Editing 2501: Average Familiarity

{{comic
| number    = 2501
| date      = August 11, 2021
| title     = Average Familiarity
| image     = average familiarity.png
| titletext =  "How could anyone consider themselves a well-rounded adult without a basic understanding of silicate geochemistry? Silicates are everywhere! It's hard to throw a rock without throwing one!"
| imagesize =
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A SILICATE (DON'T WE ALL KNOW THE FORMULA?).  If somebody can run perl scripts, there is a bot linked from [[User:DgbrtBOT]] that could resume autocreation of comic pages.  While we're mentioning such things, are comics also published on twitter? would it be good to link the twitter discussions? sometimes an expert comments.  do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic claims that experts vastly overestimate how familiar other people are with their own field of study. As an example, Randall shows [[Ponytail]] as a {{w|geochemistry|geochemist}} specializing in {{w|silicate}} chemistry talking to [[Cueball]]. The scientist is under the impression other people at least know the chemical makeup of {{w|olivine}} and some {{w|feldspar}}s. Cueball mentions {{w|quartz}}, an even simpler mineral which they agree to take for granted. In truth, the average person can't be expected to know the chemical makeup of ''any'' arbitrarily-chosen substance reliably (or any material at all, if that average person's job and hobby do not involve chemistry — aside from the few that made their way into {{w|common knowledge}}, like NaCl for salt<ref>"Formulae of Common Minerals" Tulane University. Fall 2013. Accessed August 12th, 2021. https://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/eens211/mineralform.htm</ref> ({{w|Halite}}), H<sub>2</sub>O for water/ice, or CO<sub>2</sub> for carbonic gas), and may not even know the definition of "feldspar" beyond "a mineral", if at all.

It even goes so far as to initially gloss over the 'everyday' knowledge of quartz... until prompted by the slightly-less-overestimating partner in the conversation. Perhaps like a gardener forgetting to mention the lawn he maintains (along with the 'actual' plants in the borders or vegetable patches), there seemed no need to include such a common mineral as a subject of silicate chemistry. Quartz is a basic silicon oxide (SiO<sub>2</sub>) that many non-chemists ''have'' heard of because it is common and has a variety of uses, though they would not know its chemical structure. Quartz ''can'' be found as distinct large-scale crystals (probably obvious to the layman, as an ice-cube is in a drink) but also features as a hard-wearing micro-constituent of many rocks. Quartz is a major component of most sand (except for coral sands, which are calcium carbonates).  Quartz crystals are sometimes made into jewelry and other decorative objects. Most modern clocks use {{w|Crystal oscillator|the resonance frequency of quartz}} to keep time.

In the title text the two geologists express belief that the average person ''should'' be more familiar with silicates because of how ubiquitous they are. Their somewhat-exasperated statement plays on the phrase "you can't throw a rock without hitting one," a standard hyperbole about how common something is. Indeed, {{w|Silicate mineral|silicate}} rocks are extremely common on Earth &mdash; not only would a rock thrown in a random direction stand a decent chance of striking a silicate mineral rock but the randomly-selected rock being ''thrown'' also has a very high chance of being a silicate mineral rock. With the exception of a few carbonate deposits, rocks on Earth's surface nearly all have silica in them, even extraterrestrial rocks. The Earth's crust is about 60% silica by weight.<ref>"Constraining crustal silica on ancient Earth" C. Brenhin Keller, T. Mark Harrison. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' Sep 2020, 117 (35) 21101-21107; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009431117</ref>

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and Cueball are standing and talking. Ponytail has her palm raised.]
:Ponytail: Silicate chemistry is second nature to us geochemists, so its easy to forget that the average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars.
:Cueball: And quartz, of course.
:Ponytail: Of course.

:[Caption below the panel]
:Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field.

== References ==
<references />

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Geology]]