how ignorant are you?
 

While some people know a lot, nobody knows everything. I want to see what you don't know. Keep it light -- no bad vibes in here. Keep it to mistaken song lyrics, words you can't pronounce, terms you read and don't know what they mean. it's an opportunity for everyone to get made fun of. This may fizzle, but anyhoo. I'll start.

Until I looked it up 10 seconds ago, I really didn't know what non-sequiter meant.

I still don't know what QED means.

Until college, I pronounced armageddon ar-MAH-guh-don, like a monster who would fight Godzilla

I've played a musical instrument of some form or other for more than 25 years, and I can't read music.


Any interest in this kind of thread?

I cannot understand anything about the stock exchange. Do they exchange actual stock? Why does it change every second? What do all the funny words mean?

I don't know how an engine works and I don't know where one thing is in relation to another. My spatial awareness is that of a chocolate-filled compass.

I spoke fluent German only 5 years ago, now I can barely manage 'Wie heist du?'

I don't really have any general knowledge at all. I get through Trivial Pursuit by question analysis, working out the only thing the answer could be. Analysis is probably my only real skill, and I usually get the questions wrong.

I don't know anything. Why did you start this thread? I now wallow in annoyed self acceptance. Bugger off and go post on 'who loves god' or something.

I don't know any math beyond basic algebra. No calculus, not even advanced algebra.

That's what getting a BA in music and and MA in Philosophy will get you ...

I don't know how to do anything with cars. Complete moron. If I tried to change the oil I would probably catch the car on fire and burn it to the ground.

Neither could Jimi Hendrix.

Electricity baffles the hell out of me. I will literally call an electrician to wire one light switch. I understand positive and negative much in the same way a monkey understands that you can touch one or the other but not both. I don't understand why, for example, the stove burner does not shock you when you touch it after you turn it on (but before it gets hot). The heat comes from electricity flowing through it, right? I don't understand why the static electricity from touching the doorknob stings but you can touch one of those static electricity generators which will make even the longest hair stand on end but it doesn't hurt. And I don't understand what voltage is. I understand current and resistance and don't know why we need some third thing to make it more complicated.:biggrin: There. I said it. Whew.

Simple, basic arithmetic confounds me. I can do more complicated math in my head just fine, multiplying large numbers and what-have-you, and I still can explain calculus and all about the different kinds of infinities. But I have to triple-check myself every time I add two single-digit numbers or (god help me) calculate a tip because 90% of the time I will have screwed it up.

Also, all the aforementioned things: electricity, and plumbing, and cars, and home appliances are magic. Just magic.

You know how you'll hear a statistic like 65% of Americans can't find Iraq on an unmarked map? I'm one of those people. Maps do NOT stick with me. I know what it borders on and what else is in the region, but I couldn't find those countries on a map either.

I don't know how to pronounce "gyro", as in the greek-ish fast food. Every once in a while I'm told how, but my brain pushes that information to a strange dusty wasteland. In order to avoid terrifying embarrassment, I have never ordered one.

I have never bothered to learn object-oriented programming. Every once in a while I try for a few hours and then just give up. This may not seem like much, but on my scale, it's like a mechanic who's worked on carburetors all his life, acknowledging that he doesn't understand fuel injection.

I didn't quite work out the word untitled till I was about 10, I thought it was pronounced uni-tilled and was some odd thing Apple had made up because it probably wouldn't be taken.

I still don't think I have a perfect grasp on voltage and ampage. I get it but I don't get it. Despite designing a railgun at one point. Go figure.

Wow, that's me too. Except for the multiplying large numbers in my head. I can do calculus, geometry, and trig, and I just helped my brother with his discrete math, but I have blind spots in my basic addition/multiplication tables and I count in my head from the nearest one I know.

Maybe we can fix the gyro thing ... the gyro has given it's name to another american sandwich that it bears no relation to, although one in short supply in the Philadelphia area ... the Hero.

Okay, so now that you know that a hero is kind of a gyro ... and a distinctive feature of the word gyro is the "Y" ... say it with me ... Yeero. Putting a slight trill on the "R" is okay, but not necessary.

