On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> >alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine, Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
>
> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in Scandinavia.
> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
> Sweden.
> --scott
> --
> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.

On 12/27/2021 3:01 PM, MG wrote:
> Speaking of which, is the C++ license going to be renewed?
>
> The situation at the moment, while trying to compile something,
> results in this message being shown:
> %LICENSE-E-NOAUTH, DEC CXX-V use is not authorized on this node
> -LICENSE-F-NOLICENSE, no license is active for this software product
> -LICENSE-I-SYSMGR, please see your system manager

I'll sort that out.

--
-- Rob

On 12/27/2021 4:41 PM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 12/27/2021 3:01 PM, MG wrote:
>> Speaking of which, is the C++ license going to be renewed?
>>
>> The situation at the moment, while trying to compile something,
>> results in this message being shown:
>> %LICENSE-E-NOAUTH, DEC CXX-V use is not authorized on this node
>> -LICENSE-F-NOLICENSE, no license is active for this software product
>> -LICENSE-I-SYSMGR, please see your system manager
>
> I'll sort that out.

Fixed; thanks for pointing that out.

--

-- Rob

On 12/27/2021 4:41 PM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 12/27/2021 3:01 PM, MG wrote:
>> Speaking of which, is the C++ license going to be renewed?
>>
>> The situation at the moment, while trying to compile something,
>> results in this message being shown:
>> %LICENSE-E-NOAUTH, DEC CXX-V use is not authorized on this node
>> -LICENSE-F-NOLICENSE, no license is active for this software product
>> -LICENSE-I-SYSMGR, please see your system manager
>
> I'll sort that out.

Fixed; thanks for pointing that out

EISNER::Rob Brooks 17:59:04 (DCL) CPU=00:00:00.49 PF=2132 IO=1066 MEM=68
$ cxx/ver
VSI C++ V7.4-007 for OpenVMS Alpha V8.4-2L2

--

-- Rob

alanfe...@gmail.com <alanfeldman48@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> >alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >
>> >> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine, Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
>> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
>> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
>> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
>>
>> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in Scandinavia.
>> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
>> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
>> Sweden.
>
>I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.

Russia, as I said earlier. They have an awful lot of the superheavy elements:
Mendelevium, Flerovium, Moscovium, Dubnium, Oganesson, etc.

Dubnium sounds like something from Jamaica but it's actually named after
the town of Dubna where it was first created.

Some places call rutherfordium "kurchatovium" too.

Admittedly among the superheavies, America does have Tennessine.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine, Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
>> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
>> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
>> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
>>
>> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in Scandinavia.
>> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
>> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
>> Sweden.
>> --scott
>> --
>> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
>
> I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.
>

Ah, OK. There you might have a point. I looked them up and most are just
made up things with low or even none at all practical use. Most of them are
also very shortlived with half-live measured from 10's of milliseconds
(tennessine) to a few hours (Lawrencium). What use do you have for them?

Materials in the periodic system up to number 94 or 95 are "natural". The
rest doesn't exists in nature, only in laboratories and are usually very
short-lived.

Here is a list of natural elements with Swedish discovrer. I think that
you will easily recognize at least the top 12-13 on that list. Many of
them are heavily used in the everyday life today.

Cobalt - Discovered 1732 by Georg Brandt.
Nickel - Discovered 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronsted.
Nitrogen - Discovered 1772 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (and Daniel Rutherford).
Oxygen - Discovered 1773 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
Manganese - Discovered 1774 by Johan Gottlieb Gahn.
Tantalum - Discovered 1802 by Anders Gustaf Ekeberg.
Cerium - Discovered 1803 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius & Wilhelm Hisinger (Ger.)
Selenium - Discovered 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
Silicon - Discovered 1823 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
Thorium - Discovered 1829 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
Lithium - Discovered 1817 by Johan August Arfwedson.
Vanadium - Discovered 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefström.
Lanthanum - Discovered 1839 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
Praseodymium & Neodymium - Extracted from the mineral Didymium discovered
by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
Erbium - Discovered 1843 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
Terbium - Discovered 1842 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
Holmium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
Thulium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
Scandium - Discovered by Lars Fredrik Nilson.

So, what was your point again?

On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 6:50:50 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> >>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine, Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
> >> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
> >> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
> >> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
> >>
> >> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in Scandinavia.
> >> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
> >> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
> >> Sweden.
> >> --scott
> >> --
> >> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
> >
> > I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.
> >
> Ah, OK. There you might have a point. I looked them up and most are just
> made up things with low or even none at all practical use. Most of them are
> also very shortlived with half-live measured from 10's of milliseconds
> (tennessine) to a few hours (Lawrencium). What use do you have for them?

Doesn't matter. I didn't say they were useful. For physics they are. For chemistry or direct pratical use, nothing yet. But you could have said that about Faraday's discovery of induction, Einsteins discovery in 1917 of stimulated emission, and other things.

>
> Materials in the periodic system up to number 94 or 95 are "natural". The
> rest doesn't exists in nature, only in laboratories and are usually very
> short-lived.

My impression has been that only up to U is found in nature.

>
> Here is a list of natural elements with Swedish discovrer. I think that
> you will easily recognize at least the top 12-13 on that list. Many of
> them are heavily used in the everyday life today.
>
> Cobalt - Discovered 1732 by Georg Brandt.
> Nickel - Discovered 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronsted.
> Nitrogen - Discovered 1772 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (and Daniel Rutherford).
> Oxygen - Discovered 1773 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
> Manganese - Discovered 1774 by Johan Gottlieb Gahn.
> Tantalum - Discovered 1802 by Anders Gustaf Ekeberg.
> Cerium - Discovered 1803 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius & Wilhelm Hisinger (Ger.)
> Selenium - Discovered 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
> Silicon - Discovered 1823 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
> Thorium - Discovered 1829 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
> Lithium - Discovered 1817 by Johan August Arfwedson.
> Vanadium - Discovered 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefström.
> Lanthanum - Discovered 1839 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> Praseodymium & Neodymium - Extracted from the mineral Didymium discovered
> by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> Erbium - Discovered 1843 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> Terbium - Discovered 1842 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> Holmium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
> Thulium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
> Scandium - Discovered by Lars Fredrik Nilson.
>
> So, what was your point again?

