Web Site Problems

Visual/html Problem now fixed on my WordPress.

After months of aggravation, the problem of the edit box suddenly changing to html mode only, making it almost impossible to carry out updating a post, as been sorted, I hope. The total disappearance of the edit box on some posts, also appears to be fixed.

I finally found that by deactivating the SEO plug-in the problem appears to be solved. I don’t know if this will cause me to have other problems, but if it does I will update the information.

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Formatting Problem.

If you look at the master page also the Home page, the formatting at the top part is messy. I have redone this from the beginning about 6 times, but the same thing happens each time. Any ideas????

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MALICIOUS ATTACK ON THIS WEB SITE

THERE IS AN ATTACK ON THIS WEB SITE. SOMEONE IS COPYING MY POSTS ONTO THEIR OWN SITE AND SPAMMING IT AROUND THE WORLD.

THE FAKE WEB SITE IS APPARENTLY BEING LOADED WITH ADVERTISING FOR WHICH THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY BEING PAID. SO FAR ALL THE ADVERTS SEEM TO BE VIA GOOGLE, BUT MAY BE EXTENDED TO OTHERS.

IF YOU RECEIVE ONE OF THESE PLEASE ADVISE ME AND ALSO ADVISE GOOGLE OR ANY OF THE ADVERTISERS. GOOGLE HAVE BEEN TOLD BY ME OF THESE ATTACKS.

GET THE URL NUMBER AND ANY OTHER DATA THAT YOU CAN.

YOUR OWN SITE COULD BE TARGETED NEXT.

The Advertisers must know who they are paying.

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THERE ARE NO ADVERTS ON MY WEBSITE APART FROM THAT RELATING TO MY BOOK.

THERE ARE NO VIDEOs, AND THERE IS UNLIKELY TO BE  MANY SPELLING MISTAKES, ITEMS REFERRED TO RELATING TO FAKE SITES.

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THE ONLY TIME I SEND UNREQUESTED COPIES OF MY POSTS,  IT IS TO PUBLIC BODIES SUCH AS COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Prams – Design Gone Mad?

I was about 4 years old when I first learned to push a pram properly. I am not talking about a push-chair, those were easy to handle, even at 18 months old. I mean the old carriage built prams with the big wheels that normally ended up on trolleys and go-carts. After I had struggled for a few days I finally passed my test and my mother allowed me to transport my baby sister without having her guiding hand on the pram handle. After a week I could set the parking brake and just about put the hood up if it was raining. This was not easy because to me this pram was huge, I could only see my sister by standing on tip toe.

69 years on I see adults struggling with pushchairs, (yes, pushchairs), that have been made using antiquated supermarket trolleys as the design standard. They are unwieldy, overweight and worse than supermarket trolleys for steering. They are frustrating to parents, take up too much space (at home and in the car), are overpriced and worst of all, are dangerous. Trapped fingers, broken nails, and like supermarket trolleys, are not interested in where you want to go.

60 years ago push chairs went exactly where you wanted them to go, they were light, they were cheap, they folded up neatly and they were safe.

Why?

Apart from the fact that that there is ‘Fashion’ to blame, the main problem is that nowadays knowledge and experience are ignored in favour of gimmicks. Every possible design of the pram was tried out in the 18th and 19th centuries. The carriage pram and the basic design of the push-chair were confirmed as the optimum for easy handling by young women (and 18 month olds).

The most important basic design detail was that ‘no steering aids’ gave the best steering. Sounds silly but its true.

Four fixed wheels gives a stable platform but also ensures that the pram travels in a straight line. Try pushing a modern push-chair in a straight line. As much energy is wasted in keeping to a straight line as is used in pushing the pram. (Just like the supermarket trolley)

A slight pressure on the pram handle and the front wheels lift off the floor. The pram can now rotate freely on two wheels and will ‘turn on a sixpence’. If you push a pram with 4 fixed wheels along a 400 yard pavement you will probably have to make the occasional adjustment to it. Forgotten your purse? Slight pressure on the handle, swivel round, release pressure, and your on your way back.

Four fixed wheels gives you total and easy control.

