Earth has a powerful magnetic field. You might as well suggest oceans.;)
Putting one up to protect earth might be a fine idea some day. The Magnetic field of earth (~.65 gauss at the surface) is possibly making way for one of it's reversals at present - it's certainly weakening. If it approaches 0, an artificial magnetic field might come in handy to tide us over until the earth gets it's own back.
This is why that won't happen any time soon. If we intend to discuss here all potential NASA projects, slashdot must be dedicated to that, along with 10 other websites.
Beats hell out of the endless stories on Apple's missing headphone jack.
As for the actual idea - I think it is well-established that a magnetic shield would be just the thing to protect the atmosphere of a planet (or the passengers of a spacecraft), but the technical challenges are enormous, and the benefits to Mars would probably be slow and rather minor.
On the second point, yes, it would be slow. Probably multiple lifetimes worth of waiting. But on the first point, I was a little shocked at just how simple it might be. 1-2 Tesla is achievable without external power Neodymium magnets sit right about in the middle of that range. The biggest issues will be more mechanical, and for obvious reasons. Considering the implications, something like this might be important for the next earth geomagnetic reversal as well.
Perhaps we find a way to produce a magnetic fields big and strong enough that would endure long enough with little maintenance, and perhaps we find a way to replenish Mars' atmostphere quickly enough to make it worth doing.
If this works - we already have a zero or almost zero maintenance way to produce the field. I was pretty concerned about the lack of a magnetosphere on Mars as a gamestopper. This conceptcomes along, and it was a facepalm moment.
They don't mention much about how this magical magnetic barrier is going to be generated or powered. They also don't really know how long it will take a habitable atmosphere to form assuming it works at all, or what happens to everything if the shield fails at a later date and what kind of upkeep it would require. It sounds a lot like wishful thinking and hand-waving.
Didn't RTFA did ya?
1 - 2 Tesla or 10K to 20K Gauss is what they are looking at. It is quite possible that you won't even need a powered magnet, as Neodymium magnets are already in that range https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
The confusion probably comes from the idea that the magnet needs to be extremely powerful. This is not the case. At the earth's surface our own magnetic field tops out around 0.65 gauss.
Placing the big dumb magnet at the Lagrange point and having it deflect the charged particles is remarkably low maintenance.
Side note - the earth's magnetic field has been weakening, as it is wont to do on occasion. If at some point in the future it weakens to the point of not blocking the solar wind or cosmic rays, this bit of kit might turn out very helpful to us until our own magnetic field reasserts itself.
That depends. They would probably try to make him follow their agenda first, and only if he would not cooperate they would go on the impeachment process. The later has the huge disadvantage that the intelligence community would then have to find dirt on Pence if they wanted their agenda pushed, and that's probably a lot harder to find.
Not really likely that they would go after Pence. Pence is a conservative that politicians can work with.
As I have told people before - wait a little while - and have plenty of popcorn at the ready. We are on the cusp.
Now just between me and the people who actually do know "fuck-all" about physics, it is pretty damn humorous that the metric system, which I often hear fans bragging about how you don't use fractions, is measured to the highest available accuracy.......
By a fraction. Howbow dah?
Well, that's a little funny. But us in SI-land at least have a definition. What I find more funny is that you in imperial land don't even have a definition.
Those of us who do need a definition tend to use metric. The whole 'Murricans are so stupid, they don't use metric is just wrong on so many levels. I can't remember the last time I used a standard tool on any car I owned, the larger percentage being made in the US. The only exception is the lug nuts on the wheels, which apparently the civilized world also uses.
What I find funnier is that imperial units are defined in terms of the relevant SI unit. E.g. " The international avoirdupois pound is equal to exactly 453.59237 grams." Now, that's funny.
Yeah - it's pretty much the same situation. More showing that all the systems are arbitrary.
And it doesn't matter if 0C is distilled or salt water or whatever. It's much more convenient to know that if I'm close to 0C when driving I better watch out for ice, than "thirty something".
For a practical everyday use it sure does make sense. Especially when you are near the freezing point of water. Because there are some quirks with H2O. You can freeze water above 0 degrees C if you have it in a shallow pan facing the zenith. Apparently this method was used in India to make ice for various purposes at one time. You can also supercool liquids that are below their freezing point, yet are still liquid. This trick is often done with bottles of beer placed in freezers. Give them a decent physical shock and watch the liquid freeze before your eyes. I ran over a supercooled puddle of water on my motorcycle years ago. It froze almost instantly, retaining tire marks in the ice.
