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Roundest Object In the World Created
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Jul 01, 2008 08:19 AM
from the boobs-boobs-boobs dept.
from the boobs-boobs-boobs dept.
holy_calamity writes "An international research group has created the most perfect spheres ever made, in a bid to pin down a definition of the kilogram. It should be possible to count exactly the number of atoms in one of the roughly 9cm silicon spheres to define the unit. Currently the kilogram is defined only by a 120-year-old lump of platinum in Paris, but its mass is changing relative to copies held elsewhere. Other SI units have more systematic definitions."
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Wishing... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what kind of ero-manga you've been reading (Ok, perhaps I do...), but real boobs aren't spherical. Especially not ones that would be anywhere near being considered 'perfect'.
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Informative)
Ero-manga?
Ero-Manga is the proper term for what most clueless US fanboys call "Hentai Manga."
Specifically, he was pointing out that some Ero-Mangaka ("Hentai Artists") draw breasts as if they were morbidly huge helium filled balloons floating on top of a woman's chest.
All this in an attempt to state that you do not know what good breasts look at, having (apparently?) based your opinion on Japanese ero-manga anatomy.
All this in a completely-missing-the-point of the "Heh, Boobs are Round, Scientists are Horny" joke he was replying to.
... Wow, geeky of me, eh? I do however, wish to go on the record that I fully support scientific efforts to find/create the perfect breasts.
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I do however, wish to go on the record that I fully support scientific efforts to find/create the perfect breasts
If all women had scientifically 'perfect' breasts then those perfect breasts would get pretty boring, unless the scientific process took into account many different factors and created different breasts for each person. I think 'perfect' is all down to personal preference.
There is beauty in many different breast shapes, though everyone will have their preferences. I think any slashdotter with access to any kind of breasts would be pretty happy. Apart from the female ones, they probably aren't too fussed.
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
There is beauty in many different breast shapes, though everyone will have their preferences. I think any slashdotter with access to any kind of breasts would be pretty happy. Apart from the female ones, they probably aren't too fussed.
Sadly, I suspect that a great many slashdotters have breasts. Male or female...
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
They are Dalek-bumps, you insensitive clod!
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
That explains how they can cope with living in their parents basements - if I had a decent set of breasts I could amuse myself for hours on end!
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Informative)
Please don't go around trying to be witty against people who don't just live in Japan, but also speaks the language.
Ero-manga is what they call it. If I wanted to talk about hentai, the really creepy kind of mangas, I'd have called it that.
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wishing... (Score:4, Funny)
I have read "Roundest Object In the World Created " and immediately thought "CowboyNeal".
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Vague AC/DC Reference (Score:5, Funny)
Deiseil or widdershins
What matters is their smoothness
Reflects what's on your chins.
Burma Shave
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Re:Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
> Honestly, as a married man I don't understand why anyone would think that...
>
> My first thought was of more efficient ball bearings
Thanks. I've printed this comment out and plan to show it to my friends when they bug me about why I'm not married.
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The hubris of man (Score:5, Funny)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
In a press release today, Sir Mix-A-Lot is quoted as saying that, by viewing this object, "You get sprung", as well as "[wanting to] pull up tough" because of the perfect shape of the object.
He was later quoted as saying that "I like'em round and big, And when I'm throwin a gig, I just can't help myself". Clearly, he is an aficionado for perfectly round objects.
* my captcha was "beating", which is what I deserve for the 90's reference.
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Re:The hubris of man (Score:5, Funny)
No mere human will never be able to accomplish what God did with Jennifer Lopez's ass.
Perhaps not, but we are interested in pinning down the exact measurement of the kilogram, not the metric ton.
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Finally (Score:5, Funny)
No one will be able to claim that a game of pool, snooker or soccer was won because the ball wasn't round enough...
Re:Finally (Score:5, Funny)
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What's the problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, I'm no experimental physicist, but if I were to guess, I might suggest the fact that the binding energy (and thus the mass) might change with force-field fluctuations in the vicinity, but I think that problem should be solvable by defining the proper environment for measuring.
Does anyone know?
Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
That's precisely what they are trying to do.
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Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
You can't calibrate a scale by telling it your theoretical model - at some point there actually has to be a physical thing.
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Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Funny)
why not use, say, electrons, as in 1kg=weight of 1.1xxxe30 electrons (at rest)?
They tried that, but when they charged their terafarad capacitor with 1e30 electrons so that they could calibrate their scale, somebody accidentally grounded it and the massive arc of current blew the roof off of the lab.
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Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
My other summary was a bit off, got the process a little backwards.
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Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not totally worthless, as the kilogram is the basis for just about all other SI units. It is the only unit that is not defined according to other units, or in relation to a natural property. Thus, its definition is arbitrary, and everybody must agree as to what a kilogram is before the unit has any value as a standard. There's a very nice explanation of the kilogram as a fundamental unit here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram#Importance_of_the_kilogram [wikipedia.org]
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Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, nitpicking but... one kilogram = 10^15 picograms, always.
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manufacturing problems (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it's sorta like this: a standard is only useful if you have some effective way to reproduce it or measure with it.
1. time. You can essentially just make a MASER, which means basically a cavity which resonates at that frequency. The nice part is that it can be tuned, and even continuously tuned, by just measuring the amplitude of the signal. When you've reached the maximum power, the thing is tuned to that frequency.
