explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2125: Luna 2

2019-03-19T01:45:02Z

103.22.200.210:

Second comic in a row about space. The comic seems fairly self-explanatory to me, but the title text might need a bit more work to explain. I can't even figure out exactly what it means. Something about rushing to get the bare minimum done before the deadline? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.100|172.68.141.100]] 17:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Probably about how the engineers wanted to test what they could do before they could actually do it. (Oh,and Luna 2 impacted at 22 km/s) 20:10, 18 March 2019 (GMT)

OMG, the fake explanation is ROTFL funny! Hopefully whomever writes the correct explanation will keep this first bit of verbiage, just for the humor value, but in case that doesn’t happen, for those who don’t want to dig through the edit history, it currently says:
:: “This comic describes one of the first faked moon missions, Luna II. The Communist sham was designed to make it look like the Moon was reachable by humans, in order to protect the threatened Zionist conspiracy.

::By discussing this as if it was fact, (((Randall))) is subtly reinforcing Jewish neuroprogramming causing people to believe in ridiculous child's fantasies like space unquestioningly.”
(And to be crystal clear, I didn’t write it!) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.132|172.68.65.132]] 17:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

:::Hilarious how some people might actually believe this, but Explainxkcd isn't a place for people to shitpost. If you see things like this in an explanation just revert it immediately. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 22:22, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Not sure how to tan on mobile (feel free to do so and delete this tidbit if you want to) but: The throwing a frag filled with flags is symbolic of the standard human explorer tactic. Basically, we tend to shoot first whenever we go to a new place and then promptly place a claim, whether the preexisting landscape has been claimed or not. For instance, the Native Americans. Like, all of them. The tile text, on the other hand, represents attempts to find a solution to half a problem or maybe representing the aforementioned claims bit. But I could be reading into this too much [[Special:Contributions/172.69.46.58|172.69.46.58]] 17:22, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I am using this website to share information, but several IP editors are consistently reverting my edits, even when I leave in their unsubstantiated claims. Help. {{unsigned|162.158.106.144}}

:I'm sorry, "sharing information"? I think you misspelled "vandalizing explanations, blatantly lying and spreading misinformation." Do you have anything better to do than vandalize a wiki and complaining about your shitposts being removed? Also, if you're going to leave comments like this at least make sure you have the courage to sign your comments. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 22:13, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

:You should probably sign your posts to clarify who is having the problem. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.46.58|172.69.46.58]] 17:22, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

:I'm sorry, I fail so see how that explanation is in any way funny. It's just confusing and annoying. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.100|172.68.141.100]] 17:20, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
:it’s not funny *now* because someone deleted it. Basically someone wrote an explanation as if the moon landings were faked, and extended the conspiracy theory to have USA and USSR cooperating on perpetuating the conspiracy because somehow it benefits Israel. It was clearly tongue-in-cheek, like when people claim that the Earth is flat. Given the recent anti-Semitic comments that have cropped up here I took it as an effort to make fun of those people (the ones posting bizarre stuff) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.132|172.68.65.132]] 17:35, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

::Alright, that's the part that wasn't clear to me. You can never really tell when someone online is being sarcastic. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.100|172.68.141.100]] 17:48, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

:::Depressingly, I don't think they're joking. I think they truly believe that space exploration is "fake", & that reaching the moon with a rocket is impossible, & that somehow almost the entire industrialized world is participating in some nonsensical "Jewish" conspiracy to maintain an illusion of space exploration. Even assuming that so many people & industries ''could'' maintain such a complex & widespread facade for multiple generations without reasonably verifiable evidence of its falsehood coming to light, I struggle to think of a good reason ''why'' so many people would knowingly participate in it without ever acting as a whistleblower. As I think perhaps an old xkcd once observed: If NASA really faked the moon landing, shouldn't they have faked a similarly momentous achievement by now? Anyway, ''I'' find it far more believable that a few wealthy people find it profitable to maintain a cadre of deluded obstructionists, than that all trans-orbital space travel is being faked. And speaking only for myself personally, I think Israel has terrible governmental policies & NASA could be doing a lot ''more'' grandiose space exploration but doesn't because there's not enough money in it yet.
:::[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.82|108.162.216.82]] 20:53, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
::::Apollo missions with astronauts were NOT profitable (everything actually gained could've been done by robots). The only reason they were done were that USA wanted to do them before SSSR: it was question of national pride. Next grandiose space exploration will came either when USA will need to feel the pride again, possibly after Chinese land somewhere, or ... when US president will want to show how big d*ck he has. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:17, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

