Both meters and seconds are units of Earth specific measures of space and time. Pretty sure at a cosmic scale god would give fuckall about how we measure and name our shit
For a second i thought you were calling the metric system masturbatory and then i remembered that christians really do think god watches them jork it. Kinky
Actually most constants have been standardized to natural sources. A meter is now a fixed (small) fraction of the speed of light in vacuum. A second is pegged to the duration of a Cesium isotope spinning or something. Just that the multipliers are chosen to be convenient to us.
Should we need to talk measurements with aliens, we can, and can convert between their units and ours.
What’s more profound is that math is universal - after some teething pains with regards to understanding conventions, any alien technology should be comprehensive by us, and vice versa.
I would say (not an expert) math is a representation of (numerical) logic, and as it gets more complex, the conventions if representing logical ideas need to be laid out. But that said, once done (teething pains), a learned and read peer “in the art” should be able to both comprehend and communicate at least mathematical ideas, and as a (gradual) extension to this, applied technology.
Put another way, ‘greek’ ideas should be easier to communicate with than ‘latin’ ideas.
However all bets out the window if aliens have a straight up ‘God’ that just gives them stuff and they are themselves dumb as doornails. In which case we have a few common denominators already living it up.
Well, akshually they started out as being earth specific, as convenient ways to measure human-relevant amounts of space and time, and were standardized after that. So really God still wouldn’t care to use meters or seconds, but would probably have their own units which could also be standardized with natural phenomena.
i’ve just figured out how the religious universe ends. some physicist explains to their god that a lot of their assumptions were based on something being in a vacuum, and then their god says “what vacuum? you mean all that sparse hydrogen?” so the physicist says “let’s find out what happens when you have a real vacuum” and then the universe ends at the speed of dumbassery.
It’s neat to think about what units an alien civilization would come up with independently. Like the Plank Distance is fundamental to physics, so they’d probably have something for that.
Degrees Celsius is based on freezing and boiling point of water, so if they came up with a base 10 numbering system and water is key to their biology, then they’d probably come up with that.
A calorie is the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1L of water by 1C. A liter is a volume of a cube 0.1m on each side. The meter was originally ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and north pole (and subsequent redefinitions are based on that original measurement). They wouldn’t come up with the meter, and they wouldn’t come up with liters or calories, either.
Degrees Celsius is based on freezing and boiling point of water, so if they came up with a base 10 numbering system and water is key to their biology, then they’d probably come up with that.
Waters boiling point isn’t a constant though… it’s dependent on the atmosphere.
Hell there’s also no telling if our preference to base 10 is relative to our number of fingers so neither of those are givens.
Base 10 is also cultural. Babylon used 60, ancient Egypt had 12 (they counted on the bones in their fingers), Rome had 5, and my wife just spent 10 minutes arguing for 8
Because of Al-Kwarazimi. Hindu-Arabic math is base 10 and Al-Kwarazimi developed a really good method for doing math as well as inventing algebra. Base 10 spread with his methods. It looks like the Chinese were also using base 10 as far back as during the Shang dynasty. Meanwhile Europeans and their cultural descendants still use base 5 for ceremonial purposes (yes, even in MMXXV)
As an engineer life would be easier if we all thought in base 12, for my wife as a computer scientist life would be easier if it was in 2^n. 10 is a really convenient sized number for arithmetic and algebra though. Babylon was insane i genuinely can’t imagine trying to teach children the name and order of 60 digits to the point of instinctive mathematical understanding
Woah, I had never considered that. To think, all these years I was on the side of “initial index is 1.” I’ve unknowingly been using “initial index is 0,” since I started using numbers.
Both meters and seconds are units of Earth specific measures of space and time. Pretty sure at a cosmic scale god would give fuckall about how we measure and name our shit
If a god existed and gave a so much of a shit about our masturbatory habits he’d be at least tangentially aware of what the fuck a meter was.
For a second i thought you were calling the metric system masturbatory and then i remembered that christians really do think god watches them jork it. Kinky
There’s a Family Guy episode referencing that.
Actually most constants have been standardized to natural sources. A meter is now a fixed (small) fraction of the speed of light in vacuum. A second is pegged to the duration of a Cesium isotope spinning or something. Just that the multipliers are chosen to be convenient to us.
Should we need to talk measurements with aliens, we can, and can convert between their units and ours.
