Your Letters
16:57 UK time, Friday, 20 April 2007
Let me get this straight, a Birmingham man is jailed for four months for turning part of his home into a but the women who and filmed it are only given suspended sentences? I'm so glad this country has its priorities right!
Andrea, London
How exactly does someone estimate the value of a when it's painted on the side of a building? In what sense could it ever have a saleable value?
MJ Simpson, Leicester
Re Martin of Stevenage's query about the heat from the sun reaching Earth across the vacuum of space (Thursday letters). There are three types of heat transfer:
Conductive: Pan on electric hot plate. The pan gets hot.
Convective: Hot body heats a gas, so heat is then transferred to something else by coming into contact with the gas. Traditional central heating.
Radiative: Hot body radiates heat. Sun.
The vacuum flask prevents 1 & 2 by having a vacuum between the two layers (usually glass). It prevents the third by having a mirrored surface. The radiation is reflected back into the contained liquid.
At least that is what I was taught at school.
John, Cambridge
Heat is particles vibrating. No particles, no vibration, no heat. The sun radiates electromagnetic waves which CAN pass through a vacuum (e.g. infra red and UV radiation) - these excite particles in the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere and on the Earth, producing heat.
Ta da!
Kaz, London
I would refer Martin to those eminent scientific popularisers Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. Their song The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics should tell him everything he needs to know about thermal transfer across a vacuum.
Peter Howard, Cambridge
The following letter was received in out 10 things inbox:
Hello, Here's a couple of fun pictures. I made a large hamburger out of 10 pounds of meat and a 13'' bun. I then offered some to my dog, but she didn't know what to make of it.
Ramon Pedoto
Re - Kate's mum would have certainly had a lesser problem had she said "what". "Pardon" is a contraction of "I beg your pardon", and considered quite vulgar.
Peter Allen, Coventry
Re the 鈥 reading this story in the Sun about Heather Mills鈥檚 dance on a plane, she isn't once referred to as 鈥淟ady Mucca鈥. Is this the first time the Sun hasn't used the term since the pose pictures came out?
Mark Ivey, Hartlepool
Re: Emma's "looking for light relief in the shape of a goat" (Thursday letters). Careful now, that's what caused the marriage the last time round.
Gus, London
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