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amiga386 a day ago

> precisely 21 cm

Imprecise use of "precise" in the strapline. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line the best measurement of it so far is 21.106114054160 +/- 0.000000000030 cm

raldi a day ago | parent | next [-]

That not just imprecise usage of that term; it’s completely incorrect. The correct term would be its exact opposite, “approximately”.

boothby a day ago | parent | next [-]

Indiscreet discrete mathematician checking in. If they said "exactly" we'd have a real problem. Instead, "precisely" in this context means "human eye cannot distinguish from exact value at a stone's throw."

Yes, physicists and engineers hate me, why do you ask?

kbelder an hour ago | parent [-]

"It's precisely 21 cm."

"Is it 21 cm?"

"No."

LeifCarrotson a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I expect the non-technical author/editor was playing the telephone game and originally wanted to emphasize that the frequency is always the same value, not that the hydrogen emissions frequency is related by arbitrary factors of 9192631770.000 Hz, 1/299792458.000 seconds, and then exactly 21.000/100.000 to the caesium-133 frequency.

hexhu a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

so the claim is inaccurate by 1mm and missing precision data. I'd call it inaccurate and imprecise XD

cluckindan a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The exact opposite would be ”imprecise” or ”inaccurate”

raldi a day ago | parent [-]

Accuracy and precision are orthogonal concepts. “Approximately 0 light years” is accurate but not precise.

barbazoo a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Would have been odd if it had magically matched the arbitrary distances we use in the metric system. It's not that 1m is in any way a "natural" distance that was chosen for anything but practical reasons.

dcrazy a day ago | parent | next [-]

I was expecting some spectacular revelation that the definition of the second, the period of a Cesium atom, and the speed of light were somehow related to the definition of a meter by a factor of 0.21.

timewizard a day ago | parent | prev [-]

If our system was based on Planck units then it would be interesting. It would also cause tons of other fundamental constants to be greatly simplified to either integers or integer multiples of known transcendental constants.

mota7 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes that bugged me too. If you replace 'precisely' with 'approximately' everywhere in the article it becomes much improved ;)

rwmj a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

On the other hand, since it's a property of the universe maybe now's the time to define 21 cm as this value.

xnickb a day ago | parent [-]

then cm will become a bit longer and it'll break many things

ncoco 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Like the width of an A4 sheet of paper.

lud_lite 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But everyone's hand is precisely 21cm long, of course

dang a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ok, we've made the title not be precise now.

a day ago | parent | prev [-]
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