String breakage in relation to hammer mass

[Ron Nossaman]

>As there are only two known ultimate meaures of speed i.e. 'zero' and the 
>'speed of light' all speeds are 'realtive' to those two...

Hi science guy. This doesn't have anything at all to do with pianos, so I
took it off list. You're a widely read sort of guy, so maybe you can answer
something for me. Did you ever hear of red shift? It's a light doppler
effect, spectrum shift to lower frequency, cited by the astronomy crowd as
in indication that the light source (star(s)) is moving away. The greater
the red shift, the closer to light speed is the divergence rate. They don't
say how they determine what the actual spectrum frequencies are before the
apparent red shift, but I'll let that one go for now. What I never got a
satisfactory answer to is what the speed of light is relative to. If it's a
wave propagation in space, it can't be measurable at the same velocity from
each of two bodies diverging at nearly "light speed", can it? If it's speed
is relative to the point of origin, then the red shift would make sense and
light speed relative to the point of reception would be low, wouldn't it? I
know "zero" speed is relative to the measurer, or specified point, but what
about light speed?


>An aside, though related, question(s)...do piano strings  break without heat? 
>if so, how? and if not, where did that heat come from or go to? do wool 
>fibers break without heat? if so, how? if not, where did that heat come from 
>or go to?

Of course there's heat. Maxwell's demon uses it to fix lunch and soaks most
of it up. That's why you haven't noticed. Incidentally, if you pounded on a
piano in a totally dark room until you broke a string, how do you know you
wouldn't see the string glowing at the point of separation? Personally, I
think it would make a good convention class for you. I bet they would talk
about that one for a long time. 8^)



Ron N