And now the big secret ... if you, as a non-Greek American, starts saying it right, the guys in the restaurant will NEVER UNDERSTAND YOU.

They expect everyone to say it wrong and are taken aback when the word accidently slips from someone's mouth.

Stick with the Chicken Souvlaki Sandwich. ;)

My areas of ignorance are vast. I enjoy a large number of spectator sports, but there are bits of the rules that remain a complete mystery to me. For example, I know that you can be penalized for offsides in Football, but I have no clue what that means, even though I get it in hockey or soccer. I can watch football and become excited about action on the screen, largely because I know it is action. I can sometimes even correctly identify the foul that was called, without understanding the mechanisms of the foul itself.

I have always lived in apartments so things like basic plumbing mystify me.

I cannot do math advanced beyond Trigonometry. I had an extreme, possibly unreasonable, fear of Calculus. Because of this fear I did not major in Computer Science in college. This is probably a good thing, because all of my programmer friends who really liked calculus are unemployed now.

I also do not understand the stock market.

I also am mystified by electricity, including the answer to the question "Why doesn't it leak out of the wall through an open plug."

I don't know.


( I'm just a liiiiiiiiittle disappointed that no one said that already.) ...like saying, " what?" when someone mentions anything about hearing.

but, it's true. I'm ignorant of what i don't know. that's got to be the biggest thing.

Calculus? I don't know the meaning of the word.....no really.
i wouldn't recognize a calculus problem if presented with one. I may be able to solve it, but i don't think i would recognize that i was doing it. so...

I can't read music either. but i'll wrap your head in a guitar solo!

in biology, i never could understand the why. i get it that mitochondria create energy from fuel, but i don't get why they do it. or why heart cells pump, or why synapses carry electricity one way or a different way. that's way too deep.

oh, and women.

It does.

I'm a vast reservoir of ignorance, but I'm still smarter than everbody else.

So I should put a bucket under it so I can sell it back to the electric company? If only there were a way I could just pour it into the toaster ...

I'm scared of microwaves, because I don't understand how the stuff that heats things up doesn't escape around the seal of the door and give me cancer.

it does

I was quite amused by the folks who said that "I don't know any math past algebra" or "past trigonometry." If you know even a little algebra, to say nothing of trigonometry, you're ahead of the vast majority of the population, including those with college degrees.

I used to know quite a bit of math, having double-majored in it along with my music history, but I have forgotten most of it.

I'm completely cluess with tools. (Unless you count an screwdriver, which I can use to assemble a prefab unit such as a bookcase.) Even the simplest carpentry or home repairs are beyond me.

I am completely clueless in most normal social settings.

I know lots of stuff - my brain seems to prefer trivia over any other form of data. However, I'm a dunce at finance. I just can't seem to get worked up over it - even though I know I should.


QED = Quod Erat Demonstrandum. Latin for 'by which it is demonstrated'. You can cross that one off your list, noodle.

I thought QED was Quite Easily Done. See? I'm that stupid.

I know more useless information then anyone else I know. Except maybe Ken Jennings.

That being said, my brain and my body are totally disconnected. I lose my coffee cup on the way to the lunch room usually once a day. It mostly involves me getting distracted and leaving it some where. It's never on purpose.
And God help me if somebody talks to me if I'm on my way to ask someone a question. It's terribly embarrassing to walk into a office and then just stare at the occupant, turn around and then leave because you have no idea why you're there.
And I can't spell worth shit.

I always believed that the more a person comes to know, the more she realizes that she does not know anything. That is definitely me, and that is why I am at The Cellar. I bungled into your forum while seeking data on something else I didn't know, and was so astonished by the range and spectrum of intelligence here that I stayed. Mostly in the shadows for 3 months though, because I felt so ignorant that I didn't have the nerve to write anything. I always believed, though, that the only way I could advance my knowledge in any way was to play with the guys who knew so much more than I did that I would always be clawing to keep up with them.

