Friday, December 19, 2008

The speed of nails growing

We all know about speed.
We drive a car and see that it goes for example at a speed of 55 miles per hour.
And we know more or less what this means.

But this knowledge of speed is rather limited.
Our imagination handles speeds up to let’s say 150 miles per hour.
Beyond it, it is only a matter of figures.
A missile flying at the speed of sound?
How fast is that actually?

We only know about speed if we can see it.

This not only goes for high speeds.
It is also a valid rule for low speeds.

We are capable to imagine that the slowest speed must be about one mile per hour.
But we never calculate speed by changing the time in the equation.
We always stick to this one-hour thing because it is within the territory of our visual imagination.
We never say: that snail goes at a speed of one mile per two hours.

This lack of imagination and limitation of visual perception results for example in not having a standard for the speed of the growing of our nails.
Or a standard for the speed of our hair growing.
Is it 0,000000000007 miles per hour maybe?

Actually nails grow at an average rate of 0.004 inches (0.1 mm) each day, or 1.5 inches (36.5 mm) in a year.
This is for the nails of the hands.
Nails from the toes grow four times slower.

As is the matter with high speeds, also slow speeds we cannot imagine.
Because we cannot see it.

What is 0.004 inches per day?
Like the speed of sound: 340 meters per second.
Totally abstract entities.

In other words: what do we exactly really know?
Not very much, ladies and gentleman.
Most we know is abstract information that has no concrete meaning.
And that this posting contains 327 words.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


To learn more about the speed of growing of our nails, click on:
http://www.wonderquest.com/petal-nails-light.htm#nails






.


2 comments:

Croft said...

But nails grow much faster in Mexico than they do in Canada.

At least mine do.

Why is this? Is it the sunlight? The warmth? I do not know, but they do grow faster.

April Holladay said...

Neat article, and a mighty interesting life. Thanks for the reference to WonderQuest.com.

Come visit my question-and-answer science site, any time, for answers to the mysteries of life.

April
WonderQuest.com