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#9600 10/31/00 03:50 AM
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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."


#9601 10/31/00 07:26 AM
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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



#9602 10/31/00 07:50 AM
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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.


#9603 10/31/00 03:28 PM
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"hype" is measured in even larger units

Warp Factor 7? She cannae tae much mo' o' this, Captain!


#9604 10/31/00 07:53 PM
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Marty Offline OP
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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.



#9605 10/31/00 09:04 PM
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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.


#9606 10/31/00 10:17 PM
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you can't get away with anything in this forum, hun Marty

Speaking 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.


#9607 10/31/00 11:26 PM
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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)


#9608 11/01/00 12:11 AM
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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.


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Created on August 18, 1998.


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#9609 11/01/00 12:42 AM
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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=2157

Oh 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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