Steve - Mostly going for "other units" (I like "oz-mol"s . . . but I also like the "teaspoon-mol" -- what it might have been if the British had taken charge . . . :-) -- but going in the direction of something like "science as an embodied, social/political activity", etc., etc. . . .
Also, distinguishing (somehow or other) between "natural constants" (e.g., Avogadro's Number is roughly the number of atoms in your pinky, which depends strongly on you being "human sized" rather than, say, "planet sized" -- viz. "Solaris" by Stanislas Lem -- or "bacterium sized") and "constants of nature" (e.g., the mass of an electron, or the speed of light . . .). Meters, grams, seconds, for example, are "human sized" units. They're only "natural" in the sense that humans are part of nature. Wikipedia on the Metric System has a paragraph starting "At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, most countries and even some cities had their own system of measurement." (and thus, sort of, my question . . . :-) Anyway, the discussion goes on . . . in a class I'm teaching now, we're reading Bruno Latour's "Pandora's Hope" . . . Also, forgot this reference in my previous post: I've recently been carrying around "Time's Arrow: The Origins of Thermodynamic Behavior" by Michael G. Mackey . . . nice little book . . . Thanks . . . tom p.s. More pedagogy: Which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of wheat? (And, for extra credit, which weighs more, an ounce of gold or an ounce of wheat?) (explain your answers . . . :-) (I'm teaching an undergraduate "General Education" course for Juniors in our Honor's program, called "Methods of Discovery" . . .) On Oct 11, 2013, at 3:08 PM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > Tom Carter sed: > p.s. Pedagogical question: An exercise I do in class from time to time is to > ask this question: "What would Avogadro's Number have been if the French > Revolution had failed? (Justify your answer . . .)" (Hint: step 1: what > possible relation might those have to each other? :-) > > Would it be Loschmidts number? 2.686 7774(47)×1025 molecules per cubic meter > > or would it be simply expressed in other units? > 6.02214129(27)×1023 mol−1 > 2.73159734(12)×1026 (lb-mol)−1 > 1.707248434(77)×1025 (oz-mol)−1 > I'm hazy on whether to attribute any such change to France's relinquishment > of the Piedmont region (whence Avogadro hailed), Avogadro's introduction of > the SI system into Italian science (influenced by the French?), or Jean > Baptiste Perrin's (French Nobel prizewinner) eminence that allowed him to > actually name this magic number in honor of Amedeo Avogadro? > > I have a question for you... > > If Avogadro's number is a mole, what is an Avacado's number. > > Inquiring minds want to know! > hint: it is a bad pun > - Steve > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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