As for something concrete that I am ignorant about, suffice it to say that I was always considered "weird" as a kid, the kind you ask to do homework for you but don't want to hang around with. Having taught myself to read before I was 5, I never learned to PRONOUNCE the words. By the time I was in 2nd grade, I was into Greco-Roman mythology and Paleontology. So I could tell you all about things that most adults didn't want to know but I never pronounced the words correctly, and since the adults had no idea about the subjects they never corrected me. I came in second for the entire state of North Carolina in the National Honor Society ancient mythology contest when I was in High School, simply because it was written instead of oral. Until well into college, I never had any idea that I was saying most of the words wrong, but fortunately at that level there were others with my interests and I had the chance to learn it properly before I made too great a fool of myself. Can you imagine? I knew all about ancient mythology and geography and archeology but never knew how to pronounce Ulysses. I always said it YOOL-is-seez :blush:

I'm with you on that one! I've got some sort of ferocious mental block about OO. And, wouldn't you know, I'm about to head up an OO migration of a major effort here... :worried:

I'm baffled by microwaves, too. Why is my food hot, but the inside of the microwave is not?

Math is beyond my comprehension. Yes, I can add, subtract, multiply and even divide, but if I try to reach beyond that, I'm lost. The highest math I ever completed was my Jr. year of high school and that was retard math (very basic algebra).

Gum is weird. Why doesn't it ever dissolve?

How can a nurse puncture my vein to draw blood and not go straight through it? And why does it have to be taken from a vein? Isn't there blood all over in my body?

CD's, DVD's, VHS tapes, cassette tapes, vinyl records, etc. How does stuff get in there? And how does it work?

*shrug*

I really suck at golf. No matter how much help I get and guidance, I just miss the ball *every* time.

I have little concept of time. I can sit at the computer for what I think is 15 minutes, when it has really been 4 hours. Same goes for other activities, like cleaning, painting, and drinking alcohol. I couldn't guess what time it was if my life depended on it. I rely completely on clocks to give me that information.

I am complete imbecile when it comes to cooking anything having to do with meat. I like meat, mind you, but when it comes time to cook chicken breast, pork, or steak, I get this terrifying thought that I will either undercook it or overcook it, then I freak out about how to prepare it, like should I use the oven or should I fry it? I usually end up using the frying pan, that way I can watch the meat intently as it cooks, but I still mess it up somehow, everytime.

I never really know how to pronounce "envelope", "imbecile" (which I used in the previous paragraph), and "obscene". I always get confused about the beginning vowel sounds with these words.

I have a terrible memory with names. I commonly call people by wrong names if I just met them, thinking their name is something it isn't. Sometimes that is because they remind me of someone I use to know. I forget celebrity and band names very easily. I try everything to remember people's names that I meet, but I have to have constant repetition, in order to remember.

I have some idea of most of the trivia people have posted, but I'm totally ignorant about large areas of knowledge that I don't even know I don't know. I can't read music, but since I don't even listen to it that's no surprise. I'm an English monoglot -- I know no foreign languages. What little I know about ancient military history comes mostly from Baen science fiction novels.

I can't paint. Well, I can, but somehow I can never do it right. I swear I make brush marks with a roller.

I can't create anything musical or artistic.

Poetry eludes me. (I have the sneaking suspicion there's actually nothing there)

I don't know much about the details of the industry I supposedly work in (logistics). But then, I don't really want to know.

I don't get how everything computerized can be reduced to 1's and 0's, and how quickly these 1's and 0's can be manipulated to make, say, the letters and colors on my screen. It's mindboggling. Don't even get me started on integrated circuits, which take the 1's and 0's and reduce them to electrical current.

Or at least I *think* that's what they do.

I don't understand the needs of plants, and feel badly for those that have been entrusted to my care. I have none inside the house, and those that are outside have to make their own way in the world. I know they need water, but I am just as likely to give them too much as not enough.

I grow easy things like catnip that lives anywhere and reseeds itself and I love to watch my cat roll in it. On rare occasions, I will be attracted to a plant, buy it, bring it home and plant it, and it will take hold. I have one that is amazing looking that has done really well, but I have no idea why. I went back to buy more, but can find no more. Gardening is a very mystifying pursuit.

Oh, and sometimes I have no idea what you guys are talking about - it's a generational, cultural thing.

Oh I forgot that one. Plants die when I'm in the same room with them. If I actively try to take care of them they die faster. (Don't get me started on my lawn.) (Actually I probably will ask for some suggestions about it.)