1 Meter = x umthilions plancs. There, retrospectively defined. In that sense.
Yeah in 2019 we even managed to get the pesky kilogram defined by a natural constant.
SI being capable of interspecies translation is an interesting thing I hadn’t considered.
What’s more profound is that math is universal - after some teething pains with regards to understanding conventions, any alien technology should be comprehensive by us, and vice versa.
Well… up to the base calculation methods. Logic is universal. Math is a set of rules. Aliens might rule different.
I would say (not an expert) math is a representation of (numerical) logic, and as it gets more complex, the conventions if representing logical ideas need to be laid out. But that said, once done (teething pains), a learned and read peer “in the art” should be able to both comprehend and communicate at least mathematical ideas, and as a (gradual) extension to this, applied technology.
Put another way, ‘greek’ ideas should be easier to communicate with than ‘latin’ ideas.
However all bets out the window if aliens have a straight up ‘God’ that just gives them stuff and they are themselves dumb as doornails. In which case we have a few common denominators already living it up.
“Wait you all started with base 60 and left it? It took us millenia to realize that it was the best choice, and once we did we never looked back”
Well, akshually they started out as being earth specific, as convenient ways to measure human-relevant amounts of space and time, and were standardized after that. So really God still wouldn’t care to use meters or seconds, but would probably have their own units which could also be standardized with natural phenomena.
What about imperial system?
/hj
IIRC it’s currently defined based on SI units.
An inch is just a special term for 2.54cm used by Americans (but not our government)
Also “in a vacuum” would be assumed, since almost the entire universe is a vacuum.
Except all the gases and dust. What we know as space vacuum is not empty. Go to a great void for real vacuum.
Wait, maybe C would be 300’000 km/s there?
i’ve just figured out how the religious universe ends. some physicist explains to their god that a lot of their assumptions were based on something being in a vacuum, and then their god says “what vacuum? you mean all that sparse hydrogen?” so the physicist says “let’s find out what happens when you have a real vacuum” and then the universe ends at the speed of dumbassery.
Ah so THAT’S the resolution to the false vacuum hypothesis
It’s neat to think about what units an alien civilization would come up with independently. Like the Plank Distance is fundamental to physics, so they’d probably have something for that.
Degrees Celsius is based on freezing and boiling point of water, so if they came up with a base 10 numbering system and water is key to their biology, then they’d probably come up with that.
A calorie is the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1L of water by 1C. A liter is a volume of a cube 0.1m on each side. The meter was originally ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and north pole (and subsequent redefinitions are based on that original measurement). They wouldn’t come up with the meter, and they wouldn’t come up with liters or calories, either.
You might enjoy the book Project Hail Mary if you haven’t read it!
Water’s boiling point and freezing point depends on the pressure of the local atmosphere unfortunately! But I like your logic.
Waters boiling point isn’t a constant though… it’s dependent on the atmosphere.
Hell there’s also no telling if our preference to base 10 is relative to our number of fingers so neither of those are givens.
Base 10 is also cultural. Babylon used 60, ancient Egypt had 12 (they counted on the bones in their fingers), Rome had 5, and my wife just spent 10 minutes arguing for 8
All maths is done in base 10.
Because of Al-Kwarazimi. Hindu-Arabic math is base 10 and Al-Kwarazimi developed a really good method for doing math as well as inventing algebra. Base 10 spread with his methods. It looks like the Chinese were also using base 10 as far back as during the Shang dynasty. Meanwhile Europeans and their cultural descendants still use base 5 for ceremonial purposes (yes, even in MMXXV)
As an engineer life would be easier if we all thought in base 12, for my wife as a computer scientist life would be easier if it was in 2^n. 10 is a really convenient sized number for arithmetic and algebra though. Babylon was insane i genuinely can’t imagine trying to teach children the name and order of 60 digits to the point of instinctive mathematical understanding
Hopefully they’d come up with a better numbering system than base 10. Base 10 is the worst part of metric tbh.
Every base is base 10 dumdum
1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21…
That’s true. It should really be referenced by the number before 10 (e.g. Base 9 for 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10).
Woah, I had never considered that. To think, all these years I was on the side of “initial index is 1.” I’ve unknowingly been using “initial index is 0,” since I started using numbers.
oh-my-god-i-get-it-now.jpeg
Technically a second is an arbitrary measure of a proprty cesium133. Now, anyways
I think that is the joke of the posted image.
People always forget about the rest of the universe. Drives me nuts sometimes