That AFAIK, the U.S. has manufactured more new elements than other countries. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that has nothing to do with the list above. How many of those elements don't exist in nature?

Doesn't matter. I corrected myself on my original statement and that rules out all the elements above. You acknowledge my correction, and then immediately forget it.

I correct my statement, you acknowledge that, then you show my original statement was wrong. What is your point? That my correction was correct? Thank you for verifying such!

On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 10:26:22 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2021-12-27 15:11, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 5:53:23 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> >> On 2021-12-26 19:36, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, December 25, 2021 at 6:35:26 PM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> >>>> On 2021-12-24 04:40, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>> On Wednesday, December 22, 2021 at 7:55:40 AM UTC-5, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> >>>>>> In article <00B6DA8D...@SendSpamHere.ORG>, VAXman-
> >>>>>> @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
> >>> [...]
> > [...]
> > ]>
> >> F is harder to use because all scientific work is not using it, or
> >> anything close to it. Using C makes it very easy to do most scientific
> >> work. Many times you are looking at temperature relatives, in which case
> >> C and K are identical. And the times you actually have to deal with
> >> absolute temperatures, it's just a simple addition and you are done.
> >>
> >> That *is* easier.
> >
> > OK, let me re-quote that for readability:
> >
> > You wrote:
> > "F is harder to use because all scientific work is not using it, or
> > anything close to it. Using C makes it very easy to do most scientific
> > work. Many times you are looking at temperature relatives, in which case C and K are identical. And the times you actually have to deal with absolute temperatures, it's just a simple addition and you are done. That *is* easier."
> >
> > I'm not aware of anyone in science using C unless they're converting to it for ordinary daily use, like the temperature ranges for drugs. Maybe chemists do. Physicists don't, AFAIK. (Physics is a rather broad field. Maybe the condensed matter people use it, for instance. Not my sub-field.)
> I wonder if you are missing the point on purpose. I didn't say they use
> C. I said that when you are in C, things becomes very easy, since most
> of the work you do with temperatures are using relative temperatures, at
> which point K and C are identical.
>
> How hard can that be to understand?

You're pressing a trivial point. So things are easy in C to translate to kelvin. So what? My original point excluded lab work. How hard it that for _you_ to understand? All I said is that I wasn't aware of anyone doing such a thing. It's trivial and beside my main point anyway.

I'm not convinced that most lab work is done using relative temperatures. Maybe it is. Who cares?

Fine, C is better for that. I never said otherwise. I said I wasn't aware of it. OK, you can do that. Fine. But F is fine for ordinary everyday use by laypeople. That was my main point.

But you and others keep trying to swing things toward scientific work, which I have numerous times explicitly excluded from my claim. And you continue to do that even now. I added the side point that even scientists (esp. astronomers) frequently use non-metric units! I'll not list them yet again.

How hard can that be to understand?

In physics, absolute temperature is primary. You've got two such scales: Kelvin and Rankine. Frankly I'm shocked that someone was using Rankine as late as, what was it, 2010? I, personally, have NEVER even _seen_ it used -- EVER.

You want to talk science? Let me add the following:

In an experiment that I was analyzing in my postdoc days, the detector blocks were 3" on a side in an array 3 high and 5 wide, IIRC. Does this mean that inches are important in physics? NO! It was trivial to deal with in my analysis. I guess I had to multiply by 2.54. That was pretty easy. I learned how to do that in elementary school. And it was the least of my problems. Barely a blip in my brain.The fact that I was told they were 3.5 inches was a problem. I finally had to go to the remote lab to help with another experiment, and I got to see the thing in person. Got an ordinary ruler. Sure enough, they were 3" on a side. I wasted a lot of time because of that. But the fact they were manufactured in inches? Not really much of a problem!!! Other fun things: Buying helium-3 and getting helium-4. That was a problem! (I don't recall for whom. Wasn't me!!!) The big magnet for the spectrometer was not even close to specs. The manufacturer apparently goofed or more likely didn't think sticking to precise specs was important. The lab couldn't return it for some reason. They had grad students shimming and sanding and whatnot. Eventually they gave up and ended up using a complicated formula to calibrate it. _That_ was a problem. You'd have to waste precious lab time taking data with the beam running to calibrate it for your particular experiment. Not F vs. C or inches vs. cm. Even in science it's trivial. (Might have been the other way around with the 3.5 vs 3, but it doesn't invalidate my point. More likely it was what I said originally.)

> When I want to compute the energy required to heat water at 0 C to 20 C,
> I'm looking at the energy required to heat water by 20 degrees. Don't
> matter if it's in K or C. It turns out to be the same.

Fine. C is easier to convert to kelvin. So what? There. I've EXPLICITLY acknowledged it. You happy? But it has nothing, zero, nada to do with my original claim that F is fine for normal everyday use by laypeople.

> But I suspect you are not going to accept that no matter how much I
> repeat it. After having to help my daughter with her gymnasium physics
> this last year I can tell that I'm very happy she didn't have to also
> deal with conversions from F in addition to all the numbers she had to
> throw around. It would *not* have helped.

Because you are making a trivial point that has nothing to do with my original statement. And I accept it anyway. Of course C is easier to convert to kelvins. So what? That doesn't invalidate my primary point that F is fine, and in some ways perhaps better than C, for normal ordinary everyday use by laypeople. Laypeople are not measuring specific heats.

Oh, all those conversions! You might have to use a calculator! Oh no!!! You could probably write a short program. In fact, it already exists in Excel. I found this on the web in less than a minute:

Using the Convert Function

1. In a blank Excel document, enter the temperature in Fahrenheit in the first cell of the first column.
2. In the cell to the right of the Fahrenheit temperature, enter the formula =CONVERT(A1,"F","C").
3. Click the Enter key on your keyboard to complete the conversion.