== vaporized on impact? ==

Does anyone here have links to evidence for or against Randall's claim in the title text? What was the impact speed? - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 19:30, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
I mean if they weren't vaporized, how would we tell outside of flags randomly bumping into the ISS? All of the ones that go to Earth would burn up. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.28|172.68.78.28]] 19:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
:If the impact was at 22 km/s, as stated above, that would be about 79,000 km/h, or about 49,000 mph. So... pretty fast? [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 20:42, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Anyone know why you can't get to this explain page from 2124 by way of menu bar/whatever it's called? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.74|172.69.22.74]] 21:21, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
: Did you mean [[Talk:2124: Space Mission Hearing|the talk page of 2124]]? You can click on "Discussion" on top of page when you are at [[2124]]. I just checked and it worked fine. --[[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.210|103.22.200.210]] 01:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
: Or (as I suddenly realized) maybe you are asking to navigate from [[2124]] to [[2125]]. The "next>" button also worked fine as of this comment. --[[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.210|103.22.200.210]] 01:45, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2125: Luna 2

2019-03-19T01:37:59Z

103.22.200.210:

2118: Normal Distribution

2019-03-18T13:48:38Z

103.22.200.210: /* Explanation */ Removed extraneous "are"

{{comic
| number = 2118
| date = March 1, 2019
| title = Normal Distribution
| image = normal_distribution.png
| titletext = It's the NORMAL distribution, not the TANGENT distribution.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by PEOPLE NEW ENOUGH TO STATISTICS TO NOT LEAVE IN ANNOYANCE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:Standard_deviation_diagram.svg|thumb|{{w|Normal distribution}}s and the intervals of the standard deviation are a topic commonly seen in introductory statistics. Randall's chart is similar, but his lines are perpendicular.]]
In statistics, a {{w|Probability distribution|distribution}} is a representation that can be understood in terms of how much of a sample is expected to fall into either discrete bins or between particular ranges of values. For example, if you wanted to represent an age distribution using bins of ten years (0-9, 10-19, etc.), you could produce a bar chart, one bar for each bin, where the height of each bar represents a count of the portion of the sample matching that bin. To turn that bar chart into a distribution, you'd get infinitely many people (technically: a number N which tends to infinity), put them into age bins that are infinitely narrow (technically: bins whose size is O(1/sqrt(N))), and then divide each bin count by the total count so that the whole thing added up to 1. It is common to ask how much of the distribution lies between two vertical lines; that would correspond to asking what percent of people are expected to fall between two ages.

Many statistical samplings resemble a pattern called a "{{w|normal distribution}}". A theoretically perfect normal distribution would have an infinite sample size and infinitely small bins. That would produce a bar chart matching the shape of the curve in the comic.

The area between two vertical lines of the distribution represents the probability that the value is between the x-values of the lines, and the total area is 1. Randall finds the area between two ''horizontal'' lines instead, which is mathematically meaningless, because the y-axis of a probability distribution represents {{w|absolute magnitude|magnitude}} as a fraction of unity (although we do have half of the normal curve between the two lines). The items represented by the magnitude at any given horizontal position are indistinguishable, unordered, and interchangeable; the idea that one could be above another is meaningless, and the fact that two items happen to fall at the same position on the y-axis doesn't mean they have anything in common. So, the comic explores the humor of annoying people by deliberately misunderstanding their work.

