Why does everyone disagree with you

Just a couple of other things. Someone mentioned digital verniers. Or was it on another thread? Don't know. Anyway, there ain't no such animal. But, it's just like that floor cleaner - it's always called a Hoover. Or that writing instrument that's always called a Biro. Custom & usage. Digital vernier might grate, but at least we know what it means.

Peter

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... Not in my house, Peter

MichaelG.

I see what you did there, Michael.

Too cold to go out in the workshop over there is it lads?

Too cold to go out in the workshop over there is it lads?

I’ve only just been out to the workshop - first time for 5 days - we were away at Barry for a long weekend. Had to empty the dehumidifier as it might not have lasted tonight. A rare freeze last night. -2C this morning.

I thought I'd already submitted this, but it seems to have disappeared into the ether, or wherever missing posts go. So, like all good engineers, ha, ha, I'll try, try, and try again until I get it right!

Well, well, well, aren't you the lucky one Michael. I've given up trying to educate the others in my household.

Peter.

p.s. Hopper. From bitter experience, at ths time of the year, I need to use all 4kW of available heat to get it up to something approaching a reasonable temperature. Note the word reasonable, not a comfortable temperature. This is because it's a single skin garage, single layer roof, roller door facing SW so the prevailing wind howls over the top of the roller door. Brrrr it's cold.

After having to scrape 1/2 in of frozen snow off the car at 6am this morning I have to agree with you, but is that allowed on this thread? Feel free to disagree. snow only above 1000ft so people in cosy valleys are ok.

How long before we get to the "Angels dancing on the head of a pin" debate?

Now that SHOULD make someone disagree with me!

Howard

It would appear that Model Engineers have a special variant of Godwin's Law, replacing Hitler with dancing angels

(For those not in the know, Godwin's Law states :"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1"

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If the vast majority of those who cite it knew anything about the original theological discussion, that might be interesting ... but.

MichaelG.

True.

I don't think we're ever gonna get there...

I don't know have you seen some who can write your name on a grain of rice.

Steve.

The original expression seems to have been 'angels dancing on a needle's point', and we do sometimes seem to have debates about needle's points...

Neil

Well it's one thing if your name is "Ed" or "Stu", but another thing entirely if it is "Mohandarajah Kushmiripanathan Surilingamviviganathan"

It would certainly be if you had to fill a lot of forms in. Try saying one of those names over the phone to a tele person in a far away country. 2 hours later.

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This is a good introduction, for anyone who cares: **LINK**

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291950940_Angels_on_Pinheads_and_Needles%27_Points/fulltext/56a78fc908ae860e02557110/291950940_Angels_on_Pinheads_and_Needles%27_Points.pdf?origin=publication_detail

The significant thing, I think, being the way in which the ‘location’ has morphed from the point of a needle through a needle’s point to the head of a pin.

The first change was witty, but the second demonstrates ignorance of the original [Aquinas] theological musings.

MichaelG.

Yes, the change to "head of a pin" misses the point, as you say.

To continue in the same spirit as those medieval theologians who engaged in lengthy and somewhat pointless disputes, I have to say I'm not sure I can agree with Peter Harrison's claims when he says:

"the first reference to angels and the points of needles, which appears in an expository work by the English divine, William Sclater (1575–1626)"

and

"The examples cited by Sclater are all genuine topics of scholastic disputation except the last" [i.e. "How many might sit on a Needles point"] which seems to have been introduced solely for its rhetorical value as a clever pun".

You see, in a late collection of the writings of the 17th century Dutch theologian Johannes Braunius published in Amsterdam in 1700, in a passage castigating medieval theologians for the many "absurd, ridiculous...questions" ["quaestiones...absurdae, ridiculae..."] they liked to grapple with, one question that gets an explicit mention is "quot angeli possint contineri in puncto acus"- "how many angels can fit on the point of a needle."

If Harrison's claim about the "first reference to angels and the points of needles" being Sclater's is correct, then we would have to assume that Braunius, active in the second half of the 17th century (i.e. only a few decades later than Sclater) and publishing, I believe, solely in Latin, included the question about angels on needles not because this was a question medieval scholastics had a longstanding reputation for asking but simply because he'd read Sclater and lifted the passage from him; either that or Braunius miraculously made the same invention independently of Sclater.

Harrison also appears to have missed the reference to a "thousand angels...on the point of a needle" in the 14th century mystical work mentioned in the Wikipedia article.

Lastly, although the transition to "head of a pin" from "needles point" is a pity, there is nothing wrong with translating Latin acus as pin, since acus can mean both pin and needle.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 29/01/2020 02:58:45

On closer reading I see that Harrison does mention the 14th century mystical work, although he talks of "souls" not "angels", so either he or Wiki is mistaken.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 29/01/2020 03:10:32

LOL.

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Many thanks for the thoughtful reply, Bill

... We best not ‘work it to death’ or some on the forum might protest.

The relevant thing here was the move from the [Euclidean] point, which has zero area, to the mechanic’s head of a pin [which has small but finite area]. The ambiguity between needle and pin is, I suggest, of no consequence in the theological discussion.

The common jibe falls on deaf ears, because it is ill-founded

MichaelG.