I would add (4), use the Ctrl+D function to propagate the formula down the column.

Yeah, using C saved your daughter from doing that. Must have saved maybe 5 minutes.

No one would do such a thing anyway. I've never had any such assignment. I've never had to do labs using F. Ever. It doesn't come up. Who would do such a thing? Unless you're also using Rankine, of course! Come to think of it, in one particular lab course I might have had to use a F thermometer. If so, it wasn't much of a problem. I think it was probably C.

I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.
I SAID EVERYDAY USE, NOT THE CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC HEATS.

Can we please drop the science bit, for Chrissake?

This whole thing started with someone claiming some data center was normally kept at 80 deg. Someone chimed in saying something disparaging about it.

I found it!

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 7:59:48 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2021-12-22 kl. 01:24, skrev Scott Dorsey:
> > Dennis Boone <d...@ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:
[...]
> >> Elsewhere, Google also report that they run their datacenters at 80
> >> degrees:
[...]
> > --scott
> >
> Aha! F! Why not use a standard temp scale.
> I thought it sounded a bit high...

So it was Jan-Erik who started this whole bit.

Obviously it was Fahrenheit. . . . Not science! Everyday usage in data centers. I suppose some use C. So what? That's limited to data center people and offers no advantage I can see anyway. Who's calculating specific heats in data centers?

BTW, fun fact: At my last job we had our own server room, mostly for QA, Dev, and Exchange and such. But my production MicroVAXes were there. Maybe about 20 of them. One day the A/C broke. Supposedly it went up to 100 deg in the room. (Yes, that's F for those of you who might have thought it reached the boiling point of water.) A co-worker mentioned I might want to check up on them. I thought about it for a few seconds and said, "They're probably fine," or something to that effect. I casually went to check anyway. My big loss? An error on a disk. Maybe the disk actually died, it was long ago. Might have died anyway. The MicroVAXes can handle it!!!

On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 9:04:07 PM UTC-5, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 6:50:50 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> > Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> > > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> > >>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine, Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
> > >> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
> > >> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
> > >> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
> > >>
> > >> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in Scandinavia.
> > >> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
> > >> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
> > >> Sweden.
> > >> --scott
> > >> --
> > >> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
> > >
> > > I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.
> > >
> > Ah, OK. There you might have a point. I looked them up and most are just
> > made up things with low or even none at all practical use. Most of them are
> > also very shortlived with half-live measured from 10's of milliseconds
> > (tennessine) to a few hours (Lawrencium). What use do you have for them?
> Doesn't matter. I didn't say they were useful. For physics they are. For chemistry or direct pratical use, nothing yet. But you could have said that about Faraday's discovery of induction, Einsteins discovery in 1917 of stimulated emission, and other things.
> >
> > Materials in the periodic system up to number 94 or 95 are "natural". The
> > rest doesn't exists in nature, only in laboratories and are usually very
> > short-lived.
> My impression has been that only up to U is found in nature.
> >
> > Here is a list of natural elements with Swedish discovrer. I think that
> > you will easily recognize at least the top 12-13 on that list. Many of
> > them are heavily used in the everyday life today.

Ah, now I see. For everyday life I was talking about Fahrenheit, not the elements. And I corrected myself to clarify that I meant elements that are not found in nature but were manufactured in America. Maybe I'm even wrong about that. Regardless, I was responding to America-bashers: "You fools use Fahrenheit. What idiots you are! Ha ha ha". We put 12 men on the moon, fool.

I was responding to that, which I think damn well gives me the right to brag.

[...]

Alan

On 12/27/2021 4:22 PM, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 9:43:48 AM UTC-5, Michael Kraemer @ home wrote:
>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>
>> well, given you are on a patriotic trip ...
>
> I went on a "patriotic trip" because people here were bashing Americans for not switching from Fahrenheit to Celsius. OK? Seems only fair to me to bash back.

Isn't that how fights get started / prolonged rather than settled?

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 12/27/2021 10:41 PM, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> Ah, now I see. For everyday life I was talking about Fahrenheit, not the
> elements. And I corrected myself to clarify that I meant elements that are
> not found in nature but were manufactured in America. Maybe I'm even wrong
> about that. Regardless, I was responding to America-bashers: "You fools use
> Fahrenheit. What idiots you are! Ha ha ha". We put 12 men on the moon, fool.
>
>
> I was responding to that, which I think damn well gives me the right to
> brag.

Why? Were you one of the people that visited the moon? How instrumental were
you in getting them there?

This kind of thinking is worse than useless and is what causes problems on this
planet.

Can this whole thread be dropped? Or "get a room" ...

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

In article <sqa4av$v1r$1@news.misty.com>, Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> writes:
> On 2021-12-26 00:33, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 12/25/2021 6:05 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> On 2021-12-24 04:09, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Anyway, regarding Fahrenheit: Americans aren't switching to the
>>>> "standard,"
>>>> Celsius, for the same reason you're not using a Dvorak keyboard.
>>>> Actually, if
>>>> you want to go all the way you should be using Kelvin, the only "true"
>>>> temperature scale in use.
>>>
>>> Kelvin and Celsius is easy to move between. It's just an offset
>>> difference.
>>>
>>>   Johnny
>>
>> As far as that goes, so is Fahrenheit with either.  It's just a
>> multiplier and an offset.
>
> Of course. But that multiplier is what makes it uglier. Yes, sure,
> anyone can do it. But it's much less straight forward. And you have two
> different offsets for C and K when you come from F.

You forgot Rankine.

But I'll /weigh/ in on the conversion equation.

For mnemonic purposes, this set of equations is a dream (and compilers
are free to optimize away the extra addition or subtraction):

F = ( C + 40 ) * f1 - 40

C = ( F + 40 ) * f2 - 40

where f1 and f2 are the usual conversion factors.