I have little doubt that the modern push-chair was copied off the supermarket trolley. Unfortunately the supermarket trolley is designed to carry heavy loads and therefore cannot use four fixed wheels. Some Do-It-Yourself stores have adopted the principle of the original pram in having two main load bearing wheels to enable easy steering. Unfortunately, these are normally fitted with castor-wheels at both ends, so you are left with a trolley that is easy to turn but won’t travel in a straight line.

Note that supermarket trolleys are based on factory trolleys and trucks which have to carry heavy loads. However, factory floors are normally flat and level. Although within the supermarket the floors are flat and level, the parking areas are not. In our local supermarket about 25% of the parking area is seriously sloped and sometimes it can take 4 or 5 attempts to get the trolley near to the car.

Author; Brian Williams

Origin of the Golden Section-Rev 2

Last week I came across a print of some notes I made nearly 30 years ago, relating to ‘The Golden Section’ and ‘Fibonacci Numbers.’ I later transferred these on a DOS 6 computer using WordPerfect 5.1, and Autocad 9. This must have been 20 years ago.

The Golden Section.

A ratio generally recognized by humans, even if unconsciously. Considered by many people to have a major significance in biology. Like many ratios it is not a nice number to deal with, but unlike any other ratio, it has a curious family relationship.

If 0.61803398875 = ☼, then

☼ divided by 1.61803398875 = 1.000

Golden Section Ratio = 1 plus ☼

1.61803398875 / ☼ = 2.161803398875

1.61803398875 x 1.61803398875 = 2.61803398875

There are now thousands of web sites covering the Golden Section ratios and their significance in biology, so I will not go into this at present.

Fibonacci Numbers

A series of numbers created by adding together the previous two numbers, i.e.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etcetera.

If you multiply the Fibonacci numbers by the Golden Section ratio you get the following results.

1 x 1.61803398875 = 1.61803398875

2 x 1.61803398875 = 3.23667981

3 x 1.61803398875 = 4.854101964

5 x 1.61803398875 = 8.090169954

8 x 1.61803398875 = 12.94427191

13 x 1.61803398875 = 21.03444184

21 x 1.61803398875 = 33.97871375

34 x 1.61803398875 = 55.01315559

Etcetera

All very confusing, but they do appear to be very close to the Fibonacci numbers, but one term up.

However, the part number shown in Red intrigued me because I had come across this when working on the atomic structure.

(I was working in London at Shell Centre at this time, and a book I bought in the Shell bookshop was my first introduction to the Golden Section, and as I was staying in a hotel during the week I had lots of time to waste at nights).

Now 1.6 + [(0.090169954/10) x 2] = 1.61803398875

Therefore I assumed that this number, 0.090169954, must be significant.

After more juggling with the figures I came up with the following result.

If 0.090169954 = ♥

Then

1 – (3 x ♥) = 0.7294017

1 + (2 x ♥) = 1.1803398875

2 – (1 x ♥) = 1.909830046

3 + (1 x ♥) = 3.090169954

5 + (0 x ♥) = 5.000

8 + (1 x ♥) = 8.090169954

13 – (1 x ♥) = 12.9442719

21 + (2 x ♥) = 21.1803398875

34 + (3 x ♥) = 34.27051

55 + (5 x ♥) = 55.45085006

89 + (8 x ♥) = 145.1722103

Now let us look at a graph of the Fibonacci numbers.

Not a pleasant graph to look at because there is obviously something wrong. The two points on number 1 are ridiculous.

Now let us look at the graph for the Golden Section ratio. Note this only works if you use 5 as your control point.

A closer look at the beginning of this graph may be helpful.

Now ratios can be rather difficult to explain unless they are simple ones. Millions of man-hours have been spent attempting to find a true value for Pi (π), never realizing that it is an impossible task. Each iteration changes the parameters, therefore you can never arrive at an answer. (It does have a useful purpose in that it keeps mathematicians occupied while we get on with the useful stuff.)

Logarithms are ratios and are very useful, but they are nearly always awkward numbers that you are dealing with. Pi (π) is an awkward number. The Golden Section ratio is an awkward number.

