accuracy is important- dec 2

penguinita · Postby **penguinita** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 5:31 pm

<a href='http://www.ozyandmillie.org/2003/om20031202.html' target='_blank'>accuracy is important</a> <img src='http://www.ozyandmillie.org/1999/om19990707.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' /> i like this comic- its one of my favourites, because i spotted the errors in boht ozy's comment in the prevous strip and stephan's statement. dcsimpson said he'd been meaning ot rerun this strip for a while, but couldn't find it- he hsould have just started a new thread asking us to find it, and i bet someone whould have within 24hrs.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (d.c.simpson @ Dec 2 2003)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Then other people disputed Stephan's corrections, and claimed I had been right to begin with. Is it wrong that I don't actually care?</td></tr></table>  i'd say its fine that dcs doens't really care- honestly, how often does the shape of planetaryy orbits or the orbits of electron really matter in daily life. but since i do care because i'm a nerd: stephan is correct that planets orbit in elepses (kepler's laws), but a circle is just an elipse with an eccentricity (the measure of elpeseness) of zero. (an esentricity of 1 corrusponds to a parabola, and e>1 is a hyperbola) the ecentricity oof the earrth's oribit is about 0.003, which is by any mesure, very close to circular. stephan is more correct when he says 'electrons orbit in "clouds"', but still not fully correct. the location of an electron is actually governed by quantum mechanics, so it's more correct to say that there is a probibilty distrubution of where the electron can be found. if i've messed up the latter explination, norsennerd (or anyone else) please correct me! <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />

Tavis · Postby **Tavis** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 5:53 pm

I'm getting slow, aren't I? Umm.. since you have the strip up already, I'll just post what I was going to write. You can't please everyone, DC Simpson. As far as either atomic model is concerned, there is nothing that will stop science from discarding both altogether for a new one not yet devised. Not caring may or may not be wrong, but it is your right, so the naysayings of critics do not matter until you want them to matter. Let them try to make high-quality comic strips that expresses their views. It still won't be Ozy and Millie. Being self-critical is an asset, because it encourages self-improvement and the optimization of any task one wishes to achieve. The criticism you have accepted or chosen to leave aside has made Ozy and Millie what it is, and what it is is exactly what draws fans like us back for more. Oh, and about not finding it until now... I guess that answers the question of how well DC would do in "Name that O&M Clip." I'm sure most of the people playing there would have been able to flag it in under a minute, even with a vague description like Stephan and electrons or Millie's correction, "To whom we have an obligation."

norsenerd · Postby **norsenerd** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 6:22 pm

Yes penguinita you are right. There's a lot of comlicated math involved and electrons exist in diferent states around an atom (only one electron for each state and each having a diferent discrete energy). Where the electron is is not well defined. The best macroscopic view of it is a probability density function of space and time (5 dimensonal system) that people call electron clouds but that is in and od itself very flaws. The universe at the quantium level is very diferent than it is at the macroscopic level. It's not wrong to not care. Why should you? You don't have anything to do with quantium physics so ... It's no big deal.

MidnightRealism · Postby **MidnightRealism** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 6:39 pm

I just like this strip because languages are pretty much the only academic field in which I have any proficiency. This makes me feel slightly less worthless. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... iggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

Softpaw · Postby **Softpaw** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:51 pm

Wow, Penguinita didn't make her signature grand entrance (perhaps she was already un-warped...?) I feel disillusioned now

Zylo · Postby **Zylo** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 9:18 pm

Yea, the energy levels in the cloud are the area where it's most probably to find an electron; they don't have to be in that specific area. They can jump levels, and the clouds can take on different shapes. There's the usual O-cloud, but when atoms gain enough energy, they can take the P-cloud form, too. There are no orbits at all for electrons. I think that was all accurate (I'm only one marking period into chemistry; I'm really more of a bio guy).

