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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear TEd: Naughty of you to set hoax bait for our trusting souls. But I won't say pluck yew.
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Joined: Mar 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Seems we stumbled across a linguistic twist here, we did...we still do that once in awhile, you know!  a section from the first article: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ancientpersia/org.htmlMercenary troops were more characteristic of later Achaemenid Persian armies but even in the early 5th century, Greeks were being employed in the service of Persian commanders. The term medizing came to describe such troops who were seen to be pro-Persian or in Persian service. Medizing comes from the word Mede which was the general term used by the Greeks to describe all Persian/Medean peoples.Has anybody heard the word medizing used in an English context, or is that just a period term translated for this article? It's not in my handy desk-dictionary, so I'm interested in whether anyone has this offhand before I go a-searchin'...it's new to me. (oh, and there's an Archery section at the bottom of the same article that actually describes the construction of the Medean bows...I just didn't get that far the first time )
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Carpal Tunnel
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Back when I was doing Ancient History A level in the mid 1970s, medize came up quite frequently for Greeks who'd gone over to the Persian side. It's the only context I've seen or heard the word.
Bingley
Bingley
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Carpal Tunnel
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CK:
Yeah, they are impressive. But there's a simple physical answer for the flatter trajectory (not to mention the sound of the arrows). The arrows go about three times as fast as arrows from a more modern bow.
The long bow is just that -- long. It could also be called a strongbow. Modern bows are short and have a lighter pull. 50 to 75 pounds of pull is in the ballpark. The longbow could require 150 pounds of pull. The end result is far higher acceleration for the arrow, so for a given trajectory the arrow from the longbow will go much much farther.
Here's an example: If I have two shooters standing side by side, one with a longbow and the other with a rifle, and at the same moment they both release a projectile from the same height and on a path horizontal to the ground, which one will hit the ground first? At first it seems counterintuitive, but both the arrow and the bullet will hit the ground at exactly the same time (discounting any lift derived from the projectile's physical attributes.)
Why? Because there are only two vectors operating on the projectile: forward motion and the downward pull of gravity. The pull of gravity is exactly the same. But since the bullet is going a lot faster than the arrow it will travel a lot further before hitting the ground. Believe it or not, if you drop a bullet at the same time as you fire the rifle, both bullets will hit the ground at the same time.
As to the battles between the French and English, somewhere I have read a book about the economics of the two opposing armies. The French fielded a small force of knights and their retainers, while the English fielded huge levees of freemen armed with bows. The French guys had to be supported full time by taxes levied on the masses, so there was an economic limit on how big their standing armies could be. The masses in England were the standing armies, so to speak. The training of an archer takes many years, for example just to build up the strength needed to pluck that yew. But the training could be conducted part-time, just as the US Reserve forces do today. These masses still did their main jobs, but were made available for duty by their higher-ups in the feudal system.
TEd
TEd
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Dear TEd: If you dropped an arrow, and a bullet (the ball only) from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which would hit the ground first?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And dr. bill, do you recall what device the original experimenter used as his timer?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Are we supposed to account for air resistance?
Old story of Which falls faster, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? The lead falls like...well, like a pound of lead. The feathers flutter down slowly. Unless you're in a vacuum, in which case they both fall at exactly the same rate. Many Science Museums (okay, one that I know of, anyway) have a neat little display to illustrate this.
Aerodynamics is important, in air :-)
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Old story of Which falls faster, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?
Old story of Which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?
Or
Which weighs more, an ounce of gold or an ounce of feathers?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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or the one even relitively smart people fail to get,
Which wieghs more--a pint of heavy cream or light cream?
light cream, of course, weights more! heavy cream is the top most layer that is skimmed off, highest in fat, it is lighter than light cream, which contains more water!
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