They are awkward because they relate to reality. Reality is awkward. [What an awkward word awkward is!] (From middle English ‘awk’ meaning clumsy and ‘ward’ , Anglo-Saxon, meaning direction. Logical, I suppose)

The Golden Section ratio relates to the structure of certain atoms, and this structure controls how many molecules are built up. (Even as a child, the idea of atoms with whizzing electrons seemed completely illogical, and as I grew older it became obvious that the idea was impossible)

The Golden Section ratios align with the dodecahedron.

If  the octagonal faces are inscribed within a 1cm radius circle then the distance across opposite faces of the dodecahedron is 2.61803398875cm.

The Golden Section ratio is a fact of life. There are other important ratios, but none have had the same importance or interest as the Golden Section.

Nature has to handle the problems caused by the Golden Section ratio. It would be nice if nature worked with the simpler Fibonacci numbers, but this is not possible.

Nature can produce numbers such as 1,2,3,5,8,13,21 etcetera, as in arms, legs, antenna, fingers but it is not easy, and it does not always get it right. Possibly evolution depends on the problems nature has with the Golden Section ratio.

THIS IS A PRELIMINARY POSTING FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES. IT IS APPROXIMATELY 30 YEARS OLD AND IS QUITE LIKELY TO HAVE BEEN SUCCEEDED BY LATER RESEARCH. THERE ARE SO MANY ARTICLES ON THIS SUBJECT THAT I HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO FIND THE TIME TO CHECK THEM. NOTE:

I am familiar with the standard mathematical notation with regards to Fibonacci. (I was given a personal lecture by the late Professor Laithwaite on this.) Unfortunately, like most mathematics, it does not explain anything,

Author; Brian Williams.

See also ; How to Build an atom

The Difference Between Reflected Light and Projected Light

Reflected light is composed of a certain percentage of each true primary colour (Yellow, Red and Dark Blue). If we consider a mid Green consisting of 50% Blue and 50% Yellow, the reflected energy is much less than the same area having all Yellow. It is also much more than the same area having all Blue.

If you think of any pigment as a number of very small tiles each having its own colour, then if you only have Yellow tiles and Blue tiles to play with, your overall possible perceived colours are limited to all Yellow, all Blue or limited shades of Green. The maximum energy emitted from any area of the pigment would be if only Yellow tiles were used.

If you have some White tiles you can have a lighter Yellow, a lighter Blue or an extended range of Greens i.e some lighter.

If you have some Black tiles you can have a darker Yellow, a darker Blue or an extended range of Greens i.e some darker.

With projected light it is more more complex. There are two different situations with projected light.

Type 1. If you have source of ‘true’ Yellow light that shines through a series of small square holes separated by similar sized  small Blue filters., the resulting colour will be a light Green. This is because some of the Yellow light will pass through the Blue filter producing a dark Green. This dark Green, when added to the Yellow will create the light Green. In comparison with the coloured tiles in which we had Yellow and Blue tiles, we now have, in effect, Yellow and dark Green tiles. {See Colour Filters}

Type 2. See Projected Light.

Author – Brian Williams.

Contractors in your House? Hints and Tips

During my working life as an engineer I have often had to deal with contractors and sub-contractors. These have ranged from from major international contractors to local builders and plumbers. Jobs have ranged from new chemical factories and oil platforms down to minor modifications.

In this same period of time, (being a married man) I have spent many happy hours/days and sometimes absolutely miserable ones, doing work about the house. This has included plumbing, drainage, joinery, brickwork, electrical wiring, central heating and almost every aspect of home modifications and repairs.

The combined experience of both commercial contracts and the problems of house modifications and repairs has enabled me to help friends with the problems of having contractors in their homes.

If you are having work done on your home, there is in principle, a contract in operation. The contractor will carry out work, for which you will pay him. However, both you and the contractor need to agree the amount of work entailed, and the amount of money to be paid. Usually a contractor will supply an estimate based on your discussions with him. This is not normally very helpful, because he may forget things that you mention, and you may have forgotten to tell him some things that are important. Plus the estimate may state something like ” To building 10 metres x 5 metres extension as per your instructions. – Estimate £15,000″. This is of no help to you because the final price could be £30.000, because it was only an estimate.

