Hmmm, perhaps it is to do with context then? I have only dealt with it
in a more abstract environment: dealing with differential equations,
where you might have a "damping" term, and have for the most part
extrapolated from there. In my main area of study you really didn't
want things to get either wet or exhibit oscillatory behaviour
(although I guess cyclic execution would be fine, or the final
products the components the components go in perhaps)
Cheers,
Nick
On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Nick Andrews <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hmm, in engineering classes we were taught that dampen was not the
> correct term, but damp was. And all the old-timer machinists I have
> run into are of the same mindset. Maybe the 'authors' at the
> dictionary factory have taken artistic license due to common usage
> changes (by the commoners)... Hey, this is actually on-topic with
> language drift!
>
> On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Raymond E. Feist <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>>
>> You don't see how to dampen vibrations because you stopped reading after the
>> first definition in verb, monkey boy! Seriously, besides "to make moist,"
>> it also means "to check or retard the energy, action, etc. of: to stifle,
>> suffocate or extinguish; to check or retard the action of a vibrating
>> string, and the one that applies in physics, to cause a decrease in
>> amplitude of ocillations or waves.
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Nick A
>
> "You know what I wish? I wish that all the scum of the world had but
> a single throat, and I had my hands about it..." Rorschach, 1975
>
> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."- Benjamin Franklin,
> Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
>
> "Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names
> the streets after them." Bill Vaughan
>
> "The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Plato
>
>