The approximate freezing point of water makes practical sense in a lot of contexts, worthy of a "special" number. (Most everyday thermometers aren't accurate to more than +/- 1C anyway (half that if you're lucky), so the exact definition in the physics lab isn't that important for most cases anyway.)
Commerce is the place where most of us find the need for more accurate measurements. Especially when dealing worldwide. Some items need to be very accurately made - think nuts and bolts and even kitchen utensils. A few years back there was a big mess when a manufacturer made a batch of RF connectors that were referenced to an incorrect measurement. The connectors looked perfect, but simply wouldn't fit. In the kitchen, breadmaking is surprisingly precise work.
Actually, they used their quasi-monopoly on search to push their browser. Anytime you visit Google with a non-Chrome browser it tries to push Chrome on you.
Haven't you heard? The desktop is dead! Everybody works on tablets and mobile phones now. There will not be a new photoshop for desktops, the next version will only be available on Android and iPhone. Because that's where the market is now. You insensitive clod, asking that companies like Apple or Microsoft keep pouring money into the dead desktop ecosystem...
Exactly. I collect (and use) old pre WWII machine tools that are imperial and don't see a problem. There was a thermodynamics homework problem that asked a question in imperial units to test that people really understood the concepts of a problem and weren't simply plugging numbers in, I had to look up what a slug was, but no big deal.
Robocalls have emerged because they are much cheaper and more consistent than cheap humans.
My point above is that as soon as you start ignoring calls you don't have whitelisted (literally or figuratively), your phone becomes pretty useless for getting a hold of you in the event of an emergency.
TEll me. Have you removed all of th ewhat if's from your life? What if someone calls to tell you that your parent's are dying in seconds while you are taking a shit? Or shower? You have a life-roof case so you can take your phone in the shower with you? spread any e.coli bacteria on your phone. that critical call might come in while you are trying to wipe the old butt.
And homie, the odds are very much the same.
Your maximum fear inculcation is exactly what happens to people when devices that should make their lives better, actually amp up their insecurity to the point where they are not only addicted to the thing, but they are more fearful than they were before.
The fear of being out of phone contact, or nomophobia, is a relatively new disorder, mainly because of the ubiquity of mobile phones. At one time, it might have been a subset of agoraphobia. Because in the days of landline phones, your fear of not catching the phone call of some imagined disaster that would cause someone to call you about it would have required you to sit right in front of the phone 24/7/365.25.
This is why I always recommend against prople buying those home surveillance systems such as Comcast offers. They always show a happy mother, smiling because her children arrived safely home from school. But what happens to people with latent disorders isn't shown. After the children arrive home, she'll start worrying about "what if something happens to them after they get there?" "What if something happens to the house?" What if there is a burglary?" So she looks again. And again. And again. Eventually, she is watching the house the entire time she isn't in it, work, traveling, on vacation, everywhere. A full blown mental affliction. This can obviously happen to men as well. Its really the same thing as with phones, a video "what if something happens" that is perhaps even more sinister to the phone call "what if something happens" neurosis that so many people are falling into.
Once upon a time, we didn't have cellular phones and such wide coverage. Somehow, we survived.
Anyhow, I'm kinda sorry for your predicament, because it can't be all that much fun thinking up scenarios of the disasters that might befall your loved ones, and every call from a scammer just might be the news you dread. That has to sort of suck.
Tell me the boiling point of water at 10,000 meters in altitude.
um... which planet? Because which atmosphere?
Also, are we talking the instantaneous, average, mean or median pressure at the point of reference? Or something else?
You are making my point. A very inaccurate reference point combined with an arbitrary counting system based upon our phalanges - well half of them on a person anyhow.
No. I'm sorry.
This is the boiling point of water: When the bubbles start coming off the bottom of the teapot.
Nothing else matters.
Once again, your exceptionally broad definition makes for nothing - aside from being wrong. Its why we don't use the boiling point of water any more. It's terribly innacurate.
at around 170, or 76.7 or 349.9K the water starts ro roil as molecules break form the heated area and rise. So far so good.
When you hit around 180 or 82, or 355K you start to get bubbles. This is a point where the pre-boiling water starts making noise as well. So your definition is busted.
