I wonder if the George makers 1) realized that people have an affinity to iffy analogies and they should give the people what they want, or 2) the LLM was prone to generating them so they just made it a feature?
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2025 8:12 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: [FRIAM] The comparative thickness of the tropospheree George and I were looking for intuition pumps to help a reader imagine how very thin the troposphere is. Here is what we came up with: Ordered by Type: Too Thin → Best Match → Too Thick Material / Object Relative Thickness Too Thin or Too Thick? Notes Weather balloon skin (fully inflated) ~280× too thin Way too thin Soap-film fragile Plastic wrap (1 layer) ~7× too thin Too thin Would need ~7 layers Eyeball tear film ~4× too thin Slightly too thin Very close, poetic comparison Party balloon skin (inflated) ~3× too thin Slightly too thin Best easy everyday match Troposphere Apple peel ~14× too thick Too thick Best among fruits Basketball skin ~16× too thick Too thick Similar to soccer ball Soccer ball skin ~17× too thick Too thick Very close to basketball Baseball leather skin ~25× too thick Too thick Heavier and thicker still Tennis ball felt+skin ~37× too thick Too thick Very thick and fuzzy Navel Orange peel ~70× too thick Way too thick Thickest skin we've discussed -- Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology Clark University [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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