this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 days ago

Reminds me of a time one of my friends was happy that it was going to warm up and said something like "it's going to be twice as warm tomorrow". It was going from maybe 20F to 40F or something.

That led to an interesting discussion.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Obviously we'd all die but I wonder how exactly. This would make a good question for Randall Munroe.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I use this as an example for interval vs ratio; you can't halve Celsius because it's an interval scale where zero is arbitrary. Kelvin is ratio as it has an absolute zero-- you very much can halve it and doom near the entire planet next summer

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 days ago (5 children)

This knowledge comes in handy with marketing BS around CPU coolers. If an aftermarket cooler gets a CPU to 35C when the stock cooler is at 70C, marketing will sometimes claim it cut temperatures in half.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

I mean.... that's literally half though

edit: I am not a science man and I am in over my head in this argument

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you convert those temperatures to Kelvin, they become 308K and 343K. Since Kelvin is absolute and we're measuring the same material, this tells you how much more thermal energy is there and their actual proportion to each other.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

thanks, this makes a lot more sense.

That being said, 70C down to 35C is a huge difference, relative to the temperature ranges we live in

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

But it's not.

Celsius and Faernheit are interval scales, not rational scales. The absolute change from one number to the next is consistent, but since you can go into the negatives, 1 is not double 2.

Kelvin and Rankine are rational because they use an absolute zero.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

308.15K is not half of 343.15K

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Could someone please explain?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Let's say the summer average is 30⁰C or 303.15 Kelvin

The absolute coldest possible temperature is -273.15⁰C, or 0K.

Halfway between absolute zero and 30⁰C/303.15K is somewhere around -121⁰C/152K

So if it were half as hot in the summer, it would be colder than ever recorded on earth.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

In short, you don't want to use a temperature scale with an arbitrary starting point for doing calculations like this. The freezing point of water is no more or less arbitrary than the freezing point of oxygen or sodium or anything else. It's just one that's somewhat useful for everyday use. When handling calculations for multiplying temperature, you want an absolute scale like Kelvin.

Or Rankine if you're that kind of pervert.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What makes Kelvin absolute, and why is Celsius "wobbly"?

I failed physics in high school

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

0 K is like when there is 0 heat basically, while celsius isn't. Imagine a unit for distance called "goob" where 0 goobs is 100 m and 1 goob is 115 m. In that case the goob unit would behave differently than a meter when you multiply and divide because 0 of the units don't actually correspond to "nothing" in a physical sense. That's exactly how the Celsius scale is, with zero being placed somewhere arbitrarily, not at a physical zero.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

i feel like i need more goob in my life. do you sell rulers?

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

absolute scales are still arbitrary. you would probably want to use a scale that measures "perceived heat" which is different than average kinetic energy

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[–] [email protected] 252 points 2 days ago (4 children)

30°C is 303 Kelvin. Half of that is 151 Kelvin, which translates into a fairly mild -122°C!

Takes out hockey stick

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Wait, does it? Are joules in thermal energy per kelvin a purely linear relationship?

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago (6 children)

New strategy to prevent global warming: just freeze all of the CO2 out of the air!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

mmm, delicious carbonjack

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Aka a cool 272 Rankine for our US folks.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (3 children)

A good genie would instantly invent a metric of "number of degrees in excess of room temperature"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

what, you never heard of the room temperature room?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

The indoor temperature is always at room temperature and vice versa. It's not constant though.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's fairly well known that there are no good genies. But otherwise, true.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

For a present, I think it would be fun to have a contract lawyer draft up an ironclad 3 wishes contract

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

First wish, a lawyer who specializes in genie law. Unfortunately, the lawyer draws up a contract that screws you out of most of your wishes, not because of the genie's influence, but because they're a lawyer.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was kind of thinking along the same lines. But to be truly ironclad, would you need a genie lawyer? Like not a lawyer who specialized in Genie Law, but an actual genie?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is why I hire my attorneys from Avernus. Don't nobody got lawyers like Hell has lawyers. If you're trying to pull one over on a genie, you're going to need either devils or fae. And the devils are more likely to respect their contract, including any loopholes you manage to find in it.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Is it hotter down south than it is in the summer?

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