An alternative explanation is that Randall has invented a new probability distribution, that we could call the ''tangent distribution'' (from the title text), the ''Munroe distribution'', or something of the sort. This distribution is defined as follows: consider the area between the curve in the comic and the horizontal axis, and consider a random point (X, Y) uniformly distributed in that region. Then X has the normal distribution and Y has the tangent distribution. Areas between vertical lines in the comic give probabilities about X, and areas between horizontal lines in the comic give probabilities about Y. So the comic gives a correct statement that the interval of Y values that is 52.682% of the range of Y centered at the midpoint of the range has probability 1/2. Great! Except this distribution has never been discussed before because it has no known application. Moreover, it makes no sense to talk about intervals centered at the midpoint of the range because the distribution of Y is not symmetric: the midpoint of the range is neither the mean, the median, nor the mode. So even if this distribution were interesting, the probability in the comic is not a good way to describe it! We do use such intervals for the normal distribution because the normal distribution is symmetric, and the center of symmetry is the mean, median, and mode.

The title text refers to the {{w|Normal (geometry)|normal line}}, which is perpendicular to the {{w|tangent}} line at a given point. Given a shape of interest, a normal line points perpendicularly away from it at a point, making a 90-degree angle with it in all directions, while a tangent line crosses a point on it and is exactly parallel to it at that point. The normal line is not at all related to the normal distribution, as the former is a geometry concept and the latter is probability/statistics one. Saying this to a statistician would only annoy the statistician further. This refers to the fact that the diagram attempts to divide the graph with horizontal lines when such a division would usually be done with perpendicular vertical lines.

And this is annoying to a probabilist or statistician not only because the terms ''normal'' and ''tangent'' come from differential geometry and have no established meaning in probability theory. Even the word ''perpendicular'' has no established meaning in probability theory. Of course, the x and y coordinates in the comic are perpendicular (orthogonal) coordinates, but X and Y are not "perpendicular" or "orthogonal" random variables. Even if we give "perpendicular" or "orthogonal" a probabilistic meaning, and the most obvious such meaning is either {{w|Independence (probability theory)|independent}}, which even uses a symbol related to the geometric symbol for perpendicularity, or {{w|Uncorrelatedness (probability theory)|uncorrelated}}, which makes X and Y orthogonal vectors in the Hilbert space of random variables that are square integrable with respect to Lebesgue measure, X and Y are not perpendicular in either of these senses.

So the more probability and statistics you know, the more annoying (ha, ha) this comic becomes. It is not just about confusing novices.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A bell curve of a normal distribution, with the area between two horizontal lines shaded.]

:[The center of the chart is marked between the two lines:]
:Midpoint

:[The distance between the lines is marked to the right of the midpoint, with the label:]
:52.7%

:[A label on the outside of the graph, describing the distance between the two lines:]
:"Remember, 50% of the distribution falls between these two lines!"

:[Caption below the panel:]
:How to annoy a statistician

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

Talk:2123: Meta Collecting

2019-03-14T22:36:22Z

103.22.200.210:

RIP {{w|List of collectables}} and grammar. It’s collectable. Not collectible, collectable. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:07, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
:You may disagree, but collectable is also correct. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/collectable [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.23|108.162.242.23]] 16:21, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
:I think we’re agreeing here? I also use collectable, and said so in my comment. At least it should be used in this case, because it’s what Wikipedia uses on said page. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:26, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
:My understanding was that the words had different meanings. Something is collectible if it would have a place in a collection; a Harley is collectible because it would have a place in Cueball's collection of items. Something is collectable if it can be collected; a court judgement may be collectable if the person ordered to pay has enough money to make the payment. [[User:D5xtgr|D5xtgr]] ([[User talk:D5xtgr|talk]]) 17:33, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
::Suspiciously enough, that’s the exact example I got when I googled it, but thank you for the collection. I only say this because of the article in question discussed. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 17:41, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
:::Yes, I was having a hard time wording my original example - it's rather easier to show why a debt or court judgement ''wouldn't'' be collectable than to explain why one ''would'' be. [[User:D5xtgr|D5xtgr]] ([[User talk:D5xtgr|talk]]) 18:54, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
: Googling "collectible define" or "collectable define", we get that both seem to be correct. https://writingexplained.org/collectible-vs-collectable-difference says collectable is typically the British spelling of the word.