Then at around 210, or 99 or 372K the bubbles are running across the entire surface of the water. This is called a gentle boil. With just a couple more degrees, it comes ro a rolling boil at 212 or 100 or 373K- the accepted point of true boiling, because except under pressure, the temperature won't rise any higher.
Nobody in science or engineering uses imperial units, so what's your problem? Crap, we don't even use units anymore, all of that is handled by software.
You occasionaly get older devices - not software - to work on that are not metric, so you need to know both. That's why I have both metric and old school tools. My lathe and milling machine are metric, but I can work in both as needed. (they are not Computer controlled.) Ain't no big deal other than having to point out that a person should be able to work in either.
One system has loosely coupled units which makes it a nightmare to calculate anything relevant for engineering or science, the other system has closely coupled units that fit together and make complex calculations easy.
Obviously both are arbitrary and not god given...
Nevertheless: one is more useful than the other...
Fine - but in no way shape or form is that remotely related to my point. I use metric almost always. But I can switch between it and the Standard system without a hitch as needed. Others are perhaps not capable, or really rigid. Maybe its like knowing more than one language.
And what do you do when a loved one is in an accident and the hospital or police are trying to call you to notify you Mr. Smarty pants?
If I get two phone calls from the same number within three minutes, it will ring through. They can leave a message as well, Mr Sweetie Pie.
What if they call while I'm taking a dump. What if they call while I'm inside a tunnel. What if they call while I'm on the phone talking to someone else, what if what if?
Are you one of the millenials who breaks into a cold sweat of fear when that last little bar disappears form your phone? I've worked with some who won't leave an area with cell phone coverage. Had one try to get me to turn around while on the way to a remote site. Spent most of his time there climbing on things to try to get a little extra height to re-establish his wireless umbilical cord. Something might happen that someone might need to get hold of them about something that is the most important thing they will ever take a call about. That's addiction personified.
Do you sleep with your phone? And how in the hell did humans ever manage to survive before we had these little things? Did they never leve their loved ones?
It isn't like Celsius isn't just as arbitrary or obsolete
And in one fell swoop... you've revealed that you know fuck-all about basic physics and chemistry. Well done.;)
To be certain, I use the metric system almost exclusively - I'm just under no illusion that it isn't arbitrary. So here we go.........
Tell me the boiling point of water at 10,000 meters in altitude. Is it 100 degrees Celsius? If not, why is 100 degrees celsius considered the boiling point of water, which the Celsius temperature is based upon?
Time for some telling.
Water, which someone decided was the universal and unambiguous basis of temperature, somehow knows that there are exactly 100 degrees between it's freezing point and it's boiling point. No it doesn't. Now some more questions. Is water that is cooled below 0 Celsius frozen? Not always - hence the term supercooled Liquid. What's the composition of that water anyhow? You might say distilled? More on that later.
Absolute zero in the Celsius scale is -273.15 degrees Celsius. You know you have an inexact system when your standard has significant digits tacked onto it. And the Boiling point of water at Sea level has been abandoned for the triple point of special water named "Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water". This replaces "average Ocean Water and melted snow as references.
If that isn't ambiguous, I don't know what is. So what would be do?
What we are left with is Absolute zero and Absolute hot. These are probably the closest we can approach to unambiguous temperatures. Absolute 0 is assigned the value of 0 degrees Kelvin, and Absolute hot is at the moment considered to be 1.416785(71)×1032 degrees K. There is some argument over this - even this is eligible to change. I'm not going to give that the unambiguous label.
Other examples of the ambiguity and lack of precision in some accepted units are the Metre, which was originally described as 1 ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole. At a line running through a loaction in France. Important because the earth isn't spherical - it's na oblate spheroid. Then it became the length of a X shaped cross section Platinum-Iridium Meter bar, then it became referenced by Krypton-86, and stand by for this little bit of exactness. One Metre equals 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the levels 2p10 and 5d5 of the krypton 86 atom. in a Krypton 86 Discharge lamp in a vacuum. Good grief! I forgot to add, the lamp was running at the triple point of Nitrogen.
Today, we've at least simplified things a bit by using lasers and the distance traveled by light. First by a methane stabilized laser, and now by a Helium-Neon laser stabilized by iodine, and have come up with a new official definition of a Metre.
It is the length of this laser light travels in 1/299,792,458 th of a second.
