I think it's either this long or this this long. Any thoughts?

depends

Twice the length from one end to the middle.

12

hmmm… I was about to say 12 too….

is it 33%?

Very much dependant on how you measure it.

Aah. Now, I understand you want us to advertise your washing powder.

S: String.

W: String, washing powder, what's the difference. We can sell *anything*.

S: Good. Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two thousand *miles* of it to be exact, which I inherited, and I thought if I advertised it–

W: Of course! A national campaign. Useful stuff, string, no trouble there.

S: Ah, but there's a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three inch lengths. So it's not very useful.

W: Well, that's our selling point! "SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL STRINGETTES!"

S: What?

W: "THE NOW STRING! READY CUT, EASY TO HANDLE, SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES – JUST THE RIGHT LENGTH!"

S: For what?

W: "A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!"

S: Such as?

W: Uhmm…Tying up very small parcels, attaching notes to pigeons' legs, uh, destroying household pests…

S: Destroying household pests?! How?

W: Well, if they're bigger than a mouse, you can strangle them with it, and if they're smaller, you flog them to death with it!

S: Well *surely*! …

W: "DESTROY NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF KNOWN HOUSEHOLD PESTS WITH PRE-SLICED, RUSTPROOF, EASY-TO-HANDLE, LOW CALORIE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES, FREE FROM ARTIFICIAL COLORING, AS USED IN HOSPITALS!"

S: 'Ospitals!?!?!?!!?

W: Have you ever been in a Hospital where they didn't have string?

S: No, but it's only *string*!

W: ONLY STRING?! It's everything! It's…it's waterproof!

S: No it isn't!

W: All right, it's water resistant then!

S: It isn't!

W: All right, it's water absorbent! It's…Super Absorbent String! "ABSORB WATER TODAY WITH SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL WATER ABSORB-A-TEX STRINGETTES! AWAY WITH FLOODS!"

S: You just said it was waterproof!

W: "AWAY WITH THE DULL DRUDGERY OF WORKADAY TIDAL WAVES! USE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL FLOOD PREVENTERS!"

S: You're mad!

W: Shut up, shut up, shut up! Sex, sex sex, must get sex into it. Wait, I see a television commercial – There's this nude woman in a bath holding a bit of your string. That's great, great, but we need a doctor, got to have a medical opinion. There's a nude woman in a bath with a doctor–that's too sexy. Put an archbishop there watching them, that'll take the curse off it. Now, we need children and animals. There's two kids admiring the string, and a dog admiring the archbishop who's blessing the string. Uhh…international flavor's missing…make the archbishop Greek Orthodox. Why not Archbishop Macarios? No, no, he's dead… never mind, we'll get his brother, it'll be cheaper… So, there's this nude woman…

A lemon.

Twice the length from one end to the middle.

What if you joined the ends together to make a circle?

A duck?

a waste of a thread ?

Thread, string.

It's all the same.

Ha Haa! I actually won a competition to guess how long a piece of string is a couple of years ago, so withoubt a doubt, I know it's 13'8".

There. That's that question answered. 🙂

withoubt a doubt, I know it's 13'8".

If anyone out there was going to know exactly how long a piece of string is… 🙄 😀

half as long as twice it's length.

what i think you really want to know is whether the string you have to hand is suitable for the desired application…

Twice as long as half a piece of string

How-hi is a chinaman

So-low is his son.

If anyone out there was going to know exactly how long a piece of string is…

But it's true! I really did win. I got a prize and everything! 8)

Due to atomic motion, and bits of quantum theory I don't fully understand, it is currently impossible to know exactly how long a piece of string actually is.

There was an interesting (if you like that kind of thing) explanation on Horizon a few months back.

surely you can know exactly how long it is, or exactly where it is, but not both.

now, where did that piece of string PP was going on about?

In string theory, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in spacetime, they aren't tied down. Nonetheless, they have tension. The string tension in string theory is denoted by the quantity 1/(2 p a'), where a' is pronounced "alpha prime"and is equal to the square of the string length scale.

If string theory is to be a theory of quantum gravity, then the average size of a string should be somewhere near the length scale of quantum gravity, called the Planck length, which is about 10-33 centimeters, or about a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. Unfortunately, this means that strings are way too small to see by current or expected particle physics technology (or financing!!) and so string theorists must devise more clever methods to test the theory than just looking for little strings in particle experiments.

String theories are classified according to whether or not the strings are required to be closed loops, and whether or not the particle spectrum includes fermions. In order to include fermions in string theory, there must be a special kind of symmetry called supersymmetry, which means for every boson (particle that transmits a force) there is a corresponding fermion (particle that makes up matter). So supersymmetry relates the particles that transmit forces to the particles that make up matter.

Supersymmetric partners to to currently known particles have not been observed in particle experiments, but theorists believe this is because supersymmetric particles are too massive to be detected at current accelerators. Particle accelerators could be on the verge of finding evidence for high energy supersymmetry in the next decade. Evidence for supersymmetry at high energy would be compelling evidence that string theory was a good mathematical model for Nature at the smallest distance scales.

So to sumarise, its about as long as the thickness of two short planck lenghs.

Depends on the scale of measurement
Linky

So to sumarise, its about as long as the thickness of two short planck lenghs.

🙂

depends how you measure it, it can be infinitely long if you measure it well enough.

There was a documentary on this very problem on TV a while ago. Prof. Brian Cox hosting.

What Dan1980 said.

Linky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD-6ylBnAHc

Actually rather interesting, don't let the fact that it's Allen Davies put you off.

The same as the circumference of a missing crown race

Not as long as it was under the last government.

Wow I didn't think anyone could posibly give a useful answer to that question and therefore the thread would have to be closed by the mods! You learn something new every day.

according to Einstein, it depends on how fast the string is moving

a string piece is only going to be as long as the loaf it was cut from, surely?

still a waste of a thread ! 'Thread' get it get it…. a lenght of a piece of string is 'one arm lenght' plus a half ! ok have we finished this THREAD now…. lets here the end of the 'Thread' b4 singletrack 'cut it short' or 'shorter' ,or even in 'half' or 'quaters' 'thirds' 'eights' sixteenths, millithenes….geeez its a long piece of sting is this… 🙄

It's impossible to know, as you would change the outcome by measuring it.

It's impossible to know, as you would change the outcome by measuring it.

We have an anthropologist in the audience! 😆

It's impossible to know, as you would change the outcome by measuring it.

We have an anthropologist in the audience! 😆

Or possibly a theoretical physicist. Although if I'm being honest, neither of the above.

Is Davy an anthropologist, or the ghost of Erwin Schrodinger? And would it make a difference to the length?

Did anyone watch that program on BBC called How Long is a Piece of String?

One answer is infinite, the closer you look the longer it gets.

Or piece of string has no length until you measure it.

Not a bad programme, funny in places, but a little dumbed down.

Kit – Member
Wow I didn't think anyone could posibly give a useful answer to that question and therefore the thread would have to be closed by the mods! You learn something new every day.

I was racking my brains trying to remember the point to the opening question…

Is Davy an anthropologist, or the ghost of Erwin Schrodinger? And would it make a difference to the length?

Presumably the longer the cat plays with it, the shorter the string will be by the time Davy measures it.