Horace Heffner wrote:
IMHO that's an inaccurate example. This seems far more accurate, "Bob
and John both weigh 882.4 pounds." Or even, "Bob and John weigh 882.4
pounds." Notice there's no word "each," just as in my original text.
My goodness, Bob and John together weigh 1764.8 pounds then. How sad
for them.
I received the answer from the expert:
---
I'm sorry, but I can't tell from the sentence as written which meaning is
intended. If you have no context to help, either meaning could be the one the
writer wanted you to choose. If you do have context, please let me know what it
is, and then maybe I can be of some help. Otherwise, anything I might say would
be only a guess.
Bob Lieblich
> I was hoping you could help me determine what a
> sentence means --> "both sides of a thin sheet
> of opaque material radiates 1000 Watts"
>
> Some people think it means both sides radiate a
> total of 1000 watts, while some people think it
> means each side radiates 1000 watts.
---
I call it a draw. :-) It appears my sentence needs further clarification. On
the other hand, one cannot state my math was in error due to lack of information.
In all fairness there are various sites on the internet where I correctly
clarified the sentence. For example on Aug 3rd 2006 at peswiki.com:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:PaulL:Thermodynamics
Several references:
"Basic introduction on the science of how all matter radiates electromagnetic
waves in the far infrared region; e.g., 450+ watts per square meter"
"A flat two sided surface, measuring one meter by one meter, made of good black
body material (emissivity near 1.0) at room temperature (300 K) placed in
complete darkness radiates over 900 watts (over 450 watts per side)."
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