I love learning new languages, but they don't stick with me. What was at least written fluency with partial spoken fluency in croatian is mostly gone, other than a few words and phrases. I've learned 5 languages, and now barely speak English. Dammit.

Up until about 3 years ago, I knew what the word epitome meant but had NO IDEA that ee-PIT-ah-mee was how you said it. I actually said "EP-i-tum". And I went to county level in the 6th grade spelling bee. *sigh*

I'm an amateur radio operator, and still have problems the electricity and math. Electricity scares me. I understand voltage and amperage, but jumping the car freaks me out, in case those clips touch.

I used to test drive Ford vehicles, but I can't tell you how half that crap works or what it's called.

I can build a computer from the board up, but I don't know what a "front side bus" is or what a cache is or why SDRAM is different from DDR RAM or what HT does for you. I don't know how zeroes and ones become World of Warcraft on my screen.

Stock Market stuff (like the stuff lookout said in his post)? Forget it. Gibberish.

math higher than Algebra? Nope.

Chemistry? Failed it 3 times, right after the part where you learn about Moles. What does a blind rodent have anything to do with Chemistry and weights? And why is Avocado's number important?

I dont understand how air going under the wing pushes it (the wing) down, thus causing lift? Huh? I know it has something to do with air pressue, but..uh..after that you lost me...

how embarassing.


so how is it supposed to be pronounced?

i'm ignorant as to how therapy is helpful. if you know there is a problem, why do you need someone else to help you fix it?

math? beyond basic algebra i left it all in high school.
chemistry and physics? piss me off.
i understand the idea of how to build things (shelves, benches, cabinets, etc.) but when i attempt to actually build something it is never successful.

i've studied it, but i can never remember which silverware is for what food item in nice restaurants.

i don't get large group semi-formal social interaction. at black tie events i'm the one standing in the corner not talking so that i don't make an ass of myself.

computers? i know where the power switch is usually.

I am one of the seven out of five people who don't understand fractions.

Also I have only a vague understanding of when to use a semicolon, despite looking it up in "the elements of style" at least three times a year.

Yoo-LISS-seez

My lawn is a disaster! I have tons of weeds, one of which was so prolific 2 years ago that I had a severe allergic reaction to its pollen after making the mistake of cutting the lawn while the weeds were producing in quantity. Do you think the world of plants was getting back at me for my inattention and abuse of their members?

I have actually put an organic weed suppressant on the lawn this Spring. We'll see waht happens. Organic fertilizer is next, apparently. I am getting advice from a friend who has gone this route. I don't want to encourage the lawn too much, but I do want a little grass in with the weeds.

oh, ok. that is how i was saying it. i didn't realize we were only talking about the stressed consonant (sp). i was trying to play it in my head...

oo-lis-eez?
yoo-ly-seez?

I can't read people, not even a little. So I try to be nice to everyone and hope the good'uns I've been good to will clue me in when I'm going to get rolled. Its a system but not much of one. :(

(I think you can substitute Euro for Gyro)

I still have no FUCKING clue how a solenoid works, or why we use them over a switch, even tho my Uncle ran a dealership's body shop for 20 years and explained it to me probably 20 times...it makes no sense.

Have you ever noticed when you are in the shower that the shower curtain keeps moving inward towards the stream of water? That's because the moving water creates an area of low pressure. The high pressure on the outside of the curtain moves toward the area of low pressure which moves the curtain inward. If you light your bic and blow to one side of it, the flame will move to that side towards the air stream. Same reason.

Same with a plane wing. The assymetrical shape of the wing makes the air moving over the top of the wing move faster than the air moving across the bottom of the wing. So, the air pressure on top of the wing is lower than it is on the bottom. The air on the bottom, then, moves towards the top and pushes the wing up as it does.

Too much information here...