I find it easy to remember the -40 fixed point for these conversions
because my metal shop teacher once talked about molding hammers of
mercury and cooling them, once poured, to -40, Celsius or Fahrenheit.

George

> Everything is just math in the end. Nothing strange to see here. It's
> just a question of how much do you need to remember and compute.
>
>> A couple of lines from a simple VB program I have:
>>
>>     C = (F - 32) * 5 / 9
>>     F = C * 9 / 5 + 32
>>
>> If I remember correctly (always questionable anymore) for Kelvin the
>> additional constant would be 273.  Maybe not.
>
> 273.15 unless I remember wrong. (Checked - I remembered right.)
> So if you have C, add 273.15 and you have K.
> Of course, in most cases, just 273 is good enough.
>
> Johnny

Den 2021-12-28 kl. 03:04, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 6:50:50 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
>>> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>>>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine, Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
>>>> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
>>>> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
>>>> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
>>>>
>>>> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in Scandinavia.
>>>> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
>>>> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
>>>> Sweden.
>>>> --scott
>>>> --
>>>> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
>>>
>>> I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.
>>>
>> Ah, OK. There you might have a point. I looked them up and most are just
>> made up things with low or even none at all practical use. Most of them are
>> also very shortlived with half-live measured from 10's of milliseconds
>> (tennessine) to a few hours (Lawrencium). What use do you have for them?
>
> Doesn't matter. I didn't say they were useful. For physics they are. For chemistry or direct pratical use, nothing yet. But you could have said that about Faraday's discovery of induction, Einsteins discovery in 1917 of stimulated emission, and other things.
>
>>
>> Materials in the periodic system up to number 94 or 95 are "natural". The
>> rest doesn't exists in nature, only in laboratories and are usually very
>> short-lived.
>
> My impression has been that only up to U is found in nature.

Yes, 94 and 95 are debated. There has been signes of natural existance
way long ago after some event in Africa, but they have also been long
gong since they fall apart quickly.

>
>>
>> Here is a list of natural elements with Swedish discovrer. I think that
>> you will easily recognize at least the top 12-13 on that list. Many of
>> them are heavily used in the everyday life today.
>>
>> Cobalt - Discovered 1732 by Georg Brandt.
>> Nickel - Discovered 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronsted.
>> Nitrogen - Discovered 1772 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (and Daniel Rutherford).
>> Oxygen - Discovered 1773 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
>> Manganese - Discovered 1774 by Johan Gottlieb Gahn.
>> Tantalum - Discovered 1802 by Anders Gustaf Ekeberg.
>> Cerium - Discovered 1803 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius & Wilhelm Hisinger (Ger.)
>> Selenium - Discovered 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
>> Silicon - Discovered 1823 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
>> Thorium - Discovered 1829 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
>> Lithium - Discovered 1817 by Johan August Arfwedson.
>> Vanadium - Discovered 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefström.
>> Lanthanum - Discovered 1839 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
>> Praseodymium & Neodymium - Extracted from the mineral Didymium discovered
>> by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
>> Erbium - Discovered 1843 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
>> Terbium - Discovered 1842 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
>> Holmium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
>> Thulium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
>> Scandium - Discovered by Lars Fredrik Nilson.
>>
>> So, what was your point again?
>
> That AFAIK, the U.S. has manufactured more new elements than other countries.

And the practical usage is, what?

> Maybe I'm wrong about that...

Maybe not. It is not that surprising that there were some side-effects
from the Manhattan project and other nuclear work. I just do not see
how it matters and what the real-life usage is. Apart from proving that
it *can* be done. That might matter for some, of course.

Ok. I'll make this short, and then I'll try and keep quiet.

On 2021-12-27 20:50, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 10:20:20 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> Now, wait a minute. Why did you ask for Europeans wight in newton if you
>> then call me picky when I ask for your weight in lbf. It is *not* the
>> same as lbs.
>
> Because Philip Helbig brought it up. He said newtons are the preferred unit of weight.

It would be more correct. But it's not what people commonly use.

> And asking for lbf instead of lbs IS picky. Thank you for making my point for me.

It certainly sounds like you should understand the difference between
lbs and lbf, and yet you seem to not. And you call me picky when I point
out that they are not the same thing (how can that be picky?) and yet
you don't seem to think it's picky when you differ between kg and N.

> Alright, I was responding to Helbig re newtons. I bet most Europeans don't even know what newtons are. Maybe they do. I don't really know. But forced to guess, I'd say not. You tell me!

They do. Or at least I would expect they do. I certainly had to learn
about it at school, and I expect everyone else did as well.

> So Europeans think that a kg is a measure of weight? OK. Whatever.

We usually do tell our weight in kg. Just as you weight cocaine in grams
in the US. Even though properly it's a mass. But we're assuming we are
on earth, and thus it becomes convenient to just talk about our mass as
our weight.

>> I could ask the obvious question why you even asked about my weight in
>> newton in the first place. Did you think it would be some magic,
>> complicated number that I wouldn't know? I suspect most europeans know
>> their weight in newton, since it's pretty much their weight in kilos,
>> with an added 0. And pretty much everyone knows their weight in kilos.
>
> As you yourself said, a kg is not a unit of weight. Now you say it is. Sure. Also, adding a zero doesn't give accuracy to comparable to lbs.

lbs isn't any more accurate than a kg.
And lbs cannot be compared to newtons. If you want to compare with
newtons, you need to talk about lbf.

lbs is actually also a unit of mass, and not weight. Didn't you know that?

It's just that, just as with us using kg, the US is using lbs to tell
weight, even though it's technically incorrect.

