# ­xkcd thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-strips\ **Created:** [May 28, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574 "2020-05-28T00:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 157
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2024, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3123 "2024-06-08T12:53:10Z")
I’ve seen “proportion”, “power”, and words cognate to “potency”. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2024, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3124 "2024-06-08T14:48:40Z")
My freshman chemistry professor insisted that the p in pH did not stand for ‘power’. He said “it stands for puissance, which is french for power”. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2024, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3125 "2024-06-08T18:41:54Z")
He’s also appeared on a language podcast called Lingthusiasm, which has Gretchen McCulloch as one of the co-hosts. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3126 "2024-06-11T04:22:08Z")
> **[Magnet Fishing](https://xkcd.com/2944/)** > > The ten-way tie was judged a ten-way tie, so no one won the grand prize, a rare fishing monopole. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3127 "2024-06-11T12:23:59Z")
I think I was actually taught in school that it stood for “percent”. Did Big Science lie to me? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3128 "2024-06-11T13:01:35Z")
I taught chemistry for several years, and it was my understanding that pH stood for “potential of hydrogen”. Some references gave it as “power of hydrogen”. Of course you also had pOH, p_K_a, p_K_b, etc. > [@Toxgoddess](#): > > I think I was actually taught in school that it stood for “percent”. Did Big Science lie to me? This makes no sense to me. It has nothing to do with percentages. (It has to with logarithms and powers of ten.) ETA: There’s a pretty plausible explanation in the [Wikipedia entry for pH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH#History). It’s evidently not clear from the inventor of the term’s writings what the “p” in pH stood for, and in what language. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > Sørensen did not explain why he used the letter p, and the exact meaning of the letter is still disputed. Sørensen described a way of measuring pH using _potential_ differences, and it represents the negative _power_ of 10 in the concentration of hydrogen ions. The letter _p_ could stand for the French _puissance,_ German _Potenz,_ or Danish _potens_ , all meaning “power”, or it could mean “potential”. All of these words start with the letter _p_ in [French](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language), [German](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language), and [Danish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_language), which were the languages in which Sørensen published: Carlsberg Laboratory was French-speaking; German was the dominant language of scientific publishing; Sørensen was Danish. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3129 "2024-06-11T13:21:30Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > My freshman chemistry professor insisted that the p in pH did not stand for ‘power’. He said “it stands for puissance, which is french for power”. Did he tell you the H stands for hydrogène? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3130 "2024-06-11T13:26:40Z")
Do all of these “power” words also mean power in the sense of “exponent”? And do the words for “potential” in those languages also start with p? > [@Toxgoddess](#): > > I think I was actually taught in school that it stood for “percent”. Did Big Science lie to me? I’ve heard that too, but I agree with @robby that it doesn’t make any sense, unless the pH happens to be 2. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3131 "2024-06-11T14:29:41Z")
The Magnet Fishing xkcd was, “ripped from today’s headlines.” Six days ago. “James Kane and Barbi Agostini made the find of a lifetime while magnet fishing in a lake in Queens, New York. A pair of magnet fishing enthusiasts reeled in the catch of a lifetime from a New York City lake: a muddy safe with an estimated $80,000 in it.” And they get to keep. Police couldn’t trace it to any crimes or other events. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3132 "2024-06-13T18:41:43Z")
> **[Broken Model](https://xkcd.com/2945/)** > > In addition to eating foxes, rabbits can eat grass. The grass also eats foxes. Our equations chart the contours of Fox Hell. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3133 "2024-06-13T23:47:08Z")
That’s absolutely true. As John Barnes said in his article “How To Build a Future” (paraphrasing because I can’t find a copy at the moment) - it’s important to check your population model for things like corpses giving birth, and “negative mothers” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2024, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3134 "2024-06-14T11:51:27Z")
I’m thinking of The Giver… Very well-written book, but the worldbuilding makes no sense. Only a small percentage of women are chosen to be “birth mothers”, who each have three babies. And the children are raised in families of at most two children, and not all couples who apply to raise children are accepted. I can buy a magical world where people can’t see color or hear music, and where memories can be transferred by touch, but that doesn’t excuse you from basic arithmetic. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2024, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3135 "2024-06-14T14:14:06Z")
I love Ursula Kroeber Le Guin. And I love Always Coming Home. But the people in that book don’t have a stable low population; they’ve got a population crashing at a rapid rate. Absolutely nobody has more than two children, even if they later marry somebody who doesn’t have any (so a woman who partners with a man who already had children with someone else will have none); and a significant number of the children aren’t healthy enough to live to reproduce. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2024, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3136 "2024-06-15T19:00:11Z")
> **[1.2 Kilofives](https://xkcd.com/2946/)** > > 'Oh yeah? Give me 50 milliscore reasons why I should stop.' ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2024, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3137 "2024-06-15T20:19:39Z")
If you have to use prefixes, that’s cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2024, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3138 "2024-06-15T20:32:30Z")
Shouldn’t that be “give me 50 milliscore reason why”? It’s a substitution for “one”, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2024, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3139 "2024-06-15T20:36:00Z")
Then again, 10^0 usually takes the plural. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2024, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3140 "2024-06-16T00:54:15Z")
French speakers: “Hold our beer.” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2024, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3141 "2024-06-16T00:59:29Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Shouldn’t that be “give me 50 milliscore reason why”? It’s a substitution for “one”, after all. I’d feel more comfortable with “50 score millireasons.” ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2024, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3142 "2024-06-16T03:09:39Z")
I prefer 1.66 x 10-24 moles. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=156) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=158)