A more rigid contract is required so that both you and your contractor know exactly the extent of the work and the actual cost.

Type of contract.

Daywork.

This is where the contractor specifies an hourly rate for his men and you pay for the total man-hours spent times this rate. Materials and deliveries etc. are added at cost plus a percentage. Generally not a good system, because you have no idea how much the job will cost you. This is only used when the time required for part of a job, (such as excavations)  is unable to be accurately determined before commencement.

Fixed Price.

The best method  but requires a good amount of preliminary work by you. It should be remembered that a ‘fixed price’ only applies to a fixed amount of work. Too often customers change their mind about aspects of the work which can rapidly increase the cost of a ‘fixed price’ contract. Always ensure that you clearly itemise exactly what you want doing, where you want things fitted, what type of doors, (including number of hinges and which side they should open on.)

Changing something can cost more than fitting it in the first place, and fitting a door will normally cost more than the door itself. Once hinges and locks have been fitted, it is unlikely that the contractor will be able to reuse the doors again, and you will be charged extra for the doors plus fitting, and also for removing the hinges and locks from the original doors.

Positions of lights and electrical sockets should be specified, because relocating them once fitted can be quite expensive, and would be a legitimate extra on a fixed price contract..

Schedule of Rates.

Not really suitable for household contracts, although 40 years ago you could buy data books that gave the costs of any type of work carried out. (Schedule of Rates). Still used on commercial contracts.

General Hints

There is usually a degree of suspicion by householders of any contractors carrying out work for them.

This is partly due to having strangers within the household environment, partly to uncertainty as to the competence of the contractors, and partly due to the uncertainty of the final cost of the work.

It is clear therefore, that there can be a considerable amount of worry involved in having work carried out in the household.

Let us consider having strangers in the household. It is better for both parties if certain areas can be declared to be out of bounds to the contractor, but this could be a problem if the job entails rewiring the whole house, or installing a new central heating system. If possible remove all valuables and breakables from areas where work is to be carried out, or access required by the contractor. If these can be locked away somewhere all the better for both you and the contractor, as he cannot then be unfairly accused of breakages or stealing something that has just been mislaid.

Toilet & washing facilities will have to be provided for the contractor. If the householder is unhappy about the workmen using the house facilities, then the contractor will have to supply his own. However, his price will have to allow for these facilities.

Water & Electricity. These services will normally be supplied by the householder. It should be remembered that access to these must be available during the working hours of the contractor, even if the householder is not at home. If you are normally out during the working day, it may be advisable to have external water and power supplies fitted prior to the work commencing.

Children can be a major problem and worry for a contractor. He is unlikely to have included for a child-minder in his price, and he could legitimately claim extra for time lost due to the presence of children. A workplace can be a very dangerous place for children.

Access. There may be times when the contractor needs to be denied access to certain areas, i.e. the kitchen when preparing meals, possibly the bathroom and a child’s bedroom, at other times. Thought should be given to defining these times, and the contractor informed.

Storage. If storage facilities are available for contractors tools, equipment & materials, ensure that your own tools & equipment are not stored in the same place. The person clearing the contractors equipment may be unaware of which tools belong to the contractor, and remove all the tools etc.

Holiday Snaps & Memoirs. Remember that time spent showing workmen your holiday snaps, or discussing your wartime exploits, is time added to the job. The workmen get paid by the hour, and they get paid the same rate for looking at holiday snaps as for digging drains etc.. Which would you rather do ?

Clean up. It is the contractor’s responsibility to clean up after the work is completed.

