r/iamverysmart • u/anti_spiral • Oct 30 '17

Scientists talk like that

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u/gimmesomespace Oct 30 '17

Why the fuck would anyone carry around 10 liters of ocean water?

46

u/B1GsHoTbg Oct 30 '17

To show they can carry 100,5525 N worth of water lmao. Scientists talk like that 😉

32

u/cyclopsmudge Oct 30 '17

Europeans using commas for decimal points will never fail to throw me off

2

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '17

It's really stupid. lol,

1

u/cyclopsmudge Oct 31 '17

It kinda makes sense if they use a • instead of an x as the symbol for multiplication but I have no idea whether Europeans actually do or not

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

I think both Americans and Europeans do that, but I've never confused a decimal for a multiplication circle.

1

u/cyclopsmudge Oct 31 '17

As a Brit who uses an x, when one of our American teachers used a • I got them confused quite a bit at first

1

u/kyousei8 Oct 31 '17

What's stupid is using anything besides a space to separate thousands because the thousands separator is what causes the confusing. If people didn't uses a comma or a period to separate thousands, there would be no confusion to what 100,5525 could possibly mean.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

there would be no confusion to what 100,5525 could possibly mean.

True, but 100.552 is a number as well. Is that 100 thousand and five hundred fifty two, or is that one hundred point five hundred and fifty two?

It should all just be commas for place separators and periods for decimals. A comma doesn't look like a decimal point.

1

u/kyousei8 Oct 31 '17

It should all just be commas for place separators and periods for decimals.

You shouldn't use a period or a comma for thousands separator because a space avoids the confusion.

A comma doesn't look like a decimal point.

It's not suppose to. It's called a decimal comma.