Comments on: Orders of magnitude http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html Science Blog from Freelance Science Writer David Bradley Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:41:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Mitch http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html/comment-page-1#comment-80796 Mitch Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:21:12 +0000 http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html#comment-80796 If the blog was all technical posts all the time it wouldn't be as interesting. Mitch If the blog was all technical posts all the time it wouldn’t be as interesting.

Mitch

]]> By: DV82XL http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html/comment-page-1#comment-80772 DV82XL Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:50:45 +0000 http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html#comment-80772 No insult was taken; I fancy myself a bit of a raconteur, and that opening sentence was just the segue to an off topic story No insult was taken; I fancy myself a bit of a raconteur, and that opening sentence was just the segue to an off topic story

]]> By: David Bradley http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html/comment-page-1#comment-80681 David Bradley Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:35:03 +0000 http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html#comment-80681 Hi DV82XL, never meant to insult anyone with that post, there are lots of young science students and homeschoolers who drop by the Sciencebase site, as revealed by some of the phrases they search for, such as orders of magnitude, so I like to do the occasional "educational" post, just to keep up the teaching spirit. That story is classic. I've got a friend who sells desktop magnifiers and other scientific instruments and he had a call from a customer (head of a QC/QA lab) who actually asked if the 14X magnifier would be stronger than the 8X magnifier he already owned! Unbelievable. I cover a lot of these kinds of story on the ScienceText.com site in the <a href="http://www.sciencetext.com/category/significant-figures" rel="nofollow">Significant Figures</a> category, check it out if you have a moment, I try to make it informative and entertaining as well as extracting the urine 0.457884 mills at a time. Hi DV82XL, never meant to insult anyone with that post, there are lots of young science students and homeschoolers who drop by the Sciencebase site, as revealed by some of the phrases they search for, such as orders of magnitude, so I like to do the occasional “educational” post, just to keep up the teaching spirit.

That story is classic. I’ve got a friend who sells desktop magnifiers and other scientific instruments and he had a call from a customer (head of a QC/QA lab) who actually asked if the 14X magnifier would be stronger than the 8X magnifier he already owned! Unbelievable. I cover a lot of these kinds of story on the ScienceText.com site in the Significant Figures category, check it out if you have a moment, I try to make it informative and entertaining as well as extracting the urine 0.457884 mills at a time.

]]> By: DV82XL http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html/comment-page-1#comment-80677 DV82XL Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:07:26 +0000 http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/orders-of-magnitude.html#comment-80677 Two days ago I would have been mildly insulted by this post - I mean really we're all of a scientific bent here, aren't we? However since then I had a disturbing encounter with the child of one of my neighbors. She is about seventeen and wants to go into nursing, while finishing high school she works as a cashier at a local market. I went there to pick up some finger-food for a small gathering we were having that night, and noticed that the bags in question were on sale at six dollars for three. Picking up three of them I went to her checkout and watched as she passed my items through the bar-code reader. My three bags rung up as two-fifty each. I stopped her and pointed out the error. After fumbling through the weekly flier, she saw that indeed they were on sale. Now she had to make a manual correction to my bill. "So," she said, "that's one-thirty-three each then." One day when I am old and infirm, this shining product of the education system is going to be in charge of my medication. Two days ago I would have been mildly insulted by this post – I mean really we’re all of a scientific bent here, aren’t we?

However since then I had a disturbing encounter with the child of one of my neighbors.

She is about seventeen and wants to go into nursing, while finishing high school she works as a cashier at a local market. I went there to pick up some finger-food for a small gathering we were having that night, and noticed that the bags in question were on sale at six dollars for three. Picking up three of them I went to her checkout and watched as she passed my items through the bar-code reader. My three bags rung up as two-fifty each.

I stopped her and pointed out the error. After fumbling through the weekly flier, she saw that indeed they were on sale. Now she had to make a manual correction to my bill. “So,” she said, “that’s one-thirty-three each then.”

One day when I am old and infirm, this shining product of the education system is going to be in charge of my medication.

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