I don't ;-)


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 12 Jul 2010 01:11:28
Message: <4c3aa400$1@news.povray.org>
On 11/07/2010 11:03 PM, M_a_r_c wrote:

> 4c3a2cc1$1@news.povray.org...
>> John VanSickle wrote:
>>
>>> I blame the French.
>>
>> Sure. Everybody does.
>>
> I don't ;-)
>
>

We Scots don't.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen


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From: Phil Cook v2
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 12 Jul 2010 07:55:05
Message: <op.vfqbd2vrmn4jds@phils>
And lo On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:27:07 +0100, John VanSickle  
<evi### [at] hotmailcom> did spake thusly:

> Invisible wrote:
>> Since it _is_ Friday and all...
>>    If I take 3L of water at 30°C and cool it to 4°C, what would its new  
>> volume be?
>
> Slightly smaller.
>
>> Where the heck do silent letters come from?
>
> They represent sounds that existed in the spoken language at some point  
> in the past, but which have since been lost.  I blame the French.

or the Germans, or the Romans, or the... anybody else who's had an  
influence on the current version of English. For example "ghost" was  
originally spelt as "gost" but possinly under the influence of the Dutch  
their version "gheest" was used in a printing and it stuck.

>> As I understand it, before the invention of the printing press, words  
>> didn't have standard spellings. You just spell the word approximately  
>> how it sounds. The first printers fixed the spelling of several words.  
>> (E.g., "put" is spelt with a "U" because that's the letter that could  
>> be printed most clearly. Nothing to do with phonetics.) This utterly  
>> fails to explain why words like "knife" have a "K" in them. (

As an aside this has helped to show regional pronunciations and shifts.  
Take the simple word "Blessed" and it can be seen written as "Blessid" or  
"Blessud" and note we even have the current variant "Blest" thanks to the  
-ed/-t sound similarity.

All good fun.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 12 Jul 2010 08:01:03
Message: <4c3b03ff$1@news.povray.org>
>>> Where the heck do silent letters come from?
>>
>> They represent sounds that existed in the spoken language at some 
>> point in the past, but which have since been lost.  I blame the French.
> 
> or the Germans, or the Romans, or the... anybody else who's had an 
> influence on the current version of English. For example "ghost" was 
> originally spelt as "gost" but possinly under the influence of the Dutch 
> their version "gheest" was used in a printing and it stuck.

Sure. But the Romans didn't have printing presses. And, as I say, back 
then words didn't have a set spelling; that only came in after printing. 
So that doesn't explain how a long-dead language can influence the 
spelling of a modern one.

> All good fun.

I wonder how long it will be before the OED starts listing words like 
"pr0n" as actual spellings.


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From: scott
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 12 Jul 2010 08:40:34
Message: <4c3b0d42@news.povray.org>
> Sure. But the Romans didn't have printing presses. And, as I say, back 
> then words didn't have a set spelling; that only came in after printing. 
> So that doesn't explain how a long-dead language can influence the 
> spelling of a modern one.

Of course it does!  When you invade a country you pick up some of the local 
lingo too (and maybe pronounce it slightly differently), which leads to 
English being a mix of various languages.  I don't see what the printing 
press has to do with anything, people still spoke and wrote before that!

I'm sure you can research where various words came from, but I suspect "kn-" 
type words (eg knot) came from the Saxons as there are similar words in 
German where the "k" is voiced.  "Psy-" type words are Greek, if you 
investigated the Greek language you'd probably find out why they are 
spelt/pronounced like that.


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Random wonderings #13457681
Date: 12 Jul 2010 08:49:00
Message: <4c3b0f3c$1@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:

> I don't see what the 
> printing press has to do with anything, people still spoke and wrote 
> before that!

To reiterate: Apparently before the invention of the printing press, 
words didn't have standard spellings. People just wrote them down 
however seemed right at the time, making up the spellings as they went 
along. It's only when printing started the mass dissemination of written 
material that words acquired fixed spellings. So it's only after this 
point in time that silent letters could have survived.


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