>>>>>> Force in pounds for acceleration expressed in m/s^2 ? So if you want it
>>>>>> in lb * foot/s^2, there isn't even a unit? How messed up is this thing?
>>>
>>> I was talking about weighing yourself. Some claimed that the proper unit is N, as that is the SI base unit. Dynes, somehow, despite being a totally legitamite metric unit is somehow deprecated. In fact, it was Helbig:
>> N is the SI unit for force. This shouldn't be that hard...
>> When you start tossing weight around, it's a different thing.
>>> And the acceleration bit. Who's actually doing this? Why are you multiplying a force by an acceleration anyway? That makes no sense!
>> 1 Newton is defined as the force required to accelerate a mass of 1 kg
>> by 1 m/s/s.
>>
>> It has everything to do with acceleration.
>
> Why are you multiplying a force by acceleration?

I never did. I multiplied mass by acceleration in order to give you the
force, since you asked for newtons.

And then I have been repeatedly trying to explain to you what force is,
to make you understand why the answer is what it is, and how to get to
that answer.

But I can see that I am failing.

> Bracketing by 10 in F is more accurate. More precise. Obviously you don't get that, since I've had to explain it at least twice. I never said you wouldn't bracket temperatures by 10s. I said it was less useful, less precise. I never said no one does it.

Bracketing inherently means you are imprecise. Obviously people outside
the US do not feel they have a problem, so the claimed superiority is
obviously very subjective.

In that sense, neither is any better than the other. But since there are
other benefits, which are clearly more concrete, I would say that speaks
for changing. And no, my thermostats don't do half degrees.

But again, I don't expect any current users would enjoy much benefits
from changing. It would be more for future generations.

But I keep repeating myself here, and it's obviously both pointless and
boring. And will not change anything anyway.

Johnny

On 27-12-2021 23:58, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
>> I'll sort that out.
>
> Fixed; thanks for pointing that out
>
> EISNER::Rob Brooks 17:59:04   (DCL)   CPU=00:00:00.49 PF=2132 IO=1066
> MEM=68
> $ cxx/ver
> VSI C++ V7.4-007 for OpenVMS Alpha V8.4-2L2

Excellent, thank you very much for that!

- MG

On 12/27/2021 5:50 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
>> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after
>>>>> American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine,
>>>>> Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
>>> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
>>> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
>>> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
>>>
>>> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in
>>> Scandinavia.
>>> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
>>> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
>>> Sweden.
>>> --scott
>>> --
>>> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
>>
>> I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in
>> nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.
>>
>
> Ah, OK. There you might have a point. I looked them up and most are just
> made up things with low or even none at all practical use. Most of them are
> also very shortlived with half-live measured from 10's of milliseconds
> (tennessine) to a few hours (Lawrencium). What use do you have for them?
>

Well, here in the States, we use Moscovium (element 115) to power our
UFO fleet ;-)

--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason@comcast.net

=?UTF-8?Q?Jan-Erik_S=c3=b6derholm?= <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> wrote:
>Oxygen - Discovered 1773 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.

So they don't give credit to Priestley there? For shame.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 11:17:45 PM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 12/27/2021 10:41 PM, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Ah, now I see. For everyday life I was talking about Fahrenheit, not the
> > elements. And I corrected myself to clarify that I meant elements that are
> > not found in nature but were manufactured in America. Maybe I'm even wrong
> > about that. Regardless, I was responding to America-bashers: "You fools use
> > Fahrenheit. What idiots you are! Ha ha ha". We put 12 men on the moon, fool.
> >
> >
> > I was responding to that, which I think damn well gives me the right to
> > brag.
> Why? Were you one of the people that visited the moon? How instrumental were
> you in getting them there?

My God, are you a computer? I was bragging about the US having gone to the moon and all you Fahrenheit-bashers not. Do I need to spell everything out in complete detail, leaving no stone unturned. Or are you just being a troll?

>
> This kind of thinking is worse than useless and is what causes problems on this
> planet.

Nonsense.

>
> Can this whole thread be dropped? Or "get a room" ...

If you want it dropped, stop asking questions.

> --
> David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: da...@tsoft-inc.com
> DFE Ultralights, Inc.
> 170 Grimplin Road
> Vanderbilt, PA 15486

OFF TOPIC!!! WARNING: Contains a link to a highly entertaining, and for some, shocking, video!

NB: This contains a link to a highly entertaining video. You want to bash America? This is the video for you. Scroll down or search for https.

OpenVMS technical content: VMS v5.4-3 introduced the kick-ass proactive memory reclamation bit. Works great! It can be found on p. 2-19 of https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/doc/alpha-v8.3/ovms_archived/GD_VAX_PERF_MAN.PDF

On Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at 7:05:19 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> Ok. I'll make this short, and then I'll try and keep quiet.
> On 2021-12-27 20:50, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 10:20:20 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> >> Now, wait a minute. Why did you ask for Europeans wight in newton if you
> >> then call me picky when I ask for your weight in lbf. It is *not* the
> >> same as lbs.
> >
> > Because Philip Helbig brought it up. He said newtons are the preferred unit of weight.
> It would be more correct. But it's not what people commonly use.

Correct how? There's nothing wrong with dynes. Use the right tools for the job.

> > And asking for lbf instead of lbs IS picky. Thank you for making my point for me.
> It certainly sounds like you should understand the difference between
> lbs and lbf, and yet you seem to not. And you call me picky when I point

NOBODY CARES ABOUT LBS. VS LBF. We were talking about Fahrenheit. I shouldn't have added the newtons bit. That was Helbig's contribution. I'm sorry I dragged that into the discussion.

On onlineconversion.com they are the same. Enter 1 for one, you get 1 for the other. "Technically" or "officially" they're different. I'll give you that. But it's irrelevant to the discussion. The numbers are the same. It makes no difference. We were talking about the pros and cons of using F. Hey, either way, you get the right answer in a perfectly legitimate and rigorous manner.

> out that they are not the same thing (how can that be picky?) and yet
> you don't seem to think it's picky when you differ between kg and N.

I was making a point, which you obviously missed. I was pointing out that you're picky when it comes to lbs. and lbf., but somehow not picky when it comes to kg vs newtons.

