Supersize Me

[Devanshu]

Has anyone else seen this? Great documentary if you havent. All I can say is...it'll keep me away from mcdonalds for a while.

[unclebud]

I did enjoy it and I am a heavy user most of the time.

[ViRaL1]

Haven't seen it yet, but I'll probably rent it soon. Heard good things about it. On a related note, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are going to be promoting McDonald's.

http://entertainment.msn.com/celebs/article.aspx?news=168191

I guess McD's is trying to fight their 'bloated' image.

[sterno]

On a related note, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are going to be promoting McDonald's.

McDonald's for the anorexic: it's not really food, so eating it doesn't count.

McDonald's for the bulemic: it tastes as good coming up as it does going down.

[yoda313]

Hello,

What is it with documentaries all of a sudden?? (Not mentioning politics, just the recent phenomenon). It seems like anybody with a movie resembling a documentary gets it produced.

It kind of reminds me of the "blair witch" craze. Unfortunately it seems like "REALITY TV" is here to stay! . It just seems hard to believe that they have picked up the seemingly positive and popular support that they have.

I mean I personally want to be entertained and forgot regular life when I go to a movie. I don't mind if some of them are more deep than others. It's just that it seems crazy that all of these "documentaries' have hit the market recently.

Kevin

[tgpo]

I still wanna see it, but havn't gotten around to it yet. From the looks of it, it seems a lot like Fast Food Nation, but on a more personal scale.

[Tommyknocker]

Hello,

What is it with documentaries all of a sudden?? (Not mentioning politics, just the recent phenomenon). It seems like anybody with a movie resembling a documentary gets it produced.

It kind of reminds me of the "blair witch" craze. Unfortunately it seems like "REALITY TV" is here to stay! . It just seems hard to believe that they have picked up the seemingly positive and popular support that they have.

I mean I personally want to be entertained and forgot regular life when I go to a movie. I don't mind if some of them are more deep than others. It's just that it seems crazy that all of these "documentaries' have hit the market recently.

Kevin

I think I finally have a pet peeve, and it is reality TV. What a misnomer. There is nothing real about it. I have never seen people act the way they do on those dorky shows, for lack of a better term. What is the name of that theory says something like whatever we observe we change? The people on those shows act exactly what they are -- people acting the way they think they should act with 20 milliion people watching. Turn off the camera, and I am sure they will return to normal.

[Capmaster]

Reminds me of an age-old problem of scientific method - by observing and measuring, we affect and thus alter.

[Anonymous321]

Has anyone else seen this? Great documentary if you havent. All I can say is...it'll keep me away from mcdonalds for a while.

It's a really interessting movie, especially when you're not from the states. I will still continue to eat as much McDonalds as I did before I saw the movie - which is about once every three months...

[VCDHunter]

It was better than I expected - I did love the Supersize coke in MickeyDs - 1/2 a gallon !! Jesus, you must be able to feel your teeth rotting downing that !

[fritzi93]

What is the name of that theory says something like whatever we observe we change?

I think you mean the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle from quantum physics. Nice analogy. (Lemme see if I remember: A photon, for example, has characteristics of BOTH a particle and a wave, until you attempt to measure such characteristics. Then it's either/or, depending on what you're looking for. There's more, but.... anyway) Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[yoda313]

Hello,

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

Ahh... That's the one that let's Star Trek Transporters to work!

Kevin

--I know the technology involved would be next to impossible to create given the trillions of atoms in a person but it sure looks neat! --

[Capmaster]

What is the name of that theory says something like whatever we observe we change?

I think you mean the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle from quantum physics. Nice analogy. (Lemme see if I remember: A photon, for example, has characteristics of BOTH a particle and a wave, until you attempt to measure such characteristics. Then it's either/or, depending on what you're looking for. There's more, but.... anyway) Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It's more than just quantum physics. We see it in every scientific discipline. For example, try measuring a current of 10 nanoamps without inhibiting the current or adding other spurious signals to the circuit. Or 500 milliamps, for that matter. The percentage of change is smaller, but there nevertheless.

A common current measuring technique is to add a known, small resistance in order to measure the I-squared-R voltage drop across it without the voltage being so small it's nulled by the larger measuring uncertainty of the equipment. By adding the resistance, you're reducing the current.

Same with a Hall-effect current probe. You're perturbing the lines of magnetic flux around the wire and, in so doing, you're affecting the current ...however small the perturbation is.

Measure voltage and you're drawing current to operate your meter. Even with an input impedance of 10 Teraohms, you still must remove energy from the circuit in order to measure it.

[Devanshu]

A photon, for example, has characteristics of BOTH a particle and a wave

Isnt that called wave-particle duality?