2. length. It's measured by Interferometry, so you have a meaningful way to transform a wavelength into any given distance.
At any rate, the transition for these two only happened when someone build a device which could actually measure one second or one metre that way.
3. mass. Well, that's the tricky one. Saying that you define a kilogram as one bazillion silicium atoms is useless unless you can somehow actually produce a lump with that many atoms. As long as we can't actually be sure how many atoms are in there, it would be a useless standard.
These guys claim to have been able to do just that: say with a high degree of confidence that, yep, their spheres contain exactly that many atoms. If they're right, then we're finally ready to move the kilo to that standard.
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Re:It *is* based on measurable quantity... (Score:5, Funny)
So how do you define a pound?
My driver's license (a legal document!) says that I weigh 185 lbs. So, 1 lb is defined as my weight divided by 185.
Therefore, 1 kg = 2.20462262 * (1 gnick-weight) / 185. Was that so hard? A measurable quantity.
The only problem I see is that I don't to live out my days on some shelf in France.
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Cleanroom? (Score:5, Insightful)
The picture in the article shows the sphere being handled in what obviously isn't a cleanroom. Won't that mess up its surface?
Re:Cleanroom? (Score:4, Funny)
Just wipe it off with some kleenex.
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Re:Cleanroom? (Score:5, Informative)
The picture in the article shows the sphere being handled in what obviously isn't a cleanroom. Won't that mess up its surface?
I'm sure they don't cart the real ones around for press tours.
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Pong (Score:5, Funny)
Metric... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Metric... (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps it's due to the changing masses of ducks? I'm just sayin'...
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Re:Metric... (Score:5, Interesting)
It gets worse. US standards are based on metric standards. (For instance, the inch is defined as 25.4 mm.) You're basically using a French system!
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Ah Ha! Take that! (Score:5, Funny)
So I'm not getting fatter, it's the kilogram that's getting slender!
You know, roughly (Score:5, Funny)
"First we create a perfect sphere, then we count the number of atoms exactly - and we get a kilogram standard!"
"Alright... so how big do we make this sphere?"
"Oh you know.. roughly 9 cm, give or take."
just add water (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:just add water (Score:5, Informative)
Because its 1 liter of pure h2o at 4 deg C -at the sea level-, (remember, pressure isn't the same at the top of a mountain than it is at the bottom...and it changes everything). It is also not universal... if the earth was to go boom, (and somehow live), we'd lose our reference.
That is in opposition to, let say, a meter, which is a fraction of the distance light travels in a specific amount of time. Fairly universal. (I beleive it USED to be a fraction of the earth's size... which was quite bad too).
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Gravity Probe B has more Perfect Spheres (Score:5, Interesting)
Kilogram Silicon Spheres
"If you were to blow up our spheres to the size of the Earth, you would see a small ripple in the smoothness of about 12 to 15 mm, and a variation of only 3 to 5 metres in the roundness"
Gravity Probe B Spheres
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/gpb/index.html [nasa.gov]
"If these ping pong-sized balls of fused quartz and silicon were the size of the Earth, the elevation of the entire surface would vary by no more than 12 feet"
How much more round could it be? (Score:5, Funny)
The answer is none.
None more round.
Definition of the kilogram? (Score:5, Funny)
It's 1024 grams, right? Easy definition.
Re:anyone (Score:5, Funny)
Does anyone here want to inform CmdrTaco that boobs shouldn't be perfectly spherical, and in fact, it's preferable if they're not?
It's not his fault. He watched a lot of Baywatch. He doesn't know any better.
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Is crystal growth really the reason why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this really the reason why it's a sphere? Crystals don't PRECISELY grow into a sphere do they? Won't they still need to shave or polish it to get it to the exact radius? And then they'll need to calculate the number of atoms using Pi, an irrational number!
Why don't they make it a cube and find a length that is close enough (cubed) to give them the approx. right number of atoms and then make THAT the standard? They'll then have an EXACT number of atoms making up each length. It should be easier to cut or shave off the requisite number of atoms to maintain it, a (perfectly) flat surface seems much easier to maintain than a 3D curved surface. In fact if they make it just a little too small they could probably even ADD to the cube in single atomic layers using vapor deposition!
Obviously brighter minds than mine have thought this through more thoroughly, so really, I'm curious: why is it a sphere?
By the way, maybe this is a good use for the ISS, to keep the 1kg reference MASS somewhere it won't be distorted by gravity, not kept at any particular country for measurement and you can keep it in a high quality vacuum for free! (A little expensive to get to though).
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Re:Double Dupe (Score:5, Informative)
Not a dupe - a follow-up.
The first article mentions only the weight loss of the original kilogram, the second article follows up on that mentioning a perfect sphere is going to be made. The current article follows up on that, announcing the actual creation of this sphere.
Now the fourth article in this series should be the announcement of the number of silicon-28 atoms needed to create exactly one kilogram.
On the other hand, isn't the exact mass of atoms known? Then it should be easy to say "this number of atoms is exactly one kilogram". The creation of the sphere being an exercise left to the reader.
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Re:Energy is Rounder than Matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep in mind that the Joule is a composite SI unit, and is itself dependent on the mass of the kilogram. Unless you can calibrate the energy measurements (exactly what they are trying to do) you end up with a circular definition.
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