Comments on: People that use units correctly

By: eblustain

eblustain — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:51:46 +0000

Not at all. Each category isn’t exactly mutually exclusive. You could be a mathematician and a GraphJam user, or a biologist and a physicist, or all 5 together.

By: cassiel

cassiel — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:48:42 +0000

The last column must be: physicists in front of a TV camera

By: jay

jay — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:28:22 +0000

As a physicist I have to say that we do not lop off numbers for the sake of making it easier. It’s a concept called “significant numbers/digits” which is to say that your information is as only accurate as your least precise number. For instance if I had a scale that measured down to the 1/10,000th place but my stop watch only measured to a tenth of a second my calculations would only be as accurate to the 1/10th. You can’t add numbers to something like that. So as far as us “rounding” off, we do it because whatever our form of measurement is we have to cut down Pi to that amount to remain accurate and precise.

By: Wownik

Wownik — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:46:05 +0000

+1 gg

By: Jayson

Jayson — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:19:43 +0000

There are standards set forth for percentages (e.g. conc. HCl is ~37–38% and implied to be mass %), but in my experience they aren’t always followed (and often I’m not familiar with all the standards). As an organic chemist I have to say I prefer mole percents (provided the identify of the compound is known, of course).

By: Emily T.

Emily T. — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:16:12 +0000

Think about it before you talk smack about Biologists.

By: Erin

Erin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:18:25 +0000

An* arsec.

By: Somebody Else

Somebody Else — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:16:29 +0000

“Shuttle was going 12 times the speed of light.”

By: n8

n8 — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:10:33 +0000

that’s exactly what i thought about when i read twilght.

By: CottlestonPie

CottlestonPie — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 07:39:54 +0000

Ha!

By: Dolt

Dolt — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:17:17 +0000

i think the labels at the bottom should be reversed

By: Dolt

Dolt — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:14:05 +0000

forgeting of course that a arsec is a unit of distance not time

By: xylo

xylo — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:15:20 +0000

I like how you post a graph… on graphjam… showing that graphjam users are stupid.

o_o

By: Mikey D

Mikey D — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:25:52 +0000

It’s all relative.

By: QM2

QM2 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:27:49 +0000

The French made SI. God made the Planck Units.

By: ThinklePeep

ThinklePeep — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:29:44 +0000

Lots of people said “unit”. Multiple LOL.

By: Joolz

Joolz — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:28:48 +0000

Oh, don’t abuse the poor “whom.” It’s a direct object, not a subject!

By: BB

BB — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:58:14 +0000

In fact, mathematicians just scale the units out. So they _ARE_ numbers.

By: Alcari

Alcari — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:00:20 +0000

Correct. In this case “That” is the correct word, because it’s a single group we’re talking about, not several people together, there’s a difference.

By: pop-biologist

pop-biologist — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:20:17 +0000

LOL to this graph. i would love to believe that whomever made it used the grammar incorrectly on purpose… for irony? sort of like how fox news was on in the uber-liberal bar i was at last night?

By: Smile Or Else!

Smile Or Else! — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:14:24 +0000

-1 for the people that don’t understand that that is used correctly like that. “That” is grammatically correct for a group such as demographics.

By: Sakulati

Sakulati — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:35:31 +0000

I’m a chemist myself, and unfortunately I have to disappoint you: Chemist do not use units 100% correctly, although I would admit it is close. One of the ways chemists do not use units correctly is not defining them precisely. Take a mixture of ethanol and water which is “40%” ethanol for instance. What does that mean? Percent by weight, by volume or …? Volume % is especially tricky, since mixing 40 ml of ethanol with 60 ml of water will NOT give you 100 ml of mixture, but closer to 97-98 ml (depending on the temperature). But I’m digressing…

By: Amber

Amber — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:01:32 +0000

Bodily fluid measurements, maybe? I think they were going for Chemists.