Like most people, the older I get, the more I realize how ignorant I am. I do know some things. The vast majority of my brain is allocated to pop culture references, song lyrics, and sex. I've learned that I read much more than most people; and I'm constantly surprised how many people I meet who equate reading with a root canal with no anesthesia. THis brings me to the vast wasteland of what I don't know:

I'm endlessly using words I've been reading for years and butchering the pronunciation.
I understand money, but math ended for me in the 9th grade. In college I was in "Remedial Math 050". They called me the white guy; and I made some cool friends who also thought algebra was pointless and annoying.
The stock market. All I know is my 401k has been tanking for years.
I utterly fail to understand the mass market appeal of DMB.
Until I was about 27, I was sure "approximately" meant "exactly precisely" Oops.
I know eights of an inch, half inch, quarter inch, but if you point to 5/8th's of an inch on a ruler I can't help ya. I generally hold the "stupid end" of the tape measure when working with anyone less retarded than myself.
I sell computer hardware, and some of the "techs" I talk to baffle me daily.
I live in a house with 2 cats and I don't understand their appeal. All they do is meow for food, for attention, cover my house with cat fur and make at least one room smell really bad. Ugh.

I don't know what DMB is.

There was a period of about 20 years in my life in which I "balanced" my checkbook by deposting money and not writing it in the checkbook so I had an automatic buffer against bouncing checks. My secretary explained the whole concept of balancing for me, and a trick I could use to start over without simply opening a new account at a different bank and closing out the account that I have been not managing for the last 20 years. I liked my bank just fine. I just didn't know how much money was in my account.

I didn't know that solenoids were used in anything other than pinball machines.

I don't know what solenoids are used for in pinball machines, but I know they are in there, and are part of what makes pinball fun and exciting.

I could have taken Ken Jennings. No sweat. Just so long as there weren't any categories requiring knowledge of music recorded since 1992.

Yup. When you are a 5-year-old kid and you say it wrong nobody pays any attention, but when you do it in your Freshman Lit class and your teacher gets a whiplash .... :mg: I have to also confess an even worse one. The name of Odysseus' wife was Penelope. I had to learn much later that it was not pronounced PEN-ee-lope :(

I don't get this at all and it really bothers me. I will marry the first person to make me understand.*






*This may not be true.

Reward...they're all green. ;)

Tonchi do you have any deep-seated problems from discussing Ulysses at the age of 5?

I do not understand anyone remotely female.

I cannot keep any plant other than weeds alive. Why they should remain alive and even thrive when I cannot keep a simple geranium alive for more than a week is beyond me too.

I no longer understand how my computer works. I understand this is a function of my advancing years.

I simply cannot make and use dough. I can cook anything else, but not dough, yeast or otherwise. I always burn it or it comes out tasteless. Yecch!

I am currently being outsmarted by a squirrel.

The list goes on but there's a message size limit here.

Brian

CDs, DVDs, and vinyl records are stamped. CD's and DVDs additionally have a layer of aluminum sputtered over the stamped surface, then laquered. Cassette tapes are molded in multiple pieces, the tape attached to the reels, then snapped together. VHS tapes the same thing.

Do I at least get a one night stand for this useless information? :eyebrow:

Stamped with what? Laquered with what? What is this mysterious substance that makes sounds? And while we're on the subject, how do the tape players/CD lasers interpret this information?

If you can answer these questions I will stand on you one night.

When you were a kid, did you ever make a "telephone" with two tin cans and a long length of string stretched tight between them? You speak into one can, and you voice causes vibrations in the wall of the can. Those vibrations travel down the tight string (it has to be pulled tight) to the other can and vibrate the other can's wall. Then the vibrations make the air vibrate a little, and sound (pretty quiet sound at this point) travels to your ear.

With a vinyl record, the first record players and recorders were basically just a big cone attached to a needle. Someone would talk or sing into a big cone. The cone would vibrate, and the vibrations would be transferred to the needle. The needle would wiggle back and forth into a soft spinning disk (wax I think) and that would make squiggly lines. Then that wax disk would be used as a mold to make in vinyl of the completed record. You could play the record by putting the needle into the groove, and the cone would vibrate. The vibrations would make sound. Pretty cool. I've listened to these old players and they sound surprisingly loud.

Then the players were made electronic to make the music louder. The needle in a record player still fillows the squiggly groove and vibrates, but that vibration makes an electric signal that varies (sort of like vibrating) the signal is strengthened with an electronic amplifier and sent to the speakers. The speakers are coils of wire wrapped around a magnet, with paper cones attached to the wire coil. As the signal goes through the wire coil, the coil moves back and forth in relation to the magnet. This pulls on the paper cone and creates the sound you hear.