Now just between me and the people who actually do know "fuck-all" about physics, it is pretty damn humorous that the metric system, which I often hear fans bragging about how you don't use fractions, is measured to the highest available accuracy.......
In the article the Celsius to Fahrenheit converter seems to have failed.
I'd be happy the day that Fahrenheit is passed on to history together with other obsolete forms of measurements with strange conversion factors.
And we'd get yet another arbitrary system in it's place. It isn't like Celsius isn't just as arbitrary or obsolete. Or the metre or the liter. Or the second. Or any measurement system.
This is why I am always amused at the metric FTW crowd. I's just another system base upon something, something.
When a call comes from a number I do not recognize, I just don't answer. Doesn't matter what it is. Once in a while if I am expecting a call I might answer an unrecognized number. Otherwise, let it go to voicemail.
If they leave a message and it is someone I want to talk to, I add them to my contacts and call them back
And if they robocall from the same number a few times, I add the number to the "ignore" list so I am not bothered by the sound of a ringing phone.
A pretty good mode. Self defense against the phone Visigoths at the gates. I am really surprised that legitimate business interests haven't worked on curing this along time ago. These days, charitable organizations who rely on phone canvassing are included in the listing of calls that aren't answered, that political calls are psychologically associated with fix your PC scams, or the IRS scams, or whatever other scammy crap these criminals are promoting.
User modifiability of Caller ID was put in as a convenience for businesses which want to have all their phone numbers identify as the same identity. But it's such an inconvenience to everyone else that we will have no choice but to freeze caller identities to prevent criminal spoofing.
I'm in good shape until they get my address book and can spoof the numbers of those who are in it.
Slashdot Mirror
Earth has a powerful magnetic field. You might as well suggest oceans. ;)
Putting one up to protect earth might be a fine idea some day. The Magnetic field of earth (~.65 gauss at the surface) is possibly making way for one of it's reversals at present - it's certainly weakening. If it approaches 0, an artificial magnetic field might come in handy to tide us over until the earth gets it's own back.
This is why that won't happen any time soon. If we intend to discuss here all potential NASA projects, slashdot must be dedicated to that, along with 10 other websites.
Beats hell out of the endless stories on Apple's missing headphone jack.
They don't mention much about how this magical magnetic barrier is going to be generated or powered.
If only there was an easy way to make working superconductors in near-zero ambient temperature environments.
(or even an easy way to read articles from the comfort of home)
Or Neodymium magnets. Remarkably strong.
As for the actual idea - I think it is well-established that a magnetic shield would be just the thing to protect the atmosphere of a planet (or the passengers of a spacecraft), but the technical challenges are enormous, and the benefits to Mars would probably be slow and rather minor.
On the second point, yes, it would be slow. Probably multiple lifetimes worth of waiting. But on the first point, I was a little shocked at just how simple it might be. 1-2 Tesla is achievable without external power Neodymium magnets sit right about in the middle of that range. The biggest issues will be more mechanical, and for obvious reasons. Considering the implications, something like this might be important for the next earth geomagnetic reversal as well.
Perhaps we find a way to produce a magnetic fields big and strong enough that would endure long enough with little maintenance, and perhaps we find a way to replenish Mars' atmostphere quickly enough to make it worth doing.
If this works - we already have a zero or almost zero maintenance way to produce the field. I was pretty concerned about the lack of a magnetosphere on Mars as a gamestopper. This conceptcomes along, and it was a facepalm moment.
They don't mention much about how this magical magnetic barrier is going to be generated or powered. They also don't really know how long it will take a habitable atmosphere to form assuming it works at all, or what happens to everything if the shield fails at a later date and what kind of upkeep it would require. It sounds a lot like wishful thinking and hand-waving.
Didn't RTFA did ya?
1 - 2 Tesla or 10K to 20K Gauss is what they are looking at. It is quite possible that you won't even need a powered magnet, as Neodymium magnets are already in that range https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
The confusion probably comes from the idea that the magnet needs to be extremely powerful. This is not the case. At the earth's surface our own magnetic field tops out around 0.65 gauss.
Placing the big dumb magnet at the Lagrange point and having it deflect the charged particles is remarkably low maintenance.
Side note - the earth's magnetic field has been weakening, as it is wont to do on occasion. If at some point in the future it weakens to the point of not blocking the solar wind or cosmic rays, this bit of kit might turn out very helpful to us until our own magnetic field reasserts itself.
What will happen though when tax incentives fall away?