By: Amber

Amber — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:58:42 +0000

Physicists FTW! Stick THAT in your calculator and smoke it…

By: ClickClick

ClickClick — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:08:25 +0000

Hey, the industrial age rocked!

By: ClickClick

ClickClick — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:34:41 +0000

LOL!

By: ngthagg

ngthagg — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:27:11 +0000

bla is correct. If we were looking for sum to one, it would be expressed in a pie chart.

By: The L

The L — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:23:11 +0000

Actually, as this math-degree-holder can attest, there are three kinds of mathematicians: Those who can count, and those who can’t.

By: The L

The L — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:22:15 +0000

Probably as part of that 5% of people who know proper units.

By: The L

The L — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:21:31 +0000

To quote Larry Niven:

“If you have a first edition of Ringworld, hold on to that. It’s the only edition in which the Earth spins in the wrong direction.”

Frankly, I think Niven’s error isn’t nearly as bad as some I’ve seen. If you’re going to write a novel, you should know your subject. Nothing is more frustrating than realizing that the author has no clue what he’s actually talking about. (For example, John Ringo’s description of various Pagan religions in “Princess of Wands” was over-simplified and inaccurate, and there is a series of vampire-hunter novels about an 18th-century heiress who gains the power to fight the undead from a navel piercing.)

By: The L

The L — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:14:36 +0000

My favorite is still the kid when you leave PC, whose idea of a good way to challenge people to a battle is by saying, “Hi! I like shorts! They’re comfortable and easy to wear!”

When I started wearing actual shorts after several years of nothing shorter than capris, people asked me why I’d suddenly started wearing shorts. Guess what my reply was? ;P

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:21:26 +0000

Would you say that measuring time in metres and distance in MeV is the correct use of units? (Now, let c = ℏ = 1…)

By: Your Mom

Your Mom — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:35:07 +0000

Graph should have gone up to 120%, as most do on GraphJam.

By: Eddie

Eddie — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:27:41 +0000

Mathematicians? Bollocks. They do *everything* correctly.

By: Marina

Marina — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:18:55 +0000

Yeah. Is it wrong that I read this and immediately wondered where I could go pick up a physicist?

By: Fridge

Fridge — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:40:19 +0000

you forgot 358979323. That is if you want it to be really accurate.

By: Fridge

Fridge — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:38:48 +0000

Well if the US didn’t use imperial measurements the conversions wouldn’t need to be made and there would be no issues. Everything just works better with SI measurements.

By: danielle

danielle — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:46:54 +0000

Good thing this isn’t a graph about GraphJam criticizers who don’t read previous comments correctly!

By: BGo

BGo — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:32:24 +0000

Yay Physicists! We’ve finally gotten pop-culturey credit for SOMETHING other than being nerds

By: hergieburbur

hergieburbur — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:20:01 +0000

I think bla has the right of it.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:19:02 +0000

*hands you a cookie*

By: Nose

Nose — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:50:10 +0000

PS. You said “unit.”

By: Nose

Nose — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:49:38 +0000

You forgot NASA. They get it right about 90% of the time. The rest of the time the probe crashes into Mars.

By: jefromi

jefromi — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:47:20 +0000

That was an engineer.

By: Chelsea

Chelsea — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:40:06 +0000

You beat me to it. :/

By: Destin

Destin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:37:44 +0000

Why would biologists use units correctly? What units do they use?

By: Destin

Destin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:37:11 +0000

Yeah! That kid is a f*cking retard. Half the people in that game say such retarded garbage.

By: GeneralBob

GeneralBob — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:23:08 +0000

You forgot chemists, who use units 100% correctly.

Also, physicists use correct units far more often than 95% of the time…If 1 out of 20 measurements were incorrect we’d still be in the industrial age.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:15:05 +0000

But I’m a biologist AND a graphjam user! Where does that put me?

By: jebusyoon

jebusyoon — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:12:52 +0000

Too true.