First time posting here, so my format might be terrible. But looking at the list of collectables; Maytag is listed, and the reference is for antique scales, so definitely not dryers. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.7|173.245.54.7]] 16:13, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
:Antique washer models to scale? Fixed it. On a serious note, it’s just one source, there are probably people who would collect washers, or, the more likely option, they just saw Maytag and thought “washers” EDIT: As a formatting nerd, it’s good. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:20, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia intern: "Mr. Sanger? Randall made a comic about us again." Larry Sanger: "Godammit, what page do we have to lock this time?" [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 04:21, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I already suggested this [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2099:_Missal_of_Silos before] that I think we can have a new collected page of xkcd Wikipedia edit wars. I doubt the trivia in 2099 is the full list, or is it? Are there not that many cases as I think to be worth it? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.118.22|162.158.118.22]] 04:48, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

As of right now, Randall has got his wish: the page is protected. Unfortunately, it's protected with "yachts" on it and, of course, it can't be reverted because of the protection. [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 10:45, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
:On the plus side, old yachts that are no longer seaworthy but still collectable are quite common on craigslist for under $10,000. Even cheaper yet, just ask any marina owner for abandoned sunken yachts you can have just for getting them out of the waterway.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
:It's gone now. The edit history is quite entertaining though. "Added boating category" [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 17:15, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Interesting choice of username, xkcd2123.

Talk:2115: Plutonium

2019-02-24T23:41:35Z

103.22.200.210: Confused about "mechanic"

Even though space is cold, it conducts so poorly that spacecraft would probably have more problems getting rid of heat than keeping heat, considering how isolated they are. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 16:43, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

:It actually has little to do with conduction; the heat radiates pretty effectively, especially as it gets "hotter" vs the surrounding radiation. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.124|172.69.69.124]] 17:35, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

::You're right, spacecraft are cooled by radiation. Yet it is far less effective than conductive/convective cooling by blowing the surrounding medium (water, air, whatever) over the hot parts. It's so much easier to cool things down here on Earth! Cooling problems is one of the reasons why nuclear reactors are not very popular in space, they need massive cooling systems.

Reminds me of reddit.com/r/outside [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 16:54, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

I put in how the title text makes a probable reference to game development. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 17:41, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
:It could, with equal probability, be a reference to parallel universes. There's nothing anywhere that says anything about game development.... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.10|162.158.214.10]] 18:29, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
:”Cool Mechanic” “Unbalanced” and “Join the team” seemed like hints [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 18:33, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
::It seemed obvious to me it was a reference to episodic story development, as it looks like that happens with shows and comics all the time. Don't understand how it makes sense for parallel universes (except that this kind of happened with star trek and the introduction of the parallel reality) but recommend updating the article to include all interpretations. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.240|172.68.47.240]] 21:20, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