Scams. There are millions of people around the world attempting to steal from the unwary. Many are involved in scams relating to work in and on houses. Never agree to have work done without a proper agreed price, in writing.
Avoid gangs who arrive in unidentified vans, with no proper identification. Many have no skills apart from ripping you off. Never pay for work claimed to be ‘extras’ unless agreed beforehand.
If you feel vulnerable always get a knowledgeable friend or neighbour to help out.
Generally it is better to get a known local builder or handyman. [ Even I got caught out a few years ago. I was going to replace the felt on my roof, when a gang came round and offered to do it, using my materials, for a reasonable price. When most of it had been completed, (under my watchful eye), I had to go out on an errand. When I arrived back the men had gone and the job was finished. However, my wife said they had had to fill in the gaps in the brickwork above the windows and requested a further £15.00, which my wife had paid. These gaps were the vent holes over the windows, which I had clear out again over the next two days.]

Payments.

1. Never pay contractors any money before work commences, a good contractor will not ever request that you do. You cannot be liable for work not carried out, or goods not supplied. However, if you agree a start date for work to commence and you later change your mind about having the work done, you will probably incur costs.
2. See BBC news item Builders Scam.
3. For a small contractor it may be reasonable to use Stage Payments to help his cash flow. This means that he will be paid for sections of the work that have been satisfactorily completed. This should be discussed with the contractor to determine the completion stages, however, avoid situations that would leave you with problems if he was unable to continue further. If fitting a central heating system was part of the contract, then the completion of the complete system to a fully operational state would be subject to a stage payment. The partial completion of the central heating system for (say 3 bedrooms) would not justify a stage payment. The complete decoration of a room would be OK for a stage payment.
4. It can be advantageous for you to purchase high price equipment if you have suitable storage available. This can save you money and help the cash-flow for small contractors. This only applies if you know exactly what you want, Light fittings, plugs and sockets, cookers, fridges, doors are typical items, but check sizes with the contractor before you buy them.

More to come on this post.

Author; Brian Williams

Design Problems of Modern Road Lighting.

If you are driving along a road at night you have a visibility problem. If there are no  street or road lamps you are dependant on the relatively small amount of light reflected back from your headlights to see and identify objects in front of you. However, your eyes rapidly adjust to the low ambient light conditions and your visibility improves. However, the lights of any traffic coming towards you overrides this and your eye adjusts again to handle the new light intensity. Of the light energy entering the eye now, only a small percentage is coming from the low energy light receptors (rods) that allow us to see in low ambient conditions, and the higher energy light from oncoming headlights effectively swamps the signals to the brain. This affectively blinds us.

However, as the high energy receptors(cones) are mainly concentrated in the centre of the retina (the fovea), we can reduce their effect by moving our eyes to one side (about 10º) which reduces the efficiency of the rods and allows a greater percentage of the low energy rods to transmit their signals to the brain. This allows us some  improved visibility.

If the road or street does have lighting, you have a different set of problems. In modern street lighting your visibility is reduced by the lighting itself, which is designed to suit the pedestrians rather than the motorists, a situation that actually endangers the pedestrians.

Modern street lighting is designed to give an even spread if light across an area, which is beneficial to the pedestrian.

However, when you are driving at night along a lit road you are conscious that there is a ‘blind spot’ under each lighting unit. Oddly, these are the areas that receive the most light. A pedestrian crossing the road in these areas will be be very difficult to see by approaching motorists.

The light shining downwards from the lamp is mostly converted to heat or reflected up into the sky, which is why this area appears as a blind spot  to motorists. This also means that the energy used to illuminate this area is wasted. An airliner or helicopter has a better view of the road than the motorist.

A further problem is light intensity.  If you are walking at night and someone shines a torch at you , you are effectively blinded, because the light intensity of the torch beam is far greater than the far lower ‘ambient’ light, (you are blinded by a bright spot’).  Driving on roads that are lit by modern light units, means that your vision is affected by many ‘bright spots’ created by the road lights shining in your eyes.

The eye can adjust to dim ambient conditions, but these bright spots prevent this adjustment from taking place. No bright spots should be visible within 15º of the eye-line. In general, you should not see any direct light from more than one road lamp and this should only be visible by swivelling the eye by 15º.  On many roads you can see up to 50 ‘bright spots’ created by badly designed lighting systems.

These problems were known and understood 50 years ago before road lighting design was transferred to ‘architects’. Architects were involved in making ‘pretty’ lamp standards rather than efficient ones. As long as they looked all right in daylight that was OK. The earlier lighting units had adjustable shades that allowed control over the areas covered. This allowed the overall lighting system on a road to be adjusted for best results.