> > Alright, I was responding to Helbig re newtons. I bet most Europeans don't even know what newtons are. Maybe they do. I don't really know. But forced to guess, I'd say not. You tell me!
> They do. Or at least I would expect they do. I certainly had to learn
> about it at school, and I expect everyone else did as well.

Well, maybe, maybe not. I was shocked when Jimmy Kimmel had a segment where they put a map of the world on an easel on the street. No countries were labeled, but boundaries were drawn in. The question posed to passers by: "Name a country. Any country. Just one." I was shocked that there were so many who couldn't do that. Not a single country. Not even their own. Then a young child (perhaps a 10-year-old -- a guess at his age) names a couple dozen countries. One of them was Greenland. Feel free to point out how Greenland is not a country. Admittedly, I did. I still gave the kid KUDOS!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umpalMtQE50
So maybe there are at least _some_ Europeans who don't know what a newton is?

Besides, lots of us don't remember everything we learned in school, esp. things you don't use much.

> > So Europeans think that a kg is a measure of weight? OK. Whatever.
> We usually do tell our weight in kg. Just as you weight cocaine in grams
> in the US. Even though properly it's a mass. But we're assuming we are
> on earth, and thus it becomes convenient to just talk about our mass as
> our weight.

You're the one fussing about lbs vs lbf. So I was just showing how pointless that was given that people use kg for weight and you seem to be okay with that. NOBODY CARES.

> >> I could ask the obvious question why you even asked about my weight in
> >> newton in the first place. Did you think it would be some magic,
> >> complicated number that I wouldn't know? I suspect most europeans know
> >> their weight in newton, since it's pretty much their weight in kilos,
> >> with an added 0. And pretty much everyone knows their weight in kilos.
> >
> > As you yourself said, a kg is not a unit of weight. Now you say it is. Sure. Also, adding a zero doesn't give accuracy to comparable to lbs.
> lbs isn't any more accurate than a kg.
> And lbs cannot be compared to newtons. If you want to compare with
> newtons, you need to talk about lbf.

I'm talking about usage by laypeople, not technical things that no one cares about except you.

>
> lbs is actually also a unit of mass, and not weight. Didn't you know that?

Not if you insist on differentiating between lbs and lbf.

>
> It's just that, just as with us using kg, the US is using lbs to tell
> weight, even though it's technically incorrect.

From Europe:

https://www.britannica.com/science/pound-unit-of-weight

From me:

That's Britannica, not nosebleed.com or bogusbull.com.

You weigh less on the moon, but if you go there you haven't lost any weight.. You are making trivial irrelevant points and ignoring the fact that context matters.

> >>>>>> Force in pounds for acceleration expressed in m/s^2 ? So if you want it
> >>>>>> in lb * foot/s^2, there isn't even a unit? How messed up is this thing?
> >>>
> >>> I was talking about weighing yourself. Some claimed that the proper unit is N, as that is the SI base unit. Dynes, somehow, despite being a totally legitimate metric unit is somehow deprecated. In fact, it was Helbig:
> >> N is the SI unit for force. This shouldn't be that hard...
> >> When you start tossing weight around, it's a different thing.
> >>> And the acceleration bit. Who's actually doing this? Why are you multiplying a force by an acceleration anyway? That makes no sense!
> >> 1 Newton is defined as the force required to accelerate a mass of 1 kg
> >> by 1 m/s/s.
> >>
> >> It has everything to do with acceleration.
> >
> > Why are you multiplying a force by acceleration?
> I never did. I multiplied mass by acceleration in order to give you the
> force, since you asked for newtons.

You had pounds time acceleration. Regardless, the topic was Fahrenheit vs. Celsius. It wasn't I who generalized to entire systems of units. Again, I'm sorry I dragged newtons into this. My mistake. Big mistake.

I totally agree. When you're doing acceleration and other physics, metric is the way to go (and, of course, all those non-metric, non-imperial/English/customary units scientists use, like G's or g or whatever you think is technically correct). You, sir, are 100% right about that. I never said otherwise, well, except for those special units like electron volts and the like, which don't belong to either system.

The only acceleration laypeople in the U.S. use and (almost) understand is, "goes from 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds," and the like. If you say 9.81 m/sec/sec or 32.2 ft/sec/sec, you'll just get blank stares from most Americans. Like a deer in headlights.

>
> And then I have been repeatedly trying to explain to you what force is,
> to make you understand why the answer is what it is, and how to get to
> that answer.
>
> But I can see that I am failing.

I've been trying to explain that nobody gives a you-know-what about lbs. vs.. lbf. Maybe engineers do. Physicists certainly don't. The public certainly doesn't. I don't know why you keep bringing that up. It's totally beside the point.

> > Bracketing by 10 in F is more accurate. More precise. Obviously you don't get that, since I've had to explain it at least twice. I never said you wouldn't bracket temperatures by 10s. I said it was less useful, less precise. I never said no one does it.
> Bracketing inherently means you are imprecise. Obviously people outside
> the US do not feel they have a problem, so the claimed superiority is
> obviously very subjective.

I never said F was objectively superior. I said it's a fine system to use for normal ordinary everyday things that laypeople do. It was you and others who claimed it's objectively inferior -- until now. I did, however, try to point out its advantages, since you and others were bashing it.

> In that sense, neither is any better than the other. But since there are
> other benefits, which are clearly more concrete, I would say that speaks
> for changing. And no, my thermostats don't do half degrees.

Ah, there you go again telling us Americans we should switch. So much for being objective.

Also, I would not be happy with thermostat increments being as big as a degree C. I like having a choice with a resolution of 1 deg. F. Sometimes 2 deg. F would be too big an increment. Suppose I want to turn it up 3 deg F. Couldn't do it on _your_ thermostat. But that's just me. Subjective.

On Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at 6:09:53 AM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2021-12-28 kl. 03:04, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 6:50:50 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> >> Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> >>> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> >>>>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> The rest of the world doesn't have several elements named after American entities: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, Tennessine, Lawrencium (a lab in California). Can any other country beat that?
> >>>> Russia, by a long shot. They have all the superheavy elements, even if
> >>>> Americans have a few of the transuranics. But then Russians have a bunch
> >>>> of weird ones like Samarium on top of that.
> >>>>
> >>>> And many of the rare earth elements are named after places in Scandinavia.
> >>>> Holmium is named after Stockholm, Scandium and Thulium after Scandinavia
> >>>> in general, Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium all after the Ytterby mine in
> >>>> Sweden.
> >>>> --scott
> >>>> --
> >>>> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
> >>>
> >>> I misspoke. I was thinking manufactured elements that don't exist in nature. Sorry. I misspoke. My bad.
> >>>
> >> Ah, OK. There you might have a point. I looked them up and most are just
> >> made up things with low or even none at all practical use. Most of them are
> >> also very shortlived with half-live measured from 10's of milliseconds
> >> (tennessine) to a few hours (Lawrencium). What use do you have for them?
> >
> > Doesn't matter. I didn't say they were useful. For physics they are. For chemistry or direct pratical use, nothing yet. But you could have said that about Faraday's discovery of induction, Einsteins discovery in 1917 of stimulated emission, and other things.
> >
> >>
> >> Materials in the periodic system up to number 94 or 95 are "natural". The
> >> rest doesn't exists in nature, only in laboratories and are usually very
> >> short-lived.
> >
> > My impression has been that only up to U is found in nature.
> Yes, 94 and 95 are debated. There has been signes of natural existance
> way long ago after some event in Africa, but they have also been long
> gong since they fall apart quickly.
> >
> >>
> >> Here is a list of natural elements with Swedish discovrer. I think that
> >> you will easily recognize at least the top 12-13 on that list. Many of
> >> them are heavily used in the everyday life today.
> >>
> >> Cobalt - Discovered 1732 by Georg Brandt.
> >> Nickel - Discovered 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronsted.
> >> Nitrogen - Discovered 1772 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele (and Daniel Rutherford).
> >> Oxygen - Discovered 1773 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
> >> Manganese - Discovered 1774 by Johan Gottlieb Gahn.
> >> Tantalum - Discovered 1802 by Anders Gustaf Ekeberg.
> >> Cerium - Discovered 1803 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius & Wilhelm Hisinger (Ger.)
> >> Selenium - Discovered 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
> >> Silicon - Discovered 1823 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
> >> Thorium - Discovered 1829 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius.
> >> Lithium - Discovered 1817 by Johan August Arfwedson.
> >> Vanadium - Discovered 1830 by Nils Gabriel Sefström.
> >> Lanthanum - Discovered 1839 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> >> Praseodymium & Neodymium - Extracted from the mineral Didymium discovered
> >> by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> >> Erbium - Discovered 1843 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> >> Terbium - Discovered 1842 by Carl Gustaf Mosander.
> >> Holmium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
> >> Thulium - Discovered 1879 by Per Theodor Cleve.
> >> Scandium - Discovered by Lars Fredrik Nilson.
> >>
> >> So, what was your point again?
> >
> > That AFAIK, the U.S. has manufactured more new elements than other countries.
> And the practical usage is, what?
>
> > Maybe I'm wrong about that...

We don't know yet. It may well be quite useful in the future. And physicists need the absolute best possible technology. This pushes companies to make even better technology for people than if physicists didn't do experiments like this.

Oh, you'll probably reply with "And the practical usage is, what?" again, as if I didn't explain it. Are you just being a troll? What's the practical usage of sports? What's the practical usage of entertainment in general, including art, music, movies, plays, television shows and the like? No, go ahead. Completely ignore my points and come back with the same question. A good question, but it has a good answer. Troll away.

> Maybe not. It is not that surprising that there were some side-effects
> from the Manhattan project and other nuclear work. I just do not see
> how it matters and what the real-life usage is. Apart from proving that
> it *can* be done. That might matter for some, of course.

As I said in my previous post, there are many discoveries and technical accomplishments that at the time seemed useless. I even gave examples. You also seem to be confusing my claim about usefulness of Fahrenheit with this, which I also explained.

Here. Let the man, Neil deGrasse Tyson, explain it to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joARXZagTuM

There's another video where he addresses this far more succinctly, but I can't find it at the moment, as it was part of a more general video.

Yes. I am now convinced. You are being a troll. So be it. Please address my points or go silent.

Alan (^_^(

On 2021-12-26, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 12/26/2021 5:48 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2021-12-25, Dave Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>> As far as that goes, so is Fahrenheit with either. It's just a multiplier and
>>> an offset.
>>>
>>> A couple of lines from a simple VB program I have:
>>>
>>> C = (F - 32) * 5 / 9
>>> F = C * 9 / 5 + 32
>>
>> I looked at the above two statements and basically went "eek!" at
>> all the implicit type conversions potentially going on above. :-)
>>
>> Does VB do the right thing above or do variables F and C get
>> type converted to an integer (with loss of information) before
>> the above calculations are done ?
>>
>> Just curious. (In situations like that, I would have written the
>> integers with a decimal component, so 32 would become 32.0 for example.)
>
> VMS Basic behaves like most other languages.
>
> If the input variable is integer then it does integer math.
>
> If the input variable is floating point then it does floating point math.
>
> And it produces expected result if input variable and output
> variable are same type.
>
> Only if input is integer and output is floating point it is
> necessary to do something to change the math from integer math
> to floating point math.
>

I've hit cases in the past with at least one language (I can't remember
which) where integer constants used with a floating point variable would
give a different result than FP constants used with a FP variable.

As a result, I would now write "C = (F - 32) * 5 / 9" if I am working
with integer variables and "C = (F - 32.0) * 5.0 / 9.0" if I am working
with decimal/float variables.

That's why the use of integers with (presumed) FP variables stood
out above... :-)

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

OT: Sorry, but my very field has been attacked, and it's an important issue.. So I have to respond.

