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The other day I heard a reporter talk about something (can't remember what it was) that had increased "many, many, many, many orders of magnitude".
My understanding is that an order of magnitude is a factor of 10, since that's the base system we commonly use. And to me, 'many' would be - well - let's say at least seven. So here's me thinking he's talking about an increase by a factor of say 7x7x7x7x10 = 24010.
Turns out it was about 3 times.
Anyone else got some favourite examples of misrepresentation of maths?
Or for that matter science in general if you like, since I just thought of this pearler I heard on the TV weather report: "Tomorrow Melbourne will reach 15 degrees [C]. Brisbane will be twice as hot with 30."
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>> "many, many, many, many orders of magnitude".
I am not sure, but I feel that this sentence does not fit well with the scientific English I am used to. I was expecting instead something like
"a huge order of magnitude".
In any case, I imagine that - to give a correct meaning to that sentence - you should change the number
7x7x7x7x10 = 24010
by the (hugely bigger) power of 10 obtained by multipling
10x10...x10
how many times? 7x7x7x7 .
Ciao
Emanuela
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a huge order of magnitude is not accepted scientific language. An order of magnitude (increase) is a fixed expression used for "roughly a factor of ten", as mentioned in the starting post. But the second part of your argument is correct. Every one of many orders of magnitude means multiplying by ten again. But of course, "hype" is measured in even larger units  .
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"hype" is measured in even larger unitsWarp Factor 7? She cannae tae much mo' o' this, Captain! 
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Yes, you're right, emanuela. A basic mistake. I realized some hours later, when I was beyond the reach of the Internet, that I should have explained it along the lines of:
1 order of magnitude = x 10
2 orders of magnitude = x 100
many orders of magnitude = (say) x 10^7 (10 to power of 7)
many many orders of magnitude ~ x 10^(7x7)-ish??
etc
Makes the original exaggeration even more far-fetched.
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Boy, you can't get away with anything in this forum, hun Marty  . Don't all these hawk-eyed people EVER take a break. We should send them after Shona, don't hawks LOVE fish? Just kidding emanuela, good catch. I was still trying to count on my fingers at the time.
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you can't get away with anything in this forum, hun MartySpeaking of hawk-eyed, bel, I couldn't help but be curious about your addressing me as hun, so here's a multiple-choice question for you. Which of the following statements is true? 1. I'm a colleague of Attila's. 2. I'm a Jerry. 3. You've got the hots for me (until now, only my wife has ever addressed me as hun, being the diminutive of Honey. Even Jackie hasn't progressed beyond Dear or Dearie. ) 4. hun is an obscure mathematical reference (perhaps dim. of 'hundred' or acronym for 'huge undefined number'?) 5. H is close to N on a qwerty keyboard. (Huh?) 6. All of the above. 7. None of the above.
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How about this for fuzzy math? (w/due credit to Dubya)
Buzz Lightyear's "To infinity ... and beyond!"
BTW, I am convinced that hardly anyone can grasp magnitudes of any units (e.g., dollars in national debt) when they exceed about a million, much less billions or trillions.
I have adapted the convention of eschewing such "numbers", opting instead to refer to a "thousand million" or "million million". Yes, I'm aware that the European units are different, but the concept is the same - even if the numbers are still not grasped completely, at least the MEGO* factor is diminished when compared to hearing the virtually incomprehensible words billion, trillion, etc.
AJC
* (Why, My Eyes Glaze Over, of course)
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Even Jackie hasn't progressed beyond Dear or Dearie.)
Well, Sweet Thing, let me set about remedying that little situation! I don't remember ever calling anybody
"Dearie", but if I call you Hon, it doesn't mean I have the hots for you! Mercy--I call women that, too!
Easing over to touch on the thread topic: nanosecond seems to be making its way into casual conversation. Whoa--I just looked up nanosecond on Gurunet, to see if my memory
was accurate (it wasn't), and what I found was so interesting, I'm copying it below.
----------------------------------------------------------
nanosecond
(This definition follows U.S. usage in which a billion is a thousand million and a trillion is a 1 followed by 12 zeros.)
A nanosecond (ns or nsec) is one billionth (10-9) of a second and is a common measurement of read or write access time to random access memory (RAM).
For comparison, a millisecond (ms or msec) is one thousandth of a second and is commonly used in measuring the time to read to or write from a hard disk or a CD-ROM player or to measure packet travel time on the Internet.
A microsecond (us or Greek letter mu plus s) is one millionth (10-6) of a second.
A picosecond is one trillionth (10-12) of a second, or one millionth of a microsecond.