For maximum driving (and pedestrian) safety all road lights should shine in the same direction that the traffic is travelling. Although relatively simple to do on dual carriageways, (With the aid of shields that ensure that light is not visible from the opposite carriageway), it is more difficult on narrow roads. However, the cost of modifying modern lighting would be justified by the huge savings in power costs.

It would also address the problem of light pollution at night discussed in the news item below.

HID Headlights (Bi-zenon)

The problem with these is mainly with the design of the light fittings themselves. If the higher energy beam was properly controlled they would be acceptable. Unfortunately, there is a large part of the beam energy that does not satisfy the dipped beam requirements.

The main culprits are those cars with wrap round  headlight designs, which allow a large amount of light to be shine outside the dipped beam area even though the centre of the beam focus may be correct.  This presents a problem in that test stations do not have the correct equipment to check this. We are left with a dangerous situation where HID headlights are able to pass current MOT standards even though they cause greater road dangers. This presents the government with the choices of forcing the manufactures to produce expensive modifications to the cars, banning the cars from British roads, or refitting them with traditional headlights. The moral situation is that the cars should be taken off the roads until the problem is solved in a satisfactory manner. However see  comments below.

Sidelight Light-Emitting Diodes. (LEDs)

Even the LED sidelight clusters have a detrimental affect on your vision. Over the last week while on holiday I have been checking on this problem. Even in daylight conditions looking at the LED clusters for a few seconds leaves an impression on the retinal cones that can last up to 30 seconds. This reduces your visual acuity. At night it is far more dangerous because this lingering after-image reduces the effect of turning your eyes to allow the retinal ‘rods’ to handle the dark conditions.

Note: It may be that the ‘Sidelight’ LEDs are actually the cause of this problem, and not the main headlight unit. Although LEDs use less power, the light is at a greater intensity that is higher than normal daylight. The Ministry of Transport or motoring organisations should carry out simple tests to check this. Fitting a change-over switch in the lighting system so that operation of the main headlights cuts out the sidelight clusters would probably solve the problem.

This is particularly evident on many imported cars that have sidelights on at all times.

This posting was triggered by the following news item.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11990737 (Road lighting)

and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13147629 (HID headlights)

Author; Brian Williams

How we Manage to See.

Imagine you are in a toy shop at night but with all the lights on. You are all alone and everything is still. You look across the room at a large doll with Yellow hair, a multi coloured striped dress and black shoes. How are you actually seeing her?

According to the physicists it is due to photons traveling from the doll to your eye.

OK, but what is a photon?

According to the physicists it is,  (and I quote)  “A quantum of light or of electro-magnetic radiation……..”. Chambers Dictionary of Science and Technology. [Not their fault, that’s what they were told by the physicists.]

Do you understand it now?

Of course not, they tell you that to stop you from asking ‘really difficult’ questions. If you persist and make a nuisance of yourself, you may get the admission that the physicists consider that a photon is ‘a squiggly line that can be like a particle.’, the squiggly bit is the  ‘Wavelike nature of light’. Check in your physics books and you will find graphic illustrations of these strange items.

Never mind, you will not get any sensible explanation so let us return to our toy store.

We are looking towards the large doll and we see it by the  squiggly lines, sorry, photons, that are traveling from the various lights to the doll and then traveling to your eye. Simple, isn’t it, now you know how we see things, according to the physicists.

It is simple if you are not interested in physics, and it will do for the children.

However, you have billions of photons traveling in all directions from the lights. These photons are reflected off all the toys and walls and floor and again scattered in all directions. During all this scattering they change from white photons into yellow, red and blue photons. Some remain as white photons. According to the physicists we also have purple, light green, dark green, mauve, pink, cyan, magenta, grey, khaki etcetera. photons. [Odd really, if white light is composed of all the other colours, then a white photon would have to split into 100s of different coloured photons!]

Now ask your physicist how all the white photons change into differently coloured photons. Or better still, don’t, because you will not get an answer.

