Re: [Vo]:Annoying Terminology Changes
On Fri, 15 Nov 2024, MSF wrote: Although these changes in the naming of things technical are of no great import, they are particularly galling to someone my age. ...which opens up an opportunity for any of us to appear ancient. "On the internet, nobody knows that you're ...not emeritus physics faculty from MIT or caltech or somewhere." On physics forums everyone thought I must be an ancient retired physics prof. I once met someone from PHYS-L in person, and they were stunned to find that I wasn't seventy. (Hmm, lately I'm almost catching up!) Most of it was accidental, because of our personal habit of writing in the language of research authors, "High Academician," and never say "I" say "we." (Just spend man-years reading journals, then just write in journal-speak. Never claim to be a scientist, only call yourself "part of the professional community." But then I started saying Angstroms not nM, and mega-CPS, and micro-micro- farads. Gauss not Teslas. They'll only take our 1930s-era physics terminology away, by prying our typewriter from our cold dead fingers! And if you want to be mistaken as European, then accidentally say "physician" rather than "physicist."Or say "camera" when you mean to say "room" (an common Russian mistake.) Let's go film some footage, then cut some audio tracks to go with! Speaking of which, here's a copy of my half-hour lecture at the SSE 2024 conference, about three Nikola Tesla secrets which are actually in common use today. Replication of three lost Tesla secrets 29:58 https://tinyurl.com/sse2024tesla watch?v=eaju7JfLD_o You didn't even have to pay the conference fee! (( ( ( ( ((O)) ) ) ) ))) William J. BeatySCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb at amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 206-762-3818unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
Re: [Vo]:Annoying Terminology Changes
In reply to MSF's message of Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:47:28 +: Hi Michael, I think it's just an attempt to standardize and simplify. It also makes it possible to write algorithms to speed up information processing, because a simpler set of rules can be applied. [snip] > > > wrote: > >> In reply to MSF's message of Fri, 15 Nov 2024 22:22:35 +: >> Hi Michael, >> [snip] >> >> I think propionic acid has 3 carbon atoms, and acetic acid only 2. (Think >> propane.) > >You're right of course. I know better. I don't know what possessed me, the >spirit of extreme annoyance I guess. I meant ethanoic and ethanoate. Charmless >nomenclature, isn't it? > >MSF Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The future of computer memory clearly lies with multi-layered SOT-MRAM. Fast as SRAM, dense as NAND, very low energy due to non-volatility, and near infinite rewrites.
Re: [Vo]:Annoying Terminology Changes
wrote: > In reply to MSF's message of Fri, 15 Nov 2024 22:22:35 +: > Hi Michael, > [snip] > > I think propionic acid has 3 carbon atoms, and acetic acid only 2. (Think > propane.) You're right of course. I know better. I don't know what possessed me, the spirit of extreme annoyance I guess. I meant ethanoic and ethanoate. Charmless nomenclature, isn't it? MSF
Re: [Vo]:Annoying Terminology Changes
I liked the symbol for angstrom. The speed of light has been consecrated with the recent change to define the meter in terms of the speed of light in vacuum. This makes questioning and testing special relativity seem foolish. With changes like this it makes me wonder if science professionals are as removed from the spirit of science as the so called science deniers. Harry On Fri., Nov. 15, 2024, 5:22 p.m. MSF, wrote: > Although these changes in the naming of things technical are of no great > import, they are particularly galling to someone my age. When you've been > calling something a name for six or seven decades only to find that some > committee has changed it for reasons that amount to the exercise of > self-importance, well, I'm feeling a little left out. > > Let's see: One that has annoyed me fairly recently is that centipoise is > now referred to as milliPascal-seconds (mPas.s) . They are the same thing. > Why, oh why? I've been measuring viscosity for more than seventy years and > felt no need to change the terminology. > > Can't say ferrous and ferric anymore. Gotta be iron one and iron two. Poor > chem students can't make the ferrous wheel structural formula joke anymore. > > I grew up with Angstroms for light wavelength measurements and was sort of > put off when everyone started using nanometers. Seems sort of less precise > even though it isn't. That literally happened in the space of a month as > far as I can determine. > > There have been an entire panoply of name changes for types of optical > glass too numerous to go into here. Who else would care? > > It's been acetic acid and its compounds acetates for a couple of hundred > years, but no, we must have propionic acid and propionates. The names lack > character. Make sure you don't put that vinegar on your salad any more; you > might become propionated. Oh, the horror! > > Photographers who use actual film have been using potassium ferricyanide > as a bleach or reducer for more than a hundred years, but now they might > not be able to find it, because its name has been changed to potassium > hexacyanoferrate. What miserable committee came up with that one? If you're > an old chem guy, it was more or less the assumption that anything ending in > "ate" contained oxygen. You know, sulfate, carbonate, etc. There's no > oxygen in potassium ferricyanide. Aw, well, plus ca change. > > These are the ones that occur to me immediately, but there are a lot more. > > End of ridiculous rant. > > > MSF >
Re: [Vo]:Annoying Terminology Changes
In reply to MSF's message of Fri, 15 Nov 2024 22:22:35 +: Hi Michael, [snip] I think propionic acid has 3 carbon atoms, and acetic acid only 2. (Think propane.) >Although these changes in the naming of things technical are of no great >import, they are particularly galling to someone my age. When you've been >calling something a name for six or seven decades only to find that some >committee has changed it for reasons that amount to the exercise of >self-importance, well, I'm feeling a little left out. > >Let's see: One that has annoyed me fairly recently is that centipoise is now >referred to as milliPascal-seconds (mPas.s) . They are the same thing. Why, oh >why? I've been measuring viscosity for more than seventy years and felt no >need to change the terminology. > >Can't say ferrous and ferric anymore. Gotta be iron one and iron two. Poor >chem students can't make the ferrous wheel structural formula joke anymore. > >I grew up with Angstroms for light wavelength measurements and was sort of put >off when everyone started using nanometers. Seems sort of less precise even >though it isn't. That literally happened in the space of a month as far as I >can determine. > >There have been an entire panoply of name changes for types of optical glass >too numerous to go into here. Who else would care? > >It's been acetic acid and its compounds acetates for a couple of hundred >years, but no, we must have propionic acid and propionates. The names lack >character. Make sure you don't put that vinegar on your salad any more; you >might become propionated. Oh, the horror! > >Photographers who use actual film have been using potassium ferricyanide as a >bleach or reducer for more than a hundred years, but now they might not be >able to find it, because its name has been changed to potassium >hexacyanoferrate. What miserable committee came up with that one? If you're an >old chem guy, it was more or less the assumption that anything ending in "ate" >contained oxygen. You know, sulfate, carbonate, etc. There's no oxygen in >potassium ferricyanide. Aw, well, plus ca change. > >These are the ones that occur to me immediately, but there are a lot more. > >End of ridiculous rant. > >MSF Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The future of computer memory clearly lies with multi-layered SOT-MRAM. Fast as SRAM, dense as NAND, very low energy due to non-volatility, and near infinite rewrites.