This seems to be in the same vein as two other recent comics, Internet Archive and ArkXiv. Perhaps real things that seem unrealistic is a new topic of Randalls? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.4|172.69.247.4]] 17:53, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
:Nope, it goes back at least to the 331st comic! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.220|162.158.78.220]] 21:22, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Re: "Note that the radioactive material obviously doesn't produce this energy forever, although it can produce it so long the device will break before it gets out of energy." The main problem with Voyager I and Voyager II is not that the devices on board have been broken, exhausted a finite reserve or otherwise failed, but that the power supply can not keep most of the machine powered anymore. In fact, if there was enough electrical power, most of the cameras and other sensors would still work; they might see much that far from the sun and other bodies, but they would work. The plutonium power source undergoes exponential decay, producing proportionally less power each year and each year, the NASA scientists have to decide which devices on the spacecraft need to power-down, never to turn on again, or maybe a device is so important, but needs so much power that they will turn it on for less and less time, sort of like rotating brown-outs. I think the Pioneer probes are in the same boat. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 04:13, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Could someone perhaps expand on the term "implementing a mechanic"? In New Zealand English at least, a mechanic is a person who works with machines. I thought this was maybe a synonym for "implementing a mechanism", but it seems to have a specific meaning in the team episode writing sense discussed here. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.210|103.22.200.210]] 23:41, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2073: Kilogram

2018-11-17T08:03:35Z

103.22.200.210:

I didn't know that weights and currencies could be converted 1:1, that's cool! [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

I wish they ''had'' redefined the kilogram a little bit. It would have been neat if 1 kg was exactly the weight of 1 dm^3 (1 litre) of water under one atmosphere of pressure. Right now it's soooo close. It's a good enough estimate for simple maths, but whenever you tell people that a litre of water weighs one kilogram the pedants comes out of the woodworks... [[User:Kapten-N|Kapten-N]] ([[User talk:Kapten-N|talk]]) 16:50, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

:You'll get pedants whenever you refer to a kilogram as weight; it's a mass. The difference is that stuff weighs less on the Moon - or on tall mountains - although the mass is the same. I think the article as I just read it gets away with this. And, sure, what is the standard kilogram but a weight, that you take and weigh... rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.59|162.158.91.59]] 23:57, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

::It ''used'' to be a mass. Now it's a ratio of the local gravitational strength versus the efficiency of an EM field. Kibble scales require EM shielding & an environment of ''precisely'' 1g, in order to be accurate. Since gravity isn't equal everywhere, our measurements of kilograms will now vary accordingly.

Up until 1964 a litre (and therefore actually the metre too) used to be defined as the volume that water with mass 1kg takes. But this is not good for exact measurements not only because you need exactly reproducable temperature, pressure (not so problematic, because you can measure them and then calculate the divergence) and gravity (not so easy to measure, because you need an exact mass and exact masses are impossible to keep the same), but also because you need pure water free of any polutions of other stuff (hard and expensive) and even free of tiny amounts of isotopes which are deuterium and tritium (even way more expensive).
Because the water that was used then was never close to pure the actual weight of water nowadays is 0.99997kg at 4°C and 1.013bar and I don't know which value for g. There is also another definition which I like, but is hard to measure in real life scenarios: E=mc². A kilogramm should be 1/c² of the mass which anything becomes heavier that you accelerate by the energy of one Joule. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.150|162.158.90.150]] 17:11, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:But how do you define/measure a Joule then? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:19, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:No, until 1964, meter and litre were totally independent, a meter has never been defined directly or indirectly in relation to a mass of water. It is only since 1964 that the liter is defined as a cubic decimeter.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.36|162.158.90.36]] 18:36, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:Also, in E=mc², E is the energy '''at rest''' (for a stationary object of mass m), so your definition using the acceleration makes no sense.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.254|162.158.88.254]] 18:47, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Actually, for the new definition of the kilo using the Kibble balance you need to measure the gravity... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.16|162.158.134.16]] 17:34, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Welp, looks like 1 kg, a.k.a. 1 lb, a.k.a 2.2 lb, is now officially defined to have zero mass.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.50.28|172.69.50.28]] 16:56, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:…or infinite. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:59, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::What I understand: the joke is not (only) about 1 (old) kg = 1 (old) lb, but (also) about 1 new kg = 1 old lb... or 1 new lb = 1 old kg :^) Or about a ring of positive characteristic --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.102.94|188.114.102.94]] 17:08, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

what about the ambiguity of the pound? would they reference an Avoirdupois bound or a Troy lb? --wonderkatn {{unsigned ip|172.69.50.16}}

