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Misleading Language Wrong Conclusions
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This Week's Experiment - #287 Dirty Words of Science
This week's experiment is a result of quite a few e-mails that I have
received over the years that I have been writing the Experiment of the Week.
I hope that it will show some of the communication problems that can occur
when scientists and "normal people" talk to each other.
Very few weeks go by where I do not get at least one e-mail correcting me on
something that I have said in an experiment. Sometimes they are true goofs.
I am just as capable of making a mistake as anyone else, but often they are
the result of a difference in language. I don't mean a difference between
English and Spanish or Japanese. Instead, I mean the difference between the
"every day" meaning of words and the scientific meaning. Over the years, I
have composed quite a list of "dirty words" that offend many scientists. To
understand that, you will need:
a glass of something you like to drink
a drinking straw
Lets start with a really bad one. Suction! Oh, wash your mouth out with
soap! With many scientists, if you talk about suction cups sticking to a
window or how a new vacuum cleaner sucks up the dirt, you will be in for
quite a few minutes of angry lecture. Why? Because the word is misleading
if you want to know what is really happening.
Put the straw into the glass and take a sip. OK, now what happened? You
sucked the air out of the straw, which pulled the liquid up the straw, right?
Wrong. You expanded your lungs. This allowed the air in your lungs to
spread out, which meant that the air pressure in your lungs, your mouth and
the straw was lowered. The air pressure outside is now greater than the
pressure inside the straw. The higher outside pressure pushes the liquid up
the straw. It is not pulled up by "suction."
OK, so what is the difference? Either way, you get a drink. The difference
is that scientists are very concerned with knowing exactly how things work.
They tend to get very unhappy with words that mislead people into reaching
wrong conclusions. While a misconception about suction does not have a large
impact on how you drink through a straw, in other situations, the difference
can be critical. In some situations, a proper understanding of how things
work can mean the difference between life and death.
Then why don't I use terms in their "proper", scientific usage? Because if I
did, many of you would not be reading this. While very precise, the language
of science can be confusing and dull to those that are not immersed in it.
In an effort to make science fun and understandable, I try to use the
everyday meanings for words such as pressure, force, weight, etc. If I do my
job well enough, you will reach the point where you are "into" science deep
enough to start sending your own corrections.
These experiments are from Robert Krampf - The Happy Scientist
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