Now consider a a single Red photon travelling from the doll to your eye. It is crossing the paths of billions of other photons, of different colours, all travelling in different directions. Apparently it does this without colliding with, or being affected by, all the other photons.

Apparently, there is so much space between all these photons that only a very few are affected by collisions and therefore we don’t have a problem!

But what about the billions of atoms and molecules that stand in the path between the doll and your eye? Do they not have any affect on the photons? Do photons pass unimpeded through them?

Let us review the description of a photon, “A quantum of light or of electro-magnetic radiation……..”.

The first part is meaningless, “A photon is a quantum of light”. It explains nothing, it is just an attempt to appear scientific.[See Quantum Leap]

The second part is also meaningless, “A photon is a quantum of electro-magnetic radiation”. It also  explains nothing, but at least it gives us something to work with.

In reality the entry in the dictionary should have read,” We think that a photon is a bit of light or a bit of electro-magnetic radiation or even something entirely different”

What is ‘electro-magnetic radiation‘.

Basically it is a magnetic field created by passing an electrical current through a coil wrapped around an iron or other metal core. Used in electric motors, generators, solenoids(electrically operated door locks and latches) and many other items of equipment.

Some confusion here, light cannot be composed of iron, copper wire and electrical supplies. The confusion is with the physics establishment

However, it sounds impressive and is used by physicists for virtually any phenomena that they don’t understand. They don’t understand what electricity is, they don’t understand magnetism, they have no idea what light is and they don’t understand mechanics. The expression “electro-magnetic radiation” is one borrowed from engineering, and means exactly as stated above.

However, radiation is a rather catch-all word which has various meanings.  You can say that the spokes of a wheel radiate from the hub. If you drop a stone into water the waves created radiate outwards. So there are two main accepted meanings of radiation. One means radially orientated to a centre point and the other means traveling away from a centre point.

If there is a magnetic aspect of photons then they must affect each other. If they have a magnetic aspect then they should be affected by other magnets. They should be affected by iron. It is therefore clear that a photon is not “a quantum of electro-magnetic radiation”.

What are we left with from the dictionary description   “A photon is a quantum of electro-magnetic radiation”?. We are only left with the “electro” part, which means electron.

So, what is an “electron”?

An electron is the only sub-atomic particle that has any evidence for its existence. No electron has ever been seen, even under the most powerful microscopes in existence. [No atoms have ever been seen either, despite beautifully done computer graphics created by artists]. Molecules are easy to see because you yourself are a molecule, a grain of sand is a molecule, copper wire is a molecule. Yes, I know that physicists would argue that the human body is not a molecule, but that it is a collection of molecules help together by ‘molecular/atomic glue’. Or to put it another way, magic. I say this because they cannot say how this glue could work or what the glue is made of.

However, there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to admit the existence of the electron.

An electron is a negatively charged particle. It is assumed that all electrons are identical, but this is obviously impossible to determine.

A lot more to come on this. Don’t worry, mechanics will come to the rescue.

Plea to Programmers and Instruction Manual Writers.

Instructions: Open packet, Eat nuts.

On an  American Airlines packet of nuts.

Rather silly, because everybody knows this.  However, the main problem with the above is not that it is silly but that the writer has missed the most important part of the instructions, which is “How to open the packet”.

How many times have you seen crisps or peanuts flying in all directions, due to people struggling to open a packet.

I would imagine that a good proportion of the time spent by clean-up crews, is finding and removing peanuts and crisps from inaccessible places on the aircraft. This means that many $1,000s are wasted each year, and probably a few tons of peanuts and crisps are wasted.

All because of incompetent instructions.

The same type of silliness is endemic in the computer industry. From the classic Microsoft silliness of having to press the ‘Start’ button to ‘Stop’ the the computer, to far more serious lapses of intelligence that costs $millions every year.

Too many ‘technical writers’ assume that the reader knows as much about the subject as they do. Obviously this is silly, because if they did they wouldn’t need to read the instructions. As an engineer I have spent a lot of time over the years writing instructing manuals for all types of equipment.

Very early on in my career I determined that any instructions that I wrote should be understandable by my grandmother.  (Not literally as both my grandmothers died before I started work.)