Check with the Oil and Natgas industry and ethanol industry. Cancel that, they're still getting subsidies.
That depends. They would probably try to make him follow their agenda first, and only if he would not cooperate they would go on the impeachment process. The later has the huge disadvantage that the intelligence community would then have to find dirt on Pence if they wanted their agenda pushed, and that's probably a lot harder to find.
Not really likely that they would go after Pence. Pence is a conservative that politicians can work with.
As I have told people before - wait a little while - and have plenty of popcorn at the ready. We are on the cusp.
Try calculating the flow rate of water through a 2 inch diameter pipe being pushed by a force of 40 pounds per square inch.
We need velocity and Internal diameter, not pressure, to make that calculation.
Now just between me and the people who actually do know "fuck-all" about physics, it is pretty damn humorous that the metric system, which I often hear fans bragging about how you don't use fractions, is measured to the highest available accuracy.......
By a fraction. Howbow dah?
Well, that's a little funny. But us in SI-land at least have a definition. What I find more funny is that you in imperial land don't even have a definition.
Those of us who do need a definition tend to use metric. The whole 'Murricans are so stupid, they don't use metric is just wrong on so many levels. I can't remember the last time I used a standard tool on any car I owned, the larger percentage being made in the US. The only exception is the lug nuts on the wheels, which apparently the civilized world also uses.
What I find funnier is that imperial units are defined in terms of the relevant SI unit. E.g. " The international avoirdupois pound is equal to exactly 453.59237 grams." Now, that's funny.
Yeah - it's pretty much the same situation. More showing that all the systems are arbitrary.
And it doesn't matter if 0C is distilled or salt water or whatever. It's much more convenient to know that if I'm close to 0C when driving I better watch out for ice, than "thirty something".
For a practical everyday use it sure does make sense. Especially when you are near the freezing point of water. Because there are some quirks with H2O. You can freeze water above 0 degrees C if you have it in a shallow pan facing the zenith. Apparently this method was used in India to make ice for various purposes at one time. You can also supercool liquids that are below their freezing point, yet are still liquid. This trick is often done with bottles of beer placed in freezers. Give them a decent physical shock and watch the liquid freeze before your eyes. I ran over a supercooled puddle of water on my motorcycle years ago. It froze almost instantly, retaining tire marks in the ice.
The approximate freezing point of water makes practical sense in a lot of contexts, worthy of a "special" number. (Most everyday thermometers aren't accurate to more than +/- 1C anyway (half that if you're lucky), so the exact definition in the physics lab isn't that important for most cases anyway.)
Commerce is the place where most of us find the need for more accurate measurements. Especially when dealing worldwide. Some items need to be very accurately made - think nuts and bolts and even kitchen utensils. A few years back there was a big mess when a manufacturer made a batch of RF connectors that were referenced to an incorrect measurement. The connectors looked perfect, but simply wouldn't fit. In the kitchen, breadmaking is surprisingly precise work.
Actually, they used their quasi-monopoly on search to push their browser. Anytime you visit Google with a non-Chrome browser it tries to push Chrome on you.
The epitome of fake news - good work.
It was humor. In support of your point. Apparently, too sharp. Sorry.
Ack - my bad. I've been getting beat up on this subject enough that I lost my humor for a second.
Haven't you heard? The desktop is dead! Everybody works on tablets and mobile phones now. There will not be a new photoshop for desktops, the next version will only be available on Android and iPhone. Because that's where the market is now. You insensitive clod, asking that companies like Apple or Microsoft keep pouring money into the dead desktop ecosystem...
Damn, that was brutal! Well played though.
Must be shills all the way down.
with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
Exactly. I collect (and use) old pre WWII machine tools that are imperial and don't see a problem. There was a thermodynamics homework problem that asked a question in imperial units to test that people really understood the concepts of a problem and weren't simply plugging numbers in, I had to look up what a slug was, but no big deal.
And like it or not, the metric system has pretty well taken over her in the US anyhow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But that wouldn't fit their "stupid fat 'murrican" outlook.
Robocalls have emerged because they are much cheaper and more consistent than cheap humans.
My point above is that as soon as you start ignoring calls you don't have whitelisted (literally or figuratively), your phone becomes pretty useless for getting a hold of you in the event of an emergency.