A femtosecond is one millionth of a nanosecond or 10-15 of a second and is a measurement sometimes used in laser technology.
An attosecond is one quintillionth (10-18) of a second and is a term used in photon research.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Created on August 18, 1998.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 1996-99 by whatis.com Inc. All rights reserved.
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I don't remember ever calling anybody "Dearie"Sorry, Jackie Darling. A quick search suggests I've been fantasizing about lusy in his reply to you (or was he addressing himself?): http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=2157Oh well, thrown in bel, whose true feelings towards me are yet to be confirmed, and we've got quite a ménage à quatre going. That is, unless you want to bring along those wallowers, too?
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want to bring along those wallowers, too?You betcha, Sugarplum! I think Hawaii would make a nice middle ground...
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Sorry to burst your bubble there mon choux, but I meant hun as in "eh" with a question mark. Très Canadian I suppose. Mind you, wallowing in Hawaii sounds FABULOUS (it is 2 degrees Celsius here today). Who'd be the fourth again??
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bel, paulb has gained admittance to the exalted area! You and I could meet in say, Chicago, and fly to Hawaii and join up with our fellow wallowers there. Luau, here we come!
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patatty has raised the stakes beyond infinity - I'd settle for raising them beyond 100%. How many times have you heard phrases like "We're with you 101%!" or "I'm 110% committed to..." ?? Buzz Lightyear can be excused a bit of hyperbole as a faster-than-light space traveller, but I'm afraid I can't excuse super-percentages from the likes of managers, politicians and generals. 
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hun as in "eh" with a question mark
Is this the same as the French "hein", bel?
I mean, "hein" in French, bel, hein?
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How many times have you heard phrases like
"We're with you 101%!"
or
"I'm 110% committed to..." ??
Buzz Lightyear can be excused a bit of hyperbole as a faster-than-light space traveller, but I'm afraid I can't excuse super-percentages from the likes of managers, politicians and generals.
So, what's your solution to the problem of super-saturation?
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You and I could meet in say, Chicago, and fly to Hawaii and join up with our fellow wallowers there. Luau, here we come!
Since it's somewhat on your way to Chicago, surely you could swing on over to Cinci and pick me up, too. I've never been to Hawaii.
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Are you sure your name isn't Poissonsurunebicyclette. Why, the French just rolls off your tongue. Hein?
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What do you say Jackie, do we swing around to Cinci? You know a little background music is always appreciated when having a good wallow.
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Poissonsurunebicyclette Poissette, s'il te plait. ou bicyclon, hein? Peut-etre non. ..that's enough of that!
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So, what's your solution to the problem of super-saturation?
I'll pass on that one if you don't mind.
(now, I'm sure the toilets were this way...)
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, surely you could swing on over to Cinci and pick me up,
Hmm--this was to be a gathering of gutter-wallowers only.
But, perhaps if you beg...
I feel it only fair to warn you that I have already threatened to run up I-71 and strangle you. Perhaps I could lure you into my clutches with the promise of a nice trip.
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Give the kid a chance. Maybe he wants to get lei'd?
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In a book that I'm currently reading, (the Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gell-Mann) the author discusses the fact that both random and chaos have become everyday words. Both have specific scientific/mathematical meanings, and they are no longer used correctly by the masses. (I could go into the definitions, but I'd have to quote from the book, and it takes him most of a chapter to define random fully  )
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...that being the case, I doubt if they were ever used correctly by the masses.
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random and chaos have become everyday words. Both have specific scientific/mathematical meanings, and they are no longer used correctly by the masses.That statement intrigues me. Is the author claiming that the scientific/mathematical definitions are the correct ones? Surely the author would have been better to say that the words are used differently in different contexts? Certainly in the case of chaos, the word existed long before the modern mathematical discipline that uses it. I agree that when using terms which are specifically scientific in origin, one should try to use their origiinal definitions, but surely words like "random" and "chaos" have always had general, non-scientific definitions. For an author to claim that these are "wrong" smacks of the "white-coated priesthood" mentality - "I am a scientist, so you will use these words in the manner I prescribe". If we use the author's apparent "I saw it first, so it's mine" approach, it could be argued, with a word like "chaos", which predates a scientific definition, that it is the scientists who are using it incorrectly.
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max, thank you for clarifying my smartass comment -- ______ jargon, its overuse, and co-option of "normal" terminology is one of my pet peeves. [fill in the blank]
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______ jargon, its overuse, and co-option of "normal" terminology is one of my pet peeves.Ich auch. I used the phrase "intrigues me" rather than "irks me" or "annoys the hell out of me" because I wanted to avoid giving any impression that my annoyance was directed at xara. 
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