His bio (which I just found) mentions a column for "various Mensa publications," but doesn't specify which one.

I'm now officially tempted to join Mensa to see if it is as bad as y'all say.

(You may now try to disuade me.)

Thank you JayUtah for the welcome. I did say I'd try to be brief. Therefore I left out many of the specifics. Some of which, like you said, would have to be looked up. The "sphere of influence" language came from memory from both "Lost Moon" and "A Man on the Moon". But I agree that all bodies of mass are always acting on all other bodies of mass no matter what the distance.

The big point is that even if one doesn't know the facts off hand, they are easily accessible especially in this web environment.

I feel honored by the welcome.

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When in doubt, stand on it - Stroker Ace

Thump

Actually, a great many of the members of Mensa are just wonderful, but I belong to the best of the groups in the country (voted as such). Most of the lectures at meetings and *gatherings* are on great topics. It is not the only group to which I belong and one meeting a month works well for me. Mensans are not all arrogant and they are, as a rule, very nice and friendly. I am picky about the friends I make, so I tend to have a great time wherever I am. There are people in Mensa with whom I can discuss just about any topic without running into baloney. Of course, there are some who are true believers, but I avoid them and such silliness. I do not run into many male chauvinists in Mensa, so I value the group on that score.

I belong to many other local groups, most of which are subject-oriented (such as amateur astronomy, physics lectures, symphony music, skepticism, etc). I think there are silly people in any group. Silly people are easy to avoid. Of course, one person's *silly person* is another person's *genius* -- so I decide my interests and my friends according to my taste for myself and let others decide their interests and their tastes for themselves. One of my favorite people was physicist (and Nobel Prize Winner) Richard Feynman (who was a REAL GENIUS). So, IQ is not that meaningful to me.

ljbrs [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

__________________
"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.

The height of Saturn V attributed to gravity? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img] Did they stay up all night thinking of that one? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] It's mass was (payload vs fuel), but it's dimensions related to aerodynamics, among other things. Strange that such a no-brainer would come from Mensa!

From the stupidity of the questions, perhaps they should be called Densa [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Dissuade, heck: do it! Let us know what you find!

(I would, but, um, er... My... You know... Isn't big enough... Blush...)

Silas

Just for curiosity sake, what kinds of tests do you take and how high do you have to score to become an esteemed member?

I know, I know, if I have to ask.......

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: thumper on 2002-02-04 06:38 ]</font>

You need to in the top 2%, and this typically translates into an IQ of about 130. (This is very test dependent.) They also accept GRE scores and you would need to average about 625 on each section.

I'm very sceptical of IQ tests. I have taken a psychologist administered test and a standardized test, and the difference between the two was over 30 points. One of these test has some whopping error bars - I assume its the one that gave the lower score. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I'm also very sceptical of IQ in general. I recommend Stevie Gould's book, "The Mismeasure of Man". I think this is one of those "must read" books. And its not just a "must read"for those people who are interested in science, but its a "must read" for everybody.

The fad over I.Q. has generally disappeared because it is becoming more apparent that intelligence is not something which can be effectively defined, much less measured by tests which are known to contain social biases and instrumentational ambiguity.

For example, my sister took a placement test when she was four years old, attempting to enter kindergarten early. She failed because she gave the wrong answer to the question, "If I divide an orange in half, how many pieces are there?" Her answer was eight, referring to the average number of segments -- four in each half. The "correct" answer was, of course, two. According to the test she was a moron. But how many four-year-olds are astute enough to notice and remember the number of segments in a typical orange?

And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, "intelligent" people are not infrequently possessed of some rather interesting dysfunctions. Some Mensans can speak for hours on, say, hyperspatial manifolds and the nature of the universe. Then they go out to the garage and pour oil in their car radiators. You could argue that the ability to function in daily life is a more valuable mental skill than the ability to manipulate esoteric concepts.

I haven't really been paying that much attention to this thread, although I've enjoyed some of the barbed comments about people's experience with Mensans, which mostly tally with my personal experiences. I spend a great deal of my "free" time with a non-IQ-related interest group that by pure coincidence (I can think of no other explanation) had a significant overlap with the local Mensa group several years ago while I was on the board; nearly one and all of us non-Mensans in the org had a field-day with the apparent lack of common sense among the Mensans.

Quite a number of Jovian years ago, I did express some interest in Mensa, only to find that there was already an organisation, either Four Sigma or else Sigma Four, which was formed by people who wouldn't waste their time with Mensa because of the general snobbishness and such therein. The kicker was that, because it was the snooty behaviour that ticked them off, they decided to base their organisation on a requirement that would disqualify most Mensans, so that they could have some collective fun by keeping the Mensans out. They required an IQ score such that, while Mensa allows approximately 2% of the populace by IQ, 4S or S4 would only accept about 2% of people who qualified for Mensa. But other than their disdain for Mensa "bigots", they seemed like a much better-rounded and fun group.

Does anyone know if that group is still around? I've not heard of them in donkeys' years (my donkey died sometime back when "Keep Cool with Coolidge" was a front-runner).