Tapes have the electic signal saved to them in a magnetic dust that is applied to the tape. Special heads can read the electric signal (which is a fluctuation in the strength of the magnetic field on the tape) and translate tht into an electric signal that can go to the speakers.

CDs and DVDs put that signal into a digital format of pits in a aluminum foil in a plastic disk. Then a digital processor translates that into an electric signal that goes to the speakers.

I hope this all made some amount of sense to you. :p

Lots of people area outsmarted by squirrels. Is this one getting into your house (I had that problem once - they drove the cat nuts too as he could hear them, smell thm, but could not get at them) or is it stealing the food in the bird feeder?

I do not understand the devoted fascination of bird watchers. I watch the ones in my yard, but can't understand those who go to the ends of the world to seek out species that they have not seen before, or those who just spend time looking through their binoculars trying to find a white tail feather or a spot behind the eye that makes the bird a different type. I like to walk in the woods,enjoy hearing birds singing or flitting through the trees, but that is enough. Bird watchers also have an annoying habit of making everyone they are with stop and remain quiet and motionless when they spot birds.

I went to lunch by myself yesterday at one of my favorite restaurants, The Bread Garden. World's best homemade soups, breads (panara, eat your heart out), and sandwiches. I ordered the min-ih-strone-ee soup please. The chef, without even a grin, corrected me; mean-eh-strone. Whatever, just give me a bowl of it and extra bread. {soup nazi} No tip for you! {soup nazi}

I have a terrible time pronouncing things, am woefully ignorant about politics, the stock market, computers, and hate history. I also can't read people, and have a horrible time judging character. I never fail to trust those who end up screwing me, and blow off those who would have been loyal friends. So, I have no 'best' friends I have known forever. My husband is the only one I have really gotten close to, but I like it when he screws me :lol:

When my wife and I got married, the menu the caterer gave us suggested "vegetable crudite" as one of the things we could have at the reception. She explained that it was a raw vegetable platter, and my fiance explained to me that it was pronounced "crew di tay" not "crud dite." Since then, my wife and I have a long running joke of calling the thing "crud dite" and I sometimes forget myself and think it really is pronounced that way.

glatt I have now read your post twice.

the answer to the first question is 'yes', but it never worked.

what I don't get is how movement translates into sound? is sound a movement? are sound waves tangible?

how do sqiggly lines on vinyl make the receiver play an EXACT replica? they'd have to be incredibly precise.

How?? How is the signal saved in magnetic dust? Do you just get a pile of crushed magnets and sing into them?

all this being said you are closest in line for being stood on in the near future

DMB is Dave Matthews Band, Wolf.

Which I happen to like, but not enough to go to a concert.

Yes, and yes. You hear sound when the tight skin across your eardrum vibrates in response to the movement (vibrations) of air entering your ear.They are analog, rather than digital, so they are like "tracing" a sound. When a record is recorded, the sound entering the recorder causes the blade to vibrate in a certain pattern on the prototype disc. When the disc is played, the needle traces that pattern and vibrates the speaker in the same way the original microphone vibrated during recording, which duplicates the sound. (This is how grammophones worked. More modern record players have levels of indirection involving electric current, but the principle is the same.)

Yes!

In a manner of speaking. Picture a stone dropped in a flat pond of water. The stone sends out waves of water in circles from it's impact point. The waves are alternating zones of high water level and low water level. Make sense?

Sound functions in much the same way. Instead of a stone in a pond, picture a person clapping in a room. Waves of air pressure move out from the hand clap. The waves are alternating zones of high air pressure and low air pressure. This happens very, very quickly - hundreds of times per second for most sounds.

The more times per second that the air changes pressure, the higher the pitch of the sound. The bigger the difference in pressure between the high and low point, the lounder the sound.

I'll skip records, someone else can probably answer that more accurately than I can. I was born too late :-)

A microphone takes that wave information from the air pressure (high and low pressure) and converts it into high and low levels of electricity running through a circuit (that's a whole new topic ... ), and that circuit runs into a small electromagnet (the tape head). Electromagnets have higher or lower strengths based on how much electricity is being run through them.

