p is for pHunky
p is for pHunky
34 comments
-
-
Søren Sørensen, who came up with the concept of pH, wasn't clear on what the letter "p" meant. It does involve powers of 10 and can be measured using electrical potentials, so the best guesses are "potential" or "power", or several words that mean "power" in other languages and also happen to start with "p". Bottom line, we don't know, and unless somebody discovers more of Sørensen's notes or a way to speak with the dead, we never will.
-
We can all speak to the dead. The problem is that they can't answer.
-
That's why I was careful to say, "speak with dead," (after the D&D spell) implying a conversation.
-
-
-
It's power of Hydrogen. We should've been using Watts to measure it this whole time.
-
Easy. Pico Henry. Not sure why chemists are so concerned with such a small amount of magnetism though...
-
Protons. As in protons, How many. On a weird logarithmic scale with 7 in the middle, of course.
-
The p is for potential, as in potential Hydrogen. pH can be used to establish a concentration of protium (H+) in solution. When learning about pH in school, we used pOH (potential hydroxide) as well to speak about bases.
-
-
That's actually an interesting one.
The 'p' could have a different meaning for a variety of languages. 'Puissance' in French, 'Potenz' in German, 'potential' or 'power' in English, 'pondus' or 'potentia' in Latin, or 'Potens' in Danish (probably the Danish one originally, since it was a Danish chemist who first introduced the measurement).
It's very fun that because of the vagueness, various languages can have its meaning directly translated to their own.
-
All those words have the same meaning.
-
And the same origin, it's not a coincidence they all start with P
-
-
-
penis
-
Kek
-
-
I was taught potenz in my school textbooks. potenz Hydrogen
-
Oh we're going to pHight today, is that it?
-
Potencial de hidrógeno
-
Phat-ass hydrogen
-
PornHub
34 comments
Why is there a random watermark on an xkcd? The original is here, for anyone who wants the alt text: https://xkcd.com/2943/
I scrape the bottom of the internet barrel through a special firefox container. It's like growing memes on agar. Sometimes there's a little contam.
Fair, but also, you could look up XKCD comics by their name or transcript and link to them directly when you come across them.