OpenVMS tech tip: Establishing accurate WSQUOTA values is not as important as it was before v5.4-3 due to the proactive memory reclamation from idle processes bit.

On Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at 11:46:04 AM UTC-5, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at 6:09:53 AM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> > Den 2021-12-28 kl. 03:04, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> > > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 6:50:50 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> > >> Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe...@gmail.com:
> > >>> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> > >>>>> alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >>>>>
[...]
> > >> So, what was your point again?
> > >
> > > That AFAIK, the U.S. has manufactured more new elements than other countries.
> > And the practical usage is, what?

[...]

Kindly let me add a few more more examples:

NMR, short for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. This was the process by which physicists measured the magnetic moments (strength of the magnetic fields) of protons and neutrons, e.g. I heard it actually started with an astrophysical bit. Regardless, you would have pooh-poohed it just the same. "Of what practical use is it?" I'll tell you: MRI. You've heard of that? It uses NMR to generate signals that are used to image various parts of the human body. And to be complete JIC, to diagnose disease and injuries. Capisce?

The laser -- this time I'll elaborate: Stimulated emission was theorized by Einstein in 1917. Lasers first came on the scene in maybe the 50s or 60s. Even then, I doubt anyone thought there'd be much use for them. Well, do I even need to list them? I think I do: fiber optics in networks, including the internet. Bar codes. Optical media. Surgery. Engraving. More science experiments. But back in 1917 or 1960 you would have complained it was of no practical use.

Faraday's law of induction. People at the time asked what good it was. Supposedly the queen or king asked that, and Faraday said, "I don't know, but one day you'll tax it." Probably a made-up story, but it makes the point.

This law is used for a variety of things: electric generators, even today. Kind of important, no? Transformers. Important! The ignition coil in your car (if you have one). The moving-coil phono cartridge. OK, not as important, but still true and useful.

Yet another one: the ozone hole. Studying the chemistry of Venus was an important part of this. See https://theconversation.com/what-venus-has-taught-us-about-protecting-the-ozone-layer-9200

Even general relativity is practical many decades later. GPS navigation depends on it! (Look it up.)

Your heart is in the right place. John McCain made similar complaints. But if you watch the video I posted in my last post and carefully read my posts here, maybe you'll understand.

Basic research is vital. Targeted research is also vital, but it often needs the results of basic research.

So of what use are the manufactured elements? Indirect benefits to technology for all, and ask me again in 50 years.

Basic research isn't just for nerd scientists. It benefits us all. One could write a book about it.

Alan (^_^(

On 12/28/2021 11:54 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2021-12-26, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 12/26/2021 5:48 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2021-12-25, Dave Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>>> As far as that goes, so is Fahrenheit with either. It's just a multiplier and
>>>> an offset.
>>>>
>>>> A couple of lines from a simple VB program I have:
>>>>
>>>> C = (F - 32) * 5 / 9
>>>> F = C * 9 / 5 + 32
>>>
>>> I looked at the above two statements and basically went "eek!" at
>>> all the implicit type conversions potentially going on above. :-)
>>>
>>> Does VB do the right thing above or do variables F and C get
>>> type converted to an integer (with loss of information) before
>>> the above calculations are done ?
>>>
>>> Just curious. (In situations like that, I would have written the
>>> integers with a decimal component, so 32 would become 32.0 for example.)
>>
>> VMS Basic behaves like most other languages.
>>
>> If the input variable is integer then it does integer math.
>>
>> If the input variable is floating point then it does floating point math.
>>
>> And it produces expected result if input variable and output
>> variable are same type.
>>
>> Only if input is integer and output is floating point it is
>> necessary to do something to change the math from integer math
>> to floating point math.
>
> I've hit cases in the past with at least one language (I can't remember
> which) where integer constants used with a floating point variable would
> give a different result than FP constants used with a FP variable.
>
> As a result, I would now write "C = (F - 32) * 5 / 9" if I am working
> with integer variables and "C = (F - 32.0) * 5.0 / 9.0" if I am working
> with decimal/float variables.
>
> That's why the use of integers with (presumed) FP variables stood
> out above... :-)

If a compiler sees:

fpvalue operator intvalue

then I would expect it to either:
- lossless convert the intvalue to a floating point value
or:
- give an error about invalid mixing of fp and int

Doing a lossy conversion of fpval to integer value would be very bad.

I don't think I have ever encountered such a language, but it could
of course exist - there are a lot of weird languages out there.

Arne

In article <sqc5nc$fbq$1@news.misty.com>, Johnny Billquist
<bqt@softjar.se> writes:

> >>> Again, the reason Americans don't adopt Celsius is the same reason you haven't switched from the QWERTY to the Dvorak keyboard.
> >> Definitely true in a sense. It's about using what you are used to in a way.
> >> But you can both argue the superiority of Dvorak, and also observe and
> >> countries like France and Germany don't even use Qwerty.
> >
> > Really? What do France and Germany use instead? Just askin'.
>
> I think they use something called QWERTZ, but I don't think they are the
> same between them. They move some letters around, which really mess me
> up whenever I see one of their keyboards.

The basic German keyboard swaps Y and Z. (I know someone from Germany
with both a Y and a Z in her name but she learned to type while spending
a year as an exchange student in the States.) Otherwise, no differences
between that and the QUERTY keyboard. The non-letter keys are somewhat
different. The French keyboard is very different.

In article <j2tqdpFobtiU3@mid.individual.net>, Roy Omond <roy@omond.net>
writes:

> On 26/12/2021 18:36, alanfe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > ... 20 F is 68 C. 30 F is 86. Then just add or subtract 18 per 10 for
> anything else. Good enough.
>
> See, you even got that wrong: "20 F is 68 C. 30 F is 86."

Correct is "20 C is 68 F. 30 C is 86 F". Maybe easier to add or
subtract 9 for 5. For me, a difference of 5 C is easily noticeable.

At that temperature is C the same as F? -40.