TEll me. Have you removed all of th ewhat if's from your life? What if someone calls to tell you that your parent's are dying in seconds while you are taking a shit? Or shower? You have a life-roof case so you can take your phone in the shower with you? spread any e.coli bacteria on your phone. that critical call might come in while you are trying to wipe the old butt.
And homie, the odds are very much the same.
Your maximum fear inculcation is exactly what happens to people when devices that should make their lives better, actually amp up their insecurity to the point where they are not only addicted to the thing, but they are more fearful than they were before.
The fear of being out of phone contact, or nomophobia, is a relatively new disorder, mainly because of the ubiquity of mobile phones. At one time, it might have been a subset of agoraphobia. Because in the days of landline phones, your fear of not catching the phone call of some imagined disaster that would cause someone to call you about it would have required you to sit right in front of the phone 24/7/365.25 .
This is why I always recommend against prople buying those home surveillance systems such as Comcast offers. They always show a happy mother, smiling because her children arrived safely home from school. But what happens to people with latent disorders isn't shown. After the children arrive home, she'll start worrying about "what if something happens to them after they get there?" "What if something happens to the house?" What if there is a burglary?" So she looks again. And again. And again. Eventually, she is watching the house the entire time she isn't in it, work, traveling, on vacation, everywhere. A full blown mental affliction. This can obviously happen to men as well. Its really the same thing as with phones, a video "what if something happens" that is perhaps even more sinister to the phone call "what if something happens" neurosis that so many people are falling into.
Once upon a time, we didn't have cellular phones and such wide coverage. Somehow, we survived.
Anyhow, I'm kinda sorry for your predicament, because it can't be all that much fun thinking up scenarios of the disasters that might befall your loved ones, and every call from a scammer just might be the news you dread. That has to sort of suck.
um... which planet? Because which atmosphere?
Also, are we talking the instantaneous, average, mean or median pressure at the point of reference? Or something else?
You are making my point. A very inaccurate reference point combined with an arbitrary counting system based upon our phalanges - well half of them on a person anyhow.
No. I'm sorry.
This is the boiling point of water: When the bubbles start coming off the bottom of the teapot.
Nothing else matters.
Once again, your exceptionally broad definition makes for nothing - aside from being wrong. Its why we don't use the boiling point of water any more. It's terribly innacurate. at around 170, or 76.7 or 349.9K the water starts ro roil as molecules break form the heated area and rise. So far so good.
When you hit around 180 or 82, or 355K you start to get bubbles. This is a point where the pre-boiling water starts making noise as well. So your definition is busted.
Then at around 210, or 99 or 372K the bubbles are running across the entire surface of the water. This is called a gentle boil. With just a couple more degrees, it comes ro a rolling boil at 212 or 100 or 373K- the accepted point of true boiling, because except under pressure, the temperature won't rise any higher.
Nobody in science or engineering uses imperial units, so what's your problem? Crap, we don't even use units anymore, all of that is handled by software.
You occasionaly get older devices - not software - to work on that are not metric, so you need to know both. That's why I have both metric and old school tools. My lathe and milling machine are metric, but I can work in both as needed. (they are not Computer controlled.) Ain't no big deal other than having to point out that a person should be able to work in either.
Does not matter if it is "arbitrary".
One system has loosely coupled units which makes it a nightmare to calculate anything relevant for engineering or science, the other system has closely coupled units that fit together and make complex calculations easy.
Obviously both are arbitrary and not god given ...
Nevertheless: one is more useful than the other ...
Fine - but in no way shape or form is that remotely related to my point. I use metric almost always. But I can switch between it and the Standard system without a hitch as needed. Others are perhaps not capable, or really rigid. Maybe its like knowing more than one language.
This is why I am always amused at the metric FTW crowd. I's just another system base upon something, something.
Then you have not grasped it.
I wrote another post to someone who told me I don't know fuck-all about physics. Check it out.
Short version - it's all arbitrary. I stand by that.
And what do you do when a loved one is in an accident and the hospital or police are trying to call you to notify you Mr. Smarty pants?
If I get two phone calls from the same number within three minutes, it will ring through. They can leave a message as well, Mr Sweetie Pie.
What if they call while I'm taking a dump. What if they call while I'm inside a tunnel. What if they call while I'm on the phone talking to someone else, what if what if?
