> Where does all of this mythology come >from? This stuff is not rocket science. It wasn't back at the turn of the >last century either. Still, these ideas take hold and spread and don't give >up easily to logic and common sense. Oh, well... > >-- ddf People almost universally avoid math, and occasionally (ahem) logic like leprosy. It's easier to believe someone else's numbers than to figure it out for themselves so someone else's common sense and logic is just another unsubstantiated opinion to them. Since they've already got an installed opinion (someone told them, and they'll gladly straighten you out) in that spot on the mental shelf, there's no room for another one unless the numbers are more impressive (bigger, shinier, more outrageous, but along the same lines as what's already "known"). Even then it's a lot of trouble to replace that old idea because if you move anything on that mental shelf, you have to dust. That, for me is one of the truly wonderful things about computers. I can work out an intimidating math process once, incorporate it into a spread sheet or program, and never have to worry about it again until new information comes along and I have to go back and work it all out again from scratch. That keeps the mental shelves available (I didn't say "empty", mind you) and the dust down, at least in theory. Since I'm so lousy with math, that's my only hope of using any mathematical tool past addition. That and the apparent lack of interest in anything outside a narrow specialty, and a general reluctance to venture off the path and risk learning something contrary to what's already "known", is what keeps that olde tyme mythology alive. Now back to the hot debate on whether there's really such a thing as an outside wall in a basement. Ron N
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