I don't believe the Imperial system is "no longer used". Gills have been retired, but yards and even chains are still in use, not to mention the Imperial <s>lb</s> pint. [[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] ([[User talk:Yngvadottir|talk]]) 18:49, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:The imperial system has some good things about it. Feet are divisible by 12, and Fahrenheit is much nicer for human temperatures. [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 18:55, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::Yeah, coz it's so easier to divide by 12 than to divide by 10! {{unsigned ip|162.158.89.61}}
:::No it is easier to divide by 2, 3, 4, and 6, and yes, I can divide the number of feet by 10 easily in my head. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:15, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:::The idea is that with twelve parts, you can have 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, and 1/12 all be integer number of parts. This is why these types of systems developed in the past, and why so many systems also had multiples of 60 (you can do the math here.). They were easy to divide by merchants without access to any sort of calculation method. The base-10 system is great if you're only ever dealing with halves or tenths. But if you want a quarter or a third of something, you have to split the base units. It's no longer necessary in modern life, but it had a real advantage in ancient times. [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 19:18, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to point out something. What's a meter? 1000 milimeters. What's a milimeter? .....skipping the questions all the way to the end, the answer is "the wavelength of the color orange". Or at least that's what I read. So my question is: why orange? What's so special about orange? What as a species or as a solar system or as universe does the color orange have to do with anything? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.10|172.68.90.10]] 21:50, 16 November 2018 (UTC) SiliconWolf

: "The metre was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole." That's why orange. Think of those lines from equator to pole... and how an orange is divided in segments beneath the peel. This is why the "Terry's Chocolate Orange" is so called, because it resembles the fruit orange. rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.59|162.158.91.59]] 23:51, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

: The wavelength definition of the meter is not in use anymore either. Since 1983, the meter is defined as the distance the light (any light) travel in the vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds. Of course, all units have a part of arbitrary, and the value it is used to calculate the meter (the orange color, the 1/299792458 seconds...) are basically chosen because they are close to and more precise than the previous definition that existed, in order to not have to recalibrate things that don't need high precision. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.210|103.22.200.210]] 08:03, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

'''Be very careful'''

An announcement to a new definition of the kilogram is published wildly (I mean what I'm saying) today. Please do not present this issue as a final fact, I'm still missing an official statement -- it's just press hype. And there are two possible definitions taken account, not only the one from the US. The final decision right now looks like some of Randall's compromises. Just sayin... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:01, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:OK then, here's an after-the-vote November 16 web page from NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, within the US Department of Commerce. It says it's a done deal. [https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2018/11/historic-vote-ties-kilogram-and-other-units-natural-constants historic-vote-ties-kilogram-and-other-units-natural-constants]. --JohnB [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.89|162.158.79.89]] 21:58, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::Thanks, but my German sources still preset something like counting atoms [https://www.ptb.de/cms/forschung-entwicklung/forschung-zum-neuen-si/ptb-experimente/kilogramm-und-mol-atome-zaehlen.html Kilogram and MOL, counting atoms], just meaning I'm not sure what will be true in May 2019, do we know the truth??? And in fact it looks like Europeans are fighting against US scientists, or vice versa. This is far of a standard I would prefer. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

It will be very funny when we find out one of those constants is not really constant ... sure, planck length is less likely to change than physical object, but it MIGHT. Like, maybe it gets longer the older the universe is ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:17, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

You could not define the kilogram in terms of electric force when you defined the Amp in terms of the current that creates a given force. But by defining the amp in terms of numbers of elementary charges per second and setting Avogadro and other constants by fiat, you break the circle. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.190|162.158.38.190]] 23:54, 16 November 2018 (UTC)