Foxchild · Postby **Foxchild** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 9:34 pm

two things... first, Felix... i think you've confused penguinita for The J.A.M. second, I almost posted this discussion in a second Random Physics/Philosophy thread, but never got around to it, and then forgot due to distractions(such as school!! In any case, Here's a second possibilyty for the origin of these two strips. With electrons, we as a species have had a lot of trouble trying to tell if electrons have any mass. We know they exist, but we have no idea what they are made of. I say its possible that electrons could house what would be equivelent to galaxies, each electron containing an emmense number of the galectic equivelents. just a thought, and we wont get the proof either way anywhere near the times before the end of our lifetime. As for grammer(shudder) while i always try to be grammatically correct(actually, gross improper grammer is one of my pet peves), the who/whom thing just never clicked properly. I have a general idea, but its just SO commonplace to interchange the two, I got use to using 'who' for everything years before i was taught the proper usage of the two words.

norsenerd · Postby **norsenerd** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 10:36 pm

"who" is subjective while "whom" is objective. It's rather simple if you know what subjective and objective are but nobody seams to care. It's not uncomon for me to use who in place of whom but I hate it when people use whom in place of who. Electrons have a mass. It is rather well known in fact: 9.1093897(54)x10^-31 kg = 5.48579903(13)x10^-4 u = (aprox.) .511 MeV/c^2. As far as we know they are elementry point particles. That is what is used in curent therory. Also it was only in the mid to late 19th century that we even know electrons existed. We figured out their mass prety soon after their discovory.

Foxchild · Postby **Foxchild** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 10:44 pm

sorry, mass was the wrong word... not what i was looking for. I wanted to refer to its mak-up, that we're not certain of what makes up the electron, what its mass is made up of. Sorry about the confusion. and yes, i had learned of the mass of an electron, although i didn't take the time to look up the number.

Softpaw · Postby **Softpaw** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 12:59 am

Yeah, <a href='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... wtopic=275' target='_blank'>the J.A.M.'s birthday</a> thread is what threw me off.

norsenerd · Postby **norsenerd** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 2:18 am

Naw see: With all my physics books around it dosn't take any time at all to look it up. It's in just about every physics book. But what I said erlier is that electrons under curent therory are elementry (they're not composed of anything). That said every particle we thoaugh was elementy 200 yrs ago or before wasn't. Everything we know now will be laughed upon at some point in the future. Being I scinentist I try not to thaink about that though. It makes it seem worthless to try and understand things when of course it's not.

penguinita · Postby **penguinita** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 2:27 am

it seem's it's my day to quote norsenerd  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (norsenerd @ Dec 3 2003, 04:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> It's not wrong to not care. Why should you? You don't have anything to do with quantium physics so ... It's no big deal.</td></tr></table>  oh if only that were true..... actually its mostly true right now. but actually, quantum isn't that bad compaired to some stuff- like spelling corectly <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (norsenerd @ Dec 3 2003, 08:36 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> "who" is subjective while "whom" is objective. It's rather simple if you know what subjective and objective are but nobody seams to care. It's not uncomon for me to use who in place of whom but I hate it when people use whom in place of who.</td></tr></table>  i didn't really figure out who/whom until i'd taken latin. and the english 'whom' is used in what's called (when discussing latin) the accusitive case, and 'who' is nominiatiive. i hadn't heard them called subjective and objective before tho.... it must be that the names of the cases change based on which language your talking about.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (norsenerd @ Dec 3 2003, 12:18 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Everything we know now will be laughed upon at some point in the future. Being I scinentist I try not to thaink about that though. It makes it seem worthless to try and understand things when of course it's not.</td></tr></table>  but how can the ppl of the future look back on our learning and laff at us unless more learning has happened between now and then. with our research we are helping hte future generations to laff at us, because without our help it would not be possible. i'm not sure if that is more or less disenhartening than what you said hto.

norsenerd · Postby **norsenerd** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 3:33 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'>  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (norsenerd @ Dec 3 2003, 04:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> It's not wrong to not care. Why should you? You don't have anything to do with quantium physics so ... It's no big deal.</td></tr></table>  oh if only that were true..... actually its mostly true right now. but actually, quantum isn't that bad compaired to some stuff- like spelling corectly smile.gif</td></tr></table>  I was refering to D.C. simpson not you <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... iggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /> Subjective=nominative and acusitive=objective. Both are aceptable terms in english it's just that when I learned most of my gramer (which I am one of the few proud Americans to have learned gramer in English class instead of a forign language class) those are the terms we used.

Burning Sheep Productions · Postby **Burning Sheep Productions** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 7:46 am

Woah, if I ever saw a quantum physic, I would poke it for all the mumbo jumbo it makes people say.

penguinita · Postby **penguinita** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 8:53 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Burning Sheep Productions @ Dec 3 2003, 05:46 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Woah, if I ever saw a quantum physic, I would poke it for all the mumbo jumbo it makes people say.  </td></tr></table>  that would be so awesome!!!!!!!

Define Cynical Fan Forums

accuracy is important- dec 2

Who is online