Tips on writing instructions.

1. Know what you are writing about.
2. Assume that your reader does not know anything about handling or using the equipment or system.
3. Do not use abbreviations for anything unless there is clear information on the same page to explain the meaning.
4. Avoid using obscure (to the public) technical terms, it may seem clever to you but it brands you as a lousy technical writer.
5. Try and stay with a common vocabulary. Almost anything can be explained by using less than 500 commonly known words in any language.
6. None of the above mean that you have to treat the readers as idiots. That fact that you can’t understand your wife’s knitting pattern does not mean that you are an idiot. Give the same consideration to your readers.

Most computer related instruction manuals  contain parts that are mostly ‘gobbledegook’ ( a word or series of words that are meaningless) to the reader . Get your grand mother to check all your work for gobbledegook, because you won’t be able to recognize it yourself. Someone at the next desk to you may understand what you are trying to say, but real people won’t.

As a good guide to technical writing you should read the computer technical guides by David Welsh Pogue. A master at his subjects and a super sense of humour. No, he is not paying me for saying that, I just think he is the best technical writer on computers I have read, and it is pertinent to this posting. Just borrow one from the library to read irrespective of your particular computer preference.

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Many years ago I was urgently requested to handle the technical information department of a wire and cable making machinery company. The first few weeks were very hectic because they were months behind in their delivery of instruction manuals, and I was unfamiliar with the machinery. After about 6 weeks I started to get involved with the engineering departments to get familiar with the equipment, and to study the “standard” sections of the manuals that I had been sending out. I found that I could not reconcile the information in these “Standard” sections with what I had learned in the engineering and manufacturing departments.

I then had a meeting with the companies commissioning engineers to discuss my problems. I found that they could not make sense of the “standard” documentation either. Checking up later I found that some of these inaccurate “standard” documents had been issued over a period of 10 years without anyone, even clients, complaining about them.

Over the next few weeks I had to rewrite all the standard sections, and create graphics where I thought necessary.

It is clear therefore, that because no-one had complained over a period of 10 years,  nothing had been done about the problem.  $1000s must have been wasted over this 10 year period due to people having to work out for themselves how to operate equipment. Another problem here is that if people cannot understand a particular set of instructions, they tend to consider that it is their fault for being stupid.  In almost all cases it means that the writer of the instructions was incompetent.

How many times have you read the following or similar, in computer operating manuals, ” It is better if you spend a little time playing about with your computer”. Generally this means that the writer himself is totally confused and would rather you worked it out for yourself.

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A further problem I discovered was with translations. Translating technical subjects is full of pitfalls for the unwary. Is it a bolt or a set-screw? Is it a cog or a sprocket?  Having the correct definition makes it more likely that the translation will be correct. Sometimes it may be necessary to supply photographs or diagrams with the English text to enable the translator to supply the correct words.

In many cases I found it necessary to produce separate “Translatable English ” versions of operating instructions.

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From the WordPress Help Pages.

“If none of this make sense and you have someone to administrate your system for you, show the above to them and they should be able to figure it out.”

Maybe!!!!!!!!!! And what if I don’t?

WordPress writers do have an excuse, because they write these from the goodness of their hearts, and most of them have other jobs to do.

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If you find words in my web site that do not appear to be be sensible in none-English languages, please send information and I will try to re-word it.

Author – Brian Williams

Colour Test Bars – 2 of 2

The use of these test bars gives us a method of accurately determining ‘True’ colours and also giving an accurate specification for any colour. At present there are no reliable standards for colours.  You can compare colour charts from all sources without getting a match for a stated colour. It also gives us a more reliable method of measuring colour blindness.

Blue Slit

Red Slit

Yellow Slit

Obviously my method of using the computer monitor as the colour source only gives approximations.  As a pensioner I am unable to spend £millions on buying equipment.  My total outlay on scientific equipment for this series of experiments was under £5.00.

The extra energy added to the colours due to the radiated Black screen energy of 1.5 micro amps made a serious distortion in the colours, particularly the Blues.

Author – Brian Williams