The (not to boast, but I could have joined--I think) Curtmudgeon

According to a couple of websites, including this one, the Four Sigma Society is inactive.

There are some others listed if you still want to be an IQ snob. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Well, my social experiment may have come to a premature end.

Since my IQ tests are over 20 years old, I dought I'll be find the psychologist who administered 'em to certify 'em. I can't find my GRE scores and I can't order new ones since they are over five years old. Thus my only option appears to be to sit for Mensa's test. This would require time and money on my part; hence, the premature end. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Wiley on 2002-01-18 15:33 ]</font>

Curtmudgeon,

Four Sigma is still around as far as I know (a friend in NYC used to bug me to join - that was as recently as last summer).

For the record, I *did* meet a few good people in Mensa, and I'm sure there are many more that I did not have the pleasure of meeting).

Still, the atmosphere just wasn't fun, and there was a lot of pettiness. Why spend your precious free time doing something unpleasant?

surely the way to answer this query is to say 'what does each manifestation of the space-craft need to carry at each point and for what purpose?' This is almost surely best calculated in reverse from end to start.

Simplifying (and probably getting wrong) the many actual "burn" and "separation" stages (including potential abort burn stages) the Saturn 5 rocket had to lift off the ground...

1) fuel to allow any deceleration burn of the final earth re-entry module from velocity at the end of the (gravity influenced) transit from moon to the velocity necessary to renter earth's atmosphere
+2) fuel to accelerate the earth re-entry module (including fuel#1) from the lunar orbit to decent velocity to make trip back to earth
+3) fuel to lift (top section) of lunar module (2 crew) from moon surface to orbit
+4) fuel to decelerate and control lunar lander (including fuel#3) during landing on moon
+5) fuel to decelerate lunar lander (including fuels#3-4) from orbit into decent*
+6) fuel to decelerate various lunar module elements (including fuels#1-5) from velocity when reaching moon to lunar orbital velocity
+7) fuel to accelerate all modules travelling to moon (including fuel#1-6) from near earth orbit velocity (assuming such an orbit was involved - not sure) to velocity required to reach moon in reasonable time (subject to fluctuations in speed caused by gravitational fields)
+8) fuel to lift all successive main rocket stages (including the various lunar-travelling vehicles plus fuel#1-7) from the earths surface to near earth orbit (minus weight of successive rocket stages after the point where dropping away).

Contrasting (8), which is requirement for Saturn 5, with (5), which is the requirement for the lunar landing vehicle (albeit before it leaves part of itself behind on the moon), there is clearly a huge discrepancy caused in part by the compound nature of the fuel requirements. Also surely the relative arithmetical relationship between the "strengths" of the two gravities (? 1/6) is compounded by the fact that any burn required to reach/leave near-orbit has to be somewhat longer (as well as stronger) for earth.

Clearly these cumulative / exponential effects are what the editors of Mensa would have been hoping to get members to recognise and comment upon in their responses. They are reminiscent of those sort of "how many trips does it take to ferry a fox, a chimpanzee and a water buffalo across a desert with a bicycle built for three?" sort of problems which you used to get in puzzle books for kids.

*Possibly the lunar lander module could have been decelerated (to start "falling" from orbit) by "burns" carried out by the orbiting module whilst they were still linked together (meaning the lander itself would not have had to be "big enough" to carry that extra bit of deceleration fuel itself, but meaning that the orbiting module would have had to burn again after separation to stop itself from falling too and restore its orbit). This is probably overcomplicated and almost certainly less fuel efficient overall, but I can't figure that out as its a trade-off between the extra fuel (and capacity) used by the orbiter slowing and speeding itself (unnecessarily) against the fuel required for the lander to carry that extra "deceleration fuel"-capacity down to the surface. I suspect that the latter is probably marginal and still the most efficient overall (especially since it then leaves behind it's descent gear). Either way the relevant 'capacity' has to be conveyed to the moon (with the fuel implications that has). If the lander does its own deceleration that capacity also has to be lowered in a controlled way to the surface, but if the orbiter does the deceleration then that bit of capacity may also have to be brought back to earth orbit. If the deceleration burn is short but uses lots of fuel then it may work out cheaper to make the orbiter do it. Unfortunately I think it takes a rocket scientist to work that out...

Um, Chuckle you do realise that you are replying to thread that is over four years old?

Yes, spaceflights between planetary bodies are far more complex than just "point and shoot".

It's even more complex than just "escape Earth orbit and fly to the moon, then insert into lunar orbit."

Science fiction makes it seem easy.

"There's nothing routine about flying to the moon,"
Tom Hanks (as Jim Lovell)

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My son is my universe.

Heck, I didn't realize it either!

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My son is my universe.

Ho, ho! Dr Spock with the wit!!

Mr. Spock. Dr. Spock was a pediatrician.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

This whole discussion of IQ tests reminds me of the MASH episode where Klinger tries to get into a Military Acedemy, and must do an IQ-style test. Responding to a division question involving portions of beans, he cries out "What kind of mother only feeds their family beans??"