Are you one of the millenials who breaks into a cold sweat of fear when that last little bar disappears form your phone? I've worked with some who won't leave an area with cell phone coverage. Had one try to get me to turn around while on the way to a remote site. Spent most of his time there climbing on things to try to get a little extra height to re-establish his wireless umbilical cord. Something might happen that someone might need to get hold of them about something that is the most important thing they will ever take a call about. That's addiction personified.
Do you sleep with your phone? And how in the hell did humans ever manage to survive before we had these little things? Did they never leve their loved ones?
It isn't like Celsius isn't just as arbitrary or obsolete
And in one fell swoop... you've revealed that you know fuck-all about basic physics and chemistry. Well done. ;)
To be certain, I use the metric system almost exclusively - I'm just under no illusion that it isn't arbitrary. So here we go.........
Tell me the boiling point of water at 10,000 meters in altitude. Is it 100 degrees Celsius? If not, why is 100 degrees celsius considered the boiling point of water, which the Celsius temperature is based upon?
Time for some telling.
Water, which someone decided was the universal and unambiguous basis of temperature, somehow knows that there are exactly 100 degrees between it's freezing point and it's boiling point. No it doesn't. Now some more questions. Is water that is cooled below 0 Celsius frozen? Not always - hence the term supercooled Liquid. What's the composition of that water anyhow? You might say distilled? More on that later.
Absolute zero in the Celsius scale is -273.15 degrees Celsius. You know you have an inexact system when your standard has significant digits tacked onto it. And the Boiling point of water at Sea level has been abandoned for the triple point of special water named "Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water". This replaces "average Ocean Water and melted snow as references.
If that isn't ambiguous, I don't know what is. So what would be do?
What we are left with is Absolute zero and Absolute hot. These are probably the closest we can approach to unambiguous temperatures. Absolute 0 is assigned the value of 0 degrees Kelvin, and Absolute hot is at the moment considered to be 1.416785(71)×1032 degrees K. There is some argument over this - even this is eligible to change. I'm not going to give that the unambiguous label.
Other examples of the ambiguity and lack of precision in some accepted units are the Metre, which was originally described as 1 ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole. At a line running through a loaction in France. Important because the earth isn't spherical - it's na oblate spheroid. Then it became the length of a X shaped cross section Platinum-Iridium Meter bar, then it became referenced by Krypton-86, and stand by for this little bit of exactness. One Metre equals 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the levels 2p10 and 5d5 of the krypton 86 atom. in a Krypton 86 Discharge lamp in a vacuum. Good grief! I forgot to add, the lamp was running at the triple point of Nitrogen.
Today, we've at least simplified things a bit by using lasers and the distance traveled by light. First by a methane stabilized laser, and now by a Helium-Neon laser stabilized by iodine, and have come up with a new official definition of a Metre.
It is the length of this laser light travels in 1/299,792,458 th of a second.
Now just between me and the people who actually do know "fuck-all" about physics, it is pretty damn humorous that the metric system, which I often hear fans bragging about how you don't use fractions, is measured to the highest available accuracy.......
By a fraction. Howbow dah?
In the article the Celsius to Fahrenheit converter seems to have failed.
I'd be happy the day that Fahrenheit is passed on to history together with other obsolete forms of measurements with strange conversion factors.
And we'd get yet another arbitrary system in it's place. It isn't like Celsius isn't just as arbitrary or obsolete. Or the metre or the liter. Or the second. Or any measurement system.
This is why I am always amused at the metric FTW crowd. I's just another system base upon something, something.
When a call comes from a number I do not recognize, I just don't answer. Doesn't matter what it is. Once in a while if I am expecting a call I might answer an unrecognized number. Otherwise, let it go to voicemail.
If they leave a message and it is someone I want to talk to, I add them to my contacts and call them back
And if they robocall from the same number a few times, I add the number to the "ignore" list so I am not bothered by the sound of a ringing phone.
A pretty good mode. Self defense against the phone Visigoths at the gates. I am really surprised that legitimate business interests haven't worked on curing this along time ago. These days, charitable organizations who rely on phone canvassing are included in the listing of calls that aren't answered, that political calls are psychologically associated with fix your PC scams, or the IRS scams, or whatever other scammy crap these criminals are promoting.
User modifiability of Caller ID was put in as a convenience for businesses which want to have all their phone numbers identify as the same identity. But it's such an inconvenience to everyone else that we will have no choice but to freeze caller identities to prevent criminal spoofing.
I'm in good shape until they get my address book and can spoof the numbers of those who are in it.