The magnetic dust on the tape reel is pulled past the electromagnet, and the dust picks up the strength of the electromagnet, and stores it as it's own magnetic field information. The stronger the electromagnet was at the time the tape went past it, the stronger the dust's magnetic field will be at that spot.

So now, follow the chain of events. You clap, sending out waves of high and low air pressure. A microphone changes this in to waves of high and low electricity in a circuit. The electromagnet creates a higher or lower magnetic fields based on the amount of electricity. The tape dust being pulled past saves an imprint of the strenght of the magnetic field from the tape head (electromagnet).

To play it back, you do the exact opposite. The tape moves past a much weaker electromagnet, so weak that the dust from the tape changes the strength of the electromagnet (tape head). This translates into changes in the electrical circuit moving through the tape head. This runs into an amplifier to increase the energy level, while preserving the wave information. Finally, the elctricity pushes your speaker cones in and out, which creates high and low waves of pressure in the air around them, which you hear as sound!

whew. You just got my first 3 lectures of each semester for free! don't worry, my students don't get it either.

-sm

It gets complicated, and my explanations are an over-simplification, but here goes:

If you understand how a speaker works, a microphone works basically the same way, but in reverse.

Sound waves from your voice hit a paper cone or membrane which is attached to a coil of wire. That wire is in a magnetic field. The membrane vibrates when your voice's sound waves hit it, and so does the wire coil. When the wire coil moves through the magnetic field, a current is created. I don't know why a current is created when a wire is moved through a magnetic field, it just does. That's how generators work, incidentally. The coil vibrates in a certain way, and the resulting current has a pattern to it. A signal. That signal goes through bunch of circuitry, but basically it goes to the recording "head" on the tape recorder. The recording head is like an electromagnet.

An electromagnet is a loop of wires that has electricity passing through it which causes a magnetic field. They use huge versions of these things in junkyards to pick up cars with cranes and move them around and drop them. Anyway, the recording head, which is basically an electromagnet, pulses a magnetic field that varies in intensity with the strength of the electric signal that comes from the microphone. This pulsing field rearranges the magnetic dust on the tape as the tape slowly travels by. You end up with a tape that has a pattern of strong magnetism and weak magnetism in different areas.

When you want to play the tape back, another head which is basically also just an electromagnet will read it. This electromagnet is turned off so that it can pick up the signal. The magnetic signal on the tape goes past the "coil" of wires that is the playback head, it is a mganet that moves in relation to the coil, and it creates a signal. That signal goes to the amplifyer and then to the speakers.

As you can see, there are two basic principles at play here. The idea that you can create electricity by passing a looped wire through a magnetic field and it's inverse, that you can create a magnetic field by passing electricity through a looped wire. Most of what we do with electricity in this world comes from these principles.

I'm just typing this stuff off the top of my head, so I hope it makes sense. There are probably better places to go that will explain this. LikeHow stuff works

Edit: I type too slow.
Edit again: You can stand on sm. He knows more about this than I do, I didn't know the playback head had electricity passing through it. I thought it was probably totally passive.

I just looked up what Jingoistic means. (I didn't know)

jin·go·ism n.
Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy; chauvinistic patriotism.

You're right, and so is the chef, but ONLY if he is hard core, old world Italian. Or Sout' Philly Italian.

One of the ones who calls sauce Gravy.

And pronounces the ham as pro-SHOOT. And the Cheese as ri-GOHTT.

That's good enough for me, today.

Did you ever deeply regret starting a thread? I can't process all the new information I'm getting. minuh stronee isn't right? :(

re: magnetic dust lacquered onto lasers or whateverthefuck -- O.o what?

re:sound -- when you are hearing two tones simultaneously, are the vibrations of each tone occupying the same space simultaneously? and if they are, why don't the vibrations interfere with each other and change the tones? How can the two frequencies coexist? If you drop a stone in the water, and then drop a bigger stone, the bigger vibration trumps the little one.

yeah, works for me. Catwoman, will you stand on me for a couple minutes? Sympathy standing, so to speak?