[fritzi93]

A photon, for example, has characteristics of BOTH a particle and a wave

Isnt that called wave-particle duality?

Yeah, you sent me back to school, and it's been a while. So i looked it up. The wave and particle characteristics of electromagnetic radiation are complementary.

As to the Uncertainty Principle, technically, it has to deal with the impossibility of simultaneously determining the precise position and momentum of any particle. The upshot is that physicists cannot, for example, determine the position of a particle without disturbing the velocity.

Anyway, Cap's explanation is best: There are some phenomena that are changed by the very fact of their being observed. Human behavior too.

[Capmaster]

The whole "light is particles vs. light is strictly electromagnetic" is an interesting one. Light displays properties of both ....it has no mass, so it must be a wave, right? Yet it can be easily blocked by almost any material. Very unlike all other EM spectrum emissions. So it's not true electromagnetic waves.

Yet if it is a particle, it must have mass. If it is a particle, it is required to, according to Newtonian physics - the physics that define our world. But to travel at the speed of light, Einstein has already proven that as a mass' velocity approaches C (the speed of light) the energy necessary to accelerate it further approaches infinity: E=MC^2 where E = energy and M = mass. As a fixed, finite mass keeps accelerating, the energy is a function of the mass times the velocity of light squared. Clearly the energy constraints preclude achieving that velocity in anything close to the mass of -say - a ping-pong ball or a BB. Not with all the energy available on earth.

If that seems like an exaggeration, try this. It's an old exercise:

Take a penny - a single cent, and double it every day for 30 days. One cent becomes 2 cents. The next day that's 4 cents and so on. Bear in mind that we are just doubling the amount each day, not squaring it. See how much money you are earning by the 30th day

Now try that representing the tiniest increment of mass, using the speed of light squared times that mass to represent the energy needed. Unreal. Unachievable at our current level for any meaningful mass.

It would therefore require infinite energy to accelerate the tiniest mass to the speed of light. Yet we accelerate billions of photons to that velocity, with them even passing through solid glass, with the tiniest battery-operated flashlight. Therefore a photon is not a traditional "particle". It can't be a particle. Not with that velocity.

Light can't be observed unless it slows down when it strikes something. You can't see light itself, only when it hits something like a piece of paper, or your retina. It's the whole "you can't observe it unless you change it" thing.

I suppose it's one of those mechanisms that we haven't really defined yet because we don't understand it. Like "if the universe is finite in size ...all the universe, not just the current universe populated with stars ....all the empty space too......then what's beyond it?" But if it is infinite, how can that be? How can something go on forever? Men have taken up drinking for lesser reasons than pondering this problem


Our tiny minds can't comprehend such truths yet. It makes me feel tiny and insignificant just trying to understand

<Capmaster ends his reflections into the meaning of it all >

[thecoalman]

Now that's what you call a thread-jacking. Started out about movie about Mcdonalds' or whatever (i don't see much tv so I haven't seen the preview)......10 posts later you guys are talking about quantumn physics and E=MC 2......

[Capmaster]

Now that's what you call a thread-jacking. Started out about movie about Mcdonalds' or whatever (i don't see much tv so I haven't seen the preview)......10 posts later you guys are talking about quantumn physics and E=MC 2......

Sorry coalman. That happens often in OT.

Now, on the topic of McDonalds ........................

[thecoalman]

Now that's what you call a thread-jacking. Started out about movie about Mcdonalds' or whatever (i don't see much tv so I haven't seen the preview)......10 posts later you guys are talking about quantumn physics and E=MC 2......

Sorry coalman. That happens often in OT.

Now, on the topic of McDonalds ........................

Doesn't bother me, I'm guilty myself sometimes. Just found it very funny that it went from Mcdonalds to the present subject in ten posts.

[thecoalman]

ohhhh ,man now i thread jacked it

[Capmaster]

ohhhh ,man now i thread jacked it

Welcome to the dark side

[jimmalenko]

I LIKE my McDonalds, so I have no ambition of watching this at all.

There was a doco shown here a while back that stated that frozen meat pies were only about 20% real meat and that put me off them forever.

I WON'T let it happen to McDonalds

[fritzi93]

ohhhh ,man now i thread jacked it

Probably a good thing. Wonder how many of the (insert shockingly high number here) members out there think the thread has gone to hell?

Anyway, Tommyknocker started that particular digression.

[Capmaster]

I LIKE my McDonalds, so I have no ambition of watching this at all.

There was a doco shown here a while back that stated that frozen meat pies were only about 20% real meat and that put me off them forever.

I WON'T let it happen to McDonalds

I'm still burping up McD's from tonight. Three double cheeseburgers and fries 8) <blapppp!> Excuse me

[thecoalman]

I WON'T let it happen to McDonalds

You mean the soy burger