Questions you'd like answering, regardless of how trivial they may seem
- Thread starter Accy cyclist
- Start date
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- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
Seevio
Guru
- Location
- South Glos
Just under half of an exploding north sea submarine bunker or, if you prefer imperial units, roughly one tenth of a Japanese city.
Possible new thread start there!
I did wonder about that.
Yellow Fang
Squire
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
Before the terms were renamed unnecessarily ACE and BCE, years used to be reckoned so many years AD or BC. AD stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for 'In the year of the Lord'. BC stands for Before Christ, which is English for 'Before Christ'. Why the two different languages?
Alex321
Guru
- Location
- South Wales
Because otherwise you would have the same abbreviations for both, as "before" would be "ante".
glasgowcyclist
Charming but somewhat feckless
- Location
- Scotland
They're separated by an enormous time gap and different points of origin.
The Latin AD notation was introduced by a Roman monk during the 6th century and became widespread by the 9th. Before then, any notable event was referred to in a number of ways, including regnal years of emperors of the time.
The BC formulation didn't become adopted until about 1000 years later, by which time English had usurped Latin in secular writing.
In modern Italian the abbreviations are clear and simple:
a.C. = avanti Cristo (before Christ's birth)
d.C. = dopo Cristo (after Christ's birth)
I have asked this before but never received a proper answer.
Hair is dead from the root out. So how does in know when to stop growing ? Different hairs have different habits. Leg hair, arm hair. stop at around 20mm maybe more maybe less but head hair will grow indefinitely long if left alone.
I know hair grows in cycles and not continuously but even so. How does it know when to stop if it's dead? You cut off some leg or arm hair and it grows back to the same length. It matches the surrounding hairs, and stops growing.
It could be that hair grows to its allotted genetic length and then drops out. But that would mean we would be knee deep in spent leg, arm and pubic hair all the time. Trousers would be alive with shed hair. The vacuum cleaner industry would be an order of magnitude larger.
This intrigue stems from a rogue forearm hair I have, which, every now and then decides randomly to grow very long. It isn't all the time. Suddenly I become aware of it and it might be 2 inches long, or even more. Like head hair. I cut it and it remains cut, but a few months or even a year or so later there it is again.
So i am puzzled as to how hair knows when to stop growing
Hair is dead from the root out. So how does in know when to stop growing ? Different hairs have different habits. Leg hair, arm hair. stop at around 20mm maybe more maybe less but head hair will grow indefinitely long if left alone.
I know hair grows in cycles and not continuously but even so. How does it know when to stop if it's dead? You cut off some leg or arm hair and it grows back to the same length. It matches the surrounding hairs, and stops growing.
It could be that hair grows to its allotted genetic length and then drops out. But that would mean we would be knee deep in spent leg, arm and pubic hair all the time. Trousers would be alive with shed hair. The vacuum cleaner industry would be an order of magnitude larger.
This intrigue stems from a rogue forearm hair I have, which, every now and then decides randomly to grow very long. It isn't all the time. Suddenly I become aware of it and it might be 2 inches long, or even more. Like head hair. I cut it and it remains cut, but a few months or even a year or so later there it is again.
So i am puzzled as to how hair knows when to stop growing
ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Widnes
As far as I know - and based on extensive research (I read an article about it years ago) - the hair is dead but the hair follicle that it grows from is alive
and the structure and everything else is coded in the follicle so that follicle will grow the same type of hair all the time
so if you transplant follicles from your arm (see - I can keep it clean) to your head the it will still grow arm type hair
I think
Seevio
Guru
- Location
- South Glos
All follicles produce hair for a set time the the hair falls out and a new growth starts. Different follicles have varying growth periods. So for example, the hair on your head can grow for about 6-7 years before the individual strands are replaced while eyelashes generally only grow for 6-8 weeks.
How would that allow for hair that's absurdly long? I think the longest verified length is over 5 meters. If individual hairs are replaced every 7 years wouldn't a 7 year grown period be the absolute maximum?
Seevio
Guru
- Location
- South Glos
There will always be freaks. The average person can't do this even if they wanted to.
Alex321
Guru
- Location
- South Wales
Yes, but the rate of growth is different for different people. Some people have ghair that only grows a few centimetres a year, others have hair that would grow a metre a year.
And that 6-7 years is an average, there will be exception in both directions.
Animo
Über Member
Yes, the hair in my nostrils appears to grow at a rate of several metres per year.
Punkawallah
Veteran
Because Ante Domini gives the same initials? But I am guessing, here. Ante Christus would give an unwanted connection.
