Welcome to the Marilyn is Wrong Wiki
This web site is a Wiki, a web site that anyone can edit. The most famous example of a Wiki is Wikipedia. The wiki.wiskit.com web site is operated and maintained by Herb Weiner.
Most pages allow edits and posts by anyone. A few pages, such as this one, allow posts by anyone, but do not allow editing. Posts always appear at the bottom of the page. Editing, on the other hand, can be used to change any of the content on a page. Anyone can also create new pages, which can then be linked to existing pages. Please do not place advertising, copyrighted material, or offensive material on this site. Inappropriate material will be removed.
This site is devoted to discussion regarding my Marilyn is Wrong! site, and Marilyn vos Savant, the author of the Ask Marilyn column in Parade Magazine.
I am in the process of moving the entire Marilyn is Wrong! site to this Wiki, so eventually all pages will be editable. The following pages are now editable:
The following are temporary pages:
- Other Publications provide a forum for discussions regarding Marilyn vos Savant's other publications, including books and articles.
- IQ provides a forum for discussions regarding Marilyn vos Savant's IQ, as well as IQ in general.
- Miscellaneous provides a forum for discussions regarding Marilyn vos Savant that don't fall into one of the other categories listed above.
Refer to ProjectForum for more information on the server software used to implement this Wiki.
Back to Wikis on wiki.wiskit.com.
Posted at Dec 09/2007 01:07PM by Hugh:
Four(4) legged Stablity - -
Given that I have a reasonably stable 4-legged table on a reasonably flat dining-room floor such that it serves its intended purpose, if I cut 10-inches off of one leg, then there is NO position to which I can rotate the table to get all 4 legs to touch the floor.
Planes Traveling East and West
Posted at Mar 03/2008 06:20PM by Tommy:
Sure, it is fun to make fun of the mistakes of smart people, but normal people may make even bigger mistakes. Even Einstein made big mistakes, so everybody be nice about finding mistakes please. I wouldn't want people to sneer at my ever tiny mistake if i were famous. I would hate when people think they found a mistake and laughed and be wrong.
Posted at Jun 12/2008 07:37AM by Bob from Bombay:
I agree with Marilyn. However, there are some limitations. The gap between the ship and the container will be very tiny. As an example a 200' x 40' ship with a 28' draw in the shape of a rectangle can float in a container with one gallon of water providing the gap between the ship hull and container is no more than one ten thousandth of an inch. The math: one gal of water is 231 cubic inches, if poured to a depth of .0001 inches (one ten thousandths) on a perfectly flat surface it will cover 2,310,000 square inches. This is equal to the surface area created by that portion of the example ship that is below the water line. A lock constructed with moveable sides could conceivably squeeze the water out to the adjoining lock before closing the gate. However, the precision to machine to this tolerance would be more demanding than that of the rotating parts of automotive engines. On a more practical note a 16'x5'x2' fishing boat would have a gap of .01" (one hundredth) which would still be a big challenge for the lock builder. Even with the tighter tolerance example the issue of a molecule of water does not come into play as there would still be several million molecules of water in every square inch.
Bob from Bombay
