Talk:Benchmark quantities

Creating the talk page.Mark Widmer (talk) 02:57, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Lower-case q?

Lower-case q? Peter Jackson (talk) 10:21, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I would be fine with making q lower-case, especially if that is standard Citizendium format. Mark Widmer (talk) 02:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Planned additional sections

This page is a work in progress, and the following benchmark units are planned or proposed.Mark Widmer (talk) 02:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Acceleration

Power

Force

Pressure

Electric charge

Voltage

Electric field

Coefficient of thermal expansion

Money/currency? Really not a physics topic, so arguably doesn't belong here. But could be useful, if not here then maybe in a new page of non-physics benchmarks?

Alphabetize the sections?

It might be useful to sort the sections into alpabetic order, though I am unsure how you would sort a section with multiple names, such as Angular or rotational speed. Pat Palmer (talk) 05:45, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Good idea, I have alphabetized the sections. Mark Widmer (talk) 02:45, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Style/guidelines/scope for article

In creating this article, I had in mind a page that's layperson-friendly, while maintaining accuracy as a useful reference. With that in mind, and trying to keep a consistent style through the article, I've been trying to follow the following guidelines Mark Widmer (talk) 02:57, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Give most values as 1 or 2 significant figures, while quantities that are considered definitions might go to 3 sig figs.

That being said, I'm still mulling over using 3 sig figs for densities of elements.

For very large or very small numbers, use both

scientific notion -- for it's compactness and making it easy to compare widely different numbers -- and

common language like "30 billion" or "30 billionths" -- because it's more likely to be understood by laypeople -- while

not writing numbers as, e.g. "30,000,000,000" or "0.00000003" -- because I've never been fond of having to count a bunch of zeroes.

Stay away from obscure quantities that only experts might be familiar with, such as:

The fine structure constant

"Planck values", e.g. Planck length, Planck time, Planck mass, etc. (I had included some of these initially, but have since deleted them as not being layperson-friendly.)

Properties of quarks, neutrinos, and any subatomic particles other than electrons, protons, and neutrons. (Note, Dark matter is mentioned in the Density section. While not something that is read about every day, dark matter does get mentioned fairly often in popular articles on astronomy.)

A standard format for the text preceding each table has been adopted. The text is organized into 3 parts as follows (Mark Widmer (talk) 21:05, 27 December 2020 (UTC))

An introductory or explanatory statement

Units used for the quantity -- list the SI unit first, then give alternative units

A quick scale, giving several representative objects covering a wide range of values for the quantity.

For the "Quick scale" paragraphs, use reference objects that people are either familiar with (The Sun and Earth, a typical person, an FM radio signal, air) or have likely heard about frequently (a hydrogen atom, the speed of light).

The above guidelines are of course open to discussion.